April 26, 2016


News and Views


Abortion in Europe: 'Coat Hanger Rebellion' Grips Poland
by CASSANDRA VINOGRAD and EVA GALLICA
NEWS EUROPE'S ABORTION FIGHT
APR 26 2016, 11:07 AM ET

SEE ALSO: Video -- https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/1108531292573257/?comment_id=519667908237805&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D

Dozens of women walk out as priest declares he wants to ban abortion.


Video -- Coat Hangers Are the Symbol of This Revolution 1:02
Photograph -- A woman places a coat hanger in front of the Polish Parliament during a demonstration against a proposal to tightening the country's abortion law on April 3 in Warsaw.
Video -- Influence of Church Feeds Into Views of Abortion 1:21
Photograph -- A giant coat hanger hangs in a tree during a protest against a proposal that could lead to the tightening of Poland's already strict anti-abortion law on April 9 in Warsaw. Czarek Sokolowski / AP
Related: You Can Be Jailed for Life for Getting Abortion in U.K.
Related: Footage went viral of worshippers walking out in protest.
Photograph -- Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. KACPER PEMPEL / Reuters
Graphiq – Abortion Policies In Europe
Video -- The Fight for Women's Rights 2:02
Related: Women Share Their Abortion Stories
Photograph -- A supporter of the SOS Defense of Unborn Life Foundation protests against abortion in Warsaw on March 14. TOMASZ GZELL / AFP - Getty Images
"WE SEE A TREND IN EUROPE CURRENTLY AS SORT OF A GENERAL ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS"
Video Clip -- Cassandra Vinograd ✔ ‎@CassVinograd; London rally in support of #CoatHangerRebellion: "Polish government, we are watching" #euabortionfight
8:50 AM - 26 Apr 2016
Demonstrators protest the proposed tightening of abortion law in Warsaw on April 9. Photograph -- The posters read, from left: "I want choice!!!", "Abortion is my business" and "My body = my right." KACPER PEMPEL / Reuters
Complete Coverage: Europe's Abortion Fight
Related: COMING UP WEDNESDAY: Part 3 — The American Exporting an Anti-Abortion 'War' Strategy

“There's one thing that both anti-abortion and abortion-rights activists agree on. A shift is underway in Europe — in politics, prosecution and protest. Battle lines are drawn for what threatens to be a nasty fight, with both sides taking cues from the U.S. In Part 2 of a series, NBC News examines the debate. ***”


WARSAW, Poland — The movement has a hashtag — they call it the #CoatHangerRebellion.

Activists for decades have decried the abortion laws in deeply Catholic Poland, which are among the most restrictive in Europe. Their anger has now boiled over.

A proposed law to ban abortion outright has sent thousands of Poles onto the streets, coat hangers held aloft and drawn on posters — a long-standing symbol of dangerous self-induced or back-alley abortions. The timing of the proposal and evocative imagery used by the protesters speaks volumes to a shifting battleground in Poland and beyond.

'Get Mad'

At 69 years old, Ewa Dabrowska-Szulc considers herself lucky to have come of age at a time when her three abortions were legal — a far cry from the current situation in her native Poland.

"We were lucky, we women — as we call it — generations of The Beatles, meaning those who reached adulthood in the 60s, 70s," she told NBC News. "We could enjoy the right to abortion ... It was just a part of our lives."

That's a choice she would no longer have.

A law introduced in 1993 made abortion legal only under three narrow exceptions — and she says the situation would be made worse by the proposal to criminalize abortion under all circumstances.

"I believe that we women of almost 70 years old should tell the truth," the mother-of-two said while clutching a poster at a rally in Warsaw earlier this month. "We had the right to decide — do we have a child or not?"

That's why she was out on the streets embracing the Coat Hanger Rebellion — fighting to restore the rights she had for today's young women.

"I hope that ... in 2016, the new generation of women would get mad."

An Outright Ban?

Abortion is illegal in Poland except under three circumstances: in cases of rape, incest or when there is a serious threat to the mother or baby's life.

When the restrictions were passed 23 years ago, the law was billed as a compromise; there was pressure from then-Pope John Paul II to perhaps go further.

And anti-abortion groups with overwhelmingly Catholic roots have been fighting to extend the limits ever since.

The proposal that sparked this Coat Hanger Rebellion was the latest salvo.

It was drafted by prominent activist Mariusz Dzierzawski, who accuses supporters of abortion rights of wanting to "kill the children." He believes neither cases of rape nor a pregnancy endangering a mother's life justify an abortion.

That's why his organization submitted the "Stop Abortion" proposal last month, which aims to criminalize abortion under all circumstances and suggests penalties of between three months and three years in prison.

The proposed law would see Poland trump the Irish Republic and neighboring Northern Ireland — which is part of the U.K. — as the most restrictive in Europe for abortion. It also would make Poland just one of just a handful of places in the world with an outright ban.

Dzierzawski told NBC News he believed the "Stop Abortion" draft law has a real chance of being approved and becoming a reality.

"Abortion is supported by the minority of the population in Poland," Dzierzawski said.

"Stop Abortion" needs to collect 100,000 signatures in order for the proposal to be debated by lawmakers and given a parliamentary vote. Even abortion rights supporters concede they won't be hard to come by in a country of 38 million people where 87 percent of the population is Catholic.


After about two weeks, the proposal has gathered around 30,000 names.

"I'm not worried about the number of signatures," Dzierzawski said, predicting that all would go "very smoothly."

Church Walkouts

Poland's influential Catholic Church was quick to urge its followers to back the "Stop Abortion" proposal.

A letter issued by the church dated March 30 heralded the need for the "full protection of human life." It was signed by two archbishops and a bishop.

