The right to vote for all citizens is a basic tenet of democracy, but we still don't have an Equal Rights Amendment. Women still don't earn as much as men do in similar jobs. And women no longer have the right to determine their own health care. We need to keep using the vote to ensure equality in our country. And we need to do it NOW!
Around the globe the times were different. Women were chattel. Even in the new America. In Britain. In the U.S. women were not allowed credit cards in their own name until 1974. Inchworms of progress now being threatened.
When I saw the writing on the wall with the certain ending of my marriage, I knew I needed a couple of credit cards. I didn’t have any money and the ex was telling me he wanted to see me living under a bridge. So I applied to three different companies and they all said I had to use my husband’s social security info too to be eligible for a credit card. Even though he was not going to have the card too.
When I wanted to get a separate account for my cell phone because he was using information from my phone clearly looking at my phone records, the phone company said I had to get permission from the ex to separate my cell phone account from his.
So we think we’ve got it all squared away but we don’t in the eyes of many companies!
I had a credit card in my own name at the Mormon owned department store in Salt Lake until 1971 when I got married and mentioned that I needed to changed my name to my married name. The card was immediately confiscated and I was told I no longer existed even though I was still working the same job and paid my bills. I never shopped there after that.
As soon as I graduated from college in 1975 and had a job, I got my first credit cards (gas stations first, then department stores; credit union loan in 1982 for a car; major bank card came later after I established a credit history of always paying my bills in full). All women should do the same if they can. I know some Gen Xers who got burned with student loans, though.
In all honesty, I had possibly $30,000 in credit card debt when I met my husband. I was concentrating on a writing career and only tutoring children in LA so living was expensive. I had just taken a bar tending course which I was terrible at and was going to retake it when I met my husband. Somehow, I make the perfect vodka martini (for him). Ice cold. He later told me that when we met, he couldn't decide if he wanted to date me or hire me so he did both. 😅😅 He paid my credit card debt against my arguing because he didn't want it to grow any larger. We use the banks and the cc companies by paying everything at the end of the month. Few can. They live totally indebted. I am constantly getting emails from bank and cc telling me to take out loans. Disgusting. I hurt for the younger people just beginning.
“And now women are the crucial demographic going into the 2024 elections. “ And won’t it be sweet and so very appropriate to see it be women who drive that bloated orange misogynist into the ground that November, like a rusty nail, Talia?
And GenZ...plus Simon Rosenberg...and turnup, the drive to register 17yo who’ll vote in ‘24...there are good things happening in the background. Let’s stay proactive.
💯 When I learned how long it took for women to earn the right to vote as a child I was (and still am!) furious at the injustice of it. I couldn’t wait to be able to vote and have voted in every election as soon as turned 18 (though I admit I missed a few midterm elections in college 😉)
One could say: 'Women's rights were not our highest priority" is part of the DNA of our history. Turns out it seems that it is not yet "history," but very much alive in our cartel party politics.
Talia, see my comment above - I'll paste it here > Much needed done or at least started Janet, such as the human right to affordable medical care for all US citizens. When you consider the vast timeline from thought / urgency to actual completion of rights such as tonight's essay, you easily see how slowly we get past fear, ignorance, acceptance. Propaganda then and now is largely responsible; multiply that reality times the sheer crushing number of media outlets this day along with the probable number of propagandist outlets and you begin to see that it's harder now than ever.
You don't mention, D4N, the reactionaries' discreet but immensely powerful fifth- columnist ally, the force of inertia.
You don't mention either that peculiarly American specialty, a "work ethic" probably rooted in chattel slavery and abuse of indentures, living to work instead of working to live. A specialty skillfully used since Reagan and his Reaganomics to gradually erode the economic and social freedoms of America's middle class, its working people, while oligarchs quietly siphoned off the country's wealth and concentrated all power in fewer and fewer hands...
Treating human beings as you wouldn't treat a machine has an important added advantage for exploiters: however able and well educated the exploited employee may be, the treadmill makes it far harder to exercise critical thinking.
Mindless in the workplace ties in perfectly with smartphone-screen-manipulated mindless in the shopping mall, transforming sentient human beings into easily herded cattle.
To see this new hyper-dependence as the ultimate abdication, the ultimate self-mutilation.
Westerners view with horror the traditional Islamic punishment for theft, cutting off the thief's right hand.
[Yet, when the company set up by King Leopold II of the Belgians exploited his vast Congo acquisition for profit, the locals risked having BOTH hands lopped off when they failed to meet daily production targets... And this was done not only to adults but to small children...]
I don't expect readers to follow me easily from this point onwards, but beg patience.
Industrialization, followed by the swift development of robotics, have disempowered hands by the billion... save for the lightning shifting of thumbs on smartphone screens. Yet now we're moving from "Look No Hands" to "Look No Mind"...
We factor in the profits gained by technological progress, even when that progress has ceased to make prosthetic gains and become a self-feeding, self-serving process, completely autonomous, divorced from the human body and mind.
We never count the cost of our cult of so-called "progress".
When I first came to Japan in the early 1970s, I was struck by how, when making a sale, sales people would never count out the change. They'd use mental arithmetic to calculate the amount, then simply hand it to the buyer. Occasionally -- and I recall seeing even more of these in Hongkong -- they'd use an abacus.
Now... I'm aware of no real time gain, but human brainpower has been shoved from the nest by the cuckoo pocket calculator.
In Japan too, at the end of the last century, I visited a sawmill where beams were accurately cut to size without recourse to mechanical measuring devices and cabinet makers worked with the greatest precision, likewise without measuring instruments...
We seem to be bent on far more than neglecting our innate capacities, so immense, so unknown, so unexplored, castrating our minds instead.
I hope something of these thoughts finds the occasional reader with the nous to take them up for what they are or are not worth. And hope they'll at least jolt minds...
