The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.
I can’t imagine what it is like to be a woman in the United States of America today. If I feel the blow of Samuel Alito’s draft opinion pm Roe v Wade in the pit of my stomach – and I do – I can only try to imagine how it must feel to have one’s own body assaulted, occupied, and colonized in this way.
Many people are repeating the line used by then-Sen. Kamala Harris in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. “Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” she asked. “I’m not thinking of any right now, Senator,” Kavanaugh replied.
But there is such a law, and it’s worth mentioning. The Selective Service requires all men of a certain age to register for military conscription. The draft hasn’t been used in many years — it affects men, who have more power — but it allows the government to take possession of men’s’ bodies and use them as instruments of war. My generation of men faced a high probability of being drafted and were ordered to submit to the requisite training and be sent off to Vietnam if we were chosen.
That was the old order. Men fought for the state, and when they returned home (if they returned home) they worked for wages to support the economic system. Women bred for the state, then raised the children that they produced. You played your role or you paid the price.
Now, they’re bringing the old order back. They call themselves “pro-life,” even as they clamor for war, for poverty, to deprive people of medical care and a livable involvement. You can’t be pro-life and call down death.
We are once again ruled by a priesthood that preaches the right to life from the moment of conception until the moment you’re born Muslim. Or dark-skinned. Or poor. Or female.
The men who are shrugging off this development better think twice. Unless you’re privileged, they’ll devalue your life too. You can’t be anti-woman and pro-human. Some men will experience the pyrrhic pleasure of mistreating women, but at what cost? Watch out, men. They’ll make a barbarian of you soon. It may sound good to you now, but you’ll be a footsoldier in the mud and not a general in the great tent.
But I apologize. This is me, a man, trying to understand how it feels to be a woman today. But the draft wasn’t the same, was it? Sure, we could die. We, too, could be physically violated and be helpless to prevent it. But the intimacy of women’s subjugation, its linkage to the physical human core … that, I can’t picture. I can only empathize. And support. And fight.
The Greek poet CP Cavafy’s best-known work is “Waiting for the Barbarians,” which describes a nation-state paralyzed into inaction by the anticipation of an invading horde. That, to me, describes the mainstream politicians who have watched the rise in Republican barbarity, their wholesale attack on democratic process and their hijacking of the judiciary, and done nothing about it.
Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Lofty sentences about political norms and senatorial decorum are the hollow talk of hollow figures in marble hallways, living statues waiting for the barbarians. They don’t act because they have chosen to become symbols, not living actors in a flesh-and-blood drama. And they don’t act, perhaps, because they can’t believe it’s really happening. Like the protagonist in another Cavafy poem, they paid no attention as walls were built to enclose and entomb them.
With no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they have built walls around me, thick and high …
I had so much to do outside.
The draft system was much easier to escape if you were rich or middle class, if you were white. There were doctors to certify you unfit. If that form of exemption became more difficult, your parents could always send you to Canada. People of color and the poor got the worst of it. They get the worst of it now. They’re far more likely to serve in the military, often because they have no other economic alternatives. There they must contend with danger, senior-level incompetence, suicide epidemics, and the abuse of their addicted comrades.
People of color and the poor will get the worst of this New Old Order, too, as disadvantaged women find themselves unable to afford the interstate travel that bodily autonomy will soon require. That will displease the Big Tech branch of the ruling elite, which has long been concerned with the problem of excess population. As I once wrote of Tyler Cowen, a favored economist of that set:
Cowen promotes his idea of the “hyper-meritocracy” in “Average Is Over.” The brilliant and self-motivated (as he sees them) will become wealthier and more powerful than ever, while the rest of society (which Cowen pegs at 85 percent of the population) becomes a permanent underclass, dwelling in shantytowns and struggling to survive.
With Roe v Wade gone, make that 95 percent. The tech tycoons may moan, but they’ll go along with it in the end. Barbarians use social media, too.
One of the most striking things about the Alito draft is its rage. These judicial moles have watched, and waited, and bided their time, pretending to be sober jurists until their moment came around. Now, the fury is unleashed. Chief Justice Roberts may tone down the language, but the lurking creature has growled deep down in its throat.
When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed!
The Democrats in Washington – somebody – should be demanding that the courts be taken back from the antidemocratic minority. This is the battle we should be fighting. This is the line that should be drawn. Too many of them, however, seem to have another plan in mind. It’s the same one they’ve been following for years, and it goes like this: Why legislate? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Night has fallen. The walls have been built. They’re here.
