Confused?

It seems to me there is “a whole lot of confusion going on,” what with all the propaganda and lies being so casually tossed around these days. For example, in this current flap over Todd Akins idiotic remark about “legitimate rape” and abortions, the status of abortion rights seems to have gotten lost somewhere. I notice that many of the remarks about the argument are that women “should have” a right to choice, or it “should be” up to a woman as to the treatment of her body, or there “should be a law,” or abortion “should be” legal, or there “should not be” restrictions, and so on. It’s as if Roe vs Wade never occurred, and the fact that abortion in the United States IS legal, the actual law of the land, settled some years ago by a 7-2 (I think) judgment by our Supreme Court. The anti-abortion crowd has raised such a hue and cry for so many years, and so many abortion clinics have been bombed, abortion providers shot and killed, and so on, it has come to appear that it is abortion that is the crime rather than the law of the land. Have so many people just forgotten that abortion is legal and those who are using any and all means to criminalize it are themselves the criminals? These anti-abortion zealots are subversives by trying to subvert the laws of the United States and they should be treated like the criminals they are. It is perfectly legal, of course, for those who are opposed to Roe vs Wade, to try to get the law changed, but only provided they follow the law and approach the problem truthfully and try honestly to understand the complexity of the issue. It is all well and good to shout about how abortion is wrong, and wrong under any and all circumstances, but that would seem to just beg the question. As far as I know, no one is in favor of abortion, or somehow prefers abortions, we all think it would be much better if there were no abortions, but as in so many other things, reality rears its head from time to time and demands attention. It might not be quite so bad if the anti-abortionists did not so loudly proclaim the rights of the fetus while at the same time seemingly having no concern for what happens to the infant, the mother, and the child. The idea that the immediate union of a sperm and an egg actually and immediately creates a “person” would seem to be a carryover from the days of alchemy when people believed lead could be turned into gold. It completely ignores the effects of growth, maturation, temporal, environmental, and experiential factors, in favor of a completely and purely magical transformation. Granted there seems something magical about the creation of life for we poor mortals, but the process is no different for human life than other live creatures. We don’t race our horses at the moment of conception or market our cattle at conception, or even eat our eggs at that critical moment, and we certainly don’t drink liquor and vote, fight stupid wars, marry and divorce, or even play football. Come on, “get a grip on yourselves.”

Another area where I worry that confusion will lead people to forget reality has to do with the question of jobs. “Where are the jobs?” This question has been repeated over and over and over so many times by Republicans you might think there is no explanation for it. But of course there is, and the explanation is beyond a doubt, the jobs are in the pockets of the Republican saboteurs that have resisted and opposed any and all attempts by President Obama and Democrats to create them. This Republican strategy has been so transparent for so long it is a wonder they have the audacity to keep repeating the question. But as the MSM is clearly on their side and never seems to question any of their blatant lies and subversions, this disgustingly dishonest strategy might even work for them. If voters either don’t know this, or forget it between now and election day, they will deserve the resulting apocalypse. Here again you can see the results of propaganda and confusion. Obama has taken the work requirement out of welfare, not true, Obama is destroying Medicare by taking 716 billion out of the Medicare budget, not true, Obama is going to take our guns away, not true, Obama was not born in the U.S., not true, Obama is a socialist, not true, Obama hates Israel, not true, Obama is an Arab, not true, Obama hates farmers, not true, Obama hates White people, not true, Obama wants to turn the U.S. over to the United Nations, not true, and on and on and on, truth no longer even matters in this cacophony of lies, rumors, and deliberate false attacks. Republicans know they cannot win honestly with their scorched earth agenda and platform for destruction, so they simply lie, sow confusion, and attack Obama for the problems they themselves mostly created.

“Speak, Memory.”

Vladimir Nabokov