Like last year they kept the rainbow flag profile pics up for the entire year. Now they aren’t doing it because they are fearful of some lumpenproletariat boycott. Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie. I’m gonna side with whoever respects the rights of trans people to literally exist and if neither are gonna do that then fuck both of them!
That is ominous and seems like a sign of a weather change. :this-is-fine:
Even out of ignorance, yanks were extremely bigoted in the pre-Obergefell era. Now it's not out of ignorance and it's starting to become socially acceptable to be a bigot. Doesn't bode well at all.
it blows my mind when I see obviously queer people come into these threads to say that it is fucking terrifying that our very last defense against genocide - tokenizability and monetazability - is evaporating in mere weeks, and then very obviously not queer people come in and say "hey actually the corporations never supported you they were just pretending to drive up their sales"
:what-the-hell:
edit: I'm deeply shocked I need to say this, but us queer communists know that the corporations never supported us and they were just pretending to drive up their sales. I'm making the first statement with the full knowledge that the second is true. The thing I'm complaining about is when people see what can absolutely be interpreted as a nuanced take and instead assume the most bad faith possible bourgeoise-praising.
and then very obviously not queer people come in and say “hey actually the corporations never supported you they were just pretending to drive up their sales”
The :reddit-logo: :brainworms: never fully washed out and some people really, really want to feel superior and correct the experiences and perceptions of others.
right? Straightsplainers/cissplainers are crazy, like what genuinely do you think the odds are that you are talking to a queer person on a communist message board that thinks Target would meaningfully go to bat for them
Lived experience is a valuable source of information, but it's not totalizing. People can indeed be wrong, and ideas like "Tokenism can save us!" tend to be wrong. You can complain that I'm cishet, but I know multiple queer people who would have said exactly what I did (albeit with reference to their own experiences, at least in one case). Lucky for them, they have better things to do than be on this website, so here I am.
friend this is exactly what I'm talking about
"our very last defense against genocide - tokenizability and monetizability - is evaporating in mere weeks" - me actively saying that I do not think tokenism is working to save us
Lived experience isn't totallizing but you understand how seeing an indicator of social tolerance going away is concerning, right? Like I've helped shut down Pride before over cops and corporations but I'm also worried about the current climate, y'dig?
The question to ask right now isn't "how concerning is this really?" But "how do i support my queer comrades?"
I know that public housing would go a long way for my community right now, help us stay in the gay neighborhood, help the runaway kids get on their feet, help folks kick heroine, give us the stability to participate in our institutions. What's your local DSA up to?
As an indicator of social tolerance capitulation to reaction, I 100% agree it is concerning. I merely think the framing of choosing between "reactionary workers or pro-lgbt bourgeoisie" is harmful.
My local DSA are a bunch of Vote Blue asshats.
Like, the last thing is true, but it's still a worrying indication of which way the wind is blowing (worrying is an understatement)
it absolutely is but they come in with such "Aha! I've caught you! I've identified the hole in your argument, there's no way you already knew that corporations don't like gay people!" energy
Did we read different posts? I know that I tend to come off differently from how I mean, but clearly the interest of the replies here is not entrapment. Look at this part of the OP:
Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie. I’m gonna side with whoever respects the rights of trans people to literally exist and if neither are gonna do that then fuck both of them!
I must give OP relative credit for the very last part, but taken at face value this generally seems to actually be insinuating that the bourgeoisie might be pro-lgbt and therefore worth siding with against reactionary workers. That's a catastrophic error and a case of severe miscommunication on their part if your representation of them is accurate to their actual views.
saying any bourgeoise is better than any proletariat is kind of a whack take but as a queer person, it's not the CEO of Walmart who's going to knock my teeth out at a gas station at night. Did he contribute to the material conditions that right-radicalized much of the proletariat? Yes. Obviously the bourg is the ultimate evil. But no doubt that given the current state of things, the reactionary proletariat needs to be handled ASAP. I get the gut reaction against them.
I was also careful to say "these posts" because (at the time of writing at least) there's nothing too crazy in here but I've seen way worse in some other threads of a similar type.
"handled ASAP"
What do you mean by this specifically? Because until you turn off the reactionary font of capital pouring in brain-scrambling ideology and creating conditions of alienation, this is attempting to bail out the titanic with a spoon. Even if some portion of the proletariat hold reactionary worldviews, there's nothing for us to do about it still strategically except target the reactionary source (capital). Attempting to "handle" them individually with violence a la carte, in class collaboration with the bourgies, is an insane thing to propose on a communist site and should be called out for the reactionary class collaborationism it is
I don't propose a solution, I just think it's just a little rash to go straight for capital while we're still fielding attacks from half of the proletariat too. A solution might look like some kind of rainbow-coalition style organizing to recapture some of the reactionary proles, but I have no idea. One thing I'm very sure of though is that letting this turn into a violent inter-proletarian civil war is about one of the worst possible outcomes, because the bad guys will win, and very quickly
One thing I’m very sure of though is that letting this turn into a violent inter-proletarian civil war is about one of the worst possible outcomes, because the bad guys will win, and very quickly
Agreed, and a surefire way to that happening is having half of the proletariat fighting on behalf of "good" corporations and allowing corporations to control the political organizing of a bunch of the proletariat, causing ideological confusion and chaos
if the half of the proletariat fighting on behalf of “good” corporations you're talking about is the liberals, I wouldn't worry too much, they won't fight for anything besides a seat at the brunch table. The only fighting is going to come from the evangelical fundamentalist side.
“hey actually the corporations never supported you they were just pretending to drive up their sales”
this is literally true though and not mutually exclusive with this statement
our very last defense against genocide - tokenizability and monetazability - is evaporating in mere weeks
those things were never really defenses against genocide. they were the bourgeoisie lulling us into a false sense of security.
very obviously not queer people
quite an assumption to make. I'm nonbinary, I was raised by lesbians. my grandpa is bisexual. my mom is bisexual. reactionary phobia affects myself and and everyone in my family but i have never for one moment believed that corporate pride was ever going to defend me or my loved ones or the broader LGBTQIA+ community. if anything shallow corporate pride gave the false appearance that we are the cultural hegemony, and paints a target on our back, and allows reactionaries to feel like they're the "real outsiders" when really their culture has always been hegemonic. amerikkka is a genocidal reactionary capitalist empire. never has LGBT pride been hegemonic, and never has corporate pride protected us from reactionaries. hell, the corporations were probably holding onto the names of everyone who ever bought a pride flag or bumper sticker and selling it off to the bloodthristy reactionaries who were sharpening their knives. our last line of defense was never corporate tokenization or commodification of our identities, but mutual aid, solidarity with each other, getting armed, getting organized, providing each other with shelter and protection from reactionaries.
"this is literally true though and not mutually exclusive with this statement" true! accurate. I never said it wasn't. That's what this whole thing is about.
if anything shallow corporate pride gave the false appearance that we are the cultural hegemony, and paints a target on our back, and allows reactionaries to feel like they’re the “real outsiders” when really their culture has always been hegemonic.
this is actually a solid counterargument. I'm not fully sure I agree but it's a thinker.
our last line of defense was never corporate tokenization or commodification of our identities, but mutual aid, solidarity with each other, getting armed, getting organized, providing each other with shelter and protection from reactionaries.
no, mutual aid, solidarity with each other, getting armed, getting organized, providing each other with shelter and protection from reactionaries are our best lines of defense. Those fell through. Now we're down to our last one, which is really shitty and barely buys us more than nothing. I'd really really like to get those first, good lines of defense back and that's a great deal of the organizing work that I do.
no, mutual aid, solidarity with each other, getting armed, getting organized, providing each other with shelter and protection from reactionaries are our best lines of defense. Those fell through.
i understand what you mean, but there's still time (not enough time, obviously, but a nonzero amount) to find some comrades in your local area and help fortify each other for what's coming
btw i'm used to having these discussions with my older family members, who remember the times long before there was any performative pride coming out of corporations. they're still to this day weirded out by it. it simultaneously seems too good to be true (and I think it is too good to be true) and kinda creepy to be "honored" by the very same faceless entities who in the 70s and 80s were bending over backwards to demonize us.
all I'm saying is that being used as an advertising campaign buys us a little time to get that network together, especially when weeks count. The day we stop being useful to capital is the day capital lets the fash go in for the kill. With the amount of momentum that the left has right now, the amount of organizing we can do in just a year or two will mean thousands of lives.
