When Is It Time To Break The Law?

Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:

Venmo: @Refuse-Fascism
Cashapp: @RefuseFascism
Paypal: paypal.me/refusefascism
Web: donate.refusefascism.org

Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown.

Transcript:

Episode 82

Sun, 10/24 3:08PM • 46:36

Valerie Elverton Dixon 00:00

What the state of Texas is doing is imposing involuntary servitude on people who are pregnant… If I don’t have power over my own body, then what am I as a human being? That means I do not have liberty… If someone else has power over your own body, you are not free. No individual, born or not, has a right to a woman’s body… This is the beginning of a slide into a dystopia that would be beyond imagination.

Sam Goldman 00:47

Welcome to Episode 82 of the Refuse Fascism podcast. This podcast is brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in this country. In today’s show, we’re sharing the conversation I recently had with writer Dr. Valerie Dixon regarding SB 8 and the assault on abortion rights. I’m excited for you to hear it, and I appreciate her coming on and chatting with me. There’s a lot we agree on about the emergency situation, and some foundational disagreements we have on how we stop this fascist onslaught. Our conversation is a contentious one on whether the Democrats are the solution. Her views echo an extremely widespread viewpoint. A viewpoint that in my opinion, keeps people from taking this sort of action that we both agree is necessary. 

But first, let’s talk about some developments from this week as they relate to the continued fascist threat. For our new listeners, welcome. You might be wondering what we mean by fascism. Once in power, fascism’s defining feature is the essential elimination of the rule of law and democratic and civil rights. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny and the aggressive reinstitution of oppressive “traditional values.” Truth is obliterated, and fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build their movement and consolidate power. I’m going to illustrate that a bit with this round up. Way back on October 8, Steve Bannon explicitly told the January 6 commission that he was refusing their subpoena. For two weeks we heard Democratic politicians and strategists explaining why, once again, appealing to the mythical “middle of the road white voter” meant that to actually use the powers of that subpoena to compel a witness was such a wrenching decision. Eventually, they decided to do so. 

This week, the House voted to charge Bannon with contempt, 229 to 202. That’s all but nine GOP members for those still harboring any doubts that the GOP is a thoroughly fascist party. This is this week’s Exhibit A. The House has now passed the baton to fascist conciliating Merrick Garland, who amazingly stands out even among senior Democrats in his worship of bourgeois democratic norms and institutions and the performance of “non partisanship” in a moment when all of those very norms and institutions are continuing to be ripped up and gutted to serve fascism. As though allowing someone like Steve Bannon–someone who has made shoddy films, arguing that the violent collapse of societies is a good thing–to roam free, will lead to good will and cooperation. What can an aroused nonviolent mass movement making some good trouble do to influence this outcome? Well, it could make the difference between an attorney general that sits on his ass or an attorney general who can’t ignore the demands of millions who refuse a fascist America. On October 19, press secretary Jen Psaki, in regard to Trump and executive privilege, said “The former president’s actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy that we don’t feel can be swept under the rug.” It really makes you wonder what’s being done to hold him and all participants in the attempted fascist coup accountable. In this week’s Exhibit B in this series: you really think the GOP isn’t thoroughly fascist, Senate Republicans blocked debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. The cohering organizing orientation for the Republi-fascist party, right now, is voter suppression and elections subversion. It’s important to keep in mind the centrality of white supremacy and not even allowing debate over voting rights and access. When the GOP speaks of states rights defense for voter disenfranchisement, remember that states rights was the same code for slavery, for Jim Crow. Ari Berman is right when he said, “It’s completely undemocratic that 41 GOP senators representing just 21% of the country can filibuster legislation supported by 70% of Americans that would expand voting access for tens of millions.” 

Anyone whose takeaway to this is that we’ve got to vote them out is missing the forest and the trees. Everything the fascists have been doing for decades is to lock in power for a white Christian minority by hook or by crook. Right now, 19 states already passed 33 new voter suppression laws, and every day extreme gerrymandered maps are introduced that won’t go away anytime soon. The power of our numbers must go way beyond the voting booth. A couple of weeks ago, we approvingly quoted Bill Maher regarding his exposure of Trump’s coup. While making clear that we need to change a situation where all too many people wait for someone like him to say decent things before they listen. He’s provided an object lesson of our point with his follow-up, telling people that the way to fight the fascist power grab is by chilling the fuck out. Clearly, the problem in Maher’s mind, like for many people, is that we all just hate each other and everything is too heated. So, we’ve gotta take it down a notch. 

There are a few salient points in his screed that are worth noting. He said that Democrats keep trying to win over Republican voters with good policy, and that it will never work simply because they hate you. He also pointed to the fact that as things stand, a civil war between these fascists on the one hand and liberals on the other would be over in a heartbeat. That the people he calls conservatives have way more guns and know how to use them, and they know how to hate better than anyone. It’s a real tortured argument to get from there to the idea that decent people should just chill out and shut up, but Maher seems to think that the real target of the fascist hate is Obamacare or Democratic Party politicians. But his bratty screed never considers the fact that the real target of this hate might be more than a policy or a posture. It might be actual people, Black people, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, indigenous people and other people of color, let alone people living outside their “sacred” borders, people whose lives are already weighed down by this capitalist imperialist system that Maher shamelessly shills for, but whose very existence is at stake if these fascists are able to achieve their ends. 

Let’s back up. These divisions in society are not caused by people being divisive. Whether that divisiveness is on the part of someone fighting for basic rights, or someone like Trump, to quote Bob Avakian, a revolutionary leader, “Trump makes use of these divisions in pursuit of his fascist agenda, but neither he nor anyone else has caused or could have caused these divisions. They are rooted in the very nature, functioning and requirements of this system, in the ways all of this has historically evolved. To eliminate these divisions, it is necessary to eliminate this system.” Right now, the fact that these divisions are going to extremes is caused by crises brought about by the workings of the system, not because little Billy shared a mean meme. They are not going to just vanish and this situation will not lead to anywhere good without enormous struggle on the part of all the decent, and even some of the half decent, people in this country, uniting outside the confines of politics as usual to stop fascism in its tracks. You aren’t going to stop this fascist movement through what he calls, “deescalating.” You can choose to use the precious and dwindling window of time to act to change the trajectory, to sound the alarm, or you can squander it by ignoring the threat and shutting up. But while you’re not being political, the other side has no intention of slowing down, backing off, or shutting up. For too long, we have ceded ground, ceded the public square and public discourse to fascists. 

All that to say, the last thing anyone listening to this podcast should do is chill out or shut up. It’s time to struggle. In other news, mango Mussolini (you know, Trump) filed a lawsuit Monday in DC district court against the House Select Committee investigating January 6th, and the National Archives, in an attempt to keep his White House records secret by claiming executive privilege. On October 21st, in an email released by his PAC, Save America, Trump declared to his followers, “The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the protest.” Nearly a year after his failed fascist coup, he continues to spew this deadly delusion, and he isn’t alone. Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General, who is chair of lawyers for Trump, tried to overturn Biden’s election in court. [He] said Thursday that he not only still believes Trump won, but that Biden’s presidency amounts to an “overthrow.” What makes this even more Trumpian is that he made these remarks to a reporter while announcing a lawsuit aiming to force Biden to resume border wall construction. As reported on by Isaac Arnsdorf for Pro Publica, a list of more than 35,000 members of the Oathkeepers, a violent hate group, obtained by anonymous hacker and shared with Pro Publica by the whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets, underscores how the organization is evolving into a force within the Republican Party. Pro Publica identified North Carolina State Representative Mike Clampitt and 47 more state and local government officials on the list, all Republicans, including 10 sitting state lawmakers, two former state representatives and one current state assembly candidate. 

As the January 6 commission unfolds in public view, there’s another trial beginning just a few hours west in Charlottesville, putting the organizers of the Unite the Right rally on trial for criminal conspiracy to commit racial violence under the KKK Act of 1871. While there have been a few individual prosecutions of white supremacists stemming from the fascist violence in August of 2017, it’s taken four years to bring a case against those who explicitly planned, in writing on their discord forums and elsewhere, the most infamous conversions of racist brutality in decades, that was prior to January 6. What does it say about a justice system or a whole society that millions of people, disproportionately people of color, are in jail and prison for nothing, while even the notion of a case like this is almost impossibly convoluted and drawn out with only civil punishment on the table? You’ve got to wonder, how can those institutions deal with the building threat of American fascism? We learned this week that James Whitfield has been suspended since September from his job as the first Black principal of Texas’s majority white Colleyville Heritage High School, after being accused by local parents of pushing “critical race theory” on students. For more on the attacks on truth and history education, be sure to check out last week’s episode, and we’ll definitely be covering the story in more depth soon. 

Finally, on Friday, Justice Sotomayor was the only Supreme Court justice to vote in favor of issuing a stay on the Fifth Circuit’s order, which reversed a stay on enforcement of Texas SB 8. SCOTUS announced it will hear both challenges to SB 8, Texas’ six week abortion ban, on November 1. One of the challenges is brought by providers and another is brought by the Department of Justice. In the meantime, they green-lighted the abortion ban until the case is decided. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote: “Every day the court fails to grant relief is devastating, both for individual women and for our constitutional system as a whole.” She also wrote that “The state’s gambit has worked. The impact is catastrophic. These ruinous effects were foreseeable and intentional.” She added that, “Relief, if it comes, will be too late for many.” Justices Kagan and Briar did not join the dissent, giving us a prelude for what to expect as Dobbs vs. Whole Women’s Health is heard December 1. This is the case regarding Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban. This pro-fascist majority court with three Trump appointees, will be hearing two decisive cases for the future of Roe vs. Wade and legal abortion. As lawyer Laurence Tribe has highlighted, the brief Texas filed in this SCOTUS, on October 21, opposing the Department of Justice on SB 8, actually argues that because, “the federal government cannot get an abortion”, it has no standing to sue Texas to preserve federal supremacy in the US Constitution. We better be using this logic against them. You know what else can’t get an abortion? The state of Texas, the GOP, Greg fucking Abbott. 

Elie Mystal, Nation correspondent, has warned, “What people have to be ready for is the court finding technical grounds to eventually stop the bonkers bounty system in SB 8, but giving forced birth advocates what they want in Dobbs. And then some idiot MSN person trying to both sides of the thing, claiming they split the baby.” With all that in mind, here’s my interview with Dr. Valerie Dixon. So today, we are talking with Dr. Valerie Overson Dixon about the abortion rights emergency. On the day we recorded this interview SB 8 is fully in effect, the appeals court has denied the Department of Justice request to suspend the Texas abortion ban, and the DOJ is set to ask the Supreme Court to block the ban, but right now it’s fully in effect. Dr. Dixon is an independent scholar studying ethics, peace theory, public discourse and the Civil Rights movement. She’s the author of “Just Peace Theory Book One: Spiritual Morality, Radical Love and the Public Conversation,” and she wrote a powerful essay about when it is time to break the law about the Texas abortion ban. So welcome, Dr. Dixon. Thanks for joining us.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 16:48

Well, thank you so much, Sam. I’m glad that you asked me to come.

Sam Goldman 16:52

I wanted to start with the basic premise of your essay that caught our attention. You wrote, “It is time to break the Texas law for the sake of Texas women, our own conscience and for the moral evolution of all humankind.” I’d love to hear your take on what is the situation that we face that necessitates us to break the law.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 17:14

When you say this is an emergency, I think you are correct. I don’t think people recognize how deep an emergency this is. I have written an essay at Tikkun.org called “An Inalienable Right.” In that essay, I argue that every human person has an inalienable right to have power over their own bodies. What I’m thinking here is that if a state can pass a law that violates Roe v. Wade, but more than that, violates several Amendments of the Constitution, and denies women their power over their own body, this is a threat to every person in the United States. It’s a threat to every human being walking the planet. We have to see it in those terms. Because what the state of Texas is doing is imposing involuntary servitude on people who are pregnant. That violates the 13th Amendment. If they can impose this involuntary servitude on women, who else can they impose it on? Not only that, but they’re imposing this on women, and they’re giving private citizens the right to enforce this law through vigilante justice; putting a bounty on abortion providers, and anyone who helps women to exercise their constitutional right to have a power over their bodies. This is dangerous stuff.

Sam Goldman 18:28

One of the things that struck me and what I’ve read from you, and what you just said was that the concept of involuntary servitude on people who are pregnant, and the cost of that, the moral cost of us allowing it. I think that what’s posed in Texas is so dangerous, because it’s a two-fold assault. It’s the assault on women and people who can become pregnant and their bodily autonomy, and it’s an assault on the rule of law. We’re gonna even uphold precedent whether a nation’s law matters and at any given state. I think the stakes are extremely high. I have been at protests across the country really defending abortion rights since I was a teenager. I had an abortion as a teenager. I had to go out of the state to get an abortion. I’ve gone out with banners with others. One of the things that I’ve said is that forced motherhood is female enslavement. I was very shocked recently by the backlash amongst pro-choice forces against the use of the term “enslavement.” Is it true to say that forced motherhood is female enslavement? I wanted your thoughts on that.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 19:34

Let me tell you how I reached the conclusion that anti-abortion laws violate the 13th Amendment. First of all, I was reading my Constitution. Conservative politicians think that they’re the only ones who read the Constitution, but those of us on the progressive end can also read the Constitution, right. I read the 9th Amendment that says that because a right is not specifically designated in the Constitution does not mean that that right does not exist. When people wave around their Constitution and say “there’s no right to an abortion…there’s no right to privacy in the Constitution.” Well, the Constitution says there are rights that we have that are not enumerated, or not specifically named in the Constitution. We can have a right to privacy, we can have a right to an abortion if we say so. That’s the first thing. 

The second thing is that in the 10th Amendment, it says that powers that are not given to the federal government are reserved to the state and to the people. It seems to me power over one’s own body is a power and women are people. So, to have power over one’s own body, it seems to me falls within the context of the 10th Amendment. Then I was thinking to myself, I said self, if I don’t have power over my own body, then what am I as a human being? That means I do not have liberty. If I do not have liberty, who has the power over my body? Which led me to the conclusion that to say that an unborn individual has more rights than the living woman within whose body it exists, that’s saying that that individual has the power over that woman’s body, and the state is going to enforce that power. If someone else has power over your own body, you are not free, you are in involuntary servitude to the individual that has power over your body, and the state is going to enforce that by law. 

I think that the pushback that you’re getting in terms of the idea of motherhood being enslavement is that people are saying that okay, after the child is born, you feel enslaved. But the idea that you don’t have power over your own body during pregnancy, I think is the issue here. We have to understand that not every pregnancy ends with a live birth. We have to understand that there are 20% of women whose pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. If we count the number of pregnancies that end in spontaneous abortion before a woman even knows she’s pregnant, that number goes up to about 50%. That means that half of the pregnancies that happen — half of them — are not going to result in a live birth. Then there are the number of miscarriages that happen later in pregnancy. Pregnancy takes a toll on a woman’s body. It affects every organ that she has, and anybody that’s been pregnant knows this. 

This is a situation where the state is forcing a woman to put her body at risk, to put her life at risk — because right now in the United States of America, more women die from childbirth than they do from abortions. What the state is doing is forcing you to give your body over to another entity, take your decision-making power away from you, and then force you into labor. It’s not by accident that childbirth is called labor. It’s a travail. It is hard. It’s painful. No individual, born or not, has a right to a woman’s body. No individual, born or not, has a right to a woman’s pain. When you force that on women, or men or trans men, if you force that on people who are pregnant and who are giving birth against their will, this is involuntary servitude. The salient point here is against their will. If you want to have children and want to be a mother, God bless you. Have a smile upon you. It’s a wonderful state to be in. I have two children. It was an interesting journey. It is still is an interesting journey. I love my children more than anything in the world. However, it was my choice to have those children, carry those children, birth those children, raise those children, love those children, pray for those children. They did not have a right to that. It was a gift. When you decide to give your body to another individual to bring that pregnancy to term and to bring that life to birth, that is a gift. That’s what we must understand both in custom and in law.

Sam Goldman 23:49

What you’re laying out is extremely clarifying and really resonates. For our listeners, it’s like getting a big glass of water on a really hot day. It’s that clarity that we need for this moment. The point that you’re making about how we are with each other, and then what’s reflected in the law, is really important. This is a real moment for reckoning on the cost that I spoke to earlier. You were talking about what pregnancy does, and labor itself does to the body. We’re talking about a country that has a Black maternal health crisis, and then we’re talking about laws that are seeking to ban abortion and disproportionately affect Black mothers. There’s a very heavy weight on the connection in this country, in my opinion, between white supremacy and this revenge-filled misogynistic movement that is seeking to ban abortion, and truly, really all birth control. The movement that’s behind it seeks to really control women’s bodies full stop. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that connection?

Valerie Elverton Dixon 24:56

I think that this is deeper than the whole notion of “women have the right to do with their own bodies.” The Texas law violates privacy, because since we just said that 20% of pregnancies that we know about end in spontaneous abortion, the question becomes how is some random individual who has no connection to the woman, no connection to the abortion facility or abortion provider know that abortion has happened? How does that individual who wants to bring the lawsuit know that the pregnancy ended in an induced abortion or spontaneous abortion? The only way to know that is to get access to that person’s medical records. Doctors are by law prohibited from giving out that information. Which means now that if some random individual, X, wants to bring suit against abortion provider Y for giving an abortion to Miss A, then the question becomes how does that individual get those records? Now that means a court order. A judge has got to order the doctor to give up those medical records because those medical records are private. 

Now the question becomes: What other law is Texas going to pass or any other state going to pass that is going to require judges to issue court orders to get someone’s medical records? The idea of the privacy of our medical records is in jeopardy here. Not only is the power we have over our own bodies regarding whether or not we want to give birth is in jeopardy. But if the state can come for our uteruses, they can come in the morning for everybody’s blood, bone marrow, kidneys, pieces of your liver. Because when it becomes determined that I don’t have power over my own body, then nobody has power over their own bodies, and the state can come and say, “Oh, we need to save a life. Give me your blood.” “Oh, we need to save a life. Let me have your bone marrow.” This is the beginning of a slide into a dystopia that would be beyond imagination. So we have to hold the line right here, not only for pregnant people, but for all of humanity.

Sam Goldman 27:08

Can you talk a little bit more about that? That was the meat of your essay about breaking the law, because of the moral calling in this moment and the stakes of this moment. Can you talk a little bit more about what is holding the line look like right now?

Valerie Elverton Dixon 27:22

First of all, let’s take a step back. The United States of America was founded on civil disobedience. We have a document to say so. The Declaration of Independence tells us that governments exist for the sake of our inalienable rights, to oversee and protect rights. That, I think, is an incredible moment in the history of humanity. We’ll set aside that the man who wrote it was a slaveholder. The words have a meaning in and of themselves. The Declaration of Independence says we are going to uphold when the government is not able or willing to protect inalienable rights, we have the right — we have the duty — to overthrow that government. I take that to say when states pass unjust laws that are unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court of the United States, which exists to protect our rights, just says, “Oh, nevermind, go ahead,” then individual citizens not only have the right, we have the duty to break that law. 

What I mean by that is, abortion providers in Texas ought to keep on providing abortions. Let them bring the lawsuits. When they bring the lawsuit, say we’re not cooperating with this law, we’re not going to court, we’re not going to pay any fines, we’re not going to pay any court fees. This will probably open up some people to a contempt of court prosecution or contempt of court actions. Then I think they ought to go to court and make the case that the law itself is wrong. The law itself is unconstitutional, the law itself violates so many rights that people already presume that they have. In the meantime, those of us who don’t live in Texas ought to be raising money for the defense funds to post bail for people who are in jail for contempt of court. I think women ought to be talking right now about how to get a hold of the abortion-providing pharmaceuticals and make those available to people. Texas, I think has passed a new law that has not gotten a whole lot of attention. I don’t know if it’s had gone into effect now. I think they passed a new law that even prohibits the mailing of these pharmaceuticals that can provide abortions. I don’t know the details of that law right now, but I think that as you said before, they’re coming for everything that could provide a pregnant person with a safe method by which to end their pregnancy. 

Some people even want to come against certain contraceptives, or contraceptives altogether, which is again, a dangerous violation of a woman’s power over her own body. That’s why I say we need to break the law. There’s a long tradition of civil disobedience of people breaking the law. And in the essay, I talk about Thoreau, I talk about Martin Luther King, I talk about Susan B. Anthony. There are others who have broken the law — and you have to break the law when the law is unjust. The question that Thoreau asked, do you break it right now? Or do you break it later? Or do you break it when people are talking? When do you break the law? I say, because a pregnancy is time-sensitive, abortion providers in Texas ought to be breaking the law right now. Pregnant people in Texas ought to be breaking the law right now. Say to people: Take me to court and see if I show up.

Sam Goldman 30:21

Just around the corner is a direct challenge that the Supreme Court will hear on Roe, Dobbs v. Whole Womens Health. Some of what you’re getting at in terms of what’s demanded of people of conscience isn’t just limited to the borders of Texas. This is an assault that’s happening that we’re confronted with nationwide. We’re talking about a court that not only sat out of Texas and said go on right ahead, but is hearing as a pro-fascist majority court, a direct challenge, the Mississippi case, which is, as you know, that 15-week ban on abortion. In my opinion, when human lives are on the line in a matter of weeks, it shocks me at my core, to be honest, that the streets are not filled with people saying, “No way, we’re not going to go back.” It’s a beautiful thing that the abortion pill exists, but it isn’t widely available. You can only use it at the beginning. It matters that we have the legal right to an abortion. When abortion is not legal women die. I mean, even now when it’s legal on the books and not in practice, people are traveling all this distance and it’s not accessible. Health is still at risk, along with futures foreclosed. So I think it really to me is like what you’re pointing to and the type of mass refusal and civil disobedience. I feel like the time in my opinion, and you might disagree, is before that becomes totally enshrined as law where you have less freedom, if you will, to change that. To me, I think the action is, we should be doing things before the court makes their decision probably in June. People should take action before then. I don’t know what your thoughts on that are.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 32:12

My thought is that when I use the term power over one’s body, I have chosen the word power intentionally. I don’t talk about autonomy, of bodily autonomy. I don’t use that word, I use the word power. Because that’s the word that’s used in the Constitution. It talks about power. And I think that in many instances, women and even feminist and womanist, women may shy away from the concept of power. Because we very often think of power in relationship to violence, we think of power as in relationship to toxic masculinity, we think about power in negative ways. But I think we ought to claim the term power and understand where the power is, and understand the availability of the power that we have ourselves right now. 

I’m going to quote Dallas, I don’t know how old you are. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember that TV show. It was a TV show, Dallas. There was this oil family in Texas called the Ewing’s and and one of the programs, Bobby Ewing, which was the good son said to his father, “Daddy, you gave me the power over the company.” And, Jack Ewing, who was the patriarch of the family says, “Nobody gives you power. Real power is something you take.” And I say to everyone who believes that every human being has an inalienable right to have power over their own bodies, we need to take the power, and we take the power at the ballot box. That means we need to be right now registering people and talking to people about how it is we’re going to vote against every Republican that’s running for any office in the United States of America. 

This is because the Republican Party has appropriated so called pro-life language to get so-called pro-life people to vote for them as a matter of power. These people don’t care about life. If they cared about life, the Democrats wouldn’t be out here all by themselves, trying to get paid family leave, or childcare tax credits, decent childcare, affordable housing for families with children or tax credits for family with children. This would be a bipartisan thing that would make sense to everybody in the nation if we’re really serious about pro-life. But we’re not serious about pro-life. We’re serious about forcing women and people who can get pregnant about commanding their bodies in the name of so-called pro-life. So the power is ours. The power is ours at the ballot box. We need to be serious about bringing that power together for the sake of our power over our own bodies. The House of Representatives passed a bill that would codify Roe v Wade. It’s dying in the Senate because of the filibuster. We need to have people who are on the ground in every state where anybody is running for the Senate — and 2022 is too late and we need to start working on that right now — to get people to get a larger majority for the Democrats and both the House and the Senate, so that we can have the legislation we want. We need the voting rights legislation. 

We need the legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade. We need to have a situation where we can change the rules so that we can expand the Supreme Court or institute term limits. We need court reform. There’s so much that we need to do that’s tied to this whole idea of having power over one’s own body, because we have a political party dedicated to the proposition that everyone is not created equal. They are dedicated to the proposition that some people ought to have their decisions about how they use their bodies controlled by the state. This is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable in all the ways I’ve already said. So yes, we need to start right now marshaling our power, putting together our power at the ballot box, because right now we have states — Texas is among them — that are gerrymandering their congressional districts so that they can keep power even though they don’t have the majority of the people who believe in their political agenda.

Sam Goldman 36:07

There is a lot that I unite completely with what you’re saying, Dr. Dixon, especially on the danger that’s posed by what I call a Republi-fascist party. They’re a hollowed out party, in my opinion. They’re a party that’s really just based on open, aggressive white supremacy, male supremacy, a party that is convinced that only they are fit to rule and that is willing to overturn elections, manipulate elections, suppress people’s right to vote, in order to hold that power, in order to have really what many have spoken to, and I think is correct, permanent minority rule, regardless of the will of the people regardless of that, and really trample the rule of law, the rights of people and really be an undisguised rule, a brute terror and force. I think that the stakes are extremely high. I think that this war on women and the war on abortion rights is a cornerstone of this all around fascist remaking that this party seeks to nail into place. I also agree that the word power is of extreme significance and import in a word that we should use, and we should we should marshal our strength in that we are powerful. 

Where I disagree is that marshalling our power is primarily marshalling the interests of the Democratic Party. The reason why I feel that way is because the Democratic Party has proven that they won’t stop this nightmare. One example of that would be looking at the filibuster as one aspect and their refusal to do away with it. Biden’s saying that it would tear the country apart and that being a reason to not do away with the filibuster. He’s not saying it would tear the country apart; maybe we could do away with these fascists. No, he’s saying we need to work together. The primary problem I see is that we keep making concessions. We, the decent people, keep making concessions. We keep allowing those in power to conciliate and collaborate with those that declare them enemies and traitors. Even when you just look at something like abortion, the Democratic Party has overseen the slow chipping away state by state of abortion rights for years, and they did nothing to stop it. You had a leading Democrat marshal a whole movement of “safe, legal and rare” at the expense of people’s lives and futures. I do not think that there can be any reconciliation with these fascists except on the terms of the fascists. So, I personally am not going to put my power into the hands and be a tail of the Democrats donkey.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 38:45

What’s the alternative here?

Sam Goldman 38:46

I think the alternative is the way that we won every victory in this country. That’s our independent power. I really appreciate hearing your perspective on all of this and getting the opportunity to speak to you. I think that as we started, the stakes for for everyone are extremely, extremely high right now and what we do and don’t do matters tremendously. I believe that it is a time for power for us to marshal it. I think that all of society right now needs to be talking about this and waging a struggle in every way they can, whether it be the writers writing, whether it be students talking about it in their classrooms, whether it be people like the athletes writing amicus briefs and signing them and in the hundreds to say we think that women are fellow human beings and it matters whether abortion is legal or not that everyone acts, and yes, I do think it matters whether people are in the streets or not. I think we know this. We know this is especially when you don’t have fascists and power that it matters that people are in the streets, that it compels people to act differently, that when you have a situation where the question of what’s acceptable, what people are willing to tolerate or not is made so clear. That’s what I think is needed because the consequences of not doing that are too great, that the consequences of, for instance, people not being out and loud when the Amy Coney Barrett hearings were had, there was a consequence of that. That’s being laid bare with Texas, with the other restrictions, and most acutely with what we’re going to see December 1, when Dobbs is heard.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 40:22

I want to say quickly, I want people to go read Martin Luther King Junior’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, because this talks about civil disobedience and it talks about the importance of bringing attention to a particular issue. I want people to go to Sister Song website. Sister Song is an organization that promotes reproductive justice. Reproductive justice is more than just abortion rights. It also is about how we take care of women and children and families, even when the children are born. I want people to go look at the Women’s March unity principles, because I think that’s important to understand that there are guiding principles around what Women’s March is doing. And I want people to go buy my book, because I need the money. It’s “Just Peace Theory Book One: Spiritual Morality, Radical Love and the Public Conversation” it’s available at Amazon and at I Universe. So that’s my commercial.

Sam Goldman 41:14

Perfect, that’s perfect. That’s Dr. Dixon. Where can people read more of your work in an ongoing way?

Valerie Elverton Dixon 41:19

Well, there’s my website, and I’m in the process of starting another one. I have blogged for a long time with Tikkun.org. Some of my work is still up there. I recommend my essay on An Inalienable Right and my essay on Mother’s Day, Mother’s Day Power and the Holiness of Woman, because I think much of what we’re looking at here is we’re at a point of change from the idea of a masculine God to a more goddess kind of focus, where more of the holiness of woman will become evident.

Sam Goldman 41:50

Well, thanks so much for joining us and sharing your perspectives with us. We really appreciate it. Take care.

Valerie Elverton Dixon 41:57

Okay, thank you.

Sam Goldman 41:58

This is the debate we need to have immediately. And I thank Dr. Dixon for having it with me, looking forward to our continued collaboration to stop this fascist assault on abortion rights. As Tony Redtree wrote, in her revcom.us editorial, titled “The Right to Abortion, The New York Time Rationale for Surrender, and Why There Can Be No Compromise and No Going Back.” The rights now being taken away were concessions made to the great social upheavals of the 1960s. They were not a result of work over decades to elect legislators, but of a generation fighting outside the confines of the system and increasingly against it. Students burning draft cards and willing to go to jail for draft evasion, urban uprisings and university shutdowns, women taking over the suites of major magazines until they were hired as journalists, not resigned to clerical work. These rights were the result of upheaval, creating the kind of multi front political crisis that had the ruling class worried their system was losing its international standing as ‘the greatest democracy in the world’, and its legitimacy at home.” 

She goes on to make this essential point, “Unjust laws should not be accepted, but defied and fought. We should take inspiration, not from those who have kept us passive, demobilized and blinded, but from literally millions of women all over the world, who have taken to the streets from Poland and India to Latin America, against femicide and rape and attempts to take away birth control and abortion. Ask yourself why, just as we are looking at the reality that women could lose the right to abortion in the US, women in Mexico and Argentina, who have been unrelenting in the streets and taking on major institutions ruling society are winning advances in these rights.” 

For more on what difference mass protests makes and how it makes that difference, I encourage folks to listen to Episode 75 featuring Coco Das and Sunsara Taylor. For more on the abortion rights emergency, go back and listen to Episode 78 featuring a town hall we co-sponsored that features the Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, Dr. Warren Hearn, and myself along with others, and Episode 77: Fascist Mobs: 1850 to Today, with Ankush Khardori and Tony Norman. It’s incredibly timely. In my opinion, it’d be great if doctors in Texas were taking Dr. Dixon’s suggested stance and people around the country were donating to their legal funds. That is something that really could have a galvanizing effect in a good way. Thank you for listening to Refuse Fascism. I want to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, ideas for topics or guests or lender skill? Tweet me at Sam Goldman, or you can drop me a line at [email protected], or leave a voicemail by calling 917-426-7582. You can also record a voice message by going to Anchor.fm/refuse-fascism and clicking the button there. You might even hear yourself on a future episode. 

Want to support the show? It’s simple. Show us some love by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice and follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. If you want to help the show reach more listeners–Amazing! Donate to help us play the podcast adds. You can give at RefuseFascism.org or Venmo Refuse-Fascism. Thanks to Coco Das, Lina Thorne, Richie Marini and Mark Tinkleman for helping produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers. We have transcripts available for each episode, so be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox each week. We’ll be back next Sunday. In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America.