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In Michigan, We’re Facing More Than Just a Class War
The state of Michigan has been receiving a fair bit of national attention lately, as newly-elected Governor Rick Snyder pushes forward shockingly anti-union, anti-working class legislation, some of which makes Governor Scott Walker’s bill in Wisconsin look tame by comparison. I’ve been on the front lines of the burgeoning movement here--particularly focused on building a more united left-- while also working to organize this month’s upcoming Walk For Choice in Detroit. So it was surprising to me to learn that in spite of the degree to which I’ve been scrutinizing these issues, Michigan’s recent proposed anti-choice legislation almost flew completely under my radar.
In the Lansing State Journal, Louise Knott Ahern offers descriptions of several of the anti-choice bills that have recently been introduced in Michigan. Among other bills not mentioned by Ahern, Senate Bill 13 would alter statutory law such that “The word ‘individual’ shall be construed to mean a natural person and to include a fetus.” House Bill 4433 would provide stricter guidelines for pre-abortion ultrasounds, mandating that an ultrasound be performed no fewer than two hours prior to the beginning of an abortion procedure, and requiring specifically that “The physician or qualified person assisting the physician shall ensure that the ultrasound screen is turned toward the patient to allow her to easily view the active ultrasound image of the fetus” (while still insisting that this constitutes giving women “an option” to view the ultrasound), as well as mandating that the most high-tech and visually accurate ultrasound possible be used. Particularly frightening when considering these proposals is the high level of support for anti-abortion measures in Michigan’s current state government: 76 percent of the Senate is anti-choice or mixed, and 71 percent of the House is anti-choice, mixed, or unknown. In Ahern’s words, “Michigan anti-abortion activists are taking advantage of what they consider the friendliest state government in decades,” proposing legislation with the potential to render Michigan one of the most restrictive states in the nation with regard to abortion rights.
I care deeply about the issues facing the working class both here in Michigan and around the country, and it is my hope that the people of Wisconsin inspire others to build strong movements to protest injustices across the nation. But as we mobilize to speak out in the name of social justice, we cannot become so singularly focused that we forget to include the basic rights and freedoms of women. Now is perhaps the perfect time to inject a more holistic analysis into working-class struggle—for those of us who are passionately defensive of reproductive rights to send the message that issues of class and reproductive politics in America are intricately interwoven. Working-class women are disproportionately likely to need access to abortion; the conservative leadership in Michigan is at once proposing to make working-class motherhood more financially challenging—by removing our Earned Income Credit for working families, placing limits on eligibility for cash assistance programs for families, and mandating paycuts and privitizations that will harm all public workers—while at the same time placing further restrictions on whether one is to become a mother in the first place. It is a perfect reflection of a right-wing agenda that calls itself “pro-life” while constantly slashing funding for any programs that strive to improve the lives of those most in need.
The hundreds of thousands of protesters in Madison have it right: we need to get angry, to stand up and unite and fight back. But in doing so, let’s not allow reproductive rights to fall by the wayside. Let’s take this opportunity—a climate of reinvigorated energy for protest and struggle—to fight for all of our rights.
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Show AllMy best advice, Angi, is to organize pro-choice Michigan residents into an above-ground railroad - - and cross into Canada for abortions. This needs a pro-choice Canadian to set this up on the other side.
One of my all-time heroes is Dr. Henry Morgentaler - see Wikipedia. I met Henry socially when I lived in Calgary - with my teenage daughter.
His Clinic was nearly constantly the site of pro-life protests. Women attending had to run a gauntlet of vitriol to get inside the building. One 1993 summer afternoon, a traffic light stopped my car next to such a demonstration. The passenger side window was open. An excited woman ran to it and demanded to know if I supported them. From the driver's seat, my reply was: "If my daughter is ever in need of the services here, and you people cause her psychological grief while trying to get into the building, I'll shoot you in the fucking head". People behind me honked horns, and I drove off.
Trylon
Yes this is a campaign by the Power Elite, the Oligarchy -whatever we want to call them to asset-strip the country. They are profitting from the destruction of the USA and its people.
It ought to be obvious to those with a sense of history (just read Greider, Kolko, Hoffstaedter, Zinn et al.), that the only way to fight back is massive peaceful civil disobedience.
I also suggest to everyone: pull all your money out of the BigBanks, don't do any business with them whatsovever. Since the Banksters have the financial system totally rigged, and folks are seeing their savings and retirement dwindle before their eyes, there is no incentive to keep your money in the bank. Interest rates have been held at near 0% and REAL inflation (including food, fuel, health care and education) is somewhere approaching double digits. Thus any savings or retirement one has is dwindling in value every year, approaching double digits. There is a disincentive to keep your money there.
