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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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It’s a global analysis of how transgenderism is part of a larger, coordinated agenda to reshape human society. Howard isn’t just writing about what’s happening now—he’s looking ahead to where things are going. And the picture he paints is not pretty. He discusses the corporate interests backing this movement—multinational companies, big tech firms, and global NGOs—and how their financial power is being used to push this agenda on a global scale: Microsoft, PepsiCo, and the World Bank funding LGBTQ initiatives, pushing transgender policies in schools, and influencing national governments to adopt more inclusive laws. This is a big-money, top-down movement that’s being sold as “justice,” but at its core, it’s about control.

Don't leave us in suspense. What horrible things is the shadowy cabal pushing for faux-“justice” going to enact upon society?

Sorry, I don't get the reference. I clicked your link and have no idea what it has to do with my post.

I think the failure is the point. If you want to restructure a society, job #1 is to make the society that you want to restructure not work anymore. The shittier it gets, the more people call for radical changes that would have been unthinkable in traditional, functional, societies. When politics in the current system can no longer fix potholes, crime, or other problems, it’s easier to sell people on radical changes. When churches are weakened into social clubs, you either get Christian fundamentalism or people abandoning faith in favor of either atheism or other religions. And thus a group that would have been able to resist is neutered again allowing the changes and setting the stage for the end game radical transformation of society.

The more Western, capitalist, Christian society breaks down, the easier it gets to say “the reason that everything is terrible and you can’t walk down the street at night is because of patriarchal oppression and capitalism. That’s why you can’t afford groceries. That’s why your kids know every gender and sexuality but can’t read a book. That’s why you have to leave your car unlocked to get looted, and why there are open air drug markets selling fentanyl in most major cities. Give the government more control, especially the liberal government. We will save you.

Silly poster, he should have known that the only acceptable way to speak of shadowy cabals is to give them a name like "the patriarchy" or "systemic racism"

Anyway to answer you question, take your pick, we have a conspiracy to abolish age limits for transgender care that involves the Biden administration, or a conspiracy of the global economic and political elites to promote LGBT acceptance and gender theory, even against the very explicit wishes of local populations, just off the top of my head.

Silly poster, he should have known that the only acceptable way to speak of shadowy cabals is to give them a name like "the patriarchy" or "systemic racism"

I've seen a lot of anti-feminist takes here and on similar message boards. But "feminists don't blame enough things on the patriarchy" is a new one to me. Same with the left and "systemic racism".


So the people openly trying to change society to be more accepting of LGBT people are... also secretly conspiring to change society to be more accepting of LGBT people? That seems pretty different from the claim that the movement is really about seeking "control".

I've seen a lot of anti-feminist takes here and on similar message boards. But "feminists don't blame enough things on the patriarchy" is a new one to me

I... don't see where I said that?

So the people openly trying to change society to be more accepting of LGBT people are... also secretly conspiring to change society to be more accepting of LGBT people?

You're the one that equated NGO activity with shadowy cabals so you tell me. Also they explicitly list hidden pressure as one of the tactics they recommend. Also, the plot to remove age limits on gender affirming care was completely secret, and only came out by pretty much a lucky accident.

to be more accepting of LGBT people

Just a note that "be more accepting of LGBT people" we're talking about letting rapists go to women's prison because they suddenly declared they're women too.

That seems pretty different from the claim that the movement is really about seeking "control".

How is pressuring politicians to push through unpopular laws, and doing so secretly for the explicitly stated reason that doing so publicly would cause a backlash, not a form of control? How is using your high-ranking government position to put pressure on medical orgs to change their standards of care not a very direct form of control?

I was replying to the section of the post asserting there was

a big-money, top-down movement that’s being sold as “justice,” but at its core, it’s about control.

I was asking what "control" they were seeking separate from their claimed goals that they frame as "justice". You provided examples of different ways of them lobbying for their public goals. Sure, lobbying is often bad, but it's not a special secret conspiracy attributable to woke NGOs.


You replied

Silly poster, he should have known that the only acceptable way to speak of shadowy cabals is to give them a name like "the patriarchy" or "systemic racism"

Those calling out "the patriarchy" and "systemic racism" blame many concrete effects on those and suggest many concrete changes.

You provided examples of different ways of them lobbying for their public goals.

Was trans surgeries for children a public goal? I was assured (and occasionally am still being assured) that it's something that doesn't happen. Similarly with sending rapists to women's prisons. Is government officials privately making demands of independent medical orgs, that violate their internal rules, just another way of lobbying?

Sure, lobbying is often bad, but it's not a special secret conspiracy attributable to woke NGOs.

It is attributable to woke NGO's, they're the ones doing the lobbying. If it's not a super secret conspiracy, you shouldn't have called it that.

Those calling out "the patriarchy" and "systemic racism" blame many concrete effects on those and suggest many concrete changes.

So do people blaming NGOs.

Silly poster, he should have known that the only acceptable way to speak of shadowy cabals is to give them a name like "the patriarchy" or "systemic racism"

Leftists will immediately say that they don't think of those as cabals.

They claim a set of structures and incentives that cause people to act in certain ways. Which structures? Which incentives? Well, varies depending on the phenomenon. Or maybe all of them

They're closer to constructs like aether trying to fill in a hole in a mechanical understanding of the world than claims about Jews or elites in a smoky room.

Leftists don't claim these are cabals though

Like hell they don't. Go listen to a hardcore feminist talk about men, or an "anti-racist" talk about white people.

I'll also note that the word "cabal" doesn't seem to appear in OP's post.

"Men" and "white people" are not cabals. They are not coordinated, possibly clandestine (relatively) small groups with a shared goal. They're just...populations.

When progressives talk about, for example, "white flight" they do not generally frame it as behavior driven by some small set of elites. It's driven by a mix of inherited inequities and certain biases and attitudes towards black people across the white population as a whole. That is what they blame.

Otherwise the career of someone like Robin DiAngelo makes no sense and is in fact, an act of sadism. They target normal people for retraining on the grounds that normal people - who know nothing about any coordinated racist plan - and their biases matter.

"Men" and "white people" are not cabals. They are not coordinated, possibly clandestine (relatively) small groups with a shared goal. They're just...populations.

NGO's are not cabals either. Look at token's reaction to the WEF post, or even the general reactions of the forum to that post, and you'll see the same "that doesn't count as a conspiracy, it's too out in the open and not coordinated enough" reactions that you're trying to put forward re: patriarchy / systemic racism. These sort of conversations always have this weird dance were you get to sneer at someone for being a conspiracy theorist while at the same time denying he's putting forward a conspiracy theory, the moment they lay down the evidence.

I'm a bit short on examples at the moment, but the way feminists talk about men absolutely does sound like they are coordinated and have a shared goal of oppressing women, and ditto for anti-racists. I suppose, can only promise to ping you once I come across something.