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"It is no longer a question of whether we'll continue to have capitalism. It is a question of what will replace it."- Immanuel Wallerstein, keynote, Yale, Mar 28, 2009. Neo-imperialism in post-independent Africa conference.
I would be very interested in doing a recorded teleconference interview for use as an unedited podcast/online radio show with any people who do not support Transphobia within the Progressive Movement and/or within the Feminist Movement. The interview will then appear on this website as a podcast for all to hear.
If there is enough interest we could also possibly do a Simultaneous Twitterchat but only if there is enough interest.
Please contact me by leaving a comment or clicking on the 'contact' link found at the top of this website or by calling (206) 337-1556, 24 hours a day and leaving a message.
Thanks.
Love for the people,
-T
The permanent link web address for this page is -
http://bit.ly/transphobia
- Please circulate and share it. Thanks.
- The above quote is from Betty Friedan, from ‘The Second Stage.’ Betty Friedan was also the author of ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and the founder and first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Wikipedia describes Betty Friedan as:
Betty Naomi Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist activist and writer, best known for starting the "second wave of the Women's Movement" through the writing of her book The Feminine Mystique in 1963, which attacked the 1950s notion, spread through society by advertising and strict enforcement of traditional gender roles, that women could only find fulfillment in child bearing, doing housework, and serving husbands.[1] The book's success, and the reaction from dissatisfied middle class women, led to the launching of consciousness-raising groups among women and the formation of grassroots women's groups. Friedan joined other leading feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bella Abzug, and Myrlie Evers-Williams in founding the National Women's Political Caucus
All above work is from royalty free clip art websites.
“The experts of psychology, sociology, economics, biology, even the new feminism experts, are still engaged in the old battles, of women versus men. The new questions that need to be asked - and with them, the new structures for the new struggle - can only come from pooling our experience…”
Update: The permanent link web address for this page is here:
http://bit.ly/post_swiper
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First of all, before I begin, let me make it clear to readers unfamiliar with the original article (found here: http://bit.ly/linkbias ) that Renee at Womanist Musings is not a post Swiper. She is an awesome blogger who I highly recommend who has posted an article to her website for me and I highly recommend you check out her super-awesome website and blog.
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Dear Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff,
I titled this article "Womanist-Musings Post-Swiper Accuses other People of being a Post-Swiper" because you and/or your group swiped a post from the Womanist-Musings website and yet you make an accusation on your blog, structured in the 'women versus men' method, that this website is a Post-Swiper in your latest blog post despite the fact that you left not one, but two, thank you comments (one found here) on our blog on a prior blog post of mine for posting the current article that you are speaking about that you allege was 'post swiped.' This is what we call a head-spinning situation. You causing drama for the sake of drama.
Several times before writing this follow up article, during it and afterwards I wondered if it is worth it to address the Infighting and I have decided, Yes it is, because this example is like a case study in the old 'women versus men' infighting within the feminist blogosphere.
I chose the title because you titled your recent blog post 'Post-Swiping' and had a lot of negative words to say.
Before I get into the details of that I want to start off, as I left off in my last original article (as I try to do for all people), trying to accentuate the positive and put aside the negative.
Great article you wrote. Very well researched. I tried to leave a comment asking you how you wanted to be credited but you closed the comments off on the article. So I linked to your website with admin (as you placed it on your website) and even used your name in the podcast and even mentioned your writing in Off Our Backs in the podcast and then encouraged people to visit your website and then you still attack me with your blog post.
The truth of the matter is I was reluctant to include the photos (but I did, as the other person who posted your article did not) because when you posted a photo of a world famous social justice activist and feminist without crediting the photographer, as you did, that is called thievery or, in your words, 'photo swiping' when done without attribution as you have done several times throughout your website, but I did not want to change your article, or insult you, so if I am guilty of anything it is that I cam guilty of facilitating your photo swiping without attribution to the photographer. I just hope it wasn't a female photographer, or a person of color (which is likely given that area of the world) female photographer because then you would indeed be guilty of the colonizing of the feminist blogosphere as you accuse others.
The morale = no one is perfect.
So, now we get to to see if you are willing to give attribution to others (rather than simply photos without attribution) the way that you made a point to attack others on your blog. I took a quick look on Google Images for the name 'Vandana Shiva' and I only had to look through two pages before finding the photo that you photo swiped without attribution. The photo was part of the Press Release package for a film so the website had permission to use it, but you did not. Therefore you should give attribution to that website, it is here:
http://www.wholesomegoodness.org/pressroom.html
Their 'about page states that they accept tax-deductable donations so I'm guessing that you took the picture from a not-for-profit group, and it is clear it was a production still from their award winning movie. I know enough about Vandana Shiva - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva > that I don't think she would be happy about your transphobic activities and transphobic reputation and I don't think she'd necessarily want her photo as part of your blog but I encourage you to contact her and find out.
