Support Grows for Petition to Amnesty International USA

As of today, ten people on four continents have signed my petition calling on Amnesty International USA to either make its "Troll Patrol" program concerning online abuse nonsexist and transparent, or else end it. I've added a pertinent video to attract further interest and signers.

You can view the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=322&v=Rm8nBt9rQBo

Amnesty International Joins the Fainting-Couch Feminists

Amnesty International USA has launched a new campaign called Troll Patrol, which is described as a crowd-sourced program for tracking online abuse of women. This is evidently their top campaign now since it's the first thing you see when you go to their Web site. Yet nowhere do they explain why they think only women deserve protection from online abuse. Nor do they even claim that women experience more such abuse than men, either in the email announcing the campaign or in the page to which it links.

I wrote them:

Why are you only compiling data on abuse against women? Don't men have human rights too? The page you link to doesn't even claim that women experience more abuse than men -- it just ignores the question as if abuse of men doesn't matter.

 

Further, you don't explain on what basis you intend to differentiate real abuse, such as credible physical threats, from statements that can at most hurt someone's feelings. It seems very odd that an organization that has always been supposed to stand for human rights now seems intent on limiting freedom of expression, and in a way that infantilizes women at the same time.

 

Can we say "sexism"?

 

Their response:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We fight for the rights for all people in all places, including when women can't express themselves freely and suffer harassment, abuse, and violence -- psychological violence is one of those. Threatening to rape someone is not covered in free speech and we have seen that this is especially dangerous in places where there are fewer protections for human rights defenders.

To read the full report on this issue, please visit: https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/online-abuse-of-women-thrives-as-twitter-fails-to-respect-womens-rights/.

Best,

Samantha Putri

Member Services Assistant

Amnesty International USA

Note that nowhere does Ms. Putri answer the question of why only abuse of women should be addressed, nor does she even claim that it happens to women more often. Also notable is that while she highlights rape threats, AI's communications about this program to members and supporters are much broader and vaguer about what would be tracked, while apparently keeping tight control of these decisions in the hands of the organization rather than leaving them to the judgment of "Troll Patrol" participants. Supporters are evidently expected to do drudge work for the organization and simply trust that it will employ their efforts in a reasonable way, even though the program's gender-biased framing suggests otherwise.

In response, I'm starting a petition on Change.Org calling on Amnesty International USA and its Executive Director, Margaret Huang, to either end this program or extend it to include people of all genders, while making the process for judging abuse transparent.

Cultic Studies Are, Alas, Not Immune to "Wimminwursting"

Political cult survivor Alexandra Stein has an interesting piece that recently appeared on the NBC News "Thought Experiment" blog, about some of the ways women are victimized by high-control groups. Unfortunately the title, "Cults are terrifying. But they're even worse for women," is an example of the reflexive feminist impulse always to frame an issue in terms of women's having it worse, regardless of the facts. I respond as follows:

These are interesting and important facts, but the gloss you (or whoever chose the title) put on them is gender-biased. Some of the issues you describe affect both women and men (e.g., "Mothers in these types of closed cultic groups then end up in a position in which they are unable to protect their children"), while others have qualitatively different, non-commensuarable counterparts experienced by men (e.g., "Meanwhile, the 'extra' boys left over as a result of these plural marriages were booted out of the cult and left on the edge of the highway in the Arizona desert to fend for themselves"). This unexamined reflex whereby, when it comes to sex-differentiated experience, "F > M" is asserted based solely on the value of F has been dubbed "the Church of Wimminwursting" by artist and social critic Alison Tieman.

Why Marxism and Intersectionalism Aren't Kissing Cousins

I'm getting tired of how often I have to explain this these days, so I'm going to write about here so in future I can just post a link instead of writing another disquisition.

Mister Q @realMisterQ wrote:

I'm sorry but I don't see the difference between Marxist and Intersectionalist - both use identity politics. Both are class based. Intersectionality is the same method just applied to more "classes".

My response:

 

Marxism focuses on actual, concrete institutions whereby some people dominate others -- economic private property and the courts and police who enforce it, for instance -- and the one category, class, that exists only in function of these institutions' existence. Its critique is entirely in line with that of the earlier Enlightenment revolutionaries who agitated against the feudal aristocracy, but without the illusion that ending only those particular forms of domination would bring about "liberty, equality, and fraternity."

