So what’s the deal with this lady? Because I follow her, not that closely, and her stuff seems pretty fine and good. But also I rarely see anyone, even on the left, sharing her stuff. Makes me worry I missed a memo and she’s super transphobic or something.
It’s because of her nuclear take of an article advocating for what’s essentially a red-brown alliance: https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/lefties-need-to-stop-being-shy-about-working-with-the-anti-establishment-right-40c27a9dc98e
That’s a hell-fucking-no around here.
EDIT: To add, there’s been fallout resulting from the article in question. https://www.mintpressnews.com/opposing-views-controversy-caitlin-johnstone/230355/ Caused a few struggle sessions here I think
Looks like that article was posted July 2017, two months before Charlottesville and around the time of the infamous r/Chapotrphouse “Native Americans are ethno-nationalists” struggle sessions
Has she rescinded the take and apologized since?
I haven’t seen a retraction from her. Might be buried in her archive, giving her benefit of the doubt.
EDIT: Found it. She did not post a retraction. She in fact had doubled down on her position: https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/a-year-ago-i-wrote-about-cross-ideological-collaboration-heres-how-it-s-been-going-97aeab8cd87f
Oh lmao there it is
ah, well that is good to know. i’ll take that into consideration when I encounter her takes in the future
I have read some of her stuff since the Ukraine war started and haven’t come across anything bad from her regards transphobia and others.
but also i havent come across her endorsing any leftist projects or things like that openly.
I think she’s a “tankie” and very vocal, not sure about specific bad stuff though
Nothing bad to my knowledge, and she has a long history of good takes. I think it might have to do with audience, it seems like she mostly intends to target the “I’m as left as they come” democrat; so doesn’t get a ton of traction among theory nerds.
to be fair: there are things that deserve love about the united states and; to be realistic; they’re VASTLY outweighed by the things to hate about the united states.
It’s the moral equivalent of living in that era of Germany and saying you love Germany because of the mountains and bratwurst. It’s just unnecessary.
true if the mountains and bratwurst were the thing i liked; the things i like cannot exist without the united states.
I, for one, actually DON’T like being queer in the USA
I didn’t either until I learned more about myself and now I know that this is the only place that works for people like me; queer, brown, and on a particular part of the spectrum that is at odds w how mainstream queerness works.
This is queer exceptionalism and is the justification israel uses to commit genocide.
The “brown” countries have been forcefully kept in material conditions of underdevelopment and and forces for social and material progress have been killed and stomped out by this country. Brown people the world over will never be allowed to celebrate queerness as most did precolonization until this one ceases to exist in its current form.
Plus queer spaces are filled with queer exceptionalism, white nationalism and transmisogyny due to the hegemonic ideology maintained by this country which makes it horrible to be a lower working class queer of color regardless.
all true with a surface level understanding of what i said; i have a longer description further down in the post.
how exactly does that work without healthcare
i don’t think it does
i just dont see how you can say that the US is great for queer people when the US does less than nothing to support queer people (see AIDS). wouldnt it make more sense to say that queer spaces exist in spite of the us, instead of because of it?
You can just love the things, you don’t have to love the entity! I can love soul food, calMex, and national parks while none of that means I need to love the US. Unless I’m misunderstanding
those are the things that could theoretically exist without the united states, i’m referring to things that can only exist because of the united state’s presence in its current form.
biggest among them to me is the socially liberal attitudes towards sexuality and its interplay with american capitalism that allows for the physical spaces that my neurodivergent ass depends on to maintain my psychological well being.
the world’s oppressive history with gay spaces or events of this type imparts it’s modern day equivalents with a HEAVILY unspoken & nuanced character that doesn’t work at all with the part of the spectrum that i inhabit. the ones in western europe are the closest equivalents to the ones in the united states; but they’re all CONSIDERABLY less egalitarian and i know for a fact that they don’t work at all with the physical characteristics that define my american minority statuses. the american brand of these physical spaces & events are unique and the only places that work for me and others like me; which is why i love them.
the next biggest biggest things for me to love about the existence of the united states are other interplays with american capitalism, but this time with war engineering; enabling the technological advancements that my physical ass depends on to survive like continuous glucose monitors; fall/impact detection smart devices; and a skillset that enables a comfortable life for myself (among other examples).
all said: these things that i love are all accidental oversights or bandages created by the this country’s majority and it’s all SIGNIFICANTLY outweighed by the suffering that this world has to endure at the hands of this country’s ruling class’ pursuit of profit and the majority’s unwitting willingness to go along with it for the sake of their own comfort and well bieng, as i have been doing.
I still don’t get what this has to do with loving America the state, like cool I’m glad you like queer spaces, you do not, in fact, have to hand it to the empire
The idea that queer spaces are a uniquely American trait is also horse shit.
true for ordinary/maintream gay spaces; these space are unique and only exist because of american traits.