French phenomenologist Michel Henry spoke of what he called BARBARISM.
I made a comment once (in regard to some asinine MAGAt meme that a former sergeant of mine had posted) that the only people allowed to vote in the next election should be those who were granted their right to vote via amendment to the constitution. First global reply (meaning from those who thought the meme was "right on") was "Huh?" I then articulated more specifically that both black men and 50+ years later all women were given the right to vote by way of the 14th and 19th Amendments. You should have heard the squeal.
My heart goes out to those brave women who persevered over the decades. One of the most shameful acts was to arrest women suffragettes picketing the White House. They were sent to the Lorton Prison in Virginia. In November 1917, Lorton became notorious for imprisoning the “Silent Sentinel” suffragettes like Dora Lewis and Lucy Burns, who had protested for the right to vote. At the Occoquan Workhouse, they were abused and chained to cells. Their food was rotten and had worms in it. When they protested their treatment by going on hunger strikes, they were force-fed. Their work toward voting rights for women, and being outspoken about poor treatment at the Occoquan Workhouse, helped secure the 19th amendment to the Constitution in 1919. Side Note – I live 5 minutes away from the prison which was built in 1910. Remnants of the prison still exist. It is now called the WORKHOUSE with classes, museum, etc.
I remember being shocked when I first learned about the atrocities that happened at the Occoquan Workhouse, while I was living 30 miles from this place. Some of my artist friends had studios in the WORKHOUSE, but I always had trouble going there, as the energy of suffering is palpable. I'm hoping all the creativity is helping to transform the atmosphere. It's hard to comprehend what occurred under those roofs, the evils perpetrated on women who were marching for the right to vote!
In America! That's amazing. In Australia, even in spite of some bad governments, a great deal of progress has been made on this, to shame the fat white males and lift women to full equality.
I agree, the Democrats could have done more but fears of inflaming the situation stopped that from happening. Playing it safe is often a good strategy but not always. Do you remember Nancy Pelosi opposing the first impeachment, early on? She does not feel that way now.
We must realize that our country is in grave danger and it requires strong action to save it. Did we wait too long? And what do we do when one party is no longer functional? The justice system has been far too lenient with TFG, IMO. There is so much uncertainty ahead.
We need more women legislators. There should be close o a 50/50 range of female to male representation. It is true there are some women for whom I would never vote, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sarah Palin, come to mind. But then there are a number of men for whom I would never vote Matt Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy. Mitch McConnell among the many. It is too bad the framers of the Constitution had not listed good civic behavior, and good character as some of the qualities for candidacy, along with age. They would probably never in their lifetimes the possibility of persons of criminal behavior like Trump would ever be considered worthy of running for office. These are the jobs the DNC and RNC should be doing; finding candidates of quality behavior and dedication to the Common Good instead of personal enrichment and power. Instead the current associations see their only job as collecting money.
MAGAts think chump did nothing wrong, the power of propaganda, and his big mouth. At least 40 years of blather about libtards and feminazis set the stage for W and chump. Plenty of women lapped it up, Phyllis Schlafly head of the pack.
Damn, they should have hitched up and been the horror story of the ages. He and Nancy did bad enough, and I have always thought that she ruled him, by whatever means…
Oh boy, they’re A LOT of folks, especially in politics, I’d like to know the answer to that question about! Pretzel logic??? Maybe how to play the game Twister as a mental exercise? Wish the writer’s strike would be successfully negotiated, ‘cuz we sure do need the late night show hosts to poke holes in & fun at these mental monkey-minds (meaning no offense to monkeys).
"It is too bad the framers of the Constitution had not listed good civic behavior, and good character as some of the qualities for candidacy, along with age." ✅
The absence of an Equal Rights Amendment is symbolic of the struggle we shouldn't be in. It's 2023! And the reality is that we STILL don't get it. Sexism is embedded in the halls of Congress. Nothing has changed. Even our Democrats are silent on this.
It takes two adults working to raise two kids. Federal Funding for day care is about to expire and nobody in Washington DC cares. And soon, one of the adults will be forced to quit working. I wonder which parent that will be...
Please read Catherine Rampell's WaPo column pasted here to beat the paywall:
"In June, when Tracy Fredrick was forced to close her child-care center’s doors for good, 100 kids suddenly lost their care arrangements.
They’re just the start. Nationwide, 3 million more kids are expected to lose their child-care slots in the coming months, after a significant federal funding program ends in September. The country is facing a cascading crisis not only for the children losing care, and their families, and the small businesses that watch and educate children, but also every other sector of the economy that needs the care industry to exist so parents can work.
“People were crying on the phone wanting me to take their kids, saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going to have to quit my job,’” said Fredrick. She ran Today’s Child Learning Academy, in Waterford, Wis., for eight years, usually with a long waitlist.
There was never exactly an abundance of available child care in this country, given the yawning gap between what most parents can afford and the pay levels required to attract and retain care workers. Then the pandemic further destabilized an already tenuous business model. Providers around the country shut down — or could stay open only intermittently because of frequent covid outbreaks. Employment in the sector plummeted by more than one-third in early 2020.
As the economy reopened, many of those laid-off or furloughed child-care employees decided to leave the sector for good. The pay had never been sufficient, especially relative to the exhausting work of wrangling and educating small children. Now, different opportunities became even more attractive, as other industries facing labor shortages rapidly raised wages. Fredrick said her company’s starting wage was $13 per hour, the average for all child-care workers across Wisconsin; that’s less than new employees make at Walmart or Home Depot.
Think child care is hard to find now? Wait a couple of months.
Another Wisconsin child-care provider I interviewed, Corrine Hendrickson, said her 16-year-old son outearns her, at least on an hourly basis, at his part-time job in the back of a restaurant.
