Murderous Masturbating Men!

A few days ago, I tweeted this:

#SNL has an awesome #Election2020 bumper sticker for #Republicans who are opposed to #abortion:
"Life begins at erection"
🤣🤣🤣
And, oh my, Cecily Strong as Susan Collins is phenomenal!https://t.co/wcmGyelQGi#tRump #ShootsOn5thAvenueAllTheTime

— Am.Dr.Khe (@congoboy) May 12, 2019

It kept nagging me that I have seen "life begins at erection" before.  But, simply could not track that down.

Today, I did.

I found that at my own blog! 

A post that is almost seven years old included this cartoon:

We men have it easy.  A few minutes of pleasure, and we move on. 

Now, should one of the sperms crack through the egg, then it is the women who has to deal with a fetus inside her for 280 days.  And then give birth.  And then feed and clean and ...

Yet, as The Guardian put it:

Source

CNN compares Alabama's move with the rest of the world, and I find this that shocked me:

Countries with more liberal laws include Finland, India and Japan, where provisions for abortion are made not only in cases of rape or risk to the woman's health, but also on socioeconomic grounds.

India? Do mOdi and his toadies know about this?

Commentators are educating us about what happened in Romania, when the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu completely banned abortion and contraception.

Prior to 1966, Romania had one of the most liberal abortion policies in the world. But, desperate for population growth, Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, essentially nationalizing Romanian women’s wombs. Both abortion and contraception were criminalized for all women age 45 and under who had not borne at least four children (later increased to five). The only exceptions were for rape and incest, high-risk pregnancies, and cases in which the fetus could contract a hereditary disease from either parent. The law was strictly enforced. The Romanian secret police, the Securitate, registered suspected pregnancies and kept tabs on women until the birth of the child. It was the kind of natalist authoritarianism that US "pro-life" advocates have long dreamed of.

The sharia comes to Alabama. And to Georgia, to Missouri, to ... Orgasmic times for a good chunk of the 63 million!

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose

The years since 9/11 have been of government watching us in many ways.  The same years have also provided us with phenomenal digital technological wonders that also keep watching many, many things we do and think.  A typical young person today has grown up in this environment of being watched practically all the time and, by and large, they seem to be ok with it.  It does not seem to trouble them.

These trends bother me.  They worry me.

Even the nearly two years of experiencing life under Indira Gandhi's "emergency" was enough for me to understand the value and importance of freedom.  A freedom in which we do not have to think about freedom itself.

It is this freedom, and the near total lack of it, that Herta Muller writes about in a haunting and surreal poetic prose that is as much a "witness literature" as is Svetlana Alexievich's.  I jumped to Muller's book out of sheer logistics--Alexievich's Secondhand Time is hardcover, whereas Muller's The Land of Green Plums is easy to carry paperback, which was convenient for the travel.  The writing styles are different, the locales are different, but both are about humans and their lives in repressive regimes.

Muller's Nobel Prize speech is a wonderful bonus in the book.  I read that even before I got to the book.  A few pages into the book, I wondered whether the speech ought to have been a prologue of sorts, so that readers like me would have been mentally primed for the haunting tale that Muller tells.

Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu and his totalitarian state is the setting in which Muller weaves her surreal images.  In an interview two years ago, Muller said that she didn't quite buy into the notion that the Romanians didn't have organized resistance "because they were more tightly controlled, the country is small and more easily monitored":

But I always wondered about this. You had this magnificent language, and then there was this combination of utter cluelessness—as a kind of default predisposition, a preemptive stance—and brutality. But it’s precisely this cluelessness, this utter lack of interest in political affairs, that’s the problem. Because people who aren’t interested aren’t prepared for hard times, they’re quick to give in, quick to conform, and then they’re quick to act brutally against others so as not to put themselves in jeopardy. 

The cluelessness, the utter lack of interest in political affairs, in this country--especially among the young--deeply worries me.  Particularly because throughout this twenty-first century, various processes have made conforming to be the easier route.

Even if we want to dismiss the worries that I have, the life that she describes in the fictional work will come across as not that different from the ongoing Syrian crisis, for instance.  Muller writes:

Everyone lived by thinking about flight.  They thought of swimming across the Danube until the water becomes another country. Of running after the corn until the soil becomes another country.  You could see it in their eyes: Soon they will spend every penny they have on detailed maps.  They hope for fog in the field and fog on the river for days on end so they can avoid the bullets and the guard-dogs, so they can run away, swim away. ... You could see it on their lips: Soon they will whisper to a stationmaster in exchange for every penny they have.  They will climb into freight trains so they can roll away.

Practically a line-by-line description of those fleeing Syria, right?  And she adds:

The only ones who didn't want to flee were the dictator and his guards. You could see it in their hands, eyes, lips. ... You could feel the dictator and his guards hovering over all the secret escape plans, you could feel them lurking and doling out fear.

Freedom is a very recent concept and it is quite a struggle to make sure we don't lose it.  My worry is that there are far more people eager to curtail freedom than there are to fight for it.  The cluelessness, the utter lack of interest in political affairs, in this country, in an era of increasing technological surveillance and ready-to-conform behavior worries me that America, too, might end up with a fascist in power.    

US' standing in the world. What, me worry?

It was a pleasant and sunny midday in Quito, Ecuador, when I was waiting for the pedestrian light at the traffic intersection on my way to the basilica.  I nearly jumped when I heard “are you from India or Pakistan?

“India” I replied, and added for a good measure, “but I live in America now.” 

The guy laughed and said that Ecuadorians are Americans too, and rather sarcastically suggested that I was referring to Estados Unidos.

Our conversation continued even as we started walking after the light turned green.  He identified himself as Mario and that his mother was from Ecuador while his father was Brazilian.  I ditched any tour-book’s advice to be cautious with strangers and instead took up on his offer to walk to interesting sights away from the main touristy areas.

