The power of referenda on rapist rights and forced-birth; and a May hiatus for Public Enemy Number 1.
I'm taking a month to develop better eating and exercise habits; but I'm leaving you with this strategy for combatting rapist rights and forced birth and some thoughts for my return in June.
It shall be legal for a woman to medically (via pill, etc.) or surgically terminate her pregnancy in all cases of rape, incest, threat to mother’s health, and during the first XX weeks of pregnancy. [Experts can pick the weeks.]
It would take 60 percent of the vote to add this to Florida’s Constitution.
That constitutional amendment would stand a reasonable chance of becoming law tomorrow. It would definitely top 50 percent and make Florida power start openly defending rapist rights and forced birth in public, stripped from the protection of party label and interest.
I don’t know the rules for all these other states with referendum provisions …
But if I were made monarch of the anti-forced birth, anti-rapist rights community, I would be turning every rally or protest into a signature collection and mobilization exercise for referenda in each of these states as soon as possible.
When I talk about a new “50-year war” that rapist rights and forced birth advocates will not enjoy, I see these referenda as its smartest first battlefields. A simultaneous 24-state offensive is the best way to turn anger into offense and moral aggression against the people invading American women’s bodies so ruthlessly.
It is the perfect mash-up of righteous street protest and high-road, idealistic American self-government.
Go on offense; expect violence and murder from forced birth terrorists
Make no mistake: these simultaneous referenda, if they happen, will become literal battlefields of violence for one side.
The forced birth movement is fundamentally coercive, violent, and murderous — as its longstanding record shows. That constant menace is fundamental to its policy and legal success despite its vast unpopularity. See full rundown here. Highlights from wikipedia below:
This Roe “leak” was almost certainly a right wing leak designed to lock-in in any wavering votes for Alito’s opinion. But forced birth radicals are already inciting people against Justice Sotomayor and her staff. (To be clear, I don’t care who leaked it. The Supreme Court has far too much unchecked power; everything should be leaked by everybody.]
Forced birth groups will react with rage to mass referenda. They will not surrender their violent control over a woman’s body without violence.
They will attack and harass and murder referendum signature collectors the same way they did doctors who help women terminate pregnancies. Capitol Lynch Mob/MAGA types will attack signature collectors the same way they did the very idea of representative government. They have to; menace and threat is all they have. If they don’t terrorize mobilized signature drives, they’ll lose.
Everybody should understand this. Understanding that, I fully commit to joining any signature collecting effort for any anti forced-birth, anti-rapist rights referendum in Florida.
Violent forced birth attacks on signature gatherers will place state power — especially in pro forced-birth, pro-Capitol Lynch Mob government states like Florida — in interesting positions. Side with their political allies, who are also violent terrorists; or side with the young activists trying to use the democratic process just like the Supreme Court urged them to.
For instance, would Polk Sheriff Grady Judd protect signature gatherers in Florida from the violence of the Pollock family and its supporters? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Maintain moral aggression; don’t be afraid to lose
A massive non-violent, multi-state referenda offensive shows what it means to flip the insurgency dynamic of forced birth and rapist rights.
And this new effort will provide the closest physical dynamic to the Civil Rights Movement we’ve had since the Civil Rights movement. But with a big difference.
The anti-rapist rights, anti-forced birth community is vastly more powerful than civil rights leaders ever were. And forced birth and rapist rights are vastly less popular than Jim Crow laws were — and probably are still in some places.
Normal people generally — but not entirely — oppose forced birth for other people. Normal people oppose it at much greater levels for themselves, their kids, their wives, and their mothers.
And normal people absolutely oppose rapist procreation rights. And normal people absolutely oppose violent mobs that maim lawful citizens trying to repeal forced birth and rapist right through the democratic process — just like the Supreme Court directed them to.
Forced birth violence against the referenda will supercharge them.
Even so, normal people are unlikely to win all these state referenda efforts. Many state corrupt state courts and legislatures will struggle mightily — and successfully — to prevent democratic votes at all. So what? It’s a mobilization exercise. It would put rapist rights and forced birth advocates on defense like nothing else in my lifetime and launch the 50-year war (which could be a lot shorter) that I recently wrote about.
Unlike the rapist rights/forced birth community, we normal people don’t need to murder and torment and intimidate vulnerable people to win. We don’t need violence at all — just persistence and moral clarity.
Legally, the state of Florida now values a rapist’s right to procreate far more than it values whether the woman or girl he raped and impregnated survives her pregnancy. I want to see people answer for that in public, repeatedly.
That’s what these referenda can do — turn marches into political offensives in the pursuit of just power.
If they want to deny a woman’s right to survive and control her pregnancy forever — to continue empowering rapist pro-creation forever — Kelli and John Stargel can never afford to lose. We can. We really only need to win once in any given state.
Women who have had abortions are crucial to a very unpleasant, non-violent insurgency.
Insurgencies make life unpleasant to create change and shift power. That is their point. The forced-birth, rapist rights insurgency used violence and menace to create American “unpleasantness” that drove change.
The millions of women — including millions of Republican women — who have terminated pregnancies are critical to making this non-violent counter-insurgency unpleasant at an intimate level for as many people as possible.
Now that religious and power fanatics have shattered Roe’s tenuous peace, we need a lot more of these conversations among friends and acquaintances:
“I believe life begins at conception. I’m very moral and religious.”
“Well, I terminated my pregnancy. So I guess you consider me a pre-meditated child murderer who should be executed. Is that right?”
“Ummm, well …”
Nothing will make this non-violent insurgency more unpleasant for forced birth advocates than destroying the abortion closet and making them face the flesh and blood consequence of their fake beliefs.
Referenda provide a massive platform smashing the abortion closet.
