Why Progressives are more pro-life than conservatives

The GOP’s environmental policies are likely to bring about a massive abortion of humanity. Denying medical care to people who can’t afford it shortens lives. War is abortion of born people. Lax gun control kills. Mistreatment of desperate asylum seekers is brutal.  Odd that conservative Christians support these and other GOP policies.

Republicans say they are pro-life. But that applies, if at all, only to the unborn — including tiny embryos with no memories, thoughts, personality or consciousness.

When it comes to born people, Republicans and other conservatives are decidedly pro-death.

Republicans aren't really pro-life

Republican opposition to regulation of pollutants, pesticides, and other environmental risks already results in many deaths from cancer, lung disease, heart disease, and metabolic disorders. (See the references at the end of this article for substantiation of these claims.) Republican environmental policies are raising the likelihood of catastrophic climate change.

Republican opposition to universal healthcare and to regulation of drug prices dooms millions of people to poor health and early deaths.

Republican opposition to reasonable gun control kills thousands of people each year.

Disastrous, ill-begotten wars and proxy wars launched  by the US — in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, South America, and elsewhere — have killed millions of people and have caused great suffering and widespread migrations. .  By draining money from more productive uses, military spending lowers the quality of life and shortens lives.

It is true that many Democrats have supported military action and high military spending, but in recent years it’s Republicans who are most to blame, especially for the disastrous war in Iraq launched by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  This year the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act allocates $17 billion less to the Pentagon than does the GOP Senate’s version.  Furthermore, in the House,  not a single Republican voted for the Democratic House NDAA bill, because Republicans wanted higher spending, more money for tactical nukes, and freer rein for Trump in Iran and along the southern border with Mexico.

Likewise, Republican voters are more in favor of military action, including the use of nuclear weapons. See Do Americans Support Military Action Against Iran? Republicans do. See also One-Third of U.S. Supports Nuclear War on North Korea, Knowing It Would Kill One Million, Report Shows. The latter article says, “While most respondents overall opposed military action against North Korea, the ‘majority of Trump supporters prefer the US strike in every scenario, except when confidence in the effectiveness of the US conventional strike is 50 percent’—and even then it remained at 44 percent as opposed to a mere 8 percent for non-supporters.”

Republicans get all worked up about abortions of tiny embryos with undeveloped nervous systems, lacking memories, personalities, and substantive consciousness.

Why don’t Republicans get worked up about the deaths of born people?

Interesting times when 'pro-life' people oppose...

The Difference between Conservatives and Liberals

References:

CBS News reports: Nearly half of Americans breathe dirty air, report finds

Many daycare centers and schools are dangerously close to busy roads.
http://www.invw.org/series/exhausted-at-school/

http://www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/outdoor/air-pollution/particle-pollution.html “Overwhelming evidence shows that particle pollution—like that coming from that exhaust smoke—can kill.”

“A new study finds many schoolchildren across the U.S. face toxic levels of air pollution in their classrooms, with low-income groups and students of color far more likely to be affected.” https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2/2/headlines/toxic_air_pollution_at_us_schools_most_impacts_students_of_color

Living near highways bad for lungs
http://www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/outdoor/air-pollution/highways.html

Living close to a major roadway could increase dementia, study says
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/health/dementia-risk-living-near-major-road/index.html

Roads are harmful to pregnant women
http://envhealthcenters.usc.edu/infographics/infographic-living-near-busy-roads-or-traffic-pollution/references-living-near-busy-roads-or-traffic-pollution

Road pollution associated with increased breast cancer
https://nypost.com/2017/04/06/the-roads-you-live-near-affect-the-health-of-your-boobs/

Are We Heading Toward Extinction?

A rise in premature births among Latina women may be linked to Trump’s election, study says

‘A Total Disgrace’: Outrage as Trump EPA Says It Won’t Ban Pesticide Linked to Brain Damage in Children

Donald Trump nominates man whose firm tripled price of insulin to regulate drug companies

Rick Scott’s Company Committed Historic Medicare Fraud. He Will Now Lead Trump’s Health-Care Push.

Trump White House quietly cancels NASA research verifying greenhouse gas cuts

Almost every country in the world agrees deal to cut plastic pollution – except US

Call it the Trump heat wave: The current scorcher is just a taste of what’s coming

Late-Term Abortions Are Rare and ‘Partial Birth Abortions’ Illegal. Why Do They Keep Dominating the Reproductive-Rights Debate?.

