… in strange ways. Are you in the Borg or the Matrix? These artificial life forms want to preserve themselves, maintain themselves, grow themselves. Human ethics and the interests of human societies are not what they exist for, and not what keeps them growing.

There was no “lesson to be learned,” if there was no Nuremberg Trial for IBM and other American corporations who collaborated. There was no lesson to be learned without a new body of corporate law written by Congress and supported at the Supreme Court, stating that US companies must abide by a certain code of American principles — and not exist in a sterile world where they are beholden only to their shareholders.

By all means attend a peaceful protest and yell a lot. But participate in a violent attempted overthrow of the US Government? No.

Your right to strike is a protected activity. But attempting to blow up the building over the weekend is not.

Your right to get drunk or high on your own time — sure. The DU Lounge is full of that on Friday nights. But a well-publicized DUI or three complete with name of employer is going to put your career as a county surveyor or humble local banker in doubt.

Your right to attend a public meeting of the school board and mock a youngster whose Grandma died of COVID — intact from interference by the government. And in this case, there were a lot of adults in that audience sniggering and chuckling that a young fool in a mask would request that the school board mandate masks just ‘cause his granny passed from a disease no worse than the flu, yuh-huh.

The nurse from Cigna just happened to be the one sitting right in front of the camera, making a complete ass of herself. And Cigna, a health insurance company, is well within their rights to think that’s not the face they want representing them. Especially after Olbermann outed her by name.

… and “pro-lifers” THERE CAN BE NO MIDDLE GROUND, because THEY WILL ACCEPT NONE.

I believe the moment where “pro-lifers” completely lost me was when I realized they were redefining the most reliable contraceptives as being abortifacients.

It wasn’t enough for them to lie to teenagers about how condoms don’t work against either STDs or pregnancy, they had to start lying to everyone about The Pill and IUDs and such. I used The Pill for 5 years and after I had my 2 kids I used an IUD for another 4 years. Who knew I was “aborting a baby” every month?

Oh, and never ever forget the “conscience” clauses emanating from the US Congress: any pharmacist can refuse to fill your prescription for contraceptives or Plan B, any hospital can withhold information about Plan B from rape victims, any medical provider — well, because God.

As I said in my other post: I wasted years of my life trying to compassionately understand their point of view. Then I realized: there is no middle ground. They don’t believe in middle ground. They’d rather see me or any other woman DEAD.

Somewhere in the last 15 or so years I quit.

Individuals are entitled to their personal opinions, their personal sensitivities, their personal religion. I am a very tolerant and accepting person that way. I don’t despise them. I have religious feelings of my own, but I don’t try to impose it on others.

What they are not entitled to do is make laws that absodamnlutely guarantee that women will be impoverished by having kids they can’t afford, be sterilized from infections, or die.

The lawmakers — those bastards I now hate with the heat of a thousand suns. None of them gives a flying fck about either women or children. What they do shows that, no matter what they say.

I am turning 74 this month. I am pro-abortion. It’s been a long journey to get here, but yes, I am most certainly pro-abortion.

If it makes you feel any better, you can consider it as part of the continuity of women’s medical care — just as removal of a prostate gland is part of the continuity of men’s medical care. Not every man will ever need his prostate removed, but he better pray that a surgeon who knows what they’re doing is around if he ever does. Not every woman will ever need an abortion, but she better pray it is legal where she lives if she ever does, and that there is someone who knows what they are doing to help her.

… this dark and dangerous time.

It’s fitting somehow that the Texas Lege and the Opus Dei adherents on the SCOTUS chose this time of gathering darkness and catastrophes of Nature to do their dirty work. Something spiritually dark and evil is at work in them.

Long ago, I knew a very nice elderly gent who used to participate in an Underground Railroad scheme for women in need of a safe abortion. He was an Episcopal priest — a retired bishop when I met him, long after Roe was settled and that part of his work was over.

I once wrote an impassioned letter to the editor during one of the national “pro-life” upheavals, and it ended up as an op-ed placed next to a letter from the local Reformed Rabbi who was supporting choice just as I was. Oddly, the newspaper editors chose to place a shattered cross in the middle of the page to represent religious controversies on the matter. Odd because neither of us was or is Christian, him being Jewish and me being a Unitarian Universalist with pagan affiliations.

