Showing posts with label Sarah Everard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Everard. Show all posts

Power, Institutions and Sexual Violence: the vulnerable, the victimised, the bystander

For Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and 77 women in England who have been murdered since Sarah's case, and for the millions of women who endure a culture of sexualised oppression. For my mother, my sisters, their sons and daughters, for my daughter and for all her contemporaries. For every boy and girl growing up in this culture. For our present, and all our futures.


I have written many, many, articles over the past 20 years, about the issue of women's safetysexual violence, genderism, misogyny, misandry, child abuse, trauma and culture. I am deeply effected by this issue. We all are.

The problem is a  cultural problem, and denying this is putting off the inevitable, it is exposing more women, children and men to more harm and is yet another infuriatingly banal evil. We must come to our senses.

Ever since I first heard the phrase "The Democracy of Fear", a phrase coined by Robin Morgan, it has has rung around my head and psyche. That ever present fear is debilitating, energy sapping and all the more so because the behaviour of cultural maleness is antagonistic, it carries an expectation of entitlement to women's bodies. The fear that so many women carry, that at any point she may be targeted by a man, for sexualised innuendo, banter, harassment, assault or murder. 

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/09/24/can-women-be-safe-in-britain-when-the-police-fail-to-hold-their-own-to-account/ - an article by Sian Norris of Byline Times asks the question "how can women feel safe when it is clear that the police as an institution, and the courts are both failing them?"

"Safety is more than a word. It can’t simply be stated and then, like magic, the fears evaporate. For women, safety starts with having equal access to public space as their male peers. It is not being told to stay home, walk in groups, avoid the dark, take out your headphones, don’t wear this colour clothing, or this length of skirt, don’t get drunk, just leave him. It’s knowing that when the worst happens, you’ll be believed and not blamed. 

Safety also means that, when the worst happens, the people who are in charge of supporting women to find justice are not, in fact, perpetrators themselves.

How can women feel safe in London, and across the UK, when those charged with keeping us safe are guilty themselves – both of the crimes they are investigating, and of failing to care? "

I think that there are four threads to this problem - the personality of the abuser, the culture out of which the abuser emerges, the vulnerability of the victimised and the attitudes of the bystander.

Vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is a situation. Vulnerability is a situation that abusers exploit. The urge to dominate exploits vulnerability. The urge to dominate leverages power to be able to exploit any vulnerability and then get away with it.

As bystanders we all understand that we too are vulnerable. Even if we do not consciously acknowledge it. There is an element of fatalism in the bystander setting. We won't get involved because we cannot change things or fear it might be dangerous.

I am think that resolving the problem has to involve all of these threads, woven into a congruent material that permeates out entire culture. 

Our culture is a dominator system, with co-operation trying to emerge all the time, stymied by those who hold power and are addicted to it.


As to the personality, the matter confronts us with the need for a much more honest, humane and evidence led approach to education, with a focus on supporting healthy parenting, providing safe and well informed child care as ways to prevent the development of psychologies of bullying.  

All institutions of the State must be better informed by behavioural and developmental science, not least by being intentionally aware of trauma informed approaches. 

All of these elements must be supported by economic security. All of this because we are aware of the dynamics of traumatised behaviour patterns without being sentimental or judgemental about these issues.

In short, adverse abusive behaviours in adults are most often rooted in childhood trauma, they are learned behaviours and they start early, and there are plenty signals that are missed, opportunities to intervene and help the individual to re-set. Prevention is always a sound option. Bullying is rife in our culture. 

Punishment is already too late.

Punishment is too late, yet justice can build safety. There is no 'punishment' that fixes the behaviour of the psychopathic abuser, who acts without remorse - the only safe approach is to set the abuser aside from society, indefinitely, as a matter of health and safety of the community. 

It it best done as humanely as possible. Punishment does not help the people victimised as much as knowing that the abuser can never harm anyone again, or ever step into society, free to abuse more people. The safety of the survivor is the key element that underpins the safety of the community. If the survivor does not feel safe, then the community is not safe. Prevention is critical.

Stopping an abuser from being able to abuse is one part, generating a cultural social material environment where all abuse is rendered immediately visible and accountable is another part. Act on the earliest signs. Thwart the development of bullying as a behavioural dynamic as early as possible. Wherever it emerges. As soon as it emerges.

Why is bullying still common in schools?

Why are school girls subjected to sexualised harassment in schools?

Why is this allowed to happen? Why is this not at the very centre of the curriculum, at the very core of what is taught? It is more important than maths, more necessary than geography, more critical than literature, more vital to health than PE.

What is going on here?

Why are so many responsible adults in Education reduced to impotent bystanders?

Culture

The cultural problem is linked into the prevailing systems of hierarchy of wealth, power and violence. Wealth assumes power, and protects that power with many forms of violence. This is undeniable.

