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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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On March 20, for the second time in its history, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) convened an Arria-formula meeting that focused specifically on the integration of the human rights of LGBTI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and other sexual and gender minorities) people in conflict into the work of the council.

Arria-formula meetings are informal, ad hoc gatherings that allow the convening member to invite parties outside the council’s membership to testify. The session’s chairperson, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, stressed that this was the first time that Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, had briefed the Security Council.

The significance of a Security Council meeting on LGBTI+ issues is not to be underplayed. Madrigal-Borloz and his office have created significant momentum since receiving the mandate to investigate these issues in 2016. The mandate has proved an important tool for engaging with national and local LGBTI+ civil society organizations, gathering on-ground insight during country visits about experiences of peace and conflict that have previously been absent from these international conversations. The U.N.’s most conservative organ is now moving toward entrenching and mainstreaming the protection of queer people as a mainstay of peace and security policymaking globally, as well as integrating attention to sexual orientation and gender identity in its work moving forward.

But there are still difficult questions around the future course of such measures. Is going down the UNSC route the right way to ensure the protection of queer people? How can the council ensure not just participation, but also leadership for deciding the next steps for international action from those outside the global north? How can actions account for the many diverse populations within the wide community of LGBTI+ people as a part of not only rethinking security responses, but also thinking about gender as a dimension of peacebuilding? What is the role that the broader U.N. LGBTI Core Group will take in bringing forward this agenda?

Speaking before the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield stated her desire to see momentum build toward the formal inclusion of LGBTI+ issues on the agenda. The potential integration of these issues and queer perspectives into future Security Council work could establish a UNSC-level mandate for the protection of queer communities.

We do not dispute that it is the UNSC’s responsibility to protect queer people globally. Indeed, we have each individually argued—in research on queering atrocity prevention and the responsibility to protect, and queering the women, peace and security agenda, as well as at the Arria-formula meeting—that the integration of queer people and perspectives into frameworks for peace and security is essential. For us, queering means not only highlighting the insecurity some people face because their gender and/or sexuality is constituted as abnormal or perverse by cisheteronormative standards, but also adhering to a queer political commitment of always interrogating dominant power structures and examining who benefits from the status quo. All people have a sexual orientation and gender identity. All people should, therefore, already fall under the work the council does to ensure international peace and security—regardless of their identity.

What troubles us, however, is that the United States and United Kingdom are leading the integration of LGBTI+ issues in the work of the UNSC while their domestic situations for queer people, especially transgender folks, are becoming increasingly fragile.

In the United States, there are an increasing number of legislative moves against queer people. Targeted legislation against the community includes what critics call the Don’t Say Gay law and the Stop WOKE Act, both passed in Florida and promoted vocally by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as the rollback of federal guarantees for reproductive rights with the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

In the United Kingdom, reported violence against queer people doubled between 2016 and 2021. And the country has been seized by a narrative of transphobic panic pushed by both mainstream media and politicians of both parties, resulting in the U.K. government’s halting of nationwide reforms of legal gender recognition as well as the blocking of Scottish reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, despite broad support for reform amongst the public. In his end of mission statement following his U.K. country visit, Madrigal-Borloz stated that he has a “deep concern” about the rise in anti-LGBT harassment, threats, and violence in the country.

Most worryingly, even with the worsening U.S. and U.K. domestic records and international virtue-signaling on queer issues, many other countries—including fellow Security Council members—have adopted anti-queer politics in nationalist discourse and as a key feature of their challenge to liberal world order. Russia has marketed itself as the world’s defender of so-called traditional family values for more than a decade, positioning itself in opposition to Europe, which it has constituted as “Gayropa” in its foreign policy. Part of that foreign policy includes a gendered and sexualized element, in which Russia presents itself as the savior of the morally corrupt Gayropa. Promoting so-called traditional values in opposition to supporting LGBTI+ rights was also a remarkably successful tactic in Colombia leading up to the failed peace referendum in 2016, and the appeal of such values is gaining further international support.

In China, there are no explicit legal protections against discrimination or violence on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Increasingly, groups that were established to support the LGBTI+ community are targeted and censored by the state, and there has been a resurgence in the propagation of the idea of queerness as correctable and foreign. This accompanies a shrinking space for advocacy, as the state’s censorship and security apparatus explicitly targets any positive queer representation and discourse. This has included a systematic campaign to eliminate “effeminate” men (niangpao) from mainstream media.

In Europe, countries such as Hungary and Poland have passed legislation that paints queer people as dangerous threats to order and the fabric of society. As we see the political currency of so-called traditional family values spread and harden internationally—along with a growing resistance to the imposition of “Western” queer values, Gayropean values, or so-called woke agendas—the UNSC adopting a queer agenda risks whipping up existing tensions about sexual morality, tradition, and culture in human rights debates, and adding fuel to the increasing attack on LGBTI+ people that is already underway.

Taking all of this together means that proponents of a queer agenda in peace and security chart a very cautious path forward when considering positioning the UNSC as a defender of queer people. Russia, a state actively perpetuating a discourse about the threat that queerness poses to international order and so-called tradition, and the United States and United Kingdom, states where there is significant and increasing polarization on LGBTI+ issues and gender more broadly, sit as permanent members of the UNSC. That means that there are huge risks in how Western, highly militarized states approach this move to, as Thomas-Greenfield put it, “institutionalize and regularize the Security Council’s approach to LGBTI+ issues.”

The often broad-strokes nature of UNSC resolutions leaves little room for the social and political nuance that is important when responding to queer people’s vulnerabilities. As such, a focus on the role of the UNSC, to some states and civil society actors, may end up reading as the imposition of Western values; an argument that already has incredible discursive traction among homophobic actors and often violent consequences for those targeted by anti-queer violence.

UNSC-led initiatives may also serve ends that are antithetical to its initial purpose: namely, justifying interventionism in a similar way to other interventions motivated to protect against gendered harms, such as the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan that was clad in colonial tropes concerning the subordination of Afghan women.

Language that dehumanizes and instills fear can quickly spread from traditional and social media, leading to the escalation of violence based on identity. Past instances of atrocity crimes, such as those perpetrated by the Nazis and those that drove the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, demonstrate that the persecution of LGBTI+ individuals and queer communities frequently serves as a precursor to the persecution of other marginalized groups. Lessons can be learned from organisations such as Colombia Diversa, which documented the integration of LGBTI+ folks in the Colombia peace process and is leading the way on queer approaches to peace and security.

Other research informed by LGBTI+ people working in conflict-affected societies can guide these next steps. The aforementioned study on queering atrocity prevention, funded by the U.K. government, called on states to engage in LGBTI+ inclusion and protection first and foremost at a domestic level and in a bottom-up, context-sensitive way, rather than adopting resolutions that may inadvertently make certain queer people in certain spaces more insecure and subject to targeting for persecution or eradication by actors seeking to use homophobia and transphobia for political gain.

A 2022 report titled Breaking the Binary, also funded by the U.K. government, recommended including LGBTI+ rights in national action plans; facilitating gender sensitivity training for international donors, international agencies, and civil society; developing LGBTI+ inclusive risk indicators and monitoring systems; investing in locally rooted organizations doing work to challenge heteropatriarchal gender norms and values; broadening the definition of “woman” used in Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820; and undertaking “joint internal learning, planning and implementation across different teams working on LGBT+ rights, on the WPS [women, peace, and security] agenda, and on conflict.”

We see the greatest opportunity for success in the building of contextually sensitive and less broad-stroke approaches to queering peace and security by working through the U.N. Human Rights Council and the Joint Office for the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect. These U.N. organs are well-placed to work with states and local partners to build devolved mechanisms to protect queer people whose needs differ over space and time.

With a new independent expert taking up the mandate in October 2023, we urge them to make an unflinching effort to integrate queer people, queer perspectives, and LGBTI+ rights into peace and security practices, particularly through the aforementioned U.N. organs, but also through the Peacebuilding Support Office.

#I thought this article was interesting #but I think the ultimate takeaway from it is when it points out how difficult it would be to make any of this actionable #also girl the UN has historically failed to protect a lot of people even with more support and impetus and focus

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gastromancer · 2 years ago

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@ohyumhumhum oh my fucking god, so what the fuck is ‘socialization’ if it is not the internalization of norms and ideologies wrt to gendered violence?

if you believe that the internalization of things like harmful & misogynistic ‘rape myths’ is an aspect of ‘gendered socialization’, then yes, the study i cited was 100% dealing in the subject of ‘socialization’.

the following is from Diamond-Welch et al., the study I provided you:

In particular, research consistently finds that men have higher rates of RMA [‘Rape Myth Acceptance’] (Hammond, Berry, & Rodriguez, 2011; Suarez & Gadalla, 2010), lower levels of empathy (Osman, 2011), and higher rates of victim blaming (van der Bruggen & Grubb, 2014) than do women.

… In particular, we contribute to the literature on attributions of blame by examining how attributions are influenced by a sense of similarity to the victim, based on membership in an at-risk identity group. In short, women may be less likely to blame the victim and have more empathy for her not just because they are both women but because women are more likely to be sexually assaulted than men (Breiding, 2014). Transgender individuals also carry higher risk of sexual assault victimization (Langenderfer-Magruder, Whitfield, Walls, Kattari, & Ramos, 2016). We will examine the effect of cisgender and transgender identities on attributions of blame utilizing a quasi-experimental vignette design.

cis men are disproportionately more likely than women to be accepting of ‘rape myths’ & to victim-blame, and this is consistent regardless of the sex/gender of the rape victim (Gerber et al 2004; Kahn et al 2011). as diamond-welch notes, a reason for this may well be because men as a group are far less likely to be victimized by rape than women are, & so are less likely to identify with the victimized.

research has consistently found that trans women are a high-risk group for experiencing sexual violence. According to Stotzer (2009), the most common finding for rape victimization rates among transfems is about 50%. But many other studies report even higher.

Trans women are a group overwhelmingly victimized by sexual assault. that diamond-welch found the trans woman group was less likely to be accepting of rape myths tracks with the fact that trans women are a highly sexually victimized group. yes, the study used a small cohort of subjects, but their findings are reflective of trans women’s material realities with respect to sexual victimization: as a group, they are highly victimized by rape, so it follows that they themselves are less likely to support harmful/damaging beliefs abt rape victims.

the idea that trans women are somehow “socialized male” or “socialized as sexually violent” when they are literally one of the most sexually marginalized groups under gender is fucking wild. trans women are socialized as non-men because of their perpetual victimization by patriarchal society. TERFs organizing a whole social movement around the vilification of a sexually marginalized subgroup, with the accusation that this subgroup is ‘sexually predatory’, is unspeakably evil.. but that’s how bigotry & oppression goes.

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and re: “TIMs with violent crimes against women be put in female prisons”.

sexual crime already frequently happens in women’s prisons irrelevant of trans woman incarceration. female victims of sexual violence in prisons are 3x more likely to have experienced abuse from other inmates than from [male or female] staff (BJP; SciAmerican). rampant sexual abuse btwn prisoners has never been limited to male prisons and happens about as frequently in female prisons, with cis woman perpetrators. and yet i have never heard a fucking peep from radfems, who are so supposedly concerned with female safety from sexual violence in prisons, about this.

the obsession with trans woman rapists in female prisons is because of sexualized fearmongering & moral panic about transgender women; not because of some good faith concern about female prisoners’ security, or else discussions about the existing issue of sexual assault in female prisons, especially female inmate-on-inmate violence (which is most common), would be had.

sexually violent trans women would be detained just as sexually violent cis women would be detained; trans woman rapists aren’t somehow more inherently dangerous than cis woman rapists, and they aren’t even causing the majority of sexual violence in women’s prisons— that would be cis women.

your “TIMs retain male patterns of criminality” source has been like.. infamously debunked lmao. The Dhejne study, which is the first study that paper cites, does not actually examine criminal behavior but general likelihood of being convicted. From Dr Ruth Pearce:

Cecilia Dhejne has repudiated the interpretation of her study as indicating “trans woman male criminality” herself [here and here]:

“[People who are] making claims about trans criminality, specifically rape likelihood, [are] misrepresenting the study findings. […] [F]or the 1989 to 2003 group, we did not find a male pattern of criminality. […] As for the criminality metric itself, we were measuring and comparing the total number of convictions, not conviction types […] We certainly didn’t control for [type of crime] and we were certainly not saying that we found trans women were a rape risk.”

#transmisogyny #terfs

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pantmonger · 4 years ago

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Women Space Marines, one generic white guys FAQ

or the same 3 BS questions I get asked every time. Why do you want them? Short answer: Because representation is important. Much Longer Answer:

Wargames have long had a problem with lack of diverse membership. Even more then most other nerd things, it has been a bastion of white males. This has created a circular problem. The more things were made with white guys as the target audience, the more it drove others away. Rinse and repeat ad-infinitum. In recent years there has been a push in nerd franchises towards inclusion. This push meant more diverse voices were able to be heard and as a result problematic elements have started to be removed. This has led to a level of diversity I have not seen in gaming spaces in my lifetime and it's fantastic. Despite the “get woke, go broke” rhetoric, nerd franchises of this type are enjoying a golden age. Leading wargames like the Warhammer franchise started actively becoming more progressive in their lore and model releases. This breathed new life into their games and diversified their audience. But left the elephant in the room. Space Marines. The poster faction of the largest selling table top wargame franchise, 40k, can only be male due to old 'lore'. In new releases this lore is rarely mentioned. It clearly still exists and there are no releases to the contrary. But it's a shameful truth they are not willing to change, hoping no one mentions it too much, for or against. This last holdout emboldens the bigoted elements in the hobby in a way no inclusivity statement will erase. Bigots love a smoke screen. They love having something that obfuscates their bigotry, so average Joes might mistake it as an issue of taste.

So much easier to say “It's the lore, I'm just a fan of the lore, stop trying to change it” then “I don't want women in the poster faction.” It also means women joining the hobby will always have to deal with the reality that the hobby is unwilling to have women in the poster faction, relegating them to less popular, less supported factions.

And this is why I want women space marines. They are needed to remove the smoke screen from bigots, and to affirm that women are as important in the hobby as white men. But Sisters of Battle are women, use those / Well can I have male Sisters of battle then?

They do not have the range of thematic options (chapters) of their marine counterparts. There are men already within sister of battle product line.

It's a false equivalence out of game, not being the poster faction and in game due to stats being weaker then marines.

I'm a lore purist, why do you want to change the lore? I seriously doubt that's your reason, but I'll play along.

The lore changes all the time, it is not an untouchable constant. The first space marine novel written is considered absolutely not lore now and has been retconned out of existence. And finally, like the newly added Primaris marines, they could be added without a retcon. Thus the lore would not change.

Its impossible to have women marines as the process only works on men! Broken fictional biology aside, this is known as a thermian argument. It ignores that problematic elements within a fiction were deliberately written into it by a real world author, and thus is not a defence of those elements. Bigotry in a fictional setting, that is not challenged within that setting, is effectively the same as real world bigotry.

Thanks for reading.

#Politics in the hobby but not really #Women Space Marines #Warhammer 40k

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canisvesperus · 3 years ago

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Join a Multifandom Discord Server!

Hello! I’m Ven, and I help run a multifandom server that accommodates members of kin and self-ship subcommunities. Our user count is just short of 50 (don’t let the number scare you off— it’s rather calm!), and us mods have concluded that it may be of interest to folks on tumblr!

-Our most popular fandoms here are Homestuck, Pokémon, Transformers, Hollow Knight, and My Hero Academia. However, we’re accepting of all fandoms!

