[Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right
Brussel Morton K.
mkbrussel at comcast.net
Sun Jan 25 15:56:43 CST 2009
Indeed, I wish and recommend that discussions of God's immanence, how
"we" are a Christian country, and why women's ability to decide their
own lives should be forbidden are inappropriate for a peace-discuss
list. (I wouldn't recommend Nazi propaganda on the list either, but I
suppose to some that would be bigoted.) --mkb
On Jan 25, 2009, at 3:15 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> This is an assertion of settled religious prejudice, joined to the
> anti-liberal view that people who disagree with such bigotry should
> just shut up.
>
>
> Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>> A fine discussion, Ricky, but I for one am less forgiving of the
>> religious fundamentalism-ideology that largely supports the anti-
>> abortion/anti-contraception/anti-sex education/anti-women's rights
>> movement in the USA, and those who now speak up for it on this
>> listserve. They are beyond convincing because of their "faith". I
>> can understand that you may not want to get into a discussion of
>> the myths , religiously inspired, that form a basis of this
>> movement, a movement largely of willful ignorance and lack off
>> empathy for many woman's problems when confronted with a pregnancy.
>> They have unreasoning empathy only for the myth of the humanity of
>> a sperm which happens, divinely, to meet an egg. --Mort
>> I admired your remark: " the values of libertarianism require also
>> the values of socialism to be logically and humanly consistent",
>> although I think that the libertarianism of Wayne et al. are
>> contradictory to broader social(ist) values and responsibilities.
>> And I agree with others that this kind of fundamentalism has no
>> useful place on this list. On Jan 25, 2009, at 2:11 PM, Ricky
>> Baldwin wrote:
>>> Wayne,
>>>
>>> I appreciate your concern, as always, for the downtrodden, but I'm
>>> afraid it's misapplied here. Many people I agree with on most
>>> issues would dismiss yours and others' anti-abortion views as
>>> another example of your religious blinders; I don't. My guess is
>>> that you are both as sincere and as misguided and the many good
>>> humanitarians who supported, e.g. the US attacks in Kosovo (to
>>> save the ethnic Albanians from Serbian aggression) or the US
>>> conquest of the Philippines (to save the locals from Spanish
>>> tyranny, etc.) or the British conquest of India (to rid the
>>> Indians of superstition and slavery, etc.).
>>>
>>> But for starters, I think you will have to admit that the ethical
>>> question of abortion rights has little to do with Margaret
>>> Sanger's infamous Social Darwinism (which is anyway not quite the
>>> way her later critics portray it, it seems to me), any more than
>>> your own Christian views are questionable in light of the
>>> Crusades, the Inquisition, the European 'civilizing' campaigns
>>> that masscred millions of indigenous people on one continent after
>>> another, or the many other Christian atrocities against the poor
>>> and downtrodden of the world.
>>> The question of whether abortion is a form of racism, or class
>>> oppression, is more complex in some ways, though actually very
>>> simple if looked at rightly, I'd argue. True, abortion has been
>>> visited on the poor and people of color in this country and others
>>> as an oppressive campaign at times. We can go further: forced
>>> abortions and forced sterilizations have been practised as
>>> genocide for at least generations. Less overtly public welfare
>>> policies have targetted oppressed groups in many ways from the
>>> days of workhouses, -- up to and including reproductive policies
>>> my fellow NOW organizers and I encountered (as an example) in
>>> Mississippi in the 1990s whereby the locally administered Medicaid
>>> program would pay for poor women to have subdermal contraceptive
>>> Norplant insertions BUT NOT pay to have them removed, regardless
>>> of the woman's wishes or even of the side-effects or allergic
>>> reactions, which were not uncommon.
>>>
>>> It may surprise some honest abortion-foes to learn that NOW fought
>>> such policies vehemently, by the way. The reasoning is relevant
>>> here. NOW and other wrongly described "pro-abortion" groups
>>> currently working in the US support a basic principle that
>>> simplifies the whole issue: the individual liberty, autonomy,
>>> freedom, however you want to describe it, of a woman as well as a
>>> man to decide what happens to her physically, sexually, and in
>>> particular in terms of being pregnant or not. As such it is the
>>> most fundamental libertarian political right.
>>>
>>> Critics of the "pro-choice" movement rightly point out that such
>>> decisions, often difficult enough in themselves, do not happen in
>>> an economic vacuum - and so are not truly "free" choices. Women
>>> and their families or support networks (spouses, partners,
>>> siblings, parents, close friends) must at times make tough
>>> decisions based on economic realities not of their own choosing.
