This past weekend, I attended a rally in my home city of Halifax. It was organized to counter the so-called “Freedom Convoy” which continues to hold cities hostage around Canada. Our gathering was intended to build solidarity and care for community. It was encouraging to see so many people come out to oppose fascism. I only wish more showed up.

Even though the other side is a minority in Canada, there were still many who came out to support the “Freedom Convoy.” They not only convened in parks. They were everywhere. In all honesty, I haven’t felt that uneasy since I lived in the States. Trucks with enormous Canadian flags drove down every street blaring their horns which, for some of the vehicles, was deafening.

I had already known that organizers of this convoy had a history of white supremacy and far-right ideologies. However, being present amongst them, it became very clear to this was not a movement, but a mob. The tactics they used were classic fascist bullying. Most didn’t care if people supported them or their cause or were interested in learning more. And most seemed more interested in intimidating people. What was also striking to me is how the authorities were friendly with many of them. I saw some of them chatting with them in a familiar and friendly manner. I’ve never seen that kind of thing happen at any of the protests I’ve attended that were anti-capitalist, against ecocide, antiwar or for Indigenous rights.

One thing I witnessed really disturbed me. An old man stood in the Grand Parade amongst the Convoy protesters silently holding a sign that read “support healthcare workers, go home.” He wasn’t shouting or getting in anyone’s face. But he was approached by several people who took a menacing stance toward him. One man approached him with his pit bull straining at the leash. The old man retreated. But the imagery had historic resonances that were undeniable.

The far-right has no answers to our problems except fear and the threat of violence. It thrives on the “us vs. them” or “good vs. evil” narrative because otherizing is so much easier than building community care and fostering solidarity between people.

Like the attempted coup in Washington a year ago, this Convoy has inspired similar far-right uprisings in Europe and elsewhere. And it seems evident that this is not going away anytime soon. If history has taught us anything, it is that fascism must be met with strong and unwavering opposition everywhere and every time it surfaces.

We cannot afford to think “oh this is Canada, not the States. It would never happen here.” Because the seed of fascism exists in every human society. And it only needs a combination of circumstances to explode into a raging fire. And if that fire isn’t contained at the start, it has the power to grow quickly and burn the entire house down before anyone can stop it.

Kenn Orphan, January 2022

*Photo is of signs at the rally opposing the Convoy.

In the wake of some erroneous remarks made in a discussion about the banning of the book Maus in relation to the Holocaust, Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended from the American television show “The View.” The cohost’s exact words were: “white people doing it to white people, so y’all going to fight amongst yourselves.” And: “It’s not about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man. That’s what it’s about.”  

Now, obviously her comments were wrong. But there is a lot to unpack here.

To start, race is an artificial construct devised to separate classes of people in society for the purpose of exploitation, control, scapegoating and dehumanization. There is only one race of human beings on this planet. But even though there aren’t different races of human beings, racism does, in fact, exist. This form of social hatred, prejudice and discrimination only works because it builds upon the noxious myth of race.

The Holocaust was of course all about racism. The Nazis deliberately cast the Jews as inferior to the so-called Aryan race. Stereotypes, demonization and even pseudo-science were invented to promote these odious ideas. They held similar views toward the Roma, Sinti and many other ethnic or religious groups and they used this falsehood to carry out some of the most heinous crimes, experiments and murders in human history. Considering its brutal dictates, rampant violence, trains, concentration camps, and mechanized methods of death, there is no better example of industrialized genocide on this scale. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in the short span of days. At the end of World War II millions would be dead.

In addition to this, Goldberg’s comments appear to make the Holocaust appear like a fight among equals. It was not. The Nazis used their considerable political influence, violence and military might to suppress and terrorize Germany and did the same to the countries they invaded. Millions died in the USSR alone in a campaign of utter annihilation.

