So I said... #26 - For July 10-19

Another collection of my various comments on various topics over the past week and a half. I seem to have been unusually mouthy recently, as this one is somewhat longer than the norm for these roundups, but I can still hope you’ll find something of interest or insight in what’s here.

Remember that “==” separates comments on different topics while those separated by — are parts of threads.

And off we go.

2026-07-10
[“Why Some People Feel Like Trans People Are ‘Everywhere’”]

Dunno if anyone will care, but for the heck of it:

I’m reminded of something I came up with it must be over 40 years ago. I kept hearing people talk about “always getting the red lights” and the like, so I decided to consider the idea.

For a couple of months I tried to keep track as I drove of the red lights and green lights I got (those little thumb clickers proved invaluable) and where I was if I stopped.

The results were pretty much what you would expect: The ratio of green lights to red lights was high on the highways, very roughly 50-50 at side street intersections, and reversed on side streets crossing highways.

So why the perceptions of “always getting red?” I concluded, in what became generalized as my “red light hypothesis,” that we remembered red lights more because unlike green lights they required a change in our behavior - and it was the change that produced the impression.

Simply put, we are more sensitive to and more likely to remember change than continuity and any trans character, precisely because of their infrequency, is a change from the usual. I suppose it could be thought of as a part of or at least related to the frequency illusion.

==

2026-07-10
[Another anti-trans ruling arising from judge-shopping]

It is an affront to, a disgrace to, the very concept of equal justice before the law if any bigoted, jackassed, wanna-be dictator can just pick one district where some equally-bigoted wacko will give them whatever they want, run any legal errand they desire, and bring all their cases there and not get pushback because oh yeah, “trust the system” that allows it.

-

2026-07-14
[How did we get to this terrible situation in only 18 months? How do you get so many cowards in Congress?]

The only part of that I would dispute is “only 18 months.” This is the outgrowth of a decades-long, conscious program of the right-wing and their billionaire (nee millionaire) funders and beneficiaries to undermine the concept of government “of, by, and for the people” and replace it with a mating of plutocracy with oligarchy.

Beyond that, being an elected federal official has come to be seen less and less as public service and more and more as a line of work, as not a calling but a career, as just what you do for a living, just like any other job except with extraordinarily good perks. The result is an increased focus on one thing: staying elected - which means not displeasing the boss, in this case The Orange Overlord, who has shown his ability to raise a host of money and a horde of true believers and aim then at anyone who incurs his royal displeasure.

And here we are.

I, too, think history will not judge the enablers kindly.

==

2026-07-12
[A letter to three corporations that had blocked investor-advised funds from donating to the Southern Poverty Law Center.]

I became aware of the SPLC shortly after its founding in 1971. While I would get irritated by its sometimes overly-aggressive fundraising, I have admired and continue to admire its history of exposing and tracking hate groups and associated hate rhetoric.

Now it faces what it describes as “the very definition of a vindictive prosecution” at the hands of an administration that has demonstrated its own white-supremacist nature not only by its violent anti-immigrant behaviors but by cutting refugee admissions to 7,500 for all of 2026 (a 94% cut from the previous year), with most of those slots to be used by Afrikaners “fleeing” a non-existent “white genocide” in South Africa - followed by the White House announcing an additional 10,000 more slots, all of them for Afrikaners.

However, whatever you may think of the SPLC or the Trump administration, what can’t be denied is that accusation is not conviction and that by blocking donor-advised funds from making grants to the SPLC, you have unfairly and improperly denied the organization access to perhaps millions of dollars, some which it may need to defend itself against an administration that has made no secret of its desire to destroy it.

I urge you to stop blocking donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center immediately. If nothing else, “innocent until proven guilty” demands it.

==

2026-07-14
TERF is not a slur, but it is an incorrect term. There is not a single thing radical about the reactionary, narrow-minded, self-interested, “I got mine so screw you” bullshit they peddle.

In fact, not only are they not radicals, they are not even feminist. Feminism once celebrated opening opportunities for self-expression for everyone, not just women, because they recognized how the male-female binary we had built into our social structures and rules were oppressive to everyone. They were liberators.

Now, these non-radical, non-feminists have become oppressors, eager to impose that same old binary - provided that they get to decide where and how the lines are drawn.

==

2026-07-14
[“Anti-trans activity is a social panic fostered by powerful voices.”]

Spot on. We have seen any number of organic moral panics over the years, and they usually flare up, spread, and burn out in no more than a couple of years. The damage they can do and have done is real (consider the day care panic), but at least the panic is temporary and in retrospect they often look silly (e.g., comic books; rock’n’roll; going back further, dime novels).

This one is different. As you note, it is not organic, it was deliberately created and is being artificially maintained for selfish political purposes and it’s targets (bathrooms, women’s sports, “OMG! Save the Children!”) consciously chosen.

It occurs to me we might be wise to press that point.

==

2026-07-14
Any time a candidate of any party forces an opponent off the ballot in any election (primary or general) while going on about the “integrity” or “security” of the “process,” I get a strong odor of a heavily-used, poorly-tended barnyard.

==

2026-07-15
[A self-proclaimed Christian who was fired from his job after being warned about repeatedly misgendering and deadnaming a co-worker has filed suit, claiming religious discrimination.]

In one of these cases I would like to see the judge or an attorney insist the Christianity-claiming plaintiff cite the Christian doctrine that requires them to behave as they did. They would be hard pressed to do so.

For example, there is no bar on courtesy, indeed Proverbs 15:1 (KJV) says “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

For another, Jesus told his disciples “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Mathew 10:16, KJV) (Oh, and wasn’t the serpent “more subtil [sic] than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made?” (Genesis 3:1. KJV) Kind of hard to find a doctrine against lying for the sake of social peace in that.

Besides, how is his behavior not a sin of pride?

I could come up with more, but you get the idea.

It would be amusing at that point to have the Christian supremacists argue that doctrine is irrelevant because this is his true belief and be met with the counter-argument that they would have him be exempted from all standards of behavior in any context simply by claiming it was his “belief” that he should act that way, something which no society could accept.

I always find it frustrating that in cases like this the argument of “I’m a Christian, therefore” goes unchallenged.

==

2026-07-15
[Heritage Foundation releases report attacking Title IX as a “failed experiment” and saying women’s sports should be exchanged for more “non-competitive and lower-intensity activities.”]

BREAKING NEWS: The Heritage Foundation wants to go back to 1900!

MORE BREAKING NEWS: The Sun rose in the east!

Relevant quote, from conservative columnist George Will, January 2, 1995: “’Back to 1900’ is a serviceable summation of the conservative goal.”

Quote relevant to the relevant quote, from Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

==

2026-07-16
[A commenter said they couldn’t find a source for an inflammatory meme saying JK Rowling posted an up-skirt photo of a transwoman then said “he” [sic] was asking for it.]

Damn, do I thank you for that. I was about to post a comment calling for a link to a source. I am sick to flipping death of memes that do not cite one and I am especially sick - as has happened to me on more than one occasion (not, I emphasize, here) - of requesting a source and getting some version of “find it yourself” in response.

If you don’t have a link to an actual source, don’t post the meme. And personally I will not link to, forward, or even believe any meme that lacks one.