Misogyny is rooted in that power system.  The urge to dominate and exploit is rooted in, inculcated and exploited within that social power system. Domination is the core driving ideology of the prevailing power system, and it absolutely impacts all our lives, all our interactions, all our social settings. 

Institutions protect their power, their status and their image rather than adopt material changes that protect the vulnerable. They prefer that those who are abusive within their ranks are dealt with privately. They typically fail  to act on the earliest signs, they allow abusers to get away with 'minor infractions' and when serious abuses occur, the institutions prefer to keep the matter private, for internal investigation and action.

"Sarah Everard's killer exchanged ­misogynistic, racist and homophobic material with colleagues who are now under criminal investigation. Five serving police officers, including three from the Metropolitan Police, allegedly shared grossly offensive material with Wayne Couzens."

Source : https://inews.co.uk/news/wayne-couzens-sarah-everard-killer-shared-abusive-texts-police-officers-white-1227149


Team work, no attempt at de-escalation.

Given the social power structural dynamics, the silo effect of 'the team', 'us against the mob', us and 'civilians', the separation between officials and citizens at large, there is plenty room for abusers to wriggle out of full accountability. They can operate within the institution as little groups of similarly minded individuals, invisible among the crowd.

We have plenty evidence that this - closing ranks, internal inquiry - is the prevailing pattern or response to survivors who speak out. Ranks are closed. The Institutions seek to insulate themselves by claiming the abuser is a bad apple. 

Most people are decent.

Most people are bystanders. Most people are ruled by a minority. That minority are jealous of their power, and they protect it, and most people pay the price, bear the cost, endure the oppressive burden of that jealousy.  That must cease to be the case. Everything that is problematic about this culture is coming to the surface. Sexual Assault and  Harassment of Women by Men is one of these problems. 

Most women experience sexualised and genderised oppressions to some degree. Why do we know this?

We know this mostly because the victimised, the harassed, the assaulted are speaking out, courageously, congruently, persistently. Survivors voices and those of their advocates speak out, and they speak for for the dead who no longer can speak.

Four threads, one weave, a congruent garment. There is much more to this than this writer can articulate.

#enoughisenough

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.

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They Fought The Law and They Won - The Colston Four Supporters, The Sarah Everard Vigil and The Colston Four Victory!

Yay! The Colston Four have been acquitted of Criminal Damage! 

Well done every one involved.

Police pay 'substantial' damages and apologise to Colston 4 protesters after court arrests


From left, Rowland Dye, Ros Martin and Taus Larsen all received an apology from Avon and Somerset police for wrongfully arresting them under an unlawful interpretation of Covid regulations. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian
The four were wrongly arrested outside court for expressing support for those charged with toppling Edward Colston's statue. The Statue was erected many years after his death, erected by a local cult in his name.  Here is a local report on the Court case:
"Four people who protested in support of the ‘Colston Four’ before their first court hearing in January have received ‘substantial damages’.
And Avon and Somerset Police’s Chief Constable has also issued an apology.
In an out-of-court settlement, Chief Constable Andy Marsh has agreed that the four people should not have been arrested and fined for turning up outside Bristol Magistrates Court back in January, when England was under a ‘stay-at-home’ coronavirus lockdown law.
The four were arrested, taken to a police station and issued with fines, but those have now been cancelled and instead, the four have received compensation pay outs for damages.
Police have admitted that they should not have been arrested, and should have been given the chance to leave the area after being warned."

They fought the Law, and they won!

I know one of the protestors, who is a good friend, and I know he to be a very kind human and very intelligent. I wrote a song about this incident, rewriting "I fought the Law and the Law won!" as "They fought the Law, and they won!" Because they did. Good for them, too. Good for the police as well, to admit their error and pay the reparations. I hope they do it with kindness, humility and grace.

Here is a live performance of the song, from my studio, as part of my weekly show "Stopping the Spread is Spreading The Love!" There are links to MP3 and CD Quality downloads at the end of this blog article. All free, as usual. Enjoy.



What is really strange about this tale is that every protestor was given an order by police officers and every protester complied with the order, yet was arrested nonetheless. The two who chalked 'Support the Colston Four' and 'Let Justice Prevail' were arrested on criminal damage grounds, then de-arrested, and re-arrested from breach of COVID19 Regulations - which they were clearly not on breach of, as they were wearing facemasks, and maintaining physical distance. All four were issued with fines. The  Bristol Magistrates Court cleared them and awarded costs and compensation to the four protestors.

Reclaim These Streets and the Sarah Everard Vigil

I also added a verse about the High Court Case on behalf of 'Reclaim These Streets', which affirmed that COVID19 regulations could not be used to ban protests. We all know about the events at the Vigil for Sarah Everard. The facts that the police tried to ban the vigil on COVID19 Regulation grounds, even though Reclaim These Streets had made provision for a COVID19 safe event, with stewarding, physical distancing, PA system so no need to shout, etc was said by the court to be a misuse of the COVID19 Regulation.

