Roe Has Been Overturned. Now What?
Yes! Magazine – June 24, 2022 – Editorial
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-abortion-scotus-decision
The ruling handed down by the Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, upends 50 years of reproductive rights in the U.S. but comes after a prolonged period in which those rights have been eroded at the state level. It will have far-reaching implications for the social and political future of the states as well as for millions of American residents. Here are five articles to help explain the importance of this decision and what to expect next.
Fighting for Abortion Rights All Over Again
The American Prospect – June 24, 2022 – Heather Booth
https://prospect.org/justice/fighting-for-abortion-rights-all-over-again/
The Supreme Court decision is outrageous, but not surprising. The Court has taken away the ability of people to control their own bodies and lives and turned that power over to politicians. It is outrageous because it is against the popular will, against morality, against precedent, against the expansion of freedom. This is an undermining of the most basic freedom and most intimate decision of a person’s life: when or whether or with whom to have a child. It is against the popular will. Eighty percent of people in this country believe that no politician should come between a woman and her doctor in this most intimate decision. Seventy-five percent of people do not think Roe should be overturned… We will need to protest. We will need a movement. And most of all, we will need political power.
When we organize, we have changed this world—won voting rights, expanded participation in the society, and elected a Senate and president who made Roe the law of the land. And we can do that again … but for that we need to organize. And if we organize, we can change the world.
We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse
The New Yorker – June 24, 2022 – Jia Tolentino
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-going-back-to-the-time-before-roe-we-are-going-somewhere-worse
The principal danger now lies elsewhere, and arguably reaches further. We have entered an era not of unsafe abortion but of widespread state surveillance and criminalization—of pregnant women, certainly, but also of doctors and pharmacists and clinic staffers and volunteers and friends and family members, of anyone who comes into meaningful contact with a pregnancy that does not end in a healthy birth. Those who argue that this decision won’t actually change things much—an instinct you’ll find on both sides of the political divide—are blind to the ways in which state-level anti-abortion crusades have already turned pregnancy into punishment, and the ways in which the situation is poised to become much worse.
“It Undermines the Court’s Legitimacy”
Vanity Fair – June 24, 2022 – Eric Lutz
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/06/liberals-dissent-to-supreme-court-ruling-overturning-roe
How the Three Liberal Justices’ Dissented to Overturning Roe… “According to the majority, no liberty interest is present — because (and only because) the law offered no protection to the woman’s choice in the 19th century,” they continued. “But here is the rub. The law also did not then (and would not for ages) protect a wealth of other things.”… Their joint dissent closed, “With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent.”
The Shame of the Supreme Court
Robert Reich’s website – June 24, 2022
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-shame-of-the-supreme-court
Even more ominous is Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion, in which he argues that the same rationale the court used to overrule Roe should be used to overturn cases establishing rights to contraception, same-sex consensual relations and same-sex marriage. Thomas is pointing the way for the radicals on the court to take in the future… Thomas wants the court to reverse more than a half century of rights. The Supreme Court is now firmly in the hands of radicals, eager to throw stare decisis out the window. They are part of the anti-democracy movement now threatening America.
We’ve Seen What Will Happen Next to America’s Women
Thde New York Times – June 25, 2022 – Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/opinion/elizabeth-warren-tina-smith-abortion-roe.html
If we sound angry and alarmed, that’s because we are. This decision is devastating — and we have seen what happens next. We both lived in an America where abortion was illegal. A nation in which infections and other complications destroyed lives. A nation in which unplanned pregnancies derailed careers and livelihoods. A nation in which some women took their own lives rather than continue pregnancies they could not bear… Simply put: We must restore our democracy so that a radical minority can no longer drown out the will of the people. This will be a long, hard fight, and the path to victory is not yet certain. But it’s a righteous fight that we must win — no matter how long it takes. The two of us lived in an America without Roe, and we are not going back. Not now. Not ever.
