a lot more strongly than being agreed with. And counterproductive negatives like resentment and bitterness tend to insist on having their own "reality."

Sure, complacent awareness based on 50 years of legal abortion woven into our culture was natural in "many," but that very easygoing nature is also incompatible with "fighting" and aggressively insulting those who worried more and repeated warnings that all here were watching, just with different levels of active concern.

Just saying. After all, pro-abortion Democrats who voted are not. the. ones. who. did. this. Culpability lies with those who want abortion but who made the huge mistake of not voting or of voting to keep Democrats from having the power needed to protect it.

But we need all hands on board.

always remember. You can’t change history. And to keep the record straight we need to remember how people thought and reacted at the time that brought us to this.

for 30 of them. I always knew "it" could happen here, but I don't remember ever being personally attacked by people who weren't sufficiently concerned.

Ignored, sure. Almost always.

Antagonistic aggression from those prone to that, yes, plenty -- I don't mind mixing it up.

Whatever. The approaching storm is upon us.

Why do you question my experience?

Count yourself lucky you flew under the radar.

In any case, we're on the same side. Those also on our same side who didn't believe before now do.

And the day is mostly past for those whose fringe ideology depends on defeating Democrats (leading to national collapse that didn't happen, socialist revolution that didn't happen, etc, etc.) Things have now gotten so serious and alarming that fewer and fewer people are willing to throw away their votes. And of course everyone now knows the takeover wouldn't be theirs.

Because the RW authoritarian storm and our battle for survival is now upon us.

To arms!

and I have not posted that much - certainly nothing compared to Boston.

It still smarts.

earthen vessels. brood mares. not actual people.

My issues are such that now I really cannot work. So, in the rethug eyes, I am less than a person because I am not making anyone richer. The same would be true of any female that was not able to bear children or keep a wonderful house. To their eyes, you would be useless and therefore a waste of skin. Such is their belief system. Such is the enemy we face.

A group with more self-inflicted suffering cannot be easily identified than the massively confused and misguided community of Republican women.

bans? Cross-dressing bans, using the words 'climate change' in gov't docs as banned in N.C.?

How the hell did AR go from Bill Clinton to Huckabee-Sanders and GA go from Jimmy Carter to Brian Kemp?

It's bad all around, but it's a motivator,

GET OUT THE VOTE !!

Maybe women should start going to veterinarians.

You have to give prior written consent for anyone to use your body parts after you're dead.

That is one of the arguments used to no avail to stop taking women's rights to bodily autonomy from us.

I think many old school men just shrug it off as “It’s just a woman’s issue … it doesn’t affect ME.”

As Hillary famously said, “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.”

political suicide for the GOP

it might be even more dangerous to the general public. Thankfully, the platforms upon which they take their stands are so hatefully built they collapse of their own dolorousness into corpses of shame from time to time. Of course, there is always the next generation of the misguided to resurrect the carcass.

"of course, that can't happen" issue. During the Bush years it began - I'd have lunch with my friends (both were a bit more moderate than me) and they thought I was way too pessimistic about the way things can go. I think many just lack the imagination for how bad people can be - particularly if they are some sort of right wing cult. But - here we are - and there they go, breaking norms many of us thought could never be broken. It all makes my wife and I, and our daughters, sick to behold what is happening.

For the life of me understand cheering grinning women in photo ops like DeSatan had signing the 6 week ban. I maybe can see extremely religious women think they could have personal views about not wanting an abortion Ladd if their lives, but I can not understand they are cheering taking everything away from other women. They know about the dangers and deaths attributed to pregnancies gone wrong, and how that should be an individual woman’s choice solely. And if they got raped from a pig of a human, why would they want that to be there to remind them of that horror every day of their lives.
A rape is gods will, and he is such an ass he would make you raise that child??
Not sure men would be in those photo ops that would be mandating their mistresses HAD to give birth, grinning ear to ear with thumbs up. Or any pregnancy they want no part of being responsible for. And cheering demanding that be forced on other men.
Freedom and keep government out of lives??? It’s all so fucked up. Men should have no vote, but damn there are a lot of women wanting to force their choice on other women????

... Because the well-to-do "us" in the picture would always have appropriate care, but they are fine with the "slutty" lower class "them" dying or being butchered for lack of reproductive care.

on the issue of abortion, and suggesting that some were focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else.

