tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29751442248373147712024-02-22T06:51:59.255-08:00BAMF: Badass Marxist FeministMusings on and analysis of cultural phenomena from a feminist and Marxist perspectiveUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-37754844415813855002016-07-11T13:24:00.000-07:002016-07-18T23:51:17.109-07:00ERADICATION: Unified Leftist Strategy to Rid Activist Spaces of Sexual Predators and Groups That Harbor Them<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Problem</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Once again the working class has been repeatedly endangered by a sexual predator. A regionally notorious rapist posted a photo on social media of himself leading a sizable march in a city less than two hours away from where he committed sexual assault, holding a large banner emblazoned with the name of a highly visible group, alongside numerous unsuspecting attendees. The caption boasted of his "comrades." At least two, probably more, activists and community organizers from the city of his "original" brutalities were present at this march and knew he was a predator, but didn't know what to do. One said she hadn't wanted to draw attention to him. She also couldn't recall the exact nature of what he'd done three or so years prior, beyond that it was creepy. She'd been faced with a situation and was not equipped with a widely accepted, go-to response. And that wasn't her fault. A month passed and now he's back in the original city, casually attending events and bragging about it online, surely selecting his next target, almost no one the wiser. One diligent comrade in a respectably populated area is paying close attention and telling people. No one quite recalls the original incidents. The historical knowledge of three to four years ago is gone. Many factors contribute to this collective memory loss, which have been covered in previous posts and range from short-sighted election-based organizing, the Democratic Party's predictable betrayal of the working class and women* (same thing), Dem front groups' enviable ability to convert promising Leftists to their well-funded and guilt-laden liberalism, and the transient population of Florida whether due to DemOps flying their newest crop of recruits to mysterious trainings in Minneapolis and DC or socio-economic conditions, and so on. But when the chips are down, only one segment of the population is responsible for protecting the Actual Interests of the working class: The Left. Yet decade after decade, we fail to collectively craft and adopt a comprehensive strategy to rid our spaces of sexual predators.**</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mirages vs. Potable Water</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Sociologists and anthropologists undoubtedly offer insights into the unchallenged "success" sexual predators have historically enjoyed in Leftist spaces. The Feds benefit from planting rapists in Leftist, as well as in anarchist, animal rights, environmentalist, and other activist, spaces to discredit the respective movements, which pose a threat to ruling class interests and private property, but this we shall lay aside temporarily. My hypothesis is simple: Because the Left's unifying ostensible purpose is Improving The World, men who participate in activism are subject to less scrutiny than men who don't.*** They want a living wage! They oppose racism! They believe in equality! It's the Left! Well, this ain't no hippie utopia, comrades. Truly understand: <i>There are no safe spaces</i>. Safe spaces are impossible under current material conditions, and even under drastically different ones until after a long period of purposeful cultural shifts and acclimation as multiple cocoons of alienation and false consciousness are shed. Our goal is not safe spaces. Our goal is to eradicate sexual predators — individuals and the groups who harbor them — from the spaces in which Leftists organize in a widespread, unified, methodical effort which has never been tried, by using a simple, effective strategy that is implementable by anyone willing to prioritize the safety of women.<br /><br /><br />The Strategy can and should be used locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. While it may require local then regional implementation initially, this in no way negates its international potential and eventual necessity.**** We shall watch the horizon, staying true to our internationalism, while implementing within our capacity. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We must build incrementally, fine-tuning what works for our surroundings and adjusting when necessary. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The usual barriers to international cohesion appear: Language barriers, geographic isolation, State repression, lack of Internet access, cultural differences. The principles and theories underpinning the Strategy are internationalist. However, they </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">are malleable enough to</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> be altered without sacrificing core tools and tactics to allow comrades who live in exceedingly different circumstances than those under which I live to take what they can use and change or leave the rest. It would be fascinating to hear details from anyone who adapts, alters, adds to, or omits portions of the Strategy for such purposes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Call to Arms</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />We must reexamine our priorities now. We must this precise moment accept that the perpetual presence of sexual predators in activist spaces and the undisturbed existence/growth/activity of groups that harbor rapists and their front groups***** are absolutely unacceptable and must be made a top priority. We must also correct the rape apology of individuals and groups that continue to organize and associate with these groups and/or sexual predators even after mass boycotts have been called and enacted. <br /><br /> <br />You've been arrested at the site of a young man's wrongful, senseless death at the hands of State thugs. You've been dragged out in handcuffs for shouting at a Trump rally. You've shut down intersections to commemorate the victims of misogyny and racism. You've occupied parks to represent the reclaiming of the Commons, to defy the ruling class, to show international solidarity. You've publicly confronted national leadership of a shadowy cult that protects rapists. You've named and shamed rapists. You've held internal investigations within your democratic centralist organizations, and disciplined and ejected offenders. These things I've seen. These things we know. But are you willing to take concerted, strategic action — at times with groups and persons you may strongly dislike or outright disagree with — to rid activist spaces of sexual predators?<br /><br /><br />There is a way out of the mire, an exit from the circular failure, away from the blight of sexual predators and rapist harboring groups operating with impunity in your backyard, unchecked, endangering women on your watch. The road will be muddy. Hands will get dirty. 'Cuffs will get slapped on. Charges will be caught. How far down this road are you willing to travel? What are you willing to do to for the working class? Exactly how important is preventing violence against women to you and/or your organization? In essence, who's ready to do what has never been done — prioritize the eradication of rapists and those who harbor them, shame rape apologists into compliance, and put women first?<br /><br /><br />Here I call on you to adopt a multi-tiered, multi-faceted strategy designed to (better) protect the working class and to implement it with the highest level of intensity, immediately, without hesitation or delay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZZW08J4lhxp3wl_Lzo-lug93804Vqey1sy_dcR9m48LsP7noFYRCkBJlhqpCTvHy9gRFzyU5CTffOfJpxCr9OCjLgY9zta0hgHmdG33N-l7JmdF1JlrBd0eFGvAfEragcMYOrWhmpQ/s1600/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Times; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZZW08J4lhxp3wl_Lzo-lug93804Vqey1sy_dcR9m48LsP7noFYRCkBJlhqpCTvHy9gRFzyU5CTffOfJpxCr9OCjLgY9zta0hgHmdG33N-l7JmdF1JlrBd0eFGvAfEragcMYOrWhmpQ/s320/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Players</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b><u>Listkeepers</u>:</b> A handful of trusted women experienced in theoretical and on-the-ground activism, survivorship, victim's advocacy, and feminism. Listkeepers will be bound by a solemn oath of privacy to protect survivors' details and stories. Any violation of the massive responsibility of this role will be met with severe, swift, and just consequences. Listkeepers should be (at least) regionally established, relevant, and trusted. Listkeepers will be appointed and approved by other Listkeepers. No one is entitled to know Listkeepers' identities. Listkeepers will be endangering themselves in several ways by maintaining a List of Sexual Predators and Groups That Harbor Them, as well as a subcategory for rape apologists who fail to support the Strategy and continue to interact with rapists and rape harboring groups, that contains personal details of victims, survivors, and other sensitive information. Listkeepers are not bound to disclose their Listkeeper status to any individual, organization, or government. Regarding the government, Listkeepers will not involve the State in any capacity without the survivors' explicit permission/request, and certainly never before deep reflection and productive conversations with the survivor and perhaps even other Listkeepers, as permitted by the survivor. Any interaction between survivors and the State is unrelated to the Listkeepers' role as related to the Strategy. That is, if a Listkeeper happens to be a professional Victim's Advocate, she is probably required to deal with the State at work. However, that interaction does not bleed into her role as Listkeeper. The State shall not determine for the Left who is a sexual predator, which groups harbor rapists, or who is a rape apologist. Listkeepers shall determine that based on a solid combination of experience, knowledge, documentation, and sound judgment. No applications will be accepted to join the Listkeepers. Membership will be determined by express invitation only. <br /><br /><br /><b><u>Pointperson</u>:</b> A designated individual from any group that formally adopts the Strategy. Preferably a woman and preferably someone who has been involved in on-the-ground local, regional, national, or international Leftist activism for a respectable amount of time. That is to say, someone the Listkeepers know and who is dedicated to successful communication of relevant information between their group (leadership or membership, depending on the group's structure and size; this is all up to the group) and a Listkeeper. Pointpeople will inform Listkeepers and Implementers of their group's level of commitment. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A group may change its level of commitment, but preferably not during an event, only afterward or in advance.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Pointpeople will ask any questions groups or Listkeepers may have of each other. Pointpeople may not need to involve their entire group in decision-making processes or discussions, depending on group size and structure. The Strategy requires committed supporters, but it does not demand all (or even much in many cases) of a group's time and resources. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Pointperson is</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the sole liaison between Listkeepers and their group.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> They relay select information to their group leadership on a need-to-know basis and similarly bring back relevant information to a Listkeeper. Because unknown variables and last minute changes are common in activism, it is critical that Pointpeople have their group's trust and are vested with the authority to make decisions on behalf of their group spontaneously on the ground. Pointpeople must keep secure any private information about survivors, groups, rapists, etc. they may be subjected to in the process of implementing the Strategy. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Good judgment is required.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Harsh penalties will be the consequence of leaking protected information unnecessarily, carelessly, or maliciously. Pointpeople should inform Listkeepers of upcoming events in which their group is involved or about which they have heard, even if they are not participating. Open communication about events is critical to the Strategy's success. Additionally, Pointpeople should notify a Listkeeper of any allegations or observations of sexual predation within their own group or any breaking of the boycott of rape coverup groups by their fellow group members or other organizers and activists. Pointpeople's personal survivor experiences in activism are welcomed as well, but always at their own discretion. Pointpeople can also be individuals who attend many events, work for various Dem front groups, and are generally present in activist spaces. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Unaffiliated Pointpeople must also act as Implementers</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><b><u>Implementer</u>:</b> A person who implements the Strategy online and/or on the ground, depending on willingness and ability. Implementers are a crucial part of the Strategy and must be trustworthy and well-known by Pointpeople and/or Listkeepers. Implementers must be able to follow strict protocol and stay calm under duress. They may serve as both an Implementer and a Pointperson for their group. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Implementers on the ground must memorize the order and details of the Levels of Escalation and exercise self-restraint and self-discipline during events. Implementers will face harsh censure for skipping levels, therefore unnecessarily escalating situations, on the ground or online. Implementers must exercise total discretion with any sensitive information regarding survivors, groups, predators, etc. they may be exposed to in the course of duty or face consequences. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A gender-based division of labor will exist among Implementers on the ground during Levels 2 and 4. Implementers will rely on information from their Pointperson regarding their group's level of commitment to the Strategy. Unaffiliated Implementers decide their own level of commitment and are their own Pointperson. Implementers are (currently) responsible for their own bail and legal fees, which should only apply to those fully committed to all Four Levels of Escalation. Crowdfunding for Implementers who accrue fines and fees may be an option for unaffiliated Implementers or Implementers from groups with small or no budgets. Interested potential Implementers may inquire to a Listkeeper, who will then discuss the candidate with other Listkeepers, but denial of application must be respected. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Listkeepers may watch a prospective Implementer's actions for a few events then decide they are indeed Implementer material.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prospective Implementers should never infringe upon or interfere with active Implementers performing their duties. An Implementers in Training program may be developed as the Strategy is more widely adopted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Levels of Escalation</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b><u>Level 0</u></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The baseline. Possibly the most time-consuming level. The foundation of the rest of the levels. The bare minimum that individuals and groups must adhere to and support, onsite and online, vocally and actively. <u>Obligations</u> (both types required) - Passive: Non-affiliation. Refusal to associate with sexual predators, including denial of enrollment or refutation of membership in your group and social shunning. Forbidding them from carrying signs, leafleting, or conducting any activities, paid or unpaid, for you or your organization. Active: Information dissemination. Informing everyone at and/or RSVPd for an event that a predator is expected to attend/is present. The method of information dissemination will depend on the type of event. Materials will be available for Implementers to download and print and/or copy and paste. It is crucial that Level 0 is done thoroughly so no one is triggered by the potential actions of the predator. Informed decision-making by the crowd is integral: They need to know we are ultimately doing this for them. We inform them so they may choose to stay or not. If Level 0 inadvertently triggers someone, remember that it is better to be triggered than targeted (although we obviously want neither). Information dissemination should continue as long as necessary to ensure that every single person present is aware of the background and current situation. <br /><br /><br /><b><u>Level 1</u></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Level 0 plus asking predator(s) to leave. Once information dissemination is nearly complete (there can be slight overlap if there are many Implementers and a large crowd), Implementers, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">preferably women,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> will escalate to Level 1. Several Implementers will approach the predator together. One pre-designated Implementer should evenly and at a normal conversational volume say, "You are a predator. Please leave now." No other Implementers should speak but should stand firm at a socially acceptable conversational distance as obvious supporters of the speaker's request. The Implementer who speaks should engage in no conversation with the predator. They may repeat the request up to three times. Most predators do not want attention drawn to them. They want to blend in and seem harmless, nonchalant, invisible. If the predator complies, they should be escorted off the premises by several Implementers, who should gather as much visual intel as possible, noting vehicle details, anyone accompanying them, distinguishing marks, etc. There is no need for further spoken communication during the escorting away. We informed the public and protected women without disrupting the event. We won that battle. If the predator refuses to leave after being asked one to three times, immediately escalate to Level 2.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /> <br /><b><u>Level 2</u></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Levels 0-1 plus containing and confronting the predator(s). </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Implementers who only committed to Level 0 should continue to disseminate information to late arrivals and have productive conversations. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Several Implementers of various genders should surround the predator with a wall or circle, depending on the venue layout, creating a barrier between predator and crowd. Implementers should refrain from getting too close to avoid any accidental physical contact or video footage that could be misinterpreted. Personal space should be slightly infringed. Two pre-designated Implementer(s) should take turns saying, "You're a predator. Women asked you to leave, but you won't. We are protecting people from you. Leave now." There should be no other exchanges. The Speaking Implementers</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> must focus on repeating their phrases in calm, level tones, and refuse to be manipulated into engaging about any other topic or into getting angry or upset.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Implementers should stay focused on physical position because the predator may move around a lot and histrionically pretend to be bullied. Some of the crowd may be videoing at this point. Levels 2, 3, and 4 can progress very quickly, depending on the predator's experience level with predation and personality. Implementers should be prepared for erratic behavior at Level 2 and beyond. If the predator doesn't leave, quickly proceed to Level 3 when they become too loud to hear the two Speaking Implementers, too agitated and aggressive to contain with a human barrier, or based on other factors at Implementers' discretion. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Level 3 is the most essential after Level 0.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><b><u>Level 3</u></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Levels 0-2 plus verbal hostility. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Within seconds of moving to Level 3,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Implementers should break any circle (to avoid concentric circles), form/keep a linear barrier between the predator and the crowd (</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">near the predator but not as close as Levels 1 and 2)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, and chant, "You are a predator. We demand you leave now."</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Give them some space to display their anger publicly; much of the crowd will have gathered by now even at a large event. Chant until the predator leaves.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If they stay, t</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he predator will shout accusations of racism, sexism, witch hunts, police operatives, and threats. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Implementers must stay calm.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The crowd, which is well-informed thanks to Level 0, will witness the predator's erratic behavior and the display of solidarity from men and women against rapists. The crowd will spontaneously join the chant, increasing the odds that the predator will leave. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As Level 4 approaches, Implementers only committed to Level 3 should back away and focus on surroundings while continuing to chant. All Implementers, especially those committed only to Level 0 and 1, should know from observation if the predator has anyone with them, who in the crowd seems receptive/helpful, who might need to be escorted offsite, and any other noteworthy data. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If the predator still refuses to leave, either they or fully committed Implementers will </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">escalate to Level 4</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Strategy works best with proper timing of the Levels of Escalation and when each level is progressed through in turn. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is possible, not probable, that the predator could stay in Level 2 or 3 for the duration of the event. That is how Level 4 is avoided.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is advantageous for Implementers to choose when to escalate at any level, not to let the predator decide. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u>Level 4</u></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Levels 0-3 plus physical removal. Continue the chant from Level 3 throughout Level 4. If they don't leave, it is time for fully committed Implementers to physically remove the rapist.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here the gendered division of labor used in Level 2 becomes useful again. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A pre-selected group, previously </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">discussed and decided among Implementors for that event,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> should calmly usher the predator away. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If the predator escalates to Level 4 first, bear in mind that a man predator will not likely physically attack a woman publicly and that women predators tend to physically attack any gender. Avoid a fistfight even if the predator suckerpunches someone. It is simple for a couple of Implementers to pull a predator off of one person. Either way, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Implementers should take them by the armpits with a little help pushing from behind as needed. The crowd may attempt to help if Levels 0 and 3 were particularly successful. However, beware an angry mob. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Being videoed is an inevitability.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Implementers may prefer to appear to be helping an intoxicated friend to their car rather than seeming to incite a riot. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Above all, Implementers should never lose their tempers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If proper communication occurs among all roles, there will be no surprise predatory attendees and no surprise police calls. Pointpeople will communicate to Implementers and Listkeepers in advance whether </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">or not </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">their group will call the fuzz. Perhaps those with faith in the State can be reasoned with, perhaps not. Specialized police avoidance tactics will be divulged privately to Implementers during a mandatory training session for Levels 1 through 4 during which Implementers will practice all Levels of Escalation and different scenarios. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Types of Events</b></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b><u>Sensitive</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because rape coverup groups have a history of hiding behind vigils for people of color, transpeople, and other marginalized groups, the Strategy should be modified slightly for such events but always implemented. Flyers with a clear Trigger Warning at the top followed by a simple statement that a sexual predator is present will be available to download and print and should be distributed to everyone in attendance. The predator need not be identified. The awareness of their presence is paramount. If an audience member is seeking more information, Implementers should feel free to quietly inform them about the background and current situation. Implementers who are uncomfortable speaking to others in this setting may refer them to other Implementers, as designated beforehand in the Implementers' discussions and planning. Once the literature is distributed (Level 0), proceed with Level 1. If they don't leave, proceed to Level 2. If they don't leave, proceed to Level 3 with a slightly quieter chant than a less sensitive event. Unless the predator escalates to Level 4 first, stay at level 3. Once the event ends, Implementers who are only committed to Levels 0-1 should offer to walk attendees to their cars. After the event has clearly ended or the end time of the event arrives and the rapist is still present, escalate to Level 4. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If faced with doubt due to bourgeois notions of manners and etiquette, ask yourself, "What's more important: the event message, or outing and ousting a predator and preventing potential sexual assaults? The answer is always the latter. And if your doubt persists, then stop at Level 0, 1, or 2, and don't call yourself a Communist or a feminist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Proceed through the Escalation of Levels.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This type of event has the most unknown variables, which means it will require the most group cohesion and good judgment during on-the-spot decision making. With the extensive network of activists supporting the Strategy on any level, private venues should be known ahead of time. The longer the Strategy is in place, the more informed we will become regarding venue rules, owners, political leanings, police relationships, noise ordinances, and other relevant information. For new/untried venues and depending on the amount of advance notice, online-only Implementers and/or Listkeepers will contact the venue manager, owner, or other petit bourgeois authority figure. A businessperson will likely cancel a reserved room before risking a "rape scandal" or disruption of their profit-making. If the owner/authority figure does not cancel or is unreachable, Pointpeople and Implementers will make a judgment call about how to proceed at a given venue based on experience and observation. Most likely, we will proceed through the Four Levels of Escalation until the event is shut down or disrupted whether Implementers stand outside a building or sit in the room. For ticketed events we cannot attend, Listkeepers will attempt to connect with Pointpeople for the hosting group and make them aware of the List and persuade them to adopt the Strategy. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9u5I9tiOAU&app=desktop" target="_blank">tactics used to disrupt FRSO's (Tampa Bay SDS) International Women's Day event</a> may be a good model for certain settings although it should be modified to adhere to the Four Levels of Escalation. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>Events Hosted by Organizations Who Coverup Rape (and Their Front Groups) and Harbor Rapists</u></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stringent measures will be taken against groups claiming to be Leftists that protect and defend rapists. Tampa Bay SDS, a front group for FRSO, will no longer hold any events without disruption. They have <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2016/03/gtfofrso-international-womens-day.html" target="_blank">openly admitted</a> on video and in front of a roomful of people that they harbor multiple sexual predators, who they move around the country like chess pieces in order to avoid detection. The Strategy, once applied broadly, could stop that threat to and betrayal of the working class. All groups who fit into this category will be ruthlessly pursued until our demands are met.<br /><br />Information sharing is key. Many of the rape harboring groups have blocked Strategy supporters from seeing any of their events. Listkeepers will rely on everyone, especially Pointpeople, to inform them of upcoming events as early as possible. Membership lists of secretive organizations are also useful. Those who frequent campuses where FRSO and SDS are actively recruiting and tabling should regularly collect as much hard data, such as photos of tabling, information on flyers, audio recordings, and meeting times and places as possible and provide it to a Listkeeper. Anyone not blocked by suspected rape coverup group members should gather information. All of this is crucial to our struggle, to the Strategy. <br /><br />No matter where a rape harborer group's event is, no matter what the topic is, the Correct thing to do is shut it down until our demands are met. We will be labeled insensitive racists, callous opportunists, egotistical wreckers. We do not care. We know what we are. We are Communists. We prioritize women. We prioritize the working class. We prioritize ridding the Left of rapists. We will shut them down, vigil or moment of silence, march or rally, graveside or curbside, church podium or stage podium. If in doubt about bourgeois notions of sensitivity and gentility, ask yourself, "Should a vigil hosted by a group that openly protects rapists proceed even if the symbolism is meaningful and important to many people?" The answer is no. No vigil should be a hideout for rapists. Any event hosted by a rape coverup and rapist harboring group should proceed through all Four Levels of Escalation, in order, no matter what, no matter where, no matter when.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Implementation by Liberals vs. Implementation by Reds</b></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
While the Left <i>is</i> to blame for our historical and continuing failure to construct, adopt, and implement a unified Leftist anti-predator strategy, we are <i>not</i> responsible for the failures of liberals to adopt and implement it once we do. At this stage, we logistically cannot, and perhaps should not, monitor every single election-cycle pop-up Democratic Party front group's acceptance and execution of the Strategy. Our expectations of liberals' commitment to the working class and the safety of women must be realistic. But when a group in our own backyard outright defies our existing demand — first issued, I believe, by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/EndMisogynisticCults/?fref=ts">Leftists Against Predatory Organizations</a> and adopted by many groups in the US and perhaps beyond — to boycott rape coverup groups, we must loudly denounce them at every turn. We will track and continually remind everyone that those who openly associate with known predators and rape cults <i>are rape apologists</i>. Only when they commit to Level 0, which is the baseline, will they cease to be labeled as rape apologists. <br /><br /><br />We will hold self-proclaimed Leftist organizations and individuals to the highest standard.****** All Communist groups, formations, parties, and organizations must commit to Level 4 or face ruthless, relentless denunciation as enemies of the working class until they begin actively aiding the implementation of the Strategy of their own impetus, with their own resources, effective immediately. We are eager to explain details, present at meetings and conferences, answer questions, and help everyone start using the Strategy to the best of our ability, but once comprehension of the basics is achieved, ultimately it is every Communist's obligation to proceed without hand-holding, without prodding, without hesitation, to prioritize ridding our spaces of rapists and rape coverup groups, as well as harshly criticizing the rape apologists who break the boycott against such vile groups. Women are the working class. Rape survivors are the working class. Rape victims are the working class. It's high time Communists began to aggressively act like it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">* Once again I remind you that throughout BAMF, I tend to refer to men as men and women as women. Transwomen are women; transmen are men. I utilize the semantic simplicity of the gender binary here for brevity's sake, not to discount attacks on men, not to erase other genders, not to imply that women can't be predators, not to imply that some women's needs are different than other women's needs, and not to disavow that the violence perpetrated on some women is motivated by different causes than the violence perpetrated on other women. I also wish to avoid falling into the alphabet soup of today's rapidly changing gender lexicon with which a good deal of readers, and perhaps the writer, may be unfamiliar. The terminology continues to morph, and I do not wish to confuse current or future readers or render the strategy obsolete due to the use of outdated terms. If "man" and "woman" are someday completely abolished as categories, great! That would immensely simplify the implementation of the Strategy. <br /><br />** Our intent is not to foist these putrid characters into apolitical, religious, right-wing, or other spaces, about which I lack insight regarding the prevalence of rape coverups and predator presence. A popular adage springs to mind, if inaccurately. Something about unpaid domestic labor, bourgeois ideals of cleanliness, and private property: "Clean up your own house before criticizing other people's mess." A sound strategy should accomplish a given aim, as long as there are broadly shared material conditions. Anyone may utilize the Strategy. If it prevents a racist, pro-forced birth, bourgeois woman from being raped, good. But we are the Left, so we address Leftist problems.<br /><br />*** For an even starker contrast, compare the perception of Leftist men with the perception of men outside health clinics that provide safe, simple medical procedures, shouting slurs based on Judeo-Christian bourgeois notions of propriety, piety, chasteness, and the inferiority and inherent uncleanliness of women and their duty to be submissive to the Rule of Man at vulnerable victims of unwanted pregnancies, "values" and tactics that even the most dedicated religious fundamentalist women must silently question at some point. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">**** A specific strategy for international implementation may be needed if the strategy doesn't spread organically as predicted.<br /><br />***** When I refer to groups who harbor rapists and participate in rape coverups, their front groups are always already understood to be included. Leftists are acutely aware of the lack of division between the underlying political groups or parties and their front groups. Membership often almost completely overlaps. Front groups are often "secretly" run by a given main political group or party, typically as a result of concerted tireless attempts to take over existing groups with name recognition, demographically diverse membership, political credibility, presence on college campuses, ability to vote or participate in other direct action, and potential recruits to the underlying political group or party. Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fight Back) has front groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Raíces en Tampa, (some or all branches of) Dream Defenders, all SDS chapters except UT Arlington, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, and more. Most US chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) are controlled by FRSO. FRSO attempts to recruit members of SDS. If they choose not to join FRSO but remain in SDS, they inevitably continue to organize and associate with FRSO and soon learn about FRSO's numerous rape coverups and rapists in the organization's ranks. Armed with the knowledge of FRSO's class traitorship, they can choose to continue to associate with SDS (in which case FRSO makes them miserable and/or continues to apply heavy recruitment pressure), which makes them rape apologists for FRSO. Or they can quit SDS. An occasional rogue SDS chapter publicly disavows FRSO. Those brave souls are the exceptions others should emulate. They are crossed off of FRSO's master list of controlled SDS chapters. When University of Texas Arlington's SDS chapter denounced FRSO, FRSO admitted defeat and began organizing a group called Progressive Student Union, which is now on their master list. When University of Florida's SDS chapter denounced FRSO, FRSO didn't give up so easily and regained control of the chapter relatively quickly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If the underlying group or party has enough funding, they often opt to create new front groups instead of infiltrating existing ones. The Democratic Party has front groups. SEIU has front groups. Planned Parenthood has front groups. The list goes on and is relatively easy to research.<br /><br />****** <i>Individual</i> Leftists on parole, with disabilities that inhibit physical altercations, and other legitimate reasons are expected to commit to the Strategy at the highest level possible for their personal situation while groups are held to the highest standard. <br /><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u>Notes:</u></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />• Various organizations have internal procedures for dealing with sexual predators within their ranks. The omnipresent State permits able and willing survivors to expose themselves to callous dismissals, unsettling levels of personal scrutiny, and unknown but very real threats of retaliation from the State and the accused, with the added deterrents of low rates of rape convictions and decades of rape kit analysis backlogs. Organizations' internal rules and the State's disinterest in aiding survivors and convicting rapists (although it may be argued that the State would profit from incarcerating more people) fail to address the root of the problem: There is no broadly accepted and implemented Leftist strategy to protect the working class from rapists, specifically in activism spaces. We cannot rely on organizations of which most Leftists are not members or on the State to solve this problem. We must take up the yoke ourselves. We call on even the most established Communist organizations and parties to adopt and implement the Strategy.<br /><br />• Several trusted comrades and some community organizers and activists gave suggestions for improvement, comments about potential repercussions and situations, proposals to enhance the Strategy's effectiveness, and critiques. It was genuinely appreciated. I was amazed by how many groups committed to my spoken description of the Strategy. One's spirits would truly be bolstered if as many and more take the required action once faced with the written word, once the gauntlet has been thrown down, once the lines have been drawn. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">• Email BadAssMarxistFeminist@gmail.com in order to see what you can do in your area to promote and implement the Strategy or with questions, comments, and concerns. I will put you in touch with a Listkeeper to confidentially share any information about a sexual predator, rape coverup group, or rape apologist individual or group.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-19698141718341863732016-03-23T09:11:00.001-07:002016-03-23T09:18:38.517-07:00#GTFOFRSO International Women's Day Action and a Discussion of Left Strategy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">#GTFOFRSO: Celebrating International Women's Day the Correct Way </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Freedom Road Socialist Organization - Fight Back (FRSO) recently held an International Women's Day (IWD) event at University of South Florida, under the guise of Students for a Democratic Society - Tampa (SDS). The conference room, which was reserved from 6 to 8pm, contained no signage or other indicators of SDS. A large red FRSO banner was draped across the greeting table, one's first stop. A full-color handout was distributed; it contained three minor references to SDS - one on the bottom of the second page that identified two of the six speakers as SDS members, a small SDS logo on the back cover, and two lines of text on the bottom of the back cover listing SDS's Facebook URL and website. The handout also contained the day's agenda, identified the other four speakers (two FRSO members, one from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression - Tampa, and one from Students for Justice in Palestine), and provided information about FRSO events, goals, causes, and contact information. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At about 5:50pm roughly a dozen protestors entered the room and stood quietly at the front and along one wall of the room holding signs reading "Rape Apologists OUT of International Women's Day!! #GTFOFRSO," "THE LEFT HAS NO ROOM FOR RAPE APOLOGISTS #GTFOFRSO," "Ask Me About FRSO'S Rape Coverup #GTFOFRSO," and other similar slogans. The event organizers appeared confused and quietly convened behind the greeting table (the back of the room, the opposite end of the podium and screen but by the front door). An organizer approached a protestor and said they could stand on the sides of the room, not at the front. The protestors at the front relocated; both sides of the seated audience of approximately 10 people were flanked by protestors. Protestors confronted Steff Yorek, the keynote speaker, about her participation in a rape coverup; denounced FRSO for perpetuating this rape coverup for "a year or more;" chastised FRSO for holding an IWD event; accused FRSO of harboring "an assaulter, a predator;" demanded said member be kicked out; and demanded that FRSO issue a public statement immediately. Yorek told the protestors she would be willing to discuss the issue with them after the event. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After a lengthy disruption (transcribed/described in detail below), FRSO had </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">building staff/security remove </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">protestors from the public event, and some of the event's audience left with them. The event eventually commenced. About six of the original protestors returned during the second speaker's presentation. They quietly, quickly distributed pamphlets to the 15-20 member audience without disrupting the speaker and promptly left. Several of the original protestors stood outside and talked to approaching attendees about the FRSO rape coverup while waiting for the promised conversation with Yorek. Protestors encouraged anyone who entered the event to ask FRSO about the coverup. The steward/guard soon returned to lock the door. Two potential attendees left after talking to protestors, two attempted to enter but couldn't due to the locked door, and one entered. After the event, a few attendees exited through the front and many out the back door, which lead to a stairwell that allowed them to bypass protestors. The back door was guarded by three FRSO members after the front door was locked for the duration of the event. After the event around 8pm, four remaining protestors entered the conference room and confronted Yorek at length in front of the remaining crowd, with the victim's advocate leading the way.</span><br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Deets and Dirt</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">• Find a detailed transcription and report of the initial, lengthy disruption at the end of this post. Video exists of all occurrences described in this post.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">• <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9u5I9tiOAU" target="_blank">Here is the video</a> of the third and final confrontation between the victim's advocate, another protestor, and Steff Yorek. According to its original poster, the video has been edited for time. No crucial content was deleted or altered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">• <a href="https://www.facebook.com/EndMisogynisticCults/?fref=nf" target="_blank">Leftists Against Predatory Organizations</a> provides background information and documentation, as well as contact information if you'd like to join the struggle against predatory organizations in your city, university, organization, etc.</span><br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A Casual Chat</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion: We were able to do something uncommon or even unheard of in Florida, with its transitory population and sectarianism. We effectively organized and mobilized an alliance of loosely and unaffiliated activists against the FRSO IWD event. Typically FRSO prevents this particular type of action by strategically scheduling events so their critics can't attend. They also assume there's an inability on our collective part to unify due to political differences they perceive amongst us. And they hold events that would make any disruption of them suspect as racist, culturally insensitive, "inappropriate," divisive. They hold vigils for police murder victims, anti-racist rallies, national liberation events, immigration marches - these spaces have allowed them to avoid our demands for a public statement about rape coverups and rape apology, removal of predators in their ranks, and an apology for their cruelty to the survivor and the survivor's supporters. But the IWD event was a perfect opportunity to publicly confront them and state our demands while avoiding any false accusations of racism, disruption for its own sake, or self-promotion, whatever the various claims they've made against anyone who's spoken for the survivor and against the coverup. It was on a Sunday, at a public place, and about women. It's interesting and important that feminists, unaffiliated socialists, assorted activists, party-building Reds, so on - all inevitably differing from each other in many ways - came from halfway across the state and surrounding areas to disrupt this event.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wolfe: Yes. This is the sort of coalition building that should be happening all the time, but is tough to pull off, especially in Florida. The question is whether this kind of thing can be sustained in a state which has a healthy population of activists, who all move somewhere else after just a month. If <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9u5I9tiOAU" target="_blank">the video</a> gains traction, it will show that it is increasingly difficult for Leftist organizations to get away with the sort of coverups they have in the past. FRSO, your actions are intolerable and saying they are "for the cause" doesn't make them any less so. What impressed me the most is that you got a major figure in the FRSO hierarchy to effectively admit that they do not care about rape culture--on video no less. It is ironic that the Left, always asking "What is to be done?," seems to have a hard time coming up with effective strategies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion: Well, we haven't yet learned how to sustain it here. We've seen some wins in Seattle with its $15/hour minimum wage and Chicago dropping the tampon tax. Say what you will about Sawant, an openly socialist person is on Seattle's city council. Last night you said in reference to the Trump rally-crashers who are being attributed to Bernie Sanders, "liberals are more Leninist than Leninists." How True was something you said off the cuff, talking late into the night over a box of wine looking at the city lights gleaming off the water as the smoke or fog rose, conjuring riots and revolution in my mind. We don't have the cultural benefits of a Seattle, a Chicago, a New York, an Oakland, where there's generational activist knowledge passed from seasoned activists to the next batch and so on. All we've got's the long-timers, the lifers, sometimes Florida natives, other times not, some of whom are entrenched union rank-and-filers, some radical feminists, some Occupy Tampa - the longest running encampment in the country, maybe world, mind you - diehards and some others whose affiliation I don't know offhand to rely on for experience, for connections, for wisdom, for all the things that get passed from activist to activist in other places. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Geographical separation and a lack of public transit make it difficult for us to convene for reading groups and movie nights, much less direct action and civil disobedience, not to mention every new activist who rolls into town has their own agenda. It's very anti-dialectical, really. We're thinking of the whole over the part while our new prospects for communism-building are thinking part over the whole. They want and often need our kind of cred for their ladder-climbing union jobs, their Planned Parenthood-track jobs, their academic trajectory, their college degrees, their Dem party path, whatever it is... While we need them to focus on the whole over the part, to understand that only then can we have a Real mass movement that Matters. These "elders" and "veterans" and "knowledge holders" are often discounted, too, because we're old, we're young, we're women, we're perceived as tankies or trots or some new/other party formation, we're associated with some interpersonal drama, online incidents, gossip that's transpired with or without us. In essence, <i>we're often discounted for the very reasons that we're the ones to turn to.</i> Don't mistake me: People turn to me, people surely turn to others. With certain mental health crises, about abortion, for security services, for this or that solution to this or that problem. They recognize reliable local resources. But for the initial planning phase of civil disobedience and direct action, they don't look to me or Us. They look to...I don't know. Books, I suppose. Theory that preaches what we've been practicing modified based on our current conditions. This vexes me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wolfe: Who are the people turning to? We know of two situations where a known employee of an astroturfing PR firm whose clients include the Florida Democratic Party was able to pose as a superstar activist and recruit young and impressionable activists into their following. This ties into an earlier remark. Anyone who has seen a Dem op in action knows that they take over, manipulate, and use up street level organizations with the skill of a Lenin or a Bakunin. They have the Machiavellian skills that we used to have, but somehow lost. They can build fronts--fronts for electing Democratic candidates--but fronts nonetheless. In addition to this, they're able to exploit the latest demographic technology to calculate which people are most likely to be able to be won over to their side and target them. Modern data allows us to know what people are thinking before they're thinking it. They have that data, slick propaganda, and charismatic operatives. Look at the Left by contrast. Trots still sell newspapers--print newspapers. Our key organizing techniques are mined from texts written in the early 20th century. "What Is to Be Done?" and <i>The Road to Power</i> were written when the telegraph was cutting-edge tech.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion: Well, that Dem op's workplace is still unverified, but we don't have to get into that right now, and it doesn't detract from your salient point. She's working this town for all it's worth, and the only ones who notice it are all about her strategy, the ones who don't end up...not with Us but with her or disillusioned, from what I've seen from this one specific Dem op's maneuvers. And yes they access VAN and certainly other shiny new demographic toys. So you've hit the who and hinted at the why. The why is what we talk about when we say that "track to activism" - Americorps, SEIU, Planned Parenthood, tenure-track pipedreams. You'll scoff and internally roll your eyes, but I fell in the ditch while you barely cling to the gravel road (hopefully thumbing a ride soon). *Laughter* So what about the how to get them to turn to Us? I mean broadly, to those of Us with experience, narrowing those with experience to those with experience who are Marxists.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wolfe: Clearly, we need to sell more newspapers. [Laugh track] The how is the question, and one I do not yet have any answer to. We need a serious rethinking of strategy in the 21st century and far, far better propaganda at the very least. This is one reason I am happy that <i>Jacobin</i> now exists. As trendy as it may be to slag them, a gorgeous and explicitly Marxist mag whose design doesn't look like it was put together by the worst of the '80's 'zine crew (or BAMF editorial staff) is at least a start. But this still provides no answer on what to do with the pretty much fucked Tampa activist community. I was really hoping that you had a notion on this fueled by this recent success. Let the practice guide the theory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion: But focusing on Tampa Bay is putting the part before the whole. Our entire fucking point of view is that of international socialism. We know localism isn't the answer. But solving this activism problem in Tampa Bay may be useful elsewhere and in and of itself. So don't narrow the field too much. But if you do, then the #GTFOFRSO IWD action should at least be supplemented by looking at the recent Trump rally disruption in Tampa and perhaps those elsewhere. We talked a bit about this last night. Let's look at our notes. *flips to illegible scribbles in notebook* </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1.) Organizers threatened those who dared to be too disruptive with state repression in the form of cops and the secret service.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2.) Activists were motivated to attend in order to defy the organizers' threat. Why? Last night we posited that "fun is an appeal," right? So FOMO is an actual MO. Everybody who's anybody, that is anybody I want in MY hypothetical party, would be intrigued by and find irresistible such a threat, a dare. There's nothing more exciting to young/newcomer activists than playing chicken with local establishment organizers who they perceive as less radical than themselves. So there was a gauntlet thrown down, but it was an illusion. The threat wasn't real; the dare didn't exist. The Dem op we're dancing around naming was the sole exception after numerous online conversations about potential repercussions for breaking the organizers' line in the sand, the line of decency, being well behaved, legality, these bourgeois concepts that the Left cannot afford to abide. She disrupted the thing and nobody called any cops or SS. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3.) I asked, "Do we even need/want them?" being the discerning disciplinarian to your inclusive populist. However, I agree with your primary response: "We need people." Then I asked what keeps what I labeled "cuspers" from committing to smaller-scale, interpersonal, less dangerous, well-organized, possibly more effective actions. How do we get Dem ops/Clintonite wreckers posing as Sanders supporters in order to discredit him to be actual Leninists, not just liberals who are better at Leninism than We are. There becomes a question of (inter?)national vs. local actions and the benefits thereof. Now, lets exclude party climbers, career politicians, etc. for now. I want to know how to funnel those willing to get arrested at a Trump rally over basically nothing, to communism. If we need these people, as you claim and as I accept, then how do we activate these potential Reds? How do we funnel them? How do we convince them that Our way--collectivism--is best? Whole over part. Use their energy for an Actual mass movement? *closes notebook*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wolfe: Yes--but thinking too "internationally" can lead to, among other things, being a cheerleader for Putin in the name of anti-imperialism (speaking of FRSO). So, I still think that Tampa is useful as a prism through which to view the problem at local, national, and international levels. We can view the whole through the part. Our long term goal is always democracy in a classless society. Now, you keep pushing me to answer the question I do not have an answer to. How do we get the cuspers? Well--try harder. Since you bring up Sanders, he gives us an opportunity. We now have thousands of newly-minted "socialists." What are we going to do with them? This is not the end. Within a few short years we have seen Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and now Sanders, so many dissenters from the liberal consensus... [bathroom becomes available]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion: Okay, maybe I'm trying to corner you. That's what I do. That's what we do. It's how we reach our synthesis, our line, our Correctness, which is always already changing, being questioned, under these rapidly changing 21st century conditions. But you're the one who wants and believes in the cuspers, so the onus is on you. And I'm fine with inconclusiveness. Maybe someone will actually think about it and respond. Fingers crossed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wolfe: Yes! Agreed. But if anything has become clear to me it is that We need to expose the false radicals, We need to show cuspers when they are being led into a Dem trap. We need to yell this at the top of our lungs. And, to bring this back to the FRSO action, we also need to expose the toxic left organizations. Maybe if we knock out the bad options, the good ones will become obvious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion: So let's leave it at that for now. It's loud, it's getting crowded, and there's a long road ahead of you. And me. And Reds. And everyone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Detailed Account/Transcription of First #GTFOFRSO IWD Disruption</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Who's Steff?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "Steff Yorek, featured speaker and the chief person behind FRSO's rape coverup." She was pointed out to the crowd.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Various protestors said, "Oh, the rape coverup, hmmm...""Have you heard about that?," and continued speaking about the safety of women.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The organizer who had previously asked the protestors to stand on the sides stood at the front of the room and loudly proclaimed, interrupting a protestor: "I'm gonna have to say it again. If you speak up, you're disrupting the event, I could have you removed. You are free to protest, but if you speak up, if you speak out, you're disrupting the event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "We've got ten minutes til the event starts, so we have plenty of time."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Organizer: "Technically, technically, the event starts as long as we have the room. We have the room now. I'm just letting you guys know." The protestors agreed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "I don't know, like this is really characteristic of the state of the Left today though because without democracy internal to organizations, without transparency, you're basically gonna end up with these kind of like sects and cults. These groups are like people's private property and some dude who's been around from the 60s goes around collecting rent on people's dues. This is the state of the degradation of the Left today."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During this protestor's even-toned speech from the side of the room, several FRSO members smirked and paced about, and two men at the greeting table sat red-faced and nervously ran their hands through their hair. Yorek convened with FRSO members at the greeting table, and one of the organizers began laughing with Yorek about the disruption.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The laughing organizer stood up and said, "Uh, if you have..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor (shouting): "YOU FUCKING COVERED UP RAPE!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "Yeah, quit covering up rape, and you can have your event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Same organizer (smiling and standing): "Hey everyone, we're here to celebrate Women's Day. If you wanna talk to us..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "That's ironic. That's like so ironic. You have so..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Same organizer: "If you want to talk to us after the event, that is absolutely fine. Until then, we'd like to celebrate Women's Day. We have people here who want to celebrate it."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "How can we celebrate it if you guys are rapists?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "So does FRSO want to use institutional silencing of the people calling out their rape coverup?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek: "Well, we have the room reserved."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "So you want to use institutional silencing of people calling out your rape coverup." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Are y'all gonna talk about this?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Several FRSO members laughed, and Yorek crossed the room smiling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Can like one of the leaders talk about this, please?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Same organizer, from the podium: "So I know that some of you have grievances and that's understandable. However, right now, this is not going to be handled. We can handle it after the event. You can talk to us. We can handle the event, we can handle what the grievances are."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek (appearing to be having a side conversation with a protestor): "I'm not going to argue with you. If you want to discuss the issue, I will actually discuss it with you after this event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "I think you should discuss it now."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A couple of seconds of unintelligible dialogue between protestors, Yorek, and FRSO members erupted into a several minutes long chant, with one protestor seizing the microphone on the podium at the front of the room (by the back door, opposite end of the greeting table/front door): "KICK OUT DUSTIN PONDER!" The room fell silent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "How can we celebrate International Women's Day if somebody's telling me that there's a rape coverup happening?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another organizer (heatedly): "If you're interested, she just said we could discuss it after the event. Are you interested in disrupting or discussing?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Both. I wanna discuss but..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Organizer, on the microphone: "Then we can discuss after the event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Several minutes of restless awkward silence passed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor, to Yorek who had been attempting to pull her aside individually from the collective action throughout the disruption: "That's what Sol told me when I first confronted her about this, and that was over a year ago. Oh, and that was when she lied about Dustin Ponder being in the organization, and that was when people blamed the victim <i>to her face</i>."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "Yeah a year seems like a good amount of time to get this thing dealt with. Waiting another hour seems kinda..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "Why wouldn't you want to deal with this on International Women's Day?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Yeah, let's deal with it now."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek: "I will discuss the issue after the event. You all can stay around." During Yorek's previous statement, a Marshall Center steward or security guard (not in a uniform one might typically associate with security guards) entered the room, then proceeded to approach one side of the protestors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "So is FRSO using institutional repression to silence people calling out the rape coverup?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Steward/guard: "I just wanted to talk to you." [unintelligible conversation between some protestors and the steward/guard]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Organizer: "We gave you viable options. If you're not going to take them, then..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "Good job, Jessica."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Organizer (Jessica): "Thank you."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "This is weird. Like how can I focus on your talk if this is happening?" No response. The hushed conversation between the steward/guard and half of the protestors occurred on one side of the room. FRSO members lined one area closest to the door, arms uniformly folded across their chests looking glum and detached.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "Why did Sol and Jared move to LA when they're involved in a rape coverup?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another organizer: "Maybe because she wanted to organize in LA."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member to protestors being talked to by steward/guard: "Who is that person?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "I think someone who works for the school."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "And you guys aren't with the event?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "No, we are not with the event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Okay, so who is the event? And can you start?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "Yeah, they can go ahead. No one's stopping them."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Who's the first speaker? Can a speaker start?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek: "We're not gonna start till the disruption is over."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor (whispering): "No one's disrupting."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Organizer at the podium: "We would like to start our event now. If you wanna talk to us afterwards, we will be here, we will listen to you, but I know right now you're here to disrupt this event and not actually enjoy Women's Day." General uncomfortable laughter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "I think this is a fine way to enjoy Women's Day."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek: "You're disrupting the event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "Yeah?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek: "You need to leave."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "But we're celebrating Women's Day."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "Look, if you're addressing us, we can address you back. That's not disrupting the event. If you're going with the charade of us protesting silently while you celebrate Women's Day then at least try to do that sincerely."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "We're celebrating Women's Day by calling out a group who covers up rape. It's been a year since these accusations and no actual statement from FRSO has been made."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Maybe they can make one now. Make a statement now. Can we have a statement now?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "In the time it would take to address this now, we'd be out of here."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yorek, on the microphone: "My statement is that I will not discuss this until after the event."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Various protestors: "Right, right," "Yeah, we've heard that before," and "There hasn't been a statement for a long ass time."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "It seems like we've been asking you to discuss it for a year and a half and now that we've finally put a lot of pressure on you and you can't avoid it, you're still trying to delay."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "It's hard to delete people in person."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "Yeah, you can't block someone in real life. Sorry, it doesn't work like that so here we are."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The steward/guard spoke to FRSO members near the greeting table as uncomfortable, restless quiet again settled on the room.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Am I gonna get to hear speakers talk about this [gestures to handout] or anything?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "Every speaker on this panel knows about the coverup. You know that, right? Everybody here knows that? Everyone here knows it and is cool with it?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "I don't even know who the speakers are, I just thought it would be interesting but now this issue has come up and I want to hear a statement today."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestors briefly chanted "ISSUE A STATEMENT!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Protestor: "What are you covering up? Why are you so scared to talk about this?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another protestor: "I know. Like if there's nothing, then I don't see the problem."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Audience member: "Why can't y'all just issue a statement, right now, then y'all can talk?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The steward/guard continued moving from Yorek to other organizers to protestors, as FRSO members smirked and attendees read the flyers protestors had distributed earlier. Finally, protestors were asked to leave by the steward/guard and did, loudly chanting: "KICK OUT DUSTIN PONDER!" </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-37571741257723618342016-01-27T12:59:00.000-08:002016-01-27T13:02:30.316-08:00Glorification of Grand Juries: Stop. Now. And Publicly Renounce Your Error.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Commence Oblivion </span></h3>
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Stop glorifying grand juries. Even if they're "on your side." Stop it now. Just stop. Trust me. Never trust anyone who says, "Trust me." But trust me: full stop.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Grand juries are rogue entities without oversight of any kind who can swoop in and detain anyone under arbitrary secret surveillance state dicta, without much if any cause, as Manning, Snowden, Assange, Greenwald, Poitras, Potter, et al. have risked their lives and safety, gone to prison and into exile to inform and warn us about. Grand juries symbolize everything about the (surveillance) state (and beyond) we should stand united against. So, stand united against them with us.<br /><br />When Monday evening the top trending social media topic was "Planned Parenthood Not Indicted About Selling Fetal Tissue, but Two Activists Are Indicted for Producing Fake Anti-Choice Videos" or whatever the SEO gods named the thing that everyone was momentarily paying rapt attention to, a wave of nausea and disgust passed over me. I've heard the horror stories about grand juries: the obfuscation, the complete ruination of lives and livelihoods and personages, the Red and <a href="http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Activist%20Tips/OnGrandJuryResistance.htm">Green Scare</a> chilling effect tactics, the prosecutorial puppetry. Remaining improbably still slightly naive about the General State of Things - here referring to knowledge about grand juries - I was even shocked to see the shibboleths of the liberal anti-forced birth leadership praising the plot twist in <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2015/09/toward-new-abortion-rights-rhetoric.html">the narrative of abortion rhetoric</a>, which let's face it, is not news to BAMF readers, anti-natalists, leftists, among others who can see a scripted story playing out like a fifth grade rendition of "Our Town." Yet somehow I was sickened. Somehow the cynicism has not yet seeped to the very marrow of my bones. Stupid lingering remnants of romantic cautious optimism. How dare I assume that comrades, feminist associates, fellow repro-opponents, like-minded uterine autonomists, and other uncharacterizable (I'm not generally an apt applier of labels) sympathizers would recognize this disgusting and thinly veiled ploy to gain public approval for grand juries by rallying support around their heroic indictment of what are undoubtedly unscrupulous and disgusting individuals preventing women from accessing health care they need to remove toxic parasites from their bodies? What is wrong with me? And, more relevantly here, with you?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do not glorify grand juries. If you do, you're doing feminism wrong. You're doing communism wrong. You're doing Marxism wrong. You're doing anarchism wrong. You're doing Leftism wrong. You're doing things generally wrong. If you support grand juries under any circumstance, you might be a liberal. You also might be a conservative. You also might be a capitalist. Whatever you identify as or actually are, you're wrong. So please for the love of the hate of the state, stop. Just stop. And renounce your support. Post this. Post a bunch of links I'll include despite BAMF's new approach that does not require submissions to have credible citations and reliable research, be bogged down with Marxian terminology, or include trendy whatever-is-in-style-at-time-of-posting rhetorical strategies. I'm running on instincts here, taking a cue from <a href="http://salvage.zone/">Salvage</a>. The screeds have commenced. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Presumably, everyone reading this can google. If not, I'm not an Expert but I can and have googled for you. I have personally seen it transpire. I have read innumerable accounts of grand juries ruining lives. I have no other pressing reason to butt up against the organizations with the most funding and public support to continue to provide safe, free/affordable (in some cases) abortions while fighting legislative battles to keep it that way. At this juncture, my reason for harshly criticizing the response of Planned Parenthood, NARAL, National Network of Abortion Funds, and countless others praising the use of grand juries in favor of their cause(s) is because my devotion to smashing the state and communism trumps my need to blindly support abortion providers' and their financial backers' political stances. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Commence Wolfe</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />One of the most fundamental differences between liberals and Marxists is the way they conceive of the state. For the liberal, the state is a fundamentally beneficent entity—an expression of a social contract between equals, existing for the good of us all, legitimated by the consent of the governed. If the state is failing to act for the common benefit, acting in an oppressive way, they see these actions as uncharacteristic, as deformations. The problem, they say, is we have failed to get the right people in charge, perhaps due to the pernicious influence of big money or, more often, a barely disguised disgust at the fact that ignorant white trash rednecks are still allowed the franchise.<br /><br />This view leads to a tendency to think that the problem is not with the existence of grand juries but that they have become perverted by prosecutorial bad apples, that the problem is not with the modern surveillance state, but with the people doing the surveilling, that the problem is not with drone assassinations, but with those whose fingers are on the buttons.<br /><br />Since the state so often fails to live up to liberal expectations, they must tell themselves stories. One story is that we have Fallen from the wisdom embedded in the Constitution, and if we returned to these principles—principles contrived by and for wealthy slave owners—then things would once again be set aright. Another popular story looks back to a more recent “golden age.” They tell us of the wonders of the great F.D.R., who put our nation on the correct course. F.D.R., the East Coast patrician, was a veritable Fredrick the Great who through his enlightened ideas and out of the goodness of his wealthy heart realized the true role of government and showered the working class with benefits. Then came the dark times and Reagan the Usurper...<br /><br />Those with a Marxist outlook ought know better. The state, for Marx, has always been an instrument by which one class secures its rule over others. It does not act on the behalf of all equally, but on behalf of those whose rule it exists to secure. Any benefits offered to other classes are but instruments for this end. The “social contract” is a convenient fiction, cooked up to justify this. The influence of big money on government under capitalism is not a distortion of the system but of its essence. Given all of this, the state is by nature in the business of repression.<br /><br />However, too many people who otherwise realize this remain within the spell of the myth of the beneficent state. They cheer when it scores a victory for “their side.” This tendency must be fought. The bourgeois state does not work for us. Occasionally it will, for reasons of its own, haul some dishonest right-wing propagandists up on charges. But when it does something like this it pays to bear in mind that pro-forced birth activists pose no danger whatsoever to capitalist rule, and that left wing activists and environmentalists do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oblivion for the Conclusion</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">May I reiterate my disappointment? Geez, people, really? No one stopped to consider the implications of this uncritical praise for and gushing over a grand jury? Have we forgotten the <i>very recent</i> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/01/20/grand-jurors-in-the-tamir-rice-case-voted-that-shooting-was-justified-did-not-vote-on-specific-criminal-charges/" target="_blank">Tamir Rice no vote</a>? Have we forgotten the historical <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=communists+persecuted+by+grand+juries" target="_blank">persecution of communists</a>? <a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/maddy-pfeiffer-jailed-grand-jury-anarchists/6670/" target="_blank">And anarchists</a>? Have we forgotten the indefinite detention of and terrorism charges brought against <a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/california-grand-investigating-animal-rights-activists/6682/" target="_blank">animal rights</a> and <a href="https://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/tag/grand-jury/" target="_blank">earth liberation</a> activists? Tune in, folks. You're next. Once you endorse this, you've always already signed an agreement written in invisible ink, agreed to comply, encouraged more persecution of activists of all stripes. And a lot of others' are next as well. Don't make everyone a bed you don't want to lie in yourself.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Notes from Oblivion: </span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">• This post is the first formal collaboration between me and John Wolfe, as well as the (I believe) second attempt to switch up the structural and stylistic approach to BAMF. Let us know your thoughts about the collaboration, the switch up, and the content.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">• Some of the following articles are flawed in various ways, but their validity and relevance remains intact. Grand juries are dangerous, secretive, and CAN AND WILL pull yo' ass up on charges out of the blue. They must be abolished. Get on board. Now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">MUST READ: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/wp-content/Images/grandjury101.pdf">http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/wp-content/Images/grandjury101.pdf</a><br /><br />Optional But Recommended:<br /><a href="http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-grand-juries-are-manipulated-fbi-intimidate-political-dissidents-and-radicals">http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-grand-juries-are-manipulated-fbi-intimidate-political-dissidents-and-radicals</a><br /><br /><a href="http://grandjuryresistance.org/statement.html">http://grandjuryresistance.org/statement.html</a><br /><br />The <i>Washington Post</i> was so excited when the two pro-forced birth activists were indicted instead of Planned Parenthood, but here was their stance not even a month ago: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/29/in-tamir-rices-case-the-grand-jury-process-was-turned-upside-down/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/29/in-tamir-rices-case-the-grand-jury-process-was-turned-upside-down/</a> </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/01/grand_jury_s_rare_no_vote_in_tamir_rice_shooting_points_to_bigger_issue.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/01/grand_jury_s_rare_no_vote_in_tamir_rice_shooting_points_to_bigger_issue.html</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/grand-jury-101-from-the-rockford-files/1504/">http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/grand-jury-101-from-the-rockford-files/1504/</a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-45223158109582951472016-01-18T21:09:00.000-08:002016-01-21T10:22:29.015-08:00Rushed Late Night Scribbles on Student Loan Debt Strike Strategy: Part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When does the student loan debt strike start? </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />I asked that question a few short hours or long minutes ago. For some it has already begun. There are anecdotal claims that a third of student loans are currently in default; <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/about-7-million-americans-havent-paid-federal-student-loans-in-at-least-a-year-1440175645" target="_blank">other sources say 17%, or 7 million</a>. There must be an equation that the feds and private loan sharks have devised to calculate risks, costs, and recovery rates. <a href="http://www.edcentral.org/edcyclopedia/federal-student-loan-default-rates/">Here are some tedious definitions, statistics, and forecasts</a> for those who choose to wade through them. Numerous people involved in ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com (now apparently called <a href="http://studentdebtcrisis.org/">StudentDebtCrisis.org</a>) claim to have withheld payment from 5 to more than 20 years. <a href="http://www.vice.com/read/talking-to-american-debt-dodgers-who-moved-to-europe-to-avoid-paying-off-their-student-loans-111"><i>Vice</i></a> is perpetuating the idea that moving abroad - seemingly to Europe then perhaps to South America - and defaulting on loans is a relatively safe bet and good idea because the loan sharks are focusing on deploying collection agencies on defaulters in the US, who they can more easily track and efficiently penalize. Arguments have been made that countries who refuse to allow US student loan collection entities to harass their residents would gain well-educated, spirited US ex-pats who would enrich their culture.<br /><br />While the keyboard is hot and the mind is sharp, "I want to live on the abstract plane" and take an aerial view. Perhaps an economist like <a href="http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/">Doug Henwood</a> or <a href="http://www.rdwolff.com/" target="_blank">Richard D. Wolff</a> will give us some market-based insights later. For now, I'll tell you intuitively what I think could happen. If 1/3 of student loans are indeed currently in default, then 2/3 are being paid regularly, irregularly, are in deferment, are in forbearance, or are in some other state-sanctioned state of flux that excludes them as being classified as in default. If .5-1/3 of the 2/3 of ostensibly non-defaulted student debtors actively making payments were to suddenly, simultaneously halt student loan payments for 6 to 12 months, it would prompt <i>at least</i> some concessions to our collective demands and <i>at best</i> a collapse of what everyone knows and recognizes as the latest version of the housing bubble and another formation of the dot-com bubble. We know this; we watched it happen. Investments were made, the returns were much lower than expected, growth stopped or declined, the market crashed, the bubbles burst (why such a happy image of bubbles for such a ruinous phenomena?). Fine. The market fails. But it didn't crash and burn. And we didn't get any concessions. Why? No demands. Why? A lack of organized strategy around foreclosures, bankruptcies, and the stalling/failing/sinking of startups.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Starting-Gunners</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />There are a bunch of "immediate defaulters" (i.e. "starting-gunners") for lack of a more precise, less connotatively pejorative term. Immediate defaulters are likely already factored into the equation that the loan sharks have inevitably always already constructed. That means the interest rates, punitive repercussions, and other strategies to force payment from statistically "reliable" debtors are already built into the system. Interest rates may be higher to compensate loan sharks for what they bet on losing from their profit margins to immediate defaulters. Penalties for defaulting once you start paying, such as garnishment of wages and seizing of homes; ruining of credit lines necessary to buy homes; paying for medical care; and affording transportation in areas where public transit infrastructure is so disjointed and underfunded that having, maintaining, insuring, registering, licensing, fueling, and storing a car is the most efficient/only practical means of going places to earn money to pay for the education that allowed you to be considered for a job to begin with, as well as to the places you spend money because you need goods and services, are more directly threatening than those to the starting-gunners who've never paid at all. Personally, I owe more than $150k in student loan debt, primarily due to borrowing as an uninformed and displaced teen, subsequently as an uninformed, disillusioned 19- to 21-year-old MA student, and finally as a slightly informed, defiant twenty-something PhD student. <br /><br />My presumptions about (premeditated, conscious) immediate defaulters (I always assumed I'd be one, and I only know three well) run along the lines of: Merchants who have already paid off their business loans and don't report their earnings accurately to the Tax Man who doesn't look too closely at the perpetuator of the US myth of the hardworking, successful, albeit a bit rebellious, independent entrepreneur; wealthy people who hide behind smokescreens of marriage, attorneys, reproductive expenses, and other state institutions because they continue to reproduce the Center, the labor force, the nuclear family; the working class who are accustomed to hiding from the government's attempts to garnish their wages and seize their personal property and even their bodies; the working class who are incapable of navigating the labyrinthine process required to establish an accepted payment plan to keep the wolves from the door and can't afford an attorney or are not wired to pursue and engage with bureaucracy; craftspeople, artisans, artists, and small merchants who sell things in online stores and local markets and street fairs and don't report the income; and those who simply don't care about consequences or aren't aware of exactly how dire they could be (we might say they have nothing to lose but their chains, but I'll not wax idealistic at this hour.). <br /><br />These cowboys, these cavalier people who haven't paid a dime in ages/ever are to be admired. By me, anyway. I've paid thousands and the loan balance never decreases. You know why. Interest rates. Economic curves. Income-based repayment. You're out of a job precarious person? Ah, well, we won't evict you, steal your unemployment check, and take your car, but we will capitalize the interest that accrued while you used one of the (is it still three?) trump cards of failure that you're allowed as a student loan debt slave. In fact, use all of those cards because then the threats become imminent. You're educated, you have what we know you think we think is earning/producing potential, and you have what we know you think we think is an ethical and moral obligation to pay back money you borrowed from us, you hippie. Why were you taking out loans at age 16 anyway, dropout loser? (That's Doctor Dropout Loser, to you.) It's a credible threat because we assume you're well-traveled and well-read, that you want to maintain your US citizenship and probably live here, and if not here then in a Western or Eurocentric nation with which we have a robust collections agreement. By the way, despite <i>Vice</i>'s often tenuous claims, the last time I checked a few years ago, the only place student loan debt collectors cannot follow one is to Cuba (probably on its way off the list if it has not already conceded to US interests, pun intended), Iran, and North Korea. Pretty bleak options any way you slice it, even for my Maoist readers and comrades. <br /><br />But these cowboys are not alleviating any problems. Renegades are badasses. I love them. One of the top 10 most memorable things anyone has ever said to me was, "Okay, but where are you going to meet another partner who supports the FARC?" Though the nuance of my position was lost on them - as my nuances and all nuances so frequently are lost - the underlying implication of their point is valid. Renegades, rebels, radical fronts, and spontaneous disrupters are badasses. They lay it all on the line. That is admirable, something I wish I were more like. But here are the 2/3 of us, paying our monthly alimony to the spouse we supported for so long that we must now pay to sustain the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed and paying child support if we had someone we value co-sign, like our elderly parents, our established older siblings, our recently deceased grandparents, et al., or we'll lose custody. Luckily I declined the co-signing option, and unluckily they were throwing tens of thousands of dollars at me per semester. TENS OF THOUSANDS PER SEMESTER. In the US, a semester is something like four months. Then there are the couple of summer terms. So I could have gotten $30k for the fall and spring semesters, plus more for summer terms, at any given time. Often I did opt for the maximum amount. When I started college part-time at 14, I paid tuition with money from my fast food job. Once enrolled full-time at 17, I worked a lot and took mid-range loans (say $8k a semester, probably $4k all summer) and lived with roommates. But the further I went down the academic path, the more serious debt sums I racked up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Rest of Us</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then there are those of us who intend to pay, have paid what and when we can, and are able to nimbly navigate nightmarish bureaucratic mazes to enroll in state-sanctioned payment plans as the loan sharks sponge all of our expendable income. It seems we're on our own, but we are many, we are everywhere, we are millions. And this is not to dismiss offhand the courage/ignorance/lack of bureaucratic navigation skills of immediate defaulters. It is to simply state that some of us are wired to Follow the Rules and read tedious wording, qualifications, options, caveats and legalese, which has (as much as I hate to give the Obama administration credit for anything but war crimes and bolstering of the surveillance state) become more manageable for the economic layperson. It's markedly easier to identify, compare, and select from several limited but at long last comprehensible repayment options. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />Communists think collectively. How can we movement build? How can we alleviate suffering? How can we unify as a class? Even while people in other places under other conditions may be suffering more intensely and in different ways, there is always a fight within our own ring, there is always someone to get on the ropes, there is always a stand to take. And this one looks ripe for the taking. Let's assume the cowboy renegades are not having any of our silly ideas about mass movements, unity of struggle, and other people's problems. We'll be dismissed as some kind of privileged opportunists and petit bourgeois whiners by our liberal social justice acquaintances and leftcom and third-worldists comrades, respectively. We should be grateful we even got to go to college, the first might say. Our futile attempts to jab capital's jaw is an impotent waste of time and energy, the second might say. There is only one class that can start the Thing that ends the Thing that causes suffering, the third might say. Then again, I don't know what anyone will say. Nor do I particularly care. I'm playing fast and loose with my BAMF style, structure, and typical approach right now because I want to get this message to you now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Don't look to the starting-gunners, don't place your bets on government loan forgiveness under Bernie or anyone else. Look to the millions of people around you who are in eerily similar situations revolving around this singular present-day matter that is so deeply entwined with the financial sector and the state. Ask them how they feel about and what they would do to overturn student loan debt. Look inside and ask yourself what you're honestly willing to actually do about it. What are our demands? </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The US is </span><a href="http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data-2015" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">begging for a general student loan debt strike</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (perhaps a general debt strike). You think about it, I'll sleep on it, and always feel free to comment below with your thoughts. Let's see what kind of organizational strategies can be deployed/would work the most effectively to achieve such a feat, for we need a </span><a href="http://strikedebt.org/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">mass movement</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to tackle such a massive plague</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> No amount of restless late night thinking and keyboard clacking from me can replace that.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-30752303106724219202016-01-09T17:14:00.002-08:002016-01-21T10:20:20.733-08:00Pro-Abortion Activism: The Most Dangerous Type <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All Apologies, Again.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many apologies to BAMF readers. Both of our current contributors are working on long-form pieces that make </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">consistently </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">generating content </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in a timely fashion</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> for BAMF challenging. Your favorite contributor, </span><a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">Dr. John Wolfe</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, is working on a theoretical book that I'm not authorized to disclose much about here while teaching Marxism to our potential future comrades. I recently finished my first novel and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">irresistible</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> internal and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">external pleas and demands to edit it and send it out into the world to find its place call day and night. Now allow me to proceed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh, wait, one more preamble. We've established that the terms used in abortion rhetoric are outdated and ineffective, and, yes, I am painstakingly working toward an entirely new, updated, rhetorically effective lexicon, <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2015/09/toward-new-abortion-rights-rhetoric.html" target="_blank">as previously proposed</a>. Let's try a few terms and phrases on for size to see how they suit us. <b style="background-color: black;">Feedback about the various terms and phrases employed is more than welcomed; it is solicited and appreciated. Please comment below on any of the many I throw around, as I flail and struggle to develop more useful, relevant </b><b style="background-color: black;">terminology</b> to describe precise and nuanced positions and procedures, thereby destroying the gossamer that obscures the actual function of abortion in our society* - which is <i>not</i> to punish some whore for having sex by forcing her to reproduce - but which is to terminate</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> life-endangering parasites in a safe manner at the discretion of the host. This </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/16/abortion_as_a_social_good_author" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">is a social good</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, as any leftist and/or logician knows.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Okay, let's go.</span><br />
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<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Abortion rights activism is the most dangerous kind of activism.**</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This said, there must be a distinction made here, early, between Being (Perceived As)/(Identifying As) Something - such as a gender, an ethnicity, a race, a threat, a nationality, a follower of a religion, an adherent to a political ideology - and Being Someone Attempting To Protect Someone/Something Who/That Is/Are (Perceivied/Identify As) Something. Do not mistake the point: Being a black man, wearing a burka, following Islam, being LGBTQ, being a woman, being a child, existing as an abortion clinic, and providing abortion in the US*** is more dangerous than attempting to protect such intensely persecuted groups/things. So, there are those who are in danger, are discriminated against, are </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">casually</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">murdered at a frighteningly accelerating rate, are stalked, harassed, kidnapped, held captive, coerced, raped, tortured; and there are those of us who notice, become aware of, and become passionate about creating </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and/or </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">guarding a safe place for the persecuted to exist, deterring and confronting threats of encroachment upon these entities' being, existence, and presence. Here we will focus on the dangers of Being Someone Attempting To Protect Someone/Something Who/That Is/Are (Perceivied/Identify As) Something. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">While there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that pro-abortion activism is the most dangerous type of activism, particularly in this relatively new age of surveillance,***** which seems to have lead to heightened suspicion, fear, propaganda, and video evidence of the spectacle of violence and pain that we watch seemingly on loop, building callousness and numbing our empathy toward those being beaten, kicked, dragged down a street, shot dozens of times, immobile bodies lying around as mundane as chairs around a kitchen table. You've read and/or heard about the latest (and historical) atrocities against women and against abortion providers (because how could you not have?). I have faith in you, dear reader, comrade reader, under-informed reader, male reader, misogynist reader, Reddit brocialist reader, liberal reader, overeducated underpaid academic reader, and all the rest. You know, if not exactly then at very least generally, what's happening to those some of us try to protect. The information about these incidents surround us, permeating the culture we cannot escape, everything we see, hear, read, absorb always already contains it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The vested interests that protect the control of women's reproductive choices and bodily autonomy (as well as that of nonhuman animals, which we ought to revisit another time) are the powerhouses of capitalism. They rule the world. The military needs disposable bodies to exploit. The tech world needs disposable bodies to exploit. The fast food industry needs disposable bodies to exploit. The Church, all sects of Christianity, and all other religions need disposable bodies to exploit. The propaganda disseminated by these mega ideological superstructures is unparalleled - excluding that of the meat, dairy, and egg lobbies, which is older by 25 years or so and therefore may have a little more pull if the two were ever to bump heads, but luckily for both the contradictions between them are obscured and indeed absolutely integral to the perpetuation of capitalism as we know it in the West because they all rely on exploitation of others' reproductive systems, forced gestation and natalism, and disposable bodies capable of perpetuating the cycle, i.e. viable female reproductive systems.</span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Casual Pro-Coerced Natalism vs. Pro-Coerced Natalism Terrorists: Thin Line or Nonexistent Line?</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The requirements to oppose uterine autonomy for women are minimal. Christian. Muslim. Parent. Man. Woman. Humanist. Child. Woman who has had an abortion. Person who wanted to coerce a woman to gestate and reproduce their own genetic material but she terminated the dangerous parasite. Person who wanted to force a woman to gestate and reproduce someone else's DNA but she chose uterine autonomy instead. The <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2013/08/05/" target="_blank">statistically nonexistent woman</a> who has had an abortion and regretted it for various nuanced reasons, apparently often tied to how "planned" the menstrual interruption was. A woman who wanted to gestate and reproduce but subverted the life-endangering reproductive condition due to any number of circumstances. In short, the criteria to be ideologically pro-forced gestation and pro-forced reproduction are very few. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Interestingly, not alternately but additionally, the requirements to be a danger to repropponents/repro-opponents are only slightly more stringent. The differentiating factors here seem to be:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>1.) </b>An unquestioning, unwavering belief that embryos and fetuses are equal to a reproductively capable woman based on some esoteric value scale (probably and usually based in the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">teachings of </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Christianity but not necessarily actually addressed in any version of the text on which their claims are ostensibly based) and, therefore, the subversion of a nonconsensual germination is equal in moral Wrongness to murder,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>2.) </b>An extreme sense of entitlement to impose those beliefs by any means necessary on anyone perceived to be defying them, often embodied by a small-town sheriff mentality with an inner dialogue similar to "Welp, if no one else is going to handle this blight on our reputable little town, then I'll saddle up my horse, ride in and shoot those bandits myself," and</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>3.) </b>A lack of fear of consequences. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As we've seen numerous times, even as a pro-coerced natalism terrorist is cuffed and taken into </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">police </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">custody (never shot because he's always already a white man), he shouts, "I did it for the babies!" or some similar illogical claim, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">uncertainty </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">of his </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">actual</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> motives</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">somehow </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">remains, manifesting in media coverage and widespread cultural sentiment. He is labeled mentally ill, an extremist, a loose cannon, an anomaly, a rare exception to the myth of the passive, silent supporters of nonconsensual hostism, when in actuality the passive, hidden supporters of forced hostism create and enforce the ideological conditions under which he is able to carry out these deadly deeds and meet these three criteria. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This self-styled small town sheriff cleaning up the bordello whores who must be forced into natalism to rectify their engagement in sexual intercourse </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">only has the three elements that distinguish him from the pack of passive pro-forced birthers thanks to the passive supporters themselves. The ones who donate to the innumerable </span><a href="http://www.abortionreason.com/antiabortion-organizations.php" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">pro-forced insemination organizations</a>;<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> write articles and books on the evil of anti-natalism; silently pray in self-righteous groups outside of clinics alongside bullies who shout at and stalk pro-uterine autonomists (and who are prone to turn into terrorists) without ever reprimanding or questioning their aggressive tactics; give pro-forced reproduction speeches at churches; distribute anti-uterine autonomy propaganda; and utter negative, inevitably slut-shaming words about a woman who removed herself from a toxic reproductive situation. These are the ones who build, maintain, and encourage the conditions for the terrorist </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to develop the three necessary elements that set him apart from the gentle lamb of God innocents. Meanwhile, many of them (sometimes not so) secretly praise him and consider him a lifesaving hero</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Scott Roeder is a hero to them, and I'm willing to bet something of value to you his commissary comes in as quickly and thickly as George Zimmerman's bail money and support fund did. Why fear consequences when there is a (sometimes not so) silent army of supporters out there ready to watch your horse gallop away to boldly battle a grave evil that could turn our hellbound world around and set it on the Right track? </span><br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What's at Stake</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyone who dares defy the unending threats are targets in constant danger. Our spouses, children, homes, vehicles, employment, personal information (as far as that exists in this Surveillance Age), and our very lives themselves are perpetually in imminent danger, and we have no way to predict when an attack might happen. As though </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the ever-present pro-forced birth ideology that permeates all aspects of our culture weren't an effective enough threat,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> t</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">he Internet has made the stalking and murder of interrupters of reproductive labor far easier than in days of yore, or even since the advent of social media. This causes providers to flee from state to state to protect their ability to help women obtain critical and safe medial termination of unwanted parasites, to guard their loved ones, to save their own lives. Clinicians are often bullied and intimidated into quitting jobs, making their lives and livelihoods precarious, as well as causing high turnover at clinics, one of Operation Rescue's stated goals since at least 2004, disrupting the availability of anti-germination services women need. Clinic escorts - volunteer or compensated - are frequently frightened out of helping comfort and protect patients after encountering one of the many threats. So while seemingly scripted and staged legislative battles over defunding major non-natalist and women's healthcare providers and other skirmishes over rules, buffer zones, age limits, waiting periods, and so on might seem important and interesting intellectually, abstractly, from afar, the Real Battle is in the trenches. And every Leftist should be involved in this trench warfare, presuming solidarity is still one of our core shared values, something I deeply hope we all deem necessary for any kind of movement toward communism. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Notes:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">* </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are likely other functions of abortion in our society, which seem worth examining another time. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">**</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">There are two probable exceptions to this claim: Animal rights activism and environmental activism. This is due to the nature of governmental infiltration and surveillance of those two aforementioned types of activist circles, a phenomena non-natalists have yet to systemically experience (that we know of). Small town police harassment and other such diffuse, annoying, largely uncoordinated efforts often impede anti-natalists' work, but any comparison between that and the intense scrutiny and demonization faced by animal rights and environmental activists, respectively would be inaccurate. Here are some links if you need proof: </span><a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/about/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/about/</a><br />
