“There’s no savior out there.” That’s a line from “Lord’s Prayer,” a song written by TV Smith for the Lords of the New Church, a band that trafficked in 1980s melodic punk. Here’s some more:
“There ain’t no savior out there
Your stairway to heaven leads nowhere
Don’t look to me for emancipation
You are your only salvation.”
That’s my message to Americans who want to resist Donald Trump and his works — or more precisely the policies of the most right-wing cabinet in American history. Waiting for divine intervention is lunacy. If you’re serious about slowing down the Pencites, you’d better get ready to take them on yourselves.
You sure won’t be able to count on the Democratic Party.
Take Trump’s cabinet nominees — please! In the old days, Democrats would only have needed 40 senate seats to filibuster a would-be attorney general accused of racism, an energy secretary who forgot the name of his own department and a sitting CEO of ExxonMobil as secretary of state.
Unfortunately for the republic, then-majority leader Harry Reid was such a fool that he thought Democrats would never lose another election. So, in a fit of staggering ahistoricity, he eliminated the filibuster for most nominees in 2013. As a result Trump will probably get all his picks, perhaps minus Jeff Sessions because he’s widely disliked by his colleagues.
OK, so unless you’re a character in the too generously reviewed movie “Arrival,” what’s past is past, no do-overs. But Democrats don’t seem to have much appetite for anti-Trump combat even when you consider their new self-imposed limits.
Democrats’ approach to policy is likely to boil down to “let the Republicans do what they want, then take the blame when they overreach.” They may even let the GOP repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration’s sole major policy achievement. “Republicans are about to learn that there’s a big difference between being against something and being for something,” said Steve Israel (D-New York). “They’ve already stumbled out of the gate, and we should let them continue to stumble.” Unasked: How many Americans will die for a tactic?
On the nominees, look for bureaucratic foot-dragging of approvals with procedural votes and other stalling tactics. “I don’t want to needlessly prevent President Trump from being successful,” Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) told The Politico. “But accelerating the confirmation of unacceptable candidates who have views that are outside the mainstream is not constructive.” In the end, though, those unacceptable candidates will get their gigs.
Dems even plan to try to find common ground on rebuilding infrastructure — an admirable goal that I’ve pushed for years. But Trumpism is already so extreme that Democrats ought to ask themselves whether they’re missing the fuhrer for the trees: is it possible to get behind an autobahn without endorsing the tyrant who builds it?
If they really wanted to mount a resistance to Trump, Congressional Democrats could do so with considerably more vigor.
Notably, any single senator can place a personal “hold” on a nominee or bill. There’s no time limit or limit on the number of holds. In 2008, for example, Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) placed a hold against a funding bill for 12 federal programs. A hold only goes away one of two ways: the senator lifts it, or 60% of the Senate votes against it. Democrats could use the hold to replace the filibuster Reid got rid of.
But there’s no reason to believe Democrats will put up a serious fight against the Trumpists. “In the end, a hybrid strategy might make the most sense for Democrats — use Trump and the GOP as a foil and slow them where they can — while seeking to pick one or two areas where his aspirations coincide with their values,” CNN muses. “A las Barricadas!” this is not.
Democratic impotence is nothing new; since the 1970s leaders have pushed the party’s ideology to the right while abandoning every pretense of resistance to the expansion of the corporate gangster capitalism that grinds up working and middle-class people’s hopes and aspirations. Now that Trump is about to impose an especially right-wing (here’s another punk reference, to The Clash) clampdown on ordinary Americans, the Democratic Party will lie completely exposed in the full glory of its uselessness.
Screw the Dems. You are your only salvation.
(Ted Rall is author of “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)
44 Comments.
Reduced to stating the obvious, huh Ted? At least someone is doing it. Of course, it’s worth remembering Democrats have never done ANYTHING for the working class. FDR saved capitalism from itself by giving away a bit, which the bourgeoisie have spent the last 75 years taking back slowly but surely. Forget about Paris 68, we need the Commune.
How about Paris 1789?
Louis the XVI was the King of France
In 1789.
He was worse than Louis the XV,
He was worse than Louis the XIV,
He was worse than Louis the XIII,
He was the worst,
Since Louis the First.
Louis the XVI was living like a king,
While the people were living rotten.