The truth was that the issue of abortion WAS pivotal, over the economy, workers rights, and everything else. It crossed party lines, at least among women, in a way that no other issue did.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2022/oct/10/democrats-midterms-victory-economy-bernie-sanders

Democrats shouldn’t focus only on abortion in the midterms. That’s a mistake
Bernie Sanders

As someone who has a lifetime 100% pro-choice voting record, and is outraged by the supreme court’s horrific decision to overturn Roe v Wade, there is no question but that Democrats must continue to focus on the right of women to control their own bodies. This is a fight that most Americans want us to wage and, given the Republicans’ extremist position on the issue, makes them genuinely vulnerable.

But, as we enter the final weeks of the 2022 midterm elections, I am alarmed to hear the advice that many Democratic candidates are getting from establishment consultants and directors of well-funded Super Pacs that the closing argument of Democrats should focus only on abortion. Cut the 30-second abortion ads and coast to victory.

SNIP

None of what I am suggesting here is “radical”. It is, in fact, extremely popular. It is what the American people want. If we close this critical midterm campaign with a clear, unified vision to meet the needs of working families, to take on corporate greed, and protect a woman’s right to choose, we will begin to rebuild the trust between Democrats in Washington and the working families of this country.

And it’s not just a ‘woman’ problem any more. It is a disaster for healthcare, family planning, career planning, providing employees to staff services and businesses a first world economy and society. It is a ball bat to the back of the knees to the future of this country.

I would love to see a check in post out here of those who are committed to women’s / transgender rights, reproductive freedom, equal pay and equal rights for all gender, race, color. I want to see the males out here check in and admit that living with every other gender being second class is not acceptable in this country. This is not a getting the ladies to the streets issue. This is everyone standing together, demanding equality for all or striking until we see some action. As the OP states we have been placated too long. I have been mocked here for suggesting a strike but look at Iceland. It took a bold step but they did get a resolution.

Personally since the Supreme Court gave an abortion to our abortion rights turning my life and more than half of the population of this country into less than a full citizen I have been walking in a fog of unbelievable betrayal by the other half of the population that literally nods a head at the issue without fully comprehending how deeply this knife has cut!

It feels good to be heard and understood. 💗

Glad I spent the time to read it.

As the op states it’s been tough out here. Your words are appreciated.

Last edited Sun Apr 16, 2023, 02:17 PM - Edit history (1)

A significant portion of American men view women with disdain and contempt. They don't view them as fully human. They don't think they are deserving of rights and bodily autonomy. Not only that, they are very angry at women ... for merely existing, I guess?

This comes from places you wouldn't expect. This is just one small example, but I was given Bob Dylan's book Philosophy of Modern Song for Christmas. (I think he's a great songwriter who should have stopped singing in the early 70s, but I digress.) I made it about a third of a way into the book. I had to shelve it, because I was floored by his viscous misogyny and contempt for women. It just jumped off those pages. It literally made me a bit breathless. In the post-Dobbs era, I just didn't have it in me to slog through more of his unhinged stream-of-consciousness babbling about songs mixed in with hatred of women. I guess his "philosophy" is that women are c*nts who are mainly looking to trap and harm men.

Bob Dylan, the voice of his generation, pretty obviously despises the non-penis-having half of the population.

Breathtaking.

Sidenote: Apparently I'm not the only one who was struck by Dylan's women-hating "philosophy":
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-10-27/bob-dylan-philosophy-of-modern-song-book-review

on edit: Here's an excerpt from the review:

The women we meet in Dylan’s essays include a “she goat,” a “crazy bitch,” a “gold digging showgirl, full skirted in a cocktail dress” and a “hot-blooded sex starved wench.” Dylan describes women as “pug-nosed, grim faced and short on looks,” “bare breasted, blue veined — short, powerful, and ugly” and “foul-tasting.” Sometimes Dylan sounds like a garden-variety sexist jerk. (“Her voice gets on your nerves — the low drone, the squeaking sounds.”) But he also spews bile from the murkiest depths of the male id. He refers to the labia majora as a “steel trap.” He writes of a woman who “feeds on the entrails of your victims, and if you pull back her skin, you’ll see the head of an animal.”

I have a husband, a male business partner and a grown son. They all look at me like I am completely crazy! I say,’ Wait until you wake up in your country and see that you are half a person with every right you thought you had in jeopardy then MAYBE you will understand. You will definitely feel bad that you didn’t really take the time to FEEL what I was saying.’

