The Problem with LGBTQIA+

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By Robert Jensen



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The Problem with LGBTQIA+
By Robert Jensen

This essay is adapted from the chapter of It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics (by Robert Jensen) that the publisher would not include in the printed book or e-book. But that chapter is available free online. For more details, go to https://robertwjensen.org/books/its-debatable/.


Many people like to joke about the expanding acronym for what began as the lesbian/gay movement and has grown to LGBTQIA+ (for the time being, at least).

The problem isn’t with the number of letters, unwieldy though it may be, but the way the letters don’t all fit together very well, especially the T. Linking transgenderism to the movement for lesbian and gay male liberation obscures how fundamentally different the two movements are.

Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals have long argued that their sexual orientation is not pathological and that they do not need treatment, but simply need to be left alone, free from violence and discrimination. That’s why the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans) label is confusing—the L, G, and B have little in common with the T. Adding more letters, such as QIA+ (queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, and many other terms) confuses more than clarifies.



The London Pride 2024 is starting to look more and more like the Rio Carnival.


Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals—along with everyone else—can support the transgender movement’s goal of ending violence and discrimination in such things as policing, employment, and housing without endorsing the dominant ideology of the trans movement. That ideology denies the reality of sex (which is binary and biological) and replaces it with an internal subjective experience of gender (rejecting the longstanding feminist analysis of gender as social norms imposed in patriarchy). Progressive politics do not require that anyone support risky medical treatments or claims by males who identify as women to have a right to be in single-sex female spaces, such as changing rooms.

Here’s another way to make this point to people supporting transgender ideology: If you learned that a child you loved was gay or lesbian, how would you react? Is that different than how you would react if you learned that child reported gender dysphoria and wanted medical interventions (puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgery) that have not been proven safe or effective? Even strong supporters of the transgender movement’s policy demands are hesitant to equate the two.

Depending on where one lives, children coming out as lesbian or gay might face violence and abuse. Lesbian and gay kids often get bullied, no matter where they live. But the challenges of being lesbian or gay are social. Lesbians and gay men may seek psychotherapy, not (except in rare cases) to change their sexuality but to deal with the pain of being stigmatized and/or the emotional problems that many people experience. Lesbians and gay men don’t need medical treatment because same-sex attraction is not pathological, not the result of disease.

Kids acknowledging same-sex attraction need social support, which progressive people are usually eager to provide. That’s quite different from embracing invasive medical procedures for kids who identify as trans.

That’s the contradiction at the heart of transgender ideology. Medical treatment is appropriate to treat disease and injuries that pose a threat to a person’s health. If trans activists argue that in some cases, drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgery are medically necessary, that is a recognition that at least in some cases, transgenderism is a pathological condition that requires treatment. Yet the transgender movement also argues that transgenderism should not be pathologized. Proposals for a World Professional Association for Transgender Health language policy include:

Avoid language which has the intention (or likely effect) of stigmatizing or pathologizing gender and bodily diversity (including a diversity of gender expressions and identities, as well as bodily characteristics). Stigmatizing and pathologizing language (e.g., “disordered” or “abnormal” or “malformation”) should be avoided altogether.


David Tennant, who peddles the notion of ‘trans children’

When Spain passed a law allowing anyone over 16 to change their gender on legal documents without undergoing psychological and medical evaluations to show gender dysphoria, the minister of equality stated: “Trans people are not ill people. They are people, full stop.” The statement is hard to understand. In the context of other medical conditions, no one suggests that people who are ill are somehow lesser people. These two claims—that trans is merely one aspect of human diversity but yet also is a condition requiring treatment—are contradictory.

Even when acknowledging that, trans activists try to deny it. Masha Gessen, a female journalist who identifies as trans and nonbinary, found it difficult to explain this contradiction in an interview:

Being trans is not a medical condition, but it marries you for life to the medical system. It almost always—not always—involves some kind of medical intervention. … I hate using the word “treatment.” I’m always stumbling over it because it’s not actually treatment, but it is treatment. But it’s not a medical condition.

Given how little we know about the etiology (the cause or set of causes) of gender dysphoria, there’s not much we can say about what transgenderism actually is in definitive terms. But whatever one believes transgenderism is, it can’t be both a routine part of healthy human diversity and a condition requiring medical treatment. If one isn’t ill in some way, why would one need such treatment? Simply saying there are lots of different types of trans people doesn’t get us any closer to understanding what the terms mean.

This issue arose when the American Psychiatric Association revised the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to eliminate “gender identity disorder” in favor of “gender dysphoria.” One medical news website pointed out the tension:

[W]hile the move is seen as a win by some, others worry about what it could mean. Currently, insurance carriers may pay for sexual reassignment surgery because the procedure is for a medical problem, not for plastic surgery. Having the condition reclassified may cause problems with surgery for an already marginalized group.

A trans scholar who states that “gender identity and gender assigned at birth is increasingly understood as a matter of human diversity rather than as pathology” notes that the DSM and WPATH definitions of gender dysphoria are different, and therefore:

[C]linicians should not routinely diagnose patients who wish to access transition-related interventions with gender dysphoria. A diagnosis of gender dysphoria should be limited to situations in which it is genuinely necessary (such as for insurance coverage) or is done at the express request of the patient.