[Side Note to Readers: Check this website, http://www.womensspace.org/phpBB2/2009/02/26/the-colonizing-of-the-feminist-blogosphere-why-feminists-should-have-boycotted-fem-20 - to see if womenspace website and blog gave proper attribution to the Wholesome Goodness website even after this article]
My guess is that you will not give proper attribution. That is the way real stubborn hypocrisy works. The Good news is that I sent the folks an email today asking is it OK that the photo is used on this website so we do not continue on the legacy of stealing photos without attribution the way you do because it only promotes the worse kind of digital colonialism that you seem to promote despite accusing others of it.
Update:
[After publishing this article on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 it was on Thursday March 26th, 2009 that I heard back from the folks at Wholesome goodness and they said they would "prefer if you give credit or a link." Don't worry, we didn't use your name, we just mentioned an anonymous blogger so that you have the chance to do the ethical thing and contact them yourself. So we will give credit and a link on our website under that photo...so the question to you Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, womensspace blogger... are you going to give them credit or even a link as attribution? Or will you continue with your digital colnialism of taking the work and photo of others without attribution... despite the fact that you accuse others of it?
And I did not, and would not include the Burger King logo on this website (in an article condemning multinational corporate ads) for numerous obvious reasons that I hope I don't have to explain because again, it would be hard to say without insulting you. I recommend you read the book titled 'No Logos' by Naomi Klein to fully understand it.
Incidents like this is why persons of color and Black feminists don't want to be a part of the feminist blogosphere. Because no matter what we do, no matter how much solidarity, no matter how many links, no matter how many compliments... still people find reason to attack us and we are attacked...and then they turn around and say 'who me, racist? Colonial? NoooOOOOoooooo.'
This whole attack is something I did not expect from you who wrote:
"And instead of fighting these guys, nobody is paying attention, instead, feminist bloggers are fighting one another!"
And you here you are, attacking me and starting fights at the first chance you get.
a. When it is submitted to this blog for posting as many guest bloggers have done
b. when it has creative commons license, as yours had.
v. When I credit them and link to them as I used the exact link and the exact name on your article that you had on your own article.
How was I supposed to know that it is not the exact link that you preferred? And still I am attacked. I am just so tired of fighting and being attacked. Just give me the word and I will indeed take this article off my website.
I posted my article at 12:10am on Tuesday, went to bed, and then did work and finished the podcast around 1:30pm on Tuesday and then you posted your thank you regarding the article here and then you left a comment at 2:21pm. I saw your comment on this blog at 5:10pm. So you gave me less than 3 hours to make the URL changes that you requested before going on the war path and posting blog attacks?
Wow.
I wasn't sure if you wanted to be known as 'Heart' or 'admin' because I originally saw the article on a different website with 'admin' (which I kept the link as you had it) and then I also saw it on your website (at the link you provided on website) with 'by admin' so I wasn't sure. I personlly thought maybe you were going by admin because you din't want to use your real name as is very common with many bloggers (if for no other reason so that there name doesn't come up when Googled by the friends, family, employers and enemies). I also included a bunch of links to your website throughout the article and then I even added more links to your other articles.
I did indeed credit the name Heart in the podcast and mentioned the women's space website in the podcast Mp3.
But none of that was enough to stop an attack by you on your blog.
Nevethless, I'm very glad you spoke up about the whole issue and researched it so thoroughly. The more I learn about it, the worse it becomes.
Do you have any interest in being part of the interview of recorded teleconference about this?
I also noticed the 'Radical Feminist Carnival' tab at the top of your website...so I've be interested in knowing your thoughts about the sexist, “transphobic screed” (as Renee of Womanist Musings calls it) that many people in the Radical Feminist Carnival support as made very evident on the 352+ comment blog posts at womanist musings found at the below link titled 'radical feminists'
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/02/radical-feminism.html
Oh, and here is a better article that Renee of Womanist musings wrote:
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/02/radfem-carnival.html
Here is how here the article starts off:
“It was brought to my attention that a post of mine has appeared in the latest Radfem carnival. I was alerted yesterday morning via twitter. Much to my horror, when I went to check for myself, it was buried in the middle of their usual transphobic screed. In all honesty I cannot remember submitting to the carnival. Even if I did submit a post, the kind of disgusting trans hatred that these women adhere to is something that I could never support.”
