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.
In an article, “101 Quotes of Winston Churchill to Motivate You to Never Give Up,” we can see how brilliant half -American (his mother born and raised in Upstate New York), Churchill was. Many of the quotes were said in reply to the “blitzkriegs” brought on by Hitler’s Lufthansa. Constant bombings.
In America, the neo-cons in the Republican Party, a bunch of reactionary far right wing folks who controlled that wing of the political party in Congress, tied the hands of Democratic Party president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who wanted to do something to help Churchill and Britain. It was not until Hawaii was bombed did the reactionary far right wing leaders of the Republican Party decide to do something. Together with the white supremacist Dixiecrats of the South, they fought with FDR in a contentious manner. The wimps of America, like Churchill’s predecessor, Chamberlain, remained silent, with fear about “become involved.”
The words of Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin existed at that time, but were ignored. Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.”
Stacey Abrams, a small business woman of Georgia, advised that we can hold fast to our values, but can work together to compromise on the actions taken. Whoopi Goldberg is quoted as saying, “we all need to get on the same page,” but what is that “same page?” The lens and perspective with blinders blocks many from getting on that “same page.” What is the answer, or do we just sit and say, “oh, well, oh, well, it will never change in my generation?” Dump BULL MANURE on such pessimistic attitudes.
In light of the domestic terrorism inspired by Trumpicans today, plus the actions of lousy pathetic Republican far-right neo-cons in the days of FDR, we need to be certain we consider what lens people look through these quotes by Churchill, Ben Franklin, and Stacey Abrams. If we look at these quotations with the lens of the human race, not the lens of the white supremacists, Trumpicans, Proud Boy thugs, white Dixiecrats, the ones of the KKK, John Birchers, Neo-Nazis who are behind the domestic terror, all these quotations take on a different meaning.
We also need to consider the entire span of life in which Churchill references, not just pull one word out. For instance, Churchill said,”All the great [MAGA jackasses] things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.” The first word is, “freedom.” Churchill meant a single word from the list of words. Sure, lousy neo-con governor of Texas, cherry pick the word, “freedom” in order to validate not wearing masks. You idiotic neo-con of the South. So, how does Abbott of Texas define justice? Justice ONLY for white supremacists and the stupid white law enforcement people who don’t like black people, from Missouri to Minnesota, New York City, and elsewhere. It’s a lens with blinders on, directed ONLY at the white supremacists of America. They wish for “honor; duty; mercy; hope” for white supremacists. They have a fear that they will lose out to other races so they create a hell on earth for all, rather than looking through the lenses of perspectives about the entire human race, throwing away the damn blinders. They are disgusting people who emanate from the den of the devil which wants to pit one against another, especially against those who are able to see a God of love who loves all his children on earth.
Even President Kennedy’s words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” can be viewed through the lens and perspective of the human race or the lens and perspective on one race only. That is a fragmented hell on earth.
This hell on earth needs to stop and switch this reality to something better. Words such as “liberty and justice FOR ALL.” “WE THE PEOPLE,” not just “WE THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS.” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Thomas Jefferson was intended for all, but some people just don’t get it, in their irrational egotistical selfish instant gratification ways.
I am inspired by Churchill’s quotes, including this one: “… democracy is a very bad form of government but all the others are so much worse.” Churchill had to reason with a dictatorial bunch of Republicans in the USA who refused to lend him support in his fight against Hitler. Why did these jackass Republicans of that day do such a thing? I have some answers, but won’t go into it at this time. I am inspired by half-American Churchill, but I view them without blinders on, from the perspective and lens of God’s children and the entire human race, which God loves. The light is not a fake one from the devil, but it is the light of God’s only begotten son, Jesus Christ. Those of us who understand what that light is about, need not live in fear because sometimes we are in the darkness of a tunnel and the light is a distant part at the end of the tunnel. We should not be hiding the light under a bushel basket, either. What is your lens and do you shed the blinders?
To those people who believe it is “unfair” to be paying for Medicare which also pays for abortions and Planned Parenthood, I say: get a life.
Here are a few of the things which I find “unfair,” yet I am forced to pay for these things anyway:
Roman Catholic church channel on cable television
Fundamentalist church channels on cable television
Fox “Propaganda” News
All sports on cable television rather than a “pay-as-you-go” system which was around in the 1970s when I could CHOOSE to attend a Syracuse Orangemen football game in Archbold Stadium rather than paying all of the NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and what not – through my cable television bill
Censorship on television I watch
Making the American Dad look stupid in sitcoms on cable television
Stupid political advertisements which make derogatory statements about the people and issues I choose to support – hoping I will conform because I pay for this shit on cable television – so “if you can’t beat them, join them!”
Stupid political advertisements about how wealthy people are more intelligent than the common folk (yes, indeed, I have viewed such a heinous ad)
Thrillers, Suspense movies – the stuff with blood and guts all over the cable television screen
Violence on cable television
War and the murder of innocent people
Lawyers fees paid through higher insurance premiums
Paper-pushing non-productive jobs in insurance companies (particularly in healthcare)
Accountant and lawyer fees due to the myriad loopholes and deductions in a very stupid income tax system
Supplies for my education classroom
Increased homeowners’ insurance premiums, even after paying thousands of dollars over 40 some years
Increased health insurance premiums for my son
Increased insurance premiums paid after never receiving a DIME after investing in the premiums for some 40 years
Decreased FICA in Jan. 2011 due to a wimpy president and the stupidity of ideological jerks in the Republican Party – which threatens my INVESTMENTS I have made over 40 some years – INVESTMENTS which stupid ideological bastards in the Republican Party call, “entitlements.” I am entitled all right – to the MONEY I INVESTED in the hopes of reaping a RETURN ON INVESTMENT OVER THE LONG TERM
CEOs who receive bonuses they don’t deserve and a pay rate differential from the common American from what it was in the 1970s
My tax dollars to banks which refuse to help those of us who have paid our bills responsibly over 40 years and find the unresponsible Americans currying more favor than we receive
The 13% interest I paid on my mortgages in the 1980s after Ronald Reagan promised to reduce interest rates – in order to defeat Jimmy Carter for the presidency
Increased prices on the NEEDS of the consumer (the demand-side) due to the EXCESSIVE GREED of the supply side who look at the continuing DEMAND for NECESSITIES like housing (rent, too), food, healthcare, energy heating and cooling human needs, and education as a reason for jacking up prices – because the demand will always be there – and re-creating the mercantilist / feudal landlord system of the Middle Ages – DESPITE evidence that society was better without such horse shit economics
Monetary support of regimes in Pakistan and the Middle East – especially those who funded Osama Bin Laden; in fact, any foreign funding while America’s infrastructure crumbles and we have nothing left to deal with crisis situations
Money paid to immigrants which is derived from MY government investments into Medicare and Social Security (oh, yeah, many are Roman Catholic who will support the Roman Catholic takeover of our government – the conformity which will create utopia and which I do not support)
Monetary support for the anti-competitive pro-monopolistic measures of big business which contain people who are cowards to compete with Fidel Castro and Chavez head on – and prefer to remove competition rather than meet it head on
Monetary support for drilling oil in this nation rather than keep our oil as a “savings” account and invest in non-oil energy products and make such products more competitive
Monetary support for continued monopolistic ventures in electricity rather than truly opening up the field of energy to competition which will help drive down prices – competition between electric and propane gas, natural gas, and other sources which will provide the necessary cooling and heating for basic human needs
Is this list long enough? Oh, it’s not? Well there are more items to add to this list.
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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