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Phil Balla's avatar

The long-ago AZ legislature that forbid abortions for women also okayed sex for 10-year-old-girls?

That's about the logical relationship between power-hungry bodies of mostly men or all men.

Any time you get certain types of people in control, categorical thinking prevails. Thus, that all-male Arizona legislature of 1864 would stiff women to control their personal lives -- but leave doors open for luscious pre-teens to be available to sugar daddies. But these same men (all white) of course are going to stiff all non-whites, too.

In our time, when the medieval Clarence court wants to let states anew control women, and wants to let states gerrymander or otherwise cut off people of color from voting, of course, too, they look with favor upon anything that will bulk up the billionaire classes.

When medieval courts like Clarence's rule for the rich, and against women, and against people of color, they're not just letting obtuse, categorical abstractions dominate -- they're killing democracy.

Democracy depends on a society whose free press and free public schools uphold all the ways we might have to see and respect others as individuals all different in different ways from us. A national government can guarantee freedoms and rights -- and do that, as Lincoln saw, also by public programs to level playing fields. Public programs in transportation, health, worker safety, and environmental protections highly included.

Heather's "How the South Won the Civil War" reminds us how the worst attitudes from 1864 have come to the fore again. No longer "This land is your land, this land is my land."

Ask Clarence.

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Steve Branz's avatar

Hey, watch what happens if this gets to the US Supremes on appeal! (Ask Clarence!!)

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Phil Balla's avatar

Yes, Steve, let's go to Florence, Mary, and Diana:

"You Can't Hurry Love," "Stop! in the Name of Love," "Baby Love," "Where Did Our Love Go?" "Come See About Me," "You Keep Me Hangin' On," & more, more.

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Jen Andrews's avatar

Here's another for your playlist

He calls it Broken Truth ( and has another song about Woody Guthry called " woodys Landlord--apparently when he lived in NYC it was Fred Trump), but I call it Damn That Man

https://youtu.be/kRSNNrAfv3s?si=bi5nN0xjRZsKldfR

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Barbara Keating's avatar

Jen, came across this link posted (here or another SubStack) a few days ago & shared it with family/friends. One fellow, a singer/songwriter by hobby (most are poticially themed), was jazzed to hear it.

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progwoman's avatar

Great playlist.

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JohnM upstateNY's avatar

Phil & progwoman, DEFINITELY great playlist! ...straight out of the 60's, 70's & 80's I'm thinking without even mentioning the Beatles, the greatest music generation I'm thinking, ...probably because I can't remember much music thereafter.

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Ally House (Oregon)'s avatar

Tangential comment here: as our music platforms changed, so did our shared music experiences. When we lost music radio and the record albums that followed, we lost that common ground. I think that there are most likely some Rap artists that were as in touch with people's hearts as were some of the artists of the 60's and 70's. The 50's and the 80's feel (to me) more like the views of teens rather than those that could reach across generations.

I spent each of the last two weekends at my in-laws. My brother-in-law is my age (we are both "Generation Jones" as the eldest kids born in 58 and 60). Several years ago, he bought a record player so as to listen to "vinyl" as records are now named; his youngest daughter and her fiance (both Gen Z) absolutely love it. I love that they are listening to whatever genre the rap of the 90's has become on a record player.

I miss the artists of the "Protest Era" of the 50's-70's. As I said the other day, I miss John Prine.

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Phil Balla's avatar

Yes, Ally, indeed true, that "we lost that common ground."

But it was no accident. For the rich fully to rule, the far right groups that came out of the 1971 Powell memo knew they first had to gut humanities at all levels of education, from K-12 through higher.

It's a sorry history of what followed, Ally, but massively, as you say, "we lost that common ground." Nice, though that some (as you describe in your family) have kept in touch with earlier sources.

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JDinTX's avatar

First sentence proves your point.

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