Whose values are those? Power is a drug. An addictive one, potentially. Like other medications, it can heal, soothe, and harm if misused. From the first time a two-year-old says, “I want to do it myself,” or starts acting out or running away from parents to taste some personal freedom, they are expressing a human need for autonomy, for control. Power is so visceral that it’s why I resist the impulse simply to brand as racism the reactionary views and actions of people who feel threatened by changing demographics and cultural norms. It’s not that racial animus is not a component. It’s that skin color is too convenient a shorthand for sizing up a crowd and knowing who’s who in the pecking order. IIRC (someone will correct me), one of Cyril Northcote Parkinson’s lesser known “laws,” allowed one to identify the most important person in a ballroom because they’d be found at a certain grid point at t+n minutes from the start of the event. And knowing that would be of interest why? Power. Filmmaker Lynne Sachs has a short film at The New York Times about the crackdown on abortion access across the country since the Dobbs decision. “These folks who are in power, they have no interest in solutions,” declares the under-narrative running beneath the video. “It’s really just about control.” People with it want to hang onto it. People addicted to it may not even know it until what little power they have is threatened by independent…