December

O it’s the month of snow, figgy pudding, evergreens and tense family gatherings. If one watches too much Hallmark schmaltz, one gets the notion one is really flucked in the noggin. Or cursed by Krampus to endure a black pit of despair and stress for what remains of the year.

Why are not my holidays filled with the actual Santa Claus, snow, skating rinks, hot chocolate, baking sugar cookies and sparkly holiday evening wear??? Why???

Oh yeah, cause real life, can’t skate, global warming and the local thrift store doesn’t seem to have much sparkly holiday wear.

So. Abortion is going away in America. Legal, safe, medically supervised abortion is going away in a lot of states when Roe V. Wade gets gutted or just tossed out by a handful of gleeful religious extremists, most of them men. One woman who’s replacing that glass ceiling as hard and fast and much as she can. Amy Coat Hanger Barrett, is, I believe, her actual legal name. This overturning of Roe has been in the works since it got put into law in the 70’s. The Moral Majority wed itself to Ronnie Raygun [or Ronald Reagan if you have to have the actual name of that fuckstick], and here we are. They worked, schemed, planned, got their people into high places to make this happen. And the left sat back and scrunched their faces a bit, but otherwise ignored all that as much and as hard as possible. And then acted all surprised when Roe V Wade is on the chopping block, is already chopped.

Hey, going backwards when women died at home from botched abortions seems to be the holy grail of the American GOP. With the issue of banning abortions decided by men, for men, with seemingly no input from the females it will impact the most. They’re not even a consideration here, seemingly. Religious fanatics seem to rule the roost in ‘merica and it’s fucking scary.

That the left can’t form a single cogent means to attack any of this is also scary and feels like it must be inevitable that America will try on that coat of fascism to see how it fits.

So yeah, am not feeling too hopeful right now. I admit it. As others have said, the Gross Old Perverts ain’t gonna stop at ending abortion rights. They want to roll back that clock to a time when only rich white Christian straight men had the only voices, the only power, the only presence on the work or political stage.

Which brings me to that scene in the first season of Handmaid’s Tale where Serena Joy, who campaigned so tirelessly for shoving women into roles of livestock and silent powerless nothings, gets bit with her own rhetoric. The same laws she saw applying to other women, also apply to her. Her face as she’s relegated to wife only, stripped of her public persona and her public work. That face of someone realizing too late she aimed the gun at herself, too.

Do the GOP ladies not realize they’re in for a rough road, as well? Do they really think none of this shit will affect them?

I’ll say it plainly. Women have power and control over their own bodies. Their bodies belong to them, not the church or the state or anyone or anything else. We do not legislate men’s bodies. We do not treat sperm as a state property that must be used no matter what is going on with the man who spewed it.

But hey, no health care, no paid leave, no maternity anything, and all those kids being born into a system stripped to the bone or just gone when it comes to helping out those in need. Social safety nets??!! That’s commie shit, after all. Just ask the GOP, they’ll gladly shout about that for days on end. Bootstrap it, babies, bootstrap it!

I smell a Dickens revival! I suspect the rage-filled poetry written during this time will rival some famous poet nobody reads. I suspect the left will send out emails demanding signatures to save blah dee blah and to chip in a few dollars so business can continue as…usual. Yeah.

Hey, December 2021. Can you send us some chuckles before the new year crushes us completely here in ‘merica? Thanks!

Or at least a pretty snowstorm and a big plate of nachos? And some of that fabled fighting spirit to combat this extremism crappola? Extra thanks!!