Femen - Follow the Money

Amazing how often things are not at all what they appear to be on the surface. Take feminism for example. Most people seem to associate it with left-wing thought, but when you start looking closely, feminism actually seems to link in with deep veins of conservative and authoritarian thought a lot more frequently than you might expect.

For at least a decade some British feminists (see here for the Telegraph's Toby Young and Julie Burchill, a match made in heaven) have been nurturing what appears to be a savage intolerance against transsexual women, who they take it upon themselves to try and define out of existence as not "real women" . This sort of biologically deterministic and reactionary approach to sex and sexuality is of course familiar to us from Roman Catholic doctrine, and has been filtering into feminism via Janice Raymond, a former nun and author of "The Transsexual Empire: the Making of the She-male". Raymond in turn was a pupil of theologian Mary Daly who studied at the College of Saint Rose, Saint Mary's College, and the Catholic University of America, topping it off with teaching at the Jesuit-run Boston College from 1967 - 1999.

So now when you see yet another group of feminists attacking this time both sex workers and Muslim women you start asking what these targets have in common. Little surprise then that they are both hate figures of the religious right. And when you take a look at the group's website it transpires that 'Some of the goals of the organisation are: "To develop leadership, intellectual and moral qualities of the young women in Ukraine" and "To build up the image of Ukraine, the country with great opportunities for women",' bells really start ringing loudly.

PoPourri

From the early medieval papal forgeries and power grabs of my previous post, jumping straight up to the modern day ... despite omerta in the msm, the cybersphere is buzzing with tantalising tidbits concerning Pope Benedict's shock resignation, a dereliction unheard of for centuries past.

Now obviously most people had at least a suspicion that there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. And now it turns out that some events may be afoot which put the wind so far up the Pope's backside that he has taken fright and started building his defences against the coming storm - as best he can.

Check out the ITCCS website, the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State:

"Founded in the spring of 2010 at a conference of survivors of church torture in Dublin, Ireland, the ITCCS presently comprises organizations in fifteen countries (see list of founding sponsors and affiliates below). It was founded because of the refusal of existing courts and governments to charge and prosecute churches guilty of genocide and crimes against children, and because of the active complicity of these state agencies with such criminal church bodies.

The ITCCS Central Office is in Brussels, Belgium, with affiliate centers in London, Dublin, Rome, New York and Vancouver.

The Acting Field secretary of the ITCCS is Rev. Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div. Its legal advisers include members of the Kuala Lampur Human Rights Tribunal, Andrew Paterson, a common law consultant, members of the American and Canadian Bar Associations, and lawyers with the prestigious Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City ..."

These guys sound like they mean business.

Best wishes to them in their action.