Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Five socially-conscious horror films for Halloween and beyond By Chauncey K. Robinson
The Penny Drops - The World Is Multi-Polar by b
https://www.moonofalabama.org (October 23 2023)
In 2007, during his famous speech in Munich {1}, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to the inevitable rise of a multipolar world.
He started out by defining the opposite state:
However, what is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.
It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.
The unilateral tendencies of the US and the West in general were described as dead ends:
What is happening in today's world - and we just started to discuss this - is a tentative to introduce precisely this concept into international affairs, the concept of a unipolar world.
Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension.
... We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state's legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural, and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?
He pointed to the inevitable changes in the world that were arising to counter this trend:
The combined GDP measured in purchasing power parity of countries such as India and China is already greater than that of the United States. And a similar calculation with the GDP of the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - surpasses the cumulative GDP of the EU. And according to experts this gap will only increase in the future.
There is no reason to doubt that the economic potential of the new centres of global economic growth will inevitably be converted into political influence and will strengthen multipolarity.
There it is, multipolarity, the 'bad word' that the US did not dare to take seriously. Putin was laughed at, and then condemned, for making those very clear predictions.
But today multipolarity has risen.
Today we live in a multilateral world. We see Russia, China, and many smaller countries united in their will to preserve their rights and security. The cold war is gone. The somewhat unilateral decades which had followed it are now over. We are in need of a new world order.
In the US that penny has finally started to drop.
It has not yet reached the ground. We do not know on which side it will land.
Two days ago US President Joe Biden spoke at a campaign event {2}. Among lots of the usual blah-blah, this paragraph stood out:
We were in a post-war period for 50 years where it worked pretty damn well, but that's sort of run out of steam. Sort of run out of steam. It needs a new - a new world order in a sense, like that was a world order.
There it is - one can see the penny, slipping out of his hand and falling down.
The time for the US to preserve some of its influence in the rising new world order is short:
Look, we're at an inflection point in history - literally an inflection point in history, and that is that decisions we make in the next four or five years are going to determine what the next four or five decades look like. And that's - that's a fact.
The Ukrainian news site Strana, which was the first to point to Biden's acknowledgment of global change, describes the implications of that thought {3} (machine translation):
It should be noted that the "damn good" post-war 50-year peace that Biden spoke about arose as a result of the most brutal war in the history of mankind. It also appeared due to the agreements of the USSR and the United States, which essentially divided the spheres of influence in Europe.
If we proceed from this historical context, then Biden, it turns out, offers either to win a military victory over the Russian Federation and China, with which the United States is currently at enmity, or to negotiate with them and arrange a "new Yalta" with the division of spheres of influence.
On which side will the penny land? The side of a new global war? Or on the side of new negotiations?
We do not know.
Yalta Conference {4}
' Putin had predicted that the pursuit of unilateral power would automatically lead to the end of its pursuer. As Biden acknowledges, the US, in its delusion, is ripping itself apart.
Prior to the campaign event, Biden had given a public speech from the White House.
Adam Tooze reflects on it {5}:
Biden: American leadership is what holds the world together {6}.
The President wasn't just improvising. He has not done a lot of speeches from the Oval Office. A speech-writing team crafted that extraordinary line.
It reflects deeply held views on the part of Washington. Back in February 2021, the newly appointed Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave several speeches {7} and interviews {8} in which he repeated the line:
"The world doesn't organize itself. When we're not engaged, when we don't lead, then one of two things happens: either some other country tries to take our place, but probably not in a way that advances our interests and values, or no one does, and then you get chaos."
This idea, that there is a "place" in the world, which is that of "America as the organizer", and that without America occupying that place and doing its job, the world will fall apart, or some other power will take America's place as the organizer, is deep-seated in US policy circle.
As a metaphysical proposition it is silly and self-deluding. It is bizarre to imagine that the world needs America to "hold it together". America itself is hardly in one piece.
He describes the negative global consequences of delusional US thinking to then muse about the outcome:
What is the impact of a dysfunctional US political system, where the more reasonable wing of the ruling elite cling to ideas about America's role that are systematically self-deluding. You could say that hypocrisy is normal. It is the besetting sin of liberalism. But in light of the scale of looming global problems and the shift in the balance of power that has already taken place, let alone that which may still to come, how long can this tension be maintained and what will be the price?
He seems to ask if the now-falling penny will ever hit the ground:
The only thing that seems for sure is that we should avoid falling into the trap of what I've called fin-fiction {9} or fin-fi, which assumes that because these tension seem unbearable they must therefore resolve in some logical way, for instance in the speculation over the end of dollar hegemony, or what appears be the Biden fantasy of a return to the normality of American leadership.
I am skeptical even of invoking terms like "interregnum" {10}, signifying a temporary hiatus between orders of power.
What gives us confidence that our current situation is temporary and that some new order, like the old, will emerge?
Is that not another version of the kind of thinking that says the world "needs organizing" by a power sitting at the head of the table - in "America's place"?
That question, to me, seems to miss what multilateralism really means. It does not mean unilateralism with a different country in the lead. It means a somewhat democratic UN system, with an expanded Security Council that includes the large population countries of each continent.
It means to follow international law.
' Will the US come back into that system? Or does it need a global war to decide the outcome?
' Links: {1} https://russialist.org/transcript-putin-speech-and-the-following-discussion-at-the-munich-conference-on-security-policy/
{2} https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/20/remarks-by-president-biden-at-a-campaign-reception-3/
{3} https://strana.news/news/448520-itohi-606-dnja-vojny-v-ukraine.html
{4} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference
{5} https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-248-american-leadership
' {6} https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/20/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-unites-states-response-to-hamass-terrorist-attacks-against-israel-and-russias-ongoing-brutal-war-against-ukraine/
{7} https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-wolf-blitzer-of-cnns-the-situation-room/
{8} https://es.usembassy.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-a-press-availability-3/
{9} https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-107-the-future-of-the-dollar
{10} https://geopolitique.eu/en/articles/war-ecology-a-new-paradigm/
Posted by b on October 23 2023 at 13:57 UTC
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/10/the-penny-drops-the-world-is-multi-polar.html
Monday, October 30, 2023
UAW President Fain on victory in Ford contract ( YouTube)
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Gender-critical books have been treated like Mein Kampf by a public library, it can be revealed.
Works by authors including Helen Joyce and Prof Kathleen Stock were hidden from view by a library service of the Labour-run Calderdale council, and are now barred from being promoted in displays in order to protect the public from offence.
Gender-critical books have been treated like Mein Kampf by a public library, it can be revealed.
Works by authors including Helen Joyce and Prof Kathleen Stock were hidden from view by a library service of the Labour-run Calderdale council, and are now barred from being promoted in displays in order to protect the public from offence.
The only other book similarly censored by the library service by being hidden was Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, The Telegraph can reveal.
Authors are furious at the revelation that their gender-critical work, which critiques the belief that gender self-identification takes precedence over biological sex, has been handled in the same way as the 1925 manifesto of the future Nazi dictator.
The Telegraph previously revealed that six books discussing the dangers of puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery were hidden from public view by Calderdale librarians.
Now council documents shown to The Telegraph indicate that staff had not previously taken such direct measures to conceal books, except on one occasion when “a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf was moved to our stores following complaints from some customers some years ago”.
Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto contains his outline for a state based on racial hierarchy which is free of the Jewish people.
Helen Joyce Helen Joyce's book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality will not be 'promoted' by Calderdale librarians - Jeff Gilbert Ms Joyce, the author of one of the six gender-critical books, told The Telegraph: “I was disgusted, but not surprised, to discover that the only previous example Calderdale Libraries could give of hiding away a ‘toxic’ book concerned Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf.
