Thursday, August 25, 2022

Abortion Access by Class

The recent Supreme Court ruling enshrines into law what has already been the reality in many states, which have used restrictive laws to restrict access to women's reproductive services.  

Women with the time and the resources will continue to be able to simply decamp to a state which more fully respects women's privacy and autonomy, receive an abortion, then return home.  

Women who don't enjoy the time and monetary resources to either go elsewhere, or to endure the intentionally difficult obstacles set up in her home state, were forced to bring their unplanned pregnancies to term.  

It's not a party-line issue, but in effect it is a socio-economic class issue.  We need lawmakers who will level the playing field for American women, regardless of state of residence.  

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Cult Response to Threats

When a scandal comes to light that implicates somebody we admire, there is a tendency to resist believing it at first.  But as the evidence accumulates, and the window of plausible deniability closes, we cease that resistance, and our esteem for the one we admire is diminished.  

Within a cult, it's different.  The attachment to the leader is not mere admiration so much as it is adoration, or even identification.  Any implication of wrongdoing by the cult leader is perceived as a direct personal attack against us.  As more evidence accumulatesrather than causing followers to separate themselves from the leaderthe cult tends to cleave more closely; the more credible, and the greater the accumulation of evidence, the more tightly the followers cling to the leader, and lash out at the accusers.  The siege mentality they share can result in unpredictable, desperate behaviors.  

This identification with the leader makes deprogramming difficult under the best of circumstances - much more so if the member can't be isolated from the influence of the cult.  This is made even more difficult when the cult controls a vast communication infrastructure.  In some nations, (e.g. China, Putin's Russia, Victor Orban's Hungary), the ruling party simply doesn't allow contradictory information to be broadcast.  In other cases, the cult is simply trained to pay attention only to approved communication, by portraying all outside sources as 'fake news', or otherwise not credible.  Unless this obstacle is overcome, there is little hope of breaking the hold of the cult on its members.