"The protection of unborn life cannot stop at the current compromise expressed in the Act of January 7 1993, which in three cases permitted abortion," the letter reads. "We ask people ... to take action aimed at the full legal protection of the unborn."

The following Sunday — April 3 — priests across the country read the letter aloud during Mass.

Footage went viral of worshippers walking out in protest.

Image: Beata Szydlo on April 18, 2016
Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. KACPER PEMPEL / Reuters
But it was the backing of Prime Minister Beata Szydło, who said she would personally support the draft law, that set the sparks of a rebellion fully alight.

In addition, the leader of Szydlo's ruling Law & Justice Party — Jaroslaw Kaczynski — suggested that the majority of his lawmakers also would back a full ban on abortion.

The real possibility that such a bill could pass has sent Poles onto the streets in the thousands protesting a return to the "medieval ages" captured by their symbol of choice: The coat hanger.

Two Kids, Three Abortions
For Dabrowska-Szulc, joining the movement was a no-brainer.

"My story as a fighter for reproductive rights is long and very, very sad," she explained.

One of her earliest childhood memories was hearing her grandmother plead for the death of one of her siblings. Dabrowska-Szulc's mother didn't have enough milk to breastfeed the baby.

"[As] a six or seven-year-old girl, I was thinking, 'how could one pray for God to take a child,'" she recalled. But growing up, she saw how her parents struggled to take care of four children.

"So I decided that I should have only two — a boy and a girl," Dabrowska-Szulc said.

When she first got pregnant, Dabrowska-Szulc was a student with "other plans." It wasn't the "right time" to have children, she said. But she had options.

"You could go to state clinics and have [an abortion] ... for free," Dabrowska-Szulc explained. "Just go to a doctor and say you are pregnant and you have no chances to support a child."

That's what she did — once, twice, three times. She later gave birth to two children — now aged 44 and 50.

She said she's been fighting for women's right to get abortions since 1989, when the first moves were made to restrict access in her country.

"As a woman who has had abortions it is completely incomprehensible," she said. "I know how important it is for a woman not to be pregnant, to be able to decide about it. Raped women should have a choice, mothers of terminally ill children should have a choice!"

'Always the Worst Solution'
There are plenty of people on the streets of Warsaw, though, who disagree.

Lawyer Magdalena Korzekwa-Kaliszuk, a member of the conference of the Polish Episcopate, is one of them.

"The amendment to the law on abortion is in the interest of women," she told NBC News. "Abortion is not good for a woman, because it is bad for physical and mental health."

She echoed anti-abortionists' claims in Poland that fetuses with abnormalities are "deprived of the right to life," saying that adoption is "always a better option" than abortion.

"Abortion is always the worst solution, because it leads to suffering women," she said.

1960s America
Members of the Coat Hanger Rebellion point to the fact that there are currently only five places worldwide that completely ban abortion under all circumstances: Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Malta and the Holy See.

"I hope that they will not do this to Polish women ... A total ban on abortion is just cruel," said Katarina Wieckiewicz, a lawyer at the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning. "It's barbaric. It cannot happen in a civilized world."

Poland's National Health Fund says there were more than 1,800 abortions in 2014 compared to around 1,350 in 2013. But women's rights groups in the country say up to 200,000 abortions are performed illegally or abroad each year, according to The Associated Press.

Rights groups warn that the new law will further drive women seeking terminations underground — a situation where their lives could be put in danger.

"This would potentially cause real harm to many women and girls who are already facing extreme obstacles to accessing abortion or reproductive health-care," said Hillary Margolis, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.

That's why the movement's use of the coat hanger is particularly salient — it "quite powerfully" evokes images from the U.S. pro-choice movement in the 1960s, according to Margolis.

The Fight for Women's Rights Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed
The Fight for Women's Rights 2:02

"What it says is that these women are saying we really would be setting our country back a good 60 years, that this is bringing us so far backwards," Margolis explained. "We know that outlawing abortion doesn't stop abortion. It doesn't stop women from seeking solutions."

'Backsliding'

If Poland's abortion law has been contentious for decades, why is it boiling over now? A lot of it has to do with the recent and broader political shifts in Europe, according to experts.

"Unfortunately we are seeing some potential backsliding," Margolis warned. "Poland is the clearest example of a case where the laws are already incredibly restrictive and potentially becoming even more so."

While she acknowledged the undeniable influence of the Catholic Church in the current debate, she said attributing the movement to faith alone would oversimplify the issue.

Related: Women Share Their Abortion Stories

"It sort of all goes hand in hand with a real move towards a more conservative ideology and this idea of conservative and traditional values," Margolis said. "It's also part of this movement across Europe where there has been a real rise in right-leaning political parties gaining ground."

Poland has been showing signs of a shift to the right for years, well before the latest proposal to ban abortion.

Activists' alarm bells, though, started going off with greater urgency with the recent election of Poland's conservative ruling Law & Justice Party.

Image: A protester against abortion rights in Warsaw, Poland, on March 14
A supporter of the SOS Defense of Unborn Life Foundation protests against abortion in Warsaw on March 14. TOMASZ GZELL / AFP - Getty Images
The party came to power on a platform of change — "good change" — and a return to traditional values.

Since then, the Law & Justice Party has been criticized for new media laws that broaden state control and accused of trying to weaken Poland's constitutional court.

Lech Walesa was among prominent former Polish leaders who published an open letter Monday on the front page of the daily Gazeta Wyborca accusing the current government of destroying democracy and a "usurpation of power" with its constitutional-court moves.

And then there's the "Stop Abortion" campaign.

Only the Beginning
"Get your rosaries off my ovaries!"

