What are red-baiters?

Am I the only one who thinks this is one weird question?

I have been astonished that lately when I talk about “Est” only people of a distinctly older generation seem to know what I’m talking about; perhaps this is good since Est is best forgotten. (My understanding is, they just changed their name though, so we aren’t out of the woods yet on that score.)

I might hope similarly that people don’t know what “red-baiting” is anymore because it has become a thing of the past, except that we have so damn much of it just on Pandagon threads lately.

In case you actually don’t know this, danny, for something close to a century now it has been a commonplace rhetorical maneuver to attempt to discredit people and ideas, especially liberal or progressive ones, by accusing them of either being secret Communists or in sympathy with Marxism or dupes of a Communist conspiracy. Since “everyone knows” Communists and Marxists are just plain evil, and deceitful too, it isn’t then necessary to engage with the merits of the case at hand, since anything Marxists would endorse must be bad, QED.

Stick around, danny, and you’ll see it happen here. “I think you’re all a lot of Marxists anyway” or “This is pure unadulterated Marxism.”

If you read the book this thread is about, you’ll find that the specific accusation that advocates of either contraception or abortion were in fact carrying out a Red agenda from Moscow was thrown around to discredit them from the 1920s on, and that the general atmosphere of the McCarthy era put any kind of nonconformism whatsoever under a microscope and caused people to “play it safe” by hastening to pass the most conservative scrutiny they feared being under, conscience and personal judgement be damned. This is why reactionaries red-bait.

Of course it is always that way, in the end. No one can untangle the full consequences of what they do. But I think that things done in good faith, with proper consideration of the welfare of everyone you would obviously be affecting, will have less nasty unintended consequences. Whereas the medical profession’s campaign to discredit midwives and elevate themselves, for instance, obviously was going to hurt the midwives at least, and possibly women and hence families in general, hence all of society, if actually those folk practitioners knew a thing or two that the MDs might overlook. The right thing for them to do, if people were at all altruistic, would have been to attempt to form alliances with the midwives, and not launch a proto-McCarthyite smear campaign against them and by the way abortion. But no, they were empire-building.

Note that once the MDs had established themselves as especially legitimate, with de facto powers in society, they did indeed often form these very kinds of alliances with midwives, mediated by the preferences of the families they catered to. But meanwhile they’d set in motion a social dynamic of purity crusading. Well, that’s a bit much to blame just on the MDs–American society has always been given to fits of evangelistic reformism, in which lofty language often cloaks yet another attack on the independence of poor people in the name of making the world better for them. The MDs just started one of their own, or maybe took advantage of a general social current in favor of “professionalism” over wild competition in all fields. In any event, Reagan got a lot of her early data from the outcomes of newspaper crusades against abortion (as part of a crusade against sexual “big city corruption” in general). And the later crackdowns on liberal interpretations of what constituted “therapeutic” abortion were driven, I gather, by political movements outside medicine–though connected to and enabled by the ongoing integration of medicine into a centralized system of specialists and away from family practice.

I think that on the whole, it is a good thing that women have gotten to the point of openly asserting their inherent right to control the decisions around pregnancy, no matter how benign certain phases of the old quasi-legal order of therapeutic abortions freely construed may have been. It isn’t a decision that should ever have been vetted by some third party, no matter how sympathetic he might have been.

I read it the same way Mark. As is happening now, the few decided what was best for the many without any consideration of the individual situations of the many.

preyingmantis and others who may be interested, I highly recommend Eve’s Herbs by John M. Riddle. http://www.amazon.com/Eves-Herbs-History-Contraception-Abortion/dp/067427024X

Riddle traces the lost herbal knowledge about birth control and abortion. He discusses at length the patent medicines such as Lydia Pinkham’s sold as heath tonics but in reality “menses regulators.”

I agree, Amanda, that the married/single situation had much to do with social network. Once initiated into the sisterhood of marrieds, women had access to a vast network of family, friends, friends of family, families of friends. Single women were not supposed to even know about sex and that had to present a huge barrier to finding information about birth control or abortion.