The Trump Administration Is Moving to End Food Stamps for 3 Million People

Why Abortion isn’t Murder

American IUDs Help African Women Despite Trump Gag Rule and Funding Cuts

IUD - on handWhen Donald Trump was elected, demand for long-acting birth control soared. Planned Parenthood scrambled to schedule appointments. One woman made a sign that said, “My IUD will outlast your presidency!” Others posted the image to social media. Thanks to a determined nonprofit, those defiant IUD purchases in the U.S. are helping African women get modern birth control, safeguarding their lives and families as Trump administration restrictions and cuts in foreign aid drive down global access to safe abortion.

Better Access to Better Birth Control

Many OB-GYNs think of hormonal IUDs as the best birth control technology to date. You get it and forget it—no need to do something every day or every time you have sex. It releases only a micro-dose of hormone, right where it’s needed rather than through the whole body. It’s 20+ times as good as the pill at preventing unwanted pregnancy. It has bonus health benefits. It cuts menstrual cramps and bleeding by on average 90 percent or more by the end of the first year. And it’s immediately reversible when a woman wants to get pregnant. Though each person is different, and no method is right for every body, most IUD users love them.

Until recently, monopoly pricing and lack of insurance coverage meant IUDs and contraceptive implants were luxuries many American women couldn’t afford. The up-front cost could be over $1000. That has changed because of Obamacare and a non-profit called Medicines360, which deliberately broke the monopoly by developing a competing hormonal IUD now available at low cost to clinics serving low-income women. Liletta, as the device is called in the U.S., is functionally equivalent to the more familiar Mirena, and is stocked at Planned Parenthood and other family practice and women’s health clinics. The lower cost has made it possible for even uninsured and undocumented women to have a modern contraceptive option; and among middle class young women, long-acting contraceptive devices are becoming the norm.

Some people think women in developing countries should have the same array of options we have, and they are working to make that happen.

Taking it Global

As the religious right rolls out anti-abortion legislation across conservative states, the Trump administration has taken the battle global, tightening a “gag rule” that strips funding from any health clinics that even discuss or refer for abortion. In the past, similar waves of Republican control over international aid have resulted in clinic closures and more poor women dying from unwanted pregnancies and self-induced abortions. Together with other international family planning donors and nonprofits, Medicines360, which developed Liletta, is fighting back. They receive a small royalty for each Liletta sold in the U.S. and are using that money to fund several African countries to provide affordable hormonal IUDs to women who want them.

In the U.S., a woman with a hormonal IUD may appreciate not having to think about birth control pills every day or worry about messing up and facing a surprise pregnancy. A young athlete or mother in particular may appreciate lighter periods and less intense cramps. A student may be grateful to know that she likely won’t have to face a difficult abortion decision.

But when medical or food resources are scarce, being able to manage reproductive health takes on a different level of significance. Pregnancy and childbirth—or even just monthly cramps and bleeding— without modern medical care can be fraught. A woman who wants a child may assume the complications and risks willingly, but menstrual health problems and unwanted fertility can reduce education, employment and family wellbeing:

A woman with heavy menstrual bleeding may become anemic; a young woman may miss school or drop out due to lack of sanitary facilities. A mistimed pregnancy may pull a woman out of the workforce or stretch a family’s economic resources to the breaking point. Each day eight hundred women die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth, which together are the leading cause of death for girls between the ages of 15 and 19.

By contrast, women who are able to choose whether and when to have a child do better, and so do their families. Family planning access improves maternal and child health, allows girls and women to continue education, and fosters family economic security. All over the world women know this, and when birth control isn’t available or doesn’t work, desperate women seek abortions. Restrictions like those promoted by the Trump administration force many of them toward methods that are unsanitary and unsafe.

When access to safe abortion is scarce, there are two ways to reduce unmet need. One is to increase access. Non-profits like IPAS and Marie Stopes International are doing just that—working in the global south, conflict zones and refugee camps to increase availability of safe abortion pills. The other way to reduce unmet need for safe abortion is to reduce need itself, by enabling women to better manage their fertility and get pregnant only when they feel ready.

Any family planning method helps in this regard, but long-acting IUDs and implants are real game changers, removing the factors that make pills and condoms so hard to use consistently: forgetting, fights, fatigue, financial fluctuations and more. Women who get Liletta IUDs to defy Republican misogyny or prepare for disappearing contraceptive coverage and abortion rights—or simply because they want top-tier contraception—can take some small satisfaction from the fact that they are protecting not only themselves, but also women in distant villages they may never see.

Vladimir Putin Says Liberalism Has ‘Become Obsolete’

In an interview with Financial Times Vladimir Putin says liberalism has ‘become obsolete’. The Russian leader made the statement before he left for the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan.

He claimed that liberalism is in conflict with “the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population…”

According to BBC News, Premier Putin also stated that multiculturalism is “no longer tenable”.

He criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for allowing an increasing number of refugees into that country, claiming:

“This liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.”

This kind of false, bombastic and divisive rhetoric is one reason why Donald Trump considers Putin to be his authoritarian role model. Both men share a habit of making outrageous and insensitive remarks about immigrants which in some cases have incited racism and hate crimes by their supporters. They see themselves as fulfilling a Mussolini-style “strong man” role using blunt macho-ism to bully their opponents.

Putin also had some bigoted remarks about members of the LGBT community. His statements are obviously designed to marginalize and isolate people who do not practice traditional heterosexual behavior.

“They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles,” he said. “Let everyone be happy, we have no problem with that. But this must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population.”

The Russian Premier praised US President Donald Trump, describing him as a “talented person” who is able to relate to voters.

Your comment about Putin “meddling” in the US election is not a joke Mr. President!

European Union President Donald Tusk spoke out against Putin’s remarks. When addressing reporters he said:

“Whoever claims that liberal democracy is obsolete also claims that freedoms are obsolete, that the rule of law is obsolete and that human rights are obsolete.”

Tusk added:

“What I find really obsolete are authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs, even if sometimes they may seem effective.”

Donald Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin is a very bad sign for American democracy. A US President who openly displays reverence for dictators is anathema to the ideals of a Republic founded upon the principle that all people are created equal. His belief that some members of society should be discriminated against due to their race or religion has attracted the support of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

This kind of racist legacy cannot be tolerated in a nation which claims to be a leader of the free world. During the lead up to our next national election it is incumbent upon all of us to speak out against bigotry and hatred, and to remove those from office who promulgate this kind of regressive ideology. Demagogues who use the crass politics of division to win votes and suppress minorities must not be allowed to win at the polls.

It is time for us to take back our country from those unethical opportunists who have attempted to turn back the clocks to the bad old days of prejudice and segregation. It’s our duty to honor all those who have made enormous sacrifices over the last two centuries in the quest for freedom, equality and justice!

I am Executive Director of Democracy Watch News. Our mission is to cover pro-democracy movements around the globe. It is the obligation of all reporters, editors, publishers, etc. to promote and protect freedom the press and freedom of speech wherever it is being challenged or suppressed. We will continue to fight for democratic principles in the face of authoritarian trends.

https://democracywatchnews.org Our podcast: https://democracycast.libsyn.com

Normon Solomonn says Derek Kilmer should be primaried

BAD BLUES: Some of the House Democrats Who Deserve to Be ‘Primaried’

“Now representing a Democratic, largely working-class district that includes the Olympic Peninsula and most of Tacoma, 45-year-old Derek Kilmer has been an elected lawmaker for most of his adult life. Currently in his seventh year in Congress after eight years in Washington’s state legislature, Kilmer chairs the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition.
Kilmer’s rise in power is appreciated by the US Chamber of Commerce. The anti-union, anti-environment group honored him in April with its annual “Spirit of Enterprise Award,” praising his “pro-growth” policies. The Chamber’s assessment of 2018 voting records ranked only a dozen House Democrats higher. Impressing corporate interests is not new for Kilmer; when in the Washington state senate, he was one of only three Democrats opposing labor on a key bill affecting unions’ ability to support political campaigns.

Kilmer’s increased clout on Capitol Hill means that he has more leverage against the interests of many constituents in a district where the median household income is scarcely $63,000. Meanwhile, the congressman gets plenty of corporate money. During the last term, Kilmer — who sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee — received nearly a quarter of a million dollars combined from the casinos/gambling and securities/investment industries. The military and tech sectors also contributed; Northrop Grumman and Microsoft each chipped in more than $30,000. His campaign and PAC ended last year with more than $3 million cash on hand.”

Rep. Adam Smith explains why he accepts PAC money

At the June 8th Town Hall meeting of Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA 9th CD) in Crossroads, Bellevue, Rep Adam Smith gave progressive answers to almost every question he was asked: on immigration, on the environment, on low-yield nuclear weapons, on convening impeachment hearings for Trump (he mostly supports it),  on taxation, on peace, etc.

One constituent asked him if he’d stop accepting PAC money for campaigns.  His response was “no.” You can listen to his response here (you’ll probably want to turn up the volume):


He said he prefers that there’d be public financing of elections. He disagrees with Supreme Court decisions such as Citizens United.   He said, “a lot of the PACs, they don’t like the fact that I want want to cut all those nuclear weapons… I vote my district, not the people who give me money. And, quite frequently, the people who have given me money have stopped given me money, because they didn’t like the way I voted.”