Thankfully, a series of pandemic-era government interventions has helped keep some of these fragile care operations afloat, at least for a while. Among the most significant came via the American Rescue Plan, which awarded states $24 billion in “child-care stabilization grants.” States distributed this money in different ways, with allowable uses including raising staff pay, reducing tuition, and defraying rent and maintenance costs.
The care sector is still struggling, no doubt. The number of employees working for child-care providers remains below pre-pandemic levels. This funding nonetheless helped stave off complete collapse.
Collapse is back on the table, though, as the funding is slated to expire Sept. 30. After that happens, more than 70,000 child-care programs are expected to close entirely, according to estimates from the Century Foundation. Researchers there project that in some parts of the country (Arkansas, Montana, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and D.C.), the number of licensed programs could be cut by half or more.
We’ve already seen a preview of the carnage to come, as states have begun winding down their subsidy programs.
With relatively little notice, Wisconsin slashed its monthly payments to providers in half in May. That helped drive Fredrick’s decision to close the following month. She had been receiving about $15,000 per month from the state’s Child Care Counts program, which she primarily allocated for raises and bonuses, yet still struggled to retain staff. To make up for the lost public funding, she calculated, she would have had to raise rates for infant and toddler care from an already steep $280 per week to $400 per week. She knew this wasn’t feasible for the families she served.
State politicians in Wisconsin and elsewhere are fighting over whether to plug the hole left by the end of federal assistance. Meanwhile, child advocates around the country have urged Congress to simply renew some version of those federal stabilization grants. Republicans insist, though, that programs passed under the auspices of a pandemic response bill should not be extended now that the public health emergency is over — even if other emergencies loom, such as a potential collapse of the labor market as care infrastructure disintegrates.
Even President Biden, who has publicly supported more funding for child care in political campaigns and his annual budgets, has been unwilling to go to bat for it this time. The supplemental appropriations request his administration released this month omitted the issue completely, despite pleas from child-care experts and lawmakers who had been warning of the coming funding cliff for months.
This is astonishingly shortsighted. The littlest Americans need investments in their development. Their parents need help to continue working. And the nation’s economy, both today and tomorrow, would benefit from consistent support for both."
It could appear a contrived connection. But a suspicious majority of male legislators throughout the land seem about to redevelop the 19th Century role of women in the 21st Century.
Six week abortion rules, absent child care and continued pay differences all prepare the nation for half the nation to be kept barefoot in winter and pregnant in Summer.
It is a growing phenomena of both the MAGA Party and many ignorant males to defy the Rights of Mankind and total human equality.
Bill, there is a similar problem at the other end of the age spectrum….elder care. It is underfunded, underpaid and severely understaffed. Add to that that private equity firms are buying up facilities and squeezing their resources dry (as they are doing in other “industries”)…. Sigh, a human-care problem of epic proportions.
Indeed. Most of us have first hand knowledge of this. Someone said that a society or a nation could be judged by how it treats its youngest and its oldest...and its prisoners.
Someday, historians and sociologists will reflect on how a nation with such promise couldn't unite around ideas of compassion, empathy and the efficient treatment of its most vulnerable.
In 2008, I voted for Hillary in the primaries and for Obama in the general election.
As the primary race unfolded, it was do-or-die for Hillary in the North Carolina primary. I planned to stay up late and watch the results come in.
Around 10 or 11 p.m., Hillary and Obama were neck-and-neck, and... %$#@! the computers crashed, just like the computer vote fraud conspiracy theorists talked about.
I waited up, hour after hour, because I wanted to see the moment that results were updated. Around 3:00 the computers came back up: Hillary's total was flat, but Obama had received a big boost, putting the primary (and the nomination) out of reach.
For a couple days, there was talk that Hillary might challenge the results. She didn't, and went on to be Secretary of State. North Carolina Attorney General Ray Cooper went on to br Governor. Charlotte, North Carolina was awarded the next Democratic convention.
Fast forward to 2016. It would appear that, emboldened by Obama's example, the Republicans stole the presidential election from "that woman" Hillary Clinton:
"According to the exit polls conducted by Edison Research, Clinton won four key battleground states (NC, PA, WI, and FL) in the 2016 Presidential Election that she went on to lose in the computerized vote counts. With these states Clinton wins the Electoral College with a count of 306 versus 232 for Trump....Exit polls were conducted in 28 states. In 22 states the discrepancies between the exit polls and the vote count favored Trump. In 12 of these states the discrepancies favoring Trump exceeded the margin of error of the state’s exit poll."
Mike S, the post has already been reported to "Substack admin"as an apparent "repeat" post from yesterday. One of the many tactics is to take "Readers" OFF the LFAA thread to another URL. Caution.
Bryan, can you tell me how to report a possible troll to "Substack admin"? I've looked, but I can't find anywhere to do this.
And yes, this appears to be word-for-word a copy-paste of a post from yesterday. I've reported him/it (bot?) once again, and really, if he/it wants his/its voice heard he/it can write his own column on Substack or elsewhere; he's/it's just wasting bandwidth here.
When did they have the 60 votes necessary in the Senate? I do agree though it needs to be top priority going forward. As well as general voting rights bills
The Constitution requires a 2/3 vote for the following: to find a person guilty of impeachment charges to the Senate by the House of Representatives [only 3 Presidents have been impeached Trump was impeached twice) No President has every been found guilty. To override a Presidential veto both Houses of Congress must have a 2/3 majority. To Amend the Constitution requires 2/3 of both the Houses of Congress to be sent to the States for Ratification and 3/4 of the States must ratify. The filibuster on the other hand appears nowhere in the Constitution; it is a Senate rule, first used in 1837. Rules are NOT signed into law and therefore can be negated at anytime, although I think the Senate would demand 2/3 vote to end it. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Papers #22 objected eloquently to the use of the 2/3 rule as he feared exactly what we have today. Tyranny of the minority
DW This was a provision in the Constitution to ‘protect’ the rights of small states. Now there are numerous small states (often governed by Republicans) that can block any proposed constitutional amendment intended to ‘modernize’ aspects of the constitution.)
