Public Inquiry : Survivors as equals at the table, and needs unmet thus far.There is a world of difference between ‘survivor-led’ and ‘survivor-consulted’.

*There is a world of difference between ‘survivor-led’ and ‘survivor-consulted’. 

A much respected hard working survivor advocate wrote these *words.  These are mine : a public inquiry cannot be a case of 'we do this to and for Survivors, whom we've consulted.' As I write I remind myself, and my readers that I do not write for all Survivors, as an 'authority'. I wrote these words because they are what I see, from my small space, looking at it all.

I want to contribute to the task ahead of us.

On the 6th November 2022 two brothers, who were subjected to predatory abuse by the same cleric, some 40 years ago, told their story to the Irish people, via RTE, the State public broadcaster.

https://www.rte.ie/radio/doconone/1333550-blackrock-boys

In the following weeks further presentations by the two brothers, and others, across Irish News media revealed a wider extent of predatory abuse of children than previously acknowledged. The brothers, and others, issued calls for a Public Inquiry. Government made noises moving towards that outcome, everyone unsure what the task of this Inquiry ought to be.

Their personal testimony was also presented, a month later on November 9th, on the popular Late Late Show. Their testimony was raw, honest, painful, courageous, humble, upright, no more shame. The brutality of their assailant was made quite clear, in brief stark terms. 

RTE Late Late Show 9 November segment : A survivor, David, describes his experience, honestly, humbly.

The audience paid close attention to the two brothers and their friend, as they spoke, from start to finish.  The support for these two men, their friend, the respect for courage, the empathy and concern was palpable.
The Institutions protected the assailants, not the children.

The audience took upon itself to offer a long hearty standing ovation to the two brothers, and their friend and by extension to proffer support and recognition, to all Survivors, in Ireland and elsewhere across a varied diaspora as the precious children of Ireland. To be nurtured. To be held, in safety, and supported to live well, and in some peace, if justice is fully served.

21% of one year of Black Rock College reported incidents of sexual abuse, as targets or as bystanders.

How many in each year, on any given year? In any given day school or boarding school? In places that purport to nurture children?

How many boarding schools were in operation over all that time, all those lost childhoods?

We have been here before. RTE Question Time 25th May 2009.

"A question is asked about the Ryan Commission report on child abuse within institutions run by the religious orders in Ireland. After the panel had spoken the questioner responded and his response...well see for yourself. Just a note, but my apologies for the ragged nature of the end of the piece. Editing wasn't very good with the late hour."


I have been told that there are court and civil cases dating back to 1982 that have yet to arrive at satisfactory accountability, there are gaps in support for Survivors, there's too many inadequate responses - the institutions were begrudging, defensive, justice is delayed. More harm is caused.

So last century, don't you think? Only ain't. That's really sad.

Ireland, this time we really do need to know what happened, we need to understand this, accurately, honestly, fully. 

" A problem that is more fully understood is half way towards resolution, a problem incorrectly understood is insoluble."

That, plus immediate support for presenting current survivors, is the start, and then we can set matters as right as they can be, in this imperfect, evolving culture we share. We must understand this. We must support the Survivors, and together support the Government of the day, and the Churches and others to do the right thing, correctly.

A mandate for a country, a population.

Do the right thing.
The State and people of Ireland ought understand that they are now mandated by the testimony of Survivors, by their presence, their very existence as a demographic  (an identifiable group of citizens, adults who as children have been grievously harmed within the 'care' of Institutions of Education)  to lend all  support to the association of Survivors as a body, with a representative panel, seated at the table where Government and others discuss the nature, task and terms of reference of this Public Inquiry.
A representative panel of Survivors, supported by experts and advocates, where the concerns of Survivors regarding this Public Inquiry are set as equals at the table. Support for a wider reach of Survivor insight, evidence, observations to feed into the representative panel, to inform the process.
A mechanism where decisions on policies and protocols affecting Survivors are being discussed by Survivors, Government, and others, together as a collegiate; where issues concerning this matter are being deliberated, where policies and protocols are being set out and agreed upon and where processes are designated for implementation and so forth, with Survivors at the centre, core to the deliberation.

Unmet needs, past and present
The unmet needs of thousands of children, over so many decades, are today the unmet needs of living Survivors, the unmeetable needs of those who for whatever reason, passed on, distressed to the last breath, they are the unmet needs of Ireland's children. 
Such an Inquiry will need access to the best tools of inquiry and facilities to carry on research where it is required to assess the full scale of the culture of harm and cover-up, mitigation and management - Survivors are the largest natural data bank before the Inquiry.

Clarity.

The combination of official, institutional records and the testimony and human geography of Survivors lived experience, from so many offers a level of historical clarity. 
Survivors needs in this Inquiry are clarity, honesty, transparency and accountability.

Survivors families needs in this Inquiry are clarity, honesty, transparency and accountability.
Ireland's needs in this Inquiry are clarity, honesty, transparency and accountability.
It is correct that the Inquiry settings, it's task and terms of reference be developed with adequate oversight by Survivors and their expert advocates.
Survivors are a diverse group of people and therefore generic approaches to 'survivors' as a body will fail to bring the necessary nuanced listening, the attention to detail, the willingness to hear and understand that would be required to represent this body accurately.  
Consulting via a poll of some survivors cannot not represent Survivors. 
A Survivors Panel ought to be enabled to represent Survivors, as soon as possible. 
Survivors must also be heard and understood, as who they are as a population, within the Legislature. 
This task is for the whole Government, it is not just a task for the Party in Government.
This task is also the task of the State, The Church, and the people of Ireland. 

Un-met needs
"There are things in a child's life that ought to happen and do not; and there are things in a child's life that ought not to happen, ever. To the extent these natural enough expectations are met or not, there is health or disruption of the child's life."

The unmet needs of the children each Survivor was, as they endured such vile mistreatment are alive, and as vital to this inquiry as are the unmet needs of the adult Survivors today.  
Both sets of needs live side by side. 
They must inform the Inquiry as to it's central task.
Those children needed the following. They needed someone to stop the predator. Someone to protect the child. Someone to hear the child's concerns, to allay any notion of guilt or shame, to assure the child that he or she is safe now, that this will never happen again, that the child will be safe into the future.

