AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM

Trump's 'big lie' was enabled by years of Americans being 'force fed' ​lies from religion: columnist​

Matthew Chapman
July 06, 2021

www.rawstory.com
On Tuesday, writing for The Daily Beast, columnist David Rothkopf outlined how American culture, and in particular religion, primed Trump supporters from birth to embrace the former president's "big lie" that the election was stolen from them.

"One of the key reasons we buy into so many small lies is that we have been force fed so many big ones. I mean really big ones. I mean ones that make the current Big Lie look like one of those low-calorie snacks that is actually a high-calorie treat shrunk to a smaller size and repackaged," wrote Rothkopf. "Many of these lies were created out of necessity. Life is finite. (OK, I'm sorry. It is. Take a deep breath if you need to and then continue reading.) ... According to a 2011 poll from the Associated Press, nearly eight out of 10 Americans believe in the existence of angels and a 2015 poll showed 72 percent of Americans believe in Heaven and 58 percent believe in the existence of Hell."

Large swathes of the population appear to be abandoning organized religion, but it remains a highly influential force in American politics. At this point, even faith leaders are having a hard time trying to properly educate their congregants against falsehoods like QAnon and anti-vaccine propaganda.
Chris Matthews talks to Raw Story: Who would you bet on in 2024, Trump or Kamala?

Making the problem worse, noted Rothkopf, is that lies both religious and secular are enforced by social structures that make it difficult to push back on them.

"All these lies are aided and abetted by the fact that simply believing in what you are told to believe is much easier than actually figuring out the truth," wrote Rothkopf. "What is more, if your family and friends believe in a lie, challenging that lie might make you an outcast, might alienate those with whom you have or wish to have a bond. With the advent of social media, where like-minded friends become 'editors' and select the news their followers see, lies spread among audiences inclined to believe and thereby endorse them. We live in an age of media 'echo-systems', ecosystems that reinforce disinformation spreading it from dubious sources like QAnon to Facebook to TV propaganda networks to you."

You can read more here.

PAYWALL

Fox News is just as much to blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection as Trump: columnist

Travis Gettys
July 06, 2021

DonaldTrump and Lou Dobbs

Former president Donald Trump was impeached for an unprecedented second time for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection with his election lies, but none of that could have happened without Fox News.

The ex-president started stoking the violence to come hours after polls closed Nov. 3, when he complained that any early leads that evaporated as more votes were counted could only be explained by fraud -- and both Trump and his allies pushed that false narrative on Fox News and later in losing court battles, reported the Washington Post.

"Trump could have come out that night and offered a cautious wait-and-see to the results, but he chose not to," wrote Post columnist Philip Bump. "Two months and three days later, his supporters, animated by that decision, stormed the Capitol and sought to confront legislators or Vice President Mike Pence."

But Fox News shares much of the blame for that violent assault by repeatedly promoting the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the Capitol breach, and by inviting guests on to repeatedly push Trump's lies about his election loss and even coordinating with them to push the dishonest claims.

"NPR obtained a memo delineating an appearance by Republican Party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sean Hannity's Fox News show, including how the pair would discuss the fraud claims that McDaniel and the GOP were elevating on Trump's behalf," Bump wrote. "Fox aired anonymous claims about explicit voter fraud, claims that were never substantiated in any credible way. Host Tucker Carlson raised claims about dead people voting — only to have to backtrack when a local news station spoke with several of the 'dead' voters. Host Maria Bartiromo offered extensive airtime for Trump to spread dishonest claims, offering only nods of her head in response."

Trump got impeached and Fox News has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems over the election lies it broadcast.

"Fox — and in particular Fox Business host Lou Dobbs — earned their place among Dominion's targets," Bump wrote. "On Nov. 21, Dobbs claimed that what had occurred a few weeks prior was 'a cyberattack on our election, those voting machines and software,' an obviously indefensible claim. It was also one of his last; the network axed him in early February."

