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One of my goals here at DWR is to provide a resource that can help when the arguments start flying and you need a little argumentative boost to counter the tomfoolery going on with the other side. Dr. Jane Clare Jones intellectual rigor and acumen will almost never steer you wrong.
On International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women I think its important to affirm that:- Women are oppressed as a sex class.
The oppression of women as a sex class exists in order to enable male access to women’s bodies as a reproductive and sexual resource,and the appropriation of women’s domestic, reproductive and emotional labour. This appropriation is facilitated by a system of socialisation which inculcates entitlement in males, and teaches women to prioritise the needs of others above their own
Once upon a time, we called this system ‘gender.’ Male violence against women and girls is not a series of ‘isolated incidents.’ It is a structural feature of the system of women’s oppression. It arises from male entitlement, and aggrieved entitlement when women do not comply with what men want or expect Male violence functions as a mechanism to enforce women’s compliance with male entitlement
Women have a right to politically organise as a sex class in order to raise consciousness about, and resist, MVAWG Women have a right to single-sex spaces in order to discuss their experiences of, and heal, from their experiences of male violence. Women have a right to determine who they stand in solidarity with in the fight against MVAWG, and to determine with whom they share political interests.
Solidarity to all the women in the women’s movement who have dedicated their lives to raising awareness about the epidemic of MVAWG in this society and to providing services to our sisters when they most need them.xx You can follow @janeclarejones. (Source: https://threader.app/thread/1463789703669465091)
I’d be more inclined to believe if issues like these were addressed by the omnipotent class.
The US may start catching up to the UK in combating the corrosive message of the regressive Left. Not a second too soon.
William Astore writes for Tom’s Dispatch on the overreach of the American Industrial complex. The reality of the situation is this, the only thing that arms manufacturers cannot create is peace.
Paraphrasing Joe Biden, show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you worship. In that context, there can’t be the slightest doubt: America worships its Pentagod and the weapons and wars that feed it.
Prefabricated War, Made in the U.S.A.
I confess that I’m floored by this simple fact: for two decades in which “forever war” has served as an apt descriptor of America’s true state of the union, the Pentagod has failed to deliver on any of its promises. Iraq and Afghanistan? Just the most obvious of a series of war-on-terror quagmires and failures galore.
That ultimate deity can’t even pass a simple financial audit to account for what it does with those endless funds shoved its way, yet our representatives in Washington keep doing so by the trillions. Spectacular failure after spectacular failure and yet that all-American god just rolls on, seemingly unstoppable, unquenchable, rarely questioned, never penalized, always on top.
Talk about blind faith!
The Pentagod advances a peculiar form of war, one that would puzzle most classic military strategists. In fact, its version of war is beyond strategy of the Clausewitzian sort. I think of it as prefabricated war, borrowing a term from the inestimable Ann Jones’s recent piece for TomDispatch on our Afghan disaster. It’s a term pregnant with meaning.
Prefabricated war is how the Pentagod has ruled for so endlessly long. There is, as a start, the fabrication of false causes for war. In Vietnam, it was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the “attacks” on U.S. Navy ships that never happened. In Afghanistan, it was vengeance for the 9/11 attacks against a people who neither planned nor committed them. In Iraq, it was the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein didn’t have. Real causes don’t matter much to America’s war god since false ones can always be fabricated, after which enough true believers — especially in Congress — will embrace them fervently and faithfully.
But prefabricated war doesn’t just start with or consist of manufactured causes. It’s fabricated far ahead of time in a colossal cathedral of violence — President Eisenhower’s military-industrial-congressional complex — that sends its missionaries and minions around the planet on a mission of global reach, global power, and full-spectrum dominance. War is prefabricated on 750 military bases scattered across the globe on every continent except Antarctica, in America’s giant arms corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, and by Special Operations forces that act much like the Jesuits of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, spreading the one true faith to 150 countries.
Since America’s war god is also a jealous deity, it insists on dominating all domains — not just land, sea, and air but space as well. Even more ethereal realms like cyberspace and virtual/augmented realities must be captured and controlled. It seeks omnipotence and omniscience in the name of your safety and, if you let it, will also know everything about you, while having the power to smite you, should you stop blindly worshipping it and feeding it more money.
Parents are starting to overcome the stigma around the transing of children. Lynn Meagher is just one brave example of individual parents speaking out against the corrosive trans narrative that can endanger children.
“But one thing is very clear. The reason so much energy is put into silencing me is because I’ve publicly spoken, in my own name, on a topic that is currently forbidden to be discussed in the public square. I know hundreds of parents who are very concerned about their kids. They are watching their kids struggle. They tell me that as soon as their child announced that they were transgender, there was almost always a very discernable and concerning shift in their mental health and in their personality. Far from becoming happy, well adjusted and free to be themselves, their kids have often dropped out of school, quit their jobs, and become extremely depressed. And in almost every case, this has been accompanied by a rapidly deteriorating relationship between the child and the parent. These parents are not only unable to find help for their kids, in many cases they are not even able to talk about it.
The type of parent blame and shame displayed above is used to force parents to comply with every type of demand that kids make surrounding this issue. Use my pronouns, don’t deadname me, buy me a binder, take me to a trans-affirming therapist, give me puberty blockers and hormones, or I’m going to call you a hateful bigot and cut you out of my life. As you can see, this behavior is encouraged by the trans affirming culture in which we now find ourselves. Parent receive this treatment from physicians, psychologists, friends, neighbors, family members, the media, and teachers. One dad recently shared with me that during a family therapy session he was addressed by the therapist, who said, “So it looks like you are the only one with a problem here.”
We know that in areas of cultural debate, it’s the narratives that win the war. Very rarely is anyone brought to a larger understanding of a difficult topic by reading articles or studies, no matter how well they are done. We come to empathize and form an opinion when we are confronted with real life stories from ordinary people. We begin to identify with those stories, to listen and hear them. We begin to realize that what happened to that person was unjust. We begin to empathize, and then we realize that it could have been us. We could have suffered, in much the same way.
This is why the stories of detransitioners, and the stories of parents and families broken apart, are so essential. I did not post on Twitter that day looking for sympathy. I write because my story is representative of countless other stories that I have heard, time and time again. None of these parents are able to publicly tell of their heartbreak, but when we get behind closed doors, the wounds are deep. They are fresh and raw and painful. And in most cases, these parents keep their pain to themselves. They go to work every day, pretending everything is fine. They don’t talk to their neighbors, their friends, their faith community, or even their family. They know that there will not be understanding to be had. They know they will be questioned, doubted, shamed, and blamed. They know that others will reach out to their kids and offer “support”, reinforcing the idea that the parents are the abusers, the bullies, and the ones who should be banished. These parents carry the weight of their fear and grief alone.
But more and more, parents are speaking up, and more organizations are being formed to help them do that. The parents are starting to write blogs, articles, and letters. They are appearing on podcasts. They are writing stories for others to share and read in their places. This is really important, because the prevailing narrative is that there is only one response to take when your child announces a transgender identity. Get on board and affirm, or you risk suicide. Not only is this not true, but it’s abusive.
There is another way. Most parents realize when this happens that it just doesn’t feel right. Even if you’ve been a progressive left leaning gay affirming Democrat all your life, you know your own kid, and you know it’s not true. The truth is, loving and determined communication and parenting will do a lot to help kids find their way out of this. There are many parent support groups out there. If you are need of support, feel free to email me. I can help you get connected.
Until then, I will not let the bully trolls silence me, and we will continue to speak up. #parentsspeak”
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