UPDATE
Minutes after I posted this article, the ludicrous Jess Phillips published an article in the Guardian which could not have been better designed to prove my thesis. A number of people have posted comments on the Guardian article pointing this out, and they have all been immediately deleted by the Guardian. I just tried it myself and was also deleted. I should be grateful if readers could now also try posting comments there, in order to make a point about censorship on the Guardian.
Catching up on a fortnight’s news, I have spent five hours searching in vain for criticism of Simon Danczuk from prominent or even just declared feminists. The Guardian was the obvious place to start, but while they had two articles by feminist writers condemning Chris Gayle’s clumsy attempt to chat up a presenter, their legion of feminist columnists were entirely silent on Danczuk. The only opinion piece was strongly defending him.
This is very peculiar. The allegation against Danczuk which is under police investigation – of initiating sex with a sleeping woman – is identical to the worst interpretation of the worst accusation against Julian Assange. The Assange allegation brought literally hundreds, probably thousands of condemnatory articles from feminist writers across the entire range of the mainstream media. I have dug up 57 in the Guardian alone with a simple and far from exhaustive search. In the case of Danczuk I can find nothing, zilch, nada. Not a single feminist peep.
The Assange case is not isolated. Tommy Sheridan has been pursuing a lone legal battle against the Murdoch empire for a decade, some of it in prison when the judicial system decided his “perjury” was imprisonable but Andy Coulson’s admitted perjury on the Murdoch side in the same case was not. I personally witnessed in court in Edinburgh last month Tommy Sheridan, with no lawyer (he has no money) arguing against a seven man Murdoch legal team including three QCs, that a letter from the husband of Jackie Bird of BBC Scotland should be admitted in evidence. Bird was working for Murdoch and suggested in his letter that a witness should be “got out of the country” to avoid giving evidence. The bias exhibited by the leading judge I found astonishing beyond belief. I was the only media in the court.
Yet even though the Murdoch allegations against Sheridan were of consensual sexual conduct, Sheridan’s fight against Murdoch has been undermined from the start by the massive and concerted attack he has faced from the forces of feminism. Just as the vital messages WikiLeaks and Assange have put out about war crimes, corruption and the relentless state attack on civil liberties have been undermined by the concerted feminist campaign promoting the self-evidently ludicrous claims of sexual offence against Assange.
As soon as the radical left pose the slightest threat to the neo-con establishment, an army of feminists can be relied upon to run a concerted campaign to undermine any progress the left wing might make. The attack on Jeremy Corbyn over the makeup of his shadow cabinet was a classic example. It is the first ever gender equal shadow cabinet, but the entire media for a 96 hour period last September ran headline news that the lack of women in the “top” posts was anti-feminist. Every feminist commentator in the UK piled in.
Among the obvious dishonesties of this campaign was the fact that Defence, Chancellor, Foreign Affairs and Home Secretary have always been considered the “great offices of State” and the argument only could be made by simply ignoring Defence. The other great irony was the “feminist” attack was led by Blairites like Harman and Cooper, and failed to address the fact that Blair had NO women in any of these posts for a full ten years as Prime Minister.
But facts did not matter in deploying the organised feminist lobby against Corbyn.
Which is why it is an important test to see what the feminists, both inside and outside the Labour Party, would do when the leading anti-Corbyn rent-a-gob, Simon Danczuk, was alleged to have some attitudes to women that seem very dubious indeed, including forcing an ex-wife into non-consensual s&m and that rape allegation.
And the answer is …nothing. Feminists who criticised Assange, Sheridan and Corbyn in droves were utterly silent on the subject of Danczuk. Because the purpose of established and paid feminism is to undermine the left in the service of the neo-cons, not to attack neo-cons like Danczuk.
Identity politics has been used to shatter any attempt to campaign for broader social justice for everybody. Instead it becomes about the rights of particular groups, and that is soon morphed into the neo-con language of opportunity. What is needed, modern feminism argues, is not a reduction of the vast gap between rich and poor, but a chance for some women to become Michelle Mone or Ann Gloag. It is not about good conditions for all, but the removal of glass ceilings for high paid feminist journalists or political hacks.
Feminism has become the main attack tool in the neo-con ideological arsenal. I am sceptical the concept can be redeemed from this.
‘Difficult’, that should be, not ‘different’ . . .
Occasionally the BBC reports what is going on in the countries bombed by NATO and NATO allies. But we know what the balance is.
Forgot the link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35253681
“Which leaves us pretty powerless to challenge systemic functioning.”
Except to become the change we want to see. The systemic is an abstract, an aggregate of each one of us. It is the effect not the cause. The cause is internal. It is the me, the ego. As you say our prejudices, i.e. conditioning are part of this.
Runner77, good depiction btw.
I was looking for a friend’s flat in a high-rise in Birmingham and I didn;t know the floor number. So me and my wife went up a few and had a peep. One floor there was a crowd of about 10 balck, Norh African men waiting to get into the lift. They smiled sweetly as if to say we’re not going to invade your privacy with your wife.
therefore I conclude that the attacks in Cologne are religiously motivated, because of the preachings of hate by the scholars of Islam. Hang on a sec. We’ve seen black non-Muslim men, black Somali Muslim men in white clothes, and westernised black men, but we are not quite used to black African men who are Muslim but westernised in their appearance.
The cheekiest of the group would feel deeply scolded if a western woman addressed them with assalamu ‘alaykum. These guys learn their sense of superiority and entitlement from the mullas who teach them. The role of a Muslim, entering dar ul harb, the world that is set against Islam, is to show a beautiful example of Islam to the non-Muslims. It is the power-hungry imams who teach aggression against western females.
If the truth was told, the imams have proven their power-hungry aggression in Syria against all parts of the population, including Muslims and non-Muslims, men and women , young and old. A true hadith of our prophet SAW states that it will be the religious leaders, the priests and the imams who will lead the people into war, may Allah’s curse be on them for dragging innocent civilians into their dirty political schemes.
We ordinary people often have to rise above the imams’ stupidity. Hopefully that will happen soon both in Germany and the Muslim war zones.
Alcyone
“Except to become the change we want to see.”
I’m sorry to be a Zenophobe, but you’re talking krishniMOT at us and it’s too early in the morning.
Alcyone: I wouldn’t agree that the “systemic is an aggregate of each one of us”. Studies of systemic functioning (e.g. Kauffman, “The Origins of Order”; Ulanowicz, “A Third Window”) make it clear that systems transcend the individuals that are their components. So just as a bee spreading pollen is blind to its wider ecological effects, so human individuals embodying particular political perspectives are blind to the broader ramifications of those perspectives. That should induce a certain humility in us, I think. We need to recognise our own limitations in assessing our thoughts and actions, and embrace the awareness that our ignorance is deeper than our knowledge.
Craig, check out Martin Keerns discussion on the origings of feminism:
https://martinkeerns.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/sex-drugs-rock-and-kontrol-martin-p-keerns-20131.pdf
Updates on my blog:
https://jeremystocks.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/how-green-was-my-wadi/
https://jeremystocks.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/the-child-whisperer/
The question (Old Mark) is why have these reports taken so long to come into the news and just why a new city (Helsinki yesterday Frankfurt today, ? tomorrow) is reporting this ‘extraordinary criminal phenomenon’ every day?
Unfortunately, much of what passes for feminism has been all about getting already privileged upper and middle class women onto the boards of large companies and very little to do about improving the lives of working class women – and women from minority groups who still suffer from a lot of prejudice and closed opportunities in life…such as female immigrants, single parents or trans women. Indeed, some self-styled middle class feminists spend most of their time badmouthing women from minority groups and adding to tabloid misinformation about them instead of helping them. Some ‘sisterhood’, eh?
Jon and others:
A point often raised during the Labour leadership contest: do you agree with Conservative welfare reforms to tax credits that have hitherto provided the bridge to the gender pay gap caused by women’s biology and will increase maternal and child poverty? Here are the positions of the candidates and the media feminist commentariat.
Liz Kendall: Yes. Labour is not the party of welfare.
Yvette Cooper: Yes. Tough decisions blah blah blah.
Andy Burnham: I don’t know. My triangulation optics data report is late.
Jeremy Corbyn: No. The bill is anti-women.
All media feminists: VOTE YVETTE! SHE IS A WOMAN!
Ergo, in my view, Jeremy Corbyn was the only feminist standing in the Labour leadership contest and all the media feminists are a waste of (very noisy) space.
Hieroglyph 12.47am Runner 77 8.12am
“The issues they raise only sometimes get beyond ‘the patriarchy’, social mores, and laughable stuff about glass ceilings.”
I have a friend who refers to the so-called progressive media the glass floor for Oxbridge and Russell Group poshies.
” So there is a convergence towards a type of self-reinforcing perspective, and this makes divergence or the expression of any alternative increasingly different.”
And indeed: it’s really just the propaganda model for identity politics.
Briar highlights the problem (Sorry, no, Mr Murray, but you have it wrong. I am a feminist….)
Feminism is like the Labour Party. It means completely different things to different people. On the one hand, Briar. On the other, Cherie Blair, whose vocal (and charitable ‘feminism’ is applied to a quest to find ambitious women in developing countries who will monetise their diasadvantaged sisters for the benefit of telecoms and banking corporations.
If you hear ‘feminism’ and ‘entrepreneur’ in the same sentence, that is a Guardian/Blair feminista talking. But are we talking about neocons, here? I don’t think so. I think we’re talking about globalisers – modernised palaeocons, who like their Lancashire mill-owning forebears, simply regard people of either gender as means to a profit. And who can take any benign cause and twist it to their ends, and have always done so. These are not necessarily American hegemonists: they are international.
Becky Cohen 9:59 am
“such as female immigrants, single parents or trans women. Indeed, some self-styled middle class feminists spend most of their time badmouthing women from minority groups and adding to tabloid misinformation about them instead of helping them”
Indeed. And they also write endless columns about their new genderfluid identity and how it is used to oppress them. Of course, they’re not in the least oppressed. They’re as privileged as it comes. And by doing this, they deflect attention from actual trans women who go through unimaginable hells just to live as themselves.
It’s pure narcissism.
“We need to recognise our own limitations in assessing our thoughts and actions, and embrace the awareness that our ignorance is deeper than our knowledge.”
That is a fact and a good starting point. If we investigate that further and go into it, we can see very quickly that all knowledge, by definition, is limited. Knowledge has its place in the the field of thought and technology etc. It also strengthens the Ego because our education and conditioning tells us the we have to become somebody. All this process feeds conflict and confusion.
Can one end thought, as in put it in its place, and come to clarity? Clarity brings a different kind of response, which is Intelligence.
Can one end thought, as in put it in its place, and come to clarity?
Give it a try, eh? Let us know if you get there.
John Goss 9.02
That’s a pro-Saudi article complaining about the Houthis. It isn’t an article telling us about the sufferings of Yemenis under the Saudi bombs.
did anyone catch the (prepared) “spontaneous” anti-Corbyn live on-air resignation of some neo-con blairite Lab MP, can’t remember his name
prepared by a nice young establishment lady called Laura Kuenssberg (sister is serving UK overseas diplomat, Laura herself was partly educated in USA)
. . .allegedly, according to DM AND the BBC producer
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3389675/BBC-fire-orchestrating-resignation-shadow-minister-live-air-producer-s-blog-deleted-revealed-stage-managed.html
(reminds me somewhat of the Modus-Operandi repeatedly planned/tried on RT etc e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Wahl)
Can habbabreak be modified to alycone (villager) break?
what is ‘sex-negative’ anyway? Is it just a new way of calling women prudes?
Craig,
You genuinely sound shocked to find the guardian has the fastest censorship scissors in the west. It’s a liberal organ – what were you expecting? I gave up posting there a long time ago. They don’t want dissenting opinion in their ” safe space”.
Thanks for that Ba’al, hope you had a great l/crimbo time, Ms. Blair the feminist surely did.
Thanks also for Celia Fitzgeralds succinct account, I wholly agree.
Now here is a job for the Oxford poshies who’d like to be nature lovers and feminists, as long as they are not Afro Carribean, Muslim or Chinese they have a chance to get this job. PS it helps to know a few people in Norfuk’s hoite poloite.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/features/is_this_the_best_job_for_nature_lovers_in_norfolk_1_4370871
Posted a comment on the guardian. Lets see if it stays posted.
Post taken down by Guardian, so quick!
Off Guardian has many posts concerning the moderation and/or censorship and/or infiltration of comment sections at the Grauniad. Here are a few (note the comments as well as the articles):
http://off-guardian.org/2015/10/24/guardian-spikes-own-readers-drone-exclusive/
http://off-guardian.org/2015/10/21/guardian-censors-facts-btl/
http://off-guardian.org/2015/09/29/a-troll-story-in-4-screenshots/
http://off-guardian.org/2015/09/28/the-guardian-goes-into-censorship-overdrive-over-putins-speech-to-the-un/
I have the impression the Guardian under the new Viner regime has cut down a lot on the number of articles open for comments. Articles about Israel never are, and very few about the Middle East. It must have been too much work doing the moderation, when CiFWatch (the pro-Israel organisation) complained about every single comment. I think it may have been this external factor, rather than the Guardian’s own policy, in the case of Middle East topics. Though it is evident that they have had one strongly pro-Israel moderator, who came on when they did open an Israel article to comments. But that never happens any more. CiFWatch has succeeded in silencing the public.
YouKnowMyName, 10.38 : did anyone catch the (prepared) “spontaneous” anti-Corbyn live on-air resignation of some neo-con blairite Lab MP, can’t remember his name
This incident is another of those indicators which are coming faster and faster and which I mentally file under “They couldn’t have got away with that a year ago”. The BBC is caught blatantly engineering the news to the disadvantage of the leader of the opposition, and a spokesperson brushes it aside with an airy “Oh he was going to do it anyway”.
Other bulging folders in my “They couldn’t have got away with that a year ago” file cabinet are ‘Why we are removing this civil liberty’ and ‘Excuses for war’.
I’ve put a comment up which is polite and critical. It seems to still be there. There are a good mix of comments and I would say the majority around my comment are also critical.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/07/misogyny-feminism-stop-the-war-jeremy-corbyn#comment-66370369