If you want to know what actual tyranny looks like, ask poor women in Texas

[sheshe2]

As some debate whether this country has become more like George Orwell’s 1984 of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, keep in mind that for millions of Americans who have no time to debate such a lofty question, actual oppression exists. This oppression isn’t a overwhelming fear of a the Thought Police or even a steady drugging that manufactures consent. It isn’t theoretical or some slippery slope that slowly envelops true liberty. It’s a never-ending concern about survival and sustenance. It’s a need to keep children fed, clothed and well. It’s knowing that disaster lurks every time your boss is unhappy with you.

The dystopian future we may fear already exists for millions. If you’re expecting fascism to come with a cross and a flag, you’re immune — due to over or underexposure — to the actual economic feudalism that has always trapped the working poor in the country. It’s called wage slavery. The easiest way to trap someone into a life of wage slavery is deny them education and have them start a family before they can afford it. Texas Republicans have this formula for a lifetime of poverty worked out to a science.

The Texas GOP’s jihad against family planning and Planned Parenthood creates unintended pregnancies and leaves poor women with no options. This creates generational poverty and a low-wage workforce with no time to consider how the petrol-funded theocracy of the Lone Star state is designed to make the rich richer and workers less safe and more dependent on the corporations that have indentured them.

http://theobamadiary.com/2013/07/06/rise-and-shine-546/

If you want to know what actual tyranny looks like, ask poor women in Texas
by LOLGOP on JULY 4, 2013 in GOPOCRISY

The easiest way to trap someone into a life of wage slavery is deny them education and have them start a family before they can afford it. Texas Republicans have this formula for a lifetime of poverty worked out to a science.

Andrea Flynn explains:

"Women in Texas already face heavier burdens than women in many other states. Texas has one of the nation’s highest teen birth rates and percentages of women living in poverty. It has a lower percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care in their first trimester than any other state. It also has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation and provides the lowest monthly benefit for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) recipients (an average of $26.86 compared to the national average of $41.52). And soon the majority of women may not have access to abortion care at any stage of their pregnancy."

Governor Perry’s policies have marginalized women who already bear the heavy weight of so many inequities. His latest efforts will only marginalize them further.

The Texas GOP’s jihad against family planning and Planned Parenthood creates unintended pregnancies and leaves poor women with no options. This creates generational poverty and a low-wage workforce with no time to consider how the petrol-funded theocracy of the Lone Star state is designed to make the rich richer and workers less safe and more dependent on the corporations that have indentured them.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/07/if-you-want-to-know-what-actual-tyranny-looks-like-ask-poor-women-in-texas.html#.UdbaXUsGZ2A.twitter

[NYC_SKP]

1. Recommended. (nt)

[Kath1]

2. So very true!

This is something that really needs to be changed!

[OneGrassRoot]

3. So very true. Huge K&R n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

4. And they know this! In fact they quote those facts to slut shame.

Who else here gritted their teeth at Rick Santorum's smug little face reciting his three ways to make sure you stay out of poverty?

Graduate high school, get married, don't have a kid before 21. Excellent advice! "Let's help people do that" is the response of human beings. But right wing assholes like Perry and the current leaders of the Texas Lege look at this like a road map to keep people down while maintaining their own moral purity. It's revolting.

[freshwest]

5. Thanks very much. I just don't see much concern at DU about this this weekend.

Maybe never again. Appreciate bringing the truth a major forum on the board.

[sheshe2]

6. We will say it again, freshwest.

Over and over, until it is heard~

[freshwest]

10. And you are doing it, GF!!! Thanks for doing it.

[sheshe2]