One of the loudest voices in the Coat Hanger Rebellion has been that of Marta Nowak, a member of the relatively new and left-leaning Razem political party.

She told NBC News that the backing of ruling-party politicians for the proposed ban spurred her party to act.

Nowak described a frantic effort to publicize the initial demonstration against the draft law.

Thirty-six hours after that rally was announced, an estimated 10,000 people were in the streets of Warsaw on April 3.

"This protest was impressive," she recalled.

Since then, solidarity rallies have been held in Warsaw, London, Oslo and beyond. The hashtags around the movement — #CoatHangerRebellion and #popieramdziewuchy, or "I support women" — have been used more than 8,500 times in two and a half weeks.

"WE SEE A TREND IN EUROPE CURRENTLY AS SORT OF A GENERAL ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS"
Nowak said she hopes that the "scale" of the protests will convince ruling party lawmakers like Prime Minister Szydlo to withdraw their support.

"We believe that we can affect it," Nowak professed. "We will continue to protest."

London-based Razem member Aleksandra Wolek marveled at how the issue has mobilized Poles who previously weren't interested in politics.

A solidarity protest the 23-year-old law student organized in the British capital this month drew more than 300 people. What was notable at the rally was the diversity among the protesters — men and women, the elderly, middle-aged and even children.

"Its outrageous how much of an influence the Polish church has on politics in Poland," Wolek said. "It's not supposed to be like this in a democracy."


The protesters are acutely aware, though, that this isn't just about Poland. Two years ago, Spanish women protested proposed changes to that country's abortion law — though that ultimately failed. In Northern Ireland, a woman recently was prosecuted after taking abortion pills.

"We see the importance of these abortion protests in a larger context," Wolek said. "We see a trend in Europe currently as sort of a general assault on women's rights ... This is why we think it's essential to go out on the streets and protest."

U.S. Links
As many as 9,000 people attended the latest Warsaw pro-choice demonstration on April 9 — with many others at rallies in other cities around Poland.

The numbers show that "not only women but the society as a whole has had enough," said Krystyna Kacpura, executive director of the Federation for Women and Family Planning.

"We awoke women," Kacpura said. "We awoke a fight — I hope."

Image: People demonstrate against plans of tightening the abortion law in Warsaw
Demonstrators protest the proposed tightening of abortion law in Warsaw on April 9. The posters read, from left: "I want choice!!!", "Abortion is my business" and "My body = my right." KACPER PEMPEL / Reuters
Every week her organization takes cases of women in need of legal abortions.

"The existing law is much more restrictive in practice than on paper," Kacpura said. "We can say that right now we have almost total ban of abortion."

She and others interviewed said doctors often will delay screening for medical anomalies, effectively running out the clock.

"They prolong the procedure to make it to be too late to perform legal abortion," she said.

Kacpura is well aware of the evocative nature of the Coat Hanger Rebellion's imagery and is determined to make the voices of women heard.

"We will be screaming, we will be fighting as long as this law is existing," she said.

Complete Coverage: Europe's Abortion Fight

But Kacpura and abortion-rights activists suspect they might be battling a better-funded or at least better-organized competitor with roots thousands of miles away.

"Many many anti-choice organizations have started to act in this region — supported by huge Catholic organizations. Fundamentalist organizations with bases in the U.S.," she said.

Kacpura said she recognized the U.S. influence in the language used by the anti-abortion activists in Poland. "But I can't prove it," she added.

It turns out, she's right — but it's no secret.

COMING UP WEDNESDAY: Part 3 — The American Exporting an Anti-Abortion 'War' Strategy



https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/why-you-can-still-get-sent-to-jail-for-having-an-abortion-in-the-uk

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Why You Can Still Get Sent to Jail for Having an Abortion in the UK
by Frankie Mullin
FEB 10 2016 2:59 PM

Read More: My Life as an Abortion Provider in an Age of Terror
Photograph -- A website claiming to sell abortion pills online, including mifepristone and misoprostol. Screenshot via abortionpillrx.com


You might think that abortion is completely legal in the country, but you'd be wrong—under a horrifyingly archaic law, multiple women have been sent to jail for self-induced terminations.

"Every woman, being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing [...] shall be liable to be kept in penal servitude for life."

So reads section 58 of the 1861 Offences against the Person Act, a piece of Victorian legislation that, contrary to popular belief, still holds sway in England, Wales, Northern Ireland—every country in the UK bar Scotland, which has its own Common Law version—and the Republic of Ireland.

Horror stories come thick and fast from both the North and the Republic of Ireland, where abortion is illegal even in cases of rape, severe fetal impairment or risk to the pregnant woman's health. However campaigners warn that the legal framework for these injustices is in place across the UK.

Prosecutions have already taken place in England. Last year, 24-year-old Natalie Towers from Durham, already a mother of one, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for using abortion pills bought online. She collapsed in court and was taken, sobbing, straight to prison. In 2013, Sarah Louise Catt, from North Yorkshire was jailed for eight years for a similar crime. In 2010, Maisha Mohamed, from Manchester, was given a 12-month suspended sentence for the same.

In all the English cases, the baby was over the 24-week threshold for carrying out a legal abortion. However, activists question the appropriateness of sending these women to jail at all.

Read More: Abortion Clinics Are Burning, But No One Seems to Care

"What's happening in Northern Ireland is outrageous but people need to be aware that it can happen in the rest of the UK," says Alisa Berry Ryan of Abortion Rights UK. "There's no reason abortion should come under criminal law at all.

"There are lots of reasons someone might take reproductive rights into their own hands. Not everyone is able to jump over all the barriers of access."