“Its senior staff have apparently surrendered to the demands of trans ideologues to such an extent that when a crybully threw a strop about a top ten bestseller on the subject of women’s, children’s and gay people’s human rights, they agreed to treat that book as if it was Nazi propaganda.”
While Calderdale council officers have recommended that the six gender-critical books, by authors including Abigail Shrier, are reinstated on publicly visible bookshelves, they also advised that the books should not be “promoted” as part of special display.
This is in stark contrast to standard practice for many books on LGBT issues, which are typically placed in special display within public libraries during Pride month.
Calderdale council officers cited best-practice advice that the books should not be promoted, advice which comes from the group Book 28, an LGBT organisation which has pushed councils to take steps to prevent LGBT people seeing “offensive” and “transphobic” gender-critical books in their libraries .
It was understood the local chapter of the Women’s Rights Network will contest a campaign against gender-critical titles “singled out” because of concerns they could be found to be offensive.
The controversy began with an internal HR grievance lodged in January 2023 about gender-critical books on display in council libraries .
Calderdale’s library agreed to remove six gender-critical books from public view.
After The Telegraph revealed that these books had been hidden, Calderdale library staff lodged a complaint against their own employer and demanded the books be reinstated on library shelves.
Calderdale council undertook a review of its policies following the outcry against censorship, while stating it had to balance these concerns against what it termed some people’s “acute vulnerability”.
This week Ian Day, the council’s director for public service, said that while the books are likely “to cause offence to some people”, the titles do not reach “the threshold required to interfere with legal rights such as the right of freedom of expression”.
He recommended that the council decide to reinstate books, with the proviso that they are not promoted.
Thursday, October 26, 2023
Sunday, October 22, 2023
Venezuela: Gov’t to Launch China-Backed Anti-Poverty Program. By: Andreína Chávez Alava
Picture The Social Equality and Happiness Mission will adapt the Chinese experience to the Caribbean country’s reality to alleviate poverty and inequality. Caracas, September 21, 2023 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government has announced a new social program focused on fighting poverty and inequality, which will be supported by China’s International Poverty Reduction Center.
On Monday, during his weekly TV program, President Nicolás Maduro said that the “Social Equality and Happiness Mission” was “almost ready” to be launched and its main purpose is to “optimize the fight against inequality, against poverty and to build a more harmonious country.”
Although Maduro did not give details, he stressed that the social program will work alongside the Chinese anti-poverty center. The government led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been responsible for lifting over 850 million people out of poverty in the Asian giant since 1980.
! “In 1981, almost 90 percent of the Chinese population was below the absolute poverty line as measured by the World Bank,” —the Venezuelan leader went on to explain in his national broadcast —“but in 2019 the figure did not reach 1 percent and by the end of 2020 the Chinese government announced poverty eradication in the country.”
China’s success story in reducing poverty has been recognized worldwide as it has gone hand in hand with sustained economic growth and rapid industrialization. Beijing has also created alliances with countries from the Global South to help advance socioeconomic cooperation.
Venezuela’s new social program follows President Maduro’s recent trip to China, where he met with President Xi Jinping to establish an “all-weather strategic partnership” and signed 31 cooperation agreements. The main ones include China’s support for Venezuela’s special economic zones (SEZs), poverty reduction efforts and boosting the country’s national electric grid and public healthcare system.
Maduro clarified that the Chinese experience will be adapted to the Caribbean country’s reality, its culture and people’s most important necessities.
Currently, Venezuela does not have official data regarding poverty and inequality rates. In 2014, the government stopped publishing numbers as the country entered an economic crisis after oil prices plunged globally and hyperinflation crushed working-class people’s purchasing power. The situation was aggravated by the imposition of unilateral coercive measures by Washington and its allies as part of a regime change strategy.
The sanctions levied against the Caribbean nation have targeted every key sector of the economy, especially the oil industry, the country’s main source of foreign revenue. In 2017, the US Treasury imposed sanctions against state oil company PDVSA followed by an oil embargo in 2019. Washington likewise banned diluent and fuel imports exacerbating fuel shortages affecting electricity generation and agricultural production.
In response to the US-led blockade, the Venezuelan government implemented a hybrid economic liberalization program and a nationwide de facto dollarization while advancing efforts to diversify the economy and increase non-oil revenues. As a result, the economy began to grow again in 2021 after seven years of contraction. Inflation receded to the lowest levels in nearly a decade and small-scale private enterprises expanded.
However, some analysts have pointed out that the economic reforms have contributed to a significant increase in inequalities due to growing private sector benefits, the de-regularization of labor and stagnated public sector workers’ wages. Venezuela’s minimum salary currently stands at 130 bolívares (around US $5).
President Maduro has not directly addressed complaints about low wages and the loss of social benefits from public sector workers, particularly in the education sector, who have staged several protests alongside workers from the industrial sector. The administration is likewise engaged in dialogue with trade unions regarding salary adjustments with mediation from the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Recently, the Venezuelan government has been primarily focused on resolving quality-of-life issues by remodeling deteriorated schools and hospitals and attending to public service problems through the so-called “1×10 System.” The initiative allows people to denounce issues within their communities using a digital app, breaking away from the bureaucratic processes to receive a rapid response.
According to the latest report, almost 1.5 million cases have been attended through the app-based program since its launch. The issues mostly relate to water, electricity, roads, internet connection and cooking gas supply.
During the Hugo Chávez government (1999-2012), Venezuela’s household income poverty reduced from 42 percent in 1999 to 27.3 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, structural poverty fell from 29.3 percent in 1999 to 19.6 percent in 2013. The achievement responded to a series of social programs, some of them in cooperation with Cuba. Author
Andreína Chávez Alava
Around the country, politicians are waging high-stakes battles over new congressional lines that could influence which party controls the US House of Representatives after the 2024 election.
In North Carolina, the Republicans who control the state legislature are crafting district lines that could flip as many as four Democratic-held seats. Democrats, meanwhile, could pick up seats in legal skirmishes now playing out in New York, Louisiana, Georgia and other states.
In all, the fate of anywhere from 14 to 18 House seats across nearly a dozen states could turn on the results of these fights. Republicans currently hold just a five-seat edge in the US House. That razor-edge majority has been underscored in recent weeks by the GOP’s chaotic struggle to elect a new speaker.
“Given that the majority is so narrow, every outcome matters to the fight for House control in 2024,” said David Wasserman, who follows redistricting closely as senior editor and elections analyst for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
And with fewer competitive districts that swing between the political parties, Wasserman added, “every line change is almost existential.”
Experts say several other factors have helped lead to the slew of consequential – and unresolved – redistricting disputes, just months before the first primaries of the 2024 cycle.
They include pandemic-related delays in completing the 2020 census – the once-a-decade population count that kicks off congressional and state legislative redistricting – as well as a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that threw decisions about partisan gerrymandering back to state courts.
In addition, some litigation had been frozen in place until the US Supreme Court’s surprise ruling in June, which found that a Republican-crafted redistricting plan in Alabama disadvantaged Black voters in the state and was in violation of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
That decision “is functionally reanimating all of these dormant cases,” said Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which supports the GOP’s redistricting efforts.
Kincaid said it’s too soon to tell whether Republicans or Democrats will emerge with the advantage by Election Day 2024. In his view, either party could gain or lose only about two seats over redistricting.
In many of the closely watched states where action is pending, just a single seat hangs in the balance, with two notable exceptions: North Carolina and New York, where multiple seats are at stake. Republicans control the map-drawing in the Tar Heel State, while the job could fall to Democrats in New York, potentially canceling out each party’s gains.
“Democrats kind of need to run the table in the rest of these states” to gain any edge, said Nick Seabrook, a political scientist at the University of North Florida and the author of the 2022 book “One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America.”