Before he was shown the door, Dobbs was among the Fox News and Fox Business personalities who urged viewers to descend on the Capitol to pressure lawmakers not to certify Joe Biden's electoral win right up until the night before the insurrection.

"Trump planted the seed, but a lot of people had or developed a vested interest in its germination," Bump wrote. "It would have been far simpler to tell the truth about the election, even if it was not easier to do so and even if the payoff would have been far smaller. But for varying reasons, a lot of folks — Trump, Republicans, Fox News, others on the right — invested heavily in the idea that some wrong had occurred that demanded a correction. Jan. 6 was the result."

Fascists March In, Get Chased Out Of Philadelphia
Screenshot/Twitter,@mgouldwartofsky
By Matt Shuham
TPM
July 5, 2021 

Members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Philadelphia Saturday night, leading to scuffles with bystanders and, at one point, a quick retreat into rental box trucks.

Patriot Front is known for these sorts of events: Members mask up, scurry into town, set off some smoke bombs, wave flags bearing fascist symbols and then scurry away.

But theirs plans in Philadelphia were interrupted by heckling and the occasional shove from residents.

Photos from The Philadelphia Inquirer showed the group being confronted by locals and retreating to two rental box trucks, and separately exiting the trucks with their hands up after being stopped, and then briefly detained, by police. (Penske, the rental truck company the white supremacists were seen using, was none too happy about the situation.) The Inquirer reported that the men were searched by police and then released.

Law enforcement told ABC affiliate WPVI that none of the group were from Philadelphia.

“An NBC10 photographer had his cellphone taken from him by members of the group, before recovering it,” Local NBC affiliate WCAU reported.

“They started engaging with citizens of Philadelphia, who were none too happy about some of the things they were saying,” Philadelphia Police Office Michael Crum told WPVI. “Apparently, these males felt threatened, and at one point, somebody in their crowd threw a type of what we believe is a smoke bomb, to cover their retreat, and they literally ran away from the people of Philadelphia.”

Pictures and video from the scene showed the group receiving a warm welcome from the City of Brotherly Love.

Trump Demanding Release of Jan 6 Insurrectionists

SARASOTA, FL - JULY 03: Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves after a rally on July 3, 2021 in Sarasota, Florida. Co-sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida, the rally marks Trump's further support of the MAGA

By Josh Marshal

TPM
July 6, 2021 

Yesterday I noted ex-President Trump’s vainglorious recital of events at his two recent rallies in Ohio and Florida. But there were a string of comments he made at his Sarasota, Florida rally that I only learned about after the fact. They are highly important going forward and particularly in the context of the 2022 election. The comments aren’t terribly surprising coming from Trump. They’re perhaps implicit in things he’s said before. But they represent something new. In short, he now seems to be demanding the release of the various insurrectionists facing charges for storming the Capitol on January 6th. “How come so many people are still in jail over Jan. 6?” he asked the crowd.

He also went further and began to suggest or demand (the ambiguity is a central feature of all Trump incitement) the lynching of the Capitol Police officer who shot insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt.

“By the way, who shot Ashli Babbitt? Who shot Ashli Babbitt? We all saw the hand. We saw the gun … Now they don’t want to give the name, but people know the name. People know where he came from. Now if that were on the other side, the person who did the shooting would be strung up and hung. Now they don’t want to give the name. Who shot Ashli Babbitt? It’s got to be released.”

Making a martyr of Babbitt, who was shot trying to rush the Speaker’s Lobby while members of Congress were being evacuated, has become a staple on the far-right since January 6th. Rep. Paul Gosar, who has become notorious for his work with various white supremacist advocates, claimed Babbitt had been “executed” by an officer who had been “lying in wait” for her while questioning FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Trump says all sorts of wild things. Given the response he got, it seems highly likely this will become a staple of his rally speeches going forward. But what we can see from these comments is that he is focusing on the release of arrested insurrectionists and retribution against the unnamed shooter as leverage points to organize and maintain his hold on the GOP.

