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That's Enough Politeness – Women Need to Rise Up in Anger
To get into the UN Commission on the Status of Women, you have to get past several ranks of large armed men. In the foyer, you can buy UN women-themed hats and tote bags, and pick up glossy pamphlets about this year's International Women's Day, but what you can't pick up is the slightest sense of urgency. In the 101 years since the first International Women's Day, all the passionate politics seems to have been leached out of the women's movement.
Jordan Romeo, a Virginia Commonwealth University student from Roanoke, is arrested Saturday during protests at the state Capitol in Richmond. (Courtesy of Style Weekly)
International Women's Day began as a day of rebellion and outlandish demands – Equal pay! Votes for women! Reproductive rights! – but 101 years later, judging by the invitations in my email inbox, it seems to be more about jazzy corporate lunches, poetry competitions and praising our valued sponsors. At the UN, in a session on body image and the media, delegates (who are meeting this week) applauded politely as a promotional anti-airbrushing video by Dove cosmetics was shown. Cabinet Minister Lynne Featherstone gave a speech in which she condemned the "distorted image of beauty" offered by cosmetics advertisers, and lauded the efforts Dove has apparently made to change this while selling body lotion at £7.49 a tube.
The British delegates present failed entirely to mention that Featherstone is part of a government responsible for putting more women out of work than at any point since records began. Lynne Featherstone and Dove cosmetics claim to be on the side of "real" women, but one suspects that the single mothers whose benefits are about to be cut and the domestic violence victims whose refuges are being closed may not find that prospect terribly comforting.
A huge cultural change is taking place all over the world right now. Over the past year, from the Arab Spring uprisings to the global anti-corporate occupations, young people and workers have realised that they were flogged a false dream of prosperity in return for quiet obedience, exhausting, precarious jobs and perpetual debt – most of it shouldered by women, whose low-status, low-paid and unpaid work has driven the expansion of exploitative markets across the world. Equality, like prosperity, was supposed to trickle down, but not a lot can trickle down through a glass ceiling.
Women, like everyone else, have been duped. We have been persuaded over the past 50 years to settle for a bland, neoliberal vision of what liberation should mean. Life may have become a little easier in that time for white women who can afford to hire a nanny, but the rest of us have settled for a cheap, knock-off version of gender revolution. Instead of equality at work and in the home, we settled for "choice", "flexibility" and an exciting array of badly paid part-time work to fit around childcare and chores. Instead of sexual liberation and reproductive freedom, we settled for mitigated rights to abortion and contraception that are constantly under attack, and a deeply misogynist culture that shames us if we're not sexually attractive, dismisses us if we are, and blames us if we are raped or assaulted, as one in five of us will be in our lifetime.
Feminism, however, has not been a sustained part of this mood of popular indignation. Not yet. One year ago in Tahrir Square, women marching on International Women's Day were sexually and physically assaulted by some of the same men they had stood side by side with during the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Meanwhile, with women and girls bearing the brunt of the financial crisis across the world, the biggest discussions of women's role in the Occupy movement have focused on how to protect them from rapes that have occurred in the protest camps. This week, though, we've seen the first inklings of a women's fightback that is a little less delicate and demure.
What would a radical women's fightback look like? It might look a little bit like hundreds of women and men linking arms on the steps of the Capitol building in the US state of Virginia, where lawmakers are attempting to force women seeking abortions to submit to trans-vaginal ultrasounds – being penetrated with a medical rod – before they can have the procedure.
Last week, riot police in full armour were dispatched to drag the Occupy Virginia protesters to jail as they demanded an end to this insulting attack on women's right to choose. Female protesters are currently being processed by Virginia courts on charges of trespass.
What would a daring feminist cultural shift look like? It might look like two young mothers in a Moscow jail, arrested for flash-mobbing churches with short skirts, guitars and an agenda against corruption and institutional sexism. The members of the punk-rock girl band "Pussy Riot" are currently on hunger strike, after being imprisoned for singing rude songs about Vladimir Putin in public. They face jail-time of up to seven years. It seems that as soon as women stop asking politely for the change we want to see, the crackdowns come quick and hard.