Here’s a state-by-state look at recent and upcoming redistricting disputes that could shape the 2024 race for control of the US House:
Alabama
In one of the cycle’s highest-profile redistricting cases, a three-judge panel in Alabama approved a map that creates a second congressional district with a substantial Black population. Before the court action, Alabama – which is 27% Black – had only one Black-majority congressional district out of seven seats.
The fight over the map went all the way to the Supreme Court – which issued a surprise ruling, affirming a lower-court opinion that ordered Alabama to include a second Black-majority district or “something quite close to it.” Under the map that will be in place for the 2024 election, the state’s 2nd District now loops into Mobile to create a seat where nearly half the population is Black.
The high court’s 5-4 decision in June saw two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, side with the three liberals to uphold the lower-court ruling. Their action kept intact a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act: that it’s illegal to draw maps that effectively keep Black voters from electing a candidate of their choice.
The ruling has reverberated around the country and could affect the outcome of similar court cases underway in Louisiana and Georgia that center on whether Republican-drawn maps improperly diluted Black political power in those states.
Given that Black voters in Alabama have traditionally backed Democrats, the party now stands a better chance of winning the newly reconfigured district and sending to of its members to Congress after next year’s elections.
The new map – approved in recent days by the lower-court judges – also could result in two Black US House members from Alabama serving together for the first time in state history.
Florida A state judge in September struck down congressional lines for northern Florida that had been championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruling that the Republican governor’s map had improperly diluted Black voting power.
This case, unlike the Alabama fight decided by the US Supreme Court, centers on provisions in the state constitution.
The judge concluded that the congressional boundaries – which essentially dismantled a seat once held by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, that connected Black communities across a northern reach of the Florida – violated the state’s Fair Districts amendments, enacted by voters. One amendment specifically bars the state from drawing a district that diminishes the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”
Arguments before an appeals court are slated for later this month, with litigants seeking a decision by late November. The case is expected to land before the all-Republican state Supreme Court, where DeSantis appointees hold most seats.
A separate federal case – which argues that the map violates the US Constitution – is pending.
But observers say the outcome of the state litigation is more likely than the federal case to determine whether Florida lawmakers must restore the North Florida district, given the state constitution’s especially strong protections for the voting rights of racial minorities and the lower burden of proof required to establish that those rights were abridged.
Georgia
' A redistricting case now before a federal judge could create a more competitive seat for Democrats in the Atlanta suburbs.
The plaintiffs challenging the congressional map drawn by Georgia Republicans argue that the increasingly diverse population in the Peach State should result in an additional Black-majority district, this one in the western Atlanta metro area. A trial in the case recently concluded and awaits a final ruling by US District Judge Steve Jones.
In 2022, Jones preliminarily ruled that some parts of the Republicans’ redistricting plan likely violated federal law but allowed the map to be used in that year’s midterm elections.
A separate federal case in Georgia challenges the congressional map on constitutional grounds and is slated to go to trial next month.
Currently, Republicans hold nine of the 14 seats in Georgia’s congressional delegation. Black people make up a majority, or close to it, in four districts, including three in the Atlanta area.
Kentucky
The Kentucky Supreme Court could soon decide whether a map drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature amounts to what Democrats assert is an “extreme partisan” gerrymander in violation of the state’s constitution.
Much of the case focuses on disputes over state legislative maps, but the congressional lines also are at stake, with critics saying lawmakers moved Kentucky’s capital city – Democratic-leaning Frankfort – out of the 6th Congressional District and into an oddly shaped – and solidly Republican – 1st District to help shore up Republican odds of holding the 6th District.
The 6th District, represented by GOP Rep. Andy Barr, was one of the more competitive seats in Kentucky under its previous lines. (Democrat Amy McGrath came within 3 points of beating Barr in 2018; last year, Barr won a sixth term under the new lines by 29 points.)
A lower-court judge already has ruled that the Republican-drawn map does not violate the state’s constitution.
Louisiana
The Supreme Court’s decision in Alabama could pave the way for a new congressional map in Louisiana ahead of the 2024 election, but the case has quickly become mired in appeals.
Although Black people make up roughly a third of the state’s population, Louisiana has just one Black lawmaker in its six-member congressional delegation.
A federal judge threw out the state’s Republican-drawn map in 2022, saying it likely violated the Voting Rights Act. Republican officials in the state appealed to the US Supreme Court, which put the lower-court ruling on hold until it decided the Alabama case, which it did in June this year.
Once the high court weighed in on the Alabama case, the legal skirmishes again lurched to life in Louisiana.
Louisiana Republicans have filed an appeal with the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals and successfully halted a district court hearing to discuss imposing a new, court-ordered map.
On Thursday, the US Supreme Court declined to allow the federal district judge to move forward with discussions about drawing a new map while the appeal advances through the courts.
GOP state officials say, among other things, that they are seeking time to redraw the map themselves. Critics of the state’s original map argue that Republicans are using legal maneuvers to delay a new redistricting plan, which could result in a second Democratic-leaning seat.
Legal battles that drag on risk judges invoking the so-called Purcell Principle, a doctrine that limits changing voting procedures and boundaries too close to Election Day to guard against voter confusion.
“Some of the reason it becomes too late is because, in many of these cases, the state is prolonging the litigation … and buying more time with an illegal map,” said Kareem Crayton, senior director for voting and representation at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.
New Mexico
Republicans in New Mexico say the congressional lines drawn by the Democrats who control state government amount to an illegal gerrymander under the state’s constitution.
At stake: a swing district along the US border with Mexico. If Republicans prevail, the seat – now held by a Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez – could become more favorable to Republicans.
A state judge recently upheld the map drawn by Democrats, but the New Mexico Supreme Court is expected to review that order on appeal.
New York
Republicans flipped four US House seats in New York in the 2022 midterm elections, victories that helped secure their party’s majority in the chamber.
Current legal fights in the Empire State over redistricting, however, could erase those gains.
A state court judge oversaw last year’s process of drawing the current map following a long legal battle and the inability of New York’s bipartisan redistricting commission to agree on new lines. But Democrats scored a court victory earlier this year when a state appellate court ruled that the redistricting commission should draw new lines.
Republicans have appealed that decision, and oral arguments are set for mid-November before New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. The commission’s map-making also is on hold.
If Democrats prevail, it could make it easier for their party to pick up as many as six seats now held by Republicans.
North Carolina
North Carolina’s legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority, is drawing new congressional lines that observers could prove a windfall for the GOP and boost the party’s chances of retaining its House majority next year.
The state’s current House delegation is split 7-7 between Democrats and Republicans.
Two proposed maps released in recent days, however, would put three House Democrats in “almost impossible to win” districts, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor and redistricting expert at Western Carolina University.
The affected Democrats would be Reps. Jeff Jackson, who currently represents a Charlotte-area district; Wiley Nickel, who holds a Raleigh-area seat; and Kathy Manning, who represents Greensboro and other parts of north-central North Carolina.
One of the plans under consideration could also knock off a fourth Democrat because it would draw two of the state’s three Black House lawmakers – Reps. Don Davis and Valerie Foushee – into the same district. Under the other proposal, Davis would not face off against Foushee, but his seat would become more friendly toward Republicans while remaining competitive for both parties.
State-level gains in the 2022 midterm elections have given the GOP new sway over redistricting in this swing state. Last year, Republicans flipped North Carolina’s Supreme Court, whose members are chosen in partisan elections. The new GOP majority on the court this year tossed out a 2022 ruling by the then-Democratic leaning court against partisan gerrymandering.
A map that had been created after the Democratic-led high court’s ruling resulted in the current even split in the state’s House delegation.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper does not have veto power over redistricting legislation.
