Women’s March Oakland, California January 21, 2017
I’m reporting a magnificent experience was had by the five I marched with. A huge throng of people. The numbers have been all over the map. I heard one estimate 86,000 people marched. Look the new administration has alarmed people. And yesterday evening when the Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer went off in the press room at the White House only made the circumstances people opposed to their policies that much more alarmed.
I know that huge majorities of citizens, bipartisan majorities support social security, affordable healthcare, Medicare and peace. We want good wages and benefits. We want to prevent Wall Street, gigantic corporations, pharma, military industrial complex etc… from making ordinary citizens lives worse.
Signs from Above
More tax breaks for the wealthiest, reduced support for social welfare programs, a more aggressive confrontational military posture, a constant haranguing of the press, breech in ethical norms, bullying and threatening businesses and individuals who don’t want to play ball with this administration. The circumstances could not be more dire. Governance requires a degree of expertise. People need to know something about the agencies they are managing. We do not live in a country where a spoils system has ever been normal.
Texas has taken a sledgehammer to women’s health care services. It has been systematic, ongoing, relentless and we now know that it isn’t working. Of any state in any nation with an advanced economy the prospects of a mother surviving while giving birth to their child is now the worst. In simple English certain kinds of people in Texas are ideologically and morally opposed to providing healthcare services to women because part of those services require help with family planning.
We now have public policy in Texas doing measurably more harm to half the population of the state. This makes no sense. A mother giving birth to her child ought to have the best chance of survival not the worst. To that end we need policy that works for our mothers.
The human condition is a lot of things. One thing for sure is that to assure our survival we need to address those actions that increase those chances. Healthcare, climate change, and a stable large middle class all enhance our odds of achieving these goals. We don’t have time to be making peoples lives worse.
I am sorry to say we have veered off, we are heading in a direction that is only going to make matters worse. We’ll all need our best natures to rise up and help steer our world back from this brink. Let’s all do it…
Gray Hat, Sunglasses, That’s the Author of this Blog
Dana Smith
