Harvard University, my alma mater, has decided that students from low income families -- earning less than $60,000 a year -- will pay no tuition and have no student loan burden. This was a forward-thinking policy decision by a wealthy institution sitting on $27.6 billion, the largest university endowment in the land. Implicit in Harvard's decision is an acknowledgment that things are getting out of hand in higher education, and in society in general. A quality education, often prohibitively expensive and out of reach to many, should not be accessible solely to the wealthy or those who are able to afford it.
Harvard's spirit of equity and fairness should be shared around the country, in the Congress and in state houses throughout the wealthiest nation on earth. Despite what some people would tell you, America is a nation of plenty, the world's largest economy. The only problem is that in the so-called land of opportunity -- not unlike Egypt, Libya, and the various other unraveling countries in the Mideast -- only a few people are actually enjoying the wealth. Here, the bankers received their bailout, a reward for their greed, incompetence and inflated sense of self-worth. Meanwhile, the super duper-rich had their Bush-era tax breaks extended under a Democratic president whose idea of compromise has been to grant Republicans whatever they want.
The Obama budget reflects an acceptance of the conservative narrative that the poor must suffer in the name of austerity and balancing the budget. Wall Street enjoys record profits and bonuses, while the working poor must endure cuts to social programs, home heating assistance programs and access to graduate education. But the talk of deficit reduction is pure grandstanding. After all, the Bush tax cuts are driving the deficit, and significant cuts to America's bloated military behemoth are off the table.
In their quest to shrink government down to nothing, conservatives have found their new welfare queen in the form of public labor unions. Everyday people who are just trying to earn an honest living are suddenly scapegoated, blamed for the nation's financial and fiscal woes. Of course, there is a larger picture at play, which is why thousands of Wisconsin workers have protested against Gov. Scott Walker's plan to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. The Democrats in Wisconsin fled the state to deny Republicans the quorum to vote for the union-busting legislation, with Democrats in other states like Indiana following suit, and Republicans locking protestors out of the Ohio Statehouse. The Republican Party wants to remove all vestiges of union power in this country, so that corporations are allowed to roam, unfettered and unchallenged, and trample over the rights of American workers. The Supreme Court has allowed corporations to buy what was passing as democracy, and now Tea Party legislatures and governors would render this a full-fledged nation of serfs and sharecroppers.
In all manner of Talibanic extremism, the unhinged, lunatic rightward fringe is using this opportunity to push all of the foolishness they could imagine when they lived in the political wilderness and were jonesing for power. The lunatics are running the asylum, literally. It is a nasty little sideshow, and there would be some entertainment value in it all if actual lives were not at stake. Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood. In South Dakota, a bill would sanction the murder of abortion providers as justifiable homicide. A bill in the Georgia legislature would punish miscarriages with the death penalty. A Missouri lawmaker wants to do away with those "over the top" labor laws that prohibit child labor. And Texas could allow college students to wear concealed weapons on campus. After all, what better way to deal with campus gun violence than to recreate the Wild West on campus, in Texas of all places? Meanwhile, the NRA, further revealing its kinship with rightwing extremist groups, advocates the formation of armed militias -- private police forces unanswerable to government authority.
In the midst of all of this, ordinary citizens are waking up, and thousands are taking to the streets in nonviolent protest. Although Glenn Beck would paint the workers marching in Wisconsin as anarchists, socialists and communists, not to mention allies of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, there is a thread which binds the protestors in the Middle East and the U.S. They all know authoritarianism when they see it, and they realize the government, reeking with oligarchy and plutocracy, is working to undermine their interests. As F.D.R. once said, in the words etched in his memorial, "They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order."
Class warfare is ugly, but sometimes it is necessary. It can be a liberating thing, and it is the best thing that can happen to a progressive movement that needs a president to "make me do it," as F.D.R. urged A. Philip Randolph. And as they said in The Godfather, "These things have to happen every five, ten years. Gets rid of the bad blood." Getting rid of the bad blood could also mean getting rid of an overreaching GOP living on borrowed time.