South Carolina
A redistricting case pending before the US Supreme Court centers on the future of a Charleston-area seat held by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who made headlines recently for joining House GOP hard-liners in voting to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
Earlier this year, a three-judge panel concluded that lines for the coastal 1st Congressional District, as drawn by state GOP lawmakers, amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The Republican lawmakers appealed to the US Supreme Court. And, during oral arguments earlier this month, several justices in the court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism that South Carolina officials had engaged in an improper racial gerrymander and seemed inclined to reinstate the lawmakers’ map.
Utah
The state Supreme Court, in a case it heard in July, is considering whether it even has the authority to weigh in on map-drawing decisions by the GOP-controlled state legislature.
Republican state officials argue that the court’s power over redistricting decisions is limited.
Advocacy groups and a handful of voters are challenging a congressional map that further carved up Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County between four decidedly Republican districts.
Doing so, the plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit, “takes a slice of Salt Lake County and grafts it onto large swaths of the rest of Utah,” allowing Republican voters in rural areas and smaller cities far away from Salt Lake to “dictate the outcome of elections.”
Other states
Redistricting fights over congressional maps are ongoing in several other states – ranging from Texas to Tennessee – but those cases might not be resolved in time to affect next year’s elections.
CNN’s Ethan Cohen and Renée Rigdon contributed to this report.
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In North Carolina, the Republicans who control the state legislature are crafting district lines that could flip as many as four Democratic-held seats. Democrats, meanwhile, could pick up seats in legal skirmishes now playing out in New York, Louisiana, Georgia and other states.
In all, the fate of anywhere from 14 to 18 House seats across nearly a dozen states could turn on the results of these fights. Republicans currently hold just a five-seat edge in the US House. That razor-edge majority has been underscored in recent weeks by the GOP’s chaotic struggle to elect a new speaker.
“Given that the majority is so narrow, every outcome matters to the fight for House control in 2024,” said David Wasserman, who follows redistricting closely as senior editor and elections analyst for The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
And with fewer competitive districts that swing between the political parties, Wasserman added, “every line change is almost existential.”
Experts say several other factors have helped lead to the slew of consequential – and unresolved – redistricting disputes, just months before the first primaries of the 2024 cycle.
They include pandemic-related delays in completing the 2020 census – the once-a-decade population count that kicks off congressional and state legislative redistricting – as well as a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that threw decisions about partisan gerrymandering back to state courts.
In addition, some litigation had been frozen in place until the US Supreme Court’s surprise ruling in June, which found that a Republican-crafted redistricting plan in Alabama disadvantaged Black voters in the state and was in violation of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
That decision “is functionally reanimating all of these dormant cases,” said Adam Kincaid, the president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which supports the GOP’s redistricting efforts.
Kincaid said it’s too soon to tell whether Republicans or Democrats will emerge with the advantage by Election Day 2024. In his view, either party could gain or lose only about two seats over redistricting.
In many of the closely watched states where action is pending, just a single seat hangs in the balance, with two notable exceptions: North Carolina and New York, where multiple seats are at stake. Republicans control the map-drawing in the Tar Heel State, while the job could fall to Democrats in New York, potentially canceling out each party’s gains.
“Democrats kind of need to run the table in the rest of these states” to gain any edge, said Nick Seabrook, a political scientist at the University of North Florida and the author of the 2022 book “One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America.”
Here’s a state-by-state look at recent and upcoming redistricting disputes that could shape the 2024 race for control of the US House:
Alabama
In one of the cycle’s highest-profile redistricting cases, a three-judge panel in Alabama approved a map that creates a second congressional district with a substantial Black population. Before the court action, Alabama – which is 27% Black – had only one Black-majority congressional district out of seven seats.
The fight over the map went all the way to the Supreme Court – which issued a surprise ruling, affirming a lower-court opinion that ordered Alabama to include a second Black-majority district or “something quite close to it.” Under the map that will be in place for the 2024 election, the state’s 2nd District now loops into Mobile to create a seat where nearly half the population is Black.
The high court’s 5-4 decision in June saw two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, side with the three liberals to uphold the lower-court ruling. Their action kept intact a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act: that it’s illegal to draw maps that effectively keep Black voters from electing a candidate of their choice.
The ruling has reverberated around the country and could affect the outcome of similar court cases underway in Louisiana and Georgia that center on whether Republican-drawn maps improperly diluted Black political power in those states.
Given that Black voters in Alabama have traditionally backed Democrats, the party now stands a better chance of winning the newly reconfigured district and sending to of its members to Congress after next year’s elections.
The new map – approved in recent days by the lower-court judges – also could result in two Black US House members from Alabama serving together for the first time in state history.
Florida A state judge in September struck down congressional lines for northern Florida that had been championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruling that the Republican governor’s map had improperly diluted Black voting power.
This case, unlike the Alabama fight decided by the US Supreme Court, centers on provisions in the state constitution.
The judge concluded that the congressional boundaries – which essentially dismantled a seat once held by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, that connected Black communities across a northern reach of the Florida – violated the state’s Fair Districts amendments, enacted by voters. One amendment specifically bars the state from drawing a district that diminishes the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”
Arguments before an appeals court are slated for later this month, with litigants seeking a decision by late November. The case is expected to land before the all-Republican state Supreme Court, where DeSantis appointees hold most seats.
A separate federal case – which argues that the map violates the US Constitution – is pending.
But observers say the outcome of the state litigation is more likely than the federal case to determine whether Florida lawmakers must restore the North Florida district, given the state constitution’s especially strong protections for the voting rights of racial minorities and the lower burden of proof required to establish that those rights were abridged.
Georgia
' A redistricting case now before a federal judge could create a more competitive seat for Democrats in the Atlanta suburbs.
The plaintiffs challenging the congressional map drawn by Georgia Republicans argue that the increasingly diverse population in the Peach State should result in an additional Black-majority district, this one in the western Atlanta metro area. A trial in the case recently concluded and awaits a final ruling by US District Judge Steve Jones.
In 2022, Jones preliminarily ruled that some parts of the Republicans’ redistricting plan likely violated federal law but allowed the map to be used in that year’s midterm elections.
A separate federal case in Georgia challenges the congressional map on constitutional grounds and is slated to go to trial next month.
Currently, Republicans hold nine of the 14 seats in Georgia’s congressional delegation. Black people make up a majority, or close to it, in four districts, including three in the Atlanta area.
Kentucky
The Kentucky Supreme Court could soon decide whether a map drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature amounts to what Democrats assert is an “extreme partisan” gerrymander in violation of the state’s constitution.
Much of the case focuses on disputes over state legislative maps, but the congressional lines also are at stake, with critics saying lawmakers moved Kentucky’s capital city – Democratic-leaning Frankfort – out of the 6th Congressional District and into an oddly shaped – and solidly Republican – 1st District to help shore up Republican odds of holding the 6th District.
The 6th District, represented by GOP Rep. Andy Barr, was one of the more competitive seats in Kentucky under its previous lines. (Democrat Amy McGrath came within 3 points of beating Barr in 2018; last year, Barr won a sixth term under the new lines by 29 points.)
A lower-court judge already has ruled that the Republican-drawn map does not violate the state’s constitution.
Louisiana
The Supreme Court’s decision in Alabama could pave the way for a new congressional map in Louisiana ahead of the 2024 election, but the case has quickly become mired in appeals.
Although Black people make up roughly a third of the state’s population, Louisiana has just one Black lawmaker in its six-member congressional delegation.
A federal judge threw out the state’s Republican-drawn map in 2022, saying it likely violated the Voting Rights Act. Republican officials in the state appealed to the US Supreme Court, which put the lower-court ruling on hold until it decided the Alabama case, which it did in June this year.
Once the high court weighed in on the Alabama case, the legal skirmishes again lurched to life in Louisiana.