It’s a highly personal, intimate decision to talk about ending a pregnancy. I would never pressure anyone into it, just like I would never out anyone.
But everyone knows a woman who has terminated a pregnancy. I promise you. Are they all pre-meditated child murderers, forced birthers? Here’s a few murderers we’ve met just since the leak:
Here’s hoping we meet many many more of them during referenda.
*You* destroyed a bad peace, forced birthers; and *you* made *yourselves* a rickety fortress to siege forever
Generations of terrorism and vicious harassment from the forced birth, rapist rights community should have taught the rest of us a crucial lesson: sustained aggression, couched in moral reasoning, is powerful in overcoming static defenses.
Today, brittle, unelected, death-dealing judicial cruelty to women has made itself the rickety fortress that must defend itself against a forever siege.
Nothing changes, at all, if the Alito leak fails and a justice chickens out — except that toxic forced birth/MAGA base stays home in ‘22 with a massive pout. But this isn’t about any specific election. It’s about unrelenting moral pressure and aggression and clarity of language, sustained over a long time.
The anti-rapist rights, anti-forced birth community should, in perpetuity, put that pregnancy-ending amendment on the ballot in Florida every two years until it’s law. Let’s have an official, public, state fight about rapist rights and forced birth — not Republicans versus Democrats — every two years.
The anti-rapist rights, anti-forced birth activist world has plenty of money. While Roe was under siege, that advocacy machinery lacked for offensive targets. No longer. There is no excuse to avoid moral aggression now. If Emily’s List doesn’t push mass mobilization to take power where it’s takeable — in referenda — it only exists for the sake of its highly paid leaders, like much of the Democrat-aligned “advocacy” community does.
And if you think the DeSantis Party is really up for this fight — over time — check out the distinct lack of celebration and the extreme whining about leaks in its supposed moment of triumph. Believe me, if I ever get everything I say I want, I will talk trash about it, not boo hoo hoo all day about it like Christina Pushaw.
They know they’ve destroyed a very unsatisfactory peace with no plan for winning the war to come. Counterattack them.
Taking a break. See you after Memorial Day
I tend to write in the early morning, which means I exercise when I can, right after work. So I want to try a new routine — exercise in the morning and then cook better meals in the evening.
And I have number of personal duties to attend to in coming weeks. All in all, May makes for a good month to take a break and clear the head and develop a better routine.
My only planned exception is if something big breaks in the DoE/Jefferson scandal, which has not remotely exhausted its capacity for scandal or damage to DeSantis and Manny Diaz, depending on how willing investigators are to do their jobs. They seem not very willing. I say that as an official complainant in the investigation.
I sent a clarifying note recently, asking: Can you confirm if your "all of the above" investigation of my complaint has concluded?
I’ll let you know if I get an answer.
Here are some other thoughts I’ll start to explore more deeply in June.
DeSantis makes all individual Republican legislators irrelevant — especially Polk’s
There are no consequential Republican legislators — including leadership — because they have all surrendered any individual human agency to DeSantis.
For instance, from Kelli Stargel to Colleen Burton to Ben Albritton to Sam Killebrew to Josie Tomkow, every single Polk GOP legislator voted the rooftop solar industry destruction bill.
And then they just took DeSantis’ woke veto silently like the shrugging automatons they are.
DeSantis bent the knee to libs and public pressure to “Own the Cons.” And Polk’s elected state clerks just said: “Nevermind. It’s fine. We’re just the clerks. Whatever the boss wants.”
That cracks me up.
Net metering and a number of other bills show how the Republican Party has allowed DeSantis to destroy it as a thing with any individual members except Jeff Brandes. And curiously, that has significantly empowered a handful of individual Democrats who know how to use public opinion and DeSantis’ loyalty to himself despite their party’s abject weakness. We’ll talk about them in June.
Like all aspiring dictators, DeSantis cares about public opinion. And he’s quite sensitive to pressure — on issues he’s not looking to fundraise on for his ‘24 Trump challenge. And you know you’ve beaten him when he does what you want him to do quietly. His big mouth is the number 1 indicator or where he wants to fight you. Listen to his silences instead, if you care about thwarting DeSantis-ism.
All that makes it a complete waste of time to talk to your local Republican legislator about any policy. They’re just useless just corporate clerks subject to DeSantis’ approval with no human will of their own. The Republican Legislative branch doesn’t exist as a thing to engage.
Communicate directly with DeSantis and the executive branch instead.
Why is the new super voucher serving fewer kids with disabilities at much greater cost to the taxpayer?
I still don’t have decent answers to what I raised in this story. I’ll dive into it again over the summer. But all indications suggest the new grifter super voucher is a disaster for special needs kids and parents formerly served by the Gardiner and McKay scholarships
Why rape exceptions require giving women Roe-style control over their bodies
“I was raped. I need to terminate my pregnancy.”
“Prove it.”
“Call my rapist, he’ll tell you.”
“He says it was consensual. Sorry, forced birth for you.”
“He’s lying.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t know how to prove it.”
“Ok, let me call Grady Judd’s legitimate rape uterus inspection team.”
“I don’t want Grady Judd’s legitimate rape uterus inspection team poking at my uterus to determine if I was legitimately raped.”
“Sorry. Forced birth for you.”
As you can see, without general pregnancy termination rights, no “rape exception” will actually exist. I’m sure that’s why the wider forced birth movement has embraced rapist and incest dad rights. They’re hopelessly entangled.
Any meaningful rape exception requires benefit of the doubt for the woman raped, which becomes a de facto broader pregnancy termination right. It’s also why it’s smart to start with rape exceptions morally and mechanically. We’ll get a lot of these brutal stories brought to the fore:
See you in June.