Politeness is a habit that what's left of the women's movement needs to grow out of. Most women grow up learning, directly or indirectly, how to be polite, how to defer, how to be good employees, mothers and wives, how to shop sensibly and get a great bikini body. We are taught to stay off the streets, because it's dangerous after dark. Politeness, however, has bought even the luckiest of us little more than terminal exhaustion, a great shoe collection, and the right to be raped by the state if we need an abortion. If we want real equality, we're going to have to fight for it.
Like the suffragettes and socialists who called the first International Women's Day over a century ago, women who believe in a better world are going to have to start thinking in deeds, not words. With women under attack financially, socially and sexually across the developed and developing world, with assaults on jobs, welfare, childcare, contraception and the right to choose, the time for polite conversation is over. It's time for anger. It's time for daring, direct action, big demands, big dreams. The men who still run the world from boardrooms and government offices have become too used to not being afraid of what women will do if we are attacked, used and exploited. We must make them afraid.
Deeds, not words. Fewer business lunches, more throwing punches. Of course, there will be consequences. Those large armed men aren't just there for decoration, and the suffragettes who had their breasts twisted and their bones broken in prison 101 years ago knew that full well. But they also knew what we must now begin to remember – that the consequences of staying quiet and ladylike are always far more serious.
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Show AllThe author deplores "a deeply misogynist culture that shames us if we're not sexually attractive [and] dismisses us if we are..."
In the world I live, beautiful women are pampered and privileged in a way nobody else is, including wealthy men. If you are beautiful and female, a very lucrative career awaits you in Hollywood, fashion modeling, entertainment, and media. (Just ask Megan Fox, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Erin Burnett, Heidi Klum, and Kate Moss). The whole world bows down to such women in awe.
The author also notes, "We have been persuaded over the past 50 years to settle for a bland, neoliberal vision of what liberation should mean." As if only women have been asked to settle; as if no man anywhere has been affected by a punishing and twisted neoliberal order. Just women.
Sexism and racism are subsets lof economic equality. Historically the greater the economic inequality, the more sexism and racism thrive.
The 1% want the 99% to become engrossed in sexism and racism in order to distract the 99%'s attention from economic inequality.
Solve econimic inequality and it will be realtively easy to resolve sexism and racism. If economic inequality continues to widen, sexism and racism will not be resolved.
What happens to any individual or group is a subset of economic equality. Yet if a group of workers somewhere is on strike, and then suffers attacks from the police, we talk about that and stand with them. We do not think of that as "divisive."
When Occupy protestors were attacked, we did not think that objecting to that was "divisive" or a distraction. Was objecting to attacks on that group a distraction from economic inequality?
Why is it that sexism and racism are to be seen as a distraction? By that logic we cannot talk about the extraordinary oppression of any group or individual, lest it distract us from the bigger picture. Why would talking about the treatment of women as a group, or people of color as a group, be a distraction, while talking about the victims of US aggression - the Iraqis as a group, or Afghanis as a group, for example - not be a distraction?
It could be said "solve economic inequality and the wars will end; solve economic inequality and global warming will end; solve economic inequality and environmental destruction will end." Should we therefore not talk about those things because they are a distraction?
EXPLOITATION is what supplies profits for elite/corrupt capitalism --
doesn't matter whether you call it "racism" or "sexism" - or "class
warfare -- it's about the same thing. It is all the same thing.
If you want to say we've been "duped" by capitalism and patriarchy
and elected officials who have done their dirty work, fine.
But let's remember the systems themselves are there to dupe us.
There can be no other outcome under patriarchy or under capitalism --
or under a system bribing elected officials.
What else could have been expected?
Let's also remember that the GREATEST EXPLOITATION of humanity
is of women who are the majority -- even after al lthe women who have
been killed and "missing."
Oppression of women is the first and most profitable EXPLOITATION for
patriarchy/elites/capitalists.
OPPRESSION of women is not a "distraction" -- !!
It is more correct to say that class, race, and gender intersect; not that any one of them is subset of the other.
Yes, race, and gender is sometimes / oftentimes used as a distraction. That doesn't mean they don't exist.
"race, sex, age, and sexuality are biological categories that "ideologies" - vis a vis philosophy - use to explain history. these are considered "ideological" in that they don't cut it all the way."
