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Feminism has a voice in Canada. Meghan Murphy continues the struggle against male power and for the rights of women. This event almost didn’t happen thanks to the ‘progessive, inclusive’ left.
Thank you for persevering Ms.Murphy.
Canadian feminism at its finest.
Made the news as well.
It’s a near cyclical event. Disaffected folks in the West periodically need to grumble about how shitty it is living in a safe secure nation state. Nothing more than flashes in the pan when Westerners are feeling like they need someone to blame instead of themselves – because the ethic of bootstrapping yourself up into prosperity only applies to people who happen to be more poor that you…
In the coffee shops and meeting rooms throughout Saskatchewan these days, there’s more and more talk about the breakup of Canada. But it’s not Quebec at issue, it’s western separatism.
After years of falling incomes and an apparent lack of action from Ottawa, many Prairie people are now debating the pros and cons of splitting the West from the rest of Canada.”
A Okanagan political group is spearheading a campaign to have B.C. and Alberta separate from the rest of Canada.
The group, calling itself 110 West, plans to organize public consultations in the two provinces. It’s running advertisements in local newspapers, and has set up a Web page.”
On a sunny Sunday in Calgary, Alberta’s separatists are on the move, pounding the pavement at the city’s popular Lilac Festival on the hunt for signatures.
Larry Smith is working the crowd, looking for support for his fledgling political movement, the Western Independence Party of Alberta (WIPA).
Truth is, WIPA isn’t quite a political party just yet. Before that can happen in Alberta, it needs signatures — and lots of them.
To be registered as a political party in the province, you need 7,868 electors — or about one-third of one per cent of eligible voters — to sign on the dotted line.”
So really, when the latest “Western Alienation” story happens to crop up – remind yourself it has the all the significance of this:
Source: Edmonton Journal
We will soon be having a provincial election and I for one, do not want to return to the dark conservative backwater Alberta languished in for some 40 odd years. We have a New Democratic Party Government that, when situated on the political spectrum, comes up centrist or slightly left of centre. In Alberta this is pretty heady stuff. The UCP (United Conservative Party) is the cobbled up zombie corpse of the old Progressive Conservative party and the rural wack-a-loon Wild Rose Party (*shudder*). It has been stitched together by a greasy re-baked federal conservative pol named Jason Kenny.
The defining feature of the zombie UCP party platform is that it’s *NOT* the NDP and its debt inflating, male emasculating, poor people centring democratic socialism (not the “s” word…*faints*). In other words, these gormless fucks have sweet FA with regards to policy and what they would actually do if (’til now) they were elected to govern Alberta. Not much other than “not what the NDP is doing”. Sorry folks, the lame restatement of an antithesis is political weaksauce at best – but it might be enough to sway our lemming centric conservative voting populace, considering the rightward political leanings in this province. Apparently many Albertans have been longing for a return to the 40 year the conservative seppuku our province has recently emerged from. Social programs? Protections for workers? Government for the people? Climate responsibility?
Fuck that pinko communist noise.
I digress. The platform of the UCP is oozing out into the public’s knowledge and it isn’t pretty (see Ontario’s false populist doppelganger, Doug Ford for Kenney’s inspiration) . Most of the platform portends a merry jaunt to back to lining the pockets of the rich while proclaiming austerity for the lucky ones and a relentless shitcanning for everyone else.
“Kenney said the UCP will hire people to draft orders in council for cabinet to adopt the week it’s sworn in if the UCP wins. One of the key elements of structural reform, Kenney said, “is to move quickly.”
“Speed creates its own momentum. It also makes it harder for the opponents of reform to obstruct it,” he said.
Kenney said he doesn’t want to get “bogged down” with public consultation, so his party is doing as much as it can now “on the big issues.”
You know all that legislation to protect the working class and benefit the poor. It has to go. Stat. But more importantly we have to fuck the NDP’s social progress up with no debate, no consultation, and none of that fucking filthy democracy we fucking harp on when it comes to protecting business class interests and the rich.
“Kenney said the UCP would freeze minimum wage increases (the NDP recently increased it to $15 per hour). He would also consider restructuring the minimum wage to something that resembles the age-graduated system used in Australia, in which youth get paid less than adults.”