-

2026-07-16
Okay, everybody, I did the work which shouldn’t have been necessary and found the source for this meme.

Someone on Bluesky said it was from a July 11 thread on The-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter so after signing in to a platform I abandoned several years ago and scrolling down through a Trump-worthy pile of posts from JK Growling I found it.

It was a picture of an overweight transwoman at some conference or another. She was dressed in a blue top, short leather skirt, fishnets, and knee-high boots and was sitting in a cushioned chair on a stage with one leg crossed over another. Because the stage was of course elevated, that position game a somewhat revealing view above the tops of her stockings.

So did Growling post it? Yes.

Did she say she was “asking for it?” She said the woman (who she misgendered as “Fred” - I gather her name is Freda) chose the outfit and then labeled her an “paraphilic exhibitionist” who was having “the time of” her (because Growling didn’t say “her” but I refused to quote it exactly) “life.” So yes, she said it but not in the “blame the victim” sense we usually mean it. Rather, her bigot-befuddled brain pumped out her Psych 101 understanding of real (as opposed to fictional) people to declare that Freda was deliberately exposing herself because it sexually aroused her.

Notably, Growling said the above in response to being asked if she would have posted the same picture if it was of a cis woman. She never answered. Which I think is revealing.

Oh, and she couldn’t let pass the opportunity to body-shame, saying Freda “left an indelible impression on the audience. And the chair.”

Now everybody thank me for the detective work. :-)

==

2026-07-16
[The Democratic candidate for OH governor expressed support for banning trans girls from school sports.]

The bizarre thing is that I almost hope that she said this out of true conviction. That would make her anything from deeply ignorant to an outright transphobe, but at least it would be honest.

The alternative, that she said it thinking it will pick off some of those mythical “moderate Republicans” who supposedly only need a little nudge to abandon The Orange Overlord and all he represents, then she is not only a profound hypocrite, she is stooopid!

And while it’s possible to fix ignorant, stupid is generally incurable.

==

2026-07-17
[“Every interview, in fact almost every sentence should end with ‘Trump crime family’ or ‘corrupt.’”]

Exactly. One of my “Rules for Right-wingers” refers to “Sitzfleisch,” German for “sitting flash” and comes from chess, from a time before chess clocks, and people would sometimes try to win by just refusing to move until the other player just gave up in exhaustion or frustration. That is, winning not by the quality of your play (or in this case argument) but by pure unadulterated stubbornness.

The right is a past master at this, including taking some tag line or slogan and repeating it over and over and over…. That sort of insistent persistence and message consistency is something we should see a lot more of from our side of the divide.

==

2026-07-17
So after effectively winning on bans on trans athletes in school sports, the Heritage Foundation has taken aim at Title IX.

And the Newsom-Moulton playbook of “If we just give them this, everything will be better,” works out as we should have expected (and a lot of us did expect).

But c’mon, be fair, because after we let Germany have the Sudetenland, Hitler was satisfied and we had peace for our time.

==

2026-07-18
[Nosferatu aka Stephen Miller says antifa “rioters” are “deformed.”]

The language is that of eliminationism, a central part of which is making your enemies into something “other,” something not human, something sub-human. It’s why references to “insects,” to “vermin,” to “infections” are so very common among the fascists and their willing enablers - as are, as here, references to “deformities.”

The point in every case is to define some group as “not us, as “other,” as ones whose elimination from society, whether by imprisonment, expulsion, or death is for and to the benefit of those who remain.

We must be clear-eyed about what we facing. As Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” And this is far from the first.

==

2026-07-19
[Contrary to the headline, Tom Tillis does not “rip apart” the SAVE Act.]

His complaint is that it can’t be done for this election cycle, not that it shouldn’t be done. Voter ID is a fraud because no matter what the standard of proof is, some people will be unable to meet it, meaning it’s main effect will be to exclude people, generally poor people, from voting. Considering how rare unlawful voting is, voter ID is a right-wing voter-suppressing “solution” to a non-existent problem.

==

2026-07-19
So Markie Mullin says there are 250,000 non-citizens on voter lists across four states: California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Okay, well, together those states have a breath under 40,000,000 registered voters. So even if his unproven figures based on data which doesn’t have were by some weird coincidence true, the voter rolls in those states would be 99.4% citizens.

Not exactly an “OMG! RUN FOR THE HILLS!” emergency.

==

2026-07-19
[”Apparently mainstream Dems don’t want or need progressive votes”]

It’s not that they don’t need or want our votes. It’s that they think they can take them for granted. Any hesitation or resistance is met with the manipulative outrage of “What, you want (the demon du jour) to win??!?”

==

2026-07-19
[A caucus of the OH Democratic Part was forced to delete a comment criticizing gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton for calling trans girls “boys.”]

“We of the Ohio Democrats Progressive Caucus wish to thank the upper echelons of the state party for instructing us regarding our recent misunderstanding of how things operate.

“To prevent such unfortunate misunderstandings in the future, we request that the party leadership supply us with a full list of statements we are not allowed to make and opinions we are not allowed to express.

“Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Enough for now!

Happy 28th?

Happy 28th?

[I posted this on another platform (Substack) on January 21 and I was supposed to post it here but, well, I forgot. I think it is still worth a look, even if the issue, at least as far as media is concerned, vanished as fast as it arose.]

There has been justified and exuberant celebration over the statement (of course deleted post-inauguration) from Joe Biden that as far as he's concerned, the Equal Rights Amendment is part of the Constitution, with one example exulting "Woohoo! They can fight it but it’s done! Great news for human rights!" (Sorry for no credit; I misplaced the link.)

Yeah, well, hang on. It’s not quite over. In fact, delete “quite.”

For one thing, Biden said much the same thing three years ago (again deleted) and you see how far that has gotten us. This one is stronger because that time he called on Congress to ratify the ERA and this time he says, screw it, it’s already ratified. Well, good, but still, that doesn’t wrap things up.

On a practical, legal level this will simply be ignored until someone claims some law or rule is unconstitutional because it violates the ERA. That is, nothing will happen until someone forces the issue. And when that happens, I guarantee it will be accompanied by multiple arguments and suits trying to undo this historic achievement.

There will be suits about states having rescinded approval, which I think (hope?) will more likely than not fail because of (among other things) the can of worms it would open about the potential for states to pull an Emily Latella and rescind approval of amendments already enacted. (Can states secede by saying “We changed our mind, we don’t approve the Constitution?” Was the Confederacy thus properly constituted?) If I understand correctly (correct me if I’m wrong), but I think the technical term here is “no take-backs.”

Some efforts will claim that the amendment is not in force because US Archivist Colleen Shogan hasn’t published it. Those should fail - “should” because these days with this SCOTUS nothing is certain - on the grounds that an archivist is by definition a record-keeper, not a decision-maker and her role is ministerial. That is, she has no more authority to block the amendment than then-VP Mike NotWorthAFarthing had to refuse to certify the electoral count in January 2021.

