[Peace-discuss] Stop dividing AntiWar

Sun Jul 29 17:05:38 UTC 2018

Can someone please help me unsubscribe to this discussion page?

Thanks,
Katherine

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 9:37 PM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> bjornsona--
>
> You write, “I consider it inappropriate ... for you to continue dragging
> abortion into an anti-war, anti-racism discussion action group.”
>
> I disagree. The contemporary anti-war movement - during
> the Bush/Obama/Trump administrations - has taken as a motto, “My political
> views: I'm basically against anything that kills people or destroys the
> planet we live on."
>
> My grandchildren were obviously people a month before they were born, as
> they were a month afterwards. If we’re against actions of the US government
> that end human lives in Afghanistan, we should also be against social
> policies that encourage poor people to end their children’s lives so that
> they won’t cost the government money.
>
> Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out that Roe v. Wade was
> decided for economic and eugenic reasons: “Frankly,” she said in July 2009,
> “I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about
> population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want
> to have too many of.” As a result, abortion is the leading cause of death
> in the US today - more than cancer, heart disease, homicide, suicide, etc.
> - but disproportionally affects the poor.
>
> Just as it’s not enough to forbid the killing of poor people in
> the Mideast for the profits of the US one percent, so it’s not enough to
> forbid the killing of the children of the poor to protect the profits of
> that same one percent. We must pay reparations for our Mideast wars, and at
> home, establish medical care for all, as well as child supports, housing,
> and education for all.
>
> What you call the “anti-abortion group” (parallel, I suppose to the
> ‘anti-war group’ - i.e., those  opposed respectively to abortion and war)
> is not “another identity group, controlled by [various conspirators].”
> That’s the charge made against various anti-war movements at the outset,
> and I know you don’t accept that.
>
> I have no fondness for the GOP, even if Russiagate - a largely successful
> attempt to restore the war policies and provocations of the last
> administration, from Ukraine to the South China Sea - makes it clear that
> the Democrats at the moment are worse.
>
> Yes, it’s true that only women (not men) get pregnant and abortion ends a
> human life. But trying to define quickening as the moment a fetus become
> human and acquires rights is otiose. There’s an obvious point at which one
> becomes human - conception.
>
> Your question about “Mary’s free will” (“If she had said No to being the
> mother of Jesus, would God the Father have given up?”) is the sort of thing
> that Scholastics in the theological faculties of medieval universities used
> to sharpen their dialectical abilities (which were considerable), but
> arguments about what God would have done do not I think get us very far.
>
> Neither, I think, do arguments about the coming and going of a soul. Soul
> is not even mentioned in the early Christian creeds: the central doctrine
> is the resurrection of the body. To regard the the soul as an entelechy -
> the actualization of the potential of being human - seems to me a good
> summary of a long theological and philosophical discussion. But as clever a
> man as Descartes thought that the soul was a different substance, connected
> to the body in the pineal gland, deep in the brain. He could tell the
> Russian doctors where to look...
>
> Your animadversions about organized Christianity are sadly frequently
> justified - perhaps not surprising in any movement that’s been around so
> long and is so large (are there any others?) - but I’m not sure your case
> is strengthened by a literalistic reading of the some two dozen memoirs,
> letters, meditations, and notes that make up the New Testament - and took a
> century to be rather haphazardly assembled. Generations of Christians lived
> and died without ever seeing a New Testament; Christian groups had no
> agreement about what texts belonged until the 16th century and differ from
> one another today.
>
> Christianity is a movement, not a book - more like a fissiparous political
> party - or group of parties - than a constitution-based organization
> (like the United States).  When the present bishop of Rome was elected, he
> was asked, “Who are you?” Pope Francis replied, “I’m a sinner.” Yes, of
> course.
>
> But our subject here is not a theological or religious matter.
> It’s ethical and political: Is opposition to abortion - and the conditions
> that occasion it - like opposition to war, and the conditions that occasion
> that - or is it unrelated and therefore potentially a distraction?
>
> I think the answer is that they are bound up together, encompassing as
> they do questions of the deaths of many of our coevals. And we haven’t even
> mentioned capitalism, which commodifies all human lives.
>
> Regards, CGE
>
>
> On Jul 13, 2018, at 8:26 PM, ewj via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
> bjornsona's email was scrozzled in the mailserver somehow and would not
> display but i found this in the raw data..
>
> Carl and ewg at pigs.ag, whoever you are, again enough is enough. At the
> risk of projecting my own Shadow,  I consider it inappropriate,
> counterproductive and self-indulgent for you to continue dragging abortion
> into an anti-war, anti-racism discussion action group. I am sure I speak
> for others in this group. Carl, I respect your work quite a lot.  You have
> pointed out how identity politics splits the hungry and angry masses into
> easily controllable groups. The anti- abortion group is only  another
> identity group, controlled by the Vatican, the U.S. bishops,  the Christian
> fundamentalists, the GOP misogynists & the Stepford women. A large identity
> group, sure, BUT not as large as the rest of the country and the world who
> disagree & who generally  have more science education, actual practical