I do not foresee any significant constitutional amendment that can now obtain a 3/4 state approval, even were it to obtain the 2/3 congressional approval.
The only hope for ‘amelioration’ on voting rights and other issues on which the Stench Court seem firmly opposed is through congressional legislation. For this, one would need Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate and a Democratic president.
Might the 2024 election provide this breakthrough?
Let's face it: some might think that it is religious conservatism that is the problem here in the U.S., but more than that it is rank racism. Proof of this is the study by two Univ. of Kansas professors, David Norman Smith and Eric Hanley published in the peer-reviewed journal, Critical Sociology in Feb. 2018. Trump's support comes from racists, misogynists, xenophobes and homophobes. That we're dealing with a KKK mentality becomes clear if you read Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland," about the rise of the KKK in the 1920's. They went underground and rose up as MAGA.
Yup, it seems HCR agrees: "Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the amendment, and the last one necessary to make the amendment the law of the land." That would be 36/48 = 3/4.
Thank you, you are correct it is 3/4, my only excuse is it was 2 AM when I was reading this in my worn copy of the Constitution. Thank you for being observant.
I agree. But what would happen if busloads of young Democrats drove all the minority voters to the polling stations in 2024? I think this might be a way to work around gerrymandering. Especially if the first busses arrived at the polls at least 30 minutes before opening so the first in line were those people the States are trying to disenfranchise. Even the Supreme Court would find it difficult to find for the racists.
I agree, and so would Alexander Hamilton, he predicted this could happen and he wanted plain majorities on all votes. To our woe 60 is often a hill too high to climb. On the horrible chance the Fascist party of Trump and company do manage to split us, I hope the new leaders of the Liberal-Progressive-Democrat whatever, learn their lesson well and the new Country they form sticks with ordinary majorities.
'In the November 2008 elections, the Democratic Party increased its majorities in both chambers (including – when factoring in the two Democratic caucusing independents – a brief filibuster-proof 60-40 supermajority in the Senate), and with Barack Obama being sworn in as president on January 20, 2009, this gave Democrats an overall federal government trifecta for the first time since the 103rd Congress in 1993.'
'However, the Senate supermajority only lasted for a period of 72 working days while the Senate was actually in session.' (Wikipedia) See link below.
Fern did not that senate "supermajority" also include the likes of "democrat" Joe Manchin? ...virtually guaranteeing that anything truly progressive would be stopped cold?
I agree Pat. If anyone should have a moral compass against lying, I would think it would be a Federal Judge in their confirmation hearing! We, as a nation, are and will continue to suffer for their lies until they are removed.
The first two year of Obama's presidency were mostly consumed with getting the ACA passed. Roe was decided in 1973 and the confirmed to be an "essential right" in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey. There didn't seem to be a need to codify the right to an abortion. More fool us.
No, I remember the venom against the “socialist” and the mess he inherited. I was just amazed that he lived through it. Even sane people I knew just lost their minds and the villages lost their idiots. And they never went back. Been in Congress ever since with Rupert to tell them how to vote. Sadly, plenty of women too (Ginni comes to mind). There used to be sane republicans who would work with Dems, they are long gone…
Fair point. Thanks for clarifying, and yes I totally agree. Unfortunately, people take a right for granted until it is taken away, as we are now seeing.
How many elections have we tried to turn people out to vote because the Supreme Court was at stake? Now the country is stuck with this…civil rights disaster…for decades.
The right to vote for all citizens is a basic tenet of democracy, but we still don't have an Equal Rights Amendment. Women still don't earn as much as men do in similar jobs. And women no longer have the right to determine their own health care. We need to keep using the vote to ensure equality in our country. And we need to do it NOW!
And it took nearly 200 years from the country's founding to even get the vote. Shocking and shameful.
Around the globe the times were different. Women were chattel. Even in the new America. In Britain. In the U.S. women were not allowed credit cards in their own name until 1974. Inchworms of progress now being threatened.
“Inchworms of progress now being threatened.” My mantra to my “coming of age” granddaughters.
That's great turn of phrase... my three grandaughters will hear it on our next Facetime call.
💐💐💐💐💐💐
Right. And we who see it clearly must act and educate without judgement.
When I saw the writing on the wall with the certain ending of my marriage, I knew I needed a couple of credit cards. I didn’t have any money and the ex was telling me he wanted to see me living under a bridge. So I applied to three different companies and they all said I had to use my husband’s social security info too to be eligible for a credit card. Even though he was not going to have the card too.
When I wanted to get a separate account for my cell phone because he was using information from my phone clearly looking at my phone records, the phone company said I had to get permission from the ex to separate my cell phone account from his.
So we think we’ve got it all squared away but we don’t in the eyes of many companies!
Denise, when I read your post, my stomach twisted into knots. Do you mean that this was recently? If so, women need to know. Thank you for sharing. 💖
I had a credit card in my own name at the Mormon owned department store in Salt Lake until 1971 when I got married and mentioned that I needed to changed my name to my married name. The card was immediately confiscated and I was told I no longer existed even though I was still working the same job and paid my bills. I never shopped there after that.
This is just gut wrenching. I wish more women understood what is at stake for them. 💖 Thank you for sharing, Linda.
As soon as I graduated from college in 1975 and had a job, I got my first credit cards (gas stations first, then department stores; credit union loan in 1982 for a car; major bank card came later after I established a credit history of always paying my bills in full). All women should do the same if they can. I know some Gen Xers who got burned with student loans, though.
