I
can’t imagine what it is like to be a woman in the United
States of America today. If I feel the blow of Samuel
Alito’s draft opinion
pm Roe v Wade in the pit of my stomach – and I do – I can
only try to imagine how it must feel to have one’s own body
assaulted, occupied, and colonized in this way.
Many
people are repeating the line used by then-Sen. Kamala Harris in
Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for the Supreme
Court. "Can you think of any laws that give the government the
power to make decisions about the male body?" she asked. "I'm
not thinking of any right now, Senator," Kavanaugh replied.
But
there is such a law, and it’s worth mentioning. The Selective
Service requires all men of a certain age to register for military
conscription. The draft hasn’t been used in many years —
it affects men, who have more power — but it allows the
government to take possession of men’s’ bodies and use
them as instruments of war. My generation of men faced a high
probability of being drafted and were ordered to submit to the
requisite training and be sent off to Vietnam if we were chosen.
That
was the old order. Men fought for the state, and when they returned
home (if they returned home) they worked for wages to support the
economic system. Women bred for the state, then raised the children
that they produced. You played your role or you paid the price.
Now,
they’re bringing the old order back. They call themselves
“pro-life,” even as they clamor for war, for poverty, to
deprive people of medical care and a livable involvement. You can’t
be pro-life and call down death.
We
are once again ruled by a priesthood that preaches the right to life
from the moment of conception until the moment you’re born
Muslim. Or dark-skinned. Or poor. Or female.
The
men who are shrugging off this development better think twice. Unless
you’re privileged, they’ll devalue your life too. You
can’t be anti-woman and pro-human. Some men will experience the
pyrrhic pleasure of mistreating women, but at what cost? Watch out,
men. They’ll make a barbarian of you soon. It may sound good to
you now, but you’ll be a foot soldier in the mud and not a
general in the great tent.
But
I apologize. This is me, a man, trying to understand how it feels to
be a woman today. But the draft wasn’t the same, was it? Sure,
we could die. We, too, could be physically violated and be helpless
to prevent it. But the intimacy of women’s subjugation, its
linkage to the physical human core … that, I can’t
picture. I can only empathize. And support. And fight.
The
Greek poet CP Cavafy’s best-known work is “Waiting
for the Barbarians,”
which describes a nation-state paralyzed into inaction by the
anticipation of an invading horde. That, to me, describes the
mainstream politicians who have watched the rise in Republican
barbarity, their wholesale attack on democratic process and their
hijacking of the judiciary, and done nothing about it.
Why
isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why
do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because
the barbarians are coming today.
What
laws can the senators make now?
Once
the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Lofty
sentences about political norms and senatorial decorum are the hollow
talk of hollow figures in marble hallways, living statues waiting for
the barbarians. They don’t act because they have chosen to
become symbols, not living actors in a flesh-and-blood drama. And
they don’t act, perhaps, because they can’t believe it’s
really happening. Like the protagonist in another
Cavafy poem,
they paid no attention as walls were built to enclose and entomb
them.
With
no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they
have built walls around me, thick and high …
I
had so much to do outside.
The
draft system was much easier to escape if you were rich or middle
class, if you were white. There were doctors to certify you unfit. If
that form of exemption became more difficult, your parents could
always send you to Canada. People of color and the poor got the worst
of it. They get the worst of it now. They’re far more likely to
serve in the military, often because they have no other economic
alternatives. There they must contend with danger, senior-level
incompetence, suicide
epidemics,
and the
abuse of their addicted comrades.
People
of color and the poor will get the worst of this New Old Order, too,
as disadvantaged women find themselves unable to afford the
interstate travel that bodily autonomy will soon require. That will
displease the Big Tech branch of the ruling elite, which has long
been concerned with the problem of excess population. As I
once wrote
of Tyler Cowen, a favored economist of that set:
Cowen
promotes his idea of the “hyper-meritocracy” in "Average
Is Over." The brilliant and self-motivated (as he sees them)
will become wealthier and more powerful than ever, while the rest of
society (which Cowen pegs at 85 percent of the population) becomes a
permanent underclass, dwelling in shantytowns and struggling to
survive.
With
Roe v Wade gone, make that 95 percent. The tech tycoons may moan, but
they’ll go along with it in the end. Barbarians use social
media, too.
One
of the most striking things about the
Alito draft
is its rage. These judicial moles have watched, and waited, and bided
their time, pretending to be sober jurists until their moment came
around. Now, the fury is unleashed. Chief Justice Roberts may tone
down the language, but the lurking creature has growled deep down in
its throat.
When
they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed!
But
I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Only
one
in four Americans
wants the Court to overturn Roe v Wade. There are nationwide
demonstrations
against it. They’re doing it anyway.
The
Democrats in Washington – somebody – should be demanding
that the courts be taken back from the antidemocratic minority. This
is the battle we should be fighting. This
is the line that should be drawn. Too many of them, however, seem to
have another plan in mind. It’s the same one they’ve been
following for years, and it goes like this: Why legislate? Once the
barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.
Night
has fallen. The walls have been built. They’re here.
