Tag Archives: politics

Republicans switching parties isn’t a good thing

What I run into occasionally in my facebook feed etc. are gleeful stories about some Republican or another switching parties because the GOP has become to extreme for him (so far, it’s always been a “him”, at least as far as I’m aware). And while I’m sure these stories are entertaining, and maybe even vindicate people in their opinion that the GOP has made an extreme shift rightwards, I don’t actually think this is a good development.

To explain this, let me backtrack a bit and first talk a bit about the U.S. political system and its parties a bit. The way voting is set up in the U.S. by its constitution, all of it is stuck at single-member districts in which candidates are elected to represent a region, not ideas*. As the wikipedia article notes, that tends to lead to two-party systems, with maybe an occasional 3rd party cropping up. Historically, in the U.S. 3-party situations tend to be unstable though and either an old party collapses, or the small 3td-party does, and either way you end up very quickly with only 2; and today even that much flexibility doesn’t exist, because the 2 parties are basically very rich and powerful political corporations, and the country is still suffering a 2000 election hangover and consequent allergy to everything 3rd-party. In other words, barring a complete collapse of the current political structure, the U.S. is stuck with the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party.
What this means in the context of Republicans leaving and becoming Democrats is that after all the “moderately” conservative people leave, the Republican party is not going to collapse under the mass of its epistemic black hole (at least not without causing the aforementioned collapse of the political structure), and the Democratic Party is not going to split into one moderately conservative and one progressive party**. Instead, by having people fall off the “left” edge of the Republicans and onto the right edge of the Democrats, the entire system shifts rightward even more, by making both parties just that little bit more conservative. And that’s just the obvious and immediate bad result. Another bad consequence is that when these former Republicans run for (re-)election, they will no longer be competing in primaries against other Republicans, i.e. people more to the right of them; they’ll instead be competing against Democrats, usually people to the left of them. That means whenever one of these guys ends up going into the general election, he does so instead of a more leftish candidate.

So what I’m saying is: unless these dudes have actually changed their minds and genuinely shifted leftwards rather than have the GOP shift rightwards away from them, I don’t want them changing parties; I want them to stay where they are and force the Republican party to be more like them and less like the teafucks. There’s nothing to celebrate when these guys change parties, because all that does is speed up the rightward shift of the US.

– – – – – – – – –
* Although, my entirely non-lawyery reading of the U.S. Constitution failed to find a requirement for congressional districts voting for one representative; AFAICT the relevant parts (Article 1 Section 2; 14th Amendment Section 2) only say that the number of representatives would be determined by population in some way. For the states that currently have one representative this makes no difference, but there’s states with many representatives, and I’m not sure there’s a constitutional reason not to apportion a state’s seats proportionally after a state-wide election, rather than with district-level elections for a single representative.
OTOH, doing it that way would probably cause an even greater imbalance in the relative over-importance given to low-population states.
And while I’m at it, I’m not sure there’s a constitutional requirement for First Past The Goalpost voting, instead of preferential voting systems where you pick your top 3 candidates. Which could also help undo the 2-party-default, but are oddly unpopular at least in the media for some reason.

** Not that all people cheering at Republicans becoming Democrats necessarily think this, it’s just that believing something like that is one of a very few reasons I can think of to cheer this development. Some others I can think of are treating party politics like sports, and Rs leaving to become Ds means your team is winning; and thinking that Rs leaving means they’re becoming more moderate.

A TERF not-pologizes

The well-known and influential radical feminist Gloria Steinem has written an apology (of sorts) about her past anti-trans writing.

On the one hand, she’s AFAIK the only well-known TERF who’s ever bothered to do even that much; on the other hand, the apology follows a notpology script just a tad too well*: she blames any harm caused on the internet, devotes most of the essay to explaining why she didn’t mean harm, and phrases the apology-line as very close to the standard “I’m sorry you were offended” notpology, saying “I’m sorry and sad if any words floating out there from the past seem to suggest anything other than support, past and present”. And then there’s the problem noted by activist Janet Mock in a tweet earlier today:

[Janet Mock ‏@janetmock
Not once in the op-ed does @GloriaSteinem write “trans women.” Doing so would recognize the fact that trans women are women. #girlslikeus]

Further, Toni D’Orsay points out that Steinem did more than write an essay. She actively contributed to the inclusion of TERFs into a feminism that had until then accepted trans individuals**:

IT wasn’t until Daly and similarly like minded lesbian separatists started getting really loud, really angry, and really offensive that trans people became an issue.
They did that at first from outside the mainstream of radical feminism.
[…]
Steinem was one of the people who helped to bridge that divide. Who worked to secure that change so that lesbian women could be included, and one of the ways she did that was to bring in Daly’s work and Raymond’s work into the awareness of mainstream readers through the vehicle of MS magazine and the New Yorker.

Monica Roberts at TransGriot similarly expands on Steinem’s actual contributions to cissexism:

Because you referred to SRS surgeries multiple times as ‘mutilation’, it gave credibility to the 1980 paper that Raymond wrote to Congress that led to SRS being eliminated from Medicare and Medicaid coverage and the insurance company medical exclusions on trans related health care.
It co-signed the anti-trans attitudes in feminist circles that have led to the suffering and deaths of far too many trans people. It led to trans people being cut out of desperately needed LGBT human rights legislation in the 80s, 90’s and early 2k’s.

Still, she said something that wouldn’t come out of the mouth of a dedicated trans-exclusive feminist; she said that “transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned. Their health care decisions should be theirs and theirs alone to make.” That is a big admission. An admission that she will, however, have to follow up with real deeds to undo the damage she’s caused and use her influence in feminism and in society as a whole to fight for the rights and acceptance of trans people; including trans women. Probably the simplest thing to do right now (for example) would be to sign the Statement of Trans-Inclusive Feminism and Womanism. And Monica Roberts provides another (non-exhaustive) list of actions for Steinem to take:

Lobby with the trans community in Washington DC for a trans inclusive ENDA. Call out the trans exclusionary radical feminists and help us get the Southern Poverty Law Center to declare them as a hate group. Declare there is no room in feminism for anti-trans hatred and bigotry. As a Smith alum you can help us ensure that your alma mater puts admissions policies in place that allow qualified trans feminine students to enroll there.