Being pro-life and feminist after Roe includes supporting access to contraception
The National Catholic Reporter – May 19, 2022 – M.T. Dávila
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/being-pro-life-and-feminist-after-roe-includes-supporting-access-contraception
Engaging in these complicated projects will not be easy. Pro-life culture has traditionally avoided the kinds of broad collaborations called for here. In addition, they require that we wrestle with the messy moral burden of potentially promoting evidence-based methods of reducing unwanted pregnancies that disagree with Catholic sexual ethics. Yet, these difficult engagements are essential for promoting encounter, solidarity and life, instead of barreling further down the practices of indifference, disposability and death.
Birth Control Pills Are Safe and Simple: Why Do They Require a Prescription?
The Scientific American – June 20, 2022 – Mariana Lenharo
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/birth-control-pills-are-safe-and-simple-why-do-they-require-a-prescription/
Access to contraception has taken on renewed importance. Birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives—including patches, injections and vaginal rings—have been fully covered by almost all health insurance plans since the Affordable Care Act designated them as preventive health care. But an important barrier persists: the fact that one needs a prescription to obtain them.. Based on this body of evidence, medical associations such as ACOG have been supporting over-the-counter access to hormonal contraceptives for several years. A switch to over-the-counter status is also supported by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, a professional association of pharmacists… Over and above everything else is the fact that contraception is tied up with sex and morality,
6 things sex educators want you to know about a post-Roe America
Vox – June 26, 2022 -Keren Landman
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23167769/abortion-post-roe-sex-educators
Many of the educators I spoke with see the assault on abortion access as part of a much broader, long-term strategy geared toward consolidating white male power. That strategy also includes anti-trans legislation, book bans, and efforts to do away with medically accurate sex education, said Michelle Slaybaugh, a former school sex educator who directs social impact and communications at SIECUS, a nonprofit comprehensive sex ed advocacy organization. All of those movements have something in common, said Slaybaugh: “It’s about controlling women’s bodies,” she said. “When you don’t know about your body, you cannot make decisions that will allow you opportunities to advance.”
Canada banning single-use plastics to combat pollution, climate change
The Washington Post – June 21, 2022 – Adela Suliman
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/21/canada-single-use-plastic-ban-climate/
Most plastic grocery bags, cutlery and straws would come under the ban, with a few exceptions for medical needs, Canada’s Environment Ministry said Monday… Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who first promised to phase out hard-to-recycle plastics in 2019, hailed the move as a boost to Canada’s efforts to tackle climate change. “We promised to ban harmful single-use plastics, and we’re keeping that promise,” he tweeted… “The release of the regulations is a critical step forward, but we still aren’t even at the starting line,” Sarah King, head of the environmental group’s oceans and plastics campaign, said in a statement. “The government needs to shift into high gear by expanding the ban list and cutting overall plastic production.”
Colombia’s First Leftist President and Goldman Environmental Prize-Winning VP Promise to Transition the Country Away From Fossil Fuels
EcoWatch – June 22, 2022 – Olivia Rosane
https://www.ecowatch.com/colombia-election-climate-crisis.html
The results of Colombia’s latest election could be a major victory for the planet. On Sunday night, the country voted in its first-ever leftist president, Gustavo Petro, and its first Black vice president, Francia Marquez, who is also a Goldman Environmental Prize winner, as Climate Home News reported. Included in the pair’s ambitious agenda is a commitment to ending new fossil fuel exploration and phasing out all fossil fuel use. If they succeed, Colombia could become the largest fossil fuel producing nation to abandon the energy sources largely responsible for the climate crisis. “These are not baby steps but huge steps towards the transition and reducing fossil fuels,” Colombian environmentalist Martin Ramirez told Climate Home News… Abandoning fossil fuels is part of a larger vision of moving away from, in Petro’s words, the “old extractive economy.”
Young Europeans Sue to Stop Treaty That Fossil Fuel Giants Use to Foil Climate Action
Common Dreams – June 21, 2022 – Kenny Stancil
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/21/young-europeans-sue-stop-treaty-fossil-fuel-giants-use-foil-climate-action
Several young victims of the climate emergency plan to file a lawsuit Tuesday in Europe’s top human rights court, where they will challenge an arcane energy treaty that protects fossil fuel investors at the expense of securing a livable planet… five plaintiffs between the ages of 17 and 31, all of whom have recently endured disastrous hurricanes, floods, and fires, are trying to persuade the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) violates the right to life and the right to respect for private and family life—the second and eighth articles, respectively, of the European Convention on Human Rights… Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace U.K., noted that “it’s hard to think of an international treaty that is more out-of-date and out-of-time.”