I think at this point you need to give concrete examples rather than descriptions because the difference is rather nebulous if we’re talking about anything realistically mainstream which you would find in a Western global city.
the entirety of it is nebulous because of the social nuances that define the differences that make the american spaces unique compared to their world wide counterparts; but here’s one example that i suspect that might help explain.
there’s a gay club named horsemarketsf in the united states and it has an analogue in western europe name fickstutenmarkt.
if you’re straight or mainstream gay; they’re the same because they have the same rules; the same mission statement; the same conditions for entry; and the american one is touted as a duplicate of the european one. if you try to attend either one as mainstream cisgendered gay, you’re likely not going to notice a difference at all either.
if you’re not mainstream (especially neurodivergent, a chub, trans, old, etc.); you will usually not be allowed to attend fickstutenmarkt, but you will be allowed to attend horsemarketsf because it is thoroughly egalitarian by nature. despite the entry rules being the same for both.
fickstutenmarkt’s denial stems from historical & cultural baggage that the european decider carries within them during vetting time for who is the “right” kind of person to let in from the “wrong” kind of person to be denied and is how all the european gay spaces operate; it’s completely subjective. (good luck if you’re romani).
the american spaces don’t care since it’s not decided on subjective grounds like the europeans; for them vetting involves proof that you can afford the costs of attending and can provide the paperwork they want. ie american capitalist standards.
this lack of historical-cultural baggage is what makes the american gay spaces unique compared to their western european (and world wide) counterparts and it has implications that go beyond the physical characteristics that i shared in this example.
take cruising as another example: it’s a hard requirement if you’re trying to patronize a gay space outside the west since it serves as a safety measure due to similar historical-cultural baggage as the europeans. if you’re on a part of the spectrum that doesn’t make eye contact or can’t read facial expressions like i do, then cruising effectively becomes a barrier as well and you will be unable to patronize that gay space. in the united states, cruising is not a safety measure of any kind, due to the lack of that same historical-cultural baggage, so it’s never a barrier.
so gay spaces are not a uniquely american trait; it’s that the american gay spaces have unique traits that make them accessible to people who don’t fit any mold and that’s one the things that i like about this country.
handing it to the empire implies giving thanks; these are oversights from the empire.
it’s also not loving the america state; it loving some of the things that exist because of american state allowed it to take place, despite it intentions.
I don’t get how these things also couldn’t exist in your conception without the United States? How are national parks, created via acts of Congress and other various government declarations, less to do with the existence of the United States as it is than the particulars of gay culture you like? Which I would argue generally exist despite the us government not because of it.
Anything we could possibly contribute to American culture could be better enjoyed without the oppressive evil of the American government or America as a state.
Which I would argue generally exist despite the us government not because of it.
Exactly. Homophobia was a major axis of US policy forever, I imagine without that influence the entire world might have more queer friendly spaces now
Soul food, a specific result of american slavery, and calmex, imperialism, also would not exist without the US
True. I suppose I meant people will make good food regardless of if the American state exists as it does. Of course the history of this terrible place impacts the people in it and what they do and thus the culture they develop.
I’m basically agreeing with you and trying to parse what the previous person said … Why are queer spaces uniquely worth crediting the American state with while things like food and national parks are not. Because of course the Americans states unique history of oppression influences modern queer culture in America just as slavery and imperialism influence it’s people’s food.
Neither would exist as they do without the American state but that of course does not abdicate the state from its evils.
No I was agreeing with you and trying to bolster your point!
Oh my bad! Sorry my reading comprehension is low this morning… Because that seems clear reading again.
it’s like the food example that the other person responded with.
queer spaces similar (but not the same) can and do exist outside the american empire.
these specific queer spaces that i described do not exist in the same way outside the american empire for similar reasons that slavery or calmex or soulfood food exists.
I think we are all on the same page in regards to certain things only existing as they do because of the American state and it’s history. We all agree that history shapes present. Bbnh69420 I believe had the same question I had which is what makes these queer spaces so uniquely American that other examples given lack? What makes them more unique than the examples that “that could theoretically exist without the united states”?
If with the phrase “can only exist because of the united state’s presence in its current form” you meam that these queer spaces can only continue to exist as long as the United States continues to I disagree. No more would American queer spaces vanish than would soul food if the boot of empire was removed. But both indeed would not have manifested identically in an alternate history with no USA.
So really I’m just trying to understand that difference in perspective.
I think we are all on the same page in regards to certain things only existing as they do because of the American state and it’s history. We all agree that history shapes present. Bbnh69420 I believe had the same question I had which is what makes these queer spaces so uniquely American that other examples given lack? What makes them more unique than the examples that “that could theoretically exist without the united states”?
i think i answered this else where in thr post: https://lemmy.ml/post/25852812/16654341
If with the phrase “can only exist because of the united state’s presence in its current form” you meam that these queer spaces can only continue to exist as long as the United States continues to I disagree. No more would American queer spaces vanish than would soul food if the boot of empire was removed. But both indeed would not have manifested identically in an alternate history with no USA.
unlike the empire’s boot; these spaces are accidents or oversights and that were once allowed to flourish in the united state’s presence in it’s current form. that current form won’t be around for long since this country has been changing; it’s been growing more conservative as evidenced by blue cities and red states alike closing these places down, even before trump appeared on the scene. austin is an excellent example of this: all such spaces i described have been forced to closed down; but since this is a niche within a niche of americans, there’s little to no outcry. san francisco takes the opposite approach: these spaces were closed down by covid and not allowed to return due to ordinances from the 1980’s preventing their return. this is why soul food can continue to exist, but these spaces cannot; no one in their right mind would want to make soul food illegal. lol
The idea that you can define around “the bad parts” shows that Nationalism is an ideology that starts in a dead end. If a nation means different things to different people then there isn’t actually a unified nation, it’s a fuzzy concept, a smattering of ideas.
Why even use the same signifier at that point when you’re talking about vastly different things?
Of course the reason it does happen is because it’s reflexive propaganda and that’s the only way nationalism works.
Just because you shit doesn’t mean you have a political common ground with a coprophile. And yet for nations we accept this leap in logic and teach it to children. Nationalism isn’t a logical ideology, it’s an emotional affinity to a nebulous concept with it’s own character and symbology. Therefore it’s practically an aesthetic or a template of an aesthetic political process.
Thus we can evaluate it as an aesthetic. Result: Cringe.
i’m not saying that there are bad part or good parts, i think that they’re accidents or oversights and they’re uniquely american things that i love.
