WHEN AND WHY

  Put 'when' in the proper place in a sentence and the meaning, the connotation will change. It is a word with great flexibility and usage. For this posting, we are asking what happens when. The 'when' we are using is one of timing and environment. It is a situational when, a warning when, a plaintive when asking, pleading, calling for someone, anyone, to hear and see and understand the 'whens' of our times.

When a ship is ripped away from its mooring at the dock, the marina, wherever, its stability and survival are quite questionable. When the power of   Nature slings that mammoth yacht miles inland do we internalize the meaning of the 'when' moments? Do we see wiped out areas of housing and rethink our planning and building regulations? Do we become cognitive of the new and immediate challenges we are facing, go proactive or do we insist on repeating the same errors of the past, emulating the definition of insanity and stupidity? 

Why, when the truth is not only out there, but quite obvious, smacking us in the face, do we sit inert, or repeat the same errors of the past 'whens' which brought us to this current 'when' we are facing. Note, that in addition to Nature 'whens', the word and its import also refer to political and social 'whens'. Certainly, those 'whens' are of great weight, even as we persist in powering on down the road of errors, of ignorance assumed and real, and when we hit the barrels at the dead end of that road, we sit there, stunned, wounded, wondering how the hell this happened. When did they go wrong?

That when actually includes many whens. When did we lose national sanity and elect a most visibly damaged man, dangerous to us in his dementia and outsized ambitions along with his followers, to public offices all over the land? Why did we do so and why do we persist in championing these outrageous attacks on our society? Why do we now accept truth as lies and lies as truths? When did that become the lingua franca of the day?

The whens and the whys continue to accumulate, much to our distress and survival as America, the one we are proud of, the one with a critical role to play in the world. The amassing hills of political sludge grow dangerous in their heights and instability. Our basic rights, our underpinnings of the nation, its very history are being buried under the leaking dripping sludge hills - of our own making. We have done this to ourselves and are now living the consequences.

When a nation turns back to a violent time in its history, when guns were openly worn and used, where the law and its representatives were scarce upon the ground; when violence usurped the power of the true authorities; when those same authorities either cooperated with that theft or were unable to overcome it, we had institutional violence. Just as we do now. Guns are more openly allowed, and shootings increase. Instead of a finger thrown at a road rage incident, it is now a bullet that flies through the air with much more permanent and egregious damage. When a student will shoot and kill to express dissatisfaction with it or the kids or the teachers or parents, the unhappy worker or employee. As for terrorists - open season is on!

Worse than everything else, is the loss of a basic foundational cornerstone, the corruption of the judiciary, particularly at the supposed to be highest level, The Supreme Court. It has openly endorsed and supported extreme right-wing views. This support has led to attacks on our very rights, basic rights. The right to control one's own body. The right to make our own decisions as to lifestyle. The right to expect service. The right to vote freely, without intimidation. The right to be safe from hate and bigotry. The right to be free from ancient hates resurrected for a 'when' it serves a cynical, as usual, corrupt purpose. The right to be safe, free, to live a decent life. The right to dream.

When and why have these rights been abrogated? And why do so many deluded think this is proper, correct, for their benefit? It boggles the mind.

When a federal judge calls out the Justices (a misnomer indeed) of the Supreme Court, re the Second Amendment decision of theirs, I begin to hope that all is not lost. Read his words and challenge. 

“This court is not a trained historian,” ....

“The justices of the Supreme Court, as distinguished as they may be, are not trained historians,”...

“And we are not experts in what white, wealthy and male property owners thought about firearms regulation in 1791,” ...

The Bruen decision, he said, requires him to “play historian in the name of constitutional adjudication.”

" ... ordered the parties, including the Justice Department, to brief him on whether he should appoint a historian within 30 days. “Not wanting to itself cherry-pick the history, the Court now asks the parties whether it should appoint a historian to serve as a consulting expert in this matter,” he said."

Yes, there are many whens and whys. Some will never be understood, some will wreak havoc and irreversible damage upon our society. Some harm will be repaired, but first and foremost - we must acknowledge that our decisive time of severe when and why nature and questions and attacks upon it are here. As is a powerful potentially fatal when and why time on us as a nation, as a society. Now. We must rise to the challenge, keep our nation safe and maintain the ideals and cornerstones of its raison d'etre.

 When- now. 

Why - because it is the right thing to do.

 If we are to survive as a true democratic nation -the United States of America, this challenge must be met. It is an unpleasant time of when and why, but denial does not make it go away. It only makes the job all that much more difficult.