Infamy of Infamies

The phrase "a day that will live in infamy" was coined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt referring to the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941.

Since then the phrase has been used to describe the commission of an act so heinous and with such a calamitous impact on America and Americans that it is fitting to use the phrase as a means of tying such acts to the devastating Japanese attack that heavily crippled the U. S. Navy and cost the lives of 2,403 American military personnel and civilians.

Some infamous days:

• 11/22/1963: Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
• 4/19/1995:   Bombing of Oklahoma City federal building
• 9/11/2001:   Attack on World Trade Center and the Pentagon
•  1/6/2021:    Insurrection and attack on Congress and the Capitol
• Today, 6/24/2022:   Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

Set against the violent nature of the other events, a ruling of the Supreme Court may seem tame, but make no mistake: this is a declaration of war on American women.

With this ruling the Supreme Court has told the majority of Americans¹ that their reproductive health will henceforth be at the mercy of state legislatures, which are predominantly male.²

The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack has shown in great detail how former president Donald Trump plotted for months to stay in power. The committee's focus is his attempt to overthrow a valid election, but his machinations included loading the Supreme Court with conservative justices who he expected to support him in his bid to deny the will of the American people.

That ploy did not work, but it is those justices who are responsible for the overthrow of Wade, carrying forward the hateful work of the ultra-right even when Trump is absent. 

Like so many injuries and insults the American people and their Constitution have suffered since 2016, the responsibility for this outrage tracks directly to Donald Trump, whose tyrannical impulses have brought this nation close to dissolution.

I have returned to Vox Populi because the times require action, not silence. Every American who loves justice should take a moment to grieve over the grave injustice committed today by a court whose members should be but are not impartial.

Then pick up your phone, call your congressional representatives, and tell them in no uncertain terms that if they want your support they will begin posthaste to develop legislation that will secure and safeguard women's right to control their own bodies.

--Diogenes, 24 June 2022

¹ Several sources bear this out, including the U.S. Census: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255220

² Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). 2022. “Women in State Legislatures 2022.” New Brunswick, NJ: Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/levels-office/state-legislature/women-state-legislatures-2022 (Accessed June 24, 2022)

 

Done

In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon explores the human condition in depth and concludes that virtually everything undertaken by humans is a vanity. In biblical terms "vanity" does not mean the kind of self absorption Carly Simon sings about in "You're So Vain." Rather, it refers to actions or acquisitions taken solely for one's own pleasure or self aggrandizement; things that by definition are vain and without substance.

 

Social media is a vanity. Politics is a vanity. This blog is a vanity.

 

I established this blog in the vain belief that one person with no money or physical resources, no contacts, and no sponsorship, but with a deep belief in the rightness of American democracy and the Constitution, and some talent for writing, could reach an audience with an anti-tyranny, pro-democracy message, and perhaps have some positive effect on society, however small.

I was wrong.

We are become a nation of cowards and idiots governed by fools. We deny the truth of science in favor of the latest conspiracy theory on social media. We allow uncouth philistines to dictate taste, boorish louts to set public policy, and bigoted, feckless drones to promulgate biased pronouncements disguised as news.

Nearly half of this nation's population has been duped by Donald Trump and his minions. Congress has become an albatross around the president's neck. Unjust and divisive laws continue to flow from state legislatures and the administration and the courts have seemingly lost the will to fight.

I have lost all faith in the Democratic Party to work effectively against Trumpism and its associated evils. The party has fallen back on its long held passive-aggressive mode of governing and is unable to respond to the Republicans' new barbarity and aggressive intolerance.

The American people will deserve whatever they get in the next election cycle. If that is tyranny they will discover it is too late to avoid disaster. 

This blog is done, and I am done. I will never say never, but I can envision very few scenarios that would cause me once again to lift my voice.

I sign off with this truth: As long as Donald Trump is alive the American system of laws and the Constitution that underpins it are in danger of destruction.

Do with that what you will.

---Diogenes, 2 January 2022