-We welcome otherkin, fictionkin, fictives, self-shippers/oc x canon shippers, and the like

-Additional features include self-assignable roles (pronouns, identity, preferences on sharing and doubles), opt-in channels (such as 18+ for adults only), a blacklist, and several fandom, gush, and vent channels

-Server bots: Pluralkit, Tupperbox, SpoilerBoT, Starboard, MEE6, Botify, Carl-bot, Pokétwo, and Atlas

-We have occasional server events such as movie nights and art request sessions, tons of fun emojis, and the server is also boosted to level 1!

-This is a very inclusive server. However, in order to be inclusive, we must maintain a strict policy against bigotry. We do not welcome any sort of oppressive ideological rhetoric whatsoever

Please visit this google form to apply for membership! Because the server is oriented around demographics particularly susceptible to targeted trolling, security has to be tight. Followup DMs will NOT be entertained, so please double check that your answers are thoroughly explained before submitting the form. Once again, we stress that your application won’t be posted anywhere, even if it’s trolly or purposefully offensive.

We hope to hear from you soon!

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skinfeeler · 3 years ago

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you may notice so-called progressive members of religions (including those which are minority religions in ‘the west’) spend much more time on critics of religion than conservatives in their own circles. sentiments such as “X discussion belongs within the community” might clue us in as on why, but allow me to proffer a red thread that i believe i have identified throughout all of this.

it is, obviously, true that critique of religion often constitutes or is a vehicle for assorted bigotries. a certain vigilance can be understandable and i advocate among my peers to not let us become callous of the very real dangers that members of certain ethnic and cultural groups (however one might understand these) face, even people marginalised in and by such religious communities. this is then, in fact, the crux of my project: the acknowledgment that say, ex-muslims aren’t really helped by islamophobia given the fact that it’s not like they’re going to get support from those people peddling it, which is exactly why it’s so tragic that many of them feel there’s no place for them on the left, because so many people on the left refuse to acknowledge that even though islamophobia is well, extant, it’s not like people stuck in certain spheres (among which gay and trans people, women, and all children) are impervious from being harmed just because larger society might not be accepting of those who level that harm unto them. this much then is important: to do right by everyone who must be done right by in whatever way and to leave people’s dignity intact, and to do so in such a way that cannot be co-opted by white supremacists and the like— the most important way to do this is to attack the concept of parental authority, which (culturally) christian conservatives will never accept but will resolve basically all problems that result from the shape of religion as a non-elective membership propagated through the family (as structured by clergy etc etc, whatever).

inoffensive as this clause should be to anyone who claims to be part of the left — which must fundamentally oppose the family for either marxist reasons per engels or for other reasons — even anti-theism which very clearly takes this form is mistaken, usually on purpose, by many religious apologists, to be something it’s not. one of those things that get invoked is the very real white supremacism and imperialist thought that is too endemic in our circles. i’ll admit to tendencies herein appearing from time to time — including in myself, at times, regrettably — but i also insist that a large part of this is simply the fact that while religious people enjoy the benefits of community and avenues for discussion and review, many of us do not: all we have at this stage, sadly, is the diatribes of new atheists who consider christendom an important ‘bulwark’ to protect the ‘occident’ who are useless to anything but an insipid culture war. mistakes are going to be made, and i think some small leeway should be allowed those most ambitious of us who still have a clear and provable dedication to justice and equity (and this is in fact the point of any useful notion of freedom of speech), especially since what we currently have works for nobody except those who want first and foremost to remain comfortable— which is exactly what i believe describes so many anti-anti-theists, but we do in fact need an alternative.

it’s not easy to be leftist and religious and my heart goes out to those who try, even if i don’t ultimately think that where they are heading will allow them to keep their principles coherent and intact: members of one’s congregation and one’s spiritual leaders may tacitly condone or endorse ethnic cleansing in the levant, assorted infant genital maiming rituals, reifications of gender that only those least abject to it can find peace with (consider the humble theyfab), the imperative and exaltation of procreation, to name a few possibilities, which one then is implicitly required to respect in order to remain part of such communities, and i understand the struggle of wanting to be or remain part of those and to have to tangle with that. what i don’t understand then, though, is the abhorrence of people outside such circles who perform critique of the like: i simply do not agree with the fact that certain discussions should stay within the community and they should be well left alone in literally every way with no demands made given the fact that certain members in those communities who this harm is visited upon and whose membership isn’t elective (including all children) do not have voice or agency in those discussions — they deserve support and solidarity across cultural lines, especially as it’s apostates from so many religions who helped me survive and i will owe this to them forever — let alone those in the outgroup who fall victim to the real geopolitical consequences of the substance of certain positions that proliferate in some of these communities, as is now more relevant than ever. this latter aspect is obvious to even the progressive religious apologist, however… at least those conservatives, both inside the congregation and in much more conservative movements don’t threaten what they perceive to be the faith.

an instantiation of this which i will see even most progressive religious people abhor is the notion that any religion is tied, inherently, to not just a nation, but a state. and so they can quibble with their zionist peers and spiritual leaders on this, because both of them have one thing in common: the idea that even if one’s religion/culture is not most meaningfully embodied through state, it is through family, and the criticism of the conservative that the progressive has is not that they are wrong, but merely inauthentic and clinging to something unnecessary, but they are not. i vehemently disagree: the nature of most organised religions has changed through both necessity and acknowledged moral imperative. why can a religion which doesn’t transmit through the family (one of only adult converts perhaps) be envisioned— which in turn wouldn’t depend so heavily on the reification of bodies and family immanent in the aforementioned (a conclusion worth stressing on its own)? if you ask me, it’s a matter of a lack of courage borne from a lack of understanding of history— one may want to read doubt: a history by jennifer michael hecht who is considered jewish according to halakha (for however much that fucking means) who speaks on what the german jews in the 19th century, understanding that they could either stay stuck in the present (and thus have their worldview eventually become as farcical as those who believed that recreating the temple era of judaism was either viable or desirable in any histiographical or theological sense as a result of you know, history historying) or establish those principles which they believed were actually important that could be passed on regardless of how judaism was envisioned before. their work, however hegelian in nature, produced some of the greatest minds even among their apostates, including theodor adorno. turns out that even when people become philosophers rather than rabbis (or ministers, or imams, or gurus), they have plenty to offer, there is wisdom and value in exalting sagehood above the pulpit and how the pulpit must always lay down the law for the mechanisms of familial transmission.

consider second, the ancient greeks: the ancient greeks no longer possess the structures required to exercise their worldviews and theodicies as a bloc (in diaspora or otherwise). regardless, many of their concepts and wisdoms persist in various cultures literally all across the worlds, including mine: their strands of cultural dna have germinated in a larger cosmopolitan phenotype, and i believe this is beautiful and worthwhile in its own right, and in no way whatsoever a loss. sure, their influence might not be recognisable as an enduring culture, but does that make it any less valuable? no, not in the slightest. the fact is, once you are on the other side this is the most normal thing in the world, nobody will mourn it, and everyone who wishes to return will be easily dismissed as entertaining a fantasy. the only way to forestall this is in fact a tautological clinging to the present which will necessarily through the course of history become an immanence of reaction, after all, the prime fallacy of reactionary thought is that it is in fact possible to recreate the past, which is plainly not true except perhaps for aesthetic but which will regardless necessarily be rooted in the current conditions of the world. all that forestalling this progression constitutes is the insistence on the completely artificial. much like the workings of the state are one that imposes a false reality, a phantasm, a reification onto the world, so with family, and literally the moment you stop propping it up it will be superceded. let me repeat that: supercession is inevitable, and the most sophisticated elements of any culture acknowledge this and have for literal centuries (although some cultures are ahead of others in this regard by-and-large). for every generation of a culture persisting as itself, apostates and deviants emerge and at this rate they have done more for the progress within any cultural body than will ever happen within such cultural bodies, which must begrudgingly acknowledge that they are dependent on modernity in order to make any progress at all (and as such, will wither away together with modernity), although of course they will deny this at any front— the adaptation of any covenant is desperately contingent on integration and naturalisation of the apostate and the ‘modern’, or at least her wisdom , which the embodied religious individual will then, of course, pretend to practisee more ‘maturely’ than the apostate because they insist on integrating it in a neutered fashion where it is stripped of future potential of development until the next steal comes along, which is better than fully embodied anti-atheism as the ever-sublating struggle against entropy, for some fucking reason.

this is the promise of ‘externality’ that foucault dreamt of: that there is a way of thinking ‘outside the box’ that allows us to once and for all dispel and move on from the ways of thinking that we cannot think outside of. derrida then disputed him by arguing that there is no outside context. derrida is right— regardless, i remain optimistic: perhaps this cosmopolitan neotenous emergence is a culture in itself, but it is as divergent from what came before as christianity is to judaism, and islam to both christianity and judaism. all it takes is courage, and once the leap of faith has been made, this state of affairs will be the most normal thing in the world. in light of this, the claim that anticlericalism is simply an outwash of christendom becomes obviously farcical and a clear double standard when one considers in juxtaposition their insistence that christianity is divergent from what came before, even though in both cases (christendom versus judaism, anticlericalism versus christendom) perhaps some commonality in language exists and perhaps some people exist who have not managed to estrange themselves from the trappings of christian thought— not to mention the worldwide history of anticlericalism that is yet to be integrated which exists exactly because clericalism necessarily has the same structure and function across all religions. join me in this supercessionist bliss, reject the idea that chronology of thought implies that successors are one and the same as what they draw upon or co-opt, and help usher in the only future world worth conceiving of, resting easy and comfortable in the truthful rejection of the notion that any culture needs to cling to the notion of familial transmission to have any worth at all or that its existence as such is inevitable. the complete and utter nullification of familial logic will happen regardless of whether you want it or not anyway, because it is as artificial as the logic of nation and state and likewise unsustainable and on its death march— this is the one and final eschatology of this world which is not a threat, but a promise, since it will (and can) not be the result so much of repression but of religion collapsing under its own weight, and this much is only uncomfortable to those who are disciples to the family regardless of whether they admit it to themselves or not.

#atheism #avery speaks

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antifainternational · 5 years ago

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2019: The Year In Fascist & Far-Right Extremist Violence

2019 was the third year that the Antifa International social media collective tried to document acts of violence committed by bigots, fascists, and the extreme right around the world. Over the last twelve months we’ve documented 576 violent incidents, including:

78 shootings

29 arsons

72 stabbings

308 beatings

16 bombings

20 vehicle attacks

3 kidnappings

2 acid attacks

3 scaldings

2 sexual assaults

43 foiled terrorist attacks

These attacks killed 373 people and injured 1156 others.

Click here for a map of the incidents we documented, including our sources of information.

Click here for a timeline of the incidents we documented.

PARAMETERS

The two main parameters we had to contend with for this project were what would we consider to be “violence” and how we would decide if a violent act was motivated by bigotry, fascism, or far-right extremism.

We defined “violence” as any act that caused physical harm to a person; or any act in which included a credible threat of physical harm to a person; or any act in which it was likely that a person would suffer physical harm as a direct or indirect result (for example, an arson attack on an occupied building). This definition omitted acts of property damage and vandalism where people were not put into potential physical jeopardy as a result.

Determining which acts were motivated by the attacker’s bigotry, fascism, or involvement in far-right extremism was not easy. We examined each case under the same lens - using the anti-fascist slogan “respect existence or expect resistance” as a guide, we tried to determine as accurately as possible whether the intended target’s identity as part of, membership in, or activity in a group of people normally targeted by bigots, fascists, and the far right was the most likely motivation for the attack. Essentially, for each incident we asked ourselves if the victim(s) would have been targeted for attack if they did not belong to such a group. In some cases, we considered whether it was reasonable to conclude that the attacker’s involvement in fascist/right-wing extremism would have led them to resort to violence instead of using other avenues that someone not involved in such extremism would have chosen - this was especially true for attacks against people close to the attacker (such as family members) or against other fascists. It is important to note that we excluded violent hate crimes committed by state actors (such as military or law enforcement agencies) from our data set.

METHODOLOGY

We monitored reports of violent hate crimes in several countries. These reports came from the news media, advocacy organizations, and other sources. We compiled the reports into our chronology and map on a weekly basis. We’d like to acknowledge the value of the research compiled by groups such as ProPublica, the Human Rights Campaign, Tell Mama, Mut Gegen Rechte Gewalt, Bell Tower News, factchecker.in, the Never Again Association, Transgender Europe, and Luigi Mastrodonato, all of whom did outstanding work documenting violent hate crimes around the world that proved extremely helpful to our own research.

LIMITATIONS

This research, while likely the most comprehensive reporting of violent hate crimes in 2019, should not by any means be considered a complete listing of bigoted/fascist/far right violence. Instead, we believe it best serves as a sample of the level of violence committed nearly every single day last year. Because our research collective is small, unfunded, and run entirely by volunteers, we were limited to what stories we could find being published by news media and by advocacy organizations, which means that our data does not capture violent hate crimes that were not reported by either. We were further limited in scope to sources in languages we understood, which means that although we’ve improved in this regard, we still failed to document violent hate crimes in whole regions and countries that we are unfamiliar with and do not know the language(s) of. There is no doubt that the 576 incidents of bigoted, fascist, and extreme-right violence we managed to document in 2019 are only a fraction of the number of incidents that happen every day around the world. It’s our hope that by documenting and describing what our resources and limitations allow us to, the urgency of responding to this issue will be impossible to ignore.

FINDINGS We documented far more incidents of bigoted, fascist, and extreme-right violence than we did in the two years previous (we started this particular project in 2017) - 89% more incidents than 2018 and a nearly 400% increase over the number of incidents we recorded in 2017. All told, we documented more violent hate crimes in 2019 than we did in the previous two years combined. Likewise the increase in the number of those killed and injured by bigoted, fascist, or extreme-right violence. Whether this increase is a reflection of growing violence or whether it is because our ability to find and document violent hate crimes globally has improved is difficult to determine. Other findings from our research:

The most violent single hate crime occurred in April 2019, when a Sri Lankan fascist group connected to Daesh/ISIS led a series of coordinated terror attacks against Christians, killing dozens and injuring hundreds.

The group most likely to be targeted for hate-motivated violence in 2019 (after taking into account the April terror attacks against Christians in Sri Lanka) were Muslims, followed by migrants and refugees. Trans people experienced nearly the same number of violent incidents as LGB+ people but were the most likely to be murdered. Trans men and women were the victims in 23% of the bias-motivated murders we documented in 2019. Three out of every four violent attacks against a trans person that we documented this year was lethal.

The 35 violent incidents we documented in New York City earn it the title of 2019 Violent Hate Crime Capital of the World, with 6% of all violent hate crimes that we documented worldwide occurring in the Five Boroughs. These crimes also give the Big Apple the title of the city with the 5th-most violent hate crimes per capita in 2019. As 74% of those attacks were against Jewish people, New York also appears to be the most dangerous city in the world for Jews, which just one neighbourhood (Brooklyn’s Crown Heights) accounting for a third of all violent hate crimes in the city last year. That said, Portland, OR. had the highest per-capita violent hate crime rate of any city in the world - nearly 4x higher than New York City’s. Washington, DC had the 2nd-most violent hate crimes per capita, followed by Warsaw, Berlin, and New York City.

Bigoted, fascist, and extreme-right violence peaked in the period between April and August of 2019, when more than half of the incidents we documented occurred. Our research revealed this same pattern of violent incidents peaking between April and August of 2018.

CONCLUSION

It’s entirely possible that our work documenting bigoted, fascist, and extreme-right violence in 2019 demonstrates a marked increase in violence and especially deadly violence last year. The first day of 2019 saw nine different attacks in five countries that left 13 people injured and one dead. Nearly twelve months later, five Jewish people were hacked with a machete at a Hanukkah. At a press conference, the daughter of one of the most-seriously injured in that attack begged all of us to "please stand up and stop this hatred ... all types of hatred against any race, religion, orientation, anything else." As antifascists we will continue to expose, oppose, and confront fascists, using every means at our disposal to stop them, until the list of their victims drops to zero. Anti-fascism is self-defence and protecting our communities from fascist violence is why we fight.