Greenwashing: how Ads get you to think Brands are greener than they are – and how to avoid falling for it
Informed Comment – June 21, 2022 – Morteza Abolhasani, Gordon Liu and Zahra Golrokhi
https://www.juancole.com/2022/06/greenwashing-greener-falling.html
The green advertising trend – featuring ads that explicitly or implicitly address the relationship between a product or service and the natural environment, promote a green lifestyle, or present a corporation as environmentally responsible – is growing fast. Many ads now feature a range of clever tactics, from filling your screen with green to using vague terms like “all-natural”, designed to convince you the products they’re selling are good for the planet… Is this just another example of greenwashing – when companies present an exaggerated or even false image of having a positive impact on the environment? Thanks to a growing body of research, there are a number of things you can look out for to tell the difference.
Subverting Climate Science in the Classroom
Scientific American -June 21, 2022 – Katie Worth
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/subverting-climate-science-in-the-classroom/
Oil and gas representatives influence the standards for courses and textbooks, from kindergarten to 12th grade… As a former science textbook editor once told me, “I never heard anyone explicitly say, ‘We can’t talk about environmentalism because of Texas.’ But we all kind of knew. Everybody kind of knows.” In this way, the proceedings in an Austin boardroom influence what millions of children nationwide are taught… As I learned when I watched 40 hours of live and archived board hearings, reviewed scores of public records and interviewed 15 people involved in the standard-setting process, members of the fossil-fuel industry participated in each stage of the Texas science standards adoption process, working to influence what children learn in the industry’s favor.
Solar Is One of the Cleanest Power Sources We’ve Got. But It Could Be Even Greener
Grist – June 21, 2022 – Maddie Stone
https://grist.org/energy/solar-is-one-of-the-cleanest-power-sources-weve-got-but-it-could-be-even-greener/
Some manufacturers are going the extra mile to clean up emissions from a critical material in solar panels’ supply chain… There are only four companies that manufacture polysilicon, a critical material for solar panels and semiconductors, in the United States… If we don’t rapidly embrace renewables like solar, we have little chance of meeting that climate target. Still, it is possible to increase our odds by cleaning up polysilicon production, which accounts for roughly half of the climate impact of solar PV. REC Silicon is showing how the industry might do that. The company’s polysilicon production facility in Moses Lake, Washington, uses low-emissions hydropower from the local electric grid, instead of the coal that’s often used to power polysilicon refineries in China. What’s more, instead of using the energy-intensive process to purify silicon that’s standard in the industry, the Moses Lake facility has pioneered the commercialization of an alternative process that REC Silicon claims uses up to 90 percent less energy.
How to end corporate welfare
Robert Reich’s website – June 21, 2022
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/putting-all-our-chips-on-the-table
As capital becomes ever more global and footloose, it can play nation against nation to get the best deals in return for where it agrees to do what. Most people, by contrast, are rooted within particular nations, which gives them far less bargaining power. This asymmetry helps explain why Congress is ready to hand over $52 billion to a highly-profitable global industry but can’t come up with even the $22.5 billion that the Biden administration says is necessary to cope with upcoming variants of COVID in the United States — for testing, therapeutics, vaccines, and essential treatments for the next generation of vaccines. The reality is that global corporations have no loyalty to any nation. As the then-CEO of U.S.-based ExxonMobil unabashedly stated, “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”
Why Do Tens of Millions in US Support an Economic System That Doesn’t Benefit Them?
