Last week, Oklahoma’s Democratic Governor Brad Henry, without comment, signed into law a group of five anti-choice measures. These laws include a parental consent (not notification) rule that for the first time will require minors in Oklahoma to obtain the approval of at least one parent prior to obtaining an abortion. The law also requires doctors to lecture women seeking an abortion about fetal pain, and treats the fetus as a legal human being when crimes are committed against a pregnant woman.
Democrats control the State Senate 25-23. Yet these measures passed that Senate by a vote of 38-8. And our Democratic Governor signed them into law.
The take-home point to remember: electing Democrats will do nothing to secure reproductive freedom unless those Democrats believe in reproductive freedom. Otherwise, they’re just more votes against choice, even if Democrats control one or more branches of government.
(This diary is crossposted in orange.)
Amen.
I encourage everyone to head over to Focus South Dakota to learn what they can do to prevent HB 1215 from going into effect.
HB 1215 bans ALL abortions and does not exceptions for rape, incest or even to protect the health of the mother.
Even though the Governor has signed this law, yesterday, 38,000+ petition signatures were turned in, insuring that the automatic enactment of this law has been blocked, and that it will be reffered to the ballot in November instead.
Let the fucking fur fly where it may!
n/m
head against the desk as I listen to the Bob Casey Kos Democrats. Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham! Ahhh, that’s better….now I have a migraine and I can no longer read their words or hear their voices!
the bob casey kos kids really are obtuse. how can you build a party while actively selling out a large portion of it. how can they expect you to fight for them while they not only refuse to fight for you, but actively fight against you? this is no way to build a party.
the same reason the GOP supports Schwarzenegger in California, even though he’s pro-choice.
In hostile areas, you take what you can get.
Or you get nothing at all.
That’s not called being obtuse–that’s called pragmatism. And the GOP does the same thing.
It’s not about voting for Casey. It’s about voting against Santorum. Hell, at least Casey doesn’t advocate the overturn of Griswold. And he’s progressive on economic issues.
You take what you can get, where you can get it. That said, the idea of parental consent laws being enforced is scary.
It’s just too bad that stupid people are allowed to vote.
And have kids.
And he’s progressive on economic issues.
I do not see how anyone can say that a man who would enthusiastically vote for someone like Alito is ‘progressive on economic issues’ or, ‘pro-union’. When this SCOTUS gets done with voting on cases affecting workers in this country there won’t be any union protections.
Casey is poison for the Democratic party, absolute poison and, in the long term, a far greater danger than Santorum or that rat bastard, Lieberman. He would provide (D) legitimacy to the religious right. Santorum won’t succeed in his goal of overturning Griswold, Casey will succeed in his primary goal in which case y’all know what you can do with your ‘big tent’.
Am I the only one amused by the irony of these two statements being in the same post?
Here’s some news for you: registering your objections to Santorum by voting for a candidate that cannot beat him, and would be worse if elected does nothing except accelerate the rightward slide of the Democratic party.
Stop telling lies, please. Casey’s said he would enthusiastically vote for Alito. Alito is radical-right on economic issues. Thus, Casey’s real position on economic issues, when it matters, is radical-right.
I hate to jump into this, especially because I think I ultimately come down on your side of the debate.
But it definitely remains to be seen whether or not Casey can or cannot beat Santorum. Despite weaknesses in Casey’s political skills and vulnerabilities he has with the base of the party, I would still be shocked if he loses this race. It may be Rendell being on the ballot that saves him, but if nothing else does, that should put him over the top.
And his support of Alito may have more to do with social issues than business related ones.
He’s not going to beat Santorum.
As for his support for Alito… So what? Great, he’s “progressive” on “business”-related issues. But he’s shown a decided willingness to toss those over the side as soon as he gets even the barest whiff of a “social” issue. And you can bet that if he does get the seat, the Republicans will find plenty of “social” issues to wave under his pretty little nose any time a “business”-related issue comes up for a vote.
Again, a Democrat that votes with the Republicans 99% of the time is worse than a Republican that votes with the Republicans 100% of the time. Not only do almost as many bad bills get through, but he damages the party’s image.
No matter how you slice it, Casey is a walking disaster.
And his support of Alito may have more to do with social issues than business related ones.
I’m sure that this is true. And what that should tell everyone is that Casey’s avid support of republican religious right social issues trumps all other priorities and considerations. At which point folks should be asking themselves who the ideologically driven radical extremists actually are.
casey does want to overturn roe v wade
i’ve spent way too much time dealing with those fuckwads
i’ve spent way too much time dealing with those fuckwads
I know, and you’ve done a damn fine job of it too. in In my book you’re a hero.
as I listen to the Bob Casey Kos Democrats.
The reason you’re so frustrated is that they don’t have any interest in listening in return and they lie like a fucking rug.
Today Bob Casey’s good friend Samuel Alito, the guy Casey says he would have enthusiastically voted for should we ever be so unfortunate as to have this man elected to the senate, was the swing vote in a case which denied unionized whistle blowers for the federal government legal protection. And those guys aren’t even interested. What they are interested in is assuring that they’re able to deny women bodily sovereignty. They’re not interested in caring for children already born, they’re not interested in stopping the imperialists and they’re certainly disinterested in any populists. These are not men who share our values, they’re not men who respect us and they’re certainly not men who will ever fight for or alongside us. They’re usless in a fight and untrustworthy to boot. Not fit allies or even fit opponents. Just useless, overpaid, overhyped operatives. fuck em.
Amen, Sister!
You go girl!
But under the circumstances, maybe not “fuck” ’em.
We need a rating that says, “Funny but sad” because “good” does not do the comment above justice.
IMO, the party is increasingly, by design, pro-life.
BTW, here is a link to a moiv posting at LSF from last year. It contains the letter that Dr Hern, Public Health dr, anthropologist and abortion doc, sent to Howard Dean w/r/t Ritter in CO. Dr Hern has also met with Ritter, and made that meeting public as well..
The letter, and moiv’s posting, covers the hard truths. I never did hear from moiv if Howard answered Dr Hern.
A snip
People should understand that “pro-life” is an agenda of the hard right. And for Dems to buy in is nothing short of collusion. AND agreeing to full co-option.
Fools that they are.
[great post!, I’d recommend at orangeland but being banned… and so forth]
Marisacat
When and what for? I’ve really been out of the loop then. That must explain why a lot of posters I usually look for over there seem to be MIA.
That must explain why a lot of posters I usually look for over there seem to be MIA.
DHinMI and Markos have succeeded in banning or removing the ability to rate comments from almost all the liberal folks from the very early days. Quite understandably they don’t want anyone around with knowledge of the institutional history. Irrationally they seem to believe that when they ban and disrespect others those people disappear forever.
What sad little men…
Small intellectually. In that regard, kos can barely see over his own pelvis.
Fitting that he’s also taken up the banner of the anti-woman “defend masculinity” reactionary movement…
On the ground recon troops have reported back to base that Markos is short….he is a short man, it could explain “Banty Rooster Syndrome”! Still waiting for recon to report back on DHinMI. As soon as I get a report back I’ll let you guys know. Not knocking Banties, just want to understand Banties…..hell, I own a Banty myself. He can’t saw the heals off of my shoes in the middle of a divorce because I had to relocate and adopt them all out ages ago! Some Banties get themselves a big helicopter with a big gun on the front of it to fly around in all day and some get themselves a big blog with a big banning button on it to play with all day!
An excellent illustration of why it’s important to know about a candidate and not to just vote the party line.
He isn’t getting my vote this year, as it turns out.
ummm…it’s Oklahoma. What makes anyone here think anything pro-choice would EVER be passed?
Do you think a pro-choice Dem would get elected?
Is ideological purity so important that you would prefer a Republican in office?
I simply don’t understand why the vehemence against Markos’ position on this…
Is ideological purity so important that you would prefer a Republican in office?
stop it. Please respond in these threads with something besides insults, inaccurate claims and that ‘ideological purity’ argument.
According to the SUSA polls OK is about 50-50 when the it comes to the question of Roe being overturned. I understand that centrists usually cannot fight their way out of paper bags but yes, it’s quite possible for a pro-choice Democrat to win in Oklahoma.
What’s happening to the Democratic party is that the so-called leadership has decided to end their support for abortion rights nationwide, to ‘take the issue off the table’ (as they put it or to ‘expose their overfed bellies like submissive puppies’ (as the rest of us see it). I want to see the men and women who came up with this plan fired. They don’t represent me, they don’t represent the majority of Democrats or independents and they don’t know how to fight. So fuck them. How’s that for ‘ideological purity’?
interesting. But as I said above, the GOP supports Arnold in California even though he’s pro-choice–because it’s California.
I think we make a mistake to demand tough stands on highly controversial issues in areas that aren’t exactly friendly to us.
