Americans have spent the last 40 years or so sinking into
poverty. 15% of Americans now live below the poverty line. A big proportion is
food insecure (that’s hungry for plain speakers), a large number of them children.
For the past 20 years or so, the U.S. has doggedly refused to cope with its
housing crisis. With each passing year,
increasing numbers of people—many living from pay check to paycheck—cannot cope
any longer with rising landlord greed. And many college graduates, some in debt
with anywhere from 50K to 150K in student loans, can’t find jobs, or are
reduced to working for Capitalism’s brand new sweetheart: the “gig” economy—no
benefits, no pension, no holidays, no vacation, old age in a tent, and dumpster
diving at the Safeway.
Economists call this state of affairs precarity.
It means that many who are forced to live with mom and dad have little
likelihood of finding professional success, or owning a house, the sort of
prerequisite for marriage. It means that young folks of childbearing age are
putting off having children, or not having any kids at all.
A declining birth
rate
This past May 15, the Centers of Disease Control issued the
latest birthrate figures in the United States. In 2018, Americans gave birth to 3,788,235
babies, the fewest in 32 years, a replacement rate of 1.7, a state of affairs
which has occurred every year for the past ten years. For
perspective, the birthrate is lower than in the years after the Great
Depression. To maintain a steady
population, a nation needs to maintain a replacement rate of about 2.1 or 2.1
babies over a woman’s reproductive years, the rate at which a generation can
replace itself. The long term impact of
fewer babies is a nation
that lacks sufficient workers to replace those who retire.
With the killing pace of American life, fewer couples have
time for sex. And Climate Collapse has begun to play a role: sperm does not
take well to heat, and many women are thinking twice about becoming pregnant.
In the U.S. which, despite what genetics tells us, still loves ticking its
racial category boxes, the trend of lower birthrates was found across all
so-called “races,” including Asians, Hispanics, whites and blacks, with
the highest impacts found among Asian, Native Americans, and Alaskan natives.
Professor Donna Strobino of Johns Hopkins opined “There’s no
question that part of the explanation for that is economic. It’s very expensive
to raise children these days—and part of it is social—all the changes in
women’s roles.” But that’s not the whole story.
In Common Dreams, Ari Berman reports that, thanks to
gerrimandering and voter suppression, white men
rule in states such as Ohio, Alabama. which
signed into law a bill making abortion punishable by up to 99 years in prison,
Missouri and omTexas, where a law threatening
women who aborted or who attempted to abort with the death penalty went as far
as committee hearings, and most recently in Gov. Kemp’s Georgia. You’ll
remember that Gov. Kemp oversaw his own election to the detriment of his
Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams. On Kemp’s watch, from 2012 to 2016 Georgia
purged 1.4 million people from the voter roles, put on hold the registrations
of 53,000 people, 80% people of color, and closed 214 polling places in six years.
 |
| Georgia: protesters face state troopers |
In Georgia, state representatives noted that, as they
debated the law legalizing a six-week abortion ban, increased police presence
was a decision that came from the state’s Republican leaders, to whom Georgia state
troopers serve while working at the capitol. “You
are in violation of 16-1-34-1, and you will be incarcerated if you do not
disperse immediately,” a state trooper warned the group of oppositional legislators
through a megaphone. And as the new law was being voted into law by the white
men who dominate the state’s legislature, a
massive police presence kept protesters in line by intimidating them, many
of them women of color.
Anti-abortion laws bring about the abolishment of the 20th
century. For example, according to Daily Kos, so
called forced “birthers,” bowing to the 5 millennia-long view of women-as-chattel,
believe that, regardless of whether the
fertilization is the result of rape, even by an immediate family member, the
moment that a woman ends up with a fertilized egg inside her, she loses her
personhood. There's a child, and a father, but no longer a human mother, no a person.
Just a living incubator which can be forced by the state to give birth.
Following the 2009 murder of abortion provider Dr. George
Tiller, in 2015, the pro-life harassment at abortion clinics has intensified.
In 2018, patients seeking abortion care had to walk through 99,409 incidents of
picketing, more than 4 times the 2015 number. NYC for Abortion Rights views
clinic defense as a way of insuring abortion clinics safety, but of
transforming the system altogether. It calls for rallies, marches, strikes,
civil disobedience, confrontation, walk-outs and other forms of defiance.
 |
| Patient escorted past pro-lifers in Alabama |
But the bill that got passed in Georgia will affect, not the
rich who can afford to travel out of state, but the poor and vulnerable, those
who need reproductive care the most, and who often put off obtaining prenatal
care till the third trimester. And those women are predominantly black. Not
only does the state of Georgia penalize women in general, but black women in
particular.
