So it would logically follow that harassing the people who harass abortion patients is also free speech, no?
Never underestimate what a great big dose of “their own medicine” can do for these people. It can wake up even the most brainwashed if you’re persistent. Yesterday my sister took off early from work and went by Planned Parenthood to find the orange vests with their orange cones set up at the entrance to the parking lot trying to get drivers to stop.
As soon as she parked and started heading their way, they immediately packed up and left.
Everyone should find the time to read the report from Amnesty International which Jessica has linked here. So many people expect to find the information they need to make serious life decisions (including reproductive care) on various internet platforms. What seems apparent is that in the wake of Dobbs mere information about abortion is being monitored and throttled. Health care information isn't illegal anywhere - not yet. Imagine if it becomes so.
Regarding abortion options, what I don’t think men understand is the absolute damage pregnancy and childbirth do to one’s body. We all know about the 14 to 1 chance of death from childbirth vs abortion, OK? Then there is the medical advice that a woman should space pregnacies three years apart. It takes that long for one’s body to recover. For months after delivery a woman’s body is still mis-shapen. Then there is the old wives’ tale that a woman loses a tooth for each child. That might be just an old wives’ tale but 100% of the fetus’s nutrition is taken from the pregnant woman.
Granted some women sail through pregnancy and childbirth, but many don’t. Why would anyone choose such an ordeal if there is no chance for it to end with a healthy baby and a healthy mother? There is a reason hospitals have maternity wards. Childbirth is a medical emergency. It is time to recognize it as such.
While Jessica has raised the alarm about information on abortion disappearing from the interwebs, Sarah Kendzior has been making the point more generally that where once there was lots of freely available information, now much is locked up behind a paywall. Even the Wayback Machine has its hiccups now and again. Something to take note of.
Sometimes I am reminded of the 1729 Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. If some forced birth proponent gets pregnant and refuses miscarriage care and she goes septic, well she will only do it once cause she will die. (I am in a very dark place today)
“Finally, I’ve been warning about attacks on buffer zones for a while: anti-abortion activists and legislators are trying to do away with protections for clinics by claiming it’s a ‘free speech’ issue.”
I was in grad school in Boston when the bombings at the Brookline clinic happened. It wasn’t until 2007 that we had state legislated buffer zones. I remember when Barnett Slepian was murdered in his home.
If you want chills to run down your spine, listen to Hello Birmingham by Ani DiFranco. The connection is apt. She has written multiple autobiographical songs about her own abortion. I can never listen to that song without weeping. We can’t go back.
Massachusetts is currently run by badass women. The lieutenant governor was my mayor in Salem for 11 years. Because of her leadership conditions for residents improved. Not to mention Governor Maura Healy, Representative Katherine Clark, DA Marian Ryan, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and many more. But it won’t save us if republicans gain a foothold in the white house again. And people here don’t know. They think they are safe.
These women who think Trump is "moderate " on abortion???? And urban women at that...! I seriously do not understand how people can walk around in this country and be that ignorant. However, I am constantly hearing about powerful, well funded extremist groups on the Republican side..... who fortify the spin whores..... but who are the equivalent powerful well funded democratic pro choice pro women groups besides the CFRR and PP.... cmon democrats let's get some massive funds to drowned out the handmaiden headquarters..... PS no one is suing the social media companies banning the word abortion on freedom of speech ???? Arrrgh
Today's Democrats will not be remembered fondly by history (assuming there is a future with history, and that the fascists don't win an eternal victory and eradicate it all 1984-style). When we look back at the Nazis, we always ask, why on earth didn't the people stop them before it got to that point? Those who failed to comprehend the threat and act aggressively enough are remembered as pathetic fools, as much the villains of the story as the Nazis themselves. That's the level of the threat that we're facing right now, at this very moment. An unprecedented assault on human rights and civil liberties is just around the corner in January. The damage to individual lives will be irreparable.To use a sports metaphor, we have to leave it all on the field. I have no doubt that the grassroots activists whom we read about here everyday will do that. But the people in positions of power, any position of power, or even proximity to it, are failing us badly, with caution and timidity that are the enemy's best friend.
