Only A General Strike Will Secure The Right To Safe, Legal Abortion

Yesterday I endangered the 20 people I was with, standing on the pavement thinking about the government. I yelled at an older man in a car with NY license plates who was mansplaining that Maine still has access to safe medical abortion. I asked him if he had a uterus and then told him "If you don't have a uterus then shut the f up" (yes, I said f not the f word). Luckily he did not become angry and shoot anyone. He just said, "Nice language, lady" and drove away.

I've apologized to the event organizer for losing my temper. 

The incident made me realize how deeply angry I am about the attack on people who can get pregnant, by attackers who can't. 

I was disappointed by the coverage in the local paper which focused on the need to vote harder for Democrats. Really? Y'all still falling for that bullshit that got us to where we are today?

Honestly, though, I just became a hair more willing to vote for the Democratic incumbent for governor, a woman who has disappointed numerous times with her craven pandering to big business. Her challenger is the old incumbent, a man who arguably was channeling 45 before that demagogue had even made it to the White House. Rude, crude, and would definitely strip Maine of reproductive rights if he were able. (And ranked choice voting does not apply to the election for governor in our state.)

Some of my friends are posting as former wards of the state about their hellish experiences in foster care. They are challenging the narrative that adoption is a magic wand that solves unwanted pregnancy problems. They are reminding us that they were kicked to the curb after aging out of the system at 18; many ended up unhoused, exploited, addicted, or dead.

I'm also reminded of the now decades old statistical analysis pointing out that access to safe, legal abortions caused the U.S. crime rate to plummet. (If you've not heard about this theory before, you can listen or read about it here on the Freakonomics site.) There's no doubt that policing and incarceration are systems built to keep white people at the top of the heap. Unfortunately, those are constants in the U.S. But did legalizing abortion in the 1970's have a ripple effects on the rate of violent crime 20 years later?

As a teacher for 25 years I had occasion to know many families. The vast majority of people love their kids -- even moms and dads who didn't particularly want children to be born into poverty and who are struggling themselves after a bad childhood. Parents and other caregivers (increasingly grandparents after their own child succumbs to substance use disorder) don't always make the choices that seem wise to their teachers. Educators are a middle class bunch, mostly raised by parents that had resources and took the job seriously. We are often judgmental about the suffering we see and who's causing it. 

If you haven't lived a childhood full of trauma it can be hard to empathize with those who have. The scars are invisible, but they are deep.

I worked with children in dire poverty for many years. Subsequently, I wrote a novel about their struggles and triumphs; the book includes trafficking, sexual assault, unwanted pregnancy, and abortion. My protagonist experiences all of the above but she triumphs in the end because she's a bad ass who's able to find her way into nurturing communities. She has a safe, legal abortion while other characters are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. Now I'm revising while trying to find an agent and/or publisher. If you have any suggestions for me, I want to hear them.

You can buy this cool poster here on the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) website.

I could end this post by saying, see you on the streets, but I'm pretty sure only a general strike will turn this ship around. Easy for a retired person like me to say, but if all the women and girls who could manage it stayed home from work next week, within a month Congress would have passed and the president would have signed a law guaranteeing the legality of abortion throughout the U.S.

We must hit our corporate overlords in the pocketbook by withholding labor in order to get their attention.

Of course then Democrats would lose the ability to fundraise off the abortion political football. And I'm pretty sure we're all clear on which they value more: $$$$ or basic human rights. Under their leadership, what's the only wealthy country on the planet that doesn't have universal health care? Of which abortion on demand is just one component.

🚨#BREAKING: Secret Service Takedown a protestor during ⁦POTUS motorcade

📌#LosAngeles l #California

A Protester has jumped out in front of a motorcade as the Secret service tackled her to the ground. The woman said she was protesting for women's rights pic.twitter.com/TdVitVNwvh

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 9, 2022

The fervor of this young person attempting to communicate with the president's motorcade in Los Angeles this month is what's needed now. What are they shouting? 