Total and explicit fealty to Donald Trump remains a sine qua non for participation in GOP politics, as JD Vance’s abject apology over the weekend makes clear. But there’s a different contest for control going beneath this unity. Republican leaders want to fight what we might call a “traditional” culture war campaign for the mid-term elections — BLM, the crime spike, the “border crisis,” Critical Race Theory along with spending, taxes and debt cued up in case the economy is weak in the fall of 2022. This overlaps with Trump’s rhetoric and vice versa.

Certainly grassroots Republicans and new candidates running for office as Republicans are solidly behind the Big Lie. But there’s an important difference in emphasis. Trump wants to re-litigate the 2020 election and get payback to the various forces and persons he feels betrayed him. That means among other things constant attacks on “RINOs,” the GOP in general, Mitch McConnell and various others who have been insufficiently loyal. Needless to say this isn’t welcome ground for McConnell or the various Republicans on Trump’s enemies list. But more generally it is at best divisive in the context of GOP politics. The whole point of off year or midterm elections is that the out party gets united and pumped because whatever their divisions they can all agree that they hate what the governing party is doing. In a sense it becomes a replay of the 2020/21 Georgia Senate races in which litigating the Big Lie and Trump’s grievances against fellow Republicans pushed to the center of the story and possibly led to twin GOP defeats.

More broadly Trump is leading the way in the slow, creeping GOP embrace of the January 6th insurrection. Last week Kevin McCarthy threatened to revoke the committee assignments of any Republican member who agreed to sit on the Jan 6th investigative committee. Mainstream Republicans aren’t yet endorsing the insurrection. And they are quick to take the safe harbor of insisting that those who committed specific crimes should certainly be prosecuted. They generally portray it as not ideal but the kind of things your over-eager friends do. Not ideal but certainly understandable and a product of a salutary enthusiasm. Trump wants to go further. He clearly wants the insurrectionists vindicated. He wants their prosecutions to stop. He rightly sees that their actions cannot be separated from the Big Lie. And that’s what he wants the 2022 election to be about.

Six Months After Jan. 6, Paul Gosar Demands Charges Against Cop Who Shot Ashli Babbitt

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) attends a House Oversight and Reform Committee business meeting on January 29, 2019. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

By Josh Kovensky
TPM
July 6, 2021 1:0

Days after former president Trump demanded to know the name of the police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the Capitol insurrection, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) cheered and welcomed the support for the far-right cause célèbre.

“Six months ago today, Ashli Babbitt, a 110-pound woman with nothing in her hands, not a rock, not a stick or a bat, was shot dead by a still unknown Capitol Hill police officer,” reads a press release issued by Gosar’s office. “And now President Trump has joined me in seeking the truth.”

Gosar has taken a lead role in stoking rage on the right-wing fringe about Babbitt’s death. A Capitol police officer shot and and killed Babbitt on Jan. 6 as she, backed up by a mob of rioters, climbed through a doorway into the House Speaker’s Gallery, where members of Congress were evacuating.

A DOJ inquiry did not find evidence to support charges against the officer; Babbitt’s family have sued D.C. for records on the officer.

But Gosar, who has ties to the far-right, has taken a lead role in pushing the idea that the federal government “executed” Babbitt. When DOJ officials have come before the House Oversight Committee, on which Gosar sits, to testify about Jan. 6, Gosar has used it as an opportunity to ask who “executed” Babbitt.

In the statement, Gosar restated his mantra of the past few months, demanding to know the identity of the officer who killed Babbitt while claiming the existence of a shadowy “effort to cover up the full circumstances of this homicide and the American people won’t stand for it.”

He once again referred to Babbitt’s death as an “execution,” saying that “we do not allow the execution of citizens by street ‘justice’ in our country.”

He went on to ask in the statement “why have no charges been brought against the shooter for negligent homicide or more?”