14. The Book is from~ The Boston Women’s Health Collective! ***Go Boston!

OUR BODIES OURSELVES GLOBAL INITIATIVE

Ever since Our Bodies, Ourselves became a best seller in the United States, it has inspired women in other countries to adapt it—in part or as a whole—to their unique cultural needs. Through the our Bodies ourselves Global Initiative, we support more than twenty-two women’s organizations as they develop materials based on Our Bodies, Ourselves and use their resources in wide-scale outreach to advance the health and human rights of women and girls in their countries. Although the earliest projects were located primarily in Europe, we have since collaborated with organizations across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe to bring culturally meaningful and reliable information to communities where it is most needed. As a result of our partnerships, resources based on the book are now available in more than twenty-five languages and in print, digital, and other socially interactive formats. You will read about our partners in the “In Translation” sidebars and we invite you to visit ourbodiesourselves.org/programs/network to learn more.As always, we recognize how the personal is often political and thus underscore when individual solutions are not possible or not lasting. Throughout the book, women who have joined with others to bring about change share their stories. The combination of practical information with political critique and women’s lived experiences has long been the hallmark of Our Bodies, Ourselves and is one of the reasons the book has remained one of the most enduring legacies of the women’s movements that grew out of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Much has changed in the United States since the first edition, when abortion was illegal, birth control was not widely available, and the few available texts on women’s health and sexuality—almost all written by men—discounted women’s experiences and perspectives. Today, information is abundant, but it is still difficult to find reliable information that encompasses the diversity of women’s experiences and teases apart the conflicts of interest inherent in many issues that affect women’s health. Far too often, corporate and pharmaceutical interests influence medical research, information, and care, and contribute to the unnecessary medicalization of women’s bodies and lives. This not only wastes money and poses avoidable risks but also can discourage women from questioning the assumptions underlying the care they receive and from valuing and sharing their own insights and experiences. The need for a book like Our Bodies, Ourselves remains as strong as ever.

Changing the medical system, organizing for better care, and altering the larger social, political, and economic forces that limit women’s lives require creative and concerted efforts over a long period of time. We believe that enhancing reproductive health and sexual pleasure can play a significant positive role in all our lives and strengthen us as we work toward sustaining a vision of a world that will better nurture all women, men, and children. We encourage you to explore this book with curiosity and vision.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2689780069001?r=1&cm_mmca2=pla&cm_mmc=GooglePLA-_-Book_25To44-_-Q000000633-_-2689780069001

see more here~

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023188824

Anytime, freshwest!

[niyad]

8. there are many of us who do care, and who will not be silent.

[freshwest]

11. For which I am grateful, niyad, to people like that, you and Sheshe and all who post on it.

[sheshe2]

15. Truth!

Thank you niyad.

Truth out~ every damn day!

[sheshe2]

17. So, niyad. When did you buy your first copy...

of Our Bodies Ourselves?

Yikes! I think I was in my early twenties... And here we are fighting it again!

[niyad]

26. probably like you, early 20's--and then various editons as they came out. now, of course,

we have "ourselves, growing older". . .

[BlueJazz]

12. "I just don't see much concern at DU about this this weekend"

Then we need to be reminded of this and other injustices more often.
I wish I could do more to help situations that exist like that in Texas....It's so sad...

[sheshe2]

24. It is time to change the face of our front page~

We need to start talking about issues.

[niyad]

7. k and r

[MotherPetrie]

9. K&R

[HardTimes99]

13. Thanks for posting. A very important issue that needs to be kept front and

center, as we debate the other pressing issues of the day.

At some point, the disparity in incomes and the resultant lack of access to reproductive health services becomes an issue encompassing the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. To wit, what point is there in saying that women have a 'right' to an abortion, if they are too poor to be able to avail themselves of that right? As my wife puts it, "The women who most need abortions can't afford them."

I must tell you that out here in smug, self-satisfied La-La land, only 31 people attended a Wendy Davis solidarity rally at LA's City Hall on Monday, July 1. The protest my wife and I attended, although small, was spirited and lively. It was sponsored by an organization named "WORD" (for "Women Organized to Resist and Defend&quot . My wife and I were very disappointed at the small turnout and the seeming disdain displayed by the LA County Democratic Party and LA city officials.

[freshwest]

19. I doubt that a blue state has that on the top of its list of worries. Why do you expect a large

turn out in LA? And why do you call the party there disdainful?

We don't focus on that where I live in my blue area. We are trying to keep the fool teabaggers from shutting down the state government.

We managed to dodge the bullet from the way things were done in CA to bankrupt it about majority and taxes, but they are pulling out all the stops to ruin the state.

Priorities, not publicity.

