Violence against the womb

Big Ocean Women speak of violence against women in these terms: "our first natural environment of the womb has become abused, violated, neglected, and ignored ... and we must acknowledge it."

Framing violence against women as violence against the womb brings the violent act of abortion into the picture, so I was curious about comparing abortion with the usual violent act against women, rape.

Here is a graph of the abortion rate (source)

Here is a graph of the rate rape (source)

The interesting thing here is that abortions are reported as rate per 1000, while rapes are reported at rapes per 100,000. They need completely different scales to talk about the rates.

Put in rather stark terms, then, the rate of self-inflicted violence against the womb is approximately 50 times higher than the rate of other-inflicted violence. In other words, if we compare frequency, there are 50 abortions for every 1 rape.

I think Big Ocean Women recognizes this reality when say, shortly afterward, that they are seeking to "safeguard the womb ... to protect it from objectification and violence, whether committed by others or self-inflicted." But even they do not point out the full scale of the violence.

Protracted Warfare

There is an important lesson our leaders have failed to learn about warfare. It is a lesson known to all successful conquerors, but not to those who lead empires to destruction. It is often the cause of the fall of their empire.

Protracted warfare is not war at all. It is training for your enemies.

The Spartans were the most powerful of all the Greek city-states, and defeated the up-and-coming Athenians in the Pelopponesian War. But they were eventually upset by the Thebans. This quote explains how that came about.

[Agesilaus] waived the exemption by law which he had formerly claimed in the matter of the expedition, and presently led an incursion into Boeotia himself, where he inflicted damage upon the Thebans, and in his turn met with reverses, so that one day when he was wounded, Antalcidas said to him: "Indeed, this is a fine tuition-fee which thou art getting from the Thebans, for teaching them how to fight when they did not wish to do it, and did not even know how." For the Thebans are said to have been really more warlike at this time than ever before, owing to the many expeditions which the Lacedaemonians made against them, by which they were virtually schooled in arms. And Lycurgus of old, in one of his three so‑called "rhetras," forbade his people to make frequent expeditions against the same foes, in order that those foes might not learn how to make war.  -- Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus

Sun Tzu warns of the dangers of prolonged warfare in "The Art of War".

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. 

Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.
On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people's substance to be drained away.
When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.
With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

-- Sun Tzu, The Art of War, book 2 

Mao Tse-tung also understood the dangers of protracted warfare, but he used them to his advantage when he was in a weak position. He espoused protracted warfare because he needed time to build up his strength against the stronger Japanese and Chinese Nationalist forces. And when he was strong enough, he went for the quick, decisive victory.

Russia fought a 10 year war in Afghanistan, which they were unable to win. This was demoralizing to the Soviet army.

Due to its length it has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap" by the Western media, and thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union. -- Wikipedia, Soviet–Afghan War

The United States is now involved in a war in Afghanistan that started in 2001 and a war in Iraq and Syria which started in 2003. Wars of this length are always harmful, if not outright disastrous, to the empire who attempts to wage them. We are training our enemies, ruining our own economy, and patiently waiting for the consequences that must ensue.

Hiking Solo

On my last hike, I was walking on the trail, and I passed at least 5 men hiking alone, just like me.

I thought about how unusual that was. Not that men like to hike alone; that's quite common, I think. The unusual part was that I was on the trail where I could count them.

Men can self-identify as women, but whites cannot self-identify as blacks.

The liberal tunnel-vision of acceptable opinions has narrowed to a new myopic low with this story.

A woman named Rachel Dolezal wishes to identify as a black person, regardless of her actual DNA. But the liberals think this is a travesty. The New York Times writes, "Some people have pointed to this strange case as an illustration that race is malleable. I submit that Ms. Dolezal is a reminder that it is not. Racial identity cannot be fluid as long as the definition of whiteness is fixed." The Washington Post writes, "To adopt this identity under false pretenses is akin to faking a serious illness or childhood abuse to join a support group. Deeply felt empathy is not an entitlement to inclusion via false history."

Can you just imagine their reactions to such statements if black/white were replaced with male/female?

They claim that Rachel cannot be black because she does not qualify based on genetic history. And yet when making gender identity claims, no biological considerations are allowed any more. Consider this definition for example: "Transgender – or trans – is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity or expression is different from those typically associated with the sex assigned to them at birth (e.g., the sex listed on their birth certificate)." There is no mention of biology at all, as if the doctor rolled a dice and assigned the baby a sex completely arbitrarily.

The contrast and hypocrisy is really quite impressive.

Who hates your freedoms?

I am remembering that speech by George Bush, where he gives us a simple explanation of the motives of terrorists: "They hate our freedoms". George Bush is also the president who signed the Patriot Act, which actually does take away your freedoms.

So when you hear this kind of talk of presidents and congressmen, you should ask yourself, "Who hates my freedoms more? The ones they say hate my freedoms, or the ones actually taking my freedoms away?"

School of the Americas

I thought this quote from a Democracy Now interview today was interesting.

Another is a general named Sjafrie, who’s been implicated in massacres in Aceh, in the repression in Jakarta in '98 and in Timor in ’99. Sjafrie got five U.S. Special Forces courses in the U.S., and he said, after one of them, that he had been trained by U.S. Special Forces just back from Peru, and they had trained him in "how to create terror." 

We can confidently conclude that these are the courses taught at the former School of the Americas. (Now renamed as "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation".)

Who is working hardest to spread terror in the world? Who are the real terrorists?

Elections in Hong Kong and Haiti

Citizens of Hong Kong are currently engaging in mass protests because of the Chinese government's interference with free and open elections in Hong Kong.

The protesters want an open vote, but China’s plan would only allow candidates approved by Beijing.

As Boss Tweed famously said, “I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." Whoever controls the primaries limits the choices in the general election to approved candidates, whether it is through direct vetting of candidate, super-delegates, or access to media.

And while these Hong Kong protests are going on, Democracy Now uses the death of "Baby Doc" Duvalier to remind of an eerily similar situation with with different actors, closer to home.

The [Haitian] elections that were being organized in 2010, 2011, were all controlled by the United States and the Organization of American States, and they had already established that the most popular party could not participate, Fanmi Lavalas of Aristide. So, there were only two right-wing candidates who were allowed to go into the second round of elections by Hillary Clinton, who went in Haiti personally to decide who can go into the second round.

Is it comforting to know that we are not above using the same tactics as communist China?