I have been meditating on why our society is not nurturing and has no empathy and collective culture is flying apart. We need to understand, not just the burgeoning deviant political philosophies, but why they are becoming more actively hateful and vicious (especially in the "right to life" states). I watched DJT start with othering Obama by challenging his birth certificate, then othering Muslims and Mexicans as a political strategy, then accepting othering Jews ("will not replace us"), then a vast public movement of science and vaccine denial during COVID, which was not just without empathy, but othered the high risk elderly, essential minorities, the poor and urban elites (as expendable nuisances) in promoting their own libertarian, individualistic freedom, finally culminating in othering all pregnant moms to protect the potential life of a fetus above all values even at the price of allowing raped women and women who experienced incest and eagerly expectant mothers having a miscarriage to suffer and making the ethical practice of medical caring illegal and finally othering children by passing laws re-permitting child labor.
So what does this mean? From a historical perspective it is very serious because wars always start by othering the enemy (see WWII Japanese internment camps, Muslims in the Iraq war among others). It is not alarmist or paranoid to note that Hitler started his extermination project by othering handicapped, mentally retarded and mentally ill Germans and killing 200,000 of them. This is a deep seated pathology. Few people, especially in the media, see how all these events are tied together and are at the core of the Trumpian urge to fascism. It is especially lively in the "right to life" states. Thepoliticians there are eager to pass the most draconian laws, with not one word recognizing the inhumanity of their zeal. We are in a very dangerous period.
"...these same states are also re-establishing ‘maternity homes’. These are group homes that target vulnerable, poor pregnant women who often have no other place to go; they also often have relationships with anti-abortion centers and evangelical adoption agencies. At the same time anti-choice states are over-funding anti-abortion centers and enabling ‘maternity homes’, they’re also trying to make it easier to terminate parental rights. (I think we can all see where this is going.)"
My weekly reminder that this is the definition of trafficking.
Jessica if you and Grace are interested in more information on the relationship between trafficking and adoption/foster care and its history, here's some books from the list I've compiled of books on reproductive justice. We're going to need it as these anti-abortion centers and maternity homes spread.
—The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce
—Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts [benign neglect]
—Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe V. Wade by Rickie Solinger
—Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the United States by Rickie Solinger
—You Should Be Grateful: Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption by Angela Tucker
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
—Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir by Rebecca Carroll
—The Girls Who Went Away (documentary: A Girl Like Her) by Ann Fessler
—Gone to an Aunt's: Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers by Anne Petrie
—The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers by Lynne Barrett-Lee Angela Patrick
—Butterbox Survivors: Life After the Ideal Maternity Home by Robert Hartlen
—Amelia Dyer, Angel Maker: The Woman who Murdered Babies for Money by Alison Rattle
—The Stork Market: America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry
—American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Secret History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser
—The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How Tuam 800 became a Global Scandal by Paul Jude Redmond
—The Lies That Bind: An Adoptee's Journey Through Rejection, Redirection, DNA, and Discovery by Laureen Pittman
I was thinking about all the Ukrainian children kidnaped by Russia, presumably to brainwash them into becoming good Russians. Then I was thinking about the maternity homes and the newborns that are going to be taken from their mothers to be adopted by people who will raise them as good republicans.
If people are busy trying to keep their basic human rights, they don't have time to notice the robber barons are stealing them blind.
I have been meditating on why our society is not nurturing and has no empathy and collective culture is flying apart. We need to understand, not just the burgeoning deviant political philosophies, but why they are becoming more actively hateful and vicious (especially in the "right to life" states). I watched DJT start with othering Obama by challenging his birth certificate, then othering Muslims and Mexicans as a political strategy, then accepting othering Jews ("will not replace us"), then a vast public movement of science and vaccine denial during COVID, which was not just without empathy, but othered the high risk elderly, essential minorities, the poor and urban elites (as expendable nuisances) in promoting their own libertarian, individualistic freedom, finally culminating in othering all pregnant moms to protect the potential life of a fetus above all values even at the price of allowing raped women and women who experienced incest and eagerly expectant mothers having a miscarriage to suffer and making the ethical practice of medical caring illegal and finally othering children by passing laws re-permitting child labor.
So what does this mean? From a historical perspective it is very serious because wars always start by othering the enemy (see WWII Japanese internment camps, Muslims in the Iraq war among others). It is not alarmist or paranoid to note that Hitler started his extermination project by othering handicapped, mentally retarded and mentally ill Germans and killing 200,000 of them. This is a deep seated pathology. Few people, especially in the media, see how all these events are tied together and are at the core of the Trumpian urge to fascism. It is especially lively in the "right to life" states. Thepoliticians there are eager to pass the most draconian laws, with not one word recognizing the inhumanity of their zeal. We are in a very dangerous period.
"...these same states are also re-establishing ‘maternity homes’. These are group homes that target vulnerable, poor pregnant women who often have no other place to go; they also often have relationships with anti-abortion centers and evangelical adoption agencies. At the same time anti-choice states are over-funding anti-abortion centers and enabling ‘maternity homes’, they’re also trying to make it easier to terminate parental rights. (I think we can all see where this is going.)"
My weekly reminder that this is the definition of trafficking.
WHEW.
Jessica if you and Grace are interested in more information on the relationship between trafficking and adoption/foster care and its history, here's some books from the list I've compiled of books on reproductive justice. We're going to need it as these anti-abortion centers and maternity homes spread.
—The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce
—Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare by Dorothy Roberts [benign neglect]
—Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe V. Wade by Rickie Solinger
—Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the United States by Rickie Solinger
—You Should Be Grateful: Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption by Angela Tucker
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
—Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir by Rebecca Carroll
—The Girls Who Went Away (documentary: A Girl Like Her) by Ann Fessler
—Gone to an Aunt's: Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers by Anne Petrie
—The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers by Lynne Barrett-Lee Angela Patrick
—Butterbox Survivors: Life After the Ideal Maternity Home by Robert Hartlen
—Amelia Dyer, Angel Maker: The Woman who Murdered Babies for Money by Alison Rattle
—The Stork Market: America’s Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Industry
—American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Secret History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser
—The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How Tuam 800 became a Global Scandal by Paul Jude Redmond
—The Lies That Bind: An Adoptee's Journey Through Rejection, Redirection, DNA, and Discovery by Laureen Pittman
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pHfFIqtmts2B_ST00qdvwsp9Jx-fOh57wzGdu4punio/edit?usp=drivesdk
I was thinking about all the Ukrainian children kidnaped by Russia, presumably to brainwash them into becoming good Russians. Then I was thinking about the maternity homes and the newborns that are going to be taken from their mothers to be adopted by people who will raise them as good republicans.
There’s really no good news out there on this issue. It’s horrifying and depressing.
Things always get worse before they get better. We can only mitigate the casualties as much as we can in the mean time.