So the people they had an uprising
With a song that will never be forgotten!
In ’02, Bush, jr wanted to transform Iraq from an impoverished, brutal dictatorship and state sponsor of terror who had a nuclear arsenal pointed at the US, and the Democrats strongly supported Bush, jr in his benevolent campaign that transformed Iraq into a peaceful and prosperous democracy, a mission that Bush, jr accomplished in ’03. The only problem, as Thomas Friedman tells us, was that it cost too much, but that really wasn’t Bush, jr’s fault, it was the fault if the Iraqi ingrates.
In ’11, Obama did the same favour for Libya, saving millions of poor Libyans from the genocide the evil regime had planned, and Libya, like Iraq, is now a peaceful and prosperous democracy, with no loss of life, and at very little expense, so Obama and Secretary Clinton did a much more efficient job in Libya than Bush, jr did in Iraq. Both were great and good and benevolent, but Obama and Secretary Clinton were efficient, while Bush, jr was not.
And who can question Thomas Friedman?
So of course almost all the Democrats will support Trump’s benevolent and beneficial policies. How could they not?
Mon Dieu, Michael, had that analysis of the benefits vouchsafed the people of Iraq and Libya by successive US administrations come from anyone else, I should have dismissed it as propaganda…. 😉
Henri
T-rump is the red-headed stepchild of the (marginally) Republican Party brand. As long as he remains crass, he’ll get Democrat pushback. The biggest problem for the hard-core neo-cons is if (or when?) Donnie chooses to embrace certain “popular” progressive ideals. His populist creds will then start transcending the retch-reaction boundaries of party politics. As long as he can straddle bible-belt insanity and keep the lords of Zion off balance, maybe he can get some positive things done.
Meantime, the Bush/Clinton crime cabal will be looking to take him out with whatever works.
As it is, in a WDC culture where everybody is “playing” everybody else, nobody (or thing) is the master conductor except perhaps the more anonymous bankster-class oligarchs.
DanD
Well goodness me! A nominee was “accused of racism” and is thus apparently disqualified. And yet, I seem to remember one Ted Rall also being accused of racism. Reminds me how in these politically correct witch hunts, the Left eat their own as well as the enemy.
Once again, “crumbling infrastructure” is a crony capitalist myth. Just what exactly do you think all the pork barrel spending goes towards?
And where does a Leftist radical get off calling anyone else “extreme”?
> A nominee was “accused of racism” and is thus apparently disqualified
uhhh, Jack – We’re talking about The Attorney General in a country where people of color are prosecuted & persecuted to a far greater extent than whites So, yes, Sessions’ racism might just interfere with his job of ensuring “equal justice under the law.”
> Once again, “crumbling infrastructure” is a crony capitalist myth.
Crumbling infrastructure is a myth, global warming is a myth, overpopulation is a myth, evolution is a myth, heliocentrism is a myth, and germ theory is a myth.
Those silly scientists and engineers sure devote a lot of time to making up myths. It’s much safer to believe some paid shill on FB than somebody who actually has the training and experience to know what he’s talking about.
A high lead level in blood is implicated in impaired reasoning and emotional control issues.
It’s worth considering that much of internet discourse may be only lead “talking” and not subject to modification by factual exposition. You can’t talk to lead.
“Brandon, who is easily excited, was at turns cheerful and mournful during an interview.”
“He has cognitive impairment, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and outbursts of anger.”
“Ever since I caught the lead, I’ve been messed up in the head. I can’t control my anger or feelings,” Brandon said. “I could have been better than I am.”
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-testing/
“There isn’t much federal help available. Congress recently directed $170 million in aid to Flint. That’s 10 times the CDC’s budget for assisting states with lead poisoning this year.”
Lead poisoning is a myth.
@CH
(wink wink)
I knew you would understand.
Science by diktat is the norm in authoritarian capitalist regimes, whether of state or corporate variety.
“Scientific dissent from Lysenko’s theories of environmentally acquired inheritance was formally outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1948.”