Although many people ignorant of capitalist finance and economics, especially those who watch TV, dismiss gold and silver as some sort of Glenn Beck right wing BS. This is not the case. The divide and rule BS must stop and everyone must act collectively against our captors.
I have bought physical silver and gold after QE1 and TARP, and seen the dollar fall and gold/silver skyrocket. Look into this, google CRASH JP MORGAN. There is a way to fight back financially as well. If Karl Marx were alive today, he would understand. Know your enemy!
The so-called Left is starting to catch on to this:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/business-inside-former-seiu-official-reveals-secret-plan-to-destroy-jp-morgan-crash-the-stock-market/
Socialist,
With all due respects, I think you blew the call on this one. While the anti-union and anti-worker stuff is definitely in keeping with the wealthy and corporate interests (your plutocracy), this abortion stuff is simply the fundamental religious folks trying once again to shove their personal beliefs down everyone else's throats.
The wealthy and corporate leadership get much of their public support from these religious people. Why would the rich pimp this stuff, instead of keeping to destroying the workers? Because the rich don't see any of this religious b.s. as effecting them. If they need or want an abortion they have plenty of options that the lower classes don't have such as flying to Europe.
The ultra wealthy see this religious stuff as only effecting the "little people". They don't live in our world and they don't believe they ever will. They believe they are above the rest of us and deserve the special treatment the get from government (including our justice system).
Don't you see the connections? This is part of the divide and rule tactic, one of the oldest in the Oligarch's bag of tricks. If we are busy squabbling over single-issues, yet don't see the strategic view, we all lose. My point is that we need to realize that the political, economic and financial sytems are beyond corrupt and we need to builld new ones. Of course it will be painful, but sitting by and doing nothing except hoping the next election cycle will change things is irrational, especially given the events of the past 10 years.
Spot on. Another 'tool' is to control the message. Since the "message is the media" - control the media!
[Charles Fourier (1772-1837)] "was the first to declare that in any given society the degree of woman's emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation." Quoted from Engels "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" (1880).
Women are the "canary in the coal mine" of the working class. If women don't have control over their own bodies, they certainly are not free. Most public workers (teachers especially) are women. That means the attacks on unions, on working people we've seen from various states recently, DISPROPORTIONATELY affect women. If you give a damn about the state of the working class, then you must care about the state of the emancipation of women. And, that means support for - what should be - a woman's inalienable right to control her own body.
The GOP is making a coordinated attack on both public worker unions (which are predominantly female) and on women’s rights. The left has characterized this attack on unions as an attack on the working class, which is true as far as it goes. However, as one target of these Right wing attacks is mostly women and the other target is uniquely women, it would be more accurate to describe these actions as primarily attacks on working women. As Gov. Walker exempted police and fire unions (mostly men) we can see this as a divide and conquer strategy.
Thanks for this Tom. Women are indeed the canaries in the coal mine. I am one who has been dealing with these issues since the 1970's and urgently in the 1980 when our women's health centers were attacked, fire-bombed and invaded by right wing fundamentalists who are still at it. And at the time I saw socialist and progressive politicians here in Vermont try to cash in on the family values language of the right and ignore what was happening to women. We have been fighting the right for 40 years, if there had been more solidarity from the beginning we wouldn't be in such a fix. The Reagan co-optation of Democrats was done by focusing on a macho culture and enticing working class men to betray their own interests and vote for Repubs who have always been anti union. Hopefully more of us see the need to unite across class, race and gender for life on earth. The real pro life movement is for our collective survival not fetus fetishizing by men who promote war at every turn and vote down funding for food for WIC Women Infants and Children.
You're welcome!!! And excellent post!
RE: The real pro life movement is for our collective survival...
I am going to remember that! Do you mind if I use it?
TOM: I, too, wish to applaud you for your sensitivity towards this issue. The attack on Gabrielle Giffords and the character assassination directed at Francis Pivens are yet two more examples of right wing attempts to disempower women, especially any who speak up for fairness, decency, and social justice... or worst of all sins, the rights of the poor!
Artemix: Great post, especially your concluding statement. Right on! Incidentally, there's a place with the most incredible painted boots (in Carmel) that's named "Artemix," and it brought you to mind.
Certainly there are other factors involved, but morality-as-obedience has itself nowhere developed independent of class and hierarchy.
When upper classes use ideas of ethics or gods or God to condemn a part of society and set one part of society against another, they use a ruse which played a part in the development of these ideologies thousands of years ago, a ruse that has been employed with every generation since then.