The London Met withdrew from the case, and offered to support the vigil, and then dropped that offer. The Reclaim These Streets people were forced then to call off the official vigil. London Met was aware that citizens would gather anyway. They did and it was by all accounts well organised, respectful, COVID19 secure. The police waited until after dark to move in on the Bandstand, and physically removed some of the women who were occupying it.

Here is the interim judgement from the High Court asserting that the COVID19 Regulations did not amount to the right to ban protests.

https://www.bindmans.com/news/interim-judgement-on-reclaim-these-streets-vigil-published

Sonny Curtiss and The Clash

The Clash covered this song "I fought the Law" in the 80s, which was written by Sonny Curtiss, way, way back in the 1950s, when he was still in the US Army. I think that, given the subject matter is about a poor person using weapons to carry out a robbery, being arrested and jailed it has some merit as a folk song. However, Sonny was not thinking of that at the time, He just made the whole thing up. So in truth, it's not really a true folk song.

In writing this rewrite, I hope to fix that, and to enhance the depth of the folk story to articulate something of the poverty of healthy policing in England, 202.

Where all too often, Police forces do not and are not capable of responding in a trauma informed way to the prevalence of gendered abuse and violence, to survivors of grooming gangs, child abusers, rapists. A country where the Establishment can assert there is no institutional Racism by citing experts who were never engaged with, spoken to or asked for submissions.

 Where the Prime Ministers love affairs and his choice of expensive wall paper carry more weight in  the national public media discourse than the matter of the Prime Minister and Government rejecting zero community transmission strategy out of hand, and providing contracts to cronies worth billions of pounds, doling out hundreds of millions in the middle men's commissions, ill gained easy profits that are probably off-shored by now, in spite of the evidence and ample warnings by experts, the combination of which lead directly to the deaths of 130,000 citizens, chronic disease in 350,000, with some 3 million small business people excluded from financial support as icing on this bitter cake,  and much else besides.

Arrest the Criminals!

I have been saying since April 2020 that Johnson and the entire Cabinet should have been arrested last April to prevent further harm, on grounds of malfeasance in public office and corporate manslaughter. What is justice if it does not prevent harm?

COVID19 Regulations and COVID Deniers!

And since we're here, it's clear that the COVID19 Regulations are not equivalent to serious removals of Civil Rights as much as they are necessary Public Health and Health and Safety Measures needed during a badly managed epidemic, an epidemic which is not over yet.

Those Regulations are temporary, requiring a vote in Parliament every 6 months for their extension.  The fact that they are not the best regulations, that they do not provide for effective zero community transmission strategy is another worrying injustice. That failure to provide for zero community transmission is more of a concern than putative claims that civil rights and liberties are being trampled over. The nations right to adequate and timely health care is being placed at risk. That should concern us all.

We all know that Laws brought in as temporary measures often become permanent fixtures. The first laws drafted to extract Income Tax from workers wages were a temporary measure to help fund wars in Europe in 1799, brought in by William Pitt the Younger. So it goes.

What my friend and others have demonstrated is that the COVID19 regulations as they stand are not really part of a conspiracy of tyranny and that the Courts are well able to assess their validity in ways that protect our liberties and civil rights.

The nut-case COVID denying, anti-mask, anti-vax propaganda does infringe on our rights, by generating a genuine health and safety risk. They have directly contributed to, they have added to the  confusion emanating from 10 Downing Street, by muddying the waters so to speak, in ways that have  caused three successive surges of infection.

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/02/02/cambridge-analytica-psychologist-advising-global-covid-19-disinformation-network-linked-to-nigel-farage-and-conservative-party/

Political Grooming Gangsters infringe on all our rights by conducting psychologically abusive media campaigns and operations designed to target and exploit studied biases and vulnerabilities for political and economic advantage over otherwise decent people. This is an issue we must address.

My other COVID 19 songs.

I have other songs that deal with aspects of this dreadful shituation - 'We know how to groom you' , 'Bully, Bully, Bully',  'Be Alert!'  and 'Jacinda and The Little Bugs'

They Fought The Law and They Won

Here is the track on Soundcloud, downloadable as a CD quality .wav file.

https://soundcloud.com/coreluminous/they-fought-the-law-for-the-colston-four

Here is the track on Reverbnation, downloadable as a 192k .mp3 file.

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius/song/32618267-they-fought-law-and-won-for-colston

Both links go to the song page on their respective sites, you will need to download from there.

Lyrics:

The Colston Four were on trial 
for toppling the slavers statue 
people came by to support
outside Bristol Magistrates Court

Mr Larsen on his bike and trailer, playing reggae music
at a safe distance,  for the defendants in the trial, 
bringing a big,big, big smile
officer told him he could not stay, agreed he could cycle past on the road. 
Larsen was arrested  on the spot
breach of coronavirus rules he was told
"I was in a safe place, I wasn’t endangering 
anyone’s health, wasn’t posing a risk 
I wasn’t going to be spreading no infection, you know I'm not that sick!"

