It’s Almost as if the Pope Is Catholic

The rise of secular leftism has corresponded with the collapse of Christianity in the West. The fact that secular leftists are gushing with praise for the current Pope should be a strong indicator.

Or perhaps it was Christianity that collapsed and instead bequeathed the important parts of its legacy to secular leftism. Which hoc is post and which is propter?

This Modern Pope along with his Authoritarian Capitalist Church have been losing market share and as all good capitalists know you either grow or perish. This Pope is the smiling snake oil salesman with excellent PR support to project the image of someone who cares about the poor rubes who if they would only follow the leader will enjoy the riches of the bountiful Capitalist/Christian world.

Women don’t fare so well under this authority but just as under capitalism the Church views women as a means of production, vital to growth even if viewed as lesser beings to be controlled or they might show their evil tendencies to control their own bodies.

The Church doesn’t have the market power to force its brand on the peons anymore and flailing Indians to death for not producing enough wealth for them is bad PR today so we see this new approach to keep their profits flowing.

The support he displayed for the US bishops and clergy for their behavior during the child rape investigations is the most telling example of this Pope’s lack of character and morals but he has a corporate solution for Global Warming so piss on those so called victims of Church abuse.

One of the biggest dilemma with the Catholic Church is not only its long history of dogmatisms, but also as being at the heart of the notorious medieval “Inquisition” period. Clearly a precursor to the methods currently used by groups like ISIS, for example.
Sort of a “medieval ISIS”. And perpetrated and carried out by European whites no less. Another “irony of the times” I guess.

To have glued together this New Testament, a sort of rococo of taste in all respects, with the Old Testament into a single book, as the “Bible,” and “the essential book,” that is perhaps the greatest act of daring and “sin against the spirit” which literary Europe has on its conscience.

Friedrich Nietzsche

IN ENGLAND ONE MUST REHABILITATE ONESELF AFTER EVERY LITTLE EMANCIPATION FROM THEOLOGY BY SHOWING IN A VERITABLY AWE-INSPIRING MANNER WHAT A MORAL FANATIC ONE IS. THAT IS THE PENANCE THEY PAY THERE. —WE OTHERS HOLD OTHERWISE. WHEN ONE GIVES UP THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, ONE PULLS THE RIGHT TO CHRISTIAN MORALITY OUT FROM UNDER ONE’S FEET.

—Nietzsche

Leftism is christian morality but without the pay off in the after life that Xians get for being so good. What do you liberals get? Just the moral high and ales sense of superiority?

What Blizzard is basically arguing is that for secularism to survive, secular societies must take a page out of conservative religious perspectives and appropriate women’s bodies (and will), thereby negating a primary motivation of having a secular society (in order not to construct a society around appropriating women’s bodies).

But birth rates are more or less dropping everywhere but a few places in Africa, as I understand it, secularism or no.

a Pharisee, obsessed with the rules, but not kind in action

Can we say Germany’s treatment of Greece was Pharisean?

He is the most peaceful of rightward.

I see problems but also truth with what Blizzard says, particularly the sexuality part. I’ve been doing some research on the SJW movement, and it is much more disturbing than I had been led to believe. They are now trying to legitimize pedophilia, which is unacceptable. Look up Sarah Nyberg, and how SJW closed ranks and defended Sarah’s pedophilia. When one SJW who was molested as a child complained, she was ostracized and rejected by SJWs as intolerant and bigoted. They have gone insane, they are a secular movement, and they’re trying to push their sexual agenda to include protection of pedophiles. The left is going insane. They’ve taken the mantle of extremist political correctness in order to not talk about war, poverty, and other things that neoliberals, who are an extension of SJWs, don’t want to talk about because profit. And now they’re allies with pedophiles. It’s time to clean house.

http://theralphretort.com/confirmed-her-name-is-sarah-nyberg-shes-a-pedophile-but-sjws-still-defend-9015015/

Here too:

http://idledillettante.com/2015/09/11/5-reasons-i-stand-with-sarah-nyberg/

cmcg116’s tone is too precious and sounds like some kind of Gamergate campaigner attempting to boost the signal from that online movement.

What the heck is SJW? Is that some new acronym for Mormons or something?

@cmcg116: Please get a brain, and a life.

Though perhaps I shouldn’t use the term “fascist”. Unlike the original fascisti and storm troopers, these punks may drink beer, but they would make lousy Putsch material. I would be surprised if 1% of them could punch their way out of a wet paper bag.

I have some questions for our “Blood And Soil” traditionalist brother: 😉

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/drlaura.asp

*sigh* I forgot to edit out an extra “is”.

I can haz edit feechur, plz? 😛

Yeah.

No, I thought “love your neighbour and do nice things to people and don’t rape and torture people because Jesus would want you to be kind” might be a feel-good post, at least for sane people.

Hopeless Polyanna, that’s me.