Just sayin'

[HardTimes99]

21. Because the intense interest worldwide in Wendy Davis' filibuster led me to

expect that, in a city of more than 8 million, more than 31 people would turn out to show their respect for Davis and support for reproductive health services and freedom. Last time I checked, Wendy Davis is a Dem.

FWIW, there were more members of Occupy Los Angeles and unaffiliated anarchists at this protest in LA than there were Dems from what I could discern.

[freshwest]

25. Well, then you should participate with them more often, if you think they're doing well.

Did you contact your Democratic representatives in your precinct, county, or state? I don't even know who your repesentatives are.

We have a pro-active blue governor protecting our rights, and we support them by sending money to Battleground Texas, but it's simply not the top of our agenda.

The baggers have forced us to operate without a state budget for two months and things are critical. The Sequester has also hit our state hard, many are doing without work, others are having their education interfered with.

In the meantime, we are implementing the Medicaid expansion in the ACA and it is making a huge difference for many people, except the libertarians and baggers are trying to shut it down at the state level. We have a lot of starve beast libertarians here who want the state shut down, and everything privatized.

Are there any big issues going on in ths state of CA at this time that you want dealt with by the legislature, or Brown to assist women's rights in CA? Haven't these issues been addressed in the state version of Medicaid whatever it's called down there?

This is the primary issue in Texas. These zealots have been cutting all kinds of rights - for the poor. Not every state is doing this, but the red ones are. We're concerned about the inroads of baggers and libertarians who want this state to go red. We don't want to fight the same thing that Texas is now.

And it's coming to every state that loses its Democratic majority. This would not have happened in Texas with a blue legislature and a Democratic win in Texas in the next election is the only thing that is going to stop this.

[HardTimes99]

29. Oh, we will be. I believe WORD may have another solidarity demo scheduled for this coming

Tuseday, July 9 (when the TX legislature re-convenes its special session adjourned on July 1). If so, we shall be there again. Here's a link to WORD's website, if you're interested:

http://www.defendwomensrights.org

We are (or better yet, 'I am') rather late to this struggle, having largely tuned out of politics after Occupy Los Angeles got smashed up in November, 2011. My wife had been paying far more attention to the attack on reproductive rights than I thus far and had been prodding me to educate myself. When the Wendy Davis filibuster happened, that was the spark that ignited my heightened interest. (So I have not contacted any CA or LA officials about it yet.)

BTW, thank you for your efforts and suggestions:

[freshwest]

34. Update:

http://occupydemocrats.com/bigoted-texas-anti-choice-bill-fast-tracked-by-rick-perry-and-texas-gop/

http://occupydemocrats.com/about/

And the same ALEC bill was passed by adding it to other bills in two red states this past week. With no debate. The GOP are suspending the rights of not only women, but every other group in the country, state by state.

Or in the case of the HoR, nationally with the bill the GOP passed that is either identical to the one in Texas. I have been involved in this for nearly half a century, marching, organizing voters, going into legislatures and working with coalitions for the rights of women, workers, minorities and environmental causes.

I was just going over some pictures to scan that are over 40 years old of our coalition getting arrested after months of organzing and preparing ourselves. That was on our environmental actions. I'm filing it with video of us in anti-war demonstrations that we traveled coast to coast.

Some of us came out of Austin, TX., some out of Orange County, CA. The largest was in D.C. with a quarter million according to park service records, followed by one in L.A. that I will never forget. Solidarity was high at both events, but more so at L.A. It's important to feel emotional support, and there are few things to strenghten one's spirit and resolve more than being in a crowd of tens of thousands of like minded people, but they are more of celebratory events than changing the system. You have to do what we called 'going into the belly of the beast' to do that.

We learned that earlier, but also that day we heard Kerry who with VVAW members were leaders in our groups. Only one Democratic representative made a public appearance with that one demonstration, it all was our own groups speaking for the most part. Although we had the support of Democrats and community groups throughout the states and helping us get into where we needed to be, not as Democrats, but anti-war activists.

Kerry testified in the Winter Soldier hearings, and told them that if elected officials did not end the war now, they would return again to 'transform' the government to do so. That is exactly what happened and we won many victories on civil rights of every kind and the environment.