My additional comments. The two presidents who did not get the popular vote, yet had a hand in creating this SCOTUS today, had it been the “men of the new old order,” based on many, many years ago, would have had to stand on the front lines in front of troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of the world. Think about that. The leader led the troops into battle at one time. LBJ of Texas, without even being elected president because of being next in line when JFK was murdered, should have been at the front lines of the troops in Vietnam. None of them were.
Hate to say this. But we have been speaking softly and never carrying a big stick from the time Teddy Roosevelt made these remarks, but was defeated for two reasons, as a third-party candidate. (1) the Electoral College where he did not have a chance for a runoff which he MIGHT have won against Democrat Woodrow Wilson. (2) TR had to curtail his campaigning when a lousy SOB bastard anarchist (libertarian type) tried to kill him. We ended up with Wilson as president when the Bolsheviks overturned the Russian government in 1917. We did not demonstrate using a big stick at the time when it would likely have worked better. Now we confront Russia once more, after it faked its way with Gorbachev and others. I saw it as a fake at the time, but no one listened then, either. I have always liked Teddy Roosevelt with whom my maternal Dutch line is related. Sad to think about facing using that stick in today’s world. But tell me what else will work? Not sure economic sanctions will work. Russia has been like this, dating back to the time of the czars. Its leaders need to be taught a lesson, particularly mentally deranged Putin.
Thomas Friedman always provides interesting reading. However, some of his latest writings are very lengthy (longer than what I write) and go into great detail regarding the economics behind dealing with Putin and the Russians as they invade the Ukraine.
In 1977, I was enrolled in a college class in Soviet History. I was working to complete a second major besides my music education degree. The professor of that class predicted that unless the West comes to grips with the fact that dealing with matters regarding the Soviets and the Middle East and focusing on the issue of oil, there was little chance of success. He told the class that ideology had nothing to do with it, but it was oil that would guide who succeeded, unless we developed alternative fuels to oil and saved oil like a savings account in reserves to be used when it became necessary.
America has not learned about this, but the Russians and the Chinese have. Same with Saudi Arabia and even Iran. It is the Muslim sect in Saudi Arabia which inspired the U.S. and faked us out with Middle Eastern wars. Most Afghans are of the same sect. That was why a man named Osama bin Laden was located in Afghanistan. The control over Hussein was something the Saudis wanted. When George W. Bush left a vacuum in Iraq after bringing down Hussein, it opened doors for supporters of the Saudis in both Iraq and Syria. America was faked out with the ISIS group which does executions in the same manner that the Saudis do. A sword or knife to chop off a head. America was faked out.
America was faked out with the Reagan push for Gorbachev to “take down those walls.” It was a strategy on the part of the Russians to make it look like peace was achieved, as the Russians collected their power base. I saw it and spoke about it, but was scoffed at because everyone just wanted peace and was willing to sacrifice American justice in order to achieve peace.
Recent events which demonstrate that ultra right wing, not ultra left wing, movements are happening in former Soviet bloc nations. one is East Germany. The other is Hungary. Friedman and the rest of the media are totally ignoring all of this. In those years, it had nothing to do with communism.
Figures I have heard in recent years is that the Soviet state killed more Jews than Hitler’s Germany did. Such figures were presented at a speech on the campus where I was a professor. All the speaker did was blame communism, not the Russian leaders like Stalin. I thought it was rather crude and rude as Americans were being faked out. A fake is a good gesture in football, but not in running our lives in America.
Even PBS is biased against Joe Biden and snubbing him on the eve of his State of the Union address by ignoring the good things which are happening in the economy, in favor of a Trump-like approach to dwell only on the bad. Unemployment is down. Yet a PBS announcement about the State of the Union address and they feature a woman complaining about “needing to eat.” Last I knew, the Republicans don’t like the Democrats because of the food stamp program. So what gives with a woman who has trouble eating? It simply does not make sense, at all.