So: Episcopal Church, Reformed Jews, Unitarian Universalist, and that’s just the start of the list. Buddhists also have thoughts on the subject: Modern sages have generally come down on the side of the mother’s well-being. Being religious people, prayer or deep thought or meditation comes into the picture at some point — but not censure.

There are more religious groups that are our allies than you know.

Stay away from the Evangelicals and Southern Baptists — but you knew that already.

You’re seemingly having a good time slinging around the words “Satanic Temple,” perhaps expecting to get a rise out of people here, but if you do that in Texas in conjunction with the work that is ahead, you might just get a woman killed instead.

Have you considered looking up Starhawk, perhaps?

Both the Nazis & Soviets made abortion easy, but they made contraceptives hard to obtain, which meant that at any time the regime wanted more citizens all they had to do was bar access to abortion.

The Ceausescu regime in Romania outlawed both contraception and abortion, and regularly checked on women to see why they were not pregnant. The horrors of the “orphanages” ensued, populated with psychologically traumatized children whose parents couldn’t afford them and didn’t want them, so dumped them as soon as they were born.

The Chinese government decided the solution to overpopulation was the “one child” policy, backed up with draconian forced abortions. China now has millions of men who will never get a chance to marry, as families favored sons and selected for them by ultrasound if they could.

Women are moral agents, with functioning brains. Keep the Goddamned state out of it, and likewise religion, and we ourselves will choose appropriately.

* Just so you know, many religions — indeed many branches of Christianity itself, are fine with abortion being legal. So don’t tell me “religious people” are all against legalized abortions, because that is not true. Women who don’t want an abortion are 100% free to not have one, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

And it was never spoken of. It never happened. She got herself in trouble. The baby was taken away to be raised by a good family. It was done for her own good.

It was not until my middle years that I was able to crystallize my thoughts into words: that a young woman’s first-born child was to be sacrificed on the altar of respectability. I was a good girl: deep down inside I was terrified.

So many sons and daughters were sacrificed for the “sin” of their unauthorized sexuality, while their parents were outraged and heartbroken and righteous and grief-stricken, sometimes all at the same time. Some of those parents only did the best they knew how, and some did the worst.

Times have changed. Oh, how glad I am that times have changed.

… with violence. We see this in Mexico and all over South America, where mayors and judges dare not pursue their callings honestly against the cartels or the government lest they join myriads of their fellows in the grave.

We thought we were better than that. We thought we were different. Political assassination was a once in a generation event, so I thought when I was 16 and shattered by the assassination of Bobby’s older brother Jack.

I don’t know when it finally dawned on me that maybe we aren’t better than that any more. But I will tell you this: the insurrection of 1/6/21 is the far end of an arc that started in the Civil War, carried forward by people who believe violence is the answer. Those who assassinated the Kennedy brothers are only markers on that bloody arc.

Political assassination doesn’t just bereave a family: it kills a culture. Them’s the rules.

At the moment I know of only a few for which it may be prescribed for humans: head-lice and scabies, and they are not usually fatal. In addition, in greatly reduced doses Ivermectin may be useful for things like Guinea worm, which is very serious, and several other parasites.

It has no use in the treatment of viruses, ever.

Ivermectin is, in fact, a livestock dewormer, and the size of doses for cattle and horses is dangerous to humans.

Altho you joined several years ago, apparently you haven’t been lurking much throughout the pandemic. Let me clue you in about where we are now.

DU has passed through the flames of overwhelming grief and has given support for attempts at education and compassionate understanding of those who will not get vaccinated, and we have come way out the other side of those flames of grief to rage at realizing most of non-vaccinated have swallowed Trump’s lies and have no capacity to accept reality.

There are nurses who experience patients so deluded that they will not accept a COVID diagnosis even when hospitalized, and waste what precious breath they have left demanding medication that will “cure” them of the “flu” — they yell at the nurses right up until the point they are intubated. Other patients find all their delusions get stripped away when they get hospitalized, and tearfully ask if they can have the vax now, only to be told it it too late for that.

There are DUers with loved ones who are among the refusniks, and there is nothing we can do about them except pray to whatever god we think will listen for the safety of these fools. And we weep for them.

There are DUers who have been exposed, who have been sick, who have been very very sick.

Chances are extremely good that COVID fatalities have been undercounted. All things considered, I think the US will lose 1,000,000 people of all ages before this is over.

We are not the enemy.