In all honesty, I had possibly $30,000 in credit card debt when I met my husband. I was concentrating on a writing career and only tutoring children in LA so living was expensive. I had just taken a bar tending course which I was terrible at and was going to retake it when I met my husband. Somehow, I make the perfect vodka martini (for him). Ice cold. He later told me that when we met, he couldn't decide if he wanted to date me or hire me so he did both. 😅😅 He paid my credit card debt against my arguing because he didn't want it to grow any larger. We use the banks and the cc companies by paying everything at the end of the month. Few can. They live totally indebted. I am constantly getting emails from bank and cc telling me to take out loans. Disgusting. I hurt for the younger people just beginning.
“And now women are the crucial demographic going into the 2024 elections. “ And won’t it be sweet and so very appropriate to see it be women who drive that bloated orange misogynist into the ground that November, like a rusty nail, Talia?
More like a stake through the heart of a monster.
And GenZ...plus Simon Rosenberg...and turnup, the drive to register 17yo who’ll vote in ‘24...there are good things happening in the background. Let’s stay proactive.
Yea!!!!! I use it for my meditation mantra!!
💯 When I learned how long it took for women to earn the right to vote as a child I was (and still am!) furious at the injustice of it. I couldn’t wait to be able to vote and have voted in every election as soon as turned 18 (though I admit I missed a few midterm elections in college 😉)
One could say: 'Women's rights were not our highest priority" is part of the DNA of our history. Turns out it seems that it is not yet "history," but very much alive in our cartel party politics.
Talia, see my comment above - I'll paste it here > Much needed done or at least started Janet, such as the human right to affordable medical care for all US citizens. When you consider the vast timeline from thought / urgency to actual completion of rights such as tonight's essay, you easily see how slowly we get past fear, ignorance, acceptance. Propaganda then and now is largely responsible; multiply that reality times the sheer crushing number of media outlets this day along with the probable number of propagandist outlets and you begin to see that it's harder now than ever.
You don't mention, D4N, the reactionaries' discreet but immensely powerful fifth- columnist ally, the force of inertia.
You don't mention either that peculiarly American specialty, a "work ethic" probably rooted in chattel slavery and abuse of indentures, living to work instead of working to live. A specialty skillfully used since Reagan and his Reaganomics to gradually erode the economic and social freedoms of America's middle class, its working people, while oligarchs quietly siphoned off the country's wealth and concentrated all power in fewer and fewer hands...
Treating human beings as you wouldn't treat a machine has an important added advantage for exploiters: however able and well educated the exploited employee may be, the treadmill makes it far harder to exercise critical thinking.
Mindless in the workplace ties in perfectly with smartphone-screen-manipulated mindless in the shopping mall, transforming sentient human beings into easily herded cattle.
Your writing calls out why I fear artificial intelligence as the controllers will be those same oligarchs.
A sound point -- and there's no lack of others.
My main one:
To see this new hyper-dependence as the ultimate abdication, the ultimate self-mutilation.
Westerners view with horror the traditional Islamic punishment for theft, cutting off the thief's right hand.
[Yet, when the company set up by King Leopold II of the Belgians exploited his vast Congo acquisition for profit, the locals risked having BOTH hands lopped off when they failed to meet daily production targets... And this was done not only to adults but to small children...]
I don't expect readers to follow me easily from this point onwards, but beg patience.
Industrialization, followed by the swift development of robotics, have disempowered hands by the billion... save for the lightning shifting of thumbs on smartphone screens. Yet now we're moving from "Look No Hands" to "Look No Mind"...
We factor in the profits gained by technological progress, even when that progress has ceased to make prosthetic gains and become a self-feeding, self-serving process, completely autonomous, divorced from the human body and mind.
We never count the cost of our cult of so-called "progress".
When I first came to Japan in the early 1970s, I was struck by how, when making a sale, sales people would never count out the change. They'd use mental arithmetic to calculate the amount, then simply hand it to the buyer. Occasionally -- and I recall seeing even more of these in Hongkong -- they'd use an abacus.
Now... I'm aware of no real time gain, but human brainpower has been shoved from the nest by the cuckoo pocket calculator.
In Japan too, at the end of the last century, I visited a sawmill where beams were accurately cut to size without recourse to mechanical measuring devices and cabinet makers worked with the greatest precision, likewise without measuring instruments...
We seem to be bent on far more than neglecting our innate capacities, so immense, so unknown, so unexplored, castrating our minds instead.
I hope something of these thoughts finds the occasional reader with the nous to take them up for what they are or are not worth. And hope they'll at least jolt minds...
French phenomenologist Michel Henry spoke of what he called BARBARISM.
17th century brought time measurements to the workplace thus ending serenity of work.
George Orwell was a few years early in his prognosis.
I made a comment once (in regard to some asinine MAGAt meme that a former sergeant of mine had posted) that the only people allowed to vote in the next election should be those who were granted their right to vote via amendment to the constitution. First global reply (meaning from those who thought the meme was "right on") was "Huh?" I then articulated more specifically that both black men and 50+ years later all women were given the right to vote by way of the 14th and 19th Amendments. You should have heard the squeal.
Ha Ha Ha, you rabble rouser, Ally House (Oregon)! Bravo!
...and took relentless efforts by those most affected for 72 years!
Never give up, never give up, never ever give up a just and righteous cause!
My heart goes out to those brave women who persevered over the decades. One of the most shameful acts was to arrest women suffragettes picketing the White House. They were sent to the Lorton Prison in Virginia. In November 1917, Lorton became notorious for imprisoning the “Silent Sentinel” suffragettes like Dora Lewis and Lucy Burns, who had protested for the right to vote. At the Occoquan Workhouse, they were abused and chained to cells. Their food was rotten and had worms in it. When they protested their treatment by going on hunger strikes, they were force-fed. Their work toward voting rights for women, and being outspoken about poor treatment at the Occoquan Workhouse, helped secure the 19th amendment to the Constitution in 1919. Side Note – I live 5 minutes away from the prison which was built in 1910. Remnants of the prison still exist. It is now called the WORKHOUSE with classes, museum, etc.
