Starmer, Pope Benedict, Rishi Sunak and that gross election 'advertisement'. Bullies Exploiting Survivors.

In 2010 I took part in street demonstrations held in London. on a sunny Autumn weekend.

A demonstration, directed at The Vatican and towards Pope Benedict and his entourage, who were on a state visit to England. I was there as a Survivor. The march comprised a wide range of The Vatican's critics in Society, from Feminists to Anarchists, Atheists to Pagans, Wizards, Witches, Elves and Trolls, Queers, Lesbians, Communists, Philosophers and Physicists, and Protestants. The rally of the angry comprised all ages, all classes, it was colourful and it was witty. The atmosphere was friendly.  Then there was David Icke fan-club. Ick.
Survivor groups from across the UK, Ireland and elsewhere participated. There were many representatives of survivors concerns. As one would expect. They have work to do.

Historical Context
By 2010 the Irish State and population had already spent 20 or so years unveiling a sordid history of 'historical child sexual abuse' - so called to discern it from any child abuse still happening- a story of some seventy years of common place child abuse across multiple State and Church operated residential institutions. Somewhat hard to digest. 
Incomprehensive.
Four public Inquiries revealed widespread harm, at scale. Patterns of abuse of children, women and men held in 'care settings' where the State handed the operational care of vulnerable children and adults to the Church and their various Orders, paying the institutions fees, taxpayers cash, for the services provided. The State had oversight duties and neglected them. Both State and Church are liable.

The Irish State offered political and economic support for the Church and The Vatican before offering anything to Survivors.  "You back me, I'll back you.." and then defend themselves accordingly against living witness testimony?
Those inquiries focused on Industrial Schools, Mothers and Babies Homes, Magdalene Launderies, and the response from Church and Civil authorities to cases of child abuse in some dioceses. The people of Ireland reeled in shock, and attitudes changed swiftly. The people supported the Survivors. The Government was forced to take action, to establish recognition and redress. It drags it's heels still, pulling against the perceived leash of honesty and evidence, not understanding that honesty and evidence is what will liberate the Government and the State from it's burden, and transform it into a work of social nurture, political equity, justice and humanity. Yes, I know. I'm way too romantic, optimistic and naïve.

I am pointing at the healthy place, that's all. I know it's there.
These inquiries revealed that Church and State authorities knew of the abuse, and that they allowed the Church to cover up these crimes, to move offending clerics from site to site, often leaving them in supervisory contact with vulnerable people, only for them to offend again, and again, and again.
This enabled life long repeat offenders to subsist within the Church systems. This caused even more harm, upon harm.
The agenda was to protect the good name of the Church, justification for handling this criminal activity internally, under Canon Law, thus evading Civil and Criminal Law.

They rationalised offering survivors and their families settlement, out of court,  with confidentiality agreements in exchange for cash, as an act of Christian mercy, whilst they made sure that it was backed by setting out on an offensive, adversarial stance backed by expensive legal counsel. Nudge Theory in practice.

Impact
The impact on the children and the adults harmed due to all of this evasive action was set aside. Not considered important.

The effect was to enable widespread sexual and emotional abuse, to the extent that abusers recognised that they had a relatively free hand, that the Church convinced themselves and everyone else that the offenders were committing sins, and that was to be taken at face value by Church authorities, and their offences were not therefore treated as crimes, under the criminal code. They had been indicted by God, and absolved. God is merciful.

What that status offered the predatory ones as they operated within the Church Canon culture was real world impunity - they would not face legal, criminal accountability, and the Church's name would be protected. Penance was paid in prayer, and a new location was happily accepted.
That strategy - to protect and uphold the status of The Church and The Vatican, was fully supported, in full awareness, by the Irish State, the Irish Government and the Irish political establishment as an ethnic cultural necessity.

The Impact II

Tens of thousands of lives destroyed by predatory men assaulting vulnerable children. Degrees of repeat offending suggestive of a 'life style choice' embedded in Church mores.

Traumatised children, often over extended periods of time, multiple assaults, who grow up silenced, managed, ignored, abandoned, who somehow found the strength to live well, who succeeded, by degree, and those who did not. Those who suffered in silence or noisily. The suffering as those children aged and became parents, traumatised parents doing their best. And seeing the impact play out into the next generation. Because a true harm was covered up. A harm was not resolved, and the pain perpetuated. A lot of people. A lot of people.
For seventy years.

There's an inquiry or two yet to be had on the matter of historical institutional care of children and predatory abuse in Ireland. It's not over yet.
There has not yet been any public inquiry in Ireland, into the many Church run boarding schools and day schools across Ireland, in which the same patterns of adverse harmful behaviour have been played out, over those seven decades, from 1922 - 1992. This is a serious matter. That is a large population of children, over an extended period. Wow.
A public inquiry is being scoped out, finally - but only after three survivors spoke out on RTE's live Saturday night premium talk show, The Late Late Show, an appearance in public to unveil the story, which flowed from efforts of the past pupils of one elite boarding school, a small group of alumni who sought to listen to the voices of survivors, to hear what they knew, who reached out to the survivor community and to the wider school community to allow people to bear witness to their experience and provided a forum for those involved to share their concerns.

This was part of their process designed to try to leverage a public demand for a formal apology from the school Authorities involved.
Their efforts - and the response of survivors to their efforts, supported by other Survivors advocacy groups and individuals -finally opened to the public discourse in Ireland the reality of seventy years of Irish School systems and Clerical CSA. 
Many survivors had long been demanding such an inquiry, but have been rebuffed by Church and State, ignored by the News media, time and time again. Somehow, boarding school survivors remained invisible.
Last November, 2022,  as I wrote above there occurred live witness testimony of three survivors, to the Irish nation, presented on live TV in such manner as made it impossible for the nation to evade the matter. This public witness statement flowed from the work described above.

