Today’s report (2/22/12) in the Washington Post indicates that the mandatory invasive procedure may well be scaled back to voluntary – 1000 pairs of eyes staring at legislator’s as the entered the Virginia State House may have made all the difference, see the WaPo story.
Photo courtesy of the Rachel Maddow Blog
Apparently, Virginia has passed laws making chanting or carrying signs illegal on the grounds of its capitol building. How constitutional is that one wonders. The organizers of yesterday’s February 20, 2012 protest drew inspiration from Occupy UC’s silent protest of their chancellor. Their occupy-inspired silent protest drew Virginians to stand silently for hours. Enough Virginians, mostly women, but some children and men attended to completely ring their capitol building, and stare silently at the Virginia legislators who were supposedly going to vote that medically unnecessary probes would be inserted into women seeking abortions – See Lynne Lupien’s post from a few days ago: http://bluemassgroup.com/2012/02/hey-virginia-state-house-stick-it-up-your-own/
The vote did not happen yesterday – and of course, that silent cordon cannot be there every day. The only way we will reclaim democracy, in this state, in the USA, or anywhere else including Virginia is to stand up and fight back – and if that means being the first person to say “The Emperor has no clothes” despite a public rush towards a popular injustice like the state-sanctioned rape by wand in Virginia, or a hyped up, immoral war based on lies like Iraq or the current bogus run up on Iran, so be it . My shoes are made for marching – how about yours?
Links to the MSN blog post by Maddow and also the facebook page used to organize the protest are here: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/20/10459213-silent-protest-outside-virginia-house-puts-off-ultrasound-vote
Is a real thing. That ought not be subject to such casual analogizing.
Ordinarily, I’d let this one slide. After all, you are actually talking about the 100% mandated penetration of a woman’s vagina for very medically questionable reasons. That’s pretty darn close to “rape.”
But, amberpaw, this is all part of a rather unsettling pattern of yours.
On BMG alone you have you’ve called the casino bill a “rape of the poor.” At least a couple of times. You’ve called Wall Street “the robbers who raped our economy.” And you directly compared Judge McIntyre’s decision to vacate the TRO protecting the Occupy protests to the “blame the victim” methodology of all too many cross-examinations of rape victims. And that’s just what was easy to find in a quick search.
Please, please, stop. Your usually strong & persuasive writing is much weaker when you resort to using “rape” as a synonym for the very really wrongs you seek to expose/criticize. And you insult and marginalize the survivors of true rape in the process.
MSNBC (I forget which show – they all blend together) reported that there are rules against encampments a la Occupy, but signs and chants are fine.
Yeah, this one comes pretty close to rape. One could argue that its like being searched at the airport. (You don’t have to consent and thus technically voluntary, but you don’t have to board the plane/get an abortion either.) The only motive for this law has to be to deter abortions; if the ultrasound for informed consent were the real issue then what would be wrong with the less invasive rub-the-stomach form of ultrasound?