Playing both sides of the fence in the class wars, Democrats must choose a side, lest they get swept away, too.
February 27, 2011
February 21, 2011
America Is the Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today
February is Black History Month, and a perfect time to reflect on the nonviolence and antiwar stance of Dr. Martin Luther King. Recently, my colleague Mark Thompson reminded me of an important Dr. King quote when I appeared on his radio show on SIRIUS XM to discuss the Tucson shooting. It was a speech the slain civil rights leader gave at Riverside Church in New York on April 4, 1967, a year and a day before he was assassinated.
In the speech King was discussing the conversations he had with angry and desperate young black men in the northern ghettos. He tried to convince them that nonviolent action, not rifles or Molotov cocktails, would solve their problems and bring social change. "But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted," King said. "Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government." King said he could not be silent, so he broke that silence and spoke out against the Vietnam War, most likely to his peril.
And although he uttered these words 44 years ago in a different era about a war that ended decades ago, his words are as relevant and clear as if he just spoke yesterday. America is the greatest purveyor of violence around. You only need look at the latest shootout massacre du jour on U.S. soil. These perennial bloodbaths occur so frequently that Americans have accepted them as a part of daily life, the price of doing business, as they say.
With 90 guns for every 100 people and 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey in Switzerland, the U.S. by far is the most heavily armed nation in the world. Yemen, in second place, has 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, and Iraq with 39.
And not surprisingly, America has the world's highest gun-related death rate, with nearly 100,000 people shot or killed with a gun each year. Over a million Americans have been killed with guns since King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, according to the Childrens' Defense Fund. Moreover, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says that America's homicide rate is 6.9 times higher than rates in other 22 advanced nations combined. And among 23 high-income countries, 80 percent of firearms deaths occur in the U.S.
This is a travesty and an embarrassment in the industrialized world. And with guns aplenty in a nation that is hungry, ill and need of repair, guns are ready available for the mentally unstable, domestic abusers, criminals and others who should be prohibited from having a gun. But what do you do when the county itself is sick? As Michael Moore recently noted on Twitter, "Tons o guns & unstable people all over world but they don't kill each other like we do. Guns Don't Kill People. Americans Kill People. Why?"
The Second Amendment -- an anachronism that was meaningful only when people hunted for their food -- reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It is hard to believe, but the gun lobby and right-wing militia groups who would wage violence against the government have interpreted this to apply to an unlimited right for individual citizens, the right to amass a personal army. The weapons makers pay politicians millions of dollars to back it up. Unfortunately a right-wing Supreme Court tends to agree.
As other countries distinguish themselves as leaders in green technology and high-speed rail, the U.S. is the leader in guns. And we export our violence abroad. U.S.-made guns are fueling the carnage among drug gangs in Mexico. U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, was a prison guard in Pennsylvania, where he was accused of beating and kicking prisoners and putting razorblades in their food.
The teargas canisters that the Egyptian police used against the Cairo protesters in Tahrir Square were made in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. Egypt's military hardware was made in the U.S.A., because the American government props up Egypt's petty dictator Hosni Mubarak to the tune of over $1.3 billion a year. And apparently he pockets that money, given that he has become a billionaire through "public service." Yet, his people protest their poverty, rising food prices, and a level of economic inequality that could someday become as bad as that of the U.S. Further, Mubarak's new handpicked hack vice president Omar Suleiman was the torture and renditions liaison for the CIA. Now, Suleiman has been charged with investigating the hoodlums that Mubarak unleashed on the nonviolent protesters in the Cairo streets.