Collection of climate change data will be defunded if it interferes with profits despite:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469
“Previous analyses of global temperature trends during the first decade of the 21st century seemed to indicate that warming had stalled. This allowed critics of the idea of global warming to claim that concern about climate change was misplaced. Karl et al. now show that temperatures did not plateau as thought and that the supposed warming “hiatus” is just an artifact of earlier analyses. Warming has continued at a pace similar to that of the last half of the 20th century, and the slowdown was just an illusion.”
I’ve got a bunch of no-fun-duhmentalist relatives. They’ve been conditioned from birth to believe that ‘scientist’ is a dirty word. It’s a person in league with The Devil to discredit The Word Of God.
As you might imagine, they are prime candidates for denialism. Not only do they distrust science, they “know” that Jehovah wouldn’t let any such thing happen.
Well, whadaya know – I typed “religion and cl” into the google search box, and the second recommendation was “religion and climate change denial”. Seems other people are curious as to the correlation as well.
Here’s a nice article.
Thanks for the link, CH.
I think it was Chris Mooney who interviewed Robert N. McCauley about his book, “Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not”.
It was a good interview and I bought the book afterwards.
One interesting idea in the book is that science, as distinct from technology, is counter-intuitive and has a tenuous hold on the human psyche, whereas religion is persistent, having evolutionary origins.
I am now reading “The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy” subtitled “How America’s Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest” by Walter A. McDougal.
CH,
I was just wondering about the myth of it all ~
All across where America’s southwest is in contact with Mexico, scientifically, it is a fact that millions of non-U.S. citizens who illegally cross the border there in order to illegally profit in the job market or otherwise abuse the social welfare network are oppressively not Caucasian, or Black, or even Asian. After they cross the border, they don’t stop wanting to fuck, or drink, or do dope, squirt out anchor-babies, or spend welfare dollars on their own fundamentally invasive lifestyles. And if they’re illegal migrants, they’re doing all the above as insufficiently traceable criminals. How do you balance a state budget with that kind of albatross around your neck, especially when Trump refuses to help finance it?
The dominant reason this is happening is because the Government of the United States has employed representatives of the country’s legal residents who also have conflicts of business interests regarding how both national and extra-national corporations exploit the national economy. It’s not just Dem, or Repug, White, Black, or Brown. It’s `.001%er.
As T-rump solidifies his administration’s policies, where do you think all the migrating invaders from south of the border are going to continue crossing that border? Are they going to wetback it at Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas, which fundamentally appreciates and actually want to help Trump’s stated purpose of kicking the invading hordes out? Or will they come flocking to the sanctuary haven of California?
I live in Los Angeles, and I’m really not looking forward to this scenario. Where do you think Moonbeam will confiscate the funds to finance his desire to turn California into a grand socialist sanctuary state of the invading Mexican Republic? Shit ain’t just going to hit the fan, it’s going to bury it.
DanD
Knock it off, Dan. Any science or facts that clash with Leftwing dogma is badthink! Our benevolent resident science commissars of the grand socialist utopia will decide what science and facts are acceptable!
«Our benevolent resident science commissars of the grand socialist utopia will decide what science and facts are acceptable!» But not on our hero «Jack Heart»’s watch, I wager. S/He will repel those dastardly scientists, while «DanD» takes care of the Mexicans !…
Talk about a marriage made in Heaven !… 😉
Henri
If ignorance is truly bliss, then those two are some of the happiest men on earth.
Rather than deporting Mexicans, we should deport bigots and fools who are incapable of distinguishing fact from fancy.
Henri/CH,
You supply petty ad-hominim insults, but you never respond to or otherwise confront the illustrated problem.
DanD
«Henri/CH,
You [i e, CrazyH and your humble interlocutor] supply petty ad-hominim [sic !] insults, but you never respond to or otherwise confront the illustrated problem.»
CrazyH is quite capable of replying for himself, «DanD», but allow me to point out that my only reference to you in the post to which you seem to be responding here was that you would «take[ ] care of the Mexicans». Have I misunderstood you ? Do you intend to leave that task to others, rather than confronting the «invading hordes» yourself ? On the basis of your postings to these threads, I had imagined you as one who would not hesitate to man the barricades with his own body, but in the event I’ve misjudged you, please accept my most abject apologies….
Henri
Dan, you’re a fucking hypocrite.
You post a vile stream of filth, attacking people wholesale and then complain that someone said something bad about you.
Oh, the horror.
