Joe Biden's plans for LGBT+

High level political action has become cut off from grass roots organisations almost across the board. That's a large part of the source of the problem.
So what are you doing about it in the UK ?

• Parish Council
• District Council
• County Council
• party membership

This is political discussion, on a UK board. Most people are watching in horror and only able to make predictions about what would happen.

But even so, "do something" is pretty general. High level political action has become cut off from grass roots organisations almost across the board. That's a large part of the source of the problem.

(Instead of plunging into an epic derailment. I suspect this is really what separates in good faith posters from determined to derail posters.)

But yes, we’ve gone round this topic a few times so let’s just agree to disagree here.

How do low income families afford the cost of contraception to allow them to climb out of poverty

Low-income families have Medicaid and Planned Parenthood. Before ACA, those who could pay for their own contraception did so, those who couldn’t took advantage of government programs or charitable programs. But I just don’t think it’s the role of government to hand out birth control when women can access it themselves and have accessed it themselves for ages.

I was talking about this in another thread—the problem with contraception in the US isn’t so much the cost, it’s access. You need a prescription to get BCPs but these should really be available in any pharmacy without a script. I’ve lived overseas in countries where you can get birth control packs for 10 dollars, which seems about right to me. Only those in dire poverty would find it onerous, and there are specific programs to target them.

Someone can think access is important but that a system like the NHS isn't the best way to do it.

Yes, there is more than one way to deliver health care, but the point I was making is that in the UK the NHS has overwhelming support, so its very difficult to compare the US and the UK political parties on some key issues.

There is no main stream political party in the UK with a manifesto pledge to introduce a different healthcare system, which on this issue puts them all to the left of the Democrats.

I know we've gone round the houses on this on this (side-issue) before, Kitty, so I'll just re-iterate a couple of points from last time we discussed this.

1. Viewed from a society-wide perspective, providing free contraception as part of your national health system is a hell of a lot cheaper than dealing with the downstream consequences of unwanted pregnancies. Sheer economic self interest makes it a good idea.

2. Viewed from an individual perspective, what's galling about the hobby lobby judgement is that one specific aspect of healthcare is being excluded from an employment package solely on the basis of the religious prejudices of the employer - female employees get discriminated against simply because of the weird patriarchal hang-ups of the bosses (and yet, mysteriously, viagra is still okay - strange that...)

Unless somehow the political classes change their behaviour
Then get involved and change it from the inside
DO SOMETHING

ideally that improves the rights and opportunities of women

Someone can think access is important but that a system like the NHS isn't the best way to do it.

Sanders is a moderate social democrat, really - Warren I am not convinced is really any different than a Biden, in practice, but who knows. Yes, neither won, but do the Democratic (or Republican) party machines really return candidates that reflect what people would like to vote for? They doesn't seem that they are particularly affective at doing so. Any polling you see suggests that huge numbers of voters think all of the candidates are bad, that they don't really want to vote for any of them, that there is significant lack of trust. There is also huge manipulation of the system in terms of financing and propaganda, and people realise that.

What's interesting and suggestive is that they have for years been returning candidates who are largely indistinguishable in their economics while attempting to differentiate themselves in other areas which have little or no impact on social structure. This is true outside of the US as well, which is also interesting, and has created similar responses of grass roots voters turning to more extreme parties and candidates. The Americans however have little protection against the influence of money on their political system.

It's not a matter of voters voting "wrong" its a matter of them having no real choices, and every choice they have is likely to make things worse. Voters don't have a solution to that.

Unless somehow the political classes change their behaviour. It's not clear to me that institutionally the American system is robust enough to do that, it doesn't change easily and it was designed with a very particular kind of society in mind.

I wouldn't say I think they shouldn't have elected officials. But unless the political class comes up with some real options, I think that is the likely outcome within the next 100 years. Some kind of descent into political gridlock and social chaos followed by authoritarianism. Possibly some kind of real shock might make them wake up, but so far, the climate emergency, COVID, the 2008 crash, the Occupy movement, the current chaos around race and police brutality, and Trump, have not done it.

