What is happening to us?

America is in the midst of a major crisis that most people are not aware of.

Wisconsin is just about to abolish the collective bargaining rights for state workers, including teachers and many others. Other states are close to doing the same thing. Rights that for a century or more workers have fought for are suddenly being taken away.

Several states have moved to severely limit the rights of women to safe abortions. (See my earlier blog on that.)

The University of Nevada is in the forefront of moves considered by various colleges and universities of abolishing their philosophy departments. (An earlier attempt by Howard University to do this was scrapped in the face of vigorous protest. Mexican philosophers have been involved in the same fight for several years.) The courses designed most directly to encourage critical thinking among young people, who are just at the beginning of their careers and their lives as citizens, are now being taken away. Critical thinking is not highly regarded by those who wield power today.

Congress is trying to defund National Public radio because it represents a liberal point of view. No one even pretends that the motivation is to save money. This is an open campaign to suppress a particular kind of political opinion, to control what news and interpretations the public gets to hear. It is a clear case of thought control.

Congress is holding hearings on Muslim support for terrorism. No one is saying anything about white terrorists whose attacks are mounting in number. The shooting in Arizona of Representative Giffords is just one example of that. There exists a rising hysteria that has, in fact, little to do with terrorism and everything to do with racial prejudice against Muslim Americans. Racial hysteria is also an element in the anti-immigrant campaign.

The campaign to increase the misery of the poor, the sick, and the elderly continues apace.

You may say that all this is being done by the Republicans but those Republicans were elected. Most of these representatives are in the pocket of big business, business lobbies, people with money. But when it comes to pushing an agenda that is anti-intellectual, anti-liberal, anti-women, anti-Muslim and against the poor, the sick and the elderly, they respond to the emotions of their constituents. This is an easy way for them to appear to represent those who voted for them when, in effect, they mostly represent those who bought them.

How can we understand that campaign against established freedoms, against our traditional dedication to tolerance, against well-trained minds able to think for themselves, against different political views, against those who have the least power in our society?

Clearly the health care reform bill has something to do with all of that. People feel oppressed by the government. Although we live – we say – in a democracy, most people feel that they have nothing to say. Congressional seats are for sale, political influence goes to the highest bidder. Everyone can see that greed is rewarded, dishonesty helps you gain power, and consistent hypocrisy gains you an audience.

Battered by the economy, oppressed by employers and bureaucrats, deprived of power by the rich and famous, sold out by their elected representatives, most citizens are fearful and angry. And when people are fearful and angry they go looking for someone to vent their anger on. At such times people are willing to lash out, to blame others for their misery – usually not the guilty parties.

This was the mood in Germany in 1933 when Germans were willing to allow Adolf Hitler to try his hand at saving the nation. When Hitler went after a free press, against labor unions, when he began to persecute Jews, when he prescribed women's lives, most people said not to worry. Twelve years later Germany was in ruins.

Our traditions of freedom and democracy are stronger than they were in Germany. But the same mood of being victimized, of wanting to hurt somebody prevails in the US today. The same ugly mood that led Germans into fascism, dominates our politics today. Public speech is filled with hate and everyone has their own favorite target: the unions, Muslims, people with an education, political liberals, women, the poor, the sick, and the elderly.

Our troubles are very very serious. Can we put a stop to all this hate and destruction before it is too late?

The Assault on Women.

During the uprising in Egypt, an American woman reporter was attacked and sexually assaulted by a mob of Egyptian men. That produced a flurry of reports about widespread harassment of women in that country.

Most of those reports failed to mention that a similar attack on women's freedoms is building in the United States.

This morning's news brings the story that the state of Virginia has passed legislation requiring abortion clinics, that perform first trimester abortions, to be constructed and equipped like full service hospitals. Hospital construction is subsidized by the federal government; no one subsidizes the constructing of abortion clinics. The new regulations will have the effect of closing abortion clinics in the state of Virginia.

But this is just one report of many:

Conservatives not only want to reduce women's access to abortions, they are actually trying to redefine rape so as to be able to deprive women, who have suffered rape, of the possibility of having an abortion.

A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, of stalking and of domestic violence to “accuser.” The victims of less gendered crimes like burglary, would remain “victims.”

In South Dakota, conservatives proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortions.

Conservatives want to cut nearly $1 billion of food and other aid to low income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.

In Congress some have proposed a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.

Maryland legislators ended all county money for a low income kids preschool program. Why? No need, they said: women should really be home with their kids, not out working.

At the federal level conservatives want to cut the pre-school program, Head Start, by $1 billion . That means that more than 200,000 children could lose their spots in preschool.

Two thirds of the elderly poor are women, and conservatives are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.

Congress voted yesterday on a conservative amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic healthcare and family planning in our country.

And if that wasn't enough, conservatives are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Congressman Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses.)

While unemployment is almost 9% – and a lot higher in some places, while banks are still think a higher rate than ever, conservative legislators persecute women, cynically trying to distract attention from the failure of the economy for all low and middle income people while large corporations and Wall Street firms continue to rake in the money.