Are There Culturally Conservative Socialists?…

Leave a reply


Date: July 15, 2020

01) Are There Culturally Conservative Socialists?

“This video explores how cultural politics of both the neoliberal and neo-traditional sorts are symptoms of an impasse in the struggle for socialism. We examine Nathan Robinson’s critique of Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti from the program Rising and his critique of Angela Nagle’s essay on immigration, in order to offer a counter-critique that juxtaposes our current political problems against the long-standing crisis in Marxism.”

===

Essential Workers Fought Exploitation in a Pandemic, Then Joined an Uprising…

Leave a reply


Date: July 15, 2020

01) Essential Workers Fought Exploitation in a Pandemic, Then Joined an Uprising

“WHEN EMPLOYEES AT Amazon and FedEx were deemed essential in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, they formed a national organizing effort to press for workplace safety, hazard pay, and a voice on the job. When protests against police brutality spread across the country after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, essential workers took to the streets, calling out their bosses for trying to turn Black Lives Matter into a corporate PR slogan.

This video was captured mostly during May and June 2020. On July 13, 2020, video producer Mary Jirmanus Saba checked back in with Adrienne Williams, who continued driving for Amazon after recovering from heat stroke. “Nothing has really changed,” Williams said, besides temperature checks before entering the warehouse on foot. Williams continued to be critical of Amazon’s response, especially in California and Texas, which are now suffering new outbreaks of Covid-19. Williams continues to organize with a group called Bay Area Amazonians. “I saw how terrible Amazon is, and I felt like something had to be done, but nobody else was going to do it,” Williams said. “I still don’t know why I haven’t been fired.”

In a statement, Amazon said, “Nothing is more important than the safety of our employees and partners.” In response to Williams’ assertions about the Mentor app, Amazon said that the app is only required on delivery devices provided to workers, not on their personal devices. FedEx said, “The safety and well-being of our 500,000 team members is our top priority.”

===

Cancel culture is not a youthful rebellion…

Leave a reply


Date: July 15, 2020

01) Cancel culture is not a youthful rebellion

“The older generation fomented this climate of censorship and intolerance. We can’t let them off the hook.

Generational warriors want us to believe that young people are leading the charge to the barricades in a modern-day cultural revolution. Old people, meanwhile, just don’t get it. It’s easy to see why they reach this conclusion. It was mainly young people who left lockdown to take part in Black Lives Matter demonstrations. University students honed cancel culture through No Platforming and their demand for safe spaces. There seem to be growing generational divides when it comes to attitudes towards gender and race. Whereas Boomers learnt to judge people by the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin, millennials view such colour-blindness as racist. Older feminists are more likely to defend the rights of women while younger people question what it means to be a woman in the first place.

But the idea that cancel culture is the product of overly enthusiastic, politically progressive, social-media-savvy Gen Z-ers flatters young people and lets older people off the hook. Cancel culture is a political – not demographic – phenomenon.

…

The idea that cancel culture is a youthful rebellion against an aged establishment is a convenient myth. It denies the leading role played by an older generation of activists in sowing the political seeds of censoriousness and intolerance from within institutions. And it paints over the fact that when young people come knocking with demands of their own, they find they are pushing at a door that has been taken off its hinges and replaced by a red carpet welcoming them in.

Caricaturing cancel culture as a generational divide takes it out of the realm of politics and excuses it according to demographics. It suggests that if we just sit around and wait for today’s young activists to grow up a bit, then issues with free expression will resolve themselves. Cancel culture, however, is not an age-related condition but a political counter-revolution led by a new elite who could not get their way at the ballot box and are now pulling rank from within institutions. This means that those of us who want to defend free expression have to do far more than just sit around for a few years.”

===

The Global Divide on Homosexuality Persists…

4 Replies

Research
….

Date: July 14, 2020

01) Pew Research Center: The Global Divide on Homosexuality Persists

“As it was in 2013, when the question was last asked, attitudes on the acceptance of homosexuality are shaped by the country in which people live. Those in Western Europe and the Americas are generally more accepting of homosexuality than are those in Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. And publics in the Asia-Pacific region generally are split. This is a function not only of economic development of nations, but also religious and political attitudes.

But even with these sharp divides, views are changing in many of the countries that have been surveyed since 2002, when Pew Research Center first began asking this question. In many nations, there has been an increasing acceptance of homosexuality, including in the United States, where 72% say it should be accepted, compared with just 49% as recently as 2007.”

 ….