But the Democratic politicians are doing a huge amount of work around these areas - the problem is the idiot fucking voters who vote R across the board, who only watch Fox news, who don't bother to read anything progressive, forward leaning, even moderate.......the other issue is lazy voters who won't get their ass off the couch. We can blame all the Republican voters for SCOTUS.
If fascism sweeps this country we have no one to blame but the voters.
I disagree. Conservatives built a media apparatus post Nixon to propagate their ideas.
Liberals and Democrats did not.
And here we are with right leaning AM radio, Sinclair beaming nonsense into local tv networks, Joe Rogan and bro podcasts, and yes — right leaning “fourth estate” faux liberal outlets like CNN, NYT, and WaPo pushing anti-abortion talking points.
We don’t have a way to reach those voters.
And this is decades in the making. Liberals just hoped that the media would carry their message and corporate media is not here for it. The media failed us in 2016 and they are failing hard now.
And here we are hurtling in a post Dobbs world with the prospect of things getting very much worse and Democrats aren’t visually acting like anything is wrong. This is not normal and things look too fucking normal.
I know part of the challenge is defending a broken system. Being an incumbent must suck bad right now. But damn. Here we are.
The left needs to (1) build its own media apparatus that includes both news and entertainment — this is a decades long assignment and (2) immediately learn from conservatives and effective progressives how to use the media by creating and highlighting conflict and make it visual. Dress up in blue suit and scream indignantly about something. Go where the cameras are.
Connect the dots for people. People massively underestimate how much that is needed. You worried about the cost of gas? Guess what? Banning abortion will not make gas cheaper but it might mean you have to drive an extra two hours to get medical care. You worried about crime and safety? Banning abortion will not lower crime — it means the opposite — more desperate parents and kids who are struggling to get by. You want freedom and opportunity? Banning abortion will not make us more free —it means more big government in your lives and death panels.
(This is why I think blaming the voters isn’t helpful. We just let it all go for decades. Look at abortion education. It’s insane we’re talking about week bans. Clinically insane. It shows how little education there is on the issue. We should be in a place where anytime someone suggests a weeks ban the room should burst into hysterical derogatory laughter It should be a bad joke in polite company! But it’s not. It’s taking as deeply serious. Doesn’t that highlight how far we have to go? )
Thank you. It's harder for us because money doesn't like progressive economic ideas. Or perhaps even liberal economic ideas, if they prefer protectionism. But somebody needs to do something at the very least to fight off the Christian Nationalists. Is it that that group's economic ideas, such as they are, are that appealing to the wealthy that they don't care if we live in Iran? I don't know. I don't know how much of it is lack of effort and competence on our part, and how much is it's impossible to build that because money will always favor the bad guys.
Thank you! They have an extremely well oiled and funded machine. We do not have the eqivalent. Even WaPo anf the NYT repeat their propaganda fearing to not do "both-sides" which are not equal.bnut they present the issue as if they are.
Yesterday seemed to be misogyny day in the New York Times op ed pages. One was shaming young women for caring about their careers and not having more babies & another was against the metoo movement and calling for compassion, not for the victimized women but for the men who behaved badly. This kind of opinion seems to be getting more and more space in mainstream outlets.
Cancel subscriptions and share the upsetting coverage with your friends/family and explain why it's offensive if you have to (nothing wrong with disrupting a Sunday dinner every now and again for a good cause).
I often follow that with "we've all trusted them in the past but if they can be this wrong on things that we value, can we really trust them on issues with which we aren't as familiar? And yes, I'd love desert, thank you."
If you read online, the media outlet knows what you click and comment on and advertisers get that data. My family & I have decided to be careful about not giving certain writers any interaction while always clicking on the writers & subjects we care about. If everyone who thinks, say, Ross Douthat or Pamela Paul have nothing worthwhile to say refused to engage with their work, would the NYT keep paying them? It can be hard. I confess I clicked & commented on both the columns I complained about yesterday. Most of the commenters were pushing back, not agreeing with the writers. But all the ad folks care about is engagement.
Ask any trans person about the editorial decisions at the NYTs and they'll tell you that everyday is "abandon your values and throw someone under the bus to appeal to 'centrist conservatives day."
They even employ a TERF, which is ridiculous. They are supposed to be the educated people's paper, but they are merely the patriarchal propaganda paper these days.
Any Democrat can win anywhere, even in blood red districts, by hammering on Dobbs all day every day. There's 100 million women ready to vote and they ain't thinking gop.