Then, of course, there’s the other toxic effects of her paricular flavor of feminism. She’s yet to even do this kind of acknowledgment in the context of her anti-sex-work activism. She’s still promoting the Rescue Industry, and just today she tweeted support for a petition to get the UN to alter its stand (which is based on research and on listening to sex workers) on the decriminalization of sex work:

[Gloria Steinem ‏@GloriaSteinem
United Nations: #ListenToSurvivors — don’t jeopardize efforts to prevent #sextrafficking http://tinyurl.com/m8chxo5 ]

Overall, I’d say this is a babystep in the right direction. Not something she should be given any ally-cookies for, since it still fails to acknowledge the entirety of the harm done as a result of her anti-SRS work and her promotion of TERFs in feminism, and doesn’t so much as acknowledge that there’s anything wrong with any of her sex-work-prohibitionism. At this speed***, she’ll likely be dead before she arrives at a genuine apology for all of it; and even if not, many trans people and sex workers are going to suffer and die before she ever gets around to undoing the damage she helped/helps cause to them.

***Trigger Warning: TERF reactions to Steinem’s op-ed***

However, even this microscopic step forward has pissed off other TERFS. Maybe if they’ll now spend their time sniping more at each other, and less at trans women and trans rights activists, that would be an improvement [/wishful thinking]. Examples:

[Incendiary Lover ‏@incendiarylover
absolutely devastated & pissed that @GloriaSteinem has opted to erase women & lesbians w/transjacktivist sell out #radfem #cottonceiling]
[Actual Dykes ‏@ActualDykez
As Lesbians, we feel @GloriaSteinem has no idea what is happening to Lesbians under Transgenderism #cottonceiling http://fb.me/6CR6zgeZT ]
[E. Hungerford ‏@ehungerford
Gloria Steinem adopts #neolib identity politics as a means to end oppression against women. WHAT? GENDER hurts women http://goo.gl/XkcFTO ]

– – – – – – – – –
*also, I’m thinking “twin-spirited” is a mangling of “two-spirit”, the term adopted by North American tribes to describe gender minorities. It bugs me that she didn’t bother to even do a google-search to get this right (I did, to make sure “twin-spirited” isn’t an accepted alternative, or some other concept I hadn’t heard of).

**please do read the entire essay, it’s eyeopening if you’re not familiar with the history of and current actions by TERFs in feminism! the linky again. And also read the TransGriot piece in its entirety: linky again

***the text in question**** was written over 36 years ago, and supposedly she only now realizes that it’s criticism of SRS might get interpreted as being anti-SRS, even though it was part of the discourse that led to SRS (and other even vaguely transitiony medical treatments) being dropped from public aid and private insurance, as Monica mentions in her piece. Snails and glaciers would be insulted by a comparison.

****which also describes mutilation of intersex babies as “rescue”. Jesus Fucking Christ. Has she apologized for that yet?!

Feministe is apparently never going to learn this lesson

In February, there was that atrocious “in my feminist utopia, there wouldn’t be any sex work” piece which I took apart here. I noticed today that there was a new pingback to that post. It turned out to be this piece that talked about feministe’s problem with anti-sex-work narratives, which includes discussion of another shittastic piece posted at feministe 10 days ago, which in its original version indulged in fantasies of violence* against those who propose decriminalization**, even though given the choice between decriminalization and illegality, decriminalization leads to more reduction of harm towards sex workers***.

Unlike with the last piece, I won’t bother taking it apart line by line, if only because there’s really not that much content to be picked about. I do want to point out some of the most problematic bits, though. For one, what the article amounts to is a description of the strong reaction of a young privileged woman for the first time seeing deprivation and misery. As the article at Literate Perversions points out, the feministe article is not actually about the poor, drug-addicted women she describes:

Not a single word of her post is actually about the people in the city; it is entirely about how seeing them makes her feel. The people themselves are exotic others, with as much substance as if they had been green-screened into the background.

The othering is in fact entirely literal, when Pahman writes that what she sees “is ‘the other’ America, third world living conditions, the neighborhoods blighted.” There’s plenty of non-literal othering as well, for example in the fact that the piece manages not to include a word about their conditions or their own positions on the legality of prostitution from the people the article is supposedly about. Instead, we get indirect relation of what “every sexual abuse counselor, advocate and outreach team” she’s met told her when she asked them about legalization of prostitution, namely that none of them advocate for legalization**** of “this dire circumstance [she] was witness to” (which, as described below, was not just prostitution, or in any way wholly caused by prostitution). It’s entirely about her experience of going to the inner city for the first time ever and feeling shocked and overwhelmed at the deprivation and misery she saw from her van, and then unloading her feelz on an easy target.
And doing so indirectly, to boot, by pretending that it’s white privileged feminists who’ve never been within hearing distance of grinding poverty who are pro-decriminalization, while those people who live “in reality” as she claims of herself are those who are against it; when actually most prohibitionist rhetoric comes from the well established middle-class white feminists, while the voices for decriminalization are generally from those who are part of the communities in which sex work occurs in one way or another (example: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rmct2k ). Because screaming at sex workers themselves that they should stop advocating for themselves would be kinda awkward; much better to pretend one is screaming at clueless suburbanites instead.

