Saturday, May 14, 2022

BACKLASH By Alastair Browne

Preface:

Note:  The following essay is a continuation of my previous essays:

  1. The Republican Party is the Greatest Threat to American Democracy Today
  2. What are Republicans for?  An Answer and a Rebuttal
  3. The New Era of Prohibition:  A New Abortion Cartel


Many references will be made to these three essays.  Read them first.

You can access them on:  www.foundationandstate.blogspot.com



In my last essay, I have written about the rise, or reemergence, of the criminal element stepping in and acquiring a new market, this time in abortions.  

I have described the consequences of organized crime taking over back alley abortions, of which women with unwanted pregnancies will no doubt go.


Senator Mitch McConnell recently stated that if Roe v. Wade gets overturned by the Court, he will work to have a nationwide ban on abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.


In this case, not only will the criminal element step in, but riots and demonstrations, many times worse than what is happening now (May 2022), and will break out nationwide.  Stricter laws imposing on other people’s rights will be passed.  For example, interracial and same sex marriages will be banned.


It is the thoughtlessness of Republican politicians and conservative judges on the Supreme Court nominated by these politicians that will be the cause of whatever horrific activities will result.


It will not end there, and organized crime will be but one element.  There will be many other adverse reactions from many other bans, of different categories, that will result.

There will no doubt be many more bans on our rights that we as Americans that we have worked decades, even centuries to achieve.  


It is feared that once abortion is outlawed, Radical Neoconservatives will turn to voter suppression, making it difficult for women and minorities to vote.  Other rights will be denied them (note: the Texas legislation wants to make it illegal for women to leave the state.  This is REAL) and both women and minorities will once again be reduced to second class citizens.

Any member of the Republican Party charged with a crime, any crime, will be pardoned.  Investigations into the rioting at the capitol on January 6, 2021 will be terminated, with the guilty parties getting off scot free.

Republicans will attempt to deny any Democrat, along with members of other parties, an office, even if they win it.  They will simply overturn the election and put in any Republican they like.  Laws like this ARE being proposed in Tennessee and other states.

The Republican Party will attempt to become the single ruling party in the U.S., being able to disregard the U.S. Constitution for their own ends, denying anyone, any ethic group, and any and all women their rights.  They will be able to do anything they want to whomever they want.

This Party, at the present moment, are passing laws based on the own religious beliefs, usually centered around evangelical Christians.  The walls between Church and State will come down, propelling the U.S. into a theocracy.

The Constitution will be abolished, and the United States will become a tyranny.

This is not an exaggeration, nor a made up story from a wild imagination.  If you read the newspapers, you will see that we are heading in this direction right now.  


How will the American people react?  Note the title of this essay, BACKLASH, and there WILL be a backlash!


With all these rights taken away from the majority of the American people, rights they have become accustomed to, especially their right to vote, do you think the majority of Americans will tolerate this?

Referring back to Roe v. Wade, which started all this, CNN news polled that 69% of the American people want Roe v. Wade to remain as is, the law of the land.  Only 30% of Americans want it banned, yet the 30% minority seem to want to rule the country, regardless of what everyone else thinks.


Again, how will the American people react?


It will get ugly.  First, rioting will break out, from pro-choice to minorities.  All Americans affected by these new laws will demand their rights to be restored, from protection from domestic violence (we are not doing a good job of this even now, but it will get worse) to police brutality.  There will be protests for gay rights, which will no doubt be taken away because of church doctrine.  The right to same-sex and interracial marriages with be protested.  Everyone will protest for the right to vote in free and fair elections, with easy access to the polls and short waiting times, where every vote counts.


The reason why voter suppression is on the rise is that in 2020, Joe Biden won the presidency over Donald Trump, in a FREE AND FAIR election.  

Donald Trump, being the sore loser and spoiled child that he is, says he was cheated, but only because he lost.  Trump had multiple recounts, but he still lost, and has been screaming about it ever since. 