<a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/june/ecoterror_063008"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/june/ecoterror_063008</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/schuster.column/index.html"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/schuster.column/index.html</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">*** It should always already be assumed that this post (and blog in general) focuses on conditions in the US, the place with which I am most familiar and within which I am most aware of the dangers, biases, daily life, and other nuances that even as a citizen of the world, a traveler, and a reader, I cannot speak as accurately about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">**** A historically unprecedented surveillance of women, <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/06/the-green-scare-prism-and-rise-of.html" target="_blank">as revealed here</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">***** We are not presently addressing the common (liberal) cop-out of "exceptions for rape and incest" that exhibits an absence of critical thought with which were are sickeningly overfamiliar. BAMF should address that at some point. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">A somewhat of sad/ironic/meta sidenote on this post: </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">There is a two to three paragraph narrative-style section missing from the middle </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">that concretely describes exact circumstances and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">encountered </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">tangible threats, as well as the consequences and outcomes thereof. However, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">due to the topic of the post I removed it because it could possibly reveal "too much," thereby endangering myself and others, our livelihoods, our very lives. J. Wolfe said, "It is less strong in the sense that the personal narrative gave the piece greater rhetorical weight. The argument is, I think, not affected." That comforted me to an extent, and I hope he is correct. Perhaps this sidenote bolsters any "rhetorical weight" that may have been lost due to the omission.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-69296954252210344882015-09-26T09:20:00.000-07:002016-01-21T10:23:10.140-08:00Toward a New Abortion Rights Rhetorical Strategy and Lexicon <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is a vacuum of relevant leftist rhetoric about abortion. The left has no cohesive abortion stance. </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We call for more militant feminism, we hold safer spaces workshops, we volunteer at abortion clinics, we contact legislators, we wave</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">signs, we share our abortion stories, we do what we can in a climate in which <i>even the words that we use to describe abortion</i> are empty husks referring to a battle we are constantly chasing, never initiating, never advancing, never winning. When it comes to abortion rights and access, the left - and I mean you, comrades - is severely lacking a unified, cohesive, effective rhetorical strategy. Patriarchal state control over reproductive power and the degradation of women is fundamental to the accumulation of capital and necessary to the proliferation of neoliberalism (Federici, <i>Caliban</i>), yet we can't seem to agree on how to talk about, much less mobilize around, abortion rights. This is a problem that must be remedied.</span></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></h4>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Abortion" is an imprecise term that obscures various situations, numerous definitions, and individual stories. It's an abstract concept, alienated from the individual physical body and the social body. </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We use the term "abortion" to refer to an an elective* medical procedure that <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/psrh.46e0414.pdf">ends 21% of pregnancies in the U.S</a>. However, medically and practically, "abortion" refers to numerous ways of ending a pregnancy, intentionally or unintentionally. Most people are unaware of the term's vagueness. Here I will list a </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">few types of abortion to illustrate of the vast number of procedures covered by one vague term. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A "<a href="http://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/abortion/the-abortion-pill">medication abortion</a>" or "medical abortion" involves taking <a href="http://www.fwhc.org/abortion/medical-ab.htm">two pills</a> that </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">terminate a pregnancy that is less than 49 to 63 days along</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> with what can be compared to a heavy menstrual period. The first pill is taken at the clinic and the second at home (or wherever one may be). It is simple, safe, and relatively painless. Then there is suction curettage or, in common parlance, "</span><a href="http://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/medical_versus_surgical_abortion/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">surgical abortion</a>,<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">" which involves anesthesia and suction and is usually used to end pregnancies 6 to 14 weeks along. </span><a href="http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/health-info/induction-abortion/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Induction abortion</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> was applied </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/06/what_made_george_tiller_so_special.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">to later pregnancies</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> with great skill and compassion by the late </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/topics/dr_george_tiller" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Patron Saint of Abortion Rights</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Dr. George Tiller, so much so that </span><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/06/what_made_george_tiller_so_special.html" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">doctors from around the country sent their patients to him</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Then there is IDX or DNX, which was outlawed in the U.S. in 2003 thanks to Rick Santorum, George Bush II, and a bunch of other misogynists. Of course, since the procedure is occasionally necessary, </span><a href="http://www.societyfp.org/_documents/resources/InductionofFetalDemise.pdf" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">doctors must find loopholes</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> for those who can't afford to hop a plane to get the health care they need.** </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another type of abortion that can be elective or non-elective is miscarriage. Miscarriage, or "<a href="http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pregnancy-loss-miscarriage/basics/definition/con-20033827">spontaneous abortion</a>," often happens automatically before the twentieth week and usually before anyone is aware of the pregnancy. "Stillbirth" refers to this phenomenon after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Other times, unctions and herbal concoctions are used to cause miscarriages and stillbirths when abortion is culturally, financially, or otherwise inaccessible. Miscarriages and stillbirths can also happen when the pregnant person is brutalized or poisoned. There are many other politically-loaded terms that refer to nothing, to an idea, or to something that means something else (e.g. "<a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/04/17/laws-banning-abortion-procedure-substituting-political-decisions-medical-decisions/">partial birth abortion</a>," a phrase <a href="http://www.npr.org/2006/02/21/5168163/partial-birth-abortion-separating-fact-from-spin">invented by a man in the National Right to Life Committee in 1995</a>, "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/back-alley-abortions_n_5065301.html">back alley abortion</a>," and "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feticide">feticide</a>"). It is impractical to identify all possible applications of the term "abortion" in this article due to my limited knowledge, your presumed ability to perform research online, and self-imposed length limitations. And this is the point. The word "abortion" contains so many variances that its fullness becomes emptiness. The term "abortion" hides the reality of numerous, varied, and complex realities, obfuscating what is actually at stake: women's control over their own reproductive labor power and state enforcement of gender (and obviously always other) hierarchies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Abortion" and "Work": A Brief Interlude</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like capitalism uses the term "work" to cover up many different types of work (e.g. forced labor, indentured servitude, debt slavery, work done by undocumented immigrants, child labor, "consensual" work, sex work, etc.) to make the large-scale inequalities and abuses within "work" tolerable, acceptable, and ostensibly necessary, the broad, inaccurate term "abortion" obscures complicated realities surrounding the numerous methods and situations causing the end of pregnancies in order to strategically decontextualize "abortion," making it seem simple and abstract, an act to be accepted or rejected, judged right or wrong, in toto. The term "abortion" hides all of these nuances so that the utter necessity of state control over women's reproductive ability and the enforcement of gender hierarchies to the functioning of capitalism, as argued by Federici in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Caliban and the Witch</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, remains hidden and therefore unexamined. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />While pregnancy and birth always seem to be part of a story - a single working woman struggling to raise her child alone, the immature 20-something man who suddenly becomes a responsible father, the heart-warming adoption story of a heterosexual couple who could not procreate but ended up with a houseful of children, the accidental teenage pregnancy from prom night, the urbane lesbian couple who used a friend as a sperm donor, even the virgin who is impregnated by God himself and bears the child who will save us all from a fiery eternity - abortion is an isolated event meant to be forgotten and written out of history for all involved, personally and socially. <br /><br />Because the terms "abortion" and "work" have been so often drastically contorted and misused by everyone who uses either term, we now tacitly accept them at face value. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is a critical strategic error.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Abortion is wrong," "I have to go to work," "Abortion should be the woman's choice," "Work is boring," etc. It is not possible for any of these statements to be true because of the vagueness of the terms "abortion" and "work." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhu6OSAudfvJQs3871MZud8zPVaDx7vVugujVRPzsJkziERK8deqRLDG5L-2lufY6MmnrP-kafOmKVZMRxFy4wE-qlZE3AQwFtog07j70hFhMkWWA4rkT5qYYyM8xKPZZ59GJKeEvUw/s1600/BAMFLogo_black.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhu6OSAudfvJQs3871MZud8zPVaDx7vVugujVRPzsJkziERK8deqRLDG5L-2lufY6MmnrP-kafOmKVZMRxFy4wE-qlZE3AQwFtog07j70hFhMkWWA4rkT5qYYyM8xKPZZ59GJKeEvUw/s320/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The right is winning the battle for control over reproductive labor, women's bodies, and gender hierarchies with <a href="http://prochoice.org/education-and-advocacy/violence/violence-statistics-and-history/" target="_blank">domestic terrorism</a> and successful use of rhetoric.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We could all take notes from anti-abortion propagandists. These people are savants. From "partial birth abortion" (not a medical term) to "<a href="http://data.rhrealitycheck.org/law-topic/personhood/" target="_blank">personhood</a>" to "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/08/07/fetal_pain_is_a_lie_how_phony_science_took_over_the_abortion_debate/" target="_blank">fetal pain</a>," these wizards know how to persuade an audience. They have succeeded in manipulating search results to the point that anyone </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">seeking facts about abortion can become confused. They have polluted the main point of access for working class people seeking information about abortion - the Internet. The imprecise umbrella term "abortion" and its toothless cousin "pro-choice" are perfect accomplices in this muddled mess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Pro-choice" is an empty phrase that is rhetorically weak, outdated, and useless.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like "abortion," "pro-choice" means so many things to so many people that it ends up meaning nothing. Some believe it means "pro-abortion," others believe it means "whatever a pregnant person wants to do is none of my business." I suspect the mainstream understanding of the phrase is something akin to: "It's up to the woman if she wants to carry the pregnancy to term or have an abortion. It's none of my business or yours. Plus, the Supreme Court said so." As the most widely-recognized term that signifies acceptance of a person's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, "pro-choice" (like "abortion") is the term I will use throughout this article and elsewhere until the discourse around abortion rights and access are re-evaluated, reframed, and reinvigorated/reinvented.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The liberal stance on abortion is apologetic at best, which is a concession to anti-choicers' moralistic condemnation of abortion and <a href="http://prochoice.org/education-and-advocacy/violence/anti-abortion-extremists/" target="_blank">campaign of terror</a> on abortion providers and seekers.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We <i>expect</i> liberals to be reactionary. Planned Parenthood is defunded; <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/24/senate-blocks-legislation-to-defund-planned-parenthood.html" target="_blank">Obama will veto the bill</a>. The <a href="http://wakeupmississippi.org/" target="_blank">last clinic in a rural state</a> is attacked; donations are made. Hillary's view that abortion should be legal, safe, and rare is accepted. Some powerful, disgusting misogynist says yet another degrading thing about women, rape, and/or abortion, and memes are shared and scathing Facebook rants are written. Sexism is called out on Tumblr. It is not enough. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The current abortion lexicon is useless, outdated, weak, and reactionary. It is our duty to remedy this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Liberals are immeasurably more visible than leftists. They have an identifiably cohesive "pro-choice" stance. Therefore, theirs is the default "leftist" stance on abortion rights and access.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the U.S. thinks "the left" means liberals; </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we don't even enter the public consciousness when they think of "leftists." </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Therefore, for all practical purposes, the liberal stance </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">on abortion rights </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>is</i> the leftist stance. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">heir dominance in this narrative space has resulted in relentless usage of terms that have not been critically re-evaluated in decades, at least not in a mainstream or effective manner.*** </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This must be redressed, which is possible with a cohesive, united abortion rights rhetorical strategy and a revamped abortion lexicon. We cannot continue to hide behind the outdated, apologetic "pro-choice" stance. However, the failure of leftists to have clearly differentiated ourselves from liberals in the U.S. may be advantageous when reframing abortion rights discourse and introducing a new abortion lexicon because if a whole new set of terms were rolled out, it would follow that it would be by a wholly different kind of left. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Everyone supporting current reproductive power relations accepts the current </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">stagnation of abortion rights discourse. All feminists and leftists should be calling for free, safe abortion on demand, as well as working toward a new abortion rights </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">rhetorical strategy and</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> lexicon.</span></h3>
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By the important but necessarily limited criteria discussed in this post, European women may have had more control of contraception, reproduction, obstetrics, and abortion in the Middle Ages before the loss of the commons and consequent Church and state imposition and enforcement of gender and racial hierarchies than (U.S.) women do today (Federici, <i>Caliban</i>). </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because capitalism requires constant accumulation and new sources of labor power and because control of the reproduction of labor is a necessary element of capitalist accumulation and expansion (Federici, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Caliban</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">), failing to <i>actively challenge </i>the existing state restrictions on abortion is compliance with and approval of the entire capitalist system. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you support the destruction of gender hierarchies, access to free healthcare for all, dismantlement of the patriarchy, and, dare I say, abolishment of private property, you <i>must</i> support safe, free abortion on demand, no excuses, no shame, no harassment, no guilt, no barriers</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.**** </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I will think about and attempt to develop some accurate, meaningful, relevant terminology to </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">potentially</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> replace the outdated "pro-choice" "abortion" discourse in use today. I challenge you to do the same. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As always, feel free to point me toward something potentially productive. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All suggestions for terms, as well as references to other feminists, theorists, philosophers, and linguists working on a similar project</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, would be greatly appreciated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Notes:<br />• Federici, Silvia. <i>Caliban and the Witch.</i> <a href="https://libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf">https://libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">• Statistics cited in this article are accurate as of the posting date. I highly discourage readers from consulting Wikipedia.org for any abortion-related information unless you're going to edit the articles for accuracy; every entry on abortion I could find on that site are biased and sexist, and many are inaccurate. This is unsurprising but disappointing because readers know I often refer to Wikipedia for information on other topics.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">*I'm using the term "elective" due to the limitations of abortion rights rhetoric at present. Many women's "elective" procedures do not involve much of a choice. Socioeconomic circumstances and systemic misogyny often force women into situations and decisions. Low wages, sexual assault, must I continue? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">**Rich women will always be able to obtain any type of abortion since they are not restricted by the financial barriers of travel, time off work, babysitters, and so on. Access to free, safe abortion is a class issue, a racial issue, and an LGBTQ issue, which always bears repeating. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">***One can contrast this to the success of anti-choicers, who have had PR blitzes with unparalleled success. One can also contrast it to the success of the LGBTQ community's largely grassroots and surging online movement to reframe and address outdated issues surrounding the notion of sex vs. gender and many other issues. Both groups (lumping together here disparate groups that have had notable successes in reframing the discourse around dissimilar causes) have been adept at developing and implementing rhetorical strategies that have entered mainstream U.S. culture, and both groups are winning battles every day, as the "pro-choice" camp continues to stagnate and decay. This is not to suggest there is no important pro-abortion work occurring. However, I have not seen any concerted attempts at a large-scale assessment and overhaul of existing assumptions about and terminology used for abortion rights (from those who support access to "abortion"--I hear plenty coming from those against "abortion" access). Here I also would like to differentiate and applaud the success of transgender rights activists in creating an entirely new lexicon (e.g. CAFAB, CAMAB, etc.) that make thoughtful, nuanced differentiations and express very specific concerns. I encourage comments from my trans rights activist readers directing others to reliable resources so that they may educate themselves. For the purposes of this article I, as usual, use the term "woman/women" to refer to those who identify as such. This is not an attempt at erasure of those who do not identify as women but may still become pregnant, or women who need access to clinics for hormone replacement therapy. My post is an attempt to confront the current stale state of abortion rights discourse and to challenge the surrounding accepted rhetoric, without co-opting but while admiring the transgender rights activist community's successes in an often overlapping struggle. I hope I have achieved this goal as gracefully as intended.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">****</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Also, </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/16/abortion_as_a_social_good_author" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">abortion is a social good</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, which should perhaps be addressed in a future post and should further prompt leftists and feminists to act now in support of my pleas.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-29356267781843519582015-06-21T08:47:00.000-07:002016-01-21T10:24:08.082-08:00Bernie Sanders Sucks — Now Love Him<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><b>Another guest post by John Wolfe, the theoretician behind <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html" target="_blank">the post</a> that has been trending <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/postanarchism/" target="_blank">on Reddit</a> since it was first published, and reigns as the second-most read BAMF post (<a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/04/a-mf-response-to-silvia-federicis-wages.html">behind my response to Federici</a>) of all time. From the philosopher you love to love: </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Some Things We Know</b></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Leftists usually display three personality traits: a certain romanticism, a deep cynicism, and boundless anger. Every time major elections roll around, the last two are deployed against the first. We all know the reasons—that elections in a capitalist republic amount to choosing which member of the ruling class will represent and oppress us, and that the choices involved are largely illusory and a poor way to affect real change. Further, simply participating in this tiresome ritual of the ballot box lends legitimacy to the illusion. <br /><br />This cynicism has found a new target in <a href="https://berniesanders.com/" target="_blank">Bernie Sanders</a>. A number of articles devoted to informing leftists that Sanders is not one of us and his campaign promises no real change have been circulating lately. Given that the contemporary left has such a problem with overcoming sectarian bickering, it is almost a hopeful sign when the Ortho-Trots of the <a href="https://www.wsws.org/">World Socialist Web Site</a>, and the...whatever they are at <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/"><i>Jacobin</i></a>...can unite in denouncing the genial little socialist. <br /><br />Of course, they are correct. Sanders is from the right flank of the <a href="http://www.dsausa.org/">Democratic Socialists of America</a>. He is a card-carrying follower of the <a href="http://www.socialistinternational.org/">Socialist International</a>. Who would expect this man could be anything other than a U.S. version of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande">Hollande</a>? Anybody who has looked into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf2cCdgwgoM">his stance on Israel</a> knows that he is no anti-imperialist. The remarkable thing about the anti-Sanders commentary from the left is that people feel the need to so stridently point out the glaringly obvious. <br /><br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Elections as Desire-Forming Events</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yet, I still think we have good reason to stump for Sanders. This is the case even though he is little more than a pre-Clintonian Democrat. This is the case even though he will most certainly lose the primary. This is the case even though, if by some miracle he wins the general election, he would most likely continue his party-line Democrat ways. This is the case even though, if by some greater miracle he becomes a radical, the political establishment would prevent him from doing much good. This is because <i>elections should not be conceived as being about the candidates at all, but as about the people.</i> <br /><br />Presidential elections are marked events in the psychic life of the U.S. Elections of all sorts are frequent in the mess that is the U.S. political system. Local and state elections form the background noise of U.S. political life. However, no one cares much about these—and who can blame them? There is nothing in a school board or soil commissioner race that promises anything different. These elections are, for the most part, the equivalent of changing the oil in your car or flossing, and are neglected* in the same way. <br /><br />But when presidential elections roll around, there is a real shift in the consciousness of the U.S. population. People become politicized. They feel a sense of agency and ownership over the political process. They begin looking to the future and thinking in terms of what a desirable society might be. The political imagination gets fired up, and new possibilities are disclosed. In short, they feel the intoxication of democracy. <br /><br />This is, of course, largely an illusion. However nothing whets the appetite for the real thing like a good simulation. <br /><br />Candidates succeed in elections, insofar as they do, by generating a vision of a possible future society which appeals to the public. Barack Obama did an excellent job of this. His </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">half-African </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">identity betokened an end to the traditional power structure. His vaguely progressive talk of change allowed people to see the possibility of a future without endless wars and assaults on the poor. The election of Obama legitimated a certain set of expectations for the future. He did not deliver, but the expectations remain entrenched in the public consciousness to such a degree that Hillary Rodham Clinton now has to unconvincingly attempt to portray herself as a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Populism" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">populist</a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> who will uphold Obama's "legacy." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />But it is not the case that presidential campaigns merely appeal to existing voter preferences—presidential campaigns are rather <i>desire forming</i>. In this way they are much like advertising. No one wanted an iPhone until Steve Jobs unveiled them in a glitzy press conference; then half the population “discovered” that they had always wanted one. Likewise, as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_and_politics_of_Seattle">left-liberal as Seattle is</a>, very few people there would have wanted an <a href="http://www.socialistalternative.org/about/" target="_blank">openly</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant#Political_positions"> Leninist</a> on the city council until <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/council/sawant/">Kshama Sawant</a> mounted her effort and they discovered that they did. The visions presented by advertisers and politicians reveal new possibilities for the future which verify and reshape people's pre-existing desires. <br /><br />Presidential elections are pure theater, it is true. But one of the main functions of this theater is to set the boundaries of what people can legitimately expect of their future. Between Clinton and the various Republican contenders, the boundaries are currently set at life under the boot of <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/16/1007496/-UPDATED-What-is-Neoliberalism#">neoliberalism</a> with a patriarchal and religious flavor, or a return to the days of Clintonian neoliberalism. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Directive: Stump for Sanders, then for Stein</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is in this context that we can see the significance of a Sanders candidacy. He has the ability to portray a future outside the neoliberal consensus as both achievable and sensible, and he has the position and the funding to reach more people than a thousand Marxist bloggers. It is not much, but it pushes the political horizon further left. The anti-Sanders crowd seems to think that support for Sanders will transform genuine leftists into tepid reformists while there is very little, if any, actual danger of this. There is, however, a very real possibility that support for Sanders will cause the population as a whole to begin to accept some leftist goals as desirable and, more importantly, as achievable. More liberals will discover that they are actually socialists, a precondition to building any kind of mass movement in this country. <br /><br />So support Sanders. <br /><br />Then, when he loses the primary, stump for <a href="http://www.jill2016.com/">Jill Stein</a>. <br /><br />Then smash the bourgeois state. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>*BAMF fully supports flossing and does it regularly. Oral health affects total health, and we need our health optimized for the struggle. However, we do not disregard or discount the worth of those with poor dental or overall health.<br />**As always, this submission has been slightly altered stylistically by BAMF; this includes the addition of headers and links, among other slight changes. </i></span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-48779509512386285092015-02-22T16:24:00.000-08:002015-02-22T16:24:27.867-08:00The Theory and Gains of Excess, Expanded<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There has been a long pause in my posts; life has interfered with my writing, as it tends to with the less disciplined of scribes. I will spare you the details and leave it to your collective imagination. Shall I jump right in and address the topic that has been my foremost preoccupation for the past many months, the area in which I've been organizing feminists in the trenches, building community, and protecting women from self-righteous bullies? I'll cease waxing grandiose and explain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This post is a follow up to my theory of excess, at the request of exactly two readers (the masses!) who asked me to expound upon one passage in particular. The idea
has now ripened in my head long enough to make an attempt, and my nearly
year-long and seemingly never-ending, never-improving battle with religious extremists in my own neighborhood lends
me what might be considered some kind of authority on the matter.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now for the original quote and post in question. The original example, <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/08/abortion-barbie-neutralizing-radicals.html" target="_blank">Abortion Barbie's purportedly successful filibuster</a>, <span style="color: #cccccc;">was a socially acceptable procedural strategy that - although the media labeled it successful - in fact, ultimately failed. Only the excessive actions on that particular
evening arguably accomplished anything for women's rights and pro-choice activism. Using that example, I claim that gains are made on the margins of socially acceptable behavior, beyond the boundaries of hegemonic political activism, in a space I deem excessive, saying: </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Gains
are made at the point at which activism exceeds accepted
and acceptable standards of procedure. Excess destabilizes the
boundaries of patriarchy. Religious fundamentalists consistently attempt
to expand and fortify patriarchy by challenging its (constitutionally-based and judicially-enforced) boundaries.
