• masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    This is awful article. I’d be curious to read about any role Steinem had with the CIA but this article has jack shit in it other than weird vague accusations based on one of her organizations receiving funding from the CIA at some point.

  • Kethal@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Im not familiar with Medium, but I don’t recall the other things I’ve read there being vapid crap.

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    To finish the quote on her CIA relationship, since context is important:

    In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, published a report that Steinem and others put together on the Vienna Youth Festival and its attendees for the Independent Research Service.[112][113] Redstockings raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the CIA, which Steinem denied.[114] Steinem defended her relationship to the CIA, saying: “In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable.”

    Honestly I figured the context would clear things up, but the rest of the quote makes her come off as an apologist for an organization known to play as dirty as the KGB, and especially during that era. However just because something is funded by an entity such as the CIA doesn’t always mean that the organization is part of, partner in, or even a willing partner with something like the CIA, same with the KGB or its descendants, espionage operates on leverage, and it all depends on what kind of hold you have over the “asset(s)”.

    • thesmokingman@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      I think the Medium article is bullshit. It doesn’t provide anything more than the Wikipedia for its sources and all Wikipedia says is what you quoted. Direct organization funding by the CIA does not mean an employee is a CIA agent. Lots of DARPA projects that we use for radical things were made by radicals that vehemently opposed everything but government grants (many others were either agents or supporter; Surveillance Valley is a great read).

      She’s totally a fucking stooge though. There’s no fucking way you say that about the CIA then (or in hindsight about then when she wrote her biography given all the other things that came out since then) without being a fucking stooge. I don’t think we can conclude anything more than that without more context, which I’ve yet to find.

      • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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        2 months ago

        You’re right that the coffee purchased by the CIA isn’t inherently evil just because it was bought with CIA dollars.

        I’d guess 99% of the dollars spent by the CIA were for bad things, however.

  • PP_GIRL_@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Try looking up the correlation between the Occupy movement in '08 and the rise in race-based discussion in the media that came right afterwards ;)

      • xanu@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I think they were pointing to the media trying to shift the focus to race. “You’re problem isn’t because you’re poor, it’s because of all those nasty people who are different to you”.

        Anything to prevent class consciousness and organization.

      • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        The upper crust and intelligence apparatus was incredibly uncomfortable with OWS for obvious reasons.

        Preface: short (2min) video of an Occupy meeting near the end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W81A1kTXPa4

        Pre-occupy, gender identity and race-based issues were known but not talked about a great deal in the public sphere. They weren’t the core identity of a large number of people, and they were something that was ‘allowed’ to be discussed without blind following or rage.

        During occupy, OWS organizers started what they called an ‘egalitarian stance’, which was a way to reframe the available classes to fight against in class warfare, were those more privileged than you (race, gender, identity politics) instead of financial privilege. If you were a white male, whether disabled or had a speech impediment or whatever, you were more privileged than anyone and you lost your rung in the ladder, you were now the lowest class. White women were just above you. Minority groups (race and gender, poverty level not included) became the prevailing upper-class and had the most right to speak.

        OWS quickly lost momentum after a number of changes like this, and the conversation was no longer about class warfare, but about privilege, meaning only race and gender (initially). I believe there were leaked documents (unsure if verified) that the FBI was seeking, or had gained, access to OWS leadership positions. It seems obvious they would attempt it. This is something someone will have to confirm or correct me on, because a quick search isn’t pulling the documents and I need to run.

        Tangentially related, because who doesn’t love graphs and data: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

    • masquenox@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Riiight… it cannot possibly be the white supremacism that’s so fundamental to US society - it must be the Alphabet agencies!

      • dlpkl@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The white supremacists are willing idiots. I don’t doubt they were leveraged to inflame race relations, same way Russia took advantage of the BLM movement to create division.

        • masquenox@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          same way Russia took advantage of the BLM movement to create division.

          You cannot divide that which has already been divided, liberal.

            • masquenox@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Oh look… a liberal that doesn’t know what the term “tankie” means.

              And like all liberals, you are desperate to hide how comfortable you are with white supremacism.

              Yawn.

              • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                And non-white liberals? Are they simply self hating, because they disagree with you?

                Frankly, at this point, I find the concept of you being a leftist utterly laughable. You’re indistinguishable from a conservative cosplaying as a “leftist” to show how rude and insensible they are.

                That kind of has a nice ring to it actually. I’ll be seeing you around, conservative.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    That’s not surprising at all. Mind you she failed, there’s anarcha feminism and Marxist feminism, but they’re branches of anarchism and Marxism respectively so maybe she didn’t fail.

    She also was a major contributor to the satanic panic