TIL Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Was An Anti-Communist CIA Operative who Kept the Feminist Movement From Discussing Class; only Gender
TIL Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem Was An Anti-Communist CIA Operative who Kept the Feminist Movement From Discussing Class; only Gender
Gloria Steinem, the woman who defied labels and blurred lines, is a case study in contradictions. Her life story reads like a spy novel…
Try looking up the correlation between the Occupy movement in '08 and the rise in race-based discussion in the media that came right afterwards ;)
What are you insinuating? I'm not following.
The upper crust and intelligence apparatus was incredibly uncomfortable with OWS for obvious reasons.
Preface: short (2min) video of an Occupy meeting near the end https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W81A1kTXPa4
Pre-occupy, gender identity and race-based issues were known but not talked about a great deal in the public sphere. They weren't the core identity of a large number of people, and they were something that was 'allowed' to be discussed without blind following or rage.
During occupy, OWS organizers started what they called an 'egalitarian stance', which was a way to reframe the available classes to fight against in class warfare, were those more privileged than you (race, gender, identity politics) instead of financial privilege. If you were a white male, whether disabled or had a speech impediment or whatever, you were more privileged than anyone and you lost your rung in the ladder, you were now the lowest class. White women were just above you. Minority groups (race and gender, poverty level not included) became the prevailing upper-class and had the most right to speak.
OWS quickly lost momentum after a number of changes like this, and the conversation was no longer about class warfare, but about privilege, meaning only race and gender (initially). I believe there were leaked documents (unsure if verified) that the FBI was seeking, or had gained, access to OWS leadership positions. It seems obvious they would attempt it. This is something someone will have to confirm or correct me on, because a quick search isn't pulling the documents and I need to run.
Tangentially related, because who doesn't love graphs and data: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Riiight... it cannot possibly be the white supremacism that's so fundamental to US society - it must be the Alphabet agencies!
To finish the quote on her CIA relationship, since context is important:
In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, published a report that Steinem and others put together on the Vienna Youth Festival and its attendees for the Independent Research Service.[112][113] Redstockings raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the CIA, which Steinem denied.[114] Steinem defended her relationship to the CIA, saying: "In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable."
Honestly I figured the context would clear things up, but the rest of the quote makes her come off as an apologist for an organization known to play as dirty as the KGB, and especially during that era. However just because something is funded by an entity such as the CIA doesn't always mean that the organization is part of, partner in, or even a willing partner with something like the CIA, same with the KGB or its descendants, espionage operates on leverage, and it all depends on what kind of hold you have over the "asset(s)".
I think the Medium article is bullshit. It doesn’t provide anything more than the Wikipedia for its sources and all Wikipedia says is what you quoted. Direct organization funding by the CIA does not mean an employee is a CIA agent. Lots of DARPA projects that we use for radical things were made by radicals that vehemently opposed everything but government grants (many others were either agents or supporter; Surveillance Valley is a great read).
She’s totally a fucking stooge though. There’s no fucking way you say that about the CIA then (or in hindsight about then when she wrote her biography given all the other things that came out since then) without being a fucking stooge. I don’t think we can conclude anything more than that without more context, which I’ve yet to find.
You're right that the coffee purchased by the CIA isn't inherently evil just because it was bought with CIA dollars.
I'd guess 99% of the dollars spent by the CIA were for bad things, however.
I did too, and that's why I went to what the source embarrassingly was, but yeah I'm in total agreement with you.
“In my experience The Agency was completely different from its image; it was liberal, nonviolent and honorable.”
I can hear blood-soaked Contras laughing from all the way over here.
Im not familiar with Medium, but I don't recall the other things I've read there being vapid crap.
Medium is basically a public blogging platform — anyone can post whatever they want there with no editorial oversight.
I would say Medium is partially public. A few articles I’ve tried to access in the past have been behind a paywall.
Yes, always pay attention to the author.
Ah, that's explains it.
It's not an editorial outlet, it's a platform that lets people publish their blogs. It's the equivalent of substack, or blogger.
Thanks. Didn't know that.
This is awful article. I'd be curious to read about any role Steinem had with the CIA but this article has jack shit in it other than weird vague accusations based on one of her organizations receiving funding from the CIA at some point.
Thank you. That site is horrible. Here's another site that discusses the topic in a favorable way. Not taking sides here, was just looking for another source.
That’s not surprising at all. Mind you she failed, there’s anarcha feminism and Marxist feminism, but they’re branches of anarchism and Marxism respectively so maybe she didn’t fail.
She also was a major contributor to the satanic panic