WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

I spent a troubled night, and awoke, brooding.  It is nearly sixty years since I first raised my voice against the evils of the world.  In that distant time, when I thought about it at all, which was very rarely, I supposed that when I grew old, I would rest quietly by the campfire or in the reading room and tell young men and women what the fight was like in the old days.  Little did I imagine that I would sit on the ground, and tell sad tales about the death of kings.

And then, there came to me the words of Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And so, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…

We have been dealt two blows in as many days:  the terrible Janus decision from the high court, and the retirement of Associate Justice Kennedy, with the threat to Roe v. Wade and a host of other foundational court decisions.  These are terrible times, with fascism on the horizon in the United States and our last defense severely undermined by the Kennedy retirement.  By the time the Mueller investigation’s results reach their inevitable Supreme Court review, will all hope have evaporated for a judicial affirmation of its results?

We must fight.  But what does that even mean?  Herewith some thoughts, wrenched from my fevered mind. Make of them what you will.

Coming so close together, the decision and the retirement compel us to draw a distinction.  The assault on workers’ rights, advanced yet another step by Janus, can be no surprise.  The exploitation of workers is not a byproduct of capitalism; it is the essential foundation and reason for being of capitalism.  Justice Kennedy’s replacement, in addition to being a safe vote for the reversal of Roe, will have as his or her goal the further oppression of workers and the further enrichment of capitalists.  That, after all, is why the high court exists.

On the other hand, the inevitable attack on Roe has no essential connection to capitalism.  Its purpose is to secure the political support of millions of useful idiots whose religious obsessions make them malleable ground troops for the seizure of political power by the Republican Party.  Capitalists themselves care not at all how their workers reproduce themselves, only how they reproduce capital.

What is to be done?  The Janus decision is simply a small part of the larger fight against capitalism, a fight in which we are outgunned but not outnumbered.  As my brief post on Gini Coefficients makes clear, and as Piketty’s important book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, details, capitalism is increasingly successful in its core exploitative mission.  Organize! Is still the best one word answer we have.

The threat of the overturning of Roe is more particular and requires a more elaborate answer.  Let us be clear.  Overturning Roe will not make abortion illegal in the United States.  It will remove the hold on those state laws making abortion illegal.  Depending on how you count, the overturning of Roe will make abortion illegal in roughly 15 states.  Since there is little hope of getting a federal law passed legalizing abortion, that means we must use the federal structure of American government to our advantage.

Now, for as long as I have been alive, States’ Rights has been the battle cry of segregationists, homophobes, and other rightwing lowlifes, so some may consider it, shall we say, ironic for those of us on the left suddenly to discover the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.  Not I.  I had my say half a century ago about the philosophical foundations of representative democracy in a little tract called In Defense of Anarchism.  I experience not the slightest twinge of embarrassment at invoking the cry of states’ rights.  It is all false anyway, so far as I am concerned.

Reflect.  Roe was decided in 1973.  That means that every single woman in the United States of childbearing age has, since the onset of her puberty, lived in a country in which abortion is legal.  The women living in the states with anti-abortion laws will suddenly find that they are no longer protected from the enforcement of invasive restrictions that they may hitherto have found it convenient to profess to support.  In every one of those states, there will be countless women who can be mobilized to vote out the Republican legislators who enacted or support those laws, and to elect state legislators and governors who are ready to repeal their state’s anti-abortion laws.  In each state, the issue will be entirely local.  Repealing an anti-abortion law in one state will not in any way require actions in other states.  Nor will it be necessary to enact pro-abortion laws.  Absent state laws and the Roe decision, abortion is as legal as dental surgery.

In short, the overturning of Roe could be a mobilizing weapon for progressive forces the likes of which we have not seen before.

Finally, what are the prospects for blocking a Trump nominee before the November mid-terms?  Not good, I would say.  Why?  Well, with McCain dying of cancer, the Senate is split 50/49.  If the Democrats can hold all of their votes – an enormously difficult task this year – then they only need one Republican to switch, say Collins or Murkowski.  Both are pro-choice.  But McConnell is no fool, and Trump merely wants a win.  Which means all the Republicans need do is to find a reliable anti-Roe judge who has had the good sense to keep his or her mouth shut on the matter and has left no troublesome trail of lower court decisions.  Collins and Murkowski will quiz this candidate sharply, he [in all probability] will give the appropriate answers, and Collins and Murkowski will profess themselves satisfied. 

The one wild card is the Mueller investigation.   It is rather difficult to judge the effect on all this  by, let us say, Mueller’s naming of Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator.  One can dream.

Well, I had my eyes checked this morning, so all of this has been written with dilated pupils that make everything a blur.  Who knows?  Maybe the drops blurred my mind as well my vision.