[Peace-discuss] Identity politics

[Robert Naiman]

I dispute the claim that a fertilized human egg is a human being at the
moment of conception.

Do you eat meat and cheese? Do you drink milk?

Which do you think has a greater capacity to experience pain: a cow or a
zygote?

On Mon, Aug 6, 2018 at 9:29 AM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> There is more to be said about identity politics - among other things,
> it’s a cover for neoliberalism - but your incontrovertible first line
> recalls other recent discussions on this list.
>
> To paraphrase -  “Unborn children are human beings, aren't they? Does
> anyone here dispute that unborn children are human beings?”
>
> —CGE
>
>
> On Aug 6, 2018, at 5:59 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
> 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/
>> <https://www.rt.com/OP-ED/434924-LEFT-POLICY-IDENTITY-DIVIDED/>
>> >
>> >  -------------------------
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>> >
>>
>
>
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