‘Their citizens’ !

I mean, people don’t give you free food, do they

Generally civilised countries don’t allow there citizens to starve

Contraception in the U.K. is free at the point of contact, because the consequences of not providing contraception - at best an unnecessary operation, at worst an unwanted child - are so great and impact so disproportionately on women.

HOWEVER, the fact that this is not universally accepted in the US shows how profoundly different the two countries are, and why it is so difficult to compare political parties.

Ummm, we can pay for it?
How do low income families afford the cost of contraception to allow them to climb out of poverty
without universal health care
and subsidised contraception in the control of women

how do women take control of their lives without removing the risk of unwanted pregnancy

how do women ensure that their children will grow up healthy without access to good healthcare

feminists want women to have power over their own lives

Trump and his funders do not

Please explain how denying women control over their own fertility is feminist

Ummm, we can pay for it? I mean, people don’t give you free food, do they? Yet we wouldn’t say the grocery store is starving you.

Kitty
Again, I consider myself a feminist and don’t support universal health care and free contraception.
Please explain how denying women control over their own fertility is feminist ?

I'm afraid I don't understand, Goosefoot.

Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other candidates who I don't think you would call 'neoliberal' were put before the voters - and ultimately the public didn't go for them. However, their campaigns did succeed in moving the Dem platform to the left. Most of my friends supported Warren, a few Sanders, one or two Harris or other candidates. They are now all supporting Biden. And I gotta say my friends are neither 1 percenters or deluded idiots. One is a disability activist and this campaign is very important to her.

In the UK, ultimately, (though, of course, it's a different system and parties beyond the main two have more purpose and power) the voters didn't go for Jeremy Corbyn. (BTW, OF COURSE people are told just to vote Labour! That's what political parties do.)

If you don't think it's about third parties, and you don't think that voters are voting for the correct candidates - are you saying there shouldn't be elections?

The "neoliberal consensus" only exists because people got fed up with the post-war consensus.

Agree NotDavidTennant - Thatcherism was very much a reaction to the Labour governments of the 1970s.

And I'd still take the postwar consensus, Thatcherism or Neo liberalism over kleptocracy, which is Trump's preferred form of government.

There are people on this thread though who don't seem to understand how it is that 40 years of neoliberalism contributed to the election of Trump.

The "neoliberal consensus" only exists because people got fed up with the post-war consensus. Now that people are fed up with the neoliberal consensus a new political consensus will emerge.

In the meantime the main thing we have to do is ensure that the new consensus is not defined by the kind of people who want to burn everything down and start all over again. If that means voting for an establishment plodder like Joe Biden then so be it.

here's been a lot of understandable criticism of calling Trump supporters stupid, but how different is:
''There is a kind of gaslighting going on when you suggest to people that they can only affect this stuff if they get out and vote Democrat, or maybe it's a sort of delusion'
Kinda the same thing about Dems - they are just deluded.

I don't really think this is the same, mainly because I think plenty of people see the problem.

The question is why certain people don't seem to, particularly, the people in power within the Democratic party who keep them wedded to a neoliberal agenda. My thought is that they in fact understand, but don't care.

There are people on this thread though who don't seem to understand how it is that 40 years of neoliberalism contributed to the election of Trump. Just like there are people in the UK who seem completely unwilling to see how the LP's conversion to Thatcherism contributed to Brexit. Lots of people do, there are plenty of them here at FWR who have been LP members for years but see what has happened. But you don't see them telling people they just have to vote Labour.

It's kind of the doing the same thing over and over, while thinking their might be a different outcome, is the definition of insanity. How long should voters go on voting for the same thing, hoping for change?

It's not even a discussion about third parties, really. But at what point do you essentially have sham elections?