The second major problem is the extreme simplification of the problems of American inner cities. She describes scenes that are caused by the complex interaction of American sociolopolitical structures, such as a history of sexism; a history of racial discrimination, for example in housing (redlining, white flight, etc.); decades of economic policies that increase inequality and erode the social safety net; the War on Drugs; and, yes, the policies regarding prostitution. But her reaction to this complex image focuses solely on how angry what she saw makes her at people who promote decriminalization of prostitution. At no point during that entire triade did any of the other contributing causes get even a token mention; at no point did it apparently occur to the author that prostitution isn’t going to be any more illegal than it already is, and yet there it is, apparently causing all the misery she desribes, all by itself, such as in this unreflective bit:

As I take brown bags of food into boarded up and blighted out crack houses where 20 women live, pregnant, addicted, and sought after by the police. When raids are done it is the women who are arrested and jailed, not the Johns.

Well, guess what wouldn’t happen to prostitutes if prostitution were legal; and not a word about the harm caused by the War on Drugs, either, no matter how self-evident its contribution to the quoted scenario#.

Then, of course, there’s the strawmanning. Most advocacy for decriminalization is as part of harm reduction, which pretty blatantly states that there’s harm that needs reducing. It’s about letting sex-workers speak for themselves and their needs at AIDS/HIV-related conferences, about providing resources such as Ugly Mugs, about forming labor movements of sex workers so that they can take power and thus defend and strike back against their oppressors. Yet Pahman claims that people who call prostitution sex-work and are against prostitution being illegal are pretending there’s no harm being done to sex workers, and that discussions of the agency of sex workers are actually claims about sex workers voluntarily or freely choosing## to be prostitutes.

And lastly, there’s the problem of feministe having published that; and published it with the line on wanting to do violence against people who support decriminalization (who are often sex workers themselves) intact, to boot. This is not “centering sex worker voices”; despite that being the title of her response to the last fuckup (not a retraction, mind you), Jill Filipovic of feministe has clearly no desire to actually do that. Much better to publish a ranty prohibitionist bit that erases sex worker voices and even fantasizes about violence against them.

– – – – – – – – – – – –
*the removed bit went like this:

Some may say “well that is why we must legalize it” and I want to spit in their face. I want to grasp my fingers around their neck and choke the ignorance from them.. I guess violence begets violence because my eyes go red when feminists lecture about “sex work.”

**the author called it legalization, because the author doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t actually know anyone on the pro-sex-worker side who calls for legalization; it’s always about decriminalization.

***some links to various articles/studies about effects of different laws on the harms related to sex work:
-> discussions of two reports on the effects of the “Swedish Model” in Norway; includes links to the report, but they’re in Norwegian: https://feministire.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/the-oslo-report-on-violence-against-sex-workers/ , https://feministire.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/the-latest-on-norways-sex-purchase-ban/
-> the actual report discussed in the first of the above articles, in English: http://humboldt1982.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/dangerous-liaisons.pdf
-> a NZ report on the effects of their decriminalization law: http://www.justice.govt.nz/policy/commercial-property-and-regulatory/prostitution/prostitution-law-review-committee/publications/plrc-report/documents/report.pdf
-> the new WHO guidelines for STI prevention and treatment among sex workers: http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/guidelines/sex_worker/en/index.html
-> South African position paper citing the reasons for supporting decriminalization: http://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/Policy%20Brief%20Position%20Paper%20on%20Sex.pdf
-> a paper describing how possession of condoms is used as evidence for prostitution in places where any part of sex work is criminalized, with predictable consequences for health (it’s not just a NYC thing) http://www.nswp.org/sites/nswp.org/files/criminalizing-condoms-20120717%5B1%5D.pdf

****well, neither do sex-work advocates. But since we don’t get direct quotes from those people she’s asked about this, we can’t know whether they want it to stay illegal, or whether they’re pro-decriminalization. It’s a bit like those polls that said people were unhappy with Obamacare being used to support Republican opposition to it, when many people were unhappy with it cuz it didn’t go far enough.

#OTOH, who knows; maybe her opinion on drug policy is just as ass-backwards as her opinion on sex-work policy, and she would love to get violent against people who think the War on Drugs should end.

##This is pretty much why I’m opposed to the compatibilist conflation of free will and agency. Failing to clearly delineate the difference between those concepts leads to this kind of bullshit, or at least allow it to continue unchallenged.

A supreme court decisions roundup

an oddly large number of important supreme court decisions happened in the last few weeks. Instead of commenting on them individually and separately, I decided to put them all together; I don’t think it’s possible to get a decent idea of where the U.S. is heading, legally speaking.

1)United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry — These are the DOMA and Prop8 cases, respectively. The most important positive bit here is that in states where gay marriage is legal, gay married couples will now be treated the same as straight married couples at the federal level. The major bad part is that the way these two cases were handled, state-level bans on gay marriage are still perfectly legal, and states don’t need to acknowledge other states’ marriage laws. Basically, they turned gay marriage into a “states rights” issue. Still, this is at least 2 steps in the right direction: end to federal-level discrimination of already legal gay marriages, and the death of Prop * (and therefore restoration of gay marriage in California), but int he case of Prop 8, at a very high price, because the whole “standing” thing is arbitrary and can be used in really shitty ways to deny people access to courts.