Anti-capitalists must challenge those same boundaries
in order to destabilize them and undermine patriarchy. I am not
promoting constitutional lawsuits or an ALEC of the Left; I am
suggesting a distinctly Leftist activism of excess.</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Zone of Acceptable Practices</span></h3>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The fundamental idea of my theory of excess is that there is an <i>understood zone of acceptable practices</i> for any given political situation. This zone varies constantly. The boundaries of the zone differ with each issue, circumstance, and set of conditions. The end caps of the zone might not even be identifiable, and if they are identified in a specific instance, they will likely change when applied elsewhere. I suspect that attempts to identify the specific bookends of the acceptable zone of a particular issue is not essential to our understanding of the role of the zone and the theory of excess. The importance, for now, lies in the acknowledgement of the existence of an acceptable zone, not necessarily its exact borders.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One may wonder if there are no identifiable boundaries (or even if there are, they might not matter very much), how we are to determine which activities
fall outside, or exceed, the zone. This is a question each activist, each comrade, each feminist, each anticapitalist must ask herself about a given set of circumstances. Perhaps we can approach ways to identify and mark the boundaries in a future post. For now, let's agree that the location of the boundaries doesn't matter as much as recognizing their existence. Now let me suggest that we all attempt to exceed these amorphous boundaries at every opportunity. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">To illustrate the zone of acceptable practices, let's take anti-choice activism. On one end of the acceptable zone (or point on the spectrum, circle, or however you envision it) there might be group discussion and prayer, volunteerism at anti-choice non-profit organizations, and soliciting elected officials to support anti-choice legislation. On the other end of the acceptable zone lies disruptive street preaching in high-traffic areas, displaying enormous gory photos of questionable veracity and unidentified origin on college campuses, and verbally abusing patients and clinicians entering abortion clinics.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Most people occasionally, or even routinely, encounter activism from the acceptable zone as they attend church, pass a clinic, or cross a campus. The general public is aware of and tacitly accepts the range of tactics in the acceptable zone
(on "both sides" of a given issue, here abortion, which are fundamentally inevitably similar). They accept it as a matter of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to peaceably assemble, someone else's business, and so on. Occasionally, they might participate on one end of the zone to adhere to cultural norms or appease their social circle. For example, they might happen to be in church when a prayer for murdered fetuses is said, or they might "like" a relative's anti-choice post on Facebook. However, they are ultimately disinterested in entering the fray; this aloof collective awareness in some ways determines and shapes the acceptable zone. </span><br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Beyond the Zone, Into Excess </span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Actions taken within the acceptable zone may or may not be effective, may or may not make a difference, may or may not "count." <i>Roe v. Wade</i> falls within the zone and made abortion more accessible for many women; the Hyde Amendment is also within the zone and denies many women access to abortion. Praying and picketing abortion clinics falls within the zone and happens regularly, yet patients and staff come and go and abortions are performed unhindered; religious conversion also falls within the zone and has undoubtedly caused unwanted pregnancies to be carried to term. I have not yet devised a reliable method of determining whether actions taken within the zone are consistently successful or not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What happens outside of the zone, on the margins, beyond the boundaries, in the periphery, or however might describe a kind of uncharted no-man's-land of activity is vastly more interesting and has the potential to have far more impact. Sure, religious conversion may stop a medical student from becoming an abortion provider, but assassinating Dr. George Tiller gave many more potential providers pause. And while praying outside of an abortion clinic may bring the occasional patient to tears, mailing defamatory flyers to the neighbors of the OB/GYN and staff and informing their children's school teachers and administrators of the parents' profession causes high turnover, resulting in understaffed clinics, thereby lowering the number of potential abortion providers. Anti-choice activists have gained impressive ground by exceeding the limits of the acceptable zone and entering the land of excess. To protect women's right to safe, accessible, legal, affordable abortion care, the pro-choice movement must learn from these masters of excess and transcend the boundaries of the acceptable zone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Since the fundamental justification for anti-choice activism is the religious belief that life begins at conception paired with a moral opposition to murder, then their primary motivation would seem to be to convert everyone to their belief system and secondarily to prevent these perceived murders. However, in practice at the clinics, they make no effort to convert anyone. In fact, only two of the usual ten or so weekly protestors at my community clinic will provide the name of their church when asked. Their collective prime concerns seem to be 1.) creating a spectacle to draw the public's attention to the clinic, "outing" it, in a way; 2.) shouting guilt-invoking insults at and intimidating staff and patients as they walk from the parking lot to the door; 3.) gathering information about the doctor's and clinic owner's personal lives in order to harass them in other spaces. They spend little to no time converting anyone or preventing conception. Their actions do not match their motivations; they exceed them. This makes me wonder why our actions simply meet our motivations. A woman needs an abortion, so we make sure she gets from her car to the door, we make sure Roe v. Wade doesn't fall (although it does not guarantee much in these days due to its basis in privacy rights), we make sure Planned Parenthood can give her a discount. The pro-choice position at present is well within the acceptable zone and matches our presumable motivations - safe and accessible abortion care.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Changing Our Demand: Back to Basics </span></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After much thought, I now think access to safe, affordable abortion should is not a sufficient demand. Our primary demand must meet the extremity of their demand--that uninformed, selfish, myopic demand that no one have an abortion no matter what the circumstance. Our demand would preferably exceed their demand, as well as exceed our motivation. After weeks and weeks of reflection, I have tossed around several ideas, ranging from themed abortion trucks (like food trucks, but for abortion) to imposing strict restrictions in an attempt to criminalize childbirth, and time and again as I weigh potential pro-choice excess demands, a powerful and vivid memory returns to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">During Occupy, it was nearly impossible to find a camp free of sexism, even free of sexual harassment and assault, and took a minor miracle to bring feminist concerns to the group's collective agenda. Women's caucuses popped up around the world in response to this. Those who know me know my role in Occupy Women of Tampa (I have written of transphobia and misogyny in Occupy several times; perhaps I will repost some of those pieces on BAMF someday). Progressive stack was developed to create a space for women's and people of color's voices to be heard over the booming anger of the young, white, able-bodied, hetero men who showed up in Guy Fawkes masks ranting about the New World Order.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Nevermind all of the things that went so terribly wrong in our beautiful historical moment. Something that went right stays with me to this day. There was a march planned through downtown Tampa. Some media representatives were in attendance. Members of the International Socialist Organization were in town from Gainesville and elsewhere to show solidarity with the Tampa camp. Freedom Road Socialist Organization members were also present. Trots and tankies marching shoulder to shoulder. It was an impressive gathering of people. Chants ranged from "Chop from the Top," to "End the War, Tax the Rich, That's How You Fix the Deficit" to "Whose streets? Our streets!" and so on. Someone would start a chant and others would catch on, suddenly several hundred people were speaking in one voice, demanding the same thing: a glorious tableau that many of my readers have surely experienced at some point in their activism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The moment that continues to preoccupy me occurred about at the intersection of Ashley Drive and Kennedy (SR 60), when we turned onto Kennedy to cross the bridge over the Hillsborough River and approached University of Tampa. I started chanting "Free abortion on demand. Can we do it? Yes, we can!" And someone from ISO with a megaphone near me started chanting it. And then FRSO started chanting it. And then the liberals started chanting it. And then the libertarians, whose positions on abortion were generally uninformed at best and outright anti-choice at worst, began chanting it. It was a simple, classic, timeless demand. And everything was perfect at its core. We chanted it a few blocks, then faded into an anti-war chant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Every time I attempt to formulate an excessive pro-choice position, my mind returns to that elegant and concise demand. It summarizes my particular brand of pro-choice activism. And I have, for now, decided that this demand is my new focus. Free abortion on demand. No questions. No bills. No picketers. No waiting. No shame. No danger. No guilt.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The
political and cultural climate surrounding abortion (in the US) at present is so
stymied in disingenuous rhetoric, so clouded by unspoken religious
assumptions, so tainted by outdated gender roles, so stagnant with
excuses, so muddied with partisanship, that it is easy to exceed the acceptable zone. Even
suggesting that a woman have access to 24-hour free abortion is excessive. I am deeply hopeful that someday it
will seem silly to consider free abortion on demand excessive, for it
will be commonplace. Until then, let us rally.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In
the spirit of this newfound clarity, I urge us to spend less time
sign-waving, less time tracking anti-choice bullies, less time promoting toothless legislation, less time in meetings about "health care" that don't
involve realistic, honest discussions about abortion, less time forming
superior rhetorical strategies, less time signing petitions, less time
campaigning and lobbying, less time making excuses and concessions
("Obviously, in the case of rape and incest abortion is okay, but..."
and "I would never have one, but..."). Let's spend our time collecting
money for those who need abortions. Let's present fiery, heartfelt
speeches to potential medical schools about the desperate need for
numerous quality abortion providers. Let's organize internships at
clinics. Let's donate to free abortion funds. Let's approach OB/GYNs and ask them to become abortion providers. Let's donate to clinics to
pay for an anonymous patient's abortion. Let's approach abortion doctors and ask them to perform free abortions. Let's reach out to communities
and ask women how we can help them get free abortions on demand. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Embrace the chant, fully understand it and all of its implications,
then take action however and as often as you can. Free abortion on demand. Can we do it?
Yes, we can. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-50467273944422825962013-12-31T06:37:00.002-08:002013-12-31T06:38:41.774-08:00Scattered Observations on Orange Is the New Black<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Surveillance of Women</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The most important revelation in my blog so far has been the <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/06/the-green-scare-prism-and-rise-of.html">observation that the rise of the surveillance state, as embodied by the Prism program, has resulted in the first comprehensive, constant monitoring of women</a><i> </i>in the history of the world.<i> </i>The Netflix original series, <i>Orange Is the New Black</i>,<i> </i>addresses this new surveillance of women by examining it within the closed world of prison life, thereby revealing to a wide audience some troubling aspects of surveillance state capitalist patriarchy. </span><br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Persecution of Dissidents</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The
inmates in <i>OITNB</i> who challenge the state quickly find themselves in either the
psych ward or solitary confinement (i.e. "the SHU"), sometimes never
reentering the general population, other times returning psychologically decimated. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">No justification
is typically necessary and only because Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) comes from a wealthy family with access to a public forum does she avoid indefinite detention under inhumane
conditions.</span></span> This is a nod to
the growing presence of the surveillance state persecution of dissidents, such as Glenn Greenwald, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange,* as well as the legislation and prosecutions stemming from the <a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/green-scare/">Green Scare</a>.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> The extended <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow">detention in a London airport</a> of Greenwald's partner, Chelsea Manning's public tarring and
feathering, Julian Assange's extended exile in the Ecuadorian embassy, and the prosecution of animal rights and environmental activists as terrorists are all useful examples of the persecution of dissidents.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Token Women</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The state, embodied by men, rules the world. In <i>OITNB</i> the female inmates are constantly </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">monitored by men and a few token women. T</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">he women in power within the prison system do not automatically side with the powerless inmates.<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> Natalie Figueroa (Alysia Reiner), the warden's direct subordinate, is only interested in personal gain, as depicted in episode 12 when a journalist inquires about budgetary discrepancies as the camera zooms in on her new Mercedes. The continual failure of t</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">oken women in power to automatically improve the lot of working class women should serve as a reminder that other women are not
automatically feminists or allies in class struggle, something to keep in mind as the
Hillary worship begins in a couple of weeks.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Although "Red" Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew) appears to be a powerful woman** siding with the powerless by protecting the inmates from narcotic use, her rule against drugs allows the men to control the flow of drugs, causing addicts to deal with power hungry, inevitably underpaid and overworked guards. It also harms vulnerable transwoman, Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox), who experiences a
stoppage of </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">hormones </span>through legitimate channels due to alleged budget cuts. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Austerity always harms the most vulnerable populations first in surveillance state capitalist patriarchy. </span></span>Red forbids the smuggling in of estrogen for Sophia--thereby forcing her to desperate measures--under a sweeping War on Drugs. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>And we all know how effective those are, especially for already</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span>marginalized folks.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Susan Fischer
(Lauren Lapkus) is a female guard ostensibly on the side of the women inmates, perceiving them as similar to herself. She allows them to sneak out food and socialize
during work hours. She tells Piper she perceives them as the same and reopens the running track. However, we will see her "power" decline and her position become precarious since Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) learned she has a boyfriend and isn't interested in him. Inevitably, when women fall out of favor with men, their lives become hellish. </span><br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sexual Violence</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Women live under constant threat of sexual violence. </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The
most poignant example of the constant threat of rape in <i>OITNB</i> is in episode 8
when George Mendez (Pablo Schreiber) </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">threatens to rape </span>Lorna Morello (Yael Stone) unless she gives him information about Red's importing methods. The threat is
not an explicit one, but everyone knows what he's implying. His next step won't be any fun, <i>for her</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In an omnipotent, omniscient surveillance state, </span>p</span>owerless women use rape as a tool of power, of manipulation, in order to control their own destinies and protect their loved ones. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In episode
7, Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) threatens to rape "Pennsatucky" Doggett (Taryn Manning) if she won't leave Piper alone and kisses her against her will a couple of episodes later. </span>Daya
attempts to frame Mendez for rape to protect the baby she wants to have and her
love interest, who would otherwise be blamed for the pregnancy and
incarcerated as a sex offender due to the fact that inmates cannot legally give
consent. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Compulsory Heterosexuality</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The structure of sexual relations between guards and inmates mirrors a <a href="http://www.feminish.com/wp-content/.../Intercourse-Andrea-Dworkin-pdf.pdf%E2%80%8E">Dworkinian critique of heterosexual intercourse under patriarchy as always coerced due to the imbalance of power between the sexes</a>. This critique reflects a radical feminist perception of the inherent subordinate status of women and the corresponding impossibility of consent in heterosexual relations. Within the world of <i>OITNB</i>, inmates cannot legally give consent. Within capitalist patriarchy, says Dworkin and implies <i>OITNB</i>, women cannot genuinely give consent; they are always a lower class, occupying a subordinate position, unable to make free choices.</span><br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>OITNB</i> and the Evolution of TV</span></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>OITNB</i> displays a structural as well as </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">thematic</span></span></span></span></span></span> rejection of consumerism. </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It</span></span> is part of a recent tide of well-written, often beautifully produced shows structured to omit advertisements, thereby changing the narrative structure--cadence, rhythm--of TV, which </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">has historically been designed around strategically-placed commercial breaks</span></span>. This new wave </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">recognizes the shift toward streaming-based programs and ad omission through DVR devices, and</span></span> challenges the ideological status of TV as a tool of consumerism. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>OITNB</i>'s </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">accepts
existing narrative conventions while expanding and pushing the
boundaries of structure and genre, including casting. The show features
the <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/thomaspagemcbee/how-actress-laverne-cox-broke-the-trans-glass-ceiling">first trans* person with a leading role</a>. </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In <i>Theory of the Film</i>, Bela Balazs, </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">writing about the development of film (and later sound in film),</span></span>
posited that when a new genre is emerging, for it to revolutionize art,
for Art History to be made, existing forms are torn asunder</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">. </span></span>In</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <i>OITNB</i> is the evolution and perhaps the death knell of traditional television. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Part of <i>OITNB</i>'s rejection of ads is inherent in its streaming-only format, which I predict we will see much more of in the near future, and part is in its subversion of the traditional role of TV as modeling consumerism, not only </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> in commercials </span></span>between programming segments, but also within itself in the form of product placement, the strategic appearance of products to influence viewers to desire and purchase them. The characters in <i>OITNB</i> wear only the barest makeup, a bit of eyeliner here, a dab of smuggled lipstick there; there is no designer clothing, not much clothing at all beyond jumpsuits; no trendsetting purses; no Spanx; and feminine pads serve as shoes. There is no place for selling in the narrative of <i>OITNB</i>. This is a drastic deviation from traditional TV. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is worth noting when a genre begins to shift and evolve, especially one as widely consumed as TV. </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Marxists should always be prepared to observe new developments and changes to the superstructure not only because they reflect shifts in the base, but also because a keen understanding of cultural phenomena allows us to more effectively </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> communicate with fellow and potential anticapitalists and </span></span></span></span>adapt our organizing strategies. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: xx-small;">*This is not an uncritical endorsement of Assange, who may or may not be a rapist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: xx-small;">**</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> I would even challenge the assertion that Red was ever in an actual
position of power. Within the inmate population, she indeed held some
influence due to her position as head chef and her
ability to withhold food and control the drug supply. However, this
power was granted only at the whim of the guards and
administrators. As soon as she angers them, she is quickly
replaced and finds herself being starved out by the new head chef, further depicting that women's lives become wretched once they displease men/the state</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-64073643571180860582013-08-14T12:03:00.001-07:002013-08-14T12:51:43.432-07:00Abortion Barbie, Neutralizing Radicals, and the Gains of Excess <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Typically, I don't pay much attention to the remarks and activities of <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/06/2422981/wendy-davis-abortion-barbie/">partisan hacks</a>, but the <a href="https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/364782016081833985">Abortion Barbie kerfuffle</a> caught my interest. When Erick Erickson referred to Wendy Davis as "Abortion Barbie" after her
11-hour filibuster to prevent the Texas legislature from passing restrictions that would shut down
most abortion clinics in the state, he insinuated that her work for reproductive rights is her primary defining
trait, that beyond that particular
fight she fades into anonymity with the rest of the blonde bimbos of the world. But this jab holds more significance than the usual catty partisan insult. In Erickson's
comment, I perceive an accurate identification of the marginalized status of
women in US politics, the commodified status of women under capital, the
objectified status of women under patriarchy, and the charade of the US partisan duopoly. It is the latter on which I will primarily focus in this post.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Abortion Barbie</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On the surface, Davis's filibuster appeared to pose resistance to the Texas legislature's attempts to restrict women's access to safe and affordable abortion, but her efforts never could have been successful. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Abortion
Barbie was a plaything to capital, which already knew that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Davis could not halt passage of the legislation. </span></span>The filibuster
was temporary, a plastic
gesture against a system that cannot be stopped by its own
processes and procedures. A system that was founded and continues to rely on the
exploitation of women's reproductive systems* does not have a self-destruct button. Although <a href="http://austin.culturemap.com/news/life/wendy-davis-fillibuster-abortion-bill-killed/">thousands of protestors</a> caused <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/175136/it-was-wall-sound-inside-peoples-filibuster-texas#">a ruckus for a while</a>, they could not sustain their protest long enough to prevent the bill's passage.** After all, even paid organizers must return to the office at some point. And once everyone left, Governor Rick Perry simply <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/26/2223441/perry-calls-second-special-session/">reconvened the legislature in a special session</a> to pass the bill. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So why is the most visible resistance to the encroachment upon women's
rights unsustainable? We make our stand, then <a href="http://jezebel.com/5166340/why-do-we-destroy-our-barbie-dolls">someone pops off our head</a>, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/05/mutilating-barbie-dolls-business_harm.html?feed=rss_news">melts us</a>,<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030602038.html"> makes us make out with Skeletor</a>. Are we</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Abortion Barbie? </span><br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Neutralizing Potential Radicals</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Capital</span> conveniently seized upon Davis's highly-publicized opposition in order to propagate the Myth of Effective Liberal Resistance, which </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">prevents the radicalization of feminists. The media</span> indicated that the bill was successfully defeated. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Although they differed in tone, liberal and conservative media alike depicted the filibuster as effective pro-choice activism. </span>If<b> </b>outlets
covered the second special session in which the bill was easily passed,
the coverage certainly didn't garner the type of attention as the initial
"successful filibuster" story. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">An event that had the potential to radicalize feminists was
neutralized by media coverage that suggested feminists and their magnanimous liberal lady leader had won the fight, implying that there is sufficient resistance to the encroachment upon women's rights. If liberal feminists have it under control, why risk getting involved? If Davis and
thousands in Texas were successful, we don't have to build grassroots
resistance to prevent further attacks on women or <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/175644/alec-convention-met-protests-chicago#axzz2bTUjuxML">preempt ALEC-based legislation</a>. Media portrayals gave the false impression that someone else is handling the problem,
that there is sufficient opposition to anti-woman legislation, that there is
no dire need to get involved because everything is Under Control.</span><br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Gains of Excess</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gains
are made at the point at which activism exceeds accepted
and acceptable standards of procedure. Excess destabilizes the
boundaries of patriarchy. Religious fundamentalists consistently attempt
to expand and fortify patriarchy by</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> challenging its (constitutionally-based and judicially-enforced) boundaries</span></span>. Anti-capitalists must challenge those same boundaries
in order to destabilize them and undermine patriarchy. I am not promoting constitutional lawsuits or an ALEC of the Left; I am suggesting a distinctly Leftist activism of excess.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The most effective tactics of the night were the aggressive ones that exceeded
acceptable limits of Senate decorum: they were radical. When Davis's
rule-abiding filibuster
faltered, the <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2013/06/28/how-activists-yelled-abortion-bill-death/">establishment feminists unleashed the previously-restrained fringe</a>, including</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> the <a href="http://www.internationalsocialist.org/">ISO</a> and Occupy</span>, resulting in the People's Filibuster and allowing liberal feminists to join in the fray <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/175136/it-was-wall-sound-inside-peoples-filibuster-texas#ixzz2YaodIfbJ">without risking their seats in the Senate gallery</a>. Views differ about who played the dirtiest, <a href="http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2013/jun/28/texas-senate-blowup-threatens-lieutenant-governors/?print=1">the unwashed masses of rowdy protestors</a> or <a href="http://gawker.com/internet-catches-texas-senate-altering-timestamp-on-abo-584135789">sneaky Republican legislators</a>. In either case, the bill was not passed that night, but was passed shortly thereafter with little hassle for the self-righteous Christians in charge, as </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/texas-democrats-wendy-davis-filibuster_n_3537395.html">Democrats registered voters outside</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As they historically do, liberals claimed credit for an </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">anti-capitalist</span> victory while missing an opportunity for sustained resistance. The radicals had served their purpose--to sustain the Myth of </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Effective Liberal Resistance--and were sent on their way. The Democrats maintained their base without moving to the Left, as usual. The two-party duopoly and accompanying fallacy that Democrats pose effective resistance to patriarchy and capitalism was perpetuated. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While Davis
champions reproductive rights, she also undoubtedly
supports the broader Democratic platform--including drone strikes,
imperialist expansion, and small business fetishization--which harms women
around the world. Until the feminism Davis symbolizes consistently includes a radicalism that defends
all
women from the poisonous grip of capitalist patriarchy, it is
doomed to be Abortion Barbie: a stilted performance of
something important, a dead-eyed ideology that preserves the
anti-woman agenda that it ostensibly opposes. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I used to be convinced that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">being a pro-choice liberal </span> was better </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">than being an anti-choice <i>anything</i></span> for the overall destabilization of capital and patriarchy.