The courage, humility and humanity of the three survivors who presented themselves and shared some of their stories, as witnesses, was abundantly clear, as was their years of suffering, which continues and will continue until justice is fully met, until the unmet needs of the children, and the adults they are now are being materially met. 
The things they spoke of, their experiences as they were, appalled the listener, and the nation, to the core. One could sense an audience in shock, upright and angry, and determined to see this through.  "How could that even happen? They must find justice to the full!" That was the feeling at the end of that presentation, the feeling from the presenter and the audience, intensely so. The stood and gave the three Survivors a standing ovation, for eight minutes. 
Time will tell how this plays out. These matters take time, patience and persistence is our daily fare. 

Progress

It is to be hoped that justice, accountability, honesty will flow from this process. Reparations, including end of life support at every level of need, in recognition of the unmet needs of all those children at the time of the assaults, and ever since. Meeting the unmet needs of the children they were, as they present in the adults they are today. That sort of care, in detail.

They deserve no less.
Bearing in mind that this dynamic ran for seventy years, and that many Survivors have passed away, without relief, without recognition, validation or support. Every year of delay reduces the numbers of living survivors, many of whom die earlier than the average. 
There is much work to be done, and it is serious work that must stand on evidence, honesty, empathy and a robust justice that allows closure for all concerned. 
The reactionary self-defence of the institutions must be mediated and diffused so that justice can prevail, and peace be restored.
Then we can move on.
So, to go back to 2O1O and the Pope
Before the demonstrations, I met with a gathering of people, organising to make placards, preparing leaflets, you know the usual paraphernalia  of street demonstrations, to plan our demo, finding people to team up with in smaller groups for the afternoon's action. 
I gave a short talk on the story of Irish Survivors recent history from my perspective. I had read The Case of The Pope, by Geoffrey Robertson. I understood the ground I and other Survivors were standing on. Well , at least I knew what I stood for. 
I wanted the Vatican to be courageous,  to be Christ-like, to be honest, transparent and to open their files - to share what they know - to survivors, to submit all allegations to inspection and investigation, to record the accurate history as far as those records reveal - for The Vatican to stand aside from dealing with such offenses under Canon Law, to allow civil and criminal law process to proceed, unhindered, to make reparations and to make future policy commitments in areas of child protection, reporting etc. Not too much to ask, considering the scale of the criminality, historical attitudes argument set aside.
I made a small placard with the words - Protect The Children, Not The Church - written in bold type. I knew what I was doing. I knew why I was there, and what little impact I would make. I was not there alone. Those numbers held meaning and hope, a route towards correct action. Hope springs eternal in my heart and mind. I do not apologise for that. Far from it. Anyways...
While I was doing that, making my placard, I noticed one group who were making a series of signs, alleging that The Pope was a paedophile. I went over to them, and asked them if they had read any evidence that Pope Benedict was a paedophile, because I had not, and I would be really interested to read such evidence.  I mentioned there was evidence of his involvement in maintaining the policy of covering up the reality of predatory men operating within institutions caring for vulnerable populations.
They mentioned various authors, youtubers, notable writers of hypothetical scenarios. They suggested that the allegation was obviously true. 'Just look at him!'  They had read no such evidence. Some mentioned 'Illuminati,' and various other conspiracy hypotheses. Others stated the obvious - that The Vatican was corrupt, a political action religion, wealthy and powerful and guilt of many crimes - and therefore the slander was justifiable. Rage!
I told them that they were protesting against the Vatican, as a political attack, rather than demonstrating support for survivors and for the necessary work survivors are seeking help for.  Survivors work is not a political attack. Survivors have no need for that. Survivors need justice. Period.
I told them that exploiting Survivors tragedy - packaging the pain, fear, suffering, despair, the lived experienced lives and suicides of so many innocents -  as an emotional trigger to make a political point in that way confuses the discourse, introduces hatred as a political utility, makes survivors look like they make false allegations was a profound and dangerous error in their case and a standard tactic of authoritarian regimes.
"All of this undermines Survivors struggle for justice, because it does not help them. It confuses the situation."
I told them that what they were doing was therefore hindering the work of Survivors. I told them that making false allegations of that nature, in public, allegations that were blatantly un-evidenced, directed at The Pope was stupidly reckless.

"Stick to the known, evidenced verified facts or get off the pot!"
When used as a political weapon, such allegations de facto seek to exploit both the disgust of decent people and the lived experience of the harm and trauma and suffering and pain that survivors have endured, leveraging a caricature as a sensational, manipulative and false dog whistle, riding roughshod over the most pertinent  people in this matter - the Survivors. 
Making false claims undermines survivors efforts, and all survivors know this.
For a genuine survivor activist this weaponisation of child sexual exploitation is an insult to the work they are undertaking. 
Exploiting the pain and suffering implicit in the experience, exploiting the reactionary disgust of bystanders as they avoid really understanding Survivors lived experience, exploiting survivors efforts, piggy backing on their struggle, to launch a political weapon, for an entirely different agenda, making no progress for Survivors in the process.
That pissed them off
I knew in that moment, by their reaction, that they were not here for me, as a Survivor, as someone who had just given a talk on what being a Survivor means. I knew that people like that are not there for the Survivors at all. They do not have our back.
They started to argue with me and I with them. And I stopped. There was no point in this. The outrage in my heart needed a big sky.

I said to them: "You do what you want to do, I cannot associate with what you are doing. I've made my point. You now know what you did not know a few minutes ago".
And with that I left them, and went to the demonstration more or less on my own. I met up some of them later, and the Pope Allegation signs were absent.  I noted that, and lauded them for that wisdom, that understanding. Grudges held post resolution are a self dug hole.

Digging Holes
The recent ads crafted by The Labour Party, one of which is featuring Rishi Sunak, implying the smiling Rishi is not at all bothered by convicted child sexual abusers current freedoms, with Labour's empty promise of a land of Law and Order where child abusers will tremble in fear! 
Fake slur, appeal to disgust, cite statistic out of context, trigger a reactionary, gain a voter.
Here's another way to look at it, from the perspective of a Survivor - "Labour are deploying a vote chasing tactic - publishing content that exploits the reaction to the trauma of children who have been so profoundly harmed, exploited violently by adults for sexual purposes, using it as a trope to exacerbate disgust, in pursuit of a political agenda. Presenting a manipulative slur that has not one shred of evidence to it, that presents a very different proposition than the one at hand - organised child sexual exploitation is well established and pretty much has a free hand in England because neither the police nor the judiciary are on top of it, and the Legislature is clearly failing it it's core duties and responsibilities in this matter today, as it has been doing for decades.

This is not a partisan matter. Labour does not want to look at this honestly. So let's sling some mud! After all, it's what THEY do"

Actually, it is what bullies do. Period. Bullies do this kind of shite. All of them.

I'm not anti-Labour.  I am anti-bullying in politics, local, national and international. It's all bullshit.
The Labour Ad implies that smiley Rishi Sunak, the Asian PM, does not care much about prosecuting or punishing adults guilty of child sexual abuse and incarcerating them - GRRRRRRR!  and that New Clean Labour does, and will indeed prosecute and punish all those guilty of child sexual abuse. YAAAY! Vote For Labour!"

Intermixed with this is the Race card, the insinuations prevalent across English political public discourse. Systemic means systemic. Dog Whistles all over the shop.
The ad is a targeted intentional lie. It is bullshit. It has racist dog whistle overtones. It has a light blue background. Red is dead, at Labour HQ! 
It's an appalling ad. And it is one of several, a series. All doing the exact same tactic.
Public facing content targeting a known bias, vulnerability, fear, hatred, exacerbating the emotional reaction of the target, in order to nudge the target in to behaviour that can be exploited.
This is truly cruel behaviour.
1. It does nothing to ameliorate and balance the bias, the vulnerability, the fear, the hatred. It stokes emotions and misdirects attention,  it does nothing to address the reality of the issue, the problem of child sexual exploitation functioning as a multi-million pound industry across the UK.
2. The it exploits the target, not in the targets best interests, not even in the victimised demographics interest, but in the targeteers interest.
A treble cruelty.
Dodgy. There ought to be a law against this kind of behaviour.

Both Labour and the Conservatives are digging holes for themselves, in their exhibitionist bullying. They have no credibility left, whatsoever.







Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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Letter to News Media - Report of IICSA England and Wales ought to send shock waves through English Society

Of these two, which one would be more likely to respond robustly to the IICSA report?

To The Editor

Last week The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales was delivered.

"The protection of personal and institutional reputations above the protection of children was a frequent institutional reaction. Statutory agencies were not informed, perpetrators were ‘moved on’ and there were failures by those in authority to thoroughly investigate allegations. Records about child sexual abuse allegations were not kept."

This is a pattern familiar to all Irish, Australian, Canadian and American Survivors of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse, Magdalene Laundries, Mental Asylums, Boarding Schools, Day Schools, Adoption Services, Foster Homes, Care Homes and other institutional care settings. 

It is also a pattern familiar to Rape survivors, Domestic  Abuse Survivors and many others.  Indeed, Jeremy Corbyn might be familiar with this cultural reactionary pattern.

The protection of status, image and financial interests of institutions over rides meeting the needs of those who were harmed. That is the pattern.

The publishing of this critically important report was completely over cast by the Conservatives "election-election-election!" soap opera dominating the news cycles in England.

It is true that there is a lot to contend with given the many crises we are all currently enduring. 

Nonetheless, this report ought to send shock waves through English Society at large, just as similar Public Inquiries elsewhere have done.  We ought be appalled at it's conclusions and be evermore determined to change that pattern to one of open, transparent accountability and a robust program of prevention of harm to children, and others rendered vulnerable by power disparity of any kind.

It is therefore both a tragedy and an act of supreme negligence that Labour leader Starmer and others in UK Parliament and indeed the News Media that they are not on the ball on this. One might have hope that 'lessons learned' in other cases might be applied here, but the outlook is not positive. 

How can Irish society help our neighbours, across English society, to confront this cultural problem?

Kindest Regards

Corneilius Crowley

Harrow, London, 

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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The Pattern : The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales has delivered its findings; again the evidence emerges.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales has delivered its findings;  again the evidence emerges. There is a behavioural pattern here.

"The protection of personal and institutional reputations above the protection of children was a frequent institutional reaction. Statutory agencies were not informed, perpetrators were ‘moved on’ and there were failures by those in authority to thoroughly investigate allegations. Records about child sexual abuse allegations were not kept.

Some institutions had no child protection policies and procedures. Where policies and procedures were in existence, they were often inadequate or not complied with. Inspections of institutions were, at times, lacking. Recommendations made following internal or external reviews were infrequently implemented and sometimes ignored." source : Executive Summary Of IICSA Report.

