World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
Seems like they are mostly concerned with connecting "Russia bad" to liberalism, the ideology which is actually doing the most for LGBT rights. So even in contrition, they push misinformation and information warfare.
Just so that you're aware: liberalism here refers to the belief in market economies and the right to private property. There is a bit more to liberalism, naturally, but that's the main point. So whenever you see Hexbears talk about "libs" or "liberals", rather than applying whatever American definition or preconception of the word "liberalism" that you may have, instead think, "someone who supports the free market and private property"... And indeed, the liberal parties in Russia are right-wing and deeply conservative: "liberal" non est "progressive". Decouple those terms in your mind. You can have liberal progressives and liberal conservatives alike if you're not using "liberal" as a synonym of "progressive", like Americans tend to do.
Furthermore, LGBT+ criticisms of capitalism have a history stretching back even before Stonewall. Harry Whyte's letter to Stalin in 1934, which criticizes the regress of gay rights in the USSR while also analyzing the position of gays in capitalism at the time, stands out. Leslie Feinberg (1949-2014) is another important figure in the history of LGBT+ communism. You might find Feinberg's Lavender and Red to be particularly interesting, as it lays out a history of the intersection of LGBT+ rights movements and leftism.
Just so you're aware: liberalism is the European enlightenment philosophy which holds that individual liberty and civil freedom is foundational to the curation of political agency and democratic self determination. This ML reduction to "liberalism is everything I don't like" is factually incorrect and, like I said, intentional misinformation. Or more realistically, just bad political science, which is what most of us have come to expect from hexbears.
Russian oligarchy is in no way, shape, or form related to the belief that democracy is sacred, and political agency is a necessary condition thereof.
I think they were referring to difference between classical liberalism (usually implied by "liberalism" term in Europe) and social liberalism (usually implied in the US). The European enlightenment philosophy sounds like something that was a basis for both but contemporary state may be far from the original ideals.
Either way they're still full of shit, so I don't see that it even matters.
As opposed to you reducing liberalism to everything you do like, of course. How's that "sacred democracy and political agency" working out in practice? How are you enjoying your "individual liberty"?
In terms of LGBT rights? It's working out pretty good.
I'm not reducing anything. I'm just giving the freshmen political science definition of the term.
I know a closeted trans girl who is very clearly autistic, but who has not pursued an ASD diagnosis because she believes that she will not get treatment for her gender dysphoria if she also has an ASD diagnosis. And so she goes without any accommodations for her autism, just so that she has a better chance of getting treatment for her other major problem. Norway's state trans health system refusing to treat autistic people is a known problem. According to Norwegian law, this type of discrimination is not supposed to happen, rather anyone who desires to transition should be allowed to transition. And yet it still happens that many Norwegians are denied that right to transition on grounds such as being autistic, and for this the health system responsible gets at most a sternly-worded letter from the government, as if reciting the law makes it a reality.
So this girl I know first pursued transitional healthcare in 2016, but is yet to actually receive any of that healthcare. Rather, the staff in the health system said that my friend needed to get out more, become more outgoing, and earn some money first. That's what she told me they said. And so now my friend goes with me to this job skills course organized by some shoddy welfare contractor. Several other people who attend this course have gone on absolutely vitriolically transphobic tirades with us two present. And several times, my friend and I attempted to contact the staff organizing the course, to tell them that she was genuinely scared of these vitriolic transphobes, that they were traumatizing her and causing her immense distress. And the staff refused to take any action at every turn, always saying, "When you get a real job, you'll have to be ready to deal with all kinds of people, even if you don't agree with the things they say".
What we could do about the staff's refusal to take action was to file a complaint to the welfare administration, but it takes many weeks for these complaints to be processed, and this was an issue that needed to be resolved immediately. And who knows what the welfare administration would've actually done about the issue, probably the same "sternly-worded letter" nonsense as before, or at best transferring us to a different contractor, which would probably have the exact same issue of being too fond of cost-cutting to actually do anything about the actual Nazis in our midst... Thankfully, though, one of the transphobic reactionaries was kicked off the course when he threatened another participant with violence, another has become a no-show on most days, the third hasn't brought up trans issues ever again after his first tirade. On top of this, another pro-trans participant has been attending more regularly, and she is principled enough to shut down transphobia even when the staff refuses to do the same. So the issue of transphobia at the job skills course seems to have died down somewhat.
I myself am taking this job skills course because I live in a home with a deeply transphobic relative, and I need to find a well-paying job that will allow me to move out and fund my transition. I already have an autism diagnosis, and I am also non-binary, which means that state healthcare is very unlikely to give me transitional medicine unless I wait and wait and wait and work myself to the bone trying to get them to actually respect their legal obligations. And other options for trans healthcare in Norway are getting thinned out, and state healthcare itself is getting gutted. Which means that I intend to fund my own transition entirely by myself, including by buying gray-market hormone therapy.
The last time I tried scraping together however little money I could for one measly pack of bicalutamide, it was seized by customs and destroyed. Customs even sent me a nice little letter about the dangers of buying medicine from foreign online pharmacies. I still keep that letter beside my bed.
And trust me, I tried voting, too. I voted Socialist Left, because I believed that of the parties that I liked "enough", that Socialist Left were the most likely to get a substantial number of seats and join the governing coalition, without compromising my political interests too much. And indeed, 2021 was a pretty good election for Socialist Left. But they didn't end up in the governing coalition, because they demanded that Labor have stronger commitments to fighting climate change. So the current minority government of Norway is between Labor and Center. Which means that even though I tried voting for a party with good LGBT+ policy proposals, nevertheless a number of major government positions in Norway are currently filled by people who have openly expressed transphobic views.
And indeed look at the news media. Hell, look at social media! Ain't it just great to read a privately-owned newspaper, only to suddenly find oneself gazing at yet more transphobia? Even ostensibly publicly-owned news publications like NRK, they aren't immune to transphobia, either. And social media, fediverse aside, has all these damned algorithms that keep showing me the most vitriolic shit. And this is the type of stuff that people form their opinions and worldviews from!
So I have "rights" under liberalism. The right to change my legal name and gender marker, the right to transitional healthcare, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right to control my body and have a say in the government... But time and time again, all practical experience shows that having rights on paper does not mean anything unless the system in place allows them to mean something. I still consider myself to be an anarchist, but I have a lot of respect for Marxist-Leninists. Both anarchism and Marxism-Leninism understand that liberal "democracies", "rights", and "freedoms" are practically speaking worthless. Liberal rights only truly apply to the bourgeoisie, because it was the bourgeoisie who came up with these rights, as they secured their class interests in the transition out of feudalism. Liberalism was a progressive force at that time: it is a progressive force still today only insofar as it sows the seeds of a better permanent replacement, and it is a regressive force insofar as it sows the seeds of a worse temporary replacement.
It is always grassroots LGBT+ activism that brings forth LGBT+ rights. Always. Do not ascribe to liberalism what was the work of some of the most wretched of the Earth, working tirelessly to build a better world despite liberalism.
I honestly appreciate you sharing this. I read every word, and I agree that this is still obviously an imperfect system and there is a lot more work to be done. I sympathize with your struggle to find peace in your own body and mind, and I would never question your politics in that regard. I genuinely hope that you are able to transition and would personally support you if I could.
I want to make it clear that in no way do I consider the liberal status quo adequate, but I do see it as the best imperfect framework for progress we have at the moment. I also consider myself as more of a libertarian leftist/democratic socialist, but I strongly reject the idea that MLs are any ally to this cause in any way, and am far more sympathetic to liberal social justice ideals in comparison.
Again, I appreciate your attestation, and I wish you the best.
Honestly, it was very cathartic to write, so I appreciate your sympathy very much. Sometimes I just need to scream at the world, you know. So just reading my attestation is all the support you could give right now.
So I wish you the best as well. All animosity has dissipated. Take care of yourself and stay curious.
But the right to private property is as important as the right to your bodily autonomy! If you can own nothing then prepare to die losing your body and your mind. Imagine that, a communist alien that will take everything, even your mind from you!
The blob will have no mercy on us! Burn it to death with fire if we have to
Just so that you're aware, that's a bullshit definition of liberalism and no one is under any obligation to cede it to authoritarian liars and chumps. Any legitimate definition of liberalism has also to include a fundamental respect for basic human rights and the consent of the governed. Liberalism stands in antithesis to authoritarianism and that's precisely why the hexbear bozos hate it so much.
How exactly do I revoke my consent?