Re: Chicago focus. I liked that Reagan could go so into depth with court records. While Chicago might not be universally representative, I think it’s close enough to get a good notion of prevailing zeitgeist. I was most struck by the unfeeling way women were treated through the legal process.

The legislature of my home state, South Dakota, considered four bills relating to abortion in this legislative session. Thankfully, all were deferred to the 41st day. The session is only 40 days.

For a real scare, here’s the language used. Try not to hurl.

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to regulate the performance of certain abortions, to reinstate the prohibition against certain acts causing the termination of the life of an unborn human being, and to prescribe a penalty therefor.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. The Legislature finds:
(1) That a pregnant mother possesses certain inherent rights, that these are natural intrinsic rights which enjoy affirmative protection under the Constitution of the United States, and under the Constitution and laws of the State of South Dakota, and that among these rights are the fundamental right of the pregnant mother to her relationship with her child, her fundamental right to make decisions that advance the well-being and welfare of her child, and her interest in her own health;
(2) That the pregnant mother’s relationship with her child is inherently beneficial to the mother; that a mother’s unique relationship with her child during pregnancy is one of the most intimate and important relationships, and one most worthy of legal protection; that the history and tradition of our nation has recognized this relationship as one that has intrinsic beauty and benefit to both the mother and the child; and that this relationship is recognized as one of the touchstones, and at the core, of all civilized society;
(3) That all induced abortions, whether surgically or chemically induced, terminate the life of an entire, unique, living human being, a human being separate from his or her mother, as a matter of scientific and biological fact, and terminate that pregnant mother’s existing natural relationship with her child;
(4) That a physician performing an abortion terminates the life of one of the physician’s patients to whom the physician owes a professional and legal duty, which duty is extinguished, under existing law, by the exercise of a written consent to an abortion by the pregnant mother of the unborn child;
(5) That a large percentage of the decisions made by pregnant mothers to give up their rights and interests in their relationship with their children by submitting to an abortion, are not truly informed and voluntary; that there are inherently coercive aspects to the abortion procedure; and that often the uninformed and difficult nature of the decision is seriously compounded by the practices of abortion providers;
(6) That an abortion is an unworkable method for a pregnant mother to give up, surrender, or waive her fundamental right to her relationship with her child;
(7) That in the majority of cases there is no normal or traditional physician-patient relationship or counseling between a pregnant mother contemplating submitting to an abortion and the physician who performs the abortion;
(8) That submitting to an abortion subjects the pregnant woman to significant health risks; that the abortion procedure is inherently dangerous to the psychological and physical health of the woman; that an abortion places most women at greater risk for psychological distress, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide than carrying her child to full term and giving birth;
(9) That the State of South Dakota possesses a duty to protect, and it is a legitimate exercise of the State’s power to protect, the natural intrinsic rights and interests of a pregnant mother in her relationship with her child; in her ability to protect the well- being of her child; and her own health;
(10) That the State of South Dakota possesses a duty to protect, and it is a legitimate exercise of the State’s power to protect, the life of each human being within its borders, including those human beings living in utero;
(11) That it is neither practical nor possible for the State to simultaneously protect these fundamental rights and interests of pregnant mothers and the lives of their children, and, at the same time, provide legal authority or protection for the act of a physician who terminates the lives of these mothers’ unborn children by an abortion; that protection of these rights of the mothers are in conflict with protection of the act of the physician which terminates these rights by terminating the life of the unborn child;
(12) That the right and duty of the State to protect and preserve the life of the unborn child cannot co-exist with a law that authorizes the termination of that life by the physician;
(13) That it is now clear that the State of South Dakota can either protect the mother’s fundamental natural intrinsic rights, or protect the physician’s act that terminates and adversely affects them, but that the State cannot effectively protect both; and that the State’s duty is to protect the natural and intrinsic rights of the pregnant mother and the life of her unborn child, and must, therefore, prohibit physicians from terminating these rights and interests by the performance of abortions, to the fullest reasonable extent federal law shall permit, consistent with the provisions of this Act.