In places like Connecticut, we need to eliminate the Joe Liebermans. In places like Nebraska, we need to be thankful for the Ben Nelsons. It’s just a question of pragmatism.
In places like Connecticut, we need to eliminate the Joe Liebermans. In places like Nebraska, we need to be thankful for the Ben Nelsons. It’s just a question of pragmatism.
I find a number of things annoying about the pragmatism v. purity’ argument. First is the arrogance of the argument which renders the ‘centrist’ an expert and jewel of reasonableness and the poor bloody voter someone who lacks knowledge of politics and a romantic. Even when presented with evidence that the area polls majority pro-choice (as in PA) or 50-50 (as in Oklahoma) nothing changes in that bloody argument and it does not change because, I suspect, it’s so damn complementary to the person making it. I don’t think the position the self described pragmatists take deserves such self adulation. I think it just means the folks making the argument are either religious conservatives themselves or gutless wonders.
I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the Democratic party to cease to represent the very people you’re reliant on to win elections and, in the case of the Democratic party, those people are not conservative catholics or fundamentalist protestants.
Kindly be pragmatic with your own rights, not mine.
You could appeal to conservative voters by running Democrats who want all erectile disfunction drugs and all pornography banned because they promote immorality.
Are the pragmatic men of the Democratic Party willing to sacrifice their erections ? The risk of flacidity seems a small sacrifice compared to the one they’d have women make.
Do you expect us to be “good sports” and hand over our bodily sovereignty as the price of electing Democrats ?
Kindly be pragmatic with your own rights, not mine.
Word.
Now do you Vichycrat Dems understand why we are not voting for you guys, ever?
You can put it on a bumper sticker.
see my response below. Enjoy your GOP government while you vote for the Greens.
please make a real argument against these women, instead of being a dismissive, insulting kossian prick.
I rated this comment and one other as a 2 because I find your language offensive and insulting, if not revealing. You offend every woman on this site who is tired and distressed at having thier rights over their own bodies used as bargaining chips by the democrats, if that’s what you want to call them. It’s also offensive to those of us men who care as much for women’s rights and human rights as much as, and even more than any other issue.
If, in order to get a candidate who said that they would end the war in Iraq, promote universal heatlhcare, sign the Kyoto protocol, and impeach Bush, I had to take someone who vowed to:
I would ABSOLUTELY do it. 100%. In a heartbeat.
ESPECIALLY since I know that other candidates in saner areas would do no such thing.
And I’d give a good piece of my mind to any man who took umbrage at that idea, too.
the problem with being pragmatic is that nobody wants a pragmatist. pragmatism may be important at times, but it’s not way to build a party. first it’s women’s rights, but what’s next? first they came for … you know how it goes.
people want somebody that will fight–that’s how the gop has won: by convincing the electorate that they will fight for them, which is impressive, becuase they don’t actually fight for the people. seems to me the easiest way to convince people that we’ll fight for them is … actually fighting for them.
and i’m not talking specifically about bob casey or ben nelson or whoever, i’m talking about the democratic party as a whole.
YOU voting that way. I would have a problem with any implication (not apparent in this particular comment) that the way YOU choose to vote is somehow the RIGHT, MORAL way to vote in contrast with other people who draw a different line between voting for someone they really support and voting for the lesser of two evils.
For these women and others, the line is keep your CHristoTalibans off their bodies — they refuse to vote for a lesser of two evils candidate who does not concur in that fundamental principle.
I would take great umbrage with any implication that this position on how to cast one’s democracy-member vote is somehow WRONG or NOT MORAL.
I would add that the insane ideologues on the other side of the aisle who believe that abortion is murder say the same thing about the GOP supporting Schwargenegger.
They say that they refuse to vote for or send money to a party that supports murderers of the unborn and those who sanction them.
Nuttery is not confined to any one political worldview.
“Nuttery is not confined to any one political worldview.”
OMG.
I give up. Some men understand and many don’t. The latter say, “What’s the big deal?” Don’t be such a nut or single-issue voter. We need a Dem majority no matter what. You don’t seem to understand that a Dem Majority that would act like Repubs is no better, if not worse, than a Repub majority. Oh, we might get a few concessions here and there so long as it doesn’t effect big business interests, so giving up our bodies for the state morality is a-ok. Have at it. When the Christian Right starts gunning for you, don’t come crying to me.
Amen sister! For the life of me I can’t figure out why the dems are so willing to throw choice overboard by being “pragmatic” or compromising or whatever their choice word of the day is. It’s about people’s rights to control their own bodies dammit!
If we can’t come up with a winning argument now about unfettered access to healthcare, autonomy in medical decision-making, and birth control when the anti-choice opposition is mainly a bunch of old jowly white guys, frustrated middle-american middle-aged women, and blue-haired old ladies, what will we do when Latino & East African constituencies (communities that tend to be socially conservative by religion) become larger majorities within the democratic party and we have to convince leaders in those communities to support choice legislation?
The fundamental issue is about rights over your own body-but the winning argument is about healthcare and access. I cant’t figure out why the dems can’t get their act together on this, rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
There are some
rad
(by which I mean spot-on smart and passionate)
grrls
(by which I mean women who don’t take shit)
here
!
!
This may be the single most outrageous statement I have seen on Booman Tribune. Your implication is that those of us who passionately, strongly and fervently support women’s rights are NUTS.
You have revealed yourself as a misogynist.
Sure, the Republicans won by playing the race card with their Southern strategy. Perhaps some Dems are willing to emulate this strategy using women as scapegoats. Time will tell if it is a winning strategy for them. I doubt it.
.
Are you kidding?!!!! What other rights are you willing to concede in unfriendly areas?
Not only are women’s bodies commodities, so are our rights; they can be bargained away for votes.
So let’s keep the glorious status quo in place, the systematic marginalization of women. Don’t enforce trafficing laws, domestic violence and rape laws, child support orders, and orders of protection. Continue turning our backs on harrassment and descrimination. Degrade the work of bearing and rearing children by excluding it from the GDP. Shore up the walls of the Pink Ghettos, and keep those wages down. Call violent pornography “speech” and make some more movies like “Pretty Woman” that show how much fun prostitution can be.
If white men were being raped, beaten, and killed at the rate women suffer, we’d declare martial law and a state of emergency, but you won’t see that in a political campaign.
While others responded much more eloquently than I, to answer you question…Yes, I would rather have a Rethug than an anti-choice Dem anyday. Anyone who wants to control my womb can go stuff it where the sun don’t shine.
If the Dems lose PA, it is there own damn fault for backing a candidate that is scarcely better than man on dog himself.
I don’t need any more pig-headed so-called dems like Lieberman or DiFi.
I doubt you really believe this–and if you do, I’m terribly sorry to hear it.
I’m terribly sorry to hear that you would sacrifice the ability to impeach Bush, get universal healthcare, end the Iraq war, sign the Kyoto treaty, and end NSA wiretapping on the altar of unfettered access to abortion.
Markos is absolutely right to abhor sentiments like this.
Oh please…I don’t even know where to begin.
Do you honestly believe that Lieberman (or Casey) will push to impeach Bush, end the war or make corporations stop polluting our world? You know as well as the rest of us that Casey is a pretty poor choice for Dems besides his pro-life position. He doesn’t even come close to representing what most Dems want, even in PA (I lived and was married in Lancaster PA). Casey will be another DINO. There is no question of that.
I’m pretty sure you are not that naive, but you are obviously male. You have never carried a baby to term. You’ve never been fired for being pregnant. You have probably never been raped by your father, uncle, date or stranger. You are not a single mom desperately struggling to raise three kids with a fourth on the way that you cannot support. You were never a scared 15 year old girl who believed him when he said he would pull out. You were never a shy teen too afraid to ask the clerk for the pack of Trojans and you never had a condom break.
To say that the life of any of these women is less important than impeaching Bush is an insult. Sure, there are many evils in the world, but supporting people who would deny women the right to control their own reproduction is just reprehensible. You may not think that slavery is akin to reproductive rights, but that can only be because you simply cannot comprehend what an unwanted pregnancy truly means. Each life is important. If we cannot even stand up for our individual rights, how can we possibly stand up against the seemingly greater evils.
Can you honestly say, that you would rather condemn millions of women to 9 mos of forced pregnancy, 1 or 2 days of sheer hell and agony, and then 18 years of 24/7 care of a minor (and/or a lifetime of self-loathing and misery over what might have been) so you could fucking impeach the chimp?!?