When it comes to meting out punishments for self-induced abortion, the UK carries the most draconian abortion legislation of anywhere in Europe. Even in countries such as Poland, where abortion is highly restricted, the likes of Natalie Towers would not have been jailed.

In a new campaign, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), along with organizations from across the UK, including the Fawcett Society, Women's Aid and Maternity Action are calling for abortion to be decriminalized.

Protesters on a pro-choice march in Ireland. Photo courtesy of the Irish Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC)

In particular, they say that rise in accessibility of medical abortion pills, mifepristone and misoprostol—available from pioneering online medical abortion service, Women on Web, and, worrying, from less reliable sources—has rendered the current law not just obsolete but dangerous.

In 2014, just over half of all terminations in England and Wales were carried out medically, with abortion pills. It's been proven safe, with a success rate of 95 to 98 percent. Corresponding with the boom in NHS-delivered medical abortions, the underground sale of pills has skyrocketed.

It's hard to gauge how many women are buying pills online, but it's clear there is a market even in countries in which abortion is legal. Last year, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency seized £15.8 million worth of illegal medication, among which was misoprostol.

Our bodies remain governed by a piece of Victorian legislation passed by an all-male parliament before women could even vote.

"Although abortion is relatively accessible in England, Wales and Scotland, we know that women are still buying abortion medication online for a number of reasons," says Katherine O'Brien of BPAS.

"Some will be young women who are too frightened to tell their parents they are pregnant. There will also be women who are unable to access abortion care for free on the NHS because of their asylum status. And there will also be women who are experiencing domestic violence and are scared their partner will find out if they go to a clinic or to talk to their doctor."

O'Brien warns that, should these women choose to buy medication online, they will be breaking the law and could face jail.

"The increasing availability of abortion medication online means that more women may be putting themselves at risk of prosecution and a potential sentence of life imprisonment."

It may come as a shock that the 1967 Abortion Act (in place in England, Wales, and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland) didn't repeal the 19th century offences laid out in the Offences Against the Person Act. It simply provided exceptions: two doctors must decide that a child-bearer's mental or physical health would suffer if forced to continue a pregnancy; the abortion must be performed by a doctor; and the procedure must be carried out on licensed premises.

"These restrictions made a certain amount of sense in 1967," says Sally Sheldon, Professor of Law at the University of Kent. "They were meant to take abortion out of back streets and make sure terminations were performed safely. In 1967 we were talking about surgical terminations; a technically demanding, relatively risky operation. Fast-forward to 2016 and those requirements make no sense whatsoever."

Meanwhile, those who step outside these restrictions are committing offences against breathtakingly archaic laws.

Section 60 of the Offences Against The Person Act deals with "concealment of birth." This, "nasty pernicious bit of legislation," Sheldon tells me, has it origins in an even older statute, the 1624 Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children.

"This offence was only committable by unmarried women," Sheldon says. "It was all about policing sexual morality."

The most extreme interpretation of these archaic laws is felt in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where taking pills to induce miscarriage is a jailable offence. Last year, a Northern Irish woman was prosecuted for obtaining abortion medication for her daughter. It wasn't the only such case, but it was one which triggered a furious response.

Home abortion is a terrifying prospect under criminalization. Orla, a 31-year-old from the Republic of Ireland, who asked Broadly to change her name, obtained pills from Women on Web, sent via her friend in the North to avoid customs.

"The process was far more painful than I was expecting," she says. "I knew it was safe, but to not have access to any kind of medical support—to not be able to ring your GP and ask if all this pain and bleeding is normal—is frightening. At the time [five years ago], I would have been liable for life in prison. Now, it's 'only' 14 years."

With stories like these, attention is quite rightly focused on abortion law in Ireland, but reform is needed across the UK.

Fully decriminalizing abortion is important at an ideological level. "Our bodies remain governed by a piece of Victorian legislation passed by an all-male parliament before women could even vote," says O'Brien.

However it's vital in a very real way for the women who've fallen foul of overzealous interpretations of the law. In England, Towers is still in jail. In Ireland, women are dead.

"My biggest fear is that the law will result in more women dying for want of treatment, like Savita Halappanavar," says Stephanie Lord, spokesperson for Choice Ireland. Halappanavar died in a Galway hospital after being denied an abortion for her miscarrying fetus. "Or that we'll have more forced C-sections like the 2014 case of a suicidal refugee, pregnant as a result of rape, who was denied an abortion. That absolutely must not be allowed happen again."



NBC -- “A proposed law to ban abortion outright has sent thousands of Poles onto the streets, coat hangers held aloft and drawn on posters — a long-standing symbol of dangerous self-induced or back-alley abortions. …. A law introduced in 1993 made abortion legal only under three narrow exceptions — and she says the situation would be made worse by the proposal to criminalize abortion under all circumstances. …. Abortion is illegal in Poland except under three circumstances: in cases of rape, incest or when there is a serious threat to the mother or baby's life. When the restrictions were passed 23 years ago, the law was billed as a compromise; there was pressure from then-Pope John Paul II to perhaps go further. …. The proposal that sparked this Coat Hanger Rebellion was the latest salvo. It was drafted by prominent activist Mariusz Dzierzawski, who accuses supporters of abortion rights of wanting to "kill the children." He believes neither cases of rape nor a pregnancy endangering a mother's life justify an abortion. That's why his organization submitted the "Stop Abortion" proposal last month, which aims to criminalize abortion under all circumstances and suggests penalties of between three months and three years in prison. …. "Stop Abortion" needs to collect 100,000 signatures in order for the proposal to be debated by lawmakers and given a parliamentary vote. Even abortion rights supporters concede they won't be hard to come by in a country of 38 million people where 87 percent of the population is Catholic.”