Copy and paste error in the last part there, apologies!

Kristi Noem is against abortion in any circumstances. She is against universal health care (including contraception and ante natal care)Is she really the sort of person Feminists vote for

Oh of course no feminist would vote for her. I am saying that it would be easier for a conservative woman to win. Conservatives tend to vote for their candidate even if they are not perfect, it’s really like herding cats on the liberal side as you can see here. (I consider myself a feminist but am not in favor of universal health care and don’t accept it as a litmus test)

Nikki Haley is non white. Cannot see the current GOP making her their leader

This is a very British way of thinking. The party does not choose their leader, the voters do via the primary. I mean, Trump wouldn’t have even been a candidate if it was up to the GOP 😂.

She is also anti abortion and anti universal healthcare and free access to contraception

I thought she had a more centrist (in the US reckoning of it) stance? Again, I consider myself a feminist and don’t support universal health care and free contraception. This is a very European approach.

My overall point was to a PP was that I think a woman can be elected to the presidency, but it would be easier for a conservative woman. It would be no victory for the feminist agenda obviously.

My personal feeling is that a GOP female president would have be similar to their male counterparts and probably wouldn’t signal the next coming of Gilead or whatever. How could they really be any worse than Bush or Trump?

She is against universal health care

So am Is she really the sort of person Feminists vote for*

Oh, I wouldn’t expect any femi

Nikki Haley is non white.
Cannot see the current GOP making her their leader.
She is also anti abortion and anti universal healthcare and free access to contraception.
Great for women's rights hmm

This is the FWR board.

Kristi Noem is against abortion in any circumstances.
She is against universal health care (including contraception and ante natal care)
Is she really the sort of person Feminists vote for ?

Nikki Haley is non white.
Cannot see the current GOP making her their leader.
She is also anti abortion and anti universal healthcare and free access to contraception.
Great for women's rights

God...the last thing the US needs is a conservative handmaiden President. It would legitimize a Gilead govt

Don’t see how they would be any different to their GOP male counterparts?

I especially don’t see that coming from Nikki Haley but admittedly don’t know much about Gov. Noem besides her getting a boost from her coronavirus response.

There's been a lot of understandable criticism of calling Trump supporters stupid, but how different is:
''There is a kind of gaslighting going on when you suggest to people that they can only affect this stuff if they get out and vote Democrat, or maybe it's a sort of delusion'
Kinda the same thing about Dems - they are just deluded. I can't find the link to it, but as you probably know 96% of black women voted Dem/Hillary in the last election and when someone tried to argue they weren't voting in their own best interests there was a pretty powerful reply.
Not so much in 2016, but in 2020 there was a wide range of Democratic candidates on the stage - I wish I had thought one was 'perfect' - I didn't - but there was a choice. And the Democrats voted for Biden. So instead of there being some monolithic gaslighting Dem, I think voters made a choice based on a combination of pragmatism, familiarity and affection.
Do you think the vote should be ignored and some unpopular third party figure installed instead? A third party has never acted as more than a spoiler (Ralph Nader) in a presidential election but those unhappy with the two party system could have tried to organise something viable - they didn't.

If you want to know more about the history/legacy of third party presidential candidates:
people.howstuffworks.com/10-third-party-presidential-candidates3.htm

Note: I have broken my own rule of not arguing about politics on the internet because it's a fool's game but ,though I live in the UK, I have strong connections to the U.S. and see the chaos and the collective nervous breakdown DT has caused to the nation.

Things like this, after the recent protests:
'They were among 12 people who were partially blinded by police during a week of national unrest. Of the eight who lost sight that day, six were protesters, one was a photojournalist, and another was a passerby.'

It's not a sort of debating game thing to them.

Sorry ‘irrelevant because blue’ implies some kind if strategic thought process.

This is a president of the United States of America who just tweeted that the FDA and ‘deep state’ are delaying testing a vaccine until after the elections because they hate him.