But there are a lot of unspoken things in this latest controversy. How is it that a Black woman is censured for making ignorant comments, yet on the same program a white woman, Meghan McCain, was able to spout anti-Asian comments about Covid-19 with no censure from the television network? Anti-Asian hate crimes spiked in the Trump years due to this vicious rhetoric. And in a society where media figures like Tucker Carlson routinely trot out antisemitic conspiracies with barely an eyebrow raised, does Goldberg’s treatment send a message to people of color who dare “step out of line” for lesser offenses?

What’s fascinating to me is the timing of this. Amnesty International just released its damning report on the character of the Israeli state. It basically reached the same conclusions as the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch: apartheid. And yet, the person called out to “school” Whoopi Goldberg is none other than Jonathon Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) whose controversial positions conflate antisemitism with the BDS Movement and anti-Zionism.

To Greenblatt, defining Israel as an apartheid state is tantamount to an attack on all Jewish people. It doesn’t matter to him that many Jewish and Israeli individuals, some of them prominent politicians, as well as Jewish human rights organizations, have agreed with this assessment. In truth, ADL’s history has been one of running PR defense for Israeli apartheid and war crimes far more than countering actual antisemitism in the US and around the world. And this latest “incident” provides a convenient distraction from media coverage of Amnesty’s findings.

Goldberg’s comments were undeniably erroneous, and antisemitism should be condemned as an abhorrent social hatred that has caused untold misery for millions of people. But she apologized for her remarks. Regardless of this, she was still punished. How many white people with enormous platforms like that receive the same censure? From what I could find: zero.

Kenn Orphan, February 2022

*Photo from The Guardian.

To begin, I understand the frustration many people are feeling around the world after 2+ years of a global pandemic. It’s justified. I get the anger and fear for livelihoods many have. I get the concern for government mandates and many of Trudeau’s policies. But I decided to listen to several of the speakers at this so-called “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa and I found that there is an undeniable slant toward far-right, xenophobic and anti-science conspiracy theories. There also appears to be a strain of white nationalism present among a large swath of the protesters. No matter how they spin this, it isn’t just a “few bad apples.” Fascist elements loom large in this group.

But the most important feature of this “movement” are its founders. The leaders of this convoy (and profiteers) include Tamara Lich (Alberta separatist, Wexit Party), Benjamin Dichter (far right People’s Party of Canada), Patrick King (white nationalist). Grifter and peddler of nonsense JP Sears and the weepy chauvinist Jordan Peterson have also thrown in their support. One important thing to note here: not ONE of them is a trucker.

Without a doubt, the far-right has been effective at harnessing the frustrations of the masses. Drumming up support and raising money thanks to a social media ecosystem which often rewards propaganda and disinformation, while disappearing voices of rational discourse. It gives the facade of solidarity, but relishes in manipulating people’s base fears and prejudices which usually leads to scapegoating or worse. We have seen this kind of thing before. In Australia, and Germany, and the UK. And at the US Capitol in Washington a year ago. Is it any surprise, then, that Donald Trump has come out to endorse it?

To be sure, none of this is about support for workers. There are no demands for fair wages for the working class. No demands for more protections or ICU beds. But it has garnered the support of millionaires and billionaires. Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity and several more. If that doesn’t speak volumes about the character of this counterrevolution, I don’t know what will.

If there is anything to be learned from this and other demonstrations around the world, it is that the far-right is gaining momentum from the exasperation of ordinary people. It is therefore more important than ever before for the left to come together and respond to it in a coherent way that endorses solidarity with the working class. If we don’t, we will only have ourselves to blame for what ends up happening.

Kenn Orphan, January 2022

*Photo courtesy of Newsweek.

One of the most powerful moments on any trip I have taken in my life was at the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague. It was built at least 500 years ago, and now holds a museum.

In one part is a collection of children’s drawings from the Theresienstadt Ghetto during the Shoah (Holocaust). Artist and teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis encouraged the children of the ghetto to make drawings about their experiences. In silence, I pored over dozens of depictions. Visions of tender humanity living in a nightmare.