Ugh. There is no single greater issue than the right of women to control their bodies. We are 50% of the population and if men like you and Kos continue to preach that our rights are not as important as impeaching a president who will be out of office in 2 years, you deserve to lose. What next, you will argue that if we have to give up Kyoto to appease big business? Or how about we give up universal healthcare because we need the money that the Big Pharm companies give to political candidates? How many Dems (including Lieberman and DiFi) voted for the bankruptcy bill? At what point do you sell your soul so far down the line that you realize you sold it all?
You are of course entitled to your opinions and I have thought long and hard about this and yes, I would rather write-in Mickey Mouse than vote for an asshole like Casey and if the Dem Clubs don’t get that, then they will lose again and again.
And BTW, you call yourself pro-choice and yet you use the pro-life phrase “altar of unfettered access to abortion”. Altar? Unfettered? WTF!!!! You talk like you think that abortion is just another kind of birth control. Ugh. What an abhorrent choice of words. What part of “safe, legal and rare” did you miss? Abortion is a brutal choice, but it is a choice we must be allowed to make.
If I could rate this a 35, I would. As a Pie War refugee, I don’t even know where to start. Just, I guess, that I stand with Kamakyha: if you’ve never been through it, then STFU.
Exactly!
Oh, you knew how to begin, and how to end, too. What a wonderful comment ! Annyone who reads this, Kamakhya, and STILL doesn’t get it, doesn’t want to.
bar none
I’m terribly sorry to hear that you would sacrifice the ability to
impeach Bush,
get universal healthcare,
end the Iraq war,
sign the Kyoto treaty, and
end NSA wiretapping on the altar of unfettered access to abortion.
oh I do so decline the spoons full of scheisse.
-Democrats, one after the other have denied, high and low any thought of impeachment, further they, but for Boxer and harkin, cannot say the word “censure”
They NEVER have made any effort for universal health care. what?, you think HillaryCare FAILED? Google, read up, edumacate yourself.
HMOs, a so-called ”building block” of UHC was foisted on the American people by Congress in 1973 with the assistance, he is an architect, of Teddy Kennedy. Very much like the big assist he gave to Bush for NCLB. Count the years.
Johnson had publicly stated that he had to shame the American people to care for their old with Medi-care. Ever notice that we don’t even have Catastrophic Health care?
Educate yourself.
GMAFB:
Democrats support the war. They cannot even sign, beyond about 55 of them, Barbara lee’s effort just to get a statement to stop the permanent bases.
Kerry was tongue tied and Hillary is struggling to cut out her tongue over the damned war. So she never has to say anyting about it. It is very evident.
Kyoto? oh please.
wiretapping? Did you even notice the Hayden nomination, the votes in committee and the general silence over the issue? The Democrats are scared shitless over that one. Scared they will look weak on security….
You sound remarkably like the online party thugs.
And I do really wonder just how long you have been voting.
You appear not blinkered but blindfolded as to the issues you list as a ”done deal” with a Democratic majority.
What, you think the Dems just whistled Dixie for decades… and never had a majority?
They had massive majorities and none none none of that happened.
Any idea how we got Clarence Thomas?
Go read up. You are offensive in your ignorance and your dogmatic treatment – over and over – of women voters in this thread.
Markos is absolutely right to abhor sentiments like this.
Christ you really are an online apparatchik. Sucking up after a party tool, a courtier. Tiny hardliner.
Abysmal.
Marisacat
wonderfully put.
I’m terribly sorry to hear that you would sacrifice the ability to impeach Bush, get universal healthcare, end the Iraq war, sign the Kyoto treaty, and end NSA wiretapping on the altar of unfettered access to abortion.
Except that in REALITY there isn’t a candidate like this.
You know, we don’t have to prove to you that your insulting stereotypes are inaccurate. I know that you think you’re making some telling point and can now link to this thread as ‘evidence’ of how right you and that band of cowards are but the fact of the matter is that you’ve not made one responsive argument here that actually deals in realities. You’ve invented straw men, produced weak and tried old
arguments and insulted a very large chunk of Democratic voters.
Markos is absolutely right to abhor sentiments like this.
Who are you, the new DKos ambassador? Did redDan and Meteor Blades quit? Oh, that’s right, MB finally publicly acknowledged that reproductive rights were actually in danger. I imagine that made him rather less effective in the ‘don’t trouble your brainless little self, I’m the expert’ assigned role.
You appear to be confused about which blog you’re posting on. Markos is not just ignorant of feminism, he’s deliberately ignorant and antagonistic to boot. I trust people like you and Markos on any issue affecting women as far as I can throw the collective lot of you.
with this comment and the stink is gonna hang on you for a long time around here.
We have too many of these damned Vichy Dems who would rather than end the Iraq war expand it. I doubt the same folks and their like-minded cronies who were behind that draconian bankruptcy bill last year would get into universal healthcare. Nor with two daughters can I even begin to hold out any hope that a Democrat who is hostile to their rights will behave any differently than a Republican who is hostile to their rights. On a broader level, there’s little reason to hope that Democrats who’ve taken positions that go consistantly against our interests are going to be suddenly “different” if elected or re-elected.
I hear this argument consistently, and I admit that it is very compelling. But, I do not think it is a complete argument. In other words, it is too absolute.
I’ll give two examples that are really related to women’s rights, but apply more generally.
Zell Miller came to Washington DC and saw how hostile the Democratic caucus was to some of his values that he become unhinged and fought back with unusual fury. What this demonstrates is that politicians can change dramatically once they arrive in Washington. Usually, like with Zell, they do not change for the better. But the point remains.
Secondly, take Joe Lieberman. Joe Lieberman was not a sore spot when he was in the majority, or when we had a Democratic President. He votes with us 80 something percent of time. And as long as the GOP wasn’t crafting the bills, or as long as the President intended to veto the bad ones, then Joe didn’t have any reason to annoy us and seldom did.
If Gore had been President, I doubt we would be complaining about Lieberman and I doubt Miller would have lost his mind and quit the Senate and the party (I guess).
This is all strictly relevent to how someone like Bob Casey Jr. will act in the Senate. If he is faced with a lot of anti-women legislation, he will annoy the fuck out of us. If he is not faced with it, he will be much less annoying.
I’m not apologizing for his positions. I think everyone knows how I feel. His staffers certainly do.
What I am saying is that we have an interest in taking the Senate, and that there are benefits to taking it that must be weighed in with everything else, including the argument you have just made.
Subpoena power, control over confirmations, control of the flow of bills and votes, etc., all flow from a majority. And a majority is unlikely with a Santorum win.
That must be considered.
Very creative justification, but also wrong in one important aspect: what will Casey’s reaction be to pro-women legislation?
The answer: not damn good. In fact, given his ongoing worship of Alito, he might well pull a Miller if faced with too much of it. If the Democrats only have a one-seat majority (or a majority approximately equal to the number of misogynist Senators), this means he (or they) effectively gets to dictate terms.
In other words, for those that care about women’s rights, Casey and his ilk are a disaster no matter how you spin it.
He’s also unlikely to support any serious scrutiny of the Prez.
I’ve been saying Casey is a disaster for a long time. But, I still prefer him to Santorum. If the Senate were not up for grabs I would probably abstain from voting for Casey. I still might if it’s clear he going to win in a walk. I just am adding some more perspective hear, some shades of gray, so this doesn’t become an all or nothing flamewar.
as I noted above, people will draw the line differently when deciding whether to vote for someone they can support (or no one at all) or voting for the lesser of two evils.
BooMan draws the line one place; the other colleen another; nospoon somewhere else.
I think one thing many of us would agree on is that straight party line voting for the Democrats is not a strategy that leads straight to a better society — AS A PARTY, the democrats have given us no reasons to vote FOR them. SOmetimes (once so far) I will vote against the republican by giving my vote to a democrat, but that republican has to be pretty bad (e.g., Bush 2004).
Even if we were able to squeek out a majority, the more Liebermans, DiFi’s, and Casey’s we have, the less likely we will be able to pass any meaningful legislation.
I don’t know the voting records by heart, but I would be very surprised to see Lieberman at 80% Dem.
By backing Casey, you are sending the message to the party chiefs that it is ok to sell out women for the all important Dem majority in the House or Senate. I firmly believe that is absolutely the wrong message to send. I agree there are times to hold one’s nose and vote for the lesser of two evils, but this is not one of those times. If we lose a Senate Majority by not electing Casey, that will not be the fault of pro-choice women, the fault will land squarely on the Dem Party echelon for choosing such a horrendous candidate.
But look at the state-level situation posed here. A Democrat-majority State Senate passed anti-choice legislation that a Democratic governor then signed. And it wasn’t a couple of cross-overs in the Senate that passed the bill–it was a huge honking margin. So what good did it do to elect Democrats?
