The Right Sort of People

In case you missed it, readers, that is NOT you and me.

I am angry.

I am angry with a SCOTUS determined to ram through a ruling two thirds of Americans DO NOT want. I am angry with so-called “democrats” who uphold the filibuster and vote with republicans against what two thirds of Americans DO want. I am angry over the injustices these fetid extremists cloak in thinly veiled religiosty — a religiosity with no compassion or empathy for living, breathing, thinking human beings walking among us… a religiosity devoid of hope, devoid of the God who is love. I am furious and outraged at a rightwing cadre of extremists fighting to wrench humanity back to a new dark ages.

I am angry and I am feeling militant.

My anger over injustice is neither new nor unsuprising to my readers. What brought on this latest anger? I was watching the hearings on abortion legislation in the Judiciary Committe of the U.S. House of Congress.

We all know that abortion was not invented by Roe v. Wade. Before Roe, women had been left to find ways to abort probably for as long as women have been getting pregnant. Even the Hebrew scripture and the Christian Holy Bible dictates in the “Book of Numbers,” chapter 5, how a priest is to FORCE an abortion on a woman if her husband claims to merely suspect her of infedelity. The real world history… the history of real women is of being mutilated or dying from non-medical abortions. They were almost always poor women, marginalized women — not the right sort of people at all. They were the wrong sort and that meant they deserved all the horrors a cruel world might heap upon them. The right sort of people could access safer care and were able to remove themselves from any cultural stigma. The right sort of people were defended from those horrors, but only the right stort of women, women of privilege and enough wealth to assure their “deserved” safety.

But, wait… That’s the bad old days? Isn’t it? No.

It is clear the 21st Century GOP is a party of very small people, poisoned by hate, who have a visceral need to dominate the lives of anyone who doesn’t fit their narrow, extreme dogma — anyone who isn’t the right sort of people. It is equally clear that they are deliberately choosing language intended to inflame fear and motivate murderous action. It’s already repeatedly borne fruit with that fetid “great replacement theory” conspiracy. The extremists of the GOP are only concerned about a right-to-life from conception through birth. Once forced to birth, their dogma doesn’t extend to children loved, fed, educated, housed, or safe… until they want to own a gun — after all, the army of reactionary extremists their deliberate language is creating must be armed — but then only as long as they are the right sort of people.

And, five extreme rightwing justices of the SCOTUS are set to hand down a ruling backed by an opinion which chose language that WILL BE USED to undo every constitutional right for anyone deemed to NOT be the right sort of people. It is clear they intend to return us to those bad old days. They have the will and the use of language to make it happen.

Their language of choice, of fear mongering and reactionary hate is on full display in the testimony under oath given by Catherine Glenn Foster, M.A., J.D., President and CEO, Americans United for Life — one of the nation’s largest anti-abortion non-profits. She knows her words will not be believed in Congress — that panel is not her intended audience. She knows her words will reach the ears of her intended audience. We’ve already seen her claptrap repeated by the little-educated and ignorant, duped rightwing trolling, repeating such repugnant lies.

But, Catherine Glenn Foster isn’t just a random forced birther. This woman is a graduate of Georgetown University Law School — that bastion of establishment political education. She is educated in the use of language… educated in the choosing of words to invoke response and action. The words she chose are precise and deliberate. Her words are intended to wreak maximum harm.

Yes, she intended her words to wipe out the evidence of the real history of abortion before Roe v. Wade. Yes, she intended to negate the real human costs for living, breathing women, girls, and families of going back to that awful past. But, this Georgetown University Law School graduate intended much more with her dog-whistling speech — and I believe she knows full-well the impact such dog-whistles will inspire. Her words are intended to inspire action. Forced birthers intend to inspire actions like we’ve seen against abortion clinics in the past. Her education taught her how words have the power to move people to act — in this case, to act out their hate. Such language will see assassinations of suspected abortion providers, bombings of women’s health care facilities suspected of including abortion care, and — yes, it will happen — women killed for seeking treatment with those health care professionals and facilities. After all, similar speech has already worked so very well to stoke hate and promote deadly terrorist action against those deemed not the right sort of people.