Someone, better still a loving community, who take robust action to prevent the identified predator(s) from ever engaging in such behaviour in society. Once is once too many times.
Those children needed some adults who cared deeply for them and whose care held the space for the child to return to a sense of safety, and thus to continue to grow and develop as a human person, maturing, part of  a healthy community, albeit wounded. Cared for, understood, loved albeit mortally wounded.   A single decision has a life long impact.
A culture of protection causes intergenerational retriggering because it delays the process of justice 
The original single vile predatory decision, re-iterated within an adversarial, protective culture. Trauma upon trauma, and the silence reverberates with silent cries amid continued harm. Life-long harm. 
Survivors need and deserve an honest, transparent Public Inquiry.

Ireland
Ireland really ought not allow this moment to pass, as other Public Inquiries into child abuse and institutions have - let us get it right this time, spot on. Let us not allow a repeat of processes that were somehow incomplete, that left lingering questions, processes that were less than transparent, processes that were adversarial, to have had institutions dictate to Survivors the task at hand, the terms of reference, often excluding Survivors from the key areas of decision making, by  a process of 'consulting'  with 'Survivors' at arms length (we did consult, and we took no notice).
Rather than through a direct deliberative engagement, as equals in those discussions, as part of the process.  That caused actual harm.
Survivors insights, lived experience, evidence and Survivors needs for accountability, justice, reparation and life support, have always been, still are and will always be critically important parts of this necessary process. 
Care must be taken. This work, this Inquiry must nurture Survivors. That's the outcome number one.
Because these are also the needs of Ireland's children. Unmet for decades, adult lives carry the cost of the silence. In pain. In loss. In grief. In terror. In shame. In horror. In self-loathing. In rage. In silence. In depression. In chronic disease. In addiction. In penury. Inconsolable.
Ireland needs to meet those needs, now.
"We cannot have peace without truth. Do the right thing," M. Markle, Actor

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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

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Why Ireland needs a judicial public inquiry into historical child sexual predatory abuse within Boarding Schools, Day Schools.

Open letter to Irish Government, Churches and Media
~Why Ireland needs a judicial public inquiry into historical child sexual predatory abuse within Boarding Schools, Day Schools.

Clerical child abuse - an Irish timeline : Irish Times brief

As a child of Ireland, a ward of guardians, I was placed in five Irish Catholic boarding schools over a 11 year period, from 1966 through to 1977. 
A convent boarding school, an elite preparatory school, an Irish speaking school, a reformatory boarding school, another Irish speaking school.
I was subjected to predatory abuse within all these schools. I was utterly alone. I had no advocates, no protectors, I told no one. It was quite awful, all the time. I became habituated to that state. That was my normal. A child of Ireland. I fled Ireland aged 19.
I have endured the adverse effects of cPTSD for all my adult life.  I had always thought I was the problem. Shame, self loathing, narcissism, a tendency to be a bully, paranoia, sleep problems, always over compensating, never good enough. In my heart and mind, a darkness lurked. 
This has impacted all my adult relationships, adversely. I accept my part in all of that. I also understand the symptoms of years of chronic exposure to abuse as they present as behaviour. 
I am in counselling.
I know for sure that I am not an outlier, a unique and rare case. 
I was a child alone, as were so many others, who will remain countless until we find out how many were predated upon by men and women who got away with it, more or less, courtesy of the power of the Institutions.
Survivors deserve honesty, justice and reparation, support and recognition, kindness and respect.
This Inquiry could have been suggested in 1992.  There were already enough proven cases and allegations known to the Government of Ireland and to the Churches to justify same.
What harms have fallen upon survivors in the past 30 years, as a result?
Ireland, as a State and a people,  must avoid  repeating that failure to act in a timely manner.
We need a full Public Inquiry covering all State and Religious run schools across Ireland, where any allegations of predatory abuse have ever emerged since commencement of the State. 
We must start with judicial oversight, with open verified access to all religious order data and papers related to predatory abuse mandated, as a means to meet the needs of Survivors. 
The State and Institutions know what they knew. Survivors do not. That is an inequitable disparity. 
And that is the problem that only a Judicial Public Inquiry can resolve. Timely in this instance means complete the task, look at and appraise the full extent of the child predation, bullying, the violence and psychological abuse, hold accountable those who are accountable, make reparations and design a schooling system, a cultural environment that prevents all of that from ever happening again.
Every child of Ireland deserves nothing less than that, past and present.

Corneilius Crowley







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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Psychological Climate Change : Hierarchy of Violence Culture is the Problem.

A God that can send you to Hell is a violent God. A God that says he, she or it  loves you and can still send you to Hell, is a gaslighting God. Such Gods are always, always projections of violent people. 

Hierarchies  of Wealth, Power and Violence are cults, they are mafia cults.

I have written much about Hierarchy of Violence as a cult, a culture - in opposition to Humanity as a species that evolved through co-operative alloparenting and mutual aid. The culture is the probem, not the species. 

I know this much, I am not the problem. Me not fitting into this society is a healthy response.

Would we or could we do things differently if we were trauma informed?

"I argued then that the study of psychological trauma is an inherently political enterprise because it calls attention to the experience of oppressed people. I predicted that our field would continue to be beset by controversy, no matter how solid its empirical foundation, because the same historical forces that in the past have consigned major discoveries to oblivion continue to operate in the world. I argued, finally, that only an ongoing connection with a global political movement for human rights could ultimately sustain our ability to speak about unspeakable things." ~ Judith Herman in Trauma and Recovery

The News is not helping, is it?

The news media is full of a myriad of stories, images and  narratives - more commonly biased and less so objective - and we see that violence erupts once more as Israeli State Mechanised Warplanes bomb the prison of Gaza, where people have nowhere to run to, for safety; we see the outcome of reckless policy on COVID19 in UK, USA, Brazil and India as wave after wave of infection surges; we are all aware of the intrusion into and colonisation of 'undeveloped lands inhabited by older indigenous cultures; Myanmar's youth resist the Military oppression of their new-born democracy... there's a lot going on.

The truth is not being told.

Meanwhile, for 1.8 billion people, across East Asia, Oceania and elsewhere zero community transmission strategy is protecting their lives and livelihoods in large measure.

What is the climate within which all this is happening, and can we change that?

Music helps me ground myself when facing all of this. Here's two songs in particular, that emerge from the Irish experience, that I find particularly resonant. They humanity of both songs, and of their writers is a beauty to me.

