Mandela’s Tarnished Legacy (making a deal with the neoliberal devil)

[geek tragedy]

11. Here's his "STFU about equality, you troublesome bourgeois women and gay people" column

http://johnpilger.com/articles/never-forget-that-bradley-manning-not-gay-marriage-is-the-issue

Never forget that Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue

The award of the Nobel Prize to the first black president because he "offered hope" was both absurd and an authentic expression of the lifestyle liberalism that controls much of political debate in the west. Same-sex marriage is one such distraction. No "issue" diverts attention as successfully as this: not the free vote in Parliament on lowering the age of gay consent promoted by the noted libertarian and war criminal Tony Blair: not the cracks in "glass ceilings" that contribute nothing to women's liberation and merely amplify the demands of bourgeois privilege.

Legal obstacles should not prevent people marrying each other, regardless of gender. But this is a civil and private matter; bourgeois acceptability is not yet a human right. The rights historically associated with marriage are those of property: capitalism itself. Elevating the "right" of marriage above the right to life and real justice is as profane as seeking allies among those who deny life and justice to so many, from Afghanistan to Palestine.

As I've said, John Pilger can fuck himself--he's a bigoted ideologue with zero empathy for anyone whose priorities aren't Marxist revolution, not a progressive.