From: Harold Bronson

Subject: Prostests Plus

You are so right about protests not working. And, the taxpayer expense and inconvenience to deal with them.

Otherwise, if you didn’t see Jordan Klepper interviewing Trumpers in Mississippi three days ago on

The Daily Show, you will not be surprised, but astonished.

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

What SCOTUS did was catastrophic for women everywhere.

I was 18 and a senior in high school and seeing someone 7 years my senior. He believed in the ‘pull out’ method for birth control.  Of course I got pregnant and wound up having a back room abortion -as Roe was not decided- which was a NIGHTMARE. Fast forward 10 years and I had already had 2 children. I was excited to have a 3rd but my ob/gyn strongly recommended termination as the baby would have a myriad of birth defects. After much discussion with my husband and Dr, we chose to terminate. It was done in the hospital and was an entirely different experience. It was a difficult decision to make but I do not regret either to this day.

It’s so interesting that men have been trying to control women’s right to choose and in 2022, after 50 years of women being free to choose, we are going backwards.  Beyond disturbing.  Time for women to take back our country and Get Out To Vote… power is in the polling booth.

SL

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Re: Keffals

THANK YOU, Bob, for alerting me to Kefals. I’m glad she’s out there fighting and educating. If only we had a progressive political party in this sad country that was listening to her and moving us forward to a better world. If only.

Thanks again,

David Hutchison

70 year old geezer and the father of a trans woman and a cis son, both in their 30s

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Protests Don’t Work

Bob-
Correct protests don’t work, but money does.  So we are going to have to be surgical and precise.  We should start with Texas first-Austin City Limits and South by Southwest should pull out.  Sponsors of these events should be boycotted until they agree to pull sponsorship and participation in any events taking place in Texas.  All those Teslas-every woman should stop driving a Tesla and cancel any orders until Musk relocates and moves corporate offices from Texas.  Sports-same thing. Stadiums in Texas include AT&T, Minute Maid, Dr Pepper Ballpark-you get the drift I am sure that there are more-demand they pull out.  Current sponsors of ACL include Honda, Uber, Hulu, Tito’s Vodka, Miller Lite, Bulleit.  Pressure them to pull out.  When we, the 80% of the people who believe that a woman’s right to choose is a guaranteed right, show the state of Texas that there will be financial impact from its actions they will recalibrate.  And it will be a warning to the other states.  Let’s go-state by state.  There are 25 states that are harming women. Time to get active.  Money talks and is likely our own leverage and pressure point.  This is war.

Alix Gucovsky

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Re: Protests marches don’t work

Bob:

Exactly.

Street demonstrations have little effect today than in the past marches of the first Civil Rights Era (Generation SCLC & MLK) and the Anti War heyday of Abbie Hoffman-Jerry Rubin (Generation Chicago 7).

In his 1993 essay collection The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance,  Richard Schechner has an essay entitled “The Street as the Stage.” The Street was the location or communal “stage” for presenting social outrage and advocating for social change. That was where, as they said, The Whole World was Watching. It might still galvanize some people, but it’s now more about the “experience” (I went down to the demonstration…and all I got was a T-shirt) than rendering real social change.

But those days are gone forever.  As a performance theorist steeped in the “Theater of the Oppressed” and Brecht, Schechner would no doubt now understand that the “screen is the stage” and will remain so. If performance is to be effective as a political tool it has to be where the people are: online.

Brecht on TikTok: now we’re talking about a revolution!

BTW, man, we’d be hard pressed to find many who remember what the “Theatre of the Oppressed” means or knows Brecht, who famously said, “He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.”

robert vellani
burlington, nc

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Re: The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

I am writing to you as an upper-middle class woman who works a white collar job in a red state. After the opinion came out, my California-based employer sent out a company-wide email to reassure us that our health insurance will continue to cover family planning and abortion care. The company also expanded our travel budgets to reimburse employees who go out of state for medical care. While I’m glad my company took action, I can’t help but feel ashamed, guilty and sad as I grapple with my own privilege…

If I’m being honest with myself, this Supreme Court decision will not really impact me. I have the money and the resources to go to a blue state if I ever had to. While it would be inconvenient and frankly, stupid, to have to travel for abortion care, I will undoubtedly still have access to it.

My heart breaks for the poor and vulnerable girls and women who have been stripped of their bodily autonomy. All day, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about a memory that I’ve worked very hard to repress. While I was still in graduate school, I volunteered at the local child advocates center in a suburban county in Texas. We worked with lawyers and social workers to help abused kids make it through the justice system. All day, I’ve been thinking of one particular case… I sat in on an interview of an 11 year old girl who had been serially raped by her grandfather. The abuse started when she was a literal baby. This man’s atrocious acts were finally reported to the police after the girl told her 5th grade teacher she thought she might be pregnant. She was. And thank god she had access to abortion care. Poor children like this all over the country will now have no options but to subject themselves, and a whole future generation, to a lifetime of trauma. This is only one of many similar cases I witnessed that summer.

I am devastated and heartbroken for the suffering this will inflict on the most vulnerable girls and women in our society. Lives will be literally conceived from unimaginable trauma; but I guess the cruelty is the point with the Republican Party. I wish I knew what to do to, but I’m at a loss, too.

Best,

Farrah

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Re: The Supreme Court Decision

Bob,

Strong change comes with strong action. When the other side feels the fear – of poverty, of their children dying, of being impotent (yes in that way too ) in the face of power – when their lives are impacted in a real way, we will make progress. What is ‘our’ power? The power of numbers. And our positions, which provide comfort and a thick bubble of protection for their lives.