That’s because you (subconsciously?) believe that the culture wars aren’t a Thing, but just a distracting and ephemeral bauble designed to fool the masses out of their single payer health care. Blizzard just reminded you that they’re real.

@Peter*

Yes indeed. ‘ The Pope is Dishonest About Zero Tolerance for Child Sex Abuse’; Pam Spees of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Barbara Blaine of SNAP say the Catholic Church and Pope Francis are not serious about addressing the church’s on-going struggles with child sexual abuse

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14775

There’s also a story/interview at TRRN saying that a Vatican spokesperson said that they will not divest fossil fuels from their extensive portfolio. Hard not guffaw at that.

But Francis’s canonization of Junipero Serra was hideous, and so hypocritical after his ‘apology’ for the abuses the church had wrought upon the Indigenous of the Americas.

But as I said: the conflict has content of its own outside of its instrumentalisation in class warfare.

(An edit feature would be nice for afterthoughts, as well.)

I think I see a little of what our faux Vala is saying, though–something else had to pre-exist independently of the class war, in order for that something else to be weaponized by the hired liars of the plutocrats. I still admit ignorance as to what that something is.

As any discussion on the Internet lengthens, the probability that the discussion will involve human sexuality approaches 1.

Shall we call it “Robwin’s Law”?

@ Spinoza

The fight has always been against the cleric and capitalist, landlord and slavemaster, patriarch and aristocrat.

Two words:

Bismarck, Kulturkampf

mfi

This discussion might as well be about the philanthropy or lack thereof of Leprechauns and their pots of gold except for the seriousness and murderous barbarity that Christianists have used throughout their history to spread and defend their superstitions.

Well being part of that group (transgender) specifically and repeatedly picked out by the Pope as a nunber #1 enemy, our response is quite different to all this fawning praise.

“Pope Francis Compares Transgender People To Nuclear Weapons In New Book”
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/02/20/pope-francis-compares-transgender-people-to-nuclear-weapons-in-new-book/

And: http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2015/06/18/popes-environmental-encyclical-anti-transgender

Nothing new as far as we are concerned, the offical position of the Cathlic Chruch is to eliminate us.

“After years of study, the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation has sent church leaders a confidential document concluding that “sex-change” procedures do not change a person’s gender in the eyes of the church.

Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have undergone “sex-change” procedures are not eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a source familiar with the text.”

“But one of the things not mentioned is that the Vatican was being advised by a 30 year enemy of the transgender community: Dr. Paul McHugh. ”

“McHugh has ties to neoconservative Catholic groups, not surprisingly is a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, and is frequently quoted by anti-transgender groups such as NARTH and the Concerned Women for America”

http://transgriot.blogspot.com.au/2007/11/why-is-catholic-church-hatin-on.html

Noting that we are number #1 hate target for the Southern Baptists Church too (and the WBC, etc) ….

Oh, I believe in the culture wars. I just didn’t think they had infected my tiny commentariat to this extent.

Whyever not? You attract commenters who belong to various “alternative” ideological standpoints, secular progressive left-liberalism included. But clearly not everyone is that. There are Putinistas and reactionary nationalists (among others) who also seem to come by here. Which is not surprising: all of these ideological standpoints are minority ones and ones that agree broadly that the current hegemonic ideology is no longer fit for purpose.

But some of them have very clear ideas about the connection between reproductive strategy, the good life, and ideological success. And these ideologies are at odds with one another. So of course you got the culture wars here too, right away.

Mike this might help understand heir mind set:

“Psychologically these
followers have personalities featuring:
1) a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in
their society;
2) high levels of aggression in the name of their authorities; and
3) a high level of conventionalism.”

“But research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence
of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning,
highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a
profound ethnocentrism, and–to top it all off–a ferocious dogmatism that makes it
unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic.”

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Quite apart from being intellectually lazy, it seems to me that more than a few of the promotors of the “authoritarian herd” view are vulnerable to becoming authoritarian followers themselves and very amenable to “solutions” that predispose others to be as well – the big difference is that their views are not currently the ones with power.

Lisa, you might examine your own group for these authoritarian patriarchal tendencies especially in the conflict with Radical Feminists who you brand as TERFs. They support Universal Human Rights and seek to be your allies but demand that women have those important rights to exclude males, whatever their chosen gender identity, from some limited women only gatherings.

Claiming to seek acceptance while using the patriarchal authoritarian rhetoric of branding and bullying women who have honest disagreements with you is certainly not productive.

Peter* “and seek to be your allies”, if only. Many of us (including myself at times) try and reach out to find some common cause and always get attacked and rejected.

Trans people are natural feminists and and have great and close alliances and common cause with them. But these are all third gen ones, many of the 2nd gen ones reject us.

Somewhere along the line the 2nd gen feminists (Raymond, Greer, Jeffries, et al) took a wrong ideological turn, what are now know now as the TERFs are the children of that.
There has been much speculation and analysis as to why this happened (yes many books have been written about it).