I live in Chicago where our city government is run by a mayor and a city council. The councilors are called Aldermen. The city is divided into aldermanic areas called Wards. There are 50 Wards (and 50 Aldermen) in Chicago.
Areas around hospitals, schools and other designated locations are deemed “quiet zones” and don’t allow protestors to use amplified sound (among other restrictions) in their protests. The reason is obvious. Hospitalized patients and care givers should not have to listen to that level of noise. One Alderman has been trying to get the area around Chicago’s largest abortion clinic designated as a “quiet zone” since every weekend hundreds of protesters show up harassing patients and staff and using amplified sound at such a level that staff can barely interact with patients. One other Alderman has been holding up the vote complaining that such a change will infringe on the protesters rights. When this kind of bullshit goes on in Chicago then you know it an go on (and be successful) elsewhere.
"It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you!" And just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you.
I think you are missing the issue about Trump and abortion. The problem is not so much what kind of threat Trump is willing to be to the right to abortion, it is whether Biden and the Democrats are less of a threat in claiming to defend abortion. And speaking as born and raised in California, I have to say I am no more worried about Trump and the Republicans as a threat to the right to an abortion than I am any Democrat claiming to defend it.
Pro-choice is nothing more than a legal stance about abortion and being pro-choice doesn't mean you don't have other threats to make against anyone getting abortion or participating in sex leading to same. Pro-choice also doesn't mean you aren't willing to stand in the way of uncorrupted knowledge about sex, reproduction and pregnancy. And being able to articulate, understand and be versed in these issues, honestly and independent of political language is the only weapon we have against the anti-abortionists.
So it would logically follow that harassing the people who harass abortion patients is also free speech, no?
Never underestimate what a great big dose of “their own medicine” can do for these people. It can wake up even the most brainwashed if you’re persistent. Yesterday my sister took off early from work and went by Planned Parenthood to find the orange vests with their orange cones set up at the entrance to the parking lot trying to get drivers to stop.
As soon as she parked and started heading their way, they immediately packed up and left.
THAT’S how it’s done, folks.
Everyone should find the time to read the report from Amnesty International which Jessica has linked here. So many people expect to find the information they need to make serious life decisions (including reproductive care) on various internet platforms. What seems apparent is that in the wake of Dobbs mere information about abortion is being monitored and throttled. Health care information isn't illegal anywhere - not yet. Imagine if it becomes so.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/obstacles-to-autonomy-post-roe-removal-of-abortion-information-online/
Regarding abortion options, what I don’t think men understand is the absolute damage pregnancy and childbirth do to one’s body. We all know about the 14 to 1 chance of death from childbirth vs abortion, OK? Then there is the medical advice that a woman should space pregnacies three years apart. It takes that long for one’s body to recover. For months after delivery a woman’s body is still mis-shapen. Then there is the old wives’ tale that a woman loses a tooth for each child. That might be just an old wives’ tale but 100% of the fetus’s nutrition is taken from the pregnant woman.
Granted some women sail through pregnancy and childbirth, but many don’t. Why would anyone choose such an ordeal if there is no chance for it to end with a healthy baby and a healthy mother? There is a reason hospitals have maternity wards. Childbirth is a medical emergency. It is time to recognize it as such.
While Jessica has raised the alarm about information on abortion disappearing from the interwebs, Sarah Kendzior has been making the point more generally that where once there was lots of freely available information, now much is locked up behind a paywall. Even the Wayback Machine has its hiccups now and again. Something to take note of.
There’s so much to fear from Republicans, I plan to monger right through November!
Sometimes I am reminded of the 1729 Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. If some forced birth proponent gets pregnant and refuses miscarriage care and she goes septic, well she will only do it once cause she will die. (I am in a very dark place today)
“Finally, I’ve been warning about attacks on buffer zones for a while: anti-abortion activists and legislators are trying to do away with protections for clinics by claiming it’s a ‘free speech’ issue.”
I was in grad school in Boston when the bombings at the Brookline clinic happened. It wasn’t until 2007 that we had state legislated buffer zones. I remember when Barnett Slepian was murdered in his home.
If you want chills to run down your spine, listen to Hello Birmingham by Ani DiFranco. The connection is apt. She has written multiple autobiographical songs about her own abortion. I can never listen to that song without weeping. We can’t go back.