As we walked, Mario turned out to be the stereotypical college-educated left-sympathizing middle-aged person who was very well-informed about the world.

Mario’s commentaries became even more animated when I asked him about Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in comparison with the Brazilian version of left-leaning politics.  Mario promptly dismissed my question and the underlying interpretation of Chavez’s politics: “you are repeating the US media and commentators who have never even set foot in Venezuela.”

Mario recognized the economic, military, and cultural hegemony that the US has in the contemporary world, but made no attempt whatsoever to hide his very dramatic love-hate feeling towards the US. 

The following day, I went with a tour group to Cotopaxi, which is one of the highest volcanoes in the world.  The drive took us from Quito’s elevation of 2,850 meters (about 9,300 feet) to the base at about 4,500 meters (nearly 15,000 feet) while the summit itself peaks at about 5,900 meters.

My three fellow travelers were from Poland, Romania, and Germany.  Triggered all the more by the feedback from Mario, I asked these three also questions that drew them to comment about the US.  Caesar, from Romania, was the most vocal of the three.  And, like Mario, with strong convictions.

“It is not a country, but an empire” emphasized Caesar.  “I am all pro-USA, but even until today cannot support what the US did in Bosnia” he added.  Through their polite quietness, the other two made it clear that they didn’t want to get into a controversial topic.

But Caesar was more interested to offer at considerable length his critique of the economic recovery efforts led by the US government and the Fed, even at the risk of completely losing the companions from Germany and Poland.

“The US is inflating the rest of the world’s economies because it is printing money without control. It is all because Nixon abandoned the gold standard” was Caesar’s thesis that he elaborated at lunch when we stopped at a restaurant located in an old hacienda.

Of course, conversation was easy because the three were fluent in English, and more.  The German and the Romanian were fluent in Spanish as well. Caesar said he was at home in Dutch and French, and was now beginning his lessons in Chinese.  I perhaps represented the stereotypical character from the US who is barely conversant even in the English language!

In a strange way, through their harsh criticisms, Mario and Caesar presented me with a comforting thought—these people talk about the US so much because the country continues to play an influential role in the world.  Even though they were fully aware of my roots in India, they could not be bothered to say anything other than their fondness for Indian food and yoga.  Caesar did comment at one point that he hoped to travel to China and India sometime soon because they could be superpowers in a few decades.  But, otherwise, with an occasional nod to the German economy, it was the US that captured their focus.

Despite the struggle to get out of the Great Recession, the continuing high unemployment, and other economic  issues, the US continues to command worldwide attention.  Perhaps we need to really worry about our global standing the day when the Marios and Caesars stop caring about whatever the US does.  I hope that day never comes.

Oh, by the way, I never did go to the basilica!

In trouble in France ... after all the way from India

France, which loves to advice the rest of the world on anything and everything is deporting quite a few Roma:

"That's France for you," said one middle-aged woman, sitting dejectedly in pink flip-flops at the rue de Lyon squat. She, like all other Roma to whom the Guardian spoke, was unwilling to be identified. Intense media interest since the start of Nicolas Sarkozy's crackdown on crime and illegal immigration last month has made them uneasy in front of the cameras.

So, what happened?

In July, dozens of French Roma armed with hatchets and iron bars attacked a police station, hacked down trees and burned cars in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan.
The riot erupted after a gendarme shot and killed a French Roma, 22-year-old Luigi Duquenet, who officials said had driven through a police checkpoint, knocking over a policeman. Media reports suggested he had been involved in a burglary earlier that day.
Duquenet's family dispute the police version of events, saying he was scared of being stopped because he did not have a valid driver's licence.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called an emergency ministerial meeting, at which it was decided that some 300 illegal camps and squats would be dismantled within the coming three months.

Sakozy, who showed how brutally dogmatic he can be when it comes to dealing with minorities--remember how he dealt with the Algerian youth?--jumps into this harsh decision of deportation.  Romania, not that it has treated the Roma well within its own borders, cries xenophobia:

"We understand the position of the French government. At the same time, we support unconditionally the right of every Romanian citizen to travel without restrictions within the E.U.," Romanian President Traian Basescu said.

The rest of Europe is watching this closely:

The Council of Europe has expressed grave concerns at France's controversial deportation of Roma migrants.
“Recent developments in several European countries, most recently evictions of Roma camps in France and expulsions of Roma from France and Germany, are certainly not the right measures to improve the situation of this vulnerable minority. On the contrary, they are likely to lead to an increase in racist and xenophobic feelings in Europe,” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), declared on Friday.

Finally, why do the Roma wander anyway, right?

The Roma originated in India but left the subcontinent in the 11^th century, perhaps following Muslim invasions. From there, they crossed into the Byzantine Empire, and then up to southeastern Europe by about 1300. Generally speaking, xenophobia made it difficult for them to stop in any one place for very long, let alone establish permanent settlements. (Since it's thought that the Roma adhered to strict purity codes, they may also have been reluctant to mix with outsiders, making assimilation unwanted on both sides.) When the Roma arrived in Western Europe in the 15^th century, local populations worried they were part of an Ottoman invasion (because of their dark skin color) and the German Reichstag of Freiberg declared them outlaws. Barred from purchasing land or joining guilds, the Roma had no choice but to move about.

Another take on the Indian connection here.

But, the Roma have experienced worse things than Sarkozy.  Which is why I cheer when I read this:

many of the Romany families deported by France for outstaying their welcome were planning to head straight back.
“Of course we are thinking about going back,” 26-year-old Ionut Balasz told journalists as he arrived at the airport. “Life is better there than in Romania, even when you are illegal.”

Good luck to the Roma!