It is hard to believe that Texas women are crossing the border into Mexico to get affordable reproductive health care. What some have called a “war on women” has fallen hardest on the poor. Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the nation. We rank last in health care delivery. Still, lawmakers have cut the family planning budget from 111 million down to 37 million. Last year, four of the eight South Texas clinics offering abortion closed.
There are two reason why a man might be pro-life. One reason a man might be pro-life is that he might have a legitimate concern for infants. This man will probably also be against war and the death penalty, and will support public health care programs for poor women and children. A second reason a man might be pro-life is that he wants to control women. The idea of a woman having sex without being legally tied to a man may cause him to lose sleep thinking of ways to rein women back in.
What makes it hard to believe that the anti-choice movement in Texas has anything to do with concern for children is that we are also cutting neo-natal care, pap smears, breast exams, birth control and preventative health care. It is estimated that only 30% of doctors now take new medicaid patients, so it looks more like poor women and their children barely register on the public accounting sheet.
Prediction: The answer to this crisis will not come from the Democratic party. It will come from a furious conservative base that will no longer let demagogues speak for them. Helping people get control of their choices is a conservative value. We forget that Title X, which funds such health care programs as Planned Parenthood, began under Nixon. I am old enough to remember a Republican Party that did thrive on scapegoating the poor. I remember a Republican Party that would have laughed at last years crop of Presidential candidates of the stage. We forget that both Perry and Romney were pro-choice before their party was taken over.
I don’t know when, and it may not be from within what we are now calling the Republican Party, but count on it- the true conservatives will rise up to take back their movement from those who wage this war on women and the poor.
Chum n. Ground meat used to lure fish or other large animals.
Once one is finally safe on top a crocodile, one does not think easily of dismounting. One can move from being a rider to being mere chum in the blink of an eye.
I’m sure many of the candidates hate the mockery of electoral politics as much as we. Many of them probably wince when they see the attack ads going out in their name. But the candidates also know that to survive they must not appear weak. They also know that many voters will punish them for telling the truth, but few voters will punish them for flattery.
It’s a sad day when we have to wonder whether every gesture a candidate makes was crafted in a brainstorming session and is meant to send a message to a certain voting group. As long as we the American public vote for whoever has the best commercials, we will remain in this maze of sparklers and smoke.
I could be mistaken, but I would guess that most reporters would love to be better journalists, but they are seen as competent as long as they serve the interests of the elite, and are denied access to power when they ask the wrong questions.
I would even suspect that most CEO’s would love for corporations to do the right thing, if they themselves would not be fired for failing to make as much money as humanly possible for their shareholders.
In this capitalist juggernaut we call a nation, it is a simple business decision most of us make to play the dog eat dog game, hoping someday to get our soul back when we are high enough up the totem pole to make a difference. Of course, by that time, our souls are nowhere to be found. The sad truth is, most whites would love to step out of racism, most men would love to step out of sexism, most business people would love to value people over property, but nobody wants to be the first to step off a crocodile.
It is hard to slash assistance for the poor without appearing barbarian, so photographs of a candidate doing humble work behind the scenes at private charities can be invaluable. According to Brian J. Antal, the president of an Ohio charity that feeds the homeless, Paul Ryan dropped by the center to have a photo staged of him washing a pot. Antal claims the candidate came by without permission, had his photo taken washing an already clean pot and then left.
“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations. It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
The Romney campaign claims they had permission for the photo op, but antal disagrees, “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/report-charity-president-objects-to-paul-ryans-soup
After the debate, reporters at the NY Times and the LA Times researched some of the claims by both candidates. Topics specifically addressed are:
Immigration
College grants
China
Israel
Energy policy
Their results are here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/us/politics/a-closer-look-at-some-disputed-claims.html?hp&_r=0
LA Times results here:
http://www.latimes.com/
I miss Glenn Greenwald. He was one of the few informed and honest voices in the US media. Fortunately, we can still follow him on the Guardian UK. His latest article addresses how the rules for the Presidential debates express the sorry state of democracy in the US today. His summary statement is perfect, “Secret collusion between the two parties, funded by corporations, run by lobbyists: all the ingredients are there.”
The debates were once run by the League of Women Voters who would not let the candidates cherry pick topics or control the questions to be asked. The two parties came together in 1990 to protect their candidates from such democratic scrutiny. The independent League of Women’s voters was replaced by a private corporation called “the Commission on Presidential Debates” that would be under the mutual control of the two parties.
According to a recently leaked document the purpose of the change was to “eliminate spontaneity” and “exclude all third-party voices.”
“We have a private corporation that was created by the Republican and Democratic parties called the Commission on Presidential Debates. It seized control of the presidential debates precisely because the League was independent, precisely because this women’s organization had the guts to stand up to the candidates that the major-party candidates had nominated. And instead of making public these contracts and resisting the major-party candidates’ manipulations, the commission allows the candidates to negotiate these 21-page contracts that dictate all the fundamental terms of the debates.” -George Farah
Under the new agreement the candidates are not allowed to ask each other questions. They can only address topics previously agreed upon. Neither the audience nor the moderator can ask follow up questions. Even reaction shots of candidates are to be cut out.
