Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for having thoughts.

A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists.

…

Salma al-Shehab, 34, a mother of two young children, was initially sentenced to three years in prison for the “crime” of using an internet website to “cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security”. But an appeals court on Monday handed down the new sentence – 34 years in prison followed by a 34-year travel ban – after a public prosecutor asked the court to consider other alleged crimes.

…

By all accounts, Shehab was not a leading or especially vocal Saudi activist, either inside the kingdom or in the UK. She described herself on Instagram – where she had 159 followers – as a dental hygienist, medical educator, PhD student at Leeds University and lecturer at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, and as a wife and a mother to her sons, Noah and Adam.

Saudis have a lot of money invested in Twitter.

Khalid Aljabri, a Saudi who is living in exile and whose sister and brother are being held in the kingdom, said the Shehab case proved Saudi Arabia’s view that dissent equates to terrorism.

“Salma’s draconian sentencing in a terrorism court over peaceful tweets is the latest manifestation of MBS’s ruthless repression machine,” he said, referring to the crown prince. “Just like [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi’s assassination, her sentencing is intended to send shock waves inside and outside the kingdom – dare to criticise MBS and you will end up dismembered or in Saudi dungeons.”

While the case has not received widespread attention, the Washington Post on Tuesday published a scathing editorial about Saudi Arabia’s treatment of the Leeds student and said her case showed that “commitments” the president had received on reforms were “a farce”.

“At the very least, Mr. Biden must now speak out forcefully and demand that Ms. Shehab be released and allowed to return to her sons, 4 and 6 years old, in the United Kingdom, and to resume her studies there,” it read.

He probably won’t though.

News from Port Townsend:

An angry white crowd screaming at a Black woman pleading for civil rights. Threatening her. Intimidating her. Senior women linking arms to protect a rape survivor trying to speak. A lesbian being shouted down by a mostly male mob decked out in Pride colors. A man with an AR-15 imposed over a Trans flag on his ball cap, the impression of a handgun in his left cargo pants pocket, hiding behind sunglasses and a mask that made identification difficult.

This man:

“DEFEND EQUALITY” with an assault rifle and a concealed face. That kind of equality.

Most of the jeering, intimidating mob of hundreds pressing elder women against the wall of the Cotton Building appeared to be from out of town. According to another journalist covering the event, the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club was there, the group that provides armed “security” at Antifa riots. Antifa was there, clusters of men dressed in black with black face coverings. Several women were knocked to the ground by large men who broke through their linked arms. They tore down flags and tried to steal equipment being used to amplify and record the event.

Seriously? Antifa men in black with faces covered knocking women to the ground? This is the left now? Because women don’t want to share locker rooms with men?

This guy was there:

Read the whole thing; if even half of it is true it’s horrifying.

Adding via Sastra:

The buffoons who hired a man to be Period Officer are saying they were right to do it and shut up.

A group in Tayside has defended its decision to appoint a man as a period dignity officer.

Jason Grant’s hiring sparked a heated online debate, with critics saying the job should have gone to a woman.

…

The job advert said the suitable candidate needed a “successful track record of engaging and empowering a large range of people from a diverse range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, in particular young people who menstruate”.

Maybe everybody all along the line was confused – maybe none of them realized menstruation is something male people are not equipped to do, ever, under any circumstances.

Mr Grant will also discuss issues around menopause as part of his role.

Ah great, what menopausal woman doesn’t want some very young man explaining menopause to her?

The period dignity working group, which has representatives of Dundee and Angus College, Perth College, Angus Council and Dundee City Council, said Mr Grant was the strongest candidate for the job.

A spokesperson said: “The role builds on some fantastic work which has been gathering speed across the Tay region for several years, led by a passionate group of people of all genders, ages and backgrounds.

“By changing the culture, encouraging debate and removing the stigma around periods, we look forward to supporting the delivery of this important work across the region.”

They can’t. The insult of hiring a man for that job will render all their clueless attempts to “remove the stigma” not only worthless but yet more insult.

Are they really all such halfwits that they don’t understand it’s women and girls who are stigmatized when menstruation is stigmatized? Are they really all such halfwits that they don’t understand that excluding women and girls from this job of all jobs just underlines what contempt they have for women and girls?