2)Shelby County v. Holder and Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona — These are the decisions that (at least for now) defanged the Voting Rights Act and are very likely going to lead to massive voter disenfranchisement: while the court didn’t strike down the pre-clearance provisions(i.e. the requirement that certain states must submit to federal oversight and can’t change shit about their voting rules w/o the federal “go ahead”) themselves, it killed the Section that defined which states/counties/whatever the pre-clearance provisions apply to. So right now, they don’t apply anywhere, until Congress gets their act together (lol) to create a new formula “justified by current needs”. On the one hand, that sounds reasonable, because there’s many places in the US right now that are threatening voters’ rights that are not covered by the original formula, so the formula seems insufficient for modern needs. On the other, it only sounds reasonable to claim that the formula is “based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day” if you believe the BS about how “things have changed dramatically” in the South, meaning that the states who had Jim Crow laws then wouldn’t happily revert to whites-only voting if given the chance.
Which brings us to the second case noted above, which on the surface looks like a win because it invalidated one part of Arizona’s ID law; but if you look deeper, you’ll note that it pretty much describes a method of getting around the ruling. Plus, apparently, the supreme court just decided that the constitution only allows Congress “to regulate how federal elections are held, but not who may vote in them”. So discriminatory restrictions are A-OK, as long as you’re not on the currently non-existent list of entities subject to pre-clearance. :-/
Definitely a GIANT step back; wouldn’t be so bad if the US had a reasonable and functional Congress that could quickly provide a more updated formula. But then if that’s how the US Congress worked, this problem wouldn’t have occurred in the first place, since the formula would already have been adapted to modern needs (which would still include most of the South, but now with added “OMG teh illegalz are voting!!!” ID-issuing states.

3)Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin — this is a case dealing with affirmative action. It basically says that a university cannot simply declare that it needs affirmative action in its admission process to increase diversity; rather, it needs to show, in the court of law, that it doesn’t have other, non-race-based, means of achieving greater diversity. Since that didn’t happen, the case was kicked back to a lower court so that the lower court could make that determination. That decision does two good things: one, it reaffirms the importance of diversity and its validity as a rationale for how to weigh admission applications; two, it reaffirms that the constitution doesn’t demand colorblindness at all costs, i.e. that an exception for remedying racial injustices embedded in society does exist. Given the make-up of the current Supreme Court (see: Scalia and “racial entitlements”), that alone is surprising and counts as a victory. Still, it may make the continued use of affirmative action a lot more difficult in the future. For now, I’m counting this one as not moving us either direction.

4) University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar and Vance v. Ball State University — these are both workers’ rights cases, specifically worker protection and rights in relation to the Civil Rights Act. The first case is about workers being protected from retaliation by the employer after complaining about discrimination; the second case is about when an employer is liable for discrimination. The ruling in the former says that a worker has to prove that the sole reason for being discriminated was retaliation (good fucking luck with that; an employer needs to come up with only one other plausible reason, and they’re off the hook). The ruling in the latter states that an employer is only automatically liable for a case of discrimination when the person doing the discriminating has the direct ability to hire, fire, or promote the discriminated against person (e.g. racially motivated negative performance reviews don’t count; harassment doesn’t count; always being assigned to be the person who makes the coffee in meetings doesn’t count). Both decisions are massive losses of workers’ rights against discrimination and harassment.

5)Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International — This case was about a foreign aid rule that stated that organizations receiving money from the US to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria had to be strictly against prostitution; meaning that sex worker’s rights groups and those dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention for sex workers weren’t given a penny even though they are one of the most at-risk populations. The Supreme Court ruled against the constitutionality of that rule. This is good. It’s narrow, because it only applies to broad issues not directly subject to the funding, meaning (in more familiar terms) that not allowing abortion as part of family planning when using federal family planning funds is still ok, but demanding a wholesale anti-abortion position from recipients wouldn’t be; so demanding an anti-prostitution position from recipients has been declared a violation of the 1st Amendment. Still, this is a good step forward, and a HUGE one in terms of actually helping marginalized people.

6)American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant — this one is about arbitration agreements (about one between corporations, but according to the Supreme Court, corporations are people, so…); basically it concluded that a contract that precludes class-action arbitration or lawsuits is valid and therefore class action suits are forbidden if you signed one. Specifically, the argument that you can’t defend your claim b/c it’s too expensive for an individual is not a legally acceptable reason to void a contract.
And I’m willing to bet you’ve signed at least one contract forbidding either class action suits or forcing arbitration (e.g.: paypal has one).
Giant step backwards for worker rights and also for consumer rights.

7)Salinas v. Texas — 5th Amendment case, specifically about the “right to remain silent” and not have that taken as evidence of guilt. The Supreme Court decided that you can’t just clam up and assume that this will protect you. Apparently, you need to state, for the record, that the reason you’re shutting up is that you’re pleading the 5th, because apparently intent is what matters, not the right not to be forced to incriminate yourself (and now, that rule even applies when you’ve not been informed of this fact i.e. when you haven’t been read your Miranda rights cuz you’re not being arrested); therefore, officially, the dude in this case didn’t even use the 5th Amendment. And we still lucked out with this horrible result, because if the court had actually decided to consider the actual constitutionality of the case, we’d be discussing whether your silence can be used against you even if you do plead the 5th as long as you’ve not been arrested; and at least Scalia and Thomas very much think that you can only remain silent and not have that used against you is if you’ve been officially arrested and therefore didn’t “volunteer” to talk to cops nor can leave whenever you want to (how one could leave or not-volunteer to talk to cops when that behavior could now be used against you is a mystery to me).
Bad result, and definitely a step backward, but I don’t actually know much about the standard M.O. of cops to know how much of one. If it has until now not been the case that simple refusal to voluntarily talk to people (or leave, or say “i won’t say anything more without a lawyer, or whateverthefuck) could be used as evidence for guilt in court, then this permission to do so will have horrible effects on people and people’s rights; if cops and courts have already been doing this anyway, and the court case was an attempt at a novel defense from that behavior, then this changes nothing but “merely” enshrines a certain behavior in law; that would be a much smaller step back.