Because why pay young people reasonably? Who thought up that shit? Was it Stalin? Because the young most certainly don’t need money to live or save toward pursing post-secondary education (which will most certainly be gutted during a UCP regime – we need more beer guzzling dullards not egg-heads for christ’s sake). Screw the young people they vote for commies anyways, plus we can ratchet up poor peoples class antagonism so while they scrabble for the shiny pebbles we deem to throw their way, then we can continue the plunder-party for the corporate and business interests, as it rightfully should be. Added benefit: the poor will need to focus on mere survival instead of organizing for a just and equitable society… so much winning for everyone.
“The UCP would appoint a minister tasked solely with decreasing regulations by one-third as part of an “aggressive process of … lightening the regulatory burden on the Alberta economy,” Kenney said. That minister’s work would be guided by a similar setup under former B.C. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell.
“We’ll be constrained in how far we can go in terms of fiscal stimulus because of the $8-billion deficit and pending $60-billion debt, so we will need to over-compensate on the regulatory side,” he said.”
You know that idea about the government representing the best interests of the people of Alberta? That is about as red as Lenin’s underpants. Oversight and regulations are for weak kneed socialist chumps who don’t know the true power of the dark side reckless capitalist exploitation.
Climate change? Unions? Checks on corporate power? That malarkey needs to go, so much so that we’ll set up a supercharged “Fuck You I’ve got Mine” government ministry to expedite the whole fucking process.
Awesome!
“Kenney doubled down on his commitment to a well-resourced government “war room” to defend Alberta’s energy industry here and abroad, setting up satellite offices if need be.
He also pledged to “stop the statutory shutdown of coal.” Federal regulations passed under Kenney’s former government in 2012 would shutter most of Alberta’s 18 coal-fired plants. The remaining six have to close by 2030 under a deadline set by Alberta’s NDP government.”
You know that economic diversification program the NDP has been going on about? Trying to (after 40 years of conservative dithering) wean Alberta off fossil fuel extraction dependence? Let’s tear that initiative down. No.. let’s burn it to the ground with…*thinking*… COAL! Because no UCP government policy says ‘we understand the implications of climate science‘ more than’ lets ROLL COAL ALL DAY EVERY FUCKING DAY.
Awesome!
“Kenney said he would consider appointing a fiscal commission to make recommendations on how to get back to balance without raising taxes. A UCP platform would include a “positive vision” for artists and the cultural industries, he said, but “there will have to be a period of fiscal restraint.”
Arts? Culture? If its not drinking buck-a-beer while watching the idiot box then you’ve come to the wrong place effete liberal beatniks. Your highfalutin cultural activities have no place in at UCP province. We have no need to talk critically about our culture and converse about our place in the world, that kind of thinking promotes democratic ideals and free thought and that shit is bad for business.
Seriously folks, the UCP is ahead in fundraising and in the polls. It feels like Alberta is about to head back into the insipid MAGA zone. I don’t want that to happen. We’ve had a taste of what governing for the people is like, and should continue to support a government that isn’t solely on exploiting everything for the sake of the rich and business classes.
So how about it Alberta, can we not head back into the political dark ages, just this once?
British Columbia is currently in a province-wide state of emergency due to the over 560 wildfires throughout the province. Over 3,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and BC currently has the worst air quality in North America.
Taken on Highway 1, in British Columbia.
Yes, how dare our Federal Government enact a Carbon Tax, as clearly, there is no need to deal with the effects of climate change…
*sigh* – Well I hope this proud anti-Trudeau-ite is enjoying his hickory-flavoured air.
Facts do not necessarily win political arguments. The sooner the progressive left realizes this, the better. As a progressive lefty I’m consistently amazed by the voting patterns of the common people i.e. the people the political left is supposed to represent. Recently in Canada our most populace province decided to elect an business sense challenged, no political platform, boorish individual who spoke not in terms of political policy, but in catchy, folksy, accessible language:
“His populist message resonated with voters who were unhappy with the provincial Liberals. Ford promised “buck a beer,” ten cents off a litre of gas and major tax cuts. He also promised to cut government spending by $6 billion but didn’t say how.”