BROADLY -- “Horror stories come thick and fast from both the North and the Republic of Ireland, where abortion is illegal even in cases of rape, severe fetal impairment or risk to the pregnant woman's health. However campaigners warn that the legal framework for these injustices is in place across the UK. …. under a horrifyingly archaic law, multiple women have been sent to jail for self-induced terminations. "Every woman, being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing [...] shall be liable to be kept in penal servitude for life." …. Last year, 24-year-old Natalie Towers from Durham, already a mother of one, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for using abortion pills bought online. She collapsed in court and was taken, sobbing, straight to prison. In 2013, Sarah Louise Catt, from North Yorkshire was jailed for eight years for a similar crime. In 2010, Maisha Mohamed, from Manchester, was given a 12-month suspended sentence for the same. In all the English cases, the baby was over the 24-week threshold for carrying out a legal abortion. However, activists question the appropriateness of sending these women to jail at all. …. In 2014, just over half of all terminations in England and Wales were carried out medically, with abortion pills. It's been proven safe, with a success rate of 95 to 98 percent. …. two doctors must decide that a child-bearer's mental or physical health would suffer if forced to continue a pregnancy; the abortion must be performed by a doctor; and the procedure must be carried out on licensed premises. …. the 1624 Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children. "This offence was only committable by unmarried women," Sheldon says. "It was all about policing sexual morality."



Abortion is a very big issue, but not the only one. Illegality of abortion just like the pre-70s USA, is emerging into the political power grid again. First Poland, which being nearly all Catholic is not such a surprise, but the UK as well, who are farther to the Right than the US in several ways. (For one thing, though nobody is actually required to attend services as far as I know, there is in fact a state religion -- Anglican Protestantism).

Maybe “the Brits” always were noticeably farther to the right than America. After all, the US was populated to a great degree by members of unpopular and illegal religions from England and other places in Europe. “If Poland's abortion law has been contentious for decades, why is it boiling over now? A lot of it has to do with the recent and broader political shifts in Europe, according to experts.” This writer says what I have been certain of for several years, judging from changes in the trend of our politics here and an uprising of anti-Semitism in Europe again more recently. The issues of abortion, LGBT, race etc. are all part of the tightening of radical Rightist fists around the throat of democratic systems. Except for Donald Trump, who I don’t think is exactly in that group (I think he’s an individual obsessed by winning the presidency) there is as yet no really strong and clear leader. There’s no Hitler. When Hillary Clinton said maybe ten years ago that we are being engulfed by a “vast Right Wing Conspiracy, I didn’t believe it, but it’s clearly true in my view today.

To my fear and dismay, a number of state governments here have been enacting Rightist legislation, including anti-abortion laws and other kinds of restrictions of human rights, since the Tea Party popped up like the “Creature From the Black Lagoon” some years back. That happened essentially due to 9/11 and the election of a black president, and before that in the late 1990s when Charles Koch founded organizations such as ALEC on the Internet. Not incidentally, that was also when George W. Bush was elected. What ALEC does is write model laws to get around several liberalizing Supreme Court rulings that have been made since the 60s and the 70s. ALEC is a very dangerous force.

Those on the Right don’t (yet) have sufficient mob strength to rampage their local areas and the other levels of government, to take over the government by force, so they are doing it inch by inch with restrictive and abusive laws. The Oklahoma takeover by armed militia groups was the same kind of thing, though. I was disturbed by the fact that most of them got away with it without being sentenced to prison, though the main leaders were.

If Trump were to be elected President, that schedule might accelerate rapidly. More than a few of the Tea Partiers have spoken up for the installation of Christianity as the official US religion, and they are actively trying to make voting in elections for our poor citizens a more difficult or more restrictive matter. What did we fight the Revolutionary War for, I wonder? Those laws tend to hit the poor, blacks and Hispanics hardest. Also, of course, a number of new trial cases are occurring by which the Right wants do delegitimize personal freedom among minority groups – businesses refusing service to LGBT people especially. One woman in a county office in the Midwest a year or so was even quoted as saying that she “wondered” aloud if we would have a better country if everyone were required by law to go to church. I don’t know about you, but to me that is shocking.

Cases like that, but based on race and ethnicity, have diminished in frequency, though new special voting laws are popping up again, along with suits by obvious White Supremacists to eliminate the college admissions quota system. They usually make the case that a black/Hispanic/etc. student booted them out of their (superior) position in line for admission. That system was written into Civil Rights law specifically to ensure that every state-supported college would have to include Jews, blacks, Chinese, Hispanics and other “undesirables” as students there.

The quota system was made out of need because, just as in hiring issues, the telltale photograph that was meant to “complete” the college and job application form, would indicate visually the race or minority group if the name didn’t. Nearly all blacks went to black only universities around the country. In some cases, they were outrightly banned from attending, and in others they were just systematically excluded. That’s better than no college degrees at all for blacks, but it’s far from satisfactory.

Private colleges don’t have to follow that quota rule, though an excluded student can still sue the college in question if they think they were kept out because of race. The obvious goal is to diminish the number of ethnicities of all kinds – yes, Jewish, Asian, American Indians and blacks – who are being pushed out of certain private colleges. They want nice pure white student populations to please their alumni who want to send their children there also, and feel “comfortable.”

