Thread by @mcjulie

This reminds me of something I’ve been thinking about ever since my person run-in with the fetus cultists on Northgate Way: how to respond to them better.

https://twitter.com/imspeaking13/status/1441461574401671169

How to shut them down, deflect them, keep them from harming people, neutralize their message, etc. — without melting down into sputtering rage, like MTG’s opponent does here. It’s obvious one of them is performing and one is genuinely angry. But —

The person who is GENUINELY angry is at a disadvantage. You get flooded with adrenaline, your fight instinct is engaged, you want to rip her fool head off, not make a coherent argument in response.

And MTG, troll that she is, knows it. She basically makes fun of her opponent for even getting angry. MTG isn’t angry. She’s performing for the cameras.

The fetus cultists have a rhetorical advantage, and MTG is borrowing their position, although I doubt she *actually* cares about anything — it’s all kayfabe with her, like Trump.

The fetus cultist advantage, rhetorically, is that they have a set of slogans that are simple, emotionally charged, and not easy to counter other than saying “nuh-uh”

“Murderers!” “We’re saving babies!” “We care about life!”

I got interrupted before finishing this thread, so I wanted to go back to it. The thing that struck me was that both the woman arguing with MTG, and me arguing with the fetus cultists on Northgate Way, are less effective because we are viscerally angry.

So how do you avoid having a rage meltdown against people of an evil intent whose whole GOAL is to make you that mad?

I think it involves preparation. I wasn't prepared at all when we ran into the fetus cultists on Northgate Way, and it shows.

https://twitter.com/mcjulie/status/1429150715075710977?s=20

But I did get something out of it! Their dead-eyed lack of real engaged thought gave me the term "fetus cultists" which is both more useful, and more accurate, than "pro-life," their preferred, euphemistic name for themselves.

So I've devoted a lot of thought since then to thinking, what could I have done as an effective counter-protest, instead of just losing my temper at them?

One thing, is to have counter-propaganda at the ready. I'm not sure if such propaganda exists already, but if it doesn't, I have layout & design skills, I could make some. And what would the subject of that counter-propaganda be?

I know my go-to a lot of the time is the obvious -- abortion bans DON'T save babies, and they don't even lower abortion rates. They just make everything connected to pregnancy & reproduction more dangerous.

But I also know this: fetus cultists think the suffering of women is aces, so you're not doing anything against their propaganda to talk about "back alley abortions" or whatever. They LIKE that shit. It's what they WANT.

So, one thing that came instantly to mind -- they have viscerally upsetting pictures of what an abortion or miscarriage looks like if you get REAL close, what about viscerally upsetting pictures of abused children? But I think that's probably wrong.

Some "fight fire with fire" impulses are unhelpful. After all, even when you LITERALLY fight fire with fire, you have to be strategic in how you do it.

But I actually don't know! The purpose of this thread is brainstorming, I have no real idea, actually, for what will or will not work.

All I know is that, because they picked this fight, the religious right has always dominated. Which makes sense, right? If your side picks the contest and sets all the rules, of COURSE your side wins.

So my goal is to disrupt all of that. Take the fight to a different field with different rules.
Sometimes I toy with the idea of protesting outside of churches, hand out pamphlets about how there is no God & Christians are guilty of many genocides.

But, I'm thinking, maybe the best counter-protest is "did you know the anti-abortion movement is secretly racist?"

Because it's true, it undermines one of the arguments their side is always trying to make, and "your movement is racist" is a statement WE can say that leaves them with nowhere to go but "uh-uh"

So I think that's the angle I want to pursue.

And I know it seems weird, because it goes against THEIR propaganda, but the eugenics fans are mostly on the ANTI abortion side.

And I think it's like this. One -- THEIR side pretends abortion bans are about getting more babies, but we already know that's not how it works. So what DOES an abortion ban do?

It puts reproduction firmly in the hands of the government. Abortion bans & forced sterilization go hand in hand. (This will be on the pamphlet)

Abortion bans also create a surplus of children available to be exploited.

The fetus cultists LIKE to talk about "adoption" as an all-purpose abortion alternative but the only vision of adoption they ever put out is "poor child adopted by rich (white) loving family in which they're very happy" --

It's never "child suffers for years in underfunded orphanage & suffers severe emotional trauma before getting adopted by Quiverfull-type evangelicals & beaten to death." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_…

But also, it's REALLY never "child is adopted by Amazon and raised in lifelong servitude in a kind of neo-slavery."

And this is another place where I'm not sure which approach is the better -- is there any advantage to making pamphlets that assert abortion bans are a secret plot to create unwanted children who can be turned into corporate slaves?

I really don't know, and I'm not sure anyone DOES know. It's not like the religious right knew, before they tried it, how effective their anti-abortion cover story would be.

I don't think -- before then -- anyone knew just how MUCH Americans hate women, because they'd always been a little cagey about it.

And the problem here, I think, is that we want to counter the anti-abortion right with an anti-patriarchy message, "don't do this to women, love women" but they don't and the culture overall is on their side.

Most Americans support abortion rights, but most Americans hate women, so they don't feel strongly moved to protect abortion rights.

Which I guess leads me back to the idea that pointing out their racism is our most effective line of attack, because it makes them FEEL attacked. They respond defensively.

If you accuse a fetus cultist of hating women, they'll respond with "I just love God/fetuses so much" but if you accuse them of being motivated by racism they'll try to deny it. "I'm not a racist because..."

So, I think I've argued myself into thinking that the most strategically effective approach -- when arguing against fetus cultists -- is to point out the racism at the heart of the anti-abortion movement.

Any counter-thoughts or helpful suggestions?