this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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El Chisme
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He's a transphobe? I haven't followed what he's said in years but that's a major let-down. What's up with moderately lefty people and just diving head first into transphobia. Zizek was like this.
Finkelstein's his academic career has been destroyed by Zionists because he never backed downa and sold out. Zizek has and always will be some edgy contrarian ivory tower leftist.
Yeah what happened to Finkelstein put him on an "anti-woke" bend because he identified with the free speech crowd. I feel like in another timeline where there was an actual left wing in academic circles that could've stood by him he wouldn't necessarily have gone down this road. But screw him for siding with the free speech absolutists that only ever care to defend the speech of rabid bigots like the one he's slowly become.
From what I understand he wrote that transphobic article in 2023 shortly before October 7th and I remember thinking “okay he’s gonna spiral into this kind of person” but the events following October 7th seemed to really reenergize him and I haven’t seen him say anything chuddy like he did in that article since. He’s been really good with staying on topic.
Since he never apologized for it I suspect those are still his beliefs and I bet we will start hearing more rhetoric like that from him when/if things “stabilize” in the levant. I hope in my heart of hearts that he has noticed that so many of the people internationally that support Palestine are trans and that makes him reconsider but I really doubt he would be swayed by that personally.
He's not on social media, and the coverage of queer people in Palestinian solidarity protests that he is likely to see is obviously no good at all. My hopes aren't very high.
There are generally two types of boomer left i have come across.
Those who were radicalized decades earlier (some were already staunch opposer of US imperialism going back to the Vietnam war) and saw their workers movement being dismantled from the inside by weaponized liberal identity politics post-USSR collapse, these boomers are far more likely to harbor anti-trans/LGBT sentiment.
Then there the boomers who were radicalized during Bernie/Trump era and shifted leftward toward Lenin/Stalin as the years went by (a small proportion but they do exist), these boomers are generally supportive of LGBT and various other progressive rights.
At least this is my experience with them.
I think there's some truth to this but the overall impression I get is that there's enough exceptions that it doesn't work as a general rule. A lot of Gen Z guys with manosphere type thoughts also picked up many leftist ideas and these are the prime demographics for the ACP, Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, etc. And a lot of older people who have been in leftist orgs for decades know a lot of minorities and are familiar with their struggle so it's harder for them to fall into vulgar materialism and dismissive attitudes toward minorities.
edit: oops, ignore the first part, you were only talking about boomer leftists.
I should have made it clear that I was talking about American boomers who were radicalized and ended up reading Marx and Lenin (they do exist lol, just not many of them), so not just any boomer that consume online leftist media. Maybe I should have said boomer Marxists/communists instead.
he is like 100 years old so it's not all that surprising but yeah, sucks. he has said some really whack stuff about trans people
cw
Watch the video, he whines about cancel culture and says the science is against puberty blockersHe could certainly be worse, hence why I'm asking how we stop people like him from going down this path, not just purely shitting on him, but he is on the path. I don't feel he's irredeemable, and his scholarship over the years is of great value, but it sucks to hear this stuff from him, and makes him and his ideas unpresentable to young people who are better informed than he is about trans issues. He is becoming more and more like the people he associates with, whining about cancel culture with them and reading their work about social issues
Yves Smith too.
I've never seen that
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If you're hearing about them through channels controlled by the upper class they arent left, just tolerable to the upper class. The real solidarity isnt going to be found amongst academics, its at the picket line.