I hope you’ll forgive me if this post is just a hair more than a touch disjunct. All day I’ve felt as though my brain has been floating in a lukewarm vat of Vaseline sprinkled with crushed Valium. I’ve basked in the soft yellow glow of my own mediocrity for decades now, so it really wouldn’t be fair of you to expect any better from me when I have a head full of petroleum jelly. Anyway, here are a few thoughts that have been floating around in my thick haze:
Do we really intend to sacrifice every woman’s civil liberties at the altar of unfettered government oversight of every woman’s uterus? I’m just wondering, because I’ve been getting the feeling lately that we do. I’m sure I’m not being pragmatic here, but I’d really prefer to distance myself from the ‘we’ who have any such intention. I tend to think that any sort of pragmatism that involves tossing the rights of over 50% of the population under the bus, is the farthest thing from pragmatic. That’s the sort of pragmatism that leads to driving drunk because the other guy is even more wasted. Call me a single issue guy if you like, but should you choose to pin a single issue on me, please do pin it on the one where I say that depriving anybody of their rights, or advocating for the same, is indefensible.
I understand that many feel that abortion is an issue and a procedure which is difficult, uncomfortable, icky, yucky, unfortunate, unpleasant, inconvenient, awful, shitty or really just about any other negative adjective you might care to use. I get it, and just as soon as the right of every woman to do exactly what she chooses with her uterus, or any other part of her body, without any government oversight is completely secure and no longer under attack, I’ll buy everybody a drink at my corner bar. We can cry each other a few rivers and maybe even have a group hug and sing along. I don’t mean to trivialize your angst, but then again maybe I do. If Human rights and civil rights don’t come first, what the hell is the point? Why even bother?
Just as a point of reference, this post was prompted by some of what I read in the comments attached to GreenSooner’s recent post on what’s happening in Oklahoma, as well as the cross posted edition of the same on Kos. For further reference, have a look at what happens on just about any post which deals with either Pennsylvania or Bob Casey. I realize it’s bad etiquette to post about the contents of the comment sections of blogs, but I was stunned by some of what I read. I’m concerned that we have found ourselves in a place where being a pro-choice Democrat is viewed as inconvenient or distasteful. I won’t pretend to know a thing about electoral strategy, but advocating for a position shared by a majority of the country, which also happens to be right, seems just about as convenient as you can get. Pragmatic, even.
I must say I was also stunned by many of the wonderful comments I read as well. I have nothing on about 95% of the people who participate regularly on this site in terms of their knowledge, and their ability to make powerful arguments with that knowledge. I’m often humbled by what I read.
paraphrasing the famous poem by Pastor Martin Niemøller:
First they said,
“Let’s ignore a woman’s right to choose”,
and I did not speak out
because we needed the pro-life vote.
Then they said,
“Let’s put a hold on gay rights”
and I did not speak out
because we needed the conservative Christian vote.
Then they said,
“Let’s not be too strict with environmental laws”
and I did not speak out
because we needed the corporations’ support.
Then they came for my rights,
and there were none left to speak for me…
When folks talk about “single-issue politics”, which issues are sancrosanct and which can be jettisoned?
I forget who it was, but it’s been wisely said that “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
I’m afraid this is going to scroll away fast, so I want to get a word in here before it does,and the word is–thanks. There are many good sentences in your post, including: I’m concerned that we have found ourselves in a place where being a pro-choice Democrat is viewed as inconvenient or distasteful. Even on Vasoline, your brain works just fine.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Pro-choicers are not single-issue voters. We see that the many anti-choicers want to do away with contraception. We see that many anti-choicers want gay marriage bans. We see that many anti-choicers are the same people who want school prayer. We see that many anti-choicers think that “intelligent design” is a science. We see that many anti-choicers want to go back to the days of Ozzie and Harriet, days that were, in reality, fictional. We see that many anti-choicers long for the days when everyone just knew their place, five steps behind white males.
Abortion is the frontline for many of these fights. If the anti-choicers are dealt losing blows here, we can beat them anywhere.
Seems so, doesn’t it. And thank you for recognizing the nature and opinions of the majority of people, women and men, who participate here. Like you, I’m often stunned by what I read here. Since I first logged on here almost a year ago, I’ve found the best thing for me to do is keep my mouth shut and read. Read and learn. And when I do say something I try to be respectful of everyone’s positions. Attacking those you don’t agree with, with republican talking points, will get you a quick and overwhelming education in what really matters, and what’s really at stake. We all want to see Bush impeached. We all need health insurance. We all want this war to end. But we cannot sacrifice women’s rights as a way to get there. That’s not negotiable…period.
I have been so disturbed ever since reading that thread. All I could add to the discussion there was a line of snark because if I had expressed my reactions I would have violated the “Don’t be a prick” rule. You have said everything I wanted to say… so nicely. Thank you.
I thought you were spot on with your comment.
The Oklahoma law will make physicians “lecture” women about abortions and fetal pain. That’s almost straight out of “The Department of Homeland Decency: Decency Rules and Regulations Manual.” In that hilarious satire, the physician must “do everything he can to make sure she has lots of kids and obeys her husband.” Also, “Does he note in the medical records which women visited an abortion warehouse? Whether anyone went to jail?” Women are property and they must be made to have kids and to stay home with them. The Department of Homeland Decency will ensure that. Read more at http://www.homelanddecency.com
Thank you, Chris!
And then we can concentrate on many of the issues that lead women to choose abortion: lack of healthcare, lack of childcare, absent fathers, rape, incest, lack of easy, affordable access to contraception, discriminatory adoption laws, abstinence only sex “education,” etc., etc.
Again, thank you!
but advocating for a position shared by a majority of the country, which also happens to be right, seems just about as convenient as you can get. Pragmatic, even.
—-
It is good politics in the longer run to state and then stick with an important principle. In the Bob Casey situation, my argument has always been that many women are just not paying that close attention to what is happening. However, when “Roe” goes down and more than half the electorate wake up to their second class citizenship status, I do not want their anger and blame seeking to be clouded by Dems that are also responsible for their second class status. I want them to say, oh those conservative repubs want to control MY body ha! Well the hell with that; I am voting them all out according to the super clear and defined progressive agenda.
This cannot happen with Harry reid and Bob Casey also being responsible for the demise of Roe and women’s control over their bodies!
Good story and my complements!
holy shit am I glad I missed those threads. I don’t think I would have been all that civil. No in fact I think I would have unleashed a whole bunch of vitriol in them.
Funny thing is, I skipped ’em because I knew the answer already… here IS what happens when you are willing to deny your fellow humans their human rights.
Chris, thanks for this piece, it means a lot.
As for all my peeps who kept thier cool and kept fighting the good fight against ignorant odds… good on ya & thanks.
Is there any chance of putting this post back up at the top? I think there are many people who would like to read it and comment, and who may not see it otherwise.
You mean to tell me that everybody isn’t sitting around in front of their computers at 2:30 in the morning on the off chance I might write something? I may need to rethink my posting strategy.
Lol. And now you know when my insomnia hit me, too.
when the great debate war was going on at KOS before the PA Dem primary?
I was fighting against Casey and not particularly for anyone else because of what is being said here and was was said in the “Greensooner’s” diary. I had to wage war against all these DINO like posters who seemed to be trolls or at least were hell bent on painting women’s rights issues as secondary to winning against Sanotrum at all cost. They could not see the passive agressive, longer term benefit of supporting women’s freedoms, not to mention it is just the correct thing to do. Again, where were all these pro-women, anti-Casey folks back then???? Is it too late now, and what can/should we do?
To answer your question literally–Several of them can’t comment there because they’ve been banned. Others of us don’t go there much, if at all, because we left a long time ago, having been made to feel unwelcome by just the kind of attitude you were fighting against. Just because these women weren’t there, however, doesn’t mean they weren’t elsewhere, in places where they felt they might actually do some good. If you felt you were waging a lonely battle, it’s because a lot of people who would otherwise have supported you have been run off.
Thank you for this reply.
I am sad if such censorship has now gripped KOS because that is the first step to group think cheerleading which inevitably makes a site irrelevant. I saw this happen on other sites before the 2004 election, especially the “Kicking Ass” site over at the Dem party website.
The really sad, short term observation that I have made is that if the repubs want to go pro-life, and the centrist Dems will accept pro-life restrictions on women’s freedoms, and NOW even a SUPPOSED progressive Mecca like KOS is willing to accept pro-life restrictions on women’s freedoms, well I guess such restriction will happen. The longer term better news is that we might actually get to see if the passive-aggressive anti-social conservative response by the majority of women does materialize!
If (or really when) it does, it will then be a bloodbath by the spintered repub and splintered Dem party to try and regroup for political benefit. Compare that to how far ahead the Dem party would be then if the women’s rights/fredoms issue had been inviolate all alone, and the likes of Reid and Casey were either not in our party or forced to change their positions for our support!
that is the first step to group think cheerleading which inevitably makes a site irrelevant.
DK jumped that particular shark when Markos made DHinMI a FP poster.
calling that odious little man a “poster” is being too kind. He is the digital equivalent of a ward heeler, one of the ones who would threaten, beat or harrass ANYBODY who doesn’t fall into line w/ the official line. He belongs on Little Green Footballs, NOT on any site that claims to be “progressive”.
DK? Who’s that?
;<)
DK=Daily Kos
(For the English teachers out there, this is my “warm greetings” spelling.)
Oh yeah–I definitely know that. “Who’s DK?” is my official stance here because I’d rather not waste my time on little boys–and to not run afoul of the “don’t be a prick” rule.
🙂
Kansas’ response is absolutely correct on all counts. I for one would rather do something pro-women in real life than get called names online at the big orange by people who are just too arrogant and full of themselves to hear what anyone else is saying anyway.
Where were all these anit-Casey folks when the great debate war was going on at KOS before the PA Dem primary?
Ah, let me answer this. The short answer is that Markos and DHinMI and his stable of self described hyenas have managed to ban or alienate most of the women and men participating in that thread. These are women who Plutonium Page refers to as “the Ann Coulters of the left” writing on “boob-man” when she’s not embarassing everyone with the PP/Frank show or talking Polar bears.
I ws in a lot of those threads. The Casey V Pennachio threads. Til August 25 (I was banned on the 27th).
One reason I bothered is that
The Casey run is being done, at great cost, to change the face of the Democratic Party (10K from Hillpac about 3 months ago, loves her some conservative DINO, like salazar, her money was in early and in again late). And Dkos was/is the paid servant imo of that effort.
You bet I was there.
Marisacat
count me among the banned.
Many of us left after the pie wars when it became obvious that too many young men on that site were abysmally ignorant of women’s fight for equality, and were happy to stay that way. Like hundreds of other feminists, I signed off, never to sign on again. If I want to be treated like a combination blow-up doll/cheerleader/handmaiden, I’ll go argue with Republicans. I will not tolerate that crap from men who claim to be liberal/left/progressive/Democrats.
Women take a vehement stand when Democrats betray the ONLY issue politicians are still willing to discuss.
What other policies designed to lift women’s extra burden ever appear in the public arena ?
Neither major party talks about universal childcare, SS benefits for women working as caretakers in the home, comparable worth, paid parental leave, proportional representation in Congress, inclusion of unpaid labour in the GDP, the horrific level of violence against women that goes largely unprosecuted, the fate of trafficed and prostituted women, federal witholding of child support,… you know, all the public policies that are the norm in civilized countries who don’t spend their tax dollars on war.
I could go on and on about the things important to women that political leaders avoid like the plague, but if abortion is the only thing the Democrats will talk about, they damn well better not cave in to making us captive breeding stock.
OK, so I’m about to my break my own rule about wasting my keystrokes about that other place, but…
…too many young men on that site…
You are being kind–very kind. If you are so pathetic that your very “manhood” shrinks because someone has the temerity to have an opinion about appropriate ads on an ostensibly important political site, then you have bigger problems than I care to pay attention to.
Never have I seen a bunch of weak-ass whiners. Suck it up already!