I do not like being in this position. I do not feel like capital cares about you or me. I think any help that they provide us is collateral and unintentional. But the fash will provide us no help, collateral, unintentional, or otherwise.
I'm going to be honest, as the cynical communist bi guy who has been harping on this for years now, that 'time' that advertising bought us was during the Trump presidency, when liberals woke the fuck up for five seconds and smelled what was cooking. They identified all the wrong reasons, but it was during that time that you could make the most difference organizing.
There still could be time, but the prime time to organize is when the opposition is in charge but doesn't have their shit together.
Post-COVID (lol) organizing has been bonkers for me personally, I've never seen so many Biden voters start to want their money back and enter the pipeline. I view Biden as the opposition, and I know you do too, but I think you're not giving enough credit to the ever-radicalizing liberals who are actually starting to peel back the layers. I think more progressives than ever are viewing Biden as opposition.
Doubtful. My bet is that they will still vote for him and any associated lackeys when push comes to shove, we just aren't quite in the middle of the election season propoganda cycle.
Maybe it will be different this time. But we say that every time and it never is.
oh I mean no doubt, they're still going to vote for him, but more of them are gonna be mad about it than ever before, and they're going to be looking for an outlet for that anger. They have too many marginalized friends (or they are marginalized) to swing right about it, and there's only one other way to swing.
🤞
our very last defense against genocide - tokenizability and monetazability - is evaporating in mere weeks
Do you actually believe "tokenizability" and "monetazability" [sic] are real forces doing anything to keep you safe? This is not a marxist analysis in the slightest. The only material force protecting you is the solidarity of your fellow proletariat, insofar as it can be rallied.
I also want to entertain your argument though
the bourgeoise, as I hope you'd agree, has some degree of influence over the ideology of the proletariat. This absolutely fits within the confines of a Marxist analysis. Bourg influence has demonstrated its ability to take groups of people - Ukranians, to name one example - and prop them up against an ideological backdrop that is able to morally elevate them above some average demographic. Companies saying "we care about gay people" may be a cash grab, but having the message that someone cares about gay people saturate advertising channels does... well, more than nothing by some margin. It's table scraps but I'll take it. The alternative of everyone pretending we don't exist again takes a spotlight off of us that was at least keeping "queer people exist and should be cared about" in the proletarian consciousness. Less corpo pandering means less people thinking about queer people.
Companies saying “we care about gay people” may be a cash grab, but having the message that someone cares about gay people saturate advertising channels does… well, more than nothing by some margin
It's impact is actually negative, as it rhetorically and symbolically conjoins LGBT+ rights with Corporate Liberalism. As Marxists, we know that the heightening contradictions of Capitalism will ALWAYS result in an inevitable collapse of the capitalist system and backlash against its institutions. As another user said, there's no more surefire way to make the world resent and hate LGBT+ rights than placing it on a warhead. Economically, having corporate embrace of LGBT+ results in the flag on the warhead scenario. It divides the working class. It confuses what should be a clear conflict of reactionaries vs. progressives by muddling their positions and allowing class enemies to seize control of your own progressive movement. Allowing corporations and Democrats to claim BLM protests in 2020 is another example of the extreme danger and negative impact that this has.
Communists should always struggle for progressive causes, and they should always first and foremost forward the interests of the working class. Allowing class enemies to seize control of your movements and use them for cynical profit-motivated ends that only extracts value from them is exactly what Marxists should be rejecting. You think you are using corporations for your own benefit, but this is false and in fact the relationship is the inverse. Corporations are scapegoating you, using you as a cynical shield and point of profit extraction. You are not in control of the relationship, the multi-billion dollar organizations are. Once you start "working with" them, you are 100% captured because they have the capital.
It’s impact is actually negative, as it rhetorically and symbolically conjoins LGBT+ rights with Corporate Liberalism.
most people don't know or care what "corporate liberalism" actually is, and if anyone knows what corporate liberalism is and then still turns around and hates gay people, their brain worms belong in a museum
As another user said, there’s no more surefire way to make the world resent and hate LGBT+ rights than placing it on a warhead.
right but we're talking about sportsball helmets and t-shirts. This argument seems to willfully ignore 99% of corpo pride's actual proletarian exposure.
Corporations are scapegoating you, using you as a cynical shield and point of profit extraction.
better than a bounty head. at least there's a material interest in keeping your shield intact.
Once they squeeze you dry of value they will throw you to the dogs to eat the scraps. Stop cheering on the process of capital coopting and destroying a progressive movement that will end in an inevitable end of fascist destruction. This is the cycle of Liberalism
they already are throwing us to the dogs. this poster (I think) is saying that even though corporations have nothing substantial to offer lgbt people, the fact that they saw queer people as a target market was some level of utterly unfaithful support, but the fact that even that is dissolved is extremely worrying . we hate corporations, but i also hate that I have to think about how clockable I am so I can judge how much danger I could be in outside of a very small set of queer friendly establishments which are now regularly targeted by chuds anyways. I get so exhausted when people talk only in abstract theory terms when we just don't want to potentially get our heads bashed in at the grocery store. corporations giving up fake solidarity is a signpost that even the people who only served to make money off of you don't see that value anymore.
It's a canary in the coal mine, a worrying sign for sure. That's a far cry from being so confused like OP that you start calling for the canary to save you and protect you.
literally all i'm saying is i'd like a little more time of being squeezed dry to try to slap together a community defense movement. wanting the corporations to be done with pride ASAP today is wanting the queer community to be thrown to the dogs today. If I could run it all back I'd really prefer the queer community not be commodified at all ever but now that we're in this mess we have to play emergency damage control and it's gonna be sloppy
Sure as hell not what OP was saying when they said they would ally with the bourgeoise
yeah OP has some whack takes and I do not claim them, this is more directed at a larger pattern that I kind of expected to and sort of has popped up in this thread
The comments that "popped up in this thread" are responding to weird class collaborationist Liberal takes of OP. You can't really separate them and say "Yeah OP's post was bad, but it's problematic to say that it's bad"
Thank you for saying this. This thread is really giving me some bad vibes.
it's ominous but under no circumstances should you side with the "pro-lgbt bourgeoisie"
I think the critical mistake here is assuming that corporations are in some way democratic and are simply listening to consumers. They aren't. If anything I'd just say that the media winds are shifting moreso than actual opinions shifting en masse (the media do froth up a dangerous minority of chuds into a rage causing actual danger tho)
The media isn't floating in space either, which makes one wonder "What is the actual source of this change?" And I do mean wonder, I don't know.
I think imperial decline has lead to the bourgeoisie choosing to pick their battles and accept trans genocide as a sacrificial lamb to keep the hogs from causing too much of a problem for the ownership class, but if you asked me nearly any question about current-day America, my answer would be "imperial decline," so I'm definitely biased.
imperial decline
Crisis of capitalism too. I'd have to check my dates again, but iirc, the real reactionary chud freakout about LGBT+ issues started during the pandemic. It was probably a convenient smokescreen while the govt shoveled trillions in free money to keep the stock market alive.
It's almost as if when capital attempts to adopt progressive policy without also changing the social order, it abandons it almost immediately in order to pursue the bottom line, because it was never that invested to begin with. They were always going to be tenious, shit allies, because there is nothing materially tying their allegiance to the rights of minorities.
However, the lumpen-proleteriat are all over the place when it comes to this stuff, it's really the hundreds of middle managers and car dealership salesmen who are driving this, guys who have little education but can spend 7,000 a year on beer at the bar.
Edit: Pretending having a rainbow profile pic actually helps LGBT people is some hilarious level of buying into the performative signalling of the bourgeoisie. They aren't on your side. They will never be on your side. They do not share the same interests as you.
