ABNORMAL AND THE NEW NORMAL

      Lately people have been referring to the new normal, particularly if something is a tad, or more than a tad, off from the usual, the expected - yes, the norm. With such craziness going on now, people have given up those norms and called the weird, the unexpected, and yes, the wrong - the new normal, as if that makes it right.
     In late 1992, over 1,700 scientists gave a warning to the people of earth of the dire outlook for humanity if it kept up its ways - the warming of the earth, the pollution, etc. Now scientists have given us another warning, a second warning, and it is not good. But, a big but, those who claim that these awful changes in the environment, the climate, the weather, the droughts and the floods are simply 'normal', the new normal - well, pack your bags and hope that there will be shuttles to Mars!! We have accepted falsehoods to cover over truths, truths that are hard to accept.
     Unfortunately, these new normals are not limited to 'only' the environment, but are also found in the morality or lack of it in our societies of the day. Up till now there have been gaps in truth, there has been violence and greed, but always there were those who tried to reform, labor activists, new political demands, but today, all the rules and regulations have been tossed by the roadside. Conflict of interest? Nah, never mind that. Collusion with the enemy? That's okay, for the President loves the guy. Evil dictators, murderers in fancy clothing? Nope, no problem for they are beloved by our esteemed president.
     Greed is the new normal. There have always been those , particularly in the financial world, who forgot that money is there to serve a purpose and is not meant to be stored up in some miserly condition, to be gloated over. Money is a wonderful tool for philanthropy and even the old robber barons of yesteryear realized that and set up organizations to funnel aid to where it was needed. Though that did not excuse their greed, it did allay it to a degree. However, today, people serve the corporation alone, shove the money into overseas accounts and the people are neglected.
     There is no more loyalty to country. Those who yell the loudest about patriotism are those very ones who have turned on their country, claimed a new loyalty to whatever will enhance their fortunes, their power, their family. So the President's own son, Junior, exchanges email with WikiLeaks before and after the election and then tries to hide it. More and more garbage is coming out re the Trumps et al and now they are going to try to obfuscate with smoke machines calling for new investigations of Hillary. Third country banana republics - we, once the nation that set the ideal, are now emulating you. We persecute our political opponents, go after them , try to lock them up - all in the name of power and as a device to pull attention away from their own misdeeds.
   There is a nastiness in the air. There is grossness in our behavior. The rot of sexual molestation, of undignified behavior with and towards women, the attempts to take control over their own health away from women, - where have we gone? Is this the new normal? Back to the fifties and worse? Do we allow ugly relationships between adult men and children, girls in their teens, and do we okay that in the name of religion? Pucchhhh!!!!! Time to shake out religion and find the purity within and not the ugly dross that has shackled  and covered it over the centuries.
     The new normal seems to be a perversion of the old normal. We have taken the worst of it and turned it into something holy, something that we are supposed to praise, to worship, to follow down its twisted trails. The new normal is ugly. It is selfish. It is contraindicated and will lead the world to destruction. We are already well down that path. Just take a look around.
     Let us make a new, new normal, one that encourages care and concern for our planet, care and concern for our fellow beings, care and concern for true morality, use of money as a means to a good end rather than for its own sake.
Is this all a pipe dream? Perhaps, but humankind has been trying to improve over the millenniums so why have we decide to okay it, to allow, a backwards regression? Why? "Riddle me not," says the Joker. Well, riddle me not, says I. Just find me an answer, a proper path, a proper inducement to shake up the world and bring it to its senses.