In line with what I am saying about energy and the predictions made by the professor in Potsdam in the 1970s, what about the Chinese? A few years back a CBS Sixty Minutes report told us about how new alternative energy sources were not good money makers, but could develop into such over a long term investment. Americans were not willing to invest, but the Chinese did see the possibility for long-term investments which would pan out over time. Just as the professor predicted in the 1970s, but it was the Chinese, not Americans, who were putting forth the investments for the long-term, while Americans have been, and still are, faked out by the evangelical horde of puritanical bastards who get upset if someone somewhere is having a good time. Americans are also being faked out by Rick the Prick Santorum and his wishes to block service in healthcare to anyone who is opposed to his own personal beliefs. Then there is Rick the Prick Scott and Ron DeSatan of Florida who keep shoving into our faces the fake stuff about socialism and how all Democrats are socialist. They make certain that no one like me and MANY OTHERS, don’t get heard as we try to address issues of healthcare in line with Adam Smith and Teddy Roosevelt types of thinking that it is best to have regulated capitalism. Regulated capitalism is NOT socialism, if one would dare look it up. In fact, central based newspapers and any businesses in energy, communications, and other trades is a form of socialism and even communism, put in place by Reagan’s supply side economic theories which are bizarre. They create the centrally planned corporations with monopolies, doing so in the name of “free markets.” No one listens. And America is suffering from losses in technology, alternative fuels, and newspapers, plus other commodities, due to it. Local control of newspapers and media have been wrestled away from local areas and consolidated into a communist type central bureaucracy, in the guise of “capitalism.” And the media, including Thomas Friedman, never mention these things. Instead, we read two pages of details, some of it repetitive, about all this drivel regarding Russia and Ukraine which is absolutely bizarre and lacks much meaning for the situations we are facing.
We need a Teddy Roosevelt. I have never really cared for TR’s statement, “speak softly but carry a big stick.” TR came in second place as a third-party candidate in 1912, losing to Woodrow Wilson. The more I think of it, Wilson spoke softly but did not carry a big stick, when it came to dealing with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, as did the Republican candidate, Taft. Too bad TR lost that election in 1912 and never ran again in 1916.
Who and what money is manipulating our media with mind control with these issues? Why are so few in the media considering what I am saying?
What I hope and pray for, rather than letting Robertson and other evangelical shitheads place fear in people’s minds, is that there is a leadership contingent made up of people like TR and the generals from World War II, particularly, General Dwight D. Eisenhower who led one of the greatest military invasions from the sea which has ever happened. The true God is a caring and loving God and would not bring on Armageddon by way of pushing humans into war. However, the true God to whom I believe does want peace WITH justice. In World War II, after great losses, we did achieve peace with justice. It was a tough one. But we need to remember that Chamberlin sat by when Hitler invaded Poland and did nothing. Even DEMOCRAT FDR wanted something done, but his hands were being tied by Republicans and threats of an overthrow by many Republicans, in the USA. Thank God it was discovered before it was hatched. Here we go again, though. Threats by people from southwest Florida like fascist-leaning ones in those days gone by – Lindburgh, Ford, and others. Today it is Ric the Prick Scott from Southwest Florida. That area of the nation is NOT the only area, as we learn about lunkhead Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan, too, plus other areas.
Shut up the perverted puritanical types and televangelists (plus others who fake the population), as they endeavor to work to divide and conquer in the name of fascist autocratic theology of hate, and other autocratic means. They do this in the name of a god which is made in the image of the human lunkheads with money and fascist ideals.
Tioga Herald 
Pass it on: From Eskow’s newsletter (reprint)
Absolute Zero: A Newsletter from Richard (RJ) Eskow
https://eskow.substack.com/
Barbarians and Breeders: To the Men of the New Old Order
A priesthood that preaches the right to life from the moment of conception until the moment you’re born Muslim.
Photo credit: Laurie Shaull
I can’t imagine what it is like to be a woman in the United States of America today. If I feel the blow of Samuel Alito’s draft opinion pm Roe v Wade in the pit of my stomach – and I do – I can only try to imagine how it must feel to have one’s own body assaulted, occupied, and colonized in this way.
Many people are repeating the line used by then-Sen. Kamala Harris in Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. “Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” she asked. “I’m not thinking of any right now, Senator,” Kavanaugh replied.
But there is such a law, and it’s worth mentioning. The Selective Service requires all men of a certain age to register for military conscription. The draft hasn’t been used in many years — it affects men, who have more power — but it allows the government to take possession of men’s’ bodies and use them as instruments of war. My generation of men faced a high probability of being drafted and were ordered to submit to the requisite training and be sent off to Vietnam if we were chosen.