And there will be suits about having exceeded the imposed and quite arbitrary time limit, which could rise to a “Well…” In a 1921 case (Dillon v. Gloss), SCOTUS found that Article V of the Constitution “implies” that proposed amendments “must be ratified, if at all, within some reasonable time after their proposal.” However, a later case (Coleman v. Miller, 1939) suggests that while Congress can set a “reasonable” deadline, what constitutes “reasonable” may be open to challenge. Further, later commentators have argued that this dicta is incorrect because the Constitution gives no such role to Congress (see Note 7 here). Which together would seem to make it difficult for our originalist and “plain text” intoners to argue straight-faced that such a time limit was “what the Founders intended” - not that they’ve never before ignored their own principles when it suited them. (This again relates to the federal archivist, of which more presently.)

Finally and perhaps most importantly, don’t be surprised if, regardless of the merits of the case at hand, some district court judge somewhere issues an injunction barring the amendment from taking effect anywhere in the country while any suits on any of those or other related issues proceed. Because I again guarantee you there are some who will do it on command.

In the meantime, however, we should all do as some are already doing and just declare “It’s over! We won!” over and over and over again. Make it an assumption under which the law should operate; treat it as a done deal, not a request or “someone do something.” I mean, at the very least it provides a basis for filing for injunctions against enforcement of anti-LGBTQ+ laws until any legal issues get resolved - which easily could take years.

However, what hasn’t taken years or even days is for the media to react to Biden’s statement with tut-tuts and tsk-tsks in dismissive tones ringing with “look at the old guy trying to look important” vibes.

For example, Politico called it “little more than an expression of [Biden’s] opinion” and a “long-shot gambit” while Faux News declared it’s “unlikely that Biden’s support will have any impact.” Slate dismissed it in a headline saying it “does nothing.” Meanwhile, AP called it "symbolic,” adding that "presidents have no role in the constitutional process" while emphasizing it "stirred aggravation among some allies" who had wanted it done sooner.

Others were no better and the all-but universal reaction came down to “But - but - the archivist!” They took it as unquestionable fact that the archivist refusing, on her own authority, to print it up and publish it is an absolute Constitutional bar to the amendment’s being part of the document. Which strikes me as much the same as saying that the Congressional Record could block any law by refusing to include it in its publication or the GPO could block any regulation by refusing to print it for distribution. She says she is relying on legal opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel that the time limit is enforceable, but the point is, that’s not her decision to make.

(Sidebar: It seems odd to me that with everyone agreeing that the president has no role to play in the amendment process, an opinion of the OLC - which is, again, an advisory opinion, not a determinative ruling - should be thought binding on the archivist, when they are all part of the Executive Branch.)

When the OFR [Office of the Federal Register] verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents

from state legislatures, her job is to issue a formal declaration

to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the Constitution. This certification is published in the Federal Register and U.S. Statutes at Large and serves as official notice to the Congress and to the Nation that the amendment process has been completed.

It should, must, be left to others to make the claim that the ratifications were somehow improper or without force. She is, bluntly, a clerk - not a legislature, not even a legislator, and not a judge.

And neither is the press. I used to read The Daily Howler, by this guy named Bob Somerby. I stopped because I came to see him as a obnoxious twerp forever looking to prove himself the purest, most superior “liberal” ever to work a keyboard - but I still credit him with developing one of the best tools for media analysis I’ve come across: the concept of “the script,” the idea that the media will rapidly coalesce on a way of viewing a certain issue, after which all future coverage has to be in line with that interpretation in order to be taken as “serious.”

The frame, the script, here has become “the archivist says,” and therefore the question is resolved and isn’t Biden just so cute trying to burnish his legacy with his useless opinion. That is, members of the media here are eager to just dismiss the whole thing as a one-day story not worth pursuing - as opposed to, for example, the pulsatingly exciting and important issues of “Is Tweetie-pie going to invade Greenland” (he won't) and “Will Pete Hegseth get confirmed” (he will).

Admittedly, not all the coverage ignored the open questions here and acknowledged that ultimately there are issues to be resolved by Congress or the courts (or both). But still, it seems overwhelmingly on the sake of “BFD, who cares about that old stuff when the machinations, manipulations, and madcap malevolence of The Great Orange One are just so exciting and so much fun to cover! (The absence of the word "important" is deliberate.)

There will be legal and legislative battles ahead and I have to admit that overall, the outlook isn’t good. Yes, the challenges should fail by logic and justice but a victory by the fascistic racist xenomisiacs* on a single point on any one of them could spell doom for the whole idea. I’d say our best move is to, as I said, use Biden’s statement to treat adoption of the ERA as the 28th amendment as a done deal and use it aggressively as an organizing focus.

Specifically, since everyone appears to agree that Congress could at any point say “forget the deadline, there isn’t one anymore,” thus removing Shogun’s excuse for inaction, Dems in both Houses of Congress should introduce measures to do just that. Put the xenomisiacs and other opponents of human rights in the position of having to vote against a move to approve the amendment. I would fully expect that there is no way in hell the GOPpers would allow it to come to a vote, but that very refusal should then be a point of attack.

The one thing we must not do on this or indeed anything else for the foreseeable future, is engage in preemptive capitulation, surrendering even before the battle is joined (such as can be seen here). King Lear had it right: That way madness (and despair) lies.

*The suffix “phobia” refers to fear; “misia” refers to hatred. These creatures are not afraid of foreigners, trans folks, of “the other,” they hate them. I’ve come to regularly use it whenever it applies. I got it from someone in a post about transmisiacs, but I can’t remember who, which is unfortunate because I’d really like to give them credit.

Remember this - always!

I wrote about this more than a year ago. In fact, I first wrote about it more than 29 years ago. But events of late have pushed this back to the forefront of my political thoughts, pushing hard enough to get through a wall of struggles with burnout and depression to get me to write this, even if it's the only thing I manage to get out this summer.

Because I want the following quote burned into the consciousness of every single leftist, every single progressive, every single liberal, every single person on the entire left half of the American political spectrum and even those to the right of that line who are not yet beyond the reach of reality. And it is this: and yes it is deliberately in a great big bold font to emphasize its importance:

“‘Back to 1900’ is a serviceable summation of the conservatives’ goal."
- George Will, syndicated column, January 2, 1995

Yes. That's what he wrote. "Back to 1900." And every single thing conservatives say and do, every single thing they promote, every single proposal they make, every single emotional button they go to push, should be seen through that lens. They want to reproduce the social and economic relations that existed 125 years ago. They want to, in their own words, go "Back to 1900." And that is exactly what they have been trying, are trying, and will continue to try to do. Go back.

Back, that is, to a time before legal labor unions or effective anti-monopoly laws, a time of widespread child labor and twelve- or fifteen-hour work days and six- or even seven-day work weeks. Before regulations requiring safe working conditions, a time when being killed at work was a major cause of death.

Back to a time before environmental protection laws or consumer protection laws, a time when patent "medicines" were common and government "regulation" was more about promoting corporate interests than regulating them because caveat emptor was the rule of the day.

Back to before Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment or disability insurance, before any kid of public insurance, including for health, was even under discussion and decades before it was taken seriously..

“Back to 1900.” Back to when poor people were considered genetic defectives who deserved their condition and the way to deal with poverty was to shove it out of sight.

Back to a time when education was largely a perk of privilege, only half of children went to school, only 6.4 percent graduated high school, and the majority of adults had no more than eight years of schooling.