No not really. "Race" for example is very much a cultural concept, shaped by cultural preconceptions. For the easiest example, the "Asian" race. Firstly, it means different things in different countries. Secondly, it is used as a catchall term for a LOT of people.
But that is utterly irrelevant. Class exists. Race exists. Gender exists. Sexuality exists. Just because they might exist for various differing reasons does not mean any one is a subset of another.
And class does not cut all the way all the time, as an analytical tool to explain things..
I explained what I mean by cultural preconception. I even gave a specific example. I suggest you reread it. Or alternatively, get out of America more, to provide you examples, to compare and contrast. Race is very much based on cultural preconceptions, Not simply biology. And no, not capitalist-individualist culture either.
"what do you mean "class exists"?"
By exists I mean that it exists in the material world.
"for Marxism, "class" is not a biological condition. i"
I never said it was. That it is not a biological condition is irrelevant.
"needless to say, the marxist notion of class doesn't cut it all the way, according to the ideologically blinded non or anti-marxists."
Hardly. More like the notion that class doesn't cut all the way, according to people who live in the real world. Like it or not, class isn't everything, nor does it explain everything. You, or me, might wish that it were so, but it isn't so.
"for your information, i came from outside the US. "
In that case, you should not full well that race is a cultural construct. And no, not a cultural construct from a marxist standpoint.
"you have read too many derridian post-structuralist nonsense books. look where your "post-marxist post-structuralist post-modern" mumbo jumbo has got us, by lumping together and throwing out the marxist concept with the stereotypes, simply because you can't comprehend the difference. but never mind.
"
ANd you are too obsessed with your one-dimensional marxist worldview, resulting in you spouting posts full of nonsense mumbo jumbo.
RC, your 9:29 post makes no sense, none at all. You have confused many different concepts into one big ball of buufah. The most recent attempt by Congress to disallow women to speak in their behalf regarding birth control may well be the first time since suffrage that men have been so ignorant of what women are capable of.
This isn't a matter of Congress being "ignorant" -- this is an issue of Congress being BRIBED by patriarchy/elites/capitalists to do their dirty work in oppressing females.
We all know what women are capable of -- that's why their oppression is so profitable!
By this logic, we should not talk about what is happening to Bradley Manning. After all, talking about him is leaving millions of others who are suffering out of the picture. Yet we do, and should talk about that. If talking about an individual who is a victim of the people in power is not "divisive," talking about one person who has been singled out for exceptional punishment, then how can talking about entire groups of people targeted for exceptional punishment be "divisive?"
Had the author said that all men are the enemy, or that only women are oppressed, then your point might be valid. But the author did not say either of those things.
You are dodging the point I made in my post. When can we, and when can we not talk about people being persecuted - in your view?
I would not claim that Manning is being prosecuted for being gay, because we cannot know that. That does not stop me from saying that people who happen to be gay suffer persecution based on that. Does saying that - again, in your view - mean that I am being divisive?
I can't defend things I didn't say.
That is an interesting choice of words.
The conditions of life are deteriorating for most non-elites at least in part because the neoliberal corporatists have succeeded in dissolving much of the glue that holds us all together. So now this author wants to dissolve what is left of the glue. I wonder what she thinks the increasingly psychopathic plutocrats and their armed thugs will do to her and other women if they determine that all the social glue is gone.
Sure. So, in your opinion, people should not protest? After all, that might dissolve the glue that hold us together?
No, not really. People shold not protest what affects their lives. Not what you define as cause and symptoms. Not least because, in the real world, despite your wishes, it isn't as simple as class the is the cause of everything, and everything else is a symptom.
White male supremacy is not the "glue that holds us all together."
This is the "house slave" argument that you are making: those "field slaves" are causing all of the problems and are hurting the cause. Is it the field slaves with their complaints who are dissolving the glue and harming the solidarity of the slaves and the cause of freedom, or is it the house slaves who do not want us to discuss the circumstances of the field slaves and who defend master's interests who are harming the solidarity of the slaves and the cause of freedom?
Anyone who would abandon the cause because they object to hearing about those who are most affected by the oppression we all experience are not reliable allies under any circumstances.
What the hell are you talking about? Middle-class liberals are some of the strangest people, they talk the most delusional nonsense. You talk as if we live in a world where all white men rule over everybody.
