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It must be recognized that economic Class, if we are to move against the corporatism that dominates our political landscape, must be acknowledged as a factor to bring a critical mass of people together to demand change. The fragmentation of class interest has played a significant role in the rise of corporate power and the neo-liberal ideology that supports it.
This excerpt by Michael Hudson writing on Counterpunch:
“A new term was introduced to the English language: Identity Politics. Its aim is for voters to think of themselves as separatist minorities – women, LGBTQ, Blacks and Hispanics. The Democrats thought they could beat Trump by organizing Women for Wall Street (and a New Cold War), LGBTQ for Wall Street (and a New Cold War), and Blacks and Hispanics for Wall Street (and a New Cold War). Each identity cohort was headed by a billionaire or hedge fund donor.
The identity that is conspicuously excluded is the working class. Identity politics strips away thinking of one’s interest in terms of having to work for a living. It excludes voter protests against having their monthly paycheck stripped to pay more for health insurance, housing and mortgage charges or education, or better working conditions or consumer protection – not to speak of protecting debtors.
Identity politics used to be about three major categories: workers and unionization, anti-war protests and civil rights marches against racist Jim Crow laws. These were the three objectives of the many nationwide demonstrations. That ended when these movements got co-opted into the Democratic Party. Their reappearance in Bernie Sanders’ campaign in fact threatens to tear the Democratic coalition apart. As soon as the primaries were over (duly stacked against Sanders), his followers were made to feel unwelcome. Hillary sought Republican support by denouncing Sanders as being as radical as Putin’s Republican leadership.
In contrast to Sanders’ attempt to convince diverse groups that they had a common denominator in needing jobs with decent pay – and, to achieve that, in opposing Wall Street’s replacing the government as central planner – the Democrats depict every identity constituency as being victimized by every other, setting themselves at each other’s heels. Clinton strategist John Podesta, for instance, encouraged Blacks to accuse Sanders supporters of distracting attention from racism. Pushing a common economic interest between whites, Blacks, Hispanics and LGBTQ always has been the neoliberals’ nightmare. No wonder they tried so hard to stop Bernie Sanders, and are maneuvering to keep his supporters from gaining influence in their party.
When Trump was inaugurated on Friday, January 20, there was no pro-jobs or anti-war demonstration. That presumably would have attracted pro-Trump supporters in an ecumenical show of force. Instead, the Women’s March on Saturday led even the pro-Democrat New York Times to write a front-page article reporting that white women were complaining that they did not feel welcome in the demonstration. The message to anti-war advocates, students and Bernie supporters was that their economic cause was a distraction.
The march was typically Democratic in that its ideology did not threaten the Donor Class. As Yves Smith wrote on Naked Capitalism: “the track record of non-issue-oriented marches, no matter how large scale, is poor, and the status of this march as officially sanctioned (blanket media coverage when other marches of hundreds of thousands of people have been minimized, police not tricked out in their usual riot gear) also indicates that the officialdom does not see it as a threat to the status quo.”[1]
Many thanks to RoughSeas for bringing this article to my attention, it is well written, chock full of facts, and enumerates many of the problematic aspects identity politics and how they are hurting women.
“Skimming over liberal media these past months, the assumption is that anyone who might have an issue with a transgender person in their washroom is necessarily a Bible-thumping bigot from the south. This perception is not only the result of vast oversimplifications, but is a conscious misrepresentation of the facts before us. As much as HB2 is a hateful, bigoted law which is serving as a smoke screen to erase other economic capabilities, the Department of Justice’s position is just as wrong. If we didn’t know that women were third-class citizens before, we should definitely know it now.
Until the end of his presidency, there was not a word from the Obama administration about the rolling back of abortion rights, state after state. Not a peep from Bruce Springsteen or PayPal about women’s rights. This is isn’t shocking… Not for women, at least. We are accustomed to our voices being virtually unheard, even on issues that affect us directly. It is more of the same brocialism as usual. That male violence is a reality and does not magically disappear through the kind of identity politics that ask us to suspend our disbelief and embrace that “gender identity” trumps sex is par for the course. The problem with Obama’s Department of Justice narrative is that it suggests “gender identity” is sex, and that, while gender is whatever a person feels it to be, the acknowledgement of biological sex is “transphobic.”
This narrative, wherein gender is medicalized in order to silence one half of the population and wherein biological differences (and the way those differences factor into the system of patriarchy) are now considered to be fictions, is an MRA’s dream. The result of efforts to “broaden the definition of woman” is that, now, anyone can be a woman, but actual women can no longer speak of their oppression or their bodies.
