Sunday, December 26, 2004

The Democrats' War on Women's Health Rights

By Glorious Revolutionary Federation

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Posted 12/26 | Add a Comment

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  1. Ireespective of the expressional edges which frequently accompany many of The Federation’s positions, I think that many of their positions stand on solid substantive footing, including this one.  I particularly enjoyed their appropriate juxtapositioning of regressives with progressives.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/26  at  09:51 AM

  2. Amen.  The Glorious Revolution’s style can certainly be abrasive, but when it comes to sbustance, they often hit the marks that others miss.

    I don’t know that I’d totally agree with their assessment of Howard Dean (though I do have a few bones to pick with the man), but they’re right on the money when it comes to the Democratic Party leadership.  They keep mesmerizing the rank-and-file with the supposed imminent threat to Roe v. Wade, while they collude with the Republicans to reduce women’s reproductive rights across the country.

    Roe v. Wade doesn’t mean squat when the constitutional cases involving reproductive choice are decided in the appellate courts by Bush appointees - all confirmed, of course, by Senate Democrats.  They never make it to Rhenquist, Scalia and Thomas.

    Even more importantly, women’s reproductive rights are meaningless if the political right manages to continue restricting their access, not only to facilities and procedures, but to information itself - often, again, with the collusion of Democrats.  Such limitations often are imposed at the state level.

    Lastly, as the Glorious Revolution has pointed out, the national leadership of the (anti-)Democratic Party is now moving even more dramatically to the ideological right - specifically in regard to the issue of abortion.  There’s a very similar piece at the Common Dreams website that examines the issue:

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1223-07.htm

    It seems the Dems believe that by abandoning their support for abortion rights, they can appeal to Republican voters.  Or, in the words of Congressman Roemer, “"We must be able to campaign in 50 states, not just the blue states or 20 states.”

    Personally, I’m wondering how long the Democrats can keep making the same mistake over and over until they realize its futility.  They continue to harbor the delusion that success will come from adopting the principles of the opposition, instead finally standing for principles of their own.  People this stupid deserve to lose.

    Posted by Paladin from MIchigan, USA  on  12/26  at  12:25 PM

  3. The Glorious Revolutionary Federation is always a great read; especially here for the “phony ‘anti-war’ candidate Howard Dean” line.  Thanks for stating the so obvious as to be typically ignored.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  12/26  at  02:39 PM

  4. I never viewed Howard Dean as an “anti-war” candidate from the get-go.  When I paid particular attention to his words at the outset of his campaign, it became clear to me that he was an anti-how-Bush-(mis)led-us-into-the-war candidate, more than he was an anti-war one.  The two are distinctly different.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/26  at  03:06 PM

  5. Besides which, the real separation between the anti-war wheat from the anti-war chaff… occurred soon after we invaded and occuppiedd the sovereign nation of Iraq.  The anti-war chaff took the position that we couldn’t leave now, while the anti-war wheat took the position that we shouldn’t stay.  The wheat and the chaff always manage to reveal themselves in time.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/26  at  05:28 PM

  6. Paladin, the GR’s line—"Self-identified ‘progressives’ who continue to support the Party need an identity check"—applies equally to Dean supporters who cannot see him for what he is. Did you ever dig into what he actually is, or did you just go with the “Dean is my guy” blogs?

    Posted by Greg Stricherz from Minneapolis, MN  on  12/27  at  10:40 AM

  7. Actually, I’m a FORMER Dean supporter.  And, yes, I’ve heard and read information about Dean from both sides of the debate, and I realize he’s not exactly the champion of progressivism he first seemed to be.  And to be frank, I’m quite disgusted with his behavior in regard to Ralph Nader’s campaign.

    But I try to be a little more even-handed and reasonable about these things, and I’m just not as certain as the Glorious Revolution that he’s a “racist-imperialist.” Personally, I think he’s more misguided than malevolent.

    In any case, it’s probably moot, anyway.  For better or worse, I really can’t see Dean winning the DNC chair.  Whatever the man’s true political nature, the perception among the idiotic bumblers running the party is that he’s a progressive loose cannon who stands in the way of their shift to the right.  It seems they’re determined not to let anyone steer them away from the cliff.

    Posted by Paladin from Michigan, USA  on  12/27  at  11:12 AM

  8. Wel, you see - the problem is you can still use the word progressive about Dean without putting it in parentheses. You might want to read Joshua Frank’s recent piece in CounterPunch on Dean http://www.counterpunch.org/frank12072004.html

    Posted by Greg Stricherz from Minneapolis, MN  on  12/27  at  11:17 AM

  9. I don’t think that HD’s positions on some issues mattered that much to some folks who called themselves progressives, at the time that he was their chosen folk hero/political saviour during the primaries.  Rather, what mattered to them most was that he was endeavoring to cajole the Democratic Party to start acting like an opposition party, when they were enabling GWB instead.  If you were a donkey-headed duopolist, you were grateful to him for his noble efforts.  On the other hand, and if you are not a duopolist, the man is relatively inconsequential towards the implementation of real, significant change.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  12/27  at  11:44 AM

  10. The empty vessel of Dean means nothing.  He is a puppet.  Whoever is pulling his strings is the important part, and it has to be acknowledged that some people very far to his left supported him, including me, in my limited capacity as a non American.  His perception as a “rabble rouser” (actually part of the thin, Northeastern layer of the bond market bourgeoisie that actually understand the threat that they are facing) is very real to some Democrats who believe that he will destroy the party, and others who believe he will strengthen it for the “wrong reasons”

    The UltraZionists at the New Republic, for one, did its best to squelch his nomination and also did its best to claim around election time that he would have been a better candidate than Kerry (of course he would...while both were insincere, at least Dean was entertainingly insincere.)..

    .And I do believe that he has some sincerity to his opposition to war and the wall (though his equivocation was almost hilarious - he claimed in an interview to be opposed to Israel holding onto the West Bank and building the wall, but in favor of Israel’s “target assassination policy") Whatever else can be said about people like Dean, or other potential liberal favorites like McGovern who recently wrote a strange introduction to a Saul Landau book, or Robert Kennedy, its true that the state has no use for them, and may well need them to disapear.  See my piece at Counterpunch from last year - “The Dialectic of the Kristol Family”

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  12/28  at  12:01 PM

  11. McGovern who?  George McGovern?  Ray McGovern, who often writes at Counterpunch along with Saul Landau?  Another McGovern?

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  12/28  at  06:50 PM

  12. George

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  12/28  at  07:59 PM

  13. George McGovern - another one intended to suck in the unsuspecting. Lousy candidate. Lousy endorsement for a war criminal for President.

    Posted by Greg Stricherz from Minneapolis, MN  on  12/28  at  08:20 PM

  14. That’s the lot of decency and integrity - hence the Rush Limbaugh’s, the Bill O’Reilly’s, and the George Bush’s, in short the liars - running this country and world.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from Chicago  on  01/06  at  08:31 PM

    15. Next entry: Civilization vs. Barbarism? An Interview with Noam Chomsky

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