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KnockKnockGreenpeace's avatar

"It is on all of us to explicitly counter double-speak and lies and to leave a paper trail of truth for posterity."

Thank you for this call to continue to respect our free press. A recent comment in the Contrarian chat came from someone crying about how the reporting is "all bad" these days, and how we need to feel hope--and that The Contrarian is a culprit in reporting badness. This article reminds us that we must bear witness to the bad if we ever hope to enjoy the good again in this country.

And by the way, that commenter clearly had never seen the uplifting talks by Norm and Jen in the Coffee episodes. Serious though the topics might be, our fearless Contrarian leaders always find the good them, and if not, will change the topic at the end of the segment to the good they are looking forward to. Appreciated and needed!

Michelle Jordan's avatar

So true, Jennifer Weiss-Wolf. In some states, even though some are candidates for IVF, some will not go through the process because of the legal mess they’ve made of it aside from the cost. I think he was just talking about it not because he wants to help women build their families but because he’s such a misogynistic ass about anything that affects girls and women. You’re right about everything you’ve said about female sports.

KnockKnockGreenpeace's avatar

Father knows best: "We'll show you what to do with your wombs!"

Michelle Jordan's avatar

Haha, he thinks he does. He’s so full of s***.

Wendy B.'s avatar

In half the states in the US, women are legally slaves because their bodies are not their own. The FIRST thing that needs to be done to improve the welfare of women is to ban Forced Birth laws across the entire US. They violate the 1st, 13th, and 14th amendment, and have been declared a major human rights violation by the UN.

Anne Pierce's avatar

If Trump actually wanted women to have more babies, he would expand Medicaid, not cut it, so girls and women could have regular medical care both before and after pregnancies, so they and their children could be as healthy as possible. Oh, and completely cover the costs of prenatal care, childbirth, and post-natal care. That will be the day.

Leslie M.'s avatar

From the remarkable poet Eira Quinn (@eirawritesfire on Threads):

The audacity

to hand women

a world on fire

and then ask us

to raise children in it.

To call motherhood sacred

while stripping it of choice,

autonomy,

safety.

The audacity

to look a survivor in the eye

and tell her

her body is no longer hers.

That it belongs to the crime,

to the state,

to the violence

that broke her open.

Imagine the cruelty required

to force a woman

to carry the echo

of her own trauma.

To call it a ”gift,”

to call it “God,”

to call it anything

but what it is:

an unthinkable violation

sanctioned by people

who will never bleed for it.

The audacity

to preach life

while refusing to protect the living.

To legislate suffering

and call it morality.

To demand women be both

miracle and martyr

for a world that would not lift a finger

to spare them either.

And then—

after everything—

to ask us why we are angry.

Why we do not smile

at the weight they press into our bones.

Why we dare to say

“I will not bring a child into a world

that would treat me this way.” The audacity

is staggering.

But here is the truth

they cannot legislate away:

Any world

that demands such a sacrifice

does not deserve the children

it pretends to protect.

Kim Sherwood's avatar

That's the thing about this particular charlatan (well, sometimes). Apparently his speech writers can construct sentences like these that can be convincing--to those that haven't been paying attention.

For anyone who's compared the words to the deeds--clearly he's blowing smoke. And yet, here we are in his second term. Let's hope the American people wise up enough to get us through this crisis and not live to repeat it in the future.

Good article--thank you!