Study details how Trump unleashed 'outright slaughter' of wolves in Wisconsin

#STOPWOLFHUNTING

Common Dreams
July 06, 2021


FILE PHOTO: Service. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

A new study published Monday estimates Wisconsin lost as much as a third of its gray wolf population after the Trump administration stripped federal protections for the animals and the state allowed for a public wolf hunt widely decried as being "divorced from science and ethical norms."

The February hunt, panned (pdf) by wildlife advocates as "an outright slaughter," killed 218 wolves—already far past the quota the state had set. But over 100 additional wolf deaths were the result of "cryptic poaching," University of Wisconsin–Madison environmental studies scientists found, referring to illegal killings in which hunters hide evidence of their activities.

The majority of those surplus deaths, the researchers estimate, occurred after the Trump administration announced on November 3, 2020 the lifting of endangered species protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states. That shift became effective in January 2021.?

According to the study, published in the journal Peerj, between 98 and 105 wolves died since November 2020 "that would have been alive had delisting not occurred."

An optimistic scenario puts the state wolf numbers for April 2021 at between 695 and 751 wolves. That's down from at least 1,034 wolves last year, representing a decrease of 27–33% in one year.

That decline, the researchers said, is at clear odds with Wisconsin's stated goal of the hunt "to allow for a sustainable harvest that neither increases nor decreases the state's wolf population."

"Although the [Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources] is aiming for a stable population, we estimate the population actually dropped significantly," said co-author Adrian Treves, a professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and director of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at UW–Madison, in a statement.

Cancellation of the state's next hunt, set for November, could allow for the wolf population to rebound in one or two years. Standing in the way of that is Wisconsin's mandate for a wolf hunt in the absence of federal protections, and kill allowances set on shaky scientific ground, according to the researchers.

"Quite simply put, post-delisting, too many wolves are being killed and there is absolutely no justification for it."

Also troublesome is the fact that the state didn't mandate the collection of wolf carcasses for assessing data of wolf ages or detection of alpha females.

Co-author Francisco Santiago-Ávila said the results suggest the lifting of federal protections gave a subtle green light for more killings.

"During these periods, we see an effect on poaching, both reported and cryptic," he said. "Those wolves disappear and you never find them again."

"Additional deaths are caused simply by the policy signal," he said, "and the wolf hunt adds to that."

Citing "the importance of predators in restoring ecosystem health and function," the researchers offer recommendations including, at the federal level, a "protected non-game" classification for wolves. At the state level, authorities "should prove themselves capable of reducing poaching to a stringent minimum for a 5-year post-delisting monitoring period," the study said.

Wildlife advocates have already expressed concern that the wolf population hit seen in Wisconsin could be a harbinger of the fate of wolves in other states unless the Biden administration quickly restores federal protections for the iconic animals.

According to Samantha Bruegger, wildlife coexistence campaigner at WildEarth Guardians, "Quite simply put, post-delisting, too many wolves are being killed and there is absolutely no justification for it. No scientific justification. No ethical justification. No public safety justification. No economic justification."

WildEarth Guardians is among a handful of conservation organizations last month that released guides for laypeople as well as state agency wildlife policymakers to show how to best prioritize "wolf stewardship and a broader vision for conserving species in the face of global climate change and mass extinctions."

"New wolf plans informed by science and ethics are needed now more than ever, as the disastrous winter wolf hunt in Wisconsin showed," said Amaroq Weiss, senior West Coast wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, expressing optimism the guides could be tools for "a more hopeful course in states' stewardship of these beloved animals."

THE NAZI'S LOVED BELARUS
Belarus leader: Jews caused the world ‘to kneel’ before them

LIKE THEY LOVED UKRAINE & ESTONIA
Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko laments ‘Holocaust of the Belarusian people’ during Nazi occupation of country in WWII

By TOI STAFF

Today, 

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko attends a wreath-laying ceremony at Mound of Glory war memorial marking Independence Day, on the outskirts of the capital Minsk, Belarus, on July 3, 2021. (Maxim Guchek/BelTA Pool Photo via AP)


Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed that Jews caused the world “to kneel” to them.

The authoritarian leader made the remarks in a speech Saturday for Belarusian independence day, which marks Soviet forces’ liberation of the capital Minsk from the Nazis in 1944.

“The Jews succeeded in causing the entire world to kneel to them and no one will dare raise a voice and deny the Holocaust,” Lukashenko said, quoted by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.

According to a separate translation Monday by the Ynet news site, Lukashenko said, “The Jews succeeded in proving to everyone that they went through the Holocaust and the entire world kneels before them.”

Referring to Nazi German actions during the occupation of the Eastern European territory during World War II, Lukashenko said there had been a “Holocaust of the Belarusian people.”

“We are so tolerant, so good, we did not want to offend anyone and we have thus come to being insulted,” he said, according to Ynet.

Kan had a different translation of that remark, which it quoted as coming immediately following Lukashenko’s remarks on Jews.

“On the other hand, the Belarusians, a tolerant nation, allowed their faces to be spit on,” he was reported as saying.

A senior adviser to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus last year after challenging Lukashenko in a presidential election widely seen as rigged, slammed the Belarusian leader for the comments.

“Lukashenko is demonstrating his incivility, pathological lies and overt antisemitism. This man is trying to nurture in Belarus all the evil that the world is fighting against in the 21st century,” Franak Viacorka told Kan.

The publication of Lukashenko’s comments came after President Reuven Rivlin sent a letter Saturday to congratulate him on Belarus’s national day, apparently becoming one of the few Western heads of state to congratulate the Belarusian leader, who is widely seen as a dictator.

Rivlin’s office said in response to social media criticism that the letter was sent in accordance with Foreign Ministry protocol for the national day of any country that Israel has diplomatic ties with.

Belarus has been shaken by protests fueled by Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in an August 2020 election that was widely seen as rigged. Authorities responded to the demonstrations with a massive crackdown that saw more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police.

Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for 27 years, has repeatedly accused the West of fomenting the protests and harboring plots to oust him.

On Friday, Lukashenko claimed his government thwarted a series of purported Western-backed plots, following a set of new bruising sanctions the EU slapped on Belarus over an incident last month in which fighter planes forced a passenger jet to land in the country to arrest a dissident journalist.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 Director Spike Lee tells Cannes Black people still 'hunted down like animals'

Director Spike Lee on Tuesday denounced the state of race relations in the United States three decades after he first shook audiences in Cannes with films on bigotry and violence, drawing parallels with the 2020 killing of George Floyd.

Lee, the first Black person to head up the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, said little had progressed since 'Do The Right Thing' premiered on the French Riviera in 1989 - a Brooklyn-based tale of spiralling racial tensions and police brutality with a startling resonance now.

"When you see brother Eric Garner, when you see king George Floyd, murdered, lynched... you would think, you would hope that thirty-some  years later Black people would stop being hunted down like animals," Lee told a news conference in Cannes, where the world's biggest cinema showcase is due to kick off.

A judge sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to 22-1/2 years in prison in June for Floyd's murder during an arrest in May 2020.

Video of Chauvin kneeling on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes caused outrage around the world, and the verdict was widely seen as a landmark rebuke of the disproportionate use of police force against Black Americans.

Eric Garner was killed in a deadly chokehold by a white police officer during a 2014 arrest. His dying words, "I can't breathe" became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Lee's darkly funny 'Do The Right Thing' - in which tempers fray and led to a deadly outcome over the course of boiling hot day in Brooklyn - outraged some critics when it was first released, with some claiming it would encourage riots.--Reuters

#ABOLISHSECONDAMENDMENT

Fourth Of July Weekend Saw Highest Number Of Mass Shootings Than Any Other Weekend In 2021

Robert Hart
Forbes Staff
Business
I cover breaking news.

At least 150 people across the U.S. were killed by gun violence in more than 400 shootings over the Fourth of July weekend, according to data collated by the Gun Violence Archive, an uptick that puts 2021 on track to continue, and exceed, the violent surge that made 2020 the deadliest year of gun violence in decades.

