Is the "Omnicause" real?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I've noticed an increase of this term across Mnet recently.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a form of "forced teaming"? A nonsense buzzword used by internet culture warriors to sow division? A bogeyman like the Illuminati in the 2010s?

Or is it a real thing?

@Mouldemort ,

‘Israel / Palestine is horribly complex, but opposing the vast civilian casualties caused by the war crimes of the IDF is absolutely a coherent left-wing position’

Yes, it is, and it is my position too. However I also unequivocally condemn 7/10 as a uniquely horrible (since the Shoah) attack on Jews and don’t try and contextualise it into some kind of ‘struggle’. And therein lies the issue. And too many extend this to talk about how the Jewish state should never have been formed, without questioning any other country in the same way. And that is why it is complex…

‘The gender critical position of “won’t anyone think about the women and children,” has been used by bigots who oppose every minority’.

Except women have lost out in sport to trans ‘women’, trans women have worked in rape crisis centres etc etc. The idea of people being trans is highly questionable too. Most scientists don’t think there is a lot of basis for it, but for years have been silenced. Trans just isn’t the same as other minorities. The gender critical position (which I sympathise with) is that trans women are a subset of a powerful group (men) asserting their rights over a less powerful group (women). There is at least discussable nuance in this.

You were right when you said it’s just made up. Politics isn’t that simple, people aren’t that simple. Many issues cut across the political spectrum. The default position for the vast majority of people on both left and right in the UK is pro choice, pro vaccine, pro gay marriage, pro assisted dying. There issues consistently poll very high support regardless of political persuasion. Trans ideology is opposed by most women over 24 regardless of politics. Brexit drew support from both left and right.

Omnicauses are a real thing, and there are left and right wing versions.

They stand in the way of progress IMO.

Take Pride events as an example.

It is still illegal to be gay, lesbian or bisexual in 65 countries. Imagine facing jail or even a death sentence. You would think that Pride events would want to attract as many people as possible who identify with this cause in order to support campaigns that make the world safer for LGBTQ people.

But instead our local pride parade was festooned with Palestine flags, and messaging around other typically left wing causes that would alienate right wing voters.

Now here’s the thing: Around one quarter to one third of UK LGBTQ voters support right-wing parties.

What do you think they are going to do?

Most don’t engage - they stay away. They stop donating money. Not helpful.

Oops, yes you're right

@Newbutoldfather pretty much word for word every argument you have put forward against trans rights were used against gay people.

The idea of being gay or trans is not questioned by actual scientists, it’s not an ideology, your particular bigotry isn’t a special exception, and gender critical voices are not being silenced - they have been platformed in every mainstream newspaper for decades now. And the idea that trans women are somehow privileged is laughable.

Several people have mentioned a right wing equivalent or parallel to the omnicause. Can anyone elaborate? Im not saying there isn't one, but I can't think of a good example.

@Mouldemort ,

** ‘pretty much word for word every argument you have put forward against trans rights were used against gay people.’

Can’t you see they aren’t the same? Being gay is a sexual preference and does not impinge on anyone else’s rights.

Being trans is claiming that your biology is somehow different, even though no one can find any evidence for this. And trans rights do, in important areas, conflict with women’s rights.

There are a lot of threads about trans/gender critical, so I will leave it there on this issue rather than derail the thread. Suffice it to say that there are many gays and lesbians who want to split out the LGB from the QT etc as they feel pushed aside and actively threatened by trans (lesbian dating apps for instance).

My little towns Pride march had 1 pride flag and 10 Palestine ones. Hamas are not known to be supportive of gay rights, so I see it as the omnicause in action.

As you seem to understand about these things @hethor have you any idea where people who think like me - I presume that I can't be the only one who thinks like I do - fit into these modern day concepts(?)
I am anti illegal immigration, but I am also very anti Trump and Farage. I am very much pro vaccines. I believe that the climate is changing, and that we humans are almost certainly the biggest cause of the more recent climate changes, ie within the last 4 hundred years or so. I hate all violence, particularly that aimed at women and children.

I am much more on the side of the Jewish community in the UK, as they have hardly caused their fellow British citizens any problems whatsoever, and that covers a great many years, whereas, unfortunately, I can't say the same for some males of the Muslim communities...

I also support - mostly in my mind, rather than practically, as I am not an activist - the Jewish people, globally, rather than the worldwide Muslim countries and communities, by which I really mean the adult males of the Muslim faith. (I mean the males en masse, because I have known, and been friends with, a few lovely individual Muslim men). I can't understand how any educated women, who are not of the Muslim faith themselves, can support any of the Muslim communities, when as part of the very core of their beliefs is that they seem to believe that Muslim women are worth much less than the males are?

Whereas, in Israel, and around the world, Jewish women seem to be able to reach the same educational, political, and professional heights, as the men can. Yes, of course, in the less strict Muslim communities, women can become surgeons and GP's, and can even gain high political positions, but there are far too many Muslim countries, and communities, where they directly refuse women a proper education, and that treat women like 3rd class citizens.

I was born and baptised a Christian, but my own beliefs, now that I am an adult - and have been for a very long time - are not ones that fully apply to any of the religions that we know of today. I have my own theories, some taken from today's popular religions, some taken from ancient beliefs, and some that have resonated within me from my own life experiences. An example of which, is that God, if there is such a figure, is not Omnipotent. I cannot believe that there is some type of entity that has full power over everything, and yet lets children suffer almost unbelievably horrific treatment, including being grossly neglected, raped, tortured, murdered etc, and tragically, these dregs of society, are far too often - members of the poor children's own families.

So, I just cannot understand how so many British women support people like extremist Muslim men? I don't really expect you to try and find a label for my belief system Hethor, and I apologise for choosing you to quote, and ask for an opinion from! If you have read this far Hethor, thank you for your time me! 🌻

I don’t wish to derail the thread, but you’re talking the usual hyperbolic, hysterical crap when it comes to gender critical feminism.

I’m not disparaging or patholigising anyone by staying that sex is real, it cannot be changed, it matters - and pretending it can be changed by how someone feels harms women’s sex-based rights.

I’m also not wringing my hands about ‘the children’, but I do not believe trans people should be exempt from the usual safeguarding rules and laws. Safeguarding children trumps hurt adult feelings. That is a hill I will die on.

@Newbutoldfather bring trans isn’t a statement about biology - it’s a statement about gender identity, which is not a choice or an ideology any more than being gay is. There is no disagreement amongst scientists about the reality of gender identity. Gay people are, as a whole, more supportive of trans rights than anyone else, and LGB Alliance comprises a majority of straight women. And anyone is welcome to set up a gender critical dating app, but there are no takers.

Finally, anyone who thinks the left are united in an omnicause have not sat at a table with six left wing people. By the end of the discussion they will have formed at least three splinter groups.

@Mouldemort ,

I will only engage with the trans stuff to say that a lot of left wingers disagree with you, and you need to listen to their viewpoint.

‘bring trans isn’t a statement about biology - it’s a statement about gender identity, which is not a choice or an ideology any more than being gay is.’

If you parse this sentence you will see it makes no sense. If if isn’t a statement about neurobiology, what is it? How does a person know they are trans? Why is so much trans performative (dressing like a Barbie doll etc)? Why do so few trans people go on to surgery if they genuinely feel like they are in the ‘wrong’ body?

As you say, being gay isn’t a preference. If you are same sex attracted, it is clear. But what are trans attracted to? Women’s stereotypical clothes? Women’s bathrooms?

I don’t claim to know the answers but I just don’t think it is as clear as the oppressor/oppressee model of the woke-and I guess that is where it fits into this thread.

Is being gay about neurobiology? Who knows?We do know from twin studies that being gay and being trans have strong genetic components. Everyone has a gender identity - scientists don’t dispute this and there have been transgender people for ever.

I won’t address the rest of your gender critical talking points on this thread to avoid derailment. Read what actual transgender people have to say about it.

The claim isn't that the entire left is united in an omnicause, it's that a subset of the left take a hard line stance on several of these issues to the point of excluding other lefties and centrists from one cause unless they pledge allegiance to the whole package.

It's a thing. A very real, very depressing state of affairs. Case in point, my old left wing friend from decades ago, who used to attend women's lib events, was anti racism and championed gay rights has now been sucked fully into the madness and rants anti Semitic rhetoric online, hates the western world and embraces Islam as a female empowering, liberating religion. . This same brave woman, who as a teenager escaped her deeply religious Muslim family who'd physically lock her inside the house and forbade her interaction with non Muslims and the wider western culture. She went on to have a hugely successful career, bought her own house, chose multiple atheist partners of her own choice, travelled the world and revelled in all the freedoms a free society offered her. So to now see her pivot as a fifty something year old woman, is deeply depressing. I often wonder if she knows who she is anymore. If she recognises even on a subliminal level, that she's being used as a pawn in the game of identity politics. To actually understand that she's traded one oppressive set of circumstances in which she was told what to think and how to behave, for another where her ' right think' comrades are the guiding force in her life.

Exactly this.

Perhaps this omnicause approach has malign aims behind it. It aims to divide and thus neutralise people power as a way to make the world better.

The campaign against new data centres near me have been notable insofar that they have united people across the political spectrum. It is broad support that keeps campaigns like that relevant and powerful.

The LGBTQ cause used to be more like this. A majority of voters across the political spectrum supported UK law changes such as equalising the age of consent, employment discrimination protection, and gay marriage.

Now it is something of a lost cause IMO. It alienates many people in one way or another, including members of its own community.

Your political beliefs, as you have described them here, align with my own.

I would add that I don't believe that TWAW either, and think that all this genderwoo 'I identify as...' nonsense is utterly ridiculous.

I grew up under Thatcher, and this experience always had me aligning with Labour & the Left. I voted for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Now I find Labour under Starmer & Burnham pretty awful, and find myself agreeing with Kemi Badenoch more, which surprises me as she's very RW. But if Badenoch got into power, I expect I'd start thinking she was awful too - it's v easy to be in opposition.

So I call myself politically homeless at the moment. A former lefty who cannot go along with the 'omnicause' (trans rights/free Palestine/antisemitism) that Labour/Green activists seem to currently bask in. A decade ago I used to think the Greens were a decent party - I even voted for them a few times. Now they seem to have been completely taken over by the omnicause.

Not everyone is chronically online.

The people spoken about here would consider the Labour Party a Right wing party'. Try having vocal gender critical views in the Green Party. I say vocal because chances are the Islamic elements certainly know what a woman is. They survive on a ' don't ask don't tell' basis.

I can assure you as an actual scientist that many scientists dispute the idea of gender identity and there is no scientific evidence for its existence whatsoever.

@LeanBackAgain yes that’s what I’ve been trying to say really. I think the lumping together of what someone thinks you believe is quite insulting and basically discriminatory stereotyping.

I do believe it’s partially the algorithm that’s causing this and partly the Americanisation of British politics.

My socialist beliefs are economically based, I happen to also have a generally kind and tolerant attitude toward most people providing they’re not hurting others.

But I’m also a Christian with what I hope are decent values around family, hard work and taking responsibility for yourself.

I am not out of line with the women I go to church with or the women I work with in my union.

We’re all capable of individual nuanced thinking. As I am sure women who are Conservative activists are. I’m sorry, I’m not extending that goodwill to Reform and Restore but I will happily debate that politely.

With the odd exception, we’re all women on here who have doubtlessly faced challenges because of our sex and we should be a lot more respectful of ourselves and stop the “catch all” insults.

I don't care whether the Green party consider Labour further right than them when it comes to GI. Because I think they're wrong. GI is nothing to do with left wing ideology. Its a cuckoo in the nest. An extreme liberal movement with its roots in the feelings of the individual, which take priority over the greater good.

I've seen Omnihate used.