Tag Archive | Transphobia

So, Trans Leftists, Does that Green Party Ticket Look So Cozy Now?

Nov3

I’m sitting here amused, terribly amused. I’ve had multiple laughs at all the transgender ideological purists who insisted that voting for Stein and Ware was the only moral choice. However, not only did Green Party candidate Butch Ware throw trans people under the bus, but Stein isn’t contradicting him, which makes her complicit. And then, he talks about limiting access to abortion at 16 weeks. What a winner. Such a champion of women and trans people. Note that while Stein says she supports reproductive freedom, she’s said nothing about Ware’s comments. That silence is deafening this close to election day.

Plus. you have to be daft if you add in the realities of American politics – no 3rd party candidate matters. If you vote third party, you’ve wasted your vote. I don’t like this but it will take constitutional amendments to remove the winner-take-all system that sits in place now, and constitutional amendments to take much of the procedure for voting out of the hands of the states before we can move beyond two parties.

Anyway, you do have that right to waste your vote, and most of my friends are white and cishet, so they have all that privilege too. But let’s examine the reality.

1. A vote for any third party candidate ensures that the killing in Gaza continues. That’s a fact. Don’t tell me you “care” about Palestinians if you voted third party. The only thing that third party voting does is to salve your own conscience, so don’t come at me with how much you care about ANY marginalized group. If you cared, you’d take a path that could create a change.

2. A vote for Trump is already predetermined because Trump has publicly said he wants Netanyahu to “finish the job” and he thinks that land would make great condos not far from the beach. Again, don’t tell me you care about Palestinians if you voted for Trump.

3. That leaves a vote for Harris, which has a possible range of impacts. Most likely in the short term, the killing in Gaza continues. In the longer term, however, Kamala Harris might be convinced to force Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire. This is the only path that has that possibility. Yes, it’s not even the most likely outcome but it IS a possibility.

Ergo, the only vote that really cares for the Palestinian people is a vote for Harris-Waltz. Of course then we have to work on Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Democratic Senators and Congresspersons, but at least it’s possible. Any other vote is a guarantee for the genocide to continue without end or get even worse.

So you never convinced me that voting for Stein was really about caring for the Palestinian people. You just screamed “genocide” irrationally as if that would change my mind. But if we do look at this rationally, we discover that the only vote that possibly could help the Palestinian people is the vote for Harris.

And now… now we have Butch Ware throwing trans people under the bus and Jill Stein refusing to discuss it, which makes her complicit. And Ware then throws women under the bus saying he supports restrictions on abortion. He’s either a wanna be Republican or incredibly incompetent and I’m not sure which is funnier, sadder, and more frightening.

As it turns out, your “purity politics” vote turned out to be rotten clear to its core. And I could have told you that before you wasted your vote. In point of fact, I did tell you that. I told you repeatedly Stein was a “professional candidate” and she runs for president periodically to raise campaign funds to live off during non-campaign years. I’ve pointed out that she’s close to Putin, who is killing Ukrainians, about whom you don’t seem to give a damn.

Consequently, I am greatly amused at your choice and the fallout from your choice to support the Green Party because they’re not “genocidal”. Well, guess what? They side with the GOP in hating trans people. Good move, huh? And Stein hasn’t directly contradicted Ware on women’s reproductive rights either, has she? So the Green Party is no friend to women either.

I’d ask if some of you felt the least bit of shame for supporting Stein, but your egos are too big for that. Too “ideologically pure” despite what Ware and Stein just did to trans people and to women. Too full of hate for any result except instant perfect justice which never happens in the real world. Real justice gets messy, takes time, and is uncomfortable.

Was Harris a perfect candidate? Hardly, and I freely admit that. But she’s miles better than Trump will ever be, and, she’s open to change. Further, as Black women have repeatedly taught me, it’s important to minimize harm even if we can’t stop all harm. And a vote for Harris is the vote that minimizes harm for the most number of other marginalized groups, both here and abroad.

But I think we’ve now established that voting for Stein is a shitty vote. And now it’s your shitty vote that you have to live with. You can ignore me. I wonder if you can silence your own conscience over what your precious “Green” Party thinks of trans people and of women. Oh, by the way, this same criticism and analysis applies to those of you that didn’t vote “because of Gaza”. You may never be able to vote again.

At his point, I’m confident in concluding that voting for the Green Party or not voting at all was pretty fucking stupid.

https://www.advocate.com/election/jill-stein-running-mate-transphobia

Conservatism Is A Tool Of White Male Patriarchy

Oct1

I’ve not written here in this blog for years, but I suppose I should start again. So here are thoughts from today.

Everything about American conservatism (and by extension, Libertarianism, which is a distinctly American creation) is aimed at conserving white male supremacy.

It always has been. Those of us raised with those “values” foremost in our lives have had to undergo deprogramming processes, because yes, inflicting that on people is a kind of programming.

It’s a programming that teaches that poverty is a moral failing and not the inevitable result of capitalism, in order to defend capitalism from charges of cruelty. It’s programming that has to constantly chant that women must be submissive, because if women being submissive were the natural order of things, it wouldn’t have to be indoctrinated into women their entire lives. It’s programming that requires scapegoats, to distract young white men from realizing that wealthy elites are picking their pockets too, just not quite as hard as they’re picking everyone else’s pockets. People of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people – anyone different enough that the wealthy can rapidly build a program (note that word) of easily disseminated but believable lies against is useful to the wealthy elites as a scapegoat to divide working class people.

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson

Even “economic conservatism” is part of this preservation of the white patriarchy by ensuring that wealth already ill gotten is not to be attacked for being either an expression of too much greed or outright cruelty to those it was taken from. Note that I make a distinction between traditional economic conservatism and what I call “fiscal efficiency”. Government often is not the most efficient at its use of available funds to accomplish a task. The expanded Child Tax Credit that was enacted during the pandemic is a good example. It got money into the hands of families that needed it, lifted many children out of poverty, and avoided creating a large government agency to attend to that task by using information that the IRS already had to directly send checks to those families. Finding efficient ways to help government function isn’t limited to economic conservatism so it’s not part of that ideology.

We have a long road to travel as a nation but we have workable blueprints in front of us from other nations. We know that there are multiple different kinds of healthcare systems that are both more financially efficient than the “free market” and that ensure that everyone has coverage. Even Adam Smith noted that healthcare is not a normal consumer good.

And while I despise capitalism, I’ve not yet seen a working example of pure socialism or communism that works in a manner that makes any sense to me. So for now, I support the the concept of social democracies with tight regulation of economies, harsh limits on upper income levels, and the creation of national wealth funds. I completely support the 100% taxation of any assets that any individual has over $1 billion dollars. All such assets don’t have to be sold off but instead could be transferred to a national wealth fund to subsequently feed government budgets from dividends, stock sales, etc. If the size of such funds is problematic, they could be divided into multiple funds that have to compete with one another. There’s a lot of details to work out but other nations have national wealth funds that contribute to the overall good of the nation so why can’t the US?

In short, I’ve never seen one aspect of modern American conservatism that isn’t laser focused on preserving white male supremacy. Every aspect of conservatism has at least one side effect, if not more, that is beneficial to white male supremacy. Modern American conservatism, since at least the 1960’s, has been nothing but a tool of a primarily white fascist elite and with every passing year, that becomes more and more obvious.