8)Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl — this is a very complicated adoption case, so I’m gonna actually talk about it in its own blog-post. ATM, I’m just going to note that
a)the kid is NOT actually going back to the people who were trying to adopt her, even if it sided with their interpretation of which NDN children the ICWA applies to. That’s because the people who wanted to adopt “baby Veronica” hadn’t yet done so, and tribes have priority rights in placing children who are (eligible to be) members of their tribe, and baby Veronica is definitely a member of the Cherokee Nation (you can ignore the BS about how she’s “1% Cherokee”, because that’s not how it works; the Cherokee Nation don’t consider themselves a race but a nation, and the kid qualifies for citizenship).
b)The court ruled that the IWCA didn’t apply in the original case so the bio-father didn’t have overriding rights to custody, but now there is an established residence with the tribe, so NOW it might apply, and a new case will likely be required to sort this shit out.
c)Regardless of the details, choosing the narrowest definition of the IWCA is definitely a step back for tribal rights at least; and could set a horrible precedent in which NDN kids taken away at birth wouldn’t be considered eligible for the protection under the IWCA.

Overall judgment: recent Supreme Court cases have set back the rights of marginalized people massively: the exceptions were DOMA and the sex worker case, but these exceptions can’t and shouldn’t overshadow the regressive and oppressive trend.

A rape culture link roundup

Despite evidence for rape, police forces raped teen to take back her accusation; her rapists then goes on to rape other women: Police allow serial rapist to continue predating after charging teen for falsely reporting rape

Teen who was impregnated during rape is being slutshamed by her neighbors: Indiana Town Shames Rape Victim, Speculates About Her ‘Promiscuous Behavior’

A victim of rape recounts her attempts of dealing with the trauma,and how she was doubted by both counselors and doctors and ended up being re-victimized over and over by her university: An Account Of Sexual Assault At Amherst College

Female workers in South Korea exhausted by constant vigilance against sexual aggression and harassment: Sexual harassment in Korea: 24 hours on constant lookout tire women

bonus:
Allen West and Michael Savage have decided that sexual assault in the military isn’t actually a problem because of redefinitions of “sexual assault” to include invitations for beer; and anyway, these women are probably just making it up anyway. As far as West and Savage are concerned, this is just an attempt by the “Khmer Rouge Feminists” to “take over the military” in a “coup”: Fox’s Allen West Uses Military Sexual Assault Epidemic To Attack Democrats And Decry Women In Combat Units

Intersectional look at some of the Free-Amina protests

A few things upfront:
a) This is a post about FEMEN. Therefore, there will be boobs. Don’t do what I did, and look at the below pictures while in class. :-p
b) FEMEN has an undeserved reputation as sex positive because they call themselves “sextremists” and are using their naked bodies to protest. However, apparently they don’t think that the right to do with your body whatever you want extends universally: they are supporters of the Swedish Model, for example. In fact, at least one of the Free Amina photos on their site is against the background of a self-portrait-mural in which one woman holds up a sign saying “not a sex toy” and has “no prostitution” written on her chest. So yeah. Fail on that account.
c) A lot of the comments on FEMEN’s site are assorted attempts at dismissing the protesters as sluts, whores, etc., which gets mostly ridiculed and aggressively defended against on their page; that I think shows that their “sextremism” style activism has a place, in the same way that the aggressive New Atheist style of defending the right to be openly atheist does. But that doesn’t mean that either is unproblematic, or that either fits every issue and every context.
d) There were other noteworthy instances, posted in other places on the internet, but I really just wanted to work with the images FEMEN had on their facebook, and pull out a couple interesting examples. Otherwise, this post could have gone on forever.
e) All pictures are from the FEMEN facebook page.

Alright, let’s get to the actual point of this post:

1) Activists got into a closed conference at the Institute of Arab Culture in Paris, where the president of Tunisia was giving a presentation:003The target here is directly relevant: The Tunisian government is absolutely co-responsible for Amina’s disappearance, and is part of the problem she was protesting against in the first place. On the other hand, none of the pictures I’ve seen showed the activists having anything Amina-related written on their bodies, making this appear far more generically anti-Islam, and not primarily pro-Amina.

2) Free Amina protesters in Berlin climbed a fence and took photos of themselves in front of a mosque, holding signs:003Muslims make 5.4% of Germany’s population. Anti-Muslim xenophobes make anywhere from 21% (wouldn’t want to have Muslims as neighbors) to 58% (believe that Muslims’ rights to practice their religion in Germany should be considerably limited). So I’m thinking a bunch of Germans trespassing on private property of a targeted minority might not exactly send the right message; plus, what did that random mosque have to do with Amina?
One of the women in this action is of Arab descent, and had “Arab Women Against Islamism” written across her front. A number of the other protesters had directly Amina-related things written on their bodies. That reads like solidarity with Amina, and with Arab women in general.

3) A large group of activists protested near the Tunisian embassy in Paris, got arrested for their effort:003003Two pictures this time, because the visuals of that protest were amazingly evocative of suppression of women’s right to speak up (especially the first one). Images like this are why I think the FEMEN style of protest can be quite powerful; but primarily, it is powerful in exactly this way: speaking to the right of women to express themselves.
The protesters gathered near the Tunisian embassy, a clearly understandable connection to Amina’s plight; they also had Amina-related things written on their bodies, and a number of them had stylized portraits of Amina in her now-famous photo on their backs. This could be very easily read as solidarity with Amina.
The wider context of having this protest in France could potentially muddle some of the clarity of the message. Protesting for the right to naked boobs in public spaces in a country that banned veiling in public spaces might not read as “freedom” so much as “freedom to be like us”; not quite the same thing.

4) Many Middle Eastern/North African women also participated in the Free Amina protests (pictures from FEMEN, grouped together by me for easier viewing): five pictures of middle eastern women in face-veil, showing their nude chests with pro-amina messages written on themThe women in the pictures are Egyptian, Iranian, Moroccan, Algerian, and Bahraini; at least one of them is a Muslim. All their messages refer to Amina. In all these cases, their actions directly attack a form of oppression they themselves are subject to.

5) One more from France. French-Arabic women protest in front of a mosque, burn Salafist flag. Two topless women flipping off everyone; burning flag in foreground As with the German protest… why this particular mosque? That point aside, this protest of Arab women, including one Tunisian FEMEN member, standing up against their oppressors is a powerful statement; that image is a powerful visual of that fight against one’s oppression. This too looks less like a pro-Amina rally, but given the context, it’s noticeably in solidarity with her: Arab women fighting together against common oppressor.