By contrast, intersectionalism dilutes this class analysis by falsely equating it with various categories that have an existence independent of, and in most cases predating, class; which are not specifically oppressed by any kind of formal institutions; and which merely correlate in a statistical sense with class for incidental historical reasons. While the former zeroes in on the concrete structures that need to be rooted out by a rising class having constituted its own structures in opposition (which is what makes it "radical"), the latter diverts attention to categories of inequality that are merely symptomatic, in the process steering self-conceived radicals into agitation for fundamentally co-optative programs (like affirmative action) whose function is to rejuvenate capitalism.

Faith-Based Group Cynically Promotes Relativism at Penn

There's a group with a table set up on Locust Walk today called the Christian Union. Their sign says they're about "training Christian leaders" while a blackboard asks, "What is truth?" From my conversation with one after writing my answer (what the Universe tells me about itself through my senses), it's evident what they're training them in is use of postmodern-style rhetoric to confuse people into abandoning the concept of objective reality, merely so they can then push their own evidence-free claims about said non-existent reality on them.

This group, which I'd never heard of before, mustn't be confused with Penn's long-established Christian Association, which has always had a very tolerant and non-abusive approach toward those with different world-views. I had a work-study job with them one year, most of which was spent doing office work for an anti-militarist nonprofit that had its offices in their building.

Alone, and Not Free

Yesterday's Daily Pennsylvanian features a guest column by Celeste Marcus, a junior who's studying intellectual history, titled "Netwerk it -- a world without inwardness." The central idea is that Penn students' preoccupation with networking is preventing them from developing any kind of individuality or inner life. This prompted some thoughts which I submitted in this letter to the editor:

It was depressing to read Celeste Marcus's column about the pressures toward conformity operating on Penn students today. It barely resembles anything I remember from when I attended in the early '80s.

Does the problem stem from a higher level of insecurity about job prospects, as so many employers have come to prioritize "flexibility" over long-term relationships with employees? Or does it have something to do with the much greater ease with which a person can be scrutinized in the age of social media?

One thing Marcus doesn't address is the ideological aspect of this "bubble." An inevitable consequence of commodification of people, as of anything else, is that everything ends up being judged by a uniform standard of value -- which means that alternative values are ruled out. This can result in an inability to think outside of a single ideological framework.

And the last sentence in the essay is only half true: "We will not be lonely, but we will not know ourselves." As Brene Brown has noted (https://www.fastcompany.com/40465644/brene-brown-americas-crisis-of-disconnection-runs-deeper-than-politics), as people increasingly cluster into cultural and ideological bubbles, they are also becoming increasingly lonely -- because in a bubble, you're not accepted unconditionally, but only to the extent you're seen as conforming -- and you may even feel compelled to conceal your true self.

It's not for nothing that in his first diary entry, Nineteen Eighty Four protagonist Winston Smith says he's writing for a future time "when men are free, and they are not alone." Seemingly Winston is never alone -- he's surrounded by coworkers in the Records Department. But in reality each is alone, because he isn't free to be himself around the others -- only to put on the face the system wants to see on him. Therefore none can actually be known by anyone else. This is also the situation for people involved in totalistic cults in real life.

While the corporate world's culture may not have a single identifiable face like Big Brother, it's evident that its conformist pressures, which are apparently much worse than they were thirty years ago, can create a similar superficial connectedness in which people are really, to paraphrase Orwell, "alone, and not free."

Here's the Q&A panel following the first evening screening at the world premiere of the documentary The Red Pill concerning the Men's Human Rights Movement, at Cinema Village in Manhattan, for which I was present, in October 2016. (You can see me in the background at some points when a member of the audience is speaking.) The quality of the video is poor because it was pieced together from iPhone recordings.

This was the first time I saw Alison Tieman, on the far left of the panel, wearing that beret or whatever it is, which I think looks really smart on her. I got to meet her as well as Karen Straughan, Paul Elam, and others afterwards outside or at the after party. I'd already met director Cassie Jaye and producer Nena Jaye before the screening, and got all their autographs on the movie poster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GroSOSUFKo

My original post about this event: http://stripey7.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-rapturous-day-in-new-york.html

Review: _Pedagogy of the Oppressed_ and _Pedagogy in Process_ by Paulo Freire

Sometimes you hear good things about something for a long time, and it’s only when you hear something bad about it that you feel impelled to check it out.

Over the years I’d encountered references to Paulo Freire’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, cited as inspiring the popular education and critical pedagogy movements. Being interested in both pedagogy (that is, the theory of education) and social change, I’d always figured this would be an interesting book to read, but it was never a priority.

Then, last year, while watching a YouTube video by Dr. Janice Fiamengo – a professor at the University of Ottawa who’s highly critical of trends in higher education – I encountered a very different take on the book. Fiamengo described how it’s cited as an important influence on many in the academic Left, and held it largely to blame for a decline in support in the academy for such ideas as critical thinking and belief that there’s such a thing as objective truth. She suggested that despite its title, the book actually promotes the idea that “the oppressed have nothing to learn from their oppressors.”

Being very interested in anything to do with helping the masses to become better educated – and, at the same time, very concerned about the trends denigrating the pursuit of knowledge, trends that clearly run counter to the first concern – I now had to see for myself what this book really says, and so I made reading it a priority.

I did so a few months ago, and pretty soon became convinced that Freire was not guilty as charged. His best-known work is focused on ideas he and associates first put into practice in his native Brazil, largely in connection with literacy. Where it differed from conventional approaches, at least conceptually, was in an insistence on the idea that the teacher is also a learner, and the students are also teachers. Rather than seeing the students as passively receiving knowledge from the teacher as something prepackaged, complete, and unquestionable, the teacher and students work together on actively knowing the students' world. Closely related to this is the idea that the purpose of education is not for the oppressed to passively learn to adapt/conform to their world as it is but, rather, to approach it as a challenge that they progressively transform in the process of engaging and increasingly understanding it.

The specific reference to literacy might be considered sufficient proof that Freire isn't saying the oppressed have "nothing to learn" -- although, admittedly, it seems to be assumed that the teachers are typically from the middle layers of society and not from the oppressors, if the latter is understood to mean the upper echelons. Still, there's certainly nothing here suggesting a rejection of knowledge.

The only thing in this book that might, by a stretch, be construed that way is a passage in which it's stated that dialogue between the oppressors and the oppressed isn't possible. But the statement is more nuanced than that. What's actually said is that the oppressors organized as a class cannot have dialogue with the oppressed -- where dialogue is defined as an exchange premised on both parties' fully recognizing each other's humanity. But "the oppressors organized as a class" means, by definition, their constitution as a political party for the purpose of preserving their class privilege -- that is, their domination and exploitation of the oppressed -- and thereby logically excludes fully recognizing the latter's humanity, the prerequisite of dialogue in Freire's sense. So, he is completely right about this.

But this in no way precludes individuals from the oppressor class transferring their allegiance to the oppressed and offering whatever of their knowledge may be of help to the latter. Indeed, Freire repeatedly quotes with approval from revolutionaries like Fidel Castro, who came from the upper layers of society, so he clearly knows that this is possible.

While I found the ideas in Pedagogy of the Oppressed intriguing, I was frustrated by the dearth of concrete examples of their application. So I was glad to see, when I arrived at the end of the book, that he'd written several more, including one in particular that promised to fill that gap, which I have recently finished reading.

Called Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guinea-Bissau, it's centered on correspondence Freire wrote to educators and officials of that country shortly after it had attained its independence, with which he and his team collaborated on their adult literacy campaign. It offers considerable detail about how the ideas in his earlier work were applied here.

For instance, "generative words" were employed as thematic springboards for lessons. These were words, such as "rice," that signified something vital in the lives of the students. Not only could they be organically linked to a whole series of other words of similar importance, they could also serve as the basis of linking the intellectual lessons to vital manual activities of the community, thereby further making the lesson meaningful and memorable for the students.

But in addition to fleshing out the concepts in Freire's earlier work as they pertain to literacy, Pedagogy in Process also illustrates the importance of other kinds of learning to a revolutionary perspective. For instance, he approvingly offers this quote from a central figure of the Guinea-Bissau independence movement:

"Our culture must be developed at the national level of our country. And this must be done without holding the culture of others in low esteem [my emphasis -- E.H.]. We must take advantage of all of those things in the culture of others, of all that is good for us and of all that can be adapted to our conditions of life. Our culture must develop on the basis of science. It should be scientific, not based on a belief in imaginary things. Our culture should not allow any one of us to think that lightning is the result of God's anger or that thunder is a voice speaking from the skies or the fury of IRAN. Tomorrow everyone in our culture must know that thunder occurs when two clouds, carrying negative and positive electrical charges, bump into each other. First comes the lightning and then the noise which is thunder." Amilcar Cabral, "Resistencia cultural," in PAIGC -- Unidade e Luta, pp. 198-99, quoted in Paulo Freire, Pedagogy in Process: the Letters to Guinea-Bissau, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016(1978), p. 116, footnote

This, surely, should put to rest the notion that Freire promoted any sort of objectivity-and-science-denying extreme relativism.

Why, then, does Professor Fiamengo think that he did so? She's apparently relying on second-hand information from people who may have motives for distorting Freire's message -- people she herself doesn't trust, and for good reason. In her videos she cites many examples of academics in the humanities and social sciences practicing selective scholarship and ignoring inconvenient facts in support of trendy theories. (In one, for instance, she quotes from a feminist scholar who describes Canada's 19th-Century seduction laws as reflecting the denial of "women's cultural and legal control over their own bodies," completely disregarding that it was only men who were imprisoned under these laws.)

Fiamengo is also not wrong to suggest that when many scholars deride concepts like objectivity and rationalism as nothing but tools of social control by dominant groups, this may help create an environment in which, increasingly, students feel entitled to engage in disruption or even violence to stop others' saying things they consider "oppressive." And it's the very same devaluing of open-minded inquiry, and the very idea of objectivity, that makes it entirely believable that people taking this attitude might quote Freire selectively, or even paraphrase him inaccurately, to support ideas that were not his, and that they would do so with no compunction whatever. It seems likely to me that this is just what has happened

But it would be quite unfair to pin that on Freire -- just as it would be wrong to blame Charles Darwin for the pseudoscience of so-called social Darwinists in the last century who tried to use his ideas to justify racism and imperialism -- or to blame Jesus of Nazareth for the Inquisition. Such misuse is the inevitable fate of any great thinker when he's no longer around to defend himself. To the contrary, I have no doubt that Paulo Freire helped a lot of people become better grounded in reality and better equipped to transform it, and that through his writings and example he will continue to do so.

A One-Sided Response to a Many-Sided Mess

It's disappointing to see some of the names under this statement:

 

https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-new-left-appeal-for-imperialist-intervention-in-syria/5630758

While Gilbert Achcar, for instance, is right to note the complexities and ironies of the current alignment of forces in Syria (as he does in this interview: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article5386), he shows a total lack of sophistication by then signing on to a statement which calls simply and without qualification for military action, implicitly by the Western powers, as if one could seriously expect this to make things better -- especially after seeing how such actions in the recent past, as in Iraq, are largely responsible for the current bloody mess.

I Am (Wo)man

I was recently reminded of the song "I Am Woman," and struck by how much it affects me:

Honestly, I don't see how anyone with an ounce of humanism can fail to be moved by the impulse toward freedom it expresses. Indeed, I see from the comments that some people find it personally inspirational for reasons unrelated to gender, and even when they themselves are male. The thrill it gives me is not so different from that I get when Alison Tieman -- one of the most intellectually creative men's rights activists, and my personal heartthrob -- explodes about something in one of her "Ragening" videos.

So, how does confessing this feeling square with being opposed to feminism? Quite simply, by understanding the distinction between that primal impulse, which at a particular historical moment took the form of a widening collective rebellion against gender-based discrimination as experienced by women, on the one hand -- and, on the other, an ideology that captured that movement and framed it within a false narrative about the history and present status of gender relations, one that wrongly counterposes women's liberation to men's liberation instead of recognizing them as complementary objectives to be achieved by overthrowing a gender system that oppresses both sexes in different ways -- and which, by so doing, has actually become detrimental in many ways to women's liberation, as well as being harmful to men.