The powers that be pretending to be on the side of LGBT people is preferrable to them not doing so
Why? Nothing sets the world against liberal rights faster than a warhead with a pride flag on it. Why do you so badly want to be allied with the death cult?
And then, when they inevitably stall out and fail, they will blame you as the outside of actual power minority, for their failure.
I'd rather queerness and rainbows be boring and household than the 21st century pink triangle
I agree, and finding an ally in major banks and retailers doesn't make things 'boring and household'. That's like saying American Christmas is 'boring and household'. I'd rather have queerness and rainbows be like American Hannukah, where I don't need to be sold identity validation.
Not that any of that was within community advocates of LGBT movements control btw, these corporate trends operate mostly outside of their influence. I just don't think it changes the ball game all that much.
However, the lumpen-proleteriat are all over the place when it comes to this stuff, it’s really the hundreds of middle managers and car dealership salesmen who are driving this, guys who have little education but can spend 7,000 a year on beer at the bar.
That's not what a "lumpen-proletariat" is.
I wasn't trying to imply that those middle-managers or car salesman were 'lumpen-proletariat', just that that is the demographic that is generally boycotting things.
Well, fair enough, but that's not really clear in the way that you wrote it.
I feel like pride events in sports were just one of those things no one really cared about except for a couple fringe cranks. Now we have players opting out, orgs opting out, and politicians getting involved in canceling sport pride events. The backlash has definitely been cranked up a bunch
Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie.
hm, actually I don't think that's true, new account using crude marxist language to preach class division along identity lines
yeah, any way I can cut it, the reactionary worker is the result of conditions managed and overseen by the supposedly progressive bourgeoisie
i can at least expect a reactionary worker to be honest in their bullshit. a pro-queer capitalist should be viewed with suspicion and scorn, but not for their nominal progressive values that they probably don't take very seriously
This isn’t a matter of Marxism. I can’t stand with someone who thinks I don’t deserve to exist just because we both want free healthcare. Basic survival supersedes class interests.
there are no "pro-lgbt" bourgeoisie. there are bourgeoisie opportunistically pretending to care about the plight of marginalized groups for the sake of making more money. I suppose there are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, etc. people among the bourgeoisie, but their "solidarity" is going to start and end with people in their class. Ellen can sit down with George W. Bush precisely because his homophobia was never going to materially affect her. His homophobia was only ever going to affect working class LGBT people, because the bourgeoisie always make themselves the exception to their own bigotry (see: Cheney's daughter). That's why rich catholic men fly their mistresses to countries where abortion is still legal. They are the exception to their own rules and bigotries, their solidarity is fake and doesn't extend beyond their class, and their rhetoric about human rights is opportunistic and profit-seeking behavior.
as for bigotry among the working class, it is the result of bourgeois indoctrination. A divide-and-conquer strategy. Yes bigotry can be interpersonal, and the result of purely individual prejudices, but in the aggregate it is a learned social behavior that is the result of a system rather than purely/simply the moral failings of individuals.
I doubt Forbes was helping you or most other people (just in general) achieve basic survival. Being frustrated with reaction within the proletariat is 100% reasonable, but contraposing it with corporate Allies (tm) is wildly misguided.
It is very worrying. One thing that really strikes me is comparing the vastly different reactions to North Carolina's Bathroom Bill of seven years ago, versus the non-existent corporate/centrist response to the recent wave of anti-LGBT hate legislation. In 2016 after North Carolina passed their "Bathroom Bill" (HB2) mandating that people could only use bathrooms in government facilities corresponding to their birth certificate, the backlash was huge.
Eighty corporate CEOs signed a letter urging Governor McCrory to veto HB2. $400 million dollars in planned investments were cancelled by hundreds of companies, who condemned the bill as a gross violation of human rights, costing North Carolina an estimated $3.76 billion over twelve years.
The NBA cancelled the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte. The Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets both openly spoke against the Bathroom Bill as discriminatory. Sanders and Clinton both condemned HB2, and even some Republicans, like Ohio Governor John Kasich, joined them. Plenty of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Maroon 5, Demi Lovato, and Ringo Starr cancelled concerts in solidarity with the North Carolina transgender community. States and cities throughout the U.S. issued travel bans barring government employees from non-essential travel to North Carolina. Police departments throughout North Carolina openly stated that they would refuse to enforce HB2.