U.S. flags on the grounds of the Washington Monument at half-staff 

following a mass shooting. GETTY IMAGES

KEY FACTS


There were 14 mass shootings–defined by the Gun Violence Archive as when four or more people (excluding the shooter) are shot or killed–over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, more than any other weekend this year.


There have been 336 mass shootings this year, 20 of which occurred in July, roughly two every day this year.


In total, there were more than 400 shootings and at least 150 deaths from gun violence over the holiday weekend, though these figures may change as data over the 72-hour period from Friday to Sunday is updated.



Major cities bore the brunt of this violence, with 26 fatalities in New York and 14 in Chicago.


The figures also include four children who were shot in Virginia Friday and eight people who were hospitalized in a shooting near a car wash in Fort Worth, Texas.

KEY BACKGROUND

Records on mass shootings in the U.S. are patchy as the FBI does not track them and there is no agreed upon definition (the FBI does track mass murders, though this misses a great deal of gun violence). The Gun Violence Archive has been tracking shootings since 2013 and shown a broad upward trend in the number of people killed each day. 2020 was one of the deadliest years in decades, with nearly 20,000 killed by gun violence. An additional 24,000 people that year died by suicide with a gun. Crime declined, overall, during the pandemic, though gun violence and homicides bucked this trend. Experts have suggested increased civil unrest, interrupted court and police operations and deepening inequalities as possible contributing factors. Gun sales also spiked during the pandemic, including some 300,000 people who may have bought them without background checks.

BIG NUMBER

10,318. That’s how many have died by gun violence in 2021 so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive. 154 of these were children aged between 0 and 11 and 629 of these teens aged between 12 and 17. Calculations based on CDC data suggest there are an additional 12,342 deaths by suicide with a gun this year.

 
CRUCIAL QUOTE

President Joe Biden set out plans to tackle gun violence in late June, with a key focus on trafficking in regions like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. "We are announcing a major crackdown on the... flow of guns used to commit violent crimes," he said."It is zero tolerance for those who willfully violate key existing laws and regulations." A ban on assault weapons and background checks are also on the agenda.

 
#AMERICANGUNFETISH


FURTHER READING

Shootings never stopped during the pandemic: 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades (Washington Post)

More Than One Mass Shooting Per Day Has Occurred In 2021 (Forbes)

Shootings And Gun Deaths Continue To Rise At Alarming Rate In Large U.S. Cities (Forbes)

Robert Hart
I am a London-based reporter for Forbes covering breaking news. Previously, I have worked as a reporter for a specialist legal publication covering big data and as a freelance journalist and policy analyst covering science, tech and health. I have a master’s degree in Biological Natural Sciences and a master’s degree in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. Follow me on Twitter @theroberthart 

OPINION
No woman should be forced to endure an IUD

IUDs are invasive and risky. Britney Spears’ conservatorship highlights how women are expected to bear those risks.

Koraly Dimitriadis 

6 Jul 2021

AL JAZEERA

#FreeBritney activists protest at Los Angeles Grand Park during a conservatorship hearing for Britney Spears on June 23, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. Spears is expected to address the court remotely. Spears was placed in a conservatorship managed by her father, Jamie Spears, and a lawyer, which controls her assets and business dealings, following her involuntary hospitalization for mental care in 2008 [Rich Fury/Getty Images]


Last month, the world listened as Britney Spears, the American singer and pop star, described in detail to a court her experience of being subjected to a conservatorship controlled by her father, James Parnell Spears. When Spears had a very public breakdown in 2007 it seemed appropriate her father take control to safeguard her estate. Over a decade later, however, her testimony raised hairs on my arms as I listened to her blow-by-blow account of an arrangement she calls “abusive”.

In a chilling scene reminiscent of something from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Spears revealed that she has been refused permission to remove an intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUD) which stops her getting pregnant. It is unclear whether Spears consented to have the IUD inserted, or how long she has had it, but one thing is clear. Under this conservatorship she apparently has no say on whether it remains.
KEEP READING‘I want my life back’ Britney Spears tells US judgeGender inequality: The economic effect of the pandemic on womenBreathing lessons: A survivor’s guide to long COVIDHow much of pandemic childcare burden fell on women vs men?

