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Biden adds transgender veteran to presidential transition team at Department of Defense (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by felipeforte@lemmygrad.ml to c/communism@lemmygrad.ml
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U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has appointed veteran transgender Shawn Skelly to the transition team that will evaluate the Department of Defense.

Shawn Skelly holds a master's degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. She worked for 20 years in the U.S. Navy, where she held the position of naval flight officer and retired as commander. She worked in the military conflicts conducted by the United States in the Middle East, such as the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War. Between 2013 and 2016, she held the positions of executive secretary and special assistant in the Department of Defense, being responsible for meeting urgent requests from U.S. military personnel acting in military interventions conducted by the Obama administration.

Shawn Skelly's appointment is a prime example of how identity causes are co-opted by U.S. liberals to interdict criticism and to clothe the most perverse aspects of imperialism with an air of progressiveness. There is certainly no shortage of trans professionals who excel in areas such as culture, education, health, and human rights who could coordinate positive initiatives for integration and emancipation. But the priority is to link identity politics and progressiveness to the idea of being able to send transsexuals to kill and die for the interests of the US plutocracy. It is an extremely effective way to block discussion of imperialism and interventionism and demobilize sectors of the liberal left and the identity movements, which prefer to turn a blind eye or even defend the agenda of interventionism if it is covered by the false varnish of identity politics.

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[-] felipeforte@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

I understand that one shouldn’t be a “class reductionist,” but I find that liberals are essentially “identity reductionist;” there is no class analysis whatsoever.

Perfectly stated. This does not mean we shouldn't take care of trans workers. It's literally the opposite, we should actually take care of them, and bring them to our side, because their identity is being used to shield genocidal public officials from criticism. It's an awful situation to be in.

In a way, identity politics in the US have become borderline "identity fascism" at some point. Just notice how certain liberals are quick to denounce working people as fascists for voting for Trump, while criticism against Joe Biden is quickly shut down. One recurrent aspect of fascism is the absolute lack of a safe space to criticize the current state of things.

This is why communists promote freedom to criticize.

“The Communist Party does not fear criticism because we are marxists, the truth is on our side.”
— Mao Zedong

this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2020
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