The common consensus was that it combined an extreme anti-male viewpoint along with a dose of religious inspired internalised misogyny and conservatism.

This damaged the feminist movement as a whole, damaged women as a whole and it took until the 3rd gen of feminists to start to repair the damage.

Janice Raymond was the vanguard of this, virulently anti-trans women (her stated position was to ‘morally mandate transsexuals out of existence’).
Also, and this is where a lot of the damage to women overall came from, virulently against the new reproductive technologies then becoming available in the 70s/80s. In that area they were identical to the various churches and misogynists. Raymond is on record as being against the contraceptive and ‘day after’ pills for women (as well as IVF and many others).

Many of them also advocated separatism from men and ‘political lesbianism’, which alienated a heck of a lot of women over and above their anti-reproductive technology stance.

This movement badly split and weakened feminism as a whole for some time. Many women took the point of view that ‘on that side we have the misogynists trying to force me to act the way they want, on the other we have these so called feminists trying to force me to act the way they want, I just want to be free to be myself and make my own decisions’.

As time has gone by they have disappeared into irrelevancy in terms of feminism, but they have maintained their anti-trans women stance. In fact this has become obsessional for some of them, so much so that some are now rebranding themselves as ‘gender critical’, dropping the feminism part.
This is because to maintain such an anti trans women stance they have to (and many do) ditch a lot of feminism and embrace a lot of misogyny to argue that position. The classic example are the US ones. I could give you a list of a lot of TERF blogs and sites, endless posts and comments that are anti-trans women….any mention of the attack on Planned Parenthood? Nope……
Or the ‘feminist’ supporting the argument that trans children are caused by a lack of ‘masculine’ role models and that it is ‘neurotic’ mothers who are at fault because they have not been ‘proper feminine, submissive to their husband’ role models (yes really).

Note the obsession is largely only with trans women, not trans men who along with ‘butch’ women (an unknowing outsider could classify them as crossdressing and masculine acting women) are all perfectly welcome…this is strange logic.

This leads to contradictory stances where they want to exclude trans woman (on estragon, testosterone blockers, surgery and all the rest) because of their supposed ‘maleness’, but accept bearded, large hairy testosterone filled trans men…..go figure the logic.

To argue that trans woman are ‘patriarchal’ is a logical stretch, since we voluntarily give up male privilege and thus we totally challenge the patriarchy…hence why partriachy supporters hate us so much. That is why (eg) the Catholic Church sees us a bigger threat than even gays and lesbians.

But as to the TERFs, their visceral hatred of trans women is amazing at times going far beyond any logic or reason. I could show you horrible articles using the suicides of young gender questioning and trans adolescents (such as Leelah Alcron) as ways of attacking trans people overall and saying terrible (absolutely horrible) things about those kids.

I have walked away in tears from some of the things they have said, where their hate is so great as to misuse the tragedy of a young person’s death as a method of attacking transgender people overall.
You’d think that whatever differences in opinion we may have we would have common cause in grieving over such tragedies. Not to be though.

As for ‘bullying’, it is not transgender people who are doing the doxing, outing and attacking or making common cause with hate groups. It is not transgender people having a web site showing pictures of young (as young a 15) trans people and outing them with the stated aim of ‘socially pressurising them back into the closet’…… But as I said, many have abandoned all pretence at any actual feminism, or in some cases humanity.

So a sad chapter in the history of feminism, that distracted it (particularly in the US) from its true aims, alienated a lot of woman and played right into the hands of the misogynists.

They are now irrelevant now, except where they are used as ‘tools’, ‘useful idiots’ and ‘attack dogs’ for those right wing, religious, misogynist, etc anti-LGBTIQ+ and anti-women groups.

Being a bit more ‘big picture’ the saga of US feminism is an example of why activist/political/etc movements have to inclusionary. This can, of course, take a lot of internal compromising and negotiations, but it is worth it.

You can see this with the development history of US feminism. The 2nd gen feminists were largely a reaction to the more radical feminists and lesbians being excluded from the first gen, where the drive to present a white, middle class, unthreatening face of feminism was thought to be the correct strategy….it wasn’t and set the seeds for the fracturing of the movement and handed a gift to those opposing it.

You also will note both the 1st and 2nd gen feminists excluded (or ignored) working class and women of colour.

But it meant the ‘radical wing’ created its own format, structure and ideology, untempered by more moderate others and the discipline required for effective political lobbying (as well as being exposed to healthy doses of reality).

This was a gift to the misogynists, since all feminists could be (and were) painted as ‘extreme’ and ‘all lesbians’ and hence marginalised. Their ideological ‘own goals’ (such as, for some, anti reproducive technology) did not help at all.

All of which I suspect would never have happened if they had become a part of mainstream feminism right from the start*.

Plus, whatever their faults many of those 2nd gen feminists had lots of drive which (properly channeled) would have energised the whole feminist movement.