Now I recognize that plastic stances I once thought teetered on the
edge of frivolity as Barbie teeters on her impossibly-pointed toes diminish the radical politics necessary to
overthrow capitalist patriarchy. It's not better to be </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Abortion Barbie than a </span>tin soldier: one must become the toymaker. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If we fight legislative battles by the rules of the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">establishment</span> and only become <i>temporarily</i> radicalized once all other options are exhausted, then we <i>are</i> Abortion Barbie. In order to pose sustained resistance to patriarchal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlash:_The_Undeclared_War_Against_American_Women">backlash</a> against reproductive rights, our activism must be excessive. We must be radical at all times, in any given circumstance, and actively refuse to be lulled into a sense of passivity by media messages that a feisty Abortion Barbie is somewhere defending our right to safe, affordable abortion.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Especially women of color. Additionally, it is built on the exploitation of female non-human animals' reproductive systems. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span>**</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> The crowd gathered around the filibuster itself, in real time, was positive. There is value in the mobilization of thousands of
activists: to raise awareness of women's rights, to foster class unity, to practice mass organizing, to empower folks, to
recruit comrades to fight against capital. These on-the-ground benefits
aside, remote impact was negative. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I deeply appreciate everyone </span></span>who
hit the streets. My
point is the futility of two-party politics in the US today,
and the damage these politics do to radical
organizing.</span></span></span></span> </span></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-64149887066952911102013-08-06T05:48:00.003-07:002013-08-06T11:20:20.806-07:00How to Disappoint Kathi Weeks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flibcom.org%2Ffiles%2Fthe-problem-with-work_-feminism-marxism-kathi-weeks.pdf&ei=S-cAUpL-OKXiyAGMm4C4Cg&usg=AFQjCNHVqcnXY6KhbtFE-dlnRcxWtkzJsw&sig2=RSsyxxZpuvDuPRGLoqTa2A&bvm=bv.50310824,d.aWc">Kathi Weeks's <i>The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries</i></a> (2011)<i> </i>is a well-written, insightful text that caused me to critically examine
my position on productivity and the Protestant (and laborist) work ethic; it provoked
me--just as Weeks intends--into reflecting on and questioning my own post-capitalism vision. Never had it occurred to me that there would come a day after the fall of capitalism during which we could simply <i>not work</i>. Don't mistake me: I understand the refusal of work as a political
strategy under capital to display the power of the working class,* but I
had always conceived these displays as having the end goal of less or
better work, not <i>no work</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Weeks
accurately highlights that Marxian
post-capitalism is heavy on pull-your-own weight rhetoric, even though I
suspect one would be substantially less alienated from that
weight under socialism than one is under capitalism. Although I would
likely gain great personal satisfaction from a full rejection of the Protestant
work ethic, I'm not prepared to entirely disavow the
necessity of work, as a
practice or as a concept. The concept of "work" allows us to appeal to a
wide swath of the population, a swath that takes great pride in its
work ethic, whether as the long-suffering earthly worker awaiting that
heavenly reward or as the blue collar laborer who pulled him/herself up
by the bootstraps. In other words, organizing around the axiom of "work"
allows a wide sampling of individuals to relate to our struggle for
control of the means of production, for only when we control those can
we begin to truly allocate work equitably, resulting in far less and
better work for all.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The value of Weeks's text as an effective challenge to one's worldview aside, upon finishing it, I had the distinct feeling that
someone with an illogical vested interest in me had been deeply
disappointed: I felt as though I had just
visited my father. Weeks chastises the reader for failing to imagine a
satisfactory post-work, post-capitalism future. When her admonishments are not quite
adequate, she invokes Jameson to further chide us (212). Weeks
reminds us--as the reader reaches an unprecedented level of self-loathing for our
utter failure to envision a proper post-capitalism utopia--that
it is much more important <i>that</i> we imagine than <i>what</i> we imagine (207).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Despite her condescending tone, Weeks's point is well taken: Marxists have not been imaginative enough,
and we should spend more time thinking about the
potential of a post-work world, not limiting ourselves to imagining one that involves different, better or less work. After all, I frequently daydream about winning the
lottery, and the starting point for those musings is always quitting my
job. Admittedly, my post-work fantasy isn't very
exciting: beach house on the West Coast, condo in Caracas, apartment in Paris, travel to Laos with <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/07/on-left-unity.html">the Wolfe</a>, buying off a bunch of folks' student debt via <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Rolling Jubilee</a>. Yawn.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Kathi Weeks is right: my revolution and my socialism involve work. But not some uncritical, blindly accepted glorification of work, but necessary drudgery based on material conditions. Who will do the cleaning? <a href="http://www.irobot.com/us/">Robots</a> can only do so much. Maybe we should <a href="http://www.peterfrase.com/2012/05/new-works-and-anti-works/">all become slobs</a> and shake off the shackles of <a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/03/housework-in-utopia/">bourgeois notions of cleanliness</a>. After all, we undeniably clean and groom more than is necessary for health and hygiene, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/25/506017/women-still-doing-housework-and-working/">some of us</a>
shouldering more of the burden than others. It is interesting to watch
even the brightest men make arguments about creased slacks and ironed
collars, but can I speak for everyone I know? <i>Of course</i> we won't be ironing under socialism. But the tubs will still need scrubbing. Sure, if someone devises a better way to take out the trash, re-shelve the books, unload the dishwasher, de-ice the streets, and weed the garden, I'll take it. In the meantime, there is much work to be done to overthrow capitalism, as well as to install a society based on full equality. Let's get busy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Which on BAMF always includes domestic laborers</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-25108520694455231472013-07-19T04:29:00.002-07:002016-01-21T10:24:37.108-08:00On Left Unity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A guest post by John Wolfe. </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the most fraught
topics on the Marxist left is the ideal of “left unity.” We have
all heard it called for more than once, and most hope for it in some
form or other. However, it again and again fails to materialize. The
factionalism of the left remains fodder for bitter jokes within and
amusement from without. Further, we all know whose fault it is—those
other people. “Sectarian,” like “hipster,” is a label that is
never self-applied. This problem is so endemic it is worth analyzing
in some detail, and here I will take a feeble stab at beginning such
an analysis.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once, in the not-so-distant
past, there was a country known as the USSR heading up a block
of nations experimenting with socialism in one form or another.
Sometimes, as with much of what went on in the Twentieth Century, it
is hard to believe that this actually happened, that a worker's
revolution ushered in a situation where half the world was busily
engaged in trying to build an alternative to capitalism. These
experiments had mixed results to be sure, but at least they were
happening, and happening on a grand scale. </span><br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the USSR
existed, one's choice of party was truly significant. To join an
official communist party was to literally ally oneself with Moscow
and follow their dictates. It was to take a definite side in a war
that was far from cold. Even as Eurocommunism and like developments
made this relationship slightly more distant, the connection with
Moscow remained essential. To join a Trotskyist party, on the other
hand, was to take a stand against the USSR, to join a conspiracy
to either undermine or radically transform (depending on how one
looks at it) the state socialist counties. To join one of the
“Marxist-Leninist” parties that blossomed in the US In the
Seventies was to side with neither Moscow nor its would-be saviors,
but rather to side with a China that was still recognizably
anti-capitalist.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In <i><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unc.edu%2Fdepts%2Feurope%2Fpedagogy%2Fmeta%2Fmod5%2FRepublicofSilence.pdf&ei=IJDmUZjbCPHG4AOag4CYCg&usg=AFQjCNGpy_Xo2W_WIc7n8aWU4zwijMUGww&sig2=UnE7FSgZ0-_vwFQ6uOxxGw&bvm=bv.49405654,d.dmg">Republic of Silence</a> </i>Sartre famously states that “We were never more free
than under the German occupation.” This superficially odd statement
simply indicates that substantial freedom requires that one's choices
be recognized as meaningful, that they have real consequences. Under
Nazi occupation the choice to support the resistance or become a
collaborator carried with it life or death consequences for oneself,
one's family, and one's associates. This is the ultimate validation
of political activity.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before 1991, a leftist's
choice of party had such significance. It represented a substantive
commitment to one or another international movement and, in many
times and places, carried with it a real risk of imprisonment, death,
loss of employment, or any number of bad consequences. Things were
very real indeed.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The situation now, twenty
some years after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, is unrecognizable
by comparison. Despite the recent popular insurrections throughout
Europe, despite the continued existence of many, largely stalled,
guerrilla movements, and despite even the stunningly vibrant and
heartening activities of the Bolivarians, a harsh neoliberal
capitalism reigns throughout the world. The power of labor is in
retreat, and what victories we win are largely Pyrrhic. In this
situation, our activities and theoretical positions have been robbed
of consequences and significance. These days, a communist can't even
get arrested.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In this depressing
situation, in developed nations like the US, leftism becomes more
of a lifestyle than anything else. It is a posture one adopts, of
little more meaning than becoming a goth, listening to dubstep, or
shopping at Whole Foods. Despite one's best intentions, choosing a
side in sectarian debate becomes little more than a way of carving
out a personal identity. For, let's face it, whatever your opinion on
the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy">NEP</a>, the particular historical situation that gave rise to it is
not going to repeat itself, and nothing remotely like that situation
will arise, until we are well into a revolutionary process. Until
then, all activists on the Marxist left are engaged in nearly
identical objectively reformist issue advocacy and labor organization
efforts.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At this point, sectarian “enemies” come to the rescue. They keep the left alive
by convincing its members that their choices are significant. Without
that vocal sectarian opponent attacking everything you hold dear, you
would have to face the harsh fact that no one gives a damn what you
think of the Kronstadt rebellion, and frankly that it does not
matter. However, deep down, we need that—and this is the problem.
Just as Marcuse observed that modern society sustains itself by
creating false needs, I would maintain the left sustains itself by
creating false disputes. We need a way forward that minimizes this. I
hope we can find this way, but all I have seen so far indicates that
that this hope has little foundation.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sectarian disputes then are
<i>both</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a pernicious phenomenon self-cannabalizing the left and stunting its effectiveness
and a vital means by which the left sustains itself and avoids
absorption into liberalism. We cannot hope to overcome petty
squabbling until such time as we begin to score real victories. Until
then, the best solution is to realize that there is little harm in
embracing a diversity of tactics, gritting our teeth, and enduring the
unstable mutually-sustaining antagonism we now have.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-11688809954861595462013-07-05T06:39:00.000-07:002013-08-14T11:32:03.930-07:00LGBT Pride, Gay Marriage, and the Reproduction of the Center<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.stpetepride.com/">Pride</a> is a magical time of year when progressive organizations unite to celebrate diversity and demand full equality for our LGBT brothers and sisters. I intended to make this post a carefree field report about the parade and festival including colorful pictures of topless gay guys and elegant drag queens, with a dash of commentary on the revolutionary potential of the LGBT community. I would have playfully mocked my <a href="http://www.socialistalternative.org/about/">Trotskyist comrades</a> for hawking newspapers and my <a href="http://www.unitewomen.org/">liberal feminist friends</a> for their petitions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This year
promised to be an especially jubilant event due to the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/06/26/195863800/read-the-rulings-inside-the-same-sex-marriage-decisions">Supreme Court's rulings</a> last week declaring <a href="http://www.glaad.org/marriage/doma#whatisdoma">DOMA</a> unconstitutional and destabilizing <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/31064/prop-8-definition">California's Proposition 8</a>. Finally,
gays and lesbians can get married! At least, the federal government
can't stop them, although <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_constitutional_amendments_banning_same-sex_unions_by_type#Amendments_that_ban_same-sex_marriage.2C_civil_unions.2C_and_other_contracts">Michigan and Virginia might try</a>. But, alas, that was not meant to be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As <a href="http://www.mercyforanimals.org/">Mercy for Animals</a> was summoned by event staff to join the parade, a torrential downpour ensued. Anyone who has spent substantial time <a href="http://www.gaiasguardians.info/rainfall-patterns-trends-in-florida/">in Florida</a> is aware that downpours of this kind typically last 10-20 minutes, then the relentless sun reclaims his throne and a rainbow or two emerges. This was not the case last Saturday. The gutters overflowed with glitter, feathers, and false eyelashes. Disgruntled drag queens must have been pouting into consolatory cocktails in bars all <a href="http://www.stpetepride.com/pride-carnavale/saturday/#P">down Central Avenue</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even once we had distributed 2,000 <a href="http://www.peta.org/action/activism-guide/leafleting.aspx">anti-cruelty leaflets</a> over the course of two hours while wading through ankle-deep puddles, even once <a href="http://www.badassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html">the Wolfe</a> and I were downtown at a <a href="http://www.meze119.com/">vegetarian bistro</a>, even once we relocated to the <a href="http://www.cafealma.com/">best build-your-own-Bloody-Mary bar</a> in the Bay Area, even <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/bar-milo-st-petersburg">three bars into our hopping</a>, the rain persisted. No pictures were taken; my camera (i.e. phone) spent the day in various more prepared folks' backpacks. So much for a lighthearted rundown of a glorious celebration of diversity. Back to standard ranting...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now for clarification. For those who don't know me personally, my activism functions on the hypothesis that progressive social advancements help make capitalism more tolerable until we overthrow it. I have fought for marriage equality alongside activists of all stripes despite suspicions that marriage is a <a href="http://gatheringforces.org/2010/01/08/queer-liberation-is-class-struggle/">fundamentally bourgeois institution</a> that fortifies capitalist patriarchy. My instinct is to promote the abolition of marriage due to its misogynistic history and failure to <a href="http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/beyond-marriage-democracy-equality-and-kinship-for-a-new-century/">subvert </a><a href="http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/beyond-marriage-democracy-equality-and-kinship-for-a-new-century/">normative bourgeois </a><a href="http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/beyond-marriage-democracy-equality-and-kinship-for-a-new-century/">family structures</a> in favor of something similar to <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/whats-right-utah?page=0,1#axzz2XnFx7rLD">Utah's Common Ground Initiative</a>, which is far more inclusive of radical types of kinship bonds, communities, and non-conjugal relationships. However, none of this has deterred me from participating in activism to support others who perceive marriage equality as <i>the</i> struggle of our time. Mainstream LGBT organizations' focus on marriage as a fundamental human right has paid off with the recent SCOTUS rulings, so who am I to begrudge so many individuals a legitimate reason to celebrate?* All power to those fighting for equality: you know how to reach me to participate in direct action and demonstrations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">With that said, inclusion of LGBT couples in the institution of marriage does not weaken but strengthens it. Legalization of gay marriage at the federal level preserves <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/mlg/courses/definitions/hegemony.html">cultural hegemony</a> by strategically including an element that is widely <i>perceived</i> as radical. This strategic inclusion of marginal elements occurs throughout the superstructure, from token <a href="http://www.library.illinois.edu/doc/researchtools/guides/subject/womengov.html">women in powerful government positions</a> to the <a href="http://www.pcasacas.org/SiPC/32.2/">one black friend</a> in sitcoms.** By periodically including ostensibly heterogeneous elements in the socially-accepted norm, the norm is stabilized. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In "Explanation and Culture: Marginalia," (<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/6784818/Spivak-Gayatri-In-Other-Worlds-Essays-in-Cultural-Politics-Libreremo"><i>In Other Worlds</i></a>,*** 1987)--a playful and incisive essay--<a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/560592/Gayatri-Spivak">Gayatri Spivak</a>, drawing on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Rich">Adrienne Rich</a>, argues that to maintain its dominance the (white, bourgeois, heterosexual, male) center
strategically includes (of color, working class, LGBT,
female) marginalized cultural elements, stating "The putative
center welcomes selective inhabitants of the margin in order better to
exclude the margin" (145). She uses her own participation in an academic conference and her position in academia as examples. She is a woman of Indian descent, while her peers were white Anglo-Saxon men, the traditional demography of the academy. She challenges their "masculist centralism" in several spirited confrontations, which they condemn as "unfair." (Did I mention that this is a really fun read? What else is to be expected from a disciple of Derrida?) </span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidGSsBciVvCWWKa2tJOsTVzgI330_05hwDNifqrvBnhRX4PhDNhnBTFV-Lnk5uZJ3x3o1YoEXK86-0UVq4nAzfwz0-eOdq01_YcCC_AVvCY8Cyw1LBkwLPTH9IeRwT-2A9tRC9sbFbDw/s1292/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidGSsBciVvCWWKa2tJOsTVzgI330_05hwDNifqrvBnhRX4PhDNhnBTFV-Lnk5uZJ3x3o1YoEXK86-0UVq4nAzfwz0-eOdq01_YcCC_AVvCY8Cyw1LBkwLPTH9IeRwT-2A9tRC9sbFbDw/s320/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The state has historically <a href="http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/beyond-marriage-democracy-equality-and-kinship-for-a-new-century/">encouraged women to marry</a> in order to rely financially on men and thereby <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/03/encouraging-marriage-and-discouraging-divorce">lessen reliance on the state</a>. When women began obtaining higher education levels and pursuing careers, <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/council-on-contemporary-families-myths-about-college-educated-women-and-marriage-82658617.html">marriage rates plummeted</a>. Individuals are</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/12/14/marriage-rate-declines-and-marriage-age-rises/">waiting longer to marry</a>, and <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/02/16/the-public-renders-a-split-verdict-on-changes-in-family-structure/">alternate types of kinship</a> provide alternatives to marriage. P</span>lummeting marriage rates threaten the very institution of
marriage, which is a key element of capitalist patriarchy. In order to
sustain that dying and outdated institution, the center has included its
margins, LGBT couples, to sustain and reproduce itself. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>Prior to this
SCOTUS ruling, LGBT civil unions were excluded from federal
benefits and protections, placing them squarely in the margins of the
bourgeois institution of marriage, notion of love, and nuclear family.
However, these relationships are not inherently radical or heterogeneous. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is not to say that LGBT couples are not
stigmatized or oppressed; they are. And homosexuality might be radical under certain historical conditions, but m</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">onogamous gay marriage mimics the bourgeois nuclear family. The sexual orientation of those in normative
relationships does not automatically radicalize those relationships or the individuals in them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Spivak claims that marginal elements allowed into the center must behave in an certain manner in order to be tolerated (149). LGBT
folks can only be tolerated if they behave in a specific way, in this
case by conforming to bourgeois notions of love and family, for which
marriage is the official cultural explanation. She notes, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"The
strongest brand of centralization is to allow in only the terms that
would be consistent anyway" (155). Gay marriage functions similarly
enough to heterosexual marriage that is does not disrupt the "consistency loop" required to sustain and reproduce the center. <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The
center can "risk" embracing these previously marginal elements
because they pose no threat to its dominance. In fact, </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the center <i>must</i> </span></span>admit certain marginal elements to sustain
and reproduce itself.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She goes on to claim that the margin can
never be erased, only tamed to "exclude the possibility of the <i>radically </i>heterogenous" (143). By including the LGBT community in the institution of marriage, the "radically heterogeneous" elements--expressions of love and family that offer alternatives to marriage--are relegated to the margins and the center is stabilized, sustained, and reproduced. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While some see the federal recognition of gay marriage as a momentous leap forward for individual rights and equality, and they might be correct, it is (also?) a strategic move by capitalist patriarchy to exclude radical communities </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">from official cultural explanations</span> of love and family. Radical communities still exist</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">--the margin is irreducible</span>--but BDSM adherents, polygymous arrangements, unmarried partnerships, multi-generational households, single-parent families, intentional communities, and other alternate kinship models</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> are excluded from and marginalized by current official cultural explanations,**** keeping the center firmly intact. Let us congratulate our comrades whose relationships are now recognized by the state but never uncritically accept such recognition and its implications. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Disclaimer: I reserve the right to criticize any and all bourgeois institutions at any time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">** pp. 101-114</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*** The essay is on pages 139-160 in my edition. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">**** Spivak
notes that the lines between margin and center are ever changing and
constantly negotiated, so currently marginalized
elements might eventually be incorporated into
the center under different material conditions. Predicting the future does not seem helpful here, only recognition that the location of the
boundaries between center and margin are impermanent.</span></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-88267314960317689222013-06-17T06:58:00.000-07:002014-02-16T12:48:43.249-08:00The Green Scare, Prism, and the Rise of the Surveillance of Women <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>And I have known the eyes already, known them all—</i></span></td><td align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,</i></span></td><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="56"></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,</i></span></td><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="57"></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,</i></span></td><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="58"></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Then how should I begin</i></span></td><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="59"></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?</i></span></td><td align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="60"><i> </i></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> And how should I presume?</i></span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">--TS Eliot, <i>The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock</i></span></span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For most of the history of US domestic surveillance, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO#Range_of_targets">efforts have been focused</a> on those who seek to undermine hegemonic power, particularly communists, socialists, black nationalists, civil rights activists, union organizers, peace activists, <a href="http://www.icdc.com/%7Epaulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIa.htm">political opponents of the reigning administration</a>, and, to a predictably lesser extent, white hate groups. Of 92 total <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:COINTELPRO_targets">confirmed targets</a> of <a href="http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro">COINTELPRO</a>, 31 were organizations, 44 were men, and 17 were women. Of the 31 organizations, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Brigade_of_Weather_Underground">only one</a> was explicitly dedicated to advancing women's rights. Considering that <a href="http://www.redpepper.org.uk/sexism-and-the-left-fight-the-invisible-power/">sexism is alive and well in the left</a> even today, it was certainly exponentially <a href="http://www.tolerance.org/article/sexism-civil-rights-movement-discussion-guide">more pervasive before</a> <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v_wade">Roe v. Wade</a></i> and <a href="http://www.titleix.info/History/History-Overview.aspx">Title IX</a>. Women who belonged to the 31 organizations monitored by COINTELPRO were relegated to subordinate roles; the leaders, officers, and most influential contributors were men. Consequently, men were the primary targets of COINTELPRO and its predecessors, and, I posit, its antecendents until roughly 2001, which ushered in the rise of the surveillance of women. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Green Scare</span></h4>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Between 2001 and 2006, the FBI <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/21/headlines">improperly monitored several groups</a>, including <a href="http://www.peta.org/">PETA </a>and <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/">Greenpeace</a>, as part of the <a href="http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/green-scare/">Green Scare</a>, a propaganda program that includes the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/24/schuster.column/index.html">labeling</a> and <a href="http://www.nlg.org/news/blog/aeta-revisited-how-green-scare-act-continues-bind-first-amendment-and-what-nlg-doing-about">prosecution</a> of <a href="http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/Blum">activists</a> as terrorists. In <a href="http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer02.htm">animal rights</a>
and environmental activism, women occupy <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/ladies-green-women-environmentalists-you-should-know">prominent positions</a> and have achieved a gender equity
previously unrealized in other social justice movements.<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(1)(2)</span> Women are <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/8461/public-lukewarm-animal-rights.aspx">twice as likely</a> as men to support animal rights and tend to be <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/13/opinion/la-oe-polakovic-gender-and-the-environment-20120613">more sympathetic</a> than men to environmental causes. As suppression of green activists became a state priority, an unprecedented number of women became targets of state surveillance. However, targeted surveillance of female green activists is only one aspect of the increased surveillance of women since 2001. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidGSsBciVvCWWKa2tJOsTVzgI330_05hwDNifqrvBnhRX4PhDNhnBTFV-Lnk5uZJ3x3o1YoEXK86-0UVq4nAzfwz0-eOdq01_YcCC_AVvCY8Cyw1LBkwLPTH9IeRwT-2A9tRC9sbFbDw/s1600/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidGSsBciVvCWWKa2tJOsTVzgI330_05hwDNifqrvBnhRX4PhDNhnBTFV-Lnk5uZJ3x3o1YoEXK86-0UVq4nAzfwz0-eOdq01_YcCC_AVvCY8Cyw1LBkwLPTH9IeRwT-2A9tRC9sbFbDw/s320/BAMFLogo_black.jpg" height="274" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks to <a href="http://radicalrationale.wordpress.com/">radicalrationale.wordpress.com</a> for designing the logo and to those who suggested that I have one. Now to discover whether or not it acts as a thumbnail when the blog is shared...</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Prism</span></h4>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Because women have historically been and still are <a href="http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/2010-catalyst-census-fortune-500-women-executives-and-top-earners">largely locked out</a> of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/women-senate-2012-election_n_2086093.html">official positions of power</a>, our
communication has been considered to consist of idle gossip and old wives' tales. Until recently, the communication of women has been dismissed as inconsequential; we have worn a
metaphorical veil that has allowed us to remain invisible to the
surveillance gaze. With the Green Scare and the implementation of the <a href="http://www.badaassmarxistfeminist.com/2013/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html">all-encompassing</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data">Prism program</a>, for the first time in history female communication has been deemed worthy of state surveillance.<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(3)</span> </span>The surveillance gaze has determined it is interested in our previously disregarded communication; it has stripped the veil from us.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Invisibility and Subversion </span></h4>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In <a href="http://home.comcast.net/~platypus1848/fanonfrantz_algeriaunveiled1959.pdf%E2%80%8E"><i>Algeria Unveiled</i></a>, <a href="http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/frantz-fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a> conceived <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/haik">the veil </a>as a revolutionary tool that allowed women to use invisibility as a weapon of resistance within the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casbah_of_Algiers">Casbah</a> during the <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Algerian_War.html">Algerian War</a>. When Algerian women wore the veil, they were invisible to the French colonizers, who resented their absence from the otherwise omniscient colonizing gaze. Algerian women became the focus of campaigns by the French to impose on them <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/mlg/courses/definitions/hegemony.html">cultural hegemony</a>, including (unveiled) women as objects of male observation. The concerted efforts of the French colonizers to unveil Algerian women serves as an apt metaphor for the ripping away of the veil that prior to 2001 protected women's communication from state surveillance.<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(4)</span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">T</span>he US government, in its <a href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-asks-spy-court-release-secret-opinions-patriot-act-surveillance-powers">secret interpretation and application</a> of the <a href="http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/">Patriot Act</a>, is acting as a colonizing force upon the entirety of human communication. </span>The hegemonic gaze seeks out individual subversives, as well as organized efforts to undermine the dominant power structure. Historically, women's participation in resistance has been minimized. However, the recent ascent of women within the animal rights and environmentalism movements has transformed us into dangerously veiled unknowables who must be exposed to the surveillance gaze in order to be catalogued and controlled. The implementation of the Prism program rends the veil from the communication of women, ostensibly neutralizing our potential threat to the dominant capitalist power structure.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">We are controlled and coerced by this new pervasive
surveillance, as we meticulously ensure our actions on behalf of
animals, the environment, and other social justice causes could in no
way be construed as threatening to the capitalist state. Because we are
being watched, we go to great lengths not to raise any <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/05/26/department-of-homeland-security-forced-to-release-list-of-keywords-used-to-monitor-social-networking-sites/">red flags</a>,
thereby distracting us and possibly weakening our revolutionary potential. This is a risk we cannot take. We must resist the urge
to cease or constrain our organizing and social justice work. Comrades
must <a href="https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en">download</a> and <a href="https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en#stayinganonymous">properly use</a> <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">TOR</a>, communicate with other organizers and activists in person or through anonymous email accounts and servers, and
consistently practice <a href="http://security.resist.ca/personal/securebooklet.pdf%E2%80%8E">Security Culture</a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fanon
also notes the duality of the revolutionary potential of the veil. Not
only was it an invisibility cloak of sorts within the Casbah, but it was
also something that could be shed to allow Algerian women to
appear sympathetic and nonthreatening to colonizing forces and,
therefore, to </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">complete</span>
subversive tasks undetected within European cities after 1955 (174-7).