Louisiana Republicans have filed an appeal with the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals and successfully halted a district court hearing to discuss imposing a new, court-ordered map.
On Thursday, the US Supreme Court declined to allow the federal district judge to move forward with discussions about drawing a new map while the appeal advances through the courts.
GOP state officials say, among other things, that they are seeking time to redraw the map themselves. Critics of the state’s original map argue that Republicans are using legal maneuvers to delay a new redistricting plan, which could result in a second Democratic-leaning seat.
Legal battles that drag on risk judges invoking the so-called Purcell Principle, a doctrine that limits changing voting procedures and boundaries too close to Election Day to guard against voter confusion.
“Some of the reason it becomes too late is because, in many of these cases, the state is prolonging the litigation … and buying more time with an illegal map,” said Kareem Crayton, senior director for voting and representation at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.
New Mexico
Republicans in New Mexico say the congressional lines drawn by the Democrats who control state government amount to an illegal gerrymander under the state’s constitution.
At stake: a swing district along the US border with Mexico. If Republicans prevail, the seat – now held by a Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez – could become more favorable to Republicans.
A state judge recently upheld the map drawn by Democrats, but the New Mexico Supreme Court is expected to review that order on appeal.
New York
Current legal fights in the Empire State over redistricting, however, could erase those gains.
A state court judge oversaw last year’s process of drawing the current map following a long legal battle and the inability of New York’s bipartisan redistricting commission to agree on new lines. But Democrats scored a court victory earlier this year when a state appellate court ruled that the redistricting commission should draw new lines.
Republicans have appealed that decision, and oral arguments are set for mid-November before New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. The commission’s map-making also is on hold.
If Democrats prevail, it could make it easier for their party to pick up as many as six seats now held by Republicans.
North Carolina
North Carolina’s legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority, is drawing new congressional lines that observers could prove a windfall for the GOP and boost the party’s chances of retaining its House majority next year.
The state’s current House delegation is split 7-7 between Democrats and Republicans.
Two proposed maps released in recent days, however, would put three House Democrats in “almost impossible to win” districts, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor and redistricting expert at Western Carolina University.
The affected Democrats would be Reps. Jeff Jackson, who currently represents a Charlotte-area district; Wiley Nickel, who holds a Raleigh-area seat; and Kathy Manning, who represents Greensboro and other parts of north-central North Carolina.
One of the plans under consideration could also knock off a fourth Democrat because it would draw two of the state’s three Black House lawmakers – Reps. Don Davis and Valerie Foushee – into the same district. Under the other proposal, Davis would not face off against Foushee, but his seat would become more friendly toward Republicans while remaining competitive for both parties.
State-level gains in the 2022 midterm elections have given the GOP new sway over redistricting in this swing state. Last year, Republicans flipped North Carolina’s Supreme Court, whose members are chosen in partisan elections. The new GOP majority on the court this year tossed out a 2022 ruling by the then-Democratic leaning court against partisan gerrymandering.
A map that had been created after the Democratic-led high court’s ruling resulted in the current even split in the state’s House delegation.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper does not have veto power over redistricting legislation.
South Carolina
A redistricting case pending before the US Supreme Court centers on the future of a Charleston-area seat held by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who made headlines recently for joining House GOP hard-liners in voting to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker.
Earlier this year, a three-judge panel concluded that lines for the coastal 1st Congressional District, as drawn by state GOP lawmakers, amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The Republican lawmakers appealed to the US Supreme Court. And, during oral arguments earlier this month, several justices in the court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism that South Carolina officials had engaged in an improper racial gerrymander and seemed inclined to reinstate the lawmakers’ map.
Utah
The state Supreme Court, in a case it heard in July, is considering whether it even has the authority to weigh in on map-drawing decisions by the GOP-controlled state legislature.
Republican state officials argue that the court’s power over redistricting decisions is limited.
Advocacy groups and a handful of voters are challenging a congressional map that further carved up Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County between four decidedly Republican districts.
Doing so, the plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit, “takes a slice of Salt Lake County and grafts it onto large swaths of the rest of Utah,” allowing Republican voters in rural areas and smaller cities far away from Salt Lake to “dictate the outcome of elections.”
Other states
Redistricting fights over congressional maps are ongoing in several other states – ranging from Texas to Tennessee – but those cases might not be resolved in time to affect next year’s elections.
CNN’s Ethan Cohen and Renée Rigdon contributed to this report.
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Androcentrism (Ancient Greek, ἀνήρ, "man, male"[1]) is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing a masculine point of view at the center of one's world view, culture, and history, thereby culturally marginalizing femininity. The related adjective is androcentric, while the practice of placing the feminine point of view at the center is gynocentric.
Androcentrism (Ancient Greek, ἀνήρ, "man, male"[1]) is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing a masculine point of view at the center of one's world view, culture, and history, thereby culturally marginalizing femininity. The related adjective is androcentric, while the practice of placing the feminine point of view at the center is gynocentric.
Etymology Edit
The term androcentrism was introduced as an analytic concept by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in a scientific debate. Perkins Gilman described androcentric practices in society and the resulting problems they created in her investigation on The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture, published in 1911.[2] Because of this androcentrism can be understood as a societal fixation on masculinity whereby all things originate. Under androcentrism, masculinity is normative and all things outside of masculinity are defined as other. According to Perkins Gilman, masculine patterns of life and masculine mindsets claimed universality while female patterns were considered as deviance.[2]
Education Edit
Some universities such as the University of Oxford consciously practiced a numerus clausus and restricted the number of female undergraduates they accepted.[3]
Literature Edit
Research by Dr. David Anderson and Dr. Mykol Hamilton has documented the under-representation of female characters in a sample of 200 books that included top-selling children's books from 2001 and a seven-year sample of Caldecott award-winning books.[4] There were nearly twice as many male main characters as female main characters, and male characters appeared in illustrations 53 percent more than female characters. Most of the plot-lines centered on the male characters and their experiences of life. [4]
The arts Edit
In 1985, a group of female artists from New York, the Guerrilla Girls, began to protest the under-representation of female artists. According to them, male artists and the male viewpoint continued to dominate the visual art world. In a 1989 poster (displayed on NYC buses) titled "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" they reported that less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections of the Met Museum were women, but 85% of the nudes were female.[5]
Over 20 years later, women were still under-represented in the art world. In 2007, Jerry Saltz (journalist from the New York Times) criticized the Museum of Modern Art for undervaluing work by female artists. Of the 400 works of art he counted in the Museum of Modern Art, only 14 were by women (3.5%).[6] Saltz also found a significant under-representation of female artists in the six other art institutions he studied.[7]
Generic male language Edit
Further information: Male as norm See also: Gender-neutral language In literature, the use of masculine language to refer to men, women, intersex, and non-binary people may indicate a male or androcentric bias in society where men are seen as the 'norm', and women are seen as the 'other'. Philosophy scholar Jennifer Saul argues that the use of male generic language oppresses women in society.[8] In recent years, some writers have started to use more gender-inclusive language (for instance, using gender-inclusive words like humankind, person, partner, spouse, businessperson, firefighter, chairperson, and police officer).
Many studies have shown that male generic language is not interpreted as truly gender-inclusive.[9] Psychological research has shown that, in comparison to unbiased terms such as "they" and "humankind", masculine terms lead to male-biased mental imagery in the mind of both the listener and the communicator.