This does not mean that the struggle is not a class struggle, only that there are other factors involved, as always. The religious folks we address as "fundamental" are always among those preaching obedience to the system or one or another aspect of it. A sincere belief or disbelief in religion or an insincere profession of creed need not alter that.
I have no problem with people who truly believe abortion is wrong, but what's behind this latest rash of anti-choice legislation has NOTHING to do with "the sanctity of life." This is just a continuation of virulent sexist, anti-feminist anti-woman attitudes that have existed in this country since its inception. I find these attempts to "legally" prevent a woman from making a choice that is almost NEVER made easily, as nothing less than the ugly emergence of what I call The American Taliban. They might not be stoning women, but by essentially forcing a woman to bear a child that she knows she can't afford, with fewer and fewer resources to assist her in raising this child, is nothing less than condemning her and her child to poverty, hunger, homelessness, etc. Isn't this nothing less than proactive terrorism? As a woman in my late 50's, I remember the back alley abortions friends of mine were forced to have. Abortion is no walk in the park, and a woman doesn't leave the clinic and then goes to get her mani/pedi. Plus, abortion is a very small part of a woman's reproductive life. With the attack on Planned Parenthood, it is obvious what is really going on. These men (and it is primarily men) do not want us to have any control over our bodies. Reproductive freedom makes us too "uppity" and powerful, and this they can't have. Better to obey your husband, have children year after year and SHUT UP! My great grandmother was one of those women, and when she appealed to a friend to "help her out" when she became pregnant yet again, she was given a back alley abortion and died from hemorrhage. I found this out not that long ago, and it explained why my mother, who was not an activist, marched in pro-choice rallies.
By the way, I live in MI, and will be following up on these attacks on us. Thanks for the article.
Socialist,
Speculating on commodities (precious metals) doesn't seem very socialist to me.
Speculating? I don't but you are speculating that you can trust the USD as a store of value. Funny Marx spent a good chunk of his life analyzing capitalist economics, yet so few on the so-called left understand their enemy, few even know who the enemy is in the first place. Besides, I would describe myself as an anarcho-socialist, on the far lower-left quadrant of the political compass (www.politicalcompass.org) Of course, labels don't say much
If you understood how the markets are rigged and how the Fed is debasing the currency by the trillions, how the banksters continue to rob us and our future, etc. etc. you would realize that trading in your inflated insolvent fiat currency in for physical metal is not speculating it is PROTECTION against the falling dollar. The banksters f-in own the place, remember?
You think that paper money is going to pay for a revolution? You need to think about how you define "socialism". Even poor folk in China and India buy gold and silver. Maoist rebels in Nepal use gold as exchange. Only westerners think that PMs are primitive commodities and not money, very ethnocentric. PMs are the people's money since the beginning of civilization. PMs have been demonized by the corporate media to this day, despite a plummeting dollar against gold and silver in the last 10 years. I'm not talking about futures contracts I am talking about physical metal for long-term protection against a thoroughly corrupt and kleptocratic financial system and political system.
If you have any savings, I will just ask a couple of rhetorical questions. What interest rate is the bank or credit union giving you? What do you reckon the real inflation rate is, factoring in fuel, food, health care and education? Now tell me, at what rate is your savings depreciating? Do the math.
Instead of knee-jerk pre-conceived notions, please do research what I'm talking about, for your own good as well, unless you like to see your savings stolen. There is a lot to it, but at the end of the day, it is dead simple.
Only the Super-rich can save us?
Gee you guys, we're just trying to create a conservative utopia.
After only a few months in office, Synder (the Republican governor) has an approval of 44 percent of voters and going down rapidly. The state is cutting the length of time one can receive unemployment checks and is taxing the elderly and poor to give tax breaks to businesses. Working people are beginning to wake up to what neoliberal policies are all about. The backlash is just beginning.
Why are all the states doing the same thing at the same time? why are every one of them giving public money to corporations and billionaires? Some entity is telling them all what to do.
I nominate the Koch Brothers as the ring leaders of this ultra conservative drive toward fascism: Unlimited choices for the richest 95%, slavery for the rest of us. No money for schools? No problem, we will tax the poorest people and give that money to the ultra-rich. What kind of sense does that make?
Maybe it's not supposed to make sense. Maybe the idea is that if a lie, no matter how outrageous, is repeated often enough people will think it makes perfect sense,
even repeat the lie in public, as on the campaign trail, over and over without fear of contradiction ----until they no longer need be afraid of any protest.