Evidence of a pattern of behaviour observed in every country that has ever held a  public inquiry into child abuse and the response of institutional culture to the children and adult survivors reporting their abuse. I have been observing this pattern for most of my life. From early boarding school onwards.. What the evidence shows is less a matter of response and responsibility so much as reactionary protectionism.
Evidence that the culture of those who hold power over children is such that it will always seek to protect that power, status and image.  
Evidence that this culture of power will set that priority above the welfare of the children who were under their watch, the children who were harmed, who reported their abuse, and those who were silent.
If that priority stands above the social material welfare of the children, it stands over the social material welfare of our entire community.
That priority stands above the vulnerable within families and  community halls, within the Churches and Temples, within Police Stations, it stands over your local councillor and your local MP,  denial and dehumanisation is found written into so-called Sacred Texts and our News Entertainment Media, within Banks and Prisons and in many other areas of our institutional systems.

Where's our insurance policy to protect us from loss of power, loss of wealth and status?

Defend the Flag.  Protect the Power. 
Who will stand for the children, wading neck deep, against such a cold, cruel cultural tide?
We must give some serious thought as to what that really means.
"There are things that should happen in a child's life, and there are things that should not happen that do."

A child should never be exploited by anyone for sex, and when the child tries to reach out for help the child must be made safe from the predator, and child's case must be dealt with transparently, robustly to ensure future safety.
The consequences, of both the abuse and the malign cultural reaction of those in power to the abused, linger on and on, and on.
Every suicide of a neglected, abandoned child or an adult survivor is also a matter of social murder, murder by neglect. The Institutionalised neglect of duty of care.
Decades of psychological, emotional and physical distress, some of it passed through to the children of the survivors, in learned behaviour and many other ways too that cause harm to that generation. Without being resolved, the patterns and cycles of distress continue to play out. This social silence is a well of pain, and it must be drawn, and emptied.
The costs of child abuse are externalised by those who were and are in positions of trust, care and power over children. 
The lived experience costs - hundreds of thousands of distressed lives, if not millions. 
The social material costs of inadequate social and economic services support systems crisis managing that distress, only to exacerbate it.
Adults within a clearly defined structure and culture of power behave in this manner towards vulnerable distressed harmed children.

This is a cultural behavioural characteristic, not merely the malign influence of a few 'bad apples'.
This must stop. 
Today.
But here's the thing - it's not just about sexual abuse of children and vulnerable people. 
It is about the abuse of power by anyone in a position of power and dominance, and the cultural pattern of defence of that Power at all and any cost. Be it Blair or Putin, Savile or Epstein, Suella Braverman or Boris Johnson, be it Austerity or War, Fracking or maintaining poverty as a political and economic strategic necessity, the harmed are routinely ignored, their cases minimised.

What of the 204,000 deaths caused by pandemic mismanagement, the 330,000 deaths caused by the economic violence of Austerity? What of the voices, evidence, lived experience of all those closely connected to the deceased?

Child Sexual Abuse is a pattern of behaviour that tells us more about our society, our culture and our current condition than most will acknowledge. Some will try to weaponise CSA to distract, to make tribal political points.

I am saying that the abuse of children and the defence of institutional power are two defining cultural behavioural characteristic, and that culture is of one of power hierarchy, violence, wealth and warfare which currently afflict us all and it is profoundly unhealthy. 
Healthy governance requires we acknowledge this and then take intentional, determined and robust action to correct the situation.

All of us. Join the dots. Before it's yet again too late, already.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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Chile 1973 - 9/11- England 2022 - Making the Economy Scream - Pinochet in a pinafore - avoiding avoidable harm as standard practice.

My first version of this piece was not well written, or edited. Ooops. So here goes again.

Liz Truss, in economic terms, is Pinochet in a pinafore, without the guns and uniforms. Liz Truss is a power seeking missionary, a neoliberal ideologue whose primary political concern is to dismantle the Welfare State at pace, sponsored by Shell and others of similar stature who are causing immense harm to all of humanity. The Corporate State, where taxation is a revenue stream for private profit rather than social good, is a cruel state.

I think that this short film (see below) is appropriate viewing - it's a starting point to reflect upon a wider angle view of the shituation (spelling error is deliberate) the people - poor working class and middle class alike - face across England at this time, when a self proclaimed Conservative 'Thatcherite' is seeking to grab the office of Prime Minister, elected by a small majority within a small minority, (80,000 votes won her the PM's office, to Rule over a population of 67,000,000 people from another Conservative 'Churchillian' Bully who was both elected and then ejected because he was a liar, his Cabinet were grifters - collectively, since 2010 they and their predecessors caused the deaths of over 350,000 vulnerable UK citizens through 'Austerity' and deliberate COVID mismanagement.

Raw Sewage pours into England's rivers, and onto the beaches.

"we will blight them in the rivers, blight them on the beaches, blight them with low wages and high rents and we will never surrender."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L5mMTO_J3Y

There are so many ways that the actions of a few people - persons who occupy institutional and economic positions of immense, medium and small power, always at a distance from ordinary folk where that distance insulates the people in power from the harms they cause (Cameron's ten million commission 'earned' by his lobbying on behalf of Greensill is a good example) - can have a profoundly adverse impact on the lived experience of millions upon millions, and even billions of people. The technical term is Distal Power.

Those few who wield great political, industrial and economic power and who refuse to avoid avoidable harms, to underpin 'profitability' as they pursue wealth extraction through political dominance of our culture. 

So much human psychological distress and physical trauma is attributable to this one dynamic.

