by Kyle K. Mann – Gonzo Today Contributing Editor and Publisher
The shocking news came in the early morning by way of one of those Apple notifications on my iPhone. I woke up and glanced at it fuzzily, then more sharply.
Aside from a few mental curses, I didn’t think anything specific at first. A sensation of deep gloom settled over me.
Finally a particular thought did form up: to stay home all day. Forget going out to the store. I didn’t want to see anyone.
Especially women.
This is a hideous day, in my view, and one that will reverberate for a long time.
*****
A bit before noon, Pacific Time, and I have been on the phone with a couple highly-concerned close female friends who have called me to discuss this.
I heave a deep sigh. Right, keep breathing. Stay grounded. Keep writing.
Ignore that urge to smoke pot. Maybe later, though I seldom smoke pot before sunset, if I do at all. I don’t drink alone, and since I live alone, I don’t drink much. No, going to weather this hurricane straight.
News coverage of Roe’s demise is harrowing, from left to right. Coming on top of the Supreme Court’s decision on “Concealed Carry” of guns, there are a lot of upset people right now. Forget COVID and Ukraine, this is The Topic.
Former Vice President Pence grabs a headline in the Washington Post, calling for a national abortion ban. There goes his goodwill with liberals, who had been heaping praise on him for not overturning the disputed results of 2020 elections and thereby officially removing Trump in office. The Post slaps a paywall up, keeping me from reading it, so I shift to The Hill, which informs me that Pence is “mulling a run” for President of the U.S.A. In 2024.
Few politicians scare me more than right-wing Christian zealot Mike Pence. He’s right up there with Hillary Clinton in my book. I despise HRC for a completely different set of reasons. But yeah, there’s Pence, blathering about state’s rights and the Supreme Court righting “a historic wrong.”
A lot of people I know hoped Trump would die in office. Not me, Trump dying would have put Pence in.
What else? Oh man… Texas Attorney General creates an annual state holiday to celebrate this day.
Wow.
*****
1:30 PM, and I’m off the phone again. So I typed “Trump Celebrates Decision” in Google search and came up with numerous articles. All I have to see is that Trump told Fox News “God made the decision.”
OK, that’s creepy enough.
Well worth considering, as I scroll past Trump’s and others triumphant comments that abortion is a state’s rights decision, is how chilling an effect the end of Roe v Wade will have on red state women seeking abortion who will travel, if they can afford to, to an abortion provider in a blue state. Will they be tracked and prosecuted when they return home?
There are numerous Orwellian scenarios for impoverished women, women of color or of challenged immigration status. The devil is in the details.
Here’s what I think will happen, keeping in mind I agreed with numerous media sources in 2016 that HRC would be elected president, and like them was proved colossally wrong.
After weeks and maybe months of controversy, protests, mass jailings and millions of media reactions, the news coverage will subside in favor of the next outrage, whatever it may be. Russia invading Lithuania over rights to unrestricted rail transit to the Russian Kaliningrad exclave? Monkey pox or some new equivalent goes pandemic? Hell, maybe we will edge closer to a worldwide crisis over UFOs. Meanwhile the western world economy continues to tank. Inflation continues, gas prices stay high.
Then the bruising November midterm elections, and a substantial Republican triumph, setting the table for a knock-down-drag-out Trump vs. Biden rematch in 2024.
Yaaaghh! An ugly spectacle to behold.
It all keeps coming back to a basic fact of human history.
Some people claim the right to tell other people what to do with their own bodies.
And whether it’s the rabid pro-vaxers, or the rabid anti-abortionists, or anyone else, they must all be stopped.
Kyle K. Mann
Topanga
June 24, 2022
