Down with Kitchen Slavery! Time For a New Way of Life!, Soviet Poster, 1931 -- Daily LIFT #125

Down with Kitchen Slavery! Time For a New Way of Life!, Soviet Poster, 1931 -- Daily LIFT  #125

Poster by Grigory Mikhailovich Shegal (1889-1956)

Women's Strike for Equality March, New York, August 1970 -- Daily LIFT #82

Women's Strike for Equality March, New York, August 1970 -- Daily LIFT #82

Women Demand Equality -- Daily LIFT #38

Women Demand Equality: Feminist march in Washington, D.C., 1970

-- Daily LIFT #38

(The Daily LIFT - Leftist Image for Today - is a new The Left Chapter feature posting a daily photo, cartoon, artwork or other image related to leftist history or contemporary realty.)

Internationalism, Peace & Justice! - International Women's Day Poster, Lithuanian SSR, c. 1985

Internationalism, Peace & Justice!

International Women's Day Poster  Lithuanian SSR, c. 1985

Solidarity on International Women's Day

CUPW IWD button c. 1995

International Women's Day brings with it the inevitable lip service being paid to women's equality by many neoliberal politicians. It is important to remember the origins of IWD in the struggles of working class women. The fact is that poverty and low wages are still a gendered issue and that women are significantly more likely to be minimum wage workers or to be living in poverty.

Not supporting dramatically higher social assistance rates and a commitment to real living wages (a $15 an hour minimum wage is just a step towards that) is a direct attack on all workers, but also women workers especially.

If a politician wants to claim to be celebrating International Women's Day, ask them where they stand on these issues. If they are not supporting immediate legislated living wages and livable social assistance rates they are condemning, disproportionately, women to poverty and injustice.

Which makes their celebration of the day ring very hollow.

Further Readings:

The Facts about Women and Poverty in Canada

A $15 Minimum Wage Is A Feminist Issue

Who Earns Minimum Wage?

Women's Work -- A Collection of Articles by Working Women, Pedestal Magazine, Vancouver 1975

Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project

See the end of this post for details on the project.

Leaflet: Women's Work -- A Collection of Articles by Working Women, Pedestal Magazine, Vancouver 1975

This powerful leaflet is a collection of articles that appeared in the Vancouver women's liberation newspaper Pedestal in the early 1970s. 

It consists of four first hand stories and one poem. 

The first relates the demeaning atmosphere of sexism, sexual harassment and condescension that a woman experienced as a secretary for academic men. It begins "Girls! Are you looking for a fulfilling job with a future, guaranteed to eliminate your self respect, distort your value, reduce you to a mindless, servile, lowly blob or a simpering sweet dolly? Then become a secretary!"

The second talks of the terrible working conditions for women (and some men) working as postal sorters for Canada Post that includes even such ugliness as being subjected to the carbon monoxide, headache and fatigue inducing emissions of the cars of management.  

The third relates the story of a Quebecois woman's struggle in Toronto and Vancouver to navigate through unemployment, working as a nanny and waitress, all while trying to help family and to break out of poverty.

In the final one a young woman relates her life working as a cab driver and the many faces of systemic sexism that she was confronted with daily. Despite this she proudly enjoys her work and what she sees as its honesty and lack of pretension. 

More so than many of the leaflets we have featured, these articles are all very well written, personally compelling and deeply moving.

The introduction notes how many unions at the time totally ignored the issues confronting women workers and it calls for the formation of a Working Women's Association to unionize women workers independently. 

It opened by stating: 

The economic system cannot survive without the work of millions of women. We operate the telephone system, we punch the computer cards that control companies and governments, we type the letters, file the orders, and serve customers in restaurants, department stores and supermarkets.

(Click on scans to enlarge) 

When The Left Chapter began part of what I wanted to do on the blog was to show and highlight vintage public leftist election/political leaflets and booklets. While many of these have been offered with commentary to date, a very large collection of hundreds of them from several different sources remains and to preserve these often quite rare documents we will be posting them on a regular (almost daily) basis now often without or with minimal commentary so that people may have access to them as quickly as possible as an historical resource. 