President Obama finds himself in a quandary, as someone who admires King's words and philosophy, yet is also the head of the American empire. Both men received a Nobel Peace Prize, but only one of them earned his. The other received his in good faith -- as a down payment on prospective achievements, if you will -- while inheriting two pointless wars from his warmonger predecessor that he can't seem to shake off. Still, you could see hints of King coming out of Obama when he essentially told Mubarak that his time in office is up. And yet, the president backtracked and toned it down. The U.S. is addicted to empire, spending over half of its discretionary budget on war, and nearly half of the world's military expenditures. We fund dictators, tyrants and potentates to do our bidding, to keep an illusory Cold War peace, as we preach democracy and export fast food. Meanwhile, China, a huge, authoritarian country, spends one-sixth as much as the U.S. on its military, but twice as much on clean energy technology.
But Americans, at least we have our guns, right? Yeah, right.
In the speech King was discussing the conversations he had with angry and desperate young black men in the northern ghettos. He tried to convince them that nonviolent action, not rifles or Molotov cocktails, would solve their problems and bring social change. "But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted," King said. "Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government." King said he could not be silent, so he broke that silence and spoke out against the Vietnam War, most likely to his peril.
And although he uttered these words 44 years ago in a different era about a war that ended decades ago, his words are as relevant and clear as if he just spoke yesterday. America is the greatest purveyor of violence around. You only need look at the latest shootout massacre du jour on U.S. soil. These perennial bloodbaths occur so frequently that Americans have accepted them as a part of daily life, the price of doing business, as they say.
With 90 guns for every 100 people and 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey in Switzerland, the U.S. by far is the most heavily armed nation in the world. Yemen, in second place, has 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, and Iraq with 39.
And not surprisingly, America has the world's highest gun-related death rate, with nearly 100,000 people shot or killed with a gun each year. Over a million Americans have been killed with guns since King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, according to the Childrens' Defense Fund. Moreover, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says that America's homicide rate is 6.9 times higher than rates in other 22 advanced nations combined. And among 23 high-income countries, 80 percent of firearms deaths occur in the U.S.
This is a travesty and an embarrassment in the industrialized world. And with guns aplenty in a nation that is hungry, ill and need of repair, guns are ready available for the mentally unstable, domestic abusers, criminals and others who should be prohibited from having a gun. But what do you do when the county itself is sick? As Michael Moore recently noted on Twitter, "Tons o guns & unstable people all over world but they don't kill each other like we do. Guns Don't Kill People. Americans Kill People. Why?"
The Second Amendment -- an anachronism that was meaningful only when people hunted for their food -- reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It is hard to believe, but the gun lobby and right-wing militia groups who would wage violence against the government have interpreted this to apply to an unlimited right for individual citizens, the right to amass a personal army. The weapons makers pay politicians millions of dollars to back it up. Unfortunately a right-wing Supreme Court tends to agree.
As other countries distinguish themselves as leaders in green technology and high-speed rail, the U.S. is the leader in guns. And we export our violence abroad. U.S.-made guns are fueling the carnage among drug gangs in Mexico. U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr., convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, was a prison guard in Pennsylvania, where he was accused of beating and kicking prisoners and putting razorblades in their food.
The teargas canisters that the Egyptian police used against the Cairo protesters in Tahrir Square were made in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. Egypt's military hardware was made in the U.S.A., because the American government props up Egypt's petty dictator Hosni Mubarak to the tune of over $1.3 billion a year. And apparently he pockets that money, given that he has become a billionaire through "public service." Yet, his people protest their poverty, rising food prices, and a level of economic inequality that could someday become as bad as that of the U.S. Further, Mubarak's new handpicked hack vice president Omar Suleiman was the torture and renditions liaison for the CIA. Now, Suleiman has been charged with investigating the hoodlums that Mubarak unleashed on the nonviolent protesters in the Cairo streets.
President Obama finds himself in a quandary, as someone who admires King's words and philosophy, yet is also the head of the American empire. Both men received a Nobel Peace Prize, but only one of them earned his. The other received his in good faith -- as a down payment on prospective achievements, if you will -- while inheriting two pointless wars from his warmonger predecessor that he can't seem to shake off. Still, you could see hints of King coming out of Obama when he essentially told Mubarak that his time in office is up. And yet, the president backtracked and toned it down. The U.S. is addicted to empire, spending over half of its discretionary budget on war, and nearly half of the world's military expenditures. We fund dictators, tyrants and potentates to do our bidding, to keep an illusory Cold War peace, as we preach democracy and export fast food. Meanwhile, China, a huge, authoritarian country, spends one-sixth as much as the U.S. on its military, but twice as much on clean energy technology.