On the state level I noted a lot of Dem crossover in South Dakota too. It appears that most politicians are running as life candidates in those states regardless of party. This is not an area where I am an expert, but I find that strange given polling on the issue shows that abortion rights are at or near 50% in Oklahoma and South Dakota. Politicians, however, are not stupid when it comes to having their positions match their electorates. The only thing I can conclude is that the pols are pursuing the path of least resistance, and being anti-choice in those states is easier/less work. It must be about differential levels of passion on the issue that do not show up in generic polling.
I’m not about to tell anyone to vote for an anti-choice dem. There must be some other reason for doing so. In Casey’s case, there are other reasons. A lot of them. And there also more reasons not to vote for him than his positions on reproductive rights.
Not necessarily. Here’s a simpler explanation. The Republican party leaders run anti-woman candidates for the obvious reason – that’s their base. The Democrats run either anti-woman candidates or candidates with no stance on the issue. The “soft” pro-woman voters – those in the 50% that aren’t adamant activists – are intentionally excluded from the process by party leaders and anti-woman politicians, as there is no candidate interested in capturing their vote.
I’m willing to bet that voter turnout is typically low there?
Could be. There must be some research on this somewhere.
It’s definitely true that the electorate is more anti-choice than the population at large. It’s probably because we don’t have pulpits blaring about choice all across this country on Sundays.
It’s a very simple process:
This applies to any issue, BTW, not just choice. It’s the only explanation I’ve found for why so many Americans don’t vote despote polls continually showing that the population of the USA in general is significantly to the left of the vast majority of their politicians. You’d think this would result in an increase in voters and a realignment, but it hasn’t… Because the supposed “left” party insists on running center-right candidates and refuses to stand for anything.
Ooops.
This is a spot on anaylsis.
Democrats would win in a walk if young women voted, but why should they ?
I have a daughter in her thirties who finally voted in ’04 because she hates Bush with a white hot fury, but it was a vote against, not for.
NO ONE speaks to the things that concern her. She’s not scared stiff of terrorists or immigrants or gay people, so much of what passes for political discourse is just noise. She sees the gross inequities in the world, and our elected representatives selling out humanity for huge corporate profits. She’s disgusted that our government natters on and on about other countries developing nuclear weapons, but acts blind to the fact WE have more nukes than anybody, a position which she believes gives America exactly zero moral stature. She boils with fury over $30 million wedding dresses when 27,000 toddlers starved to death yesterday. Everywhere she looks, there are too many straight, white men in power, and nobody seems to notice it. She sees women in the workplace putting in their 40 hours for less pay with virtually no hope for advancement, while they field calls from home, juggle childcare, fend off bill collectors, and run errands during lunch so they can go home and do unpaid domestic work for another 8 hours. She has seen friends stalked and abused whose experience with the cops was worse than their initial complaint. Then there were the co-workers, regularly groped and assaulted by that backbone of American enterpise, small business owners.
Where is the politician who speaks to her ? Who addresses the problems that affect her? The ONLY political public discourse that recognises her existance is Reproductive Freedom. We should not be surprised that women are absolutist about defending the only gender issue that hasn’t disappeared from the public forum.
First of all, let me say that I’m glad I don’t live in Pennsylvania so I don’t have to decide whether or not to vote for Casey.
But Booman, don’t you think that the problem with Casey is NOT just his positions on social issues, but the way the so-called “party leaders” picked him? I know he won the primary, but it sure sounds to me like it was manufactured by the leadership. If he had truly won over the people with his message, that might be different. But to have Schumer basically pick him and tell everyone else to f!@# off, that’s a big part of my problem with the Dems as well. And a win by Casey would just bring on more of that, wouldn’t it? We then fall further into the trap of being a democracy in name only.
I could do a whole diary on this one.
Two points: on the part about clearing the field for Casey, we agree 100%. I was just saying the same thing in almost the same words to CabinGirl. It is not that Casey is a social conservative that irks me. It is that he made a condition of running the clearing of the field, and that Schumer is applying this strategy everywhere he can. I guess it saves money. But we must stop this practice. It represents a total defeat for the netroots and a total victory for big money. It must be stopped, and the netroots must argue against it rigorously and help finance alternative candidates and support them.
On the latter half, likewise, we must create the solutions to the problem. We can’t get it in our heads that we can advance by losing elections. This idea that we’ll only enccourgae more primary clearing or pro-life Dems if we elect Casey is stinking thinking. We need to find other ways than defeat to change things. We are not going to end bad behavior from Schumer by helping to elect Santorum. We will only do it by creating alternative candidates that have enough money to beat his candidates in the primaries.
That’s exactly the kind of excessively black-and-white thinking that leads to the right. Not voting for Casey is not the same as voting for Santorum. One can oppose something without condoning its opposite.
If Casey wins, you will not have enough money to beat Schumer’s candidates in primaries. He’ll have one very simple thing that can beat any amount of money you can raise: “My candidates win”. And thus, the left loses another election…
It’s not black and white. Far from it.
If we lose in Pennsylvania, it will do very little, if anything, to get Schumer to change. First of all, let’s be accurate. Schumer did not pick Casey because he is socially conservative. And pushed Hackett out for the much more progressive Sherrod Brown. In both cases, Schumer went with what he considered the strongest candidate and avoided a costly primary. That is the real problem here. And we can change that on our own by funding our own candidates.
Secondly, if Casey loses it is unlikely to be interpreted as a result of his position on choice, but on his weak campaigning skills, and therefore no conclusion will be drawn about the wisdom of fielding anti-choice dems. It’s not the right way to make that point.
wrong.
It is the ONLY way to make that point. The Vichy Bastards need to face that fucking over the base has consequences. The religious right is where it is now b/c it withheld votes. Ask Dole about how much that can hurt.
The ONLY way to force the party to change, other than upset wins by insurgent grassroots candidates (an uphill battle, see the fucking over that Cegelis got in IL), is to vote as a bloc, or NOT vote as a bloc. It’s not going to change any other way. FDR’s Democratic Party moved left because they were made to understand that labor WOULD NOT VOTE FOR THEM unless the party moved left. Period.
Cegelis should encourage her supporters to boycott Duckworth. ALL progressives who really want change should boycott Duckworth, and the same goes for Casey. DO NOT VOTE FOR CASEY if you give a damn about worker’s rights, women’s rights or GBLT rights. THEY LEFT WILL HAVE TO DO THIS EVENTUALLY, and there is NO time better than now to start.
I know that is your schtick and you’re schticking to it.
But we just don’t agree on it. There is a lot more at stake in Casey/Santorum than in Duckworth, and the same strategy is not appropriate for both.
It’s not a schtick … it’s political reality. Go back in time and show me ONE political party that shifted left or right and changed WITHOUT a unified bloc of voters acting in concert to award or withhold votes. In fact, the effect is multiplied by our fucked up two party system. The Dems moved left leading up to FDR because large blocs of progressive voters, mainly in the midwest, bolted both parties, and they were up for grabs. This movement included a large number of voters who’d voted for the Democrats in the past, but who’d left. This is history, NOT a “schtick”.
If they left wants to save this country from itself, this is the only way to do it, either through a third party or bloc voting (and non-voting) within the Democratic Party. Third Party voting will take longer, but it will happen if the Dems keep on this path. The party will split … and I think it could very well happen after this very disappointing fall. Nov. is gonna fall fall short of the promises made by the center-right hacks, and the Dems will be VERY lucky if they take one chamber of Congress. The Vichy Centrists will blame Dean and force him out. This will break the party, which in my opinion should have happened in the 70s.
Don’t take this the wrong way, Madman.
If you were being paid to posture as a left-wing blogger that would incite divisiveness and drive down turnout, or drive-up third-party voting, your rhetoric wouldn’t be any different.
The only reason I know you are not paid by Republicans is because of all the other things you write about.
I know it is frustrating as hell to watch the Democrats flail around. But there are ways to deal with it beyond not-voting, or voting for third parties. It’s really demoralizing to be told over and over and over that we can’t make any difference when we are out running for local offices, trying to devise ways to fund progressive candidates, creating a loud progressive media, working on energy policy, trying to fix medicare part D, lobbying, writing letters, and all the rest.
Throw yourself into the party and change it, rather than sit back screaming at Schumer. I left home in May 2004 and headed to Florida to register voters. I came back and started this blog. I don’t need lectures on how ineffective and pointless my efforts are. I need allies.
It’s about perspective.
Lastly, parties move left and right based on a lot more than voter apathy. Pass a civil rights bill, for example. Or put in a general Eisenhower as an example. Bush keeps it up and the Republican party will be a 30% party. They were as recently as 1964, and they could be again. If they actually overturn Roe they could get there in a hurry.
I know that some think that I’m doing JUST that, but what I advocate is informed by my (and I admit there is always more to learn) understanding of the history of political change in this country.
