“Some roads you shouldn’t go down. . . . 

‘There be dragons there”.

              Lorne Malvo (2014)

Give me a little space to ruminate and philosophize on some controversial stuff. I’ll start at the top of the pyramid and work down through the expanding bases. All of this is just my idle observation. The mileage of others will surely vary.

First, the impending SCOTUS erasure of Roe v. Wade, a black letter law since 1973. There is no controversy about how the SCOTUS will rule. The now “Conservative” majority of the SCOTUS knew how they would vote to upend Roe as soon as they were seated. It was amusing to watch them double talk to Democrats during their Senate confirmation. You would notice none of them ever said they would preserve Roe, they said they might think about it (with their fingers crossed).  They had already thought about it through their entire judicial history and they always let on they would trash Roe if they ever got a chance. They will trash Roe and the minute they do that, a number of states already have pending laws making abortion illegal, the rest will brutally enforce the Texas law, following which the following will occur quickly:

         1.  The decision to abort is a binary one. It’s either support a full-grown woman’s needs or the needs of a tiny mass of dividing cells. There is no other option; it’s one of the two choices. In a perfect world, there would be neither of these choices, but in our world we get to choose unless some political party that normally supports “small government” and “choices of the individual” blazes out of those platforms to stick their noses into choices of grown women. A “conservative” party that’s conservative only as their policies toward the poor and working citizens. Not so much big corporations and the rich. 

There is and will always a demand for the cessation of a pregnancy. Justice Barrett opines that adoption is a desirable alternative for women who become unexpectedly pregnant, an alternative that can be more difficult, expensive, dangerous and traumatic than terminating a pregnancy in its early stages. Rape, incest, young girls accidentally with a pregnancy that would ruin their lives, poor women that can’t afford a child, affluent woman that simply don’t desire a child. These women will do and will go whatever or wherever it takes to stop something that’s undesired or unaffordable. The “legality” of this decision is not a consideration as long as it’s available, which it will be as a quickly emerging cottage industry as it all was before Roe. 

         2. The SCOTUS is probably not stupid enough to believe trashing Roe will stop abortions. It’s just a dry interpretation of the law. Those carrying picket signs are certainly that naïve, but the reality is that well heeled women desiring abortion will travel to states allowing it or other nearby countries that figure out they can make a lot of money in this new cottage industry. Poor women will get their abortions in back alleys in dirty, unsafe conditions. They will end up in emergency rooms with PID and septic death. Trashing Roe will not stop one abortion, only the logistics of availability will change for the infinitely worse. 

         3. What making abortion illegal will do simply give Republicans their traditional chance to blame victims. The Trump administration previewed it in their comments about those crossing into the country illegally. If they hadn’t showed up and crossed illegally, they wouldn’t have had to put up with the atrocities visited on them. The victims are at fault, not the policy. This is exactly where trashing Roe is headed, especially if Trump is re-elected. As a practical matter, I don’t think conservative Republican leaders are stupid. They know all of my predictions will come to pass in spades. It’s all acceptable collateral damage to be rooted out and placed where it belongs, the criminal justice system.

This new “conservative” force poised to visit this stellar disaster on women is part of a much bigger change in society that my confounds my generation. I was brought up as a 60s flower child believing in the evolution of society to a better place than the insipid 50s. Demonstrations of “minorities” were pretty much limited to the interest of minorities. We didn’t understand the significance of the Black Panthers or Dr. King. We wished them well but from afar. They were a “minority”. Our demonstrations were focused on seemingly larger issues to us, Vietnam, education and Nixon. 

As a practical matter, black persons in the new millennium are no longer a minority. Two events brought them to the forefront of political muscle. 

         1.  Chris Rock trashing the 2016 Academy Awards, bringing “diversity” to the forefront. This occurred because not a single picture featuring a black actor was nominated. Will Smith had starred in a very unremarkable film, “Concussion” and boycotted the awards opining that he should have had a shot at best actor or best picture. I was deeply involved in concussions in my medical career and I saw the film. It was OK but not anywhere in the league of “Fury Road” or “The Revenant”. There were simply better pictures that won, but Chris Rock galvanized the industry and to avoid further bad publicity, the Academy insured some films featuring black actors were nominated, none winning but an emerging powerful and forceful caucus that didn’t exist in the 60s or 70s had made the mark.  

Today, the black population is no longer a “minority” and promoters of almost everything have figured out that “diversity” doesn’t mean acceptance of “all” minorities, it means more of everything for the black population because the accusation of “racism” carries virtually unlimited liability. Any criticism of any black faction for any reason is automatically “racist” and the accusation is quickly carried back to the accuser, or anyone that limits the participation of the black population into anything. 

Persons of color have infiltrated everywhere because they are no longer a minority. They’re a very powerful functional majority that’s learned how to use the cabal of “racism” very effectively; giving them extremely potent political power by the use of one word fits all. That one word renders them without any natural enemies other than a relatively few cops shooting at them. And I know several black guys that don’t refer to themselves as “African-Americans”. Aligning ones-self with a country like sub-Saharan Africa, a place full of injustice, corruption, abuse and an origin of slavery seems disingenuous. Most have never been there.

