Female Empowerment Is Still Our Only Hope

Just a reminder to everyone that despite current events, or rather a fortiori because of current events, we need Female Empowerment more than ever before.  While a full-blown Matriarchy is still a while away and we seem to be heading into a new dark age of totalitarian technocracy (i.e. the so-called "Great Reset"), Women must never give up and let their hard-won progress thus far be eroded any further.  After all, all oligarchies, plutocracies, kleptocracies, and technocracies (or all of the above) are patriarchal at their core.  As a man, I obviously don't have nearly all of the answers, nor do I claim to truly know the details of how to do it, but what I do know in my heart of hearts is that only Women collectively can truly halt and reverse for good the utterly dark and dystopian future to which we are otherwise headed, Goddess willing.

Granted, perhaps it is better to think in terms of "protopia" rather than utopia, but otherwise the point still stands.

Now is NOT the time to sit on one's laurels, give up hope, or make the perfect the enemy of the good in any way.   Nor is it the time to take advice from fools, charlatans, mouthpieces of the oligarchy/technocracy/ patriarchy, or an even worse category:  the vile and demonic Phyllis Schlafly types who masquerade as feminists (or even as self-proclaimed Radical Feminists) but are really patriarchal to the core or otherwise throw other Women under the bus for their own worldly gains, often disguised as concern-trolling.  A good litmus test for that latter category is how they react to the works of the author Mark Regnerus, as anyone who agrees with his poisonous words are not really feminists and do not support genuine Female Empowerment.  Which by the way, is both individual AND collective empowerment, NOT an either/or. 

Bottom line, Women need to get into as many positions of power as possible, in as many places at as many levels as possible, as quickly as possible.  Time is running out.

So go forth and make old Buckminster Fuller proud!

(See also a previous article here as well for a more detailed discussion on the ultimate kill switch to smash the patriarchy.)

Why We Still Need A Universal Basic Income Guarantee Yesterday (Updated)

I have repeatedly noted before why any serious proposal for a pragmatic utopia would require some sort of unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all.  (Note that the "U" itself also stands for "Unconditional", which is VERY important.)  At least as long as we still have a monetary system, of course, and it will be quite some time before money can be phased out completely.  And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, and their grisly social and economic aftermath, it is more crucial now than ever before, and will be for quite some time as well.  

To wit:

1. First and foremost, "It's payback time for Women".  Recently, a Woman named Judith Shulevitz wrote an op-ed titled thusly, arguing in favor of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all.  Her feminist argument for a UBI, which I agree 100% with, was that such a thing would provide long-overdue compensation for Women's unpaid work (i.e. housework and caregiving) that society currently takes for granted and considers a "free resource" for the taking.  As the saying goes, there are two kinds of work that Women do:  underpaid, and unpaid.  While that is true for some men as well, it is overwhelmingly true for Women.  Thus, her argument makes a great deal of sense overall, and I agree.  It is indeed LONG overdue.  And it applies a fortiori now in light of the fact that Women got the worst deal of all from the lockdown-induced job losses, the often triple burden for Mothers at home, the gnawing forced isolation from the support system of other Women, and the increased exposure to domestic violence during lockdown.  And they are still continuing (and will continue) to suffer from the aftermath long after the lockdowns are behind us.  Lockdown is patriarchy on crack, basically.
2. Men are becoming increasingly redundant in the long run due to technology, globalization, and the overall ascendancy of Women.  When men are no longer artificially propped up, they will fall--and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  And this will only increase in the near future.  This is a potential ticking time-bomb that must be defused sooner rather than later.  Men become extremely dangerous creatures under either of two conditions:  1) when they have too much power relative to Women, and/or 2) when they are desperate for money.  Ever see the 1996 film Fargo? Indeed, a Universal Basic Income is one of the best ways to tackle the second one.  Again, it only applies a fortiori now.
3. A UBI is far more efficient in theory and practice than much of what currently passes for a social safety net these days, and would have far less bureaucracy.  No means tests, no discrimination, no playing God.  It's simply a basic human right, period.  And it would be far less costly in the long run.
4. As Buckminster Fuller famously noted, there are more than enough resources for everyone to live like a millionaire with today's technology.  And he said this back in the 1970s, mind you.  And the specious notion that everybody and their mother must "work for a living" is not only outdated, but is also seriously classist, ableist, and ageist, and by extension indirectly sexist and racist as well.  The fact that human beings, unlike literally every other species on Earth, somehow must PAY to merely LIVE on the planet on which they were born is now totally contrived and socially constructed, and is in fact an egregious Crime Against Nature.
5. Poverty is a razor-sharp, double-edged sword, spiritually speaking. Being attached to riches is clearly counter to spirituality, but then again, so is being attached to poverty. Either way, it's the *attachment* that is the problem.  And poverty today is largely if not entirely man-made via artificial scarcity.
6. We would all be better off on balance, spiritually and otherwise, if material poverty were eradicated--and a UBI is the most efficient way to do so. As William Bond (and others) noted, with today's technology that is certainly doable, but for the greed of the oligarchs at the top who control the system. And that in turn is a result of patriarchy, given how men tend to see war and scarcity as inevitable, so they create a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result.
7. With an unconditional UBI instead of means testing or other conditions, gone will be the perverse incentives that exist under the current system that trap too many people in poverty today.
8. Negative liberty and positive liberty are NOT opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin.  Indeed, one cannot be truly free if one is systematically denied the basic necessities of life.  And truly no one is free when others are oppressed in any way. 
9. Inequality, at least when it is as extreme as it is today, is profoundly toxic to society and makes the looming problems/crises of climate change and ecological overshoot that much more difficult to solve.  This is over and above the effects of poverty alone.  And a UBI can dramatically reduce both socio-economic inequality as well as absolute material poverty.  (And when funded by an Alaska-style tax on fossil fuels, it can also double as a Steve Stoft or James Hansen-style carbon tax-and-dividend as well.)
10. We consume and waste a ludicrous amount of (mostly fossil-fuel) energy in the so-called "developed" world, and much of that wasteful consumption can be curtailed simply by making it so no one has to "work for a living" unless one really wants to.  Just think of all the energy spent (and commuting to and from) unnecessary work at a job you hate, to buy stuff you don't need, to impress people you don't even like.  A UBI could thus greatly reduce our carbon and overall ecological footprint in the long run.
11. And finally, one should keep in mind that, as Carol Brouillet has noted, the literal and original meaning of the word "community" is "free sharing of gifts".  What we currently have now under patriarchy/kyriarchy is more of a pseudo-community in that regard.   And that needs to change. Yesterday.  The exchange economy of capitialist patriarchy has failed us, and we need to rediscover and re-create the gift economy in its place.  A UBI will make the transition much smoother and more peaceful that it would otherwise be.  (Some ultra-purist radfems may disagree of course, but they are in the minority even among the radical feminist community.)

Perhaps Bucky's other prediction, that Women would take over the world, is a prerequisite for his vision to be fulfilled?   Honestly, it can't happen soon enough!

In other words, it would be a win-win-win situation for literally everyone but the 0.01% oligarchs at the top.  So why aren't we doing this yesterday?  Because that would make far too much sense.  To quote Buckminster Fuller:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

In fact, one could argue that two of the most toxic, outdated, and specious ideas ever conceived by the patriarchy (aside from the central doctrine of male supremacy itself and the entire "dominator" model, of course) are that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" and that "everybody must procreate."  And both are now literally KILLING this very planet that gives us life.  Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless.  Again, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.  And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society.  

(See also the TSAP's Q&A page, "Why UBI".)

Of course, for UBI to work properly, it would have to be totally unconditional with NO strings attached, period.  The Davos gang's (per)version of same, in contrast, will have plenty of strings attached, and will likely utilize Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) instead of cash, and tied to CCP-style "social credit scoring", and a critical mass of people will fall for it absent any alternative, so we need to beat them to it with a genuine cash UBI with no strings attached BEFORE they do it.  They will NOT own us, and they will NOT be happy!

So what are we waiting for? Let the planetary healing begin!

The Great Trade

Part 1:

WOMAN:  Men only want one thing.  I mean, they are completely governed by their "Finger Eleven", if you catch my drift.

MAN:  "If I traded it all, if I gave it all away, for one thing...." (to quote lyrics by the band, literally named Finger Eleven).

WOMAN:  Keys to the kingdom, so we can finally reclaim our rightful place as the new leaders of the free world?

MAN:  Your terms are acceptable.

Part 2:

MODERN-DAY PHARISEE:  Not so fast, little lady.  For what shall it profit a woman, to gain the world and lose her soul?

WOMAN:  Excuse you, but us Women can multitask just fine, thank you very much.  You must be projecting.

MODERN-DAY PHARISEE:  A man cannot serve two masters.

WOMAN:  True, a MAN cannot serve two masters.  But a master can have many servants.  Now go make me a sandwich!