Back before civil or voting rights laws, back when women couldn’t vote, wives were chattel, blacks were either “good n*****s” who got called “boy” or “uppity n*****s” who got lynched, racism (against Irish, Italians, Chinese, and others as well as blacks) was institutionalized, sexism the norm, and gays and lesbians were sick or perverted while as far as “polite society” was concerned, bi, trans, or other flavors of the queer community simply didn’t exist.

Back to a time when valuing Protestant Christians over other religions and other people's rights was unremarkably ordinary and some, including atheists, were subject not only to social discrimination but also legal barriers to participation in society.

Back, in short, to a time when the elite and powerful were in their mansions and the rest of us were expected to know our places, live lives of servitude without complaint, and then die without making a fuss.

“Back to 1900” is indeed “a serviceable summation” of the right wing’s goal, which is to undo a century of progress toward economic and social justice in order to benefit their selfish, warped, morally warped lives.

Maya Angelou wisely said "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

We should have been paying attention when the fanatics were openly declaring what they wanted, who they were and are, and we either ignored it or dismissed it as hyperbole.

We shouldn’t have. Because they showed us, they told us directly - and we didn’t listen.

We can at least listen now. And then do more.

And we, each of us, can start by burning that quote into our minds.

Footnotes: For those who may not know, George Will is what passes for an intellectual among the right. And if anyone doubts the quote, I still have the column that I clipped out of my local paper. And it is a quote, not a paraphrase.
 

053 The Erickson Report for May 6 to 18

053 The Erickson Report for May 6 to 18

This episode:

US COVID deaths hit 1,000,000
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covids-toll-us-reaches-1-million-deaths-unfathomable-number-rcna22105

SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/833/case.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/163us537
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenstadt_v._Baird
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/02-102
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/478/186
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/obergefell_v._hodges
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2021/new-marquette-law-poll-finds-sharp-decline-in-public-opinion-of-the-supreme-court-s-job-performance.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/16/post-abc-poll-abortion-supreme-court/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/abortion-roe-v-wade-polling-where-americans-stand
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/21/politics/cnn-poll-abortion-roe-v-wade/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-texas-california-foster-care-scott-wiener-b17a53196d54c7929d3c340b1bf3410c
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/08/study-banning-abortion-would-boost-maternal-mortality-double-digits
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23021104/texas-abortion-murder-charge-starr-county
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/22/braun-supreme-court-interracial-marriage/
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/sen-braun-open-to-u-s-supreme-court-rescinding-ruling-that-legalized-interracial-marriage/article_19cf8eaa-f75a-5642-865e-5ce88b374160.html
https://www.vogue.com/article/anti-birth-control-movement

Inflation is driven by corporate greed
https://apnews.com/article/us-inflation-rate-historic-high-4ba3435cc3730198e299690a9d968038
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1092291748/economy-recession-inflation-federal-reserve-interest-rates
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/13/1080494838/economist-explains-record-corporate-profits-despite-rising-inflation
https://truthout.org/articles/corporate-profits-reached-record-high-of-nearly-3-trillion-in-2021/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/30/executives-hike-prices-us-corporations-rake-biggest-profits-1950
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3n5m3/applebees-wayne-pankratz
https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1509634830505426952
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/20/intergenerational-wealth-middle-class-spiral/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/07/richest-1-took-38-new-global-wealth-1995-bottom-half-got-just-2

David H. Gans on originalist roots of abortion under the 14th amendment:
https://www.theusconstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Issue-Brief-Reproductive-Originalism-FINAL.pdf

Jordan Smith of "The Intercept" on Alito's reasoning:
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/04/roe-abortion-supreme-court-samuel-alito/

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

Next thing here is our recurring feature, Two weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages. And we start, as usual, withe the Clowns.

On March 2, the state legislature of Idaho rejected a $6 million federal grant designed to improve early childhood education. And one Clown applauding that decision is Rep. Charlie Shepherd, who declared the grant would hurt "the family unit."

How? Quoting him: "I don't think anybody does a better job than mothers in the home, and any bill that makes it easier or more convenient for mothers to come out of the home and let others raise their child - I don't think that's a good direction for us to be going."

Hey Shepherd: The 1950s called; they want their brain back.

But if you want full-blowm wacko, we have to go to Rep. Tammy Nichols, who opposed accepting the grant because, quoting, "The goal in the long run is to be able to take our children from birth and be able to start indoctrinating them, and teaching them to be activists, and to do the things that we feel as parents are inappropriate."

Yeah, and the ERA is about women becoming lesbians and leaving their husbands.

Shepherd later apologized on the House floor, saying, "I realize how my remarks sounded derogatory, offensive, and even sexist toward the mothers of this state."

No, they didn't sound derogatory, offensive, and sexist, they were derogatory, offensive, and sexist and your refusal to face that just means you're doubling down on being a Clown.

=

Next up, on February 26 the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill that, according to its supporters, would allow the state legislature to declare federal laws it disagrees with unconstitutional.

The bill would let the legislature ask the attorney general to challenge federal laws in court. Should the AG decline to do so, the legislature could declare federal laws unconstitutional.

Rep. Jay Steagall, a supporter, said "We're a sovereign state, and we have authorities as a state."

Yes you do - but overruling the federal government is not among them. Didn't people in Oklahoma read the fine print when it became a state?

Clowns upon Clowns who are only going to enrich some lawyers and cost the state some hefty legal fees - once people stop laughing.

=

Finally for this time, our winner Clown is an unknown somebody at Shallowater High School in Lubbock County, Texas, who recently decided to have a “Chivalry Day” to show "how the code of chivalry and standards set in the medieval concept of courtly love carries over into the modern day." You can probably guess it didn't go well.

Boys and girls were each given a list of rules to follow with points awarded for each rule they demonstrated in practice.

Boys were told, for example, to dress in jackets and ties, “assist ladies who may have dropped an article by picking it up for them,” address women as “milady,” bow when greeting women, and rise when they enter the room.

But if you really want creepy, the girls - excuse me, the “ladies in the class” - were told “dress to please the men,” “address all men by title, with a lowered head and curtsy,” “do not initiate conversations with males,” do not show "intellectual superiority," "never criticize a man," do not "complain or whine," either "walk behind men" or "daintily, as if their feet were bound,” “clean up after the men” “obey any reasonable request of a male,” and a couple more.

The school quickly had the assignment canceled after parents made the entirely appropriate fuss about it.

Which only leaves one question: Who the hell ever thought this was a good idea? Whoever it was, definite champion Clown material.

