It’s the Law

As I write, POTUS is about to announce the new Justice for SCOTUS.  It’s not worth my time.  NYTimes just broke in on my screen with breaking news.  I know the name.  That’s sufficient.

In the interim, to those who may be de-spirited, I recommend looking up the new documentary about Fred Rogers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”.  We took the film in on Sunday afternoon, and it was moving and quietly inspirational.  Mr. Rogers (1928-2003) was in the public eye on PBS from 1967, illness ending his career not long after 2001.  My children were born 1964-1975, in the Mr. Rogers era.

Mr. Rogers and Mr. Trump: what an odd pair….

See “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” about the lifetime Republican, Fred Rogers, and get to work replicating his example, one small step at a time, where you live.

Meanwhile, back to the Law and tonights announcement.

It is a temptation to lament tonights action, the effective final step in (hopefully, for some) making people like myself irrelevant in the American political process.

For years, at least since 1980 if not before, there has been a radical right wing ideological objective of taking over the levers of U.S. government (the law-makers and judiciary) at state and national and even local and school board level, and this has been very successful.   We have seen the results of single party domination in the past 17 months, and we will probably see it even more, now, with the not at all hidden intention of packing of the judicial system.  The people be damned.

Set the ideological tilt of the courts, the ultimate goal the lifetime appointments of Supreme Court Justices, and its game over, or so it is presumed.

I don’t happen to agree.  But equilibrium won’t easily return.  It won’t return at all if people like myself, and there are tens of millions of us, collectively decide to concede our responsibility as individuals to be cause in the matter of our children and grandchildren’s future, including the future of others world over.  Quitting is not a winning strategy.

But to be agents of change, we need to be the one who are the change agents, as stated above, “one small step at a time, where you live.”

There’s an old saying (apologies to cat lovers) that “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”.

For those who think dominance through the Law is the ultimate win, stay tuned.  You’ll pay a heavy price, too.

POSTNOTE: Overnight, and excellent: “No One Expected Thugs” 

Here is a longer Wikipedia entry about Fred Rogers.