Identitarians (those who hinge their subjectivity to identity politics) have attempted to remedy their feeling “excluded” by subverting women’s political movements and the language through which women describe their realities. One of the recent attempts to redefine woman was the U.S. women’s strike platform, which prioritizes transgender women over women of colour in its statement of violence against women and promotes the reproductive rights “for all women, cis and trans.” Of course, transwomen are male so clearly have no concerns about reproductive rights. Prioritizing males over females in the name of women’s rights is anything but subversive. Rather, it’s age old misogyny.”
The politics of gender identity hurt women.
And now sadly, I have to qualify what I mean when I write the word ‘woman’ because males, with subjective, indescribable feelings have decided that they are also women. So, ‘women’ defined here and in reality refers to adult human females.
Obvious female erasure aside, let’s move on to the news item itself. To summarize – two women have been forced to leave a Woman’s Shelter because a man who calls himself a woman resides there.
Up is not down, dry is not wet, and for goodness sake men are not women. Understand that strong feelings cannot and do not change the biological facts and features of our species.
“Two women are raising concerns about the latest person to move into a Kelowna homeless shelter for women.
“He wants to become a woman, I mean that is his choice but when a man comes into a women’s shelter who still has a penis and genitals he has more rights than we do.” Tracey said.
Tracey is upset that she was made to share a room with a transgender individual, a man transitioning to become a woman.
“They told me, sorry if a person identifies themselves with female, then we have to go with that.” Tracey said.”
Listen to Tracy speaking the truth to power. Men have more rights than women, even in a woman’s shelter, because what a male believes is more important than the safety of actual women.
If you wish to respect reality you can no more identify as a woman as you could identify as a member of different race, or as different physical age. If you happen to have just a casual relationship with reality, it is most definitely your problem, and others should not have to respect your personal fantasy life.
Yet here we be, males being prioritized in a Woman’s Shelter. Orwellian notions and alternative facts are the new truth – so say we all!
“Another client named Blaine was also staying at the shelter. She recently fled from an abusive relationship and says she’s uncomfortable with a transgender person staying at women’s only facility.
“Some women have had bad experiences with men so they are fleeing men and now we have a man living there,” Blaine said.”
The root problem male violence, never seems to get any air time. We, as a society continue to dance around the very real problems of male socialization and male violence and prefer to, as always, give short shrift to women and the life defining problems they face while living in a patriarchal society.
“The shelter is run by the NOW Canada Society. While the organization declined an interview on the matter, it did issue the following statement to Global News.
“NOW Canada cannot speak to specific cases. It is against the law to discriminate against transgender individuals. NOW Canada and other shelters in Kelowna welcome people without regard to age, race, religion and gender identity.”
Are you feeling the equality? Basking in the wonderful egalitarian outcomes where unsurprisingly, the questionably superfluous needs of males, are prioritized over the physical safety of women?
I’m not. I’m seeing patriarchy and misogyny in action. I’m seeing men’s rights activism in action, I’m seeing the damage done to women because we as a society have uncritically accepted the nebulous notion that ‘gender identity’ is somehow more real that physical, biological fact.
“On Thursday morning, both Blaine and Tracey were asked to leave the shelter for good after speaking to the media and breaking the confidentiality agreement designed to protect the safety of all the clients. But now they say their safety has been compromised after being tossed out on the street.
“Hopefully we will stay safe,” Blaine said.”
Yes. Hopefully indeed, while the male, in a female only space remains safe and sound. The important class of people is protected, sorry ladies, you are just not welcome in a Woman’s Shelter anymore.
Today’s Radical Feminist insight comes from Humble Kitten, reminding us that dudes will be dudes in whatever form they happen to come in.
Smells like 1984…
“Identity has become the axis of so much university activism because, for all the radical posturing associated with it, identity politics does not threaten the established order of society. It promotes a moralistic and self-indulgent anti-politics, where a person’s use of language and the purity of their thinking matters more than confronting collectively the material conditions and social relations under which they are forced to live. It creates a simulation of political struggle – one that doesn’t merely fail to challenge the material inequality and unfreedom of late capitalism, but fundamentally aligns with the dynamics and interests of its atomised, spectacle-driven society. It is a perfect mirror of consumerism, playing-upon the individual’s desires for real freedom, only to perpetuate and prettify the conditions of their alienation.”
Control the language, control the people. Look how far we’ve fallen – stating woman = adult human female is suddenly a radical act with the potential of ruining lives/careers.
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