– – – – – – – – –
bonus screenshot — a piece of advice: if you don’t want to look like you’re just being ignorantly islamophobic, it would help to do a basic google search before going out to protest:screenshot of FEMEN facebook status showing protester, claiming Hagia Sopia is a mosque

A collection of reading comprehension fails

I was going to respond to the second pitter response in the “dialogue” the same way I did to the first, but it turns out that’s not possible. That’s because there isn’t nearly enough content, and what content there is looks like a massive reading comprehension fail when taken at face value (one can speculate whether these pitters really are that dumb, or whether they’re playing dumb to avoid having to answer properly).

So instead, I’ll pick at some of the more interesting fuckups of that response, rather than focusing on the supposed point of the dialogue. (content of quotes not altered, but form adjusted for easier reading)

a pitter: We seek to establish real truths from untruths, for without this discernment we end up with religions, dogmas, and demagogues poisoning our society. We establish truth through the application of logic, evidence-based reasoning, critical thinking, skepticism, and scientific inquiry. Our competence in this truth-seeking endeavour is the most valuable asset we have.

Stephanie: I agree and disagree. We dont only seek truth for reasons that are that dramatic or noble. The basic reason we seek truth is that, without it, were flailing ineffectually in the dark. Curiosity drives us to seek truth. The desire to predict and control the world around us drives us to seek truth.

a pitter: Scientifically driven skeptics like us may pursue truth for different reasons compared to others in society. We agree that curiosity serves as an impetus for some people; so may a desire to explain the world around us. While desires to predict and control the world around us may serve as an impetus for some people, those reasons seem less likely to be widespread among atheists & skeptics.

1)The pitter response to Stephanie totally reads like “but we’re not like other, normal people, we’re better than the commoners! We Are Skeptics!”
2)I’m pretty fucking sure that curiosity and a desire to explain the world is the main motivation for knowledge-seeking among scientists.
3)Wanna bet they read “predict and control the world around us” not in the clearly intended sense of bending the environment to our needs (e.g. curing disease, improving agriculture, etc.), but in the Pinky and the Brain sense?

a pitter: We seek to establish real truths from untruths, for without this discernment we end up with religions, dogmas, and demagogues poisoning our society. We establish truth through the application of logic, evidence-based reasoning, critical thinking, skepticism, and scientific inquiry. Our competence in this truth-seeking endeavour is the most valuable asset we have.

Stephanie: I am unwilling to put competence at truth-seeking above other-Ill call them ‘virtues’ for lack of a better word. It is certainly important, but making it our primary consideration has come to be recognized as a bad idea. Placing the collection of knowledge above all else was the kind of thinking that led to the Tuskegee experiment. Researchers uncovered a great deal of truth about the progression of untreated syphilis, but they did so at the cost of the health and lives of people who did not volunteer to be sacrificed for truth. In response to this and other travesties, weve instituted safeguards intended to curb unchecked truth-seeking. Putting truth-seeking above ethics and compassion is deeply troubling.

a pitter: I dont see any disagreement amongst the atheist community on the importance of ethics in biomedical research.

Dumb or disingenuous? You decide! Definitely fucking hilarious though.

a pitter: In our pursuit of truth, we must test our beliefs in the forum of open and free debate. Nothing is left off the table; all claims can – and sometimes must – be fully examined and tested to determine the best evidence, arguments, and explanations. We can do this without rancour or dismissal and it is a key requirement in achieving our objectives: freeing this world of the terrible injustices we see all around us.

Stephanie: […]Where I disagree in that case is that science is supposed to be a cumulative process. Once consensus has been reached on a particular topic through that process, its typically time to shelve that topic and move on until we come across information that doesnt fit the models. Continuing to study geocentric models of planetary and stellar motion at this point would not advance our pursuit of truth. Debate does not go on forever on a topic without the introduction of substantial new information.

a pitter: This description of science seems at odds with that typically seen in a research environment. Scientists do not shelve topics and move on to the next subject. Nothing is proven absolutely in science and even topics that seem certain are being constantly tested – for example the recent experiments testing the idea that some particles might be able to exceed the speed of light in a vacuum. The principle that every hypothesis must be open to falsification is the primary means we have to distinguish science from pseudoscience. In other words, I agree that the scientific process should be as open as possible, and disagree that science is supposed to be a cumulative process in which a topic is shelved once consensus is reached.

1)How ignorant do you have to be to disagree that science is a cumulative process? If it weren’t, we’d still be trying to figure out whether the earth goes around the sun or vice versa. As Stephanie noted.
2)Wanna bet this is just their attempt at defending their refusal to let go of privilege & the biases that come with it?

Stephanie: If this is intended to suggest that individuals must test all their beliefs through debate and that this process will lead to understanding the truth, I strongly disagree. When people who are taught to debate are taught to be equally comfortable taking either side of an argument, we are looking at a process designed for winning, not truth. If we want to arrive at truth through give-and-take, we need a more collaborative process in which the goal is not to win.

a pitter: This is rather confusing and perhaps would be better expanded so that the meaning is made clearer. Certainly we cannot expect the scientific method to determine every aspect of our lives (for example regarding the love we have for family and friends, taste in music, literature, etc.) These are questions about emotions. Again, many political questions are based on personal values that have an emotional rather than empirical basis. It is best to separate out value-based questions from those that have an empirical solution.

reading comprehension fail, disingenuousness, or do they really think science is practiced like a debate club?

a pitter: We can work together by following the principles core to atheism/skepticism and remembering we are each and all fallible humans, each with one life to live and with an equal right to self-determination. We owe it to those who are hurting, suffering, and dying in this big wide world of ours.