It’s time to get personal with those change makers, and change their too comfortable lives. It’s also time for us to expose their hypocrisy, to laugh at their God complexes and superiority, such as for their own daughters and sons to own their abortions as happened with gay rights. Dick Chaney changed the temperature.

But It’s time for more, for those individuals to feel the heat of righteous anger. I say those individuals because it is a tiny tiny minority exerting their power and ideology on vast numbers of people that are faceless to them and rarely pierce their bubble. Really how dare they? They dare because they have been kept unaccountable and protected from discomfort all their lives. Time for everyone who provides the cushion to remove themselves. Time for more people in restaurants to refuse serving them and tell them why. Time for teachers at Episcopal school in DC to refuse to teach their children or provide after care. Time for pharmacist staff to somehow get confused and lose their scrip. Time for drivers to take the long way round or refuse to drive them. Time for us to refuse to clean their homes, and nanny their children, and provide that thick bubble that takes away the friction of the world. They can roll up their windows and drive past protesters, heck even tear gas them, and nothing happens. It’s time to turn up the heat on their lives and make no haven where they feel unseen by the majority, no safe haven. Make them paranoid. I’m not advocating violence, but removing all support and comfort.  They have corrupted their position and no longer deserve the respect of that position and their anonymity. It’s clear that honor and oaths to country and to people are meaningless to those few. That’s a two way street of disrespect. Who is there for the right reason, to serve? Who has the heart for another? We can all discern who they are.

Striking is the only way for the masses to be seen and heard on a personal level and en masse. Women have to run and hide to have control over their own bodies. Let them feel seen in that way. And judged.

You cried along with all of us whom are older because we know our babies and what is left behind when we die are much worse and we are ashamed. Like Brene Brown says though,  shame only makes us cower  Time to move forward with righteous anger because when our babies are dying – and more will now – women stand up finally and don’t take it anymore. That time is here.

Johanna Santer

PS if your readers are afraid of getting on some list just for saying words or protesting legally on public property,  it’s already gone too far and we’re living in a police state. Take note of history and the parallels.

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Re: The Supreme Court Decision

Let’s not forget that bush didn’t win, he was APPOINTED by the sc, and that was decades ago.

The liars in there now will do same when a repub needs them to overcome a defeat.

That is, if there even is a defeat after all the gerrymamdering/voting barriers are erected.

You are absolutely right, Bob, the spineless dems aren’t gonna change anything, our only hope is through the big corporations.

Never thought I would say that but it’s true, they fund the candidates on both sides so BOYCOTTS and STIKES are the path forward.

As the saying goes, money swears and once the earnings calls get ugly the CEO’s/boards will have no choice but to fight for democracy and pressure real change.

A hail mary, yes, but nothing else will stop our destruction.

Make a list of corporate targets and sign me up.

DG

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

Reading through these letters, and as you said, the only thing that talks these days is money. I found https://progressiveshopper.com/ today, and I’ll be using it to make sure I support companies that support my rights. I’m pulling back non-essential spending from companies that aren’t progressive. I’ll also be looking to support local, women-owned small businesses that are pro-choice. If money is power, and women need more power, maybe these small efforts will help if enough people do it.

Good wishes,

Stephanie

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Hi Bob,

Reading these responses, it is crystal clear that the “solution” will not come from the political arena.  And the rallying cry around nationwide strikes and boycotts, is heartening but naive.  We will never achieve a critical mass of economic hardship in a meaningful period of time.

The solution rests squarely with corporate America.  Step 1:  CEO’s declare that they are creating pathways for employees to circumnavigate abortion restrictions, either by offering transportation assistance or providing relocation services.  This is already happening at an accelerating pace.  Step 2:  CEO’s withdraw any and all revenue-generating activities from States that ban abortions.  And the ultimate, long-term Step 3:  CEO’s relocate company headquarters if they are situated in those States.  The World Cup and Olympic Organizing Committees, as well as commissioners from the major sports league could also play a huge role here.  As with most things, it often boils down to the almighty dollar.

Scott Kauffman

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

So happy to hear your readers and not down for this shit.

I have another idea:  have a general military strike.  Let’s ask young people to not enlist in the military or not show up for military employment they may have.  That’ll end all this bullshit pretty quickly and will be a real kick in the nuts to these GOP psychos.

Sara Joseph

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

Bob….

So, if a woman is raped in New York City, she can not legally get an abortion, BUT she can legally carry a gun and shoot her rapist?  Seeking clarification.  What happened to “My Body My Choice”?  That manta all these nitwits were crying about for two years.  Oh, yeah…doesn’t apply to masks and vaccines for the benefit of the masses.

Welcome to America.  Don’t tread on me, right?

Kevin Andrusia

Orlando, FL

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Re: Protests Don’t Work

I feel much the same when I get emails asking that I sign a petition. Petitions! Even in the pre-Internet age they had no effect!

Do polls matter? Politicians and parties poll all the time. But surveys of the public? Nobody ever said it better than Sir Humphrey: https://youtu.be/6GSKwf4AIlI

David Basskin

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Re: Re-The Supreme Court Decision

As the commentator on German TV clearly pointed it out.

The SCOTUS and the ruling is the new TALIBAN.

..and he is correct (unfortunately).

Manfred Phemister

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Re: Protests Don’t Work

if every sex worker in America went on national strike, these so-called Christian Conservatives would change their tune within a heart beat (pun intended)

Frank Polacco

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In 1975, women of Iceland went on strike for equal rights. 90% of women walked off their jobs & homes, shutting down the entire country. The men could barely cope. Five years later, Iceland elected first female President. Now Iceland has the highest gender equality in the world.

@mhdksafa

Wikipedia: 1975 Icelandic women’s strike: https://bit.ly/3P2RihB

via Jake Gold