He  fought the Law and he won! They  fought the Law and they won!

Mr Dye, a retired teacher, had education in mind
stood on the court steps, with his sign
"Slave trade. Arms trade. Bristol wake up!”
officer said 'move on', Mr. Dye he agreed
but he was arrested as he tried to walk away.

He fought the law, and he won! They fought the law, and they won!
 
Ms Richardson, A gardener, came to plant some seeds 
"Support the Colston Four" she chalked on the sidewalk
Ros Martin, the artist then  arrived, 
“Let justice prevail.” she chalked on the pavement 
when ordered to leave they complied, 
yet they were arrested side by side
for criminal damage, then de-arrested, and
re-arrested for breach of the Covid  rules.

They fought the Law and they won! They fought the Law and they won!

Jessica, Anna, Henna and Jamie went to the high court to clarify
Corona Safety Laws cannot be applied
to ban protest, that  is misuse of the law.
London Met accepted, but would not help out
they broke into the vigil, which Priti gave the shout

They fought the law and they won!  They fought the Law and they won!

New Verse written 6th January 2022!

Jake, Rhian, Milo and Sage 
Were sent to trial for criminal damage
For toppling the Statue of a Slaver
Colston's legacy of harm celebrated
Bristol's folk had tried for decades
to have that Statue taken down
The people decided to take action
The Courts said clearly that was not a crime.


-----

And yes, Colston was a slaver, he caused immense harm and that harm is harm that cannot be undone and thus cannot be set aside due the logically fallacious argument that it was part of 'mores of the times' and we ought to consider Colston's philanthropy as mitigation. 

That's a ludicrous argument, without merit.

More information has been passed my way via the Bristol Radical History group.

https://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/myths-within-myths/

In this rather superb article, the BRH folk looked at The Colston Statue and it's history and unveil myths within myths, and unearthed some astonishing insights.

One of which is the general working public of Bristol refused to fund the making and erection of the Statue. Another is that it represents an early form of the current NeoLiberalist cult of the individual, and the right or entitlement of wealthy individuals charity to assume moral superiority - in essence those who impoverish the community by doling out limited alms retain an authoritarian and spiritual position of superiority to the mass.

The article highlights how important an accurate and honest history really is. The statue topplers were correct to topple it: such a characterisation and ritualised celebration of venal avarice has no place in a healthy 21st century city.

Rees-Moggs comments on the goodness of food banks ignores the depravity of venal avarice among his peers that created the need in the first place:

"To have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are," he said.

"Inevitably, the state can't do everything, so I think that there is good within food banks.

"The real reason for the rise in numbers is that people know that they are there and Labour deliberately didn't tell them."

Rees-Mogg is someone who needs toppling from his lofty position, quite clearly.

Another example of the 'benefits' accrued by the Wealthy in praising publicly the appearances of charity rather than undertaking any genuine change in the conditions the created the need in the first place. 

From the BRH article :

"For example, in 1884, the combined contribution of all the Colston related charities made up only 1.5 per cent of the total cost of relieving the poor that year. Not only was the amount collected fairly insignificant, despite all the fanfare, but it was also distributed in a badly organised and arbitrary manner. A report into the condition of the poor in Bristol published in 1885 directly criticised the Colston Societies in stating:

The higher interest of charity will not be served, it appears to the Committee, until… the total sum collected by the three societies is distributed on some general and well-conceived plan.[14]

This kind of criticism of private philanthropy grew in the late nineteenth century as it became clear that the charitable donations provided at the whim of a few rich ‘do-gooders’ could not deal with the widespread, chronic and abject poverty that characterised the Victorian era. However, public displays of charity by business and civic elites had another, perhaps more important, role than merely poor relief. Jordan notes that:

Although the fiscal contribution of the Colston Societies was superficial this should not lead one to understate the importance of philanthropy as ritual in the maintenance of urban power structures.[15]

Thus the ritual and ideological aspects of the ‘cult of Colston’ may have far outweighed the actual practical benefits to the ‘poor’.

And so it goes. More than statues need to be toppled in 21st Century England.



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.

https://patreon.com/corneilius

https://www.reverbnation.com/corneilius

https://www.corneilius.net

https://www.soundcloud.com/coreluminous








"It is too many men, too much of the time" , with too much impunity - it is the culture we live in.

If, as a male, a man, a person and my response or reaction to the calls of women on the issue of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, misogyny and gender prejudice is 'it's not all men" and if I make that statement to defend myself, if I make that statement because I feel personally insulted, slighted, labelled or that I am being made the object of prejudice, as one of a class, then it's pretty certain that I am missing the point.

More importantly it's clear that my reaction is about me, rather than the quality of the welfare, the health and and the safety of women who live with being mistreated by many men, within a culture of misogyny and sexism. women. Which is missing the point. I'm not the point here. The lived experience of women. Matters.


 A woman wanted to speak at the band stand and was impeded by police action.

The women have not said that it is all men, they have said it is too many men, too much of the time, with too much impunity.  Black Lives Matter do not say it is all white people, they said it is too many Racist police, too much of the time with too much impunity. And that is a fair point, because it is true. There are too many Racist policemen causing harm to black citizens because they hold wildly inaccurate views about Race, and too many of those who get away with the harm they are causing.

It is too many women, who too often endure gendered, sexist and sexualised abuse and never receive justice within a patriarchy rooted social power system.

Too many men, too much of the time, with too much impunity. It's not aimed at me, as a personal attack.

I know I am not that kind of person. and that it has nothing to do with the accident of my maleness.

Yes, I did not chose my born sex, nor did I chose the role dynamics the culture imposes.  It's an accident of birth. I can choose to reject those culturally imposed values and I do. Because the culture that imposes those 'values' is a rooted in patriarchal violence and bullying. I saw through that a long time ago.

That said,  I do und erstand that when meeting a woman who does not know me, that if her lived experience has shown her that some men are predators, that some men can make a predatory move when it is least expected, and that there is no accurate measure or means to predict this, and she has been hurt, wounded, terrorised by that behaviour, and she knows other women have similar experiences such that it is common place, then she will be wary of me. Well yes, of course.

If I were in her shoes, I'd be wary too.

I have been assaulted a number of times. I understand. I don't fully know what it is like to be subject to uninvited stares, sexual advances, lewd comments, 'banter' day in day out. It can't be comfortable.

-----

The men who react with "it's not all men!" have not heard the majority of women cry "It is all men!"

There may be a few women who do make that assertion. They are a minority. Elevating them to the majority in defence of a fragile sense of maleness is a logical error, and it is also a tactical play generated by the bully culture, the macho culture, the authoritarian culture. It's important to not to fall for that tactic.

"It's not all men!"  means that I am not listening and I am not hearing what is being said, and instead I am taking it personally. That aligns me away from the women who are making a fair and honest statement.

That inadvertently aligns me as a bystander, a faux neutral position that flows with the abusers and with the abuse system itself. Even if I oppose the abusers with all my heart. Unless I do so with action, I am mute.

I really must just listen to the women, and hear them, and be with that for a while. I need to understand that because most men are not active in confronting misogyny it continues. Just as most 'White' people are not actively confronting Racism, it continues. 

What women want is my fullest empathy, moral, practical and active support to confront this awful systemic misogyny. 

It is partly because I am a Survivor of childhood abuse and violence, and have also survived three physical attacks on my person in adulthood that I join with these women and say to those who are misogynists, sexual predators, gender bullies and otherwise violent men - there are too many of you, and what you do afflicts us all, too much of the time. Enough is enough. As a man I disavow your behaviour as evidence of maleness or of masculinity. It's abuse, that is all it is. Nothing more than abuse. Ugly. Dysfunctional. Harmful. Abuse.

The issue of dealing with too many men, too much of the time causing harm to women with such degrees of impunity  is also a Cultural Problem, because it is too many men, too much of the time.

And in that sense, the ubiquity of this harmful behavioural pattern means that all men and all women living within the culture are involved in this. 

Some men, too many men, are predators and bullies, other men are bystanders, they watch and do nothing, others are willing to stand with the victimised and the oppressed and a few are actively working to prevent the harm, by education, by presence, by their own learning and by seeking to enact better legislation and better practices in all areas this problem affects.

A cultural problem.

It is a cultural problem in that most incidents of sexual abuse are not reported and often that is because when they are reported, formally or informally, most reports of sexual abuse do not lead to justice. 

It is a cultural problem in that most police forces are still inadequately trained in trauma informed responses to this kind of harm causation being reported. It is a cultural problem in that known abusers of women can be elected into the highest positions of power in any democracy.

It is a cultural problem, in that the most honest histories are those that record the insight of ordinary folk who live through whatever historical patterns are driven by the decisions of the powerful -  the lived experience of those most harmed by Power tells the truth that Power dares not utter, and we see quite clearly that the Establishment narrative is blind to the truth of the lived experience. 

Johnson claims hundreds of thousands of avoidable fatalities from an infectious disease is a 'world beating' success. Keir Starmer decries the organic removal of Statues that celebrate historical abusers. Tony Blair claims Iraq is better of without Saddam Hussein, having caused more harm than Saddam Hussein could possibly have caused in Iraq and beyond. Osborne claims Austerity is a necessity. Iain Duncan Smith claims Universal Credit is a benign benefit system whilst extolling the need for sanctions against poor, disabled and vulnerable people to nudge them into better behaviour. Johnson claims the British Empire was a good experience for the world. His father claims that over population is the problem, and that the ideal population for England is 12 million.

