Tag nationalism | VenusPlusX

Getting Untied Is A Mistake

Some recent memes have left me wondering: Are certain leaders consciously uncoupling from some of our core beliefs that motivate our activism in the first place?

For example, it seems to me that it would be much better if the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) community fights for all of the objectives of the immigration movement, as we have done in the past. However clear it is that LGBT people suffer disproportionally in all matters of immigration, our advocacy must be inclusive of the suffering of all people, LGBT and straight conjoined, in order to attack directly the underlying causes of immigration problems in the first place, such as racism and radical nationalism. This is not a suggestion that our message regarding LGBT immigration issues disappear or be subsumed by the larger message of human rights but that the latter, larger message is always a preface to to our special plea for our LGBT-specific issues.

“Luminarium” Sculpture by Alan Parkinson, UN Geneva, Switzerland
Flickr/creative commons

Just as LGBT advances have followed gains in women’s rights, we should pause to consider that we are a part of a larger fabric of social and economic justice and global human rights. Segmentation of any issue weakens the voice of all.

There are several reasons to be as inclusive as possible, the least of which is that we uncover our best allies when working in coalition, people who will support us when we need it. We can point out the special circumstances causing LGBT folks more trouble but not so loudly that all people hear is that we care more about our own. We can’t forget that everybody is suffering. We risk our own progress when we sound like we are pitting something like uniting same sex spouses over the needs of motherless children on the southern border.

Those of us who lived through the 60s, 70s, and 80s know that identification with the whole of any issue reliably enhances our credulity. When we rally shoulder-to-shoulder with activists dedicated to their causes across the social and economic spectrum (immigration, environment, economic, education, race, politics, religion, etc.), we are speaking to the broadest constituency. All of these issues, including sexual and gender freedom, are a matter of human rights. We can get our issues heard by more people if we set them in a reliable context, so there needn’t ever be a disconnect in our objectives.

The underlying cause of all injustice is enslavement of the many by the few. Peace, prosperity, everything, is inhibited because civilization has gradually surrendered the power of the group, giving away to someone else the power of the people that resides within us. For centuries, organized religion modeled human behavior through the opportunistic entrepreneurs who declared the necessity of their intercession between you and your direct line to the power of love. Whether you call this power god or something else, we all feel it flowing through our senses, continually recycled among those we love. Priests, ministers, pastors, imams, and rabbis, having recognized this universal power of love, found a way to exploit it for their own gains (getting shelter, food, currency, and other societal benefits) by warning that bad luck is sure to come to you if you didn’t follow their particular doctrine. Organized religions were the first corporations, and they are thriving, especially now that the Surpreme Court has declared the persons who can legally discriminate against others based on a false interpretation of both personhood and religious freedom.

As we have said before, the new age of sexual freedom is synonymous with the end of racism (at its root sexual oppression) and the end of nationalism (at its root racism). Sexual freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms because it fully expresses our bodily guarantee of plurality, global equality, and world peace.

Working arm-and-arm at the intersections of all issues pertaining human rights is the most direct path towards reaching our goals, common and specific.

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Counting on what is good

By everyone’s estimation, last week was bad, in fact we are having many bad weeks piling up for sometime now. But, these horrible events distract us from all the good that is emerging at the same time. It’s not Pollyanna-like to see that this cauldron of world-wide strife is now bubbling over for all to see and evaluate and soundly reject.

Universal human rights, environmental protection, and self-determination, and all that they convey, will prevail, not just because of their rightness but because they represent survival. Science-denying, theocratic fundamentalists, here and abroad, simply have no future.

Previously I have asked the question, What would happen if there was an alien invasion? Whether the aliens were friendly or not, we as a planet would join together to respond irrespective of the nationalistic tendencies some hold dear. This nationalism (and the racism that underlies it) is a disease and is at the root of all of the world’s ills whether we are talking about America’s failed immigration policies or arms aggression across the globe.

Our manifesto written in connection with VenusPlusX’s relaunch in April offers more about how progress inevitably overcomes regress. Progress itself has its own natural ecology, although at times like this it takes a little thought to see it.

We’ve already talked about the right-wing theocracy destroying American democracy; their paper trail speaks for itself, but voters will ultimately reject the policies and laws wrought by these old, white, sexually sick hacks, from the Supreme Court to Congress to local school boards to seditious public officials calling for armed defense of their smallest ideas. Except for a dozen other countries, it’s mostly much worse in other places.

All together we have a relative small oligarchy enslaving us, and the more they do the more they hasten the inevitable populist revolution. They are anti-women, anti-voter, anti-gay, and anti-the-rest-of-everything. If nothing else, they will die, and their perverse ideas will die with them. Even if the hysteria about Obama should somehow lead for a time to more old, white theocrats, that will only force their insanity further out on display and, therefore, more rapidly diminished and dismissed.

Oligarchs like Putin, will be done in by their own recklessness. Right-wingnuts often do our work for us, fully repudiating their own ideas because they lack the connective tissue to make any sense at all.

Old, white men are pursuing an agenda of perversity touching hundreds of countries, not to make America the beacon of hope it once was, and can again, but instead to be ruler of the entire planet. Here’s one of the worst examples — there is a secret organization known as The Family (also know as The Fellowship) which sponsors anti-homosexuality campaigns abroad to establish christianists’ unholy stranglehold of entire populations with the sole purpose of seizing control of these countries’ natural resources. With the aid, complicity, and full participations of past and current senators, congressmen, attorneys general, military commanders, and just plain businessmen in it for a buck or two, The Family operates 10,000 cells worldwide, corporate white-collar terrorists who just pledge their loyalty to Jesus’s plan (their interpretation of it to be sure), and then do whatever the hell they want.

People won’t be able to stay silent much longer.

So the diffuse and asymmetrical bad is coming at a fast pace now, faster than in anytime in the future but we are comforted by all the good that is emerging just as fast. The transformation of the world may not take as long as you might think. And the populist revolution we so desperately need will not necessarily be cataclysmic in nature because we are making incremental but substantive progress everyday. But, like I said, it’s natural to focus on the negative and ignore the good.

So, off the top of my head today, I’m going to start an inventory of all the good that is happening, and hope you will send your own citations. We can look at this growing list every time we feel discouraged when face to face with our enslavers.

Just today, as the result of many boots on the ground, and a 10-person lawsuit joined by the National Action Network, Detroit has stopped cutting off water to poor customers.
Also, today, President Obama newly protected lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from being discriminated against by federal contractors. This affects over 25% of the American workforce, and sets the table for a fully equality bill in congress.
Last week, thanks to the leadership of Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, an agreement has been reached to apply drug-sentencing retroactively, giving more than 45,000 prisoners the right to petition for reduced sentences or release, saving taxpayers millions and giving these people and their families renewed hope.
Many institutions, including faith groups, are unloading investments of fossil fuels, and many other campaigns of divestment are taking place, all for the greater good of the world.
Transgender Actress and Activist, Laverne Cox hit the cover of Time magazine, and becomes first transgender actress to be nominated for an Emmy award. The conversation about sexual and gender freedom has never been more active.
Colleges are leading the way in designating gender-neutral dorms and gender-neutral bathrooms on its campuses.
Even the Supreme Court occasionally does something good, like protecting the search of your smart phone.

These are all examples of what we discuss in our Manifesto for a New Age of Sexual Freedom, wherein we posit that Sexual Freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms because it conveys the full end of racism, nationalism, and oppression by the few. Our treatise revives a long-held concept of what is needed: the gradual, hopefully not cataclysmic, end of old, inhuman, coercive systems run by governments, corporations, and religious hierarchies, while preserving from this history that which is old but also good, and building new, human, and entirely voluntary associations. A good example of something that is old and also good is reprinted below. Another is the gradual shift to local farming and food supply to replace hard-hearted, pesticide-infused agribusiness.

Send us samples of good popping up in your community and country that we can share with each other.

Flickr/creative commons

why it says in the manifesto.

We shall overcome. We shall overcome.

in Key Issues / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 21 Jul 2014 0 comments

Taking exception to the concept of ‘American exceptionalism’

(También en Español)

News of Note: Taking exception to the concept of ‘American exceptionalism’

“It’s a curious thing how the notion of American exceptionalism has been twisted and turned into a bludgeon, not only to assert American superiority but also to employ as a test of allegiance.

The Republican presidential candidates have wielded the concept with great enthusiasm, both as a way to stress their patriotic fervor and cast doubt on President Barack Obama’s belief in the pre-eminence of — even love for — the country he leads….

His pride in America, Obama said, “does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise, and that includes us.”…

Given the serious challenges the country faces, we could use a little less “we’re No. 1″ hubris and little more focus on great ideas — whichever country they come from — and working together…

It’s hardly time to accept the status quo when, for example, the U.S. ranks 50th globally in secondary-education enrollment rates and American 15-year-olds rank 31st in math performance (wedged between Luxembourg and Portugal) and 23rd in science (between Hungary and Czech Republic). China, Singapore and Finland sit at the top of these lists from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development….

Hewing closely to America’s greatness means rolling up our sleeves, getting down to work and fixing things, not blithely boasting about who is better and more patriotic than whom.”

What do we gain from considering ourselves greater than other nations? I have recently spoken about our anti-social behavior and our questionable “happiness” compared to the rest of the world. Wouldn’t some humility and self improvement serve us better than reckless self confidence? The trouble with exceptional (and nationalism for that matter) comes when it’s used to encourage blind agreement with the government (and often by extension, mass media). Do the “exceptional” humble themselves in front of their inferiors? Do the “exceptional” deserve privilege at the expense of others? I don’t see the strength in arrogance and pride, only the inevitable fall that comes to those who refuse to accept their faults.

Creative Commons Image by: freefotouk

in News of Note by Jack Diehl 24 Jul 2012 0 comments