"An abortion ban will not stop abortions! Only safe ones!!!"

Masses Demand Medicare For All, The Most Broken Campaign Promise Of Democrats

Today the 600,000+ people in the U.S. who died from COVID won't be marching for Medicare for All. 

Neither will many Democrats in Congress who campaigned on the most popular form of universal health care, a basic human right that people in the U.S. lack. 

My own congressperson Jared Golden co-sponsored M4A legislation last time around. Then he ran for re-election and took campaign contributions from big tech firms looking to expand into the for-profit health care sector. Guess who doesn't support M4A anymore? His rationale: he's heard from constituents that they want to keep their employer-sponsored healthcare. Really? Then why do Mainers call it the Unaffordable Care Act? 

Once you've been sick with your ACA mandated insurance you understand that Obama's deal with the insurance industry to guarantee their profits had nothing to do with providing you with a reasonable standard of care.

The so-called squad of progressive Democrats came under fire this year from lefty organizers who wanted them to withhold their vote to re-elect Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi until she agreed to put M4A to a vote. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, formerly the darling of people who yearn to believe the Democratic Party serves people rather than corporations, has fallen from grace over the "Force the Vote" issue. Progressive types see her coddling Pelosi, whose wealth has grown by hundreds of millions in office, and whose husband just raked in $5 million in profits buying tech stocks Congress was about to regulate. 

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14.6 million people lost their health insurance during the pandemic. Pelosi's response: continue enjoying the gold standard health care she has as a member of Congress while showing off her two refrigerators full of gelato. Together she and her husband have grown obscenely wealthy as she represented the interests of corporations rather than the people, and no one in the squad cares to oppose her. (Note: that's why electing women doesn't solve anything.)

Republicans are just as bad, but they're more honest about it.

It's clear that health care is a top priority for many voters. Inadequate insurance plus major illness is a leading cause of household bankruptcy and home foreclosures. Many of my friends are affluent enough in retirement to live in Mexico part of the year and receive their health care at affordable prices. Many of my friends are low income enough to be on MaineCare, a medicaid expansion program that applies to any children and some adults in my state. Many of my friends can only afford catastrophic health insurance because the premiums for comprehensive coverage are too high for the middle class to handle. 

That's why Democrats continue to run on promising to support M4A. 

A slew of so-called progressive Democrats claimed they supported it while campaiging, and then backpedaled as soon as they were in office.

Thus the marches today in big cities across the nation. Also the widespread campaigns to bring single payer health care at the state level.

I'm involved with both Maine's campaign to pressure Jared Golden to support M4A as well as the campaign to mandate that the legislature enact universal health care by a ballot initiative in 2022. And I support today's rally in Portland which will hear from Jess Falero, an advocate for the unhoused who will eloquently share just how much it sucks to be without housing AND health care.

But here's the reality as I see it: two things need to happen before the U.S. can achieve univeral coverage via M4A.

First, the Pentagon would have to be defunded to afford it. 

The reason we have warfare but not healthcare is that both are enormously expensive and members of Congress would rather keep their bread buttered than help their neighbors who are struggling. (Just yesterday the Senate voted to increase Biden's $715 billion Pentagon budget by another $25 billion to keep the weapons industry lobbyists happy.)

source: https://www.mic.com/articles/167192/general-strike-feb-17-what-will-happen-if-activists-stage-a-nationwide-strike-against-trump

Second, the workers of this nation will need to stage a general strike. 

As we saw from the pandemic, their labor is essential to turning the profits demanded by capitalists. Only withholding that labor would exert enough pressure on our elected officials to bend to the will of the people. 

ANGELA WEISS / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Here's hoping that today's marches display the desperation people feel around health care in this country, and bring together organizers who can make it happen, without being coopted by the Democratic Party.

Good News, Bad News -- Which Do You Want First?