In just three years, this research project has become the most globally-comprehensive documentation of violent hate crimes that exists (to our knowledge.) While other organizations that track hate crimes tend to cover just one country and wait until the end of the year to publish an annual report, we attempt to cover all countries and update our chronology and map in real time throughout the year, making our data the most up-to-date. But we can’t sustain or expand this project without your support! We’re raising funds so we can pay for the translation, research, analysis, writing, editing, and graphic design services we need to keep moving forward. Please support our continuing efforts to document and analyze violent hate crimes globally by making a contribution to help sustain & expand our research efforts - click here!

#hate crimes #bigoted violence #bias motivated #antifa #antifascist #antifascism #why we fight #international violent hate crimes research

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notthesomefather · 3 years ago

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Are you a heathen, follower of the Norse gods, or interested in learning? Are you anti-racist and anti-bigotry? Are you tired of hitting paywalls or membership requirements when you want to find information and community in heathen spaces?

Join The Godsring on Discord!

Our goal is to create and maintain a heathen space where ALL followers of the gods feel welcome. This includes, but is in no way limited to:

practitioners of all gender identities

practitioners of all ethnic, cultural, and racial backgrounds

neurodivergent practitioners

followers of Loki, Hel, Fenrir, Jormangundr, etc.

practitioners of all experience levels

Come say hi x0x

#heathen #asatru #rokker #norse #pagan #seidr #galdr #vitki #discord #norse gods #norse paganism #norse pagan #heathenry

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hogtown-socialist-alternative · 5 years ago

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Understanding Britain’s Brexit Crisis

By Claire Laker-Mansfield -October 18, 2019

Britain’s ongoing Brexit crisis has entered a new and spectacularly explosive phase. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is in a state of chaos. His attempts to regain control, including via the dissolution of Parliament, have so far failed. Johnson’s first week in parliament as Prime Minister saw him lose six parliamentary votes in six days, including two failed attempts at calling a general election.

It was also a week in which the thin thread that had been holding together the Tory (Conservative) Party’s warring factions finally broke. Twenty-one Conservative MPs, including Philip Hammond, who just weeks ago held the office of chancellor under Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, were thrown out of the party by Johnson. Hammond’s name sits alongside a series of former cabinet ministers and several notable “grandees” who have all been de facto expelled by the prime minister.

Chaos ensued in the House of Commons as the archaic rituals associated with proroguing – or suspending Parliament – were carried out. Chants of “shame on you” came from Parliament’s benches. The speaker of the house, himself a Tory MP, described Johnson’s decision as an act of “executive fiat.”

But far more important than any of the MPs’ stunts or Tory machinations have been the thousands of workers and young people who have turned out on protests against what is commonly referred to as Boris’ “coup.” Up to 100,000 people took part in protests across Britain in the week the proroguing was announced. And the Tory party conference was also marked with a major protest through the streets of Manchester. While the demonstrations have inevitably reflected the confusion that exists around the question of Brexit, and while they have sometimes been led by middle-class and pro-capitalist forces, these protests have offered a small outlet for the tremendous pent-up anger that exists within society. They hint at the huge potential for working-class people to be mobilised against Tory rule, to fight for an end to austerity, and to demand much more than that.

This was followed in late September by the U.K. Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the proroguing declaring it “unlawful.” But while this was certainly a setback for Johnson it did not lead to any clarity on how the Brexit crisis would be resolved.

The political implosion that took place in September had been brewing for a long time. In June 2016, a majority of British people voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, thus ushering in a new era in British politics – one of profound crisis and uncertainty

Three Years of Drift

Three years later, the issue of Britain’s relationship with the EU has only increased in dominance. And the Brexit crisis and the utter malaise in which British capitalism finds itself, has continued to deepen.

Mere hours separated the counting of ballots in the 2016 referendum and the resignation of the then Tory Prime Minister David Cameron. His replacement, Theresa May, who in the end faced no serious challenger, was the almost unanimous choice of the capitalist establishment. She was the chosen “safe pair of hands” – trusted to prioritize their interests in deeply uncertain times.

May was chosen for an historic task: the task of delivering a “Brexit in name only,” of mitigating and minimizing the damage done to Britain’s capitalist class by the “Leave” vote. In practice, this meant securing a deal that would maintain Britain’s membership of, or at least close relationship with, the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union, meanwhile respecting the result of the referendum in a formal sense.

In short, her mission was to regain control of the situation for the capitalist class. But far from succeeding, she resigned her office in utter defeat. She became the second Tory Prime Minister to fall victim to the Brexit crisis. But the cost of her failure to Britain’s capitalist class was far greater.

May’s inability to deliver did not stem fundamentally from personal weakness. This incredible loss of control by the capitalist class – symbolized in the maverick figure of her Trump-idolizing successor, Boris Johnson – was not caused by personalities and egos. Instead, this situation has arisen out of the deep, global crisis of the capitalist system, combined with the more specific, long-term decline of British capitalism.

Once known as the workshop of the world, Britain now has lower levels of productivity than impoverished Greece. Rather than investing in the development of new technology and technique, Britain’s capitalists instead tend to rely on low wages for the maintenance of profitability. Meanwhile, ten years on from the crisis of 2008, amidst stagnant living standards, the UK is once again heading for recession, with negative growth reported for the first quarter of 2019.

It is this malaise which was the underlying cause of the initial defeat suffered by the establishment in the referendum. It’s this which explains the profound difficulty the capitalists have in winning a stable social base of support for politics which represent their interests.

The explanations most commonly offered in the capitalist media for the Brexit vote are centered around the issue of immigration. But, while capitalist politicians on both sides of the debate used anti-migrant and, in some cases, openly racist rhetoric, it is not accurate to describe racism as the central feature of the Leave vote. In actual fact, in a confused and inchoate way, the Leave vote represented a revolt by primarily working-class voters. It was a revolt against a capitalist establishment responsible for a decade of austerity, for the decimation of communities through de-industrialisation, for wrecked public services, privatization, slashed benefits, and food-bank Britain.

The most important factor determining how likely someone was to vote Leave in the referendum was class. Almost two-thirds of low-paid workers – classified as “C2DE” in surveys in Britain – did so. When surveyed about their reasons for voting the way they did, only a third of Leave voters cited the issue of immigration as their main reason for doing so. By far the most common factor referred to – the reason given by almost 50% – was the issue of democratic control, the desire for a proper say over the decisions that affect our lives. What is this, if not an acknowledgement that the society we live in is “rigged” in favour of the super-wealthy – that working-class people lack a genuine voice in the way our society is run? Surely underlying this sentiment, even if it is not always clearly articulated, is an understanding that the European Union plays its part in the “rigging” that is inherent in capitalism – that it is part and parcel of this establishment.

Nevertheless, in the absence of a clear lead coming from the workers’ movement outlining a socialist and internationalist Leave position, many working-class and young people supported Remain – repulsed by the bigotry of Johnson and Farage. But this instinctive internationalism of many workers and youth has nothing in common with the neoliberal capitalist project that is the EU, nor with the Tory leaders of the official Remain campaign, who themselves used anti-immigrant rhetoric throughout.

What we have witnessed in the past years has been a process of slow disintegration within the Tory Party. This is a process which Boris Johnson’s election as leader has now accelerated to a dramatic climax. The Conservative Party is the oldest and, in many ways, the most successful capitalist party in the world. And its falling apart, especially at the same time as the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn occupies the leadership of the Labour Party, leaves the capitalist class without any reliable and stable form of political representation.

This has resulted in a situation where the capitalist class – which overwhelmingly supports Britain remaining in the EU – is currently unable to guarantee against a no-deal crash out.

Looming General Election

Indeed, very avenue available for attempting to stop such an outcome is fraught with problems for them. In normal circumstances, a general election would be the chosen “way out” of such a deadlock. But the lack of reliable political representation for the capitalists means this is not straightforward.

It’s possible a general election could deliver Johnson a larger majority. Or that the newly formed right populist Brexit Party could become a significant parliamentary force, with what remains of the Tories reliant on their votes for a majority.

Another possible scenario – one which the capitalist class is toying with as a potential way out – is the possibility of Corbyn coming to power.

Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015 based on a massive upsurge of working-class and young people who wanted to see a voice for anti-austerity politics expressed in the mainstream. But Corbyn’s emergence as leader was not the result of a steady transformation of the Labour Party from the ground up. Instead, Corbyn emerged at the head of a party which, in Parliament, in local government, and in its apparatus and machinery remained completely dominated by neoliberals linked to former party leader Tony Blair. Under Blair’s leadership, the party renounced its commitment to socialism and sought to move in the direction of the U.S. Democrats. And despite having led the party for four years, and the tens of thousands of Corbyn-supporters who have joined the party to support him, Corbyn has failed to mobilize these forces to conduct a campaign to wrest control of the party – including through the reselection of MPs and so on – from the hands of the neoliberals.

That’s why elements within the capitalist class are now weighing up whether a Corbyn-led government, if it were adequately restrained by the presence of the Blairite fifth column which has been allowed to remain dominant in the parliamentary party, might be preferable. Its potential merits are being openly discussed among the more serious capitalist commentators. But they are playing with fire. Especially if it came on the back of another Corbyn “surge” like the one which brought him into the leadership, such a government could inspire huge expectations among workers and young people. It could generate a confidence and willingness to fight for pro-working-class policies, and an appetite for more far-reaching, socialist change. This type of surge also occurred in the 2017 general election when Corbyn ran on a program of bold pro-working-class reforms and shocked the establishment by leading Labour to a far stronger result than they expected.

In any case, such an outcome is far from guaranteed. The failure of both Jeremy Corbyn and the trade union leaderships to adopt an independent, class-based approach toward the question of Britain’s relationship with the EU has contributed to a situation in which tremendous confusion exists over the issue.

As far back as 2015, when Jeremy Corbyn first stood for the leadership of the Labour Party, this was among the issues on which he came under most pressure to retreat. By abandoning his historic position of opposition to the EU as a neoliberal bosses’ club, instead taking a type of “soft Remain” line, Corbyn played a part in allowing the development of the contradictory and in many ways false polarization that currently exists on the question of Brexit – polarization which does not sit neatly along class lines. Indeed, the failure of the labor movement to put its mark on the issue has opened a door to the racist and xenophobic right.

Johnson spent the summer seeking to shore up a base for himself in the context of an insurgent right-populist force in the form of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party, which romped home in the European elections in May winning nearly a third of the vote. In attempting to undercut this serious electoral threat to the Tories, Johnson has made sacrosanct the 31 October withdrawal date for Britain leaving the European union – with or without a deal. This has been combined with a series of pledges for increased public spending aimed at creating the impression that a Johnson government will move away from austerity.

What Would A No-Deal Brexit Mean?

Despite his self-presentation as a determined hard Brexiteer, it’s clear Johnson would prefer to arrive at some form of agreement with the European Union. But for him to be able to justify such a deal to his own support base, both in parliament and outside it, this would need to be one which included significant concessions, particularly on extremely the thorny question of the “Irish backstop.” This refers to the border between Southern Ireland, part of the EU, and Northern Ireland which is part of the U.K. The Good Friday Agreement in 1997 brought an end to the “Troubles,” the previous period where the Irish Republican Army waged an armed campaign to force the British state to relinquish control of Northern Ireland and reunite the North with the South. Part of the Good Friday Agreement involved the withdrawal of British troops from the streets and patrolling the border while the IRA disarmed.

But the Good Friday Agreement also created a Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive which enshrined sectarian, communal division. Today Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA, dominates in the Catholic community while the hardline Democratic Unionist Party dominates in the Protestant community. The underlying sectarian division in the North has actually become more entrenched in the past 20 years. As a result of this polarization, the institutions created by the Agreement have ceased functioning.

If Brexit leads to a hard border between the North and South of Ireland it will create mass opposition among the Catholic population and even has the potential to reignite the troubles. But the alternative of creating a border between the whole of the island and Britain across the Irish Sea (an “East-West” border as opposed to a “North-South” border) would lead to strong opposition among Protestants who would see it as part of the drift towards a united Ireland.

On a capitalist basis, this problem is in many ways intractable. From the perspective of the EU, any arrangement in which the UK ends up outside of the Single Market or Customs Union without a deal which closely aligns Britain to its central regulations and agreements, would necessitate some form of border. Socialists strongly oppose hardening the border within Ireland or creating a new border in the Irish Sea.

From Johnson’s perspective, agreeing to the proposed “backstop,” which would essentially keep Britain in the Customs Union for an indefinite period and which would make impossible the negotiation of new trade deals, would be seen a huge climbdown. What’s more, it would open the door for the far right-wing leader of the new “Brexit Party” Nigel Farage to paint him as a Brexit traitor in an upcoming election. Johnson’s latest proposal for how to square this circle seems dead on arrival with the Irish government and the EU.

On the other hand, Farage’s strategy – simple and effective – is to call for a “clean break Brexit,” which is another way of saying no deal. He and his acolytes link this to the idea of a renaissance in British manufacturing, and the return of well-paid, skilled jobs to areas of the country that have been laid waste by more than thirty years of neoliberalism. This approach is combined with a conscious attempt to whip up anti-migrant and racist sentiment.

In the context of a huge fog surrounding the question of Brexit, and of a correct sense among many working-class Leave supporters that the capitalist establishment is attempting to overturn the 2016 referendum result, the seeming clarity of this approach cuts ice with many ordinary people. A recent ComRes poll found that 38% of voters would favour a no-deal exit on October 31 if an agreement has not been reached before then. This growing sentiment not only threatens to eat into the Tories’ base, but Labour’s as well – especially in many of the party’s working-class heartlands in the north of the country, many of which voted by a large margin to leave the EU.

The threat posed by Farage has pushed Johnson to at least pretend to take a harder and harder line on the negotiations, leaving him with little room to manoeuvre. Johnson hoped that by dissolving parliament he could buy himself space to seek a new deal with the EU. The plan was to put a take-it-or-leave-it style bill to parliament with just one week left to prevent a crash out. Despite the setback for Johnson caused by the Supreme Court ruling, his basic strategy seems unchanged. Nonetheless, he has now indicated he may be forced to request an extension to the deadline, and he could be potentially be jailed for defying parliament should he refuse.

In threatening a no-deal exit he has placed his own ambition and narrow electoral interests ahead of those of the capitalist class more widely.

While the stories hitting headlines threatening economic Armageddon in the event of a no-deal Brexit do contain a large element of “project fear,” they are not a pure fantasy. There would be real consequences.Even a two minute delay for each truck coming in from Europe at the port of Dover, something which could easily be caused by the necessary new customs checks, would be likely to result in a queue stretching back for more than seventeen miles! The potential for the capitalists to carry out closures and job losses based on the disruption of supply chains is also not simple scaremongering. But neither are these outcomes inevitable. The reality is that many of the firms threatening job cuts and closures related to Brexit were in many cases planning them anyway – with Brexit a handy “excuse” – part of an attempt to shift blame for economic distress onto working-class Leave voters. Equally, relocations are costly and take time. The more extreme threats of a potential mass exodus of companies from the UK almost overnight are exaggerated. It would be possible for a left government to intervene to prevent closures and job losses – if it was prepared to take companies threatening such measures into public ownership, guaranteeing the jobs and the conditions of those who work there.

This emphasises the importance of Corbyn intervening now with a clear program on these issues. It underlines the need for an independent, pro-working-class approach to the issue of Brexit.

Political Realignment

As we have explained, he British ruling class is seeking to regain some semblance of control over the situation. In particular they want to use of the parliamentary Remain majority, which in reality consists of a coalition of pro-capitalist MPs from all the main political parties, to tie Johnson’s hands.