What’s really amazing is that many Republicans believe him.

So they’re making it so that the Republican will never lose another election, and can overturn any election where they do lose and replace the winning candidate with someone of their own choosing.


This is tyranny, and the American people will not stand for it.


After the riots begin, is will continue to demonstrators picketing at the homes of these officials.  It is happening right now in front of the homes of Supreme Court judges protesting the end of Roe v. Wade, but it will get worse.  Both elected officials and court judges who condone these new and oppressing laws, of all categories, will be targeted in very violent ways.  Their homes will be vandalized and possibly burned down.  

In the extreme, where Americans will be driven, it is possible that many of these officials will be assassinated, killed even in front of their home.

Whole neighborhoods will be targeted and set on fire.


Remember when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.  There were riots all over the country.

How about Rodney King, when his police assailants were found not guilty and freed?  There were riots, and looting, all over Los Angeles.

Many African-Americans are being killed by policemen today, the many of these police are getting of scot free; and riots are resulting.


There is the saying, “No Justice, No Peace.”

Injustice breeds anger, and ANY person, no matter who they are, will be angry when they experience it.

I know, I’ve suffered it myself.  So have you, the reader of this essay, I’m sure.

No justice really means, “we don’t care about you!”


The worst thing that can happen is that the U.S. can erupt into a new civil war, with much of the South and Midwest fighting the East and West coasts and the Great Lakes Regions.  These would be Republican fighting Democratic strongholds, respectively.  

What would happen then?  What would the military do?  Whose side would they choose?

What would become of the U.S.?  Would it break apart into two or three separate countries?  Would one of these countries be a theocracy?

Where will be our standing in the world then?  What will happen to the rest of the world?  

Will anybody care?


In my previous essays, along with this one, it all sounds Orwellian, with me preaching impending doom.


I don’t want it to be this way!


The purposes of my writings is to prevent any of this from happening.  Is this possible?  Can we save ourselves?  

The answer, believe it or not, is a resounding YES!


The first thing we need to do is to get rid of Donald Trump and his followers one and for all.  Americans have to realize that Trump and his cronies don’t care about anyone who follows them, at all.  They only care about themselves.  Trump is using them, for his own ends.  They are simply telling them what they want to hear and running with it.  

Second, get rid of the radical Neoconservatives who want to change voting laws and take away ALL your rights just so they can stay in office, and they will lie, cheat, and steal to do this.  

Third, the U.S Constitution must be observed, to the letter.

Officials must not ignore the Constitution if other officials of their own party commit crimes.

Richard Nixon, a Republican, has been forced out of office by Republicans (when Republicans still had morals) as well as Democrats, and rightfully so.  Nixon broke the law and had to be punished.

A sense of decency must be restored.

We must never tolerate a man like Mitch McConnell saying, “I know it’s written in the Constitution, but I don’t care!  Make me!”  This was when he refused to hold hearings for a Supreme Court nominee by President Obama.

Okay, make him!  Try him for treason, both Republicans and Democrats.  This is one attitude that should NEVER be tolerated.

Fourth, go back to working across the aisle.  Once an election has ended and the proper officials have been instated, leave the election behind and work together to govern the country.  Everyone’s input is needed, and the government has no place for hate.


We were like this once, up to very recent times.  We need to go back to this again.  It is possible, but will take a lot of hard work, from everybody.

Friday, May 6, 2022

The New Era of Prohibition: A New Abortion Cartel (or Mafia) By Alastair Browne


This is not a debate on whether or not abortion should be outlawed, nor is this a debate on the moral implications of it.  The genie is out of the bottle, and the medical technology to perform this procedure will continue to exist…forever.

No, this is an essay on what will happen if and when abortion is outlawed, and it looks like 26 states will either outlaw it completely, or ban it after six to 15 weeks of pregnancy, depending on where you live.

Senator Mitch McConnell vowed that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, he will try and have abortion outlawed nationally.