And when you click on 'Radfem carnival' (as I just did) this is what it states at the top:
“Many thanks to all the contributers with a special thank you to Carnival organiser, Heart, at Womensspace.”
That is you, Heart, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, and your website, womensspace.
Isn't that strange? So your group took Renee's article, without her being able to remember giving it to you,... and she was so upset about it, that she thoroughly cursed you out about it in numerous blogs posts on her very high traffic blog... and yet here you are attacking me because I posted your article with numerous links to you, with credit to you in my article and podcast, with numerous compliments to you, and received a thanks from you... and you are upset and attacked me in a blog post because... I didn't link to the proper URL. Unbelievable.
Radfem took the work of a woman of color blogger and placed it on a website that the women of color feminists blogger outspokenly detests in every way, manner and form and yet you accuse others of digital colonialism?
Thats enough hypocrisy to make a person's head spin right off!
Much like Renee, I really don't like blog carnivals that are Transphobic, homophobic hypocrites, who treat LGBTQI feminists as less than equals, but no one, including you, or I, is perfect.
I also agree 100% with Renee when she states "the kind of disgusting trans hatred that these women adhere to is something that I could never support.”
I don't support your hatred or your transphobia or any of your LGBTQI bias, yet I would be very interested in doing a recorded teleconference interview for use as an unedited podcast/online radio show with several of your members who also detest Transphobia. After reading the 352+ comments on the 'Radical Feminism' article I am aware that there are several admirable members of the Radical Feminism crew who also do not support the Transphobia, despite the fact that it seems to be very common within the Radical Feminism mindset. That way, if you really believe that you are not the transphobic, hate-spreading individual that so many people have described you and your RadFem Carnival as being... you can clear your own name for everyone to hear.
Renee thoroughly cursed your Radfem carnival out, with no apologies about it...as a matter of fact she immediately wrote another awesome article thoroughly describing why she had to thoroughly curse out various members of the Radfem carnival and described why various words she chose to use were not sexist when coming from a woman.
I haven't cursed you out and have no intention of doing so.
But if we're going to fight like children and accuse each other of the greater evils and hypocrisy and make each other look as stupid as possible we might as well go all the way so that way when Right wing people, and anti-feminist people and multinational corporate supporters sit back and laugh at us at least we know we gave them a really good show while the earth is being flushed down the drain and my mother, sisters, aunts, grandmom remain victims of an institutionalized patriarchal system while we as feminist find faults with each other.
My sister died in horrible pain when her heart stopped on a hospital operating room table due to Lupus, but you know what? Maybe we should keep fighting one another until my other two sisters die from this patriarchal system that denies adequate healthcare...and then my mom dies..and then all other women of color until we are all back in the chains of slavery. Then maybe it will be a good time to stop fighting one another and work together?
I'd definitely like to keep this issue of digital colonialism at the front of people's mind because otherwise it will only get worse.
Still, If you want your article deleted from this website let me know and I will do it in a second just let me know.
Let me repeat that for everyone to hear:
Still, If you want your article deleted from this website let me know and I will do it in a second just let me know.
Who knows, maybe you're attacking me, a Black male feminist, because choosing to...
'launch attacks on feminists...is always a good way to drive up hits and linkage”....for your website. That quote is from your article, by the way.
Heart said...
Thanks for circulating my blog post, "Feminists Should Have Boycotted Fem 2.0...
Thanks.
Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff
Women's Space
Ruthless Twofacedness
Personally, I'm tired of the Drama. I've worked my entire life as a Feminist and the idea of having my reputation dragged through the mud simply because I'm a Black or because I'm a male (yes you did bring up the 'male' issue on your post) feminist actually trying to support the positive work you do is too much. Again, I want people to read the article about how the Good Ole' Girl's Network and how Frederick Douglas, a Black male feminist gave everything to the Feminist movement and received a back stab from fellow feminists based on his race and based on being a male. I've been pulling a lot of knives out of my back and still I think working for a better world that gets ride of patriarchy is worth it.
Oh, and for those who think that I, as a person of color feminist, describing the treachery within the progressive social media world and the feminist blogosphere as 'Back Stabbing' is 'too harsh' then perhaps you should read Renee's beautiful and eloquently description of this type of race-based treachery in her blog post titled "Backstabbing Feminism."
This is a very small blog just starting out hoping to get more guest blog posts from people and the idea of you trying to drag our name through the mud is hurtful.
Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, I hope things work out for you.