Three studies by Mykol Hamilton show that there is not only a male → people bias but also a people → male bias.[10] In other words, a masculine bias remains even when people are exposed to only gender neutral language (although the bias is lessened). In two of her studies, half of the participants (after exposure to gender neutral language) had male-biased imagery but the rest of the participants displayed no gender bias at all. In her third study, only males showed a masculine-bias (after exposure to gender neutral language) – females showed no gender bias. Hamilton asserted that this may be due to the fact that males have grown up being able to think more easily than females of "any person" as generic "he," since "he" applies to them. Further, of the two options for neutral language, neutral language that explicitly names women (e.g., "he or she") reduces androcentrism more effectively than neutral language that makes no mention of gender whatsoever (e.g., "human").[11][12]
Feminist anthropologist Sally Slocum argues that there has been a longstanding male bias in anthropological thought as evidenced by terminology used when referring to society, culture, and humankind. According to Slocum, "All too often the word 'man' is used in such an ambiguous fashion that it is impossible to decide whether it refers to males or just the human species in general, including both males and females."[13]
Men's language will be judged as the 'norm' and anything that women do linguistically will be judged negatively against this.[14] The speech of a socially subordinate group will be interpreted as linguistically inadequate against that used by socially dominant groups.[15] It has been found that women use more hedges and qualifiers than men. Feminine speech has been viewed as more tentative and has been deemed powerless speech. This is based on the view that masculine speech is the standard.
Generic male symbols Edit
On the Internet, many avatars are gender-neutral (such as an image of a smiley face). However, when an avatar is human and discernibly gendered, it usually appears to be a man.[16][17]
See also Edit
' icon Society portal Honorary male Male as norm Male supremacy Manosphere Patriarchy Phallocentrism References Edit
Liddell, Henry G.; Scott, Robert; Stuart Jones, Henry (1940). A Greek–English Lexicon. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 499596825. Perkins Gilman, Charlotte (1911). The man-made world: or, Our androcentric culture. New York: Charlton. OCLC 988836210. Frances Lannon (30 October 2008). "Her Oxford". Times Higher Education. Hamilton, Mykol C.; Anderson, David; Broaddus, Michelle; Young, Kate (December 2006). "Gender stereotyping and under-representation of female characters in 200 popular children's picture books: a twenty-first century update". Sex Roles. 55 (11–12): 757–765. doi:10.1007/s11199-006-9128-6. S2CID 146234748. Guerilla Girls poster 1989. Guerrilla Girls. Archived from the original on 25 November 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Saltz, Jerry (18 November 2007). "Where are All the Women? On MoMA's Identity Politics". New York. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Saltz, Jerry (17 November 2007). "Data: Gender Studies. Is MoMA the worst offender? We tallied how women fare in six other art-world institutions". New York. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Saul, Jennifer (2004). "Feminist philosophy of language". plato.stanford.edu. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online). Retrieved 17 March 2011. Studies: Bojarska, Katarzyna (March 2013). "Responding to lexical stimuli with gender associations: a cognitive–cultural model". Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 32 (1): 46–61. doi:10.1177/0261927X12463008. S2CID 145006661. Hamilton, Mykol C. (December 1988). "Using masculine generics: Does generic he increase male bias in the user's imagery?". Sex Roles. 19 (11–12): 785–799. doi:10.1007/BF00288993. S2CID 144493073. Hamilton, Mykol C.; Henley, Nancy M. (August 1982). Sex bias in language: effects on the reader/hearer's cognitions. Paper presented at a conference of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles. DeLoache, Judy S.; Cassidy, Deborah J.; Carpenter, C. Jan (August 1987). "The three bears are all boys: Mothers' gender labeling of neutral picture book characters". Sex Roles. 17 (3–4): 163–178. doi:10.1007/BF00287623. S2CID 143834265. Hamilton, Mykol C. (November 1991). "Masculine bias in the attribution of personhood: people = male, male = people". Psychology of Women Quarterly. 15 (3): 393–402. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1991.tb00415.x. S2CID 143533483. Khosroshahi, Fatemeh (December 1989). "Penguins don't care, but women do: A social identity analysis of a Whorfian problem". Language in Society. 18 (4): 505–525. doi:10.1017/S0047404500013889. S2CID 145728097. Bailey, April H.; LaFrance, Marianne (June 2017). "Who counts as human? Antecedents to androcentric behavior". Sex Roles. 76 (11–12): 682–693. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0648-4. S2CID 148460313. Slocum, Sally (2012) [1975], "Woman the gatherer: male bias in anthropology", in McGee, R. Jon; Warms, Richard L., eds. (11 July 2011). Anthropological theory: an introductory history. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 399–407. ISBN 9780078034886. Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2019). Language, Power, and Society: An Introduction. Wolfram, W. and Schilling-Estes, N. (1998) American English: Dialect and Variation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Wade, Lisa (4 May 2009). "Default avatars: a collection". The Society Pages | Sociological Images. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Bailey, April H.; LaFrance, Marianne (2016). "Anonymously male: Social media avatar icons are implicitly male and resistant to change". Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 10 (4): 8. doi:10.5817/CP2016-4-8. Literature Edit Keller, Evelyn (1985). Reflections on gender and science. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300032918. Ginzberg, Ruth (1989), "Uncovering gynocentric science", in Tuana, Nancy, ed. (1989). Feminism and science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 69–84. ISBN 9780253205254. Harding, Sandra; Hintikka, Merrill B., eds. (1983). Discovering reality: feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology, and philosophy of science. Dordrecht, Holland Boston Hingham, Massachusetts: Kluwer Boston. ISBN 9789027714961. Harding, Sandra (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780335153596. Harding, Sandra (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge?: thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801497469.
Etymology Edit
The term androcentrism was introduced as an analytic concept by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in a scientific debate. Perkins Gilman described androcentric practices in society and the resulting problems they created in her investigation on The Man-Made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture, published in 1911.[2] Because of this androcentrism can be understood as a societal fixation on masculinity whereby all things originate. Under androcentrism, masculinity is normative and all things outside of masculinity are defined as other. According to Perkins Gilman, masculine patterns of life and masculine mindsets claimed universality while female patterns were considered as deviance.[2]
Education Edit
Some universities such as the University of Oxford consciously practiced a numerus clausus and restricted the number of female undergraduates they accepted.[3]
Literature Edit
Research by Dr. David Anderson and Dr. Mykol Hamilton has documented the under-representation of female characters in a sample of 200 books that included top-selling children's books from 2001 and a seven-year sample of Caldecott award-winning books.[4] There were nearly twice as many male main characters as female main characters, and male characters appeared in illustrations 53 percent more than female characters. Most of the plot-lines centered on the male characters and their experiences of life. [4]
The arts Edit
In 1985, a group of female artists from New York, the Guerrilla Girls, began to protest the under-representation of female artists. According to them, male artists and the male viewpoint continued to dominate the visual art world. In a 1989 poster (displayed on NYC buses) titled "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?" they reported that less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections of the Met Museum were women, but 85% of the nudes were female.[5]
Over 20 years later, women were still under-represented in the art world. In 2007, Jerry Saltz (journalist from the New York Times) criticized the Museum of Modern Art for undervaluing work by female artists. Of the 400 works of art he counted in the Museum of Modern Art, only 14 were by women (3.5%).[6] Saltz also found a significant under-representation of female artists in the six other art institutions he studied.[7]
Generic male language Edit
Further information: Male as norm See also: Gender-neutral language In literature, the use of masculine language to refer to men, women, intersex, and non-binary people may indicate a male or androcentric bias in society where men are seen as the 'norm', and women are seen as the 'other'. Philosophy scholar Jennifer Saul argues that the use of male generic language oppresses women in society.[8] In recent years, some writers have started to use more gender-inclusive language (for instance, using gender-inclusive words like humankind, person, partner, spouse, businessperson, firefighter, chairperson, and police officer).
Many studies have shown that male generic language is not interpreted as truly gender-inclusive.[9] Psychological research has shown that, in comparison to unbiased terms such as "they" and "humankind", masculine terms lead to male-biased mental imagery in the mind of both the listener and the communicator.