Public colleges still have to continue the quota systems, at this point anyway. That may stop in the next decade or so if the Far Right is not quelled by the voting booth. I don’t think we have enough gentle and left-leaning voters yet, or at least who are personally energized on civil rights subjects, to form a new activist community. There is the feel of a new movement in the air now behind the energetic and clever Bernie Sanders, but it still isn’t the 1970s. Nonetheless, I’m encouraged and determined to keep up the drumming against our new Fascist citizens. Maybe I’ll see the end of this before I die.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/over-60-people-interviewed-in-ohio-family-murder-investigation/

Is drug cartel behind execution-style murder of Ohio family?
CBS NEWS
April 26, 2016, 6:57 AM

Play VIDEO -- Ohio law enforcement urge people to arm themselves
Play VIDEO -- Manhunt and search for motive in Ohio family's murder


Investigators have interviewed more than 60 people in their ongoing manhunt for whoever killed eight members of an Ohio family, reports CBS News correspondent David Begnaud.

It's been four days since the bodies were found, but no one is under arrest.

Isaiah Jones said he was detained at gunpoint during a traffic stop and released after being questioned for six hours.

"I really want people to know I really had nothing to do with it and that these were also friends of mine, and that I went to school with," Jones said, crying.

Investigators also spoke with his friend, Rusty Mongold, apparently about a Facebook post that appeared to threaten the youngest murder victim, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden Jr.

CBS News has confirmed Mongold was interviewed by investigators. In a separate Facebook post, Mongold wrote that he went to the sheriff's office to clear his name.

"I gave them DNA and everything. I have nothing to hide..." he wrote.

Investigators are also looking at the possibility a Mexican drug cartel is behind the pre-planned execution of the family.

A law enforcement source confirmed to CBS News that investigators found some 200 marijuana plants. They were inside an indoor grow operation that was found in some of the homes where the eight members of the Rhoden family were executed.

The size of the operation, according to the source, indicates the marijuana was being grown for sale and not for personal use.

"There is a drug problem in most areas around here," said Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader.

Law enforcement sources estimate that the street value of the marijuana plants is nearly half a million dollars.

But Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who is heading up the investigation, couldn't say with certainty whether that may have been a factor in the murders.

"We have no idea. I mean you know we're running those leads out, there's many different theories," DeWine said.

The cartel is just one of the theories being considered. Authorities aren't ruling out gang activity, a family dispute or revenge killing.

Among the eight victims, shot in the head was 37-year-old Dana Rhoden. Her father, Leonard Manley, thinks his daughter knew the killer or killers.

"Whoever done it, know the family because there were two dogs there that would eat you up. But I ain't going to say no more," he said.

Authorities believe there could be more than one killer because there were four different crime scenes. The sheriff has the suspicion that the killer needed help.


http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/ohio-law-enforcement-urge-people-to-arm-themselves/

Ohio law enforcement urge people to arm themselves
CBS News
No Text, Video Only – Excellent Recent Story Update



Usually when I see a story like this one it turns out to be a disgruntled family member, ex-husband, etc. who was always considered “odd.” They may or may not have been feared. Many insane or sociopathic individuals “pass” for normal, because they exhibit few if any outward symptoms, though they are often viewed as “quiet” and “harmless.” For that, read highly introverted and perhaps always preoccupied with an inner world of their own.

In this case, it seems to me that in a drug dealing area where Mexican mafia may buy from them to sell on the streets, if such a grower should set up his own personal business he may be targeted. At any rate this sounds like the most likely cause I’ve seen, and the technique of shooting everyone in the back of the head where the brain stem is located is the surest, quickest way to kill them. It could be considered merciful as well. The fact, mentioned by the father Leonard Manley, that the two dogs are vicious and dangerous to strangers does indicate, as he said, that the dogs knew the killer or killers. This is one for the True Crime genre. I would like to read it when someone writes it.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-obama-north-korea-challenge-south-china-sea-aggression/

Obama on why the U.S. won't "destroy North Korea"
CBS NEWS
April 26, 2016, 7:04 AM

Related -- Obama: Putin not "entirely persuaded" on idea of European unity


President Obama is back at the White House after a week in the Middle East and Europe. During his trip, "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose spoke with the president in Germany for a wide-ranging interview. Mr. Obama had just announced 250 additional American troops will go to Syria to help in the fight against ISIS.

But the president also faces other big challenges in Asia, including North Korea's claims of successful ballistic missile tests and China's military installations on man-made islands in disputed waters of the South China Sea.

"How aggressive do you see the action in the South China Sea? And do you worry that they will cross some line, in which you'll have to respond more aggressively?" Rose asked the president.

"I've been consistent, since I've been president, in believing that a productive, candid relationship between the United States and China is vital, not just to our two countries, but to world peace and security," Mr. Obama said.

It's not a zero-sum game, Mr. Obama added.

"What is true, though, is that they have a tendency to view some of the immediate regional issues or disputes as a zero-sum game," he said. "So with respect to the South China Sea, rather than operate under international norms and rules, their attitude is, 'We're the biggest kids around here. And we're gonna push aside the Philippines or the Vietnamese.' ... But it doesn't mean that we're trying to act against China. We just want them to be partners with us. And where they break out of international rules and norms, we're going to hold them to account."

In regards to North Korea, Mr. Obama described the regime as "a massive challenge."

"Our first priority is to protect the American people and our allies, the Republic of Korea, Japan, that are vulnerable to the provocative actions that North Korea is engaging in," Mr. Obama said.

He said North Korea is "erratic enough" and the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, is "irresponsible enough that we don't want them getting close."

"But it's not something that lends itself to an easy solution," Mr. Obama said. "We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals. But aside from the humanitarian costs of that, they are right next door to our vital ally, Republic of Korea."

Mr. Obama explained how the U.S. has been preparing to fend off threats from North Korea.

"One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile defense systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we're also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they're posing right now," Mr. Obama said.



