Democratic Party Emails in my Inbox

 Just to establish a couple of things up front: I am an independent voter, not affiliated with any political party. Based on results, I believe that neither party gives a crap about regular (non-billionaire) citizens, the planet, or being leaders in working toward global peace.

While I usually refer to the two main corporate parties as the Dims and Repugs, for this piece I will tone it down and simply use D & R. The D as in Twiddle Dee Dee, their usual response, and the R as in ARRRGH! Need I say more?

The Ds have been flooding my inbox over the past year or so with histrionic emails about the dire future of reproductive rights. Being careful, of course, to avoid using the word WOMEN. (Which is odd, since females are the only folks who actually do get pregnant. Even the women who like to pretend they aren’t really women, are absolutely biologically female. But I digress).

The emails seem to spike after each disastrous court ruling and/or state legislation which further limits a woman’s right to make choices about her health, her pregnancy, and her family’s wellbeing. In some cases, even when the pregnancy is not viable or her own life is in danger.

The Rs have been celebrating – the issue of reproductive rights has been “tossed back to the states”. So their efforts are now being focused there. This means that rightwing legislatures will get to eliminate a woman’s choice in the matter altogether. Which of course has always been the actual goal.

So now, the Ds are telling me that we HAVE to vote to vote for them, because they are our only hope of securing “reproductive rights” (For those uterus-havers whose name they dare not speak).

Hmmm. I find that interesting.

Interesting, because aside from the first two years of the Clinton presidency and the triple dem majority that existed then, I seem to recall another triple dem majority, during Obama’s first two years in office.

In fact, when candidate Obama was campaigning for President, he promised that signing the Freedom of Choice Act would be “the first thing I’d do as President.” The Freedom of Choice Act would have codified Roe v. Wade as federal law.

But shortly after taking office in 2009, he said in April that passing the bill “was not a legislative priority” for him, and presumably his party (Reuters April 29, 2009). And it clearly remained “not a priority” for Obama and the Ds for the entire 8 years of his presidency.

Then, during the Trump years, conservative lawmakers were on a roll. They were able to make it significantly more difficult to get an abortion in dozens of states.

 Yet astoundingly, against this backdrop of frenzied legislative activity by the Rs, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared that “democratic voters just don’t care about abortion anymore, at least not to the degree they used to.” (Wash. Post 5/3/17) “It’s kind of a fading issue”, she announced to WP reporters. “It really is.”

So in other words, this is when Ds chose to do absolutely NOTHING. Other than roll over for the GOP every chance they got, that is. Not to mention the lack of any real fight over GOP nominees for the higher courts. And the Supreme Court.

According to Wikipedia:

​The total number of Trump judgeship nominees confirmed by the Senate was 234, including three justices of the Supreme Court, 54 judges for the US Court of Appeals, and 174 judges for the US District Courts.

 As of May 2020, Democrats had voted to confirm Trump’s nominees 39% of the time.

The Rs were upfront about their goal to “pack the courts.” Which they accomplished, with the help of the Ds.  

As Spenser Mastel wrote on Vice.com (5/4/2020), “With the stakes so high, and the ramifications so indelible, why have Democrats been so willing to confirm Trump’s nominees?”

Why indeed…

Then, there was the first two years of Biden’s presidency. Once again, Ds had the House and Senate, plus the White House.  There were high hopes from voters for a number of important issues to be addressed. And lots of "political capital”. But once again, federal legislation guaranteeing a woman’s right to choose somehow never materialized.

(Yet Obama and Biden DID manage to find time, almost immediately, for executive orders establishing that nebulous and imaginary “gender identities” would be prioritized over women’s sex-based rights and protections in law and policy).

And naturally, almost immediately after the election the Ds began their campaign of lowered expectations. Talking about “bipartisanship”, and “reaching across the aisle”. Trying to backpedal on the things they had talked about doing, things they had promised before the election.