You see this pattern time and time again, movements excluding those considered ‘too radical’ lose all their drive and energy. Those who are excluded then disappear into their own ideological black holes and irrelevant obsessions.

A sensible movement includes all ‘wings’, yes tempers them, internally negotiates and compromises. The radicals are kept in touch with reality, the conservatives are not allowed to go to sleep (or sell out) and the whole movement benefits.

* I exclude Janice Raymond from this analysis, because she was (probably due to her Catholic background) in many ways an extreme conservative masquarading as a radical feminist. And you can’t help but wonder if some of her views really just reflected an emotional desire to inflict a form of convent life on all women.

But many others of that era would have done a wonderful job if they been allowed to be included right from the start. Exclusion is an ‘own goal’ of the highest order.

@ Lisa

I disagree with you about North American “progressives” or “liberals” or “left-wingers” or “feminists” or whichever label they happen to be sporting at the moment being coopted. (This is perhaps one of the few occasions when I take a darker view than you do).

To be coopted implies that they were struggling against the established order. Nothing could be further from the truth, what they wanted was to become part of the establishment and reap the rewards that accrue therefrom. Having got what they wanted they’re simply reverting to type and kicking away the ladder.

mfi

I think Douglas Adams had it right. He referred to a man getting nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if we were nice to each other for a change.

So hey people, let’s all be nice to each other.

The pope’s message if you listen closely enough is to embrace poverty and serve others (others is defined as your superiors). Exactly the message of the elite ptb. His opposition to the wealthy is merely a pretense. He is in league with the global elite because he is one of them and at one with them. The pope is the metaphorical judenrat head administrator for the global elite charged with convincing us all to accept our fate graciously and without question. No whining. Offer your suffering up to god in return for his (never forget that god has a giant cock and huge bouncy balls) grace and the possibility of a better afterlife.

I’ll add …males in some other Anglo Saxon countres, England especially with Canada, Austrialia and NZ teeering on the edge, are also looking (from a positive change point of view) like lost causes.

Yes, the Pope is Catholic, strangely enough. So was his namesake Francis of Assisi. And he has a job to do, much as the 13th Century Saint was commanded by the Divine Presence in the San Damiano Cross:

“Francis, go rebuild My house; as you see, it is all being destroyed.”

The two previous popes had a way of alienating large communities of the Church’s followers and believers, particularly in Latin America, where the Church’s rejection of — indeed, condemnation of — Liberation Theology and its apparent support for some of the bloodiest dictatorial regimes of the recent past literally drove millions upon millions of Latin American Catholics out of the Church.

The attitude of the Vatican appeared to be “let them go; we don’t need them anyway.” Compounded with various and ongoing sexual and financial scandals, the Church was “all being destroyed.”

There’s nothing radical about Pope Francis’s theology or message. It seems somewhat radical because its focus on inclusion, “love” and hope contrasts so sharply with the focus on doctrine and submission of Popes John Paul II (Saint) and Benedict XVI (would-be Saint, no doubt).

Pope Francis’s mission is much like that of Saint Francis: to rebuild the Church after a period of rejectionism and the presence and apparent toleration of corruption and evil. It’s not an enviable task. Not after what’s been going on for so long.

He seems to be focused strongly on rebuilding the Church within the Latin America and the Latin American diaspora. His trip to Cuba, of course, was a means of solidifying the Church’s presence and future in that country. But everywhere he went in the US he was deliberately and consciously reaching out to Latin American families and communities as well. Much of his public message was delivered in Spanish, sometimes without translation, at other times with a translation into English that wasn’t necessarily all that accurate. But his Spanish speaking listeners understood quite well…

No, Pope Francis is not radical, and he’s not particularly “progressive” — whatever that means. He is Catholic — and a very traditional Catholic at that. His progress through the US was highly theatrical, indeed the culmination in Philadelphia was almost too spectacular even for a Pope.

But he’s got a job to do, and sometimes that job involves dazzling the rabble…

Just as a side note, the neoliberal Powers love the tendency towards betrayal narratives and the refusal to consider when ideology meets exterior political force that is exhibited by present-day left-wingers:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/648439128892305408

That’s only if (a) they actually have the power to revolute like that and (b) they don’t condition their role as radical backup crew on the immediate implementation of their grand theory of life, the universe, and everything.

Unfortunately, for the left, both (a) and (b) are false. No BATMAN here. If history is any guide, Corbyn’s supporters will eventually curse him for the accommodations he has to make to come to power, or he won’t come to power and be rated as a failure, because the purpose of a political party is to get elected.