Like, jesus christ in a fuckbasket, what kind of platform is that? Anyone with more than two neurons to rub together can see the bread and circuses messaging and the usual conservative trojan-horsery going on here. I’m not sure people get it, so let me state it here. Conservative party policy focuses on maintaining the good times for people who most likely are not YOU. The business elite, the wealthy, the current power structure are all beneficiaries of conservative rule – the hoi polloi – is not.
Not ever.
But hey, my fellow Canadians, enjoy your cheap beer while the newly minted government savages and merrily defenestrates the social safety net and related infrastructure that makes your life bearable. Your vote indicates that you are good with that.
Why I shake my head (more) is that these paradoxical voting patters are nothing new. Sharun Mukand and Dani Ridrik expound on how world view memes (in the Dawkins sense) can influence people to vote against their self interests.
“Importantly, identity and worldview memes do not prevail equally across all subgroups of the population. Political entrepreneurs target these memes toward the electorally critical subgroup. Our model predicts that identity polarisation and support for policy memes will both see their greatest rise within the lower- and middle-income group of the majority-identity group. These are the potential switchers to whom the memes will be targeted. We should not expect those memes to operate as strongly among the wealthy who belong to the majority group or the minority-identity group of all incomes.
Increased inequality raises the reward to the rich from successful ideational politics. The returns from discovering a policy meme that persuades the median voter, for example, that lower taxes are in the interests of not only the rich, but also the low-income median voter are much higher when inequality is high. Similarly, an effective identity meme that catalyses identity around issues such as gay marriage, women’s rights and immigration can also serve as a ‘wedge’ giving low-income voters a reason to vote for the high-income party. As one team of economists concluded in 2015: ‘Despite the large increases in economic inequality since 1970, American survey respondents exhibit no increase in support for redistribution … demand for income redistribution in the US has remained flat by some measures and decreased for others.’ This is remarkable. And it happened, as our research framework suggests, thanks to the role of ideas as a catalyst for policy change. The elite, along with an allied ‘political-ideational complex’ (including academics, think tanks and talk-radio), successfully disseminated the worldview that rising inequality was an inevitable byproduct of structural changes in the global economy, which in turn necessitated the adoption of financial deregulation, low capital-income taxes and the embrace of globalisation.
Ideas and interests both matter for political change, and the two feed into one another. On the one hand, economic interests drive the kind of ideas that politicians put forward. As Kenneth Shepsle, professor of government at Harvard University, put it in 1985, ideas can be regarded as ‘hooks on which politicians hang their objectives and further their interests’. However, ideas also shape interests. This happens because they alter voter preferences and/or shift their worldviews ex-post, in both cases shifting rankings over policy.”
Fuck. I wish the notion of concise writing would make a comeback in academia. There are the makings of a great article in this piece, but it is severely hampered by clunky, inaccessible writing.
The gist is that you make people focus on an bullshit issue(s) that has little relation to the actual levers of power in society. Once elected, on said mountain of bullshit, its like “Oh, by the way, along with your buck-a-beers, we’ll be needing to privatize healthcare (and other policies that screw the Average Joe and Jane sideways).
This isn’t magic, folks. Honest.
“For those who view politics in terms of a narrow and static notion of interests, the electoral support for Trump, Brexit and other populist movements seems to pose a puzzle. It seems as if many poor people are voting against their self-interest. But the puzzle is more apparent than real. It is rooted in a habit of thinking of interests only in economic terms, and also as fixed. Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon understood well that interests are malleable. With the right message and framing, Bannon noted in 2013, you could change the political calculus by shaping popular perception of self-interest: ‘Trade is No 100 on the [Republican] Party’s list. You can make it No 1. Immigration is No 10. We can make it No 2.’
What appears to be culture might be economics – the consequence of identity or worldview memes marketed by economic elites for their own self-interest. For example, Reagan used the imagery of a ‘welfare queen’ to attack unemployment benefits and the welfare state. So identity politics was being deployed by him to ensure that voters supported the Republican low-tax economic agenda. Similarly, what might look like economics might be shaped by cultural predispositions that provide voters with their interpretive frameworks – such as Merkel’s celebration of the ‘Swabian housewife’ when making the case for austerity.