This sort of “middle way” thing ALWAYS leads to greater and greater losses. However, I’m convinced that the “leaders” of the party aren’t sincere in their constant claims that they are seeking the center. I think they are conservatives who feel uncomfortable with the hard-right radicals running the Republican’t party, so they’re taking over the Dems. Think of them as the old Rockefellar Republicans and the Dixicrats who don’t happen to be racists. However, having them running the “left” party while the radicals run the “right” party shifts this country VERY much to the right, and has accelerated our slide back into a feudalist banana republic. Half measures, putting someone like Casey (with all the advantages of incumbancy) into the Senate only reinforces this tendency. It is better to lose this time, then run a true progressive for Spectors seat the next time he comes up.
Quit letting fear drive you drive you into throwing away the progressive values. You’re going to be forced to make this choice eventually anyway, because taking the time to build up progressives within party apparatuses, run primaries etc WILL TAKE YEARS, and you’ll be stuck with Casey that whole time.
You’re counting on the Republicans to destruct too much. They won’t. They will run a “centrist” next time, and they will run against Bush. Just watch.
I’m really not ‘counting’ on anything. That’s why I work so hard for so little money.
Look, on one point you made, part of it is inevitable. Remember Reagan-Democrats? Losing them made the Democrats more uniformally socially progressive. Gaining them back has the opposite effect. As the GOP drops, we start getting foreign policy hawks back, intelligence officers back, all kinds of folks back because that is what happens when you become the majority party.
In a way, the country becomes less polarized as the party becomes more polarized. Bush’s plummeting polls have more to do with this than the Dems inane pandering to the social conservatives, but it is happening nonetheless, and it is a good sign, in a way.
But even as it is happening we are fighting back against another problem, and that is corporate domination of both parties. Schumer’s strategy is about money more than ideology. That’s what we need to fix. But we actually can fix that.
thanks for the jousting. By November I’m sure you’ll be utterly sick of me.
Madman, I really want you to read Chris Bowers’s latest piece.
Think about it from a number of angles. Not just your prediction that Casey will lose, but about what we can accomplish in the state despite Casey being our candidate.
This is what it is all about, and if you can see what we’re doing maybe you will have more confidence in our efforts.
I think he’s wrong. I think that polling tells you very little about what is really going on. I think it discounts how dirty the Republicans fight, I think it avoids how lousy I hear Casey is on the stump, and I think it fails to take into account the powers of incumbancy. Santorum has months to get the stink of the residency thing off of him, and MONTHS to hammer away at how Casey is no different than him. I also think the Governors race will have a big impact, and Rendell is underestimating his opponent. Oh, and what company makes your voting machines? How hard will the black vote be for Casey, and how hard will the Republican’ts try to suppress their vote? How many ministers in the many churches in PA are suckling at the faith-based gov’t teat?
Given all that, I may be wrong. I don’t live there … but I remember this kind of talk about Kerry. Despite their beliefs, more progressives and liberals than I would think might hold their nose for that fucking hack Casey, but if that does happen, and he eeks out a win, you Pennsylvanians will rue the day you made this deal with this devil, and the rest of us will be fucking stuck with it too.
BTW:
myDD lets me log in, but it won’t let me comment or rate …
Gee, I wonder why?
Sounds like you’ve been banned from MyDD. I have no idea what your history is over there. Maybe I have more tolerance for being called an idiot than they do.
As for your other points, all of those things will come into play. But, it remains true that Chris has never seen any incumbent with worse polls numbers than Rick Santorum. It will take a miracle for him to win. It would be the greatest comeback in Senatorial history.
As for Rendell, he is the best retail politician in Pennsylvania. I’d put him in the elite category just below Bill Clinton. He makes people like him. He has an infectious smile. I can’t see him ever losing an election in Pennsylvania, no matter what he runs for. But, hey, Lynn Swann is popular too. So, you never know.
Regardless, you are going to begin to sound silly if you keep predicting that Santorum is going to drub Casey. It’s wishful thinking.
As for being stuck with Casey, you’ll probably get lucky in that regard. In 2010 he will probably run for governor and then appoint his successor for the rest of his term. Chances are, he’ll pick someone more progressive to replace him, since they aren’t any prominent Democrats in the state that are not more progressive than Bob Casey.
well, I basically probably posted about 15 comments and maybe one diary. I stuck mostly to reading and rating comments.
Funny thing about some of the other Scoop sites and bannings. The blogheeling bullies can abuse, swear at and berate targeted commenters, but anybody who can argue back gets shuffled off. Kos (and apparently myDD) are frauds, NOT really interested in political dialogue but merely in manufacturing consent for the entrenched and corrupt center-right leadership of our party. They can spew misogynist crap at female posters, call activists “conspiracy theorists” and “morons” and “hippies” and “single issue voters”, but apparently anybody who really fights back is beyond the pale.
It’s sad … a couple of years ago sites like those showed real promise. More and more, the “netroots” are being turned into digital Bantustans, with the big “important” sites looking more and more like Redstate and Little Green Footballs. It is to your credit that you’ve tried so hard to avoid this.
Maybe it is because I actually know these people, but comments like yours always strike me as odd.
Lumping MyDD together with Daily Kos makes no more sense than lumping me together with Daily Kos.
First of all, MyDD is complicated. Jerome Armstrong and Chris Bowers are very different people with very different political philosphies. Armstrong is working for Warner right now. Bowers is not. Bowers is a very progressive person. He doesn’t hold the same views on things as Jerome. Markos and Jerome obviously share a lot of common values, but Markos is not on the Warner bandwagon. Things are more nuanced than they appear.
I’m not sure if you’ve been banned from MyDD. Sounds like it. But you might find you can comment the next time you go there. I’ve had people write me with weird glitches like that from time to time. But if you were it was probably because they didn’t like your tone. I don’t know. You are very fucking negative dude, Madman. It doesn’t mean you are wrong about a lot of things. But it can still wear on the nerves.
I think you and Madman both have some valid points. I also think the problems we face will require more than one tactic with the overall goal of creating a more humane and progressive government.
Working within the Democratic party is one way to go. As a veteran of Cegelis I and to a lesser extent Cegelis II, and the Dean campaign, I got to see the Democrats destroying great candidates because they were perceived as too liberal. Getting involved in local races to build a progressive farm team is, however, a great solution over time. But I agree with Madman, that withholding votes or not voting, for unprogressive Democrats, is going to be absolutely necessary. My loyalty is to my country and my values not to any particular party and I refuse to go on enabling the non-progressive Dems. Kerry was the last straw for me.
The Dems are sooo stuck in the paradigm that swing voters are their ticket to office (power). This paradigm has not worked out well. They virtually right off those who have given up voting. And sad to say, there are way more non-voters than swing voters.
Everyone has to follow their own conscience and draw their own line. Women’s rights are not negotiable to me and many other women. That should not come as a surprise to the Dems. I don’t see the party hacks screaming at Black voters because they won’t support racist politicians.
Everyone has their own limits on what kind of stench they can put up with. I’m not about to tell anyone that they are a bad person because they won’t vote for someone that holds deeply offensive positions.
When I go to the polls in November I will know that the fate of the Senate will likely be decided in Pennsylvania, in this race. We could have a 51-49 Senate (either way) or a 50-50 Senate with Dick Cheney breaking ties and the GOP in charge.
And that is going to inform my decision very, very, very heavily. And I think all thinking people should take those facts into equally strong consideration.
If the race were not so critical, I wouldn’t make this argument.
Duckworth is unlikely to be decisive for House control. Therefore, the calculus is different.
Well…
I won’t say “racist” because most politicians are too clever to act in such an outright manner. But in the mid-90s, the party seemed perfectly willing to screw us on affirmative action. They couldn’t “stand up” on that issue because of course, the “swing voters” were uncomfortable/didn’t like affirmative action. It was a fight for Clinton’s “Mend it; Don’t End it” stance.
And one of the main people who spoke of jettisoning affirmative action? Mr. “affirmative action divides us” himself, Joe Lieberman.
That’s why the party had to beg DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and fmr Labor Secy Alexis Herman to go to Black folks to make the case for Holy Joe–to talk a/b his SNCC days, etc. It left an even more bitter aftertaste given how it all ended.
I remember Rep. Rangel saying that Black voters were the “swing voters” in 1998–they just wanted folks to “go along” then, too.
And of course, do check Pelosi’s performance w/ Timmy when he raised the specter of John Conyers holding impeachment hearings. All very deliberate on his part, and Pelosi knew it–but had no idea how to bat that particular talking point down. You best believe that as we draw closer to the election, you’ll see ghost hit-pieces reminding all the good white folks that those dirty Dems will have John Conyers and Charles Rangel as cmte chairs. And we can’t have that…not the “right” type of Black person, like Dr. Rice or Claude Allen. (Gasp! Did I just say that–out loud?!)