Common Dreams – June 20, 2022 – Mike Lofgren
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/06/20/why-do-tens-millions-us-support-economic-system-doesnt-benefit-them
Current political science, sociology, and economics are all based to some degree on the rational actor model; that people make choices based on rational interest. So too, is representative government incorporating separation of powers: somehow, magically, optimal solutions and “the greatest good for the greatest number of people” will emerge from the free play of countervailing and rationally explainable interests. That theory is overdue for revision. If people throw away money, opportunities, and their very lives chasing destructive delusions, then we might as well revert to divine right of kings or the selection of leaders by lottery.
Why More Police Funding Is No Route to Public Safety
Human Rights Watch – June 21, 2022 – Brian Root
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/21/why-more-police-funding-no-route-public-safety
The mass mobilization and protests that began in May 2020, ignited by the police killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a long line of others, were not simply a response to oppressive and unaccountable policing. Instead, studies have shown that many protesters saw a link between policing, the continuing effects of structural racism through all strata of society, general indifference to poverty, and high and growing racial and economic inequality. That is why a primary demand of protesters was for the authorities to reduce investment in police and use those funds to support communities in ways that could reduce inequality while simultaneously keeping people safe. Yet, two years on, officials at every level of government throughout the country have largely made the political choice to do the opposite. They have disregarded protester demands, embraced the status quo, and in many places, increased police funding without making the investments that communities sought to address societal problems and violence.
The Myth of the ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ Has Religious Roots
The New York Times – June 23, 2022 – Peter Manseau
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/opinion/uvalde-evangelicals-guns.html
It’s important to understand that for the manufacturer of the Uvalde killer’s rifle, and many others in the business, selling weapons is at once a patriotic and a religious act. For those who hold them to be sacred in this way, the meaning of firearms proceeds from their place at the intersection of American and Christian identities. Proposing limits on what kinds of guns they should be able to buy — or how, when, where and why they can carry them — is akin to proposing limits on who they are and what they should revere.
Economics in Brief: The Credit Card Industry Doesn’t Want to Flag Suspicious Gun Purchases
Next City – June 24, 2022 – Solcyre Burga
https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/economics-in-brief-credit-card-companies-suspicious-gun-purchases
While banks can work to report suspicious activity to the government, the individual merchant codes that other shops obtain are not applicable to standalone gun sellers. Priscilla Sims Brown, the bank’s CEO, spoke to CBS about her attempts to change this. “You apply to a panel, a committee of sorts. It includes credit card companies,” Brown notes. But with representatives from Mastercard, Visa and American Express on the panel, her application was rejected twice. Mastercard told CBS the company believes it is up to public officials to deal with gun violence. Brown sees her industry’s role differently: “We have an obligation to address crime that is being facilitated through our system.”
What Difference Does a War Make?
Tom Dispatch – June 21, 2022 – Alfred McCoy
https://tomdispatch.com/what-difference-does-a-war-make/
The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while ending one nightmarish global conflict, almost instantly created a genuinely apocalyptic version of future war that promised the kind of Armageddon once left to the gods. Only recently, Vladimir Putin reminded us of that fact by functionally threatening a nuclear encounter as he invaded Ukraine. So, keeping the nature of “cold” and “hot” in such confrontations in mind, let TomDispatch regular Alfred McCoy, author most recently of “To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change,” take you to a planet where things are only getting hotter in so many ways, not just nuclear. It’s a world where, for the first time since the original Cold War, nuclear arsenals are evidently about to grow larger once again, while the U.S. is planning to “invest” up to $2 trillion in “modernizing” its own nukes in the decades to come.
Nagasaki Survivor Denounces ‘Absolute Evil’ of Nuclear Bombs on Eve of Vienna Summit
Common Dreams – June 20, 2022 – Kenny Stancil
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/20/nagasaki-survivor-denounces-absolute-evil-nuclear-bombs-eve-vienna-summit
A survivor of the August 9, 1945 bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States conveyed the inhumanity of atomic weapons on Monday ahead of an international meeting that seeks to eliminate the world’s growing nuclear arsenal. “The atomic bomb is a weapon of inhumanity and of absolute evil, with which human beings cannot exist and which does not allow us to even live or die as human beings,” said Sueichi Kido, 82, after describing what happened when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on his city just three days after it had already annihilated Hiroshima… The one-day conference, hosted by the Austrian government, precedes a three-day summit in Vienna—the first Meeting of States Parties to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) since the United Nations pact came into force last January… Referring to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Nakamura [22-year-old university student whose grandmother was exposed to radioactive waste from the bomb in Nagasaki] noted that “now people of Ukraine and the world are horrified by Russian President [Vladimir] Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the current war.”