Me, I want to get the bad news up front but appreciate the warning (bad news coming): Nancy Pelosi, an 80 year old multi-millionaire so clueless she proudly showed off her two luxury refrigerators full of gelato during the first pandemic lockdown, yesterday was re-elected to lead the House of Representatives for her corporate sponsors. 

This after presiding over a pathetic $600 one time payment to struggling taxpayers while other countries have been providing thousands per month so people could afford to stay home.

The really bad news for many was that the so-called Squad of progressive Democrats in the House caved and supported Pelosi even though their followers were calling en masse for them to withhold their votes in order to #ForceTheVote on the wildly popular brand of universal health care, Medicare for All.

The fact that any progressive in Congress generally gets co-opted within a couple of years and falls obediently into line on behalf of her career is not a new phenomenon. 

Most mysterious to me is why people continue being (acting?) surprised when this happens.

Worthy of note is that my representative did something really unexpected and unusual: he voted for a fellow war veteran who serves in the U.S. Senate. This taught me that the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House (who knew?), and suggests that he could not bring himself to vote for corporate shill Pelosi. The statement explaining his choice shows that he and his staff get the sentiment that is abroad in Maine and throughout the land:

I am of the opinion that only a general strike will bring about universal health care in the U.S. 

Our corporate overlords have long since indicated that we can eat shit and die as far as they're concerned. Withholding the labor that builds all that wealth would be powerful -- and calls to do so are growing every day. Status quo upholders claim "that will never happen" to which I say: return to your history books and read up on what happened when elites had bled the working class dry in empires of the past.

Ok, ready for the good news?

A conservative judge who was expected to extradite journalist Julian Assange to face trumped up espionage charges in the U.S. did not do so. Her stated reason: mistreatment during his long imprisonment by the UK on behalf of the U.S. has rendered him a suicide risk, and District Judge Vanessa Baraitser does not believe the conditions in U.S. prisons are such that Assange could be prevented from killing himself in custody. 

According to AP:

“I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” the judge said.

(Wondering if she was thinking about Jeffrey Epstein here. Does anyone really believe he killed himself in prison?)

According to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill:

Undoubtedly a victory that Assange extradition blocked. He may well have died in prison if extradited to the US. The UK judge was correct about the horrid conditions in US prisons. But this ruling largely supports the dangerous US position on the Assange case. Far from over.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) January 4, 2021

So this one victory does not mean the persecution of Julian Assange for revealing evidence of war crimes via Wikileaks is over. In order to stay up to date on the health of the free press canary in the corporate coal mine, we can't rely on the Associated Press or other corporate news outlets who ignore him whenever possible. Instead, we can use this handly list compiled by independent journalist Kevin Gosztola of other reporters who are consistently paying attention.

Because without real news, we're doomed to die in the dark.

Corporate Parties, Media Selling Civil War -- But The People Need Revolution

The constant yammering about what divides us is an enormous smokescreen intended to obscure that which really divides us. As Liz Theoharis writes in "The New Politics of the Poor..."

Today, in the early winter of an uncurbed pandemic and the economic crisis that accompanies it, there are 140 million poor or low-income Americans, disproportionately people of color, but reaching into every community in this country: 24 million Blacks, 38 million Latinos, eight million Asians, two million Native peoples, and 66 million whites. More than a third of the potential electorate, in other words, has been relegated to poverty and precariousness and yet how little of the political discourse in recent elections was directed at those who were poor or one storm, fire, job loss, eviction, or healthcare crisis away from poverty and economic chaos. In the distorted mirror of public policy, those 140 million people have remained essentially invisible. 

White boomers like me are most easily confused by this barrage of propaganda. We lived through a period of relative prosperity for ourselves and our neighbors, and a whole bunch of lies about those who didn't share our prosperity.