Combined with the breaking up of the Tory Party and the ongoing (if rather one-sided) war within Labour, the “Remain coalition” that has developed in parliament in the last weeks hints strongly at the potential for the broader political realignment that has been inherent within the situation for some time, but which has so far failed to crystallize.

The parliamentary campaign to stop a no-deal outcome has resulted in a bill being passed which requires Johnson to seek an extension of article 50 (delaying Brexit) should he fail to reach an agreement ahead of October 31. So far, his approach has been to say that he will defy this law if there is no agreement. Theoretically, this would make it possible for him to be jailed for allowing a no-deal outcome.

This parliamentary rebellion has also resulted in MPs blocking, on two occasions, Johnson’s attempts to call a general election. With his parliamentary majority gone – down from +1 to -43 – there is ultimately no way for him to continue to govern without a new election.

Meanwhile, Corbyn has participated in the cross-party approach to stopping a no-deal Brexit and whipped Labour MPs to participate in blocking a general election both times it was put to the vote. There are grave dangers posed for Corbynism in the current situation. And with an autumn general election still overwhelmingly likely, the importance of him resisting the tremendous pressure he is under to capitulate, both on Brexit and on a myriad of other issues, is heightened.

While it is not necessarily wrong for Corbyn to have opposed Johnson’s general election on the basis of it potentially allowing him to maintain control over the Brexit process, the Labour leader’s failure to seize the initiative on this question has allowed him to “blend into the background” of Remain MPs.

There is potential for another “Corbyn surge” to take place. This could be combined with a huge mood of revolt against Tory austerity, and particularly against the bigoted and reactionary figure of Boris Johnson. But there should be no complacency about the outcome of a general election. Any hint of Corbyn participating in some form of “rainbow Remain alliance” would be toxic for him and would likely end in catastrophe.

That’s why Corbyn needs to spend the next weeks speaking directly to and for working-class people. He needs to, in a clear way, outline an independent, class-based approach on all the central questions facing society.

This should begin with calling on trade unions, climate strikers, and all those suffering under austerity, to take to the streets in mass protests against Johnson’s government – fighting to kick out the Tories.

A Socialist Program

On Brexit, Corbyn can offer clarity and unity. A socialist approach to the issue has the potential to cut through the false polarization that has been created, uniting working-class Leave and Remain voters behind a common program. As a starting point, Corbyn must make clear that a government led by him would act to guarantee jobs and protect living standards, whatever the outcome of the Brexit process. In particular, that means pledging now to bring any company threatening closures or layoffs into public ownership, with compensation only paid to shareholders on the basis of need.

Corbyn’s approach should include fighting to re-open negotiations on a totally different basis – laying down as red lines not the interests of big business, but those of workers, young people, and pensioners. This means opposing all the treaties and agreements that the EU has institutionalised which act to encourage a race-to-the-bottom in pay, or which would place obstacles in the way of a left government carrying out pro-working-class policies such as bringing sector like the railways which were privatized back into public ownership. It means opposing racism and attacks on migrants, as well as the erection of any new borders in relation to Ireland. It means taking a clearly internationalist approach – appealing over the heads of pro-capitalist EU negotiators to the workers of Europe, many of whom are already engaged in battle against austerity. In short, it means posing the question of a new collaboration of the peoples of Europe – one only possible on the basis of socialism.

Such an approach, if it were linked to a bold program to end cuts, introduce free education, give workers a real living wage and carry out huge investment in public services, would gain tremendous support.

But the reality is that getting elected would only be the first of a whole series of major challenges faced by Corbyn. The context of crisis in which he could come to power means there will be a ferocious campaign of sabotage by the neoliberals and the right against any attempt by him to implement a genuinely pro-working-class program.

That’s why it’s necessary to use the next five weeks, as well as any future election campaign, to prepare for what could come.

Faced with direct economic sabotage, or with the immediate fall out of a chaotic Brexit, Corbyn would need to take swift measures to defend the interests of working and middle-class people. Within a short time frame, that would mean being prepared to take control of the key levers of economic power within society – starting with bringing the banks into democratic public ownership. It would require taking into public ownership the big monopolies that currently dominate the economy and consequently the lives of millions, allowing for society’s resources used to the benefit of people and planet.

Crucially, for Corbyn to succeed in this, he would need to be prepared to decisively break with the representatives of capitalism who currently sit behind him in the Commons. He would need to rely not on a Parliament stuffed with pro-capitalist MPs, but on the mass of working-class people who, when mobilised and organized, represent the most important force needed to change society.

It is this approach and this program which members of the CWI in England, Wales, and Scotland will be organizing around in the next period. And while Britain’s capitalist class trembles in fear at what the future holds, we are confident in the tremendous opportunities that are opening up for us to build the forces of socialism in capitalism’s birthplace.

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bridgetlynn · 5 years ago

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Goodnight & Goodluck

So I don’t know who reads these anymore - when I actually pop up and post something. Especially since I don’t do the usual tumblr “thing” and just re-blog pictures. But sometimes I just need to write something down and say it “outloud”, as it were. So really, it’s my own thoughts, for my own piece of mind, in an attempt to remind myself what should be.

It’s May 31st 2020. At least, technically, since it’s 3:20am as I start to write this.

America’s burning. In the year of two-thousand-twenty. Think about that.

Then ask yourself why.

(Newsflash - not covid)

If you had to either think too long about it - or don’t understand - then you’ll never get it. If you don’t think there’s even an iota of justification to that level of rage and terror and sadness then you’ll really never get it.

And I feel sorry for you.

If you can answer those questions truthfully and turn a blind eye? Then I’m disgusted with you.

If you’ve ever screamed all lives matter - especially right now - just don’t ever bother talking to me. ‘Cause you’re an oblivious moron.

Because there’s a simple fact at play - right now and always -

Black. Lives. Matter.

Maybe it’s ‘cause of where I grew up. Maybe it’s ‘cause of how I was raised.

We see it year after year after year after year...and it doesn’t stop. And I can’t wrap my head around it.

I grew up on Long Island - which everyone automatically thinks means I was a wealthy, privledged white girl from the suburbs.

And I agree - I was a privledged white girl from the suburbs...wealthy not so much. I grew up in a mostly white town - but due to the way parts of Long Island are structured and zoned I also simultaneously grew up in a fairly diverse overall community.

The way my family raised me was simple - a person is a person. That’s it. You treat a human being with respect and dignity and equality until they show you that they (singular to that specific individual) do not deserve it. Doesn’t matter if they’re white, black, asian, hispanic....you get the point. (and yes, that included LGBTQ+ as well) I’m just not built to think any other way.

I genuinely didn’t realize there was any other way of thinking until I got to high school. As far as I was concerned before high school - everyone was different and that was what made us beautiful. That’s what made it amazing to live here in the United States.

My Irish heritage family. My best friend’s Nigerian heritage family. Various other friends of differing backgrounds who lived in our area. These were just the people we associated with because they were our neighbors and friends and co-workers and school mates. They lived their lives alongside us and they good people. That’s all anyone in my family ever needed to know.

Then high school came - and suddenly I was in a private catholic school (our public school wasn’t great) and I was weird. I was a poor, scholarship kid who “didn’t belong” because I didn’t have a lot of money. That I shrugged off. That I had been exposed to my whole life. Hell, I had expected it.

What I couldn’t understand was....if I didn’t belong because I didn’t have money....then why did the senior boy whose parents were both surgeons, drove a Jaguar to school and had a country club membership get treated like even more of a pariah then I did? Literally, possibly the wealthiest kid in the school at the time.

Maybe it was stupid of me at 14 to NOT have realized it - hell, maybe I was lucky to have not been exposed to it - but my african-american best friend’s mother had to sit me down and explain how genuinely shitty most people are. It wasn’t just on tv. It wasn’t just in history books. It was everywhere. Including what I thought was our nice little neighborhood.

Apparently, my family, was the outlier. And I never realized that.

Then she told me she loved me like I was her own and sent me to do my homework.

And I’m glad she was the one who told me - ‘cause my parents didn’t “get it”.