What if I said Jews control everything? Oh, then suddenly I'm a racists right-wing conspiracy nut, right?
But just for the record, I do not think jews control everything. That would make me as dumb as you.
Those with the most purchasing power, have the most privilege. They can be white, black, female or male. Are you saying Hillary Clinton is more oppressed then I am because I'm a white male? Bullshit.
And poor Barack Obama, if only he was white like me. He could be making 10 dollars an hour at some blue-collar job. He won't be able to afford college, but at least he'll have the privilege of being a white man.
Oy vey.
Let's review. For those who apparently were late for school.
"White supremacy" is NOT about EVERY white person oppressing EVERYbody else.
"Patriarchy" is not about EVERY male having power over EVERY female.
We are very sorry you did not get the goodie bag you were promised, being both WHITE and MALE...but just rest assured your RACE (as defined by this culture) and your GENDER (as defined by a medical profession and a society which lack the imagination and the capacity for making finer distinctions) do indeed qualify you for certain predictable benefits.
If white, you will likely never be pulled over for "driving while black". You are statistically less likely to be shot by a cop for pulling out your wallet. When you and all your neighbors are wading out of a flooded city after a national disaster, you are unlikely to be threatened with shotguns crossing out of your town into the nearest dry land.
If male, it is unlikely, if attacked by a stranger and assaulted, that it will be you who has to defend why you were where you were when you were and dressed as you were.
It is impossible to imagine that you would find yourself in a country where some politician has the nerve AND the votes to order that you shall have certain large medical instruments shoved into you in order to excersize your right to privacy.
Classism does not cancel racism or sexism. CLASS is what we are assigned to based on wealth and influence, and mitigated or enhanced depending on RACE and GENDER.
I am not "middle class" and I am not a liberal.
Your argument defeats itself. Yes, access to capital determines who has power, not race or gender. Why, then, would it be that mostly white males hold that power and have historically?
like i was posting yesterday - women need to understand that men are victimized by our system just as much as they are
we are all of us victimized
aaron russo who made the film "freedom to fascism" was approached by norman rockefeller who attempted to conscript him into the rockefeller foundation - basically to control him and shut him up - this is a standard rockefeller procedure
this is what rockefeller told him about women's liberation
"Nick was surprisingly candid about the Rockefeller’s intentions to implement total control over people. And it should come as no surprise that a chief instrument of that policy was the CREATION of Feminism.
Excerpt from Aaron Russo’s last interview before his death in 2007:
Well one of the things he told me was that.. he was at the house one night and we started talking and he was laughing and he said,
“Aaron what do you think Women’s Liberation was all about?”
And I had pretty conventional thinking about it at that point and I said,
“I think it’s about women having the right to work to get equal pay with men just like they won the right to vote.”
He started to laugh and he said,
“Your an idiot.”
And I said,
“Why am I an idiot?”
And he said,
“Let me tell you what that was about. We the Rockefellers funded that.”
“We funded Women’s Lib and we’re the ones who got it all over the newspapers and television (through) the Rockefeller Foundation…”
And he says,
“You wanna know why?
There were two primary reasons.
And one reason was we couldn’t tax half the population before Women’s Lib and the second reason was now we get the kids in school at an early age.. we can indoctrinate kids on how to think and with it break up their family. The kids start looking at the state as the family.. As the schools as the officials as their family.. not the parents teaching them. And so those were the two primary reasons for Women’s Lib.”
http://1000petals.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/feminism-psychological-warfare/
here's the video - more than worth a watch
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nD7dbkkBIA
men and women aren't going anywhere until they hook up and throw off the false divisions and rise up together
we have all of us been forced into this debt servitude and it shackles all of us - on the other hand together we can't be beaten
we are so deeply drowning in the nwo shit pile that we tend to forget that we are spirits born of stardust
the rockefeller system of enforced schooling has destroyed our children and the rockefeller system has destroyed our adults
they use vaccines, toxins in the water, toxins in the food, chemicals permeate our environment and daily we are being irradiated into the cancer ward
we - men and women - are not fighting against one another - we have been pitted against one another - not the same thing
having said all that - i think it is high time that men start taking women and girls a whole lot more seriously
respect and equality - men have to get with the program
and they ought to do that in about a minute
i think it is high time that men start taking women and girls a whole lot more seriously
respect and equality - men have to get with the program
and they ought to do that in about a minute
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
egg-zack-ly, medmedude! surely any sane person realizes that anal politicians have no business in our reproductive personal decisions. life is about All of us!
ALL!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Through the empowerment of women, education of all people, universal access to birth control,^ and a societal commitment to ensuring that all species are given a chance to live and thrive, we can reduce our own population to an ecologically sustainable level. This will decrease human poverty and crowding, increase our standard of living, and sustain the lives of plants, animals, and ecosystems everywhere."
--Center for Biological Diversity
How does talking about one group being victimized mean that the people in that group need to realize that others are just as victimized as they are? That makes no sense.
By that logic, we need to stop objecting to the police actions against Occupy protestors, because the Occupiers "need to understand that those not attacked by the police are victimized by our system just as much as they are."
i guess you can't get your mind around this whole 99% - 1% thing yet
keep trying - its easy
Explain "this whole 99% - 1% thing" for me, then.
Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Grimke sisters, all of the women at Seneca Falls in 1848 must be spinning in their graves to hear that Rockefeller invented feminism.
Here's the thing about injustice and all the mighty efforts to suppress the lives of women: in the end, as happens with all forms of tyranny, the force of women's determination to live will rise up against the ignorant laughter, the self-delusional indignation, and even the big strong men with shields and clubs.
Standing against the kinds of destruction that men will not forbid is not at all the same thing as 'fighting against one another." It is a clear and ringing and determined struggle for rightful life.
Thank you, Dmadrone. MED has an odd way of conflating the most unrelated of issues. There's little that Med does not try to tie to Rockefeller...
Two Americas: The disinformation brigade is out in full force, so defenders of Truth are much appreciated on this (and other) delicate subject(s).
*facepalm*
You really really need to read more before posting utterly retarded libertarian bullshit.
The really strange idea that some deranged libertarians have, that women's liberation was invented by Rockefeller / corporations to indoctrinate poor wittle kiddies to view the state as the parent is sheer utter bullshit.
And it is revealing that libertarians like you seem to view the women as solely responsible for the role of the parent.
Nor was systematic schooling invented by Rockefeller either.
Oh and BTW, why don't you anti-vaccine kooks ever back up your talk with actions? Go raise a child in a poor country, and do NOT vaccinate him / her.
It's not women who need to understand this, it is MEN -- many of whom think they are part of patriarchy! ROFL
Rather, it is MEN who have broken the bonds with women and children in order to benefit in some small way by domination over women.
And, while Russo did contribute a lot to the discussion of fascism -- and certainly Rockefeller's have made every attempt to control populations -- FEMINISM has always existed. Once, we actually had "female-centered" societies. FEMINISM has waged a non-violent war vs patriarchy for more than 50,000 years. No, indeed, not -- feminism was not the invention of the Rockefellers. Anyone who believes such nonsense is an idiot.
The truest definition of FEMINISM is "anti-domination of anyone by anyone else."
That isn't to say that elites -- not just Rockefellers -- don't have evil intentions.
And it's not to say that any system can't be corrupted. We've watched our own people's government being taken from us and corrupted. We're watching as public education is being ENDED and corrupted.
What we rarely discuss is the violence of patriarchy --
the fact that the RW can only rise on political violence --
And the FEAR that patriarchy has of females and their continuing war on females.
These are the issues to wake up to.
Lastly, we need MALES to renew their bonds with women and children and stand by them. Anything else will lead to more disaster.
obviously a lot of people don't understand the power of the rockefellers and their foundations, including the ford and carnegie foundations etc
you should do some research
its good to hear or rather read some dissent but so many opinions are hate filled
i'll guess that most people do not understand how the current education system came into being and won't be bothered to learn anything new but nonetheless
William Torrey Harris (10 September 1835 - 5 November 1909) was an American educator, philosopher, and lexicographer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Torrey_Harris
VIn 1906 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching conferred upon him "as the first man to whom such recognition for meritorious service is given, the highest retiring allowance which our rules will allow, an annual income of $3000."
here is what he said about school:
"Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed curriculum. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual. The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places…it is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world"
here is lenin:
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
tolstoy:
Take at hazard one hundred children of several educated generations and one hundred uneducated children of the people and compare them in anything you please; in strength, in agility, in mind, in the ability to acquire knowledge, even in morality—and in all respects you are startled by the vast superiority on the side of the children of the uneducated.