CBS -- “It's not a zero-sum game, Mr. Obama added. "What is true, though, is that they have a tendency to view some of the immediate regional issues or disputes as a zero-sum game," he said. "So with respect to the South China Sea, rather than operate under international norms and rules, their attitude is, 'We're the biggest kids around here. And we're gonna push aside the Philippines or the Vietnamese.' ... But it doesn't mean that we're trying to act against China. We just want them to be partners with us. And where they break out of international rules and norms, we're going to hold them to account." …. One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile defense systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we're also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low-level threats that they're posing right now," Mr. Obama said.”


Republicans tend to see Obama as “weak” or “timid.” To me, he is just a rationalist. If this were a Star Trek show, he would be saying, “Steady as she goes.”



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/elections-2016-bernie-sanders-in-the-race-to-win-despite-trailing-clinton-pa-md-ct-primaries/

Regardless of today's primary outcomes, Sanders still "in this race to win"
CBS NEWS
April 26, 2016, 9:48 AM

Play VIDEO -- Hillary Clinton looks to close the show with Tuesday's primaries
Related: See CBS News' full 2016 elections coverage


PHILADELPHIA Polls show Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is the favorite going into Tuesday's primaries. A sweep could make her nomination almost a sure thing. With 189 delegates, the big prize is Pennsylvania, where the CBS News Battleground Tracker poll shows Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by eight points.

While Sanders faces some daunting polling going into Tuesday's five primary races in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island, he told CBS News' Nancy Cordes Monday night he was not entertaining the possibility that he might be all but mathematically eliminated from contention after Tuesday.

"If you look at state polling, you're behind in Pennsylvania, in Maryland and Connecticut. If you wake up on Wednesday and you've lost most or all of these five states, what do you do then?" Cordes asked him.

"What we do is go to West Virginia and Kentucky, and then head out to California, the largest state in our country," Sanders said. "I believe that the people in every state in this country have a right to cast a ballot to determine who they would like to see as president of the United States, and equally important, the agenda that they want the Democratic Party to have. Do they want to address the issues of rampant poverty in this country, of massive income and wealth inequality?"

Cordes pointed out Clinton also talks about these issues and asked, "Is she strong enough on poverty to win over your supporters, if she needs to?"

"Well, I'll let my supporters make their own decisions," Sanders responded.

"But you have a lot of influence over them," Cordes said.

"We're in this race to win. We're going to be in California in June and we're going to be in Philadelphia back here in July. And my job is to win this nomination," Sanders said. "If I don't win the nomination, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that a Republican does not get elected president of the United States."

On Sunday, when asked about supporting Clinton if she wins the nomination, Sanders suggested that his support would come with conditions.

"That is totally dependent on what the Clinton platform is and how she responds to the needs of millions of Americans who are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics," Sanders said on ABC's "This Week."

Clinton, at a town hall Monday, recalled that her response to losing eight years ago differed, telling MSNBC town hall host Rachel Maddow, "We got to the end in June and I did not put down conditions. I didn't say, 'You know what, if Sen. Obama does W, Y, and Z maybe I'll support him.'"



“A sweep could make her nomination almost a sure thing. With 189 delegates, the big prize is Pennsylvania, where the CBS News Battleground Tracker poll shows Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by eight points. …. "I believe that the people in every state in this country have a right to cast a ballot to determine who they would like to see as president of the United States, and equally important, the agenda that they want the Democratic Party to have. Do they want to address the issues of rampant poverty in this country, of massive income and wealth inequality?" …. And my job is to win this nomination," Sanders said. "If I don't win the nomination, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that a Republican does not get elected president of the United States." …. "That is totally dependent on what the Clinton platform is and how she responds to the needs of millions of Americans who are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics…"


"We got to the end in June and I did not put down conditions. I didn't say, 'You know what, if Sen. Obama does W, Y, and Z maybe I'll support him.'" Hillary’s goal is to intimidate Sanders into quitting the race, “shaming” his apparent selfishness. I wonder, too, if she secretly doesn’t want to admit to the fact that he represents a Movement among the Democratic Party membership, and many of the American people in general. At any rate according to a recent poll he outpaced Hillary in the ability to BEAT DONALD TRUMP. The US is in a social and economic crisis, and some of us think it’s time to do something active and effective about it. This is not a sprint. It’s a marathon.

Besides, I agree with him that we have gotten too far away from the popular election of our leaders. It is far better if everybody has a chance to cast their votes. I have never liked all this polling and predicting, and the tendency to STOP counting votes on election day based on “exit polls.” I want to see the hour or two of extra time being taken on actually counting votes. Of course, I’m also not really in favor of a “winner take all” formula, because it eliminates important social issues and candidates with varying minority views. Both political parties have become too restricted in their platforms. That is the reason for this Tea Party led mess in Congress nowadays, and the radically rightist new laws from the ALEX formulations.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-sandy-hook-denier-james-tracy-sues-fau-for-getting-fired/

Report: Sandy Hook denier launches First Amendment lawsuit
CBS NEWS
April 26, 2016, 8:27 AM

29 Photographs -- Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY


A Florida college professor fired after he allegedly harassed one of the victims of the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., is suing the school for wrongful termination and violation of his right to free speech, according to the Palm Beach Post.

James Tracy was fired by Florida Atlantic University in January. The college did not say in its press release announcing his termination from the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies why it was firing him.

The parents of one student killed at Sandy Hook recently claimed in a Florida newspaper opinion piece that Tracy was taunting them. The parents of 6-year-old victim Noah Pozner say Tracy harassed them, demanding proof their son existed, according to CBS Miami.

Tracy was reprimanded in 2013 for writing in his blog that the Sandy Hook killing was staged, and he has questioned accounts of other mass slayings.



