Sen. Sinema’s spokesperson said it’s sexist to comment on a female politician’s “body language” or “physical demeanor” when HuffPost inquired about her thumbs down vote on min. wage. Okay. https://t.co/HT4ENmE6fP by @sara_bee— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) March 6, 2021
I'm telling you guys, the Low Society pod folks have some of the most accurate takes when it comes to the neoliberalization of identity politics. These fucking idiots are gonna strip down, neuter, and essentialize Idpol down to the point where it'll actually drive lumpen elements of the non-white working class into the arms of conservative talking points.
I mean, most of the people making minimum wage are women, and yet the Senate vote was a MASSIVE fuck you in the faces of all of them, yet they wanna save the woke-posting for a fucking out of touch political aristocrat. It's genuinely infuriating.
This sort of rudimentary class analysis isn't explicitly about only women, therefore it doesn't help the Platonic form of Woman and could not be emancipatory. Imho this is the particularism that causes stupidpol to exist
I don't think BLM is quite dead yet. Despite one of the most sophisticated campaigns of recuperation and counterinsurgency I've ever seen, the movement has retained its radical character. It's been a cold and snowy winter, which is enough to slow down armies, let alone street uprisings. In the meantime, not a goddamn thing has changed with regards to racial justice in this country. The cold is beginning to break, the David Chauvin trial is right around the corner, and if they don't throw that motherfucker into the oubliette, there very well may be a repeat of what happened in L.A. when the jury found Koon, Briseno, Powell, and Wind not guilty of the beating of Rodney King. On top of that, the immiseration and economic destruction of the Covid pandemic is just as present as ever, people have received little relief from the state, and at some point, the eviction moratoriums are going to be rescinded.
No matter what happens, I think we're looking at another long, hot summer.
Its true. It could flame out the way Occupy Wall Street did, but there are a few things which stand out. The fact that it already came back once with a vengeance. That it originally started under the tenure of one of the most charismatic black leaders the Democratic Party will ever have. The amount of direct exposure millions of people got though independent media like Unicorn Riot as well as amateur streamers (some good, some terrible) as opposed to having NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and NPR control the narrative. The legions of people who now have practical first hand experience battling the cops and demonstrating in the true definition of the term.
A high water mark was reached, and while nothing has changed in the practical administration of the state, things have changed permanently in the minds of millions. The irony of the Democrats running Joe fucking Biden as "the most progressive candidate in history" is lost on very few people. The fact that they can't even be bothered to pay lipservice, or "defund" the police by a paltry 5%, but instead plan on giving them even more money is lost on nobody. An no one, not Obama, not Kamala, not Booker is going to fool anybody into thinking the Democrats intend to do anything.
Now more than ever, I think people understand that there is no electoral solution to the problem. Demonstrations broke out in every major city throughout the country and we watched Democratic mayor after Democratic mayor do absolutely fuckall. I don't know. I obviously don't have a crystal ball or anything, but after everything that went down last year I think no matter what comes next, the proletariat will be going into it much more radicalized and experienced than it was at the start of 2020.
If you were trying your best to prove the stupidpol guys correct that all social justice discourse is just bullshit to protect rich people and shit on "toxic bro: poor people, this is how you’d fucking do it.
Damn, it's almost like "class reductionist" is correct.
Any analysis of sexism must be brought back to class relations. Any analysis of racism must be brought back to class relations.
Whatever CIA agent introduced "class reductionist" into Left-wing vernacular deserves a fucking promotion.
Any analysis of sexism must be brought back to class relations. Any analysis of racism must be brought back to class relations.
This isn't a bad take, but I always thought "class reductionist" meant reducing all issues to a class analysis, and effectively dismissing the idea that different prejudices have independent effects.
I always thought “class reductionist” meant reducing all issues to a class analysis
If you are a Marxist, you should be doing that! That doesn't preclude issues of sexism, racism, etc. because that is necessary to understand production & class in its entirety. Presenting these as diametrically opposed makes absolutely zero sense.
imagine two societies with exactly the same distributions of wealth. you can even use the distribution of wealth we currently have. in one, half the population (the poorer half) is PoC; in the other, its perfectly representative of races. pure historical materialism says they’re two of the same worlds
Historical materialism would say that the base of both these societies are the class relations which exist. Class relations reflect the we produce the necessities of life & surplus. Therefore, it is at the base of human civilization. It fundamentally shapes every aspect of our society - culture, institutions, the state, social norms, etc. The base of civilization and the super structures of civilization influence each other, but the base is predominant.
