Yesterday, the good guv shut down comment functionality on one of his Facebook pages.
But you know the good lord never closes the door without opening a window, right?
On this page, you can comment on the governor’s posts. And I suggest you do. Because bless his fuzzy little heart, he thinks he’s shut us up.
I’m sure that some among you are less enthusiastic than others when it comes to sharing the intimate details of your reproductive health on the interwebs. Fair enough. You don’t have to post about your tipped uterus or difficulty finding the string that assures you your IUD is still in place.
[Note: sorry if you are squeamish, but you need to know that women have these kinds of issues, which is exactly why we cherish our ability to visit the doctor and get help. The personal is still political.]
Alternate topics that still get the point across:
- The facts about the Women’s Health Program, including a question about why Perry didn’t sue the Bush administration in 2005.
- That Greg Abbott’s lawsuit against the feds is pretty much the definition of a frivolous lawsuit, something Republicans claim to abhor almost as much as women’s rights.
- That you are a man, but you know women – they are your daughters, wives, sisters, mothers – and you don’t appreciate their health being treated as a political football.
- That you are a doctor, and you do not believe it is right for the government to tell people which provider they can or cannot see, or what that provider has to say or not say to them.
- That you are a tax-paying Texan, and you resent having the 9-to-1 federal match squandered because Perry wants to score political points by denying the poorest women in Texas access to care.
Feel free, also, to make connections about the subjugation of women through denying them access to equal and affordable healthcare and the subjugation of Latinos and African-Americans by denying them equal access to the polls. (One idiot commenter on the gov’s FB page helpfully pointed out how cheap an ID is. Perhaps she missed the day in school when the poll tax came up.)
Feel free to point out that we live in a country where some white men feel that they have as much of a right to make healthcare decisions for women as they do to gun down candy-toting African-American boys in the street, and that’s really not the country we want. Because just as we should not have to sign petitions and stage protests to get a man arrested for the cold-blooded murder of a child, we should not have to sign petitions and stage protests about our right to control our own bodies.
But clearly, sadly, we do, so we must.
To those who say that snarky comments on Facebook aren’t accomplishing anything, you are wrong. Like it or not, Perry is using social media to spread his propaganda, so we must use it to counter those misrepresentations, to show him that his lies will not go unchallenged. It is always a worthwhile endeavor to say the truth in public and to speak truth to power.
It might be enough to get him to stop using Facebook as a forum for his smarmy political gamesmanship, and that would be a victory.
It has definitely helped keep this issue in the media, and reminding people just how reactionary and anti-women Republicans are is critical in this election year.
You need to be ready to do more than vent on Facebook, too, but don’t discount the power of social media.
Want to do more?
- Donate to Planned Parenthood to help pay for someone’s annual exam.
- Sign up to get alerts from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund – and make a donation while you are at it.
- Get trained to register voters, then go register voters. (The info isn’t up yet, but keep checking.)
- Volunteer to help people at a local nursing home check to see if they are registered to vote, and then help them register if not.
- Go to a meeting for a local group and ask others to help you get more involved. (Check the Harris County Democrats calendar, ROADWomen, or even the League of Women Voters. Know of other groups? Leave info in the comments!)
- Send a ‘welcome to being of voting age’ card to every new 18-year-old you know, and help any new voters get used to educating themselves about the power and responsibility of voting. Take your children with you to vote on election day, and make it special. Help them see that voting is a habit.
But today, don’t try to do it all. Just go and leave a comment on Rick Perry’s Facebook page. Strike a little blow for truth and justice. Onward!
nonsequiteuse 