> experience of pregnancy & birth, and belong to other spiritual traditions.
> It amazes me that an intelligent person like yourself would try to pass
> that "Live Action"  article off on us as logically sound and not a
> collection of overwrought anecdotes. As the GOP, of whom you appear to be
> so fond, says, let those nurses get other jobs if they don't want to work
> in the delivery room. Writing your message below with such blanket
>  statements as "pregnant people" & "abortion obviously ends a human lif e,"
> fail the logic test too. Many WOMEN have abortions at early stages when the
> fetus has not yet reached quickening. I believe that is around 15-20 weeks.
> For thousands of years, women did not consider the fetus to be an actual
> baby until quickening, which I believe we now know was when the risk of
> spontaneous miscarriage was lower. Quickening is also after a woman has
> spent time eating for two and her body has begun preparing for an actual
> baby to develop. In other words, it is a triple venture between God, the
> woman, and the fetus. ( NOT that  some parasite has taken over a woman's
> body and  can develop on its own.) Even a critical reading of the
> Annunciation story in the New Testament allows Mary free will. If she had
> said No to being the mother of Jesus, would God the Father have given up?
> Of course not! He simply would have found another Mary, or Sarah, to be the
> Mother of his Son. Evidence for that is clear all over our daily lives. We
> are given free will choices every day. If we choose not to do somet hing,
> and God needs it done, it gets done in another way. (I bet you have
> witnessed that.) Educators & doctors know what happens if a woman does not
> want, or is not able to care for her own and the fetus' , then later, the
> baby's body. Society ends up with a stillborn or injured child:- brain
> damaged by lead, if the woman lives in Flint, for example. Perhaps women
> actually know something and care  about their own bodies and
> fetuses/babies. What a thought!  You have probably read that Russian
> scientists have measured a small amount of weight that leaves the body when
> a person dies. They speculate that is the weight of the soul.  When does
> the soul enter the body? Perhaps at quickening, when the fetus has been
> determined to be able to grow into a healthy baby and not be miscarried.
> To address some of what you have written: yes, it would be lovely if we
> lived in a perfect world and the economics are such that every woman/
> family could afford every pregnancy that makes it through the
> zygote/fetus/spontaneous miscarriage/quickening/developing baby/ to
> healthy birth stage. Unfortunately, we do not have that. It is cruel and
> ridiculous to make laws that force women & children to bear the brunt of
> the wars, rape, environmental degradation, floods, refugee crisis, lack of
> education, housing, food, jobs that we are experiencing. Not to mention
> climate change. It is very easy for religious ministers to pick on the
> smallest and weakest in their congregations in their sermons. Sure, tell
> the women and homosexuals how to run their lives. Their $$ contributions
> are less. I have read NOTHING in the New Testament in red print, in Jesus'
> actual words, that says ANYTHING about no abortions or that it is not ok to
> live life as God made one. I have seen PLENTY about no divorce, sharing
> with the poor, accepting everyone for who they are, getting the
> moneylenders out of the temple,etc. As we all must agree, if the Vatican or
> the Christian fundamentalists preached on that as much as they hate on
> women and gay people, very little $$$ would flow their way.  Just to
> address the two verses quoted as nauseum. The Jeremiah verse: "I knew you
> in your mother's womb.." etc. Lovely verse. Said by God in the Old
> Testament TO JEREMIAH. NOT to every person who wants to adopt it as their
> personal slogan to march.in front of a clinic and harass people and then
> disappear for antiwar.marches while taking advantage of the perks of living
> in Empire. Also NOT Jesus' words and NOT in the New Testament, which
> supersedes the Old. The same people who cherrypick what they want from the
> OT try to force poor women in the U.S.what to do. And Paul's advice on not
> being homosexual. Please. Not Jesus' words. Also a different time and
> place, with rampant orgies, sexual mores run amuck. And yet Paul did not
> preach about no sex with children or slaves and neither do most preachers
> today. And you have been to Rome, I assume? Statues from antiquity of naked
> men everywhere. Still going on today. Many people think the "thorn in
> Paul's side" was his own homosexuality. How strange. I lose my respect.
> The ONLY way these powermongers and warmongers hold on to their divisions
> is by FEAR. This particular fear is strong: that of going to hell when we
> die. I submit that the Hell is really here on earth where so many people
> suffer. And that they know it and use it against us.  For evidence: the
> many books and Ted Talk videos on experiences people have when they die and
> come back to life. I cannot believe they were all perfect, yet each one has
> a beautiful experience. Love and heaven are here on earth and after death.
> We get them by tearing people well and as individuals, not as possessions
> we can legislate. What is that quote from Rumi about how our children are
> not ours and they go into a future we cannot know? Unless you have concrete
> plans on how to convince  antiabortion groups to join their admittedly
> concentrated focus to our anti-war efforts, it would be great if you all
> would join an anti abortion or pro life list serve if you want to have
> those conversations. It wastes our time here. We already know our mission.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2018-07-14 00:36 ,  bjornsona--- via Peace-discuss
> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> Wrote:
>
> https://www.liveaction.org/news/babies-born-alive-after-
> abortions-part-3-nurses-tell-their-stories/
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>>
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