Thanks for the link!👍🏼😊

I won’t stop. For the children and young women! It really is surreal that coming of age in the time of Roe V Wade and the pill. Choices for all of it or choosing not to access. It was choice. Coming into Gilead is mind numbing but no, I wont stop!

Funny story, when my son was three he had taken his blue jean jacket off and could not get it right side out to put it back on. He flopped on the floor in total frustration. He told me the problem and I said well now is the time to learn. Who’s going to turn it inside out when mommy isn’t around. He looked me square in the eye and said ‘my wife’. I actually looked back and said, ‘honey you better learn how because by the time you are old enough to get married women might not be doing that anymore!’ Poor little guy….….he is getting married next weekend to a fine young woman who drives race cars and is not in ownership of housework or meal planning!! Love, love, love! She will be good for him. I am so afraid that she will get pregnant in these absolutely unsafe times. These are words a pending future grandma never thought she would hear herself saying. We live in an upside down world for sure! Stay safe! 💗💗

And best of luck to the happy couple!

You are so right about the depth of the misogyny.

It's very depressing.

I have a son and a daughter (now 20-somethings) and my husband and I raised them both to be feminists (with subtle lessons over time, not overt indoctrination), so at least that's something.

When he sings of identifiable women otoh, one on one, it gets better at times."Sarah", "Visions of Johanna" come to mind.

Rock is the music of my life but there is a bit of woman hating going on in more than a few songs. "Ball Trap", "Under My Thumb" "Stay With Me" ect.

What can a poor boy do?

I like the posting

…as all that, and at least one of them was unclear on female biology.

Must. Restrain. Fist. Of. Death.

Actually I was just exhausted.

We still have work to do.

I missed that one.

Probably just as well. I'm not sure if I would have been able to restrain my fist of death!

Who will decide what is to Republicans "legitimate rape"?

If the mother's life is in danger, does she need to hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, and wait for a Judge to issue a court orderbefore she gets treatment?

The only reason Republicans will allow "exceptions" is because it polls much better. However, in practice, it is unworkable.

Or do the Rethug husbands put both ballots on the kitchen table and direct the not-so-secret votes?

The fact a patriarchal society treats women as chattel and commodities really can't be a surprise to any of you. Until we are not subject to a religion that treats women as inferior and subservient to men women are going to be in this role 'cause gawd says that's how it's supposed to be. All the handwringing and lamentations won't make any difference until we crawl out from under a system that's meant to subjugate its followers based on the word of gawd.

That said the reason I never believed Roe would be overturned was purely monetary. The authoritarian right has never had a fund raiser of the potency of abortion, not even the 2nd Amendment comes close. I can assure you there is much consternation and lamentation over the loss of the anti-choice cash cow.

I loved the Uncle Remus stories as a kid. One of my favorites is the story of the Tar Baby. I am taking great joy out of the twin Tar Babies the GQP finds themselves stuck with at this time. Turn one way and they're stuck to Tar Baby Trump, turn the other way and they're stuck to Tar Baby Abortion. On the short term women are going to once again suffer in ways that are beyond my ability as a male to fully appreciate and that is nothing but a horrible, preventable tragedy. However I do truly believe that on the long term there is the very real possibility the outrage and horror will result in permanent and irrevocable changes made to protect the sovereignty of women's bodies.

That will be a much needed start in the process of gaining true equality for women in this country.

Christianity is the main one, of course. The only characters that really matter in these mythologies were written as male, especially the omnipotent creator/ruler of the universe and his "son" (who is also himself, go figure). Gee, big surprise that primitive patriarchal societies in the Middle East of a few thousand years ago would make up stories where only males are worthy of power and respect. And the virtues of "faith" (i.e. belief in the absence of evidence) is still pushed heavily to make people fall in line with this women-hating framing.

The "naysayers" as you put it who said Roe would never been turned over were wrong. Pretty sure none of them ever anticipated that it would take a senate majority leader holding a seat on the Supreme Court vacant for a year so to not let the Dem President pick the justice.

Roe V Wade would be just fine if Washington followed the process it has for over 150yrs in seating a SCOTUS Judge. It took borderline if not straight up criminal acts to get the conservative 6 person majority on the court the right has been dreaming of for decades.