Hi Ian. Wanted to say thanks for this post. Brought back fond memories of my high school days long ago and far away when I considered myself a fundamentalist Christian, and even thought of going to seminary (I was a pro-choice, environmentalist fundie, who had trouble believing Jesus or God really cared about premarital sex, living in the deep South; made a quick calculation about the likely size of my congregations and jettisoned the seminary idea). And yeah, what Jesus actually emphasized above all else was to love one another (and God, yes, but God being perfect telling us to love our neighbors and ourselves as highest rule sort of merged the other highest rule of loving God into it). And when there was an obvious irreconcilable conflict between certain parts of the Bible, it seemed obvious the parts actually supposedly said by Jesus should take priority (I did, in fact, decide the old testament had to be jettisoned on purely moral grounds; these two books were not reconcilable and something had to go; still find it bizarre that a higher % of Jews hold moral beliefs closer to those of Jesus than do most Christians who are supposed to be prioritizing his teachings, sadly find it totally understandable that most “conservative Christians” are more concerned with ditching The Book of James, cause apparently Jesus’ half brother saying “faith without works is dead” is really, really troubling to them).

Jesus said some great stuff. He was much more concerned with the good people did than their imperfections. Too bad most of his modern followers are more concerned with the old testament stuff about shunning and stoning (and finding new things to apply the thou shalt nots to) and in love with the horrible “might makes right” being depicted in Job than the new testament god of love. This does, I suppose, explain the hatred of Les Miserables by many “Christian” conservatives, when that is one of the most Christian works ever written. Still haven’t quite figured out how anyone justifies a “prosperity Gospel” to themselves, or how people asking someone to send their last buck in as a donation in return for a miracle manage to sleep at nights.

But Pope Francis seems to be reading the same Bible I did, and while he certainly hasn’t repudiated all of the Catholic churches imperfections (and I accept he probably never will, and some of them are HUGE) at this point I’m more pleased that he is moving in a positive direction in most ways, and at worst holding steady in those ways he is not.

Best of all, he’s part of a larger backlash. Not long ago, I had decided to completely withdraw from most online interaction other than environmental/animal rights stuff. Cause death of biosphere = death of more than just humans, and no matter how bleak things look, that is one of those fights you can’t really dodge with a clean conscious. Humans I had pretty much given up on. Only decided to reengage because of the 2016 US presidential race (initially, I had no realistic hope of anything good but threw my support behind Bernie cause that old adage about “you can’t win if you don’t try” is accurate, and even when the odds looked hopeless I preferred unrealistic striving to complete despair) and then the recent populist surge around the western world, which has given me real hope, the idiots who fucked up Syriza be damned.There’s still your NDP, Bernie, Corbyn, and lots of other potentially good signs (the SNP, Catalonia, etc).

Oh, and also the Kobane Kurds, the YPG/YPJ. If I had been single with no dependents, I might have taken off to join them. They pulled off one of the great heroic stands of modern time. I had been wishing for a real life Quellist party, and they don’t seem that far off. Leftists actually fighting for what they believe in and rescuing others from genocide,these were inspirational figures like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, actually doing something to try to make things right instead of sitting behind keyboards spending all their energy complaining about other leftists’ semantics and imperfections and trying to figure out who to shun/smear/pick on today, yay! The YPJ women fight alongside the YPG men with full equality, the whole group espousing workers rights, feminism and the whole justice for all thing my country used to cherish and seemed to have discarded somewhere along the way. (Admittedly, I have always been troubled that the Kurds seem to have more American cheerleaders on the right than the left; I fear much of the online left actually wants the whole semantic fight more than they want to fight for something real, and that they would actually rather sit in comfort and complain than get in the trenches and effect real change)

So, in one year, in one year I’ve gone from near complete despair over the future of the planet to having real hope, and whether he’s following the trend or helping to lead it or some mix of these (I lean toward mostly this being him trying to do good, fwiw, not just trying to keep the church relevant, tho I could be wrong), Francis is one of the positive developments.

Then I read the comments and am reminded of my earlier desire to completely disengage from the online left. But this is already too long so will end on a positive note & save my thoughts on that for another comment.

Surely the Pope should have worn a big button with a picture of Jesus, so people know whom he represents.

Franny has much better taste than BHO and he’s much more discreet. The word is, he wears briefs, never boxers, with images of the crucifix placard all over the tighty whities. I, for one, appreciate his modesty and respect his need to keep the boys snug, safe and warm with briefs versus boxers.

Jeff Wegerson:
Yes that is the sub-group of the ‘crazies’ (back to Raymnod and Jeffreis and their woeful influence).

Mainstrean 3rd gen feminism realise that it is impossible to stop therefore ‘harm minimisation’ and ‘worker empowerment’ is the key.

The ‘crazies’ live in a world of utopianism where you can magically wave away things they don’t like.

Ian: ““You deal with me, or you deal with them.””

Yes that’s factor, but it is more complex than that.
The saddest thing is that ‘moderates’ and ‘reasonable’ people will just about always sell out in one way or another. They are always far to ready to accept (very small) bones being thrown at them. Also over time, ‘organisational neutralisation’ will become ‘individual coopting’ as the moderates get to realise the personal rewards of selling out.