I remember being shocked when I first learned about the atrocities that happened at the Occoquan Workhouse, while I was living 30 miles from this place. Some of my artist friends had studios in the WORKHOUSE, but I always had trouble going there, as the energy of suffering is palpable. I'm hoping all the creativity is helping to transform the atmosphere. It's hard to comprehend what occurred under those roofs, the evils perpetrated on women who were marching for the right to vote!
Thank you for sharing this. The force with which these women were opposed demonstrates the threat they posed to the established order
In America! That's amazing. In Australia, even in spite of some bad governments, a great deal of progress has been made on this, to shame the fat white males and lift women to full equality.
Excellent ❗️ ❗️ ❗️
I agree, the Democrats could have done more but fears of inflaming the situation stopped that from happening. Playing it safe is often a good strategy but not always. Do you remember Nancy Pelosi opposing the first impeachment, early on? She does not feel that way now.
We must realize that our country is in grave danger and it requires strong action to save it. Did we wait too long? And what do we do when one party is no longer functional? The justice system has been far too lenient with TFG, IMO. There is so much uncertainty ahead.
We need more women legislators. There should be close o a 50/50 range of female to male representation. It is true there are some women for whom I would never vote, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sarah Palin, come to mind. But then there are a number of men for whom I would never vote Matt Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy. Mitch McConnell among the many. It is too bad the framers of the Constitution had not listed good civic behavior, and good character as some of the qualities for candidacy, along with age. They would probably never in their lifetimes the possibility of persons of criminal behavior like Trump would ever be considered worthy of running for office. These are the jobs the DNC and RNC should be doing; finding candidates of quality behavior and dedication to the Common Good instead of personal enrichment and power. Instead the current associations see their only job as collecting money.
MAGAts think chump did nothing wrong, the power of propaganda, and his big mouth. At least 40 years of blather about libtards and feminazis set the stage for W and chump. Plenty of women lapped it up, Phyllis Schlafly head of the pack.
Schlafley and Reagan - a match made in the lowest circles of hell.
Damn, they should have hitched up and been the horror story of the ages. He and Nancy did bad enough, and I have always thought that she ruled him, by whatever means…
Jeri, and Phyllis never had to abide by a life (for herself) she consigned other women to live.
The whole cognitive dissonance thing is real. How her behavior and her policies could actually live in the same head - how does that work?
Oh boy, they’re A LOT of folks, especially in politics, I’d like to know the answer to that question about! Pretzel logic??? Maybe how to play the game Twister as a mental exercise? Wish the writer’s strike would be successfully negotiated, ‘cuz we sure do need the late night show hosts to poke holes in & fun at these mental monkey-minds (meaning no offense to monkeys).
"It is too bad the framers of the Constitution had not listed good civic behavior, and good character as some of the qualities for candidacy, along with age." ✅
The absence of an Equal Rights Amendment is symbolic of the struggle we shouldn't be in. It's 2023! And the reality is that we STILL don't get it. Sexism is embedded in the halls of Congress. Nothing has changed. Even our Democrats are silent on this.
It takes two adults working to raise two kids. Federal Funding for day care is about to expire and nobody in Washington DC cares. And soon, one of the adults will be forced to quit working. I wonder which parent that will be...
Please read Catherine Rampell's WaPo column pasted here to beat the paywall:
"In June, when Tracy Fredrick was forced to close her child-care center’s doors for good, 100 kids suddenly lost their care arrangements.
They’re just the start. Nationwide, 3 million more kids are expected to lose their child-care slots in the coming months, after a significant federal funding program ends in September. The country is facing a cascading crisis not only for the children losing care, and their families, and the small businesses that watch and educate children, but also every other sector of the economy that needs the care industry to exist so parents can work.
“People were crying on the phone wanting me to take their kids, saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m going to have to quit my job,’” said Fredrick. She ran Today’s Child Learning Academy, in Waterford, Wis., for eight years, usually with a long waitlist.
There was never exactly an abundance of available child care in this country, given the yawning gap between what most parents can afford and the pay levels required to attract and retain care workers. Then the pandemic further destabilized an already tenuous business model. Providers around the country shut down — or could stay open only intermittently because of frequent covid outbreaks. Employment in the sector plummeted by more than one-third in early 2020.
As the economy reopened, many of those laid-off or furloughed child-care employees decided to leave the sector for good. The pay had never been sufficient, especially relative to the exhausting work of wrangling and educating small children. Now, different opportunities became even more attractive, as other industries facing labor shortages rapidly raised wages. Fredrick said her company’s starting wage was $13 per hour, the average for all child-care workers across Wisconsin; that’s less than new employees make at Walmart or Home Depot.
Think child care is hard to find now? Wait a couple of months.
Another Wisconsin child-care provider I interviewed, Corrine Hendrickson, said her 16-year-old son outearns her, at least on an hourly basis, at his part-time job in the back of a restaurant.
Thankfully, a series of pandemic-era government interventions has helped keep some of these fragile care operations afloat, at least for a while. Among the most significant came via the American Rescue Plan, which awarded states $24 billion in “child-care stabilization grants.” States distributed this money in different ways, with allowable uses including raising staff pay, reducing tuition, and defraying rent and maintenance costs.
The care sector is still struggling, no doubt. The number of employees working for child-care providers remains below pre-pandemic levels. This funding nonetheless helped stave off complete collapse.
Collapse is back on the table, though, as the funding is slated to expire Sept. 30. After that happens, more than 70,000 child-care programs are expected to close entirely, according to estimates from the Century Foundation. Researchers there project that in some parts of the country (Arkansas, Montana, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and D.C.), the number of licensed programs could be cut by half or more.
We’ve already seen a preview of the carnage to come, as states have begun winding down their subsidy programs.