Not the whole story
But two-bit politicians only think they make the rules. And
agencies like Planned Parenthood, by campaigning for donations, undercuts the movement
of popular resistance, such as that of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) that
has the potential of expressing the will of the majority in more capable ways with
more effective results. And their noise and fury notwithstanding, fundamentalists
themselves are ”played” by elites who have power to
affect policy, and by such forces as steepening housing shortages, post-college debt,
and the dearth of well-paying jobs, in short the economic pressures responsible
for that “precarity” which makes for a non-sustainably low birthrate, and for
the growing scarcity of replacement people who can consume all those products corporations
need to push, and fly those bombers to sustain its main industry, and export:
the U.S. war machine. Chris Hedges
writes, “The ruling elites are acutely aware that the steadily declining
American birthrate is the result of a de facto ‘birth strike’ by women who,
unable to afford adequate health insurance and pay exorbitant medical bills
[while being] denied access to paid parental leave, child care, and job
protection, find it financially punitive to have children….If women refuse to
produce children at levels desired by economic planners, then abortion and
contraception will be banned or made difficult to obtain.”
Why blame the legislatures of both parties for their
inattention to the kinds of trifling economic details which spell out the immiseration
of an entire country and result in unsustainable birth rates when women’s bodies can be
bred—like those of farm animals—and much more easily targeted?
Tell the Supreme Court: Don’t overturn Roe vs. Wade. Don’t
criminalize abortion at
Support National Women’s Law Center litigate for women’s reproductive freedom at https://act.nwlc.org/onlineactions/qrFEUUvUN0mMNoyDYrNflA2?emci=c7731e41-d07c-e911-abc4-281878391efb&emdi=84c44d11-d57c-e911-abc4-281878391efb&ceid=792364contactdata=7Tu8RV6LeSoaUPlNdQ 75D7pcy3gqnjCiOxVknv3VWQSfpRk4EVT%2fwEyd3TYBLpX0WAwEi 1DHjzs%2fHUAG1s6e3FXYmmQSGImZps07O%2b3pERfRK 9qmJXVpn6 iUi4UWXO5wu%2fUGOHMB6xwpcAAhWxytiAnUfnKAcldQda
TSFOKEAtA%3d
Protecting women’s right to reproductive hearth care and
abortion. Donate to Unfit to Serve at
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/unfit-to-serve-pac-1?refcode=em5-24-19
Re-wire news archives: setting the facts about reproductive
rights: Donate at https://rewire.news/donation/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=2019_online_giving
Sign to end wasteful military spending at
Tell Pelosi and Schumer: Stop war with Iran at
Foreign
French researchers come up with building a solar cell with
perovskite converting carbon dioxide into energy-rich ethylene and ethanol at
low cost, and with easily available materials.
Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif states he doesn’t
think a war will break out in the region
because Tehran does not want a conflict and no country has the “illusion it
could confront Iran” (it’s not a country we’re worried about, it’s mental
illness in the family).
Chavistas march in Caracas to mark Maduro’s re-election.
Venezuelan Press far more diversified than U.S. corporate
press.
Although the governments of Turkey and Venezuela agree to
sign a Protesting Power Agreement, the administration yields the embassy to
Guaidó’s people.
80,000 Chileans march to legalize medical marijuana,
regulate recreational use.
In protest over Yemen war, Italian unions refuse to load
Saudi ship loaded with weapons that could be used to kill civilians and fuel
world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
In Greece, workers self-manage production of enviro-friendly
cleaning products at worker-occupied factory Vio.Me.
In Brazil, one million protest against education budget cuts
and pension “reform.”
Discovery of humble succulent growing in only one area of
South Africa’s Karoo prevents uranium mine from going in.
Domestic
Women’s reproductive right (abortion) defenders gather in
Montgomery, Anniston, Huntsville and Birmingham to denounce “Alabama Human Life
Protection Act,” HB314 which virtually outlaws terminations.
Thousands of people from all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico show up to defend Roe vs. Wade,
#StoptheBans and stop attempts to punish people who need safe abortions.
Amid wave of GOP attacks on abortion, more state boycotts
and nationwide protests planned.
Venezuelan Embassy Protectors and other groups to stage UN
General Assembly protest.
Intent on leading political revolution, not just a
campaign, rallies support for McDonald’s
strike.
Promising big change, Sanders and Barbara Lee introduce new
financial transaction tax on Wall Street.
Amid declining real wages, strikes in U.S. escalate.