You need the energy, internal policing and idea generation that the radicals provide to keep an organsation on path. A moderate involved in extrenal negotiations needs to feel the hot breath of a hungry young radical activist on their neck to be motivated to get the best deal.

A nig mistake that moderates make is that they think they are dealing with reasonable people when they deal with the ‘establishment’. Nothing can be further from the truth, ‘establishment’ people are always unreasonable and have to pushed (and carefully watched for the knife they always hold) kicking and screaming towards any positive change.

MojaveWolf : I use it as an example of what can go right and also what can go wrong with (for sake of a better word) reformist movements.

They are dynamic movements and organisations that change and develop over time. The feminist movement in the US after a great start went in some really wrong directions that damaged it badly, but is now coming back But it has taken decades for that to happen.

This is in contrast to the US environmental ones who also after a great (heck brilliant) start, have now faded to near irrelvance with no sign, as yet, of a revival.
Their incredible success in pollution controls on cars alone impacted the whole world postively.

In both cases the exclusion (or marginalising) of the ‘extremists’ in the early days later created great damage, with the early ‘mainstream’ centre eventually becoming coopted and those initally excluded disappearing into an ideological ‘madness’ of sorts.

The second phase in feminism was a bit odd though in that those iniitally excluded then managed (sod knows how) to grab and control much of the ideological debate of the 80s and 90s, even early 2000s. So there was this strange, during that time, situation where the ‘mainstream’ feminists who had gotten into positions of actual hands on power had largely sold out, while this odd ideological strand dominated the public (and internal) debates.

From the misogynist estblishment point of view this was brilliant. the fact that the idological (and very noisy) extremists’ postions on many areas were the exact same as their’s (eg on reproductive technologies) was a bonus.

I have a cynical suspicion that those radical feminist of that era would not have gotten as far as they did in terms of their public success, except that some of their positions did so closely mimic the misogynists, or so radical that they aliented many women from feminism entrely (also a win as far as the misogynists were concerned).

Anyone remember all those successful women shouting out that they were not feminists in the 90s and early 200s? The Raymond 2nd gen feminists had so tainted feminism that the majority of women wanted nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile those US mainstream ones, well embedded by then in the halls of power compromised away and/or sold out women overall (with some honourable exceptions of course) with no real heat on them to achieve more.

What has saved feminism are the large numbers of a later generation coming up and starting to supplant those ‘sell outs’ and ‘the crazies’ with much more inclusionary, practical and sensible but still very radical ideologies. I like to think the trans feminsts, intellectuals and activists have made a major contribution here too.

This has not happened (mostly) in the environmental movements, with those insiders still jealously guarding their positions and privileges and the more extreme (and energetic) ones totally marginalsed or, like Deep Green, have dsappeared into an ideological black hole.

The sex work issue is a classic division.
For some to argue for the Swedish model shows ether sophistry or stupidity. It has failed, just as as every other effort to criminalise sex work in history has ever done. And the losers, as always, are the sex workers themselves.

“In 2001 the Malmö police reported that there was no evidence that the law had reduced violence, rather there was evidence it had increased,[93]”

“In 2008 Kajsa Wahlberg,[95] of the human trafficking unit at Sweden’s national police board, conceded that accurate statistics are hard to obtain, but estimated that the number of prostitutes in Sweden dropped 40% from 2,500 in 1998 to 1,500 in 2003.[96] However, by 2010 she had conceded that the policy had failed, and that issues around prostitution were increasing [97] as noted in the media which carried out surveys on the street.[98][99][100] In Stockholm, police sources reported increased activity on Malmskillnadsgatan in the city centre (which with Artillerigatan in the Östermalm district was a traditional site for street prostitution in Stockholm).[101][102] Judges[103] and senior police officials have been caught purchasing sex,[104] [105] while most recently the Minister of Labour, Sven Otto Littorin, was also accused of purchasing sex (Littoringate). [106]”.

All totally predictable.

Again you can see this as the differences between being ‘inclusionary’ and ‘exclusionary’. The 3rd gen feminists, wthout all the sexual related baggage the 2nd gen ones had, were prepared to actually include and listen to sex workers and hence have a much more realistic point of view.

The 2nd gen feminsts start from an ideological position that sex work is ‘bad’ (at the Raymond extreme all sex with males is ‘bad’). This is no different from many other ideologists from religions, conservatism, etc. Hence compulsion and force is necessary to stop it…same old, same old as for centuries. Just the justification has changed, but the policies have not.

The 3rd gen, actually listening, have no issue with sex work iself, just the risks and harmful affects on the workers (mostly, but not all women). Therefore the issue then becomes how to minimise that harm and empower those workers. Again the way forward is to listen to and include the viewpoints of those actual workers…duh….

This is a sign of the feminist movement ‘healing’ and coming back to becoming a political force again, which is a major positive, though in the US almost at the last moment as the attacks on women’s reproductive rights and health issues enter new heights.