Not really. They didn’t get it - not ‘cause they didn’t see it. Or know about it. Or hate it. But because they were physically incapable of living that experience. And they understood that. I know it’s the same for me. But I hate it now more then I hated it then.

Years ago it was a child-like misunderstood hatred fueled by the idea that anyone would think my best friend - or any other person - was bad or wrong for how they looked. That they would dislike someone and use that as a reason. Now it’s an adult hatred that stems from a more fully lived life that brought about the understanding that it’s far more then dislike. Seeing friends looked at side-eyed for being in a store...seeing boyfriends get questioned about what they were doing with me in their car...seeing people murdered by the very people who are supposed to be protecting everyone.

And make no mistake - it’s murder in every sense of the word.

The systemic violence in policing has been getting progressively worse throughout my lifetime. Throughout my parents lifetimes. My grandparents.

And it has to stop. It has to be stopped.

The ingrained, brainwashed, predjudice that gets drilled into them through a testosterone, rage, fueled culture of “us vs them” has to be crushed into to the dirt and rebuilt into something that can be relied on.

Now, I haven’t seen my friend’s family in years. Jaycee’s parents moved when we graduated from different colleges. She got married. Kids came. People grow older and lose touch. It happens in life to everyone. Doesn’t mean they ever forget the people who helped to shape them into the adults they would become

Needless to say I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately. Not because “those are my black friends” (as some people like to point to for themselves as examples of how they aren’t racist) but because without them I sometimes wonder how I could have turned out.

Without them in my life would it have been possible for my happy-go-lucky everyone is awesome childhood to be perverted throughout high school and college into me giving someone the side-eye because they were (allegedly) different then me?

I’d like to think the answer to that is a resounding no. But as I said earlier - our experiences and the people around us shape who we are. And if we avoid people who are (according to some) different then us?

Then we never realize that they aren’t. Not where it counts.

And, if you were wondering - the answer to my question at the top. Why is America burning in 2020?

Because we got complacent. We stopped helping. We stopped seeing people for who they actually are; rather then our first glance.

America is burning because white American’s let it get dragged there over years and years of injustice until it didn’t have anywhere else to go but up in flames.

And I despise Trump - but he’s not the main problem. ‘Cause, he’s definitely a massive problem. But in this case - he’s a symptom of the problem.

If racism, bigotry and hatred didn’t exist in our overall society then he wouldn’t be our President. Hell, if those things didn’t exist then he wouldn’t have even been allowed near the Republican Nomination - let alone the Oval Office.

And, so tonight, when I would much rather be in the city - standing shoulder to shoulder with people I don’t know - but still love and support and admire - I’m writing this as my stand because of the damned virus. I’m stuck at home breathing through bronchitis and hoping it doesn’t get worse with a fever of 101.6 (which might have contributed to anything here that got stream of consciousness style) rather then off in Brooklyn or Times Square or the Bronx....or anywhere else I could get myself to so I could take a stand as well. Nothing else short of the fact that I can literally not get out of bed right now could have stopped me.

So, yes, this is as close as I could come. Just writing something. Just breathing it out onto the internet to be read or not read. To be absorbed or ignored. Just to be there in some form of spirit.

Because George Floyd Matters. Because Eric Garner Matters. Because Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and Philando Castile Matter. And all the thousands of others who don’t make the nightly news cycle for whatever reason. They all matter.

So all I can leave with is Edward R. Murrow’s classic sign off - with true heartfelt hope to everyone out there this evening - Goodnight and Goodluck.

I wish I could be with you.

#black lives matter #thoughts #denounce hate

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jewish-privilege · 5 years ago

Link

After a white supremacist gunman murdered 22 people in El Paso, Jewish groups that track hate say now is the time to get serious about the threat from the far right.

In fact, Jewish security officials say, the crisis calls for the kind of response that followed 9/11 — building a system to track white supremacists from scratch. Since the 2001 attacks, white supremacists have been responsible for a far greater number of killings than international terrorists.

The El Paso shooter cited the racist “great replacement” theory — that people of color and Muslims plan to “replace” whites in the West — in his manifesto. His targets were Mexicans.

The same theory fueled the murder of 51 Muslims at two New Zealand mosques earlier this year. Similar theories spurred deadly attacks over the past year at synagogues in Pittsburgh and in Poway, California. According to the Anti-Defamation League, white supremacists have killed at least 73 people since the August 2017 neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“We need a wholesale rethink, in terms of our domestic security posture, to address violent extremism and bias crimes,” said George Selim, a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security who is now the ADL’s senior vice president for programs.

Critics of President Donald Trump say he has used rhetoric similar to white nationalists in describing immigrants (“invasion”) and areas populated by people of color (“infestation”). Questions have resurfaced about Trump downplaying the white nationalist threat and rolling back programs that track white supremacists.

...“We need to harness some of that same energy that we as a country demonstrated 18 years ago to face this new threat and provide law enforcement witmash what they need to confront a threat that number for number has been more deadly than foreign terrorist organizations,” said Michael Masters, who directs the Secure Community Network, the security arm of national Jewish organizations.

...Michael German, a former FBI agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups, said Homeland Security is ill equipped to address the threat. That’s both because of Trump administration disinterest, he said, and because DHS concentrates on tracking publicly available intelligence sources rather than focused investigations.

...Fighting domestic terrorists like the government fights foreign ones could be a hard sell. Progressive Democrats already are calling for the dismantlement of DHS, identifying it with what they call the Trump administration’s excesses in detaining and deporting migrants. The Patriot Act, which passed overwhelmingly in its day, became a bugbear of the left because civil libertarians object to how it enabled email and cyber surveillance.

An FBI official said that free speech rights do not allow tracking people according to their membership in a group, or because of their ideology.

...Masters and Selim emphasized their attachment to the First Amendment, and said the changes they were seeking should not impinge on speech freedoms. Masters said his Secure Community Network and ADL are training Jewish institutions to identify potentially dangerous markers in communications they receive. The number 14 and 88 both have significance for neo-Nazis and are used in their communications, for example.

But they said there are several ways the government tracks international terrorists that could apply to domestic terrorists as well.

Defining terrorism: “The ability to designate domestic terrorist groups — there is no clear entity responsible for designating those,” Masters said. (The State Department designates international terrorist groups.)

Tracking communications: Masters said designating domestic terrorist groups would allow their communications to be monitored.

“While law enforcement can monitor communications between people connected with foreign terrorist groups, even for U.S. citizens,” he said, “those same tools don’t exist for terror groups in the United States.”

In watching international terrorism, authorities are able to track key words and phrases in online communications and then seek a warrant to identify the interlocutors.

...“One thing we have to recognize, the connections between manifestos in Christchurch [New Zealand], Poway and El Paso — there is a connection between these movements internationally,” he said, as well as with neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

Social media: Because of the First Amendment, social media giants have been reluctant to ban white supremacists in the United States. But Masters said that, as private companies, they have that ability, and should be pushed harder to combat bigotry on their platforms.

“Recognizing the incredible import of free speech protections, that is separate from the abilities of a private company to recognize when their platform is being used in such a way that does not meet the standards set for their own platform,” he said.

Education: “It’s not limited to arrest and incarceration,” Selim said. “We need efforts at the state and local level, convened by the federal government, that integrate law enforcement, mental health and education providers to provide whole community wraparound services to intervene in the process that we know takes place when individuals are consuming incendiary literature, when individuals are saying ‘white genocide.’”

German, the former FBI agent, said that process, known as community policing, must be handled with care. He added that previous programs to counter violent extremism were at times “damaging to the communities they targeted and often thinly veiled intelligence-gathering operations.”

“The police are part of the problem, so empowering them absent a larger police reform effort seems problematic,” German said. “The communities often targeted by white supremacist violence are also disproportionately victims of police violence and abuse.”

Masters said that the government officials now staffing threat assessment are eager to do the work.

“We have no stronger partners in the community than the men and women working in these organizations,” he said. “They are supporting us on a daily basis.”

#white supremacy #long post

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