What responsible physician would consider a diagnosis “genuinely necessary” based on insurance or when the patient requests it? It’s an understatement to conclude, as did one research team, “All physicians included in gender dysphoria treatment are facing great bioethical challenges and dilemmas.”

This contradiction—don’t think of trans identity as a pathological condition but embrace medical treatment to “fix” the bodies of those who identify as trans and want drugs, hormones, and/or surgery—is a feature, not a bug, of the movement’s ideology.

Society should provide people with gender dysphoria psychological support to deal with the distress, just as we should provide such support to anyone experiencing distress of any kind. But in other medical arenas, wariness about solving complex problems with drugs and surgery is common, such as when the American Academy of Pediatrics released guidelines on childhood obesity that advocated intensive therapy for children as young as 6, weight loss drugs for those as young as 12, and surgery for teens as young as 13. A journalist reported that professionals on both sides of the debate “express uneasiness about the potential long-term consequences of putting millions of children on drugs or under the knife, instead of doing more to prevent the condition in the first place” and quoted a leading medical ethicist:

“Turning to surgery and pills is quintessentially American,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine who said he struggles with weight himself. Caplan called obesity “one of the biggest moral challenges” our society faces but described medication and surgery as just “Band-Aids in a society that can’t figure out what to really do to protect the interests of its kids.”

Those comments reflect a concern for the health of children and a wariness about rushing to industrial solutions. A parallel analysis of gender-affirming health care is appropriate but would generate accusations of transphobia. Simply challenging the appropriateness of LGBTQIA+ can make one a target.

Let’s go back to the remaining letters. First, a small portion of the human population is born “intersex,” with what are called disorders of sexual development, although some prefer differences in sexual development. There are important questions about treatment for those conditions, but they are separate from issues involving sexual orientation or transgender ideology.

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The other letters raise other issues. I don’t use the term “queer,” either as a synonym for lesbian and gay, or as an all-encompassing term for “something other than heterosexual.” The term can’t be separated from “queer theory,” a postmodern academic fad that sometimes anti-feminist and always weighed down by unnecessary jargon. The recent explosion of terms such as asexual (along with pansexual, demisexual, and on and on) describe, if anything, psychological states or personal preferences that typically don’t have public-policy implications.

Many people I know with progressive politics accept the alphabet-soup label out of a desire to not rock the boat, with an unstated plea, “Can’t we all just get along?” There’s no reason we can’t get along while also airing principled disagreements about complex questions.

I continue to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual movement. I also critique the contradictions and confusion in transgender ideology and reject the trans movement’s policy demands that aren’t based on sound medical standards or undermine women’s right to privacy and safety. I support people born intersex in their quest for dignified medical treatment. As for the many other labels that people want to claim, well, I wish them well in their attempts to understand themselves and form communities.

These positions are, to me, all consistent with critical thinking and progressive politics.

It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics, published by Olive Branch Press, June 2024

About the Author(s)
Robert Jensen, an Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics from Olive Branch Press. His previous book, co-written with Wes Jackson, was An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. To subscribe to his mailing list, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html.



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No Hope for Shitlibs: Tony Awards Audience GUSHES Over Hillary’s SURPRISE Appearance

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Keaton Weiss • Russell Dobular
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Jun 19, 2024
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Lili News 029
  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.


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Dogmatic Neoliberal Democrats: An Authoritarian Party and Their Upper-Middle Class Loyalists

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Bruce Lerro



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Orientation

How dare you!

  • How can you write an article against the Democratic Party less than six months before the election? You must be a Trump supporter!
  • We must keep Trump out of office no matter what!
  • Vote Blue no matter who! (Or now, Vote Biden no matter what!)
  • Only a privileged person would consider voting for the Green Party!
  • You must be a dupe of the Russians!
  • If you don’t vote for the Democrats, you must be antisemitic!
  • This election is the most important in history!

Anyone who is critical of the Democratic party from the left will be greeted by these slogans, warnings and accusations.

What is dogmatism?

A little over a year ago I wrote an article titled The Dogmatic Personality. In it I attempted to show fourteen characteristics of dogmatic thinking and contrasted it to open-minded thinking. Please see the table at the end of this article. As in my previous article, I will follow Judy J. Johnson’s book What’s So Wrong with Being Absolutely Right: The Dangerous Nature of Dogmatic Belief.

Which social class is dogmatic?

When we think of a dogmatic personality, we are likely to imagine a conservative “Archie Bunker” type, a lower middle-class or working-class man. The open-minded person seems likely to be a well-educated middle-class or upper middled-class liberal, and probably someone who votes for the Democratic Party. But times have changed. For the last 50 years, the Democratic Party has shifted from a center-left party to a right-wing Neoliberal party which has been increasingly embattled and compromised through its involvement in overseas wars, a deindustrialization process, financial debt accumulation and austerity programs for working class and poor people. I will describe in this article that in fact the Democratic Party has become a dogmatic, authoritarian party whose leaders and loyalist followers can easily be characterized as dogmatic in all fourteen characteristics.