There are no such sign of renewal in the US environmental movements.

You can pick other examples, but those two are so well documented (being so public) they make great case studies of what works and what doesn’t for reformist movements and organisations.

Another classic of its kind was the sheer misogyny of the US union movements stopping them recruiting women as they expanded in the work force…..now that was a lose-lose strategy, well done boys.

@MW

It’s sad to see some people in a group such as the Trans movement, who deserve support for many, but not all,’ of their goals take on some of the tactics and rhetoric of their worst enemies, the Xtian Right. Power and influence even in small increments can be misused as has been evident in the attacks and successful attempts to silence women and men who support the individuals but not some of the extreme medical and psychological manipulations performed by some doctors.

What adults do to themselves is their business but there is a growing movement to project these ideas onto children who have identity issues preparing them for doping and transition mutilation.

I’m not sure how to characterize the lecturing attacks on the feminist movements and some of the women in those groups who disagree with some of the Trans demands for those women to submit to male dominance and authority.

Mandos You are (I thnk) making the common mistake of seeing these movements/organsation purely in political terms.

These are human social groupings, with all the internal bickering, pushing for power and influence, internal fighting, et al.

The dynamism of them and their resistance to ‘selling out’ (or disapprearing into ideological black holes) will come from whether they are inclusionary or exclusionary.

If the mainstream exclude or marginalise their ‘activist’ wings, instead of including and managing them, they will inevitably sell out one way or another.

The reason is not political it is personal, social and interpersonal. Those at the top will inevitably make the organsations more hierarchial, consolidate power into smaller hands and become ever more seduced by those they are supposed to oppose.

They will ‘compromise’ too much, but gain personal rewards from the ‘establishment’ for that. Bit by bit they will identify with that establishment more and more.
This is normal human behaviour.

But if the organsaton has a lot of ‘young Turks’, full of fight and energy then those will police and keep them on track, the smartest of them will replace those that don’t perform.

There is yet another factor, those ‘extremists’ tend to be more active in the community and more closely connected with it. Therefore they form an essential communication bridge from the ‘top’ to the community.
This counteracts the (again normal) tendency for those at the top to isolate themselves and ever more identify with the establishment elites.

You look at the UK Labour party and the US democrats, their voters are (as shown by polls) are far more left wing than the elites in those organsations (well until Corbyn came along that is).
This is because those elites have isolated themselves from their grass roots and spend most of their time with other elites.

Again this is natural human behaviour. Because it is so natural for this to happen you have to create the movement/ogransation dynamics to counter it. You have to resist any attempts to exclude others, since that is again the natural human way of dealing with those who give you a hard time and upset your comfort.

If those ‘energetic’ groups who have been excluded from the mainstream, then repeat the mistake of also excluding others then they just become ideological echo chambers and all that energy becomes wasted.

That was the story of those 2nd gen feminists, who after being excluded themselves repeated that mistake.
The 1st gen excluded those sexually (or gender) variant, working class women, women of colour (and a heck of a lot of others too). The 2nd gen then did the same …. albeit with some minor differences (such as the 1st gen excluded lesbians, the 2nd gen heterosexuals).
The effect was that the majority of women were (or at east felt) excluded from feminism for decades.

It has taken until the 3rd gen to start to repair those self inflicted wounds and neither those remaining 1st gen or 2nd gen ones are happy about it. But both of them failed women massively (to be fair after some great gains by the early 1st gen before they ‘gentrified’) and deserve to be consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’.

Looking around at other ‘progressive’ (or reformist) organsations and movements it is hard to see many successes in the last 20 years or so. I contend that if you exmine their history and decisions made (sometimes decades ago) you can tease out the reasons for their failures and it will usually boil down to them excluding their radicals at some point in time. It seemed to make their jobs easier at the time, but in the end it neutered them.

They don’t actually believe that Ian but it’s a great excuse for upholding the status quo. Such folk are very very useful to the ruling class. Not only do they provide a fig-leaf and a safety valve but they also act as a political heat diffuser thereby neutralising (and discouraging) enthusiastic radicals. I’m spending a lot of time in the UK at present and unfortunately for my equanimity am having to spend a fair bit of time with Blairites. I despise them – the sort of person who would (to give one recent example) refuse to vote against one of the most savagely regressive “welfare” bills ever proposed because to do so might give the wrong impression to the electorate is to my mind morally more despicable than a UKIP supporter or a right-wing tory. Give me an honest left-winger who’s in politics because they believe in social justice over a Mandos or other of that ilk any day.

mfi

Ah yes. Normal political channels.

No, not “normal political channels”. “Normal politics” — as opposed to “crisis politics.” Vaguely in the sense of Thomas Kuhn’s scientific revolutions. You have been making prescriptions for years that apply, at best, to “crisis” politics, when the official political system might run into the sort of situation where some kind of textbook fantasy negotiating framework has any applicability. I am suggesting that this is not the way to see the route out of the status quo when crisis conditions do not hold (and they still do not currently, not politically, not even in places like Greece, really).