MODERN-DAY PHARISEE:  (Speechless)

The Four Biggest Casualties Of (Gender) War

Every war has casualites, and the 7000 year long gender war (which we call "patriarchy" to make it sound nicer) is certainly no exception.  There are many such casualties, and the four biggest ones are as follows:

1. The first casualty is TRUTH.  And that is not just a clichéd statement, but is practically axiomatic.  If people really knew the truth, the continuity of the war will be called into question.  So the truth is deliberately hidden and replaced with lies, half-truths, and omissions whenever possible.  Eventually it leads to a "post-truth" society and world, in which the truth becomes essentially irrelevant in what passes for discourse.
2. The second casualty is INNOCENCE.  Not as a euphemism for ignorance (for which there is still plenty), but in the most general sense, which includes the capacity for trust.  And that is a result of the first casualty, truth. Not to mention all of the actual and horrific atrocities of the war itself as well.  This results in jadedness, bitterness, and cynicism, which in the case of the gender war seriously poisons the relationship between Women and men, and also vitiates what remains of the sisterhood between Women as well.
3. The third casualty is LOVE.  And not just in the romantic sense, but in the most general sense to include all forms of love, all the way down to and including friendship.  In fact, friendship is probably the biggest casualty of all.  When both primary genders regard the other as being inherently dangerous/evil and needing to be controlled, that kinda precludes all but the most superficial and/or authoritarian relationships between the two.
4. And the fourth and final casualty is HUMANITY, in both senses of the word.

Thus, the gender war, like all wars, ultimately hurts everyone and thus needs to end yesterday.  And the only way to end it (without the entire planet being killed) is for us fellas to, paraphrasing the late Emperor Hirohito, "accept the unacceptable" and surrender to Women.  The sooner we finally cap the game, the better.  So what are we waiting for?

Viva La....Counterrevolution? Why "Reactionary Feminism" Is An Anachronistic Oxymoron That Will NOT Help Women

Some on the interwebs are recently claiming that a "sexual counterrevolution" is afoot, one that is ostensibly led by Women on both sides of the Atlantic (USA and UK) who are fed up with the sexual revolution as it were.  From Mary Harrington (who apparently coined the term, as well as the term "reactionary feminism" with which she herself identifies) to Louise Perry to Christine Emba to Katherine Dee to Evie Magazine to a few others, including some men as well, there does appear to be a trend back towards sex-negativity, or at least against the perceived excesses of sexual liberation.

The sexual revolution, like the industrial revolution, was a mixed bag overall.  Contrary to what some believe, it was neither an unalloyed good nor an unmitigated evil.  But overall, it was on balance a good thing I think.  Yes, even for Women too.  If anything, it is still unfinished to this day.  It is not a simple case of "men won and Women lost", just like the industrial revolution was not merely a simple case of "bourgeoisie (capitalist class) won and proletariat (working class) lost".  Sexual liberation does NOT need to be a zero-sum game at all.  Only the male-defined sexuality of patriarchy is truly a zero-sum game, which has existed long before the sexual revolution.  Female-defined sexuality is not.

As for the idea that there should be some sort of counterrevolution, as author Louise Perry advocates in The Case Against The Sexual Revolution, well, some good rebuttals from many different angles can be found here, here, and here.  Even Christine Emba's new book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation (the thesis of which is neither  new nor particularly provocative) can be criticized here, here, and here as well.  These rebuttals for both, all written by Women, are far, far better than anything I could ever write.  And while these two authors occasionally make some decent points here and there, they are both quite heavy on problems and light on solutions.  Emba's solutions are far too vague and anodyne, while Perry's are far too retro (if not extremely non-starters as well), to even be considered solutions.  

But truly the only real solution is the one that these authors don't seem to consider:  MATRIARCHY.  It's like they are afraid to even utter the word, or something.  Not surprising, of course, given how utterly infantilizing and agency-denying some of their arguments are to Women in general.

It is true what they say that mere consent should be the floor, not the ceiling, of sexual ethics.  No argument from me there.  Even most sex-positive feminists would agree as well.  What Emba in particular calls "radical empathy" is also crucial, as well as respect, honesty, and basic human decency/dignity, of course.  But beyond that, their arguments really start to coast into confusion if not utter incoherence overall.  And the relatively short shrift they give to non-heterosexual folks (both Women and men), who they barely even acknowledge at all, also does the reader a serious disservice as well.