OK, now I go back to my rule. 🙂
Thank you so much. If the Democratic Part cannot — or will not — support a woman’s control over the most intimate and personal decisions she ever has to make — then how can they claim to stand for anything with regards to individual rights or civil liberties at all?
This should be bedrock under the platform planks, non-negotiable. There are far more effective ways to reduce abortion than by banning it, world-wide statistics bear that out. Why is that so difficult for some people to grasp?
I will never support or vote for an anti-choice candidate, EVER. I don’t care what the alternatives are.
I chose not to comment in those threads rather than violate Booman’s no being a prick rule and having my blood pressure spike.
But what effect will the demise of Roe and the restrictions on women’s control over theri bodies have on your blood pressure? Will that blood pressure effect be all the worse if so-called Dems like Harry Reid and Bob Casey are responsible for this demise??
The threads in question weren’t going to change anybody’s mind. They were, as is all too often the case in these things, mostly a case of people shouting past each other.
Rather than indulge in that, I tend to prefer to use the same energy to work in my local political sphere where I’m part of a statewide progressive messaging organization. There I function primarily as a letter writer and compiler of blank letters that are than used by other writers as templates.
The main benefit I get from Kos is as a place where large amounts of information is aggregated that I can then use for actual activism.
My take on Booman is different in that I participate more here, but I really didn’t have anything to add to the debate in that particular thread. Everything polite that I would have said had already been taken care of. And ranting and swearing was just going to make Booman’s lide harder.
“life harder,” not “lide harder.”
Towards the end of our discussion, I used the link to pop over to Orange and see what the response there was. It was just as I expected…A democratic majority is more important than women’s rights. Even so-called pro-choice women were being duped into conceeding that control over their bodies was worth giving up if it meant that we could impeach Bush. As if that will ever happen, majority or not.
Thank you Chris. You said what I wanted to say so eloquently and succintly, fuzzy brain or not.
Somehow, we have simply got to convince the left that giving up our rights to love, happiness, and long life is not worth what miniscule benefits we might obtain with a democratic majority.
Even so-called pro-choice women were being duped into conceeding that control over their bodies was worth giving up if it meant that we could impeach Bush.
Fools. I did not bother to go over to Dkos for the other version. I can guess. IMO, there is a lot of free-floating money to convince people, so called “thought leaders” and many an operative/lobbyist inserting her/him/self to lead people astray.
ANYONE who knows the history of even just a few of the major failures of the Dem party while they held LARGE majorities (one is clarence Thomas, 11 crossed the aisle on the senate floor for a final vote of 52/48 to confirm) knows that to argue for somemone like Casey (anyone who thinks he will not side with the White Christian Republicans is fooling themselves) using the NEMESIS, the MIRAGE of a ”majority” in the post 90s, post re-districting era, is nothing short of LYING.
Even so-called pro-choice women were being duped into conceeding that control over their bodies was worth giving up if it meant that we could impeach Bush.
I can only condemn them so much since I once thought this–back in 1998.
My response? If the shit didn’t work in 1998, or in 2000, or in 2002, or in 2004, then why in the hell do you think it will work now?
The shit has only gotten worse. Women’s groups were saying 15 years ago that the right-wing nuttery wanted to go after birth control–some even earlier than that–and look at where we are. That it’s even a friggin discussion now? Pathetic, but that’s where we are. The SCOTUS is gone. A good third of the Dem caucus is too chickenshit to go for impeachment, or even an investigation worth half a damn–if not more. And we don’t know what will happen in 2008.
It. Does. Not. Work.
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Your comment reminds me of the Hunter S. Thomson quote I use entirely too often, but which seems entirely too appropriate far too much of the time.
For me as a Pennsylvanian, there is a particularly cruel symmetry here because I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Santorum. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1994 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.
A compromised right is no right at all. They will never stop in their efforts to deprive women of their most basic rights and they certainly won’t stop there. That my party is foolish enough to continue to try to compromise with people who never will, is beyond my capacity to understand. Compromise is not a legitimate option where the protection of rights is concerned. The line in the sand was crossed years ago.
Though I’m days late responding, AMEN!!!!
And the really pathetic thing is that even Nixon himself wasn’t as evil as this crop.