The presidential debates are now paid for by large corporate sponsors and the debate commission is run by lobbyists. As has become obvious, the moderator is chosen for an inability to think outside the box. As Greenwald concludes:
“Lobbyists who enrich themselves by peddling their influence run everything behind the scenes. Corporations pay for the process, which they exploit and is then run to bolster rather than threaten their interests. The media’s role is to keep the discourse as restrictive and unthreatening as possible while peddling the delusion that it’s all vibrant and free and independent and unrestrained. And it all ends up distorting political realities far more than illuminating them while wildly exaggerating the choices available to citizens and concealing the similarities between the two parties.”
So what is the difference between the presidential debates and the muppets? Not much. The only difference is, sometimes when you watch the muppets, you’ll get surprised.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/16/presidential-debate-issues
When I left my childhood home to go to college, I determined to develop a religious understanding that was true for all people and for all times. Of course, every religion has particularities, and no one completely escapes the limits of their place and time, but I was no longer interested in a God who loved some but not others, or a truth that worked in one place but not another. In other words, if I was going to bet my life on something, it needed to be three things: fundamental and universal and kind.
I also determined not to be a mere skeptic and live an uncommitted life. Just as I did not wish to live out an inherited faith, neither did I want to be content merely ridiculing the imperfect understanding of others. I resolved not to make my fundamental decisions out of guilt or shame.
Those determinations have acted like a filter or a talisman in my life. I still have had many selfish and foolish moments, but I intuitively knew not to base my life on second hand beliefs, nor to ever surrender responsibility to the church or state for how I would treat my fellow human beings.
There is no easy or safe path but we cannot go as far wrong if we hold the talisman to serve only that which is fundamentally true and universally helpful.
Prejudice is a monster that lives on the edges of our vision. Few dare look it in the face, yet most carry it in the periphery of their vision. The face of young Malala Yousafzai, shot down by the Taliban for promoting women’s education, has rallied people all over the world. Even in an ancient patriarchy like Pakistan the ugly face of sexism is too much to look at directly, and so people are rallying to Malala’s cause of equal education for all.
Tee shirts with “I am Malala” and pictures of her on the internet are showing up all over the world. Delegates from the United Nations are saying that they will take up her cause. All of that looks hopeful, but we must also remember that virtual activism is a contradiction in terms. The most likely fate of this energy, like all political energy of our day, is that it will dissipate into symbolic gestures.
Virtual petitions are well and good, but the world will not be changed by clicking a mouse. Democracy is hard work and it must ultimately be done face to face. After we have expressed virtual support for women in Pakistan, we must roll up our sleeves and give actual support to women and to education in our own nation. It is easier to see the face of prejudice from the other side of the world, but it takes a special courage to face the monster in our own place and time. As long as our national leadership is over 80% male in the United States, we are in no position to to teach others about equality. As long as we allow education to be cut every year in our own country we are trying to lead the world to enlightenment with a dying torch
Article on responses to Malala shooting:
statistics on percentages of women leaders:
The Arkansas Republican Party has finally denounced the pro-Confederate, pro-slavery stance of state representative Loy Mauch. Mauch had written many letters to the Democrat-Gazette defending slavery, but a recent comment drew fire:
“If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity.”
In earlier letters Mauch has:
-Called Lincoln a Marxist.
-Said that the Confederate flag was a symbol of Christian liberty”
-Organized a conference in 2004 to celebrate the life of John Wilkes Booth.
After all those statements, the Republican party still supported Mauch’s bid for re-election, but after his comment about the Jesus and Paul no condemning slavery, it finally pulled the plug on all funds to his campaign. He is still supported by the National Rifle Association and the Arkansas Right to Life PAC.
Lost among the scandals of Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong is the fact that both were spokespersons for Nike, and both were true to the motto of their corporate sponsor. “Just do it” is the slogan of the corporation Nike, named after the winged goddess of war and victory. “Just do it” represents the mindset of Spartans throughout history. When success itself becomes the goal, we fail to consider whether the activity itself is worthy of a human being. It was true in ancient Greece, it’s true in modern America.
It’s like that old line by Lilly Tomlin, “The worst thing about the rat race, is even if you win it, you’re still a rat.” Lance and Tiger both succeeded in a culture that has many rewards for victory, but few for virtue. Cheating by our sports heroes is trivial compared to belief that our masters of industry, our political heroes, our cultural icons all seem to cheat. We have reached a point where we secretly know that anyone who wins the race is probably a rat. And so like some ancient culture that holds athletic competitions and then eat the the winners, we turn on our heroes at that inevitable moment when we realize they are as rudderless as we..
Punishing Lance and Tiger does not change the nature of the system that lured them to follow the false goddess Nike, and that lures us as well. There’s a saying on the street, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” It is time to consider whether our culture of competition, acquisition and conquest is worthy of a human being. Will continuing to amassing wealth and weapons make us the greatest nation on earth, or will it just make us the biggest rat?