Love for the people,
-T
“After fifteen years of the women’s movement, the gap between women’s earnings and men’s is greater than ever, women earning on the average only fifty-nine cents to every dollar men earn, the average male high school drop-out today earning $1,600 more a year than female college graduates.”
“We must take a fresh look at work and the demands made by corporations, schools and government, and recognize the possibilities of flextime, part-time, job-sharing, and split-shift work and education. We must think in terms of restructuring the home itself, so that it can be made more suitable to the demands and diversity of our new families.”
“I believe that we have to… move into the second stage… …the second stage involves coming to terms with the family - new terms with love and with work. The second stage may not even be a woman’s movement. Men may be at the cutting edge of the second stage. The second stage has to transcend the battle for equal power in institutions. The second stage will restructure institutions and transform the nature of power itself.”
“For there is a real backlash against the equality and the personhood of women - in American, as in Islam and the Vatican. Dangerous reactionary forces are turning women back to the old dependence, silencing women’s new voice …in ways we do not clearly understand. In the name of the family, they would destroy the new equality that gives the family strength to resist dehumanizing forces that are emerging in the seeming impotence of capitalist America, in the resurgence of fundamentalist religion, in neofascism and in autocratic communism, and in the chaos of the Third World. We must ask new questions or we could lose in the economic and emotional turbulence, the measure of equality that is essential to strengthen human life - and the future of the family. The first stage, the woman’s movement, was fought within, and against, and defined by that old structure of unequal, polarized male and female sex roles.”
“The experts of psychology, sociology, economics, biology, even the new feminism experts, are still engaged in the old battles, of women versus men. The new questions that need to be asked - and with them, the new structures for the new struggle - can only come from pooling our experience…”
- The above quote is from Betty Friedan, from ‘The Second Stage.’ Betty Friedan was also the author of ‘The Feminine Mystique’ and the founder and first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Wikipedia describes Betty Friedan as:
Betty Naomi Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist activist and writer, best known for starting the "second wave of the Women's Movement" through the writing of her book The Feminine Mystique in 1963, which attacked the 1950s notion, spread through society by advertising and strict enforcement of traditional gender roles, that women could only find fulfillment in child bearing, doing housework, and serving husbands.[1] The book's success, and the reaction from dissatisfied middle class women, led to the launching of consciousness-raising groups among women and the formation of grassroots women's groups. Friedan joined other leading feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bella Abzug, and Myrlie Evers-Williams in founding the National Women's Political Caucus
.
-------------------------------------- You can also search for the short version of this episode in Itunes under the podcast title: 'Volunteers for Three Groups: A World Beyond Capitalism Conference, The Freeschool Community and The Peace Communities' or click here: http://tinyurl.com/link2itunes
-----------------------------------
The permanent link web address for this page is
http://bit.ly/linkbias - Please circulate and share it. Thanks.
Update: The permanent link web address for the follow up article about
'Post Swiping' is
http://bit.ly/post_swiper - Please circulate and share that too. Thanks.
Update: Also, The permanent link web address for the additional follow up article about
an 'Invitation to Recorded Teleconference Interview about Transphobia within the Feminist Movement, the Radical Feminist Movement and the Progressive Movement is here- http://bit.ly/transphobia
Dear friends,
The below article, orginally titled. 'The Colonizing of the Feminist Blogosphere: Why Feminists Should Have Boycotted Fem 2.0,' has, by far, the most detailed background information to Why Feminists Should have Boycotted Fem 2.0 Conference. As many of you know, I have written a great deal about my thoughts on the The Colonizing of the Feminist Blogosphere, my thoughts about the Good Ole' Girl's Network and my thoughts about the Fem 2.0 Conference endorsements of pimps. However, the below article is an absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful and amazingly well researched article about how corporate interests are sucking the life out of the feminist movement and using feminists to promote corporations and give awards to corporate-friendly so-called activist bloggers.
Just in case you don't read the entire article below, I want to share with you my favorite paragraph within the below article:
I hope you read that paragraph twice to truly gain an appreciation for the insight.