On the walls of the synagogue were listed the names of the dead. Children, women, men. Thousands of names. 77,297 names. Each one of them painstakingly written by hand. There was something visceral about seeing those names. Too many to read. But I read as many as I could. And each one seemed to animate itself in my mind. A human soul behind each one peering out at me through the veil between life and death.

Between 1933 and 1945, six million Jews and millions of others, Slavs, Roma, communists, homosexuals, the disabled, were murdered by a regime of supremacist evil. A fascist regime in every definition. And the killings were only part of it. The misery this reign of terror meted out on millions more was unimaginable.

January 27th is Holocaust Remembrance Day. A day to remember and honour those killed through systematic butchery in that brutal and sadistic era. And a day where those of us who stand as witnesses declare “never again.”

And yet, it has happened again. And again. And again. Not in exactly the same manner, but in ways that echo its superfluous cruelty and penchant for sadism. Killing fields, death squads, military juntas. Carpet bombings, home demolitions, expulsions, mass graves, ethnic cleansing, apartheid. Drone and “targeted killings,” black sites, indefinite detentions, “lethal aid.”

In fact, an entire international legal framework has been meticulously constructed to push back against any modest gain from the Geneva Convention. Every act of barbarism condemned in those years of infamy has been sanitized by a new set of mercenaries, occupiers, settlers, soldiers and genocidaires.

If the names of every civilian killed since World War II through state violence were etched into a wall by hand today it would take a century to complete and would likely be long enough to extend to the moon. Add to it the names of soldiers fooled or conscripted to fight in one of the countless and senseless wars fought by empires, and that list would extend far beyond that. And I don’t want to even think about the unnamed species treated as disposable by far too many of our kind.

I have been pausing a lot today to reflect on that wall in Prague. To think about these names beyond the beautiful calligraphy etched into stone. To contemplate my own place in history and how we are all born into an age where our voice is small unless connected in a chorus. To ponder how methodically cruel we can be toward one another when guided by lies, fear and social hatred. And to consider the soaring heights we can reach when that animus is replaced with solidarity and empathic courage.

“Never again” is not a declaration, so much as it is a warning. A scream against the madness. It must be that, or it is nothing but an empty sigh of complacency against an ever encroaching and ravenous night.

Kenn Orphan, January 2022

*Photo is of a portion of the names on the wall at the Pinkas Synagogue/Jewish Museum in Prague.

2021 was a year that few would want to relive. Mounting climate change fueled catastrophes dominated much of the news around the world. Here in Canada, it was no different. Fires and record heat decimated large swaths of land in British Columbia and Alberta. Then the floods came. Decades of clearcutting old growth forests have led to a seemingly never-ending stream of disasters. In years to come, this existential crisis will only grow. But there is nothing natural about these disasters. This is just one part of a global attack on our biosphere for the profit of a few.

In Nova Scotia, where I live, vital ecosystems have been under attack by extractive or exploitative industries for decades. We recently won a hard-fought battle to stop the development of a precious piece of land on the eastern shore of the province. Owl’s Head is a small, but biodiverse sanctuary that was slated for decimation to make way for a golf course. A deal was set in motion behind closed doors between the Liberal government at the time and a wealthy American couple who own land adjacent to the reserve. After massive public outcry, organising, protests and an election, the proposal was withdrawn.

Unlike most of Canada with its vast boreal range, Nova Scotia is primarily dominated by Acadian forests. These woodlands are home to endangered animals like moose, wood turtles, and pine martens. They are also coveted by forest industries for their pulp. Westfor, a billion-dollar consortium that represents the interests of 13 logging mills, has been responsible for a stepped-up effort at extracting and clearcutting on crown lands. These lands, that should belong first to the Indigenous Mi’kmaq and the people who live in these important and ever threatened places, have been intimidated by this influential and powerful company. Following centuries of colonial settler expropriation, they have carved up enormous sections of the province for the profit of a few and at the expense of rural communities and countless species, many of which are critically endangered.

