Domestic Violence: the measure of politics

Domestic Violence is the reflection of a moral society cast through the looking glass of our State and National Legislators. DV is a societal character trait that emanates downward from the character of those who lead us. The DV husband obsessive about having absolute control over all in his domain is little different than the Majority Party obsessive about absolute control in every aspect of Government.

The Lesson of Tacoma

Commentary: How should the Supreme Court and Congress address domestic violence? Tacoma, Washington, offers answers gleaned from tragedy.

By Russ Rymer
July/August 2005 Issue

(Excerpt from Mother Jones)

…Complicity in violence takes many forms. President Bush’s recent budgets underfunded Violence Against Women Act programs by $40 million a year, a Center for Disease Control rape-prevention program by $36 million a year, and grants for battered women shelters by $49 million a year below their authorizations. When the Violence Against Women Act comes up for renewal this fall, its funding may again be cut. And Senator Murray’s 2004 amendment went down to defeat, opposed by anti-abortionists who felt that the measure, in addressing the abuse of women, deflected attention from what Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash.) called “the ultimate victims of domestic violence,” fetuses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likewise opposed the amendment, on the grounds that businesses might find some of its common-sense provisions expensive. Among those were proposals to extend job protection and family-leave privileges to women forced to take refuge in shelters or called to testify in court, thus interrupting the vicious cycle in which batterers force women to lose their jobs, trapping them further in financial dependence on their tormentors. Murray countered the Chamber’s claims with data showing the cost to business of domestic abuse. That cost accrues to almost 8 million lost workdays and $3 to $5 billion in health care annually, not to mention the price of extra security, since 75 percent of abused women are harassed at their workplaces and 20 percent of workplace homicides are committed by intimate partners