If you’re a TV watcher, make a mental note next time you sit through the rapidly increasing number of TV commercials. See if you can find one that doesn’t have one or more black person in them. Emus don’t count. Cops and lawyers on any CNN feature are mostly Black. And very interestingly, if you watch TV commercials long enough, you’ll notice that skin tones of “persons of color” are getting lighter and lighter as they become progressive bi-racial iterations, ultimately to look like Meghan Markle or Kamala Harris, neither of whom have any appearance of “color” but both of whom refer to themselves as persons of color when it suits them. 

         2. Then came the George Floyd murder in May of 2020. This sentinel event prompted violent outbursts in virtually every city in the country, and even a few abroad. It was widely thought that this event would radically change the way police and many others assessed the black population, presumably for the better. However, the extensive history of how the “majority” (white) population assessed the “minority” (black) population was temporarily placed on the back burner, but to emerge pretty quickly. The white population (Caucasian?), as a political force has ever and always discriminated against blacks all the way back to Reconstruction. That population is also very potent. It exists mostly underground to camouflage its reality but It’s never altered no matter what the incentive and is unlikely to with the “black lives matter” demonstrations. Cops continue to shoot those black guys, sometimes in cold blood after George Floyd. The “protests” have slowly drained away.

Jason Riley wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Nov 30:  

“The protests that followed Floyd’s death 

rested on two Assumptions. The first is that 

Floyd, a career criminal and drug addict, 

was somehow representative of black 

America, which is not only false but deeply 

insulting. The second is that police acted 

out of racial animus, which has never been 

proven. This is what happens when racial 

identity becomes the centerpiece of politics 

and public life in a multiracial society”.

Now we come to the next platform supporting all this, the Donald J. Trump voter base, a group so incredibly alien to my generation or any generation before me that they may as well have landed from Venus. I have two friends that passionately supported Trump and still do, despite his malignant narcissism and lifelong untruthfulness pathology. Interestingly, as I mentioned before about the SCOTUS and Republican leaders, they aren’t stupid. They completely understand Trump’s pathology and accept all of it to promote the longer game- a movement of the new millennium social orders more toward “conservatism” and less what they term “liberalism”. 

Two issues prompts this seemingly new order capable of electing presidents of the United States. 

         1.  The incredibly stupid Democratic fathers allowing Hillary Clinton, with her trainload of dishonorable baggage to enter the quest for US presidency. They had no idea how much Hillary was despised among a very large but quiet set of voters who would vote for Charley Manson before they’d support Hillary. They were lulled into a false sense of security by polls that didn’t represent those who chose not to participate.

         2.  The fact that a large number of voters that consider the entire congress from A to Z to be a bunch of monkeys cavorting in big, expensive playpens, expending senseless energy, getting nothing of consequence done.  Trumps antics were exactly what this emergent voting faction desired. Someone capable of “stirring the pot”, creating a comical playground for congressional monkeyshines. 

These new quota of voters savor their TV sets in their wife-beaters with a can of beer laughing loudly at Trump’s comedy routine. Trump couldn’t do any more harm than what’s normally transpiring and he’s more fun to watch, better than Saturday Night Live. But the Republican fathers know exactly the value of Trump, namely the long game. They’re happy to appear as scatterbrained airheads pumping out Trumps false value to American society, quietly ignoring Trump’s disasters. Supporting Trump puts them in touch with the “new quota” of powerful voters, the supply of which elected this monster in 2020 and is likely to do it again in 2024 so they can continue to pack courts with conservative judges and gerrymander voting states, limiting anyone likely to vote Democratic.

We now live in a society my generation never dreamed of. Protests of the tangible ills of the 60s and 70s replaced by “Black Lives Matter”; an indulgent surrogate for “All Lives Matter”.  

* “Demonstrations” focused only one of societies ills that has never been addressed or repaired since 1864 and are unlikely to in 2022. 

* Massive hordes of would-be immigrants shifting around the globe, first inspiring fear among countries liable to be trampled, then used as politically threatening pawns giving some countries leverage over others by directing the herds.

* Stone cold criminals driving cars into demonstrations with the intent of killing or injuring as many as possible. The Waukesha rampage suspect released from jail on inappropriately low bail, suggesting such activity doesn’t have the same weight as it used to in better days. Incompetent minors shooting up “protesters” during “demonstrations” and getting a clean bill, suggesting to others the ease of getting with that program. 

* A hue & cry arising to delete funds for police, replacing them with social workers that would presumably show criminals the error of their ways. A terrifying bit of nonsense. 

* An underage kid living in an adjoining state arriving at a volatile “black lives matter” rally in Wisconsin ostensibly to render medical help he had no training or aptitude for and armed with a very visible rapid-fire assault rifle with a 30+ round magazine for his “self protection”. This immediately prompted violence leaving two dead and another severely injured.  But it was all OK, the jury finding that there was reasonable doubt as to this kid’s intentions. Maybe he was just defending himself from unarmed assailants.

*Random shootings virtually everywhere, the newest of which occurring in schools by persons who should never have been allowed to come near weapons firing bullets and who just shrug when captured. The NRA advocating more arms for law-abiding citizens viewing firefights at the sites of fender bender car incidents as acceptable collateral damage. 

*Incompetent observers decrying life saving vaccinations on the basis of their “choice” to be dangerous to themselves and others.

“Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures 

are there here! How beauteous mankind is! 

O brave new world that has such people in it!”

                      From The Tempest.

But again, these are just my idle observations you may take for what you think they’re worth, if anything.

“I cried when I wrote this song……

Sue me if I play too long….

              Steely Dan (1977)