Finally, “Linkfluence” is invited, you know, the company that offered us the “Top 30 Feminist Blogs”. Linkfluence’s goal is to “make finding influential communities and following their conversations easier for the greatest benefit of corporations, consultancies or survey institutes.” Just what we need! An organization working to make our feminist conversations most beneficial to corporations! As references, Linkfluence lists multinationals Nestle, Nike and Roche, among others. So I suppose we should not be surprised that among the “Top 30″ are pimps, procurers and those who blog for them, anti-feminists and misogynists. All of that notwithstanding, when companies like this create lists like this, the naive and trusting as well as the anti-feminist and capitalist are going to LINK to them which is what the real goal is. The goal is not to carefully study the influence of feminist bloggers. The goal is to rank blogs according to how dogged they are in linking — who cares WHY they are linking; perhaps they are linking in order to repeatedly launch attacks on feminists, as is very true of several on the “Top 30 list”, and which is always a good way to drive up hits and linkage; blogosphere attacks on women are such good times – because that way companies like Linkfluence and Fem 2.0 garner maximum linkage to themselves and therefore they begin to gain exposure and to influence in heretofore untapped markets.
For those unaware, and for those who have never clicked on 'The History' tab at the top of this blog, you will understand that part of the reason this blog was created was because of so many activists who are just completely selling-out to Nike, a multinational corporation that has only increased their worldwide oppression of women, children and the entire earth while a select few profit at the expense of millions.
If that doesn't convince you that these pro-Corporate Feminist Blog Awards Need to be boycotted, please consider the comments (found here) of two of the people who won awards at “Top 30 Feminist Blog” Award:
Lauren [of fauxrealtho blog]
My question is how the hell my personal blog can be one of the top thirty. I barely write on it, and moreover, almost none of my posts there have anything to do with feminism. I feel like someome looking for feminism showing up on my personal site would be confused, AND including it bumped someone whose blog is more worthy.
Below is the second comment by another Top 30 Feminist Blog winner:
This was indeed very awesome and very courageous of Lauren to admit what she said and awesome for Hugo to speak out about the non-blogs that were included on the list, much like it was awesome for Renee (the only woman of color chosen as a top 30 feminist Blog award winner) at Womanist Musings to question, in detail, the entire awards process as it regards racism. The answer for why Lauren won an award, even though she admits that:
Hugo Schwyzer [of Hugo Schwyzer blog]
Yeah, it’s really a strange list, if you think about it... ...there’s some pretty major stuff missing, and some clear non-blogs included.
a. she barely writes on it, and
b. most of her posts have nothing to do with feminism
...is simple: The 'goal is to rank blogs according to how dogged they are in linking — who cares WHY they are linking'
In Lauren's case, the reason why people are linking to her personal blog, is clear when you look at the 'about page' of her personal blog that won an award, you will see that she is "the founder of Feministe and designed Pandagon, Hugo Schwyzer, Bitch PhD, Skippy The Bush Kangaroo, and Republic of T, among others."
So of course, they are all going to link to her personal blog.
What is my point? What is the reason I keep speaking up about this?
Until all Blog Awards and especially Feminist Blog awards stop determining their 'winners' based on 'how dogged they are in linking' (meaning their Technorati linkage/authority numbers) then we, who are part of the feminist movment will continue to overlook...
a. People of Color and LGBTQI feminists
b. Actual feminist blogs, rather than blogs that admittedly don't talk about feminist issues, as Lauren mentioned is the case with her personal blog
c. Actual blogs, rather than easily identifiable non-blogs, as Hugo Schwyzer mentioned
d. Entire groups of radical, feminist blogs who are extremely controversial, who speak up on behalf of LGBTQI, third world people (who are victimized by corporations like NIKE) and thus don't receive links by the Good Ole' Girl's Network.
There are a lot of Feminists Bloggers, including the below author, who have stated that 'feminist blogging, so far as the potential...it once had for advancing feminist goals, is history' and there are women of color like BFP, and Black Amazon who have spoken passionately about their pain and victimization from many folks ijn the feminist movement (several of whom were prominently given awards in the Top 30 Feminist Blog Awards).
But you know what? I'm not going to give up on Feminist blogging. There is too much at stake. Too many newspapers have gone bankrupt all over the country and blogging is possibly our last avenue to have our voices heard about Feminist issues.
And I want to urge all of you to Keep working for a better world everyone and to keep working for solutions.
Love for the people,
-T
"....a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it and within it is no struggle at all.”
-Arundhati Roy, Quoted from her speech: '2004 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture' (The entire speech is available online, search for the title)
The below article was originally posted by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff or Heart
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Kindly credit me.
This is my work and can be found here:
http://www.womensspace.org/phpBB2/2009/02/26/the-colonizing-of-the-feminist-blogosphere-why-feminists-should-have-boycotted-fem-20
Thanks,
Heart/Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff
http://www.womensspace.org/phpBB2
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In the sturm and drang over the blog post What if the Feminist Blogosphere is a Form of Digital Colonialism, which resulted in the post’s authors, Brittany Shoot and Mandy Van Deven issuing this apology today, nobody seems to have taken a close look at the event itself, and especially, its sponsors — the real colonizers — who I believe are the people who should rightfully be apologizing to all of us. I think those who supported this event or advertised it should also be apologizing to all who have made the feminist blogosphere the occasionally-effective vehicle for positive change for women that it has been in the past.
