Despite what some extreme Right-wing bloggers claim, Sandra Fluke is NOT a public person!We now return to the further dimensions of the War on American Women, being conducted as a full scale assault by many individual states. This is not surprising, because the Anti-reproductive choice fetishists and zealots have discovered that the best way to undermine women's rights across the board is to do it state-by-state as opposed to attempting a wholesale usurpation at the federal level.
To help women, I have therefore posted an up to date breakdown (compliments of NARAL) of the most critical state threats. They give a brief snapshot of each state and what their authoritarian laws are all about. The scariest aspect perhaps, as Nancy Keenan the President of NARAL has observed in a recent letter, is that the Senate currently has only "40 solidly pro-choice" members. This means that if the Repukes take the Senate, and keep the House - as well as seize the presidency, they could actually do the unthinkable: roll back Roe v. Wade.
Even without that drastic move, the draconian laws highlighted are spreading to other states which include: women having to subject themselves to biased counseling sessions by preachers and zealot drs., mandatory delays before any abortion can be performed - even one for rape and incest, spousal consent so a woman will have to get permission from hubby first, and gag rules - as well as insurance bans on both contraception and abortion.
Even as states move to solidify these horrific laws against women, and their ability to choose their families, the blowhards of the Right have mounted sundry PR efforts that try to revive false equivalence - which I previously addressed, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/here-we-go-againfalse-equivalence.html
As I noted therein, it is false analogy to compare any Left criticisms of Reep Power women (e.g. Michelle Malkin, Peggy Noonan, Anne Coulter, Sarah Palin et al) to Limbaugh's castigation of Sandra Fluke because Sandra, unlike the Reepo female power brokers, paid columnists etc. is a young private citizen who has NO radio or TV show, and no syndicated column (read by millions) by which she can rip others to smithereens. Nor does Sandra have any pretensions to any public power or public office - or have major political parties or Super-PAC money funding her!
Some delusional right bloggers have insisted that Sandra Fluke "became a public person" when she testified, but to accept that canard would be to accept that anytime a decent, honest and forthright citizen testifies before a House committee on a critical issue, and on behalf of a vulnerable demographic, then s/he is eligible for rightist media "target practice"! NO! NO! AND NOOOOO!
The consent or even willingness to testify does NOT make one a public figure, but a private citizen who displays the courage to temporarily appear on a public stage to testify on behalf of a vulnerable class or minority, as Sandra did. As such, the person must be protected from the vicious assaults, slander and libelous attacks by those who have the power to bellow their filth and lies to 20 million listeners at one time (as El Rushbo does) or to blabber to 6 million at one time, as FAUX's O'Reilly does, or to write columns that are syndicated in thousands of newspapers, as Michelle Malkin does, reaching ten million or more.
It is also foolishness of the most extreme sort to assert that a private citizen who becomes "public" (or thereby becomes a "public figure" in the febrile minds of these shameless conflators) can "defend herself by setting up her own blog" and blogging! Are you effing kidding me? You are going to compare a personal BLOG that maybe reaches 200 at most to a syndicated column like Malkin's which reaches 11 million people each day?
Any such person who would make such an assertion has got to be several cards short of a full deck. The person or persons is obviously not operating in the realm of reality, but ideological fantasy. But this is the extent of disinformation that the forthright citizen is now faced with in today's toxic political climate.
Hopefully all American women against whom these state laws and continued attacks are being mounted will continue to pay attention, and more importantly, note which side of the social issues their "bread' is buttered on.
To help women, I have therefore posted an up to date breakdown (compliments of NARAL) of the most critical state threats. They give a brief snapshot of each state and what their authoritarian laws are all about. The scariest aspect perhaps, as Nancy Keenan the President of NARAL has observed in a recent letter, is that the Senate currently has only "40 solidly pro-choice" members. This means that if the Repukes take the Senate, and keep the House - as well as seize the presidency, they could actually do the unthinkable: roll back Roe v. Wade.
Even without that drastic move, the draconian laws highlighted are spreading to other states which include: women having to subject themselves to biased counseling sessions by preachers and zealot drs., mandatory delays before any abortion can be performed - even one for rape and incest, spousal consent so a woman will have to get permission from hubby first, and gag rules - as well as insurance bans on both contraception and abortion.
Even as states move to solidify these horrific laws against women, and their ability to choose their families, the blowhards of the Right have mounted sundry PR efforts that try to revive false equivalence - which I previously addressed, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/03/here-we-go-againfalse-equivalence.html
As I noted therein, it is false analogy to compare any Left criticisms of Reep Power women (e.g. Michelle Malkin, Peggy Noonan, Anne Coulter, Sarah Palin et al) to Limbaugh's castigation of Sandra Fluke because Sandra, unlike the Reepo female power brokers, paid columnists etc. is a young private citizen who has NO radio or TV show, and no syndicated column (read by millions) by which she can rip others to smithereens. Nor does Sandra have any pretensions to any public power or public office - or have major political parties or Super-PAC money funding her!
Some delusional right bloggers have insisted that Sandra Fluke "became a public person" when she testified, but to accept that canard would be to accept that anytime a decent, honest and forthright citizen testifies before a House committee on a critical issue, and on behalf of a vulnerable demographic, then s/he is eligible for rightist media "target practice"! NO! NO! AND NOOOOO!
The consent or even willingness to testify does NOT make one a public figure, but a private citizen who displays the courage to temporarily appear on a public stage to testify on behalf of a vulnerable class or minority, as Sandra did. As such, the person must be protected from the vicious assaults, slander and libelous attacks by those who have the power to bellow their filth and lies to 20 million listeners at one time (as El Rushbo does) or to blabber to 6 million at one time, as FAUX's O'Reilly does, or to write columns that are syndicated in thousands of newspapers, as Michelle Malkin does, reaching ten million or more.
It is also foolishness of the most extreme sort to assert that a private citizen who becomes "public" (or thereby becomes a "public figure" in the febrile minds of these shameless conflators) can "defend herself by setting up her own blog" and blogging! Are you effing kidding me? You are going to compare a personal BLOG that maybe reaches 200 at most to a syndicated column like Malkin's which reaches 11 million people each day?
Any such person who would make such an assertion has got to be several cards short of a full deck. The person or persons is obviously not operating in the realm of reality, but ideological fantasy. But this is the extent of disinformation that the forthright citizen is now faced with in today's toxic political climate.
Hopefully all American women against whom these state laws and continued attacks are being mounted will continue to pay attention, and more importantly, note which side of the social issues their "bread' is buttered on.
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