Her revelation triggered memories of my own experience with an IUD and reminded me of how angry I am that women are just expected to embrace these invasive devices – in many cases inserted without any sort of pain relief (as Caitlin Moran so elegantly explained in her Times column). I would like to know where the IUD-male-equivalent is? It seems that, just like Britney’s father, patriarchy prefers us sterile at the expense of our health, at their pleasure – essentially, controlling our bodies.

The West is quick to judge the enforcing of sterilisation and contraception on women in other cultures – such as that of the Uighurs by the Chinese government – but in the US, the so-called “land of the free”, a woman of Spears’ stature and fame is being denied agency over her own body.

When an IUD was suggested to me many years ago as a remedy for my stomach problems and painful periods, the doctors said it was generally safe, but that it carried a small chance of complications, such as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). The emphasis was on its safety, not on its risk. I was handed a glossy pamphlet with a picture of a couple embracing on the cover. It was an alluring image, which seemed to be offering the solution to my womanly problems – freedom from my periods and the freedom to have sex without the worry of pregnancy. I was young, naïve and impressionable. I just assumed PID was easily treatable should it occur.

For three years, the IUD ticked like a time bomb inside my uterus until I ended up in hospital, unable to walk properly, talk much or be touched because of the pain – it was as if my entire body had been shut down. I did not know it at the time, but I had developed PID. Five years on, I still have PID – inflammation in my uterus that still has not healed.


The stats show that more than 10 percent of women experience infection from IUDs and that up to 5 percent contract PID. But the problem with IUDs is that sometimes there is no way of knowing if they are doing damage until it is too late. My symptom was bleeding but that is a normal side effect of IUDs. My GP was not concerned when I presented to her. She prescribed hormones to settle it. I was sexually active so I had her do some swabs. She said I had some mild bacteria that would clear on its own. I asked if I needed to see a gynaecologist. She said it was not necessary.

A vagina is self-cleaning. It is a delicate ecosystem that balances out bacteria to protect itself from sexually transmitted infections. Some bacteria that gets passed through sex is more harmful than others. Some clears up on its own. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is an overgrowth of vaginal bacteria. IUDs can double the risk of BV because an IUD is a foreign object that alters the natural balance of the vagina. Without treatment, BV can lead to PID. Several studies have reported an increased risk of PID in IUD users – a three to ninefold increase compared with non-IUD users – but it is more prevalent in young women with many sexual partners.

When I got sick I felt ashamed, as if I had caused my illness. After years of reflection I do not think I should have felt this guilt. This is the system that patriarchy has set up for women, to punish us for our bodies, to make us feel ashamed for our pleasure, washing its hands of any accountability. Despite the risks, IUDs are being handed out to young girls as a solution to unplanned teenage parenthood. Many of these young girls risk permanent infertility if they develop PID.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – heralded as a feminist – is giving away IUDs for free, ignoring the thousands of women who have joined IUD Facebook support groups to share their terrible experiences. I believe the risks of an IUD should have been put on the front of that pamphlet I was handed – in red, bold font in the same way cigarettes have a photo of cancer on the packet.

Women must endure pain and shut up about it. You are considered a stronger woman if you endure a drug-free labour, for example. You are a stronger woman if you do not have health issues, if you have a perfect body and a smile all the time.


When I presented my ailment to my GP, I was dismissed. When I presented it to the hospital emergency department, nobody checked my uterus even when I told them I had an IUD.


Instead, they checked me into a pain management hospital for fibromyalgia. They had me doing therapy in a chlorinated pool while the infection pumped through my body, damaging my lymph nodes. It was only when I started bleeding more heavily that they called a gynaecologist. He took one look and asked me to cough while he pulled the IUD out.