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25

 

The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25

This episode:

Recent news on climate change
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-atlantic-ocean-gulf-stream-system-amoc-weakest-1600-years/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/03/warm-up-to-main-event.html
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/01/26/president-biden-us-capable-too-europe-generates-more-electricity-renewables-fossil
https://thinkprogress.org/forget-coal-both-solar-and-wind-are-now-cheaper-than-new-natural-gas-plants-e281f5485e5f/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/27/largest-ever-climate-poll-shows-64-global-public-believes-warming-planet-emergency
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-28/biden-s-early-climate-blitz-goes-faster-further-than-expected?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/3/2013746/-Scientists-say-2-trillion-investment-can-decarbonize-energy-by-2050-paid-for-with-a-carbon-tax
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/02/green-new-dud-progressives-warn-house-climate-bill-fails-grasp-fundamental-truth
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/28/climate-campaigners-say-listen-science-new-study-shows-earth-now-warmer-any-time
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3061/2020-tied-for-warmest-year-on-record-nasa-analysis-shows/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/12/09/carbon-footprints-climate-change-rich-one-percent/

Updates on attacks on LGBTQ+ rights
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/wave-of-anti-trans-bills-are-hitting-statehouses/
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/36-anti-lgbtq-religious-freedom-measures-are-in-covid-church-bills/
https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-anti-lgbtq-bills/
https://www.them.us/story/virginia-ban-anti-lgbtq-panic-defense-danica-roem
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/us-house-equality-act-lgbtq-americans-discrimination

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Clowns]
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-early-childhood-education-education-boise-bills-581517bc89b86666887396ae8ecce4ce
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-house-passes-bill-allowing-legislature-to-declare-federal-laws-unconstitutional/35661454
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-school-chivalry-assignment_n_6041bfc6c5b660a0f387697e

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/02/26/syria-bombing-biden-airstrikes-mark-test-us-role-worlds-police/6831034002/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/26/syria-bombings-biden-airstrikes-deliver-message-more-than-damage/6834550002/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50998065
https://apnews.com/article/biden-retreats-saudi-arabia-sanctions-khashoggi-killing-d91d31edece5db07112d1c2d4dd3be33

The Erickson Report, Page 5: We Are Not Alone

The Erickson Report, Page 5: We Are Not Alone

Now for an occasional segment called We Are Not Alone, when we remind ourselves that we are not alone on this planet and newsworthy things happen in places beyond our borders.

First we go to India, which has seen weeks of protests which have resulted in over two dozen protesters killed by police. The protesters, mostly but not exclusively Muslim, are opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA, which was passed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in December.

The CAA offers an accelerated pathway to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Christian immigrants in India claiming religious persecution. The claim is that it is protection for people facing such persecution in neighboring countries, but the law will not bear the weight of that claim.

First, for the first time in the history of India as an independent nation and apparently contrary to its constitution, it makes religious affiliation a basis for citizenship and what's more does it in a discriminatory way: You may have noticed that Muslim immigrants claiming religious persecution in their home countries are not covered by that law.

Second, it does not require proof of claims of religious persecution on the part of those it does cover.

Third, it only applies to certain neighboring countries, specifically Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (marked in red). It does not apply to other neighboring countries such as China, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka (marked in blue), in all three of which there is documented evidence of persecution of religious minorities: Christians, Buddhists, and Uighur - who are Muslim - in China, the Royhingya, who are majority Muslim, in Myanmar, and Muslims in Sri Lanka.

India and neighbors

The difference in those two sets of countries is not a coincidence, which becomes even clearer when you consider that those marked in red are majority Muslim with Muslim governments - while those marked in blue are neither.

The law is part of and reflects a wave of extremist Hindu nationalism which has swept over India, where it has become commonplace for senior political figures to refer to Muslim immigrant workers as “infiltrators” or “termites" and to move to create a National Register of Citizens, requiring the production of documents to prove you are a citizen, an obstacle that of course will leave out many. But don't worry: Amit Shah, the home minister of India, has promised that the CAA will help anyone who fails that requirement to reclaim their citizenhip - except, that is, for Muslims who, again, are not covered by that law.
The law has been challenged in the courts as well as in the streets. We'll have to see what happens.

=

Another place that has seen demonstrations for some months is Iraq.

For three months, protesters all across Iraq but particularly in the south have been demanding the fall of a government they consider corrupt and controlled by Iran. Between 600 and 700 protesters are believed to have been killed by security forces or militia gunmen in that time.
Despite the official violence, protests have been strong enough that Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi announced in November he would resign - but he is still in place as a caretaker because no one has been found to replace him, something I suspect Mahdi knew when he made the offer. Those who have come forward have been rejected by the protesters because of their various parties' ties to Iran and other foreign countries, which is pretty much exactly what is being protested.

Thousands of protesters have turned out every day in Baghdad, turning the central Tahrir Square into a sort of community - pitching tents and organizing meals, even having doctors and dentists providing services.

Iraq

On January 24, separately from the occupation in Tahrir Square, a huge throng turned out in Baghdad to demand the withdrawal of US forces from the country. Many came out in response to a call from powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political bloc controls the most seats in Parliament and who had been to that point supportive of the on-going protests.

But then al-Sadr reversed course and withdrew his support for the anti-government protests with the lame excuse of wanting to avoid “internal strife” - truly a strange sentiment coming immediately after a mass demonstration that he called for. It was not the first time in his political history that he has suddenly changed direction, but this one had immediate and violent consequences, as the very next day, January 25,  Iraqi security forces moved against the Tahrir Square protests.
They fired tear gas, they fired live ammunition, they burned tents as they stormed bridges, streets, and a highway interchange.
And not just in Baghdad: In the southern city of Nasriyah, at least three protesters were killed when security forces moved in to re-open a highway blocked by the demonstrations.

Altogether, at least 12 protesters were killed and 230 more were wounded by the assaults.
Without the support of al-Sadr, the broad-based and secular protest movement is likely to be crushed by government security forces and the Iran-backed militias ostensibly under government control.

But the protesters vowed not to give up and many said that would spend the night in Tahrir Square to try to hold it against government forces. As night fell, the Iraqi national anthem could be heard being sung there.

I'm sure more on this has happened since I recorded this. You should check it out.

=

Horn of Africa

Meanwhile, east Africa has gone Biblical: A plague of locusts has spread across Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya.

Over 100 billion of the insects, each of which consumes its own weight in food every day, are swarming through a region already reeling from a 2019 that started with drought and ended with deadly floods. The invasion is the biggest in Ethiopia and Somalia in 25 years, and the biggest in Kenya in 70 years.

Technically, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, the FAO, labels the current invasion an "upsurge." Only if it gets worse and cannot be contained over a year or more, does it become a "plague." But I doubt that matters to those affected as they see crops and pasture devastated in a region which is already one of the poorest and most vulnerable in the world.

And worse may be on the way. When rains arrive in March and bring new vegetation across much of the region, the numbers of the fast-breeding locusts could grow to 500 times what they are now before drier weather in June curbs their spread - which by then could include Uganda and South Sudan.

Locals have employed traditional means of fighting the onslaught: banging on cans, waving blankets, shaking trees, anything to keep the locusts moving and flying rather than eating. But the only effective means is aerial spraying of pesticides and it needs to be done before the March rains. Some is being done now, but not enough.

So what will it take to step up the spraying? According to the FAO, about $70 million in aid. Not billion, million. That's a little more than 1/3 of what Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer have spent on TV ads. That's about 50 minutes worth of our military spending.

And the hungry of the world still need to beg.

By the way, does this have anything to do with climate change? Yes.

=

Epicenter of earthquake in Turkey

More bad news: A major earthquake hit eastern Turkey on January 24, leaving at least 38 dead and more than 1,600 injured.
At least 76 buildings were destroyed and hundreds more were heavily damaged.

The epicenter of the magnitude 6.7 quake was near the town of Sivrice, in eastern Elazig province about 565 kilometers (350 miles) east of the Turkish capital of Ankara.

Hundreds of aftershocks, one with a magnitude of 5.4, complicated relief efforts, which nonetheless saw dozens of people pulled from the rubble as 3500 rescue experts worked around the clock in sub-freezing temperatures.

This is neither the first nor the worst quake to hit Turkey; in fact, there was one in the same area ten years ago that killed 51 people and in 1999 two strong earthquakes struck northwest Turkey, killing around 18,000. But I don't imagine that is any comfort to the families of those killed this time.

=

I'm going to end this segment with this and I have a particular reason for putting it here.

US Women's March

The fourth annual Women's March was on January 18. Thousands turned out in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and a number of other places in what NPR called as "a smaller but passionate crowd" which AP described as "focused on issues such as climate change, pay equity, reproductive rights, and immigration."

Okay, so why is this under "We Are Not Alone?" To make the point that this is not a US issue, this is not a US campaign, this is not a US effort. This is a world issue, a world campaign, a world effort.

On January 18 there were over 200 marches covering 24 countries across six continents. This is a worldwide campaign for women's freedom - by which I mean women's rights, women's dignity, women's autonomy. The issues women face vary from place to place and I daresay in intensity from place to place. But it still comes under one banner, one umbrella, one headline, one non-negotiable, bottom-line principle: women as full and equal human beings.

The Erickson Report for January 29 to February 11

The Erickson Report for January 29 to February 11

This week:

- Following Up
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-team-finally-releases-billions-in-hurricane-relief-for-puerto-rico-with-major-strings-attached/

- The economy
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/11/21/low-wage-work-is-more-pervasive-than-you-think-and-there-arent-enough-good-jobs-to-go-around/
https://www.jobqualityindex.com/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2019/12/05/understanding-the-us-economy-lots-of-rotten-jobs/#38ace8c32d97
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-getting-harder-to-move-beyond-a-minimum-wage-job/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/20/1912013/-Year-over-year-inflation-adjusted-wages-rose-0-in-2019-51-of-workers-got-no-raises
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.htm
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/grim-truth-about-trump-economy-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2020-01
https://thehill.com/hilltv/468236-majority-of-voters-support-a-federal-jobs-guarantee-program
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/09/70-of-americans-say-u-s-economic-system-unfairly-favors-the-powerful/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/19/2020-reminder-55-us-women-between-18-and-54-would-rather-live-under-socialism

- Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/15/rainbowcakewhitefieldacademy/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/18/why-no-one-trusts-media-msnbc-slammed-featuring-body-language-expert-who-calls
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/18/our-planet-seriously-burning-and-adults-keep-letting-us-down-ninth-circuit-throws

- Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-has-spent-months-demonizing-homelessness-california-now-trump-wants-major
https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlsons-weeklong-smear-homeless-amounted-little-more-hateful-broken-windows
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/the-trump-regime-is-just-ignoring-judicial-rulings-they-dont-like-should-dems-take-notes/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/biggest-loss-clean-water-protection-country-has-ever-seen-trump-guts-safeguards-us
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/23/1913532/-Trump-regime-finalizes-move-allowing-pollution-and-destruction-of-wetlands-protected-by-Obama-rule
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/netanyahu-join-trump-next-week-announce-deal-century-peace-plan-giving-israel
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-erickson-report-page-3-two-weeks-of_18.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/8/1910205/-Appeals-court-keeps-in-place-nationwide-block-of-Trump-admin-s-discriminatory-public-charge-rule
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/politics/supreme-court-immigration-public-charge/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/5-4-ruling-supreme-court-allows-trump-plan-deny-green-n1124056
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/27/shameful-disgusting-disgraceful-outrage-after-supreme-court-allows-trumps-public

- We Are Not Alone
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-24/muslim-women-occupy-streets-in-india-against-citizenship-law
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/798858125/our-democracy-is-in-danger-muslims-in-india-say-police-target-them-with-violence
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/india-constitution-protests.html
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/799507583/iraqi-security-forces-storm-tahrir-square-clash-with-protesters
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/iraqis-protest-u-s-occupation-following-the-killing-of-iranian-general-qassem-soleimani.amp
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51247833
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/26/middleeast/iraq-protests-clashes-intl/index.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/200125090150459.html
https://time.com/5771621/locust-swarms-africa/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/25/europe/turkey-earthquake-intl/index.html
https://time.com/5771867/turkey-earthquake-rescue-teams-death-toll/
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/01/25/death-toll-stands-22-in-turkish-earthquake-1000-hurt/23908543/
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/18/797638115/womens-march-draws-a-smaller-but-passionate-crowd
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/women-s-march-draws-thousands-rallies-across-county-n1118416
https://twitter.com/womensmarchgbal
https://womensmarchglobal.org/

- RIP
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/entertainment/terry-jones-dies-scli-gbr-intl/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jan/22/terry-jones-obituary
https://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/article/Kobe-Bryant-reportedly-dead-in-California-15005767.php

The Erickson Report, Page 2: Woodstock: the political life around it

The Erickson Report, Page 2: Woodstock: the political life around it

Okay, there is another reason besides aging hippie nostalgia that I wanted to bring this all up. Because Woodstock did not exist, did not occur, in a social or cultural vacuum.

For one thing, the Vietnam War was at its most intense levels. Casualty figures for the Indochinese are hard to come by, even overall totals of how many millions died are estimates. But for Americans, we have year-by-year totals and in 1968, 16,592 US soldiers were killed in Vietnam; in 1969. the figure proved out to be 11,616. But look at that 1968 figure. Those 16,600 killed are more than double the number of Americans killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars combined, across the entire history of those war, right up to the present.

Opposition to that war was also becoming more and more intense. There were major demonstrations on college campuses across the country throughout 1969. A few months before Woodstock, in April, there were mass antiwar demonstrations in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and other places. On October 15, two months after the festival, the National Moratorium against the War generated thousands of local actions across the country including mass rallies, some of them quite large, along with parades, teach-ins, forums, candlelight processions, prayers, and the reading of the names of the war dead, with the estimates of total participation ranging from two to five to seven million. A month after that, on November 15, a half-million turned out in Washington, D.C. to protest the war with 100,000 more in San Francisco.

But that wasn't the only issue. Civil rights had seen some legislative successes in the preceding years, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but the inadequacies of those gains was clearly demonstrated in what became known as "the long hot summer" of 1967, when riots driven by frustrations and economic desperation broke out in black neighborhoods in 159 US cities. At the time of Woodstock, the phrase "black liberation" and a discussion of what that meant was a part of every conversation about civil rights or race.

But in turn it was the very strength of those two movements - peace and civil rights - that gave strength to, gave extra vigor to, a third, as women in the movement began to get fed up with being always expected to keep to the background, to do the work but get little or none of the credit. The expression "male chauvinist pig" came into circulation, sometimes as a teasing warning when preceded by "don't be a" but also as a sneering dismissive putdown of deserving targets.

And speaking of being fed up, less than three weeks before Woodstock, in Greenwich Village in New York City, some patrons of a gay club and dance bar known as the Stonewall Inn decided they had had it with being hassled, assaulted, and arrested by cops for essentially nothing more than being gay or lesbian. What become known as the Stonewall Riots - more properly the Stonewall Uprising - continued on and off for five days, giving birth to the modern LGBTQ rights movement, with the first gay pride marches occurring just a year later.

Meanwhile the long-standing movement against nuclear weapons was beginning to expand into opposition to nuclear power, merging or at the least overlapping with the environmental movement, which continued to gain strength - recall the first Earth Day, in some ways the only real occasion of that now corporate- and government-approved event, came just eight months after Woodstock.

All this and more was swirling around and through the culture in the summer of 1969. That was the atmosphere, the if you will cultural milieu in which Woodstock happened. Woodstock was by no means intended as a political event, but it was a cultural event, as it proved, a major cultural event, and as such did not and could not stand apart from the political currents of the time. What Woodstock was, what it became, was affected by what was going on around it.

Now, I am certainly not saying that all those at Woodstock were dedicated political or cultural activists who went straight from the festival to the frontlines, even less that people went to Woodstock with the idea that the act of going was itself a conscious political statement. In fact, I expect most of those to be seen in tie-dye t-shirts, jeans, and sandals in 1969, whether at Woodstock or anywhere else, had no more interest in the world at large other than how it immediately impacted their personal lives than those sporting whatever hipper-than-thou gear is currently fashionable do today.

But at the same time, going was by its nature a statement of sorts. Semiotics is the study of sign process, that is, it is the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communication. That includes the way cultures and subcultures sign themselves. Ever since Monterey Pop in 1967, you pretty much knew that by going to a big rock festival, you would be surrounded by people with long hair dressed in colorful clothes and yes, tie-dye t-shirts, jeans, and sandals, people who were thereby signing that you and they shared a set of cultural values, that you were with your tribe.

The point here is that while you can't say Woodstock was a consciously political event nor can you say that those attending were all political or cultural activists, you can say that those political and cultural activists who attended the festival shared a number of cultural assumptions with those around them, certain cultural principles that had become emblematic of what had become known as the counterculture, cultural principles such as sharing, rejection of competition, and embracing of exploration and discovery, both physical and spiritual.

That is, they pursued a political activism rooted both in cultural, not just intellectual or traditionally political, concerns as well as in a lifestyle that knew the words “others” and “future” as emotional touchstones, not merely statistical measures - the precise difference between the so-called "New Left" of the '60s and the "Old Left" of previous generations, whose adherents could quote chapter and verse of political theory and chant slogans with the best of them but too often sounded as if they regarded the people on whose behalf they were trying to speak more like exhibits in a court case than living, breathing people.

Indeed, a significant part of ‘60s activism was almost purely cultural: The “live your life as an example to others” idea and the "conscious" or "intentional" communities that set out to prove that there are juster, fairer ways to organize our social relations.

Beyond that, one positive result of that footing in cultural as well as more traditional political concerns was the (relative) ease with which the movement became multi-issue: Whenever those distressing, depressing arguments about the issue or the tactic arose, a significant portion of the movement just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. “You work on what you think is important and I’ll work on what I think is important and whenever we can make the two overlap we’ll work together. Simple! We’re all after pretty much the same end, anyway, right?” The “same end” bit wasn’t always (maybe not even usually) true, of course, but it was true enough to keep things bubbling along without the movement getting bogged down in endless, unresolvable disputes about the relative importance of the arms race vs. feminism vs. the environment vs. racism vs. economic issues vs. and so on.

In short, I firmly believe, I argue, that a main - perhaps the - core energy source for the movement of the ‘60s was that area where political involvement and cultural/spiritual concerns overlapped to form a politically-involved counterculture.

That energy gave us the sense that you could make a difference, that your dreams could be lived out, that they really could come true, that the future was wide open and all things were possible. And it enabled us to keep trying. For all the sexism we came to acknowledge in the counterculture and the peace movement, people kept trying to live more egalitarian lives. For all the undercurrents of racism we dug out of white activist’s relations with black groups, people kept trying to work it out and live more justly. For all the awareness of our umbilical cord connections to the consumer society, people kept trying to live more simply, with greater ecological awareness. There was a sense that you could make it better both in yourself and in others by both your social example and your political actions.

It was that sense, especially when slammed up against the reality of the chasm between the America we saw around us and the America we were taught to believe in, in school that produced the anger and the joy, the tough determination and gentle compassion, the bitter awareness and sweet dreams that marked a movement that over a several-year span was powerful enough to end the draft, limit and finally stop a war, force one (and maybe two) Presidents from office, shake the foundations of a society’s judgements about half its population, open millions of eyes to the reality of racism, force the nuclear power industry to a virtual halt, set in motion other movements for justice, and change - perhaps not by much but clearly permanently - that society’s sense of its relationship to the environment.

And it's good to have that record of success, of progress, because it is of course true that ultimately, in many ways, we failed. Our dreams could not be lived out, at least not full force, the future was not wide open, and not all things were possible. Sexism and racism persist. Poverty and hunger still haunt us. Climate change is a Sword of Damocles over us. Yes, we stopped one war - but the changes we made weren't enough to prevent new wars and more wars, wars that, just like Donovan sang in 1970, "drag on." We got hemmed in, in some cases weighed down, by commitments and obligations of a different sort, commitments and obligations not to the whole community, but to the narrower community of spouses, of children, of aging parents, and the jobs and careers that sustained those commitments.

That doesn't mean we simply surrendered; the '60s generation went disproportionately into what are called "helping" or "caring" fields, fields such as health and medicine, education, social work, public interest law, and so on. But it does mean that the task we set for ourselves was bigger than we ever let ourselves imagine. Our community, our tribe, came together so easily, so naturally, that we just assumed it could stay together just as easily - which, and in retrospect it's easy to say "of course," it couldn't. The result was that when those other commitments arose, we didn't do the work, we didn't put in the effort, to maintain that community in part because we had fooled ourselves into thinking that effort wouldn't be necessary.

So we lost our tribe, we lost the sense that we were all part of the Movement, the Movement with a capital M, that vaguely defined but still somehow an organic whole of which we were part. Between that and the end of the Indochina War, which for a non-insignificant number had been the whole reason for their political activism, that core energy was gone - and so was, I would say, the '60s as a political movement.

The Erickson Report for August 21 to September 3

The Erickson Report for August 21 to September 3

- Woodstock: personal memories
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-7351009/Woodstock-pinnacle-hippie-dream-turns-50.html

- Woodstock: the political life around it
https://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_protests_against_the_Vietnam_War
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/15/newsid_2533000/2533131.stm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long,_hot_summer_of_1967
https://www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots
https://www.oprahmag.com/life/a27657496/stonewall-riots-significance-facts/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAOH4mYk-AI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrOE2s_ldlQ

 - Woodstock: Is any of that relevant now?

Outrage: forced birthers charge pregnant woman with getting shot

I had a fall during the taping of Episode 4 of The Erickson Report, delaying production for a week. So I thought I would post a couple of things intended for that show but which will not be used now.

==

Outrage: forced birthers charge pregnant woman with getting shot

Another example of just how far the forced-birthers are prepared to go to enforce their dystopian view of women's independence.

Back on December 4 a 27-year-old Alabama woman named Marshae Jones got into a fight with a women named Ebony Jemison. In the course of the fight, Jemison shot Jones in the abdomen, leading Jones, who was five months pregnant at the time, to have a miscarriage.

Jemison was charged with manslaughter but a grand jury failed to indict and the charges were dropped.

Frustrated, prosecutors went after Jones, arguing she began the fight and therefore was responsible for her own shooting.

Why? Because they were unwilling to lose this opportunity to have a five-month old fetus declared a victim of manslaughter and thus a person. So on June 26 she was indicted for manslaughter and ordered jailed on $50,000 bond.

Charges were dropped on July 3 after an outcry and after it developed that Alabama's Criminal Code states that the prosecution of "any woman with respect to her unborn child" should not be permitted under criminal homicide charges like manslaughter. Police and prosecutors were so desperate for another woman to prosecute that they didn't even read the law.

After her arrest, police at least twice referred to her "unborn baby" (and to her as "the mother of the child") despite the medical fact that at roughly 21 or 22 weeks, the fetus is only barely and hypothetically viable.

But of course viability isn't the issue; "fetal personhood," treating even a fertilized egg as if it were a born child, giving a zygote more protection than the fully-grown woman, that is the point.

Marshae Jones

In fact, Alabama leads the country in criminal cases involving women accused of endangering their fetuses. Over 600 women have been charged since 2005 with alleged crimes related to their pregnancies.

The vast majority of them were prosecuted for exposing their embryo or fetus to controlled substances under the state’s “chemical endangerment of a child” statute. That law was passed in 2006 and mandates 10 years in prison for drug use during pregnancy even if the fetus, once born, shows no ill effects. Penalties run up to 99 years if the fetus dies.

But those aren't the only cases: Pregnant women have been charged for getting in a car accident, failing to leave a physically abusive partner, or attempting suicide.

Alabama’s Yellowhammer Fund, which advocates for abortion rights in the state, said that Jones’ treatment was part of “a new beginning” in Alabama’s zeal to undermine women’s reproductive rights. "Today, Marshae Jones is charged with manslaughter for being pregnant and getting shot," the group stated. “Tomorrow, it will be another black woman, maybe for having a drink while pregnant. And after that, another, for not obtaining adequate prenatal care.” And as always, "it will be poor, marginalized and black people who will feel this pain the most.”

Two footnotes: Ten states now have laws requiring physicians to tell patients that medically-induced abortions can be "reversed." What they really mean is that the procedure can be stopped after the first of two steps of the first part can be undone. Maybe. It's unproved, experimental, and based on anecdotal evidence. But anything to stop an abortion, even if it requires physicians to actively lie to patients.

Early in June, 42 elected prosecutors representing jurisdictions in 24 states, including Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and Ohio, issued a statement vowing not to enforce extreme anti-abortion restrictions passed in their states.

The Erickson Report - Page 1: Abortion rights are under attack and it goes beyond that

Abortion rights are under attack and it goes beyond that

It should come as no surprise that the anti-choice, anti-freedom, anti-abortion, forced birth crowd is feeling pretty good these days, especially as the elevation of Brett The Liar Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is giving them wet dreams of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Six states have enacted so-called "heartbeat bills" that ban abortions, with very few exceptions, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected - which is usually at about six weeks, a point before which most women even know they are pregnant. Four of those six - Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia - have passed such laws this year.

It should be noted that none of these laws have gone into effect: Kentucky's, which was to go into effect immediately, has been blocked in federal court. Mississippi's is intended to go into effect July 1, Ohio's July 10, and Georgia's January 1, 2020 - and all three are certain to be blocked by suits in federal district court because they so obviously conflict with Roe v. Wade. But of course the point is not to get them in force immediately - supporters know they will lose in lower courts - but to get one or more of them before the Supreme Court.

Still, it does seem that each is vying to be the most restrictive and to be the one that makes it to SCOTUS and so obtains the glory of being the one that results in Roe being overturned and thus the return of back-alley abortions.

For example, last November, a federal judge ruled Mississippi's ban on abortion after 15 weeks was unconstitutional - and the state responded by banning it after six weeks and adding that a physician who performs an abortion after that time could lose their state medical license.

The Ohio law not only bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, it provides no exceptions for rape or incest.

In Georgia, the law extends the legal definition of "natural persons" to include the fetus once a heartbeat is detectable, which means that women who have abortions after six weeks along with those who perform them could be prosecuted for murder. Even if the woman goes to a different state where the procedure is legal, she could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, punishable by 10 years in prison.

And don’t wave that off like it can’t happen because it already has. In 2015, in Georgia, a woman named Kenlissia Jones was prosecuted for "malice murder" for taking an abortion pill. The charges were only dropped when prosecutors had to admit that there was no provision in state law allowing for such prosecution. If this new bill were to become law, there would be.

The Alabama legislation is perhaps the most extreme, as it seeks to outlaw abortion outright. It bans all abortions in the state except when "necessary to prevent a serious health risk" to the woman. It classifies abortion as a Class A felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison for doctors. It does say a woman who gets an abortion can't be prosecuted, but also makes no exceptions for victims or rape or incest.

Overall four states passed such laws this year, but similar bills have been introduced in 13 more and some are moving through state legislatures.

For example, in Missouri, a bill banning abortion after eight weeks has been approved by the state Senate - with no exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking. A doctor who performs an abortion after that point could be charged with a felony and face up to 15 years in prison.

But Ohio has a new twist: Following on its "heartbeat bill," the legislature is considering a bill to bar insurance companies from covering abortion services unless the procedure is necessary to save the woman’s life. The bill defines this kind of abortion as a “nontherapeutic abortion,” which “includes drugs or devices used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”

This is important: By that definition, using the pill is abortion. Using an IUD is abortion. Use the patch, use the ring, it's all abortion under this proposed law.

There have long been warnings, too often ignored or dismissed, that this issue would not end at abortion; that even if the anti-choice bigots got their way and abortion was outlawed in every state, they would not be satisfied but they would come after birth control next.

Admittedly, some of the effects of this proposed Ohio law are the result of an astonishing level of ignorance about the biology of human reproduction and the very basics of how something like the pill works, but the blunt truth is that a fair about is due to ideology.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed to that, noting that abortion bans "aren't just about controlling women's bodies. They're about controlling women's sexuality. Owning women. Ultimately, this is about women's power. When women are in control of their sexuality, it threatens a core element underpinning right-wing ideology: patriarchy."

Exactly. Ultimately, this is not about abortion. That is the current and necessary battlefield, but it’s not the war.

It's not even about birth control. But AOC is too limiting when she says it's about women's sexuality or controlling women's sexuality. It's about more. It's about controlling women's entire lives, controlling their options, limiting their choices. It is about too many men - and, let it be said, a not inconsiderable number of women - looking for a world of Stepford wives (if you're anywhere near AOC's age, look it up) and barefoot and pregnant homilies.

It is about, ultimately, people so rigid and narrow in their thinking, so trapped in their presumptions, so fearful, indeed so terrified, of the future, that they are striving to undo decades of social change and social progress because that's where their ideology, one based on an inability to deal with change, leads them.

Abortion is the current battlefield, but that is the war.