I actually have an example of this very thing going on with a friend of mine right now. Her son hates hunting, HATES. But, her ex insists that he go hunting anyway, b/c somehow shooting a furry woodland creature will make a man out this child. The child is more the video game type.

To make it clear, if this kid were growing up in the 80’s when I did, he would’ve been very, very into Dungeons and Dragons. Not the hunting type.

Dad loves his son, no doubt about it and wants to keep him from being thought a “sissy” and protect him from being teased. (We’re talking Texas, here, folks. Watch some King of The Hill, if you aren’t familiar.) And so, he perpetuates the masculine gender norms in order to protect his kid.

On Topic: I found it quite interesting how the AMA began lobbying the government for oversight, made a pact with the devil so to speak in the beginning of this movement, in order to get rid of competition. Then, the government turned on them, and they ended up being afraid to NOT report to the government. The one who thought they could dictate to the goverment as a superior force ended up being controlled by them.

John, I think when people say the patriarchy is crafted/is for, etc. it’s the same linguistic shortcut as linguistically treating evolution as an actor. To say the evolution produced the eye is to say that a series of events in a system that we call evolution led to eyes existing, but it’s simpler.

That makes sense, and thanks for explaining, and Christina, I’m sorry I misunderstood you.

(I had more to say, about the nature of good and evil, and how I feel that evil is mostly based in indifference (but noting how little difference there is between indifference and ignorance in practical effect), and how malice is actually less dangerous than indifference (it’s easy to avoid one single person who wants to kill you; it’s much harder to avoid a thousand fools who aren’t thinking about what might happen if they, e.g., drive recklessly), but I decided it could get confusing. Which makes it different from the rest of what I say *how*? )

Sorry I used such harsh language. I was thinking mainly of a certain Phoenician who said last week “oops, I’ve had the book all month but I’ve been so busy, hee hee!”

It was a bit of a hassle for me to get the book from my library system, but I did it, and I read it. This despite being distracted by the easier-to-read College Girls which I had purchased outright.

In the matter of intention versus “it just growed” re patriarchy and other human social systems that emerge “behind the backs” of human beings, it’s inherently tangled.

In my fusty manner I then started a long rambling OT epic on how it is tangled. Rather than post that here I suppose it is best to just urge people to read the book already. Maybe Amanda will do a reprise discussion when more people have read it?

A few other thoughts:

This book shows some fine examples of what it is I object to in so-called “Libertarian” thought. We’ve got all these people focused on government, and government alone, but in fact the oppression of women throughout this period was the outcome of an interlocking system of private and public entities. MDs used public law to carve out turf for themselves, campaigning to discredit the pre-existing layer of health care associated with non-degreed midwives and folk remedies in general. But having established laws criminalizing abortion that happened out of their control, in practice they not only looked the other way but actively carried out abortions themselves. Not only that, many practitioners established ties with midwives, forming a network of care. Well and good, but it all happened under the radar of public discourse.