What is the relationship between dogmatism and authoritarianism?

Now that you have reviewed the fourteen characteristics of dogmatic thinking in the  table, we need to clarify what its relationship is to authoritarianism. Johnson sees authoritarianism as a subcategoryof dogmatism. According to Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarian Specter, authoritarianism means the principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual autonomy in thinking and acting. He defines authoritarianism as the co-variation of three kinds of attitudes:

  • Authoritarian submission to established authorities
  • Authoritarian aggression against anyone the authorities target
  • Conventionalism adhered to by society and established by the authorities

The first nine characteristics of dogmatism plus characteristic number 14 are all psychological or social psychological qualities. Authoritarianism is more sociological involving the relationship between groups (characteristics 10-13). In terms of personality, Judy Johnson says that 6 out of the 14 characteristics of dogmatism would qualify a personality as dogmatic. While it is hard to imagine an authoritarian personality with characteristics 10-13 would not have the other dogmatic qualities as well, it is not too far-fetched to imagine a dogmatic person minding their p’s and q’s when it comes to large groups.

My claim

My aim in this article is that the Democratic Party and its upper middle class loyalists have all of these dogmatic and authoritarian characteristics.

Five Cognitive Ingredients in Dogmatic Thought

The  Five Characteristics of Dogmatic Cognition are:

  • Intolerance of ambiguity (either/or thinking) due to anxiety
  • Defense cognitive closure
  • Rigid certainty
  • Compartmentation (sealing off contradictory beliefs)
  • Lack of self-reflectiveness

Intolerance of ambiguity

The Neoliberal Democrats insist that there are only two choices: Democrats or Republicans. Any votes outside the Democratic Party are a vote for Trump. Under these conditions, the Democrats cannot imagine that people voting for a third party do so in the hopes of building a third party over time. For them a vote for a third party can only be a vote for a second party. But what about the people who don’t vote? In any given election, over the past fifty years between 40-50% of the population do not vote. For Neoliberal Democrats (1) this is not a problem. Why? Because they treat people who don’t vote as if they are the ignorant, stupid or apathetic lower classes. What Neoliberal Democrats cannot comprehend is that the reason people do not vote is because there are no candidates that represent their interests. They think the uncommitted are weighing between them and a Green party, when what is really going on is the uncommitted weighing between voting Green and not voting at all.

Defensive cognitive closure

The Neoliberal Democratic candidates act like they are entitled to the vote of anyone on the socialist left. They don’t think they have work to get it, or that they might be expected to answer to potential voters for their past failures. They insist they are the only game in town for “reasonable” people. Only a privileged person can afford to vote for the Green Party. In other words, racial minorities are all voting Democrat and as a white person you would be voting against them. The problem with this argument is that Trump is gaining more and more support of African American and Latino voters. Just as large numbers of working-class people left the Democratic Party decades ago, so now their much-vaulted race base is starting to break ranks.

Rigid certainty (cannot state the conditions for admitting they are wrong)

As many of you know, the philosopher of science Karl Popper claimed that a good scientific theory must insist on stating the conditions under which they can be proven wrong. It is also a good rule in argumentation classes to state the conditions under which your claim could be wrong. Do the Democratic Party politicians or their loyalists do this when they solicit new voters? No, they don’t. To be fair, the entire politician system in Mordor is not set up for parties to actually account for the contradictions between their promises and what they deliver. But if you talk to an upper-middle class loyalist and ask them what are the conditions under which they would give up on their loyalty to the Democrats they look like deer caught in the headlights. Next to no one has traced the relationship between promises and deliverance. Though well-educated, they have not thought seriously about what their liberal beliefs really are and how well the party has been faithful to them. No matter what the Democrats have done or not done over the past four years, they expect you to wipe the slate clean and simply say we have to vote for them.

Cognitive compartmentalization – sealing off contradictory beliefs

My hunch is that a large number of people who consider themselves liberal today believe the following:

  • The state should provide for pensions, and unemployment.
  • There should be universal healthcare.
  • The minimum wage should be raised to keep up with inflation.
  • Women should make the same amount of wages or salary as men for the same kind of work.
  • Everyone should be able to go to college without being tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
  • Unions should be supported because they protect working-class people.
  • Capitalist profits should be reinvested in society in the form of infrastructural building and repair and mass transportation.
  • Internationally the United States should not be at war and meddling in the affairs of other countries. Investment in the military should only have a defensive role to play.

I could go on but you get the idea. The problem is that when the Democratic Party gained power over the last 50 years they have NOT done any of these things.  It takes a great deal of cognitive internal gyrations to know these things and still vote for Neoliberal Democrats.

