This will be among my most disorganized (possibly the most disorganized) post to date, and I apologize for that in advance. There have just been a lot of recent political/newsy developments that I feel like offering an opinion on, but the sheer quantity of them makes individualized topics seem unreasonable to me at this point, so I'll just offer some short remarks here to summarize my views.
-So the U.S. was recently ranked the world's sixth most dangerous country for women due to tying Syria for third in sexual violence and harassment. That makes sense when you consider that polling conducted earlier this year found that 27% of American women reported having been sexually attacked before (up from 18% in the most similar survey conducted in 2010), while 81% reported having experienced sexual harassment. We supply 60% of the world's online pornography and we currently have a beauty pageant owner who brags about committing acts of sexual assault as our president (whom we elected after learning thereof!) who stands credibly accused of sexual assault by 20 women and of sexual harassment by enough to put Harvey Weinstein to shame (check out his latest hire, incidentally), candidates like this and this on the ballot, and a wave of openly anti-female domestic terrorism to contend with (recent example), so yeah, sounds about right. We don't seem to be particularly ashamed of, or subtle in, our predominantly sexual view of the worth of female human beings.
-Speaking of Trump and women, on Monday the president will announce his pick to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. It doesn't really matter who he picks because the list of 25 candidates he's selecting from was drafted by the right wing Federalist Society, so it's guaranteed that anyone he picks will cast the fifth and deciding vote, likely by this same time next year, to overturn Roe V. Wade, effectively criminalizing abortion for much of the country within two years, as 24 U.S. states currently have idealogically anti-abortion legislatures and a large number also have either pre-existing or trigger laws already on the books that will ban abortion automatically the second Roe V. Wade is reversed. Just 16 U.S. states currently protect abortion rights in either their constitutions or state-level legislation. Being as the Republicans control both the White House and the Senate (the sole confirmation body for Supreme Court justices) and are likely to further expand their control of the latter in this year's midterm elections, the elimination of the sole federal law protecting the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy seems inevitable, and sooner rather than later. This development further concentrates our collective national contempt for the bodily autonomy of girls and women. Any Trump nominee is also virtually certain to vote to repeal all anti-discrimination (or, as our media calls them, "affirmative action") laws in this country and to place severe restrictions on access to birth control. These are the primary goals of today's Republican Party. And apparently, America, as we keep electing more and more Republicans at every level of government.
Not that it matters too much. Abortion is already functionally illegal in much of the U.S. anyway. There are currently three times as many fake abortion clinics as there are real ones remaining (as the fake ones have more legal protections and are subsidized by many state governments despite being run by religious institutions, which apparently somehow doesn't constitute either an endorsement of false advertising or a breach of the separation of church and state) and most real providers in this country have closed down within the last decade. While heavily Church-controlled countries like Ireland move toward embracing abortion rights, we, the self-proclaimed "leader of the free world", are moving aggressively in the opposite direction. We have been for a long, long time now (my whole lifetime), but if you've been waiting for that inevitable full fire alarm moment, this is it. That moment has now finally arrived. And there's nothing we can do about it.
-Therese Okoumou of the direct action group Rise and Resist climbed onto the Statue of Liberty recently to protest our government's policy of kidnapping children at the border and holding them in concentration camps separate from their parents and to call for the abolition of ICE. She is the definition of a hero. I have the feeling that the images of that particular action will make the history books for the idea they concentrate. Okoumou wants Lady Liberty to mean something. That's all I have to say about this.
-Being another issue I've followed closely, as it's become sort of ground zero for a key ideological struggle that radical feminists are engaging in in opposition to the forces of liberalism, official consultation has begun now in the UK over proposed changes to the country's 2004 Gender Recognition Act that would allow people to legally change their gender based on self-identification alone (no medical checks required). Gee, how could this be abused? According to a new survey of the British public, just 18% support these proposed changes. The poll also makes it clear that it's not because the British public consists of a bunch of bigots, as the same public broadly supports same-sex marriage and gay adoption. Women are slightly more opposed to the GRA changes than men, which is unsurprising when you consider who's private spaces are realistically endangered by these proposed changes. All demographic groups (both sexes, all ages, Brexiters and remainers alike, all regions, all political parties, etc.) are opposed on balance though, and by considerable margins. A few months back, Labour Party leaders proclaimed that the opposition within their party consisted of "2,000 or 3,000 people in a party of 650,000." It turns out to be 54% of their membership in outright opposition, while only 24% of Labour Party members actually support the changes! Opponents outnumber supporters by a margin of more than 2 to 1 even in the Labour Party, in other words! It just goes to show you how completely out of touch with public opinion these people really are! Not listening to dissenters hasn't helped their cause! But they're moving ahead anyway because who cares what the public thinks?
-Scott Pruitt, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was fired recently and it's no secret why. Historians are debating whether he qualifies as having been the most corrupt public official in the history of this country. He was the subject of 15 separate ongoing corruption investigations at the time of his departure. Under Mr. Pruitt's watch, the government, among other things, abolished existing coal plant and automobile pollution limits and, substantially thanks to his influence, withdrew the United States from the Paris global climate change agreement. With defenders of the nature like these...*sighs* Remember the feather, Janice! ...Fret not though, he will now be replaced...by a lobbyist for the coal industry. Seriously, why don't we just rename it the Environmental Destruction Agency? Would that not be a more accurate title?
LET THE CONTROVERSY BEGIN!!
Last edited by Jaicee - on 07 July 2018