I'm so happy to see that ad from Massachusetts, just wish it was more pointed. But still!
Massachusetts is currently run by badass women. The lieutenant governor was my mayor in Salem for 11 years. Because of her leadership conditions for residents improved. Not to mention Governor Maura Healy, Representative Katherine Clark, DA Marian Ryan, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and many more. But it won’t save us if republicans gain a foothold in the white house again. And people here don’t know. They think they are safe.
These women who think Trump is "moderate " on abortion???? And urban women at that...! I seriously do not understand how people can walk around in this country and be that ignorant. However, I am constantly hearing about powerful, well funded extremist groups on the Republican side..... who fortify the spin whores..... but who are the equivalent powerful well funded democratic pro choice pro women groups besides the CFRR and PP.... cmon democrats let's get some massive funds to drowned out the handmaiden headquarters..... PS no one is suing the social media companies banning the word abortion on freedom of speech ???? Arrrgh
When you look for the money and don't find it, you have to wonder if you've discovered some sickening truth about what's going on.
Today's Democrats will not be remembered fondly by history (assuming there is a future with history, and that the fascists don't win an eternal victory and eradicate it all 1984-style). When we look back at the Nazis, we always ask, why on earth didn't the people stop them before it got to that point? Those who failed to comprehend the threat and act aggressively enough are remembered as pathetic fools, as much the villains of the story as the Nazis themselves. That's the level of the threat that we're facing right now, at this very moment. An unprecedented assault on human rights and civil liberties is just around the corner in January. The damage to individual lives will be irreparable.To use a sports metaphor, we have to leave it all on the field. I have no doubt that the grassroots activists whom we read about here everyday will do that. But the people in positions of power, any position of power, or even proximity to it, are failing us badly, with caution and timidity that are the enemy's best friend.
But the Democratic politicians are doing a huge amount of work around these areas - the problem is the idiot fucking voters who vote R across the board, who only watch Fox news, who don't bother to read anything progressive, forward leaning, even moderate.......the other issue is lazy voters who won't get their ass off the couch. We can blame all the Republican voters for SCOTUS.
If fascism sweeps this country we have no one to blame but the voters.
I disagree. Conservatives built a media apparatus post Nixon to propagate their ideas.
Liberals and Democrats did not.
And here we are with right leaning AM radio, Sinclair beaming nonsense into local tv networks, Joe Rogan and bro podcasts, and yes — right leaning “fourth estate” faux liberal outlets like CNN, NYT, and WaPo pushing anti-abortion talking points.
We don’t have a way to reach those voters.
And this is decades in the making. Liberals just hoped that the media would carry their message and corporate media is not here for it. The media failed us in 2016 and they are failing hard now.
And here we are hurtling in a post Dobbs world with the prospect of things getting very much worse and Democrats aren’t visually acting like anything is wrong. This is not normal and things look too fucking normal.
I know part of the challenge is defending a broken system. Being an incumbent must suck bad right now. But damn. Here we are.
The left needs to (1) build its own media apparatus that includes both news and entertainment — this is a decades long assignment and (2) immediately learn from conservatives and effective progressives how to use the media by creating and highlighting conflict and make it visual. Dress up in blue suit and scream indignantly about something. Go where the cameras are.
Connect the dots for people. People massively underestimate how much that is needed. You worried about the cost of gas? Guess what? Banning abortion will not make gas cheaper but it might mean you have to drive an extra two hours to get medical care. You worried about crime and safety? Banning abortion will not lower crime — it means the opposite — more desperate parents and kids who are struggling to get by. You want freedom and opportunity? Banning abortion will not make us more free —it means more big government in your lives and death panels.
(This is why I think blaming the voters isn’t helpful. We just let it all go for decades. Look at abortion education. It’s insane we’re talking about week bans. Clinically insane. It shows how little education there is on the issue. We should be in a place where anytime someone suggests a weeks ban the room should burst into hysterical derogatory laughter It should be a bad joke in polite company! But it’s not. It’s taking as deeply serious. Doesn’t that highlight how far we have to go? )
Thank you. It's harder for us because money doesn't like progressive economic ideas. Or perhaps even liberal economic ideas, if they prefer protectionism. But somebody needs to do something at the very least to fight off the Christian Nationalists. Is it that that group's economic ideas, such as they are, are that appealing to the wealthy that they don't care if we live in Iran? I don't know. I don't know how much of it is lack of effort and competence on our part, and how much is it's impossible to build that because money will always favor the bad guys.