Lack of self-reflectiveness – refusal to bend back and analyze themselves



Hillary Clinton, with all the Deep State wealth and the Neoliberal capitalists behind her, managed to lose to Donald Trump. In a political party that was sensitive and self-reflective, they would say “where did we go wrong? Why did so many people not vote? We used to depend on working class votes. How can it be that many working class people are Republicans? What is wrong with our candidates? What population demographics were weak?”. They did none of this. Instead, in true paranoic and utterly dishonest style they blamed the Russians. Since 2016, whenever the Democratic Party failed, it was the Russians. This is a powerful change in party affairs. For 15 years the Democratic Party mocked and dismissed the 9/11 Truth movement for its tinfoil, paranoid conspiracy theory. For the past eight years the Democratic Party has so little understanding of its right-wing 50-year drift that its answer to all its problems is now “the Russians”.

 The Four Emotional Disorders

Although Neoliberal Democrats, being upper middle class, have more control over their minds than working class dogmatists they can still reify their emotions, making them “rigid states” rather than processes that can be changed by cognitive changes in interpretations, explanations or assumptions. Neoliberal Democrats, like everyone else has a need for social connection, but as an upper-middle person they are surrounded by most people who are not like them. Yet they must find commonality with them became they want them to join the Democratic Party. Because they are more or less oblivious of the social class distinctions, they find ways to avoid talking about them. They are most emotionally sensitive to race relations, since most African-Americans and Latinos are not upper middle class.

The four kinds of emotional issues that arise, according to Judy Johnson are:

  • Anxiety and fear
  • Lack of a sense of humor
  • Oversensitivity to unintended infringements which result in anger
  • Excessive pessimism and despair

For Neoliberal Democrats the anxiety and fear they have centers around:

  • What will happen if a Republican, specifically Trump, wins the election?
  • What will the mass of Trump followers will do?

Anxiety and fear

Faithfully, like clockwork, the only claim to winning voters over is fear of what will happen if a right-winger like Trump gets in. Over the past 4 years with the Democratic Party in power, we have seen billions of dollars wasted in Ukraine followed by a massacre of Palestinians funded by the Democratic Party. How much worse can it be than this? The Neoliberal fears know no bounds. They never state the conditions under which they are willing to admit there really is not much difference between the two parties, let alone to say there is only one party, capitalism, with two wings.

Secondly, Neoliberal Democrats fear the great unleashing of the great unwashed Trump followers. These folks are imagined to be goosestepping Gestapos terrorizing these liberals when they decide to have an outdoor brunch. It will be too late for liberal Karens to call the police! In reality the laughable power of Trump’s followers came about over a temporary “take-over” of the U.S. Capitol building in 2021. Did his followers block the roads, seize the radio and tv stations and begin broadcasting like what would happen in a real coup? No, they simply wandered around, almost like tourists, (often being ushered into the "sacred precincts" by the guards themselves), perhaps breaking a few things before being taken over by the police. For Neoliberal Democrats, this is the end of civilization. As for these rebels' treacherous fascist leader, Trump, he was nowhere to be found.

Lack of a sense of humor

Having a sense of humor means you can step out of situations and see them in perspective. Humor allows for a break in being serious before returning to serious endeavors. Lack of humor (being humorless) means you are serious all the time. This comes out most clearly in the Neoliberal attempts to control people’s vocabulary so they are “politically correct”. Up to a point it is reasonable to expect people to upgrade their vocabulary to be more sensitive racial and sexist issues. But past a certain point, as communication grinds to a halt because every word is dissected, the situation becomes laughable. But for the Neoliberal Democrat, this is no laughing matter. The combination of self-righteousness mixed with completely unrealistic expectations makes it understandable why the right-wingers get fed up at best and full of hatred at worst.

Oversensitivity to unintended infringements which result in anger

At the same time, the Neoliberal Democrats are terrified of being called racist.

After all, they work so hard to “understand” the history of racism and the conditions of Blacks and Latinos today. They feel betrayed when they themselves are called out on some racism. This is where accusations of being a “snowflake” really come from. For example, liberals are only dimly aware of their racism when it comes to Black politicians. For them, any Black man or woman who is well-educated must be liberal. Low and behold, when presented with people like Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell or Barak Obama it comes as a great surprise they could be so right-wing. No, Obama was never FDR in waiting. He is a Harvard Lawyer, trained in the Chicago School market fundamentalism and his political actions were consistently right-wing, neoconservative, in fact. But to this day Neoliberals refer to him as a great liberal. Their racism comes in when they do not grant the full political spectrum to any minority politician.

Excessive pessimism and despair

As I’ve pointed out in other articles, the beginning of Neoliberalism came about through the Rockefeller orchestrated Club of Rome report followed by a book called the Limits to Growth. Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission was founded around the same time. This was a clarion call to let Americans know that the days of abundance, a high standard of living, more leisure time and a better life through science was ending. Instead, we were told that people needed to tighten up their belts and do with less (Jimmy Carter). Why? Because nature was limited. Secondly, there were too many people on the earth and the population problem would soon be out of control. Thirdly, there was global warming caused, according to them, by the industrial revolution. Lastly, thanks to all our high living we have polluted the earth. This systemic attack on the values of the Enlightenment by the Rockefellers, together with their control over Think Tanks and Universities and mass media has been the methodical message of Neoliberal Democrats for 50 years. Ironically, the countries of the multi-polar world like China, Russia and Iran are carrying on the Promethean tradition of the Enlightenment with their infrastructure projects, harnessing many forms of energy.