I once asked a young woman, a devout Catholic, how she felt about abortion,  to which she was opposed, but then she stated “…but I don’t think it should be outlawed because they (pregnant women seeking abortions) will go to the back alleys.


There’s the rub.

Whether or not you favor abortion, that is exactly what will happen, and there WILL be back alley abortion providers, just like there are drug dealers now.

Texas has passed abortion laws so strict that they will not only punish those who provide them, but will encourage people to inform on anyone seeking an abortion - and as a result, Texas will become a very violent place, equalling the drug cartels in Mexico.  


Before going any further on this, I would like to give two examples.  

Remember Prohibition back in the 1930s?  They outlawed liquor nationwide, even adding an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

It didn’t work.  The Mafia stepped in and smuggled liquor in from Canada.  They also sponsored speakeasies, private clubs in cities where one can go, in secret, and drink.  There were busts, but the criminal element fought back.  Al Capone, Mafia kingpin from Chicago, was one such example, killing any cop and informer that got in his way.  (Al Capone was eventually brought down by Eliot Ness on tax evasion charges.)

Eventually, it got to be too much and Prohibition was lifted.


Today’s example is the drug cartel in Mexico.  Drug smuggling rings and rival gangs are striking fear not only in Mexican citizens but also officials.  If one cartel is struck down, another will take its place;  and the drug wars continue.


In Greek mythology, there was a nine headed snake named Hydra, where each head had lethal venom.  If one head was cut off, two more would sprout in its place.

This is the way of the drug cartel, and that’s just how it will be with the new abortion cartel, should it be outlawed.  This is my prediction, and it will apply to any and every state where it is illegal.

First, abortion will no doubt return to the back allies.  This will happen everywhere, no matter how strict or stringent these laws will be.

This will only be the beginning.

Even if there are not enough doctors, there will be plenty of “technicians” professing to use the abortion apparatus to perform the procedure.  Some women will die, but to them, it won’t matter.

There will be raids by law enforcement, and people will go to jail, but this will not stop those in the back alleys.  Like the snake Hydra, more back alley clinics will replace them, and those running them will become a lot smarter.


There is where the criminal element will come in;  a new “Abortion Mafia” or “Abortion Cartel.”

There will be protection rackets.  Even in a state as strict as Texas, police officers and government officials will be paid to look the other way.  Those who resist will be killed.

As for informers, they will be sought out and executed.

This will instill enough fear for people to keep quiet and mind their own business.  People like that will not be harmed.


Does the public want to crack down and “take back their neighborhood?”  This will not be as easy as driving out drug dealers.  They can call the F.B.I., shut down an illegal abortion clinic, but two more will come and take its place.  (This is in comparison to the snake Hydra.)


Would there be big money in abortion if the clients are poor?  Aside from being paid for the procedure, the providers could also use the aborted fetuses, or parts such as stem cells, and sell them to hospitals and research laboratories on the black market.

Abortion pills, where a patient can take during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and have the fetus aborted, already exist, but they will be the next on the list to be outlawed.  

There will be smuggling rings formed, possibly from states where they are legal, if not from other countries.  Again, it will be like interstate smuggling by criminal gangs, and it will be a lot easier.


You might think that the contents of this essay came from the wild imagination of a child, but this is exactly what will happen should abortion be outlawed.  It will not be a case where “A wrong has been righted and society will be blessed by God.”  Far from it.

These activities will occur in every state that outlaws abortion, no matter how righteous its citizens claim to be.  

There will always be corruption, and it’s happening right now with other outlawed activities.  It will not be any different with abortion.


If all this sounds like a horror story you don’t want to see happen, there is one way to prevent it.

Leave Roe v. Wade alone.  It was passed by the Supreme Court back in 1973, and it has worked ever since.  Leave it be.


I believe it is a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion, and what she does with her body is nobody’s business but her own.  To put it bluntly, mind your own business.


If you are against abortion, don’t have one, but don’t prevent other women from getting one if they so choose.