That’s why I keep saying that we need to define what we are for and stand for something. To say that you’re going to “take something off the table” will not and does not work. We’ve been at that shit for for the better part of 15 years, and we’ve not grown stronger–only weaker.
Exactly. If Casey wins, so does Schumer. If Casey looses because people decide they have had it with the status quo, then Schumer will lose big time. You can force change and progress out of defeat, often that is the only way you ever will. The trick is to sing loud and clear why you refused to go along with Schumer’s pick.
I know that what you just said seems to make sense but I’m am very confident that you are wrong on this.
If there is a trend in the Democratic Party it is exactly the opposite of what you propose here. People are beginning to think that we can’t win the electoral college because of our position on abortion. Kerry didn’t even campaign in 23 states because of his opinion that he had no chance because of his positions on social issues. Losing one Senate race isn’t going to much of anything to change people’s minds about this.
Moreover, Schumer DID NOT PICK Casey because he is pro-life, but in spite of it. He picked him because he had name recognition, a pre-existing machine, and money. He will not learn any lesson related to picking anti-choice candidates since that wasn’t why he picked him.
There are so many misconceptions about Pennsylvania.
Can you call it an asset to be a pro-life Dem in a state where the Republican party elected Tom Ridge, a pro-choice governor, and Arlen Specter, a pro-choice Senator. It’s a pro-choice state, and even the Republicans are cool with pro-choice nominees. The issue is the clearing of the field, which also happened in Ohio, but in the case in favor of MORE progressive candidate. Schumer isn’t being anti-choice, he’s being non-ideological. He doesn’t want primiries. We do.
OK, then sing loud and clear that you won’t support Casey because he was given a clear field at the cost of a potentially better candidate.
Thank you for the time and consideration in making your clear and reasoned arguement for backing Casey. I simply cannot agree with you.
A Senate majority will mean nothing if we back candidates that oppose human rights and worker rights. We will once again have a majority with a D after their names, but what we won’t have is a majority that consistently votes in favor of the people over business.
But, thanks again for a good discussion. I don’t think we will ever really see to eye to eye on this, but it is good to debate it every so often.
Yeah, I think the first rule of dog training and child rearing applies to Schumer: “Don’t reward behavior you don’t want.”
This idea that we’ll only enccourgae more primary clearing or pro-life Dems if we elect Casey is stinking thinking.
It may be ‘stinking thinking’ but it’s also true.
If Casey gets elected it will indeed encourage this particular strategy. Y’all may not like it that this is true but the fact of the matter is that the stench emanates from the strategy, not those of us who object to the strategy.
I’ve been saying this elsewhere in this thread but I’ll say it again here.
If we really want to fix the problem that Casey represents, we can do it in more productive ways than seeing to it that he loses. Teaching Schumer a lesson is not much of a stratagy in this case. He’s unlikely to learn any lesson anyway, and it will do nothing to empower progressives to resist future efforts on Schumer’s part to dictate our candidates to us.
A lot of people really liked Paul Hackett even though Sherrod Brown is one of the most progressive representatives in the House. But Schumer took that choice away from them. That’s every bit as rotten as what happended in Pennsylvania. And Casey losing will do nothing to stop it.
the strategy being employed here is not to push a pro-life Dem. If it were, your point would be on solid footing.
See, I don’t believe that and I don’t believe it because they tried the same thing in Rhode Island at precisely the same time. Likewise I’ve had many conversations with these ‘strategists’ and they’re quite overt in their embrace of his ‘winning’ anti-choice stance. The reasoning is that it takes ‘social issues off the table’. I agree about Schumer’s lame strategy but I’m talking about the DK pro-Casey operatives here….
If we really want to fix the problem that Casey represents, we can do it in more productive ways than seeing to it that he loses.
I personally cannot see any productive outcome in this race. From my perspective the people I’m concerned with have already lost. If you’ve a productive solution to discouraging this sort of lame and deliberately disrespectful ‘strategy’ in the future I would like to hear it.
I agree that we’ve already lost. I’m beyond disgusted with the whole thing. You have no idea how much time I’ve spent arguing the exact cases being made in this thread about why Casey sucks.
But, just because we’ve lost on the battlefield of the nominee doesn’t mean that we can’t win the Senate back, which would be a great victory. And we have to keep that in mind.
We have 44 Senators. Jeffords is retiring and will be replaced by Socialist Bernie Sanders. Sanders votes with us, as Jeffords did, so we have 45.
Now, where are we going to get 6 new Senators?
Some possibilities:
Montana: Morrison or Tester could beat Conrad Burns
Rhode Island: Whitehouse could beat Chafee
Missouri: McCaskill could beat Talent
Ohio: Sherrod Brown could beat DeWine
Nevada: Jack Carter could beat Ensign
There’s not much else out there. Maybe in a perfect storm we could win in Arizona and Virginia.
We really need this seat in Pennsylvania. It’s the most vulnerable of all of them. Without it, Dick Cheney could be casting the tie-breaking votes again.
I’m sorry, but this is hopelessly naive. Your description of the “stragegy” <cough> is a distinction without a difference, and Schumer’s and Emmanuel’s continual recruitment of forced-birth candidates, or wishy-washy-won’t-say candidates, makes it very much ABOUT pushing forced birth policies. Schumer is a fucking idiot or he’s lying. If he was a manager for a fighter, he’d insist on skipping prelim bouts in order to put his fighter into the right immediately for a title bout. I actually don’t think he’s an idiot, I think he’s moving the party right deliberately, because he’s a Rockefellar Republican in Vichy Dem clothing.
Anybody who lives in PA who gives a fuck about civil rights and workers rights should NOT vote for Casey.
PERIOD. Anybody who does is voting for the Republicans. (Oh, and don’t whine that this isn’t a fair charge to make … it merely turns back the same charge leveled at us “single issue” voters when we insist on candidates who actually are liberals).
What we also must consider is that past behavior and attitudes tend to predict future behavior. When the behavior of a particular candidate or his/her expressed attitudes tend to be questionable I have to be skeptical about how that person will do – even under the most favorable conditions imaginable.
With regard strictly to Oklahoma politics, I’m pretty much in a “throw the bums out” mood generally – the governor’s milquetoast, the legislature can find plenty of time to pass all sorts of trivial legislation, but can’t be bothered to find time to do the one thing it’s supposed to do – pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Although now an Okie, I’m a Missourian at heart – I’ll keep an open mind, but if you’re wanting my vote or wanting me to contribute or volunteer, you’d better damned well “show me” that you’re worth my bother.
This is slightly OT, but regarding Zig Zag Zell:
What this demonstrates is that politicians can change dramatically once they arrive in Washington. Usually, like with Zell, they do not change for the better. But the point remains.
Zell didn’t “change” as much as he reverted back to previous tendencies. Do remember that he was CoS to Lestor “ax handle” Maddox. He seemed to “change” with the times: One example–his scholarship program in GA was the predecessor of the touted HOPE scholarship program that Clinton ran with nationally.
But again–he’s reverted back to type. I truly believe we have a segregationist government w/o the de jure segregation: arrogant; believing it answers to no one but itself; willing to use the most sophisticated technology to enforce the most backward social arrangements; manipulation of intellectual tools to maintain that order (many southern universities lived only to give intellectual gloss to segregation but these days, they are much more sophisticated, w/ hackery outfits like Heritage, Manhattan Institute and other far-right outfits that groom students to do their dirty work); and ultimately concerned only about their economic betters, but will use any bogeyman or bogeywoman (choice, gay marriage, etc.) to cloak it.
Again, my apologies for chiming in so late, but I really want you to know something.
I used to believe the same thing–that we had to “be pragratic.” As strongly pro-choice as I have always been, I used to believe the same damned thing. It shames me to say so. But I thought I was doing the right thing. More Democrats–that’s a good, honorable goal, because there are more pro-choice Dems than not.
Here’s the thing though…if the shit didn’t work in 1996 or 1998 or 2000 or 2002, why do you really think it will work now? We tried to take the damned Iraq invasion off the table in 2002, and you see where it got us.
We can’t keep ceding each and every issue at each and every election. It does not work! If we are weak and speak w/ the authority of a babbling drunkard, we will continue to get our asses kicked. Period. We have to stand for something.
And Ben Nelson–have you glanced at this guy’s record? Choice isn’t even the half of it! It’s because of the active participation of politicians like him that we’re enjoying our GOP government.
. . . it’s “ideological purity”? It’s too much to ask a Democrat to stand against the erosion of those rights?
Geez, what if there’s a poll in Oklahoma that suggests that a majority of voters there would like to see slavery reinstated? Should we just take it for granted that Oklahoma Democrats will get busy trying to repeal the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments in order to make themselves “electable”?
