This is awful article. I'd be curious to read about any role Steinem had with the CIA but this article has jack shit in it other than weird vague accusations based on one of her organizations receiving funding from the CIA at some point.
That’s not surprising at all. Mind you she failed, there’s anarcha feminism and Marxist feminism, but they’re branches of anarchism and Marxism respectively so maybe she didn’t fail.
She also was a major contributor to the satanic panic
I think they were pointing to the media trying to shift the focus to race. "You're problem isn't because you're poor, it's because of all those nasty people who are different to you".
Anything to prevent class consciousness and organization.
Pre-occupy, gender identity and race-based issues were known but not talked about a great deal in the public sphere. They weren't the core identity of a large number of people, and they were something that was 'allowed' to be discussed without blind following or rage.
During occupy, OWS organizers started what they called an 'egalitarian stance', which was a way to reframe the available classes to fight against in class warfare, were those more privileged than you (race, gender, identity politics) instead of financial privilege. If you were a white male, whether disabled or had a speech impediment or whatever, you were more privileged than anyone and you lost your rung in the ladder, you were now the lowest class. White women were just above you. Minority groups (race and gender, poverty level not included) became the prevailing upper-class and had the most right to speak.
OWS quickly lost momentum after a number of changes like this, and the conversation was no longer about class warfare, but about privilege, meaning only race and gender (initially). I believe there were leaked documents (unsure if verified) that the FBI was seeking, or had gained, access to OWS leadership positions. It seems obvious they would attempt it. This is something someone will have to confirm or correct me on, because a quick search isn't pulling the documents and I need to run.
Thank you! The whole identity politics movement has always seemed to have a malicious edge to it for me. There is obvious racism built right into a movement that is supposed to be antiracism, and I feel like I'm living in crazytown that so few people seem to see it, including several people that I consider very intelligent people. For all the "progress" we've made over the last 2 decades, it feels like race relations are worse than they were back then. It really felt like we were close to racial blindness in the mid 2000's, and now the agenda is to make race at the core of everyone's identity. Anyone who speaks up about not wanting that world is berated as a bigot, and if they happen to be people of color then they're derided as uneducated, or ignorant. It has been very frustrating trying to navigate through the current antiracism ideology. Like any good doublespeak it has positive elements to it, but the actual goals seem to be far more malicious than stated.
Highlighting differences triggers a psychological instinct in many people to see somebody with different traits as "the others". That's the reason I've been bothered by it too.
Intersectionalism should've stayed an academic topic, because we need people to figure out who is hurt the most by what and where so that nobody's case is forgotten, but making it part of people's identity makes people divide themselves. The public focus should've been on policy and inclusion.
So I moved from an extremely racist shithole to a much less racist area in the aughts. That's pretty much my perspective. I couldn't compare much because literally I'm not being woken up by racial slurs every morning anymore. I may be an outlier if you think you're trying to prove something.
In my experience racist places are even more racist now. Of course all of this is subjective, and not substantiated by data. But even just reading the news these days seems to substantiate my experience. Congratulations on getting away from the shit hole you were in back then!
The white supremacists are willing idiots. I don't doubt they were leveraged to inflame race relations, same way Russia took advantage of the BLM movement to create division.
Again (for the terminally bewildered) - having a hard time understanding the bizarre pretzel-logic peddled by liberals does not constitute a failing on my part.
And non-white liberals? Are they simply self hating, because they disagree with you?
Frankly, at this point, I find the concept of you being a leftist utterly laughable. You're indistinguishable from a conservative cosplaying as a "leftist" to show how rude and insensible they are.
That kind of has a nice ring to it actually. I'll be seeing you around, conservative.
To finish the quote on her CIA relationship, since context is important:
In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, published a report that Steinem and others put together on the Vienna Youth Festival and its attendees for the Independent Research Service.[112][113] Redstockings raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the CIA, which Steinem denied.[114] Steinem defended her relationship to the CIA, saying: "In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable."
Honestly I figured the context would clear things up, but the rest of the quote makes her come off as an apologist for an organization known to play as dirty as the KGB, and especially during that era. However just because something is funded by an entity such as the CIA doesn't always mean that the organization is part of, partner in, or even a willing partner with something like the CIA, same with the KGB or its descendants, espionage operates on leverage, and it all depends on what kind of hold you have over the "asset(s)".
I think the Medium article is bullshit. It doesn’t provide anything more than the Wikipedia for its sources and all Wikipedia says is what you quoted. Direct organization funding by the CIA does not mean an employee is a CIA agent. Lots of DARPA projects that we use for radical things were made by radicals that vehemently opposed everything but government grants (many others were either agents or supporter; Surveillance Valley is a great read).
She’s totally a fucking stooge though. There’s no fucking way you say that about the CIA then (or in hindsight about then when she wrote her biography given all the other things that came out since then) without being a fucking stooge. I don’t think we can conclude anything more than that without more context, which I’ve yet to find.
Thank you. That site is horrible. Here's another site that discusses the topic in a favorable way. Not taking sides here, was just looking for another source.