Oh look, the actual job advert for the “Period Dignity Officer” –

Job Description

(This post is funded through Period Dignity Partnership and will be hosted by Dundee and Angus College)

Period Dignity Regional Lead Officer
Regional Post (working with community partners Dundee & Angus College, Perth College, Dundee City Council and Angus Council)
35 hours per week / Fixed-Term to 1st August 2024
Salary: DA10, £33,153 – £36,126

Working in partnership across the Tay Cities Region to aid in the implementation of the Period Product Act, this post aims to coordinate and streamline the approach to Period Dignity across Perth & Kinross, Dundee and Angus.  The Lead Officer will provide outstanding project leadership and management for a range of activities, events, and outcomes. This will include engaging with staff, partners, communities and young people in developing and delivering a campaign that stretches across our regions, raising awareness and understanding of the Period Product Act and the expanse of work happening in our respective communities

It will include engaging with “young people.” Any particular kind of people besides young? Nope, just people.

Energy, enthusiasm and excellent interpersonal skills are needed, backed up with a qualification at degree level and a successful track record of engaging and empowering a large range of people from a diverse range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, in particular young people who menstruate.  

Ohhhhh there we go – young people who menstruate.

Experience of successful working with a wide range of stakeholders, to deliver project outcomes and enhanced opportunities for young people, clients or others is needed, coupled with evidence of devising and delivering marketing and promotional campaigns to reach various audiences.  

Etc etc etc, yadda yadda yadda. No mention of girls or women; not one.

Are the walls closing in on Treasonboy?

The US Department of Justice has asked a judge not to release the affidavit that gave the FBI probable cause to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, worsening distrust among top Trump aides casting about for any insight into the intensifying criminal investigation surrounding the former president.

The affidavit should not be unsealed because that could reveal the scope of the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of government secrets, the justice department argued, days after the Mar-a-Lago search warrant showed it referenced potential violations of three criminal statutes.

Aha. Could it now. How interesting.

In arguing against unsealing the affidavit, the justice department also said that the disclosure could harm its ability to gain cooperation from witnesses not only in the Mar-a-Lago investigation but also additional ones that would appear to touch on the former president.

“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations,” prosecutors added.

Well don’t do that. Get those witnesses to sing like canaries.

The existence of potential witnesses who could yet cooperate in a number of investigations against Trump – seemingly people with intimate knowledge of the former president’s activities – rattled close advisers once more on Monday, further deepening distrust inside his inner political circle.

Good good good. Rattle them like castanets.

The lack of insight into what the justice department intends to do with the investigation into Trump’s unauthorized retention of government documents has deeply frustrated the Trump legal team and aides alike in a week of perilous moments for the former president.

At least one lawyer on the Trump legal team – led by former assistant US attorney Evan Corcoran, who also acted as the lawyer for Trump’s top former strategist Steve Bannon – has called up a reporter covering the story for any insight into how the justice department might next proceed.

Oh good. I hope they’re sweating through all their expensive shirts.

But towards the weekend, and following the revelation that the FBI removed a leather-bound box from the property and already knew the location of Trump’s safe, scrutiny shifted once more to anyone else who had not yet been suspected – including members of Trump’s family, the sources said.

Better and better.

Water cuts in the southwest states:

Water cuts are expected to be announced Tuesday to western states in the grip of a severe “megadrought” that has dropped levels in the country’s largest two reservoirs to record lows.

The flow of the Colorado river, which provides water to more than 40 million people across seven states and Mexico, will be stemmed to reduce supply to Arizona and Nevada initially, if the federal government confirms the proposal.

The crisis, which has dropped levels in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US to an 80-year low of barely one-quarter its 28.9m acre-feet capacity, is threatening the future of the crucial river basin.

It turns out to have been stupid and shortsighted to think the Colorado was simply an infinite permanent water supply to an enormous desert.

The crisis also means power cuts. Less water, less power. Deal with it.

They are dealing with it, aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Since you ask – no.

Officials warned the seven states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – last year to prepare for emergency cuts. In June, officials said the states must figure out how to use 15% less water next year or have cuts imposed on them.

The predicament has prompted tensions between states with different priorities for the water they receive, and talks have failed to yield any agreement.

Brilliant.

Ontology for fantasists.

That’s a general principle then? So if you live your life as a snail you are a snail? If you live your life as a rutabaga you are a rutabaga? A car, a tree, a river, a planet, anything and everything?

Please offer further detail.

The Times on the bad behavior of Joanne Harris:

JK Rowling and fellow writers have accused the bestselling novelist Joanne Harris, who is head of the Society of Authors, of betraying the principle of freedom of speech in her stance on gender identity.

Rowling said that Harris, who wrote the award-winning novel Chocolat, had “consistently failed” to defend female authors who disagreed “with her personal position on gender identity ideology”, allowing the women to be intimidated into silence.

She cited the cases of two authors, Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip, who had suffered “severe personal and professional harm” because they dared to “challenge a fashionable ideology which has been remarkably successful in demonising those who protest against the current attack on women’s rights”.

Rowling tweeted her outrage at the attack on Rushdie, and Harris responded with a sarcastic poll asking writers if they’d ever received threats. She was asked if she’d ever expressed sympathy for Rowling and she said yes.

In a statement to The Times, Rowling said she had received no messages of support from Harris. “I was startled to read this,” she said, “as I’ve received no communication whatsoever from Harris expressing sympathy for the death and rape threats I’ve received.”

So by “yes” Harris meant “no because I don’t like her opinion that men are not women.”

[Rowling] also highlighted remarks by Kate Quarmby, an author who sat on the society’s management committee, who said she had raised the subject of death threats made against Rowling in 2020 and 2021 and asked “that the society put out a statement condemning them”.

Quarmby added: “This did not happen and has not happened since.”

Rowling said:

“Harris has consistently failed to criticise tactics designed to silence and intimidate women who disagree with her personal position on gender identity ideology and has said publicly, ‘Cancel isn’t a dirty word. We habitually cancel things we no longer want.’

“I find it impossible to square the society’s stated position on freedom of speech with Harris’s public statements over the past two years and stand in solidarity with all female writers in the UK who currently feel betrayed by their professional body and its leader.”

Sorry, solidarity is only for the men.

Scotland is drunk.

Obviously men know more about periods than women do.

Dundee man and former personal trainer Jason Grant is the newly appointed period dignity officer for the Tay region – who has the task of promoting access to free sanitary products across schools and colleges – where he will also discuss issues around the menopause.

…

Mr Grant gushed of his new role as he claimed it affects men and boys too and people regardless of gender in a nod to inclusivity toward a minority of young trans men.

No it doesn’t. Menstruation affects women and girls only. It’s not “inclusive” to hire a man to tell women about menstruation.

He told the Dundee Courier: “I’m absolutely buzzing about it. It’s definitely pioneering as Scotland is the first to do this. It’s about making people aware of the availability of period products for anyone of any gender, whenever they need it.”

But it’s not “people” in general who need to be made aware, it’s women only. It’s not “inclusive” to go out of your way to insult women.

“And it’s important whatever we do is done with dignity, so people know that there’s no judgement.”

Get out, sonny. This is none of your business. This is the opposite of dignity just as it’s the opposite of inclusion. Take your prurient “no judgement” somewhere else.

Mr Grant’s role is advertised online with a salary of between £33,153 and £36,126 a year on a fixed term contract running into 2024 – while it is expected other roles of this kind will be set up elsewhere.

All going to men?

Trump’s having a busy day. He’s also been telling the FBI what to do via his personal social media platform. That should work.

Donald Trump has demanded the return of some documents seized by the US justice department in an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida last week – apparently under the impression that posts on his Truth Social platform carry legal weight.

Or any other kind of weight.

In a post on Sunday, the former president wrote: “By copy of this Truth, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!”

Woman man person camera tv.

On Saturday, citing anonymous sources, Fox News reported that in the search at Mar-a-Lago last Monday, the FBI seized boxes “containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege”.

Nonsense. The records were no longer his to keep once Biden was sworn in. There is no form of “privilege” that overrides that.

Trump is told he should hurry up and declare he’s running so that he can…make the world a better place? No, of course not; so that he can avoid criminal investigation. That’s a good reason to run for president!

Donald Trump “has to” announce a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 in the next two weeks, a senior Trumpworld source said, if the former president wants to head off being indicted under the Espionage Act after the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago last week.

Awesome campaign slogan. “The Feds were hot on the trail so I announced my campaign to be president to foil them!”

In communications reviewed by the Guardian, the source indicated Trump needed to announce because politically it would be harder for the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to indict a candidate for office than a former president out of the electoral running.

Which is fascinating. It’s harder to indict a candidate for office? Shouldn’t that be reversed? Don’t we want to screen criminals out of the election process? I’m pretty sure I do.

Kenan Malik on the attack on Rushdie and free inquiry:

The Rushdie affair was a watershed in British political and cultural life, thrusting to the surface issues such as radical Islam, terrorism, the boundaries of free speech and the limits of tolerance. It was also a turning point in the way many thought about these issues. There developed in its wake both a greater hostility to Muslims and a stronger sense of the moral unacceptability of giving offence to other cultures or faiths in a plural society.

…

Rushdie was charting this new terrain, capturing the sense of displacement and dislocation, which he found exhilarating. The Satanic Verses was, he wrote while in hiding, “a love-song to our mongrel selves”, a work that “celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs”. Many critics of The Satanic Verses believed “that intermingling with a different culture will inevitably weaken and ruin their own. I am of the opposite opinion.”

Where Rushdie celebrated the unstitching of traditional boundaries, others yearned for new certainties. Fundamentalist Islam had previously had little presence within western Muslim communities. Now it gained a foothold, providing the certitude and purity that many began to crave.

It seems to me this is Kenan talking about the very things Maugham accuses him of failing to talk about. It’s also Kenan talking about a subject he knows a good deal more about than Maugham does.

Today, many believe that plural societies can only function properly if people self-censor by limiting, in the words of the sociologist Tariq Modood, “the extent to which they subject each other’s fundamental beliefs to criticism”.*

I take the opposite view. It is in a plural society that free speech becomes particularly important. In such societies, it is both inevitable and, at times, important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. They are better openly resolved than suppressed in the name of “respect”.

And important, because any kind of social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities. “You can’t say that!” is all too often the response of those in power to having their power challenged. To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged.

What is deemed “offence to a community” is more often a debate within communities. That’s why so many flashpoints over offensiveness involve minority artists – not just Rushdie but Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Sooreh Hera, MF Husain and many others.

Rushdie’s critics no more spoke for the Muslim community than Rushdie did. Both represented different strands of opinion within Muslim communities. Rushdie gave voice to a radical, secular sentiment that in the 1980s was highly visible. Rushdie’s critics spoke for some of the most conservative strands. It is the progressive voices that such conservatives seek to silence that are most betrayed by constraints on the giving of offence. It is their challenge to traditional norms that are often deemed “offensive”.

And Maugham is on their side, while preening himself on being the more Enlightened one.

*See Tariq Modood’s comment @ 2 for clarification

Jolyon deploys the irregular verbs.

Oh but I’m sure posh rich smug pale Jolyon knows far more about it than mere community-havers like Kenan.

Honestly. You couldn’t make it up. Maugham tweets a stupid ignorant criticism of Kenan’s piece on Rushdie and free speech, and then whines about “hostility or personal animus” when Kenan points out what he got wrong about those “communities” that Kenan knows a good deal more about than he does. You could build a whole city out of the bricks of Maugham’s smugness and conceit.

The Hunger Stones have appeared.

Severe drought has caused water levels of the river Elbe to drop, exposing centuries-old “hunger stones”.

One stone, now visible in Děčín, where the Elbe flows from the Czech Republic into Germany, was carved with a warning in 1616 which reads: “If you see me, weep.”

The stones, embedded into the banks to mark water levels during famines, have been exposed as drought continues to afflict Europe. Other stones, which were common in German settlements from the 16th to the 19th century, were inscribed with similarly macabre warnings in the event of falling water levels.

Water levels during famines – not something we can technology our way around. Crops need water, and if the water isn’t there, the crops fail. We can point to our driverless cars and wireless communications all we want, but if the crops wither and die in the fields, famine ensues. We can put rovers on Mars, but we can’t stop destroying the planet we depend on for life.

It’s bad to threaten and/or attack writers to punish them for what they write.

Mostly.

If the writer is JK Rowling though…

Writer Joanne Harris is facing calls to resign as chairman of the Society of Authors after she was accused of mocking JK Rowling with a ‘tasteless’ Twitter poll about death threats.

After tweeting her support for Sir Salman Rushdie in the wake of his stabbing on Friday, Rowling received this response: ‘Don’t worry, you are next.’

Police are now investigating a report of an ‘online threat’ made to Rowling. Harris, 58, wrote: ‘Fellow-authors… have you ever received a death threat (credible or otherwise).’ 

The response options were ‘Yes’, ‘Hell, yes’, ‘No, never’ and ‘Show me, dammit’, suggesting scepticism about how serious the threats were. Writer Julie Bindel said it was ‘disgustingly inappropriate’.

And novelist Simon Edge described the poll, which was later deleted and replaced with an alternative version, as ‘indefensible’ and said it’s ‘high time’ the Chocolat author stepped down. 

It’s almost as if we don’t know in advance which threats are serious and which are just noise.

The death threat came from an Iran-supporting Islamic extremist called Meer Asif Aziz, based in Karachi, who described himself on Twitter as a ‘student, social activist, political activist and research activist’.

What kind of “activist”?

Rowling had expressed her horror at the attack on Rushdie, and activist dude replied with “you’re next” haw haw geddit?

She also revealed that after reporting [she reported] the vile threat to Twitter, the social media network responded decided that the extremist did not violate the rules.

The email from Twitter read: ‘After reviewing the available information, we determined that there were no violations of the Twitter rules in the content you reported. We appreciate your help and encourage you to reach out again in the future if you see any potential violations.’ 

Rowling posted a screenshot of the response, commenting: ‘These are your guidelines, right? “Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence… “Terrorism/violent extremism: You may not threaten or promote terrorism”…’

Why did Twitter decide the threat was no violation of its rules? I don’t know. Is it because Twitter thinks JKR deserves to be threatened? I don’t know. I don’t understand their thinking at all.

Harris on the other hand is all too clear.

In 2020, 58 writers, journalists and actors signed a letter in the Sunday Times in support of Rowling, condemning the ‘onslaught of abuse’ she had received after expressing her views on gender.

Three days later, Harris was among more than 200 figures who published a statement in support of trans and non-binary people and their rights.

Implying of course that JKR was opposed to those rights.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Trans identitarianism benefits principally upper-class white men.

A current example might be the critique of “colorblindness”. While colorblindness is the desired state of affairs, adopting radical colorblindness prematurely renders one insatiable of recognizing racism. An intermediate state is required in which we “see color”.

Funny how this phase of “blindness” was reached so quickly with regards to women’s rights and equality. We never really “fixed” sexism. There was a little bit of a start, but it was interrupted by a combination of “choosie-choice feminism” and gender identitarianism. We skipped right over equal pay, equal political participation, freedom from male violence, etc. to “Sex Work is Work” and “Trans Women Are Women.” In exchange, we have the “cotton ceiling” and feminism=fascism. Women are painted as oppressors through the “Karen” meme and the “cis” slur. As for “blindness?” We’re now not supposed to see sex; not because we’ve acheived equality between women and men (as if), but because sex no longer exists. Women can no longer be named. If women had even half the power attributed to them by trans activists, they’d be better off than they are. They would have been able to resist the unprecedentedly rapid advances of trans-activism’s institutional capture, because they would have had a seat at the table. Women had no such seat at the table; they weren’t even in the goddamn room.

Here’s some convenient “blindness.” How many oppressed minorities have instant, backroom access outside of (and despite) the law, to shape policy in accord with its own peculiar, self-interested redefinitions, and against existing statutes? Gender is the oppressed king, calling the shots from its position of entrenched “marginalization.” If trans identifying men were really as powerless as they claim, they would be fucking nowhere.

Boston Children’s Hospital is truly scary.

The content that’s labeled “sensitive” is just a hospital bureaucrat talking absolute bullshit about how to know a child “is trans.”

Her title is Director, Gender Multispecialty Service. Specialty how? Service how?

The crime family members are eyeing each other suspiciously.

Theories about Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, are swirling online following the FBI’s seizure of classified documents that were at the former president’s Florida estate.

After Newsweek reported that a confidential source had tipped off the FBI about what classified documents Donald Trump was keeping at his Mar-a-Lago home, Mary Trump— Donald Trump’s niece—theorized that the mole could be Kushner.

…

“I think we need to look very hard at why Jared got $2 billion,” Mary Trump said, referring to the investment Kushner secured from a fund led by by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about six months after leaving the White House.

Well, yes, we do, and always did. Even without the boxes of documents, it’s glaringly corrupt for Kushner to get loans from Saudi princes off the back of his illegal presence in the White House.

The documents the FBI seized could have the potential to reveal U.S. intelligence sources, including human sources on U.S. government payroll, Newsweek also reported this week, citing two federal government sources.

In other words agents. The documents could tell Putin or anyone who the agents are.

That reporting led talk show host Thom Hartmann to tweet that such information was “exactly the king of thing for which [Russian President Vladimir] Putin or Saudi Arabia would pay the Trump family billions.”

And members of the Trump family shouldn’t be receiving billions from Saudi Arabia (or Putin). It’s grotesque that it happened and that nobody did anything about it.

One is never enough.

Police are investigating an online threat to JK Rowling, after she tweeted support for Salman Rushdie following his attack in the US. The Harry Potter author, 57, shared screenshots of a message stating: “Don’t worry, you are next”.

The same Twitter account also posted messages praising the man who attacked Mr Rushdie on stage at an event in New York state. Ms Rowling said she felt “very sick” at the news and hoped he would recover.

She shared a screenshot of the threat, writing: “To all sending supportive messages. Thank you. Police are involved (were already involved on other threats).”

The tweet, from an account in Pakistan, had been removed on Sunday morning. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We have received a report of an online threat being made and officers are carrying out enquiries.”

Makes a change from telling feminist women to wheesht.

Originally a comment by Papito on His colleagues complained.

Nullius, I agree with your statement:

Action within the constraints of egalitarianism (treating none as lesser or greater than oneself) is incapable of exerting the power over others necessary to bring about egalitarian conditions. Egalitarianism cannot bring itself about. Thus, a Leftist politics must necessarily incorporate some other non-egalitarian mechanism for changing the state of affairs obtaining in the world.

This can be substantiated by looking at leftist theory, e.g. Marcuse, who states openly that a bias should be instituted in favor of leftist ideas, to contradict a naturally existing bias towards conservative ideas. So it’s true that leftism has a propensity towards identitarianism, at least as an intermediate stage in the progress towards equality.

On the other hand, there has also been a hijacking of leftist purpose at the means stage, on the part of capitalism. Identity politics has been coopted as a tax paid by the well-educated and well-established in order to continue pursuing the concentration of wealth unhindered. In this, a means stage of leftism has itself become one of the main antagonists of leftist ends.

Trans identitarianism – gender theology – benefits principally upper-class white men. They love to use the shield of poor brown people in, say, Brazil, as a justification for their extortion, but there is nothing whatsoever about that project that enhances equality between rich white trans men in America and mixed-race tranny prostitutes on the street in Rio.

Many other forms of identitarianism have been similarly perverted – affirmative action in American colleges principally benefits immigrants from Africa and middle-class black kids, while leaving the native-born impoverished behind. The left finds itself in frank conflict between those who seek to create a more egalitarian social system and those who seek to use their identity status for personal gain within the system as is. The latter are winning, not incidentally because it’s been so easy for capitalism to adapt to them. It’s just another form of rent-seeking.

But back to the question: are university bosses who force out lesbians and feminists for telling the truth “far-left?” All they’re doing is privileging one identity over another; they’re not doing any work whatsoever to bring about greater social equality. We call them “leftist” if we find the identity/means part of leftist praxis to be its most salient feature, and we don’t if we believe that working for social equality is leftism’s most salient feature. They are simultaneously examples of leftism and examples of its antithesis; they are emblematic of the failure of leftism.