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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Women on the left are responsible for austerity

657 replies

CarrotyO · 17/09/2018 21:59

I've heard it said that women on the left actually support and are therefore in some way responsible for austerity. This is because both Labour and the Tories support austerity. Therefore any woman who supports Labour, or the Left in general, also knowingly and consciously supports austerity and are therefore also responsible for the 1000s of deaths of disabled people caused by austerity. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

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CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 08:43

Everyone has their own moral compass but I personally find it much easier to sleep at night when actually doing something to mitigate a shitty situation rather than sitting on my hands bleating on about fucking anarcho-starvation or whatever this shit is

I am an active campaigner, and I do a lot to attempt to improve things in the here and now. This is just a political view that I have, based on evidence which people have picked up on and derailed the thread over. Why don't you respond to the OP?

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CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 08:45

*Life expectancies

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UpstartCrow · 18/09/2018 08:46

lisamuggeridge
But I am considering giving up modern life and just foraging for vegetables.

And this is how The Great Allotment Wars of 2019 began.

CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 08:47

I find it quite shocking how many people are responding with anger and ad hominems in response to new ideas. I don't know, I kind of expected the FWR board to be a little bit more open to discussion and the consideration of different ideas

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AngryAttackKittens · 18/09/2018 08:48

Today foraging, tomorrow pitched battles over the strawberry patch!

CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 08:58

Come on women. You are ridiculing a radical analysis of the roots of female oppression and the subsequent ecocide of the worlds biomass, and upholding the idea that women on the left are responsible for 1000s of deaths of disable people by describing welfare cuts as "tory austerity".

This is a really good example of the cult of personality. You prefer to dismiss evidence based arguments and uphold the fanciful based purely on the personalities involved. Don't you want to think for yourselves?

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deepwatersolo · 18/09/2018 08:58

So, in the spirit of this thread, I thought, I'll post a link of Guy McPherson, an evolutionary biologist who thinks global warming will kill us off in the near future. (He is not wrong on the principle based on academic research, except his certainty on the time frame and certain inevitablility is not quite justified imo. But not even him advocates hunting and gathering. He has been into permaculture.)

It is actually quite a funny, entertaining interview.

Enjoy! Wink

Branleuse · 18/09/2018 09:01

this is fucking bizarre. Read the OPs original thread. She clearly wanted to discuss something interesting Lisa had said, and imeediately got fucking lambasted and ripped apart and accused of all the worlds ills for even daring. Im surprised thats been allowed to stand

CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 09:01

Permaculture fits with what I've been saying. It isn't agriculture. The plants are able to extend their roots into the soil.

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CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 09:03

Also, I was asked to start this thread to prevent the other thread derailing. People should show me the same courtesy.

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deepwatersolo · 18/09/2018 09:07

The root of female oppression is sure as hell not that we are not one step away from starvation or death at childbirth, which you couldn't prevent 'cause there are neither means to efficiently prevent or terminate a pregnancy nor any protection against your rape, which caused it.

NettleTea · 18/09/2018 09:07

recent research suggests that it was climate change after the last glacial period that caused populations to rise, leading to a need for agriculture to support them, rather than the other way around
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121018130834.htm

LassWiADelicateAir · 18/09/2018 09:07

I assume there is a backstory I am missing. I don't know what the opening post was referring to and have no idea what Lisa's walls of unparagraphed, unpunctuated text were on about.

deepwatersolo · 18/09/2018 09:09

'Permaculture is a system of agricultural and social design principles...'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

Looks like permaculture is a form of agriculture after all. Quite far removed from the bison scenario, in fact.

RedToothBrush · 18/09/2018 09:11

Lisa's point is women on the left who hold gatekeeping positions of power in the media enabled austerity.

Her point is that they sanitised austerity and helped to hide it from view of the middle classes, who don't see it in their everyday lives.

They didn't report issues relevant to the left and betrayed the principles of the left in the process. They 'sold out' working class women for the sake of their jobs and power instead of standing up and screaming about the injustices that they were facing as a direct result of austerity. Instead the narrative of 'the undeserving poor' or the 'benefits scroungers' went relatively unchallenged and was legitimised in the process, even by the left wing media. This affected the attitude of those who would otherwise normally have been sympathetic to the cause.

I think she has a point. There are a lot of middle class people I know who regarded 2010 - 2015 as brilliant. They were completely untouched by austerity. The thing is, I suspect many would have been utterly horrified to know the reality if it had been in their face day after day and it had been explicit about the injustice of austerity and that would have changed political narratives a great deal. A lot of the shit hitting the fan in the last couple of years - Grenfell and Windrush being two of the biggest stories - has utterly shattered that and left people disgusted. But these are just the latest issues which are a consequence of austerity being ignored by the media for years.

Instead Labour has continued to support austerity as part of Popularism even under Corbyn. At the last General election the Labour Party manifesto offer LESS to the lowest income households than the Liberal Democrats. Instead it focused simply punishing those on more than £80,000. Think about that. That's not how it's played out in the media and in popular belief but it's what analysis of the manifestos revealed. No one has challenged it - including women on the left in the party. I think Lisa would argue that's because too many are middle class themselves and unaware of what's really going on, on the ground.

At the last election Labour wanted to give less than the Lib Dem because they were pandering to a particular section in society - those working and struggling to make ends meet who believed that those on benefits were a drain on society. Why? Because this group vote but those who are right at the bottom don't. Because they don't care about the principles they say they hold, and promoting the value of them and overall benefit to society. Instead they think populism and identity politics are a better short cut to power and to hell with the damage that causes in the process. Plus there was a sense of not wanting to damage middle class position and interest.

The point being that even if the left are not in power, they still have the ability to hold the government to account and make austerity as a policy unpopular and force the government to change its approach. The opposition is not without power - it has a different kind of power. Corbyn's Labour Party has repeatedly abdicated this responsibility.

Personally I don't think it's fair to blame women here. I don't see why Owen 'don't call them chavs' Jones wasn't able to call out the same thing. Men and women have been equally culpable. But I guess women having more to lose is why Lisa directs anger at women because it exposed women more without them realising.

CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 09:14

Er she never once mentioned women who worked in the media...

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lovetherisingsun · 18/09/2018 09:14

Jeeze, why don't we just all kill ourselves if every decision we ever make in life is detrimental to every other human and animal in the world.

CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 09:15

It's a form of agriculture centered around simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems.

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BeyondAnOmnishambles · 18/09/2018 09:15

Lass, to sum it up into one sentence - Lisa mentioned some particular "lefty" women being culpable for austerity in relation to a wider issue, and OP implied the women here were a load of us racists who don't care about Muslim women. She was then asked to start her own thread rather than keep derailing.

CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 09:16

So yes, clearly it does fit in with what I have been saying. You don't have to disagree with me just for the sake of it you know.

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CarrotyO · 18/09/2018 09:16

Yes beyond, Lisa derailed the thread with a strange theory that we still haven't gotten to the bottom of

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AngryAttackKittens · 18/09/2018 09:17

Thanks, Red, I think that's a pretty good summary.

deepwatersolo · 18/09/2018 09:17

this is fucking bizarre. Read the OPs original thread. She clearly wanted to discuss something interesting Lisa had said, and imeediately got fucking lambasted and ripped apart and accused of all the worlds ills for even daring. Im surprised thats been allowed to stand

The whole thread was based on a misrepresentation what Lisa had said in another thread. Lisa had held that some women in WPUK, who were also central in booting Posie Parker out for 'purity politics' had been complicit in Labour not challenging and therefore faciliating austerity, which killed people.

The thread was moved with OP suggesting Lisa had said 'women on the left' summarily. OP then said they didn't care for the left, anyway, but opposed austerity and industry & agriculture in favor of a hunter and gatherer society.

We then questioned said position, because a hunter & gatherer society is ultimate austerity and the ultimate throwing of the weakest members of society under the bus.

deepwatersolo · 18/09/2018 09:20

Good summary RedToothBrush.

AngryAttackKittens · 18/09/2018 09:20

Given that Lisa is a woman on the left I'm not sure how anyone could have concluded that she was suggesting that all women on the left were complicit.