Is it true that the Koch Brothers grandfather worked for Josef Stalin? That their father helped found the John Birch Society? We are letting some very unsavory characters run the country via the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and now even the governors of the states.
We have a bigger mess to clean up than even the nuclear mess in Japan.
Citizens United decision equals a passel of fascist governors.
It goes higher, or deeper, than the Kochs. As powerful as they are, they're mere agents-of-empire. The actual "emperor" (whoever he might be), and his closest group of "advisors" (whoever they might be), probably aren't even Americans ("those young upstarts"). Whoever they are, they were probably born into, or "mentored' into, the longest-running GAME on the planet; the game of empire.
This is a simple ploy to consolidate "The Right" along religious and cultural lines by keeping women "in their place," pregnant/ at home caring for children and therefore not competing for the constantly-dwindling number of jobs that pay a living wage. Of course this is a great way to build support among working/middle class men whose wage-earning power continiues to decline and whose religious views are irrelevant, but who still regard women as illegitimate competitors for jobs. The forced bearing of children makes working for decent wages even more critical to many of these women, but their relative invisiblility makes them vulnerable targets of the Right. Sadly, many disempowered male workers continue to regard working women as the enemy and don't understand the connection between their own disempowerment and that of the women whom they regard as challenging their presumed power and sense of entitllement.
This author declares an event as "more than just a class war". But the class war is the grand-daddy of all wars. We all understand that the people are mostly good. It's that elite 10% who are bad. The elite 10% prevent the rest of us from implementing policies that serve ourselves. The most fundamental of these policies include securing our enlightenment. When we understand what's going on, and are able to address problems, we may easily resolve them. The only thing stopping us from resolving all of our problems, womens' rights, labor rights, gay rights, minority rights, environmental rights, is elite control over industrial production and public policy. Elites have to keep us confused, ignorant, divided, hopeless, weak, and vulnerable to their wicked exploitation. Throw off the chains of elite oppression, and the people will quickly go to work and resolve all remaining issues. We achieve this by taking from the elites control over industrial production and public policy, i.e. victory against the elites in their class war, their war on people.
"I care deeply about the issues facing the working class ...but..."
But I've got to make a living. Obviously the author, Angi Becker Stevens, is not worried about how she's going to pay bills, this month or next. Politics is about money; politicians go into politics for only one reason, to make money, which means shilling for the highest bidders, big companies and billionaires. Since billionaire friendly policies are not very popular, the politicians have to find some other issues to use as bait, thus the emphasis on social issues that rally the voters but don't cost the big donors a dime. When you're house is on fire you fight the fire, you don't redecorate.
OK, lets begin by picking a grassroots Green candidate that is eco-friendly, union loving, promotes rights for all, including keeping women out of the dark ages, away from the Evangelical Talibans invasive claws. A peaceful, diplomatic and honest individual who did not come from a rich family or head a corporation like an insurance company, does not have a foreign agenda like AIPAC. Without campaign contributions and only with mail in flyers and if a tv stations want to know who that person is they will put it in their news on their own expense. We don't need a Dynasty or an actor. Someone who joins us not divides. Someone who understands we are all people, we count, vote and matter, and cannot be replaced by androids.
I wish that could happen, but so far we aren't the ones "picking" the candidates. They're preselected and presented to us as a "choose this one or that one" basis.
Maybe by next year things will somehow have changed so that someone who meets echoes' criteria could make it past first round draft pick. I don't think so, but there's always hope, or so I'm told.
"But as we mobilize to speak out in the name of social justice, we cannot become so singularly focused that we forget to include the basic rights and freedoms of women. "
Since you're all so stoked about the "working class", "social justice", and "womens rights", why don't you (along with your peers), first stop your homegrown democratic dogs of war from murdering others and destroying their lands abroad? Sadly, the author is scurrying to and fro from one project to another, throwing a little water on each fire while the arsonists remain at large, setting blaze after blaze.
The "arsonists" is a system. That's why there's "blaze after blaze". Those blazes include attacks on the living standards of working people, attacks on women's rights, attacks on nature (pollution, global warming) and the attacks militarily on millions of people abroad to name only a few. They are all connected. The problem you raise is a problem that has crippled the left since the '70's. As the left has not been able to sever its ties to Liberal ideology and the Democratic Party, they have not built a mass movement. (Which could be very significant had they started 35 years ago.) Mass movements are the engine of progressive change, not electoral strategies or candidates. The peace movement (both inside and outside the military) stopped the Vietnam War. The environmental movement gave us the EPA and the women's movement gave us Roe-v-Wade. The fact that we have no mass movement(s) today is why all these things are under attack and losing. The mass protests we saw in Madison, Wisconsin are the first mass (class-based) organized actions we have seen since the 1970's.They need to grow! The purpose of a radical analysis, as opposed to a liberal or progressive one, is that it can connect all these "blazes" to one source.
yeah...you're facing FACISM...for real... just check out the daily digest at privatizationwatch.org mon-fri and see how much of our public services, assets & govt. are going private. no joke folks...that is how fascism takes over a democratic republic.