~

Fergus O'Farrel with Interference sings 'American Townland'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7-3iAnG5Ls

Lyrics:

"American townland

Snow in Iceland

Russian farmland

And the sword of Islam

The state of new Israel

Remembers Belsen

Now there's sand for Palestine

And grass for Israel

Won't you settle down, stop fighting for your gods...

Oh, settle down, stop fighting for your gods.

They can't hear you now, not with the noise of your guns.

Once were towering steeples

Now there's a soaring eagle

A crescent moon and a rising sun

Our prayers ascending, but what good will they bring?

If all that's willin' is more and more killin'

Won't you settle down, stop fighting for your gods...

Oh, settle down, stop fighting for your gods.

They can't hear you now, not with the noise of your guns.

The mountains of Mourne

The county Cork I was born in

This dirty old town

Where the rain's always fallin'..

Our prayers ascending, but what good will they bring?

When all that's willin' is more and more killin' 
~

What a beautiful song, so movingly performed. Fergus O'Farrell died young, aged 48. His career was blighted by his health, he suffered from Muscular Dystrophy - his body of work is immense, intense, beautiful and worthy of all praise in and of itself. 

For me this song speaks to the inhumane cruelty and ultimate futility of Religion, when Religion is used as a reason to wage wars of colonisation. It also speaks of a deeply felt empathy and a humane view. It is an historical song.

It sits comfortably with Damien Dempsey's song Colony, a fierce rebuttal of the colonial mindset and a resounding song of defiance. This song makes the hair stand on end, and is as strong a heart beat of the humane as any.  Here's the writer, on why he wrote the song, for whom he wrote it.

Here's the full song, off the album. When Damien sings this, the crowds no sing with him, and the atmosphere is electric, everyone in the room is on point, fully alive to the meaning of the song, and our place in history with it. Bearing in mind that the Palestinian people, the Aboriginals of Australia, the Ashaninka of Peru and Brazil, and many, many others all live with the oppression upon them, and resist and defend their lands and rights as best they can with little in the way of support from the rest of the world. Justice is still a long way off.

Colony Lyrics: 

I sing the song of the colony

How many years and you're still not free

And your mother cries and you ask god why

Greed is the knife and the scars run deep

How many races with much reason to weep

And your children cry

And you ask god whyAnnie, she came from Dunlavin Town

The TB came and killed her family all around

Population booms

Eleven in two rooms

Katie she came from down Townsend street

Ten in a bed and no shoes on their feet

1916 came

They played the patriots game

Freddy, he came from the Iveagh flats

Tenement slums and infested with rats

Sleeping on damp straw

Trying not to break the law

Thomas, he came from Kilmaine in Mayo

Semi starvation was the only life you'd know

In a two room shack

Then jailed in Letterfrack

I look to the east, I look to the west

To the north and the south, and I'm not too impressed

Time after time

After crime after crime

They raped, robbed, pillaged, enslaved and murdered

Jesus Christ was their god and they done it in his name

So he could take the blame if it's not all a game

With bible in one hand and a sword in the other

They came to purify my land of my Gaelic Irish mothers

And fathers, and sisters and brothers

With our own ancient customs, laws, music, art

Way of life and culture

Tribal in structure

We had a civilisation

When they were still neanderthal nations

We suffer with the Native American, the Indian in Asia

Aboriginal Australia

The African people with their history so deep

And our children still weep and our lives are still cheap

You came from Germany, from France, from England

And from Spain

From Belgium and from Portugal

You all done much the same

You took what was not yours

Went against your own bible

You broke your own laws

Just to out do the rival

But did you ever apologize

For the hundreds and millions of lives

You destroyed and terrorised

Or have you never realized

Did you never feel shame

For what was done in your country's name

And find out who's to blame and why they were so inhumane

And still they teach you in your school

About those glorious days of rule

And how it's your destiny to be

Superior to me

But if you've any kind of mind

You'll see that all human kind

Are the children of this earth

And your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free

Inside our minds we hold, hold the key.

These two songs hold for me the sense of resistance that is deeply humane, that reaches for peace, knowing that although we are vulnerable, we are decent, we are lovers and builders of healthy community at heart and the bullies are bullies. They are not healthy people. Rulers are not healthy people. Colonisers are not healthy people.

Hierarchy of Violence Culture

From the many stories of the Bible, and before, going back 12,000 years or so, through the many Empires as they fought for territory and dominance, through to the invasion of Ireland in 1159 (I am of Irish ethnicity) and onwards as the Crusades and Islam swung back and forth, to the destruction of the Taino of the Caribbean, and the people's of South America, in 1492 onwards, to the British Colonies on what we call North America built by and for religious refugees, that stole land from Native people, and then destroyed them, utterly to the various Colonial excursions across Asia and elsewhere, pastors and merchants, armed to the teeth, through to the scramble for Africa, to the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe where Jews and others were slaughtered in their millions 'to make room' for the German Reich, and on through to today, where yet again the Palestinian people face the brutality of colonial warfare designed to extirpate them from their native homes.

Ireland cannot adopt a zero community transmission strategy to protect it's people in large part because of the partition, (and because it's own ruling class are as venal as rulers anywhere else).

The dominant neighbour, the English government rejects zero community transmission strategy, even as ZCT is proven to protect the lives and economies of 1.8 billion people across East Asia and Oceania and elsewhere, and prevent new variants from emerging, and this places of the British Isles at risk. It could so easily have been avoided.

These are the ill effects of a thousand years of overlordism.

Who rules the English people?

Ireland is still partitioned - those old wounds are still painful, and the political interference still blatant.

What the Israeli state has done and is continuing to do the Palestinian people for the past 75 years, the Normans did to Ireland for 800.

Do the Palestinians have to go through the same?

PROMISED LAND 
a poem by Michael Rosen

  A family arrived and said they had papers  

to prove that his house was theirs.

No, no, said the man, my people have always lived here,  my father, grandfather .... and look, the garden,  my great-grandfather planted that.

No, no, said the family, look at the documents. 

There was a stack of them.

Where do I start? said the man.

No need to read the beginning, they said,

turn to the page marked ‘Promised Land’.

Are they legal? he said, who wrote them?

God, they said, God wrote them, look - 

Here come His tanks.

Both groups of colonisers cited religion and culture as their justifications for their behaviour. There's always a justification rooted in entitlement and supremacy. It is always a logical fallacy.

Conquest, Occupation and resistance.

