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The Feminist Was a Spy
- dstnn 1mo agoLol this is going to go over well
- krapp 1mo agoA thread on HN about the CIA and feminism? I'm grabbing some popcorn, this is going to be entertaining.
- dgellow 1mo agoHopefully the flame war detector will be triggered quickly
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1mo agoLet the battle between the cynics and foreign trolls commence!
- red-iron-pine 1mo agopost the psy-op cat meme plz
- api 1mo agoPeople make a ridiculous deal out of someone at any point doing any work with the CIA, or a company having IQT on their cap table, or anything like that. Yeah, right, as soon as you get involved you instantly meet with the smoking man from the X-Files and see the dead aliens and become part of some kind of grand conspiracy. After that every single thing you say or do is part of some giant perfectly organized CIA plot. Please. Most of what these three letter agencies do is boring. It’s a lot like guilt by association: “this person did business with this person therefore they are totally the same on everything and part of some big agenda.” False. I don’t think this means anything at all.
- gedy 1mo agoSure, but it is really interesting to think that the 50s arts and 60s youth movements as top-down "soft power" countermeasures to the USSR and communist revolutions, and that it's not so spontaneous as it's typically thought of.
- FeteCommuniste 1mo agoSomething similar was happening with CIA promotion of abstract expressionism in art: https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/did-you-know/la-cia-y-el-expresionismo-abstracto https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/did-you-know/la-cia-y-e...
- 6P58r3MXJSLi 1mo ago> It’s a lot like guilt by association What would you think of someone who works for KGB (now FSB) and propagandizes the values of USSR (or modern Russia)? secondly: CIA job is exactly promote the image of a "liberal, nonviolent and honorable” agency, while killing thousands people to overthrown elected governments just because uncle Sam did not like them...
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- wry_discontent 1mo agoYes, I think it's a big deal if you worked for a big evil organization on purpose.
- 21asdffdsa12 1mo agoMost of what the 3 letter agencies do is also fraud- some drunk station chief phoning in some changes as "I made that happen!". The CIA is a pillar to prop up stuck cultures excuses for why they get nothing good done - when your own ideology has no explanation power and thus no real help to offer, except calls for endless uprisings and civil wars. It also keeps a whole "nonacademic" wing of academia propped up. For when your theories have no predictive power and reality merciless digresses- its all a conspiracy by the 3 letters. Cultural Inability to Advance is everywhere!
- lurk2 1mo ago[flagged]
- dgellow 1mo agoHad an abortion*
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- dgellow 1mo agoWait, wtf do you mean by tribe? That reads as blatant antisemitism
- margalabargala 1mo agoYou know what they mean. If it reads a certain way, maybe it is that way. This person is referring to having an abortion as "killing their unborn child", they clearly aren't interested in non-inflammatory language.
- bell-cot 1mo agoIf you want clicky headlines or simplistic denunciations, then saying that everyone ever associated with the CIA was a "spy" is quite useful. Otherwise, it's kinda like saying that everyone ever employed by Ford Motor Co. was a mechanical engineer, and bears responsibility for exploding Pintos.* (And bear in mind that James Bond is about as realistic a depiction of "spy" as Bugs Bunny is a depiction of "rabbit".) A serious article on the activities Steinem was involved in: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-friend-of-the-devil https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-friend-of-th... *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_recalls,_and_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...
- han-tyumi 1mo agoYes, yes, the good ol' "liberal, non-violent, and honorable" CIA of the 50s and 60s. So different from the one we have now. Is this the CIA that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran after he nationalized their oil industry? Or is it the one that installed a dictatorship in Guatemala to stop land reform and tend to the whims of the United Fruit Company? Maybe it's the organization that murdered the first elected leader of Congo, to keep cheap copper, colbat and uranium flowing? Certainly it can't be the agency that illegally spied on American citizens who fought for Civil Rights or protested against the Vietnam War. So much for soft power.