— Count Leo Tolstoy, "Education and Children" (1862)
john taylor gatto
review of his book the underground history of american education
"In the final analysis, Gatto believes that compulsory, government-run schooling is inherently destructive to true education, the cultivation of self-reliance, and indeed to individualism - which used to be a defining element of the American character. The true purpose of our public school system in reality has more to do with control than it does with learning. This does not mean that rank-and-file teachers, principals, and even superintendents believe they are making students dumber, more conformist, less self-reliant, less capable of genuine analytical, independent thought, and more easily controlled; most people involved in the system no doubt believe that they are trying their best to really teach their students. However, the system itself (which Gatto often characterizes as a complex web) ensures that its real purpose is served, despite the efforts of individual reformers within it - that true democracy is rendered unworkable even as the trappings of democracy are allegedly bolstered. Seen in this light, these institutions that produce barely literate, dependent, conformist, incomplete individuals full of emotional and psychological problems, who lack real knowledge (and whose capacity for acquiring such is deliberately weakened or eliminated), and who are just `educated' enough to pay their taxes and buy the latest products, are not, in fact, failing schools - on the contrary, if we are to believe Gatto's analysis, they are performing their designated function PERFECTLY."
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/1a.htm
The General Education Board was a philanthropy created by John D. Rockefeller and Frederick T. Gates in 1902
and oh yeah medicine too
""The last annual report of the Rockefeller Foundation", reported Bealle, "itemizes the gifts it has made to colleges and public agencies in the past 44 years, and they total somewhat over half a billion dollars. These colleges, of course, teach their students all the drug lore the Rockefeller pharmaceutical houses want taught. Otherwise there would be no more gifts, just as there are no gifts to any of the 30 odd colleges in the United States that don' t use therapies based on drugs.
"Harvard, with its well-publicized medical school, has received $8,764,433 of Rockefeller's Drug Trust money, Yale got $7,927,800, Johns Hopkins $10,418,531, Washington University in St. Louis $2,842,132, New York's Columbia University $5,424,371, Cornell University $1,709,072, etc., etc."
And while "giving away" those huge sums to drug-propagandizing colleges, the Rockefeller interests were growing to a world-wide web that no one could entirely explore. Already well over 30 years ago it was large enough for Bealle to demonstrate that the Rockefeller interests had created, built up and developed the most far reaching industrial empire ever conceived in the mind of man. Standard Oil was of course the foundation upon which all of the other Rockefeller industries have been built. The story of Old John D., as ruthless an industrial pirate as ever came down the pike, is well known, but is being today conveniently ignored. The keystone of this mammoth industrial empire was the Chase National Bank, now renamed the Chase Manhattan Bank.
Not the least of its holdings are in the drug business. The Rockefellers own the largest drug manufacturing combine in the world, and use all of their other interests to bring pressure to increase the sale of drugs. The fact that most of the 12,000 separate drug items on the market are harmful is of no concern to the Drug Trust..."
http://www.whale.to/b/ruesch.html
Research isn't just libertarian websites. Since you tell people to do research, how about you do some your own, and go read some history books?
And by the way, stringing some quotes together, from varying people, along with the argument by association tactic (ie someone at some point the past said something, or supported some cause or some measure, that proves then that that cause or measure is driven solely by that person's motivations) both of which you like to do a lot, is not a convincing way to make an argument.
I have a challenge for you or anyone who rants about vaccines and medicines as entirely EVIL. Do not ever use them. How about it?
sorry to be so broad in my sources - that used to be dynamic - just read the gatto book it's free and he traces all of this stuff...
our system is based on the prussian system and is designed to dumb folks down - i think we got a whole nation that is a testament to that system today
don't you....
like rockefeller said: i want a nation of workers not a nation of thinkers
that is illiterate, unemployed, uninsured and homeless out of work workers
ponder that for a minute
i enjoy folks who are not moved by the facts - rockefeller would be proud of his achievements
he called it schooling - not education, which disgusted him
oh yeah - and he never paid taxes
a real blood sucker to the marrow of his reptilian brain
glad that you're enjoying the ride though...
The problem with being broad in sources, is that that approach is simply the throw everything (many of which are taken out of context) at the wall approach, and hope that something sticks.
"our system is based on the prussian system and is designed to dumb folks down - i think we got a whole nation that is a testament to that system today"
Our system is based on various systems and ideas. Not just one. And it has evolved over time.
"like rockefeller said: i want a nation of workers not a nation of thinkers that is illiterate, unemployed, uninsured and homeless out of work workers"
Yes, Rockefeller wanted that. So what?
"ponder that for a minute "
What is there to ponder? Rockefeller wanted things. That somehow proves the assertion that he was responsible for women's liberation, systematic education, medicine, and vaccines?
"i enjoy folks who are not moved by the facts - rockefeller would be proud of his achievements "
No, I am not moved by random quotes strung together, nor argument by association. I am moved by facts. For example, the fact that while vaccines are certainly not perfect, and certainly do have their problems, they have done much to reduce suffering throughout the world. Similarly medicine.
"he called it schooling - not education, which disgusted him"
Yes, again, so what?
"oh yeah - and he never paid taxes
a real blood sucker to the marrow of his reptilian brain
"
Yes, he was scum. Again, so what? How does that prove your assertion that he was responsible for women's liberation, systematic education, medicine and vaccines; and that they are all evil?
Dude, you need to set Gatto down and take your research seriously. I recommend you actually sign up for some education classes. That will give you a chance to learn about lesson plans, teaching to the student's learning style, and, above all else, the concerns about helping the students develop critical thinking skills. It is totally sureal to actually be a teacher and see how hard teachers work at turning out educated citzens, and then see your screed. Walk the walk, medme. If you can't afford the tuition, go to second hand book stores and pick up someting by Howard Gardner. Or go to Amazon, search learning styles, and buy a couple second hand books.
Excellent post, medmedude.
I agree that John Taylor Gatto provides a great place to start to learn about our terrible prison-like school system, with kids unnaturally segregated into age groups.
As to rfloh's complaint that you only cite libertarian sources, I have no idea where he came up with that. John Taylor Gatto taught school in NYC for 30 years. He writes from experience, not libertarianism.
Rockefeller's involvement in the American schooling system is a fact, not libertarian ideology.
That America based its school system on the Prussian model of producing good workers is an undeniable fact, not libertarianism.
Instead of complaining about what medmedude says here, people should be outraged that the 1% designed our entire school system to produce unthinking automata. And it succeeded beyond Rockefeller's wildest dreams.
"As to rfloh's complaint that you only cite libertarian sources, I have no idea where he came up with that. John Taylor Gatto taught school in NYC for 30 years. He writes from experience, not libertarianism.
"
This is illogical. Just because Gatto was once a teacher does not mean that his arugments are not libertarian. And just because he was a teacher does not make him some kind of unique experts. There are many teachers in America, and around the world. And Gatto's arguments are the stereotypical libertarian arguments that you will find spouted by libertarians all over America.
"Rockefeller's involvement in the American schooling system is a fact, not libertarian ideology.
"
I repeat, so what? Rockefeller had involvement in the school system. That "proves" that the school system, and women's libertarion. and vaccines, and medicine were all some nefarious invention of Rockefeller to control people?
"Instead of complaining about what medmedude says here, people should be outraged that the 1% designed our entire school system to produce unthinking automata. And it succeeded beyond Rockefeller's wildest dreams.
"
Yes, sure, lets accept Gatto's libertarian arguments, and let's just do what libertarians want to do to the school system.
YOU obviously don't understand that many of us are familiar with the Rockefellers, but suggesting that they invented feminism makes you appear totally ignorant.
Many are also familiar with how our public education came to be. What we're concerned with right now is an America without public education and who will profit from this deprivation and spreading of ignorance among our youth.
As for the brainwashing of youth, you have only to look at the history of organized patriarchal religion -- i.e., male-supremacist religion. Hitler was one of their very attentive students.
Meanwhile, the systems we are fighting do roll up into one ball -- FASCISM.
And that defines ANY and ALL of the following ......
Patriarchy -- and its underpinning =
Organized Patriarchal religion -- and its economic invention =
Capitalism =
THE UNHOLY TRINITY
I also heard this interview & it was something of an eye-opener [Arron Russo also talked about what Nick Rockefeller told him about 9-11 & the phony War on Terror- but that's another subject! - PS: Russo didn't say that Nick Rockefeller claimed that his family started the feminist movement in the US - he claimed that the Rockefellers funded main-stream feminism in order to hi-jack it for their own agenda!]- Especially when considering that avowed Eugenicist [IE: Negro Project] Margret Sanger first birth Control League clinics [in Brooklyn & Harlem] were funded by the Rockerfellers! And then there are allegations that modern main-stream feminist icon Ms Gloria Steinem has had long time CIA connections [Note: While she was telling women that they had 'As much use for a Man as a fish has for a bicycle...' - She was getting her swerve on w several lovers- allegedly including Henry Kissinger & a long term affair w another official from the Nixon / Ford / Kissinger / Rockefeller / Bush Sr - Regime].
You may also want to note this March 8 Global Research article by John Pilger @ http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29665 entitled: 'Contradictions of Modern Feminism: The Triumph of Machine Politics Over Feminism'- In the article Pilger talks about how 'main-stream' western feminism has hyped the so-called 'achievements' of the likes of Australian PM Julia Gillard; - US Sec of States 'Killory' {I Came, I Saw, He Died- Ha, ha, ha!} Clinton, Condi {& Sue} Rice, & Madeline {I think the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children are worth it} Albright; - & the UK's Maggie {The Iron Maiden} Thatcher {all are female Icons of the Status Quo}!
YET- As Pilger States:} 'In the west, "glass ceilings" remain the issue-of-choice of bourgeois feminism {along w so-called 'Freedom of Choice'- a term popularized by Slick Willie Clinton}. How many women who "make it" in politics speak out against the status quo, &/or reach out for women left behind?...' { - [NOTE: Check and see what's the position of main-stream feminist organizations IE: NOW &/or The Feminist Majority- on NCLB / RTTT & the Charterization [= profitization] of Public Schools & their effectively de-professionalizing of teaching. Yet teaching, along w nursing, is 1 of the main professions where women traditionally gravitate to & numerically dominate. So how can it be that these main-stream feminist groups apparently have NO position on the NCLB / RTTT / Charterization [= profitization] decade(s) long assault on {mainly women} teachers - spear-headed mainly by male corp & political elites??!!]
"If you are beautiful and female, a very lucrative career awaits you in Hollywood, fashion modeling, entertainment, and media"
That is the sort of thing the media tell women, but the eight names mentioned are exceptions. How many more end up hired to open car dealerships, stand around at boat shows, make porn movies, etc. And the eight mentioned spend their lives making sure that they remain famous. If making lots of money is their goal, they have succeeded, but that is not much of a life, especially when you realize that every year added to their age reduces the chances that they will remain famous.
"In the world I live, beautiful women are pampered and privileged in a way nobody else is..."
What do you do with the unattractive ones? Congratulations, you've just proven her thesis.
"What do you do with the unattractive ones?"
Pay them to write stories about the "war against women" or have them post messages to forums like the one below.
Unbelievable.
Actually, "believable" ... if you read the original post --!!!
:evilgrin:
Ignore
You're still batting .1000. Keep it up. You're making her point better than she did.
Blinded by your bigotry, you probably have no awareness of the fact that you just proved the author's point.
Ignore
"In the world I live, beautiful women are pampered and privileged in a way nobody else is, including wealthy men. "
Complete utter bullshit.
"If you are beautiful and female, a very lucrative career awaits you in Hollywood, fashion modeling, entertainment, and media."
Are you going to make the claim that men do not also have lucrative careers in movies, entertainment, media, etc?
"Just ask Megan Fox, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Erin Burnett, Heidi Klum, and Kate Moss). The whole world bows down to such women in awe.."
What happens when they grow older? Have you realised that all the women you have named here are of a certain age? Now, what happens to their male contemporaries when they grow older?
Riught
"As if only women have been asked to settle; as if no man anywhere has been affected by a punishing and twisted neoliberal order. Just women."
Yes, because that was what the author said.