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One of the constant threads that runs through the discourse (as it were) around trans gender ideology/queer theory/self-id is the remarkable degree of ignorance surrounding the positions people who oppose gender ideology actually hold.
Most of the time rather than acknowledging that there is a cogent position to beheld regarding the rights, boundaries, and space of women (adult human females) in our society pro-female rights commentators are simply written off as ‘bigots’, ‘nazis’, or just ‘transphobic’. This labeling is done without ever getting to the actual arguments and positions pro-female rights commentators actually have.
To help remedy this situation, here is Ms.Keen presenting her views and what she hopes to accomplish.
People need to rethink their positions on those claiming to be on the ‘right side of history’. The “Be Kind” transgender activists have proven repeatedly they are nothing of the sort.
Once and awhile Counterpunch surprises me with a bit of unvarnished factual reporting. I didn’t know that Functionalism was a think in International Relations – but what a great concept to make the world a more peaceable place.
“Peace through pieces” was an important contribution to understanding mediating differences by the political theorist David Mittrany in the mid-20th century. Mittrany argued for an issue-specific strategy for solving larger problems. “The historical task of our time is not to keep the nations peacefully apart but to bring them actively together,” Mittrany wrote, “through the continuous development of common activities and interests across them.” Closer interaction because of global interdependence, Mittrany postulated, would lead to closer cooperation and peaceful co-existence, a concept known in international relations as Functionalism.
Many of Mittrany’s proposals were used in the establishment of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. A recent example of his theory that peace would come from common rules and technical cooperation would be the admission of Russia to the World Trade Organization in 2011. By including Russia in a rules-based institution, it was assumed, larger cooperation, based on the institution’s rules, would follow, a sort of socialization of the Russian Federation, at least in trade.”
The gun culture in the United States is certainly a artifact to behold. Schools and communities are scenes of violent murderous shootings. The requisite furor about gun violence rises and falls with each new bloody occurrence.
The theatre of caring about children and their safety played out in the aftermath of Sandy Hook.
“The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting prompted renewed debate about gun control in the United States, including proposals for making the background-check system universal, and for new federal and state legislation banning the sale and manufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and magazines with more than ten rounds of ammunition.[242]
Within hours of the shooting, a We the People petition was started asking the White House to “immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress,”[243][244] and the gun control advocacy group the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reported that an avalanche of donations in the hours after the shooting caused its website to crash.[245] Five days later, President Obama announced that he would make gun control a “central issue” of his second term,[246] and he created a gun violence task force, to be headed by Vice President Joe Biden.[247] On January 16, 2013, Obama signed 23 executive orders and proposed 12 congressional actions regarding gun control.[248] His proposals included universal background checks on firearms purchases, an assault weapons ban, and a high-capacity magazine ban limiting capacity to 10 cartridges.[249][250]
On December 21, 2012, the National Rifle Association‘s Wayne LaPierre said gun-free school zones attract killers and that another gun ban would not protect Americans. He called on Congress to appropriate funds to hire armed police officers for every American school and announced that the NRA would create the National School Shield Emergency Response Program to help.[251] After LaPierre’s press conference, the Brady Campaign asked for donations to support its gun control advocacy and asked NRA members “who believe like we do, that we are better than this” to join its campaign.[252] On January 8, 2013, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot and injured in a 2011 shooting in Tucson, launched the gun control group Americans for Responsible Solutions, with a specific aim of matching or exceeding the fundraising capabilities of the NRA and similar groups.[253]
On January 16, 2013, New York became the first U.S. state to act after the shooting when it enacted the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act.[254] On April 3, 2013, Connecticut General Assembly passed a 139-page[255] major gun-control bill with broad bipartisan support.[255] Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed the bill on the same day.[256] The bill requires universal background checks (background checks for all firearm purchases),[257] a high-capacity magazine ban banning the sale or purchase of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition like those used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,[258] created the first registry in the United States for dangerous-weapon offenders, and added over 100 types of guns to the state’s assault weapons ban.[255] Pro-gun groups had rallied outside the Capitol to protest prior to the signing[255] and challenged it in court. Federal judge Alfred Covello ruled to uphold the law in January 2014.[259]
On April 4, 2013, Maryland also enacted new restrictions to their existing gun laws.[260][261] However, ten other states passed laws that relaxed gun restrictions.[262]
Legislation introduced in the first session of 113th Congress included the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013[263][264] and the Manchin-Toomey Amendment to expand background checks on gun purchases.[265][266] Both were defeated in the Senate on April 17, 2013.[267]
Phase one in purple text. Phase two in red text.
So, right now we’re in the first phase when outraged people demand action. We will hear less about the second phase when the measures that were tentative enacted are walked back.
What is apparent is that the amount of gun violence in America is at a level that American’s find acceptable in their society. We can look to the media to watch people say how horrible it is and what measures to need to be put in place to stop gun violence but those voices and will to change fade. The fade continues until the next violent incident.
Just to be clear, there is no upper limit to the number of casualties needed to “wake people up”. If that was the case, the Sandy Hook mass shooting should have been enough. Or maybe the Pulse Night Club shooting, or the Las Vegas shooting or…
I hope the conversation amongst the competing interests in the US swings toward the notion of more responsible gun ownership and more supports for individuals who are isolated from society.
Growing up I used to watch MASH almost everyday. It was on right after the 6pm news broadcast. It would be hard these days to imagine a show that would remain on the air being subversive as MASH was.
A repost because humanity has decided to revisit our base nature and bring ruin to the lives of others, for important reasons.
Give peace, O Lord, in our time
Because there is no one else
Who fights for us
If not You, our God.
Going to war over spheres of influence. The 21st century is going to be just as rough as the 20th century.
“Russia says, for instance, that it is threatened by Nato expanding eastwards and potentially including Ukraine as a member. The response of the Nato powers is to say that its door should remain open to all and, more privately, that Ukraine is unlikely to join the organisation in the foreseeable future, so why is Moscow objecting so strongly?
But there is a perfectly rational Russian response to this, which is to point to the furious American response to Soviet missiles being based in Cuba that almost led to a nuclear war in 1962. The Russians can also reasonably ask why, if Ukraine’s Nato membership is such a distant prospect, Nato powers are so insistent on keeping open the option, even though, by doing so, they increase the chances of a shooting war.”
The Russian national interest must be preserved I suppose, and that is reason enough to initiate an armed conflict. We watch the US do it all the time as well, just that somehow we’re the good guys.
With resources scarce, this model of armed intervention will occur more often. We’ll have to get used to it or be prepared to radically reorganize our societies around the idea that we as co-inhabitants on this earth all have the right to live in peace.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…