The Thin Man Sings

Roger Simon used to write screenplays in Hollywood. We conclude that he has a way with words.

He also has a way with ideas. Yesterday, he addressed the simple fact-- so simple that even I noticed it-- that the Democratic Convention last week uttered nary a word about the ongoing anarchy that has infested the nation’s blue cities. When it comes to governmental incompetence, people like Bill de Blasio, Ted Wheeler, Jenny Durkan and Lori Lightfood are leading the way. 

Writing in the Epock Times Simon says:

From Portland—where the bloody uprisings have been going on for eighty days with no end in sight—to New York City—once the envy of the world turned into a public garbage dump and latrine for the drug-addicted homeless and child molesters, its citizenry fleeing in droves—Democratic officials have proven to be a collection of virtue signaling prima donnas lost between their sympathies for the demonstrators (including violent ones with whom some seem to identify) and an absolute cluelessness about what to do about the escalating situation.

Whatever they do, they dare not offend the sainted demonstrators by calling for law enforcement lest they… Democratic mayors, governors, attorneys general and so forth… be accused of racism—a fool’s game if there ever were one, since everybody is, eventually, declared a racist. That’s how it rolls in today’s America.

Yes, indeed, “virtue-signalling prima donnas.” In Seattle and Chicago we have girl power in action. We have strong empowered women leading the charge-- into their fortified bunkers:

Exceptions are of course the mayors of Seattle and Chicago who—with mind-bending hypocrisy—suddenly screamed for the cops when their own homes were under assault, something they never did for the benighted people of their cities, especially the poor they pretend to support.

In the case of Chicago, we have been watching the bodies pile up for years, turning the city into a virtual killing field for black people.

Simon sees it all as a type of 1960s nostalgia. People are supporting the riotous insurrection because they think it’s cool. The thought would immediately numb your mind-- were it not perfectly plausible. After all, the people rioting on the streets and destroying their cities are not the best and the brightest. They are the worst and the dumbest products of America’s educational system.

Biden and the rest of the Democrats plus their media choir are locked in a form of sixties nostalgia, especially the ones who are too young to have been there. They think those days were just “too cool for school.” (As one who lived through them, permit me to roll my eyes.).

This desire to be “cool,” actually a pathetic form of conformity, underlies much of their resistance to confronting the violence. The result is a lot of moral and personal confusion, as with those denizens of Manhattan’s Upper West Side who can’t figure out what’s going on when, on a trip to Zabar’s to buy bagels, they have to cross the street to avoid being mugged (or worse) by one of the various junkies and perverts hanging by the front door.

Speaking of the 1960s, remember these lines, from Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man": 

Ah, you've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks

With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks

You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books

You're very well-read, it's well-known

But something is happening here and you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. Jones?

Well, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown

You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground

There ought to be a law against you comin' around

You should be made to wear earphones

'Cause something is happening and you don't know what it is

Do you, Mr. Jones?