So, when the Ds send me their urgent messages about the dire state of women’s ability to access abortion or birth control, I see it for what it is: A cynical attempt to capitalize on the very situation which they themselves created and enabled. And let’s face it, it’s been an absolute fundraising bonanza.

Paul Street wrote in CounterPunch+ that this was actually a planned election strategy.

 If the Ds do manage to get into office again, rest assured that they will exert the same amount of effort to legislate abortion rights that they have during the past 30+ years. Once elected, Ds will relegate the issue to the bottom of the heap, only to be trotted out and dusted off again in time for the midterm election cycle.

So you’ll have to excuse me – I’m opting out of this cynical charade. It’s depressing and futile, and I no longer have the energy for this bullshit.

How Do You Know?

 While on my early morning walk today, I was scrolling through the fm radio shows when my attention was caught by one of those generally inane, hosted by two-guys-who-think-they’re-hilarious shows. What they were talking about was interesting to me, but not for the reason they were discussing.

They relayed the news story of a woman who was defrauded out of $6,000.00. Someone pretending to be from her bank called, and told her account was at risk of fraud, and that she needed to okay the transfer of her funds to a new debit card account – which was from another bank. So apparently without asking any questions or becoming suspicious, she does this. Transfers all of her money to this card. Then later, the fraudsters contact her via Facetime and tell her they need to do a full body scan, to verify her identity. She is then instructed to remove all her clothes on camera and spin around, which she does. When she hears them snickering, she finally realizes it’s a scam.

The radio hosts were incredulous, as I’m sure many of the listeners were, as to the extreme gullibility of this person. No one deserves to have their money stolen, obviously, but this level of naiveté is stunning.

I have long thought that the inability to think critically is a dangerous epidemic in our culture. In spite of being able to investigate and fact-check statements, sources, or theories more easily than ever before in history, the problem has only seemed to worsen.

What interested me the most about this incredible tale was the level of compliance here, the unquestioning response to what a person is told by a perceived authority figure of some sort. In this case, a corporate/banking authority, but a perceived authority nonetheless. This woman assumed that the person on the phone was a bank authority figure whose intention was her best interests and protecting her assets. In spite of thousands of dollars at stake, she didn’t ask questions, or ask to talk to a manager, or hang up and call her local bank directly to question what she was being directed to do. (And as a side note, women who demand answers or ask for a manager are vilified in the misogynist media as “Karen”).

When hear stories like this, we tend to shake our heads and feel pleased with ourselves that we would never be this gullible. And in terms of emptying out our bank accounts on request, we’re very likely right.

But it’s worth our time to examine how we’re compliant and unquestioning in other ways. Whether it’s the self-hating concepts we were raised with, entrenched stereotypes about others, the pronouncements from the political party we favor, or the post-modern social theories being perpetuated like gospel on mainstream and social media, many of our assumptions are in fact unexamined, and lacking a reality-based foundation.

How often do we question our attitudes and beliefs? Our go-to thoughts or feelings? Do we assume that a person who is some sort of authority (or socially popular) can be believed because of that authority, or popularity? How often do we assume that because we think something it must be true?

How often do we ask ourselves: Is this true? Who says so? What if it’s not true? What else might be the case? Who benefits from this? Are this group's actions congruent with its claims? With how/where it spends its money? 

What other agenda might be operating here? Whose interests are being served by people buying into this? Can this statement/concept/theory be factually confirmed? Why do I believe this? Have I found this to be consistently true in my own life?

Or how about - is this habit, attitude, or behavior helping me function better and enjoy my life, or is it keeping me in a diminished place?

How often do we believe our own bullshit without question?

I’m thinking that being able to see through our own stuff (at least on a regular basis!) is a necessary prerequisite to being able to see through the blizzard of bullshit we’re all inundated with daily, from the human-created world around us.

And as that world continues its crazy onslaught on our brains and senses, that will be an increasingly important skill for discerning what’s actually happening.

Does that make sense to you?