Defeating autocratic and nativist political movements will likely require strategies based on both ideas and interests. As we have seen in recent elections, proposing policies that are better suited to the economic needs of middle- and lower-income voters will likely not be enough. Successful challengers will also need to come up with narratives that help to reshape peoples’ worldviews and identities”
What a long way of saying is that left needs to up its bullshit game, so we can baffle the brains of the populace and then introduce policy that will actually benefit them.
Interesting conclusion though, is that the right consistently wins through the bait and switch that treats people as if they were feckless, greedy, morons. Yet, the left politic seems hesitant to do so, as if somehow the patronizing authoritarian method is somehow disdainful and wrong. I’m at the point of ‘fuck it’ and do what works already, because I’m tired of the Right being the sole benefactors of this proven, winning political strategy.
(The best part is that the Right always accuses us lefty types of elitist authoritarian tendencies, all the while exemplifying the best practices of the former. Like, okay, then let’s do this then, and beat them at their own shitty game.)
Did you ever want to see what a patriarchal double standard looks like in action? Most women understand completely as it onerous crap like this that circumscribes their experiences in society and is a daily reminder of their second class standing (in 20-fracking-18). Conversely, the class of men, who are often the beneficiaries of said double standards often are unaware of systemic voodoo that ‘mysteriously’ makes their lives that much more livable and convenient. The qualifications for entering either class of people – being a privileged male, or an oppressed female is entirely based on the foundational truth of which biological sex class you happen to be born into. It should also be said that this feature (sex) and the associated benefits/disadvantages (sex based privilege/oppression) follow you regardless of how you happen to identify in society.
But enough of that heady class based analysis of the oppressive forces in society, we have to talk about… soccer.
How could soccer (or football for my European readership) provide the genesis for a piece about the patriarchal double standards that permeate our society (ohh, and probably a critique of the violent strain of transactivism that is currently afflicting western soceity as well)? Let’s set the stage, with many thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the news article:
“An international men’s soccer league has no room for Canada’s top female player. Stephanie Labbé is considered the No. 1 player in the country. She earned 49 caps, awarded for each international game appearance, and helped the Canadian women’s team win Olympic bronze at the 2016 Rio games. To challenge herself, she also tried to win a place on the Calgary Foothills FC men’s soccer team this spring. She earned that spot — but the league refused to let her play due to her gender.”
Firstly, full marks to the CBC for conflating the social construct of gender with a biological fact of sex. Secondly, this story doesn’t get going till we see what transpired.
The pre-professional league runs teams across North America, but in a statement to CBC News, said it follows “gender-based eligibility requirements.”
“Although our specific mission relates to the men’s game, we applaud all that female players have done to move the sport of soccer forward in North America,” the league said in the statement, declining an interview.
“Stephanie Labbé, in particular, has had tremendous success, and we wish her the best as she continues to pursue her career goals.”
Labbé, however, faces being benched all season. Because she and the team were so hopeful to have her play, she missed the deadline to join women’s teams.
So, a female athlete – Canada’s best Soccer player – is accepted onto FC Calagary to play. After committing to the Calgary team and the associated scheduling, the league says well, no you silly female, this is a MEN’S league and we don’t allow you nor your shameful vagina to be anywhere near our games or our precious league because of the RULES.
Labbé career is hamstrung for at least a season because of the commitments she made to the Calgary FC team. Well, you know, rules are rules. Sorry about your luck. End of story.
And that’s the fucking problem right there. There is no story after this story – a woman (adult human female) told to get bent (despite being the best in Canada)because this is a man’s game – woman’s grievances and sacrifice dismissed with a shrug. Woman citing the injustice of the situation and how drastically unfair the situation is has her arguments dissipate into the willowy-wispish grey vapours (of patriarchal society) never to be remarked on again.
This is the normal state of affairs. Welcome to the world of being female in society.
Men’s rules and men’s sports are automatically granted respect and more importantly, respect for the rules and guidelines that protect their game. It isn’t even a question.
Let’s compare and contrast though what happens when a male decides he want to be in a female sport.
Fallon Fox is a trans identified male and also a fighter in the UFC. Was he told that his participation in the female UFC was against the rules, so sorry about your luck? Too Bad?
