CONGRATULATIONS, CHICKENS, YOU'VE FINALLY COME HOME TO ROOST — NOW, YOU MUST RULE!

By Edwin Cooney

I had intended to title this commentary “The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth,” but since there are many truths or, if you prefer, factors that shout out for recognition, I've decided to address the wings that have delivered the inevitable forces that finally triumphed last Friday, June 24th, 2022. Hence, here come the chicken wings in all their glory or inglorious forces!

Here are the forces or realities that drove the rejection of Roe v. Wade:

(1.) The United States of America remains largely a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant country and it is determined to be a home primarily for white Christians and brave white men.

(2.) Women are valued, but they are secondary citizens be they sweethearts, wives, professional women, or even soldiers.

(3.) Those who have opposed Roe v. Wade are determined to connect church and state! They regard the United States of America as a Christian nation despite a 1797 declaration to the contrary issued by the administration of President John Adams asserting that church and state are separate entities.

(4.) Social welfare is generally second to economic welfare by too many very influential Americans.

(5.) Finally, there is the force best described as illusion. I'm sure that conservatives are congratulating themselves today that the overthrow of Roe is a moral victory over "collectivist socialism.” After all, the “good guys” must naturally prevail over the “bad guys” when all they've done is to put a price on abortion. If you doubt that, all you have to do is ask the rich what they will do and where they'll go when they decide to get an abortion!

Likely results:

Approximately half of the states had adopted laws which would end legal abortions once Roe v. Wade was overthrown last Friday morning. Some states are even considering laws punishing those women who go out of state to get an abortion after they return home. Many states that allow abortions will establish charitable private organizations to allow citizens in states where abortions are illegal to obtain abortions in their jurisdictions. Even more devastating will be the effect that the overturning of Roe may have on stem cell research which is vital to fighting life-altering diseases.

In the minds and hearts of many people, we are once again coming face to face with a moral issue. What's ironic to this observer is that those who time after time oppose government authority are seeking to use the government to enforce their own "moral" ends. Even more ironic is how those very same people resist the use of government to confront another primarily “moral" issue which we all call civil rights.

Opposition to abortion as I see it is a legitimate and even compelling political and moral position. Thoughtful men and women ought to be capable of establishing a set of conditions which would both allow and limit abortions. Both government and the administration of abortions are powerful entities and must be handled as such. Civil rights, abortion issues, and the use of nuclear weapons affect government operations in eight nations worldwide: The United States, Russia, China, Israel, Great Britain, France, Pakistan and North Korea. I draw this parallel because powerful issues must, to the maximum degree, be effectively handled as high above the political process as possible.

Before Monday, January 22nd, 1973, abortion rights were a minor political issue. What occurred on January 22nd 1973 was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States of a legal issue, Roe v. Wade.  What became political was reaction to that legal decision. As early as 1976, the right to an abortion was an issue only in the Democratic Party where Ellen McCormack, a 49-year-old housewife, filed with the Federal Election Commission to become a presidential candidate in the Democratic party. She only received 22 votes at the Democratic convention in 1976, but she was the first political candidate to receive matching federal election funds and she participated in a debate witch included future president Jimmy Carter. In 1980, she was the Right to Life candidate for the presidency, but she never joined the Republican Party's “Moral Majority” movement initiated by the Reverend Jerry Falwall.

No free people ought to avoid moral issues. However, the manner of inevitable debate of moral issues can be conducted above the cackling crowing, personal finger-pointing milieu that brought about the death of a responsible civil right.

So it's back to the drawing board. Let's do all we can to keep whatever resolution or alteration of the present situation out of the chicken manure!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

SUMMER 2022: IT’S TAKING US SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN ON VACATION!

By Edwin Cooney

As I was considering writing about summer 2022, it occurred to me that back in the 1950s, a young man named Jerry Keller sang a song called "Here Comes Summer,” a happy song anticipating a summer with his girlfriend!

Summertime 2022 is likely to be a very heady time. The worries and woes that are likely to run through our heads could be overwhelming in thousands of instances.

Roe v. Wade will soon be decided by a conservative Supreme Court and the "pro life" people who anticipate victory just may very well be disappointed. It's possible that the court might modify its decision allowing some aspect of Roe to remain valid. Such a possibility is likely to make practically everyone unhappy. Add to that the debate about the Second Amendment which affects those who treasure their guns as much as they value their personal freedom to be who they want to be.

Next, there's the ongoing war between the political forces that pit former President Donald J. Trump against everyone else. It's amazing to me that a man who egged on his supporters to the degree that they were willing to kill the sitting Vice President of the United States is even close to being a serious presidential candidate in 2024. It’s absolutely stunning!

Then, there are the unceasing heat waves, wildfires, floods and tornados, and early hurricanes, all of which are due to our national insistence on using fossil fuels to run our economy when solar energy is clearly the path to a better and safer future.

It's our nature to be curious and to seek control of our social, economic, and spiritual destinies and those of our children and grandchildren.

As one gets older and has less responsibility, there is a tendency to believe that the whole world is going to hell —  largely out of a realization that someone else is about to be in control and that our personal existences are about to change forever.

I see our political system dissolving from the balanced federalist system designed by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton into an oligarchy dominated by the rich just as it was up until the dawn of the 19th Century. Then, young America's leaders began relying on the best thinkers of Ancient Greece and Rome, along with Renaissance France, Italy, and Britain, to shape government from the mere gratification of medieval royalty to the legitimate ambitions and dreams shared by you and me.

