Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine

[vimothy]

Crackerjack -- great find! That is fucking hilarious.

EDIT: There's clearly a Borges short story waiting to be written about a financial instrument so complex that even to run standard risk assessment analysis on it contaminates the rest of the assets on your book amd turns them toxic.

 

[nomadthethird]

One figure, interestingly, who did pursue very concrete steps in the pragmatic direction suggested above was Michel Foucault, enemy of all abstract-universal intellectual partisans and the practice of speaking on behalf of others, who in 1971 organized the Groupe d’information sur les prisons (GIP), as a way to enable the voices of prisoners themselves to be heard. Other similar groups include organizations of sex workers like COSWAS in Taipei and SANS in Sweden. The enemy of these latter groups is often in the main liberal-feminist pressure groups, who, arguing on the basis that sex work is inherently exploitative and alienating, criminalize it, and therefore effect to expose actual workers to far worse conditions of labor. The politics of good intentions...

"Feminists" did not criminalize prostitution. Nor do most feminists believe prostitution should be criminalized--in fact, it's feminists who've been pushing for decriminalization of prostitution for the purposes of better regulation and prosecution of rapists/abuser Johns for decades.

Padraig, do you know if San Francisco ever passed that proposition to legalize prostitution? It was eclipsed by proposition 8.

It is hilarious to hear someone call a world-famous theoretician the "enemy of all abstract-universal intellectual partisans"... pff.

 

[vimothy]

It's laugh a minute round here!

 

[nomadthethird]

The people who do oppose sex work do not oppose it "on the grounds that it is alienating", but on the grounds that it is exploitative of women who are a) mentally disabled, b) impoverished, c) drug addicted, and d) runaways/wards of state/etc, and that it spreads disease (and often other felony crimes) in already impoverished communities.

 

[nomadthethird]

There is no "taxonomy" in Marx that "divides" workers from capital holders--at least, not one that applies very directly anymore.

I'm the first one to admit that Marx doesn't quite fit (entirely literally) in a post-industrial world, but get your facts straight people.

 

[vimothy]

classroom war

 

[josef k.]

I'm the first one to admit...

I am the second to admit.

 

[nomadthethird]

You might want to admit that you're clueless about feminism, while you're at it.

 

[josef k.]

You might want to admit that you're clueless about feminism, while you're at it.

Sure, why not. Anything else, while we're here?

 

[vimothy]

The rest of your sins?

 

[nomadthethird]

Feminism, like so many other things, is not a monolith, and the first wave is all but dead and gone at this point. But even if you were talking about first wave feminists, most of the notable ones I can think of made strong arguments for and against the legalization of prostitution and frankly I can see both sides of the issue from a feminist perspective. In fact, prostitution is not just a "woman's" issue, as prostitutes are made up of a large percentage of males and children.

 

[josef k.]

Actually, I was talking mainly about the views of my liberal feminist friend who works for a anti-prostitution pressure group in London, who holds this position, and whom I regularly argue with on this topic. The heart of the point is really in the liberal, rather than the feminist.

 

[nomadthethird]

Actually, I was talking mainly about the views of my liberal feminist friend who works for a anti-prostitution pressure group in London, who holds this position, and whom I regularly argue with on this topic.

Well your friend isn't "feminism" whether s/he believes so or not.

 

[josef k.]

I'll tell her you said so.

 

[nomadthethird]

I'll tell her you said so.

Personally, I think in the "developed world" prostitution should be legalized but regulated and taxed. That's my personal take.

But there are very, very cogent arguments for why it shouldn't that exist and I recognize the validity of those.

 

[josef k.]

Excellent to hear.

 

[nomadthethird]

In fact, I'm surprised, the "non-partisan" view is usually to keep prostitution illegal which makes pimps prosecutable...

The idea is, why should a prostitute have to have the government as a pimp? She should be able to choose whichever pimp she likes.

 

[vimothy]

She should be able to choose whichever pimp she likes.

Is this another Foucault quote?

 

[nomadthethird]

Is this another Foucault quote?

No, it isn't, but where is the other one?

I haven't quoted Foucault on here.

 

[josef k.]

I'd like to admit at this point that I'm clueless about Foucault.