We must transform the loss of the veil over women's communication into a
revolutionary tool that allows us to </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">effectively </span></span>maneuver the channels of capitalist patriarchy</span><span style="font-size: small;">. </span>Programs such as the Green Scare and Prism make it clear that the state perceives us as threats to its power. Let us prove it right.</span></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(1) The
recent allegations of transphobia in <a href="http://www.deepgreenresistance.org/">Deep Green Resistance</a> is
beyond the scope of this post although I am open to addressing it in
future.</span></span>
</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(2) Perhaps with the exception of the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s.</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(3) There have been a
few exceptions to this,
consisting of social justice activists. One prominent example is
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur">Assata Shakur</a>, <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/39447/assata-shakur-is-the-first-woman-to-make-the-fbi-s-most-wanted-list">the first woman</a> to make the <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists">FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list</a>, whose communications were <a href="http://www.assatashakur.org/cointelpro.htm#who">undoubtedly monitored</a> before her <a href="http://www.afrocubaweb.com/assata.htm">expatriation</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn">Bernadine Dohrn</a> has been a target of government surveillance for most of her life as well. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(4) The reasons given by the French colonizers for wishing to impose European culture on the Algerians resemble the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/09/190092800/bush-era-nsa-chief-defends-prism-phone-meta-data-collection">justifications</a> of the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/11/nsa-surveillance-policy-white-house-video">Obama administration</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/senate-nsa-director-keith-alexander">the NSA</a> for the Prism program: this is for our own protection, our own good. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-53932119598869535172013-06-13T04:45:00.000-07:002016-01-21T10:24:57.287-08:00How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the NSA<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h4 style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our first guest post, by John Wolfe.</span></span></h4>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
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</span></span>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
recent leak of NSA documents by Edward Snowden has confirmed what
nearly everyone has long suspected about the extent of the
surveillance conducted by the U.S. Government. The public reaction
has been predictable. On the one hand, many are outraged. This
outrage is interesting in itself. It cuts across the nominal
political affiliations dividing society, uniting libertarians and
leftists, as well as significant fractions of mainline Democrats and
Republicans. On the other hand, supporters of the current
administration have deployed rhetoric which, although it for the most
part falls short of outright defending NSA activities, seeks to
minimize the importance of the leak. A rather unsystematic and
impressionistic survey of internet chatter about the case reveals two
main strategies of minimization. One is the pose of the jaded cynic.
Those who are upset by the contents of the leaked information will be
told that everyone has already known about this for years, and asked
why they are so upset now. This is uninteresting, and ignores the
distinction between well-founded suspicion and undeniable
confirmation. The second strategy is to ask what the difference is
between the recently revealed government data mining, and the
corporate surveillance we have all endured for years. After all, we
have become accustomed to, if not exactly comfortable with, extremely
elaborate and invasive data collection and synthesis from the likes
of Facebook, Google, and even our local supermarkets for years now.
What does it matter if the government gets in on this game? This
objection, unlike the first, deserves some examination. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It
is certainly true that we have been always been surveilled by
internet providers, marketing departments and others well into the
past. However, I would argue that something markedly different is
going on here. What we have is nearly complete, real time,
identifiable data on everyone. It was disturbing enough to know that
this data was collected and utilized by various corporations. But
this kind of polycentric surveillance is different from having <i>all</i>
of this data funneled into one central authority, an authority
controlled by the entity that deploys the more violent forms of power
in our society. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To
restate the above in a slightly different way, there is a qualitative
difference between being surveilled by a thousand petty authorities,
often acting at cross-purposes, and having one major authority
collect nearly all of this data. The very centralization is
significant in its own right. However, the petty authorities and the
central authority have different agendas. As pernicious as corporate
surveillance was and is, it really was not about <i>us</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
What Wal-Mart and CVS wanted to accomplish was selling more of their
products and the data collected on individuals was merely instrumental.
What Google and Facebook want is to increase their profits, and they
want to hawk the data the collect to people who want to sell more
things </span><span style="font-style: normal;">in order to do this</span><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Their activities are merely avaricious, not malicious. What the NSA
and its associated agencies want to accomplish </span><i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
about us. They are policing the general population. Gathering as much
data on individuals as possible is </span><span style="font-style: normal;">itself
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">the purpose.</span> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It
is sometimes additionally said by liberal defenders of these programs
that since we are just dealing with surveillance, rather than grosser
“rights violations” there is little to worry about. Observation
is not control. However, this is a naïve view. We have known better
for years. One of the central insights of Foucault's work,
particularly <i>Discipline and Punish,</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
is that observation itself functions as a system of control. Under
surveillance of any sort people are understood, and come to
understand themselves, not as agents but as sites for the generation
of data. Under this self-understanding people come to internalize the
surveillance, deploy it against themselves. More simply, if one knows
that they are always under observation, they will alter their
behavior accordingly. </span>Now if this kind of surveillance is a
form of control, then to call these NSA programs "totalitarian"
is not the least bit hysterical—it is to pay attention to the
conventional meaning of the word, namely the use of state power to
control every aspect of life. </span></span>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What
is most remarkable here is the ways in which corporate giants like
Verizon and Google simply rolled over and acceded to the government's
demands. Make no mistake, this was clearly <i>against</i> their
individual business interests. Google, for example, has constructed
its public image as a defender of internet freedoms, with, for
example, their staunch opposition to CISPA. All these companies do
international business, and to run the risk of being revealed as
effectively agents of the U.S. government is to risk the worst kind
of damage to reputation and profits. We have become used to a
situation where civil government becomes a puppet of corporate
interests, yet here we see the reverse, corporations placing
themselves at the disposal of the government for no clear gain.</span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now,
of course, we have witnessed a stream of carefully worded denials
from the companies concerned and assorted government spokespeople who
attempt to assure us that the extent of surveillance is not what the
leaked documents indicate, and the cooperation of the named companies
is far more limited. There may be an element of truth to this, but,
at the same time, we must realize that <i>of course</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
this is what they would say. When interpreting secret and sinister
activities, one must </span><span style="font-style: normal;">give
more weight</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> to the documents
that the actors wish you hadn't seen, rather than to the polished
presentations they want you to see.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So,
on the face of it, we see a major integration of corporate power into
the state in a way which creates a new totalitarianism. The question
then becomes, what does this mean for the left. I argue that,
counterintuitvely, this is very good news indeed.<span style="color: #3d85c6;">
</span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Traditional
leftist theory always centered around the state. Whether the
objective was reform, seizure, or abolition, the state was always the
main target. However, since at least the time of Marcuse, and
accelerated by the failures of the May '68, leftists have come to
regard the formal apparatus of "the state" as irrelevant.
We have come to analyze the exercise of power in terms of broader
systems of power. Herbert Marcuse, for example, made a monolithic,
homogenizing entity known as “Advanced Industrial Society” the
central actor in his story. Foucault spent his entire career
elaborating a theory detailing the ways in which a decentralized
power not vested in any one individual or group shapes everyone in a
society. When one is fighting a system so broad, the options are
limited. “The state” can be pressured or seized, “Advanced
Industrial Society” cannot.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Such
a totalizing system leaves only two options. One may settle into a
sort of quiescence, as Marcuse and his Frankfurt School compatriots
seemed to do at their worst moments, or one may seek alternative
forms of resistance. I think here of those currents within Occupy who
regarded the primary purpose of the protests as “modeling a new
kind of society” and showing people that “another world is
possible.” Of course, few people were impressed by a “new kind of
society” centered around sleeping on pavement and relying on the
largesse of others for food. Theatrical strategies such as this
seemed doomed from the outset. </span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However,
now, at least in the U.S., the state seems to be reasserting itself
as <i>the</i> central organ of class power, which is an event of
historical significance. The means of this reassertion is the apparatus
of "security" in general, and surveillance in particular. The other
organs of bourgeois power, the
multinational corporations, are submitting themselves again to the
formal apparatus of the state, at this point, only behind closed
doors, but it may become more explicit in the future.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We
may still lack a suitable unified revolutionary subject, but our
enemies have conveniently reunified themselves. As consolidation in
one side of a conflict tends to lead to consolidation of the other
side, we have every reason to hope for greater popular unity. So
let's get back to targeting the state while the opportunity is ripe.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-86931223396273412682013-06-05T11:05:00.000-07:002013-06-05T12:40:57.982-07:00Implications of the Frozen Female Face<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Botox, a type of botulism toxin, is used cosmetically by millions of individuals every year to freeze their facial muscles in order to smooth wrinkles in the
skin. Women use it in far greater numbers than men--with <a href="http://www.allaboutvision.com/cosmetic/botox.htm" target="_blank">men receiving around 10 percent</a> of Botox injections in 2012--although <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871910,00.html" target="_blank">Botox use in </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" target="_blank">men</a> is <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/25/the-rise-of-brotox-plumbers-and-businessmen-copy-simon-cowells-botox-look-3510335/" target="_blank">swiftly increasing numbers</a>. Last year <a href="http://www.plasticsurgery.org/news-and-resources/press-release-archives/2013/14-million-cosmetic-plastic-surgery-procedures-performed-in-2012.html" target="_blank">6.1 million individuals</a> received Botox injections in the US; 5.4 million of them were women. Of course, these numbers are official ones. Some folks can't afford to access Botox by regulated means, so they resort to self-endangerment by seeking out <a href="http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/health-med-fit-science/botched-botox-victims-speak-out/nD9jD/" target="_blank">unlicensed practitioners</a>, whose number of Botox administrations remain unreported. Others are endangering themselves by unknowingly receiving <a href="http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/DrugIntegrityandSupplyChainSecurity/ucm330610.htm" target="_blank">unapproved versions</a> of Botox. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, we understand why millions of women pay hard-earned money and endanger themselves for facial injections of a poisonous neurotoxin that is "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin" target="_blank">the most acutely toxic substance known</a>" and has <a href="http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=2593" target="_blank">serious potential side effects</a> in order to appear younger for a few weeks, right? The extreme pressure on women to retain a youthful appearance; the unbearable cultural expectations of a certain type of hairless, thin, young, tall, white, European beauty; the constant conditioning and messaging that women's appearance and sexual appeal to men determine our worth... You know, the usual things that women constantly process on an hourly basis in every single aspect of our entire lives. But I want to look beyond the reasons we use Botox to the ramifications of that use.</span><br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
</span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Silencing Emotion</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jessie Cole's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/22/botox-silences-womens-faces-empathy" target="_blank">recent article</a> for the Guardian piqued my interest in the implications of Botox use in women. She nicely summarizes the psychosocial dangers of Botox and the potential for a loss of empathy:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"...Botox...minimises <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microexpression" title="">micro-expressions</a>,
those brief, involuntary facial expressions that reveal our unconscious
feeling of anger, happiness, disgust, embarrassment or pride. In a
sense, communicating with someone who's had Botox is like communicating
with a static image – much of the body language involved is silenced.
Considering that body language, mostly consisting of facial expressions,
makes up at least half of any message being communicated, this is a
significant loss.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But this facial paralysis also inhibits the
ability of the Botoxed to mimic the facial expressions of others, which
is critical in the formation of empathy. Facial micro-mimicry is the
major way we understand others' emotions. If you are wincing in pain I
immediately do a micro-wince, which sends a message to my brain about
what you are experiencing. By experiencing it myself I understand what
you are going through. This suggests that not only do I find my Botoxed
friends hard to read, but they are also hindered in their capacity to
read me. An unfortunate feedback cycle. The possible implications of
this are frightening."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Cole proceeds to suggest that friendships and mother-child bonds could be negatively affected by Botox use in women. Because women comprise the majority of Botox users and <a href="http://www.now.org/issues/mothers/facts.html" target="_blank">4 million women give birth</a> in the US each year, there are negative implications for children,* as well as society as a whole since the majority of children become adults that make up our population. If parents have
frozen faces that cannot display emotions or microexpressions, thereby limiting their ability to empathize, then
the development of children could be negatively impacted. She cites Edward Tronick's <a href="http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-childhood-mental-health/" target="_blank">Still Face Paradigm</a> as a scientific indicator that frozen faces on women would negatively impact children's social and emotional development. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Frozen faces not only physically arrest women, they are also emotionally arrest them. Botox use has been <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/7/895.abstract" target="_blank">scientifically proven</a> to prevent humans from experiencing a full range of emotions. <a href="http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapy-soup/2010/04/can-botox-block-emotions/" target="_blank">Richard and C.R. Zwolinksi</a> note, "Scientists agree that there is a causal relationship between facial
expression and emotions–if you can’t smile, you can’t feel the emotion
associated with that smile. In order to...fully
experience the emotional content of language, you must be able to
respond to that language with facial movements such as smiles or frowns." By using Botox, women are perpetuating the cultural message that looking smooth and ostensibly young is more
important than <a href="http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/06/25/botox-limits-emotional-experience/15030.html" target="_blank">nonverbally expressing and feeling emotions</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Cole concludes her article with some fascinating questions:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"With the proliferation of '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfie" title="">selfies</a>'
and the focus on static representations of women's faces, are we
forgetting how much of who we are is communicated through facial
expressions? Are we, in some sense, choosing a form of silence far more
insidious than women have ever known in the past? Who benefits from the
silencing of women's faces? And what is the cost?" I am intensely curious about who benefits from the silencing of women's faces.</span><br />
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<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The Male Gaze</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze" target="_blank">male gaze</a> transforms women into passive objects and requires that they remain in suspended animation indefinitely, perpetually prepared to be observed. Botox is yet another way to make women passive, uncomplaining objects of the gaze. By physically freezing one's emotive features, nullifying
one's expressions, dulling one's empathy, and pacifying one's face, Botox makes women blank
slates. Botoxed blank slates directly oppose vocal, empowered, expressive, independent women that <a href="http://henrymakow.com/051201.html" target="_blank">men</a> and the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-pope-us-nuns-idUSBRE93E0PP20130415" target="_blank">religions</a> they have created find so troublesome.</span><br />
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<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Infantilization of Women</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Because the gaze renders women
past a certain reproductive status invisible and, therefore, useless, women are pressured into pursuing a culturally-accepted notion of youth as beauty. Botox perpetuates the <a href="http://www.uwlax.edu/urc/jur-online/PDF/2010/carlson.MKT.pdf">cultural trope of infantilizing women</a> by keeping them in a perpetual state of quasi-childhood. Although Botox does not actually arrest the aging process (or, in my
opinion, even maintain a convincing appearance of youth), it does
transform wrinkles and fine lines into a smooth, shiny surface
reminiscent of a baby's bald head. The infantilization of women combined with the <a href="http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx" target="_blank">sexualization of girls</a> creates more reproductively viable and visible females for the male gaze to observe and objectify. Now we begin to see who benefits from the "silencing of women's faces."</span><br />
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<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Those Without It</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Without Botox, women have the opportunity to age into being comfortable with themselves, to embrace wrinkles as signs of wisdom, to accept aging as a badge of persistence and survival. The use of Botox is an admission that women are no longer attractive when wrinkled. If women as a class are arrested somewhere between their thirties and fifties, then the ability, as a group, to reject the pervasive cultural notion that they become useless once their reproductive abilities and sexual appeal to men wane, is undermined. The ability to destroy the <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1972sep23-00029" target="_blank">Double Standard of Aging</a> is eliminated, leaving that pervasive characteristic of patriarchy intact.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If women continue to submit to the male gaze's demand for passive objects, then the woman who refuses to inject botulism into her face--with her rare ability to visually express emotion, show and feel empathy, and age naturally--would become an anomaly. What our generation considers a typically-aging woman (picture your grandmother, assuming she isn't <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/joan-rivers-plastic-surgery_n_1258141.html" target="_blank">Joan Crawford</a>) would become a grotesque caricature of human emotion and symbol of mortal decay. Her emphatic responses to suffering would make her an oracle of sorts, a deeply feeling poet and philosopher type, the only qualified therapist, mother, sister, and friend. An un-Botoxed woman would become a kind of eccentric character with perceived deep insights and mystical powers, a sort of aging white female version of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro" target="_blank">magical negro</a>. She would primarily be found sipping lemonade on the Louisiana bayou or making blueberry preserves in the wilds of Maine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Perhaps my imagination is running away with me. After all, there will always be plenty of working poor who cannot afford such luxuries as perpetual youth. Only in wealthy pockets of imperialist countries are <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/cosmetic_procedures/cosmetic_surgery_products/prweb8121179.htm" target="_blank">billions of dollars</a> poured into maintaining the patriarchy by accommodating the male gaze while elsewhere in the world poverty, hunger, <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/" target="_blank">female genital mutilation</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism" target="_blank">environmental racism</a> persist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony" target="_blank">Cultural hegemony</a> has imposed a <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-the-lines/201105/beauty-may-be-in-eye-beholder-eyes-see-what-culture-socializes" target="_blank">racist, imperialist standard of beauty</a> (i.e. white, thin, and tall with straight hair) on<a href="http://maddieruud.hubpages.com/hub/Standards_of_Beauty_An_Illustrated_Timeline" target="_blank"> cultural representations around the world for centuries</a>. Those standards exclude women of color, women with the scars of work and motherhood, and women with Afro-textured hair. They have always been inaccessible and unattainable to poor women. If rampant Botox use adds an eternally frozen face to the Western standard of beauty, then working class women will be further removed from an already unattainable aesthetic, condemning them to further invisibility to the imperialist patriarchy that so ruthlessly and consistently exploits and ignores them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Again, I fully understand the pressures to avoid aging at all costs, to be sexually attractive to men, to remain visible to the gaze. A waking hour has never passed during which I was not inundated with those messages. However, our psychosocial development and emotional health as a society should not be subordinate to our personal vanity and perverse internalized desire to uphold the patriarchy by passively accommodating the male gaze. Let us resist these trappings of a system that disgusts us in order to dismantle it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Obviously, not all births result directly in parenthood, but many do. </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-122241076813502212013-05-24T07:25:00.001-07:002013-06-10T05:32:23.797-07:00A Cautionary Tale for Black Females Who Experiment with Science under Capitalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sixteen-year-old high school student Kiera Wilmot was recently expelled and charged as an adult with a felony: possessing or discharging weapons or firearms at a school sponsored event or on school property and making or attempting to make a destructive device. No one was injured, and the young lady had no prior disciplinary infractions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/state-attorney-jerry-hill-drop-charges-against-kiera-wilmot" target="_blank">international outcry</a> about the unjust harshness of the punishment, Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty dropped the charges. However, Wilmot was still forced out of her high school and ordered to complete her degree through an expulsion
program, separating her from peers and her twin sister. This type of displacement <a href="http://news.nd.edu/news/11943-notre-dame-research-shows-switching-schools-affects-student-achievement/" target="_blank">has been shown</a> to negatively effect socialization, as well as student achievement. Not only could Wilmot's school change negatively impact her own
mental health, socialization, and academic performance, it could also
negatively affect her former and future classmates. Professor of economics and policy studies at the University of Notre Dame, Jennifer Warlick, discovered that students who change schools "can
suffer psychologically, socially and academically" while "academic achievement of...students who stay in one school is also negatively affected by the
school’s mobility rate." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While some blame the institutional overreaction on <span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show">"what a large, unbending bureaucracy can do to its people, including a curious, precocious child"(1)</span></span> and the <a href="http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2013/05/03/florida-teenager-arrested-over-science-experiment/" target="_blank">"mindlessness" of "zero-tolerance laws,"</a> <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/02/1206443/-Would-a-White-Girl-Be-Prosecuted-for-a-Botched-Science-Experiment">Jesse Lava at Daily Kos</a> considers this primarily a racial issue. The racial discipline gap has been widely documented, with <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/39381/kiera-wilmot-how-her-arrest-and-expulsion-exposes-america-s-racial-discipline-gap" target="_blank">Andrea Ayres-Deets at PolicyMic</a> noting, "...African-American students were 3-1/2 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers" and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/education/black-students-face-more-harsh-discipline-data-shows.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Tamar Lewin at the New York Times</a> pointing out that "over 70 percent of the students
involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were
Hispanic or black." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-emdin/5-ways-to-stop-a-black-scientist_b_3203494.html">Christopher Emdin at the Huffington Post</a> also thinks the Wilmot incident highlights race-based discrimination, as well as discrimination against women and disabled persons, that is already rampant in science and engineering fields, pointing out:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"The National Science foundation <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/2013/pdf/nsf13304_digest.pdf" target="_hplink">recently released data</a>
indicating that women, persons with disabilities, and three
racial/ethnic groups--African Americans, Hispanics, and American
Indians--constitute smaller percentages of science and engineering
degree recipients (as well as employed scientists and engineers) than
they do of the population...[T]he science and engineering
workforce is largely white and male, and minority women, especially
African American women, comprise about 1 in 10 employed scientists and
engineers."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While the initial disgraceful overreaction of Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty and the school board was certainly racially motivated and a result of a deeply flawed, assembly-line educational system, there are other factors at play, including the consequences of a disruptive gender performance and capital's insatiable need for unpaid and exploited labor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Kiera Wilmot failed to perform her (female) gender properly, resulting in punishment by the patriarchy. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEMQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fautof.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F02%2Fbutler-judith-gender-trouble-feminism-and-the-subversion-of-identity-1990.pdf&ei=B12fUdCjDYKE9gSMzYDwBg&usg=AFQjCNFMxBp6tkjOAb56sBXqmmtvbjTs1w&sig2=FNEKQCTEXI0HugTMg1SDqg&bvm=bv.47008514,d.eWU" target="_blank">According to Judith Butler</a>,
those who fail to properly perform the rituals and acts
traditionally associated with one's gender are punished by a
patriarchal society
that relies on rigid and heteronormative gender performances to maintain its
structure. By displaying curiosity about science, being adventurous, and
conducting a hands-on experiment, Wilmot deviated from the female
gender role (i.e. female as passive, compliant, verbal/non-physical) that patriarchy requires of women to reproduce
itself. Therefore, she will suffer the consequences. Because Wilmot is a person of color, these consequences are further complicated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The privatized (i.e. for-profit) prison system is no longer satisfied
to obtain cheap labor by ensnaring young persons of color with <a href="http://newsone.com/2023676/police-brutality-against-blacks/" target="_blank">systematic racial police oppression and violence in communities of color </a>and has begun to rely on
school expulsions and other civil matters on <a href="http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/01/militarized_post-newtown-schools.html" target="_blank">newly militarized campuses</a>.
