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and that in India, no money equals no women
Where is this NOT the case?
So, here's one for Citizen Truth:
I went to a New England regional commie conference yesterday and we heard reports from work our organization is doing nationally and internationally. Now, I am aware of Trotskyoid grouplets' propensity for self-aggrandizement and taking claim for stuff they didn't necessarily do, but we were discussing the work our South African comrades have been doing in the wake of the Marikana massacre.
The reporter claimed that our South African section were instrumental in spreading the strike wave to other mines throughout the region and one of the arguments that we had with the miners, over and over again, was that it was a probably a bad idea to kill the scabs. Non-violent resistance in action, baby!
Anyway, I guess the Financial Times was writing editorials about us back in October. (Can't get the article without registering, but here's another one.)
If you're out there, Comrade Derek, I guess I'm not as insignificant as I thought.
Vive le Galt!
Yeah, the situation in those mines was f*&@ed up. When I first heard about it they were reporting about how the police had shot a bunch of miners, then after like 3-4 minutes of talking about it they mentioned how the miners may have killed several police officers with machetes several days before that.
I think there's a natural symbiosis (not quite the right word) between gender equality and workers rights. Especially when you consider that women do roughly 2/3's of the world's work and produce over half of the worlds food. The poorer a country is, the more that share goes up (around 70% of the work and 60% of the food in the poorest countries).
Microfinance institutions have had the most success when investing in women. Women are more likely to reinvest profits into their families, improving their children's health and education, improving their odds of getting out of poverty.
This women is doing some pretty interesting work.
One of the quotes from her that I think is really important:
Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.[/url]
Once you get away from idealistic thinkers and look at the actual people involved in worker's rights, a lot of it is really about dignity. Businesses that treat their workers like people, instead of a commodity, tend to have fewer issues with striking workers.
and that in India, no money equals no womenWhere is this NOT the case?
It might be true on an individual scale, but not on a societal scale. Poor countries/communities have a higher birth rate than higher income countries/communities. While rich people might be getting it on more often, with fewer kids, the number of kids being born does tell us that poor people are getting it on quite a bit too.
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I'd like to know what our commie goblin friend and the marxists are gonna do about the Islamic threat, or are they gonna be blindsided by it?
Egypt is clearly seeing the early stages and is setting up for worse.
Women's liberation's (and probably marxism/communism too) worst enemy is Islam, so I am curious about any preperations or proactive approaches.
Every time you use a word like "clearly" it kind of makes me giggle.
It might be true on an individual scale, but not on a societal scale. Poor countries/communities have a higher birth rate than higher income countries/communities. While rich people might be getting it on more often, with fewer kids, the number of kids being born does tell us that poor people are getting it on quite a bit too.
You're using the number of KIDS as a measure of whether you've got a girl or not. Given condoms, birth control, and other forms of keeping it at 2.5 kids I think your metric is WAY off.
Also wealth is relative. In Mauritania, someone wanted to marry my sister in the states. I tried to explain how expensive her (self bought) lifestyle was, using a calculator to convert it into local currency.
Then i had to explain scientific notation.
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That 2.5 kids metric doesn't always hold up in Third World conditions. Poor people tend to have more kids because child mortality is that much higher in those areas.
You're using the number of KIDS as a measure of whether you've got a girl or not. Given condoms, birth control, and other forms of keeping it at 2.5 kids I think your metric is WAY off.
And birth control rarer
That 2.5 kids metric doesn't always hold up in Third World conditions. .
You're using the number of KIDS as a measure of whether you've got a girl or not. Given condoms, birth control, and other forms of keeping it at 2.5 kids I think your metric is WAY off.
... I didn't say that it did. I have no idea why you think I did.
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Women's liberation's (and probably marxism/communism too) worst enemy is Islam, so I am curious about any preperations or proactive approaches.
Socialism (or communism) and Islam is less antithetical than you'd think.
Take for instance the Five Pillars of Islam, one of which is the Zakat (almsgiving);
In the Qur'anic view, zakat is a way to redistribute the wealth, thus increasing the flow of cash in the economy with a particular interest in the poor and the dispossessed Muslims.
The hadith assert that the poor wouldn't be hungry if the rich gave zakat.
Redistribution of wealth? Oh dear! Get the shotgun, Martha! They're coming for our wealth! Darn swarthy furrigners, with their low-riders crammed full of sharia law and free healthcare!
A lot of the egregious over-the-top 'women are property' stuff is also more a cultural Arabic thing than a religious Moslem thing. Several predominantly Moslem countries, including the most populous one, Indonesia, have beaten the United States in the race to elect a female President, and Pakistan and Turkey have also had female Presidents (or the equivalent).
Communism and Islam seemed to be flowing together fairly harmoniously in 1980's Afghanistan, with women being allowed to own property, go to school, vote, etc. and even being seen in period photographs waiting in lines outside of nightclubs in miniskirts.
Ten years later, after Operation Cyclone helped bring Osama bin Laden into Afghanistan to 'save those poor Afghans from the Soviets,' a million Afghanis were dead, and women wanting to go to school, or even leave the house without their heads covered, were being stoned to death in the streets.
On the plus side, something-something freedom fighters, and long live the mujahadeen, with their blue-within-blue eyes.
Yeah, the situation in those mines was f*~%ed up. When I first heard about it they were reporting about how the police had shot a bunch of miners, then after like 3-4 minutes of talking about it they mentioned how the miners may have killed several police officers with machetes several days before that.
And, of course, the government had killed strikers before that. Wikipedia page
I think there's a natural symbiosis (not quite the right word) between gender equality and workers rights. Especially when you consider that women do roughly 2/3's of the world's work and produce over half of the worlds food. The poorer a country is, the more that share goes up (around 70% of the work and 60% of the food in the poorest countries).
Sounds good and I would agree in general, but I'm not sure about SA. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (whose largest member, I believe, is the National Union of Mineworkers) was a leading force in the overthrow of apartheid and still is a component part of the African National Congress/South African Communist Party government and I would imagine that, at least on paper, South African workers probably have rights equal to those of American workers. Of course, we all know what Stalin said about paper...
The oppression of South African black women, otoh, is abyssmal. One of our leading comrades mentioned in the article is a white woman from Scandinavia (not Sissyl) and, according to what I heard, there were many tense moments when she was the only a) white person; and b) female at the meetings. In fact, I guess they had to have a quick political fight with the miners before they would even allow a woman into their union meeting.
Also, South Africa is not a poor country. The randlords, and their black frontmen in the ANC, are f!@*ing loaded.
I'd like to know what our commie goblin friend and the marxists are gonna do about the Islamic threat, or are they gonna be blindsided by it?
Egypt is clearly seeing the early stages and is setting up for worse.
Women's liberation's (and probably marxism/communism too) worst enemy is Islam, so I am curious about any preperations or proactive approaches.
It's kind of difficult to say, DLH. There are many, many different types of Marxists in this world and very few of them agree on everything (or anything, for that matter).
However, my branch of Trotskyism is irreconcilably opposed to political Islamism. In fact, about the only thing that would make me take their side is when they are fighting with US imperialism.
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A lot of interesting stuff, especially '80s Afghanistan--maybe I should try selling you some pamphlets next time we meet?
There's an interesting argument to be made that the growth of Islamic fundamentalism has been a response to the Islamic world's integration into international capitalism. Not because they "hate our freedom", but because Global North/South imbalances have led to most people in those countries living even shiznittier lives than they did a century or so ago.
"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower."
Islam is a difficult concept. I am not sure it is really appropriate to call it a religion by the terms we use. As I understand it, yes, it is a religion, but it seems to be just as much a political movement. Certainly, there are secular muslims, but every muslim country either is a dictatorship or has taken very firm measures from outside Islam to avoid becoming one (Turkey). Islam has no tradition of separation of church and state. I believe it is inadequate to talk about "political Islam". The political facets are a central tenet, from what I gather.
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Islam is a difficult concept. I am not sure it is really appropriate to call it a religion by the terms we use. As I understand it, yes, it is a religion, but it seems to be just as much a political movement. Certainly, there are secular muslims, but every muslim country either is a dictatorship or has taken very firm measures from outside Islam to avoid becoming one (Turkey). Islam has no tradition of separation of church and state. I believe it is inadequate to talk about "political Islam". The political facets are a central tenet, from what I gather.
Well, I'm no expert, but I don't know what else you would call it if it's not a religion. I don't believe Catholicism had much of a tradition of separation of church and state until the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th century, either.
I do think, though, that there probably would have been more Islamic democracies if British, French and US imperialism didn't have the nasty habit of overthrowing governments everytime they decided to increase the living standards of their people at the expense of international petrochemical corporations.
I think Smedley Butler was more into making Latin America safe for United Fruit, but point taken.
Good morning, Comrade Jeff.
It's nice to be agreeing with you again after all this time.
Ironic, then, that she's Swedish.
I also keep forgetting that I am supposed to be Don Juan de Doodlebug in this thread, not Comrade Anklebiter.
While many other states have something of a wall between Church and State, the U.S. remains the only country to have that instituted by Law outside of the old Communist bloc.
I don't know for a fact, but I find it hard to believe that France doesn't have some separation of church and state written into their law.
I thought it being, at the time, the only Constitution of a democratic republic anywhere in the world was what made it stand out. Also, Sissyl, in addition to being Swedish, is a woman.
My apologies for f@+!ing with you, Citizen X. I've been waiting for a Private Message and it's boring without someone to bait.
It might be true on an individual scale, but not on a societal scale. Poor countries/communities have a higher birth rate than higher income countries/communities. While rich people might be getting it on more often, with fewer kids, the number of kids being born does tell us that poor people are getting it on quite a bit too.
You're using the number of KIDS as a measure of whether you've got a girl or not. Given condoms, birth control, and other forms of keeping it at 2.5 kids I think your metric is WAY off.
Also wealth is relative. In Mauritania, someone wanted to marry my sister in the states. I tried to explain how expensive her (self bought) lifestyle was, using a calculator to convert it into local currency.
Then i had to explain scientific notation.
I'm not trying to say it is a conclusive metric. And again, when you go to the individual, income is a factor, but on a wider scale, poor people tend to have more kids. Last I checked, kids are usually a byproduct of sex, and that holds even more true when you can't afford health care procedures like artificial insemination.
I don't think the increase in kids amongst poor people within a country and poorer countries means poor people are having more sex, but I do think it is indicative that they are still having plenty of it.
Heh. Yes, I am a swede. We have an old state church that saw a more or less complete separation of church and state in 2000. It had been influenced heavily by the state before then, leading to very democratic and docile policies for the church. The swedish church owns a lot of land, like most state churches, but it has had very little influence on political decisions. This is by no means unique to Sweden. It is an expression of the Enlightenment, of which the american constitution is another. This was a Europe-wide phenomenon, and there is to my knowledge no country in Europe that has had presidential candidates or the equivalent require approval by a religious council before being allowed to run for office. Contrast this to, for example, Iran.
I never claimed the West did not make bad decisions regarding the Middle East. Even so, there is a reason politics and religion are inseparable in virtually the entire muslim world. Nor did I ever claim the West did not once have similar laws.
as required by the principle of secularism, there shall be no interference whatsoever by sacred religious feelings in state affairs and politics; the acknowledgment that it is the birthright of every Turkish citizen to lead an honourable life and to develop his or her material and spiritual assets under the aegis of national culture, civilization and the rule of law, through the exercise of the fundamental rights and freedoms set forth in this Constitution in conformity with the requirements of equality and social justice;
That's from the preamble of the Turkish constitution. Their constitution is a bit more clear on the intent of religious freedom not interfering with national politics than ours is.
From Article 24 of the Turkish constitution.
No one shall be allowed to exploit or abuse religion or religious feelings, or things held sacred by religion, in any manner whatsoever, for the purpose of personal or political influence, or for even partially basing the fundamental, social, economic, political, and legal order of the state on religious tenets.
As I said. Turkey is an exception.
It is a little bit, especially in that region. It was more a response to the "The US has cornered the market on religious freedom and separation of church and state". Here in the US, we often forget other people have freedom too.
Contrast this to, for example, Iran.
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Heh. Yes, I am a swede. We have an old state church that saw a more or less complete separation of church and state in 2000. It had been influenced heavily by the state before then, leading to very democratic and docile policies for the church.
Back in the good old days, the swedish church wasn't so docile. They had giants working for them and if you stepped out of line, BAMM! True story, Lund Cathedral was built by Fionn mac Cumhaill who the Skaners just called Finn. He's buried in the crypt.
Well, mostly, not true story, but....
I went back and started looking through the footnotes of the Wikipage for the Marikana massacre. Interesting stuff.
There was another VERY good reason for the docility of the swedish protestant church. Gustav Vasa plundered the earlier catholic church in the sixteenth century to pay for a big war against the Hansa, a fight that Vasa managed to win. The new church understood the message loud and clear: do not challenge state power.
I'd like to know what our commie goblin friend and the marxists are gonna do about the Islamic threat, or are they gonna be blindsided by it?
Egypt is clearly seeing the early stages and is setting up for worse.
Women's liberation's (and probably marxism/communism too) worst enemy is Islam, so I am curious about any preperations or proactive approaches.
I'm going to assume that by Islam you mean Islamic fundamentalism, or Islamic republics, by which you mean specifically those in the middle east as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey are no threat whatsoever.
I'm of the mind that, rather ironically, Islam wouldn't be a threat if we hadn't been treating it as such. Our foreign policy between 1950 and 2001 was woefully ignorant of Islamic cultural memes and purely, as Anklebiter would insist, imperialist.
Before that time, Islam would never have been a threat to anyone because they were inherently fractious. What we've done by sticking our gun in the hornets' nest is provide a common enemy for two erstwhile mortal foes. Our ONLY strategy is to, through political, military and economic f#!!ery, keep the whole region off balance and pointed at one another.
As much of a genuinely negative influence that I feel the US (and the west in general) has been in its involvement in the middle east, the fundamentalist Islamic leaders are using "the west" in the same way that Germany used "the jews". In other words, as the scapegoat component to incite nationalistic fervor and to distract from how their own leaders are screwing them roughly in the arse economically.
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"Islam" is less of a threat than those who are using it to entrench their own power.
Some of the problems in the region are due to their religion, they're going through a reformation of sorts. While many sects have been around for a long time, progress in economics and technology are putting them closer to each other physically and it's causing some drama.
If I were to critique Mohamed Morsi right now, it would not be to blame his beliefs in religion as the problem. Rather the problem is solutions he's attempting to use to right his country. The early decree's he's made, his influence on the constitution, etc, show that he thinks Egypt's best hope is a powerful president, namely himself, to lead them out of trouble. The problem is that this creates an inherently unstable system that is too reliant on a single leader.
Some interesting trends and data about poor countries and how they could improve.
A sword swallower talks about data that gives a more accurate picture of the world.
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With Egypt, I have heard about some Islamic groups that are broadcasting on their TV that they will burn all the christian churches. They already burned the oldest christian church.
Besides I'm more worried specifically about the Islamic religion. The religion is built on, and propagates, a culture that views women in such a way as it's considered the women's fault if she gets raped. They also believe every infidel should die, in this instance most muslims don't believe in using terrorists methods, but they still agree with the extremists goals.
A few places may have made some progress, IDK, I know more about the religion then of a lot of the politics in the middle east. Frankly, as a splinter faction of Judaism, there are of course agreeable tenets, but the less agreeable tenets are still very bad for anyone female and/or not muslim.
An article yesterday, just one therefore unconfirmed, indicates that Egypt is about ready to implement many Islamic laws, already men havve to wear to beards and women have to wear those head things. This does not sound like freedom to me.
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The US might have a slight imperialist problem right now, but this country is still built on the values of freedom and equality, so I hope to change the whole imperialism thing. As for cummunism, there are some nice things but it still turns out bad on a large scale, I still think a new system needs to be designed to deal with the immmense scale of social structures in the modern world. All the current and old systems had certain limits that made them suitable, limits, such as size and family structure, which no longer apply.
Islam is about as responsible for destructive dictatorial regimes as Christianity is for the imperialism that put them there in the first place.
Not very.
There's a whole lot I disagree with in Christianity as well.
I feel like an asshat for having to bring up nazis again, but let's not forget that nazis were basically the military arm of the Catholic right wing.
Both Islam and Christianity are mirrors--you end up seeing in it what you want to see. Right now, most middle-eastern Muslims are socioeconomically underprivileged and thus their gaze into the Suras of the Quran reflect an answer to their misery. Look again at Indonesia and Turkey and tell me if you really think it's inherent in the religion.
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It's written into the religion, there may be areas where certain aspects of the religion is ignored or less honored but it is still written in the religion. As far as I know (I haven't finished the bible yet so I may be mistaken), women being property and not human, isn't written into Christianity or Judaism.
My religion teacher related Chritianity with espousing love/compassion, Judaism with law, and Islam with duty.
Duty is the most dangerous of those three. Duty is still usually a good thing, except when someone sees it as their duty to do something against the law or against the commonly accepted practice.
The US might have a slight imperialist problem right now
And when has this not been the case?
1 Corinthians 11:3 wrote:
But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
Leviticus tells us that if a woman gives birth to a male child, she is unclean for 7 days. If she gives birth to a female child, she is unclean for 14-66 days. (12:2 and 12:5)
1 Timothy 2:12
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