For several weeks, forest protectors from Extinction Rebellion Mi’kmak’i/Nova Scotia, including the tireless Mi’kmaq activist elder, Darlene Gilbert, have endured the bitter cold to stop the clearcutting of one of the last remnants of forests in this rural part of Annapolis County. This is an area that has suffered greatly from clear cuts erasing enormous swaths of woodlands essential for moose and other wildlife for food and as a natural shelter from the winter’s cold and the summer’s heat. Their commitment to the land and to the future, echoes that of other water and land protectors around the planet, from Wet’suwet’en to the Niger Delta to the Amazon. Every battle is a stand against the relentless war being waged against the earth.

We are all witness to a ruthless and thoroughly stupid war against the biosphere we all depend upon for life wherever we may live. Indeed, we are living in a crucial era for fighting for and protecting what remains before it is too late. To be sure, it is a daunting challenge. But the victory of Owl’s Head should serve as an encouragement. And just a few years ago in this same province, a company called Alton Gas from Alberta was determined to store fracked gas in underground salt caverns and dump toxic brine into the Shubenacadie River, decimating the 13,000 year long ancestral fishing area of the Mi’kmaq people. It withdrew after sustained protest. These battles can be won, but we must unite to fight them, and we must do it now before the madness of ecocide ends with the finality of extinction.

Kenn Orphan, January 2022

*Photo is of a Nova Scotian forest by Kenn Orphan.

As an independent writer and artist Kenn Orphan depends on donations and commissions. If you would like to support his work and this blog you can do so via PayPal. Simply click here:  DONATE

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When I was in college, I had the privilege of doing an internship in Los Angeles that was connected to a vibrant inner-city church. While I was there, I was introduced to some of the most radical leftist politics I’ve ever known. It was in this setting that I saw vibrant programs for the working class and for youth being implemented by Black churches. It is also where I learned about Liberation Theology, a Christian movement that was transforming communities all over Latin America at the time as a direct challenge to capitalism and American imperialism.

During my time there, we gave sanctuary to several refugees from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. The people I encountered astounded me in their simple, but profoundly loving commitment to both God and to defeating social and economic injustice. These were the victims of Ronald Reagan’s (and then later Bush Sr. and Jr. and Bill Clinton’s) war against “communism” in Central America. Thanks to US-supported violent juntas, death squads and economic policies that carved up entire nations for corporate profit, they were forced to flee their land and come to the very empire that was the source of their misery.

And through all this torment and brutality, they maintained a grace and countenance that seemed otherworldly. I had the opportunity to talk with several of them for hours about their lives, their faith and the hopes they had for their families. I was struck by how they seamlessly they blended Catholicism and Indigenous Mayan spirituality and how it informed the way they held reverence for the earth and how they conducted their lives. Justice and solidarity appeared to be something that came from their spirituality. It was paramount to all of them. And this spirituality was interwoven into the very fabric of their day to day interactions.

Years later, I found myself at a leftist conference in Boston where most of the attendees happened to be white, middle-class and male. I was in shock as one after another felt it was their duty to disparage people who held any kind of religious faith or spirituality. One speaker said people who held spiritual beliefs suffered from a delusional disorder and magical thinking. Another said religion should be banned. And yet another stood out in his disdain for leftists who believed in God. “There is no room for superstitious people in this movement.” When I objected in a respectful manner, I received stony silence and a couple jeers from the audience. But after the conference a few people came to me and expressed gratitude for expressing what they secretly agreed with. Over the years I have found this same disdain for people who hold spiritual beliefs among other leftist or progressive people and groups. Unsurprisingly, most of them have been white and of Western background.

What can be said of any political movement that is exclusionary simply based on whether a person holds religious or spiritual beliefs or not? Without a doubt, there is a grave danger posed by fundamentalist or extremist religious ideologies throughout the world. In the States, that danger is apparent in the evangelical war on science, women’s reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights. And the same can be said of other nations where religious authoritarianism has joined with far right or even fascist elements. We should be critical of religious or spiritual ideas, especially when those ideas pose a direct threat to a certain community or group of people in society, when they are at odds with public health, or when they deny things that are scientifically proven like climate change. This is what a vibrant democracy does. But to lump all religious or spiritual people into that close minded or repressive segment of society is intellectually lazy and lacking in any curiosity, interest or respect for the lived lives of billions of people.

That so many white, atheist leftists of the Global North want to build solidarity with a Global South where most hold religious or spiritual beliefs is telling. This is not to say that it cannot happen. It can. There are many instances of secular people joining with religious people in a common cause. But it requires a measure of mutual respect. If it is stuck in a kind of superior attitude it is destined to fail. Like so many European and American Christian missionaries in the last few centuries, many of these leftists feel it is their duty to enlighten and evangelize the supposed “primitive tribes” with the glory of Western atheism. It is a goal dripping with conceit and the bloody remnants of cultural imperialism.

It is time to jettison this kind of arrogance and recognize that many religious or spiritually minded people have been at the forefront of movements against war, poverty, capitalism, racism, misogyny, ecocide and a host of other societal injustices. Father Daniel Berrigan, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, Sister Megan Rice, Thich Nhất Hạnh, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Bishop Desmond Tutu, there have been countless voices among people of faith decrying and struggling against oppression in all its forms.

Today they continue to be on the frontline of mass movements that have all too often been abandoned by secular Westerners. In the Amazon and in Wet’suwet’en, Indigenous people are drawing on their cultural and spiritual traditions to fight the ruthless war being waged on the biosphere by despotic governments and soulless corporations. They believe that the earth is alive with the spirits of our ancestors and that the earth itself is a living being. In the Middle east, Muslims are reclaiming the message of Islam from those who have twisted it for oppressive purposes. Across the States, in defiance of xenophobic policies, churches continue to provide sanctuary for undocumented people. In Israel/Palestine, Rabbis are planting olive trees and trying to protect Palestinian homes from demolition by Israeli forces.

As we enter what looks like a very dark age for humanity, with climate catastrophes mounting, poverty and economic disparity growing and endless war rampaging throughout the Global South, the time for exclusivity is outdated and dangerous. Spirituality and religion are part of the human story. As history demonstrates, they can be used to advance evil. But they can also be powerful tools for solidarity and for reconnecting with an ever besieged biosphere. In this vital and existential struggle against brutality, economic oppression, war and ecocide, there is room in the tent for everyone, religious and not, spiritual and secular alike.

Kenn Orphan, January 2022

*Image is “Cristo de la Liberacion” (Christ of the Liberation) by Maximino Cerezo Barredo

As an independent writer and artist Kenn Orphan depends on donations and commissions. If you would like to support his work and this blog you can do so via PayPal. Simply click here:  DONATE

And thank you for your support and appreciation!

On May 22, 1856, Preston Brooks, a Democrat from South Carolina, beat Charles Sumner, a Republican from Massachusetts, with a walking cane on the floor of the US Senate. Brooks was a pro-slavery lawyer with a history of violent altercations. Sumner was an outspoken and passionate abolitionist.

That day, Brooks hit Sumner as he sat writing at a desk. The blows held such force that it snapped his cane into several pieces. He continued to beat him with the part of the cane that had a golden head. Sumner was nearly killed in the attack and the Senate floor was drenched in his blood. He would not be able to return to the Senate for three years due to debilitating injuries and chronic pain that would be with him for the rest of his life. Brooks was arrested and tried, but he only had to pay $300 and received no jail time. Many historians and scholars believe that this incident played a large role in the lead up to the American Civil War.

There were several other incidents like this one in the Capitol over the years. Several assassination attempts. Some coup attempts, most notably the one that targeted Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the notorious “Business Plot.” And some might say that these attacks were examples of threats to “American democracy.” But one would have to accept that the United States was a democracy in the first place.

