4 Responses to “Thanks for the reminder Serpent Goddess”

1. Josh Jasper Writes:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 6:03 am

   Good luck on the job interview. I’ve got one myself today with a sortware company.

   This all ties in neatly to absinance only sex education, in that it really does mean that the right is majorly concerned with how people have sex, and want to punish people for having unnaproved sex.

   Actualy, I’ve gotten a few right wingers to admit it to me that, yes, they do think people should suffer an increased risk of harm for having the wrong sort of sex.

   This is no longer about abortion, and I think it’s a good tool to use to prove that ‘pro life’ forces are really not what they claim to be, otherwise thay’d be supporting things that prevented unplanned pregnancies. They’re not. They’re supporting things that *cause* unplanned pregnancies among teens and third world women.

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2. rea Writes:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 10:13 am

   They should ban seatbelts, while they’re at it–they only encourage bad driving.

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3. Brian Vaughan Writes:
   April 22nd, 2005 at 10:42 am

   It occurs to me that I’ve been trying to figure this out from the wrong end — from the leaves, rather than the roots. I’m going to sound a bit more flatly Marxist than usual; please bear with me.

   The ruling class’s fundamental worry is resistance and revolt. Anything they can do to weaken the ability of people, especially working class people, benefits them. The fact that this will make the quality of life significantly worse for most people — even for everyone — troubles them less than the thought of their own loss of control.

   By attacking women’s control over their own bodies, they significantly weaken the power of people to resist their own exploitation. “Yeah, this job sucks, and I don’t get health care, and I get paid crap, but I can’t risk losing my job, because I’ve got Emily to take care of.”

   It’s a direct attack on the freedom of half the people who would resist the ruling class, and an indirect attack on the freedom of the other half. The downside is that undermining women’s ability to control their own reproduction also undermines their productivity — so the Democratic Party wing of the US ruling class opted to pose as women’s allies by not actively resisting popular demands for abortion and contraception.

   But with the increasing economic pressures on the ruling class, the ruling class has been dismantling social programs that helped limit class tensions in the years after World War II. The ruling class is buying continued economic expansion at the cost of greater social instability.

   It’s a sign of the desperation of the ruling class that the Democrats are moving towards open abandonment of support for any policy that benefits working class people — in particular, it’s abandoning support for abortion rights and access to birth control.

   Christian fundamentalists have presented themselves as a convenient tool for the ruling class to achieve its ends. It’s easier to use them as a tool if you pose as one of them; it’s easier to pose as one of them if you agree with them. Thus Bush’s sanctimoniousness.

   The entire situation is increasingly unstable, and the real problem is the lack of a large, active left rooted in the working class.

   This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.
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4. Troutsky Writes:
   April 24th, 2005 at 10:14 pm

   Well explained Brian, and rarely done as concerns this issue. Ill add this, just as the ruling class encourages “weak states” in it’s foriegn policy, it also encourages “weak citizens” in its domestic policy. If they can keep you occupied with anything other than your direct economic exploitation, their worry over your ability to organize is lessened. Of course every so often those weak states devolve into failed states, causing headaches and often costing lives. Weak citizens can also occasionally get out of control, start running amuck…

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