Palestine - where the act of self defence and resistance, a legal right agreed upon by the all Earths nation states, is punished by full on ethnic cleansing, social, cultural and military war fare, and where that constant punishment of an entire population has been and is still supported by the USUK political ruling classes and is enabled by the EU and UN who play the role of bystanders, even as millions of ordinary citizens in all these countries oppose the violence of the Israeli State, and are also saddened by the violence of the resistance. The Palestinian people should never have been put into that position that they needed to resist war, occupation and colonisation.

What use is there in all of this killing? 

What futures are nurtured by so much blood and gore?

I understand Faith, the way people grow up with the Faith of their parents and grandparents, never consciously chosen, always internalised through habit and thus integrated into sense of self -  I understand the psychic trap that otherwise decent people fall into, when the Institutional and Political Power of the religion is harnessed in warfare. That is an abuse of Faith.

Unicorns against masks is yet another similar faith dynamic that pollutes responsible behaviour in the midst of a pandemic.

I detest those who build that trap, who ensnare the decent, the innocent, the children, generation after generation, just to maintain an institutional power base. They are to me the most abusive of people, bullies without pause, they liars and charlatans.

And I have no easy, simplistic answer on how to free the innocents from the trap. I was entrapped myself a number of times. It was honesty that finally freed me.

But this I know - these traps must  be unset, be they religious, ideological, nationalist or genderist, and the innocent must be allowed to grow free. We have to find ways to ceasing indoctrination of defenceless children that lead to the kinds of extremism we are seeing in Israel and Saudi Arabia, in USA and elsewhere.

The Psychological Climate Issue.

Climate change is one thing, the global Pandemic is another as is the conquest and colonisation of lands already long inhabited by  people who nurtured that land - be it Palestine or the Amazon Rainforest -  and the psychological climate of hierarchies of violence culture is part of the problem and the puzzle to be resolved that all of these present.

What is happening in Israel, what is being done to the Palestinian people is emblematic of what this hierarchy of violence cult is doing to all of us, to humanity, and we the humane must find ways to stop it in it's track. 

The train of hierarchy of violence must be halted, and we must disembark.

What is happening in England and India, and elsewhere, what is being done to the people by the reckless policies of the ruling factions in regards to COVDI19 is emblematic of what this hierarchy of violence cult is doing to all of us, to humanity, and we the humane must find ways to stop it in it's track. 

The train of hierarchy of violence must be halted, and we must disembark.

We must do this, we must commit to doing, even if we do not know how that is going to work out. It is not merely the success of the project that drives this - it is integrity.

Ani Di Franco has a song, Inside Out, in which she sings "We are all citizens of the womb." This is true.

This line inspired me to write this poem.

A SONG FOR THE CHILDREN OF PALESTINE AND ISRAEL

The push, the release
the squeeze, the belief
in letting go - we both
surrender to the next life
as in the new world

I arrive to the softness of
the strange dry air,
something unknown to me,
the pulse of my mothers heart
the thumping with which I have
for nine months lived
- all of my life thus far -
oh the relief of hearing that sound again
having been briefly, yet intensely
separated from that
fundamental pulse.

I gaze with all my body,
all my soul
and we catch each other,
before I reach to feed.
and oxytocin mediates the adrenaline
I am born, and we are clean, together...

My fathers deep voice rumbling in peace and joy,
amazement and bliss.

Being born is the art of the eternal welcome.

 Mind and body
one ingenuous zone of love,
head to toe I know
that my love of life,
this desire to nurture,
the qualities
we see
and feel in each other,

and we are recognised,
for these are the echoes,
these are the dreams
that are essential
above all else.

Nurture love,
tend the garden

Blessings are
these tears of love,
these peals of laughter
like a silken glove
held and yet unrestricted.

And then the flags, the tanks, and the shelling?

This tragedy is pathology,
the loving is all gone,
the culture says no breast-feeding in public,
it's more important
that you learn your Nations song!

Booooom!

~

What to do?

The first things that must be done is that states that organise violence on the scale that USUK and Israel and Russia and others do must be inhibited from doing so by their own populations - and in that populations across the Earth  must find ways to build solidarity and generate material support for each other in achieving this. We are in this together.

It is for the British population to control their State and Oligarchy who interfere in other countries.

It is for the American population to control their State and Oligarchy who interfere win other countries.

It is for each countries population to assert our right to self govern - it is not the  exclusive right of any ruling class,  no such right exists. The ruling class rules by might and leveraged power and that is, in this 21st Century, wholly illegitimate.

This means we must as people in humane, informed  intelligent solidarity take control of the democratic legislatures and write the laws that will control these powers and forces, and thus make them safe for people everywhere.

We need to do this just to get to the position where we can deal with Climate Change, Environmental Pollution, Air Particulate Pollution and poverty.

Climate change demands a psychological change among all democratic electorates.

We need peace to be able to work on Climate Change in meaningful ways.

Kindest regards 

Corneilius 

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

Stop the Spread Explained: Healthy people are the main spreaders, vulnerable people suffer the most.

Stop the Spread Explained - as best as I can manage as a lay person.

My attempt to explain in laymans terms what Stopping the Spread of an infectious disease is all about, when we have no vaccine and no preventative treatment - and yes, healthy fit people are the primary spreaders of the infection because they move about a lot more than chronically ill people do, and they do not present with as much symptoms, so they can spread and not be aware of it. Wearing masks takes this into account, It is a precautionary measure. . No blame here, this is just how this SARSCOV2 virus functions. And people with chronic disease and immune system compromised status are the ones who suffer the worst effects. That's a lot of people - in the UK it is 15 million people, in the USA it is 83 million people. A family, society or culture is very much defined by how it relates to and treats the most vulnerable within it.

Stop the spread, eliminate the virus from a population, be it a village, a town, a city, a region or a country is a whole raft of measures that are designed to stop the spread of infection when there is no vaccine - that means to get to a point where there is no more active virus in the population within the given zone or territory. It is not a pick n mix list, any country dedicated to eliminating the virus from the population must do all of it. The weakest link must be strengthened to ensure the whole program works most efficiently.

If the virus cannot find new human hosts, it cannot replicate.

Transmission of infection across the community ceases. It stops finding new human hosts.

Then the vulnerable are much better protected.

That is what we ought to be aiming for.

* Important repetitive note : this virus is primarily spread by healthy people who show no symptom and the people it harms the most are those who have chronic disease conditions that compromise their immune response. Other super spreaders are people with symptoms left to self treat at home, in shared living spaces, apartment complexes.