Historical materialism does not declare anything about the super structures of a given society. The fact that the super structures reflects class relations, which you are showing in your example, is explained by historical materialism. The social constructs of "white" and "PoC" were a product of our base, Capitalism. Capitalism took root in Europe, and their bourgeoisie amassed wealth by the plundering of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Our modern conception of race is the product of the conflict between the white bourgeoisie & colonized people. Colonized people are the largest mass of exploited people on Earth.
Class relations are the base society & class analysis provides the most holistic understanding of civilization. If we want to influence civilization, we need to base our praxis in class struggle. In our time, that means organizing the working class and building towards socialism. A large amount of racism, sexism, etc. would be addressed significantly better under socialism than capitalism. Under socialism, oppressed people will have housing, health care, and steady employment. That will go a long way in reducing the power that reactionary forces have over oppressed people. And the instruments of state power are owned by a class which will gladly strip away any concessions on when convenient.
The US unionization rate is 10%. Tens of millions of workers have been laid off. But the CIA will hire nonbinary agents & the FBI director is "embarrassed to be a white man." We need to start organizing & winning material concessions for the working class - yes, even the reactionary workers - or else the reactionary workers in the US will slaughter us in the upcoming Depression.
MeToo was never a feminist movement, it was all to lay the pretense for shit like this.
You don't liberate women by getting justice for bourgeoise actresses who make millions, you do it by giving them a fucking union to sue the shit out of her boss if he lays a hand on her.
This kind of shits all over the fact that many non-famous women have also shared stories, and that high profile cases are conducive to getting people who might feel otherwise unable to speak a chance to do so. Yes, the latter statement is true, but as a woman that works in a corporate work environment I can absolutely say MeToo has changed things for the better, even if there's still a lot more that can and should be done.
My office has made numerous changes in the wake of the movement to help women feel more comfortable. I know of other people in my field (which is male dominated) who have had similar experiences in their offices as well.
Once again, I'm not saying it was some magical fix-all, and that more shouldn't be done and we've solved sexism with a hashtag, I'm saying that there were tangible benefits to women. Not all women, but some women.
And furthermore, even if the literal only positive outcome of this was Harvey Weinstein being thrown in jail, it's objectively good. Fuck people who prey on women, I don't care if they're "actresses who make millions" (as someone above said), they're human beings and don't deserved to be sexually harassed and abused.
Sinema being a ghoulish piece of garbage doesn't invalidate anything.
My office has made numerous changes in the wake of the movement to help women feel more comfortable.
Like what? An open office plan so that everyone can watch the sexual harassment as it goes down? An incrementing counter labeled "x days without an office rape"? Ooh! Maybe a pizza party for every month where no sexual harassment complaint is made to HR?
Does it make women just feel better about their exploitation or does it actually improve material conditions?
Any steps taken to recognise sexual harassment in the workplace are good steps. Anything is better than "sure it happens but that's just how it is".
Sure there's still a long way to go and we need to convince people that it's bad when Dems do it but it's way less accepted now and we've shown people that it is possible for harassers to suffer consequences.
Adding hamfisted training videos that only depict the most egregious behaviors and perpetuate harmful stereotypes don't help when they become a point of derision and the butt of jokes around the office. Doing just anything isn't helping so we really should be specific about what changes are made and what outcomes are measured. Pizza parties aren't going to fix pay parity.
i mean... they do it intentionally. feminism and racial equality are inherently leftists positions, so by co-opting and making them seem idiotic while also using their signaling to attack progressive policy is a move that is intended to drive a gap and separate the population as well as damage the positions themselves.
we're kinda bent over on a barrel over this and they're forcing it to the point where the only thing they can't co-opt is that there is a class war. they've even tried it, but it's just so obvious even to rubes that it doesn't fly. for an example see how that fucking stock broker billionaire went on a rant complaining that a fair share is just a way of attacking 'people of wealth' after the whole GME thing.
let me be clear that i'm not arguing from the point of someone who is for class reductionism, but i do understand how a lot of people fall into the idea, at least people who are seemingly for equality everyone while still hailing the idea. most of them are probably just bigots though.
the majority of identity-based social justice discourse has been recuperated, but that doesn't preclude us from identifying, understanding, and fighting forms of oppression which aren't strictly material.
edit: the more i read this comment the less confident i am that it's conveying anything that makes sense
They killed MeToo to protect Joe Biden, they killed BLM for Kamala Harris, now they’re going to strip the last of the fuckin copper wiring out of feminism and sell it for srap to protect Kyrsten FUCKING Sinema.
MeToo was a purely media phenomenon that scratched the itch of a culture plagued by sexual assault and misogyny.
BLM was a street movement responding to chronic police violence dating back centuries, and not the first even in this generation.
Feminism is an intergenerational international movement derived from institutional oppression of half the population coming into conflict with an inherent human desire for fairness.
None of these are in thrall to a political party, much less one as hopelessly incompetent, corrupt, and contradictory as the Democratic Party. These people are capitalizing on their control of mass media, but they aren't in control of the underlying movements. America will come and go, and the conflict between classes along racial and ethnic lines will go on.
social justice discourse is just bullshit to protect rich people
This reads like something Stephen Molyneux would write.
100 years ago when a dockworkers strike could paralyze a nation
100 years ago, the nation responded to dockworker strikes with arresting Eugene Debbs and executing The Palmer Raids. The underlying movement had no defense against the first great American Red Scare.
Folks on this sub love to venerate the early 20th century for its ostensibly large leftist political movements. But y'all breeze by the fact that these organizations cracked like an egg under state opposition and were functionally wiped out by the Reagan Era. The movement was prolific, but it was fragile and weak. Hardly comparable to the Russian Soviets or the Chinese Maoists or the Cuban Revolutionaries.
If popular support from regular people made any difference to anything in this country, Bernie would be president
Bernie had a slim majority of support in a single party that made up around 30% of the population. I love the guy, but on the national stage he was going to get wrecked as easily as Hillary and for many of the same reasons. The media hates him. And after Nevada, when they went into a full-tilt panic, it became clear that they were going to go all in against him in a way his still-nascent movement wasn't going to be able to match.
"Popular Support from Regular People" is fickle and quixotic. It's rooted in the material conditions of the moment, amplified by the media content that informs their perceptions. That's not to say Sanders's support isn't substantial on the ground. But it's not a majority or even a plurality.
If these movements all come roaring back to life once winter ends and we see another mass wave of protests taking over cities, I’ll be thrilled and I’ll happily eat my words but right now from my perspective it seems like the only thing that matters is control of the media and access to predator drones
These movements will continue to grow as the pressure that creates them intensifies. I've seen dick all to suggest Biden's administration will do anything to stem the tide of police shootings or sexual assaults. And relatively little to suggest they won't continue to inflame the population at its base. The BLM protests started under Obama, ffs. And they came on the heels of OWS.
Media doesn't have the capacity to stop this discontent any more than it was able to curb our flirtation with fascism under Trump. And ask the Afghanis how effective flying killer robots has been at silencing dissent.
We're dealing with the material conditions of the American Public, and they aren't improving.
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Gilibrand has been silent about cuomo lmao. White feminism is a spook
I'm telling you guys, the Low Society pod folks have some of the most accurate takes when it comes to the neoliberalization of identity politics. These fucking idiots are gonna strip down, neuter, and essentialize Idpol down to the point where it'll actually drive lumpen elements of the non-white working class into the arms of conservative talking points.
I mean, most of the people making minimum wage are women, and yet the Senate vote was a MASSIVE fuck you in the faces of all of them, yet they wanna save the woke-posting for a fucking out of touch political aristocrat. It's genuinely infuriating.
This sort of rudimentary class analysis isn't explicitly about only women, therefore it doesn't help the Platonic form of Woman and could not be emancipatory. Imho this is the particularism that causes stupidpol to exist
wut?
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May be showing my ignorance here, but who’s that?
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I don't think BLM is quite dead yet. Despite one of the most sophisticated campaigns of recuperation and counterinsurgency I've ever seen, the movement has retained its radical character. It's been a cold and snowy winter, which is enough to slow down armies, let alone street uprisings. In the meantime, not a goddamn thing has changed with regards to racial justice in this country. The cold is beginning to break, the David Chauvin trial is right around the corner, and if they don't throw that motherfucker into the oubliette, there very well may be a repeat of what happened in L.A. when the jury found Koon, Briseno, Powell, and Wind not guilty of the beating of Rodney King. On top of that, the immiseration and economic destruction of the Covid pandemic is just as present as ever, people have received little relief from the state, and at some point, the eviction moratoriums are going to be rescinded.
No matter what happens, I think we're looking at another long, hot summer.
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Its true. It could flame out the way Occupy Wall Street did, but there are a few things which stand out. The fact that it already came back once with a vengeance. That it originally started under the tenure of one of the most charismatic black leaders the Democratic Party will ever have. The amount of direct exposure millions of people got though independent media like Unicorn Riot as well as amateur streamers (some good, some terrible) as opposed to having NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and NPR control the narrative. The legions of people who now have practical first hand experience battling the cops and demonstrating in the true definition of the term.
A high water mark was reached, and while nothing has changed in the practical administration of the state, things have changed permanently in the minds of millions. The irony of the Democrats running Joe fucking Biden as "the most progressive candidate in history" is lost on very few people. The fact that they can't even be bothered to pay lipservice, or "defund" the police by a paltry 5%, but instead plan on giving them even more money is lost on nobody. An no one, not Obama, not Kamala, not Booker is going to fool anybody into thinking the Democrats intend to do anything.
Now more than ever, I think people understand that there is no electoral solution to the problem. Demonstrations broke out in every major city throughout the country and we watched Democratic mayor after Democratic mayor do absolutely fuckall. I don't know. I obviously don't have a crystal ball or anything, but after everything that went down last year I think no matter what comes next, the proletariat will be going into it much more radicalized and experienced than it was at the start of 2020.
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We are waiting to be deployed Commander Soros :af: :sicko-crowd:
Damn, it's almost like "class reductionist" is correct.
Any analysis of sexism must be brought back to class relations. Any analysis of racism must be brought back to class relations.
Whatever CIA agent introduced "class reductionist" into Left-wing vernacular deserves a fucking promotion.
This isn't a bad take, but I always thought "class reductionist" meant reducing all issues to a class analysis, and effectively dismissing the idea that different prejudices have independent effects.
If you are a Marxist, you should be doing that! That doesn't preclude issues of sexism, racism, etc. because that is necessary to understand production & class in its entirety. Presenting these as diametrically opposed makes absolutely zero sense.
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Historical materialism would say that the base of both these societies are the class relations which exist. Class relations reflect the we produce the necessities of life & surplus. Therefore, it is at the base of human civilization. It fundamentally shapes every aspect of our society - culture, institutions, the state, social norms, etc. The base of civilization and the super structures of civilization influence each other, but the base is predominant.
Historical materialism does not declare anything about the super structures of a given society. The fact that the super structures reflects class relations, which you are showing in your example, is explained by historical materialism. The social constructs of "white" and "PoC" were a product of our base, Capitalism. Capitalism took root in Europe, and their bourgeoisie amassed wealth by the plundering of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Our modern conception of race is the product of the conflict between the white bourgeoisie & colonized people. Colonized people are the largest mass of exploited people on Earth.
Class relations are the base society & class analysis provides the most holistic understanding of civilization. If we want to influence civilization, we need to base our praxis in class struggle. In our time, that means organizing the working class and building towards socialism. A large amount of racism, sexism, etc. would be addressed significantly better under socialism than capitalism. Under socialism, oppressed people will have housing, health care, and steady employment. That will go a long way in reducing the power that reactionary forces have over oppressed people. And the instruments of state power are owned by a class which will gladly strip away any concessions on when convenient.
The US unionization rate is 10%. Tens of millions of workers have been laid off. But the CIA will hire nonbinary agents & the FBI director is "embarrassed to be a white man." We need to start organizing & winning material concessions for the working class - yes, even the reactionary workers - or else the reactionary workers in the US will slaughter us in the upcoming Depression.
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You literally just made up a definition of historical materialism lol
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say it again for the people in the back
MeToo was never a feminist movement, it was all to lay the pretense for shit like this.
You don't liberate women by getting justice for bourgeoise actresses who make millions, you do it by giving them a fucking union to sue the shit out of her boss if he lays a hand on her.
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This kind of shits all over the fact that many non-famous women have also shared stories, and that high profile cases are conducive to getting people who might feel otherwise unable to speak a chance to do so. Yes, the latter statement is true, but as a woman that works in a corporate work environment I can absolutely say MeToo has changed things for the better, even if there's still a lot more that can and should be done.
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My office has made numerous changes in the wake of the movement to help women feel more comfortable. I know of other people in my field (which is male dominated) who have had similar experiences in their offices as well.
Once again, I'm not saying it was some magical fix-all, and that more shouldn't be done and we've solved sexism with a hashtag, I'm saying that there were tangible benefits to women. Not all women, but some women.