Nope. Not even close. This isn’t someone going against the rules, but rather a brave, noble, and ‘progressive’ venture. A bold tale that is venerated by numerous media outlets. This is the power males wield in society – because Fox calls himself a woman – it is accepted by society – the facts and reality of the situation be damned. Let’s look at example #239478322 +1 of what happens when male feelings take precedence over female safety and material reality. This quote from Tamikka Brents an actual female opponent of Fox’s who was TKO’d in the first round of their match –
“I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right,” she stated. “Her grip was different, I could usually move around in the clinch against other females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch…
“I still disagree with Fox fighting,” Brents stated. “Any other job or career I say have a go at it, but when it comes to a combat sport I think it just isn’t fair. At least not until we have more scientific proof that it is or isn’t fair. More research is needed for sure. Like I said, I am not a doctor, I can only say my opinion and I don’t believe that
“Brents reportedly suffered a concussion and a broken orbital bone during the two-minute beatdown, and required seven staples in her head.”
Yes, Takikka Brents is the example writ on a personal level when we allow (extra-spicy) male delusion to rewrite the (already male authored and male friendly) rules of how society works. Women’s safety, bodily integrity, and boundaries are all put at risk.
It’s not the full embrace of the misogynistic gender stereotypes, or the balefully embroidered tempest in a teapot that is ‘misgendering’, or even the entire fallacy that is ‘self-identication’. It’s the glaringly obvious fact that these frocked bell-ends consistently act and expect to be treated with the male privilege that they’ve been socialized with since birth.
Because if they understood, even a tiny-fraction of what it is like to be female and socialized as a female in society (implicitly understood as you should prioritize the feelings of others, there is something fundamentally unclean/shameful about your body, and you should sit down, shut up, and make yourself small), they wouldn’t act as they do. It’s your biggest tell, my dudes. Because if you were actually a woman, you’d be in the shutting up/swallowing your dreams phase of your artificially circumscribed life a long time ago and you and your very important opinions would reside where most of female anguish/frustration/rage currently lay – quietly impotent in the grey vaporous patriarchally approved ether.
TiM’s most certainly wouldn’t do this if they *got* what being a woman in society is about:
The weapons the trans identified males were using in the above photo, now part of a display at the San Francisco Public Library. Quoted material from Gender Trender).
“If you thought the age of scold’s bridles and dunking pools designed to torture and kill disobedient women were a thing of the past, you would be wrong. The San Francisco Public Library unveiled an exhibit this week featuring blood stained t-shirts encouraging patrons to “punch” feminists, along with several installations of deadly weapons painted pink: baseball bats covered in barbed wire, axes, among others, all designed by men to kill feminist women.”
The male creators of the exhibit also included a helpful manifesto, blaming lesbians, feminists and other uppity women for causing more deaths (by “harassing” men with their dastardly opinions!) than all the actual real murders committed by violent men.
The display, launched mere days after the mass murder of women in Toronto by “incel” terrorist Alek Minassian and echoing his philosophy, was funded by the non-profit Friends of The San Francisco Public Library and created by The Degenderettes, led by Scout Tran Caffee, founder of Trans Dykes: the anti-lesbian Antifa. The group specifically targets lesbians as “oppressors” of men -because they exclude males from their dating pools. The men in the group identify as transgender and consider themselves to be male lesbians.
Materials include riot shields inscribed with the slogan “Die Cis Scum”. Cis is a transgender community term, generally used as a slur, for non-transgender people.
From the exhibit manifesto:
“The Degenderettes are a humble and practical club, fighting for gender rights within human reach rather than with legislation and slogans. Their agit-prop artwork has come to permeate internet trans culture, national television, and headlines as far as Germany.” [From the San Francisco Public Library website here: https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1032262901 ]
Posted at the exhibition, MRA/incel complaints of “reverse sexism”: The fact that violence against feminists and lesbians is considered more likely to be perpetrated by males (as evidenced by all crime statistics worldwide throughout human history) is a conclusion that discriminates against men. Hmm. Never seen that one before. (sarcasm). Explicitly states that acknowledging male violence against women is “anti-transgender”.”
