I recently finished part one of a biography, written by Blanche Wiesen Cook, about the years of Eleanor Roosevelt’s life up to 1933.  I’ve read several biographies of FDR from that period on and was aware of the significance of Mrs. Roosevelt, but in this day and age of republicans attacking Women’s rights, this book has spurred me to write another – presumably – anti-republican post.  I was really wanting to show my “bi-partisanship” by writing about some of my disappointment with the democrats in general and President Obama in particular, but these republicans with their relentless attacks on what, essentially, Eleanor Roosevelt stood for and worked so hard (with many others) for simply keep me feeling a need to vent – in their direction.

Republicans, of course, have gained control of the Supreme Court which has led to some of – what I believe will go down in history as – the most abominable decisions in the history of this great republic.  Without going into detail I will remind you that this right wing court (albeit with a bit of a different make-up) chose George W Bush/Dick Cheney over the will of the people in 2000 (and, somehow got away with it – thanks in large part to that “liberal media” all the republicans seem to be constantly bashing) and that decision led to disasters of monumental proportions.  Then there was Citizens United – which I believe a majority of Americans continue to have NO CLUE as to the ramifications of what – I thought – at the time to be the worst decision in my lifetime – yes, even worse than Bush v Gore due to the long term effect on our electoral system.  And, just recently, the gutting of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 stands to be every bit as effective in the republican pursuit of TOTAL control of our system of government (ie, the so-called “permanent republican ‘majority'”) as Citizens United.  To me, these two unspeakable decisions by the court are simply more evidence that the republicans have their sights set on complete control of America’s government.

Since the Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights act we’ve seen the fringe “right” BOLT into action in several places around the nation as they attempt to reduce the number of  voters (the fulfillment of Paul Weyrich’s dream – from his famous quote to republican insiders, “As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down“).   The result, of course, will be, if they get their way, far less democrats voting and a stranglehold on our system that will be EXTREMELY difficult to defeat.  (This is where much of my frustration with President Obama comes in; he continues to “pander” to these people – I can’t imagine his legacy if they succeed in their plans under his “watch”)  Additionally, we’ve seen republican legislatures around the nation feeling emboldened to go after female reproductive rights in a way that suggests they have every confidence this court will support their attempts to determine the most basic rights of women.  And, make no mistake, this is a play to energize their “base” because most of them must understand that the only women who will be affected by these efforts are poor women who won’t have the means to sidestep their legal roadblocks.

Now, I have to add here that I am not in favor of abortions.  I can’t imagine anyone being in favor of abortions.  This issue, to me, goes way deeper than the “abortion issue.”  In my mind, it is indisputable that when a female egg is fertilized and attaches to the womb, then requiring only food and oxygen to grow, it’s a living “thing.”  I’m a father and I believe it then becomes a fetus.  So, I’m not looking to get into that debate.  I once heard President Obama, when the topic of Roe v Wade came up saying that we should be focused on REDUCING the demand for abortions and I totally agree with that.  (My opinion on how you do that is a subject for much more than I’m going to write tonight)  What I find actually disgusting is watching a bunch of right wing MEN blustering over their success in sneaking anti-women provisions into their state budgets like what I saw with Governor Kasich in Ohio last week.  What it seems to me they will accomplish with their anti-women legislation – regarding women’s reproductive rights – will be creating MORE unsafe medical situations for women, especially those women without the ability to pay for needed medical procedures.  (Actually, what I HOPE they accomplish with this anti-woman strategy, is to energize women voters to help eliminate this right wing republican cabal FOREVER!)

I thought I would add, according to “AlterNet,” what they’re calling the “6 truly unbelievable ways Ohio has just eviscerated women’s rights.

“1. Places Limits on Rape Clinics

Rape clinics are no longer allowed to counsel victims on abortion options under the new budget. If clinics do undertake that counseling, public funding would be cut off.

2. Forced Ultrasounds

The bill requires any woman seeking an abortion to undergo a trans-abdominal ultrasound.

The legislation mandates “an obstetric ultrasound examination that portrays the entire body of the embryo or fetus.” The bill also requires an explanation of the what the ultrasound shows, and for the doctor to search for a heartbeat.

The main author of the bill, State Representative Ron Hood, told the website MediaTrackers.org that “if you talk to the pregnancy-center people across the state, they’ll all tell you that when a mother sees that ultrasound, she really realizes that, in most cases, the vast majority of cases, she doesn’t want to abort this baby.”

3. Cuts Funding to Planned Parenthood

The budget signed by the governor cuts off the reproductive rights group Planned Parenthood from $1.4 million in family-planning money.

Planned Parenthood provides abortion services to women, but also a number of other crucial reproductive rights services. These include STD testing and treatment, contraception services, cancer screening and treatment and more.

4. Restricts Clinics From Working With Public Hospitals

The anti-abortion legislation would end the practice of abortion clinics transferring patients to public hospitals. So if a woman has the ability to get an abortion–a big if considering all the restrictions–she would have to find a private hospital to get post-abortion care done.

5. More Money For ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’

While abortion clinics will see their operations severely curtailed–potentially leading to their closures–more money will be given to “crisis pregnancy centers.” These centers, run by religious organizations, usually give inaccurate information to women who enter them. They also seek to dissuade women from getting abortions.

6. Gives Women Information on Fetus to Dissuade Them From Getting Abortions

The budget also requires doctors to inform women  “of the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics” of a fetus. This is done in order to dissuade women from getting an abortion if they’re able to get one. Doctors also have to give women information on adoption–another way of pressuring women not to get an abortion.”

Again, I have to emphasize here that I’m not arguing in favor of (or against) abortions.  I would hate to see either of my daughters faced with that decision, but I’m certainly not the one to make it for them, nor are politicians like Kasich.  What my point is (I realize that sometimes it takes me a while to get there) the hypocrisy of republicans who are constantly clamoring for “less government” while, at the same time, pushing government into places it clearly doesn’t belong – like between a woman and her family and doctor.  This is consistent with the republican efforts to prevent people from voting and, essentially, to do whatever it takes to further their privatizing corporate welfare state and thus gaining a stranglehold on POWER in America.

Getting back to the biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, which spurred my thoughts as I pondered writing tonight.  The very people behind the attack on the voters who will be disenfranchised by the Court’s ruling on section 5 and the politicians who are seeking ways to prevent women from getting legal medical treatment and procedures are the same ilk who’ve been trying to reverse the effects of the New Deal which was the result of the administration of Franklin D Roosevelt.  And, as you read more about his wife, you realize the effect she, and those brave women she associated herself with in the 1920’s and on, had on the legislation that became the “New Deal.”  You have to remember that it wasn’t until 1920 that women even had the right to vote.  That was an enduring struggle in it’s own right that, as I look back, is an unbelievable blight on our history.  It’s not, at least to me, of the same magnitude as slavery and the subsequent evolution of minority rights that led to  the “Jim Crow” era and then the racism that still exists in America today, but the subjugation of women was carried out by the same male politicians who believe in White supremacy.  Obviously, as we’ve seen with the reaction of so many republicans to a Black president, and now with these attacks on women and minority voting rights, this faction of America is alive and well (and very powerful).  (Can you imagine how these people will react if Americans elect a woman president in 2016?  How do you spell apoplectic?)

Eleanor Roosevelt and many of the women she partnered with in various groups led the fight for the (at the time) 48 hour work week (which ultimately became the 40 hour work week – yea!), child labor laws, unemployment insurance, “old age” insurance (which, obviously, became Social Security), unionization of workers, bank regulations, and various other worker’s rights that evolved into key components of the New Deal legislation which ultimately, with a little stimulus from WW II, fostered the great American middle class that thrived until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Since Reagan, the republican focus  has been  a systematic program of dismantling the “New Deal” piece by piece via people who always seem to be remnants of the “Reagan revolution” or further to the “right” – ie, Koch brothers and people of their ilk – John Birch Society-ish.  (Seriously, Google the JBS so you understand where these people are coming from)

Of course, after Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson further antagonized this right wing bunch with his “War on Poverty” and the “Great Society” which brought us Medicare (At the time, Ronald Reagan said, “Medicare will usher in federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country.” and, “All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay….He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”) and ultimately Medicaid.  The great irony, as you examine the response to Medicare and Medicaid from the “right,” (including the aforementioned Reagan quotes – which came from ads sponsored by the AMA at the time – 1961 – as they attempted to stop this “socialized” medicine) is the stated fear of socialism by a group of people who are presently acting like authoritarian fascists.  Yikes!!!  And, as I realized that it was women’s groups, who had just gained “suffrage” who spurred on these great advances for ALL AMERICANS, it gave me pause, and hope, as I’ve been observing this misogynous and racist assault on our society from the fringe right.  (Actually, people like the Roosevelts were subject to the “Socialist,” “Bolshevik,” “Communist,” scare tactics that are still part of the republican “attack” arsenal today – J Edgar Hoover had a significant dossier on Eleanor Roosevelt while she was America’s “First Lady”)

People like the Koch Brothers (with BILLIONS to buy legislatures), Rush Limbaugh (an overt misogynist and racist radio “talker” with a large – but shrinking audience), Bill O’Reilly (and the others at Fox “news”), Mitch McConnell (in the Senate), John Boehner and Eric Cantor (in the House), and basically the republican party of today (that walks in “lock step” – which is the sign of any good AUTHORITARIAN organization) maybe have stepped in their own “you know what.”  As I thought about all the good that came from Eleanor Roosevelt and the other women of her era who fought for so many advances for working class people in America, it dawned on me that these attacks on women’s reproductive rights just might awaken a HUGE segment of our population that will lead the fight against this republican authoritarian corporatocracy.  Evidently, the “stakes” haven’t been high enough for the rest of us to get our attention.  I believe that not only the legislation republicans are cramming through (while they think no one’s watching), but also the way in which they’re doing it (no public comments, much of the legislation passed in “midnight” legislative sessions, etc.) is going to “backfire” on them.

I would welcome the dialogue on how we significantly reduce the demands for abortions in America.  I certainly would agree that there should be no public funding of abortions.  However, it really baffles me how politicians on the one hand seem gleeful (as in the case recently in Ohio – Kasich and a bunch of old men acting like they’d just gotten away with something) as they attack the right of women to “choose” and then with the “other hand” pull funds from programs that provide women with education and support should they choose to become mothers.   I no longer have access to the liberal “talker” Randi Rhodes, but she used to put it best – republicans seem to “love the fetus, but hate the child.”  As a sixth grade teacher in a high poverty school, I’ve seen the result of that attitude “up front and personal.”  This has been the republican “mantra” since the beginning of the “Reagan revolution” and it is leading the United States to second rate status in the world.

I realize the issues I’m discussing in this post, by themselves, don’t warrant the previous “accusation,” (that the US is headed for second rate status) but the mentality that would allow for this kind of collective attitude in one of our major political parties is what is leading us in that direction.  That is exactly why I’ve been lobbying for people to vote out all republicans for the past several years.  I still like to call myself an independent, but the republican party has moved so far to the right that the only solution is to vote against ALL of them – until we get republicans who will think for themselves and recognize that the function of the government is to work from the “bottom up” in their support for our society.  That “aint gonna happen” under the present republican leadership and, while I’ve got many issues with democrats, “we the people” CANNOT allow the so-called “permanent republican majority” to become a reality.  Instead of further dismantling the “New Deal” we the people should be RESTORING the key pieces of it – like Glass-Steagall, pro union legislation, single payer health care (OK, that’s an “add on”), repeal “free trade” agreements, re-regulate business (like doing away with all the off-shore tax havens for people like Mitt Romney and others who can’t seem to get rich enough), jobs programs, rebuild our infrastructure, un privatize health care, prisons, etc. and on and on.  (I could – and have- write several posts on the issue of, for example, the folly of privatizing prisons.  The corruption that it leads to is unbelievable – and why anyone would allow that is beyond me.  Just think about the motives of a “private prison.”  It certainly wouldn’t be rehabilitating the inmates.)

In my mind, the only way working class people (and remember, there’s more of us than there is of “them”) can support republican policies is as a result of the brainwashing we’ve endured for the past 30+ years.  Somehow Ronald Reagan convinced “we the people” that we could reduce the taxes of the wealthiest among us and “balance the budget.”  That, “Government is the problem, not the solution.” Reagan convinced too many Americans (workers included) that unions are bad and he was the stimulus behind this awful privatization of so many of the vital responsibilities of government.  That was the beginning of the “plan” that’s on the verge of “coming together.”  And, it’s frustrating to me that so many Americans watch outlets like Fox “news” (GOP TV) and listen to people like Limbaugh, Hannity, Lars Larsen, and the others who have convinced America’s middle class to vote for their own destruction.  They’re good at what they do, I just don’t understand how some of them can sleep at night.  (Actually, pathological liars, after a while, begin to believe their own lies as the words leave their mouths)

Since the day Reagan succeeded in selling the so-called “Trickle down economic” propaganda scheme we’ve been sinking further and further into debt and the working class (middle class) in America has been shrinking.  Many of the young people I talk to today have no idea what people like Eleanor Roosevelt were all about and they take many of the benefits resulting from the struggle she led for granted.  As stated above, my hope is that the republican “war on women” will “wake up” that MAJORITY of our population and there will be a severe price to pay for their (the republican) intrusion into the private affairs of these women – because it’s just a segment of the larger struggle.  Of course, if that wish comes true (women uniting against republicans), then the next step is to go after the democrats – many of whom are “feeding from the same trough” as the republicans.  It has been LIBERALS like Mrs. Roosevelt who’ve led the fight for so many rights we all enjoy (and, incidentally, she eventually was also a leader in the civil rights movement for African Americans) and, I look forward to the day when our “liberal media” no longer portrays the word LIBERAL in a derogatory manner!  It appears to me that, just as in the 1920’s, it will be women who play a significant role in stopping this republican assault on the foundation of our system of government.