[Peace-discuss] Identity politics

[Robert Naiman]

Gay people are human beings, aren't they? Does anyone here dispute that gay
people are human beings?

If gay people are human beings, and if human beings have rights, then gay
people have rights, by virtue of the fact that they are human beings.

If we claim that our society is based, among other things, on "Equal
justice under law" - this phrase is engraved on the front of the United
States Supreme Court <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_justice_under_law> -
then if "straight" people have the right to get married to each other and
derive legal benefits from that, gay people also have that right.

If a gay person, or if a straight person who believes that gay people have
equal rights by virtue of the fact that they are human beings, advocates
that a politician defend the rights of gay people to marry, that person is
only doing what we would normally expect people to do in a society which
claims to practice "equal justice under law."

I have come to strongly dislike the phrase "identity politics." It seems to
me to conflate two very different things. One is: advocating for the equal
rights and equal participation of people who have been excluded from rights
and participation based on identity characteristics. And the other is:
doing that at the expense of advocating for economic justice; putting
identity politics at the top of the marquee, to the exclusion of
highlighting economic justice demands.

There's no intrinsic reason why identity politics in the first sense has to
be in existential conflict with advocacy for economic justice. Indeed, it
seems to me that one of the historic tasks of the Left has always been to
integrate the defense of identity rights into an economic justice
framework, so that these things will be perceived to be complementary, not
contradictory. The world in which I want to live is one in which gay
people, even gay people who are not workers, defend the right of workers to
organize, both because it is ethically right and because they correctly see
the organization of unions as an important way that gay people defend their
rights, because unions are defending the right of gay workers to be gay.

Rabbi Hillel said:

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am only for myself, what am I?

If not now, when?"

On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 8:35 PM, e. wayne johnson via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> It is interesting how RT is so often the voice of truth crying in the
> wilderness.
>
> It is also interesting that some of the "identities" are actually
> mental illnesses and psychopathologies.
> The Canadian Alphabet soup LGBTQRTS123ZOMFGWTF
> is the ridiculous extreme that some of these cultural fads
> have to go to before people get weary of them.
>
> It is also interesting that what  can be dismissed as simple fad can have
> such
> far  reaching  negative consequences.
>
> Fags really do doom nations.
>
>
> >  -------Original Message-------
> >  From: Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> >  To: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> >  Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>
> >  Subject: [Peace-discuss] Identity politics
> >  Sent: Aug 06 '18 02:31
> >
> >  I fond this a stong analysis, although perhaps the author
> >  overemphasizes the political disorientation of those
> >  promulgating/doing identity politics.
> >
> >  _HOW IDENTITY POLITICS MAKES THE LEFT LOSE ITS COLLECTIVE IDENTITY_
> >
> >  HTTPS://WWW.RT.COM/OP-ED/434924-LEFT-POLICY-IDENTITY-DIVIDED/
> >
> >  -------------------------
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> >
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