At the point in history when the Sumner attack took place, only white men could vote. Some states still barred white men who did not own land from voting. In fact, voting rights were decided almost entirely state to state. Some states which had previously granted women and some free Black men the right to vote would often end up taking that right away with discriminatory laws, policies or intimidation.

In short, the US was never a democracy in any true sense. And thanks to a dictatorship of corporate money that has elevated the wealthiest people to near total power, it still isn’t. But regardless of supposed threats to democracy or not, the attack on Sumner was a significant event that led to the breakdown of civil discourse. Just over five years later, the fledgling republic was plunged into unspeakable horror in a war that lasted four years and has repercussions to this day.

Many people today think of civil wars as being between the regions of a country. North vs South. East vs West. This is rarely true. Over the course of the 20th century and into our present time, civil wars have been generally fought city to city, town to town, house to house. There are no clean battles on green fields where future re-enactments can be performed by adults dressed up in costumes. No amount of sentimental romanticism can sponge away its blood or brutality. They are full of horror, disease, mass graves, agony and despair. And no sane person would ever entertain fomenting one.

Today, there are some scholars and historians who are pointing to the possibility of another civil war, or at least a civil conflict in the US. Either way, the result would be nothing short of terrifying. A year ago, Donald Trump’s actions put the entire world on alert. His play at seizing the seat of American power through lies and the incitement of violence were nearly achieved. And he isn’t done trying.

The attack on Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate should serve as an object lesson in how delicate the arrangement of power can be. Violence has always been employed by the brute when they are unable to engage in rational, civil discourse. It is the language of fascism. And if we are not careful, it can usher in a reign of terror that can cause untold misery, yet has been all to common throughout human history.

Kenn Orphan January, 2022

*Photograph is of Preston Brooks (left) and Charles Sumner (right).

As an independent writer and artist Kenn Orphan depends on donations and commissions. If you would like to support his work and this blog you can do so via PayPal. Simply click here:  DONATE

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“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” ― Desmond Tutu (7 October 1931 – 26 December 2021)

Humanity lost one of its most courageous and moral voices.

“Puritanism has made life itself impossible. More than art, more than estheticism, life represents beauty in a thousand variations; it is indeed, a gigantic panorama of eternal change. Puritanism, on the other hand, rests on a fixed and immovable conception of life; it is based on the Calvinistic idea that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God. In order to redeem himself man must do constant penance, must repudiate every natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty.” – Emma Goldman

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”  – Albert Camus.

Since my last piece regarding the myth of “woke fascism” I have received numerous messages and emails which seem to misunderstand much of what I wrote. So, I wanted to clarify. While there is no such thing as “left fascism,” I do not deny that there are authoritarian currents in what passes as the left today. These do not amount to fascism, but I think they do pose a threat to the democratic process and often aid the far right, as I will talk about below.

In today’s social media culture, radicalism is often reduced to performative social justice or virtue signalling. The way this works is through an impulse among many self-identified progressives (and some leftists) to amplify socially accepted ethics while policing the thought and speech of everyone else. I have seen this manifest in many forms, from “canceling” a person because they may express a divergent opinion regarding gender expression, or in “mob justice” mentality where a group of people gang up on one person online and troll them incessantly for expressing something that is considered unacceptable to today’s progressive sensibilities.

Certainly, the pandemic has exacerbated much of this as well. For instance, anyone who criticizes Big Pharma or discusses the well documented crimes of the medical establishment in the past may be cast unfairly as an “anti-vaxxer,” an ableist, or worse. I may have been guilty of some of this myself. It stems from a desire to find some order and meaning in a world where neither seldom exist and in an era of mistrust and misinformation. But there is an impulse to punish anyone who dissents from this “order” because they are perceived as a threat. And it usually isn’t very helpful at confronting unhinged conspiracy theories or dispelling false information.

I have witnessed some of this myself especially when it comes to topics like sex, gender and sexuality. Many progressive-minded people, primarily Americans from my experience, appear to be on a Victorian/puritanical crusade to purge culture and the world of anything that may be considered “abusive,” might “trigger” someone, or that may make them feel uncomfortable. An urge to shut down discourse or debate. Unfortunately, the #MeToo movement has contributed to this in a rather pernicious way. And no matter what radical veneer it might display, it is liberal authoritarianism at work.