It was at that time that the thinkers mentioned above were joined by the young industrialists named Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton and, eventually, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell who invented the vital tools and processes that changed our agricultural society into an industrial giant. (Read our Constitution which was written just before the dawn of industrialism and you'll see no reference to a specific political doctrine such as capitalism or socialism. These doctrines were the children of the incoming industrial era and were designed to bring forth the hopes and dreams never before experienced by a whole population.)

As Summer 2022 drapes us within her folds, it appears that the political process designed to ensure everyone's freedom may well be modified by various state legislatures that are determined, as they've done for nearly two centuries now, to emphasize "States' Rights” so that the few can control the many when it comes to electing the next President of the United States. The world, they appear to believe, which has always been run by and for the wealthy, should never be guilty of institutionalizing hope and charity as too many “bleeding-heart” liberals and socialists would do if they weren't regulated by the government. Don't ever let a conservative tell you that he or she “hates government” when they actually control government, because it is easier to control others at the regional, state and local levels than at the federal level.

Summer's greatest gift has always been the freedom its weather brings humanity to work and play.

The future, whatever spirit it creates, kind or mean, spiritual or merely profitable, helpful or stultifying, begins at 4:14 EDT tomorrow, ready or not!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

ELIZABETH II: IS SHE HUMAN OR MERELY ROYAL?

If you were born in the month of April in 1926, if you were born on a Wednesday, if you were born in England, if you are female, if you have been a wife and mother, you have got a lot in common with a very extraordinary human being — Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor! Perhaps her very humanness is the most obscure factor about her. She's one of the most privileged people in the world. She's been given much, both in wealth and in social status. It has to be the rare individual to directly differ with her, let alone contradict or criticize her. It also has to be the rare person who has cried or cursed in front of her! Yet she has numerous social and royal obligations, a list of which may well overwhelm most of us commoners.

If she's clearly been granted extra protection in the area of everyday human foibles, imagine the discipline and control of many natural urges that are denied to "Her Royal Highness!” This observer has never heard or read of her loss of temper, expression of impatience or rudeness — not even during the stressful period in 1997 when Princess Diana was killed and many wondered what role "the Queen" played in Diana's discomfort with Prince Charles, Elizabeth's eldest son.

To many of us, bound to an ordinary existence, Queen Elizabeth is the head of a fairyland on whose imperial soil the sun never set. Note: If the sun once never set on British soil as proclaimed by the great prime minister and author Benjamin Disraeli, it could be observed that the sun never rose on British soil! Another version was as follows: "The sun never set on the British Empire because God did not trust the British in the dark!”

Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Phillip were reaping one of the many royal privileges of the British Empire at the very hour of King George's death. Their Royal Highnesses, as guests of the Kenyan government, were in a mighty treehouse overlooking a salt lick in the Kenyan jungle that was visited by just about every wild animal imaginable. Summoned from this wondrous kaleidoscope back to "civilization'" and informed of her father's passing, Elisabeth was immediately whisked back to England. She changed into a black dress during the flight and emerged from the plane to be greeted by a solemn Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who immediately granted his love and loyalty.

Queen Elizabeth's reign is invariably compared and contrasted with that of her great, great grandmother Queen Victoria whose reign lasted from Tuesday, June 20th, 1837 until Tuesday, January 22nd, 1901 — a total of 63 years, 216 days. The two women would be very different. Victoria  was both rigid and opinionated in temperament. She came to love Prime Ministers Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli, but she heartily disliked and distrusted Prime Minister Henry John Temple Palmerston--or Pam as he was known. Queen Victoria worked with eleven prime ministers to Elizabeth's fourteen. As head of state rather than head of government, Queen Elizabeth has stayed strictly away from political doctrine whether her prime minister was Margaret Thatcher or Harold Wilson, Winston Churchill or Boris Johnson.

As for the "times," things have changed much more radically during Elizabeth’s time. In 1953, Eddie Fisher, Perry Como and even Bing Crosby were entertainment stars in Great Britain. Less than ten years later, The Beatles came along and the Queen eventually knighted the two living members of the group. In 1953, television was in its infancy. No one even imagined that one day there would be a computer in the house. As the 1950s rolled along, colonies such as Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and numerous others obtained their independence although the British Commonwealth has remained as stabilizing as the queen's monarchy itself.

In Britain as here in America, many dismiss the significance of the very idea of royalty. Although no one can form a legitimate government without Queen Elizabeth's consent, she is solely empowered to legitimize a government leadership endorsed by Parliament. Note that on Friday, May 10th, 1940, King George VI, Elizabeth's father, would have preferred to invite Lord Halifax rather than Winston Churchill to succeed the beleaguered Neville Chamberlain, but as a member of the House of Lords, Halifax himself asserted that he couldn't be an effective prime minister during a time of war.

Perhaps the finest complement to Queen Elizabeth II on her Seventieth Anniversary is that her personal presence stabilizes British society in a more genuine way than the idea of “national unity" which is what reassures the “United” States in this hour of America's most severe period of turmoil since before the Civil War.

Obviously a grand lady, she's ultimately encased in a grand institution. Royalty has never quite lived up to its grand ideal. It can’t, because every human, Elizabeth included, is ultimately fallible!

The authority she inherited through her father's accession to the throne was brought about by her Uncle Edward's abdication. George VI gained his high royal office largely through the political power of the parliament rather than through personal ambition. This gentle and humble royal servant never failed to realize that nor has his eldest daughter.  

However, before you dismiss the ongoing significance of royalty, remember the personhood of one Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY