Talking Interminably

THE TERM "FILIBUSTER" is a derivation of a French word, a Spanish word, or both, meaning, "to talk one's fool head off" In truth, the technique of talking interminably until one is blue in the face, drops dead, or the cows come home as a technique in a legislative body to avoid the undesirable, the inevitable, or both, is a demonstration of desperation as old as the United states constitution itself. Older, maybe. In recent times it has gained greatly in popularity, beginning about sixty years ago, and even more so in the past thirty. One might even argue that delaying through loquacious verbosity is a method inherent to human nature, to high school students, for example, wanting parents to forget all about report card day, going all the back to god. God was ambivalent about human existence from the get go, and he (she, it?) said so. He talked us into existance, and talked about everything she did before and after doing it. But among American humans, the talkathon really got going in the late nineteen fifties, when southern conservative Senators of both parties, horrified by the very thought that African-Americans might by law be elevated to the exulted status of five fifths equality rather then the constitutionally mandated three fifths, magnanimously concluded that if they could keep talking until the second coming, then christ would rapture them, the conservative Christian saved, straight up into heaven, where they the elect could finally stop talking, start listening for once, and for once be rid of those inferior irksome racial and religious minorities, forever. In today's perfectly polarized everything, all bills which come before the deliberative higher legislative body (the U.S. Senate) are filibusted by their opponents. Filibustering, in a word, is out of control. Staunch constitutional "origilalists" seem unconcerned with the reality that none of the nation's founders was in favor of it. The bottom line, as we say, is this: the filibuster should be banned, and is about as harmful, useless, and outdated and anachronistic as the following" the electoral college, extreme racial, social, and economic inequality, the American constitution itself, primitive, barbaric organized religions of all makes and models, political, social, and economic conservatism, and the Republican party. Tragic but true is that we are stuck with all of the above until such time as saner heads prevail, our society becomes civilized, and Joe biden is able to cajole, persuade, or coerce a certain two Democrats - In - Name - Only United states Senators into behaving decently, reahter than like Republicans.