Why Determinism Is Not the Same As Fatalism

This excellent passage from Engels, which I just read yesterday, employs a mathematical metaphor to make the difference clear:

"Secondly, history is so made that the end-result always arises out of the conflict of many individual wills, in which every will is itself the product of a host of special conditions of life. Consequently there exist innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite group of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant product – the historical event. This again may itself be viewed as the product of a force acting as a whole without consciousness or volition. For what every individual wills separately is frustrated by what every one else wills and the general upshot is something which no one willed. And so the course of history has run along like a natural process; it also is subject essentially to the same laws of motion. But from the fact that the wills of individuals – who desire what the constitution of their body as well as external circumstances, in the last instance economic (either personal or social) impel them to desire – do not get what they wish, but fuse into an average or common resultant, from all that one has no right to conclude that they equal zero. On the contrary, every will contributes to the resultant and is in so far included within it." -- Frederick Engels, letter to Bloch, 21 September 1890, Selected Correspondence, p. 475

Fund Created for Social Mobbing Victims

                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                       https://www.gofundme.com/jonkay

"This fund has been initiated by Jonathan Kay, and seeded with his own $2,500 donation. All donations (including his) will be held, in trust, by the Toronto-based Levitt LLP law firm and its Financial Administrator. Upon the dissolution of the fund, any unspent funds will be returned, on a pro rata basis, to donors. Interested parties may learn more about the fund by contacting us through Twitter .  

"A number of Canadian academics, artists, authors, journalists and politicians recently have been targeted by ideologically-motivated mob attacks on social media. In some cases, these attacks have led to the threat of job loss—and have continued even after the mobbing target has been largely cleared of significant wrongdoing by a neutral fact-finder. These same mobs also have focused their attacks on third parties who have urged due process for the accused.

"Because of the increasingly precarious nature of work in creative industries and academia, those who stand accused of offensive words or actions often have scant means or institutional support to assist in their self-defence. To the extent these individuals have access to legal representation, it may be provided by third parties—such as a union—that exhibit divided loyalties. Even some NGOs that traditionally have stood in support of free speech and academic freedom have fallen mute, intimidated by the barrage of online criticism they will endure if they champion the civil liberties of mobbed individuals. As a result, there is an emerging sense on campuses, and within some businesses, that Canadians with controversial opinions or reputations may be terminated, bullied or libeled without legal consequence. 

"This is something I learned first-hand in the Spring of 2017. Thanks to some good luck, I was able to fight back successfully. But others have been less fortunate, which is why I have created a fund to defray the legal costs of those who have been attacked by ideologically motivated mobs.  

"Legal advice will be provided to fund beneficiaries by Howard Levitt, a well-known Toronto-based authority in labour-and-employment-related matters. Mr. Levitt also has experience in areas of law—such as libel and breach of contract—that sometimes arise in labour disputes. It is foreseen that Howard will provide fund beneficiaries with advice or representation, as circumstances may warrant. In other cases, he will direct beneficiaries to other legal resources that he believes are more suitable. As beneficiary candidates present themselves, Mr. Levitt will help ovsersee a small committee to assist in funding decisions. (I will not be on it.)

"In all cases, the purpose will be to help encourage all parties to pursue a just resolution of any underlying dispute. Where circumstances warrant, journalistic avenues may be pursued so as to highlight elements of these cases that raise concerns in regard to the treatment of unpopular individuals or opinions by schools, business entities and other institutions.     

"The purpose of the fund is not to advance an ideological agenda, except insofar as the protection of due process, freedom of speech, and freedom of intellectual inquiry may be taken to represent matters of ideological preference.

"It is not intended that the fund will be used to protect any and all parties who are fired, disciplined or censured on the basis of their expressed viewpoints—as some forms of speech truly do go beyond the boundaries of legally acceptable discourse. Mr. Levitt will exercise discretion in directing the fund's resources, but will do so without any defined ideological or partisan litmus test in mind."       

—Jonathan Kay

Understanding Abusive Spiritual Systems and Relationships

The International Cultic Studies Association is holding a conference on Understanding Abusive Spiritual Systems and Relationships which qualifies as continuing education.

Understanding Abusive Spiritual Systems and Relationships

Indiana University -- Purdue University
Hine Hall, President's Room

This event will bring together mental health professionals and other helping professionals who currently work with those who have experienced spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse may be viewed as being situated within the broader umbrella of psychological abuse but is a unique and often unrecognized aspect of this broader phenomenon. The societal value placed on religion can sometimes hinder critical evaluation of harmful dynamics and coercive control within religious frameworks. This workshop will explore spiritual abuse and the underlying mechanism of coercive control, and explore counseling interventions for clinicians working with those who have experienced abusive spiritual systems and relationships, and their loved ones.