But Americans, at least we have our guns, right? Yeah, right.
Cops Are Missing the Bad Guys While Profiling the Black Guys
The history of African Americans is one of great accomplishments amidst the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. That legacy follows black people, and particularly black men, to this day. And it is enough to make you red-hot burning mad. Although some are ready to usher in a new post-racial era of colorblindness, it is clear that their efforts are grossly premature.
In America, race is a proxy for violence. Black men are regarded as a criminal element, and racial profiling is a practice that goes far beyond the justice system. It is culturally ingrained and normalized. In the days of old, when black people were not allowed to roam about unattended or without permission, slave patrols policed the plantations and hunted down fugitives.
Similarly, today, police sweep through communities of color, searching for criminals. Any black man will do. And cops are searching for drugs, not because black or Latino people use the most drugs, but because of preference, of policy. Drug use among white youth is greater than among youth of color, but you will never see the police descend upon the nation's college campuses, round up those who "fit the description" and force them to endure a demeaning arrest. After all, society views them as the victims. Society has already decided who should be designated as its criminals, even if the "suspects" are as innocuous and upstanding as Henry Louis Gates -- a Harvard professor who was arrested for standing on his front porch and attempting to enter his own home. But status is not what counts; it's all about race.
Twelve Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today is a new book which tells the first-person accounts of black men who, like Professor Gates, have been there. These twelve men were victims of racial profiling, at the wrong place at the wrong time -- which for a black man could mean anywhere. Edited by Gregory S. Parks and Matthew W. Hughey, Twelve Angry Men contains a powerful introduction by Harvard law professor Lani Guinier.
A diverse group of people shares their encounters with the police, including a New York Times reporter who was detained while on assignment; Joe Morgan, a baseball legend who was racially profiled at LAX; Joshua T. Wiley, a hip hop artist who is constantly harassed by police, and Paul Butler, a law professor and former federal prosecutor who was stopped by the cops for living in a nice neighborhood. Meanwhile, Byron Bain, a Harvard Law student, was told by his arresting officer that he must attend the school on a "ball scholarship." Bain compiled a tragically comical "Bill of Rights for Black Men," which includes as its first and second amendments, "Congress can make no law altering the established fact that a black man is a n****r," and "The right of any white person to apprehend a n****r will not be infringed." Newly arrived, foreign-born black men with British accents are not immune from profiling and arrest. Even lawmakers are not exempt, as Congressman Danny Davis recounts his experience of racial profiling by the Chicago police while driving home from his weekly radio show.
Throughout the book, which is factual yet reads like a novel, these twelve men share the humiliation of being told that you are not allowed in a certain neighborhood, and the terror that comes with having a gun pointed to your head. Told where they can and cannot go and forced to produce their identification, they compare their experiences to antebellum slaves, black South Africans under apartheid, and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. One man, who was stopped at least once a month and as many as three times, had to leave home early enough in order to account for the possibility of being stopped. Perhaps one of the more appalling cases was of a boy in Prince George's County, Maryland, who was accused of shoplifting by a police officer moonlighting as a department store security guard. The guard made the youth take off his shirt, go home and return with his sales receipt to prove that he purchased it. The young man was awarded $850,000 in damages by a federal jury.
Although much of Twelve Angry Men deals with the anecdotal and the personal, the book also delves into the statistical, including a report on racial profiling as practiced by the New York Police Department. According to the report, which was released by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), race, not crime, drives police stops and frisks. This is what blacks and Latinos have been saying for years. And no matter what the neighborhood -- low crime or high crime, black, Latino, white or mixed, the results are always the same.