With relatively little notice, Wisconsin slashed its monthly payments to providers in half in May. That helped drive Fredrick’s decision to close the following month. She had been receiving about $15,000 per month from the state’s Child Care Counts program, which she primarily allocated for raises and bonuses, yet still struggled to retain staff. To make up for the lost public funding, she calculated, she would have had to raise rates for infant and toddler care from an already steep $280 per week to $400 per week. She knew this wasn’t feasible for the families she served.
State politicians in Wisconsin and elsewhere are fighting over whether to plug the hole left by the end of federal assistance. Meanwhile, child advocates around the country have urged Congress to simply renew some version of those federal stabilization grants. Republicans insist, though, that programs passed under the auspices of a pandemic response bill should not be extended now that the public health emergency is over — even if other emergencies loom, such as a potential collapse of the labor market as care infrastructure disintegrates.
Even President Biden, who has publicly supported more funding for child care in political campaigns and his annual budgets, has been unwilling to go to bat for it this time. The supplemental appropriations request his administration released this month omitted the issue completely, despite pleas from child-care experts and lawmakers who had been warning of the coming funding cliff for months.
This is astonishingly shortsighted. The littlest Americans need investments in their development. Their parents need help to continue working. And the nation’s economy, both today and tomorrow, would benefit from consistent support for both."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/27/child-care-funding-crisis/
It could appear a contrived connection. But a suspicious majority of male legislators throughout the land seem about to redevelop the 19th Century role of women in the 21st Century.
Six week abortion rules, absent child care and continued pay differences all prepare the nation for half the nation to be kept barefoot in winter and pregnant in Summer.
It is a growing phenomena of both the MAGA Party and many ignorant males to defy the Rights of Mankind and total human equality.
Bill, there is a similar problem at the other end of the age spectrum….elder care. It is underfunded, underpaid and severely understaffed. Add to that that private equity firms are buying up facilities and squeezing their resources dry (as they are doing in other “industries”)…. Sigh, a human-care problem of epic proportions.
Indeed. Most of us have first hand knowledge of this. Someone said that a society or a nation could be judged by how it treats its youngest and its oldest...and its prisoners.
Someday, historians and sociologists will reflect on how a nation with such promise couldn't unite around ideas of compassion, empathy and the efficient treatment of its most vulnerable.
Thank you for your comments. Always insightful.
Protecting children from "indoctrination" is WAY cheaper than saving them from poverty. R's know how to choose their battles.
Affirmative! On a tangent, someone has noticed that since 2016? 20 million seniors have died and 24 young voters have entered the rolls.
In 2008, I voted for Hillary in the primaries and for Obama in the general election.
As the primary race unfolded, it was do-or-die for Hillary in the North Carolina primary. I planned to stay up late and watch the results come in.
Around 10 or 11 p.m., Hillary and Obama were neck-and-neck, and... %$#@! the computers crashed, just like the computer vote fraud conspiracy theorists talked about.
I waited up, hour after hour, because I wanted to see the moment that results were updated. Around 3:00 the computers came back up: Hillary's total was flat, but Obama had received a big boost, putting the primary (and the nomination) out of reach.
For a couple days, there was talk that Hillary might challenge the results. She didn't, and went on to be Secretary of State. North Carolina Attorney General Ray Cooper went on to br Governor. Charlotte, North Carolina was awarded the next Democratic convention.
Fast forward to 2016. It would appear that, emboldened by Obama's example, the Republicans stole the presidential election from "that woman" Hillary Clinton:
"According to the exit polls conducted by Edison Research, Clinton won four key battleground states (NC, PA, WI, and FL) in the 2016 Presidential Election that she went on to lose in the computerized vote counts. With these states Clinton wins the Electoral College with a count of 306 versus 232 for Trump....Exit polls were conducted in 28 states. In 22 states the discrepancies between the exit polls and the vote count favored Trump. In 12 of these states the discrepancies favoring Trump exceeded the margin of error of the state’s exit poll."
Quoted from "2016 Presidential Election Table," compiled by Theodore de Macedo Soares, at https://tdmsresearch.com/2016/11/10/2016-presidential-election-table/
An old resource about computerized vote fraud is "Votescam," with the first 39 pages here:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Votescam.html?id=ZxpZCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
There he goes again.
Mike S, the post has already been reported to "Substack admin"as an apparent "repeat" post from yesterday. One of the many tactics is to take "Readers" OFF the LFAA thread to another URL. Caution.
Bryan, can you tell me how to report a possible troll to "Substack admin"? I've looked, but I can't find anywhere to do this.
And yes, this appears to be word-for-word a copy-paste of a post from yesterday. I've reported him/it (bot?) once again, and really, if he/it wants his/its voice heard he/it can write his own column on Substack or elsewhere; he's/it's just wasting bandwidth here.
Go to the 3 dots " ... " for the "Edit function" & the other option is for "Report". The "Report' goes Directly to 'LFAA admins".
I will handle the below Thx
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-26-2023/comment/39133074
Substack is watching us. Bryan Sean McKown is a creepy cyber-stalker.
Mike S (AKA Dutch Mike) is trolling me again, without any response to the content of my post.
I will be making further observations about computerized vote fraud in my ongoing responses to this post by another of HCR's readers:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-23-2023/comment/38990741
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Beth Cobb trolls me again.