Far as i am concerned SCOTUS is a joke now and it will have to be torn down and rebuilt for it ever to have the respect it did. Roberts is nothing but a gop hack and much worse than Taney ever was. Taney was obviously a racist as everyone was back then look who nominated him but at least he tried to judge in Americas interest, Roberts is not. I think he is fully on board with the federalist societies view of an American utopia molded into their view.

Reading the post is it seems a lot of people here simply do not understand the political world we are now in. The politics of compromise died when bush and cheney (the closest thing ever to a real Darth Vader..) lied us into a war and then let a city drown and then tortured humans....then let Greenspan run the financial markets into the ground...globally...and not one thing was done to hold anyone accountable then or since then.

The Dems and the public all cowered down to bush and cheney for fear of being called "unpatriotic" in fairness round that same time we lost Wellstone and that may have very well played right into the lack of intestinal fortitute to stand up to the admittedly powerful juggernaut that bush/cheney was. The people in power now saw this then and realized they could almost act with impunity. These people who told us over and over and over COVID was a hoax when 1000's were dying each day. One would have to feel pretty bullet proof to stand at a podium every afternoon and tell us that COVID is a hoax but even if it were real we are looking at injecting disinfectant to kill it. I still do not understand how Americans did not take to the street and go ballistic on DT for what he was doing. Over a million Americans have died.

Afterwards ... crickets. No punishment. Very little criticism. That's when I knew we were in deep, deep trouble.

As the father of two daughters, this war scares me

I love John Fuselgang but he used to be one of the progressives who would say (at least on The Stephanie Miller show) that they'd NEVER overturn Roe V. Wade because of it's use as a wedge issue (for them). Stephanie has NOT let him forget this.

I actually have let go of people (those who I wasn't really close to anyway but FB friends and acquaintances) who say they "stay out of politics". These are some of the New-Agers (spiritually). Right after dt got into office, one of them was doing a "reading" online (tarot) and she said that she considered herself a political atheist.. I haven't acknowledged her since (on FB)....


IMHO, it's unconscionable not to vote. And I have completely ended a friendship with a childhood friend who's a dt supporter (we haven't spoken in three years). I lost another close friend to the cult of QAnon. We haven't spoken in two and one-half years....

There's a particular individual here on DU who makes these sweeping "predictions" about the outcome of elections. Like during 2020 they would post which races were closer than they really were (meaning-"don't worry folks, the Democrats will for sure win this or that seat"....) and surprise, surprise the races weren't- close- e.g. Mitch McConnell V. Amy McGrath. I've called them out on several occasions and it's weird.....when I ask them where they got their information or why are they predicting certain races they never responded...Hmmmm....BTW, McConnell won his race -58% to 38%.

There used to be a regular poster here on DU (I'm not sure what ever happened to her) whose handle was "nothingshocksmeanymore." This was in the earlier days of DU. That's how I feel now. I put NOTHING past these pieces of sh** Republicans. They have no shame and no ethics. They seem almost like non-humans.....

In any case, thank you for your post.

unexpected win. And his great good luck in getting to choose 3 justices.

Frightening tho it may be, women are far below second class citizens.

Class 1 individual uberrich mega donors who buy politicians and judges.
Class 2 mega corporations who can buy politicians and judges because class 1 bought the SCOTUS to get citizens united.
Class 3 gun companies, I was going to put white males next but thought that all the mass shootings and their victims are clearly more important
Class 4 white males
Class 5 potential future workers for slave wages, i.e., embryos, eggs, etc.

That leaves women or people of color at 6th class, not sure which group is lower... Workers at slave wages or handmaiden in the hellscape that Rs want

And now - we have posts about GOP members of the House upset about their party's position on this issue, oh woe is us nonsense about the GOP being upset about this as it impacts elections going forward...

Like I'm supposed to care about the feelings of some useful idiot woman in the GOP.


They did it to themselves. Now they are on defense. Good.

hate women, and will do anything in their power to try to subjugate and control us. The more legal power they get to use to subjugate control us, the more power they will try to grab to subjugate and control us.

This is reality. It has always been this way.

Christo-fascism is a disease. The christo-fascists are the element that needs to be strictly controlled by law, or they will not only take away women's rights, but the rest of the population's right as well.

A number of them were either banned or left on their own accord to that other place (The Pine Cone Society?). Hillary wasn't pure enough for them .

Time to take that threat seriously, too.