Texas Marches Towards Gilead & Tries To Drag The Rest of the Country Along With It, Bounty Hunters

[appalachiablue]

- Women dressed as “handmaids” greet soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, at his confirmation hearing in 2018.
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'Texas marches towards Gilead, and tries to drag the rest of the country along with it,' Daily Kos, July 19, 2021. - Ed.

The title is a reference to Canadian author, Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel written in 1985 at the height of Reagan’s presidency that was adapted in 2017 for a highly successful, award-winning TV series, available on Hulu. That series, which is ongoing, originally incorporated the key aspects of Atwood’s original novel, but as it has progressed it has been increasingly adapted to a more contemporary time frame, extrapolating both characters and events to conform its dystopian narrative to the present day.

The setting for both the novel and series is the country of Gilead, a nation essentially superimposed on modern-day America after a violent overthrow of the U.S. government by a radical religious group bent on establishing a theonomy, a government ruled by Divine Christian law, as interpreted by the group that now holds power (The difference between theonomy and a theocracy are purely semantic; the former term has been adopted by Christian Reconstructionists in this country to avoid the stigma associated with “theocracy”).

In Gilead, women are denied the right to participate in government, to read, write, or own property. Most significantly, they are deprived of any control over their reproductive capacities. Because environmental degradation has resulted in a dramatic drop in fertility rates, certain women, designated as “handmaids,” are involuntarily selected to provide the nation with children (such children are conceived by ritualistic rape, with the full assent & assistance of the infertile wives of those men- typically the most powerful in the govt.- to whom these handmaids are assigned). Since the SCOTUS decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973, establishing a woman’s right to an abortion as Constitutionally protected, the GOP, guided by the so-called “Christian” right, has made the undermining of that right its predominant task, with a single-minded focus unsurpassed by any other policy initiatives, including even cutting taxes.

Because the direct victims of this relentless effort to restrict or criminalize the right to an abortion are always women, the oppressive nature of forcing women to bear unwanted children has been couched in fatuous, high-minded religious dogma (“respect for life”) in an effort to disguise its inherent misogyny. What is occurring right now in Texas dramatically shows that this devaluation of women through enforced control of their reproduction choices has now reached an inflection point of sorts, the natural culmination of a decades-long effort by religious conservatives, through the GOP, to seize control from women over their own bodies...

Read More + Comments,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/19/2040651/-Texas-marches-towards-Gilead-and-tries-to-drag-the-rest-of-the-country-along-with-it

'It truly does resemble the way the Chinese Communist Party enforced its One-Child policy — neighbors spying on neighbors.'
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*Related: Texas Introduces Reams of Regressive Legislation, Rightwing Backlash To Biden Takes Root In Red States; 4th Gen. Texan AA Brianna Brown Views,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/19/joe-biden-republicans-polarization-us-politics-texas

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. What happens when Texas females and the dudes that love Texas females leave the state?

Gonna not help the Republican Texan majority.

[appalachiablue]

3. With this legislation who would want

to live there, it's understandable if a shame for Texas.

There's another article on the state of affairs in TX, posted above.

[Aristus]

8. Exactly.

Born and raised in Texas. Haven't lived there in decades. Never going back.

[SheltieLover]

2. K&R!

[appalachiablue]

4. Hey there, more on the crazy times we're in

[SheltieLover]

5. Ikr!

Ty for sharing. Excellent article!

[appalachiablue]

6. There's another Texas article added above,

lays out all the insane new legislation proposed, The Guardian.

[electric_blue68]

7. TY. I didn't know about the descriptive switch from Theocracy to Theonomy!

Besides having read about Christian Domineists off & on for ?20+ years or so. Going to DC Choice Marches, too.

First alerted about them by 🤔 either Thom Hartman, or Mike Malloy back in the day.

[BeckyDem]

9. I admit it, these people horrify me.