Establishment history is a dishonest cultural hagiography.

The British Empire was a force for good. Invading Iraq was about bringing Democracy to the Middle East. The Hillsborough Fans were drunk and disorderly and caused their own deaths. The Police Forces are innocents, doing their very best to protect and serve the communities. These are all well known establishment lies promoted as truth.

Feminism?

Women joining in in the systemic abuse of Power already entrenched and dominated by a Patriarchy is not Feminism, it is not equity. 

It is compliance with and enabling of the Patriarchy systemic abuse system. In posing as Feminism it is another culturally approved establishment lie.

The so called glass ceiling is, de facto, a see through lid on the coffin of the natural and equitable aspiration of women and men who genuinely work towards an egalitarian culture. Theresa May, Priti Patel  and Cressida Dick are part of the power structure, they are not a challenge to the power structure nor do they confront problems of this power culture in any way, shape or form.

The Culture of Power

The policing of the vigil on Clapham Common is a case in point.  

A young woman disappears on a routine walk at late evening night time. The young woman was abducted off the streets of London. Calls go out to locate her. 

Then it is discovered, a week later, that she was abducted by a serving police officer, who was already known to be an serial sexual harasser and yet was still able to wear the uniform, do shifts.

When it became clear that he murdered this young woman, there arose an emergent sense of disgust, outrage and anger that became a coalescence of the feeling among women, who as a class are exposed to so much sexualised abuse that they feel oppressed within this culture  A feeling not alleviated in any way by the sheer frequency of harassment and assault, the rareness of a conviction when they report, the lightness of sentencing and a general indifference by bystander men to their plight.

Spend a day reviewing the statistics on ONS. Spend a day listening to women tell you the truth of their lived experience. There is a cultural problem here. 

Witness

A Vigil was called to express grief at the loss of another young life, to express a collective solidarity with all women who experience sexualised assault, who are subjected to physical, psychological and emotional harm at the hands of too many men, too much of the time, and for whom justice and prevention are a foreign land, bordered by a male dominated patriarchy on permanent guard duty.

The London Metropolitan Police, advised by the Home Office, objected. On the grounds of protecting people from spreading the virus. Whilst schools are forced to re-open without the necessary systems in place to detect and suppress outbreaks. Laughable. Irrational when subjected to a critical analysis.

The Vigil people went to court to assert their right to hold a well organised, covid19 safe Vigil. The Court asserted that the Vigil was indeed lawful, that the organisers had proven they could manage it in a covid19 secure manner, and that the London MetPol interpretation of covid19 regulations as permitting them to ban the vigil  was in error and thus unlawful.  


What a respectful Vigil looks like. Even without organisation. Just women calmly grieving.

source : New York Times

The organisers had 1 steward for every 30 attendees. They had PA systems and all the infrastructure to manage the Vigil well. Local Police (Lambeth) and Council agreed. The Home Office and Scotland Yard dissented.  The MetPol conceded the point in court, and then withdrew from the case in order to avoid a court declaration that the Vigil could proceed - they did this to allow for their own 'discretion'. 

They still opposed the Clapham Common Vigil. 

Media reported that as a stalemate. That was not quite true. It was more a matter of London MetPol stonewalling a legitimate gathering, using clever tactics to leave open an act of discretionary policing.

Tactics to obscure the truth, to mute the voices of survivors.

I remind readers of the recent tactical settling a case of unfair dismissal against a senior civil servant that would, if it had been allowed to proceed, proven that the Home Secretary had bullied her staff and others below her in rank. The settlement meant she could avoid the truth being publicised. A bit like the Vatican settling with survivors of child sexual abuse by clerics. "Here's some cash, take it or we will make your life hell. Good, take it and now just Sshhhsssshhut up!"

"We have an image and status to protect!" and Institutions will and do use every tactic to do that.

The London Met Police did not stand with the women who grieve in public - they did not openly criticise the murderous man who was a team member, a team player, one of their own, they do not decry alpha male ideology, they do not train in empathy and de-escalation, and they do not prevent sexual harassment and assault. They do close ranks when ever one of their own is exposed as an abusive bully.

"How many bad apples in that barrel, Inspector?" 

"You knew he was abusive?" 

"None of your business!"

The organisers of the Vigil proceeded to cancel the Clapham Common event, and others then moved ahead with well organised Vigils elsewhere in England, Wales and Scotland. They all went really well, and as far as we know they were facilitated with sensitivity. 





Bristol

Compare and Contrast


Rangers: No arrests at Ibrox as police urge fans to follow Covid restrictions.

Apart from the Vigil on Clapham Common.