Turner Strategies sponsored Fem 2.0. This is a public relations, advertising and marketing company run by people long in the employ of Fortune 500 companies, which, in itself, ought to have given feminists considering participating in this event some pause. Of more concern, Turner Strategies has a multitude of connections with biotechnology multinationals. Some of its top level management are or have been biotechnology entrepreneurs. Ben Carlson, Operations Vice President, was a spokesman for a California Company, Genetic Savings & Clone, that is in the business of cloning kittens and dogs, retailing them to the tune of $50,000 each. He appears to continue to head up another cloning company, Clone Safety, and in that capacity he wrote a press release not long ago thanking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his support of genetically engineered seeds and cloned livestock. Here is a list of Carlson’s press releases in support of livestock cloning and eating food derived from cloned livestock. At the end of this post there is information about why supporting by far most biotechnologies cannot be consistent with feminism, or for that matter, with any sort of reverence for human or animal life or the earth itself.
According to the Turner Strategies website, President Suzanne Turner’s ”communications campaigns have helped pass more than 40 pieces of legislation. She has worked for Fortune 500 companies, devising branding and marketing campaigns that have moved millions of dollars worth of products.” Nowhere did I see a listing of the 40 specific pieces of legislation Turner’s company helped to pass. But her current projects offer some clues. Turner speaks regularly at conferences on the topic of “how to effectively communicate food and agricultural biotechnology messages to consumers and opinion leaders using new media strategies.” According to the description of one such conference where Turner was a speaker:
Many activist groups have capitalized on using new media strategies including blogs, vlogs and social networking that create a “viral” spread of both information and potential misinformation thereby confusing the consumer and perpetuating negative opinions in some cases. The panel will delineate the issues surrounding credible, science-based messaging on food and agricultural biotechnology using new media strategies, including case examples and insights for both domestic and international audiences.
In other words, Turner offers seminars on the internet promotion of biotechnologies to consumers. This press release describes Turner’s involvement in forming a company that “will manage and license a broad portfolio of intellectual property rights related to animal reproductive technologies [including] the foundational nuclear transfer cloning technology that was developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning of Dolly the sheep. “ In other words, one of Turner’s projects is the patenting of biotechnologies, particularly odious in what these patents mean for the world’s food supply (more about that at the end of this post).
Sascha Burns, Turner’s Vice President, Political Strategy, is a one-time drug industry lobbyist employed by Bristol-Squibb. Lisa Dry, listed as “Of Counsel,” is a former Director of Communications for the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). She had responsibility for ”representing foods and crops derived through biotechnology to the media and the public”.
Nachison and Peskin, sponsors of Fem 2.0
Then there is the sponsor “IFocus,” a media think tank, which is the brainchild of Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin (above) and which was formed to ”establish partnerships with individuals and organizations around the globe to create next-generation media projects that foster an informed society, as well as create new opportunities in the marketplace.” Prior to IFocus, Nachison and Peskin ran WeMedia. A recent NPR feature goes straight to the heart of what this organization and these men are all about (bolds mine):
Thanks to the audience taking control of their media experience and creating their own media in blogs, podcasts, video and social networks, the people who are losing control have decided to meet — and meet, and meet again — until they figure out how they can take back some control of this uncontrollable situation. That’s the rub in Miami today and tomorrow at the We Media conference, a high-end schmooze-fest sponsored in part by Reuters, Washington Post, Newsweek Interactive and the Knight Foundation…. First up was the “Community Forum,” which included representatives from MTV, Topix.net and BlogHer leading a discussion about the new ways people are using news and information in their communities. Ian Rowe from MTV noted how his younger audience is changing the dynamic in how MTV covers issues.
“They want to get their content when they want it and how they want it, and that also goes for issues in their life,” he said. “It used to be top down where we chose one or two issues for them. Now our audience is telling us it’s great you are focusing on issues, but I want to deal with issues that are important to me, and I want to connect with people around the world to talk about issues I care about…We see great opportunities in the media revolution that’s now in the hands of young people.”
…What’s left largely unsaid (at least until the afternoon “Investment Forum”) is what MTV and other media companies think these “opportunities” are. Is it an opportunity to cash in on the idea of citizen media? Is it an opportunity to change their own top-down culture?