Putin's Wars, the Bush-Blair Wars, the destruction of Libya, Syria and Palestine, the Work Capability Assessment Regime, Buy-to-let Mortgages, Exxon, Shell and BP's obfuscation and denial of Climate Disruption, living rivers killed by Chicken Factory Farms, Sea-beds destroyed by destructive trawling, raw sewage released in order to maximise profits, the trauma of poverty and Universal Credit Sanctions Regime, as a 'nudge' to drive people into low paid work, sending children into schools with no mitigation support during an ongoing pandemic, colonialism, and neo-colonialism, slavery, Racism and misogyny.

All of these are dynamics set in place by a tiny minority of people who wield immense power.

Chile 1973. Making the Economy Scream in order to undermine a Socialist Government, democratically elected by a huge majority as a means to an end - preserving USUK dominance over the Chilean Industrial Economy.

The costs of admitting that a Socialist government had a genuine mandate from the people (Allende's Government was well liked and supported by the larger majority of the working class population) were set aside, externalised by means of a bloody coup. Military Dictatorship was preferable to humility before Democracy.

The slaughter of Allende and his ministers, the thousands of violent deaths of democratic activists, the maiming's, the tortures, the disappearances, the theft and so much more was a externalised cost of the coup - the American political establishment did not pay those costs. The English political establishment did not pay those costs. Both establishments gathered more wealth, extracted from Chile. Pinochet found sanctuary under the wing of Thatcher and the Conservative Party.

http://markcurtis.info/2007/02/12/the-pinochet-coup-in-chile-1973/ *

Mark Curtis writes about the realities of English political involvement in Chile in 1973 and beyond.

"The files clearly show that British planners in Santiago and London totally welcomed the coup and immediately set about conducting good relations with the military rulers as repression increased, even secretly conniving with the junta to mislead the British public."*

The minds and bodies of progressive community and political leaders and workers paid the price. The Chilean State and all Chilean people paid the price in decades of a brutal military dictatorship. Thatcher did not pay the price of those externalised costs. The USUK Oligarchy made a lot of money out of that dictatorship.

"The ambassador also told the Foreign Office that ‘most British businessmen… will be overjoyed at the prospect of consolidation which the new military regime offers’. British companies, such as Shell, he added ‘are all breathing deep sighs of relief’. ‘Now is the time to get in’, he recommended, while urging the British government to provide early diplomatic recognition of the new regime."*

Indeed, we ordinary people are faced with this 'war' at every turn, by degree.

I have posted, (see below) what I think are two useful historical examples, where in Norway and Sweden in the 1930s the population - workers and the middle class united to elect progressive socialist legislators into power to regulate the Oligarchy and more recently in 1999/2000, the Bolivian population ejected Bechtel, who had been given the Water Monopoly and had raised the cost of water to households - and I believe these examples demonstrate the viability of a pertinent social solidarity response to the shituation, and that this way to rein in the Oligarchy is currently available to the UK population of voters.  If only the 'progressive parties' in England would support it. But they do not.
We do have the right to vote, with which we can elect decent, honest people to represent us and we can set them to make laws we agree upon as fruitful for the whole community, and take such steps as necessary to legislate a legal duty to avoid avoidable harm, as the basic root of Government policy and future industrial activity.
There is a way to work towards a more nurtured shared environment, public and private, cultivated and wild.
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/01/how-swedes-and-norwegians-broke-the-power-of-the-1-percent/

https://www.democracyctr.org/bechtel-vs-bolivia
Social Solidarity,: person to person, person and family, person, family and community, community with other communities. Workers, unemployed, the poor, the destitute, the artisans, the clerks, the managers, the middle class, the majority in social solidarity when faced with a Government that is claiming that a cruel policy is an essential part of 'growing the economy'.
With care for one another as our basic social, economic and political setting, through organisation, education and network development, with training in deliberation, conflict de-escalation, conflict resolution, community based electoral democratic campaigning, to build a solidarity movement which by campaigning to gain the legislature, and by gaining the legislature drafting the legislation to regulate the Wealth Extraction, abolish the practice of Externalised Costs, for others to pay, in order to reawaken the Social Contract State, the social contract between Institutional Power and the ordinary person. This is just a rather simplistic overview. 

Obviously the class structure, with it's 1000 year reign, (class wars aside) there's a firm cultural attachment internalised by English people, to 'their betters', 'The Good and The Great'.  I am Irish by birth and education, and living in England I understand that the English have no history of resistance to their own Ruling Class.

Suella Cruella waits in the wings, ready to pounce on the poor. Iain Duncan Smith and Kwarteng assert that social support for the poor, disabled, the chronically unwell, pensioners and the unemployed is an incentive to not work.
There is no way around this. 

Pork Markets Liz Truss is Pinochet in a pinafore, without the military uniform. Exporting Yorkshire Tea to China, Cheese to France. 
A genuinely healthy Government rooted in social justice must legislate to provide support for whatever best practice that is needed to protect the people, to protect our shared environment, as climate and environmental disruption escalate. 
It is important to understand that poverty is a critical element of wealth accumulation as a political hegemon.  Poverty is an Externalised Cost of an extractive economic system.
Globally, Nationally and locally Governments of States must legislate new practice to implement, at pace, regulation ensuring that  industrial activity must pay all previously externalised costs associated with industrial production and consumer activity in order top prevent environmental and social harm. We cannot continue to pay the costs of Wealth Extraction. We need to implement a robust nurture culture to replace the externalised costs cult. 

"Penalise harm causation, reward harm prevention."
This is not a call to reform the existing culture. That task is impossible from within it. This is a call for a new culture. A nurture culture that ensures our children's children will grow into a healthy, sustainable social, political, economic and natural environment. An adaptive 100 year plan for humanity.
This cannot be build on ideology - it must be evidence based, transparent, honest and rooted in understanding that  meeting immediate human needs, medium and long term concerns, reducing vulnerabilities rather than exploiting them, enhancing the natural strength of people as a community, a society that is predicated upon, above all, human empathy,  respect and love.

Big ask?

Really?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Letter to New Zealand From London : hold your course, be courageous

Letter to New Zealand From London, Plague Island, Exporter of Variants

Dear New Zealand,
I have been watching you, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and others do your level best to suppress community transmission of the SARSCOV2 Virus and it's variants.
I watched as you did so to protect your peoples Right to Health, which you correctly and humanely set as critical to the health of your economy. Avoiding avoidable death and disease is the duty of the whole of the nation. Upholding a populations Right to Health is the legal and moral duty of every Government.
I watched as others chose not to take the same approach, chose not to adopt that sane attitude. And I watched as they did not avoid the avoidable harms you did avoid. I cried, along with others, as the human costs of that failure mounted, and continue to mount. The pain is immense. My heart aches for the loss of life, the additional disease, the missed treatments, the education disrupted, the broken businesses, the shattered lives.
On every measure, your populations health and your economy's are in better shape than those who wilfully allowed the virus to spread, to mutate and to wreak havoc.
Now, as Omicron reaches into your community, I note that Media in England is not urging your success. Pundits are writing articles whose subtext is hoping that you fail, hoping that you too will succumb, hoping that you will 'be more like us'. It ranges from outright hatred of your success to subtle hints that the 'inevitable' has finally arrived. Spite and fatalism abound.
Ignore them. They are callous, and wilful and ignorant. Their cowardice has cost us dearly.

Comparing Johnson to Ardern is impossible - two entirely different cultures, one a vulture, the other a dove of peace. A nuclear super power, and a nuclear dissident.
My advice, my prayer to you is that you maintain your diligent care for your population's right to health, in spite of these odious monsters that Rule in England and elsewhere. Be courageous.
The Virus is telling us we must work together to look after each other as human beings. Climate Change carries the same message. World poverty likewise urges we look after one another. Mike Ryan of the WHO constantly reiterates these two obvious messages.
We are all in this together, in this life. 
My kindest regards
Corneilius
London

---

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

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Make Education Safe Again

Make Education Safe Again - where we really are right now.

🧵This is a very important video about the pandemic. 

Dr. Richard Horton is Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet , a United Kingdom–based medical journal. He's an honorary professor at the London School of Tropical Med, Univ. College London & University of Oslo pic.twitter.com/AClabFsAeP

— Cleavon MD 💉 (@Cleavon_MD) July 17, 2021

 

#SchoolStrike2021

#SafeEdForAll

@SafeEdForAll

~

The best leverage we have is collective solidarity. Acting together, we have each others back. Because the Government do not have our backs. They are exposing us, and our children, to avoidable harm.

~

Proposal : UK and Global School Strike every Friday to confront this insanity of deliberately, recklessly exposing our children to a known pathogen when we know it does have adverse impacts, including fatalities, long term disease and associated psychological trauma for bystanders and afflicted alike.

~

#MakeSchoolsSafeAgain #MESA

~ Update : 26/10/21 ~

Lots of talk of new modelling showing cases falling in November onwards

This largely relies on allowing children to become infected with Covid, a dangerous and unpredictable route to take

I spoke on this on GMB today@dgurdasani1 pic.twitter.com/4xpH8XTNtP

— Dr Amir Khan GP (@DrAmirKhanGP) October 25, 2021

~

https:/www./safeedforall.com

#SafeEdForAll

#MESA
#MakeEducationSafeAgain

IndependentSAGE have issued detailed guidelines on how to make schools safe for children, teachers and parents and ultimately for the wider community, to reduce to a minimum the spread of the COVID virus within schools, if not to stop transmission entirely.  Prepared by a collective of experts in epidemiology, virology, public health, education, data modelling, social care, human behaviour and other areas pertinent to handing an epidemic/pandemic. It is not rocket science.

IndependentSAGE issued similar guidelines at the end of Summer 2020, guidelines which the English Government dismissed. We saw what happened as a result. Then we did not have vaccines, now we do. Then we did not have Delta, now we do. Everything has changed, and yet the English Government's policy is, if anything, more reckless than before. Schools are still unsafe for everyone involved, and for the wider community.

The effects on some children of SARS-COV2 infection leading to COVID19 disease and long Covid  include toxic shock syndrome and other unpredictable adverse outcomes which are related to 'super-antigens' found within the virus. There is still so much that is unknown, and in American and Israel where they 'opened up' after vaccination programs for adults were rolled out, outcomes for children exposed to Delta appear to be more intense than with previous variants.

More children were presenting with adverse health outcomes than previously.

While the overall or global percentage rates appear to be small, it is when the are applied to populations of millions of children meeting limited available space in health care systems, the numbers become a serious problem, logistically, and threaten the Governments status.

But for the children and parents involved no amount of minimising the population level impact as a small percentage offers any comfort.

Not least when uncontrolled spread of the virus in the community is avoidable.

Independent SAGE

In recent months IndependentSAGE has issued detailed advice on making schools as safe as they can be to prevent uncontrolled spread of the virus, and the harms to children that will entail, all avoidable harms.