As the demand for virtually unpaid prison labor increases, capital must
increase incarceration rates. Since <a href="http://sw.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/1/89.extract" target="_blank">persons of color are incarcerated at a much higher rate than whites</a>, these systemic efforts
to sustain the pool of inexpensive labor disproportionately effect
persons and neighborhoods of color. The racist foundation of the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/education-under-arrest/school-to-prison-pipeline-fact-sheet/" target="_blank">school-to-prison pipeline</a> is obvious when a precocious 16-year-old student with no
disciplinary history is carted away in handcuffs and tears then (almost) charged with a felony and expelled for
mixing a couple of household chemicals together to learn what would
happen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The school-to-prison pipeline supplies a <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor" target="_blank">steady flow of cheap labor to companies</a>, as well as <a href="http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=286" target="_blank">disenfranchises (primarily) citizens of color in many states</a>. The most efficient way to ensure that working class persons of
color trapped by the school-to-prison pipeline are unable to defend
themselves from relentless attacks by a capitalist state hellbent on
obtaining increasing amounts of inexpensive labor for the longest possible
period of time is to drain them of energy and financial resources. This
is exactly what is happening to the Wilmots. The Wilmot
family <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-05-16/features/os-kiera-wilmot-trauma-mother-20130516_1_water-bottle-criminal-case-science-project" target="_blank">resources are being steadily drained</a>, as Kiera's mother misses
days of work and pays attorneys with her single-parent income. The Wilmot family morale is also
being steadily eroded: The forced school switch has separated
Kiera from
her twin sister, and she has been forbidden
from playing cello in the local
orchestra and attending its annual banquet
and spring concert.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The reversal of the decision to prosecute Wilmot as an adult on felony charges for a harmless high school science experiment reveals that the school-to-prison pipeline occasionally fails to deliver to capital nearly unpaid labor and subsequently a disenfranchised citizen. The failure of the pipeline to extract cheap labor from Kiera Wilmot then strip away her voting rights is wonderful news for her. However, even when the school-to-prison pipeline ostensibly fails, it nonetheless serves as a warning, an ominous scarecrow of sorts. This scarecrow warns: even if you're a well-behaved young person of color with a healthy interest in science, you remain at risk of being incarcerated, exploited for labor, and disenfranchised; furthermore, properly perform your gender role or you will be separated from friends and loved ones, forbidden to perform extracurricular activities, and psychologically endangered. The scarecrow is a reminder that we are all constantly being monitored by the patriarchal capitalist police state and that very real consequences await those who dare to challenge it.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(1) Bill Bucolo qtd. on WMNF, 5/7/13</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-24374811149414427322013-05-13T09:03:00.000-07:002013-06-12T07:47:19.443-07:00How Capitalism Failed Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Three young women go missing from a working class Cleveland neighborhood and are held captive in ropes and chains, beaten, and raped for nine to eleven years, one bearing a child and one having five forced miscarriages. Neighbors called police on kidnapper/rapist Ariel Castro multiple times to report odd behavior, including bags and plywood over the windows, three naked young women on all fours being walked on leashes in the backyard, loud banging, and a mysterious woman holding a baby in the attic making distressed gestures (1)(2). Police ignore the calls or arrive, knock a few times, and leave. Only when one of the three women breaks free from her bondage and a courageous neighbor (3) kicks in the door are the women and a captivity-born 6-year-old rescued. This leaves so many unanswered questions, the most pervasive being: how could this have happened without anyone noticing?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The kidnapper/rapist Ariel Castro has a sordid history of gruesome violence against women and children. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/10/ohio-man-ex-kin-say-beat-them-kept-mannequin/">He tormented his wife</a> with cruel psychological games and brutally beat her frequently, resulting in knocked out teeth, dislocated shoulders, broken noses, cracked ribs, and a blood clot on her brain. He confined her and children inside their house against their will. He <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322248/Ariel-Castro-Cleveland-kidnapper-told-wife-eat-wear-skirts-ordered-cardboard-box.html">controlled every aspect of his wife's life</a> and threatened to kill her if she left him. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321935/Ariel-Castro-kept-WIFE-chained-basement-later-locked-victims-whipped-dog-chains.html">He viciously beat her with chains</a>, which her family thinks eventually resulted in brain trauma and death. His daughter Arlene was best friends with Gina DeJesus and was <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/05/07/arlene_castro_gina_dejesus_ariel_castro_s_daughter_told_america_s_most_wanted.html">the last person to see her</a> before her disappearance. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321596/Ariel-Castro-Police-sketch-Gina-DeJesus-abductor-2004-looks-strikingly-similar-Ariel-Castro-prompting-questions-police-didnt-investigate-sooner.html">a police sketch released</a> clearly portrayed Castro. Despite his misogynist and abusive history, his previous kidnapping and abuse of his children, the confinement of his wife, his familiarity with and proximity to DeJesus, and a suspect sketch uncannily resembling himself, Castro was never investigated for the rash of kidnappings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Neighbors claim that in numerous instances police were called for suspicious behavior but were unresponsive. One neighbor, Israel Lugo, called the police in 2011 when his sister noticed a woman with a baby banging on the attic window looking as though she wanted to escape. <a href="http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2013/05/07/the-long-history-of-ariel-castro-cleveland-kidnapper-and-monster">Lugo said</a>, "The cops came. They pounded on that man’s door around 15, 20 times, real hard. They looked in the driveway, they got back in the squad car and left." Lugo ends <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhS6rmnl9qM">one interview</a> by saying, "Anytime you call the police, it doesn't get done around here."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=sitenav#/video/us/2013/05/07/nr-naked-lady-suspects-home-neighbor.cnn">Another neighbor reported</a> seeing a naked woman in the backyard and staring from an open window for a little while each day. When she called the police to report these disturbing observations, they assumed that it was a prank and did not respond. Soon afterward, the kidnapper/rapist obscured the yard and house with tarps. A neighbor who lives three doors down from Castro, 55-year-old Elsie Cintron, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/cleveland-ariel-castro-child-abduction">said</a> that about a year ago her granddaughter saw a naked woman crawling out of the house on all fours then went back inside. The granddaughter called the cops, who never responded. Juan Perez, who lives two doors down, and his mother heard a disturbing scream from the basement about three years ago. "It was the kind of scream that made you uncomfortable so my mom called the police," he said. They never responded. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Police claim to have no records of the numerous neighbors' calls. After denying that they had ever received any calls whatsoever about the kidnapper/rapist, police finally admitted to visiting Castro's home twice. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cleveland-kidnappings-ariel-castro-20130507,0,325028.story">They claimed</a> to be responding to his call about a fight in the neighborhood and to investigate his negligence on his school bus driving job when he abandoned a student on the bus, ordering the child to "lay down, bitch." Were police negligent and lackadaisical because the reports were coming from an economically disadvantaged neighborhood, because the callers were persons of color who spoke with accents, or because the allegations indicated crimes against women and children? Whatever the reasons for the police's unforgivable failures, they weren't the only ones turning a blind eye to a disturbing character and situation. Plenty of men in Castro's life were, too. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Several men acquainted with the kidnapper/rapist were ignoring red flags galore. For years, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320902/Ariel-Castro-Son-abductor-reveals-father-padlocked-doors-basement-attic-garage-places-werent-allowed-go.html">the kidnapper/rapist's son was forbidden to enter three locked areas of the house</a>--the attic, the garage, and the basement. Two weeks ago when he visited his father, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/ariel-castro-neighbors-police-naked-woman_n_3233340.html">Castro wouldn't let him enter</a> the house at all. The owner of the house next door and longtime Castro enemy, Doug Parker, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/10/my-neighbor-the-monster-life-next-door-to-ariel-castro.html">claimed that the kidnapper/rapist had always had a suspiciously secured home</a> with multiple locks and "in the heat of the summer...As sweat poured from his brow, he would notice that next door was buttoned down—windows tightly sealed, no air conditioning, all the blinds shut. And he knew Castro was in there because his car was parked out front." While recently inside the house, <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=182926592">Ricky Sanchez heard "banging on a wall" and noticed multiple locks on the outside door</a>. A little girl came out from the kitchen and stared at him silently. Then he couldn't leave "because there were so many locks." Yet Castro's creepy behavior didn't prompt the younger Castro, the enemy Parker, or friend Sanchez to act.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Band leader <a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2013/05/ariel_castros_former_bandmates.html">Ivan Ruiz also knew Castro was dangerous and predatory</a>, yet did nothing. Castro invited Ruiz's17-year-old son over to play drums, but Ruiz quickly forbade him to go. "I didn't trust having him with my child. He was a senile kind of person. A crazy kind of person. He was weird," Ruiz said. <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/focus_of_womens_disappearance.html">Ruiz found it strange</a> that Castro would never allow bandmates inside to unload heavy band equipment nor allow visitors to pull into the driveway, claiming there were nails in it. Another aberrant behavior was Castro's reluctance to stay overnight with his band, which booked hotel rooms for gigs in Toledo, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. "He was the only one who never stayed," Ruiz said. "He would say, 'I have to get home.' It was weird." Miguel Quinones, manager of a band Castro played with in 2008, observed that <a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2013/05/ariel_castros_former_bandmates.html">band practice was never held at Castro's place and his bandmates never entered his home</a>. Despite his bandmate's suspicions, none of them ever felt the need to investigate the situation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Numerous neighbors, friends, relatives, and bandmates observed disturbing occurrences at the Castro house. The women who reported the incidents to police to police were ignored; the men who observed suspicious behavior failed to alert the authorities or to investigate the situation independently. Women have historically been ignored by authority (often with the consequence of being diagnosed with hysteria, locked in institutions, and subjected to electroshock therapy). But what of the men who did nothing? Perhaps the men were hesitant to involve police since police have a documented history of harassing and assaulting men of color, but this does not explain why the numerous men who were suspicious of the kidnapper/rapist did not confront him or otherwise investigate the situation themselves. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One possible explanation for the men in the community's (including the police's) lack of intervention in the inexplicable happenings at the home of the kidnapper/rapist is the culture of silence and secrecy surrounding domestic violence. Domestic violence is still widely considered a private matter in which outsiders should not intervene. We are socialized to consider domestic violence Someone Else's Problem. We frequently falsely perceive it as an equal dispute between consenting parties when, to the contrary, it primarily arises from an inherently unequal relationship between two genders, one of which has been oppressed in nearly every culture for centuries due to the biological nature of femaleness and the consequent sole burden of performing all of the reproductive labor for any given society. Domestic violence harms everyone in the community, and comrades must struggle to overcome our individualistic socialization to stop the epidemic of violence behind closed doors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What of the failures of the police? Aside from complacency about calls from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and a misogynist reluctance to respond to potential domestic violence calls, there is yet another reason police might not have sufficiently responded to complaints about Castro and failed to maintain reliable records about 911 calls over the years. Public sector workers cannot effectively function without proper funding and resources. And Cleveland, like many other cities across the US, has faced <a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/05/cleveland_police_department_to.html">severe cuts and layoffs</a> in recent years. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The gutting of the public sector partially explains why police were unable or unwilling to respond to calls about the kidnapper/rapist, as well as why they failed to thoroughly investigate even the very neighborhood from which the three young women disappeared. When public service sectors are undermined by austerity measures, public servants lack the resources to competently perform their jobs. Don't misunderstand me: I have no reverence for the armed gangs of thugs called police that protect capital and terrorize working class neighborhoods, persons of color, women, and young persons, but they occasionally perform certain vital functions within society (e.g. apprehend rapists, recover missing children, locate stolen cars). While police forces continue to exist, we should ensure that they are properly funded. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, while public services in poor neighborhoods are being gutted, there is always a way to fund the <a href="http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/devnews/midtownpolicestation071212.aspx">rejuvenation of certain parts of the city</a>. Wealthier and whiter sections of the city build new police stations as working poor neighborhoods like the one in which Berry, Knight, and DeJesus were held captive are virtually ignored by police, allowing rapists, kidnappers, and murderers to flourish. And flourish they have. Castro is not the first woman-hating rapist, kidnapper, and murderer to operate in this forgotten Cleveland neighborhood. Anthony Sowell, also known as the Cleveland Strangler, kidnapped, raped, murdered, and dismembered numerous women just blocks away <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/08/cleveland-kidnapping-anthony-sowell-case-linked-by-indifferent-police.html">for years as police ignored calls from multiple rape and kidnap survivors</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Police neglect of numerous neighbors' complaints, as well as the cultural norm of ignoring the warning signs of domestic violence can be attributed to the fact that capital benefits from disturbances in the poor, dark side of town and in sexual abuse and violence against women. A steady stream of conflict in working class neighborhoods prevents the community from unifying and organizing against exploitation at the workplace or the rental home. Battered women are often too preoccupied with an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness to become educated about the companies polluting their air and food while exploiting their labor. Beaten children are less likely to grow into confident adults who challenge exploitation of their labor and often become domestic abusers in adulthood. Domestic abusers perpetuate this cycle and often end up in the privatized prison system where <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151732/21st-century_slaves%3A_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor">their labor is exploited</a> as they provide cheap labor for companies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Capital has a vested interest in perpetuating the cultural norm that kidnapping, rape, and domestic violence are private matters that should be handled by the persons involved, not intervened upon by the community or the underfunded police. The bourgeois nuclear family enforces a competitive, individualistic hierarchy that mirrors the manner in which capital exploits labor. The competitive drive between individuals under the guise of providing for one's family at all costs is perpetuated by capital and damages communities. The bourgeois notion of a nuclear family with its own individual agenda lends cultural legitimacy to the false but dominant perception that one's family must flourish at the expense of others and is one cultural justification for exploitation of workers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Our autonomist friends are onto something when they tout the virtues of community-building. Although gardens and bartering cannot effectively threaten capital on their own, community-building activities are effective ways to combat the secrecy of domestic violence as well as the dangerous notions of the nuclear family and its competitive individualism, all the while developing comradely bonds. These bonds can become revolutionary when workers finally refuse to be further exploited by capital and seize control of the means of production. Only then can we begin to expect radical equality and a dismantlement of a patriarchy that discourages community intervention in situations--such as the Berry, DeJesus, and Knight nightmare--that capital perceives as private. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> (1) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm831Wcun28">www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm831Wcun28</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <i>(2) <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/ariel-castro-neighbors-police-naked-woman_n_3233340.htm">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/ariel-castro-neighbors-police-naked-woman_n_3233340.htm</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>(2) <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/10/my-neighbor-the-monster-life-next-door-to-ariel-castro.html">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/10/my-neighbor-the-monster-life-next-door-to-ariel-castro.html</a></i></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>(3) Charles Ramsey was as perpetrator of domestic violence in the past, which does not negate his heroic intervention in this scenario and which, if I put aside my aversion to lauding wife beaters, might have prepared him to intervene in what he perceived as a domestic violence situation that most persons, including police, ignored (<a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/08/cleveland-hero-charles-ramsey-was-jailed-for-domestic-violence/">http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/08/cleveland-hero-charles-ramsey-was-jailed-for-domestic-violence/</a>).</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /><a href="http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2013/05/07/the-long-history-of-ariel-castro-cleveland-kidnapper-and-monster"></a></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> </i></span> </blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-11190891599356610512013-04-24T10:06:00.000-07:002013-06-10T05:32:07.454-07:00A MF Response to Silvia Federici's "Wages Against Housework" (1975)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Since my self-identified women only feminist discussion group explored the text, several folks have expressed an
interest in my response to Silvia Federici's "Wages Against Housework" (Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press, 1975). Here is a link to the complete text: <a href="http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/silvia-federici-wages-against-housework/">http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/silvia-federici-wages-against-housework/</a>. Here is my analysis:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">1.) This is a fun read. It's short and powerful while making a very strong case for the importance of earning wages for housework. Federici strategically and successfully uses "cunt" and "fucking" to jar and challenge readers and to emphasize the sexual objectification of women through common gendered slurs. The opening epigrams are defiant; the essay comes out swinging:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">They call it frigidity. We call it absenteeism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Every miscarriage is a work accident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Homosexuality and heterosexuality are both
working conditions…but homosexuality is workers’ control of production,
not the end of work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">More smiles? More money. Nothing will be so powerful in destroying the healing virtues of a smile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Neuroses, suicides, desexualization: occupational diseases of the housewife."</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">2.)
Wages for housework is a wonderful idea. I stand in solidarity with and will
fight side-by-side with anyone struggling for wages against housework. I accept Federici's premise that "...we are all housewives, we are all
prostitutes and we are all gay, because until we recognise our slavery
we cannot recognise our struggle against it, because as long as we think
we are something better, something different than a housewife, we
accept the logic of the master, which is a logic of division, and for us
the logic of slavery. We are all housewives because no matter where we
are they can always count on more work from us, more fear on our side to
put forward our demands, and less pressure on them for money, since
hopefully our minds are directed elsewhere, to that man in our present
or our future who will 'take care of us'." I strongly agree with Federici's point that domestic laborers should be considered part of the workforce and should be able to organize for better conditions and eventually to revolt. Domestic labor is labor and should be considered by everyone and compensated as such. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">3.) My idea of what constitutes a "revolutionary perspective" differs from Federici's. For her, revolutionary programs need not damage or seek to end capital, but only "attack[s]
capital and force[s] it to restructure social relations in terms more
favourable to us."* For me, revolutionary programs must absolutely damage and seek to overthrow capital. Therefore, while for Federici wages against housework is a revolutionary demand, for me it is a transitional
at best, reformist at worst, demand. While it would undoubtedly ease
the suffering of many working class women (and men) and perhaps strike a great
blow to patriarchy, it would not destroy or even necessarily weaken capital.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">4.) Federici's claim that wages for housework would promote class unity seems to be the most obvious advantage to a wages for housework program. Most of us are threatened with retaliation for organizing for better conditions at work, so would it not be an invigorating development for the working class to be able to come home after a long day of exploitation and discuss work complaints and demands with one's domestic partner? The resentment frequently caused by the friction between domestic labor (e.g. the domestic laborer feels taken for granted and doubly exploited if s/he also works outside of the home) and labor outside of the home (e.g. the laborer feels the pressure of providing for the partner who works at home) would likely be eased by the empowerment that comes with working class unity. Once the domestic laborer and the out-of-home laborer are both considered legitimate laborers, some part of the (social) division of labor dies, perhaps even resulting in some minor alleviation of alienation, and a new bond is formed between them. If both partners work outside of the home, then there will be a more equitable distribution of domestic chores between them because of the new status of domestic labor as paid/socially-contracted labor, as well as because of the blow to the heteronormative gender roles perpetuated by the patriarchy that require and train women to be responsible for cleanliness and chores.** </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Federici makes fascinating points about the status of housework as unpaid labor. This is one of the most poignant paragraphs:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"But in the case of housework the situation is qualitatively different.
The difference lies in the fact that not only has housework been imposed
on women, but it has been transformed into a natural attribute of our
female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration,
supposedly coming from the depth of our female character. Housework had
to be transformed into a natural attribute rather than be recognised as a
social contract because from the beginning of capital’s scheme for
women this work was destined to be unwaged. Capital had to convince us
that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make
us accept our unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of
housework has been the most powerful weapon in reinforcing the common
assumption that <i>housework is not work</i>, thus preventing women
from struggling against it, except in the privatized kitchen-bedroom
quarrel that all society agrees to ridicule, thereby further reducing
the protagonist of a struggle. We are seen as nagging bitches, not
workers in struggle." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">5.) While I agree with Federici that "...housework is already money for capital...," I must side with Alexandra Kollontai on one of their other disagreements. Collectivized childcare and housework should be part of any revolutionary program.*** What a flamboyant straw man that Federici in her bombast has created! No one is promoting the jingoistic flag worship that she claims will be an inevitable result of state-run daycare. In fact, socialism is antithetical to jingoism; therefore, socialist programs, such as collectivized childcare, are also antithetical to jingoism. Socialism, as Marx conceived it, must be an international struggle, thereby making jingoism irrelevant and offensive (not to mention counterrevolutionary). No comrades will be forcing anyone's children to worship a flag.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Federici claims that collectivized daycare would result in a loss of control over workers' lives, with the state determining what children should learn and how they should be disciplined. However, in a socialist society, worker collectives (consisting of parents and domestic laborers) would determine the best practices for these communal care centers. If a worker genuinely fears that the all-powerful state will begin an insidious propaganda and indoctrination campaign against children, then that worker should become involved in the decision-making process surrounding childcare and housework (i.e. join the relevant collective). There will be no loss of worker control under collectivized childcare. In fact, the converse is true. Workers will be the only ones in control of raising and nurturing children under socialism. Once the fierce individualism bred by capitalism becomes passe, childcare can once again focus on raising the best possible people equipped to perpetuate the best possible society.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Housework under socialism absolutely must be collectivized. Imagine two scenarios:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">a.) A worker spends eight hours (or less, depending on whether full employment has yet been accomplished) on the job. After work, the worker faces three hours of domestic chores. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">b.) A worker spends eight hours on the job. During those eight hours, another worker has dusted, vacuumed, swept and mopped, washed and folded the laundry, cleaned the dishes, and cooked dinner. After their respective shifts, both workers return to clean homes, with no responsibility to conduct further labor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As a full-time worker, it is apparent to me that choice a.) is the more desirable and more equitable choice because, paid or unpaid, housework after a long day at work is an undesirable burden. Collectivized housework allows both workers to contribute meaningfully to society then enjoy their leisure time unencumbered by the demands of a second job.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">7.) I take issue with Federici's inexplicable negative characterization of the "career woman." She characterizes the struggle of the "career woman" as a meaningless one by using the word "worthwhile" sarcastically, then claims that women with careers do not utilize "unity and struggle" to achieve their goals and habitually oppress and exploit other women. While this might sometimes be the case, it is unfair to completely dismiss professional women who are only able to pursue a career as a direct result of feminist battles for maternity leave and workplace equality and who do not build their careers on the backs of other women.****</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>*</i><i>The usual left communist argument could be made here: that wages for
housework would somewhat ease the burden of living under capitalism,
thereby resulting in a delay of revolution. While I am not prepared
to support that argument (for is it not self-righteous and
privileged--not to mention historically questionable--to
suggest that workers should suffer more intensely in order to more
swiftly bring about revolution? Do workers not historically fight
against capital more effectively when they are well fed, properly
clothed,
and safely housed?), I do understand its internal logic, while
simultaneously marveling at its icy condescension.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>**My analysis primarily addresses heterosexual relations of power under capital because that is Federici's primary focus although I would like to examine her occasional provocative comments about homosexuality and labor in a later post.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>***The childcare currently in the US</i><i> is
privatized and run by underpaid, underqualified, disinterested (and
often abusive) parties charging exorbitant fees or that are subsidized
by a state that will not (and perhaps cannot) prioritize child care.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>****</i><i> Under capitalism it is impossible to avoid building
something on the back of some woman somewhere in
the world. Therefore, "career women" do oppress other women. However, it
is unfair to dismiss "career women" (while presumably allowing others a free pass) with a sneer because they
participate in exploitation common to everyone who pays taxes and
consumes goods in the imperialist US. </i></span></blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2975144224837314771.post-31406078009548364842013-04-11T05:49:00.001-07:002013-06-12T07:32:46.711-07:00Don't say that Margaret Thatcher never did anything for feminism. I started this blog because of her.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">More specifically, I started it because of the vitriolic, misogynist responses to her death from male socialists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Disclaimer: I despise Thatcher, who was a monster for her atrocities against various peoples, including her destructive policies involving the Malvinas Islands and subsequent consequences for Argentinians, as well as her collusion with the tyrant Pinochet, who violently overthrew the oldest democracy in Latin America at the time in 1974. For a people's history of Thatcher, visit: <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/09/297353/margaret-thatchers-criminal-legacy/">http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/09/297353/margaret-thatchers-criminal-legacy/</a> For an interesting take on her and Pinochet, visit: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/04/neruda-pinochet-thatcher-chile-murder-exhumed.html">http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/04/neruda-pinochet-thatcher-chile-murder-exhumed.html.</a> It should be blatantly apparent that I loathe Thatcher and her neoliberal, war-mongering, class warfare that killed thousands and injured more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Moving on. The Morning Thatcher Died, my Facebook feed was one long, uninterrupted misogynist slur. The typically equality-embracing, working class defending, feminist critiquing Marxist men who dominate my Friends List were being something they usually are not: misogynist. To clarify, this blatant woman-hating was toned down by the afternoon, once several feminists had noticed and begun protesting it. But first thing that morning, it was overwhelming. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is important that comrades be able to separate genuine political critiques from hollow sexist attacks. The blatant misogyny I witnessed that morning came in the form of one-liners, often on top of images of Thatcher, stating: "Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead;" "The big bitch is dead;" "Rest in piss, cunt;" "Bitch;" and so on. Such gendered slurs should be unacceptable in circles that proclaim the virtues of equality and the value of feminism. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In fact, these empty misogynist attacks actually served to cheapen and waste an opportunity for critical reflection on the damage done by Thatcher to feminism and the working class. Instead of wasting time with mindless knee-jerk gendered reactions to the death of a tyrant, Marxists should have been seizing the moment to raise awareness about exactly what she did that was so atrocious. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When I voiced critiques about this barrage of woman hating, I was met with objections to her policies, assurances that she was no friend to feminists, and accusations of liberal leanings (because liberals were whining that it was in "bad taste" to celebrate her death despite her crimes against humanity, something we shall see if they remember when George Bush II dies).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">People seemed unable to differentiate my genuine concern about the sexist manner in which comrades were celebrating her death from a perceived approval of her policies. My objection against misogynist rhetoric did not negate my objection to Thatcher's role in the growth of neoliberalism and the exploitation of the international working class. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One comrade posted that he thought men celebrating Thatcher's death constituted "violent rhetoric against women." (Please read that sentence closely because some commentators seemed incapable of critical reading and interpretation. It does not say "violence;" it says "violent rhetoric." It also specifies "men.") I have a deep appreciation of a male comrade's ability and willingness to recognize the potential harm done to women as a group by the profusion of misogyny that resulted from Thatcher's death. There certainly was something tribal and primal about the male socialist reaction to the news. It felt like the conclusion of a witch trial might have felt, a self-righteous, paternalistic celebration of the demise of some aberrant woman beast. I definitely felt intimidated and unsafe, as though the (distinctly gendered) hatred were somehow directed at me. This is unacceptable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This is not a liberal cry to "play nice." I call for
comrades to consciously avoid being misogynist, to become acutely aware
of its presence, and to call out all instances of it, online and in
person. This is a plea to eradicate sexism within our ranks to allow the free exchange of ideas and the unrestricted activity necessary to plan and execute a revolution. We must respect each other in order to stand in solidarity against the ruling class. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">UPDATE: Here is <a href="http://jacobinmag.com/2013/04/margaret-thatcher-an-obituary-from-below/">the only Thatcher obituary you need</a>. Thanks to <a href="http://www.leninology.com/">Richard Seymour</a> for redeeming the Left (again), and thanks to the Wolfe for pointing it out to me. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2