While these will all be leaflets from a variety of different leftist viewpoints and countries, they are being posted as an historical/study resource and the views or opinions expressed in them do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or blogger.

All of these posts (as well as posts made to date) will be listed on the page: Vintage Communist/Socialist Leaflets (which is still being updated with past posts).

If you have any public, vintage leaflets or booklets you would like to contribute to this project please contact us via theleftchapter@outlook.com

Climate Change, Police Malfeasance, Lenin & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 19 - 26

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of March 19 - March 26. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.



1) Racial profiling complaint to be filed against Montreal police over $48 ticket incident

Aaron Derfel, Montreal Gazette 

It was supposed to be a fun night out for ice cream, but ended with six police cruisers surrounding a young black man who was holding an ice cream cone in his hand.

Read the full article.

2) Free tuition and universal child care now NDP policy

Sean Kavanagh, CBC News

The provincial New Democrats want to make tuition free and reinstate funding at two Winnipeg schools. 

Read the full article.

3) When is a rapist no longer a rapist? On the cost-free repentance of Tom Stranger

Jennifer Izaakson, Ceasefire

Two days ago, Tom Stranger was no-platformed at the South Bank Centre in London. If rapists like Stranger truly seek forgiveness, they must accept to give up power and control over the narrative. There is no redemption without loss.

Read the full article.

4) Why do so many male journalists think female stars are flirting with them?

Hadley Freeman, The Guardian

A magazine’s profile with Selena Gomez is the latest to have an icky fixation on its subject’s looks. Perhaps it’s time for men to be banned from interviewing women.

Read the full article.

5) Feminism That Doesn’t Challenge Male Entitlement Isn’t Feminism

Caitlin Roper, The Huffington Post

Once upon a time, feminism was a social movement. It was a movement by and for women. It had actual objectives - like liberating women from male oppression. It meant something.

Nowadays, with the popularity of third wave liberal feminism, feminism* can be whatever you want it to be. Anybody can be a feminist, including men, and any act can be a ‘feminist’ statement- even if it upholds institutions and structures that oppress and harm women as a whole - it’s all good as long as a woman ‘chooses’ it.

Read the full article.

6) A cop fires. A teen dies. Yet six police body cameras somehow miss what happens.

 Craig Timberg, The Washington Post 

The killing of Mary Hawkes, a troubled 19-year-old woman suspected of stealing a truck, should have been a case study in the value of police body cameras. The action was fast-moving, the decisions split-second. And all of the surviving witnesses — including the shooter — were police officers wearing small video cameras on their uniforms.

Read the full article.

7) David Miller doesn't believe Scarborough subway extension will ever be built

CBC News

The cost of a long-debated one-stop subway extension in Scarborough is currently pegged at $3.35 billion, with the issue set to go to city council next week. Former mayor David Miller spoke with Matt Galloway on CBC Radio's Metro Morning about what he thinks of the plan.

Read the full article. 

8) As Colin Kaepernick brings #LoveArmyForSomalia, NFL executives show what hate looks like 

Chuck Modiano, Daily News

“Amazing news,” a proud Colin Kaepernick announced in a video on Saturday. “Turkish Airlines granted us an airplane to fly to Somalia, a 60 ton cargo plane, so we can fly there with food with water for these people. Now we’ve started a GoFundMe page to allow anyone to help us donate food, donate water.”

Read the full article.

9) Trudeau’s Oil Views Spur African Famine

Yves Engler, Dissident Voices

Today the lives of over 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are at risk due to a drought at least partly caused by climate change. A study by Britain’s Met Office concluded that human-induced climate disturbances sparked a famine in Somalia in 2011 in which over 50,000 died. For its part, the Climate Vulnerability Monitor estimated in 2012 that climate change was responsible for some 400,000 deaths per year, a number expected to hit one million by 2030.

Read the full article.

10) Federal budget vows $100-million for strategy on gender-based violence, citing Globe Unfounded investigation

Michelle Zilio, The Globe and Mail

The Liberal government is planning to invest more than $100-million over five years to create a national strategy to prevent gender-based violence, citing a Globe and Mail investigation into how police handle sex-assault allegations across the country.

Read the full article.

11) Under pressure UK universities cancel Richard Falk event

Middle East Monitor

Two British universities have cancelled events planned for the launch of former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk’s new book.

Read the full article.

12) Poster campaign calls attention to impacts of sexual violence at U of T

Mubashir Baweja, The Varsity

On Thursday, posters containing quotes from students, staff, and faculty about the university’s response to their experiences of sexual violence were put up in conspicuous locations across campus.

Read the full article.

13) If you really care about climate change, you should boycott the ridiculous Earth Hour stunt

Adam McGibbon, The Independent

I am an environmentalist. For my whole adult life I have protested, campaigned, helped to elect climate-savvy politicians and worked hard on what I see as the cause of my life: putting a stop to the dangerous change to our climate that is killing millions.
And yet I hate one of the world’s most prominent environmental events with the intense heat of a burning climate – the annual WWF event “Earth Hour”, which this year will take place on 25 March. The charity expects millions of people around the world to symbolically switch off their lights for an hour.

Earth Hour is terrible, and not just because the symbolism of darkness is very poorly thought out. The worst thing about Earth Hour is that it tricks people into thinking they’ve done something useful by turning off the lights for 60 minutes, and lets the real villains in the climate change story off the hook.

Read the full article.

14) Ending racial discrimination means overhauling our employment laws

Avvy Go & Chris Buckley, The Toronto Star

Modernizing the laws are not just an issue of fairness, it is a fundamental issue of racial justice and equity for Ontarians. Besides, our economy prospers when more workers have access to decent jobs and make decent income.

Read the full article.

15) CUPE 3903 Condemns Racist Graffiti and Bomb Threats

CUPE 3903 Communications Director

Over the past three weeks, there have been several incidents at Glendon College where racist threats have been written on the walls, targeting Jewish and Black students. On at least two occasions, York Hall was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Such threats follow from the recent and alarming increase in far-right attacks on Muslim, Jewish, and other marginalized communities. As the union representing graduate student workers, contract faculty, and part-time librarians at York University, including Glendon College, CUPE 3903 stands against all forms of racism and hate and condemns these incidents. We wish to express our solidarity with students, staff, and faculty at the Glendon campus, and especially with the Jewish and Black members of our community that have been the targets of these threats.

Read the full article.

16) NDP leadership candidate Charlie Angus to spearhead campaign with priority on First Nation issues

Anishinabek, News

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus is making First Nation issues a priority in his campaign to be elected leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP).

“My concern is that the government is still not responding in a proactive manner when emergencies happen in communities, whether it is a suicide crisis or whether it is a housing crisis or whether it is the needless number of fires,” says Angus, who registered as a leadership candidate on Feb. 20 and officially launched his leadership bid on Feb. 26. “We need to start changing how Ottawa relates with First Nation communities. And that is what I want to make a major issue in my leadership campaign.”

Read the full article.

17) Scientists Sound the Alarm: CO2 Levels Race Past Point of No Return

Cassie Kelly, EcoWatch

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that carbon dioxide levels in 2016 broke records for the second year in a row with an increase of 3 parts per million (ppm).

Read the full article.

18) Release of Arctic Methane "May Be Apocalyptic," Study Warns

Dahr Jamail, Truthout 

A scientific study published in the prestigious journal Palaeoworld in December issued a dire -- and possibly prophetic -- warning, though it garnered little attention in the media.

Read the full article.

19) Pornography is more than just sexual fantasy. It’s cultural violence.

Julia Long, The Washington Post

In March 2016, the U.K. government published its second National Strategy to End Volence Against Women and Girls. This is an extremely important lever for U.K. campaigners against pornography and its harms, as it recognizes that young people in particular have unprecedented access to online content and that some of that content may of course be harmful. A current government inquiry into sexual harassment in schools and a new cross-party campaign to tackle misogynist abuse online have all highlighted the ways in which pornography contributes to and legitimizes negative attitudes with very real impacts on the lives of women and girls.

Read the full article.

20) Toronto police cleared in death of man Tasered eight times in bathtub

Wendy Gillis, The Toronto Star

Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared Toronto police in the death of a man who died after he was Tasered eight times by police in his bathtub.

Read the full article.

21) Police officer who punched handcuffed teen violated Canadian charter, judge rules

Andrew Foote, CBC News

An Ottawa police officer violated several sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms during a 2015 arrest in which he punched a handcuffed teenager in the face, a judge ruled this week.

Read the full article.

22) Toronto school board suspending U.S. travel over border issues

Paola Loriggio, The Globe and Mail

Canada’s largest school board says it will stop booking trips to the United States indefinitely in light of the uncertainty surrounding restrictions at the border.

The Toronto District School Board, which serves about 245,000 public school students, says it made the “difficult decision” because it believes students “should not be placed into these situations of potentially being turned away at the border.”

Read the full article. 

23) Anti-Islam Protesters Rip Qur'an At Ontario School Board Meeting

The Huffington Post Canada

Anti-Islam protesters ripped a Qur'an and walked over its torn pages during an Ontario school board meeting Wednesday evening, as they demanded that Muslim students be banned from praying at school.

Read the full article. 

24) Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter Groups Join Forces

Associated Press

A cluster of Black Lives Matter groups and the organization leading the push for a $15-an-hour wage are joining forces to combine the struggle for racial justice with the fight for economic equality, just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to do in the last year of his life.

Read the full article.

25) How Lenin’s love of literature shaped the Russian Revolution

Tariq Ali, The Guardian

Literature shaped the political culture of the Russia in which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin grew up. Explicitly political texts were difficult to publish under the tsarist regime. The rasher essayists were holed up in asylums until they “recovered”: in other words, until they publicly recanted their views. Novels and poetry, meanwhile, were treated more leniently – though not in every instance.

Read the full article.

26) Earth's worst-ever mass extinction of life holds 'apocalyptic' warning about climate change, say scientists

Ian Johnston, The Independent

Researchers studying the largest-ever mass extinction in Earth’s history claim to have found evidence that it was caused by runaway global warming – and that the “apocalyptic” events of 250 million years ago could happen again.

Read the full article.

See also: The NDP Leadership Race, the Dutch GreenLeft, Gavin McInnes & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 12-19

See also: Chrystia Freeland, IWD, the British Empire & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List March 5 - 12

Part of the problem: Talking about systemic oppression

This past week I wrote a piece about the Jian Ghomeshi scandal and how it is, in my opinion, an inevitable and direct result of our societal "culture" of predatory misogyny. In doing so, I discounted the notion that it is "not all men" but expressed, rather, my belief that as misogyny is a systemic oppression it is, in fact, all men who are a part of it and who bear both a collective responsibility for it and for fighting with our sisters to end it.

While this piece was very favourably received by many women and some men, it also elicited a very strong and very negative reaction from many men, and some women, who objected to it on the inaccurate grounds that it supposedly "blamed" all men for the specific alleged crimes of one man, that it painted all men as equally culpable, and, often, that the commenters themselves felt that they were "good men" who should not have to feel or be seen as "guilty" of acts they did not personally commit.

I think it is important to deal with this defensive response and what the nature of systemic oppression really means in our broader struggle for human emancipation.

No one, understandably, wants to think or to acknowledge that they, personally, may be part of the problem. And that is part of the problem.

The concept of systemic oppression and its implications are either dismissed outright (generally by those on the right) or is misrepresented and misconstrued, intentionally or otherwise. That the right has a vested interested in denying the existence of systemic oppression should be obvious. The dismissal of it by progressives, liberals and leftists, however, is far more problematic.

To begin with systemic oppression is not about individual "guilt". It is about collective responsibility and an acceptance that, as these systemic injustices are ingrained in our society profoundly deeply, we all participate in them whether we wish to or not and that we often do so entirely unconsciously.

Systemic oppression, be it patriarchal, racist or colonialist also exists whether or not, unsurprisingly, individual members of the dominant group/class wish to think they are a part of it or benefit from and facilitate it.

The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, as part of its definition of social and systemic oppression laid out the unconscious nature of systemic oppression very well in a quote that I often use:

Relationships between groups and relationships between groups and social categories, should not be confused with the oppressive behavior of individuals. A white man may not himself actively participate in oppressive behavior directed at blacks or women, for example, but he nonetheless benefits from the general oppression of blacks and women simply because he is a white man. In this sense, all members of dominant and subordinate categories participate in social oppression regardless of their individual attitudes or behavior. Social oppression becomes institutionalized when its enforcement is so of social life that it is not easily identified as oppression and does not require conscious prejudice or overt acts of discrimination...

Further to this, and as one single example of how this seeming abstraction (and it is not an abstraction at all despite frequent attempts to paint it as some type of intellectual exercise) plays out in the "real world" can be seen when elements of systemic misogyny like porn culture are so pervasive and ubiquitous they cease to even be recognized as porn culture. Porn culture seeps into the imagery of magazine covers, television, cinema, teen culture and popular culture discourse generally even when what is being viewed, discussed or consumed is not technically porn. This is an example of how an institution of patriarchal oppression is so engrained that it exists widely outside of its most "extreme" or "hardcore" incarnations and becomes impossible to not encounter and even impossible to always recognize for what it is at first unless one is attempting to do so.

When I say all men have participated in porn culture, even the sadly very small minority of men who do not or who no longer use what would be universally recognized as pornography, this is a literal truth. "Good intentions" are irrelevant in this context, and unless one stands up and speaks out against this, full complicity with it is intrinsic.

It is in this sense, among others, that all men can be said to have created and participated in the one of the conditions, among others, that make violently sexually predatory men like Ghomeshi inevitable. He exists along a spectrum of exploitative, oppressive, objectifying and predatory behaviour by men of which he is a relatively extreme manifestation but that is not detached from the other points on the spectrum that enable and lead to him and to even worse predators.

The violent actions of individuals are also, further, tied directly to the less obvious daily forms of social violence and oppression that are not always perpetrated by specific individuals. Stokely Carmichael talked about this in relation to institutionalized racism in the United States:|

Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks, and acts by the total white community against the black community. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. This type can be recorded by television cameras; it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The second type is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type. 

When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which many people will condemn - at least in words. But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it.

Likewise, the violence of specific men against women is tied directly to a much less obvious daily culture of violence against women which is manifested also in economic and social ways and tied as well to broad male institutions of oppression like pornography and prostitution and the daily and countless examples of verbal and physically not violent forms of male abuse and entitlement like misogynist language, street harassment, unwanted sexual advances and many others.

The broader "culture" of misogyny and the broader actions of all men in this way contribute to and enable the "worst cases".

When social links like this and their implications are raised one of the myriad of responses from those seeking to derail a real examination of how our society perpetuates its own institutions is that stating this, in the case of systemic misogyny for example, will somehow alienate or anger men and that this is "counter-productive".

Of course attempts by feminists to redress our collective history of patriarchal oppression will anger many men. I think this is a very safe assumption. But it is also ludicrous to ask a liberation movement to frame itself in ways that will please or appease the beneficiaries of oppression! All men do and have benefited from patriarchy and the systemic oppression of women, whether they wanted to or not. Not be willing to accept that is a serious obstacle to social change.

As a white male I have benefited from systemic oppressions in countless ways, from my starting point to the literally virtually non-existent institutional or social barriers to advancement in just about any career or field I chose to go into. In a society that so prizes the bogus mythology that everything is achieved by personal hard work and one's own personal efforts and that has lifted the myth of rugged individualism and individuality to the status of a societal paradigm in North America especially, the notion that the deck is profoundly rigged and that, in reality, many have been able to get where they are only with the benefit of social forces and by fate of birth is very disturbing and hard for many to accept.

But it is also an easily demonstrable fact. And if we fail to acknowledge it, regardless of how it might alienate at first many of those who have benefited from systemic oppression then we can get nowhere. Calling out oppression and recognizing its systemic nature has to be an end in itself to begin the extremely difficult process of dismantling these institutions of oppression. Calling it out will not end it, it is a starting point. But without the starting point there is no end point. This means, under the conditions that exist in the here and now if we accept that calling out oppression will do nothing other than alienate the oppressors then we are in a Catch 22 from which there is no exit.

Which is why the "hurt feelings" of people unwilling to acknowledge that they play a role in the way our society, their society, functions, cannot be a primary concern for those who seek to be allies to movements of the oppressed, racialized and marginalized.

Just because someone is a "good guy" does not mean they are somehow exempt from the social norms and forces that surround them. That is an absurd contention and the fact that so many will assert it shows that we have a very long way to go.

Systemic oppressions result in very real violence and human degradation. Systemic misogyny, patriarchy, colonialism and racism have horrific consequences that we witness daily in our streets, communities and on the news.

Unless we, especially those of  us like myself who are white men, are willing to acknowledge the fact of our colonialist civilization, are willing to confront the fact of our legacy and continuation of systemic racism, are willing to acknowledge the role men play, collectively and individually, in the creation of a culture of misogyny, then how can we seek to be allies to those communities and movements that are fighting to end the long and terrible history of institutionalized brutality that directly benefited us and whose continuing, daily and pervasive manifestations still do?

This is why talking about, seeking to understand and seeking to acknowledge our collective role in systemic oppression is an absolute necessity. Without doing so, it is very difficult to see how our society and civilization can ever begin to move past it..

This piece originally appeared on Feminist Current, November 10, 2014

See also: The myth of the leftist, feminist, anti-racist, elitist

The myth of the leftist, feminist, anti-racist, elitist

First published on Feminist Current in November 2013:

In an act of what has to be acknowledged as tremendous, though in some respects entirely typical, rich famous male hubris,  Joss Whedon, of comic book and Buffy the Vampire Slayer note, recently gave a talk in which he proclaimed that feminism is a term that he objects to and that he feels should be replaced because, in essence, he does not like it. He does not like it because it is supposedly at variance with his idea that equality already exists as a “natural condition” or for some pseudo-philosophical reasons that are never really clear other than that, frankly, they are rather silly, it must be noted,  coming from a man.

The sheer idiocy of a wealthy straight male (or any male of any kind) telling women how they should frame the language of their own liberation movement, however, did not prevent large numbers of liberal men (and, of course, some women) like CBC Toronto’s Metro Morning host Matt Galloway on air, from gushing over it, thrilled, apparently, to see yet another in a long line of alleged male “feminists” talking down to women about just what it is that they are doing “wrong” that men could tell them how to do better.

Like abandoning the very term feminism for starters.

This would all be Buffy-style darkly humorous were it not for the fact that it is indicative of a far broader problem within both the left and society as a whole.

The problem being that, somehow, the notion has arisen that not only are the people living oppression, like women under Patriarchy, not allowed to frame their own discourse without condescension from those who are actually members of the oppressive group socially, historically and right now, but also that people in struggle for liberation against injustice and fighting systemic oppression are regularly labeled as “elitist” or as part of an “Ivory Tower” for doing so.

Often such resistance is called out as “purity” and as an example of “identity politics” that, apparently, indicates that one is an “intellectual” or “academic” who is out of touch with all of those supposed “salt-of-the-earth” leftists.

There are few better examples than the sad and extreme exuberance and exultation that greeted the BBC interview with Russell Brand that some heralded, rather farcically, as the start of a new social discourse or revolution; a notion so facile that it can only be a comment on the left’s desperation that it would actually be believed by anyone.