Guess what. Another Right Wing nut job, and he lives in my beloved state of Florida. Luckily I don’t know anybody like this. Why do they all cry out for their “freedom of speech” after verbally and emotionally abusing someone who is unable to defend herself against such a painful attack? Now he is suing the University for firing him. I wonder what philosophy people like this espouse? Probably simple unadulterated hatred. Psychiatrists talk about a symptom called “free-floating anxiety,” so this may be “free-floating cruelty.”

Go to the website so you can see the bizarre grin on his face, which I have also seen other dangerous individuals exhibiting, as the police marched them along in front of news reporters. They’re happy to get all that attention! I hope he doesn’t go on to do his own mass shooting, because he apparently can’t be arrested for obscene abuse, but he admires those killers and may attempt to copy them. He’s in the same category, in my view, as those Westwood Baptist Church people who like to march in a group to protest numerous funerals, of people whom they considered to have violated “Christian” views.



http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/26/475717047/editor-of-bangladeshs-only-lgbt-magazine-is-hacked-to-death

Editor Of Bangladesh's Only LGBT Magazine Is Hacked To Death
LAUREN HODGES
April 26, 201612:28 PM ET

Photograph -- The body of gay rights activist Xulhaz Mannan rests in a wooden coffin as people pay their respects in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.
AP


A gay rights activist and his friend were killed Monday night in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, by a group of assailants reportedly armed with machetes and guns.

Their deaths are the latest in "a series of attacks on progressive voices that has deepened anxiety about growing fundamentalism in the tiny Muslim country, which borders India," NPR's Julie McCarthy tells our Newscast unit.

Xulhaz Mannan and a man said to be a close friend were slain by a half-dozen men posing as couriers when they forced their way inside Mannan's apartment, Julie reports.

Mannan worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and was the editor of Roopbaan, the country's only LGBT magazine, and had helped organize a rally for LGBT youths called The Rainbow Rally on April 14, the Bengali New Year. Another friend of Mannan's, Sara Hossain, told The New York Times that the activist had received death threats from people who opposed the rally.

An al-Qaida-linked group said it was responsible for the two killings. The Associated Press reports that "the claim by Ansar-al-islam — which said it targeted the two men on Monday night because they were 'pioneers of practicing and promoting homosexuality' — raised doubts about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's repeated assurances that authorities have the security situation under control."

USAID published a statement following Mannan's death, calling him "a dedicated and courageous advocate for human rights."

"Xulhaz sought to shape a society that was more diverse and inclusive. He believed in the people of Bangladesh, and he strove to make the world a better place for everyone."

The Wall Street Journal spoke with an employee at Mannan's apartment building about what happened there:

"Abdur Rahim, the caretaker of the six-story building in which Mr. Mannan lived, said two young men posing as couriers entered Mr. Mannan's first-floor apartment on Monday evening. Four other men then followed them into the apartment.

" 'We heard shouts and then loud bangs,' Mr. Rahim said.

"Mr. Rahim said building guards and a police patrol tried to stop the group as they tried to escape after the killing. The killers escaped by firing shots that injured a policeman and a building guard, Mr. Rahim said."

Mannan and his friend were cut down just days after English professor Rezaul Karim Siddique was hacked to death as he walked to his home in the city of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Julie reported over the weekend that Siddique may have attracted attention with his focus on cultural enrichment after he organized a music school.

She notes that the latest attacks might signal a shift: "It appears that the assailants may be expanding their range of targets. Previously, the grisly attacks have focused on atheists and bloggers critical of Islamic fundamentalism."

Earlier this month, an atheist law student named Nazimuddin Samad was hacked and shot to death by men on a busy street in Dhaka. Samad reportedly had been named on a "hit list" of bloggers sent to the Bangladesh Interior Ministry by a group of radical Islamists in 2013.

As the Two-Way has reported, "last year, at least four secular bloggers were hacked to death in Bangladesh and a publisher who worked with one of those bloggers was stabbed to death."



“She notes that the latest attacks might signal a shift: "It appears that the assailants may be expanding their range of targets. Previously, the grisly attacks have focused on atheists and bloggers critical of Islamic fundamentalism. "Earlier this month, an atheist law student named Nazimuddin Samad was hacked and shot to death by men on a busy street in Dhaka. Samad reportedly had been named on a "hit list" of bloggers sent to the Bangladesh Interior Ministry by a group of radical Islamists in 2013.”


We humans simply are not as intelligent as we think we are, nor as “moral.” There is no hysterical fundamentalist religious belief that does anything at all to improve us, and it’s very likely to make us worse. From what I read of what Jesus himself said, he was a thinker and an empathetic philosopher. Why can’t those who follow him emulate his behavior? I know these people are Islamic, but they claim a religion of peace as well. When any religion totally takes over a whole society they become nothing but despots, no matter what creed they claim.

One of the things that impressed me about European history, from my Modern Civilization course, was the fact that, first the Catholics killed many members of the numerous non-conformist Protestant offshoot religions in England and, of course, the practitioners of Judaism just as a matter of principle (for old times sake). Then in a hundred years or so the Protestants killed the Catholics with equal ferocity during Oliver Cromwell's rebellion. Finally when Elizabeth took over the throne, Protestantism was made illegal and our Pilgrims began to migrate to America. Both religious groups practiced the wonderfully entertaining spectacle of “witch burnings.” If you don’t have a basically good heart, which is an emotional instinct and not a philosophy, you are going to be potentially dangerous. As you can tell, I’m not really “religious” in the old traditional way. I believe only what I can see evidenced by daily life, history or science. Luckily I did grow up with some love in our home and a large amount of inborn compassion. Besides, I do see human decency existing alongside these appalling stories in all manner of ethnic/religious groups, so I’m not entirely cynical. I just hope fervently for improvement on earth.