And furthermore, even if the literal only positive outcome of this was Harvey Weinstein being thrown in jail, it's objectively good. Fuck people who prey on women, I don't care if they're "actresses who make millions" (as someone above said), they're human beings and don't deserved to be sexually harassed and abused.
Sinema being a ghoulish piece of garbage doesn't invalidate anything.
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Like what? An open office plan so that everyone can watch the sexual harassment as it goes down? An incrementing counter labeled "x days without an office rape"? Ooh! Maybe a pizza party for every month where no sexual harassment complaint is made to HR?
Does it make women just feel better about their exploitation or does it actually improve material conditions?
Bad take imo
Any steps taken to recognise sexual harassment in the workplace are good steps. Anything is better than "sure it happens but that's just how it is".
Sure there's still a long way to go and we need to convince people that it's bad when Dems do it but it's way less accepted now and we've shown people that it is possible for harassers to suffer consequences.
Adding hamfisted training videos that only depict the most egregious behaviors and perpetuate harmful stereotypes don't help when they become a point of derision and the butt of jokes around the office. Doing just anything isn't helping so we really should be specific about what changes are made and what outcomes are measured. Pizza parties aren't going to fix pay parity.
deleted by creator
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i mean... they do it intentionally. feminism and racial equality are inherently leftists positions, so by co-opting and making them seem idiotic while also using their signaling to attack progressive policy is a move that is intended to drive a gap and separate the population as well as damage the positions themselves.
we're kinda bent over on a barrel over this and they're forcing it to the point where the only thing they can't co-opt is that there is a class war. they've even tried it, but it's just so obvious even to rubes that it doesn't fly. for an example see how that fucking stock broker billionaire went on a rant complaining that a fair share is just a way of attacking 'people of wealth' after the whole GME thing.
let me be clear that i'm not arguing from the point of someone who is for class reductionism, but i do understand how a lot of people fall into the idea, at least people who are seemingly for equality everyone while still hailing the idea. most of them are probably just bigots though.
I know the feeling. I was just setting up the rigging to have a piano dropped on me from a tenth story window.
the majority of identity-based social justice discourse has been recuperated, but that doesn't preclude us from identifying, understanding, and fighting forms of oppression which aren't strictly material.
edit: the more i read this comment the less confident i am that it's conveying anything that makes sense
deleted by creator
MeToo was a purely media phenomenon that scratched the itch of a culture plagued by sexual assault and misogyny.
BLM was a street movement responding to chronic police violence dating back centuries, and not the first even in this generation.
Feminism is an intergenerational international movement derived from institutional oppression of half the population coming into conflict with an inherent human desire for fairness.
None of these are in thrall to a political party, much less one as hopelessly incompetent, corrupt, and contradictory as the Democratic Party. These people are capitalizing on their control of mass media, but they aren't in control of the underlying movements. America will come and go, and the conflict between classes along racial and ethnic lines will go on.
This reads like something Stephen Molyneux would write.
deleted by creator
100 years ago, the nation responded to dockworker strikes with arresting Eugene Debbs and executing The Palmer Raids. The underlying movement had no defense against the first great American Red Scare.
Folks on this sub love to venerate the early 20th century for its ostensibly large leftist political movements. But y'all breeze by the fact that these organizations cracked like an egg under state opposition and were functionally wiped out by the Reagan Era. The movement was prolific, but it was fragile and weak. Hardly comparable to the Russian Soviets or the Chinese Maoists or the Cuban Revolutionaries.
Bernie had a slim majority of support in a single party that made up around 30% of the population. I love the guy, but on the national stage he was going to get wrecked as easily as Hillary and for many of the same reasons. The media hates him. And after Nevada, when they went into a full-tilt panic, it became clear that they were going to go all in against him in a way his still-nascent movement wasn't going to be able to match.
"Popular Support from Regular People" is fickle and quixotic. It's rooted in the material conditions of the moment, amplified by the media content that informs their perceptions. That's not to say Sanders's support isn't substantial on the ground. But it's not a majority or even a plurality.
These movements will continue to grow as the pressure that creates them intensifies. I've seen dick all to suggest Biden's administration will do anything to stem the tide of police shootings or sexual assaults. And relatively little to suggest they won't continue to inflame the population at its base. The BLM protests started under Obama, ffs. And they came on the heels of OWS.
Media doesn't have the capacity to stop this discontent any more than it was able to curb our flirtation with fascism under Trump. And ask the Afghanis how effective flying killer robots has been at silencing dissent.
We're dealing with the material conditions of the American Public, and they aren't improving.
Sorry, but it fucking is.