At the state level, you don’t even have the argument that “we have to elect Democrats to Congress so that the leadership positions will be filled by Democrats.” And if Roe v. Wade goes by the wayside, the states become the battleground for preservation of abortion rights. So you bet I’d vote for a pro-choice Republican for governor over an anti-choice Democrat.
though I am pro-choice, overturning Roe v. Wade isn’t even close to re-instituting slavery. Not even close.
It is a difficult, morally complex question, and failure to recognize that is myopia, imho.
Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right. Martin Luther King, Jr.
How pragmatic was it of MLK to stand for civil rights in the south? And didn’t the Democrats know that supporting civil rights might mean loosing the south? But where would we be today if they had decided to be pragmatic?
Spoon, in none of your responses do I get the feeling you are actually listening to the people who are most affected by this issue–the women. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe you have, or at least you think you have. If so, it doesn’t come across. Pardon my presumption, but before you say another word about how “myopic” women are, I prescribe that you go volunteer at a Planned Parenthood clinic for a day or a week or a month and get to know what it’s like on the frontlines of contraceptive, abortion, and pregnancy care. You’ll discover danger, bravery, anguish, real life, and as you stand inside the clinic, wondering if you might be bombed or shot today, you just might feel a kinship with civil rights protestors that will change your mind about the importance of standing up for your sisters.
No, you are not pro-choice if you’re willing to jettison abortion rights in the name of “pragmatism.” And it’s not about whether abortion and slavery are equivalent–it’s about whether you’re willing to take a stand and say something is wrong, regardless of whether it polls well.
You’re happy to toss women’s civil rights out the window without a backward glance, but you have a lengthy rant on the front page about how Americans have a right to be pissed off about having to wait in line. Pitiful.
This is the most misguided comment I’ve seen here in a long time. And I’m being kind.
You would do well to examine your own myopia regarding questions that are best answered by the people who ultimately have to live with their own decisions, rather than living with what a pro-life government would force upon them. I have a 13 year old that was a surprise when I was collge, and thankfully, I had a choice about what to do, and I’ve never had to feel anything but glad that he is here. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to have to spend my life with a child I resented for changing it.
I also heartily recommend that you read this NYT Magazine article on what happens to women when abortion is criminalized, and think to yourself about what that would mean if it were your sister, cousin, mother, daughter, girlfriend.
I sincerely hope that you are ableto open your mind to the rights and concerns of others, rather than dismissing them.
You wouldn’t have a problem with standing up for real rights, rights that are clearly, well, RIGHT.
It’s just women’s rights that aren’t worth the cost to you. Because, after all, who can be sure that society can really trust women to make valid (let alone MORAL) decisions regarding their own health, life, freedom? Since you see room for doubt there — all those difficult moral complexities — then you’re okay with leaving room for restrictive laws that will clear things right the fuck up for us untrustworthy women.
It is a difficult, morally complex question, and failure to recognize that is myopia, imho.
snort.
Like you do. The problem with men like you and Markos is that I’ve never, not once, seen either of you address the ‘moral complexities’ in an intelligent way. Never, not once have either of you acknowledged the ‘moral’ and pragmatic complexities or presented pragmatic solutions.
Not even close ?
What do you call being reduced to forced breeding stock ?
Perhaps you can explain it to my co-worker (earning less than a man doing the same job), who was hanging on in an abusive marriage (because we don’t enforce domestic violence laws) until her son was five and could go to school (since we don’t fund universal child care)so she could support them by herself (because we don’t automatically deduct child support and pay it to the custodial parent).
Her husband locked her up and raped her for a week, telling her she was never going to leave him because he was going to keep her pregnant until she died. (The DA wasn’t interested in prosecuting; cases like hers seldom go to trial. The husband can always say she likes rough sex.)
Last I heard, she’d gone into hiding. Or he killed her.
Our social structure has not evolved to permit female independence. Everywhere we turn our choices are narrowed or cut off, until many of us have no option but to make ourselves sufficiently agreeable to some man in order to survive. (I am not talking about the give and take of egalitarian, loving relationships, but the degrading domestication of woman-as-servant, woman-as-whore.) Some of us suspect that the men who “just don’t get it” know in their hearts that the subjugation women has warmed their beds and changed their sheets. If we fight our way to real equality, men who take those “services” for granted may find that no woman will give them the time of day.
omg … I hope she got out.
I’m so ashamed of this country …
Yes, this is just what I meant. I have known women in this position. Hell, I was in a position like this myself, though not as extreme. It was hell, it was frightening, and I loved my man.
I have a 12-yr old daughter. Every day we walk the line of what is moral and decent behavior and what is not, and I’m not just referring to sexual relations. While she likes to hang with boys more, why they push her away. We struggle every day with what is feminine and masculine and every day I try to give her the tools to recognize insincere creeps from good kids. If she can walk this landmine and not get pregnant, i will be happy, but there is always a good chance that despite my teachings, she will do what I did and fall in love with a loser.
I have experienced what it is like to be the second class and I will never give up fighting for our rights. I have been paid less, watched men get promotions, been told that I cannot succeed as a woman and I will be damned if I won’t fight for a better life for my daughter, as my mother fought for me.
I’m sorry, but if you vote for a white misogynist like Casey, you are telling me that I and my daughter are not worth standing up against the Christian Right and their goal to control our wombs. You can justify it any way you like, but ultimately you are saying that we don’t matter. I’ve been through that and I will never accept it again. I am done being a victim of men’s fantasies.
…Yvette Cade.
I’d say that there is no better place than the BooTrib community to get an education about the vehemenence of the opposition of Markos’s position on this. For one reason, this community is made up of a lot of women that left dKos, many to never return, over exactly the issue of women’s rights. And they are quite eloquent on the topic.
I have learned an enormous amount from them over the last year. And I am very grateful for it.
They might not change your position on pragmatism, but you will definitely learn a lot about what women face in this country that you may not have known, or that you may have known, but didn’t see in the right context.
There is a huge pool of knowledge here about these issues.
>>but you will definitely learn a lot about what women face in this country that you may not have known, or that you may have known, but didn’t see in the right context. <<
There is a third reason why many men “don’t get it” Boo. I call chosen ignorance. It seems to have it’s root’s in the often unconscious arrogance of those born with the innate priviledges granted to those who own a penis
Sometimes, what one thinks they know is so comfortable and advantageous there is a basic reluctance to learn anything new that might disturb it. With these kinds of people, you can parade any amount of new info in front of them, and with eyes and mind tightly shut, they say “I don’t see that, so thus, it doesn’t exist.”
It’s been wonderful to meet here, and a few other places, men who really DO want to know, and to understand as best they can, how it is to be a women in this kind of sexist culture. Now THAT is an intelelligent approach, for anyone who wishes to see the genders unite and pool resources, to fight a common political battle that could mean saving Americans ASS.
“Democratic” men who choose NOT to do this,and to tell half the population to “go lay bu your dish and be quiet”..might as well call themselves Republicans and get over with.
<snark>We’re all a bunch of backwards hicks out here in Oklahoma, eh?</snark>
Some important male bloggers get it in a big way. Here’s Atrios, bless him, just this morning:
Donate
I think it’s fair to say that the single most important thing on the ballot this November is the ballot measure to overturn South Dakota’s abortion law. I’m violating the sacred wall between editorial and advertising here, but I’d highly recommend considering throwing a few bucks to these people.
Obviously winning this one matters on its own terms, but it also matters in trying to reshape the entrenched media narrative that being anti-choice is the popular position. If we can kill this one in South Dakota…
They got the signatures to get it on the ballot. Now they have to round up the votes.
-Atrios 9:54 AM
LINK:
“The single most important thing on the ballot this November.”
Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
I don’t oppose parental consent laws. This is one of those very reasonable areas. Please don’t flame me with all that incest stuff, which is not relevant, because it’s very rare.
Parents should know. One simple reason: if there is a complication, they pay for the insurance, and must know what’s going on.
This is not a good place to make a stand on abortion. This is one where 70-80 % of the populace go with parental consent.
Child Victims
An average of 5.5 children per 10,000 enrolled in day care are sexually abused, an average of 8.9 children out of every 10,000 are abused in the home
Source: Finkelhor & Williams, 1988.
In the adult retrosptective study, victimization was reported by 27 percent of the women and 16 percent of the men. The median age for the occurrence of reported abuse was 9.9 for boys and 9.6 for girls. Victimization occurred before age eight for 22 percent of boys and for 23 percent of girls. Most of the abuse of both boys and girls was by offenders 10 or more years older than their victims. Girls were more likely than boys to disclose the abuse. Forty-two percent of the women and thirty-three percent of the men reported never having disclosed the experience to anyone.
Source: Finkelhor et al., 1990.
