wolfgang von skeptik
02-06-2008, 06:34 PM
In the U.S., Any Vote for the Global Economy Is a Vote against Reproductive Choice -- but the Idiots of Moron Nation Are Too Stubbornly Stupid to Acknowledge the Truth
Recognizing reproductive choice (and sexual freedom in general) as a First Amendment issue long before the Supreme Court did likewise, I have always supported legal abortion. This remained true even after the welfare bureacy methodically destroyed my life and, in response, my rage at its unapologetically feminist viciousness drove me temporarily into the conservative camp. Hence some time ago I promised a Washington state advocacy group I would caucus for Edwards and on the group's behalf. But when Edwards was forced out of contention by the Kennedy faction and the green light thus given to the unobstructed advance of Big Business autocracy and the associated tyrannies of theocracy, fascism and imperialism, I withdrew my promise. The group then asked me to explain my reasoning. This was my reply:
With the end of John Edwards’ quest for the Democratic nomination, there are in fact no defenders of reproductive freedom left in contention for the presidency. We are instead offered a pseudo-choice, including (and especially) in the all-important realm of birth control and abortion. On the one hand there is the Republicans' overt, de jure opposition; on the other, there is the Democrats’ clandestine, de facto denial of reproductive rights -- denial imposed by outsourcing, downsizing and the sundry other economic savageries inflicted in the name of "free trade" and the Global (sweatshop) Economy.
To elaborate for the benefit of those stubbornly oblivious to class-struggle and economic reality, reproductive freedom in the United States is determined exclusively by one's access to health care. But the U.S. is unique in the industrial world in that it grants such access only to those whose profitability and wealth (presumably) prove them worthy of such favorable treatment. Thus a vast and growing number of people are methodically deprived of any and all forms of health care, including any and all of the associated reproductive freedoms -- note for example both the huge, outsourced/downsized increase in women denied health insurance and the resultant skyrocketing birthrate.
Ironically, the worst of this onslaught of job-loss, health-insurance termination and theft of reproductive choice has been inflicted on us by the Democrats. The Clinton Administration quite knowingly did this during the 1990s via WTO, NAFTA, GATT and its many economically toxic counterparts. Since then, the DemoPublican coalitions of the Bush years -- typified by the additional millions of jobs stolen by CAFTA -- have not only maintained the trend toward economic prohibition of reproductive freedom but have radically accelerated it. Today all the available evidence indicates both the Obamacrats and the Hillerycrats intend to continue the headlong drive toward the permanent subjugation-by-impoverishment of the entire U.S. working class. Which means that -- regardless of who is elected in November -- there is absolutely no rational hope for relief from the ongoing policy of using economic oppression to re-impose sexual servitude on the vast majority of the nation’s women.
Moreover the Democrats' long history of say-one-thing/do-the-opposite hostility to reproductive freedom is far older than the Clinton presidency. In fact, this colossal act of electoral fraud dates to 1977, when only weeks after his inauguration, President Carter viciously betrayed his pro-choice supporters by forever banning all federal funded abortions. Thus the Democratic Party triumphantly revealed its hitherto-best-kept secret: that beneath its camouflage of lies, it was no different from the GOP in its implicit endorsement of misogyny and the ultimate ruling class goal -- essential to guarantee capitalism’s long-term survival -- of replacing constitutional government with Christian theocracy. Indeed, no Republican has ever struck reproductive freedom such a crippling blow -- and every administration since Carter’s has in one way or another expanded the ban into all other realms of birth control.
Given these facts, it is long past time for supporters of reproductive choice to acknowledge five ugly truths: (1)-that on this issue as on most others (and despite the Big Lie of fraudulent rhetoric), there is no ultimate difference between the Democrats and the Republicans; (2)-that precisely because the economic exploitation of U.S. workers will continue unabated no matter which party wins in November, the working-class will be increasingly denied access to health care and thus further stripped of reproductive freedom; (3)-that unless one is in the topmost 20 percent that owns 91 percent of the national wealth and thus controls the entire apparatus of governance, we are ALL working class; (4)-that whether reproductive choice is legal or not, members of the topmost 20 percent, that is the ruling class, will always have the money to obtain safe and successful abortion, which ensures their indifference to the issue itself -- save of course in terms of its usefulness as propaganda of deception or an economic mechanism for increasing the fears by which workers are ever more oppressed; (5)-that to pretend otherwise is to reduce one's self to nothing more than a cringing accessory to the ultimate Big Lie of U.S. electoral freedom.
I will no longer lend my personal validation to any such deliberately injurious falsehood. I will not caucus again until I am offered the choice of a party and candidates who genuinely represent the working class and who will therefore not betray us to the increasingly ruthless corporate plutocracy -- as every Democrat from Johnson onward has already betrayed us. For the first time since I was old enough to vote, I may even decline to participate in the entire electoral scam. To cast a vote so definitely robbed of meaning is an act of surrender to the robbers themselves.
Loren Bliss
6 February 2008
Recognizing reproductive choice (and sexual freedom in general) as a First Amendment issue long before the Supreme Court did likewise, I have always supported legal abortion. This remained true even after the welfare bureacy methodically destroyed my life and, in response, my rage at its unapologetically feminist viciousness drove me temporarily into the conservative camp. Hence some time ago I promised a Washington state advocacy group I would caucus for Edwards and on the group's behalf. But when Edwards was forced out of contention by the Kennedy faction and the green light thus given to the unobstructed advance of Big Business autocracy and the associated tyrannies of theocracy, fascism and imperialism, I withdrew my promise. The group then asked me to explain my reasoning. This was my reply:
With the end of John Edwards’ quest for the Democratic nomination, there are in fact no defenders of reproductive freedom left in contention for the presidency. We are instead offered a pseudo-choice, including (and especially) in the all-important realm of birth control and abortion. On the one hand there is the Republicans' overt, de jure opposition; on the other, there is the Democrats’ clandestine, de facto denial of reproductive rights -- denial imposed by outsourcing, downsizing and the sundry other economic savageries inflicted in the name of "free trade" and the Global (sweatshop) Economy.
To elaborate for the benefit of those stubbornly oblivious to class-struggle and economic reality, reproductive freedom in the United States is determined exclusively by one's access to health care. But the U.S. is unique in the industrial world in that it grants such access only to those whose profitability and wealth (presumably) prove them worthy of such favorable treatment. Thus a vast and growing number of people are methodically deprived of any and all forms of health care, including any and all of the associated reproductive freedoms -- note for example both the huge, outsourced/downsized increase in women denied health insurance and the resultant skyrocketing birthrate.
Ironically, the worst of this onslaught of job-loss, health-insurance termination and theft of reproductive choice has been inflicted on us by the Democrats. The Clinton Administration quite knowingly did this during the 1990s via WTO, NAFTA, GATT and its many economically toxic counterparts. Since then, the DemoPublican coalitions of the Bush years -- typified by the additional millions of jobs stolen by CAFTA -- have not only maintained the trend toward economic prohibition of reproductive freedom but have radically accelerated it. Today all the available evidence indicates both the Obamacrats and the Hillerycrats intend to continue the headlong drive toward the permanent subjugation-by-impoverishment of the entire U.S. working class. Which means that -- regardless of who is elected in November -- there is absolutely no rational hope for relief from the ongoing policy of using economic oppression to re-impose sexual servitude on the vast majority of the nation’s women.
Moreover the Democrats' long history of say-one-thing/do-the-opposite hostility to reproductive freedom is far older than the Clinton presidency. In fact, this colossal act of electoral fraud dates to 1977, when only weeks after his inauguration, President Carter viciously betrayed his pro-choice supporters by forever banning all federal funded abortions. Thus the Democratic Party triumphantly revealed its hitherto-best-kept secret: that beneath its camouflage of lies, it was no different from the GOP in its implicit endorsement of misogyny and the ultimate ruling class goal -- essential to guarantee capitalism’s long-term survival -- of replacing constitutional government with Christian theocracy. Indeed, no Republican has ever struck reproductive freedom such a crippling blow -- and every administration since Carter’s has in one way or another expanded the ban into all other realms of birth control.
Given these facts, it is long past time for supporters of reproductive choice to acknowledge five ugly truths: (1)-that on this issue as on most others (and despite the Big Lie of fraudulent rhetoric), there is no ultimate difference between the Democrats and the Republicans; (2)-that precisely because the economic exploitation of U.S. workers will continue unabated no matter which party wins in November, the working-class will be increasingly denied access to health care and thus further stripped of reproductive freedom; (3)-that unless one is in the topmost 20 percent that owns 91 percent of the national wealth and thus controls the entire apparatus of governance, we are ALL working class; (4)-that whether reproductive choice is legal or not, members of the topmost 20 percent, that is the ruling class, will always have the money to obtain safe and successful abortion, which ensures their indifference to the issue itself -- save of course in terms of its usefulness as propaganda of deception or an economic mechanism for increasing the fears by which workers are ever more oppressed; (5)-that to pretend otherwise is to reduce one's self to nothing more than a cringing accessory to the ultimate Big Lie of U.S. electoral freedom.
I will no longer lend my personal validation to any such deliberately injurious falsehood. I will not caucus again until I am offered the choice of a party and candidates who genuinely represent the working class and who will therefore not betray us to the increasingly ruthless corporate plutocracy -- as every Democrat from Johnson onward has already betrayed us. For the first time since I was old enough to vote, I may even decline to participate in the entire electoral scam. To cast a vote so definitely robbed of meaning is an act of surrender to the robbers themselves.
Loren Bliss
6 February 2008