The fact is, I am addressing the problem: your bigotry. Oh, I don’t expect to change your mind, your paranoid delusions are far too deeply ingrained. Perhaps I can embarrass you enough to get you to STFU. If not, then the least I can do is to show you up as the jackass you are, which might just convince other jackasses to keep their mouths shut.
Henri,
It ain’t just “Mexicans” that I criticize, though they are the most prevalent at this corner of America’s borders; and
CH,
Chill it, boy. Take your medication. If you talked that way to somebody’s face, they’d probably knock the holy fuck out of you. But that’s how cowards like you usually display themselves in anonymous print. Go and wack off now so you an feel better.
DanD
Sure thing, Dandy – can I assume that you talk that way in a crowded Mexican restaurant? Or do you hide your little self behind your mommy’s laptop?
But tell me, why should we stop at the Mexican border? Instead, let’s build a wall on the Mason-Dixon line. Get rid of all those ignorant, filthy, superstitious hillbillies who marry their underage cousins and squirt out gap-toothed retards polluting the gene pool with every inbred generation. The imbecilic peckerwood who think wrestling is real and NASCAR is an art form. 95% of Elvis sightings and alien endoscopies involve Southron trailer trash. The overwhelming majority of “People of Walmart” are crackers. There’s a reason for that.
“Ah’s done bin t’two State Fay-ers anna monster truck pull. Ah’s figger ah’s seed all’s what t’be seed.” – Danny Joe Dimwitz, Klan spokesman and fourth grade graduate.
Decent people don’t want your kind ruining our country.
«Henri,
It ain’t just “Mexicans” that I criticize, though they are the most prevalent at this corner of America’s borders; …» I’m quite willing to believe that, in addition to Mexicans, «DanD», you can find other objects for your ire. But I don’t find it necessary to address all of them all of the time. In the response which you criticise above, I addressed your comment to the effect that «Where do you think Moonbeam will confiscate the funds to finance his desire to turn California into a grand socialist sanctuary state of the invading Mexican Republic?»….
Does this render me guilty of an argumentum ad hominem ? I think not….
Henri
«But tell me, why should we stop at the Mexican border? Instead, let’s build a wall on the Mason-Dixon line.» Wow ! I hope the US National Park Service is busy storing food and ammunition at the Fort Sumter National Monument ! To paraphrase the late, great Yogi Berra, 1861 all over again !… 😉
Henri
@henri – I’ve seen bumper stickers lately proclaiming that “It’s not prejudice to state FACTS.” In that vein, I’d like to submit the following:
It’s a FACT the southron teenagers have a higher rate of STD”s than normal people. We wouldn’t want their boys coming up here, diminutive dicks dripping gonorrhea pus, and … ugh … taking advantage of our innocent little daughters and granddaughters. Who knows what kind of filthy diseases they’ve picked up copulating with cattle and poultry?
It’s hard to imagine, but it is theoretically possible that one of them could conjure up enough man-juice to impregnate one of our blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauties! That devil’s spawn might go on to breed even more gap-toothed retards and our entire civilization would collapse!
It’s best we deal with this problem now, before it gets even worse.
«I’ve seen bumper stickers lately proclaiming that “It’s not prejudice to state FACTS.”» I agree, CrazyH, bumper stickers are a great place for FACTS !… 😉
And far be it from me to usurp the place of bumper stickers in educating the general public ! I merely wished to point out my impression that if the tone of the discussion om the US generally resembles that on (much of) this thread, we might see a replay of 1861. Not to worry though, here in Europe we’ve seen borders drawn and redrawn many many times this last millennium, and yet we’ve still managed (hitherto at least) to muddle through….
Henri
No worries henri – you merely gave me the opportunity to continue reciting facts about their kind
I’m not sure but what Lincoln shoulda let ’em go.
This is a great column, Ted.
Incomprehensible, I fear, to the many who still place their hopes in trust to the duopoly parties, who will whine if informed of the necessity of actual participation in their own liberation from a corporate-state-government usurpation of democracy.
Americans are such consumers, always asking what they can buy, always expecting that every statement of a problem to be but prelude to a sales pitch guarantying the solution to the problem or their money back.
«One interesting idea in the book is that science, as distinct from technology, is counter-intuitive and has a tenuous hold on the human psyche, whereas religion is persistent, having evolutionary origins.» Another interesting application of the methods of the physical sciences to other disciplines, Glenn, is U Conn Professor Peter Turchin’s so-called cliodynamics, which leads him to forecast that social instability in the US will peak in the 2020s….
One thing seems certain, editorial cartoonists like Ted will not lack for inspiration in the coming decade – although, as noted, they may find problems in monetising their work….
Henri
I am not a believer in historicism as a deterministic science, but future social instability seems a safe bet to me, much like the prophet in Monte Python who prophesied that small things would be lost.
But seriously, entropy is always increasing even if not evenly and everywhere.
Also, the Peter Principle predicts that the cream will rise to the top and then sour.
Marx predicted the collapse of capitalism, which is demonstrably its strong tendency, but capitalism may crash and regenerate repeatedly until resource depletion, nuclear war, or climate change crashes out the species, long before a successor system is developed without the intrinsic need to force the vulnerable to work for a wage only large enough to forestall death to another day.
«I am not a believer in historicism as a deterministic science, but future social instability seems a safe bet to me, much like the prophet in Monte Python who prophesied that small things would be lost.» And sometimes, as we know, Glenn, big things are lost as well…. 😉
I’ve not, alas, yet had the opportunity to read Professor Turchin’s work, but his concept of «elite overproduction» and resulting intra-elite competition leading to social and political instability sounds interesting. As to whether cliodynamics is just a new wrinkle on historicism, to which, like yourself, I am skeptically inclined, I shall have to wait until I get my hands on that work to judge….
Henri
Many social conditions might better be studied as political economy. I am suspicious of economists who are adept at divorcing the political from the economic and who are usually hired by those who have the money instead of those who need the money.
Have you seen the movie “Inside Job”?
Today’s economics suffers from “physics envy” and loses social relevance by use of mathematized descriptors instead of more intuitively grasped social phenomena of political economy.
John Taylor Gatto writes about overproduction under capitalism. Schools in poor neighborhoods are educationally poor so that smart but poor children do not have the education necessary to compete on an equal basis with less intelligent children of the wealthy. So production of educated children from poor neighborhoods is suppressed.
Another example of overproduction, farmers destroy crops when there is an unexpectedly large harvest in order to increase the price of a commodity.
Alexander Hamilton suppressed whiskey production so his cronies could make big money on it, and even suppressed a so-called “Whiskey Rebellion” that tried to compete in whiskey production with the 1% of their day.
Overproduction is a great leveler because price is correlated with scarcity.
«Many social conditions might better be studied as political economy. I am suspicious of economists who are adept at divorcing the political from the economic and who are usually hired by those who have the money instead of those who need the money.» I share your suspicions, Glenn, but as noted above, I’ve not yet read Professor Turchin’s work, so I must perforce withhold judgement. However, the concept of «elite overproduction» does not sound to me like a divorce of the political from the economic, quite the contrary…..
Henri
«Alexander Hamilton suppressed whiskey production so his cronies could make big money on it, and even suppressed a so-called “Whiskey Rebellion” that tried to compete in whiskey production with the 1% of their day.» And no doubt, Glenn, the good Mr Hamilton would have suppressed «elite overproduction» as well, had that been an issue in his day and place. To my mind, as your own examples of suppression above indicate, overproduction is both an economic and a political concept….
Henri
«Democratic impotence is nothing new; since the 1970s leaders have pushed the party’s ideology to the right while abandoning every pretense of resistance to the expansion of the corporate gangster capitalism that grinds up working and middle-class people’s hopes and aspirations.» What you call «impotence», Ted, I’d rather say is collusion ; the Democratic Party in the United States shares the goals of «corporate gangster capitalism». Why then should it protest effectively when Mr Trump seeks to forward these goals. In US politics, a little grandstanding goes a long way, but one doesn’t want to upset the «donors» – or rather purchasers of quid pro quo, the don’t «donate», if the term be permitted, fuck all….
Henri
“They may even let the GOP repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration’s sole major policy achievement.”
This reminds me of the George Carlin routine about how people say good-bye. “Give Jake my best!” “Frankly, Susan, if this is your best, maybe you oughta keep it to yourself.”
Obamacare was/is/will be a disaster. It is the equivalent of putting all the athletic teens in one school, all the weaklings in another, and being dumbfounded when, yet again, Arlen High beats the living daylights out of St. Mary’s. You can’t parse health coverage. When people get sick enough, they end up at the ER, and then it costs a fortune. You can’t avoid that, so any plan that doesn’t address that “pressure point” rationally must be a failure. No one feels “shame” about using a public library. No one stands outside a library and snarls, “You freeloaders!”
Healthcare should be the same. Obamacare is a disaster, and it should be called such because the solution for the healthcare “crisis” is right in front of us. In Canada, in Japan, in Germany, in France …
Hey, Alex –
It’s certainly going to be interesting to watch this one play out. The GOPranoes have been making noises about the ACA ever since they wrote it. Make no mistake, this is a GOP bill through-and-through. Just one more way to watch your tax dollars at work for the 1%.
Are they *really* going to renege on all those back room deals with big pharma and the insurance industry? Or has it all been a big show & tell designed to impress the rubes? It wouldn’t be the first time they made big promises on the campaign trail with no intention of following through once in office.
Of course, those I call ‘rubes’ are what Hair Furor calls ‘his base.’ What’s gonna happen when they lose the only health coverage they’ve ever had?
The GOP has painted itself into a corner again. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Of course they were already damned. so maybe it’s moot.
CrazyH,
You’re right. It’s going to be interesting. I think the next four years–assuming Trump isn’t assassinated by a patsy who will be gunned down on live TV the next day–are going to be very interesting.
My crackpot theory? The GOP will use this whole fiasco as a way to put through a weak version of universal healthcare. How? Why?
First, the healthcare racket is just about played out. People are becoming outraged over the screw job. If the GOP (suddenly) introduces universal healthcare, they’ll basically render the remainder of the Democratic Party pointless. AND, for the GOPers, it will be a delightfully vicious middle finger to Obama and Clinton. Something similar was done back in 1981 when H.W. Bush arranged for the hostages to be released just after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Take THAT, Jimmy Carter.
Second, the big sticking point for the relevant portion of the Republican Party for universal healthcare (of course) is abortion. But, that, too, is easily overcome. The Republicans can pass a form of universal healthcare that matches what Canada (or Sweden or France etc.) has but which also excludes perpetually all reproductive options other than bringing a fertilized egg to term.
Third. There will always be people who are hypochondriacs. And I don’t mean the superparanoid going around in rubber gloves not touching door knobs. I mean people who will believe that their universal coverage is somehow inferior. “I heard that if you go to an ER with a broken hand and only have Universal? They cut off your hand. It happened to my friend’s brother’s cousin’s bookie.”
«The Republicans can pass a form of universal healthcare that matches what Canada (or Sweden or France etc.) has but which also excludes perpetually all reproductive options other than bringing a fertilized egg to term.» A vital issue !…
Henri
Reductio ad absurdum here:
I argue that every time a woman menstruates an egg and a soul is lost because a man failed do God’s work on her, and therefore good Christian women should copulate incessantly, avoiding the chance that in failing to do so one may be closing the gate of heaven to a soul, an egg, and a man.
I’m fairly certain that many a good Christian man has made the same argument…
I found this Scientific American article some years back when Nicolae Ceausescu-like Republican Anti-Choice bigots wanted to do gynie exams to make sure women were not getting abortions.
Trump made mention of doctors and women being punished for getting abortions so he may want to sniff out the violators of his will by using Ceausescu tactics.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tragedy-leads-study-severe-child-neglect/
“In a misguided effort to enhance economic productivity, Nicolae Ceausescu decreed in 1966 that Romania would develop its “human capital” via a government-enforced mandate to increase the country’s population. Ceauşescu, Romania’s leader from 1965 to 1989, banned contraception and abortions and imposed a “celibacy tax” on families that had fewer than five children. State doctors—the menstrual police—conducted gynecologic examinations in the workplace of women of childbearing age to see whether they were producing sufficient offspring. The birth rate initially skyrocketed. Yet because families were too poor to keep their children, they abandoned many of them to large state-run institutions. By 1989 this social experiment led to more than 170,000 children living in these facilities.”