Then other players in the game of public discourse sought to emphasize the criminality of MDs as well as their original targets, the midwives, as enablers of “public immorality,” and the effect of this was to drive abortion practice all the more thoroughly into the hands of MDs. Meanwhile, the increasing centralization of medical practice into hospitals and the rise of Ob/Gyn as a distinct specialty made the quiet medical practice of therapeutic abortion, which enabled reasonably well-off and socially connected women to get abortions almost on demand, subject to increasingly public scrutiny and punitive regulation. In the latest phases of criminalized abortion, the pressure was on hospitals themselves to regulate what was and was not “therapeutic” by establishing review boards. Private or hospital-affiliated MDs were supposed to submit proposals to perform abortions to a committee which would judge on whether or not the grounds submitted were suitably “medical” to pass as legal; this greatly constricted the options of doctors, who began to resent this interference. Reagan noted that no other medical procedure was subjected to ethical scrutiny in this way. The upshot was that the period between WWII (the legal crackdown on MDs as well as women having abortions stepped up during the war, with police department raids on known, long-established urban clinics being used not only to track down the female clientele but the MDs and nurses who made referrals as well) and the court decisions that decriminalized abortion was a time of greatly increased hazard for women, as reasonably safe if clearly illegal clinics and practices were shut down, making the practice far more dangerous for all concerned. The darkest images, of women being blindfolded and taken to quacks who were drunk or smoking cigars while handling them, not to mention desperate attempts with coathangers etc, were much more typical of the 1950s than the 1930s. One reason the radical solution of general decriminalization in the courts won out over “moderate” reforms was that reforms in the 50s and 60s often resulted in overall even tighter regulation; another was that the nation was in a severe and unprecedented public health crisis due to the triumph of McCarthyite moralistic reactionaries.

The book, without belaboring the point, brings out that indeed, the underlying logic of all these modes of regulation boiled down to patriarchy–to the silencing of the “radical notion that women are people too.” The Victorian trope of women as “morally superior” in the sense that they would more diligently uphold patriarchial standards than men would was based on women being silent, certainly in public, about their own sexual desires and their desire to decouple sex from reproduction. In order to be allowed to speak in public at all, Victorian feminists had to distance themselves from the charge of being sexually libertine, and indeed since the polarization of Victorian hypocrisy condemned male lust but refused to do anything effective to discourage it, I daresay many thoughtful Victorian women did harbor some well-founded resentment, and many well-intentioned and sympathetic men could not argue against the suggestion that abstinence was the moral thing to do if birth rates were to be controlled. Hence the recruitment of both feminists and those women who managed to become MDs in the 19th century to the cause of sexual repression in general. After all, without very sophisticated forms of BC and advanced medical technique for abortion, women could hardly enjoy sex as freely as men without running risks men simply do not face, so equalizing in the direction of general freedom would hardly have seemed fair; the alternatives were to try to crack down on men as hard as women to enforce a general repression, or to accept a double standard. The only way I can see for it to have been otherwise would have been to stand for a very radical revision of society indeed–to argue for sexual freedom as an end in itself and to try to compensate for the asymmetrical risks women ran by being very positive in supporting women–to offer the widest range of BC and abortion options, and to also underwrite a pregnant woman’s decision to have a child with positive social support for her and her baby, with no shaming. Such radical views were the hallmark of “extremists” such as Socialists and people even farther to the left–in fact most respectable Social Democratic parties of the pre-WWI era would reject such “extremes” leaving them for anarchists and the advocates of the most violent forms of revolutionism. Keeping that association in place was of course a major strategy of reactionaries, and helps explain why the pro-BC movements were so persecuted and why when they did fight their way into respectability they sought to distinguish themselves from a general support of free love and abortion.

But in fact, the morality of the overwhelming majority of women and their lovers, legally recognized or not, was far more liberal, at least in concrete cases. The fact then that this general idea that women should indeed be able to control their own reproduction and not be told to simply keep their legs crossed could not find a legitimate public voice until the 1960s shows how important the repression of sexual freedom is to our system. When sexual liberation as an end in itself finally could be heard, it was indeed taken as a radical threat, and was listened to largely because the repressive messengers were so morally bankrupt, due in large part to having succeeded in their experiment of national, systematic repression, with disastrous results.

The data Reagan offers then illustrate a dialectical evolution rather than one of simple progress (or regress, from a repressive POV). I think it is a good thing that the sacrifice of a few generations of women, and the people who cared about them, has at least brought into the open arguments and voices that should have been freely heard from the beginning. It is tragic and a historic crime that these voices could only be heard after so much bloodshed, but apparently that is what it took in the land of the free.

Let us not forget what they had to say.

You’ve likely heard by now that Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer has come back, but that both she and John have decided that his campaign will continue. Damn. I think nyceve put it best, we’d be hard pressed to do better than……