Tourists, Immigrants and Business people travelling on air travel, in cruise ships, on holidays and so on, were the primary vectors of this infectious viral disease.

In the UK the population with chronic conditions and immune compromised status numbers some 15 million people, and it is not just the elderly, over 70s or people in care homes (441,000). In the US that population is 83 million.

Across all developed states, the numbers of potentially vulnerable people are significant.

The vulnerable are much  larger part of our population than anyone has really acknowledged.

It is worth noting that a small percentage of healthy people with no known or unknown underlying conditions also suffer some of the worst effects. So there is a risk, a gamble so to speak, even if it is very tiny, for healthy people who are exposed to the virus.

But for the vulnerable that risk is much, much greater. It is not a gamble they need imposed upon them.

The task before us, therefore, is to protect the vulnerable population by stopping the virus in it's tracks.

It doesn't necessitate heavy lock down, even though some states have used that.

Usually the reason for heavy shut down is that the virus has been allowed to go further than it ought to have been allowed. Shut down is a response to uncontrolled transmission.

Learning from experience?

UK Government Economic and Political policy was to not panic, in order to 'protect the economy'. In essence to deliberately allow the viral infection to run through the population, which was touted as 'herd immunity' - an a-scientific 'theory'. That was the original position,

While that aspect of the policy was 'dropped' (they stopped mentioning it) , and then denied, (they claimed it was never part of their considerations - an outright lie)  the policy of allowing a slow spread has been  maintained, and as such it has amounted to a continuation of the same policy - let the people take it on the chin, the healthy will gain immunity, shut the vulnerable away for 12 weeks.

There is no scientific basis for this policy, and certainly no public health basis whatsoever.

Vietnam and New Zealand acted early, and assertively, they acted as soon as any cases emerged.

First known case in UK was confirmed on 31st January, a Chinese couple returning from China to Newcastle, it was announced January 31st.  They had been in country for at least a week before that confirmation. The Wuhan epidemic was in full flow, and the UK was still receiving travellers from China, with no health checks at an UK travel entry points.

At that stage Italy was also seeing confirmed cases, and the beginnings of an epidemic, with thousands of ski holiday travellers from UK returning from Italy over February, without adequate checking or quarantine at entry to the UK, there was more infection being imported into the UK.

The time to act assertively is always as soon as the first cases emerge that are confirmed. A point worth repeating. It is also true that assertive action to quell community transmission must be taken at all times. You cannot allow even a slow spread of an infectious disease when you have neither vaccine nor treatment.

That said even if the infection has hit 10, or 15 or 20 percent of a population, when there is no vaccine, the stop the spread or suppression of virus protocols still apply and can still be implemented, and if done well, the policy will work.

The basic suppression of virus infection protocol is this :

A. From the very first cases, Government must give the citizens accurate clear direct information on the virus, how it is transmitted, and be transparent and honest in all communications - the first suggestion is that all mass events, public transport etc be curtailed - these are super spreader events. The UK government failed on that policy as Cheltenham Racing weekend was allowed to happen and a number of Football matches were allowed to go ahead.

People are asked to stay home for 8-12 weeks.

The State must support the citizens income for that period, and it must be fairly distributed, so that they can bear the burden.

All that money will be channelled into the local economies, which eases the stress on the economy at the local level. It is not wasted money. It is an investment in the health and welfare of the people.

B. Social distancing principles are put in place, to slow the spread, to give time for contact tracing etc, to work.

The Government must always be ensuring that people are very well informed as to why - you do not want to order people, you want to give them exact, detailed evidence based information. so that they are engaged in the process.

C. It is obvious that all social care and medical facilities must be fully equipped with PPE and other technical and logistical support for dealing with infectious disease, and have the ability to maintain standard services for the people who need their attention and care.

In China and Vietnam they created isolation treatment hospitals fever hospitals,  for treatment of people at the earliest possible stage of symptoms, to keep those ill people who were shedding viral away from the community. This stopped the spread and reduced cases escalating to severe or critical.

This must be enabled in both public and private care and health care settings. This means that they must be set up away from main hospitals. There can be no cutting corners in either environment.

D. The same applies to all institutional residential settings. If prisoners become infected,they must be removed from general population and treated in isolation.

E. We do not need health care 'heroes' - we need health care properly supported, well trained, not over stretched or over worked. UK has failed on all these areas.

(East Asian states had SARS and MERS in recent memory so their populations were alert to the methods having gone through them previously. )

Here is the basic process:

1. A case turns up at hospital or GP surgery, saying "I have fever, cough etc since yesterday." The earlier they report better. This is not a 'flu to be treated at home.

2. That person is tested (not just for SARSVOC2 Virus, but also for Flu and other Fever inducing diseases) and if found positive, with any infectious disease, is placed into treatment away from main hospital services in a Fever Hospital.

Government covers their income for the duration of their stay, average 2 weeks.

The Chinese and others have learned that Fever Hospitals are an effective way to treat cases of a specific virus or pathogen away from existing services so that escalation of cases are reduced, and so that cases can get the earliest and best possible treatment available. This reduces case fatality rates and protects main hospital ICU units. Those main hospital units can be expanded, and staff trained, more readily than entirely new ICU Hospitals can be built and staffed.

3. The person is questioned on his or her movements going back a week (standard incubation time, during which he or she might have been shedding viral particles that could infect other people) to draw a list of potential infectees - the list will be every person that the case spent more than 15 minutes with, in close contact, with attention paid to any public transport or crowded areas.

4. Contact tracing teams go out and visit each of those contacts, to check for symptoms, give advice and inform them of a 2 week quarantine - if they have symptoms, they go to Fever Hospital, with a contact trace carried out of their case. If no symptoms they are advised to stay on quarantine, and get in touch if any symptoms emerge - Government covers their weekly income for the 2 weeks of quarantine.

5. Repeat this for all cases and what you are doing is slowly but surely isolating all active infections, keeping an eye on potential new cases and finding out where people who have had the virus and had no symptoms are. And yes, teams of well trained people, who are good communicators must be assembled for this task to cover a large outbreak. I repeat that if Government is doing it's job, the communications of what is needed will be clear to all citizens, and they will have confidence in the teams of contact tracers, and will engage.