Smith said that many politicians and candidates say they don’t take PAC money. “They all take money from corporate executives.” That’s no different, “in fact, it’s less transparent.” PACs were designed to as in the interests of election reform.

To be clear, the Citizens United Supreme court decision established a new constitutional right for corporations to give independent expenditures on political messaging. “The court upheld requirements, however, for public disclosure by sponsors of advertisements. The case did not affect the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties.”  (source)

Rep. Smith said several times that he votes his constituents (what they want). I asked him a question: “How do you balance voting your conscience and voting what your constituents want? If your constituents wanted to put all blacks and Jews in prison would you support that?” His response was that he votes his conscience on some issues. When he was in the Washington state senate, he voted for LGBT rights, even though most of his constituents didn’t support LGBT rights at that time. (In fact, he said, his wife had doors slammed in her face when she went out knocking on doors for him.) I should have asked, “If your constituents want higher military spending, would you vote that?”. Rep. Smith has become more progressive since his congressional district moved towards Seattle. This is both good and a bit disturbing, because many of these issues are matters of conscience.

Rep. Adam Smith at town hall in Bellevue, on June 8, 2019

A call for a World Peace Concert

In the 1960s, anti-war music, rock music, and folk music transformed culture and helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.

Nowadays, there seems to be too little popular music about social justice and peace. The costs of war are largely hidden from people. Films cover war mostly as entertainment. Soldiers are treated as heroes who deserve special treatment. The costs of war fall particularly hard on poor people and African Americans, who rely on military service as a way to earn a living.

There is some existing anti-war music — some examples can be found at https://worldbeyondwar.org/music/ and http://www.peterbergel.org/ but it has much less influence than it did in the 60s.

Perhaps aging rock stars and up-and-coming musicians can be convinced to join to compose and perform songs about war, peace, economic justice, etc.

How about a We Are The World of the modern peace movement?

You’d think that faith-based groups would be eager to jump on board the peace movement. Instead, most of them seem to welcome war with Islam.  Maybe Pope Francis would join.  The Poor Peoples’ Campaign, under Reverend Barber, is working in this area.

Music can be more powerful than angry protests — which can be a turnoff and which can be co-opted, infiltrated, and twisted by media — and can reach more people than sad articles such as Army Virtue-Tweet Backfires: 1000s Expose “Heartbreaking” Horrors Of War and How About a Peace Race Instead of an Arms Race?.

War sucks but the U.S. has been in a continual state of war since 9/11. The U.S. now has troops in scores of countries. Military bases surround Russia and Iran. The U.S. is threatening another democratically-elected government in South America, Venezuela, which is suffering under sanctions. Bipartisan majorities in Congress want to spend even more on the Pentagon, despite our $22 trillion in debt, and despite the disastrous consequences of recent wars.

OpEdNews headlined one May 27, 2019 an article about a memorial in honor of peace icon Blase Bonpane:  70’s, 80’s Anti-War Heroes Call for New Anti-War Uprising. The article mentions several famous people in the audience, including Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, Mike Farrell, and Jackson Browne, who sang some songs at the memorial service.

It would be great if famous singers or Hollywood stars would speak out or perform more about these issues and if magazines like Rolling Stone or Vice (or whatever young people watch nowadays) gave coverage.     Most people won’t be interested in angry, message-laden peace music unless it’s performed by a famous person.   What do these aging rock stars do with their time nowadays?   They can use their fame to help bring peace on earth — or at least, lessen the amount of war.

I propose a World Peace Concert similar to Live Aid and other benefit concerts on this list.

Two difficult questions about homelessness

Republicans are using the topics of homelessness, drugs, and crime as bludgeons to scare suburban and exurban voters away from the Democratic Party. The tactic is likely to work, to some extent. The film “Seattle is Dying” makes a powerful case that, at least for the minority of low-functioning, high-crime homeless people highlighted in the film, Seattle’s approaches to the problem are failing.

Republican candidates can run on a platform you can summarize like this: “We don’t want Seattle’s failed policies in our communities! Coddling criminals, publicly-financing safe injection sites for heroin, building low-barrier homeless shelters in our neighborhoods. No way!”

Of course, what we have now are homeless people and unsafe heroin injection sites all over the place.

In this article, I want to concentrate on two controversial questions, involving crime and the location of homeless facilities, respectively.

I’m a progressive and I know that incarceration is not a solution to homelessness in general. But shouldn’t the “prolific repeat offenders” highlighted in the film “Seattle is Dying” and mentioned in this article be incarcerated?   It is not compassionate, to the offenders or to the public at large, to leave such people on the streets. I asked King Country Executive Dow Constantine that question — making sure to say that the question is about the small minority of criminal homeless people. He dodged my question and said that we can’t solve homelessness by criminalizing it. Do you see why that’s a dodge? Some of the people arrested had been released scores of times.