That was the old order. Men fought for the state, and when they returned home (if they returned home) they worked for wages to support the economic system. Women bred for the state, then raised the children that they produced. You played your role or you paid the price.
Now, they’re bringing the old order back. They call themselves “pro-life,” even as they clamor for war, for poverty, to deprive people of medical care and a livable involvement. You can’t be pro-life and call down death.
We are once again ruled by a priesthood that preaches the right to life from the moment of conception until the moment you’re born Muslim. Or dark-skinned. Or poor. Or female.
The men who are shrugging off this development better think twice. Unless you’re privileged, they’ll devalue your life too. You can’t be anti-woman and pro-human. Some men will experience the pyrrhic pleasure of mistreating women, but at what cost? Watch out, men. They’ll make a barbarian of you soon. It may sound good to you now, but you’ll be a footsoldier in the mud and not a general in the great tent.
But I apologize. This is me, a man, trying to understand how it feels to be a woman today. But the draft wasn’t the same, was it? Sure, we could die. We, too, could be physically violated and be helpless to prevent it. But the intimacy of women’s subjugation, its linkage to the physical human core … that, I can’t picture. I can only empathize. And support. And fight.
The Greek poet CP Cavafy’s best-known work is “Waiting for the Barbarians,” which describes a nation-state paralyzed into inaction by the anticipation of an invading horde. That, to me, describes the mainstream politicians who have watched the rise in Republican barbarity, their wholesale attack on democratic process and their hijacking of the judiciary, and done nothing about it.
Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Lofty sentences about political norms and senatorial decorum are the hollow talk of hollow figures in marble hallways, living statues waiting for the barbarians. They don’t act because they have chosen to become symbols, not living actors in a flesh-and-blood drama. And they don’t act, perhaps, because they can’t believe it’s really happening. Like the protagonist in another Cavafy poem, they paid no attention as walls were built to enclose and entomb them.
With no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they have built walls around me, thick and high …
I had so much to do outside.
The draft system was much easier to escape if you were rich or middle class, if you were white. There were doctors to certify you unfit. If that form of exemption became more difficult, your parents could always send you to Canada. People of color and the poor got the worst of it. They get the worst of it now. They’re far more likely to serve in the military, often because they have no other economic alternatives. There they must contend with danger, senior-level incompetence, suicide epidemics, and the abuse of their addicted comrades.
People of color and the poor will get the worst of this New Old Order, too, as disadvantaged women find themselves unable to afford the interstate travel that bodily autonomy will soon require. That will displease the Big Tech branch of the ruling elite, which has long been concerned with the problem of excess population. As I once wrote of Tyler Cowen, a favored economist of that set:
Cowen promotes his idea of the “hyper-meritocracy” in “Average Is Over.” The brilliant and self-motivated (as he sees them) will become wealthier and more powerful than ever, while the rest of society (which Cowen pegs at 85 percent of the population) becomes a permanent underclass, dwelling in shantytowns and struggling to survive.
With Roe v Wade gone, make that 95 percent. The tech tycoons may moan, but they’ll go along with it in the end. Barbarians use social media, too.
One of the most striking things about the Alito draft is its rage. These judicial moles have watched, and waited, and bided their time, pretending to be sober jurists until their moment came around. Now, the fury is unleashed. Chief Justice Roberts may tone down the language, but the lurking creature has growled deep down in its throat.
When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed!
But I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Only one in four Americans wants the Court to overturn Roe v Wade. There are nationwide demonstrations against it. They’re doing it anyway.
The Democrats in Washington – somebody – should be demanding that the courts be taken back from the antidemocratic minority. This is the battle we should be fighting. This is the line that should be drawn. Too many of them, however, seem to have another plan in mind. It’s the same one they’ve been following for years, and it goes like this: Why legislate? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Night has fallen. The walls have been built. They’re here.
My additional comments. The two presidents who did not get the popular vote, yet had a hand in creating this SCOTUS today, had it been the “men of the new old order,” based on many, many years ago, would have had to stand on the front lines in front of troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other areas of the world. Think about that. The leader led the troops into battle at one time. LBJ of Texas, without even being elected president because of being next in line when JFK was murdered, should have been at the front lines of the troops in Vietnam. None of them were.
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Commentary, democracy, Gun Safety, History & Genealogy, human-rights, war
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