September : https://www.independentsage.org/september-2021-an-urgent-plan-for-safer-schools/

Urging caution, requesting mitigations be re-established in schools to prevent surge of infections, and the harms associated with all of that.

October : https://www.independentsage.org/independent-sage-response-to-the-20th-october-press-conference-by-health-secretary-sajid-javid-we-need-a-winter-plan-now/

Urging extreme caution, requesting mitigations be re-established in nationally to prevent surge of infections, and the harms associated with all of that.

SARS-CoV-2 suppression, rather than attempting to live with the virus, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties. By every measure living with the virus causes more harms. Three studies confirm this.

1, Elimination aka suppression of community transmission reduces incidence, prevents uncontrolled spread, avoids the need for lockdowns, protects people's health, civil liberties and economies.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00978-8/fulltext

2 . The Westminster Government has failed to protect the right to health of the English people.

https://www.hhrjournal.org/2020/11/the-right-to-health-in-times-of-pandemic-what-can-we-learn-from-the-uks-response-to-the-covid-19-outbreak/

3. Human Rights study of UK Governance during 2020/21 with regards to Corona Virus, and upholding the populations Right to Health. 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.646285/full

This is an Italian academic study of the way Government and Science were set within the ongoing epidemic. The Government failed on multiple counts to accept proven epidemiological scientific and public health advice, and this, combined with a News Media that allowed, and continues to allow that neglect free passage, created an environment of zero accountability. 

What kind of culture allows this to happen?

What is going on here? Whose needs are being met, and whose needs being neglected?

What are schools for, and why should they be safe for children, teachers, parents and the wider community?

What is Education for?

We all accept that Education is a necessary institution, We are a learning species. It's something we do really, really well, often independent of formal instruction.

John Taylor Gatto, a teacher who won many, many awards for his work with children, educating in urban and rural areas of deprivation in New York. He won those awards for the results of his advocacy as a teacher, in deprived areas, beyond delivering the curriculum, teaching and advocating for better support, as an activist teacher, by being a superb, kind, empathic friend and advocate for all the children - being real, congruent, honest and creative in terms of helping the children resolving social educational problems in real time. His efforts changed many, many lives for the better, and he influenced the Education system in New York, and beyond, to good effect. 

Mr. Gatto,  upon being awarded Best Teacher in New York for a third time, decided to use the opportunity of the award ceremony to quit, publicly. Here are  the first few lines of his award speech, where he accepted the award and rejected the system that gave it to him. A very brave thing to do.

"I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t do it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to let me teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to fry. So I’m going to quit, I think."

The Westminster Government are forcing parents of the nation to send their children into unsafe schools.

Mr. Gatto quit close to the end of a long and distinguished career, because he did not want to harm any children. His quitting was symbolic, piece of public theatre, on behalf of all children, everywhere. An appeal to the power, into their faces, so that there could be no confusing it with a roast. 

I'd not ask working teachers to do  that, go that far.  I know teaching is a complex activity, with many demands and needs to be met, equally well. Being responsible for a class or a year or a school is intense.

I would say instead, "give his words some thought".

How do we stand and advocate for the children, beyond the teaching role itself?

How do we and how do students explore and learn together, to meet this situation?

Mr. Gatto's speech : source : https://www.educationrevolution.org/blog/i-quit-i-think/

Another great educator, Paolo Friere had this to say about teaching:

"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

What we are witnessing today in England is a massive failure by Government, by the Department of Education and to a lessor degree head teachers, teachers and parents to do the latter - to deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world for the best possible outcomes for all concerned. Collectively England's adults are failing to avoid avoidable harms to their own and each others children.

England's primary and secondary schools are not COVID safe, and neither are it's universities and yet Government has ordered that all students return to full time study without the necessary protections in place, without the non pharmaceutical interventions that ought to be mandated and supported by Government that would make schools safe for all involved. Does it have to be this way?.

This failure is not the fault of the parents or of the teachers of the children those parents have entrusted into their care. 

The English Government's communications, advice and regulation on COVID have been an unmitigated disaster by every available measure. COVID is not over. Blatantly. Gavin Williamson has been more whip than carrot.

Given the political grooming inherent in England's public discourse, where a news media industry that is mostly owned by Oligarchs jealous of their power and wealth is deployed  not to inform, but to protect the interests of Power and Wealth above all others, including in this instance the best interests of all our children, and a Government that lies as it breathes, it is no wonder that many, many people are confused, disoriented, mislead and misinformed. 

To mask or not, to take up the vaccine or not, to isolate or not, to travel or to shelter, HEPA air filters or open windows, class sizes reduced or maintained at pre COVID levels, LFT or PCR testing, is it a flu or a cold or something more serious, does it afflict children, are CEV children safe, are they truants, will their parents be prosecuted, what is 'herd immunity', what do variants imply for future behaviour, what is the precautionary principle - where is the clarity and logistical support that clarifies these and many other questions? £

37 billion budget for two years of an inadequate test, trace system without funded isolation against £68 billion on furlough and even still community transmission is now at higher levels than it was this time last year. This is what lack of clarity, lack of due diligence in Government applying itself to the science delivers.

That much needed clarity is not coming from the English Government, that much is clear. This timeline of scientific advice compared to Government policy choices, which I mentioned above, prepared by IndependentSAGE, a collective of experts in the full range of issues related to COVID, illustrates that with absolute accuracy. The English government's claim to be 'following the science' is untrue. It is a lie.

England's Government is not providing the support England's teaching staff and students need to be able to teach and learn safely. How many times must it be said before the people demand the most basic of tenets of a democratic state be upheld?