6. This is essential on closing down on the active virus. Chase every case, all contacts until no new cases emerge.

It is labour intensive, and smart phone tech can help make it a bit easier, but it cannot replace the human contact point - for example if an outbreak of cases occurs in your town, or neighbourhood, everyone is notified, by text or map, and people go into extra tight shut down, with hyper awareness of what to do if they get symptoms, vulnerable people get isolation treatment to protect them from being infected, people can provide help in shopping etc..

7. This helps being more precise in action, it can work without a major shut down if people wear masks, follow the protocols and are well disciplined - in the UK people are well disciplined, but the media have hyped the few who were not..

Contact tracing and mass testing makes the virus visible. 

That's the point. If we know where it is, then we can close it down
.
Obviously quarantine is essential at the borders of any territory, for all incoming travel, to maintain a virus free zone.

At their own expense, if foreign travellers or business, and if nationals returning, then the state funds it - use hotels close to entry points. This must be mandatory as the risk in not doing it is to great.

It is a process that has been tried and tested, it was developed during 1917-18 Flu Pandemic (even though they had no testing, or phones they applied the other human labour aspects and it worked well in limiting spread where it wass applied) and then refined during SARS in 2002-3, and MERS in 2012, Ebola  in 2013 -16.

It is an essential process for when an infectious pathogen is active and there is no vaccine or preventative treatment, and it has lethal outcomes for a significant part of a population.

In the case of this virus, it is spread rapidly by health fit people who show no obvious signs and for this reason shut downs are designed to slow the spread - and then you need the protocol above to STOP the spread. If you shut down, and do not follow the other protocols, there will be a drop off of infection rate, and as soon as you open up again, it will take off.

If we do not stop the spread, and eradicate the virus within a population it will continue to be passed around and that will expose those who are vulnerable because it's movement is invisible.

I wrote this song as an upbeat political protest song comparing New Zealand and others with USA and UK. There is room for more than hope in this crisis because we see proof positive of the stop the spread protocols.

https://soundcloud.com/coreluminous/not-frightened-of-the-little-bugs

coreluminous · Jacinda and The Little Bugs

this track is available as a free download as a .wav file (High res) on Soundcloud (above)

 or on Reverbnation as an ,mp3 file.

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius/song/31767315-jacinda-and-the-little-bugs

----

Useful links

Short paper: Did we Eradicate SARS? Lessons Learned and the Way Forward

https://biomedgrid.com/pdf/AJBSR.MS.ID.001017.pdf

Guardian Article: "I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/epidemiologist-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

Lancet paper on: Can we contain the COVID-19 outbreak with the same measures as for SARS?

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30129-8/fulltext

Wiki Page : Eradication of Infectious Diseases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_diseases

NHS England : Corona Virus - Expert Interview - What is contact tracing?

https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/13/expert-interview-what-is-contact-tracing

Time Article : What We Can Learn From Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong About Handling Coronavirus

https://www.time.com/5802293/coronavirus-covid19-singapore-hong-kong-taiwan/

PR news article : Korean Government Communications during Corona Virus Epidemic

https://www.prnewsonline.com/South+Korea-coronavirus-communication

Vietnam's story - How Vietnam is winning its 'war' on coronavirus

https://www.dw.com/en/how-vietnam-is-winning-its-war-on-coronavirus/a-52929967

New Zealand:  New Zealand has ‘effectively eliminated’ coronavirus. Here’s what they did right

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/2020/04/what-new-zealand-did-right-in-battling-coronavirus/


Fever Hospitals in Wuhan

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30744-3/fulltext

Fever Hospitals

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3078397/china-style-makeshift-hospitals-could-help-coronavirus-hit

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"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.

Thank you for reading this blog.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received

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1916, 2016, Terrorism and Murder.

1916, 2016, Terrorism and Murder.

I was ‘raised’ to believe that the British Empire was cruel and vicious in it’s treatment of the Irish. The Fight for Irish Freedom!

Stories of oppression were caricatured, and there was only image, polemic, emotion perhaps yet no real feeling, no empathy for the poor as poor people; Ireland in the 1970s was not a good pace to be poor. It was pitiless. In a very Catholic and bank friendly way.

I was also ‘taught’ to think of the British Empire was a good influence on the World and all it’s peoples. Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation.

The British Empire, and all empires are at the core of Human Progress. I passed all my exams.

I was ‘schooled’ in the History of Kings, Queens, Princes, Wars, Winners and Losers and ‘learned’ to ‘celebrate’ their ‘achievements’ an to duly ‘appreciate’ their‘ legacy’

The reality of the lives of those who suffered at their hands was a rare footnote.

Most often their bit part in History was to perform as ‘stout yeomanry’ who fought ‘great battles’ or ‘simple’ folk, who toiled on the land, ‘protected’ by their Lords.

Great movies of great battles with great speeches by well  known celebrity actors, the historical drama, the almost documentary retelling of the myth is the most seductive manner possible. Heroes kissing their female conquests in between bloody battles, often still covered in the dirt of war; the woman soothes the warrior, she does not scold him.

There were a few bad apples, of course.

Just a few.   

People like Spartacus and Robin Hood sorted them out, put them in their place, if only for a brief moment. This underpinned the sense that justice exists, with the subtext that seeking it is futile and lethal alongside the inevitability of Power and Rulers, War and Taxes.

All of this guaranteed by God.

As if it was all ‘normal’ human behaviour.

This is what I was led to believe.

I was ‘radicalised’.

I don’t believe any of it.

It’s all propaganda.

It’s shit.

1916 was a shit thing to do, a shit thing to be involved in.

In consequence many more shit things were done,  guerrilla war,  independence war, civil war, economic war, religious war…

leading directly to the Dictatorship of Church and State in Ireland, a cabal that for 80 years masqueraded as beacon of Democracy on the International ‘stage’, all the whle managing the incarceration hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in religious and state care, where they were subjected to unfathomable, protracted, horrific physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse, which was covered up by people who were not the perpetrators, who were ‘in loco parentis’ and this double breach of trust is still being ‘managed’ by Church and State in Ireland ….

That’s a shit thing to have done, to be still doing. And it’s not like the current set-up has made an effort – what accountability exists, does so because it’s all been driven by Survivors coming forwards and fighting with all their might against a hesitant, obstructive state and resistant deceitful Church. T

1916! The Banks!

1916! The Tyrrelstown evictions!

1916! The Magdalene Launderies!