At bottom, I'd say declaring the legal status of an early-stage fetus as a person is based on a particular religious belief, NOT on provable science.
Does this not make all these anti-choice laws unconstitutional, whether or not the antil-choice people are right?
The pro-life movement also includes people who agree with every other Common Dreams agenda item except abortion. I wish people would stop lumping me in with people who are pro-big business, Rush Limbaugh-loving, pro-war, anti-immigrant, etc. Some of us happen to support the rights of workers, religious minorities, torture victims, undocumented immigrants, organic farmers, and unborn children.
It is fairly clear from the patterns of law-jiggering going on all over the country in areas where Republican legislators are in the majority that this activity is not random: they have a script.
How do we do that? How do we make up a thirty year plan, and run for office rather than whine when someone like Obama fools our asses?
Speak out! Every chance you get point out the obvious because some people just can't see it. It won't be easy. You might get your nose punched---believe me it doesn't hurt a lot, but once we are under the heel of these oligarchs we will not be able to speak---not unless we want to go a day without food, and considering how hard we will have to work a day without food will almost be a death sentence.
We are not quite yet slaves. Please let's not wait until we are left to wonder what happened to our happy way of life----to the extent that it is still happy for some of us. Bring up the Koch Brothers every chance you get. Tell people how their father made his fortune working for Josef Stalin. His sons have never earned a penny on their own. They are social parasites, just like our billionaires who keep on getting welfare and denying welfare to those in this country who go to bed hungry every night.
Talk. Speak. make your voice heard, here and everywhere else you can.
Dimiadome and Neitzsche...I thought about how truly dumb most people are, that when asked very simple questions have no clue. I wonder if the majority of people actually have the mental capacity to understand the complexity and corrosion of the current situations; they being so inner woven defy logic. I have been reading the 911truth stuff and when one starts to connect the dots that keep cropping up...OMG. MIchigan = water thievery by someone like Nestle
Oh it's great to have something to agree with, right on! I actually like this website and agree with loads of stuff. Some people think just because I hate anti war protestors I am some sort of right wing so and so. That would have my friends falling of their chairs laughing.
In reaction: Springsteen- "My Home State"
In disgust: Marley- "Rise Up/, Get Up, Stand Up"
Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
It is you and I who are to blame . We keep buying and supporting, financially, corporate greed and allow the Gov't to teach (brainwash) our children to be mindless followers . Those who control the "news" (Bring up the Koch Brothers every chance you get.)decide what we are allowed to think .The Supreme Court Judges are Bought and Paid in Full by the same corporations they worked for before they were appointed to the Highest court. When these same corporate giants fail we the people who slave to pay (WAR) taxes are there to pay up for a bail out that we didn't vote for, a bail out the corporate (News) (Bring up the Koch Brothers every chance you get.)tells us we need !! Grow a garden ;buy local- from your neighbor (you should be LOVING)- not some corporate slaughter mill that doesn't even like you ; eat less meat( like Oprha) ;less foreign anything ;pay less(WAR) taxes ; get food stamps and welfare .When no one is pulling the cart it stops so just climb on and enjoy the ride. GIVE to Caesar what he deserves instead of our childrens blood .
Not only must a woman keep the right to choose, the society should have no control whatsoever over the child until the child reaches a certain age and full citizenship. Let me explain.
It has been my understanding that in some Native American tribes, a newborn was NOT considered to be a member of the tribe in any legal sense. The child had to have reached a certain age, perhaps 3 months old, before it was brought before a council with the parents for inspection. If the child was discovered to be fit, with no severe disabilities, then the child would be adopted by the tribe and become a full member, and fully defended and supported by the tribe.
If, on the other hand, the child was NOT found to be healthy and free from severe disabilities, the tribe would NOT accept the child, and no social expenditure would be made for its survival. Usually, the parents withheld nourishment from the child and it died. This action was taken while the child was young, had little investment in its life, the parents had little invested, and the tribe was not burdened, beyond its ability to cope, with incapacitated individuals over a long lifetime. It is a policy which keeps a society fit and healthy without bankrupting it. We could learn a thing or two here.