Now we have people getting out the vote in Texas as it was predicted last year. Now to 2014, to put these Koch puppets out of office. Go through the list of ALEC legislative supporters in your region. No one should let the Kochoctopus write their laws. This is exactly what Nordquist said they intended last year. They put Romney on the ballot to be Grover Nordquist's Robosigner-in-Chief:

All we have to do is replace Obama... We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget...

We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team,to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

~ Grover Nordquist

The bills being passed which the GOP refuse to debate, cannot be argued by them because they did not write them. I've seen these and they are written up just like legislation, but not by any legislator. They are complete when they arrive to be read on the floor to be voted on, and the GOP will pull any trick to match sure they're passed. They don't believe in consensus.

ALEC wrote all these bills, RTW, SYG, voting restrictions, taking away health care, food and housing to the poor and destroying the 4th amendment rights of women and LGBTs. They do not listen to any reasoning or expert testimony, they are simply putting into effect the plan.

Don't just talk about them in the street, meet them in their faces, but more importantly, find allies to take them down. Then inform and register people to vote them out of office. The GOP are more afraid of that than anything else. Occupy tactics do not work behind closed doors, which is how these things were passed with GOP majorities without public voices. The public method of Occupy needs to register voters to put these people out of office. They will not stop, their script has been handed to them and they are well-funded and rewarded for carrying it out.

Good luck.

[MH1]

28. "Equal protection" may not include women, you know.*

The ERA was never ratified.

A stain on this country if there ever was one.


* Of course, the text of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment uses the word "person" but in other places it refers specifically to "male inhabitants" or "male citizens", so it could be argued that it was never intended to apply to women. And at that time, in the minds of many, it probably wasn't.

(That said, I surely hope there have been precedent-setting cases since then that clear this up in favor of it applying to women too. I don't know as much about constitutional law as I probably should to be discussing this.

[HardTimes99]

31. Your mention of the ERA prompted some fond memories for me of my

high-school days back in the mid-70s in a very red area of the Bible Belt. My favorite high-school English teacher as a Junior and a Senior was a strong proponent of the ERA and took a huge amount of shit from the local community for it as a consequence of her support. I think it is safe to say that Mrs. Warren fanned my abiding love for and interest in literature and writing and also showed me up close and personal what real political courage looks like in action.

Like you, I too have no brief (npi) to discuss constitutional law, so I understand your caveat quite well

[giftedgirl77]

16. K&R

We as women & men need to make sure our voices are heard & make this madness stop. I swear the next person that tells me "women need to keep their legs closed" is getting kicked in the shins. This crap is sickening

[phleshdef]

18. And President Barack Obama is definately on the right side when it comes to the 2 issues mentioned.

Overall, he has a great record on women's rights and expanding access to higher education.

[Savannahmann]

20. Terrible isn't it?

Simply incomprehensible.

[JDPriestly]

22. K&R.

[arely staircase]

23. actual authoritarianism, GOP style nt

[MH1]

27. Exactly. This needs more recs. This is a REAL problem facing real people

all day every day, who are just trying to live their lives.


This is about people really suffering.

[theHandpuppet]

30. The anti-choice crowd is only concerned with the fetus

While women and children suffer. What a bunch of hypocrites!

[mountain grammy]

32. Thank you, thank you, thank you, sheshe2

A real Republican theocracy exists in Texas. They may be leading the country in job creation, but I've lived there and spent half of last year there. It's poverty! The working poor, almost like the walking dead.
Seems a large part of DU has given in to the lie that there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats. I say, take a good look at Texas. The numbers tell us prosperity should be widespread in Texas, but it's not.

[malokvale77]

35. You're dead on with that...

I'm really sick of hearing how great and prosperous this place is, because I just don't see it. Looks more like a big giant hell-hole to me.

[CrispyQ]

33. This is so unjust on so many levels.

More & more I question how decent people can vote repub.


One of my questions has always been how women can support this. Watch the interesting video in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023178273

It's about six minutes & your jaw will be on the floor at the complete lack of thought. And they think they have the right, to make for the rest of us, one of the most important decisions we could face.

k&r