Issues are of no consequence to organizers: it's all about building a socialist movement

Occam's Beard comments at neoneocon:

Environmentalism isn’t about the environment.

Feminism isn’t about women.

Peace groups aren’t about peace.

Free speech groups aren’t about free speech.

Civil rights groups aren’t about civil rights.

Homosexual marriage isn’t about homosexuals.

Human rights groups aren’t about human rights.

Organized labor isn’t about the working man.

These are all merely wedge issues to mobilize the useful idiots to “build a mass movement.” The issues themselves are of no consequence to the organizers. Angela Davis once chided me in my pre-Damascene conversion era for not realizing this.

Consider the competing hypotheses:

1. The organizers and decision makers of each group above actually care first and foremost about issue.

In this case we should be able to predict their response based on what has happened.

2. The organizers and decision makers of each group above actually care first and foremost about building a socialist movement – and merely employ the issue as a vehicle to do that.

In this case we should be able to predict their response based not on what has happened, but rather on its effect on advancing socialism.

Hypothesis #1 would predict that environmentalists would be howling about the oil spill and Chinese pollution, and would have howled about the Aral Sea and Chernobyl, that feminists would have howled about the treatment offered Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Condoleeza Rice, and Monica Lewinsky (not to mention women in Islamic countries), that civil rights groups would have howled about the treatment offered Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice, that peace activists would have howled about Soviet SS-20s back when, and would be howling now about Obama’s continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that human rights groups would be howling about, well, most of the world outside the US and Europe.

Hypothesis #2 would predict that the response of each of the groups above would depend on the political affiliation of the dramatis personae, rather than just the facts of the case. Environmental catastrophe? Is America in any way involved, or be made to look responsible? If yes, is there any way to lay this at door of patriotic Americans, Republicans, or corporations? If yes, break out the papier mache heads. If no, forget it. Aral Sea, Chernobyl, Chinese pollution…yawn.

In each case, hypothesis #2 stomps hypothesis #1 and leaves it for dead. Hypothesis #1 simply does not comport well with the data, and therefore must be rejected in favor of hypothesis #2, which uniformly predicts the experimentally observed outcome.

In the same comments section, Steve G.:

Environmentalists are now known as watermelons. Green on the outside; red on the in.