After years of organizing, People’s Lobby and Reclaim
Chicago see wins in 2019 Chicago municipal elections as significant victories.
AOC ties concerns over unregulated facial recog technology
to global rise of authoritarianism and fascism.
Sen. Kaine proposes amendment to prevent funding for any
military action against Iran (except in self defense! or if Congress approves a
separate war authorization.)
Kamala Harris announces equal pay plan that would fine
companies paying women less.
Senate approves $19 billon for Puerto Rico and several
states relief after #45 backs off from demand for border security funds.
DOJ antitrust attorneys said to recommend agency block
T-Mobile/Sprint merger.
Lawyers, academics and activists publish open letter calling
for release of New York political prisoner and only remaining Black Panther,
Jalil Muntaqim, arrested 48 years ago when he was only 19.
Louisiana, So. Carolina, New York, N. Carolina and Missouri
pass laws to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 18.
Teens rally in predominantly black Newark: “build up Kids,
not prisons.”
First vote to shutter San Francisco’s Juvenile Hall passes
unanimously.
Chicago’s Stop Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) won a
major victory this month when the head of the local program profiling Muslims
stepped down, with no current plans to replace him.
Sen. Wyden’s new proposal to protect the integrity (!) of
U.S. elections, the Protecting American Votes and Elections Act of 2019, takes needed step forward by requiring a return to paper ballots.
Nevada Senate passes National Popular Vote hill, becoming 40th
state chamber to do so. It goes to the governor for his signature.
#45 administration keeps losing environmental court cases.
Environmentalists
and activists arrested for protesting around the Bayou Bridge pipeline have
filed a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a
state law allowing law enforcement to charge protesters as
felons liable for five years in prison if found on or even near Louisiana
pipelines.
SumOfUs appear at
Pepsi and KFC shareholder meetings, deliver activist message to save forests
and disappearing orangutans.
Indigenous and other climate activists disrupt Chase meeting
in Chicago.
While media yawns, “Save our planet, save our future:” youth demand action with
massive climate strikes worldwide.
In Greta Thunberg’s foot prints, Massimo Paciotto Biggers,
coming on 16, is sole climate striker at Iowa City Public School.
In Jefferson County, W. Virginia, Rockwool Insulation
resisters hold rally, vow to keep fighting toxic Danish factory
SB 307, saving California desert aquifer will be voted in on
the assembly floor before legislative year ends mid September.
Beyond Nuclear’s Unsung Hero award honors Rose Gardner,
anti-nuclear activist, leader and founding board member of the organization.
New Jersey Assembly approves Resolution A230 in support of
U.S. accession to the Treaty on the prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Nuclear waste from San Onofre will get first dibs for
relocation under new bill.
In fall return to campus, students plan raising nuclear
weapon dangers.
District Judge Amit Mehta upholds House panel subpoena for
#45 financial records.
In second setback for #45, Federal judge Eduardo Ramos
rules Deutsche Bank and Capitol One may provide #45’s financial records to
House Democratic lawmakers after administration tries to block the move.
The New York State Assembly will likely vote on the N.Y.
TRUST act. which would allow the release of #45’s tax returns to Congress. Gov.
Cuomo has indicated he’ll sign it into law.
Leaked IRS memo says Mnuchin must hand over #45 tax returns.
Deutsche Bank ordered to turn over information about #45’s
business loans.
California Gov. Newsom grants pardons to two Cambodian
fathers at risk of deportation.
House Judiciary Committee passes Dream and Promise Act of
2019, first time since 2013 that Dreamer legislation advances.
ACLU sues Border Patrol for killing Guatemalan Woman.
Sen. Warren demands answers from Customer and Border Patrol
Commissioner following death of yet another (the seventh) migrant child.
Asylum seeker, Aida (surname withheld) has been granted asylum,
although the government still reserves the right to decide whether or not it
will appeal her grant.
Opponents of oil and gas pipelines in three states file suit
against new, anti-protest laws aimed at suppressing fossil fuel industry
dissent.
Project Drawdown EcoChange results in over 41,000 meatless
meals eaten, over 135,000 gallons of water saved, and reduction of over 345,000
lbs. of CO2.
Maryland bans polystyrene foam containers.
UC system bans glyphosate.
Atlanta creates first and nation’s largest food forest
in Georgia.
After suffering financial ruin and multiple bankruptcies,
Iowa farmers get off #45 train.
Jailed second time for refusing to sing to another Grand Jury,
Chelsea Manning vows “I’d rather starve to death than change my position in
this regard,” referring to naming Julian Assange.
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