YouTube: Sunsara Taylor slams anti-communist lies on revolutionary China

[redwinter]

Here's a pretty cool video on YouTube where Sunsara Taylor exposes the anti-communist lies coming from some so-called China scholars on the true history of revolutionary China...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2qQht-4Fos

"Kristof & WuDunn are featured in NYTimes article the weekend of August 22nd with an article promoting their upcoming book. This book is historically inaccurate and completely misleading. Women in China did not go directly from "foot binding" to working in factories. This book misses an entire portion of history when women were liberated and were an important part of society."

[BobKKKindle$]

Taylor is unfair when she comes to the subject of footbinding as she fails to mention that the practice was first abolished in 1911 shortly after the downfall of the Qing Dynasty, and was also abolished in Taiwan whilst the island was still under Japanese rule, long before either the KMT or the CPC became politically relevant. Of course it was only when the CPC came to power and unified the whole of China under a single government that it became possible to implement the abolition throughout the entire country but the fact that this reform was developed under previous governments (and was in fact discussed under the last ruler of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Cixi) indicates that the reform itself had nothing to do with socialism, and was instead a democratic reform, associated with the abolition of the cultural remnants of feudalism. The revolution of 1949 did bring benefits to women but its ultimate ability to do so was limited by China's material underdevelopment and the continued existence of capitalist relations of production, as these factors meant that it was not possible for the government to eliminate the material basis of patriarchy, i.e. the domestic division of labour, which requires women to concern themselves with domestic tasks like caring for dependents, especially in Chinese society, where extended families often live under one roof. This pattern was briefly interrupted during the Great Leap Forward due to the introduction of collective dining halls and dormitories, but these facilities were under-resourced, and withered away after the failure of that economic strategy. Taylor also fails to acknowledge that Chinese society even after 1949 exhibited a conservative attitude towards sex, which manifested itself during the Cultural Revolution and similar campaigns, as youth would often use promiscuous sexual behavior as grounds for taking action against cadres and government officials, with the same being true of struggles at the highest level of government, as exemplified by the dispute in 1966 (which eventually lead to Lu Dingyi being removed from his post as director of the Propaganda Department in Beijing, in anticipation of the purge of the whole of the Beijing apparatus, especially Peng Zhen, and the start of the Cultural Revolution) over the rumors allegedly spread by Yan Weibing (Lu Dingyi's wife) concerning the relationship between Ye Qun (Lin Biao's wife) and Wang Shiwei when Lin and his wife were stationed in Yan'an. There is also the related matter of the government's policy of encouraging population growth by limiting the availability of birth control. Taylor essentially ignores the bourgeois character (which actually failed to fully complete the historic tasks of the bourgeoisie) of the 1949 revolution and the limited ability of capitalism to guarantee the liberation of women.

By the way, if anyone in this thread makes a comment along the lines of "omg Sunsara is so hot", their posts will be trashed, and they will be punished.

[Saorsa]

To be fair, she is an attractive woman. Her politics and her ability to argue down people like O'Reilly do not flow from this though, so yeah, anyone who makes sexist comments needs to be slapped down.

[Saorsa]

Shame about the Avakian cheerleading at the end, it was an otherwise good speech. It truly is a sad day when bourgeois scholars can publish a book called "women hold up half the sky" and not make it clear that this was a phrase made popular by Mao Zedong and the revolutionary people of China.

[Saorsa]

Why shouldn't she be allowed to mention Avakian in an article she's written? What publication was this? The Avakian cult weirds me out, but I don't see why she shouldn't be allowed to mention him if she wants to.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I don't agree with her premise that economic development will enslave women more than they would be prior. She seems to brush off gains toward equality that women have made under Capitalism as if the haven't existed. For example, the bit about the evil microloans and development in the third world was a bit simplistic and she merely states that this won't help anyone and that that's old material yadda yadda.

But is it not true that women in developed capitalist nations have the most equality of any women in the world? That nations in which capitalism occurred earliest now have the most equality?

Was there even, outside of the privliged elite, a real political force for equality prior to the industrial revolution? There is simply nothing that can truly suggest that the birth of the womens movement, and the various political movements vying for some form of representative government, did not emerge from the voice of, primarily, a working class created by capitalism. Or, at the very least, did not have anywhere near the force needed to see the necessary changes come to pass. Specifically, a middle class which enjoyed more and more economic freedoms and which, today, is emerging in both China and India and pushing for more freedoms in these countries (as well as in the developed world, of course).

[NecroCommie]

Gender equality is not a matter of ideology or material conditions. It is a cultural thing, altough I admit that different things have their impact on culture too. So yes, it is unfair to claim that gender equality would be the effect of communism only.

But then again other political tendencies are not inerested in fair debates so I forgive this one. Also, her points are rather good, just her articulation is a bit... american. :rolleyes:

Where have I heard her name before? CPUSA? It seems that she would be too much of a revolutionary for CPUSA. Nice to see some left wing radicals in USA too though. And in the american mainstream media? Phew!

[gorillafuck]

Where have I heard her name before? CPUSA? It seems that she would be too much of a revolutionary for CPUSA. Nice to see some left wing radicals in USA too though. And in the american mainstream media? Phew!
She's in the RCP.