Five Behavioral Characteristics of Dogmatism

Dogmatism is not just what is going on cognitively and emotionally inside of people. Dogmatism is also about how people behave and act. The five behavioral characteristics of dogmatism are:

  • dogmatic authoritarian aggression towards minorities.

An Arrogant, dismissive communication style

Because Neoliberals usually make their living from speaking and writing, like lawyers and academic professors, they are at home in stressing the importance of language. Compared to them, both Trump and his supporters are at a disadvantage. Neoliberals are at their worst when it comes to attempting to control language. Secure in their tenured college professions Neoliberal professors control their classroom by making them open forums for every possible identity politics group to have their say. At the same time they insist that other members of the class learn to use the right words while addressing an identity politics group from gender pronouns on down the line. In their drive to inclusivity, they imagine they are liberating humanity and winning new people for the Neoliberal Democrats. The problem is that the largest sector of the population is unaffected by these battles about identity politics on college campuses. Some of the most interesting hypocrisy within Neoliberal Democrats is that the arm-twisting that takes place on college campuses never reaches the upper echelons  of the party. Are Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden going to be corrected by Kamala Harris when they refer to a non-binary man as “he” when he prefers to be addressed as a “they”?

Preoccupation with power and status in form

Neoliberal Democrats are snobs. A very simple comparison which brings this out is the difference between how they react to Obama vs how they react to Trump. Obama above all has all the formal qualities they look for. First of all, he is Black, but not too black, not Marshawn Lynch black. He is tall, slender and graceful in mannerisms. He is articulate, seems easy-going and reasonable. He doesn’t seem to get angry and he plays basketball. He went to the right schools and did well for himself as a Harvard lawyer. As Neoliberal Democrats swoon over the lure of his appearance and his rhetorical skills the way he acted as a president – the wars started, his failure to stem the economic tide of 50 years of decline, his failure to help working class Blacks economically – go unnoticed.


SIDEBAR

Left-liberal Kyle Kulinksi can't stomach Stephen Colbert's tongue bath as Colbert awkwardly fawns over Obama to his face. "It's boomer liberalism personified," says Kulinski. The most revolting part of this encounter is when Colbert says, like the ultimate suck-up he has become, "Can we take a minute...I want to drink you in." Eccch!

On the other hand, Trump is viscerally hated. He is a loud blowhard who neither knows nor cares about political protocol or diplomacy. He is fat, with a ridiculous wig along with orange face makeup. He looks like the worst lower middle-class used car salesman you can imagine. He knows nothing of history and bullies his way through press conferences. He has a string of unsuccessful business disasters under his belt and his behavior towards women infuriates Neoliberal feminists. He prides himself in mocking the politically correct. He has the attention span of a gnat and has no coherent foreign policy. But if you ask Neoliberals about his political actions, whether domestic or international they usually don’t know. What matters is they find him disgusting on a personal and psychological basis and that is enough for them and unsuited to be the President of the United States. (Not a single leading liberal castigated Trump for assassinating Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a Middle East hero to hundreds of millions of Muslims around the globe, along with a prominent Iraqi military leader, in Iraq, on January 3, 2020, gangster style. In fact some praised him, for "acting presidential".).

The same class contempt is visited upon his followers. For Neoliberals, Trump followers are “deplorables”. They are uneducated, don’t care about facts and do not know how to reason logically. They think dualistically and more are likely to be some kind of ignorant, fundamentalist Christian. They know nothing about history, or geography and could care less. They are fat, have teeth missing and don’t dress properly. They watch too much TV and are preoccupied with the worst types of entertainment from World Wrestling to Reality Shows. This class contempt blinds Neoliberal Democrats from being sympathetic to the fact that Trumpsters are overworked and underpaid, have insecure jobs and are living from paycheck to paycheck. Secure in their own professional jobs, Neoliberals are too proud to visit the Trumpeters where they live and come electoral campaigns, deal with their own discomfort. Trump did next to nothing for the working-class or lower middle-class in his four years, but he did visit them, unlike Queen Hillary or Bernie Sanders, who stayed close the college campuses.

Glorification of the in-group and vilification of the out-group

For this category let’s turn from domestic to international affairs. For Neoliberal Democrats Russia has been their enemy even after the break-up of the Soviet Union. When you hear the name Vladimir Putin the Pavlovian response is “evil dictator”. There is normal reasoning about his political leadership with its pros and cons. Neoliberal Democrats who get on their hobby horses of “Putin”, “Putin” usually have no understanding of what Putin has meant for the recovery of Russia after being left for dead by Obama's buddies, the Chicago boys in the 1990s. The same dualistic sloganeering treatment is meted out to Syria, Iran, Lebanon, North Korea and Venezuela.

In the case of the glorification of an in-group let us turn to Israel. “The only democracy in the Middle East” has just massacred over 40,000 Palestinians, probably 20,000 children—a historic crime even in the annals of modern war— and yet the Democratic president has supplied the Zionists with billions of dollars in weaponry and unfailing financial, diplomatic and media support.  “Israel has a right to defend itself”! What are you, antisemitic?” Then there is the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian fascists—long cultivated by the CIA and other Western intel services—became “freedom fighters” for Neoliberals against the evil Putin. It never occurs to these Neoliberals that the money spent on arming Ukraine could have been spent on infrastructure repairs at home, building low-cost housing, supporting the growth of unions and upgrading the minimum wage. Since the working class is invisible to Neoliberal Democrats this alternative way of spending money never occurs to them.

Thanks to the work of Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung, the British Empire has been exposed as at the root of imperialism in the Western world. The British Empire sided with the South in the American Civil War. All along the line, this Empire tried to prevent the United States from industrializing because it feared the competition. In the 20th century the British Empire was supporting the growth of fascism in Europe long before Mussolini or Hitler. After the Soviet Union defeated the Nazis, The British Empire helped arrange to have Nazi scientists and political bigwigs safely transported to the Western world where they were never prosecuted. Yet England is naively seen by Neoliberal Democrats as some kind of benign “liberal democracy” worthy of a “special relationship”.  (The stunning perfidy of Albion, incarnated in Churchill, who exercised a malevolent influence over Harry Truman, can be gleaned from this indispensable article: From 1945-49 the US and UK planned to bomb Russia into the Stone Age ).

Dogmatic authoritarian submission to authorities

To understand this let us look at the manner in which the Democratic Party dictated that there will be no competing candidates in the 2024 primaries. This is an attempt at totalitarian control of the party. “No” you might say, “the other candidates agreed not to run a campaign”. Was that a real democratic process? During the Moscow Purges, members of the Communist Party willingly confessed their guilt before the Central Committee and were purged. “No” say the anti-communist Democrats. There must have been some ‘sinister psychological brainwashing’ on the part of the evil Stalin”. But when it comes to the dictates from on-high, Powers that Be within the Democratic Party saying that there will be no party competition, where is the outcry form the Neoliberal Democrats? Why aren’t we permitted to imagine there must have been some sinister psychological brainwashing on the part of the Democratic Party elite to keep other candidates from running. No Neoliberal Democrat would dare point the finger at AIPAC, the most power Israeli Lobby in the United States. That would be antisemitic!

There is also passivity of liberal Democrats to leaving their own party and building another one. Upper middle-class Neoliberals make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. There is no reason why they couldn’t pool their money and start a new party closer to an FDR model. Sure, it would take maybe 12 years to become a force to be reckoned with. However, upper-middle class people are trained to think long-term in their work. They are well-educated and can envision a long-term trajectory, not just within Mordor, but internationally. Since liberal Democrats support capitalism, surely they are smart enough to notice that finance capital and wars are not productive for capitalism in the long-run. Why is there no movement to leave the Democrats? To do so would be disobedient to the leaders of the Democratic Party and those capitalists’ national and international interests that stand behind them.

Dogmatic authoritarian aggression towards minorities

If the Neoliberal Democratic Party lived up to its name, it would welcome competition from a third party, especially from the left. They would say “let us compete! Your program will teach us some things and the competition will be good for our ‘democracy’”. Instead, faithfully every four years it spends a great deal of money on lawsuits attempting to keep the Green Party off the ballot. It riggs the debates so the Green Party candidate cannot compete with the Republican and Democratic candidates on the stage. The Democratic Party would scream “totalitarianism” if there were only one party to vote for. Somehow the addition of one more party makes the political system go from totalitarian to democratic. But if you add a third or fourth party wouldn’t that make it more democratic? Not for Neoliberal Democrats. A third or a fourth party would make things chaotic and confuse people. Besides, authoritarian Democrats know what’s best for the people even though two thirds of the Mordor population wants more than two parties.

Conclusion

When Judy Johnson wrote her book on dogmatism it appeared that the targeted population were the lower middle-class and the working-class people. Middle-class and upper middle-class people could breathe easy since dogmatism was not really much about them. In fact, liberals like these were probably the model for fourteen characteristics of open people. My argument has shown that Neoliberal Democrats could be just as dogmatic in these fourteen characteristics. The following is a summary of how the Neoliberal Democrats and how their loyalists stack up against fourteen characteristics of dogmatism.

Intolerance of ambiguity

You cannot vote for a left-wing party. There are only two parties you have to pick one.

Defensive cognitive closure

We are entitled to your vote regardless of past failures. Only privileged people vote for 3rd parties.

Rigid certainty (cannot state the conditions under which they are willing to admit they are wrong)

Past failures are ignored. The Party’s 50 year slide to the right is ignored. No matter how bad they are, the Republican party (Trump) is worse)

Cognitive compartmentalization

Both the DNC and their loyal followers act like social-schizophrenics. They pretend to be following tried and true liberal principles while in fact they fund wars all over the world, blow up pipelines, support fascist Ukraine and support right wing Jewish fundamentalism against Palestine.

Lack of self-reflectiveness: refuse to bend-back and analyze themselves

The Democratic Party blames Russia for its losses, rather than examine its internal failures. They become paranoid and see the “evil” Putin everywhere.

Anxiety and fear

The Democratic Party and their loyalists know no limits to how the horrible  things can be if Trump or any Republican wins an election. Similar fear of what the Trumpster followers will do if Trump wins. Yet their ineptitude shows in the pathetic political theater of January 2021.

Lack of a sense of humor

They have a seriousness and moralistic policing of people’s vocabulary to the point of failing to recognize the humor in trying to change people’s vocabulary all at once.

Oversensitivity to unintended consequences which result in anger

They imagine that they could never behave in a racist way, not realizing that Black politicians can be extremely right wing: Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Barak Obama are examples. Their racism is not granting blacks the full political spectrum of commitment that they grant to whites.

Excessive pessimism and despair about the future

By buying hook, line and sinker the anti-Enlightenment Rockefeller program of austerity, global warming, overpopulation and pollution.

Arrogant, dismissive communication style to the lower classes

The war of college professors and their loyalists in the public and students who do not care about identity politics and gender pronouns. They silence students  in their communication unless it conforms to their standards. They have a double standard since the heads of the Democratic Party do not have to adhere to these standards.

Preoccupation with power and status of appearance and rhetoric

Their obsession with good form and rhetoric skills in politicians like Obama. Hatred of the bad form, appearance and personality weaknesses in both Trump and his followers. They downplay the political content in their political performance.

Glorification of the in-group and vilification of the out-group

In international affairs the out-group, the evil Russia (Putin), Iran, North Korea and Syria can never do anything good. Meanwhile in Mordor, their European vassals along with Israel carry on the great tradition of liberalism, democracy and human rights. For this in-group these Neoliberals always find extenuating circumstances for all coups, assassinations and imperialistic pillaging.

Dogmatic authoritarian submission to the authorities

This has to do with the Neoliberal Democratic, upper-middle class loyalists’ acceptance that there will be no competition in the Democratic primaries. This authoritarian move has been meekly accepted. Neither do serious New Deal liberals have the nerve to break with their own party and found a new party which is closer to an FDR model.

Dogmatic authoritarian aggression to minorities

This is found in the repression of the Green Party to block their access to getting on the ballot and for controlling the ground rules for the Green Party for getting into the debates.

 Dogmatic vs Openminded Thinking

Dogmatic Thinking Open-minded Thinking
1) Intolerance of ambiguity
Black and white
Either/ Or Thinking
Tolerance of ambiguity
Can suspend judgment
2) Defense cognitive closure
(Having barbed wire around declarations)
Open, inviting a response
3) Rigid certainty

 

 

Cannot state conditions of being proven wrong

Flexibility
Qualifying statements
Falsification—stating conditions where you could be proven wrong
4)Compartmentalization
Sealing off contradictory beliefs
Dialectically using contradictions to create new knowledge
5)Lack of self-reflectiveness
Refusal to bend-back and analyze themselves
Self-reflective of one’s own part in creating problems
6) Belief associated with anxiety or fear
(they underestimate their ability to cope)
 
Curiosity and confidence in their ability to cope
7) lack of a sense of humor to keep perspective
If humor is used, it is sarcasm to undermine the gravity of the situation
Uses humor to keep things in perspective
 8) Belief associated with anger
Oversensitivity to unintentional infringements
Does emotional work
Gives people the benefit of the doubt
9) Excessive Pessimism Moderate optimism, not pollyannish
10) Pre-occupation with power and status Is aware of, but not preoccupied with status and power
11) Glorification of in-group
Vilification of out- group
Critical of in-group
Welcoming of out-group
12) Authoritarian aggression towards minorities

 

 

Assertive, not aggressive
Sympathetic to minorities
13) Authoritarian submission
Excessive obedience and blind trust of authorities
Critical of the authorities
14) Arrogant, dismissive communication style Open to what is strange or what appears to be a problem

(1) Although supposedly the "leftoid" wing of the UNIPARTY (duopoly), the Democrats also pack in their ranks a fair number of fierce imperialists and pro-Israeli Zionist Neocons, starting with Joe Biden and his entire cabinet, and the vast majority of the tightly integrated legacy media and Big Tech they control at home and abroad, an immense propaganda platform.


Lili News 029
  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.

Things to keep in mind...

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. Meanwhile, fascist ideology and blatant lies also permeate the consciousness of most people in the West. Those in the comfortable top 10%, the "PMCs" (Professional Managerial Class), are especially vulnerable. They support and disseminate such ideas. They are the executors of the actual ruling class' orders, those in the 0.001%, who remain largely invisible. The PMCs are the political class, the media whores, the top military brass, some people in academia, and the "national security/foreign policy" industry honchos. Push back against these unethical, contaminated people with the truth while you can.

AND...where the US Government is at: LYING 24/7


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“Wokeness” Is A Corporate Plot To Divide Us! w/ Dave Smith

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Lili News 029
  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.

Things to keep in mind...

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. Meanwhile, fascist ideology and blatant lies also permeate the consciousness of most people in the West. Those in the comfortable top 10%, the "PMCs" (Professional Managerial Class), are especially vulnerable. They support and disseminate such ideas. They are the executors of the actual ruling class' orders, those in the 0.001%, who remain largely invisible. The PMCs are the political class, the media whores, the top military brass, some people in academia, and the "national security/foreign policy" industry honchos. Push back against these unethical, contaminated people with the truth while you can.

AND...where the US Government is at: LYING 24/7


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Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.


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America Is At War And In Denial

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INDRAJIT
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America Is At War And In Denial

Sabrina Singh- excrement

Sabrina Singh, awful person.  Crept the ranks within the Clinton / DNC mafia.(TGP screenshot)


Pentagon spokesghoul Sabrina Singh was asked, “We’ve bombed them five times now… If this isn’t war, what is war?” She laughed. Not a funny question, but she laughed ghoulishly and said, “Great question… we do not seek war, we are not at war with the Houthis [Ansar Allah],” as if that explained anything. It doesn’t explain anything. But this person, contractually, cannot explain anything. Her job is obfuscation, not clarification. Asking the Pentagon ‘what’s war’ is like asking a fish about water, except the water is blood. It’s just what they’re swimming in. They’re so deep in war they can’t even perceive it in front of them.

The Hypocritical Hegemon of America likes to pretend like it’s not an Empire at all, but at this point, why listen to them? The only reason to attend one of these press conferences is to throw shoes at them. If you want to know what’s happening, just look at what’s happening. America has dozens of bases around the Middle East to wage war. It encircles the place with aircraft carriers and destroyers to wage war. It arms the genocidal state of ‘Israel’ to divide and conquer. Its troops occupy Syria, its ships bomb Yemen, its airships bomb Iraq, it is at constant war across the region. Everyone that isn’t militarily occupied is besieged or under attack. The only thing confusing is what peace is, war is so persistent. America has been at war in the Middle East my entire life.

 

They’ve been bombing Yemen for so long that Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi said“We do not see confrontation with the American or the British as anything but life, for life is in confronting these tyrants and arrogant ones in the world.” How many generations have grown up like this, under constant America oppression? Many Hamas (Al Qassam) fighters are the orphans of previous offenses. By proxy or by great power, when your parents are killed, what’s the difference. Living (or more specifically, dying) like this wholly unnatural to the native population, but considered America’s deathright. They got the oil, we get the spoils, it’s beneath mention. Within America, it’s never once questioned what they’re doing in the Middle East at all, which is the most important question.

The answer is the same reason as for any war, the spoils, with stories about stolen wives or savage savages (re: terrorism) as mere cover. American Empire is swimming in massive amounts of oil, which is why the oil-rich region is kept swimming in blood. It’s simply how they keep their aircraft carriers and hard graft careers afloat. The US military is the single largest consumer (and emitter) of fossil fuels and it needs the oil to grease the military-industrial machine. The colony started with slave energy and now requires energy slaves galore. It needs to wage war in the Middle East to wage war at all, it’s a literally vicious cycle.

America is at so much war in the Middle East that it really does become hard to define, especially for the brain-bleeds in the Pentagon. Is it war if you’re killing just natives or slaves, as America has been doing uninterrupted in the Middle East for decades, and in its own stolen land for centuries? Isn’t that just… culling or something you do to animals (and God help the animals)? Is siege warfare even warfare, especially if you do it through bureaucrats rather than barricades? Is it war at all if other people are dying? Isn’t that just… nothing?

The reason the war questions are emerging now is that Americans are dying. This nominally raises the stakes. But which Americans? Three Black soldiers have just died in Syria/Jordan and the ‘volunteer’ army is primarily made up of debt slaves. Rich people’s children don’t get drafted so, fundamentally, what do they care, besides thanking these people for their ‘service’ while gutting their veterans services? Do these deaths count as war if the ruling class doesn’t actually give a shit? If three fall in Jordan and none of them went to the Ivy League, does it make a sound? That seems to be the basic calculation. And it’s still come up zero. No war to see here.

US soldiers dying is only relevant as a casus belli for more war, to get more of them killed. Business runs the show, and that’s the business. America waging war on other people is so normal that it blends into the background. Especially for people within the military-industrial complex, it’s imperceptible. It’s literally business as usual. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Hence it’s only natural that the embarrassing sell-out Singh laughs at the question ‘what is war?’ Why would someone at the Pentagon be thinking about something so simple, when all the money’s in complexity? American elites have long since discovered that there’s more money in losing wars than winning them, and far less red tape in never declaring them at all. Thus they can circumvent their impotent Congress, bribe anybody relevant, and get the spoils without spoiling their reputation.

Blood is just the water these people swim in, and oil is what floats their aircraft carriers. Of course this isn’t war to them. It’s just existence. Asking someone in the American state “what’s war” is like asking a fish “how’s the water? What the fuck is water?” the fish reply back. They really don’t understand the question.


Written by indi.ca


ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
My name is Indrajit Samarajiva and I'm a writer. People also call me Indi or Jit. I was born in Canada, raised in America, and live in Nugegoda, Sri Lanka. 


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