Savita, Halappanavar: Tens of thousands march to demand change in Irish abortion laws

Sativa: murdered by the state

by John Throne

I am Irish. I read of the murder of Savita in Galway with horror. She was murdered by the right wing Catholic hierarchy and their boot licking politicians. If it was not for the tens of thousands of Irish people who are marching in the streets and demanding a change in the laws I would be ashamed to be Irish.

Wendy wrote a very moving, educational and inspiring blog yesterday about shame and how it is used to intimidate and keep people, especially women, down. I cannot thank Wendy enough for writing it; for its content but also because it is obviously a very personal account of what it is like to be a woman and especially a revolutionary woman in this world.

It made me think of an event in my own life that had a profound effect on me and I'd like to share it with our readers.

Wendy talks about shame, the dirty controlling brutal shame.  I am weeping here as I remember a scene with my mother. I went to visit her in her farm house in rural Donegal, Ireland. She was near the end of her life. She was different that night. She looked at me in a different way and spoke to me in a different tone from ever before. When she started to speak to me I realized why. For the first time she told me about my grandmother, her mother, who was hired out to a rich farmer. This was common in this part of Ireland in those days as poor people had children to feed and the land was beautiful but not the most productive.  It was often referred to as the Hiring Fair System, a sort of indentured servitude.

My grandmother, little more than a child, was raped and made pregnant by this rich farmer who was much older than her.  To cover this up, she was then traded off to a man, my grandfather, who was also much older than her.  She was then raped again and again. Of course, these were not called rapes as by then the church, in this case a Protestant church, had approved the transaction.

After telling me this my mother said: "So you see the kind of people we are." She was so ashamed. I said: "Mother, your mother was a great woman. I wish I could have met her. It was those men and institutions in her life run by men, and upper class men, that were to blame for all she went through. You believe in sin, I do not, but in your terms they were the sinners, not your mother. She was a great women. I wish I could have known her."  My mother looked up at me relieved at my answer but the shame was still on her. And it was even the more terrible because she loved her mother with all she had and yet she was told that she should be ashamed of her. I have to say and I am sorry to say it here because I may offend somebody but I detest and hate with all my being  the male dominated religious institutions which control and rule by shame. And killed that poor Savita in Galway and kill millions of other women by their ways. 

I wrote a book about my grandmother. It is called The Donegal Woman. Without an agent or publisher it was number two in the best sellers list at home in Ireland. It would have been number one but we ran out of copies at the height of sales. I had many launches of the book in small towns and villages and some big cities in Ireland, England and the US. In Ireland the launches in the smaller towns and villages were mainly attended, usually around 80% or more, by older women. The book dealt in detail with the sexual oppression and economic oppression of women in rural Ireland in the early 1900's. I was worried that some of the older ladies would find it too graphic. Instead again and again I was thanked for writing it. As one woman said:"That was every women's story back then." My main regret is that I had to write it. That one of my female relatives did not write it. But they were held back by the shame too. 

I remember one launch in a hamlet in Donegal. There were about 20 people there. Only two men and myself. All the rest were women in their fifties and up. The two men were there because we had done some smuggling and poaching together in my youth and they could use this to pretend this was why they were coming to a book reading, and about a woman too. More shame. 

The discussion proceeded and then a small woman with hunched over shoulders, hunched I venture to say by oppression and shame, just jumped into the discussion. "I hate worms you know." Everybody stopped and looked at her. There had been no discussion about worms. I never knew why she said this. She went on. "I was working in a big house. The mistress was good to me. But one night she was out and he just grabbed me and put me down." Then the lady stopped. It was clear she was afraid of what she was saying. More shame. Then she went on but in a different tone: "But nothing happened you know, nothing happened." Then this lady lapsed back into silence. Silenced again by shame.  She never spoke for the rest of the meeting. just sat with her head down.  She later insisted to another lady that nothing had happened but that she had never told what she had told to the meeting to anybody else before.

Thank you again Wendy for your commentary.

John Throne

Women Shame and the Murder of Savita Halappanavar

by Wendy Forest

"For it is not her specific feminine virtue that gives women a place of honour in human society but the use of her useful work accomplished for society , the worth of her personality as a human being ,as creative worker , as citizen , thinker or fighter".

Alexandra Kollontai –March 31,1872-March 9,1952 - Bolshevik, leader of the Russian Revolution.

The act of writing, knowing that the words I say will be read by someone, perhaps by a few, frightens me. The fear of being judged gives rise to the probability of feeling shame, perhaps one of the most uncomfortable feelings anyone can feel. Anyone who has spent time with women talking to them about their individual and collective struggles as women knows that sooner or later the issue of shame will arise.

Shame causes women to keep secrets, to be silent. Many if not most women carry many of our secrets to our graves. Somehow it feels safer to endure our silence(ing) than to take the risk of feeling shame. Many women are not even aware that we have secrets – the feeling of shame is so powerful that it forces us to silence our whispers to ourselves. For some of us, if we run into an occasion to feel safe enough to let go of some words at the risk of feeling naked and raw and exposed in an excruciating way, we take the risk.

What happens next, once the words are out can determine whether or not we will ever take the risk again. It all depends on what happens next. I hardly remember a moment in my life when my body or my words did not feel judged. This is not because I had bad parents- exactly the opposite – or bad school teachers – nothing that specific or identifiable can be pointed at and blamed. It is simply because I was born female. It is like being born black in a white dominant society. It is like being poor or gay. It does not matter – numbers do not change anything. If the values of the society into which we are born are by design values that judge us, construct us , pigeon hole us collectively, exclude us, control us and tell us who what our social roles are – we may be millions strong and without power.

It doesn’t matter if over 50 percent of the population of the world is female, or not white. Numbers do not matter. It is the power to define and classify, the power to own and promulgate ideas, to create, define and construct a norm that will prevail and exclude and force shame onto and into those who do not know their place in this world constructed by those whose ideas dominate. It’s a tricky one- the bad feeling of shame. It oozes into us before we learn to speak. No sooner are the words of the shameful out of our mouths as babes – are we taught to shape and form our ideas in a way that will help us avoid the feeling of shame.

Soon we will internalize these ideas and words – and they become our own words and ideas and we more often than not become self enforcers- collectively our own censors and cops . We learn very early to police ourselves collectively. Very young women learn that we must pre-empt the inevitable and gender specific judgment on our bodies and words and ideas. We learn to avoid shame by shaming ourselves – in order to avoid the criticism and shame from outside our selves. Like women who harm ourselves, mutilate our bodies by cutting , starve ourselves and “offer up” our bodies to be carved by cosmetic surgeons –all in order to pre-empt the shame that rolls over us. Shame is perhaps one of the most powerful weapons there is. It is by its very nature political.

Even as I write this I feel the need to pre-empt criticism – by anticipating responses and explaining why I am writing this. I should not have to explain. I should not have to plead my case before I make my case. Millions of words and ideas that are pure garbage are promulgated in the media every moment – without shame. Thousands of acts are committed everyday against women and gays, against racialized communities, against children and the old and disabled-without shame. So I will resist my own impulses to cover all my bases knowing full well that as soon as I push the button POST to this blog I will once again struggle against the feeling of being judged – the struggle to avoid shame because of the way I have written or what I have written about.

I want to say something about the murder of Savita Halappanavar in Galway Ireland. This was not an ordinary killing. It was a painful tortured death –a woman whose cervix was deliberately left open to an infection that killed her. That is the physical side of the torture. It was a deliberate murder, committed by fellow health care workers condoned and I will venture so far as to say encouraged by the state and by the catholic church in Ireland. The same church and the same collaborating state that protects and hides priests from as far away as the US who sexually assault young children and destroy the lives young and vulnerable innocent children. The children who survive these acts , who do not later in life kill themselves or harm themselves or soothe their pain with drugs and alcohol will without a doubt struggle with shame and feelings of degradation throughout their entire lives because they were assaulted and degraded by priests and adults they were told they could trust. Because their entire being was reduced to simply a physical entity – bodies to be exploited and used and degraded for some perverted and twisted sexual pleasure.

The institution that believes fundamentally that sex is base and can only be redeemed through marriage, that only “spiritual unity” achieved through marriage between heterosexual men and women can sanctify sexual acts. The same corrupt institution that protects these monsters in priests clothing condones the murder of women and enslaves them to their role as nothing more than incubators. The same church and the same state that uses shame as one of their primary weapons to control women and children every moment of every day has once again tortured and murdered a woman.

Who was Savita Halapannavar ? She was a dentist, a partner and life companion , a provider of health care. Her work was socially productive. She was a creative worker. Obviously she had a mind and was intelligent. I do not know her but I will take the liberty to assume that she was a comfort to her family and friends –that she was loved. She was alive. But when the moment came when the state and the church pitted her body against the distressed and dying fetus in her uterus she became nothing more than flesh- her entire being was reduced to nothing more than a complex physical entity. She was violently thrust entirely out of her social context, turned into pure nature. The social context within which she existed, created, thought, cared for others, loved and was loved, was stolen from her and she was turned into an incubator-a complicated mechanical and chemical life support system.

She was murdered. Her body, her mind, her emotions were in these hours before her death were dominated, manipulated, appropriated, controlled and ultimately put to death by a patriarchal state and an institution promoted by the same state. She is one of millions of women historically who have been murdered simply because they are female. Her death is a tragedy-but not an accident. The powerful weapon, shame, used throughout history against women will not be felt by the Catholic church or by the state of Ireland. Yes pressure from below will hopefully make them change the laws that oppress and violate women’s rights to control over their bodies and reproductive capacities. And yes that is what we want as way forward for women. But it goes much deeper and will not end until women understand the power of shame and are determined collectively to refuse to succumb to its paralyzing power.

We cannot afford to base our actions on what happens next.

Savita Halappanavar''s institutionalized murder: Clare Daly ULA member speaks out

Clare Daly and Joan Collins are two socialist members of the Irish parliament who some months ago introduced a bill that would have allowed Savita to have an abortion. The death of Savita Halappanavar is nothing less than institutionalized murder supported by the Catholic Church and the unelected old men that run it. We will add an address you can send letters or emails of support to shortly.

ULA press release on Savita Halappanavar's death

The death of a pregnant woman who was refused an abortion has caused an uproar in Catholic Ireland.  The woman, Savita Halappanavar complained of pain and discomfort and that she was miscarriaging.  She asked for the pregnancy to be terminated but Abortion is not legal in Catholic Ireland.  "I'm sorry" a medical consultant told here, "unfortunately it's a Catholic country' and it's the law that they can't abort when the foetus is live.". A foetal heartbeat was detected according to reports.  The Catholic church has been weakened severely in Ireland the influence of this organization, run by a group of old misogynists, still felt. The case is being investigated and there were demonstrations in Ireland today with more to come.

We share below a joint press statement from Clare Daly member of the Irish parliament, and former member of the CWI,  and Joan Collins member of the Irish parliament and also a former member of the CWI. Both are leading members of the United Labor Alliance (ULA).  These two extremely courageous women Comrades have moved a bill to legislate for what is known as the X case. This would give women the right to have abortion in Southern Ireland.  They should be supported in every way and given full credit for what they are doing. It should also be pointed out that they are revolutionary socialists and not some "independents."

United Left Alliance

This is the press release we sent out this morning. No more excuses no more time wasting leading to tragic outcomes we must legislate for X and Savita now.

Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD

Statement – 14 November 2012

Labour and Fine Gael bear responsibility for death of woman who was denied abortion.

Legislate for X Case NOW.

Protest at Dáil, Weds November 14, 6pm.

The recent death of a woman who was denied a life-saving abortion is an outrage which demands immediate action, said ULA TD's Clare Daly and Joan Collins.

“Sadly,” said Clare Daly, “the very thing we feared last April when we put our X Case Bill before the Dáil, has happened. A woman has died because Galway University Hospital refused to perform an abortion needed to prevent serious risk to her life. This is a situation we were told would never arise. An unviable fetus – the woman was having a miscarriage – was given priority over the woman's life, who unfortunately and predictably developed septicemia and died.

First and foremost we wish to extend our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the woman's husband, family and friends for their terrible loss. This loss is all the worse because it need not have happened.

Make no mistake, had Labour and Fine Gael acted upon our Bill, medical guidelines could have been in place which would have ensured that there would have been no grounds for equivocation about performing an abortion when there was a risk to the life of the woman. Instead, the government took the cowardly step of hiding behind the fourth 'expert group' on abortion since 1992. This refusal to act has contributed to the circumstances which brought about this woman's death. Fianna Fáil and the Greens also bear responsibility, due to their failure to legislate for the X Case.”

Joan Collins said that the TD's demand immediate action by the government.

“We demand a full and public enquiry into the circumstances of this woman's death. We demand that Minister Reilly immediately publish the report of his 'expert group' – now four months overdue from its own promised publication date. We intend to re-submit our X Case Bill, which provides for legal abortion when there is a risk to the life of a woman, as soon as we can. We demand that the government immediately provide Dáil time to promptly bring our Bill into law.

A woman's life has been sacrificed due to the unwillingness of Labour, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens to legislate in line with the Supreme Court ruling on the X Case in 1992. We call on the women of Ireland to take to the streets to ensure that action is taken to stop this ever happening again. The first step is to protest at the Dáil at 6pm on Wednesday evening, November 14.”

Conference: Austerity, Social Collapse and Feminism

Invitation

Illegitimate Debt, Austerity, Social Collapse and Feminism

What challenges, what alternatives, what actions?

We invite women’s networks, organizations and initiatives in Europe to a feminist Forum. It will be held during the "Firenze 10 + 10" event, between 8 and 11 November at the Fortezza da Basso, Florence. www.firenze1010.eu

Against the worst backlashes on our rights since WWII and against austerity policies, we want to build alliances, to discuss the new challenges and to develop feminist alternatives. To build a broad movement of feminis actions for another Europe : here is our goal!

Imposed under pressure from financial markets, austerity policies follow the same logic throughout Europe : a drastic reduction of public spending which translates into cuts in public services, social protection, wages, pensions, and sometimes in higher taxes that weighs mainly on the poor. These measures complement the neoliberal policies of privatization, labor market flexibilization and precarisation of labor relations.

Women are the first to be affected by these austerity policies for several reasons:

 Following the dismantling of the welfare state, it is women who must, through an increase in their unpaid and invisible work, provide the care neglected by the welfare state. There is already a real transfer of roles and responsibilities from the state to the private sector and to women, making free labor, stress, and violence against women swell, criminalizing their right to employment and forcing them back to their "traditional roles".

 Women make up the majority of the workforce of the welfare state and are directly affected by the austerity policies through staff reductions and pay in the public sector.

 They rely heavily on the services of the social state, which is also crucial  for their participation in the labor market and their economic autonomy.

 Women's health, especially sexual and reproductive health, allows them to exercise control over their own bodies and therefore their lives. The public health sector is very important for the effective promotion of gender equality. But austerity measures reduce funding in this area.

 Less public subsidies are also allocated to the prevention of AIDS, to abortion clinics, to family planning services, to pre-and post-natal care and to preventive healthcare for women.

These policies, in line with the neo-liberal model, are a threat to democracy and to our rights and constitute a backwards move. Back to home confinement, to extreme insecurity and dependence, to violence against women, to the exclusion of millions of women from access to basic needs.

Faced with this situation, women are organizing. In several European countries networks of feminist organizations wishing to voice their demands and alternatives, build solidarity, a European feminist movement of resistance against austerity. Initiatives have already taken place and continue with public debates, international tours of feminists in several European countries, the production of various publications ...

Refuse austerity, make our proposals heard

Not only austerity measures are socially unacceptable, they are also inefficient from an economic point of view. Presented as essential to reduce public deficits and debts, instead they initiate a vicious cycle: recession, rising deficits, austerity, etc…

Alternatives exist to this social collapse. They involve bringing the financial sector to democratic control. They also involve questioning the illegitimate public debt, as different citizen collectives auditing the debt do many countries.

European governments have clearly no intention to refuse the dictates of the financial markets or the austerity they impose ; we can only rely on the power born out of strong mobilization to impose change. But there will be no strong mobilizations without women, who represent more than half the population.

To fight against these austerity policies and implement proposals for the control of the financial sector, to develop a new model of society in Europe, we, women in Europe, must meet, discuss and act! In short, we need to create a process of union of European feminist struggles against illegitimate debt and austerity.

Signatures:

- Magda Alves - Member of the Portuguese feminist UMAR

- Sylviane DAHAN, "Women of Enllaç", Spokeswoman of the Federation of Local Associations in Barcelona

- Christiane Marty, a member of the Gender Commission of Attac and the Copernic Foundation

- Cathy Ménard, Women Solidarity Commission Loiret

Are Chinese women too hairy? Where there's no market, capitalism creates one.

source: Bloomberg Business Week

by Richard Mellor

I received a response to one of my blogs the other day that was interesting.  It was from a right wing nutcase who attacked my defense of Chavez’ s record fighting illiteracy in Venezuela and how irrelevant the building of "22 Universities in 10 years" is if  “they are just indoctrinating students into Communism…”.  Comments like these are not uncommon from some Americans whose knowledge of the world and history comes from mouthpieces of the corporations like Rush Limbaugh.

The view that we have a “mind of our own”and that we “think for ourselves”, nonsense propagated by the big business media, is quite strong here.  We are free individuals we are supposed to believe, influenced by no outside forces; society is irrelevant.

If that were true, US corporations wouldn’t spend billions of dollars on advertising, trying to convince us to buy their products.  US advertising revenues (excluding Political and Olympics) hit $171.7 billion last year, and total advertising for the 2^nd quarter of 2012 finished the period at $34.4 billion---this  is no small sum. The ten largest advertisers spent $3.5 billion in that period. Lots of useful social projects wasted away in these expenditures.

Then there is all the money spent by US corporations abroad.  Global capitalism has mastered the art of deception and manipulation and is relentless in this ideological assault on the US population. Much of this advertising is spent convincing us to buy what we don’t need. Sociologists and psychiatrists are hired by corporations to help them influence what we think about ourselves and the world around us.  Influencing children is crucial in order to pressure their parents, whose lives are consumed by work and survival, to succumb and buy the goods. Eric Schlosser writes in Fast Food Nation, “Marketers now use different terms to explain the intended response to the ads---such as ‘leverage’, ‘the nudge factor’, ‘pester power’.  The aim of most children’s advertising is straightforward: get kids to nag their parents and nag them well.”

According to Schlosser, dream research has found that about 80% of children’s dreams up till the age of six are about animals so market researchers attempt to create mascots, imaginary characters that can help them sell their products, “imaginary characters who perfectly fit the targeted age group’s level of cognitive and neurological development.” Says Schlosser. The capitalist class reigns supreme when it comes to preying on children, no “pervert” database for them. This ideological terrorism kills a lot more people than any "foreign terrorists" for sure.

We are all targets in this war to influence our thinking.  Having the right appearance in order to find a mate, achieve success or feel confident in the big wide world out there is a must.  The marketer must convince us we are in need of their product; for this they have the “personal care” industry.  Second quarter spending on personal care hit $1.9 billion according to Kantor Media that tracks such things.  There’s a lot of competition among leading marketers of cosmetics, hair care and skin care products not to mention new cures for new ailments like baldness, erectile dysfunction and restless leg syndrome to name a few.  But women are a prime target.

The changes in China have opened up new markets for the purveyors of products. I touched on the emerging “look pretty”industry in a previous commentary in particularly, in the case of Chinese women and their physical structural appearance.  

The makers of Veet hair removal cream are making big moves in China, a market that has incredible potential.  But a major problem is that Chinese women don’t have a great deal of body hair.  No worries, the corporation will deal with what is at hand and has “embraced a new marketing plan” writes Bloomberg Business Week *.  Veet, owned by Reckitt Benckiser (Wreckit indeed) has new ads that equates “Hair free skin with health, confidence, and ‘shining glory’” , BW reports.   The assault is pervasive and vicious, “It’s not how much hair you have”, Veets top dog in China says, “ …it’s how much you think you have.”  Veet wants to make every Chinese woman “conscious of every stray follicle”, this is what will bring results, “If your concern level is high enough, even one hair is too much” says the Veet executive.So we will make sure we convince you that you are ugly as you are.   Beauty will be determined by Madison Avenue and in the main, men will determine it .

A promotion, a raise, a husband, these things are all tied to successful body hair removal even if you don’t have much of it in the first place.  The product’s website reminds its victims of those moments in life when “…you’re not prepared for anything….. In fact you’ve got stubby legs, a fuzzy bikini line, and you’ve just fallen head over heels in front of the whole office.  It’s moments like this you need Veet.”

This is free will is it?  It is free will for the rising middle class as there aren’t too many Chinese women working in offices. Those working in the factories that supply Wal Mart, Apple and all the other western retailers are a little less susceptible to such an assault and have less money, but the manufacturers are working on it.

Benjamin Voyer, a social psychologist and an assistant professor of Marketing at the European Business School hits the nail on the head explaining that this approach, “Creates an awareness, which subsequently creates a feeling of shame and need”. That’s right, but I have to wonder what he’s doing working where he is, maybe he should change jobs.

What is behind this drive to sell products all the time?  Why convince us to buy products we don’t need really or that are harmful to us?  After all, with Veet for example, the chemicals used to weaken a woman’s body hair to the point that it can be scraped off smell so nasty they add yet another nicer smelling chemical to it to mask the odor. And who knows the long-term affects of all this stuff. The psychological and physiological damage done to us as human beings by this war on consciousness, especially young women, cannot be understated and is perhaps for us to explore another time.

But why this situation exists is where Marx comes in.  I am not an economist or expert when it comes to the complex details and specifics of economies and I need not go on too long.  But I do understand and accept the general process at work that Marx explained in his writings on the capitalist mode of production.  Unlike feudalism a predominantly agricultural system of production that was in the main a self-sustaining economy, one in which production was mainly for use and where wealth was in the ownership of land, the capitalist mode of production is one where the products made are for sale in the marketplace; initially a fairly localized marketplace, but today in the global market. It is the commodity that is king in capitalism.

In the capitalist mode of production, a commodity is created through a labor process bringing together human labor power (our ability to work) and the raw materials, machinery and technology needed to create the finished product. This finished product is not the property of the worker that made it, but the capitalist who has purchased the worker’s labor power and other means necessary for production to take place. The production process belongs to the capitalist.

The purpose for the capitalist is to produce commodities whose value is greater than the combined value of the labor power and means of production consumed (used up) in the process of production. The source of their wealth is due to them paying less value for labor power (wages) than the value created through its use. In other words, we work over and above the time needed to create our own wages. That value, the capitalist gets for nothing.

So a commodity, say a car that we buy, a personal care product, or a computer, contains within it, value the capitalist paid for and value they received for free.  This added value, surplus value, cannot be realized though without the sale of the commodity.  The commodity created by labor must be sold.  This is what is behind the constant, never ending and treacherous efforts by the capitalist to sell the product. It’s the goose that lays the golden egg.  It is the source of the lying ads, the politicians’ seemingly immoral behavior and the slaughter of millions in wars as capitalists from different nations struggle for control over the world’s resources and markets.

I know this seems afar from what this commentary began with but for me, it is what allows me to understand it all; not because I have an unhealthy “cult of the personality” admiration for Marx; but because his explanation of how the real world works corresponds with objective reality, make the world concrete.  Capitalism must create a market where there is not one all and all’s fair in this war. My entire life has been spent as a wage-worker, in construction mostly but also grueling factory work. I am proud of my contribution to this world as all workers should be; after all, labor is the source of all wealth.

I will close with a statement from Mr. Marx that for me sums it up quite succinctly:

“Use values must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit on any single transaction.  The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at.  This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.   The never ending augmentation of exchange value, which the miser strives after, by seeking to save his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by constantly throwing it afresh in to circulation." From, Capital; The General Formula For Capital

* Convincing Women in China They’re Too hairy

An after thought.

I wanted to mention, for the sake of working class readers who follow this blog and are fairly new to socialist or Marxist ideas about things like economics. The surplus value that I refer to above was also what kept the feudal lord in a comfortable existence in feudal society.  But it was much easier to see that.  The peasant paid their masters in kind, in produce of their labor they physically gave over to them in return for a small plot of land on which they could produce their own keep.  They maintained their households, farms and land. The exploitation was clear.  Capitalism is a little more complicated as we are "free", not tied to the land or a particular feudal estate.  We get paid wages for our labor and how we are cheated in that set up is less visible although all workers know it in our gut. 


A very good book about the transition from feudalism to capitalism  if my memory serves me right is Leo Huberman's Man's Worldly Goods.  I never read the last chapter which appeared to me to champion the merits of Stalinism. But I loved the rest.

Elizabeth Escalona, Madeline Albright and bourgeois morals

Elizabeth Escalona

by Richard Mellor 

I see that Elizabeth Escalona, the Dallas woman who beat her child and eventually glued her hands to the wall because she was having trouble with her potty training, has been sentenced to 99 years in prison.  The 22 year old has five children.

One of the prosecutors,  Eren Price said Escalona had not taken responsibility for her actions. "Elizabeth lies to hide the evil," he said, adding that "Only a monster glues her daughter's hands to the wall," The prosecutors threw in another little hint at why this young working class woman resorted to such cruelty, informing us that she had been a gang member and that she started "smoking marijuana at age 11.  Oh, that makes it easier for me to figure out why this happened, it's par for the course for a pot smoking gangster female and they always "hide evil". That pot is some powerful stuff.

So the judge, being a respected man of high morals, sentenced her to 99 years.  "On Sept. 7, 2011, you savagely beat your child to the edge of death," he said, "For this you must be punished."  Counselors and defense lawyers argued that she was not a monster and the counselor claimed with help she can be redeemed.

The judge's comments remind me of those lines from one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century, Bob Dylan.  He wrote and sang of the maid, Hattie Carroll, the wonderful mother of ten children who was struck and killed with a cane by the white tobacco farmer William Zanzinger.  Zanzinger got a six month sentence.  Dylan describes the judge and what he represented:

"In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught 'em
And that ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin' that way without warnin'
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence" 

There is no questioning that what Escalona did to her child was brutal and heartbreaking.  The question for us is why?  I know nothing about her except she is most likely a working class woman of little means.  She might be an immigrant with language difficulties which limits her upward mobility and work opportunities in an English speaking country. She may have been abused herself,  I have no idea.  And there is no arguing that the public needs to be protected from some people especially children and the aged, some of the more vulnerable among us. But I don't accept that people are simply "evil" or "monsters".  What does this mean?

I can guarantee one thing.  I would bet that the Judge and those preaching to us about human behavior and violence have college degrees and that they grew up in a fairly secure and comfortable environment, financially at least, I am well aware that brutality and family violence exists among the well to do, but our environment matters.  We are like a plant. If the soil is barren, the plant will die or wilt, but it can be redeemed if we change the soil and human behavior can be altered also if we change the conditions and especially the society that nurtures it. Capitalism is a brutal system that rewards selfish, individualistic behavior, it has an affect on us that is extremely negative.

But like when people ask me if I support the death penalty, I always say it depends on who does the judging and the killing.  My problem with the legal system is that it has a class base. Bourgeois ideology tells us that we are all individuals and if we work hard we can get whatever we want and that they, as successful members of society achieved their success through their own individual personal efforts. Those who fill the prisons, live under freeway underpasses or can't find a job, are victims of their own failures, society has nothing to do with it. 

When I see such violence I always have to curb my gut feelings that urge me to wish the same on the perpetrator.  But perpetrators are oftern victims too.  The death penalty and US capitalism's prison industrial complex doesn't cure anyone of anything.  The system is biased and racist.  The prison system is but the warehousing of human beings.

So when judges and the apologists of capitalism talk about morally, justice, social behavior etc., it should have no credibility to us as workers. I felt the same way when Lyndie England was jailed for the Abu Ghraib affair.  I am supposed to accept that a white working class woman who was raised in a trailer park is responsible for brutality in the US military and mass murderers like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc, live rich financially successful  lives. 

So representatives of bourgeois justice preach in this case against violence and child abuse as their colleagues in their two political parties take from children social benefits that will lead to more and more sickness and deaths. Thousands of Americans die each year through the lack of medical care. 

But lets remember how little US capitalism cares about children. 

Albright and Henry Kissinger, murderer of Vietnamese children

In May 1996, Lesley Stahl on CBS' 60 Minutes questioned the then US Secretary of State Madeline Albright about the half million Iraqi children that had died due to US sanctions against their former pal Saddam Hussein.

Stahl: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:
"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

In Albright's case, she is judged as a representative of US capitalism, its economic interests and the decisions she has to make because of these objective conditions.  In Escolana's case, she is judged, as are the rest of us who fall prey or crack due to the crushing weight of a brutal and uncivilized system of production, as an individual-----the system and the influence it has on behavior doesn't enter in to it.

Albright sort of makes Elizabeth Escolana look like Florence Nightingale doesn't she?