:-(
When did they have the 60 votes necessary in the Senate? I do agree though it needs to be top priority going forward. As well as general voting rights bills
The Constitution requires a 2/3 vote for the following: to find a person guilty of impeachment charges to the Senate by the House of Representatives [only 3 Presidents have been impeached Trump was impeached twice) No President has every been found guilty. To override a Presidential veto both Houses of Congress must have a 2/3 majority. To Amend the Constitution requires 2/3 of both the Houses of Congress to be sent to the States for Ratification and 3/4 of the States must ratify. The filibuster on the other hand appears nowhere in the Constitution; it is a Senate rule, first used in 1837. Rules are NOT signed into law and therefore can be negated at anytime, although I think the Senate would demand 2/3 vote to end it. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Papers #22 objected eloquently to the use of the 2/3 rule as he feared exactly what we have today. Tyranny of the minority
respectfully suggest that state ratification of constitutional amendments requires
three fourths approval-
impressive and essential compilation and presentation of information about the
deliberate rarity of constitutional super majorities-
DW This was a provision in the Constitution to ‘protect’ the rights of small states. Now there are numerous small states (often governed by Republicans) that can block any proposed constitutional amendment intended to ‘modernize’ aspects of the constitution.)
I do not foresee any significant constitutional amendment that can now obtain a 3/4 state approval, even were it to obtain the 2/3 congressional approval.
The only hope for ‘amelioration’ on voting rights and other issues on which the Stench Court seem firmly opposed is through congressional legislation. For this, one would need Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate and a Democratic president.
Might the 2024 election provide this breakthrough?
Let's face it: some might think that it is religious conservatism that is the problem here in the U.S., but more than that it is rank racism. Proof of this is the study by two Univ. of Kansas professors, David Norman Smith and Eric Hanley published in the peer-reviewed journal, Critical Sociology in Feb. 2018. Trump's support comes from racists, misogynists, xenophobes and homophobes. That we're dealing with a KKK mentality becomes clear if you read Timothy Egan's book, "A Fever in the Heartland," about the rise of the KKK in the 1920's. They went underground and rose up as MAGA.
Yup, it seems HCR agrees: "Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the amendment, and the last one necessary to make the amendment the law of the land." That would be 36/48 = 3/4.
Thank you, you are correct it is 3/4, my only excuse is it was 2 AM when I was reading this in my worn copy of the Constitution. Thank you for being observant.
The Senate is ridiculously skewed to states rights. But the House should be but is not representative of the population. Due to gerrymandering.
I agree. But what would happen if busloads of young Democrats drove all the minority voters to the polling stations in 2024? I think this might be a way to work around gerrymandering. Especially if the first busses arrived at the polls at least 30 minutes before opening so the first in line were those people the States are trying to disenfranchise. Even the Supreme Court would find it difficult to find for the racists.
I think, that if we do fail as a government and it fractures again, the Filibuster and the Electoral College will be principally responsible.
I agree, and so would Alexander Hamilton, he predicted this could happen and he wanted plain majorities on all votes. To our woe 60 is often a hill too high to climb. On the horrible chance the Fascist party of Trump and company do manage to split us, I hope the new leaders of the Liberal-Progressive-Democrat whatever, learn their lesson well and the new Country they form sticks with ordinary majorities.
From Jack...Mitch pledges his top priority is to deny Obama a second term.
And it has been the same with Biden’s agenda. Spoken out loud and clearly. Amazingly ignorant and destructive.
I see divine intervention taking care of the Mitch issue along with a massive voter response to neutralize the MAGA movement.
'In the November 2008 elections, the Democratic Party increased its majorities in both chambers (including – when factoring in the two Democratic caucusing independents – a brief filibuster-proof 60-40 supermajority in the Senate), and with Barack Obama being sworn in as president on January 20, 2009, this gave Democrats an overall federal government trifecta for the first time since the 103rd Congress in 1993.'
'However, the Senate supermajority only lasted for a period of 72 working days while the Senate was actually in session.' (Wikipedia) See link below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress#
Fern did not that senate "supermajority" also include the likes of "democrat" Joe Manchin? ...virtually guaranteeing that anything truly progressive would be stopped cold?
This is why the Dems are losing.
"Settled law" until it wasn't.
Exactly. And with their overturn of Roe the tiniest iota of respect I may have held for any of the lying so-called "justices" flew out the window.
I agree Pat. If anyone should have a moral compass against lying, I would think it would be a Federal Judge in their confirmation hearing! We, as a nation, are and will continue to suffer for their lies until they are removed.
Agreed
What is "settled" is that we've got a problem. The six stand on the doorstep of Fascism and the door is already unlocked.
Exactly
The worst nighmare is happening with the SCOTUS - they've become a super legislative body, with no checks and balances. That's Fascism.
I still vividly remember my shock and the sense of betrayal.
They do indeed.
That's what happens when you ass u me.
The first two year of Obama's presidency were mostly consumed with getting the ACA passed. Roe was decided in 1973 and the confirmed to be an "essential right" in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey. There didn't seem to be a need to codify the right to an abortion. More fool us.
Don’t forget Obama was also dealing with the aftermath of the Great Recession. That was priority #1.
True! It's too easy to forget how close we came to a depression.
No, I remember the venom against the “socialist” and the mess he inherited. I was just amazed that he lived through it. Even sane people I knew just lost their minds and the villages lost their idiots. And they never went back. Been in Congress ever since with Rupert to tell them how to vote. Sadly, plenty of women too (Ginni comes to mind). There used to be sane republicans who would work with Dems, they are long gone…
Newt Gingrich had a lot to do with destroying the process of negotiation and compromise. Historians will not treat him kindly, nor should they.
Maybe Mr. history professor will have a chapter about what a piece of Schitt he was his whole life, personal and political
Fair point. Thanks for clarifying, and yes I totally agree. Unfortunately, people take a right for granted until it is taken away, as we are now seeing.
Indeed.
How many elections have we tried to turn people out to vote because the Supreme Court was at stake? Now the country is stuck with this…civil rights disaster…for decades.
Not necessarily Cindy; there are other ways.
Who expected after the row over SCOTUS’s decision in 2000 that it would continue to go rogued...until Trump?
The KKK racists were always there. We just didn't realize the depth and breadth of it. Timothy Egan's book is a must read.
Money talks, SCOTUS listens