But back to Mary Harrington.  Her brand of "reactionary feminism" takes it a step further and apparently wants to roll back not only the sexual revolution, but also the industrial revolution as well, and possibly even the Enlightenment too.  The 1950s is apparently not traditional enough for her, as she quite literally seems to prefer....the 1450s.  (Riddle me this:  If that time period was so great, then why all the peasant revolts, in which revolutionary Women, eventually persecuted as "witches", played an outsized role?)  She is really quite the anti-modernist, it seems, and the title of her upcoming book, Feminism Against Progress, kinda says it all.  She comes dangerously close to sounding just like the Neoreactionary movement at times.  Oh, and she also denies that patriarchy ever even existed either.  Thus, her vague "solutions" would essentially preclude the only real solution of Matriarchy as well.  And yet she calls herself a feminist, go figure!

(To be fair, Harrington is not the first person to ever criticize the notion of "progress" either.  Christopher Ryan, co-author of Sex at Dawn, also wrote a sort-of sequel, Civilized to Death:  The Price of Progress, in which he also criticizes the unquestioned notion of progress, albeit from a different and clearly sex-positive angle, and with VERY different solutions compared to the reactionaries.  I triple-dog dare Harrington to debate him, lol.  But much like Lynn Saxon, author of an unconvincing rebuttal titled Sex at Dusk, she would probably just resort to cad-shaming and other ad hominem attacks.)

Oh, and finally, one of her most ridiculous articles ever is literally titled, "Middle Aged Women Don't Want Sex", and presumably that applies to Crones as well.  Somehow that sounds a bit like projection perhaps?  And besides, the legendary Guru Rasa Von Werder has clearly and famously debunked this utterly specious notion to be not only inaccurate, but almost a full 180 degrees wrong as well.

Thus, so-called reactionary feminism occupies that awkward space between where extreme sex-negative radical feminism and extreme sex-negative anti-feminism meet per Horseshoe Theory.  Much like how the far left and far right become dangerously close to each other as well.  It is essentially the worst of both extreme worlds, and its pied pipers should really be avoided like the plague and not discussed further.  Except insofar as sunlight is the best disinfectant, of course.

UPDATE:  Oh, and about those revolutionary Women of the 15th century, eventually persecuted as "witches", did you know that many of them believed in and practiced communal living and even (gasp) free love?  You know, the same things that are absolutely anathema to those self-proclaimed "reactionary feminists" discussed above?  According to the actual feminist Sylvia Federici, they apparently did.  So far from being the granddaughters of the "witches" they couldn't burn, today's reactionaries are more like the granddaughters, or at least ideological descendants, of the sellout Women who collaborated with the witch-hunters and threw their sisters under the bus.  That is true not just for these reactionaries, but also for all slut-shamers, SWERFs, forced-birthers, victim-blamers, and rape apologists as well--all of which being just a very short walk away from one another.

In fact, I decided to name this new-but-not-really-new virulent strain of reactionary pseudo-feminism "Serena Joy Syndrome", after the rather infamous character from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  It fits perfectly. 

UPDATE 2:  New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has a good response (if anodyne) to the sexual counterrevolutionaries.  Even if it is still not well-received by some of the counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries themselves, of course.

Roe v. Wade Has Fallen

Well, after nearly half a century, it actually happened:  the landmark Roe v. Wade decision has officially fallen.  Today the US Supreme Court struck it down completely.  Forced-birther Republicans are thus now emboldened to further ban or restrict abortion at the state level, as several states have already done recently.  That is, Women's hard-won reproductive rights are now in grave danger, and this goes WAY beyond abortion.  Undoubtedly, birth control and things like that will be next on the chopping block, and so on, and thus we are just a few steps away from Margaret Atwood's worst nightmare. In fact, Clarence Thomas himself implied as much, actually saying the quiet part out loud.

Add to this the fact that the recent lockdown-induced "recession" (more like depression) has actually hit Women harder than men and set back Women's progress by decades by dumping even more unpaid work on them at home, and the future looks even worse still.

Democrats in Congress are still looking to pass a bill that would codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, superseding the abortion bans in any state that attempts such bans.  But alas, success in that regard is far from guaranteed.

Horrible and ghastly as this overall prospect is, there is perhaps a silver lining, namely that it may spur Women to go on a Lysistrata-style sex strike.  This may be the final straw, and such a strike may be enough for Women to actually take over for good.  That is, what would otherwise take decades at best would be accelerated in a matter of weeks or months, Goddess willing.  Perhaps that is why She is allowing all of this parade of horribles to happen at all?

Of course, a sex strike is a short-term tactic, not a long-term strategy.  For the ultimate kill switch on how really smash the patriarchy for good in the long term please see a previous article here.  And interestingly, the late 19th century feminist Victoria Woodhull would have in fact supported both.

To be clear, I don't think any real feminists actually LIKE the practice of abortion.  It is in fact an unfortunate side effect of the patriarchy, as it is the patriarchy itself that effectively makes nearly all abortions necessary in the first place despite that very same patriarchy's pharisaical and hypocritical attempts to ban and restrict the practice.  In a future Matriarchal society, there would be very, very few abortions occurring even with no restrictions at all, as pregnancies would no longer be forced on Women and poverty would be effectively eradicated, thus eliminating the two biggest incentives for abortion.  But it is crystal clear that banning or unduly restricting abortion does far more harm than good on balance, as that only reduces the number of safe and legal abortions (for the non-rich).  Unsafe and illegal abortions would continue regardless.  So the very tiny left feminist wing of the anti-abortion movement (who is actually cheering for the new Texas law) really misses the point entirely.  And the sooner we fully abolish the "livestock model" of reproduction where Women are treated like brood mares (and men as work horses), the better we will all be.

In other words, Matriarchy is the real culture of life.  Patriarchy, on the other hand, is the cult(ure) of death.

Only Women Can Break The Cycle Of History

History, or more accurately, HIStory, has always seemed to occur in cycles.  Ascendancy and decline.  Collapse and rebirth.  Spring and fall.  Over and over again.  And with smaller cycles occurring as part of larger ones as well.  The modern meme about it goes like this:

Hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

Weak men create hard times.

And so on.  And if current events are any indication, we seem to be in the "weak men create hard times" stage, alas.  But the authors of this meme did not pull this out of the ether, rather, this idea of the cyclical nature of history is thousands of years old.  The ancient Greeks called it "Anacyclosis".

Per Wikipedia:

Anacyclosis states that three basic forms of "benign" government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) are inherently weak and unstable, tending to degenerate rapidly into the three basic forms of "malignant" government (tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy). [Ochlocracy = mob rule]

Polybius' sequence of anacyclosis proceeds in the following order: 1. monarchy, 2. kingship, 3. tyranny, 4. aristocracy, 5. oligarchy, 6. democracy, and 7. ochlocracy.  [And finally chaos, and then the cycle repeats with a new king emerging from the chaos...]

And then there is the "Tytler Cycle" (or "Fatal Sequence") as well.  The following quote, actually of somewhat unknown authorship, has nonetheless been attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler sometime in either the late 18th or early 19th century, though occasionally it has been attributed to Alexis de Toqueville as well:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.

These two paragraphs actually did not occur together until the 1970s, but the latter one is the one that stuck the most.  It can thus be summarized graphically as follows:

The first paragraph of course can be debunked by the theories of Monetary Sovereignty and Modern Monetary Theory, in that a government that issues and controls it's own sovereign currency cannot really go bankrupt unless they deliberately choose to, and thus loose fiscal policy per se need not result in a dictatorship.  In Venezuela, for example, dictatorship (and corruption) actually came first, well before their extremely loose fiscal policy.  Furthermore, Switzerland is the very closest thing to a truly direct democracy in the modern world, and interestingly the voters in 2016 actually rejected a Universal Basic Income (UBI) referendum.  And even Canada, arguably somewhat more democratic in practice than the USA (prior to 2020), had actually shrank the size of its government dramatically from 1990 to 2019 via fiscal austerity (which came at a heavy price), and barely any stimulus even during the Great Recession.  But the second paragraph is the one that is the real essence of the quote, regardless of what sort of governing system is in place.  And it seems to be true throughout history time and again.

And more recently, William Strauss and Neil Howe's generational theory also appears to dovetail with all of this.  And the ever-insightful Julius Ruechel observes how that cycle seems to occur every four generations, or roughly 80 years or so (making us due for a major crisis by 2020, being about 80 years since the Great Depression and its infamous segway into WWII).  This is, of course, a smaller cycle within larger ones like the ones mentioned above, but again it follows basically the same pattern.  A pattern that seems to be, for all intents and purposes, sooner or later, inevitable and written in stone.  So what is the underlying reason?

Thus once again, we return to the first meme, with the proper emphasis added this time:

Hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

Weak men create hard times.

And so on.  Now do you see why?  Because MEN are in charge, that's why.  Strong men and weak men are ultimately two sides of the same coin.  And thus only Women can finally break the cycle for good, by reclaiming their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world, Goddess willing.  And as they say, the rest will be HERstory.

Let the planetary healing begin!