Allegedly, the poor of my lifetime were lazy, or addicted to substances, or poorly parented by elders who were lazy or addicted. Plenty of photos of Black and brown faces accompanied the "investigative" reporting on the failed life in the segregated communities targeted by the war on drugs that was really a war on the poor. Or crime reporting about arrests that always seemed to have a Black or brown face featured despite the fact that crime rates among white people are higher.

Where were the reports on how Black veterans did not receive the GI benefits that allowed my father to complete a college education and buy a house for me to grow up in?

Where were the reports on the redlining by mortgage lenders and real estate brokers that kept Black families from moving into the neighborhoods I grew up in?

Where were the living wage jobs with union protections for working conditions available to Black and brown wage earners my father never had to compete with?

Photo credit Steven Depolo, Flickr

Where was the income for unpaid caregivers like the moms, aunties, and grandmothers that raised children in substandard housing and had to send them to substandard schools nearby?

Where were the reports on how highly addictive crack cocaine was sponsored by the CIA and deliberately introduced into segregated neighborhoods?

Where was the universal health care to treat substance use disorders like health issues rather than criminalizing and filling prisons with enslaved laborers disenfranchised from their right to vote?

Young people today understand the reality of the situation much better than most boomers, even when they are part of the dominant white caste. A common slogan I see them sharing --

No war but class war 

-- expresses this understanding. 

Note that this graph is from before the pandemic, which has greatly accelerated income inequality in the US.

Because the rich got so much richer and the poor got so much poorer in the last several decades, it takes a whole lot of propaganda to convince poor whites that what's wrong with their lives is brown immigrants taking "their" jobs. Or the Black Lives Matter movement. Or, more to the point, that liberals are the problem.

There is some truth to that and it fuels the furor to "own the libs" that the demagogue with bad hair rode to the White House.

In the crash of 2008 when banks got bailed out but regular working people got sold out, there was a liberal presiding over it all. His VP, now our president-elect, had previously been the architect of the student loan crisis that younger people continue being crushed by.

It's clear that our corporate overlords, the ones who own the media and the means of production, are ginning up a civil war. Their invisible strategy: make sure the masses kill each other over culture rather than turning on the 1% and removing them from positions of power so that the people can eat.

There's a reason the guillotine has become a common image in social media shared by the young. Also the slogan, Eat the rich.

But this history major will never advocate violent revolution. Wars, including revolutions, harm many innocent people, most often children and the women who care for them.

A general strike would be much more to the point. No wealth can be created without our labor. That is our greatest power. 

No propaganda can change the fact that Jeff Bezos could give every person who risks covid exposure to work in his Amazon warehouses an entire year's salary as a bonus and still have more money than he did when the pandemic started. And, no propaganda can change the fact that, if they went on strike, his income from that source would dry up quickly.

But we are too broke to strike! young people tell me. I believe them. I also know that every strike that brought down a regime was mounted by people who lacked the resources to survive without income. Mutual aid -- another thing young people are good at, putting most boomers to shame -- is the cure for that ailment.

But the ruling class will bring the violence if there is a general strike, is another argument I've heard against it. But isn't dire poverty, homelessness, and lack of health care for working class people violent? Isn't a lifetime of student debt violent? Isn't mass incarceration and the routine execution of unarmed Black people by police violent?

Certainly our endless wars for resource extraction and transport are violent. Think Afghanistan, Ecuador, and Standing Rock just for starters.

Who knows how a general strike will start, or whether I'll live long enough to see it. 

Mass uprisings are often set off by a spark no one expected. 

Will it begin with a rent strike? A nurses strike? The pandemic has put a lot of pressure on both renters and frontline health care providers. Once a specific strike is underway, others who are economically desperate may be motivated to join in.

Remember, the Mongtomery, Alabama bus boycott of the civil rights movement was planned to last one day, intended to demonstrate how much the city bus system needed the revenue from Black customers. It lasted more than a year as that first day inspired the weary, the timid, and the fencesitters to join in.

It was also, most significantly, supported by extensive organizing in advance.

Let's get busy.