- ch4s3 1mo ago> Is this the CIA that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran Mosaddegh Was not democratically elected, he was appointed by the Shah after the recommendation by the Majlis which itself was largely appointed. Later Mosaddegh rigged a real election and tried to give himself emergency power to dictate law. The Shah and his generals with the help of the US and Britain removed Mosaddegh. Yes the British wanted to get involved because of oil nationalization but Mosaddegh was trying to become a dictator, and alienated a lot of the population.
- esafak 1mo agoMajlis means parliament, and with the monarch Shah in control, that makes it a constitutional monarchy. To place a putschist general on par with that is disingenuous; it is a democratic retreat.
- tancop 1mo agoTo be fair Iran back then wasn't a system like the UK or Sweden where the king's power is limited to signing laws. It worked more like Gulf states today with a much more personal form of government, the Shah could freely appoint ministers and dissolve parliament when he wanted. And his secret police was trained by the CIA.
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- nonsensical_ 1mo agoHmm. Feminism as a CIA psyop. They’ve done more audacious things, I suppose.
- neutronicus 1mo agoFeminism has always been bundled up in the idea of American cultural superiority that justifies pursuing hegemony (although the term used is usually "women's rights").
- dgellow 1mo agoFeminism exists outside of the US
- neutronicus 1mo agoSure. I thought briefly about using the phrase "American Feminism". But, regardless, to be more nuanced: Feminism gets rhetorically roped into the case for Western cultural hegemony, which in turn gets used as a justification for US military adventurism.
- dgellow 1mo agoModern feminism is generally anti-colonialist and intersectional, which goes against that specific notion
- rayiner 1mo agoModern intersectionality isn’t the cultural relativism of 20th century liberalism. Intersectionality has a built in escape hatch for any aspect of foreign culture that conflicts with the foundational premises of post-religious children of mainline american protestants. Any such practice gets lifted to a “human right,” thus taking it out of the realm of cultural differences and allowing it to be imposed on foreign societies without accusations of cultural imperialism. This avoids failure modes of 20th century cultural relativism, which treated everything as socially constructed and therefore within bounds as long as some society accepted the practice. It has a different flaw, however, in that there is no rational distinction between what’s a socially constructed aspect of culture and what’s a human right.
- throwfaraway135 1mo agoIt is a shame but there are almost no true grassroots political organizations, most of them are payed, bought or employed by someone. A very good example of this is that we don't see any major feminist rallies against how the government is handling the Epstein files, whose victims where predominately young girls and women.
- dgellow 1mo agoVirtually every single feminist organization has spoken against Epstein, his best friend Trump, and the people around them. And in support of their victims. Where are you getting your information from?
- throwfaraway135 1mo agothere were some, but considering how monumental it was many people including me consider it a lackluster effort[1] [1] https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/silence-epstein-files-global-feminist-defeat/2876916/ https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/silence-epstein-files-global...
- sceptic123 1mo agoIt's almost like there's someone, who perhaps even got elected on the back of getting the files released and who exerts power over media outlets, that doesn't want this to be a big story.
- swed420 1mo ago> that doesn't want this to be a big story That's a bipartisan sentiment as far as politicians are concerned. They pass it around like a hot potato and give it brief lip service only when it suits them.
- rayiner 1mo agoThis is the kind of bizarre article you see in an era where people reflexively support anything having to do with the federal bureaucracy. Even the 1960s CIA that was overthrowing democratically elected leaders in other countries is now “liberal, nonviolent and honorable.” Where did this come from? Politically homeless socially liberal Reagan republicans?
- readthenotes1 1mo agoIt reads like it was written by the CIA, mentioning only recent failures, not world changing operations back in Steniems day
- k310 1mo agoWas modern art a weapon of the CIA? [0] > Still, whatever the truth of the extent of the CIA’s financial involvement with Abstract Expressionism, Anfam believes that it was “the best thing the institution ever paid for”. He smiles. “I’d much rather they spent money on Abstract Expressionism than toppling left-wing dictators.” I had a similar view of my work that involved SDI "Star Wars". Better spent on my paycheck than on bombs. Don't forget, the gorgeous mirror in the Vera Rubin Telescope was one of two donated from another three-letter agency's dumpster. I could tell you, but then you'd have to be shredded. Buddhists like to "turn poison into medicine". So should we all. [0] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-...