>>> Nowadays there are convincing statistical arguments that women
>>> overall have very nearly caught up with men in terms of earning
>>> power, and the biggest difference that lingers is that when women
>>> hit their child-bearing years they fall behind and usually never
>>> catch up again. Of course some men encounter the same problem,
>>> but overall it is women. For these and many other reasons
>>> (oppressive parents, drug-use, birth defects) abortion is not
>>> always a "free" choice any more than a large family has been a
>>> real choice for billions of women for thousands of years - they do
>>> it in part because their choices are severely constrained. This
>>> is not the only reason to support abortion rights of course. The
>>> basic argument for the right is an argument for human dignity and
>>> autonomy, as I've said. But this is the economic context that
>>> can't be ignored.
>>>
>>> So publicly-funded childcare, maternity and paternity leave and
>>> other employment considerations, free access to birth control and
>>> family planning services, rational sex education, and free
>>> abortion on demand are and must be all part of a comprehensive
>>> program of human rights that includes women as valued equal
>>> members of society and not second-class citizens. It is part of
>>> why I believe the values of libertarianism require also the values
>>> of socialism to be logically and humanly consistent. It is why
>>> conservatives who want to say they support women's rights and
>>> oppose racism and oppression must pick and choose which freedoms
>>> they support, which pieces of the overall reality they bring into
>>> their arguement. And it's why liberals who want to support
>>> abortion rights are not always allies in the struggle for women's
>>> rights, but their programs do sometimes coincide.
>>>
>>> Obama's move against the vicious "Mexico City" policy is progress,
>>> toward allowing poor women and families in communities whose
>>> livelihoods we have wrecked to at least find some maneuvering room
>>> in that disaster. Reagan's and both Bushes' policy of limiting
>>> the options of the global poor, often our own victims, is
>>> oppression on top of oppression; lifting that ban is at least mild
>>> relief. It isn't enough, but it is a step in the right direction.
>>> Ricky
>>>
>>> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *From:* E. Wayne Johnson <ewj at pigs.ag <mailto:ewj at pigs.ag>>
>>> *To:* Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com <mailto:baldwinricky at yahoo.com
>>> >>
>>> *Cc:* peace discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>> >>; socialist forum core <sf-core at yahoogroups.com <mailto:sf-core at yahoogroups.com
>>> >>
>>> *Sent:* Friday, January 23, 2009 5:13:10 PM
>>> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right
>>>
>>> Ricky,
>>>
>>> I find Obama to be quite consistent in his policy. He supports
>>> the killing of innocents both at home and abroad,
>>> both with his warfare and with his "welfare". One can't say that
>>> Obama is incoherent as an international minister of death.
>>>
>>> Abortion is the most explicit expression of racism and class
>>> warfare in our contemporary world. It is the most dastardly and
>>> cowardly of all human rights violations, since it violates the
>>> most fundamental Natural Right,
>>> the Right to Life, and it attacks the Unborn, who are completely
>>> helpless.
>>>
>>> The operative social purpose of abortion is to rid the society of
>>> "human weeds". The founders
>>> of Planned Parenthood identified as the poor and the Negro as
>>> undesirables who should not be allowed to reproduce. Have you
>>> read Margaret Sanger's writings? Have you read about her "Negro
>>> Project"?
>>>
>>> I have some commentary at my website: http://www.liberty4urbana.com/drupal-6.8/node/43
>>> I hope that you will watch the three videos there and then report
>>> back with your take on those issues.
>>>
>>> Also, *Lux Libertas* will be broadcast again on UPTV-6 at 10 pm
>>> Sunday night.
>>>
>>> Trent Cloin and I discuss the paradox and error of Abortion in
>>> America in the first 30 mins.
>>> In the 2nd 30 minutes we discuss MLK's April 9, 1967 speech "The
>>> Three Dimensions of a Complete Life" which was
>>> given in Chicago just 5 days after the "Beyond Vietnam" speech we
>>> all heard last Sunday afternoon.
>>> "Three Dimensions" does significantly address aspects of the
>>> "Revolution of Values" which King called for in "Beyond Vietnam".
>>>
>>> Wayne
>>>
>>> Ricky Baldwin wrote:
>>>> Put this one in the column of real differences, differences that
>>>> matter to poor people's lives, among US presidents:
>>>>
>>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_abortion_ban
>>>>
>>>> This is not as groundbreaking as closing Guantanamo Bay prison.
>>>> As the article says, Clinton did the same. Still, it speaks to
>>>> the tone Obama is setting in his first week in office. And if
>>>> Obama didn't do this, we'd be right to call him out for failing
>>>> to act.
>>>> Ricky
>>>>
>>>> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>>>>
>>>
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