To reiterate, while “woke fascism” is nonsense, progressive or liberal authoritarianism is not. And liberalism often plays handmaiden to real fascism. Back in the 1980s, self described “radical feminists” like Andrea Dworkin launched a crusade against pornography. In the process, she and others linked arms with conservatives and the far right. Like an echo from the Temperance movement of the early 20^th century, these women were merely repeating a similar narrative of reactionaries. Their narrow focus on abuse ended up stamping out much of the incredible progress made by sexual liberation movements in the 1970s.

To many of them, almost any expression of sex, sexuality and the human body were to be defined as oppressive, immoral, degenerate and traumatic. And all of this supposed “debauchery” required severe and draconian government action to surveil, censor and punish the so-called “offenders.” This episode was like a repeat of the notorious “Red Scare” of the McCarthy years where thousands of people where labeled “perverts” or “sexual deviants” and blacklisted from jobs. Countless lives were ruined. Families destroyed. Many committed suicide due to the trauma. And it demonstrated that puritanical crusades never really died in American society. One look at the vicious battle being waged against reproductive freedom and we can see it in action today.

In addition to echoing the Temperance movement, Dworkin and others like her ironically echoed Christian fundamentalists and Calvinists. Without a doubt, most pornography produced today is a product of capitalism. It is exploitative because capitalism is exploitative. But viewing it outside of this lens renders the issue hollow. It becomes just another liberal crusade that ends up aiding conservatives, evangelical Christians and the far right.

With religious zeal, Dworkin rained down fire and brimstone on any who dared deviate from her thin line of what was acceptable and what was obscene. Unsurprisingly, she gained enormous support from the Reagan administration and notoriously anti-gay bigots like James Dobson. Today, celebrated, self described radical feminists like Gail Dines and Julie Bindel appear to be repeating this, although now it is risibly being reframed as a “public health crisis.”

Ironically, it is often the elite in the LGBTQ community who appear to be taking up this crusade today. Since marriage equality passed in the US, bourgeois respectability politics have sadly gained ground too. Now, more than in the past, prominent, powerful and wealthy LGBTQ couples seek to mimic their heterosexual counterparts. Heteronormativity, along with shaming and virtue signaling, has become all the rage in some circles.

In truth, sexual “deviance” from the norm has always been looked at through the lens of Protestant Christian purity in the US. It is seen as something to suppress, police or expunge. And with so many prominent queer people clamouring to join the mundane cultural mainstream, the avantgarde and the different are increasingly being vanished or marginalized. But there is also an increasing conservativism within bourgeois LGBTQ circles which serves to perpetuate the oppressive systems of capitalist exploitation, class and nationalistic militarism. Just look to how many Pride Parades today are inundated with sponsors or contingents from corporations, banks, police and the military sector for an idea of how far it has gone.

Despite what many might argue, there is nothing radical about appealing to authority within a deeply authoritarian society. And while we recognize the silliness of “woke fascism,” we should not ignore the abuses of progressive or liberal authoritarianism masquerading as radicalism. Opposing societal ills like misogyny, homophobia and racism should never court censorship or echo reactionary structures of oppression.

The true radical experience should always be liberating for everyone, but especially the poor, the marginalized, and the powerless. It should ultimately condemn punitive ideologies of retributive justice, because wallowing in a state of perpetual victimhood or narcissistic woundedness only ends up serving the powerful by reinforcing their hierarchical worldview. Radical liberation revels in its creative imagination to transform society from a place of trauma to one of solidarity. And anything less than that is not worthy of our energy.

Kenn Orphan December 2021

As an independent writer and artist Kenn Orphan depends on donations and commissions. If you would like to support his work and this blog you can do so via PayPal. Simply click here:  DONATE

And thank you for your support and appreciation!