For example, 80 percent of the stops made by the NYPD between 2005 and 2008 were of African Americans, who are only 25 percent of the city's population. Whites, who make up 44 percent of the city's population, were stopped only 10 percent of the time. Over the past six years, nearly half of all stops were made on the basis of a vague category called "furtive movements," while only 15 percent cited "fits relevant description." In over half of the stops, the officers noted "high crime area" as an "additional circumstance," even in low crime areas.
"CCR has been litigating against the NYPD's racial profiling and suspicionless stops-and-frisks since 1999. For its part, during all this time, the police have claimed that they stop people based upon reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, based upon a description of a perpetrator, and as an effective tool to get guns off the street," Vincent Warren, CCR's executive director, recently told me. "The significance of this report is that New York City must finally come to grips with its racial profiling problem. There are hundreds of thousands of innocent Black and Brown New Yorkers who daily suffer the indignities of these illegal police tactics. And the police department should be protecting them and not harassing them."
Reading Twelve Angry Men made me angry, not because the subject matter was brand new to me, but because it was far too familiar -- not only as a black man, but also as a human rights advocate who worked with police brutality victims and their families back in the 1990s and decided to go to law school as a result. Whether or not racial profiling is a new subject for you, this book should spark some discussions. And bringing this problem into the light is the only way we can begin to fight it. Black folks are not the only victims of racial profiling, to be sure. But examining America's badge of slavery is a good place to start.
In America, race is a proxy for violence. Black men are regarded as a criminal element, and racial profiling is a practice that goes far beyond the justice system. It is culturally ingrained and normalized. In the days of old, when black people were not allowed to roam about unattended or without permission, slave patrols policed the plantations and hunted down fugitives.
Similarly, today, police sweep through communities of color, searching for criminals. Any black man will do. And cops are searching for drugs, not because black or Latino people use the most drugs, but because of preference, of policy. Drug use among white youth is greater than among youth of color, but you will never see the police descend upon the nation's college campuses, round up those who "fit the description" and force them to endure a demeaning arrest. After all, society views them as the victims. Society has already decided who should be designated as its criminals, even if the "suspects" are as innocuous and upstanding as Henry Louis Gates -- a Harvard professor who was arrested for standing on his front porch and attempting to enter his own home. But status is not what counts; it's all about race.
Twelve Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today is a new book which tells the first-person accounts of black men who, like Professor Gates, have been there. These twelve men were victims of racial profiling, at the wrong place at the wrong time -- which for a black man could mean anywhere. Edited by Gregory S. Parks and Matthew W. Hughey, Twelve Angry Men contains a powerful introduction by Harvard law professor Lani Guinier.
A diverse group of people shares their encounters with the police, including a New York Times reporter who was detained while on assignment; Joe Morgan, a baseball legend who was racially profiled at LAX; Joshua T. Wiley, a hip hop artist who is constantly harassed by police, and Paul Butler, a law professor and former federal prosecutor who was stopped by the cops for living in a nice neighborhood. Meanwhile, Byron Bain, a Harvard Law student, was told by his arresting officer that he must attend the school on a "ball scholarship." Bain compiled a tragically comical "Bill of Rights for Black Men," which includes as its first and second amendments, "Congress can make no law altering the established fact that a black man is a n****r," and "The right of any white person to apprehend a n****r will not be infringed." Newly arrived, foreign-born black men with British accents are not immune from profiling and arrest. Even lawmakers are not exempt, as Congressman Danny Davis recounts his experience of racial profiling by the Chicago police while driving home from his weekly radio show.
Throughout the book, which is factual yet reads like a novel, these twelve men share the humiliation of being told that you are not allowed in a certain neighborhood, and the terror that comes with having a gun pointed to your head. Told where they can and cannot go and forced to produce their identification, they compare their experiences to antebellum slaves, black South Africans under apartheid, and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. One man, who was stopped at least once a month and as many as three times, had to leave home early enough in order to account for the possibility of being stopped. Perhaps one of the more appalling cases was of a boy in Prince George's County, Maryland, who was accused of shoplifting by a police officer moonlighting as a department store security guard. The guard made the youth take off his shirt, go home and return with his sales receipt to prove that he purchased it. The young man was awarded $850,000 in damages by a federal jury.