That Vigil was a respectful gathering, and it was exercised without the infrastructure the RTS organisers had been ready to put in place. Police were told that, even as the RTS organisers used all means to cancel their Vigil, used their extensive media and online presence to communicate that their participation as an organiser would not go forward, that it would not prevent people who are grieving and upset and angry from gathering. The Police acknowledged that.

Therefore it looks very much like the Police tactic was to let the gathering happen, then to use force to break it up which, given the context of the court hearing and rulings, looks like a deliberate set up.

People gathered in the late afternoon, in daylight. Peacefully, respectfully.

People in the out doors with masks, taking care to reduce virus transmission to a minimum.

A peaceful and genuine Vigil, a public prayer meeting of sorts, that was an act of respectful, grieving solidarity. It was outdoors, people were all masked and everyone was being respectful.

"No, it's not all men. 

It is too many men, too often. 

It is too many women, too often."

The London MetPol could have stood by, they could have chosen to facilitate the gathering, they could have stayed there all night, in rotating shifts, to ensure that no harm would come to anyone.

They could have done that. Given the circumstance they really ought to have done that.

Think of the PR coup that might have represented. The Police standing with the people!

The London MetPol could have demonstrated solidarity with these women, these men, and thus by practical means have publicly condemned their team mate (and any others like him, lurking behind the cover of uniforms and institutional defence lawyers) and shown that they too stand with the people, as the protectors of the people.

Their Command chose not to do that.  They waited. Until it was dark. As people wanted to hear the speakers on the bandstand some moved in closer.  Social Distancing was reduced. Masks were being worn. People were chanting.



Witness: 


Writing in Bylinetimes Sian Norris gathered evidence of what happened during the Vigil on Saturday evening.

“There were more and more police around the bandstand and then they marched single-file into the bandstand,” she added. “That moment felt very uncomfortable. Very unnecessary. And it was not clear at all from a close bystander’s point of view why they were doing it.”

Flora told Byline Times that it was this moment when things started to shift. 

“Nothing was kicking off – it was very static, the atmosphere was unpleasant but nothing was changing,” she said. “Then, all of a sudden, they filed in – almost as if they had decided enough was enough, ‘let’s move things on’. They intervened and it changed because of their actions.” 

Sophia witnessed the police move onto the bandstand, “making themselves the focal point of our hurt and sadness,” she said. “Everyone was looking at the bandstand and then suddenly we were all looking at the police. I turned around and the police had also moved in behind this. We were caged in.”

“It was quite intimidating for the crowd,” said Katie.

Sisters Uncut said: “It’s important to be clear that the anger was felt in our bodies. It was not one we enacted. The people who were aggressive and weaponising anger were the police.”

Other Agendas

While the vast majority of women and men had come to Clapham Common, and to similar impromptu vigils across the UK, to pay their respects to women who have been killed and to make a statement against gender-based violence, “there were people there who hadn’t come to fight for women’s rights or against state violence,” Katie told Byline Times

“That really upset me,” she said, describing how some male attendees were aggressive towards the police or vandalised police vehicles. “It took away from what was happening.” 

This was typified by a man who took to the bandstand to give an uninvited speech against lockdown and the police more widely.

“The first person to speak was a man – no one asked him to,” Katie said. “People started chanting ‘not your place’.”

“As I was leaving, it became apparent that a lot of people were arriving who weren’t there for the reason I was,” Coleman said.

So what we see here is that there were people within the setting who were hijacking the event, (more about that below). People, men,  whose publicly stated opinions, beliefs and attitudes feed into more spread of the virus - anti-lockdown, anti-zerocovid,  which is aligned with the reality in outcome terms of UK Government strategic position - Herd Immunity is the way out of the Epidemic - and the Police, who are an arm of Government using force to break up a Vigil, claiming to wish to prevent the spread of the virus, whilst also citing the behaviour of the people who were hijacking the event, all co-inciding as part of the news and online media led protection of the policing as it was handled.

Power not wisdom.

What reason, what exactly gave the police the excuse to push through the crowd and break up the gathering on the bandstand, with 'reasonable force', in order 'to prevent spread of the virus'?

A gathering of mostly women, mostly in quiet mournful respect, quiet enough to listen to a non amplified female voice speaking from the bandstand, all wearing masks, all outdoors?

Was that a wise move? Who ordered it, on what basis?

Or was it because within the culture of power, to urge to be dominant (which is the driver of sexualised assault) also drives the command chain. Impose your will. Assert the Power of the command chain, from Home Office to the streets. The Home Secretary's power will not be challenged!

Compulsory Education is every child's introduction to the realities of Institutional Hierarchy, Authority and Power. 

You are compelled to be educated.

Compelled by a greater power than any parent or child can muster. Dominance.

No Child Left Behind.