Education must never harm the learner, nor enrol the teacher in any harmful practice. 

And here we are. Education is now a place of harm causation. This difficult situation does however present an opportunity. 

Making Education Safe Again!

The current situation of un-safe schools and orders to send children into them is a challenge parents and teaching staff must meet - they must confront this recklessness in order to best serve the children's needs. They do not need to do this on their own. They need all of us to work with them, and to that end they must become educators of the nation, the whole population.

I think there is no other option worthy of our collective duty of care to the children.

As Paolo Friere wrote : "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."

Solidarity in protecting our children's best interests in this situation is the pathway to work the changes we need to bring about to make education safe again. And when the pandemic is over, can we do something about bullying in our schools where 1 in 5 students report being bullied whilst on school premises? Actually, no - we need to deal with that at the same time. We cannot let bullying slide, in any sphere of our lives. We can chew gum and walk.

I wrote a blog a few weeks back about solidarity, the need for a union of students, parents and teachers working from an evidence base. The best practice covid principles are outlined in the IndependentSAGE report on schools listed above. This blog on solidarity lists the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, a study on Right to Health in terms of the English Government's response to COVID and other pertinent pieces of Law and legislation. 

The Good Law Project are also engaged in helping parents present a legal position on this, and they are experts. 

I'm just a shouty auld git with a guitar and a laptop. This matter needs the majority of citizens on the case. Please get on the case.

Then this on October 1st. Johnson's most important metric. And he's lying, of course.

Boris Johnson tonight on the BBC "I've given you the most important metric which is, never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes, look at wage growth."

 Ghastly appalling disregard for our people. pic.twitter.com/TmOLV3k2Wh

— Ian Lavery MP (@IanLaveryMP) October 1, 2021

https:/www./safeedforall.com

#SafeEdForAll

#MESA
#MakeEducationSafeAgain
#SchoolStrike2021

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

UK Local and European Elections, the reality of The Vote exposed.

The vast majority of people in the Western style democracies are unaware that they have been purposefully infantalised and that voting on it's own, as it is currently set up is an immature form of democracy.

I was unaware of this myself for many years. I don't 'blame' the people who have been conditioned, nor do I feel any anger or frustration towards those of us whose conditioning has been so intense, because it is so ubiquitous. It permeates education, it is promoted through media, left and right, it's part of marketing's purpose through 'aspirational marketing'. Infants, children, teens, young adults, young parents and elders are all targets of the conditioning processes.

I say this because I see that the power disparity between and infant and an adult, the child and a teacher, the bully and the bullied, the 'doctor and the patient', is mirrored by the current power disparity between any individual adult or grass roots collective and The State... all too often Government ministers insist on telling us what is good for us without meaningfully including us, our stated concerns and useful insight in the discourse on what is or is not 'good for us'. They rule, we obey. Thus we the people are maintained in an infantile state.
 
Mature Democracy requires that the individual citizen is directly involved in the decision making processes over all matters that affect his or her life, and that he or she works with the community, to participate in the implementation of any policies that emerge from such discourse.

This is a matter of maturity and of personal and collective responsibility. The fact that so few people even get to the level of acknowledging this simple point reveals the utility of State Education as it exists for the preservation of Political Power to Rule Over the People.

There is NO mature democracy anywhere on Earth at this time.

The power disparity between and infant and an adult is mirrored by the current power disparity between an adult and The political and economic State... a healthy adult will care for the child, allow the child to explore and discover and articulate who she or he is and will nurture the child for the child's outcomes rather than the parents desired outcomes. A healthy parent will foster empathy and autonomy in the child.

Classical and modern politics did, and does none of this, and most often does the opposite, with dreadful results for those who have to endure: be they people conned into taking on mortgages which turn homes into investments and profits for developers, be they people whose land and water is poisoned by fracking or mining or other 'resource development', or parents who are under stress and being regulated rather than supported by Social Services, be they elders divorced from the extended family, placed in 'care homes', cared for by poorly paid, badly trained workers, care homes which are run as profit centers for private enterprise, be they civilians caught in the cross fire of 'just wars' (Iraq, Afghanistan) and civil wars where proxies are trained, funded and let loose (Syria, Libya and Africa and South America in the second half of the 20th Century), be they children diagnosed with ADHD and coerced to take 'medications' to 'manage' their symptoms, be they Survivors of institutional abuse, ranging from asylums to Guantanamo Bay... So many people whose lives are blighted by the actions of the State.

There's more I could lay out here... the point is made.

It's a feeble argument to lay those adverse outcomes against the more positive outcomes of State action as a balance sheet, for that argument demeans those who suffer and minimise the meaning of their lived experience...

As far as I am aware, the only document coming anywhere near describing the practical steps towards a mature democracy, one in which all citizens participate as equals, where responsibility of power is vested in the grass roots, where active power - that is the power to act- is devolved to the community is The Power Inquiry 2006.

You won't have heard of it because all the political parties feel threatened by it's insight into how power operates and what is needed to devolve that power from those who currently hold it,and all too often abuse it, to the grass roots where transparency can function effectively as a restraint on power accumulation and deepen accountability.

http://www.jrrt.org.uk/publications/power-people-independent-inquiry-britains-democracy-full-report

It's a .pdf, and so worth reading and studying...

And yes, by all means, do vote for the greens, or independents or others if it means something, even as a protest vote.

But do not expect that your vote is an exercise in meaningful Participative Democracy. It's not.

I urge my readers to familiarize themselves with The Power Inquiry document as a starting point in their own explorations of how democracy in the UK might be deepened, strengthened and nurtured!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe