tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post6694137191212128530..comments2023-11-18T01:01:39.761-08:00Comments on exile in happy valley: Voluntary Tribalism: Why Not?Comrade Hermit (Nicky Reid)http://www.blogger.com/profile/15143429283240217518noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-81360592503277144232018-10-13T15:34:20.332-07:002018-10-13T15:34:20.332-07:00Also something that might help. But her mentors fr...Also something that might help. But her mentors from whom she learned the BS from, they've lost their jobs and their clinic was shut down (this includes the guy who came up with that "autogynephilia" BS): <br /><br />https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/12/17/discredited-treatment-of-trans-kids-at-camh-shouldnt-shock-us.html<br /><br />https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2015/04/10/gatekeeping-trans-logic-flawed.html<br /><br />Conversion therapy is also banned in Illinois where Northwestern is: http://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2017/11/comrade-hermit-vs-tranny-whisperer.htmlAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-81194888380132763762018-10-13T15:20:42.062-07:002018-10-13T15:20:42.062-07:00BTW Nicky, I know you talked about how it angers y...BTW Nicky, I know you talked about how it angers you that shrink could potentially be hurting kids with her approach and how you were advised by people not to do much since it's not technically illegal and that even conversion therapy is legal in many places, but conversion therapy is actually illegal where you said you saw her: http://www.statecollege.com/news/centre-county-gazette/state-college-adopts-ordinance-banning-conversion-therapy,1475435/<br /><br />So I suppose it might be a comfort to you to know that if she tries it on others she's actually breaking the law<br /><br />I used to live in the area but am not these days, and honestly, and I know it is your home, but PA can be a very, very reactive rather than proactive state and culture, and when I think about your struggles there, I feel sad because I think if you were somewhere (to put it bluntly) more progressive such as Seattle or the Twin Cities or even NYC, Toronto, etc or a state with more comprehensive ethics codes than PA's such as California, NY, Minnesota, etc etc, your journey would look different. It makes me happy to hear that you have many people supporting you, but sad to hear that you seem to be getting discouraged from doing much about it, and I don't point at any individual here, but it seems to be another symptom of what I see as PA's reactive-not-proactive, weird rules, "shit has to really hit the fan before anything gets done" culture.<br /><br />Where I live atm, I can assure you that there are many people here who would take what happened to you very, VERY seriously, and I guarantee you that you would be able to find therapists here who would validate your pain and not feel that you should forgive her. I can assure you that she would be a pariah at any clinic here and whether the state would have grounds (and my state has much much more comprehensive ethics codes than PA does), if that session occurred at a clinic here, and you reported it to the clinic, it would be taken VERY seriously. You would have many allies and supporters here who would not only sympathize/empathize, but be ready to actively help Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-44603688013460414142018-10-10T00:06:05.129-07:002018-10-10T00:06:05.129-07:00Interesting post and article:
https://www.facebo...Interesting post and article: <br /><br />https://www.facebook.com/kaliandkalki/posts/1088403164642787?__xts__[0]=68.ARDDNnWxxPceatX89zysdspexO9sGnO4mbARUk0-_f1Dh7w6mENzZt-puP1dR4QytIbQbYh8LqMkUzE2-lWIJwoIg6pHrgFkkmE4i5EhRqgQLSgV97vmg3_uObSG3KXp3PiLNOwWyZu5YE5Dx_RU1fq0YHV4fTPowPXw-CVwBLxazEqBiaB9dQ&__tn__=K-RAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-83458296297362202742018-10-09T22:41:32.042-07:002018-10-09T22:41:32.042-07:00"
There was nothing stable about this cold wa..."<br />There was nothing stable about this cold war “stability”, but its devastation was contained within the borders of its proxy states. The breakup of the superpower system, however, has led to the implosion of state authority across large groups of economically and politically impoverished countries – and the resulting eruptions are not contained at all. Destroyed political cultures have given rise to startling “post-national” forces such as Islamic State, which are cutting through national borders and transmitting chaos, potentially, into every corner of the world.<br /><br />Over the past 20 years, the slow, post-cold-war rot in Africa and the Middle East has been exuberantly exploited by these kinds of forces – whose position, since there are more countries set to go the way of Yemen, South Sudan, Syria and Somalia, is flush with opportunity. Their adherents have lost the enchantment for the old slogans of nation-building. Their political technology is charismatic religion, and the future they seek is inspired by the ancient golden empires that existed before the invention of nations. Militant religious groups in Africa and the Middle East are less engaged in the old project of seizing the state apparatus; instead, they cut holes and tunnels in state authority, and so assemble transnational networks of tax collection, trade routes and military supply lines.<br /><br />Such a network currently extends from Mauritania in the west to Yemen in the east, and from Kenya and Somalia in the south to Algeria and Syria in the north. This eats away the old political architecture from the inside, making several nation states (such as Mali and the Central African Republic) essentially non-functional, which in turn creates further opportunities for consolidation and expansion. Several ethnic groups, meanwhile – such as the Kurds and the Tuareg – which were left without a homeland after decolonisation, and stranded as persecuted minorities ever since, have also exploited the rifts in state authority to assemble the beginnings of transnational territories. It is in the world’s most dangerous regions that today’s new political possibilities are being imagined.<br /><br />Advertisement<br /><br />The west’s commitment to nation states has been self-servingly partial. For many decades, it was content to see large areas of the world suffer under terrifying parodies of well-established Western states; it cannot complain that those areas now display little loyalty to the nation-state idea. Especially since they have also borne the most traumatic consequences of climate change, a phenomenon for which they were least responsible and least equipped to withstand. The strategic calculation of new militant groups in that region is in many ways quite accurate: the transition from empire to independent nation states has been a massive and unremitting failure, and, after three generations, there needs to be a way out.<br /><br />But there is no possibility that al-Shabaab, the Janjaweed, Seleka, Boko Haram, Ansar Dine, Isis or al-Qaida will provide that way out. The situation requires new ideas of political organisation and global economic redistribution. There is no superpower great enough, any more, to contain the effects of exploding “quasi-states”. Barbed wire and harder borders will certainly not suffice to keep such human disasters at bay."Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-56624053430895170852018-10-09T22:37:44.021-07:002018-10-09T22:37:44.021-07:00https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-di...https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-diversity-create-distrust/<br /><br />https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rising-ethnic-diversity-increases-whites-fears/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-52494611033597943072018-10-09T22:26:46.115-07:002018-10-09T22:26:46.115-07:00This part from the guardian article sticks out to ...This part from the guardian article sticks out to me:<br /><br />"Advertisement<br /><br />In the world’s poorest countries, the picture is very different. Almost all those nations emerged in the 20th century from the Eurasian empires. It has become de rigueur to despise empires, but they have been the “normal” mode of governance for much of history. The Ottoman empire, which lasted from 1300 until 1922, delivered levels of tranquillity and cultural achievement that seem incredible from the perspective of today’s fractured Middle East. The modern nation of Syria looks unlikely to last more than a century without breaking apart, and it hardly provides security or stability for its citizens.<br /><br />Empires were not democratic, but were built to be inclusive of all those who came under their rule. It is not the same with nations, which are founded on the fundamental distinction between who is in and who is out – and therefore harbour a tendency toward ethnic purification. This makes them much more unstable than empires, for that tendency can always be stoked by nativist demagogues.<br /><br />Nevertheless, in the previous century it was decided with amazing alacrity that empires belonged to the past, and the future to nation states. And yet this revolutionary transformation has done almost nothing to close the economic gap between the colonised and the colonising. In the meantime, it has subjected many postcolonial populations to a bitter cocktail of authoritarianism, ethnic cleansing, war, corruption and ecological devastation.<br /><br />If there are so few formerly colonised countries that are now peaceful, affluent and democratic, it is not, as the west often pretends, because “bad leaders” somehow ruined otherwise perfectly functional nations. In the breakneck pace of decolonisation, nations were thrown together in months; often their alarmed populations fell immediately into violent conflict to control the new state apparatus, and the power and wealth that came with it. Many infant states were held together only by strongmen who entrusted the system to their own tribes or clans, maintained power by stoking sectarian rivalries and turned ethnic or religious differences into super-charged axes of political terror."Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-8828236548482526592018-10-09T22:25:53.266-07:002018-10-09T22:25:53.266-07:00http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/antiracis...http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/antiracism-norms-and-immigration/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5903948190815094163.post-27689283999124151092018-10-09T22:25:45.302-07:002018-10-09T22:25:45.302-07:00I don't know about the proposed ideas here, bu...I don't know about the proposed ideas here, but the author makes good points about the problems of nation-states, it being a European invention and how it seems to be a very (understatement) poor fit outside of Europe.<br /><br />there's 54 African countries but hundreds or thousands of nations. How is the nation-state model which is inherently based on "purity" supposed to work for it unless you get hundreds or thousands of countries, which if it happened would have to also involve (forced?) relocation of many to create that kind of "segregated purity." Concepts like purity and race as we know it are also fairly recent colonial inventions though and "race" as we know it or phenotype being so salient to identity is fairly recent. <br /><br />A lot of right-wingers talk about defending the nation-state with a frankly, alt-right undertone but (and poli-sci people make this mistake at least that guy) don't realize that nation-states are a recent invention and many nations were also recent, forced identities, including in Europe. The formation of nation-states in the 19th and 20th centuries involved suppressing and abolishing many identities (southern France used to be more Occitan in language and identity, etc)<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasguptaAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05672712238697848913noreply@blogger.com