By November of 2016 HB2 was so unpopular that it contributed to the electoral defeat of Governor McCrory. In 2017, after the NCAA threatened to ban North Carolina from hosting championships for five years unless they repealed HB2, North Carolina's Republican controlled legislature relented and removed the provisions of HB2 banning trans people from public bathrooms.
Now, seven years later Republican states are signing into law bills far worse than HB2 ever was, but there's nowhere even close to the same backlash for doing so. Not only is transphobic rhetoric getting more and more hateful and dehumanizing, but also that the coalition of people willing to meaningfully defend trans people has gone from a broad consensus, including corporations, celebrities, and centrists, to a far smaller number of activists who can't even make the Democratic Party agree that the lives of Trans people matter. That's whats concerning, even if the Pride of Corporations and the Democratic Party was always hollow and utterly lacking in radicalism, it is still far better then their current acquiescence to deranged chuds.
Hell just a few years ago :melon-musk: was tweeting this now he's encouraging parents to watch Matt Walsh hate speech.
100% this. Just like how all the 'anti-war' people during the Bush years became full throated dronies once Obama was elected.
My guy won. Brain turned off
Sorry gen z that you fell for it. Give it a couple more presidential elections and you'll realize why people only vote when they are 18 and or 60+.
People should be free to live their lives where their heart takes them :my-hero: :epsteingelion:
Even though it was absolutely craven, Trump did sell rainbow maga hats and did that awkward as fuck hug of the rainbow flag.
lumpenproletariat boycott
I really doubt it's the lumpen doing the boycotting. The lumpen are people without regular employment, if any. Most of the boycotters are prob proletarian or petite-bourgeroies (or pmc).
Reactionary workers are worse than pro-lgbt bourgeoisie
The reactionary proles are worse in some ways, but they aren't the ones denying lgbt people healthcare and housing etc. The pro-lgbt borugeoisie are opportunist. If you listen to them they'll tell you that they signal being pro-lgbt because diversity makes them more money. They literally say this. When this is no longer true, they'll change their minds.
Edit: but your larger point about corps signaling less pro-lgbt sentiment is def worrying. Canary in the coal mine :100-com:
Yet again, we are Cassandras.
Cassandra is the first known person in western civilization to be Jokerfied. :jokerfied:
I don't think people hate the left, they just hate it when we're right.
Don't worry rest of the world, we hate being right too.
They were using lumpen in the Luxemburgian sense, not the ML sense. The luxemburgian sense usually means proletarian class-traitors like cops.
Are cops really proletarian when they make $100k a year driving around in cars harassing people? It's practically a Bullshit Job™.
Yeah, that 100k is called a bribe. The cop might be well off, but his daughter will work for 26 an hour as a mental health counselor. His son will make 30/hr as an auto mechanic. Policing is not escape velocity money. It's own a home and stress about your mortgage and tuition money.
But I think you hit on a good point which is that class is ambivalent in the US, someone might depend on a wage while also employing a domestic or renting out a second home. The neoliberal credit flood and new deal subsidies account for it imo.
The only thing worse than corporations going to pride is corporations not going to pride.
I get where you’re coming from; but the conclusion is way off base
Yeah, I can understand cheering on corpo getting out of pride but it's happening for the worst reason.
It's going to come down to what it always comes down to: like-minded comrades organizing to protect themselves and each other in their communities. That's the true "last defense", and it's the ONLY form of defense you can trust.
It's not just like-minded people. If we have homes, we're safer, if we have Healthcare, we're safer. Yes we need to organize around queer specific issues with like minded people, but part of our safety will home from working on social democratic issues in broad coalition with the working class.
That guy with the gasden flag might call me a removed, but he's also going to vote to raise the minimum wage or put in stronger eviction protections. And if he joins us doorknocking, his views on removeds are going to start to change.
The rainbow capitalisms and pride Raytheons are nothing more than the indicator species of the on the ground conditions for grsm in the west, and it really isn't looking good for that ecosystem :cringe:
