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: 11pt”>It is the attempts to replace a capitalist economy altogether that have, without exception, ended in murderous disaster.

In his book Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies Kristian Niemetz puts to the sword the excuse that socialism hasn’t really been tried. Of course it has.

As Niemitz notes: “Over the past 100 years there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society. It has been tried in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Hungary, China, East Germany, Cuba, Tanzania, Benin, Laos, Algeria, South Yemen, Somalia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua and Venezuela.”

Each of these disasters has gone through three stages. First there is a honeymoon period in which the latest socialist model is proclaimed to have avoided the pitfalls that doomed its predecessors. Not for Venezuela, for instance, the errors of Stalin.

Then there is the excuses stage when obvious calamity is blamed by advocates on western imperialist intrigue or sanctions.

And then, finally, when the whole sorry dictatorial, poverty-creating mess can no longer be denied nor the blame diverted, the model and its leaders are disavowed. It wasn’t “real socialism” after all, we are told.

#039;t quite bring myself to use his preferred pronoun) is the troubled young Irish man with a record of sexual violence against women. He claims now to have transitioned, and his solicitor said that he was very anxious to be "detained in a prison facility for females, as she identifies as a female.” I assumed, naturally, that such a request would be denied given the man's record of violence against women, including a serious assault on his mother. Besides which, on his visit to London's Tavistock Clinic, he was said to have outlined his gender dysphoria symptoms by rote, without emotion – as though he was reciting from something he'd learned. Plus he looks like something from a horror film.

Silly me. Of course he's now in the women's prison:

A teenager was today remanded in continuing custody on charges of making threats to kill two people.

Barbie Kardashian, (18), of no fixed abode, appeared before Limerick District Court, via video-link from the women’s section of Limerick Prison.

She is accused of four counts of making threats to kill or cause serious harm to a woman and a man, on dates in July, August, and September this year.

The power of his gender re-assignment certificate over-rules any threat that he may pose to the unlucky women inside Limerick Prison. Ireland is, after all, a progressive country. The fantasies of a violent sexual predator must be humoured. If that's at the expense of women's safety, well, who really cares?

Last Friday, Kardashian also appeared in court. During that hearing, Garda Shane Kirwan of Roxboro Road Garda Station, Limerick, informed the court the accused was “born a male but identifies as a female”.

Garda Kirwan said he arrested Barbie Kardashian at 8.30pm last Thursday night, 24 September, and she did not reply to any of the charges.

Sergeant Moloney told the hearing that gardaí would make “strenuous objections” if the accused applied for bail.

Because, clearly, he's a threat to the general public, who need to be protected from him. Women in Limerick Prison, not so much.

Not everyone is happy about this.

uggested by the Kama Sutra.

Many hijras live in well-defined and organised all-hijra communities, led by a guru. These communities have consisted over generations of those who are in abject poverty or who have been rejected by or fled their family of origin. Many work as sex workers for survival.

The word "hijra" is a Hindustani word. It has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite", where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition". However, in general hijras are born male, only a few having been born with intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirvaan, which involves the removal of the penis, scrotum and testicles.

Since the late 20th century, some hijra activists and non-government organizations (NGOs) have lobbied for official recognition of the hijra as a kind of "third sex" or "third gender", as neither man nor woman. Hijras have successfully gained this recognition in Bangladesh and are eligible for priority in education and certain kinds of low paid jobs. In India, the Supreme Court in April 2014 recognized hijras, transgender people, eunuchs, and intersex people as a 'third gender' in law. Nepal, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have all legally accepted the existence of a third gender, with India, Pakistan and Nepal including an option for them on passports and certain official documents.

And there's a gallery here at LenScratch – scroll down below the women living as men in Albania. The strikingly elegant hijra on display show another significant difference to trans women here, who, frankly, can tend to look like blokes with a wig and a dress and an over-enthusiastic application of make-up.

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1pt”>Carried in it are 82 works including talks, speeches and letters released by Kim Jong Il in the period from January to December Juche 69 (1980).

Those works comprehensively deal with the ideas and theories indicating the path of the struggle for further strengthening the Party in conformity with a new requirement of the developing revolution, effecting a great upsurge in the revolution and construction and greeting the 6th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea with laudable labor feats.

"Supporting the Great Leader Well Is Our Noble Duty", "Let Us Learn from the Faithfulness Cherished by the Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Forerunners" and other works deal with the ideas of modeling after the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters to bear in mind the loyalty to President Kim Il Sung as the revolutionary faith and obligation, so as to hold the President in high esteem and protect and secure the President's authority in every way.

"The People's Army Should Vigorously and Continuously Push Ahead with the Work of Establishing the Party's Leadership System" and other works clarify the tasks for strengthening the People's Army into an invincible rank that is boundlessly loyal to the leadership of the Party and fight for the President at the risk of their lives.

The collection also carries the works giving perfect answers to theoretical and practical issues arising in the socialist construction, including the issue of intensifying the scientific and educational work as required by the developing reality, the issue of further improving the people's standard of living, the issue of improving the social and cultural life and the issue of imbuing the Party members and working people with great national pride and revolutionary self-confidence.

I noted the publication of Volume 29 back in March, but somehow Volumes 30 and 31 passed me by. Must have had other things on my mind.

Arthur Rothstein – July 1938. "Houses on slum section 'The Hill.' Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

[Photo: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration]

The umbrella look at Camden Lock:

s,” and further insists this is a “marginal” position that feminists (she apparently sees herself as one) must fight to ensure remain marginal.

One presumes Butler does not see the hypocrisy of advocating to marginalize women in the fight for women’s rights. This lack of self-awareness remains present throughout the interview, offering at least some consistency.

The truth is, of course, that to question the notion that one can go from man to woman in a moment, simply by pronouncement, and that men who identify as transgender should have free, unchallenged access to women’s change rooms, transition houses, sports, and prisons is not, in fact, a “fringe movement.” Rather, there is a loud minority insisting on a fringe position that appears to dominate, thanks to social media manipulation and liberal media cowardice and bolstering. […]

Butler goes on to conflate sex with gender, the most basic confusion underlying the trans debate, pointing out that “Feminism has always been committed to the proposition that the social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled” and that “It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women…”

It feels strange to have to explain the meaning of “gender” to a gender theorist, and point out that what feminists have been arguing for the past century has been that one’s biological sex should not determine one’s interest in masculine or feminine stereotypes or roles, but here we are. I can only assume Butler has plugged her ears like a child every time women like me have explained, patiently, that “sex” refers to one’s body and biology, and “gender” refers to the social roles imposed on or assumed based on one’s sex. We have argued that one’s affinity for femininity, for example, does not make a woman, and that the only thing that makes a woman is the fact she is female. Rather, it is gender identity activists who have insisted that identification with regressive, sexist, gender roles and stereotypes is what defines a man or woman. That is to say, that preferring femininity to masculinity actually determines one’s biology. Butler is arguing against herself. […]

It is amazing to me that a respected scholar could be so deeply confused as to fail to even understand her own claims and arguments, but I suppose this is a testament to the situation of fields like gender studies, wherein scholars have their heads shoved so far up one another’s asses, they no longer feel required to think. All they need is an endless circle jerk of positive reinforcement to continue to receive funding and keep their jobs. Usefulness and rationality be damned — if we all participate in the charade, there is no threat. Indeed, this has been the tactic of trans activists as well, for whom “no debate” has become a mantra, saving them from the humiliation of having to defend their own statements.

Butler must know her career depends on her continuing this farce, and trusts no one will call her on it. She can hang on until she retires, financially secure and perhaps, therefore, content with her lack of integrity and investment in leading a duplicitous life.

Had it not been for this interview, I may have forgotten what a fraud she is, so I suppose we can thank her for reminding us.

Good stuff.

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[Photos © Joshua K. Jackson]

Here's more on the threat to Mongolians in China – the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia – as the Chinese threaten the same range of Han-supremacist moves to destroy the culture that they've already introduced in the other "autonomous regions" of Xinjiang and Tibet. From Australia's SBS News:

It started as thousands of parents, grandparents, and teachers peacefully signing petitions with their fingerprints, stamped in red, voicing their opposition to a new language policy when it was first flagged in late August. 

But it soon turned into rare large gatherings outside schools, with people chanting protest slogans and singing when the semester recommenced at the start of this month.

In Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in China, it has been mandated that three subjects – morality and law (politics), history, and literature – be taught in Mandarin, China's official language, over a staggered three-year period using state compiled textbooks.

The outcry over the policy sparked a swift clampdown by the region's authorities, who have moved to delete social media posts of those criticising it and arrest those involved in the protests.  

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre in New York has accused the Chinese government of trying to destroy Mongolian culture and estimated 4,000 to 5,000 people had been put into some kind of police custody during three weeks of protests. It also claimed nine people had suicided in protest over the language changes….

Many people from the Mongolian diaspora living in Australia who SBS News approached expressed concerns about what was happening to the region but declined to be interviewed citing security concerns for their family still living in Inner Mongolia. 

But Melbourne-based Jiranhuar Jiranhuar, who migrated to Australia from Inner Mongolia in 2010, shared the sadness she was feeling. 

The Mongolian language is "part of our identity", she said, adding that because of its minority status, she feels an additional desire to hold onto it. 

I feel extremely sad [to hear what is happening in Inner Mongolia], it affects my everyday life, I can't sleep or eat well because I know how important it is for us.

"If we naturally lose our language, that's fine, we take it, but this is the start of man-made genocide of our culture, it's very sad." 

She also fears the new directive will accelerate the assimilation of Mongolians into Chinese culture, she said. 

Previously.