One possible partial answer to my question about incarcerating the criminal homeless is this:

The repeat offenders you are talking about are addicted to drugs and need to steal in order to pay for their habit and in order to eat.  It’s not a crime to be sick with addiction. Putting them in jail won’t solve the problem in the long run and is very expensive. As for the sort of incarceration and forced treatment done in Rhode Island and reported in Seattle is Dying, few addicts recover via forced drug treatment.  Even the addicts interviewed in the film said they would likely need to be using (opiate-based) treatment for the rest of their lives: methadone, suboxone,or vivitrol, for example. Are you willing to pay for forced incarceration and rehabilitation?

See The non sequitur in Seattle is Dying for more discussion of Seattle is Dying and of how to pay for the problem.

 

As for the issue of where to build shelters, face the facts. Seattle is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. The public is being asked to pay money to house and care for homeless people. I am quite willing to do that! But the homeless people are being given a gift. Why, then, is it too much to ask that the money be spent wisely and that the shelters and homes be built where the cost of land is low — i.e., away from Seattle? If the shelters and homes are built away from the city, then many more of them can be built, and they can be larger in size.

A reasonable response to that question is:

Come on, admit it: you just don’t want a homeless shelter in your neighborhood! You’re engaging in NIMBYism.

Furthermore, as a community, we find it immoral to promote inequality and segregation. Homeless people are not second-class citizens; most of them just fell out of the middle class and need a helping hand.

Finally, in order to transition back into the middle class, homeless people need jobs. Likewise, there is a need for low-wage workers in the Seattle area. If the homeless shelters are built far from Seattle, the residents will have no jobs or will have to commute into the city.

Perhaps the homeless shelters and homes can be built along bus lines. On the other hand, land doesn’t get cheap til you get pretty far from Seattle. Another fact is: many of the homeless are too sick to work. There is no need for such people to be near the city.

In short, my position is that (1) yes, the repeat offender criminal homeless should be incarcerated and treated until they can rejoin society, and (2) the community needs to engage in a serious discussion about whether it’s ethical and wise to locate some homeless shelters and homes away from Seattle, where land is cheaper;  a mixture of in-city and far-from-city locations might work best.

Some progressives may accuse me of being heartless for raising these difficult questions.

Rep. Adam Smith on nuclear arms control and how to lobby Congress

Rep. Adam Smith spoke at a meeting of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about arms control, nuclear arms non-proliferation, and  President Trump’s withdrawal from international treaties.

Smith said we need to modernize our nuclear weapons, but we should not intend to use them tactically, as some people do   Perhaps one leg of the nuclear triad should be eliminated. He said that if you listen to the hawks, you would believe that the nation is always in the midst of an existential threat to our security and that we must spend billions more on weapons systems.  Smith says we can’t afford it.     He wants to balance the need for deterrence with the need for efficiency and for domestic spending.

He quotes Winston Churchill, “Gentlemen, we’re out of money, and now we have to think.” He said at one point the Pentagon got more money than they knew what to do with. He said a venture capitalist friend told him he’s never seen a company that doesn’t run better if you cut its budget by 10%. The Pentagon wouldn’t accept that logic, “But we can get better and more efficient about how we do this.”

At about 26 minutes into the video, he says how to lobby Congress to control nuclear weapons proliferation:

The moderator asks him, How can the nuclear arms control and non-proliferation community effectively lobby Congress and counter “the we’re all going to die unless we spend more on the military” message. Rep. Smith replies:

Well, the most effective thing, to begin with, is, you know, “I’m a constituent of yours and I care about this issue.” People ask me all the time, “How can we organize? What can we do?” and they’re mystified that there’s got to be some secret formula, code in order to influence Congress. It’s pretty straightforward. Lobbying is not a dirty word and is easily understood. And there are a lot of groups that do a very effective job at it.

Organize constituents and send them to talk to your member of Congress with a several asks, he says.

He mentions the Smith-Mundt Act, which says that the government can’t propagandize its citizenry. (Isn’t that what the DoD does with money spent at sporting events and other venues?) Smith says Congress amended the act because of the Internet, by which propaganda crosses borders.

By the way, I got a link to the video in Rep. Smith’s email to his constituents. The video had only 562 views and one Like when I watched it, on the afternoon of May 25, 2019. A few hours later, it had 564 views. This suggests that most people don’t care much about these things. No wonder bad outcomes proliferate.