I was prescribed antibiotics to clear the infection. But even after that, when my body started changing shape and expanding in unexplainable ways, I was again ignored and told by my new GP that it was my age, that it was weight gain. When I travelled overseas and my body blew up like a balloon after flying, the GP there just said it was fluid retained during the flight and that it would settle. I continued to travel without compression stockings, which I now know was a danger to my health, because when I returned home my GP referred me to a vascular surgeon who diagnosed lymphedema – damage to my lymph nodes caused by the infection from the IUD. My lymphatic fluid was not draining properly.

I now have to wear compression stockings daily and need manual lymphatic drainage. My periods are even more painful than before. While I may have learned to manage my conditions, and I am a “stronger woman” for all that I have endured, a part of me remains bitter and angry that I was not told more clearly about the risks of IUDs. To think that any woman is being forced to have an IUD, like Spears, is horrifying. It is a clear infringement on human rights.

In 2018, I interviewed Dr Lesley Hoggart, associate head at the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care at the Open University in the UK. She told me that she believes more research needs to be done into the IUD. Has my experience been captured in the research? Have the experiences of the thousands of women in Facebook groups been captured? Or are we still being ignored – swept away – just like Spears’ voice is in danger of being by the courts?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.



Koraly Dimitriadis is a Cypriot-Australian writer, poet and actor.

CLIMATE CHANGE BRINGS WATER WARS
Balochistan threatens to cut Karachi's water supply from Hub Dam
Balochistan government's spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani addressing a press conference in Islamabad, on June 6, 2021. — YouTube

"Sindh is supplying 42% less water to Balochistan," says Liaquat Shahwani.
Balochistan is getting only 7,000 cusecs of water from Sindh, he says.

"The Sindh government is hell-bent on turning Balochistan's land dry."

The Balochistan government on Tuesday warned that it will cut off Karachi's water supply from Hub Dam, as the provinces quarrel over water shortage.

Balochistan government's spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani, addressing a press conference in Islamabad, blamed the Sindh government for releasing less water to his province.

"Sindh is supplying 42% less water to Balochistan [...] the province is getting only 7,000 cusecs of water from Sindh," the spokesperson said.

"Chief Minister Sindh (Murad Ali Shah) had refused to provide Balochistan its due share of water," he claimed.

The spokesperson claimed that due to Sindh's "stubbornness," the province was suffering a loss of Rs75-77 billion. "The Sindh government is hell-bent on turning Balochistan's lands dry."

Shahwani claimed Sindh had not provided Balochistan with its complete share of water in the last 20 years, yet it continues to complain that Punjab has not provided 17% of its share to Sindh.

"Our due right share, according to the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), is 10,900 cusecs, including a shortfall of 30% which is 14,000 cusecs, but Sindh is providing 7,000 cusecs water," he said.

He said the Balochistan government already brought up the issue at various forums but the Sindh government "consistently denied facilitating it."

'Reservoirs received 62% less water than estimated this year'

A day earlier, Chairman Indus River System Authority (IRSA) Rao Irshad Ali Khan had said the country's reservoirs had received 62% less water than estimated this year.

The IRSA chairman made the statement during a meeting of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Water Resources, with Nawab Yousuf Talpur in the chair.

The IRSA chairman, while briefing the committee, berated the Sindh government and said that on the one hand, it opposes constructing new dams and on the other, it demands additional water supply.

Responding to the IRSA chairman's comments, an MNA from Sindh said the province was not being provided 5,000 cusecs of water, which was reserved as its quota.

On the occasion, Punjab Minister for Irrigation Mohsin Leghari said that the issue should not be politicised. the Council of Common Interests is looking into the matter and has asked the attorney general to resolve it.

A representative of the Attorney General's Office said that the issue of water was more political than technical and should be resolved in the forum of the CCI.

The committee's chairman said that in the next meeting, the attorney general should come in person and give a briefing on the solution of the water distribution problem through IRSA's record.

Meanwhile, the committee was also informed that the country faced a 17% shortage of water supply during the Kharif season.