Stephanie: Promoting reason, critical thinking, science, skepticism, atheism, and secularism is worthwhile, necessary work. I would disagree that any individual owes it to anyone to do specifically this work. There is other humanitarian work that is just as necessary and just as worthwhile. One of our challenges going forward is making people feel that ours is the worthwhile, necessary work on which they want to spend their time.

a pitter: […] we disagree if you are saying that “making people feel that ours is the-work on which they want to spend their time” is a widespread goal among atheists and skeptics.

lol. I wonder how the pitters imagine social movements grow, if not by convincing people that theirs is the work they should consider important to do/support?

Scratching at the veneer of reasonableness

I’ve been sort of half-assedly following the Atheist/Skeptic dialog thing, and was already taking notes to take the opening statement apart, but now that Stephanie Zvan has posted her “official” response which is part of this dialog, I figure I better finish up this post, before it becomes obsolete. So here you go, my version of a reply to “Jack Smith’s” introductory statement:

The primary purpose of this dialogue is to find common cause on which we can ‘work together’ while accepting diverse political and social beliefs.

If the point is to promote skepticism and evidence-based thinking, why would it make sense to accept political and social beliefs that go against the available evidence?

In our pursuit of truth, we must test our beliefs in the forum of open and free debate. Nothing is left off the table; all claims can — and sometimes must — be fully examined and tested to determine the best evidence, arguments, and explanations.

Except those ideas that are so thoroughly embedded in our society that we don’t even see them. Those must be left off the table, lest we upset the status quo and get accused of promoting “ideology”. Can’t talk about why the atheist/skeptic community is so white/straight/cis/male/middle-class dominated; can’t discuss the ways dominant perspectives dominate and exclude others; can’t talk about the unwarranted assumption that the perspectives of dominant groups are seen as “objective”, while the perspectives of minority groups are seen as biased; those things apparently must be left off the table. But discussing whether it’s women’s own fault they’re not better in STEM, that’s fine and dandy.

We can do this without rancour or dismissal

I see no evidence for this being the case; especially given that this very message accuses people who disagree of “imposing political and social beliefs on others”; also, “dismissal” has been a long-standing tradition, to the point of having its own name. The whole point of the Courtier’s Reply is that it’s something that can be dismissed because it’s an argument that assumes its premises (that god exists) and demands that the atheist do so, too.
Or to put it in the words of a dude apparently well-liked by the “atheist and skeptic community”: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
Apparently the thing about not dismissing people is only relevant now that it’s not just the religious but also other atheists who are the ones having their ideas dismissed.

We recognize that personal feelings have limited utility when determining objective reality.

True, except when the emotions in question are the reality under discussion. Also, we’re back to the part where dominant perspectives are considered objective (or in this case, free of emotional investment), while minority perspectives are not. Apparently it doesn’t cloud someone’s “objectivity” to have one’s privilege challenged. Because no one ever reacted to that emotionally, amirite?
Embedded in this is also the unwarranted assumption that one can’t be both emotionally expressive and right. Another unwarranted one, but another one that serves the status quo insofar as discussions of minority perspectives are more likely to elicit responses coded as “emotional” from the minorities who are the subject of discussion, than from the dominant groups (and as already noted, discussion of the dominant groups gets coded as ideological, and even genuinely emotional reactions to such discussions get coded as “rational”. funny how that works)

We therefore feel, in the interests of mutual cooperation, that it is appropriate to consider the best in others, give the benefit of the doubt, and assume others are acting in good faith.

I thought we were supposed to be empirical? People who’ve shown themselves in the past incapable of arguing in good faith don’t deserve any further benefit of the doubt; and since harm is caused regardless of intent, it’s often irrelevant at that point whether a person didn’t mean the harmful effect. t still happened, and it’ not gonna un-happen because you didn’t mean it. As such, “good faith” is worthless. Either you’re saying harmful shit, or you’re not.

Imposing political or social beliefs on others.

Sez the crew who’s trying to get RW blocked from speaking, and who throws a shitfit at the existence and popularity of FTB, and complains at the existence of WIS2 as somehow bad for skepticism/atheism; and who tries very hard to make sure that its own political and social beliefs remain the dominant flavor in the skeptic/atheist community.
Another benefit of being a dominant social group: you get to define your ideology as neutral ground, and perspectives conflicting with that ideology as impositions.

Attributing motives or character traits on others. Ad Hominem fallacies serve no good purpose in reasonable dialogue.

For the love of FSM, learn what an Ad Hominem Fallacy is. Hint: attributing motives and character traits ain’t it.

Our strength is in our diversity.

Actually, the lack of diversity in the atheist/skeptic movement is one of its greatest weaknesses and one of the main reasons we even have this rift.

Commenting on others without accepting a right of reply. The right of reply is fundamental to any open society.

Pathetic dog-whistle is pathetic. If I comment on your behavior on my blog, you have every right in the world to respond to it on your blog. What no one has a right to is a right to my readership. There’s no right to other people’s comment sections or twitter feeds.

If we criticise others then others have the right to respond to that without being personally attacked for doing so.

Ah, I see. This is one of those irregular verbs: “I criticize”, but “you attack”.

Ignoring the feelings of others. However we should not use our feelings to shut down valid and genuine debate and discussion.

And who gets to decide when an action is “ignoring the feelings of others”, and when it’s “not allowing feelings to shut down discussion”? Who gets to decide what is or isn’t valid and genuine debate and discussion?

Shutting down all forms of criticism. Criticism has been a mainstay of free debate for hundreds of years. Satire, caricature and critical commentary are a valid human response to any issue and have been for millennia.

1)”Shutting down all forms of criticism” is a strawman so huge and ridiculous, it’s absurd someone could take the claim that it was occurring seriously.
2)Again with the “valid”; what the fuck is “valid” about making fun of someone’s weight, health, or gender identity? What the fuck is “valid” about using gendered slurs?

it’s even on the walls of ancient Pompeii.

So are dick jokes and “Livia is a cheap whore” comments. The walls of Pompeii are not to be taken any more seriously that toilet-wall scribbles; which they pretty much are. Weirdest argument from authority ever.

We see the issues as a clash of ideas between those who wish to impose a particular political and social ideology, and those who wish to maintain the rationalist principles that have served us well for so many years.

What was that about “good faith” and “attributing motives” and “fully examining all ideas”?
Anyway, this is like Carlin’s “your stuff is shit, my shit is stuff” thing: “my ideology is principles, your principles are an ideology”. It also raises the question who “us” is here, since the whole point of the current “rifts” is that the ideologies that have dominated the atheist/skeptic communities so far has in fact not served many people who are atheists and who use the tools of skepticism.

This kind of imposition will necessarily divide the movement and weaken it. It will set up an ‘us vs. them’ mentality which distracts from our core aims.

A movement that will be weakened by becoming more attentive to the aims of its minority members is not worth maintaining. Like my feminism, my atheism/skepticism will be intersectional, or it will be bullshit.
Aside from that, this assumes that there hasn’t already been an us vs. them going on. Judging from the comments and reactions of many minority atheists/skeptics, they were already being treated as a “them”. The difference is that they’re now speaking out about it and insisting that they want their fair share of the atheist/skeptic community.

And it will alienate our friends and allies who would otherwise wish to support us, but will be discouraged if they do not hold the same political beliefs.

If someone holds a political belief that will in effect harm me or actual friends of mine, why would I consider such a person a friend or ally?

It will impose unelected political leaders and encourage schisms.

I don’t remember the Four Horsemen being elected. And don’t tell me they’re not “political leaders”. New Atheism is and always has been political, and Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins at least have never shied from political expressions even in the pointlessly restrictive sense of politics = gubmint-work.

And why exactly are “unelected political leaders” something bad? No one ever voted for MLK or Lucy Stone. Now, unlelected government leaders, that’s a problem. But last I checked, the atheist/skeptic community was not a nation-state or any other entity with a formal governmental structure.

We do not seek to control anyone’s space, the policies in others’ spaces, or their expression of their beliefs and values. However, when people in one such space criticize or challenge other people, we feel it’s important for them to accept rebuttal or presentation of counter-evidence in accordance with the core principles outlined above.

IOW you do not seek to control anyone’s space, you just seek the right to take over other people’s spaces. Yeah, no.

Failure to reach a common ground on these issues puts at risk our efforts in achieving our common goals.

Not really. It just makes it impossible to be part of the same community. But I’m also not in the same community as the progressive Christians here in town, and yet I’m perfectly capable on working with them on common issues.

We can work together by following the principles core to atheism/skepticism and remembering we are each and all fallible humans, each with one life to live and with an equal right to self-determination. We owe it to those who are hurting, suffering, and dying in this big wide world of ours.

Meaningless, pompous waffle.

North Dakota’s War on Uteri, continued

Just got back from the Fargo rally organized by Stand Up For Women North Dakota against the ridiculously restrictive anti-abortion laws winding its way through the legislature. It was fucking cold, and I ended up standing for most of it on a 3 meter tall pile of snow and ice. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by actually getting to listen to a Republican who was a)actually one of the organizers of this rally; b)commented favorably on the importance of freedom from religion; and c)actually said that she’d expect people to hold her accountable in her office on a school board should she ever try to get religion into the curriculum. I didn’t know such Republicans even existed in this country anywhere.

Anyway, the rally (and its sister rallies in Bismarck and Grand Forks) was specifically a call for the governor of ND to veto proposed laws which have made it through both house and senate, and which should land on his desk sometime today. Three of them I’ve mentioned in my previous post on this, while the fourth one is one that had previously escaped my attention. The bills are: SB2305, a TRAP law designed to close down the last clinic in ND; HB1305, meant to prohibit “abortions for sex selection or genetic abnormalities”; HB1456, a “heartbeat” bill; and SB2368, which is the one I’d previously missed and which actually proposes to cross out the “within present constitutional limits” part and replace it with a “state’s compelling interest in the unborn human life from the time the unborn child is capable of feeling pain” line (among other shit*; basically, this is an attempt at a 20-week-abortion ban), and which also includes this last minute attempt to block the federal sex-ed grant that NDSU received and that was finally unblocked as (currently) perfectly within ND law (emphasis mine):

Except as required by federal law, no funds of this state or any agency, county, municipality, school district, or any other subdivision thereof, or institution under the control of the state board of higher education, and no federal funds passing through the state treasury or a state agency may be used:
1. As family planning funds by any person or public or private agency which performs, refers, or encourages abortion; or
2. To contract with, or provide financial or other support to individuals, organizations, or entities performing, inducing, referring for, or counseling in favor of, abortions.

As of this moment, the bills have neither been signed nor vetoed by the governor; and this morning, when asked, all he had to say on the topic was basically “blah blah flood is more important blah blah won’t comment until they’re on my desk” (audio found here. And even if he vetoes it, the same shit that just went down in Arkansas can also happen here: the veto can still be overridden. I don’t know that there’s much hope that it won’t come to that, one way or another. (UPDATE: ND Governor Dalrymple is a douche canoe)

And even if by some miraculous event the laws get vetoed AND the veto won’t get overridden, there’s still SCR4009, which also has been passed and which means ND will have a referendum on a personhood amendment in 2014.

Worst state for uterus-bearers, indeed.

UPDATE: here’s a picture, and here’s the InForum article about the rally

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*for example: they define abortions for ectopic pregnancies and to remove dead fetuses out of existence; it excludes even major psychological damage from the “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function” which would allow for an exception to the law, and specifically excludes being diagnosed as suicidal from being a medical emergency;