Introduction to Spiritual Abuse (Ashley Allen, MSW, LMSW, .25 CE hours)
Panel: Born and/or Raised in Spiritually Abusive Groups (Debby Schriver, MS, 1.0 CE hour)
God Images, Implicit Religions, and Multiplicity of the Self: New
Conceptual Models for Understanding the Experience of Spiritually Abusive Groups (Peter Malinoski, PhD, 1.0 CE hour)
Early Trauma, Spirituality, and Serious Mental Illness: Exploring Intersecting Factors (Vincent Starnino, PhD, 1.0 CE hour)
Applying Cultural Competency to Work With Former Members (Matthew Staton, MDiv Counseling, .75 CE hours)
Choosing Self-Advocacy: An Attorney's Journey Through Spiritual Abuse

Panel: Support Groups (Dawn
Racine, M.S.Ed., Donna Lark, and Gina Harding, MBA)
Roundtable Discussions (Donna
Backstrom; Anna Holmquist; Stephen Martin, MDiv;
Peter Malinoski, PhD)

• Attendees will be able to identify clinically relevant effects of spiritual abuse.
• Attendees will be able to describe areas of clinical focus with this population.
• Attendees will be able to utilize effective skills for assessing spiritual abuse.
• Attendees will be able to identify the unique clinical needs of children raised in spiritually abusive groups.

Registration

ICSA Members including Institutional Members: $25.00 + $7.00 for parking voucher
6 CE credits are available with registration
(Please check with your individual board to be sure NBCC CE hours are accepted)

Financial Assistance
Scholarships are available for those with financial need, e.g., unemployment, disability. Contact ICSA at mail@icsamail.com

Information on spiritual abuse: www.spiritualabuseresources.com/

Patriarchy, or Self-Responsibility?

So, this morning I was hanging out in the lobby of Planned Parenthood, where a number of volunteer patient escorts were waiting to see if any protesters would show up and oblige us to go out into the freezing cold to escort patients (none did). The conversation turned to the choices people make about changing their names, and naming their children, after getting married. And one woman complained about how, when she'd gotten a divorce, the law had required her to get her husband's permission to get her maiden name back after the divorce.

She described this as "patriarchy," and thought she should be able to do this all on her own -- even though she acknowledged that she could have done so anyway once the divorce was completed; she just couldn't get it done as part of the divorce process by a unilateral choice.

I sensed that her logic was flawed, but didn't feel like trying to argue the case on the fly. But, upon reflection, I'd point to at least two problems with it:

I haven't read the law in question, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that it applies exactly the same to men and women; after all, if it didn't I surely would have heard it mentioned as a feminist talking point by now. I expect that if this women's ex-husband had taken her name when they married, and not she his, it would have been he that needed her permission to get his family name back as part of the divorce process. If that doesn't happen much, it's just because wives take their husband's names far more often than vice versa, not because there's anything sexist about the law.

The other symmetry she's overlooking is that between the marriage and the divorce. She got her husband's name not by unilateral action, but a mutual agreement resulting from a negotiation (at least an informal one) between the parties. Why, then, does she think undoing the results of that agreement shouldn't also require negotiation -- especially as part of a process that in its entirety is negotiated?

It strikes me that this is a very typical example of how feminism induces women to refuse responsibility for the consequences of their own choices. No one forced her to take her husband's name when she married; she presumably did so because it was agreeable and convenient for her. Yet, she doesn't accept that making that choice logically also meant that, if she later decided to divorce, she'd have to negotiate to undo all the same things she'd negotiated to do -- simply because that wasn't convenient for her.

Instead of acknowledging that she'd brought this inconvenience on herself by her earlier choice, feminism gave her an easy out from that responsibility, by blaming "patriarchy" instead. And that could be seen as a microcosm of what a lot of feminism is about these days.

"I Lost My Son to the Alt-Right Movement"

Sad story but with an unfortunate admixture of misinformation. For one thing, it links to a piece claiming without evidence that the men's rights movement, like the alt-right, "appeal[s] to men with fantasies of violent, sometimes apocalyptic redemption."

Here are a few of the main men's rights websites: www.avoiceformen.com, www.honeybadgerbrigade.com, http://ncfm.org/. You'll be hard put to find anything about violent redemption on them; the second, in fact, is run mostly by women and was created by one. Nor do all their posters even claim that men are "THE true victims of oppression" (emphasis added) -- only that we have issues that are being neglected.

Additionally, although I'm no fan of Stefan Molyneux, the article's claim that he's "alt-right" is widely contested and appears to be based on very thin evidence.

http://www.cultnews101.com/2017/08/i-lost-my-son-to-alt-right-movement.html

Defend Free Speech at Acadia University

I'm signing this petition in spite of the misleading and divisive language describing the opposing campaigners as "Marxist and Socialist." Their sort of authoritarianism can be found everywhere on the political spectrum, and falsely tying it to one ideological perspective can only needlessly limit support for the petition by repelling Marxists and socialists like me who agree with the arguments in libertarian Marxist Hal Draper's classic essay "Free Speech and Political Struggle."

https://www.change.org/p/acadia-university-support-for-professor-rick-mehta

Return to HOME

This evening, for only the second time, I took part in one of Project HOME's Potlatches.

The first time was about a quarter century ago, at the invitation of my friend Carolyn Jacobs, and I sang three antiwar songs by Fred Stanton.

This time was again at Carolyn's invitation, and I sang my filk song "Trinity," based on Lois McMaster Bujold's fantasy novel The Curse of Chalion.

Mark Segal Smears Chelsea Manning for Having Principles

At a Liberty City Democrats meeting I attended a few years ago, I heard one member remark derisively, "Mark always supports the party" -- by which he meant the Democratic leadership vs. internal challengers. Oh, how true we can now see this is.

In his most recent column in the Philadelphia Gay News, Segal accuses Chelsea Manning of being "divisive" by choosing to run in the Democratic primary against incumbent Senator from Maryland Ben Cardin, asking why she doesn't run against a "right-winger" instead. Never mind that residency requirements might not make that possible -- Segal implies it must be about narcissism on Manning's part. I commented as follows:

"In her first-tweeted video, she opted not to say anything bad about Cardin, but used video of Trump. What a great way to divide us." Wth?!! Not criticizing her fellow Democrat, and instead focusing on the man all Democrats are united in hating -- that's "a great way to DIVIDE us"? In what universe?

"Why pick a member of the resistance [sic]?" Who defines "resistance"? Does it refer to anything principled, or just partisan affiliation? For Segal, evidently it's the latter.

His question is clearly rhetorical, since with a modicum of research he could have found a real answer to it. As Glenn Greenwald noted, "Cardin’s crowning achievement came last year when he authored a bill that would have made it a felony to support a boycott of Israel — a bill that was such a profound assault on basic First Amendment freedoms that the ACLU instantly denounced it and multiple senators who had co-sponsored Cardin’s bill (such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand) announced that they were withdrawing their support."

By contrast, Chelsea Manning is running as a self-described radical anti-authoritarian. Obviously, if that's how you define The Resistance, Ben Cardin isn't part of it -- he's part of the problem. And, by the way, there's nothing unitive about him either -- you unite progressives by standing without compromise on progressive principles like freedom of speech, not squelching it on behalf of inherently divisive ethnic nationalism. And it's ironic that Segal conveniently overlooks Cardin's anti-civil-liberties stance when, only a few months ago, he was denouncing the Chicago Dyke March for censoring a Jewish contingent's Stars of David (an editorial I endorsed on my blog, by the way). Is he only for freedom of speech when it suits his demographic?

A Double Header of Deception on NPR

Well, Morning Edition outdid themselves today, airing not one, but two stories containing defamatory misinformation.

First they have an interview with Brianna Wu, who's been building her personal brand for the past three years by slandering the #Gamergate "consumer uprising" (as Christina Hoff Sommers has described it -- watch this starting at 42:23) as a harassment campaign against women in gaming in general and her in particular. The specific function and purpose of this lie has been to divert attention from the movement's legitimate grievances about corrupt and authoritarian practices in video game journalism.

And then, in introducing a story on the class-action discrimination suit against Google being brought by its former employee James Damore, they repeat the lie that he wrote an "anti-diversity memo." If you read the memo for yourself you can easily see that that's not what it is; in fact, Damore specifically proposes new, evidence-based approaches to help make Google's diversity efforts more successful. And here's one female engineer's response to the canard that the memo "promotes gender stereotypes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9SzOkOHzmM

I encourage others to join me in complaining to NPR about these libelous stories.

The First Amendment, Without Exceptions! (Indonesian Baker Won’t Write “Merry Christmas” on Cake for Religious Reasons)

This is an interesting story, but the comparison with the Masterpiece Cakeshop case is inaccurate. As noted in an amicus curiae brief filed by the First Amendment Lawyers Association (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/16-111-tsac-first-amendment-lawyers-association.pdf), "The Colorado Civil Rights Commission held that Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner, Jack C. Phillips, violated the Colorado Anti-DiscriminationAct (“CADA”), § 24-34-601(2), C.R.S. 2014, for declining to create a custom-designed wedding cake for the same-sex marriage of Charlie Craig and David Mullins." (Emphases added.) 

The same kind of misrepresentation appeared in an email I received from the ACLU a couple weeks ago, falsely claiming the plaintiffs in the American case "just wanted to buy a cake."

As an out bisexual, I obviously wouldn't (if I were a baker) decline to make a cake on the grounds that Phillips is stating (opposition to same-sex marriage). On the other hand, were I approached by an adult evangelical Christian who asked me to create a cake for a celebration marking his graduation from an ex-gay "conversion therapy" program, I very likely would refuse rather than participate in celebrating something I consider fraudulent and pernicious. And if, in response, this would-be customer hit me with a discrimination suit claiming I was refusing his business on the basis of his religion, I would vigorously defend myself, explaining that I wasn't discriminating against him -- I'd be perfectly willing to sell him something off the shelf -- but, rather, discriminating against an idea that I don't agree with. Unlike discrimination against people, discrimination against ideas is protected by the First Amendment.

Applying the Golden Rule (which is supported by secular humanists and a variety of religious traditions in one form or another, and not only Christians), clearly I can't deny Jack Phillips a liberty I claim for myself: the liberty to be free from compelled speech, clearly stated in the brief linked above and completely irrespective of whether the beliefs involved have a religious basis (which they wouldn't in the hypothetical case of the last paragraph).

Not only has Phillips stated his willingness to sell the plaintiffs anything they want off the shelf, but I think it perfectly clear that, had they opted for a low-key wedding sans cake, but some straight friend decided to surprise them with a cake ordered without their knowledge -- and tried to commission this cake from Jack Phillips --  the latter would have refused this prospective customer's business notwithstanding his heterosexuality. Because this case is about discriminating against ideas, not people.

In fact , what the plaintiffs are asking for is to have a special exception carved out (no pun intended) from the First Amendment's protections against compelled speech -- an exception based not only on subject matter (same-sex unions) but on one particular opinion about that subject (pro). This is in defiance of a long and very well established principle of First Amendment jurisprudence, namely that viewpoint discrimination by government is impermissible.

Karl Marx and the Victorians

Before returning to the library what my left book group will be discussing next month -- Eric Hobsbawm's How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism -- I must share some of the interesting quotes in the chapter titled, "Dr. Marx and the Victorian Critics," because they illuminate in the most interesting manner the attitude pro-capitalist intellectuals took toward him before they felt threatened:

"Marx is a Hegelian in philosophy and a rather bitter opponent of ministers of religion. But in forming an opinion of his writings we must not allow ourselves to be prejudiced against the man." -- Rev. M. Kaufmann, Socialism (1874)

"However its teaching may be viewed, no one will venture to dispute the masterly ingenuity, the rare acumen, the close argumentation and, let it be added, the incisive polemic which are displayed in ... the pages [of Capital]." -- W. H. Dawson, German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle (1888)

Of his views on the division of labor and machinery, "both learned and exhaustive, and is well worth reading." -- J. Shield Nicholson, Principles of Political Economy I (1893)

"Marx was trying to get at the right kinds of history. The orthodox historians ignore all the most significant factors in human development." -- George Unwin, Studies in Economic History (1927)

"Where alone Marx did memorable work as a historical theorist, was in his analysis and interpretation of the capitalist era, and here he must be admitted to have rendered eminent service, even by those who think his analysis more subtle than accurate, and his interpretations more ingenious than true." -- Robert Flint, Socialism (1895)

"[T]hough Marx has colored his picture too darkly, he has rendered great service in calling attention to the more gloomy features of modern industry, to which it is useless to shut our eyes." -- Llewellyn-Smith, Economic Aspects of State Socialism (1887)

Update from the International Cultic Studies Association:  "To reach out to those who relate more to the term spiritual abuse than cult, ICSA created a subsidiary website, www.spiritualabuseresources.com, which also houses the Spiritual Safe Haven Network pages."