In the mid 90’s the sexual abuse numbers dipped a bit lower and then in 2000 came a resurgence with a vengeance.
Have you ever held the hand of a fifteen year old girl pregnant by her father? I did once and it was the horror of all horrors!
Wow! What world of denial do you live in dataguy? One in 4 and most likely one in 3 girls in the USA are sexually abused. Half of them are incest. RARE? RARE?
wow! Or perhaps you don’t think brother, uncle, and cousin count as incest. I think you need a reality check. Some of you male types just absolutely astound me.
Speaking as an astounding male type ;o)
While I disagree with dataguy’s conclusion, as a father I can understand his desire to know what is going on with his daughter(s). If one of my daughters were to become pregnant, and were allowed to get an abortion without at least letting me know, I would be upset. And yet, I understand the need for them (pregnant children) to have autonomy from parents who may be predators. I absolutely understand it. It still makes me very uncomfortable.
Parents are obviously uncomfortable about the sexuality of their children.
I had a conversation last night with a gay man and a lesbian about how their parents dealt with them coming out of the closet. It came up because the lesbian has a date tomorrow night with a woman from Texas whose parents have not talked to her in the year and a half since she came out.
The gay man’s mother died before he came out, and his father is pretty cool about it, but he really has trouble understanding.
And the non-Texan lesbian’s mother is understanding, but her father is not and thinks she has made a terrible ‘choice’.
This relates to how parents respond to their children’s sexuality, and it is not so different from a young girl having to come out and admit she is pregnant. It may mean that she will be beaten, or she may be disowned, or she may become permanently estranged from one or both parents.
All of this is true, even if the father of the girl is not the father of the girl’s baby.
A good father wants to know and help his daughter when she has a health concern. But a good father will probably be told and included in the decision voluntarily.
Your last sentance says it all Booman.
Speaking of parents being uncomfortable with their childrens sexuality…my oldest daughter, who is 16, came home this week and revealed that she had had sex for the first time. Now while I wasn’t surprised or upset that it happened, or even surprised that she told us because we have always been very open with them about what they would be facing as they grew older, I was nonetheles really feeling wierd. As open as we are, there are things that I just can’t discuss with my daughters. And with that realization comes a sense of distance, and even a feeling of not being completely able to understand how she feels, because I want to understand so much. Am I making any sense? Maybe the fact that she came home and told me is reason for me to hope that if she does become pregnant, she will still come home first.
My wake up was a condom wrapper in the pocket of her jeans. It fell out in the dryer and there was NO condom in the wrapper. I went into her room with it in my hand and asked her if there was something she needed to tell me. She said, “Well, Yeah….blah blah blah.” I like her boyfriend…..hell, I cherish the damn boy (my husband says too much and I’m going to force her to hate him because I like him so damn much). He is a good decent responsible person and well on his way to being a wonderful man! I put it all out there real clear and included that I expected them to be exclusively sleeping with each other because of HPV (which is fricken rampant in the teens right now) and I am determined that my daughter will receive the benefit of the damned vaccine. Call it my personal goal if you will! When I asked her boyfriend if he just wanted money for graduation like everybody else he said Yeah, that and box of condoms…..then he cracks up laughing at me. We talk about it though, all of us! Well, my husband sort of hides someplace weird in the room and eavesdrops right now.
I’m impressed that she told you. I’d say that is a very good sign as far as the prospects for you to be informed of a pregnancy. I don’t know of anything that would be a better indicator of that, actually.
I think the kind of relationship that allows your children to come to you with their problems (like unintended pregnancy) is something you build over a lifetime, not something we should be legislating.
I have a friendship with my daughter. One that has really grown back over the last six months. Wow, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree and my daughter is an individual. Struggling to define herself with me around wasn’t very easy there for awhile. There is a core trust though and a core love that has always been. She knows that! I have no interest in ever condemning her, she is my child and one of my true loves! On the other hand I know a girl two years older than myself who had a father very involved in the church. She became pregnant at 16 and he beat her without mercy one night and later confessed only to her and his wife that he wanted her to miscarry the child that night so that he wouldn’t have to bear the shame. Her baby was given up for adoption, she has told me she will never forgive her father ever and tries not to but she hates him. She was missing half of her hair after that beating. He made a stick on his lathe in the garage specifically to beat her with that day and broke it on her. I was in Wyoming when it happened. I had no idea and the beating and the baby and what happened to that child was hidden from the rest of the family for years. She is my first cousin. Some parents aren’t safe and they aren’t any safer today than they were 25 years ago!
I’m willing to bet that you’re the kind of parent whose child would tell you if she were pregnant, because she’d know that when she needs help, she can rely on you. And she’d know that you would love her and support her no matter what.
But imagine a pregnant 16-year-old who knows that if she tells her parents, they’ll force her to have the child (while berating her every day until she gives birth), or they’ll toss her out onto the street, or they’ll beat the crap out of her. Or worse. Then imagine that this child has no option to get a safe, legal abortion in secret.
Maybe she’ll go ahead and tell her parents. Or maybe she’ll take the option that all women who lack the means to travel outside the country may be forced to take before long–back alleys and coat hangers. Or maybe she’ll choose a more direct form of suicide.
I do understand how it’s an uncomfortable issue for parents to think that their daughters might be able to obtain a legal abortion without the parents’ knowledge. But given the alternative–that the only abortion that can be had without the parents’ knowledge is one that’s illegally performed and certain to be dangerous–I think it’s better to keep the option of secrecy available.
and memorable conversations I ever had with my father was when I was 12 years old. My best friend and I were in his car, and she for some reason brought up the fact that her parents had told her if she ever got pregnant before marriage to not bother coming home. She said they would give her her clothes in a paper bag through the window, and she would be on her own.
I’m not sure it occurred to either of us that my father, driving the car, was even listening. I just know that I was quite stunned when he responded that it didn’t make sense to him for parents to abandon their child just when she needed them the most.
I was my father’s youngest, and he had already seen five kids through the storms of adolescence — not always peacefully. He was a minister with a reputation for straight-laced moral behavior. He and I NEVER discussed sex, even though my mother was dead and he was raising us alone.
I’m sure my friend was shocked at his indirect “approval” of teenaged immorality. His statement really made an impact on me about what love means and what good parents do in times of crisis.
What you are asking for is notification, not consent. You want to know what is going on with your daughters. The OP of this thread is defending parents’ right to DENY their daughters access to a legal abortion. Is there any other way to define patriarchy — the father’s right to control the bodies of the women in his household?
I also would suggest that while good parents shudder at the thought of being so cut off from their child that the child might have sex, get pregnant, and obtain an abortion without their knowledge … what these good parents are really wanting is a close and nurturing relationship with their child. How close and nurturing would you feel if your daughter brought you a piece of paper and said, “The law says you have to sign this, otherwise I wouldn’t have told you?” What the law requires cannot therefore be given freely, if you see what I mean.
The other thought that occurs to me is that teenagers often have notoriously poor judgment. They fear their parents’ anger or disappointment far more than they fear the truly scary real-world consequences of their actions. And I’m talking about kids in healthy loving families. My 16yo has gone on record as saying he would rather ride in a car driven by a drunk friend than call me up at 2 a.m. and tell me that he needs a ride home from a party. I don’t beat him. I don’t do much besides scold and lecture, and sometimes threaten to ground him. But he would rather trust his life to a drunk driver than face my reaction. Lousy, lousy judgment.
If I had a daughter with the same tendencies, I can easily see how she might seek a back-alley abortion if it meant I didn’t have to know. Laws don’t take any of this into account — they treat complicated family dynamics and irrational teenaged impulses as if everybody thinks like a lawyer. And so laws like this kill young girls needlessly, and their supporters call themselves pro-life.
Following your logic, prenatal care and a hospital birth is going to set that same parent back even further. Abortions — if legal and if done early — are safer by far than childbirth, posing much less risk to the woman’s health and consequently less financial risk to her parents.
I suspect that any parent who would deny consent for an abortion on the grounds that it might end up costing them a lot of money isn’t thinking straight, as the logical result of that abortion not happening is going to cost them a great deal more. Assuming we’re only talking about money, of course — which, trust me, the supporters of parental consent laws are NOT doing. Money/insurance memes are a smokescreen for the currently-winning strategy of chipping away at Roe v. Wade until nobody qualifies for the abortions that are theoretically still legal.
I also think you should know that one of the earliest and most devoted opponents of parental notification laws (not EVEN consent laws) was the mother of a teenager who died from complications of an illegal abortion. The mother had no idea that her state had a notification law, had no idea that this law prevented her daughter from obtaining a safe abortion. When told that her daughter was dying of sepsis, I really doubt the first thought to pass through this mother’s head was, “Wow, this is going to cost me a lot of money.”