"The grooming (gaslighting) of human vulnerability is one of most vile things any human being can do to another."
Freedom of Speech, abused.
Gavin Williamson's speech on Saturday 16 May, his Corona Virus Education briefing from 10 Downing Street, was an abuse of the rights of Freedom of Speech. It was a deeply manipulative speech. I want to put it into context in this blog piece.
Let me first lay out a necessary qualification about Freedom of Speech in the Public Domain.
Free Speech
Free Speech is a Responsibility - it is neither an absolute Right or a Privilege.
The Responsibility is to speak honestly, to be evidence based, to be as good a listener as a speaker and to acknowledge what is verified, reliable and true as such, and to also acknowledge beliefs as made up, as guess-work at the very best.
Freedom of Speech is not a right to promote beliefs over evidence in matters concerning the shared commons.
Freedom of Speech is not a right to groom, manipulate or exploit others through use of language and various logical fallacies...
Freedom of Speech abused.
Freedom of Speech abused.
The Freedom Movement protesters in Hyde Park and elsewhere were a 'welcome' media distraction from Gavin Williamson's 'briefing' against teachers, parents, children and health and safety common sense. Their case was a mistaken interpretation of the meaning of Freedom of Speech and both they and the Secretary for Education denied the social responsibility inherent in the right to free speech. The distraction was welcome from the point of view of the Government. A minor incident elevated to a mass media 'news' story.
A few 5G obsessed anti-vaxxers, freedom campaigners and assorted conTheory spreaders gathered in Hyde Park, near speakers corner, an historical location for Free Speech in Public, to spout nonsense in public, and to bully , manipulate and groom others to their beleif system and at the same time they chose to deliberately breach social distancing guidelines and regulations whichare necessary to stop the spread of the virus.
The Freedom Movement UK protesters were speaking futile nonsense to power. And asking to be arrested, as a piece of political street theatre. They were in fact fufilling Johnsons policy objective - more spread towards mythical Herd Immunity.
A few of the 200 or so 'activists' were arrested for potentially spreading an infectious disease, after receiving two verbal warnings to disperse under the Corona Virus regulations. The police action was rough, because the protesters resisted and that made for great video evidence of 'state suppression'.
The protesters will claim that their rights to Free Speech were being trampled upon. They were not arrested for anything they said. No surpirse there - reality is hardly their logical foundation.
They are as narcissistic as those they claim to oppose. Fodder for the narrative that the lock down is an injustice.
Lock down injustice.
Which it is, yet not in the way these protesters claim. Reality is much more detailed than their futile and ill-informed caricature allows.
The injustice inherent in lock down as it is being played out in the UK is that it is not being deployed to stop the spread of infection, to lead towards eradicating the viral spread within the UK population in order to protect the significant population of vulnerable people. It is being deployed to guarantee a slow spread of the infection, which does not protect the vulnerable.
That is utterly repugnant, and it is a political and economic choice of policy that undermines the health and safety of at the 11.5 million UK citizens with chronic disease conditions, and in particular the elderly in care homes and those with multiple conditions.
Education and Work.
Teachers Unions have been speaking truth to power since March, and continuing through April, on into May and continuing this week, by asking direct and pertinent questions about health and safety of returning to school in the midst of an uncontrolled epidemic.
Whilst the lock down has slowed the community transmission rate in London, elsewhere it is rising.
The infection spread is still out of control.
Under control means we know where the virus has been, we know where it is and we have suppressed transmission to the degree that there have been no new cases of infection for at least two days or more. None of these are in place as I write. The spread of infection is uncontrolled.
The teachers unions are asking the Government to present their scientific and public health evidence that proves that it is safe to return children to school by asking clearly worded questions, presenting the scientific evidence their questions are based on. The Government is failing to respond in kind.
The teachers concerns are laid out in the 5 tests they set for safe re-opening of schools.
They have also issued a substantial document laying out the detail of their questions, a document which is also a useful learning guide for anyone interested in the matter, as it poses the questions, outlines the back ground of their concerns, presents the scientific evidence and study papers that their concerns are based on.
The Government has not responded in kind.
The British Medical Association has come out in full support of the teachers unions. Their concerns are justified, they are medically rational, a phrase Boris Johnson might be familiar with in the negation of that same term, from his speech on February 3rd in Greenwich.
Instead the Government and their advisors are spinning the numbers, they are painting a false picture of the risk of infection emerging within schools. The details are laid out on this blog, Corona Maths.
"Dr Jenny Harries went even further in order to justify the opening of schools on 1st June by saying “There’s a lot of anxiety I think around this but people need to think through – in an average infant school with 100 children the likelihood of anybody having this disease is very small and diminishing with time.”
Let’s be clear about this.
That statement is absolutely 100% untrue statistically.
The likelihood is not small and there is no evidence that that likelihood will diminish with time. So let’s explore what the implications for schools really are.
The Implications for Schools
She is an epidemiologist who should have a grasp of statistics so I can only assume that she is toeing a political line and that what she has said is deliberate rather than accidental."
The risk in returning children to school is still very, very high. The spread of infection, the incidence of community transmission is not under control,not by any standard measurement, and teachers are being bullied, workers are being bullied whilst many businesses are being stressed by lack of adequate economic support, bad policy decisions an d we are all subjected to misleading public narratives.
The Teachers Unions and the BMA were publicly gas-lighted by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, in his briefing from 10 Downing Street, Saturday 16th May.