Jan Schaffer, who runs the J-Lab at the University of Maryland, pointed out that grassroots media sites don’t necessarily play by the corporate media rules of money first, community service second.A recent survey by the lab of 191 citizen media sites found that they were largely shoestring operations with content coming from volunteers. Here are some eye-opening stats from that study:
- 51% said they didn’t need to make money to continue.
- 82% said they planned to continue “indefinitely.”
- 73% of respondents said their sites were a “success,” based on the impact in their communities
NPR quoted the CEO of Topix in an excellent blog post he wrote about the work of IFocus’s Nachison and Peskin:
There is actually a media revolution in the works. So what’s going on here? By implicit definition, participatory media is non-commercial. If it’s commercial, someone owns it, and it’s not “we” anymore.
Furthermore, as soon as a new media venture crosses the line and tries to become a business, it either becomes a successful business or a failed one. Businesses aren’t about ideology, they’re about getting a job done and earning revenue to keep the thing going. Even wild success tends to leave ideology behind. Ideology is the realm of nonprofits and failures…
Yes, there is a media revolution in the works. But it’s messy, it’s nasty videos on YouTube, not the neat & tidy civic Welcome Wagon of citizen journalism. You can’t quit your job as a journalist and replace your salary with AdSense on your blog. You’ll be lucky to make beer money, let alone pay COBRA and fund your SEP-IRA.And big media has been watching, and buying the winning ventures, and building their own platforms to — yes you’re right! — exploit the new models.
Gloria Pan, Vice President of Internet Communications at Turner Strategies, is described as “a driving force in its annual We Media conference, a must-attend event for the media vanguard.”
Pan was also in charge of “Sponsorships” at Fem 2.0. This is how and why of things like ”sponsorships” and similar colonization rackets. Some big company or a couple of big companies, in this case Turner Strategies, IFocus, and George Washington University invest a lot of money in creating a conference in order to make money, advance their own ideologies, companies and olitics, and to, as I blogged about earlier, get a piece of some potentially lucrative action that is going on, in this case, to get a cut of the feminist blogosphere. They then invite people they figure might have some credibility with feminist bloggers to be “sponsors.” Here is a list of “sponsors” who donated money to make this conference happen. Here is a list of “conveners” and people who attended. Take a look. You’ve got NARAL, Bitch, Ph.D., The New Agenda, On the Issues and RH Reality Check all sending in feminist money that ultimately supports capitalist, colonizing, imperialist, endeavors of multinationals, Big Pharm and biotechnologies. Did any of them ever bother to do any investigation before signing up? To, for example, find out who the sponsors of this thing really were? They are joined by a motley crew of random entrepreneurs looking to make a buck off of the hard work and free labor of the feminist blogosphere. Look here, here, here and here. The last link is to the “Mom 2.0 Summit”, which appears to be similar to Fem 2.0, but Mom 2.0 is sponsored by the likes of Weight Watchers, Burger King, Sony and Walt Disney. Yeah, that’s all about feminism.
Finally, “Linkfluence” is invited, you know, the company that offered us the “Top 30 Feminist Blogs”. Linkfluence’s goal is to “make finding influential communities and following their conversations easier for the greatest benefit of corporations, consultancies or survey institutes.” Just what we need! An organization working to make our feminist conversations most beneficial to corporations! As references, Linkfluence lists multinationals Nestle, Nike and Roche, among others. So I suppose we should not be surprised that among the “Top 30″ are pimps, procurers and those who blog for them, anti-feminists and misogynists. All of that notwithstanding, when companies like this create lists like this, the naive and trusting as well as the anti-feminist and capitalist are going to LINK to them which is what the real goal is. The goal is not to carefully study the influence of feminist bloggers. The goal is to rank blogs according to how dogged they are in linking — who cares WHY they are linking; perhaps they are linking in order to repeatedly launch attacks on feminists, as is very true of several on the “Top 30 list”, and which is always a good way to drive up hits and linkage; blogosphere attacks on women are such good times – because that way companies like Linkfluence and Fem 2.0 garner maximum linkage to themselves and therefore they begin to gain exposure and to influence in heretofore untapped markets.
