Currently viewing the tag: "Sexism"
“To pit national or racial oppression against class exploitation is a sophomoric sociological enterprise; it is not Marxist analysis. That people of color can fall across class lines – a few of them – has befuddled our thinking insofar as we are metaphysical and not dialectical. Class exploitation and racial and national oppression are all of a piece, for in their joining lay the victory of capitalist relations.” – Eleanor Burke Leacock, Myths of Male Dominance: Collected Articles on Women Cross-Culturally
When analysing a policy position we must ask the question: cui bono? – for whom does it serve? To begin to answer this question, it is vital to first determine who is proposing the policies and where their interests lie. Ron Paul, the 72-year-old doctor turned Republican Congressperson from Texas, is a member of what the Occupy Movement calls the 1%. In a 2008 article the Los Angeles Times reported that Paul has assets in $2-5.3 million dollar range, with investments in gold mining companies, a medical corporation (which he runs), and mutual funds. Even more, like most establishment politicians he controls vast sums of money donated to his campaigns. Currently his presidential campaign website reports that it has almost $4.5 million. The 2008 L.A. Times article noted that his 2008 presidential campaign raised over $34.5 million. When analysing the effects of Paul’s policy positions it would be foolish to ignore either Paul’s personal wealth or the wealth that he controls in his campaigns. It would be to ignore class and, correspondingly, to ignore the sort of class analysis which can arm working people with the tools to understand the fight ahead of them.
Paul might say he supports the Occupy movement – or parts of it. But even if he pays lip service to Occupy, why should working people believe Paul anymore than they’d believe Boehner, Bush, Obama, or Pelosi? Politicians both lie and present arguments whose substance materially defends the members of the 1%. This is indisputable.
Below are some examples of the anti-working class, environmentally destructive, racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-science policies that Ron Paul promotes. It is not a comprehensive examination of his positions, but it should be enough to convince any justice-minded person that Ron Paul deserves our contempt and condemnation, not our support.
Ron Paul supports a wide array of horrendously reactionary policies. He is for eliminating birth-right citizenship – an extreme rightwing position which would make it so that children born in the United States to immigrant parents would be denied citizenship. He is for eliminating all social programs and government departments – like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, and many other programs which protect working class people, especially racially oppressed groups, from the horrors of unrestrained market capitalism. He is for overturning Roe v. Wade, which would force women to get abortions in back alley chop shops, where many would die, bleed out, and suffer infections, permanent sterility, and extreme pain and agony. He is for deporting all immigrants, including expanding attacks on immigrant Muslims living in the United States. He’s against gay marriage and thinks its immoral. He says states should have the “right” to deny people in love the right to marry. He has had many Neo-Nazis donate to his campaign, and has refused to return donations when this has been exposed. His newsletter has had many white supremacist, racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. He is no friend of working and oppressed people. Ron Paul is a rightwing extremist.
The social function of ideologues like Ron Paul within the capitalist system is to divide working people. If people weren’t divided in United States by ideologues like Paul, Bush, Obama, and institutions like the media, schools, etc. – if we actually talked to each other, discussed, debated, weren’t segregated by race – then there would be no way that the imperialists could get us to support war and oppression. That’s why they divide us, segregate us, teach us to hate each other over petty reasons, instead of recognising our common humanity: because unity is dangerous to the rich who benefit from all of our suffering. There are so many of us and so few of them – and they are scared of that.
Ron Paul’s supposed “anti-imperialism” is just a distraction from his *material support* for imperialism and terror by his efforts to divide and confuse people. He will never be president. But as a Congressperson and rightwing ideologue he is able to promote and vote for all the other policies which divide working people, support imperialism, and further oppression and exploitation.
Here’s another quote from a leaked hydraulic fracturing talking points memo. Hydraulic fracking, more commonly known as hydrofracking, or simply fracking, is the process of drilling down into bedrock like shale, and then forcing pressurised liquids (containing many poisonous and cancer-causing substances) to cause the bedrock to fracture, releasing any natural gas contained therein. The process is highly destructive.
This happens in and around where people live, not some uninhabited place. So they need to get homeowners to sign leases for the companies to be able to drill. This document is a “talking points” document for corporate agents who go to people’s homes to convince them to sign the leases. It explains all the various ways they will try to try to distort things in order to maximise their profits.
This document reveals how corporations will do literally anything to expand their power and profits, including reproducing, expanding, and utilising the oppression of women. Women’s oppression is central to capitalism. We should work to overturn these sexist laws while we fight to rid the world of dirty energy.
Here’s the quote:
“Men are more likely to sign than women. Men don’t like to believe that you know more than they do, so they are also less likely to ask questions. In the state of Ohio the husband can sign the lease without spousal permission. Go that route if required. Tell them it is their decision. Write the lease agreement with only the husband’s name on the paperwork. This will make it more likely that they will sign alone. Men are also more conservative, and more likely to want oil and energy independence. Women will have more concern for the environment and will challenge you more often. Knowing who to approach can seal the sale.”
Meet Byron Wilder. This former Nazi skinhead went through 26 agonising laser surgeries to his face, head, and neck to remove his Nazi tattoos. “It’s a small price to pay for being human again”, he says. People change – that’s why elites can’t win their war against us. One day the 1% will join other tyrant classes in the dustbin of history. We don’t have to let their racist, sexist, homophobic, nationalistic myths divide us. We can overthrow the 1%.
“[T]here is more possible pleasure in the idea of a converted Nazi than from all the cynics and nihilists. That is why the most dogged enemy of socialism is not only, as is understandable, great capital, but equally the load of indifference and hopelessness; otherwise great capital would stand alone.” – Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope
From 26 June 2009
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“Fill your desire for something long, juicy…”
Burger King has really outdone themselves this time. The print advertisement for their new “Super Seven Incher” sandwich features an wide-eyed, blonde-haired, pale-skin, red lip-sticked, blushing woman with her mouth open, about to have Burger King’s Super Seven Incher put in her mouth. The text below? “It’ll Blow Your Mind Away”. Apparently subtlety is lost on them. But perhaps we can learn from this. Countless ads verge on being this explicit, but are masked in “subtlety” which allows the silence of critique. These ads on the other hand, leave no room for dispute.
This ad could be used as an incredibly powerful teaching tool when discussing gender equality with people convinced that women’s oppression is “over”. It’s become increasingly clear, from the assassination of Dr. George Tiller (the women’s healthcare provider in Wichita, Kansas), to the rampage at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, to the murder of a nine year-old Latina girl and her father by Minutemen terrorists, to the recent post-election surge in gun purchases, that the seeds of a very strong far-right-wing revival are underway. In its sights: gains made around women’s rights, rights and services for oppressed people, especially people of color, immigrants, and working people, and consciousness shifts around LGBT rights.
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