Weapons to hurt the females that disagree with you. Using violence as a ‘debate’ tactic. Blaming women for the problem of male violence. These ‘women’ sure do sound a lot like entitled males who, at the drop of hat (bonnet?, because clothes make the woman amiright??) are likely to resort to violence to enforce and protect their male privilege (in this case, dictating not only their reality but what yours needs to be as well, because ‘fuck you’ and your bigoted transphobic dedication to the world/facts/objective reality).
I’m waiting hand-maidens.
I pine to hear your spirited defence of male violence and male privilege be sure to include a piece on ‘inclusiveness’ and ‘intersectionality’ it will make your empower your arguments, trust me. Make the case the against against what is right here in the open – the vulgar expression of male dominance and socialization – cloaked in the somehow-palatable post-modern liberal new-think/new-speak. Explain how amazingly progressive transactivism is, and how it should be a part of feminism proper.
I shan’t hold my breath.
I will, however, untidily weave my way back to the introduction and the soccer experience that Stephanie Labbé had and some possible solutions to her problem. With the current gender-identity fad (fap?) that is going on, she could very well self-identify as a man and under our oh so long sighted Canadian Gender Legislation go to court and sue the crap out of the Soccer association for not respecting the gender of her choice, after-all its perfectly clear that strong feelings and thoughts alone can change you from one gender to another (dicey though, because strangely, a female can say that are male, but society isn’t obligated to respect her worldview, or her gender identity especially because society tends to discount the female view/opinion on everything). This solution (if it works) though is less than optimal because she would still be playing within the patriarchal superstructure of gender that at its very foundation lays the tenets for female oppression and male domination. Certainly, she could be advancing her individual cause, but as to other women who suffer under patriarchy would that be the solution for them as well?
Why are not females by the tens of thousands flocking to the trans banner and identify as trans-men to get all the sweet sweet benefits that come with being a man? It seems like a rather easy fix no?
Look at what is happening in the real world. Trans identified males are getting the headlines and are the leadership of the transactivist movement. Shouldn’t the trans identified women – now with male privilege, because transmen are men, – be leading the way? Currently though, what are trans identified females getting lauded for? Hmm…giving birth… of course, nothing says male privilege like having a baby.
No amount of ‘queering’ the system will change the fundamental rules that underlie the power dynamics of our society – sex based privilege and sex based oppression are some of the prime movers in society and no amount of language deformation and gender bending is going to change that. Playing within the toxic game of gender and gender roles only strengthens the justifications for keeping the status quo intact, when in fact, the problem is the very game itself and that is the problem that needs to be addressed.
Do away with the conception of gender and we’re suddenly one step closer to that free and equal society people keeping pining for.
Oh, just shaking my head at this one. Watch the trans identified male dig a nice hole for himself as he debates with Meghan Murphy and other gender critical feminists.
I have laws enshrined in society now that protects my male delusions of gender, fear me female! Of course, cue the defence against the world of facts and reality.
Julie Rei makes assertions that are not based in fact. Watch how quickly Julie gets shut down.
Whoo-whee! Now there is some goal-post shifting at its finest. Shift away Julie, I’m pretty sure Gender Rebel is not going to brook any of your shit.
Lol-cakes! The idea that you can adopt the patriarchally approved gender stereotypes and that somehow makes you a woman is not only foolish, it is appalling. Bullshit patriarchal expectations are what radical feminists fight against because, you guessed it, they hurt women (and men).
In the last panel Scott rightly points out the irony of Morgane’s position and PinkPussyHatRadFemTERF delivers the Coup de grâce doing what radfems do best naming the problem and identifying how to counter it.
This BS sadly is happening in my country. I’m so very glad that we have people who are standing up to the trans-cult when they make assertions contrary to reality. Oh hey, let me get that definition mentioned in the twitter stream.
Pluralistic Ignorance – “In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but incorrectly assume that most others accept it, and therefore go along with it.[1] This is also described as “no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes”. In short, pluralistic ignorance is a bias about a social group, held by that social group.[2][3]
Pluralistic ignorance may help to explain the bystander effect.[4] If no-one acts, onlookers may believe others believe action is incorrect, and may therefore themselves refrain from acting.”
bleatmop
The Intransigent One
Your opinions…