There’s always a reason why radicals suck and the status quo is the best we can do, for Mandos and others who believe that negotiating means capitulating.

I never said “radicals suck”. I think (some) radicals are great and more power to them. However, expecting, as Otis notices, that radicals are just going to cooperate with your negotiating framework, be the “heavies” which in-system “moderates” use to threaten the powerful while presumably obtaining moderate goals—this is exactly what you suggested—is merely the bulwark you use to pretend your fantasy negotiating framework has applicability under normal conditions.

But for suggesting that this not the right way to think about it, that “negotiation” is the wrong mental framework under “normal” (as opposed to “crisis”) politics, I am accused of “capitulating”—I’d never thought I’d ever label you with this, but bluntly, this is pure intellectual laziness. But your followers have adopted it immediately, so *shrug*.

I still believe there is a way out of the status quo, even under “normal” politics, but it involves seeing “normal” politics for what it is—politics when the “state of exception” has either not yet been achieved or not been recognized, and work needs to be done to make that recognition. Thinking in terms of negotiation is premature, the crisis has to occur/be acknowledged first.

If you decide that saying that is “capitulation” to the status quo by definition, it is no surprise whatsoever that the perspectives you support have made comparatively little political headway so far, at least not in the manner that you have repeatedly demanded to see them.

Normal politics includes strikes, protest movements, shutting down shit (see what taxi drivers in France did to spike uber) and violence, both by the state and by private actors.

So you will simply define local “crisis” politics during local states of exception into an overarching “normal politics” in order to preserve your framework? And you will cite the French kibosh on Uber, a single obnoxious company in a single industry in a single country, while the whole of France sinks under the neoliberal waves, in service of this.

In the meantime, Marine le Pen accommodates the FN to “normal” politics in France, dramatically squeezes out her own inconvenient (and radical) father…and serves to push French discourse inch by inch to the far right more successfully than her father ever could! There’s no game-theoretic “negotiation” on her part — she will create her state of exception first! Negotiation when she has achieved the crisis she needs.

…that’s all you have for your theory? A theory that has failed repeatedly—don’t pretend that the reelection of Syriza-minus-Left-Platform isn’t a counter-example, the would-be threat-negotiators of LAE being completely unable on their own to achieve even a single seat in the Greek Parliament. The strongest evidence against it being a “counter-example” that you were able to present was…somewhat lower voter turnout! Um.

The inability of some to understand this, and to cede use of many of the actual levers of power is capitulationism. Quislings. Useful idiots who serve the status quo by explaining why those who oppose it must play within “the rules” set for them by their opponents.

Nothing other than stubborn repetition and name-calling, as if that makes it more true. But this is just another instance of the same argument about the prospect of single-payer in the USA. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now, it’s just become more apparent. But those who don’t follow you into your increasingly obvious error are called “Quislings” by you.

Radicals do not exist to provide you with negotiating leverage, except in a game-theoretic fantasy played out on a frictionless service with spherical balloons at standard temperature and pressure. They march to their own drum. As they should. The only issue left is: what to do about normal politics? Eschew it? That is a logically coherent position.

Otherwise, step-away from the well-studied abstractions.

“We are tougher, smarter, more determined, better organised, more energetic than other areas. We use every trick in the book (and make up more when we need) to get what we want.”

It also helps, that unlike environmental activists, law enforcement doesn’t spend time entrapping LGBT activists into crimes, it’s a lot easier to organize when you don’t have the nation’s intelligence services infilitrating your groups with agent provocateurs. The simple fact is your cause isn’t really much of a threat to neoliberalism; decriminalisation, anti-descrimiinaton laws, gender laws, marriage equality, specific LGBTI health are a small price to pay for keeping evangelicals on the republican reservation and reinfocing this countries political duopoly. I support your progress, but it is entirely unwarranted to think that you enjoyed the success you have because of some special dedication that other groups lack. Instead you enjoy your success because you are not opposed by deep state or financial powers, but mainly by the Xtian right, who while they have numbers and fanaticism on their side, are too gullible and lacking in overall strategy to carry out more than a holding action.

Once a thread passes 100 comments, the first 100 comments disappear. How can I make them re-appear?

The Questionmarks of the world and the Blizzards of the world deserve each other. 😈

OK, now it came back.

LGBT, feminism, blacks, … it’s all identity politics. The elites will allow some victories there. It often even serves their divide and conquer purpose.

A general economic victory of the middle/poor classes, that’s what they won’t allow. That’s the holy grail.

On the good news front:

“WBC chased out of KC by supportive parents and friends of trans homecoming queen ”

http://planettransgender.com/wbc-chased-out-of-kc-by-supportive-parents-and-friends-of-trans-homecoming-queen/