The Coup Continues
Steady – June 19, 2022 – Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner
https://steady.substack.com/p/the-coup-continues
There is nothing past tense about January 6, 2021, even though the date itself is about 18 months ago. The currents that exploded that day are, and will continue to be (with an emphasis on the present and future tenses), a direct threat to the continuation of the United States as a democratic republic. The congressional committee investigating the insurrection represents not merely a fact-finding exercise to correctly document history, as important as that mission would be. They are firefighters battling a blaze of autocracy and unconstitutional depravity sweeping across the country… As becomes more and more clear through a cascade of revelations, this was an organized attempt to destroy the United States as a nation based upon the rule of law and the principle that when we hold elections, we honor the results, no matter if our preferred candidate wins or loses… we need to be very clear — this is a cancer that resides firmly within the Republican Party. It has been allowed to linger and grow, and now metastasize. And it is taking root by infecting state and local governance in ways that could very well turn what happened on January 6 into just an opening act.
In the Shadow of the Jan. 6 Hearings, Right-Wing Militancy Is on the Rise
The Intercept – June 17, 2022 – James Risen
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/17/jan-6-hearings-right-wing-white-nationalists/
Unlike past congressional hearings into other major scandals like Watergate, the hearings have not provided a sense of closure or of lessons learned but rather one of foreboding. That’s because they don’t just offer a look back at what happened in the 2020 election, but also a glimpse of what is likely to happen in 2024. The January 6 hearings feel like a prequel. In fact, even as the hearings constitute the clearest public account of Trump’s coup attempt, a series of incidents around the country has ominously shown that the threat of a repeat in 2024 is very real.
Journalism Is ‘At an Existential Moment’
Portside – New Click – June 25, 2022 – Srinivas Mazumdaru
https://portside.org/2022-06-25/philippine-nobel-laureate-maria-ressa-journalism-existential-moment
Speaking at the Global Media Forum in Bonn, Nobel laureate Maria Ressa noted that lies, laced with anger and hate, spread faster than facts. “Rebuilding trust with truth is vital to combat the rise of fascism,” she said… The spread of lies, as well as personalized mass persuasion, hyper-socialization and the tyranny of trends are eroding a sense of shared reality and promoting surveillance capitalism, she argued… “If you don’t have rule of law in the virtual world, you won’t have rule of law in the natural world.” “If you don’t have integrity of facts, how can you have integrity of elections?” she questioned, stressing how the situation poses a threat to democracy… You have news being distributed that is emotionally manipulative, and the thinking slow part — which is journalism, fact-based, evidence-based reasoning — that’s not only gotten weaker, it’s allowed the rise of illiberal democracies around the world… By relying on social media for content distribution, Ressa said, news organizations “walked into a surveillance capitalism model that is essentially manipulating people online for profit.”
“No Atonement, No Repair”
Democracy Now! – June 20, 2022 – Nikole Hannah-Jones
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/6/20/no_atonement_no_repair_watch_nikole
We turn now to Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist who created The 1619 Project. In March, Nikole Hannah-Jones addressed the United Nations General Assembly as the U.N. marked the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade… I have dedicated my life’s work to excavating the modern legacy of transatlantic slavery, and so my thoughts are never far from what has become the defining subject of my journalism, and what I believe continues to be the defining undercurrent of life in the Americas: the legacy of slavery… The legacy of slavery can be seen all around us. Today the descendants of slavery fight to resist their conditions in the societies that once enslaved them. They suffer the highest rates of poverty, the highest rates of incarceration, the highest rates of death and the highest rates of violence…It is time — it is long past time — for reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and all the devastation that it has wrought, and all the devastation that it continues to reap.