Showing posts with label feminists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminists. Show all posts

Sista Resister

  Sista Resister

Bios of 50 Radical Women of Color Activists Resisting Sexism, Colonialism & Racism  

by m seenarine

Xpyr Press 2023. 327 pages

This book presents 50 biographies of radical women of color activists from over 25 countries and terrorites. Available on Amazon

About

The book, Sista Resister: Bios of 50 Radical Women of Color Activists Resisting Sexism, Colonialism & Racism, introduce the biographies of women from over 25 countries and territories. This eclectic collection of biographies of female activists show that 'Third World' females are active on a wide range of issues, from women's and children's health, to housing and labor rights, the environment and climate change. The book is divided into two sections. Part I, on current sista resisters, chronicles the lives of 30 contemporary female activists, from Mexico to the Philippines. The 20 life stories in Part II, on foresisters of resistance, establish that women in the Global South were some of the earliest feminist thinkers and writers in the world. Each life story refutes the common misrepresentation of Indigenous, African, Asian, Latina, Muslim, Dalit and other females as docile creatures in need of Western rescue. 

Contrary to their depiction in mainstream media as passive and docile, women in the 'Third World' were some of the first women's rightist activists. For instance, Fang Weiyi (1585 to 1668) and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648 to 1695) wrote about women's rights a century before Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 to 1797), whose essay, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1792), is widely regarded as one of the first feminist text. And, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's (1880 to 1932) feminist science fiction novella, Sultana's Dream (1905), was written a decade before Charlotte Perkins Gilman's popular feminist utopian novel, Herland (1915). One of the main goals of this book is to amplify the voices of high-melanin female activists, and examples of their work are included in each portrait.

Table of Contents

Defining Terms and Intentions

ix

Glossary

x

Acknowledgments

xv

Preface

1

Introduction

9

 

 

PART I - CONTEMPORARY RESISTERS

 

 

 

1. Rebecca Lolosoli (Kenya)

47

2. Audra Simpson (Mohawk/Canada)

50

3. Marielle Franco (Rio, Brazil)

53

4. Sarah Deer (Muscogee/US)

58

5. Lydia Cacho (Mexico)

63

6. Yue Xin (Beijing, China)

68

7. Ece Temelkuran (Turkey)

72

8. Moya Bailey (Georgia, US)

77

9. Asmaa Mahfouz (Egypt)

81

10. Alma Caballero (Mexico)

86

11. Nadia Murad (Iraq)

89

12. Leymah Gbowee (Liberia)

93

13. Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe/US)

97

14. Malalai Joya (Afghanistan)

100

15. Risa Hontiveros (Philippines)

106

16. Wu Qing (Beijing, China)

109

17. Randa Jarrar (Chicago, US)

112

18. Tawakkol Karman (Yemen)

116

19. Norma Vázquez (Mexico)

120

20. LaDonna Brave Bull (Sioux/US)

124

21. Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala)

128

22. Haneen Zoabi (Nazareth, Israel)

132

23. Carmen Cruz (Puerto Rico)

136

24. Phoolan Devi (India)

140

25. Alice Walker (Georgia, US)

145

26. Wangari Maathai (Kenya)

151

27. Haunani-Kay Trask (Hawaiʻi/US)

155

28. Loujain AlHathloul (Saudia Arabia)

161

29. Berta Cáceres (Honduras)

165

30. Assata Shakur (US/Cuba)

169

 

 

PART II - FORESISTAS of RESISTANCE

 

 

 

31. Queen Nzinga (Angola)

178

32. Fang Weiyi (China)

182

33. Sor Juana (Mexico)

185

34. Queen Aliquippa (Seneca/US)

190

35. Sojourner Truth (NY, US)

194

36. Bamewawagezhikaquay (Ojibwe/US)

202

37. Savitribai Phule (South Asia)

207

38. Forten Women (PA, US)

212

39. Harriet Tubman (MD, US)

219

40. Dolores Jiménez (Mexico)

228

41. Rokeya Hossain (South Asia)

233

42. Raden Adjeng Kartini (Indonesia)

238

43. Ida Bell Wells (MS, US)

243

44. Bibi Khānom Astarābādi (Iran)

251

45. Hiratsuka Raichō (Japan)

255

46. Lucy Parsons (TX, US)

260

47. Mirair Ngirmang (Palau)

266

48. María Rivera (Peru)

270

49. Yuri Kochiyama (CA, US)

274

50. Lolita Lebrón (Puerto Rico)

281

 

 

ADDENDUM

 

Abolition & Women's Rights (US)

289

Endnotes

297

 

 


Haunani-Kay Trask

 

“Politics - the blind are showing movies/in the plaza/so the deaf are gathering/in the plaza/so the mute can debate/in the plaza/the fate/of one beloved nation.”
            - Merlinda Bobis (born 1959) is a Philippine-Australian writer & academic.


Chapter 27. Haunani-Kay Trask (Hawaiʻi/US)


Introduction: Gynocentrism and Gift Economy

Among the Indigenous people of Turtle Island, corn was the staple crop, and the Green Corn Dance was celebrated from North to South America. This important dance varies by group, but the core is a commemoration of the gift of corn by an ancestral corn Goddess. This sacred gift was reciprocated among the people of many nations. In matrilineal cultures, corn was stored in large granaries and distributed equitably by the clan mothers, the oldest women from every extended family. Since Indigenous communities placed an emphasis on sharing and equity, inequality and stratification were far less of a problem than in Europe.

Gynocentric theorists link many forms of social oppression to male domination and the exchange economy. These feminists suggest that only by dismantling male rule and phallic supremacy will many of the social problems that plague our modern world be mitigated. In her fictional account of a mother-centered culture, “The World of the Gift Economy,” feminist scholar Genevieve Vaughan describes the characteristics of the maternal gift economy as "Giving rather than exchange in the way we transmit our goods." The female-centered system is based on unilateral giving, like the mothering of little children, who cannot give back an equivalent in exchange for what they receive from caregivers.

Gynocentric and matriarchal cultures focus on meeting the needs of its members, which establishes bonds of mutuality and trust between givers and receivers. For example, Vaughan writes, "Hums like to guess each other's needs, so it is not unusual if I need a new pair of shoes to find them on my doorstep without my even asking anyone." The relational economy helps the future society the author describes in “The World of the Gift Economy,” to overcome competition and violence so prevalent in male-dominated societies in each corner of the globe. She writes, "The elimination of Patriarchy and exchange everywhere has defused the emphasis on categorization and belonging to superior categories that was part of racism, classism and sexism."

Despite centuries of patriarchal colonization, it is remarkable that some gynocentric traditions remain, even in the colonized US, and other parts of Turtle Island. Many Indigenous survivors understand and write about the importance of maintaining female-centered ways of knowing and being, like gift-giving. First Nations female scholars also document the intersection of colonization, dispossession and racism on Turtle Island, and feminist, cultural, environmental and social justice activists could learn much from these women. A shining example of Indigenous female leadership is Haunani-Kay Trask of Hawaiʻi.

Haunani-Kay's Biography

Haunani-Kay Trask (born October 3rd 1949) is a Hawaiian nationalist, educator, political scientist and writer whose genealogy connects her to the Piʻilani line on her maternal side and the Kahakumakaliua line on her paternal side. The Hawaiian native grew up on the island of Oʻahu and continues to reside there. Known as "The Gathering Place", Oʻahu is the third-largest Hawaiian Island. The island has around one million people, about two-thirds of the state's population.

Haunani-Kay earned a BA, MA and PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She graduated in 1981, and her dissertation was published as Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory (1986). Trask is professor emeritus of the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and has represented Native Hawaiians at the UN and other global forums. Sista Trask is the author of two poetry books, Light in the Crevice Never Seen (1994) and Night Is a Sharkskin Drum (2002). And in addition to her thesis, Dr. Trask published the nonfiction, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii (1993).

Professor Trask co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning documentary, Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation (2011). The scholar-activist also created an educational video on the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement, Haunani-Kay Trask: We Are Not Happy Natives (2002). In March 2017, Hawaiʻi Magazine recognized the Oʻahu native as one of the most influential women in Hawaiian history.

As an Indigenous feminist, Haunani-Kay opposes tourism to Hawaiʻi, as well as US military's presence on the islands. In a 2014 interview, the Oʻahu native explained how she got involved with anti-military activism in the Pacific,
I got involved with Kahoʻolawe and the whole archipelagic idea of bombing ranges when I came back from college [in the mid-1970s from the University of Wisconsin Madison]. My mother, who was very straight, said you better come home, these people are going out there [to Kaho‘olawe] and getting arrested, and some of them are dying. It sounds like something you’d like. So that’s how I got into it. I did come home, and I didn’t write my dissertation for two years because I was so engaged in this process.
More recently the professor has spoken against the Akaka Bill to establish a process for Native Hawaiians to gain federal recognition similar to the recognition that some Native American tribes currently possess. Advocates of Hawaiian sovereignty oppose the bill since it disregards the 1993 Public Law (103-150) in which the US Congress apologized "for the overthrow and the deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination." Professor Trask exposes the Eurocentric settler bias and violence present in her native islands, writing,
The color of violence, then, is the color of white over black, white over brown, white over red, white over yellow. It is the violence of north over south, of continents over archipelagos, of settlers over natives and slaves.
The Hawaiian studies scholar explains further that melaninized subjugation in the island chain is inter-linked with other layers of oppression,
Shaping this color scheme are the labyrinths of class and gender, of geography and industry, of metropoles and peripheries, of sexual definitions and confinements. There is not just one binary opposition, but many oppositions.
Melaninized persecution is one form of patriarchal dualism among many. Intersectional oppression in Hawaiʻi is complicated and requires complex analysis and multi-disciplinary approaches. The political scientist describes different levels of violence inherent in the occupation of Indigenous lands by the most powerful nation in the Anglo-sphere,
Within colonialism, such as that now practiced in my own country of Hawai'i, violence against women of color, especially our Native women, is the economic and cultural violence of tourism and of militarism. It is the violence of our imprisonments: reservations, incarcerations, diasporas. It is the violence of military bases, of the largest porting of nuclear submarines in the world, of the inundation of our exquisite islands by eager settlers and tourists from the American and Asian continents.
Predatory capitalism is part of colonialism and racism, and this gets translated into the society, language and institutions of Eurocentric rule on Turtle Island. The Hawaiian nationalist describes this process with regards to culture,
Colonialism began with conquest and is today maintained by a settler administration created out of the doctrine of cultural hierarchy. It is a hierarchy in which Euro-Americans and whiteness dominate non-Euro-Americans and darkness.
Professor Trask contends that in a colonial country, there must be dominance and subordination, and low-melanin hegemony delineates this hierarchy in the US. Thus, the Indigenous political scientist argues,
white people are the dominant group, Christianity is the dominant religion, capitalism is the dominant economy, and militarism is the dominant form of diplomacy and the underlying force of international relations. Violence is thus normal, and race prejudice, like race violence, is as American as apple pie.
People of European descent are an elite minority in the islands. Low-melanin people comprise about 25 percent of the ethnically diverse state's 1.3 million residents, while those who identify as Native Hawaiian account for around 20 percent. Most residents are of mixed 'race,' so multi-racial people are the majority. The female Indigenous scholar explains how structural racism works in the US,
In a racist society, there is no need to justify white racist behavior. The naturalness of segregation and hierarchy is the naturalness of hearing English on the street, or seeing a McDonalds on every other corner, or assuming the U.S. dollar and United Airlines will enable a vacation in Hawai'i, my native country. Indeed, the natural, everyday presence of the "way things are" explains the strength and resilience of racism. Racism envelops us, intoxicating our thoughts, permeating our brains and skins, determining the shape of our growth and the longevity of our lives.
As an activist poet, Professor Trask employs the “art as an anvil” method in her writing style. Recognizing that Indigenous Hawaiians have been relegated to the margins of their society, the First Nations poet utilizes her words as weapons against the colonizing oppressors. An example of the art as anvil approach can be seen in the poem, "Racist White Woman," featured in her 1994 book, Light in the Crevice Never Seen:
Racist White Woman
I could kick
Your face, puncture
Both eyes.
You deserve this kind
Of violence
No more vicious
Tongues, obscene
Lies.
Just a knife
Slitting your tight
Little heart.
For all my people
Under your feet
For all those years
Lived smug and wealthy
Off our land
Parasite arrogant
A fist
In your painted
Mouth, thick
With money
And piety.

LaDonna Brave Bull

(Excerpt from Sista Resister: Bios of 50 Radical Women of Color Activists Resisting Sexism, Colonialism & Racism by m seenarine. Xpyr Press.)

20. LaDonna Brave Bull (Sioux/US)


Introduction: Indigenous Women's Resistance

In the Anglo-sphere, fake news of 'white' genocide is used to erase the actual genocide of Indigenous peoples in the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. Meanwhile, oil oligarchs in Russia and Europe continue to colonize and exploit Indigenous lands for profit in the Global North and across the Global South. The vast majority of Native people affected by dispossession and pollution are women and children, so First Nations' land rights is a feminist issue.

As the Anglo-sphere becomes increasingly racist against high-melanin migrants from the Global South, it is worth remembering that most people with low-melanin are themselves migrants, colonizers and occupiers of First Nations gynocentric lands on Turtle Island and traditions in the Global South.

Many mainstream Western feminists are reluctant to prioritize issues that are urgent crises in Indigenous communities. For example, the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, the forced sterilization of Native women, the struggle for land rights, drug and alcohol addiction, and partner violence. There is a lack of awareness of the disproportionate sexual victimization of Indigenous women, specifically as targets of European American and Canadian men.i In addition, there is little attention given to the capitalist ecocide being practiced in First Nations' environments by fossil fuel and other industries, like tar sands pollution, spills from oil pipelines and mining ponds, deforestation, and so on.

Despite 500 years of colonization, Western colonization and fossil fuel hegemony on Turtle Island are not complete. First Nations women and girls have resisted decades of carbon pollution, and there are millions of high-melanin female survivors of centuries of Anglo-spheric genocide. Indigenous women have solutions to both Western consumption-driven ecocide and Eurocentric genocidal racism. First Nations females who are resisting the 6th mass-extinction through peaceful methods of gynocentrism are powerful role models, and one example, is LaDonna Bravebull Allard.

LaDonna's Biography

LaDonna Bravebull Allard (1955 to 2021) was an outstanding Lakota-Dakota activist, native historian, and leader of protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, known by the hashtag #NoDAPL. LaDonna Bravebull was an enrolled member of, and former historical preservation officer for, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Standing Rock Reservation, located in North Dakota and South Dakota, is the sixth-largest Indigenous reservation in the US.

Brave Bull Allard is the great-great-granddaughter of Nape Hote Win (Mary Big Moccasin), a survivor of the Whitestone Massacre. Sista LaDonna graduated from the University of North Dakota with a degree in History. She later became instrumental in establishing the Standing Rock Scenic Byway which passes many historic sites including the place where Sitting Bull was killed.

In an interview, the female First Nations leader states,

… my family has been here since 1873, when we were brought across from the east side of the river. My name is LaDonna Brave Bull Allard. My real name is Ta Maka Waste Win, Her Good Earth Woman. I am Ihunktonwan, Hunkpatina and Pabaska Dakota on my father’s side. I am Hunkpapa, Sihasapa and Oglala Lakota on my mother’s side. So, I’m Lakota-Dakota, but I was raised Dakota.ii
The upper Missouri River is the only water supply for Standing Rock, and after a proposed route near the state capital was denied, the privately owned Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) was rerouted near the Reservation. The Sioux opposed construction of the pipeline under Lake Oahe and the Missouri River, and a grassroots movement began in 2016 to protect the water, land, and sites sacred to the First Nations people.

On April 1st, 2016, Sista LaDonna and her grandchildren founded the Sacred Stone Camp on her land, which was the first resistance gathering of the #NoDAPL movement, with some of the closest Indigenous-owned land to the construction site. Since the establishment of Sacred Stone Camp, thousands of water protectors camped on the Sioux reservation and organized to prevent the construction of the pipeline.

The #NoDAPL movement has become the largest inter-Indigenous alliance on Turtle Island in centuries, with over 200 nations represented in the protest. Due to the courage of First Nations activists like LaDonna Bravebull, the #NoDAPL movement grew to become one of the most powerful and widely supported Indigenous rights movements in recent decades.

In addition to her direct action near the construction site, LaDonna Bravebull conducted numerous interviews and wrote several articles to popularize the #NoDAPL movement. The Lakota-Dakota leader often highlight the state's racist hypocrisy in the handling of people protesting for land rights.

For example, European American ranchers like the Bundys, who encroached on protected lands in Nevada for decades, confronted federal agents in 2014, and occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in 2016, were deemed innocent by the courts. At the same time, First Nations activists who peacefully protested DAPL, faced hefty fines and years in jail.

In her article, "Why do we punish Dakota pipeline protesters but exonerate the Bundys?" LaDonna Bravebull notes that the Bundys and the water protectors at Standing Rock were both concerned with rights to federal land. There were important differences though. For instance, the Bundy militia were fighting for their right to make money by grazing cattle on protected ecosystems.

In contrast, the actions of First Nations people are not motivated by profit. The Sioux only want to protect their sacred lands and water supply. In response, the state confronts Indigenous activists with violence and hostility, while protecting the rights of corporations to pollute Native peoples' survival resources.

Sista LaDonna writes,

When I began to look into the Bundy’s standoff at the Malheur Refuge, I became angry. That place is a locus of ancestral heritage of the Burns Paiute Tribe, which the Bundys knowingly desecrated. They reportedly dug latrines through recognized cultural sites. As a tribal historic preservation officer, my heart broke when I heard they allegedly rifled through some 4,000 cultural items that had been kept in the museum. Some of the sacred objects they destroyed were hundreds of years old. The Bundys did not reclaim that land. It was never theirs. It is Paiute land.iii
In comparison to the armed face-off of European American ranchers in 2014 and 2016, the Lakota-Dakota activist emphasized the peaceful nature of Indigenous water protectors' protest,
From the beginning, we at Standing Rock gathered in a spirit of prayer and non-violent resistance to the destruction of our homeland and culture. We came together with our ceremonies, songs and drums. Weapons are not allowed into our camps. The Bundys’ occupation began with threats and guns. It was violent from the outset, and the people they pretended to represent did not even condone it.

Instead of handguns, shotguns and rifles, First Nations employed songs, drums and dance. The peaceful protesters never represented a danger to local authorities, but they were considered as such. LaDonna Bravebull describes how First Nations water protectors were treated by the police, state and private security forces,

While we stand in prayer, we have assault rifles aimed at us, we are attacked by dogs, pushed from our sacred sites with pepper spray, shot with rubber bullets and bean bag rounds and Tasers, beaten with sticks, handcuffed and thrown in dog kennels. Our horses have been shot and killed.
The scene the female Lakota-Dakota leader describes is reminiscent of centuries of European settlers' genocidal campaigns against First Nations. LaDonna Bravebull argues that the attack on Native water protectors is also part of a pattern of environmental racism,
As indigenous people, we know these attempts to erase us very well, and one of the ways it works is through environmental racism. Indigenous lands across the country are the sites of nuclear waste dumping, toxic mining operations, oil and gas drilling and a long list of other harmful environmental practices, but see very little benefit from these projects. We live in the sacrifice zones.iv
First Nations are on the front lines of resistance to the carbon-based economy and climate pollution. The proximity of Indigenous communities to fossil-fuel production sites means that they suffer some of its worse polluting effects. In order to preserve their existence, First Nations often find that they have to fight against the confluence of interests and combined forces of the fossil-fuel industry and post-colonial governments.

The Lakota-Dakota leader describes how Indigenous people are able to persevere and resist the powerful alliance of capitalism and the state,
The national guard and state police have been reinforced by forces from seven other states, to push corporate interests through our home, but together with our relatives, we stand up. We are still here. We have always welcomed everyone to come stand with us against the injustices of the federal government. Joining forces would be a source of great power – if we stand together to confront racism and destruction of the land. But we will do that with prayer, not guns. We are the people of this land. We have the roots growing out of our feet. We stand with compassion and prayer. They cannot break us.
After years of protest, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous organizers scored a legal victory on June 6th, 2020 when a federal judge ordered Dakota Access controlled by Energy Transfer Partners, to stop operations and empty its pipelines of all oil pending an environmental review.

Sista Brave Bull underwent brain surgery in 2020, and her family announced her death on April 10th, 2021. North Dakota State Representative Ruth Buffalo stated, "Her courage was contagious and inspiring. She was very knowledgeable of the extensive history of the land and worked to preserve our history and sacred sites." And, South Dakota state Senator Red Dawn Foster noted, "She inspired the world with her love for the water, the land, the people, and the love she shared with her husband Miles."v


Choosing a Side


Why Feminists and the Left need to engage with center-right politics

Many women, and the feminist movement in general, were devastated in Hillary Clinton’s election loss in November, 2016. Feminists are evaluating the election setback and trying to figure out what it will take to break the highest glass ceiling in American politics. The World Economic Forum says the gender gap has widened for the first time in their records in 2017. Their report states that women ‘won’t have equality’ for 100 years and equal pay will take 217 years. Currently, women comprise only 28 percent of parliamentarians and 21 percent of ministers, globally. Less than half of the world’s countries have had a female head of state, including the USA.

In light of allegations made by Senator Elizabeth Warren and former head of the Democratic National Committee(DNC), Donna Brazile, that Clinton hijacked the DNC and stole the nomination away from Bernie Sanders, some women are starting to question their support for the female presidential candidate. During the elections, feminists aligned themselves with the center-right Democrats and likewise viewed the popularity of Bernie Sanders’ center-left movement as a threat. Clinton supporters ignored the huge disappointment of the Sanders movement after his primary loss, and aspirations for center-left policies like universal healthcare, addressing climate change, and reducing an ever increasing military that consumes over 50% of the budget.

There was at least one other woman running for president, Jill Stein of the Green Party who came in fourth with one percent of the vote, after the Libertarian Party’s three percent. If it turns out that the center-left abondoned both Clinton and Stein, the left may have a women’s leadership problem into addition to sexual assault.

For decades, the Green Party has been working towards breaking the two-party monopoly system in the USA but this left-based effort remains insignificant. Maybe part of the problem is sexism and racism on the left since the party usually picks a female presidential candidate and a radical cultural activist for vice president. Another problem may be in the way the left generally perceive the two mainstream parties.

Greens, Marxists, communists and anarchists commonly refer to the Democrat and Republican parties as a duopoly and little effort is made in separating the two on the left. Over the past few decades, Democrats have lost over 1,000 elected offices as Republicans gained control of all branches of government. Correspondingly, the Tea Party, Libertarians, the ‘Alt-Right’ and other movements have exploited differences between center-right Republicans to push them further right.

Greens and activists on the left have to engage with the Democratic party, and utilize divisions between center-right Democrats and far-right Republicans to shore up their positions and move them further left. Failing to do so could mean remaining politically insignificant, or worse, playing into the far-right’s agenda.

For example, Russian-sponsored advertising on social media may have manipulated disgruntled center-left Sanders and Stein supporters into not voting or choosing the far-right candidate. Conflating Democrats with Republicans is a dangerous mistake for progressives to make, one that inevitably leads to the normalization of far-right ideology and agenda. HRC’S hijacking of DNC is not the same as the current administration’s hijacking of emergency climate action. The difference between neoliberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans may equal to a decade or more in loss lifespan from environmental deregulation alone.

The current Republican party is on the verge of fascism, and its policies are deeply sexist and racist. The left must work with the women’s movement, immigration activists, indigenous and other groups to build an effective opposition with the center-left. Fascism is very dangerous, and it is important to understand how it differs from business as usual neoliberalism. Fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum. It is a form of authoritarian nationalism and militarization characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and tight collusion with industry and commerce.

While some will argue that variations of these policies have always existed in America, we crossed the boundary with Republican’s unrelenting attack on women’s reproductive rights, scapegoating of Muslims, blacks, immigrants, and minorities, destruction of the EPA, and abandonment of the Paris Climate Accord. Conflicts between progressives over which group suffers from the most victimization and who can claim the highest morality are self-defeating and will not stop the march of the far-right.

Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader — such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party — to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society.

Fascist and far-right movements often claim to strive for a self-sufficient economy in platform or propaganda. In practice, they crush existing grassroots movements towards self-sufficiency while allying with business elites. While the left jostle to form a circular firing squad, the corporate elites are busy reversing gains in women’s reproductive, affirmative action, and equality protection for queers and minorities, and other rights. Even as the world runs out of time to solve the climate crisis, Republicans are doubling-down on fossil fuels and pushing us pass a tipping point of no return. It is a climate imperative for feminists and the left to work with each other and the center-right and other groups to preserve the civil rights gains made in the last century, and to give future generations a chance to live in freedom on a habitable planet.

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