Sunday 30 January 2011

Can't blink.

In the hilarious stand-up comedy monologue below Janeane Garafolo - about whom it is claimed that she bears a slight ressemblance to fern hill in the same way that Patsy Stone looks like deBeauxOs - refers to US rightwing religious fundamentalists Con zombies using the expression "Can't blink". Garafolo riffs about that, and Stevie Spiteful.



I suspect the expression "Can't blink" was borrowed from military jargon, and it's exploited in the RepubliCon discourse just as terms such as pre-emptive strike and collateral damage are deployed.

Nonetheless, it reveals a political reality in the US - and elsewhere, as events in Northern Africa and the Middle East demonstrate - that one should remain vigilant with regards to the actions of ideological opponents.

fern hill's post about the US RepubliCons' MASSIVE push to re-criminalize abortion with legislature that limits women's access to abortion exposes the depth of their hypocrisy. As this NYTimes op-ed says:

House Republicans are preparing to push through restrictions on federal financing of abortions far more extreme than previously proposed at the federal level. Lawmakers who otherwise rail against big government have made it one of their highest priorities to take the decision about a legal medical procedure out of the hands of individuals and turn it over to the government. [...]

A separate Republican bill would deny federal funds for family planning services to any organization that provides abortions. It is aimed primarily at Planned Parenthood’s hundreds of health centers, which also provide many other valuable services. No federal money is used for the abortions. This is a reckless effort to cripple an irreplaceable organization out of pure politics.

Remember how ReformaTory HarperCon backbenchers' Preacher Vellacott and Rod Bruinooge kept introducing private members' bills to impose legislated restrictions on a legal medical procedure and re-criminalize abortion in past parliamentary sessions?
From another NYTimes op-ed:

The objective is to provide the Supreme Court’s conservative majority with a new vehicle for further tampering with Roe v. Wade’s insight that the decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy is best left to women and their doctors pre-viability.

Americans who support women’s reproductive rights and oppose this kind of outrageous government intrusion need to respond with rising force and clarity to this real and immediate danger.

This incremental erosion of women's right to choose when and if to procreate in Canada is a toxic spillover from US rightwing zealotry - and bigotry. Don't blink, because the HarperCons are following the lead of their ideological brethren in the US.

3 comments:

Beijing York said...

As I mentioned at APOV, under Harper's rule, an incredible number of grants and contributions are are going to evangelical groups. I've only checked out the pro-active disclosure of two departments on account of other research I was doing but it's alarming. At the same time, gender equity groups and womens' rights advocates are seeing their funding denied or severely restricted.

Pseudz said...

Maybe there's an invisible zero-sum characteristic to social advancement - a game of social-evolution 'Whack-a-Mole'. North America stepping back - North Africa steps forward.

Naaah!!

JJ said...

"Americans who support women’s reproductive rights and oppose this kind of outrageous government intrusion need to respond with rising force and clarity to this real and immediate danger."

Indeed. It's ugly down there, not just with the precarious Roe v Wade, but with so many states having different laws and requirements that discourage, if not outright restrict, access to abortion. I would certainly recommend vigilance here in Canada -- anti-abortion initiatives have been tried and will no doubt continue to be tried.

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