Thank you! They have an extremely well oiled and funded machine. We do not have the eqivalent. Even WaPo anf the NYT repeat their propaganda fearing to not do "both-sides" which are not equal.bnut they present the issue as if they are.
It's politicians' jobs to get the voters to know what's going on, and to vote accordingly. No one says it's an easy job.
Yesterday seemed to be misogyny day in the New York Times op ed pages. One was shaming young women for caring about their careers and not having more babies & another was against the metoo movement and calling for compassion, not for the victimized women but for the men who behaved badly. This kind of opinion seems to be getting more and more space in mainstream outlets.
NYT, you keep this shit up, I'll be canceling my subscription . gd
So what do non-fascists do to counter this dysfunctional behavior?
Cancel subscriptions and share the upsetting coverage with your friends/family and explain why it's offensive if you have to (nothing wrong with disrupting a Sunday dinner every now and again for a good cause).
I often follow that with "we've all trusted them in the past but if they can be this wrong on things that we value, can we really trust them on issues with which we aren't as familiar? And yes, I'd love desert, thank you."
If you read online, the media outlet knows what you click and comment on and advertisers get that data. My family & I have decided to be careful about not giving certain writers any interaction while always clicking on the writers & subjects we care about. If everyone who thinks, say, Ross Douthat or Pamela Paul have nothing worthwhile to say refused to engage with their work, would the NYT keep paying them? It can be hard. I confess I clicked & commented on both the columns I complained about yesterday. Most of the commenters were pushing back, not agreeing with the writers. But all the ad folks care about is engagement.
Yep. Hate clicks are worth as much as any other.
Because that's what fascists do.
Ask any trans person about the editorial decisions at the NYTs and they'll tell you that everyday is "abandon your values and throw someone under the bus to appeal to 'centrist conservatives day."
They even employ a TERF, which is ridiculous. They are supposed to be the educated people's paper, but they are merely the patriarchal propaganda paper these days.
Any Democrat can win anywhere, even in blood red districts, by hammering on Dobbs all day every day. There's 100 million women ready to vote and they ain't thinking gop.
I live in Chicago where our city government is run by a mayor and a city council. The councilors are called Aldermen. The city is divided into aldermanic areas called Wards. There are 50 Wards (and 50 Aldermen) in Chicago.
Areas around hospitals, schools and other designated locations are deemed “quiet zones” and don’t allow protestors to use amplified sound (among other restrictions) in their protests. The reason is obvious. Hospitalized patients and care givers should not have to listen to that level of noise. One Alderman has been trying to get the area around Chicago’s largest abortion clinic designated as a “quiet zone” since every weekend hundreds of protesters show up harassing patients and staff and using amplified sound at such a level that staff can barely interact with patients. One other Alderman has been holding up the vote complaining that such a change will infringe on the protesters rights. When this kind of bullshit goes on in Chicago then you know it an go on (and be successful) elsewhere.
"It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you!" And just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you.
I think you are missing the issue about Trump and abortion. The problem is not so much what kind of threat Trump is willing to be to the right to abortion, it is whether Biden and the Democrats are less of a threat in claiming to defend abortion. And speaking as born and raised in California, I have to say I am no more worried about Trump and the Republicans as a threat to the right to an abortion than I am any Democrat claiming to defend it.
Pro-choice is nothing more than a legal stance about abortion and being pro-choice doesn't mean you don't have other threats to make against anyone getting abortion or participating in sex leading to same. Pro-choice also doesn't mean you aren't willing to stand in the way of uncorrupted knowledge about sex, reproduction and pregnancy. And being able to articulate, understand and be versed in these issues, honestly and independent of political language is the only weapon we have against the anti-abortionists.
please comrdeski
Be nice 🥰 you two.
Please … what?
"Fear mongering" is a phrase designed to shut people up via political correctness. Nonsense!
We should re-brand it as "fear private equity." Then they'll love it.
It could be the name of the next new meme stock? We could list it on the fear index 😬.