Although much of Twelve Angry Men deals with the anecdotal and the personal, the book also delves into the statistical, including a report on racial profiling as practiced by the New York Police Department. According to the report, which was released by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), race, not crime, drives police stops and frisks. This is what blacks and Latinos have been saying for years. And no matter what the neighborhood -- low crime or high crime, black, Latino, white or mixed, the results are always the same.
For example, 80 percent of the stops made by the NYPD between 2005 and 2008 were of African Americans, who are only 25 percent of the city's population. Whites, who make up 44 percent of the city's population, were stopped only 10 percent of the time. Over the past six years, nearly half of all stops were made on the basis of a vague category called "furtive movements," while only 15 percent cited "fits relevant description." In over half of the stops, the officers noted "high crime area" as an "additional circumstance," even in low crime areas.
"CCR has been litigating against the NYPD's racial profiling and suspicionless stops-and-frisks since 1999. For its part, during all this time, the police have claimed that they stop people based upon reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, based upon a description of a perpetrator, and as an effective tool to get guns off the street," Vincent Warren, CCR's executive director, recently told me. "The significance of this report is that New York City must finally come to grips with its racial profiling problem. There are hundreds of thousands of innocent Black and Brown New Yorkers who daily suffer the indignities of these illegal police tactics. And the police department should be protecting them and not harassing them."
Reading Twelve Angry Men made me angry, not because the subject matter was brand new to me, but because it was far too familiar -- not only as a black man, but also as a human rights advocate who worked with police brutality victims and their families back in the 1990s and decided to go to law school as a result. Whether or not racial profiling is a new subject for you, this book should spark some discussions. And bringing this problem into the light is the only way we can begin to fight it. Black folks are not the only victims of racial profiling, to be sure. But examining America's badge of slavery is a good place to start.
February 9, 2011
Abortion Foes Don't Care About Women's Rights or Civil Rights
Recently in Philadelphia, a doctor was charged with eight counts of murder, including the death of a woman in a botched abortion, and seven babies that were born alive, according to the D.A.'s office. Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, his wife and eight others allegedly turned their clinic, the innocuously-sounding Women's Medical Society into "a house of horrors" that performed "botched and illegal abortions." Containers in the squalid West Philly facility were purportedly filled with fetal body parts, and the office reeked of cat excrement. Be forewarned that the 281-page grand jury report is not for the faint of heart.
Typically, the women who went to Dr. Gosnell's office were women of color, some immigrants, and poor. Desperate, they had no other choice. And the heinous criminal acts Dr. Gosnell is accused of committing really amount to the proverbial and anecdotal "back-alley" abortions women often faced before Roe v. Wade was decided 38 years ago. Anti-choice proponents will use such opportunities to double down against a woman's right to choose. They will even invoke slavery and civil rights when discussing abortion. In reality, the problem is that women need more access, not more restricted access, to safe, quality reproductive services. And the Christian right cares little, if at all, about women's or civil rights.
"Abortion is a legal common routine medical procedure. Yet for 25 years, the state of PA has banned Medicaid funding for abortion," said Susan Schewel, Executive Director of the Women's Medical Fund. The group raises money to provide abortions to women who have chosen to have one but cannot afford it. Schewel believes the answer is not singling abortion providers for new regulations, but public funding for the procedure. "Abortion is the only routine medical procedure not covered by Medicaid. This prohibition on Medicaid payment for abortion leaves desperate women vulnerable to sub-standard providers," Schewel noted.
The Women's Medical Fund took a look at its own records, at the women they helped in that West Philadelphia neighborhood over an eight-week period in 2010. These were six women with an average monthly income of $503, four of whom were on Medicaid, and two of whom were uninsured. And two were unemployed. One was a rape victim, while another was a domestic abuse victim with a protective order. Five were mothers, including a homeless woman. None of these women were able to afford the $350 to $450 needed for an abortion procedure, and none had the insurance to cover the cost.
Meanwhile, the ultra-right tends to grandstand and demagogue on the matter of a woman's right to choose. Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) -- who could not hold his Senate seat yet is planning a 2012 presidential run -- recently told CNS News that it is "remarkable for a black man" like President Obama to support abortion rights. After all, who is more qualified to speak on what black men should or should not think than Mr. Santorum? "For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution," Santorum said. "Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the constitution. I am disappointed that President Obama, who rightfully fights for civil rights, refuses to recognize the civil rights of the unborn in this country." It is a common strategy of abortion foes to compare abortion to slavery, even a "black holocaust," and create a false moral equivalency between abortion and the civil rights violations against African-American slaves.
Meanwhile, theocratic GOP members of Congress are proposing the crudely worded "The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Current law allows for federal funding of abortions only in the case of rape or incest. If enacted, the new legislation would limit this exemption to victims of "forcible rape." Victims of statutory rape and incest victims over 18 would be on their own, presumably because they "asked for it," as the cold-blooded callousness of the bill suggests. This is what happens when Taliban are allowed to write the laws. Chances are that it won't reach the president's desk. But the bill leaves a distinct chill in the air.
I dare say that conservatives such as Santorum just don't like civil rights. As a senator, he received a 25 percent rating from the ACLU, indicating a strong anti-civil rights record. Santorum also received a 27 percent rating from the National Education Association, as someone who is against public schools. And he said as much himself: "Mass education is really the aberration," adding that "It's amazing that so many kids turn out to be normal considering the weird socialization they get in public schools."
In addition, CURE gave Santorum, an anti-rehabilitation lawmaker, a 25 percent rating. He voted to limit death penalty appeals, and to increase penalties for drug offenses. It seems he had little concern for the civil rights of blacks and Latinos who are caught up in an unfair, racially skewed criminal justice system.
If Santorum had cared so much about black people, he would have taken action to deal with the gun violence and murders that are disproportionately affecting communities of color. Yet, he voted to loosen license and background checks at gun shows, and voted to sell guns without trigger locks. Santorum also voted to prohibit lawsuits against weapon manufacturers.
Of the victims of Hurricane Katrina he said: "[Y]ou have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."
Santorum voted against food stamp eligibility for blind or disabled legal immigrants. He also opposed a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits for people who exhausted their state jobless benefits.
And not surprisingly, Santorum received a 0 rating from NARAL, a completely anti-choice voting record. As a U.S. Senator he voted no on allocating $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy through education and contraceptives. Yet, the Christian Coalition gave Santorum a perfect 100 pro-family rating. We have to wonder what warped sense of family values they had in mind.
Those who invoke race and slavery when denying a woman's right to choose are trying to obfuscate and change the subject. Their policies are hurting poor women of color. As the most vocal opponents of abortion preach family values, they advocate for the most atrocious policies for women, their families and their communities. And for all their talk about the sanctity of life, these so-called pro-lifers are very selective when it comes to the type of life they deem worthy of protection. When the door is shut on the rights of poor, black and brown women, these women are left with no other option than seeking out the Dr. Gosnells of society, substandard providers who are ready to exploit them for profit. And no good can come from that.
Typically, the women who went to Dr. Gosnell's office were women of color, some immigrants, and poor. Desperate, they had no other choice. And the heinous criminal acts Dr. Gosnell is accused of committing really amount to the proverbial and anecdotal "back-alley" abortions women often faced before Roe v. Wade was decided 38 years ago. Anti-choice proponents will use such opportunities to double down against a woman's right to choose. They will even invoke slavery and civil rights when discussing abortion. In reality, the problem is that women need more access, not more restricted access, to safe, quality reproductive services. And the Christian right cares little, if at all, about women's or civil rights.
"Abortion is a legal common routine medical procedure. Yet for 25 years, the state of PA has banned Medicaid funding for abortion," said Susan Schewel, Executive Director of the Women's Medical Fund. The group raises money to provide abortions to women who have chosen to have one but cannot afford it. Schewel believes the answer is not singling abortion providers for new regulations, but public funding for the procedure. "Abortion is the only routine medical procedure not covered by Medicaid. This prohibition on Medicaid payment for abortion leaves desperate women vulnerable to sub-standard providers," Schewel noted.
The Women's Medical Fund took a look at its own records, at the women they helped in that West Philadelphia neighborhood over an eight-week period in 2010. These were six women with an average monthly income of $503, four of whom were on Medicaid, and two of whom were uninsured. And two were unemployed. One was a rape victim, while another was a domestic abuse victim with a protective order. Five were mothers, including a homeless woman. None of these women were able to afford the $350 to $450 needed for an abortion procedure, and none had the insurance to cover the cost.
Meanwhile, the ultra-right tends to grandstand and demagogue on the matter of a woman's right to choose. Former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) -- who could not hold his Senate seat yet is planning a 2012 presidential run -- recently told CNS News that it is "remarkable for a black man" like President Obama to support abortion rights. After all, who is more qualified to speak on what black men should or should not think than Mr. Santorum? "For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution," Santorum said. "Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the constitution. I am disappointed that President Obama, who rightfully fights for civil rights, refuses to recognize the civil rights of the unborn in this country." It is a common strategy of abortion foes to compare abortion to slavery, even a "black holocaust," and create a false moral equivalency between abortion and the civil rights violations against African-American slaves.
Meanwhile, theocratic GOP members of Congress are proposing the crudely worded "The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." Current law allows for federal funding of abortions only in the case of rape or incest. If enacted, the new legislation would limit this exemption to victims of "forcible rape." Victims of statutory rape and incest victims over 18 would be on their own, presumably because they "asked for it," as the cold-blooded callousness of the bill suggests. This is what happens when Taliban are allowed to write the laws. Chances are that it won't reach the president's desk. But the bill leaves a distinct chill in the air.
I dare say that conservatives such as Santorum just don't like civil rights. As a senator, he received a 25 percent rating from the ACLU, indicating a strong anti-civil rights record. Santorum also received a 27 percent rating from the National Education Association, as someone who is against public schools. And he said as much himself: "Mass education is really the aberration," adding that "It's amazing that so many kids turn out to be normal considering the weird socialization they get in public schools."
In addition, CURE gave Santorum, an anti-rehabilitation lawmaker, a 25 percent rating. He voted to limit death penalty appeals, and to increase penalties for drug offenses. It seems he had little concern for the civil rights of blacks and Latinos who are caught up in an unfair, racially skewed criminal justice system.
If Santorum had cared so much about black people, he would have taken action to deal with the gun violence and murders that are disproportionately affecting communities of color. Yet, he voted to loosen license and background checks at gun shows, and voted to sell guns without trigger locks. Santorum also voted to prohibit lawsuits against weapon manufacturers.
Of the victims of Hurricane Katrina he said: "[Y]ou have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."
Santorum voted against food stamp eligibility for blind or disabled legal immigrants. He also opposed a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits for people who exhausted their state jobless benefits.
And not surprisingly, Santorum received a 0 rating from NARAL, a completely anti-choice voting record. As a U.S. Senator he voted no on allocating $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy through education and contraceptives. Yet, the Christian Coalition gave Santorum a perfect 100 pro-family rating. We have to wonder what warped sense of family values they had in mind.
Those who invoke race and slavery when denying a woman's right to choose are trying to obfuscate and change the subject. Their policies are hurting poor women of color. As the most vocal opponents of abortion preach family values, they advocate for the most atrocious policies for women, their families and their communities. And for all their talk about the sanctity of life, these so-called pro-lifers are very selective when it comes to the type of life they deem worthy of protection. When the door is shut on the rights of poor, black and brown women, these women are left with no other option than seeking out the Dr. Gosnells of society, substandard providers who are ready to exploit them for profit. And no good can come from that.
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