Williamson attempted to groom the general public, the students and the parents into enrolling in an attack on the teachers.
Here is the video of Gavin Williamson's odious speech.
He carried out a classic grooming exercise in full public view.
He intruded into circle of trust, he primed his audience, he then used emotional blackmail to bind them in to his agenda, and then launched a series of snide attacks where he deployed emotional triggers, laid guilt trips aimed at teachers unions and the BMA, to undermine in the public view their evidence based concerns about health and safety of the teachers, the children, their parents and elder relatives. Machiavellian to the core.
Like he really cares about vulnerable children, or vulnerable adults, having voted for policies that are proven to have caused harm to vulnerable during the past few years, even when evidence was presented of those harms.
"School is the safest place for children from unhappy homes." Emotional black mail.
"School re-opening is based on best scientific advice." Twaddle. They are unwilling to present that evidence. It does not exist.
Evil is as evil does.
Here is the transcript of that speech.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretarys-statement-on-coronavirus-covid-19-16-may
On getting children into school as soon as possible.
Here I will examine some of his statements, and indicate the tactics.
"This is particularly important for vulnerable and disadvantaged young people. There are some who would like to delay the wider opening of schools."
*( speaking to the wider electorate, entering into the circle of trust, blatantly lying to do so - schools are already open for vulnerable children - here, and here . and *here *even though many are not turning up where provision has been made for them, presumably because their parents are concerned with the risks of transmission of infection which might be brought back into family homes where vulnerable unwell or elderly adults share homes, a reasonable concern..)
"But there is a consequence to this."
*(Guilt tripping the teachers, frightening the parents, gaslighting the wider public to think teachers are putting selfish concerns ahead of children's well being)
"The longer that schools are closed, the more children miss out. Teachers know this. Teachers know that there are children out there who have not spoken to or played with another child of their own age for the last two months."
*(guilt tripping the teachers in front of workers, talking about the teachers in the third person to the workers)
"They know there are children from difficult or very unhappy homes for whom school is their happiest place in their week. It’s also the safest place for them to be and it’s thanks to their teachers and the support that their teachers give to them that they are safe and happy."
*(those who are keeping these children out of school by blocking a return are harming these children, - emotional black mail)
The poorest children, the most disadvantaged children, the children who do not always have support they need at home, will be the ones who will fall furthest behind if we keep school gates closed.
*(guilt tripping the teachers in front of the public)
"They are the ones who will miss out on the opportunities and chances in life that we want all children to benefit from what teachers and schools deliver for them."
* (the claim is false, and he implies it is the fault of teachers if these children are failed )
So we’re asking some children to come back from the 1 June. And we are asking schools to adopt a number of strict protective measures.
*( he is asking for children of workers to return - and he knows the Government have not answered the Teachers Unions evidence based questions on Health and Safety, and that those questions will not be answered in his briefing).
Context.
So to place this into the fullest context, we must take on board the meaning of the UK Policy of slow spread of the infection, and what it really means, and what motives might lie behind it.
The speech by Johnson last week (May 10th) was about getting workers back to work.
Protect the economy! Be alert! Get back to work!
He used deliberate, tactically vague instructions to set workers up for a fall, either way - if they are too cautious, they will be blamed for hurting the economy, and their employers will have a leverage to dismiss them, or refuse to support them. If they take too much risk, they will be blamed for the adverse outcomes.
In order to really push that back to work agenda, more school children must be 'encouraged' to return to school so that parents are free to go to work. If they did not push for this, then at least half of parents would stay home because we know that many families both parents go to work.
There are 4.526,000 families with both parents at work.
That is a substantial number of workers, just over 9 million.
At present furlough is covering 6.3 million workers.
Even if the Government can get half of the parents back to work, they are looking at saving billions every month, and at the same time they are increasing the potential for more slow spread of the infection, all at the same time.
Why is slow spread so important to this British Government?
What does slow spread really mean and what benefits does it accrue, and to whom?
Why does the UK Government reject the stop the spread, eradicate the virus within the population approach?
It would be utterly foolish to ignore these questions.
Especially when the Education Secretary is prepared to publicly behave in such a profoundly manipulative manner.
I am not personally frightened, as much as I am concerned. I have been very ill, for three weeks in March with lingering sense of infection into mid April. I feel much better now. Nowhere as well as I did before March.
I have gone beyond fear now, I am mostly furious and I also understand anyone who is vulnerable being fearful, not so much of the bug as of the Government and it's reckless behaviour.
,
The media are portraying our concern as fear, as timidity, as way to gaslight us, to bully us into submission.
It's really ugly to look at and see.
What is going on here?
Kindest regards
Corneilius
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1 comment:
Thanks Core. (I’ve not watched Gavin Williamson’s speech as yet). Really well written piece. The very fact that the BMA support the teachers unions is enough for me. I’ve mild copd so I’d have to isolate in another place if my children return to school - they won’t be as I ‘block’ this approach. Ok, so they aren’t getting their ‘formal’ education but we are having debates at home on the subject of Covid and how other countries appear to dealing with things in a more prepared manner. It’s fascinating that my 11 year old Amelie spotted how, once Boris had recovered, the government could ‘use it as a positive news spin story’. If an 11 year old can see this, why can’t millions of adults who’ve had a whole school education and beyond?? Now for the speech - before breakfast, just incase Williamson makes me gag
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