Unite Against the War on Women

Why have the Conservatives launched a war on women this year? I won’t bother to list to you all of the recent legislative actions the states and US Congress have taken that target the rights and interests of women, some of which we thought were long decided matters in our political culture. Suffice to say that much of the right wing has seem determined to pursue an anti-female agenda that goes beyond any quasi-religious pro-life zealotry can explain.

  See, I think the “conservative” side of our current political spectrum is not accurately named. “Conservative” as opposed to “progressive” means that that side is interested in conserving the status quo, keeping things the same as they are now. That’s wrong. Today’s conservatives are more accurately labeled “reactionaries“. See, reactionaries want to turn back the clock. Reactionaries want to roll back the tide of progress in human rights, religious freedoms and formal compassionate social policies that have been an unstoppable trend in western society for 300 years.  

Paralleled by the gains earned by ethnic minorities, the rights and status of women have undeniable progressed in the last 120 years… Perhaps more than any other group… Consequently, as your advances have been so far reaching, perhaps it’s why the REACTIONARY elements of our political spectrum are willing and wanting to attack. To call what they’re doing as an overreach is an understatement. Even conservative women use birth control. “Welfare moms” were a convenient and easy target for attack in the 90’s, but fundamentally, the Republicans are skating on thin ice by trying to pay for tax cuts to the rich by stripping programs that help the poorest women with reproductive health and food for their children. The REACTIONARIES want to turn back the advances of our society 120 years.

 Although this is a really bad strategy on their part in the short term, and so as a progressive, I’m pleased on one level, on the larger level, I’m disturbed at where the boundaries of the debate are being laid. 

We can’t propose single-payer healthcare because its too radical, but conservatives can propose turning Medicare into a voucher system and allowing employers to deny coverage for birth control? If American politics were a marketplace and we were haggling over a price of produce, the Republicans are asking to pay 25 cents to buy a dozen avocados. Or they’re asking $100 to sell them. Whichever. Although this is far less of a case than in previous times, politics is about negotiation. Each side comes to a negotiation from a starting point. The Reactionary starting point has gotten to be SO FAR way over to one side, that I worry about where the reconciliation point is going to end up.

 Maybe we progressives should start proposing anarcho-syndicalist solutions to our nation’s ills; not because we believe in them, but to set a starting point that matches the anachronism of the reactionaries’ 19th Century positions…  
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!! DESTROY CAPITALISM IN THE NAME OF PROLETARIOT! (Short of that, we might accept universal health coverage). 

Now, I talk about the War on Women in the context of a video I made today. An acquaintance of mine, well, maybe after today, I can call her a friend, is an active member of various Occupy and other progressive movements. She called out on her Facebook page for anyone out there whose a videographer and is an owner of a truck or van for help. I happen to be both. I ended up being the videographer for today’s rally Against the War on Women… One of dozens of such rallies that were held nationwide today. 

Here's the video.  One of few on my YouTube page without me in it.