Compulsion Education instructs children what to think, in ways that ensure that they never learn how to think. School children who leave secondary school and who do not know what the English Civil War was about. School children who leave secondary school and who do not know what their Human Rights are, and why and how they are enshrined in Law. School children who leave secondary school and who do not know that Racism was invented, as a legal instrument, in Virginia in 1681. That's just irresponsible in educational terms.

That is the utilitarian instrumentalization of education as a part of how oppressive bully cultures function.

Self education is every child's responsibility - removing that response ability by coercion is key to the maintenance of the bully cult. 

Bullying in schools.

1 in 5 school children in England report being bullied on School premises in 2018.

Compulsory Education is key to maintaining the practices of nationalist indoctrination, is key to sustaining the myth of a benign patriarchy and essential to the inculcation of approved gender role identifications and behaviours that separate men and women as persons, and classifies us as separate genders, with exclusive  lingo, behaviour and memes rather than unite us as persons.

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

"Poisonous pedagogy, in Katharina Rutschky's definition, aims to inculcate a social superego in the child, to construct a basic defense against drives in the child's psyche, to toughen the child for later life, and to instrumentalize the body parts and senses in favor of socially defined functions. " Boy's don't dry. 

Thus compulsory education is a toxic mime of self directed education and it serves to undermine the person in favour of approved persona. Look to the celebrity role models. Persona. Images. Faux Reality.

Power and powerlessness entrenched by disempowering dynamic structures.

Hence the inability of parents, teachers and students to unite even as they are being abused by Government and News Media in the midst of an epidemic. Gavin Williamson bullies millions of people by virtue of the Office he holds and gets away with repeat offences that cause thousands of deaths.  The Media refuse to confront his obvious gaslighting. Starmer refuses that analysis and supports the Government.

Power

Sexualised Assault, Misogyny and Racism are all extreme bullying behaviours rooted in false premises. 

"I have a right to your female body because I have a Penis, Men are Superior to Women, White skinned people are Superior to Black skinned people, Disabled people are freaks, the Poor are lazy." All falsehoods.

This is all about power, a pecking order of who exercises power over others.

Co-opting the Vigil 

Bylinetimes published an article showing how some of the people attending the Vigil had other agenda's to promote, exploiting the situation for their political viewpoints. Anti-lockdown, anti-vaxxer, right Libertarians among them.

"Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union and editor of the Lockdown Sceptics site, has also used the events of Saturday night to promote an anti-lockdown narrative. 

Writing on Lockdown Sceptics, he said that the people criticising the police response were “the very same people who’ve enthusiastically supported the lockdowns, including the suspension of the right to protest, and who’ve condemned anti-lockdown protestors for being ‘selfish’ and ‘irresponsible’”. Young stated that the arrests of women in Clapham “were on you”.

A woman who attended Saturday’s vigil told Byline Times that the Metropolitan Police’s decision not to engage with the grassroots organisers of the event was, in part, responsible for how she believed it could be co-opted by those with different agendas.

“When the Metropolitan police refused to work with the organisers, and the organisers stepped back, that left a vacuum which was filled by people who had a different agenda,” she said.


Again the dishonesty of those who claim to oppose abuse of power yet whose own actions amount to an abuse of their position, status and power that favours more abuses of power is made clear. Misogyny is shameless.

We want to change the culture?

Tell the children the truth. Stop lying to the boys and girls.

Prevent people like Michael Gove and Gavin Williamson from leveraging institutional power to cause harm to our children, our teachers, our families.

Tell the truth about Power Hierarchy. Tell the truth about Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Externalised Costs, Patriarchy, Racism, Conquest, Misogyny and Gender Roles.

Make telling lies in Parliament a criminal offence, with a mandatory custodial sentence. Make publishing misinformation and lies as 'News' a criminal offence.

Thus we will be better situated to prevent the youth growing into the kinds of dysfunctional adults that are exploited by power, to sustain power over the people. Ensure children leave school equipped with critical analysis and thinking skills.

Brexit, the parachute that opens on impact - Brexit was of course a vast political grooming exercise, exploiting vulnerable people, exploiting people who lack accurate information. Austerity was a national scale act of deliberate abuse of vulnerable people, protected by gaslighting the public about lack of Government funds due to 'debt', which was a lie.

Zero Community Transmission is dismissed as 'impossible' - that is a lie.
 
Critical thinking would make such lies unlikely to survive more than a few days at most.

There is no truly single issue - there is one cultural issue, we are ruled over by bullies. That fact distorts all of our lives. 

Tell the truth.

The truth is essential to the Working of Mutual Democracy.  WMD.

Obviously lacking an equitable voice across English Institutional Power, obviously lacking an equitable voice in the English News Media, nonetheless the truth of the lived experience of the powerless is everywhere among the decent people, who stand apart from the minority of bullies, the politically groomed, the woo woo woolly eyed, the nativists, the xenophobes, the Racists and the misogynists who largely defer to the systems of power, who walk in our midst.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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