1916! Mothers and Babies Homes!

1916! Catholic Baby Trafficking!

1916! Enda Kenny!

1916! Charlie Haughey!

Yeah, Right!

1916! LGBT Rights! ????

They don’t go together. Those rights were attained by peace, by struggle yes, but not by the gun. This supercedes 1916 in every way possible,  and they are a maturation of the political process amongst the grass roots of society, and the most effective way in which to challenge and confront oppressions.

They were a recognition of humanity that has been dealt with openly, honestly and with all due remorse and shame for the previous institutionalised marginalisation and bigotry, and a desire in people for human  justice, justice, justice!

1916, 1922, 2016…… look around you, my Irish brothers and sisters. What do you see?

Be honest and fearless, and kind. Be very kind, indeed.

All the men with guns are terrorists, they are murderers. The legal definitions are irrelevant to human flesh and bone, to the reality of that kind of violence, on all ‘sides’.

I will not glorify it. I will not justify it.

I will subject it to a substantial critique based on the evidence, the outcomes.

Tom Clarke, the 'leader' of 1916 was driven by revenge, religion and ideology, not by love. He was a 'radicaliser', he was a 'mentor', a manipulator and he was a 'jihadist' teacher. He was a Wahhabist. Religion as justification for murder. Funding for militia. Training Camps. Those who want to can justify anything, defend the indefensible.

Understand 1916 in the context of 'The Troubles'.

The NI Civil Rights Movement that was about poverty; institutional discrimination and deliberate impoverishment. It was not about Republicanism vs Unionsim. That was injected into the shituation to undermine the Civil Rights narrative. Collusion. Secret undercover 'operatives' working for the British Security State, an all the militia, escalated the violence and the narrative changed. And they have maintained that pretense for decades. A movement of integrity that is seeking Civil Rights is more of a threat to Power than any violent militia.

The irony of the times, the 1916/2016 mirroring shows that whilst the people are growing in awareness, the rulers are becoming ever more blatant about their position, and their media parrots these lies and false narratives because they cannot acknowledge that growing awareness, as it's emergence after centuries of delusion exposes their primary insecurities, which being narcissistic in nature they take very, very personally  and deep within their reactionary violence their souls are charged with fear.

Selfish fear. Lethal fear.

Power has one directive : to retain, enhance and project that power. Everything it does submits to these necessities.  Everything it does can be understood through this paradigm. The Bully, the Institution. They are the same thing, at different degrees.

Bullies replacing bullies is not Freedom.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Survivors Insights ignored by The Church and The State

Again and again we see that Survivors insights and experience, and thus their real needs, are to a large degree sidelined as both Government and The Church craft 'responses' to the situation.

We are invited to make representations, we are to a degree consulted, yet in the finalised outcomes the decisions made are from the point of view of Government and The Church and how they wish to frame their liabilities, and the consultation appears to be a matter of form, rather than substance.

In recent days we have had the completion of the review by the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva of The Vatican's response to the world wide child abuse issue within it's own institutions, and the announcement of  the Irish Catholic Church's 'Towards Peace' support service.

The United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child has criticised the Vatican for it's actions to the present date, and as yet has to issue further comments and determine further action.

Eyewitness accounts and the transcripts will show that The Vatican has not altered it's course and is maintaining a strategic approach to the 'problem', rather than being open, honest, vulnerable and seeking a just resolution for all concerned.

The 'Towards Peace' support service has been launched without the detailed input of survivors, which had been promised. However what is true of the Vatican is also true of The Irish Catholic Church. Their approach is strategic, rather than open and honest.

In Australia, there is The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which has been working since early April 2013, and is continuing as I write. In this inquiry over 5000 survivors gave evidence, as did the Church and other bodies... One of the targets of this Inquiry is the "Towards Healing" process crafted under the aegis of Archbishop Pell in Melbourne, for whom Tony Abbot has recently issued statements of support.

And yet again, at this level of Inquiry, we see the same 'strategic' approach from the Australian Catholic Church, although with the evidence of 5000 people to counter it, it will take some assistance from the Abbot Government to 'help' the Church 'manage' this situation.

"To date evidence showed the process failed some abuse victims who found it as traumatic as the original abuse because of the legalistic approach taken by the church.

Towards Healing will be the subject of several case studies by the commission which will hold public hearings in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia as well as in NSW before June this year"
source: http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/child-abuse-inquiry-reopens-in-sydney/story-fnjbnvyj-1226805484854


This same approach, that of acknowledging abuse only when Survviors come forward into the public domain, and then 'managing' the response to protect the status and image of both Church and State has been seen in every case where Survivors have come forward.

Across the world, both The State and it's institutions and The Church and it's institutions  are obviously concerned about their roles in the abuse, the cover-ups and mismanagement of investigations, and understand that they have a liability that can be expanded if they are 100% honest and they seek to reduce or minimise that liability.

Whilst this is to be expected and is indeed standard corporate practice, it remains the fact that it is moral cowardice, and that Survivors lives are impacted by this management approach. It is also true that this impacts not only the Survivor, but their families and the wider society, as well as doing little to protect children, and other vulnerable people, from future abuses.

It also is a misunderstanding of the intent of the vast majority of Survivors, whose aim is to a) have the truth told and understood b) prevent further abuses (and the 'management' of exposure of abuse) c) regain some degree of healing in our own lives, and in the life of the community, the State and The Church.

We Survivors are gifting the world with our concern, our stories. The changes we represent can only increase nurturing in our Society. That's the fullest truth here.

It's long past the time that all this was recognised and responded to accordingly, not only by Government and The Church, but by society at large, by the people who sit in pews and pray and by all parents and caring people.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

George Monbiot, Pope Francis the 'reformer' and Junipero Serra

George Monbiot, in an article in the Guardian, explores the myth of Pope Francis, the Liberal, the Reformer.

I quote from his article. It's worth reading.

For Pope Francis the liberal, this promises to be a very bloody Sunday

Francis is the poster pope for progressives. But the canonisation of Junípero Serra epitomises the Catholic history problem

"Nowhere is the church's denial better exemplified than in its drive to canonise the Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra, whose 300th anniversary falls on Sunday. Serra's cult epitomises the Catholic problem with history – as well as the lies that underpin the founding myths of the United States.

You can find his statue on Capitol Hill, his face on postage stamps, and his name plastered across schools and streets and trails all over California. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II, after a nun was apparently cured of lupus, and now awaits a second miracle to become a saint. So what's the problem? Oh, just that he founded the system of labour camps that expedited California's cultural genocide.

Serra personified the glitter-eyed fanaticism that blinded Catholic missionaries to the horrors they inflicted on the native peoples of the Americas. Working first in Mexico, then in Baja California (which is now part of Mexico), and then Alta California (now the US state of California), he presided over a system of astonishing brutality. Through various bribes and ruses Native Americans were enticed to join the missions he founded. Once they had joined, they were forbidden to leave. If they tried to escape, they were rounded up by soldiers then whipped by the missionaries. Any disobedience was punished by the stocks or the lash.

They were, according to a written complaint, forced to work in the fields from sunrise until after dark, and fed just a fraction of what was required to sustain them. Weakened by overwork and hunger, packed together with little more space than slave ships provided, they died, mostly of European diseases, in their tens of thousands.

Serra's missions were an essential instrument of Spanish and then American colonisation. This is why so many Californian cities have saints' names: they were founded as missions. But in his treatment of the indigenous people, he went beyond even the grim demands of the crown. Felipe de Neve, a governor of the Californias, expressed his horror at Serra's methods, complaining that the fate of the missionised people was "worse than that of slaves". 

As Steven Hackel documents in his new biography, Serra sabotaged Neve's attempts to permit Native Americans a measure of self-governance, which threatened Serra's dominion over their lives.

The diverse, sophisticated and self-reliant people of California were reduced by the missions to desperate peonage. Between 1769, when Serra arrived in Alta California, and 1821 – when Spanish rule ended – its Native American population fell by one third, to 200,000.

Serra's claim to sainthood can be sustained only by erasing the native peoples of California a second time, and there is a noisy lobby with this purpose. Serra's hagiographies explain how he mortified his own flesh; they tell us nothing about how he mortified the flesh of other people."

How will Pope Francis deal with this matter? The prognosis is not good.

Why? Well here's a little Irish and Australian History and current affairs for my readers and other interested parties.

When the English King Henry II invaded Ireland, in 1169, he did so with the approval and 'Authority' of the then Pope, Pope Adrian IV.

The authorising document, Laudabilter, issued in 1155, by Pope Adrian IV, noted that the Irish Christians were heretical, and that Henry's invasion was being actioned and authorised by the Pope to save their souls.

The unspoken deal worked like this : "you can take the land as long as you promise attempt to convert the heretics, bringing them back into the 'fold' and thus saving their souls; those who refuse are condemned by their refusal, and therefore annihilating them is of no consequence, as their refusal condemns them to hell."

This became a 'standard' by which colonisation and extirpation of Aboriginal 'heathen' Peoples was supported by the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. It was and remains a commercial venture, more than a spiritual one.

The Magdalene Laundries.


The Industrial Schools in Ireland.

The Indian Residential Boarding Schools in Canada and North America.

Institutions that were extant into the 1990s and that were the subject of intense Church and Government activity in terms of 'damage limitation' exercises across the globe. The story of Kevin Annets 'trial' by which he was removed not just from his ministry as a United Church Pastor in Port Alberni, but his entire career destroyed, his family disrupted and his name slandered, over a simple yet illegal land deal that if exposed threatened commercial interests, and their friends in Government as well as the Church.


There are living Survivors of these Institutions, seeking some kind of resolution and justice.


In July this year, the 4 orders of Nuns involved in the Magdalene Laundries refused to hand over ANY compensation to the remaining Survivors of those hellish prisons. The Irish Government is still indemnifying the Vatican with regard to it's liabilities, and it is still falling short in meeting the needs of Survivors in terms of services, transparency and accountability.

The same applies to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada and North America, and the living Survivors of those horrid 'boarding schools'. All the so-called Truth and reconciliation processes have been reduced to management processes, rather than genuine healing processes. Spin more than substance.

And this affects the next generation, the next, in as much as intergenerational trauma is a scientific and experiential reality. What is unresolved gets passed on. Pain is transmitted. Children get hurt.

In all these stories, there were and are commercial interests at stake, as well as a culture's very existence and peoples lives.

What would Jesus have the Vatican and other Churches involved do? What would he have the Governments do?

One can see this in some more detail in the way the Aboriginal People of North Western Australia are being 'served' by the Australian Government today.

Tony Abbot, who replaced Julia Gillard, is a good friend of Archbishop Pell, who has been 'managing' the 'scandal' of Church cover-ups of serial pedophiles who had free rein within Church orphanages and Aboriginal Residential Schools.

Julia Gillard instigated the current Judicial Inquiry underway  in Australia into these matters, her removal has suited the Church more than it has suited the Australian electorate.

 Such is the Power of the Vatican.

The 'intervention' in the North Western Territories was pushed forward after Aboriginal Leaders refused to give over their land rights in exchange for more Government help with their problems. The 'intervention' was mooted on the false charge that there was widespread sexual abuse of children within the Aboriginal Community and the Government had to step in. A cruel irony. such is the Power of the Mining conglomerates.

The reality is that anyone who expects meaningful reform in the Catholic Church does not understand the true character of this Institution. They are naive, which is understandable. Whilst it is true that it's history, and the details are well documented, they are not widely known,much less understood.

The same applies to corporate driven State Governance, wherever it exists....

Furthermore, the only way to counter this is widespread public information campaigns based on confirmed data, documented evidence and crucially, the voices of those who have been oppressed..

For example, I have rarely heard Survivors voices been given a fair hearing in the mainstream media, and this includes the Guardian, who misquoted my own words, my meaning and my intent, which was and remains wholly honourable, in this report in 2010.

My case is the rule, rather than the exception I know there are many, many voices more worthy than mine, many whose needs are far greater. I think I got away lightly compared to the horrors others have survived. Or not. So many did not survive.

I gave a full and detailed account of myself, outside Lambeth Palace, as I was waiting to see the Pope with other protesters, and activists, to Helen Pidd. Her editor 'edited' the piece and reduced my statement to farce. I have been writing on this issue for more than 5 years. I have been living with the realities on my own experience for all of my life.

The BBC gave sycophantic fawning coverage to Pope Benedict's 'tour' of the UK and it's bias did untold damage to Survivors efforts to bring their voices to the public.

It is  the media were made to account for themselves, in as much as their 'reportage' of these matters has exacerbated the problem, rather than helped to resolve it.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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