Below is a portion of the transcript of her testimony under oath before the Judiciary Committee in the U.S. House of Congress:

“We are here today because there is an ongoing crisis in America. The crisis we are confronting is abortion, not abortion care, not abortion access, not abortion choice. No, we are here today because there is a crisis in America concerning abortion itself. We are approaching 65 million Americans dead from abortion. I know this firsthand.

At 19, I aborted my first child. I felt emotional and psychological pressure to end my child’s life. I was alone. So many voices in the culture lied to me. Somebody told me abortion was okay, was normal, was good even. I have lived with the regret of abortion every day of my life since. Abortion was damaging to me and deadly for my child.

The truth is, abortion was always and deadly. I understand the other women on this panel believe differently. I know their stories and have read their testimony. What is never addressed in their testimony is the simple reality of abortion violence. Abortion activism hours requires euphemism and misdirection. Why? Because of the violent nature of abortion. Because it is, frankly, inconvenient. Human persons from the earliest days poisoned in the womb and dismembered, torn limb from limb. Bodies thrown in medical waste bins, and in places like Washington D.C., burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets. Let that image sink in with you for a moment. The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators…” [Transcription of a portion of Ms Foster’s testimony from the C-SPAN video of the hearing]

Take another look at her chosen lie:

“Bodies thrown in medical waste bins, and in places like Washington D.C., burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets. Let that image sink in with you for a moment. The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators…”

Her target audience will hear those words and take them to heart. They will feel compelled to action. What action will her words inspire in people easily manipulated by the visions of horror inspired by her blatant lie?

Consider this: What actions did “replacement theory” language inspire over and over again, but most recently in Buffalo, NY?

Where did such a lying fantasy even come from?

She crafted her lie on one solitary incident. A company in a single county in Oregon, in 2014, stopped an incinerator from burning medical waste for a waste-to-energy system due to “concerns it could include aborted fetuses from British Columbia, Canada.”

No real evidence could be found to back her lie. According to the non-partisan think tank, DC Policy Center, 93% of energy in the nation’s capital is generated by burning gas, or at power stations, and the other 7% though renewable sources.

The only reference any of the reporting I read pointed to was a company which a Vancouver Catholic newspaper accused of burning fetuses to generate power. The reporting is from 2014. “County authorities in Oregon ordered an incinerator to stop burning medical waste to make power over concerns it could include aborted fetuses from British Columbia, Canada.” The accusation was according to the Vancouver based newspaper, The B.C. Catholic, which reporting claimed the plant in Brooks, OR, named “Covanta Marion,” was receiving the suspected waste from a British Columbia company. When The AP contacted Covanta Marion, a representative said he did not know if fetal tissue was included in shipments from Canada or elsewhere. [NBC News]

In response to a request for evidence supporting Foster’s claim, a spokesman for Americans United for Life referenced the Oregon case but provided no proof that DC authorities used aborted fetuses for energy generation. [Business Insider]

In a statement to Newsweek, Americans United for Life referenced the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Waste-to-Energy” (WTE) program, claiming that “the remains of human persons” were included in the “organic wastes from industrial operations” and “pharmaceuticals” used to source renewable energy. However, a search of various government sites on my own turned up no evidence of human medical waste being used in WTE burning. Medical waste is incinerated — that much is true. However, it is an entirely different process than WTE. I found this concise statement detailing the difference:

Biomass may be used in WTE. However, biomass is not human medical waste. It is plant or animal based mass such as food waste, wood, paper, yard waste, leather, cardboard, etc. [EIA]

Ms Foster knows all of that information. Or rather, as a Georgetown University Law School graduate, she should know it. Personally, I cannot give her the benefit of the doubt that she might not. This is what rightwing dogma does. It crafts lies with the full knowledge and understanding of what the evidentiary truth proves. It is lies intended to invoke hate and fear, to inspire response and action, by the Right’s idea of the right sort of people.

My readers… All my fellow wrong-sort-of-peeps…

GET ANGRY! BE MILITANT!

Stay angry and militant all the way to the polls in November 2022 and again in 2024. Vote as if your very life depends upon it. Because, as the right sort of people keep showing us, they intend that the lives and futures we wrong-sort-of-peeps will depend upon it.