Vandana Shiva
The original author of this article did not give photo attribution but the Peace Communities Solidarity website at www.savethepoorbrownchildren.org gives attribution for this photo to WholesomeGoodness found at: http://www.wholesomegoodness.org/pressroom.html
It is in this way that ativist movements are assimilated into patriarchy, then systematically gutted of any effectiveness or power they might ever have had to change the world. This is what it means for a movement to be colonized. This is what I was talking about when I blogged about the end of feminist blogging. If you are not aware of the threat corporate multinationals, biotechnologies, the World Bank and other of these organizations’ agendas and politics are to the world’s women, land, creatures, the earth itself, read here, here, here. Read this and go here. Read everything on this page written by Vandana Shiva (above), and consider her words (bolds mine):
‘The “Green Revolution” was supposed to bring Western technology to the aid of Third World farmers. But instead of wealth, the new high-yielding seeds brought poverty and environmental destruction. These capital-intensive technologies also led to an economic monoculture. Institutions like the World Bank loaned money around the world to every developing country to do the same thing.‘But uniformity is not nature’s way; diversity is nature’s way,’ she explains. Soon, she adds, there was a backlash. ‘When Third World farmers began to grow single crops, plants that for centuries had provided communities with essential vitamins were suddenly declared “weeds” and doused with pesticides. In some villages in India blindness increased severely because the so-called “weeds” had been the community’s only source of Vitamin A… Genetic changes to shorten the height of grain and increase yield led to a scarcity of straw; that meant less humus, depleted soils and eventually fewer grazing animals.
The end result of all this was not more but less food. Reducing the financial support for farmers will only make it easier for multinational corporations to tighten their grip on global markets.
‘Open-door policies,’ she says, ‘will remove all restrictions on imports and exports, inevitably converting Third World’s subsistence food production into a market for big business.’ It’s not surprising that peasant movements worldwide oppose these kinds of open markets. ‘For them maintaining diversity is a matter of survival. There will be no Indian culture if there are no Indian farmers to regenerate and continue that culture.’
Diversity, she insists, cannot be maintained by foreign corporations whose main aim is optimum yield from one product in order to gain maximum profit. The names of the six corporations that control the global grain trade roll off her tongue: Cargill, Continental Grain, Louis Dreyfus, Bunge, Andre and Mitsui Cook. These companies market the high-yielding seeds that are the heart of the ‘Green Revolution’.
Ms Shiva argues that these new seeds are not all they’re made out to be. ‘In India I’ve discovered that farmers can grow more grain and lose money. In the group of farmers I worked with those planting their own seeds earned 3,000 rupees a year. Others planting Cargill’s “new improved” hybrid seed netted only 297 rupees after the harvest because most of their earnings were used to pay for inputs like fertilizer and pesticides.’
Relaxed rules on biotechnology will allow companies to genetically engineer, patent and sell new organisms without having to account for their long-term effects on health or the environment. ‘The hazards of biotechnology will not be like the hazards of the chemical industry.” Ms Shiva warns.
Such threats cannot be treated casually ‘Whether it’s in the technological or economic domain, we are constantly being tricked into seeing growth where there is actually the production of scarcity. We have become totally numb to what disappears. By flattening the world to economic values we devalue ourselves. We assume there is only one economy - the market place. We forget that people have their own economies - taking care of themselves. Biodiversity is related to cultural diversity because cultures are also systems that renew - systems of value, of perception and of lifestyle. Human beings need a social economy that exchanges things other than money and that produces for reasons other than profits.’
She is working with Indian farmers to re-build seed banks in the hope of strengthening biodiversity. And to pursue sustainable farming techniques without expensive inputs from the agro-chemical companies. But if push comes to shove she argues that creative non-cooperation - ‘creating conditions for survival while rejecting an imposed system of authoritarianism’ - is the only way forward.
It may seem an impossible task to change such a powerful global system. But Ms Shiva is undaunted. ‘It’s not the first time we have tried to change a global system. Fifty years ago people were doing it all over the world and they succeeded. That time the political system was the colonial empires of Europe. When small steps are taken by large numbers of people momentous things can happen.’
Fem 2.0 was in fact the brainchild of the kind of corporate multinationals, marketing firms, “internet communications firms” Shiva is talking about who stand in direct opposition to everything feminists and progressives, revolutionaries, have given our lives for. Here they are, sponsoring conferences for feminists, moving in on the feminist blogosphere, and taking money from feminists. Worst of all, we have feminists stepping up to support them, advertising them throughout the blogosphere, and treating them for all the world as if they are not the colonizers and imperialists they truly are. And instead of fighting these guys, nobody is paying attention, instead, feminist bloggers are fighting one another!]
As I’ve written, I have been here before, many times in my activist life. I have seen this many times. The creative and potentially revolutionary energy of the feminist blogosphere, fragile as it may have been, is history now. From this time forward, barring a miracle, nothing will be the same.
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