Three studies by Mykol Hamilton show that there is not only a male → people bias but also a people → male bias.[10] In other words, a masculine bias remains even when people are exposed to only gender neutral language (although the bias is lessened). In two of her studies, half of the participants (after exposure to gender neutral language) had male-biased imagery but the rest of the participants displayed no gender bias at all. In her third study, only males showed a masculine-bias (after exposure to gender neutral language) – females showed no gender bias. Hamilton asserted that this may be due to the fact that males have grown up being able to think more easily than females of "any person" as generic "he," since "he" applies to them. Further, of the two options for neutral language, neutral language that explicitly names women (e.g., "he or she") reduces androcentrism more effectively than neutral language that makes no mention of gender whatsoever (e.g., "human").[11][12]
Feminist anthropologist Sally Slocum argues that there has been a longstanding male bias in anthropological thought as evidenced by terminology used when referring to society, culture, and humankind. According to Slocum, "All too often the word 'man' is used in such an ambiguous fashion that it is impossible to decide whether it refers to males or just the human species in general, including both males and females."[13]
Men's language will be judged as the 'norm' and anything that women do linguistically will be judged negatively against this.[14] The speech of a socially subordinate group will be interpreted as linguistically inadequate against that used by socially dominant groups.[15] It has been found that women use more hedges and qualifiers than men. Feminine speech has been viewed as more tentative and has been deemed powerless speech. This is based on the view that masculine speech is the standard.
Generic male symbols Edit
On the Internet, many avatars are gender-neutral (such as an image of a smiley face). However, when an avatar is human and discernibly gendered, it usually appears to be a man.[16][17]
See also Edit
' icon Society portal Honorary male Male as norm Male supremacy Manosphere Patriarchy Phallocentrism References Edit
Liddell, Henry G.; Scott, Robert; Stuart Jones, Henry (1940). A Greek–English Lexicon. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. OCLC 499596825. Perkins Gilman, Charlotte (1911). The man-made world: or, Our androcentric culture. New York: Charlton. OCLC 988836210. Frances Lannon (30 October 2008). "Her Oxford". Times Higher Education. Hamilton, Mykol C.; Anderson, David; Broaddus, Michelle; Young, Kate (December 2006). "Gender stereotyping and under-representation of female characters in 200 popular children's picture books: a twenty-first century update". Sex Roles. 55 (11–12): 757–765. doi:10.1007/s11199-006-9128-6. S2CID 146234748. Guerilla Girls poster 1989. Guerrilla Girls. Archived from the original on 25 November 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Saltz, Jerry (18 November 2007). "Where are All the Women? On MoMA's Identity Politics". New York. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Saltz, Jerry (17 November 2007). "Data: Gender Studies. Is MoMA the worst offender? We tallied how women fare in six other art-world institutions". New York. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Saul, Jennifer (2004). "Feminist philosophy of language". plato.stanford.edu. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online). Retrieved 17 March 2011. Studies: Bojarska, Katarzyna (March 2013). "Responding to lexical stimuli with gender associations: a cognitive–cultural model". Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 32 (1): 46–61. doi:10.1177/0261927X12463008. S2CID 145006661. Hamilton, Mykol C. (December 1988). "Using masculine generics: Does generic he increase male bias in the user's imagery?". Sex Roles. 19 (11–12): 785–799. doi:10.1007/BF00288993. S2CID 144493073. Hamilton, Mykol C.; Henley, Nancy M. (August 1982). Sex bias in language: effects on the reader/hearer's cognitions. Paper presented at a conference of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles. DeLoache, Judy S.; Cassidy, Deborah J.; Carpenter, C. Jan (August 1987). "The three bears are all boys: Mothers' gender labeling of neutral picture book characters". Sex Roles. 17 (3–4): 163–178. doi:10.1007/BF00287623. S2CID 143834265. Hamilton, Mykol C. (November 1991). "Masculine bias in the attribution of personhood: people = male, male = people". Psychology of Women Quarterly. 15 (3): 393–402. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1991.tb00415.x. S2CID 143533483. Khosroshahi, Fatemeh (December 1989). "Penguins don't care, but women do: A social identity analysis of a Whorfian problem". Language in Society. 18 (4): 505–525. doi:10.1017/S0047404500013889. S2CID 145728097. Bailey, April H.; LaFrance, Marianne (June 2017). "Who counts as human? Antecedents to androcentric behavior". Sex Roles. 76 (11–12): 682–693. doi:10.1007/s11199-016-0648-4. S2CID 148460313. Slocum, Sally (2012) [1975], "Woman the gatherer: male bias in anthropology", in McGee, R. Jon; Warms, Richard L., eds. (11 July 2011). Anthropological theory: an introductory history. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 399–407. ISBN 9780078034886. Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2019). Language, Power, and Society: An Introduction. Wolfram, W. and Schilling-Estes, N. (1998) American English: Dialect and Variation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Wade, Lisa (4 May 2009). "Default avatars: a collection". The Society Pages | Sociological Images. University of Minnesota. Retrieved 17 March 2011. Bailey, April H.; LaFrance, Marianne (2016). "Anonymously male: Social media avatar icons are implicitly male and resistant to change". Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 10 (4): 8. doi:10.5817/CP2016-4-8. Literature Edit Keller, Evelyn (1985). Reflections on gender and science. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300032918. Ginzberg, Ruth (1989), "Uncovering gynocentric science", in Tuana, Nancy, ed. (1989). Feminism and science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 69–84. ISBN 9780253205254. Harding, Sandra; Hintikka, Merrill B., eds. (1983). Discovering reality: feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology, and philosophy of science. Dordrecht, Holland Boston Hingham, Massachusetts: Kluwer Boston. ISBN 9789027714961. Harding, Sandra (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780335153596. Harding, Sandra (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge?: thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801497469.
The Moral Imperative of Unconditional Decolonization. By: Yanis Iqbal
Israeli terror against Palestinians is behind the war in the Mideast By: John Wojick
https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/israeli-terror-against-palestinians-is-behind-the-war-in-the-mideast-by-john-wojick
10/12/2023 Israeli terror against Palestinians is behind the war in the Mideast By: John Wojick 1 COMMENT Picture People stand outside a mosque destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct.8, 2023. AP Photo/Yousef Masoud At a minimum hundreds of Israelis and even more Palestinians have already been killed in violence now marked by constant barbaric air raids Israel has unleashed on the territory of Gaza, a small enclave near the southern tip of Israel that is literally an outdoor prison for its 2 million Palestinian inhabitants. People in Gaza cannot leave there and have no recognized papers that allow them to travel anywhere in the world. The tiny “prison” enclave might work for 40,000 people but not for 2 million. The close proximity of the population to one another makes Israeli attacks even more deadly than they might otherwise be. NBC correspondent Richard Engel made note of this on Sunday when he said the attack on Israel, was not, as many in the media were saying, a “surprise.” He expected it, he said, based on the suffering of the Palestinian people. Almost immediately the editor of the Jerusalem Post was put on so he could counter what Engel had said. He claimed that setting up Gaza as an “open air prison” was the result of Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis. When truth makes it through to corporate media it often is quickly extinguished. Claims by the entire corporate media in the West that “Israel was caught off guard” by the Hamas attacks late last week lack even a shred of credibility. For millions of Palestinians that “war” or the “long war,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims it will be, didn’t begin on Saturday. Recent actions by Israel in its cruel occupation of Palestinian land and refusal of the West, led by the United States, to do anything to curb those actions, are responsible for the slaughter underway now in Gaza – a slaughter that could well expand in the region and result in many thousands of deaths. Netanyahu heads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. It is labeled fascist even by opposition parties in Israel itself, including the Communist Party. Some of its own ministers agree: its Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, describes himself as a “fascist homophobe.” The violence results from the more extreme assaults on Palestinians in the recent period. The infamous Nation-State Law of 2018 formalized the subordinate status of the one-fifth of its citizens who make up the “Israeli Arabs” (a term which is itself used because Israel refuses to recognize Palestine as a nation or Palestinians as a people). Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch agree that Israel is an apartheid state. Amnesty has declared that the routine “massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians” amounted to a single overarching system of repression “which amounts to apartheid under international law.” Yet not only has Israel operated such a system for years, it got radically worse this year. Hundreds of Palestinians had been killed in 2023 before Hamas launched its assault on Saturday; The United Nations already deemed it the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2006. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bid to overhaul Israel’s judiciary and give an increasingly far-right Knesset the ability to overrule the Supreme Court was done not just to keep himself in power but to speed up the colonization and occupation of Palestinian land. Planning a new “national guard” His racist Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has been promised a new “national guard” to command that will terrorize Palestinian communities. In the last month alone there have been 700 brutal attacks by West Bank Israeli settlers against innocent Palestinian civilians. It is this savage regime that the West, led by the United States, is supporting. Talk of a “peace process” that the U.S. claims it supports is a very sad and deadly falsehood as Israel has recently only stepped up its campaign to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem and imprison or kill Palestinians on a daily basis. The Communist Party USA has strongly condemned the Israeli attacks on Palestinians and U.S. support for the policies of the apartheid state: “We join with the Communist Party of Israel, the Democratic Front for Equality and Peace (Hadash), our fraternal parties in Palestine, and other democratic and progressive forces around the world in placing full responsibility on Israel’s government for this weekend’s rapid escalation of military confrontation between Hamas and Israeli forces. The CPUSA joins the CPI and Hadash in decrying civilian deaths. The CPI and Hadash write “Even in difficult days like this, we repeat and voice our unequivocal condemnation of any harm to innocent civilians and call for their removal from the bloodshed. We send our condolences to all the victims of the occupation, Arabs and Jews alike.” ‘The U.S. government is the main contributor to Israel’s military budget to the tune of $3.3 billion this year alone and also bears responsibility for the escalation. Adding to the danger and the region’s instability, the U.S. continues to broker unprincipled alliances and economic agreements between Israel’s reactionary anti-democratic apartheid-like state on one side, and the right-wing Arab monarchies on the other. The repressive political regimes of these two sets of states mirror one another. ‘Their machinations undercut the Palestinian struggle for human rights and political sovereignty while bolstering U.S. political, economic, and military supremacy in the region.” In a joint statement, the CP of Israel and Hadash cite provocations – not reported in mainstream U.S. news sites – during the week leading up to the Hamas attack on Israeli territory. Settlers, they report, were allowed to run amok throughout the occupied territories under the auspices of the Israeli government. “They desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque and carried out another pogrom in Huwara,” they wrote. A mob of hundreds of Israeli settlers marched on the town of Huwara torching cars and homes while the Israeli army stood by. The attacks by Hamas were the result, not the cause of this week’s escalation. “This escalation endangers the entire region in a regional and dangerous war – which the right-wing government has been fueling since its first day,” says the Israeli CP. Demand Biden act now to end war ‘The CPUSA demands the Biden Administration act now to end the war and help bring about a political solution that upholds the rights of the Palestinian people. This must include ending military support to Israel. We call on the people of our country to make their feelings known in every way possible including protests. The full statement of the CPUSA appears separately on this page. All we get from U.S. news outlets are reports of civilian Israeli deaths, bombed Israeli buildings, burnt-out cars, and military and civilian hostages taken. The New York Times regurgitates statements from the Biden administration. They report statements from the Biden administration that have empowered Israel’s attacks on Palestinians yet they ignore the Israeli military and settler murders of many hundreds of Palestinians, including children, this year alone. What is missing from The New York Times is that recent Israeli governments, including the current one, have explicitly stated that Palestinians shall have no rights. All this violence against Palestinians and destruction of their lives and culture has taken place with active approval of Israel’s allies, mainly the United States. Also not mentioned in Western media is that the Biden administration is trying to arrange for “peace” and diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. What underlies this effort is an important thing the U.S. wants in return – an increase in oil production by Saudi Arabia to offset the damage the U.S. has done to the world economy with its war policy in Ukraine. U.S. Sanctions against Russia, China, Venezuela, and other countries have cut the supply of oil, driving up prices in Europe and elsewhere. Deals between apartheid Israel and right-wing Arab governments like Saudi Arabia, the Biden administration hopes, will increase the oil supply and prevent countries from coming out against U.S. sanctioning of Russia and other countries. Oil prices soared after the Russian invasion of Ukraine because the U.S. blockaded the purchase of Russian fossil fuel supplies by its European allies and because the U.S. and some of those allies criminally blew up the NordStream pipelines, further cutting the potential for those supplies. One U.S. administration after another has mouthed slogans that support Palestinian rights while actively working to prevent any progress that might ensure them. The U.S. Congress has repeatedly welcomed and celebrated one Israeli Prime Minister after another, including Netanyahu, all of them war criminals. Inside Israel, Netanyahu is using the conflict to solidify support behind his apartheid regime. Yair Lapid, for example, a so-called centrist politician is entering the right-wing Netanyahu coalition so that Netanyahu will have a “broader” group to rely on for whatever he wants to do. Another minister in the Netanyahu government, the right-wing security minister, Ben Gvir, has used the conflict to call for stepping up the attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank against Palestinian civilians and he is using the conflict to call for quick approval of 5,000 new settlements in that occupied territory. The war we see unfolding now in the Mideast is the inevitable result of preventing justice in the Middle East. it is both the creation of widening fascism and racism in apartheid Israel and the fueling of burning – and now exploding – anger among Palestinians against it. Author John Wojcik is Editor-in-Chief of People's World. He joined the staff as Labor Editor in May 2007 after working as a union meat cutter in northern New Jersey. There, he served as a shop steward and a member of a UFCW contract negotiating committee. In the 1970s and '80s, he was a political action reporter for the Daily World, this newspaper's predecessor, and was active in electoral politics in Brooklyn, New York. https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/israeli-terror-against-palestinians-is-behind-the-war-in-the-mideast-by-john-wojick
Vote the Republican Party into a weak minority
What is to be done to move the Republican Party to political, social and economic prohibition ?
You say it's their freedom of speech. But we abolished private property rights when we abolished slavery. Private property is more sacred than freedom of speech in America , no ?So, we may do it by fundamental American jurisprudence.
Charles Brown Abolish the GOP like we did the Whig Party. Nothing lasts forever. 1 hr · Like · 1
Fern Woodfork Amen Charles!!! Charles Brown AMERICANS FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
_REPUBLICANS _ !! Are Failing to Elect a Speaker, not “Congress “
We got to have a speaker, (but) I don't think we're going to have anybody soon," said George Ramge, 72, of San Diego, a building contractor and political independent. "There's a lot of Hollywood politicians out there getting their time on TV, and I don't think they're really serving the people's purpose."
"They need to be functioning, and that's the only way they're going to function," said Carl Hickey, 85, of Monkton, Maryland, a retired Methodist minister and a Democrat, said in a follow-up interview after being called in the poll.
Just 25% of those surveyed say they don't care whether a speaker is elected, on the theory that the impasse is preventing Congress from wasting more taxpayer money.
"It's not like they do anything anyways," said Dustin Gibbons, 34, a home warranty manager from Queen Creek, Arizona, and a Republican. "I don't think that a speaker in the House is going to do anything other than, you know, just keep kicking that ball along."
The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cell phone Tuesday through Friday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Friday, October 20, 2023
Strikes work
Thursday, October 19, 2023
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