Russell Brand is at least as misogynist in his personal conduct as rape anthem “star” Robin Thicke, if not worse in every meaningful real world way, but apparently, for some, making a quasi revolutionary rant on the BBC (that the BBC then promptly shared everywhere, of course) absolves one of having to be held accountable for it.

This is an odd version of leftism.

When, entirely rightly, feminist activists and others pointed out that the notion that one should take inspiration from the ranting of a well established misogynist with a long history of ugly, exploitative and violent behaviour towards women, (by his own acknowledgment), is highly problematic, they were often met with the standard line that they were being “elitist”, “putting identity first” or that they were exhibiting what was an example of “posh” leftism, as if any such thing actually exists.

This came from many of the usual suspects of sexist “leftism”, the allegedly revolutionary exponents of the tired old “class first” line, for example, but it was inherently ridiculous given that they were defending the rather minor, in political terms, outburst of a rich, abusive and atrociously self-indulgent white male that was then widely and wildly promoted by the very media that he had supposedly “bested” and called out on his way to a gig as guest editor of the New Statesman! If it is “elitist” to identify, question and condemn behaviour and opinion like Brand’s towards women, behaviour that reflects centuries of oppressive and violent entitlement and social power, and if it is allegedly counter to the interests of the “left” to do so, then there really is no left.

This is hardly an isolated example. Regularly one hears from pundits and politicians, and certainly not only those on the right, that any number of people are now part of the “elite”. Variously unions, anti-poverty activists, anti-racist activists, people of colour, First Nations and aboriginal peoples, LGBT groups, women and feminists are all commonly described as “special interest” groups, despite the obviously reactionary background to this.

It turns actual elitism on its head.

This is going on, right now, with the entire Rob Ford fiasco (the misreading of which by the Left deserves to be the focus of an entirely separate article from this one). Even here we find not only the right but also many leftists framing the Ford phenomenon as a revolt against “elites”; a notion that is demonstrably false. Never mind that his abusive behaviour to women is constantly overshadowed and even ignored in the discourse.

There are very real elites. Industrial, financial and commercial capitalists are an elite. Hollywood stars, comedians, sports players, etc., are certainly an elite and an almost neo-feudal one in the way that they are fawned over by sycophantic “handlers” and servants. The capitalist managerial class and professional upper middle class, including large numbers of the so-called 99%, are an elite. There are others. Never mind whites and men, the beneficiaries of centuries, and sometimes millennia, of systemic privilege, acknowledged and unacknowledged, spoken or otherwise.

A generation ago, as a part of their assault on the gains of working people, women, people of colour, the LGBT community and others, the reactionary right created all of the terms like “Champagne Socialist” or “latte drinker” that are tossed about in an attempt to turn social relations around and make out leftists, feminists and community activists and liberation theories and movements as the new elites. They made it seem as if talking about the injustices and consequences of systemic oppression was an academic exercise or a function of “privilege”.

It is not. Misogyny, racism, homophobia and poverty are a violent and oppressive reality every single day. These institutions of oppression abuse, violate and kill women, people living in poverty, aboriginal and First Nations peoples and members of the LGBT community daily. They cause tremendous and demonstrable inequality and suffering in the lives of real people. They are not an abstraction, and, unlike Mayor Ford in Toronto, for example, people living under the weight of these oppressions are often not given first chances, let alone second ones.

It is bad enough that these views and terms are to be found within society and the forces of reaction. It is even worse that we use these arguments and terms ourselves in our debates and disagreements within the left. Instead of exposing and combatting institutionalized oppression within our own leftist movements, when using this language or logic of reaction activists who do allow them to continue without being confronted  and minimize their fundamental importance to the struggle for human liberation. Far from “distracting” from the struggle, you cannot have a radical socialist agenda of any meaning without taking a radical stance against all of these oppressions.

No matter what disagreements leftists may have, it is not elitist to fight racism, misogyny or homophobia. It is not elitist to stand for union or worker’s rights. It is not elitist to acknowledge systemic oppression or injustice.

In reality there is no such thing as a leftist or anti-oppression “elitism”. It is a right wing myth.