An open letter, in response to Irish Government's 'Survivor Engagement' process, in preparation for a Public Inquiry into Irish Schools, and abuse of children on an industrial scale.

Child abuse within Irelands School Systems, Care Systems operated by Catholic clergy and others.
Most people by now are aware that Ireland has been going through a difficult process of coming to terms with a 7 decades long culture of abuse and violence within Institutional Care Settings. This process started in 1986. It has been a difficult and imperfect process, and is now supported by the majority of the Irish population.
There is a Survivor Engagement process underway, being carried out by the Irish Government, driven by recent revelations of the extent of child sexual abuse within Irish Boarding and Day Schools, operated by Church bodies. More about that later.

I am a survivor of 5 Boarding schools.

The engagement process, which I subscribed to when it was announced, reached out to me recently.

I responded to a recent letter from the Survivor Engagement Lead, Keiran McGrath.

My response, an open letter, is posted below, and what I have written here is an introduction, a lead into that letter. I want readers to understand why I wrote this letter. I admit my knowledge on this matter is incomplete - no single Survivor can hold all of it, I am neither an academic nor a professional advocate. I am a Survivor. 
Readers can scroll down to the letter, and skip the introduction, if you have some knowledge of the history of this matter. Dear readers, you can also alert me any to errors and mistakes I have made via the comments section. Thank you for taking the time to read through this.
Here are three videos which I think give a sense of the history and tone of this matter, and the current situation.
Deputy Ruairi Quinn speaking on the Ryan Report on the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse 2009, after a decade of Inquiry.

A Survivor, Micheal O'Brien, on Questions and Answers, an RTE broadcast programme, speaks to the adversarial approach of the Irish Government, in their handling of Inquiries into Child Abuse within Irish 'Care' systems over 7 decades, 2009.

David Ryan, Survivor, speaks on RTE Late Late Show December 9th 2023 



Emergence of Survivors seeking Justice and accountability, for Child Sexual Violence within Irish Boarding Schools, and how those matters were treated by State and Church. 

This astonishing, harrowing appearance on RTE's Late Late Show, by Mark and David Ryan, two brothers, assaulted by the same priest, Father Tom  O'Byrne, Holy Ghost Fathers, over an extended period in the 1970s marked an important, and some would say, historical turn. Their appearance before the nation on prime time TV, on one of the senior talk shows, made headlines.  That said their call back in 2002 to indict one of their abusers ought to have had the same effect. 21 Years they have waited for this to happen.
For many years neither brother spoke of their abuse, not even to each other or their parents, until early 2002 when clerical child sexual abuse filled the news headlines.
This led the brothers to reveal their abuse, first to their parents, and then to one another.
They made statements to the Gardaí (Irish Police Force) which led to multiple charges being brought against their abuser.
By then, Fr O’Byrne was 82-years-old and still living on the grounds of Blackrock College.
He denied the charges made against him and launched a legal case, seeking to halt criminal proceedings.
In 2007, the courts decided that the criminal case against the brothers’ abuser should be halted, as it would cause this old, old man much distress, and not serve the Public Good to proceed with a prosecution. Fr O’Byrne died in 2010, having never had to face trial. The Judge, Judge Adrian Hardiman, was an alumni of Belvedere, another college operated by The Holy Ghost. This was a Judicial error. 
Mary Carolan, writing in the Irish Times on September 6th, 2012, 6 years later about a review/audit of the Holy Ghost Fathers, as they were known at the time (they have 'rebranded' as 'The Spiritans' since then) which indicated the following - 
"A REVIEW of child safeguarding practices in the Holy Ghost congregation has found "unacceptable failures" over decades to protect children from 47 alleged abusing priests in its schools here.
The Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), also expressed “grave concerns” that an abuser removed from ministry in 1995 was on an internet forum just last year. Another, unknown to the congregation leaders, was until recently engaged in temporary ministry despite not having the order’s required clearance document.

A total of 142 allegations of abuse by Holy Ghost or Spiritan priests were made between 1975 and 1994, but suspected abusers were often moved, within Ireland or abroad, provoking concern that other victims had yet to come forward here or in countries such as the US, Canada and Sierra Leone, the review noted.
The order’s files made “very sad reading”, it said. There were “unacceptable failures” to prevent abuse that children “could have been spared if action was taken” and the congregation’s current leadership had to carry the responsibility for those past failures.
One “prolific abuser”, who abused children over 13 years and was removed from ministry in 1995, was found on an internet forum in 2011. Despite concerns raised about the priest within three years of the abuse starting, he continued to abuse children for a further 10 years.
Another priest who abused 28 children between 1968 and 1993 was removed from ministry only in 1996. He has since died.
Files provided to the NBSC by the Spiritans showed serial abusers in schools “went undetected and unchecked, giving them unmonitored access to children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s”.
Of the 47 priests about whom allegations were made between 1975 and 1994, just eight are still alive, with three out of ministry. Three Spiritans have been convicted of abuse."
So more than a decade ago, the matter was raised, yet again, and it appears that justice and accountability in public has been evaded. The Spiritans have typically operated on a case by case basis, in private, settling with Survivors, with clauses demanding confidentiality and immunity from further legal action. Managing Survivors to protect the Institution. This stance is intolerable.

A true Christian, and indeed any decent human being would admit the fault, provide full access to the documentary trails, contained in their files, as a matter of transparency, honesty and genuine, meaningful remorse.
The Ryan brothers story, and others we know about, which have been in the public domain for decades, are the tip of a massive iceberg.

The appearance on the Late Late Show, by the Mark and David Ryan, who were hailed as 'immensely courageous' for taking that step, in which they were given a standing ovation by the studio audience, followed on from the RTE Radio Documentary 'Blackrock Boys' broadcast on November 7th, 2023, produced by Liam O'Brien. That started the current situation. Historic courage and indeed, humility.
Following on from that radio documentary, starting on 8th November, Joe Duffy's Live Line radio show took up the story, running for 9 episodes, until 18th November, with multiple Survivors speaking of their experiences, their abuse and the reaction of both State and Church, which they all considered to have failed to address the matter correctly, let alone honestly.

Apart from the harrowing stories Survivors told, their stories revealed that it is likely that many hundreds of children were assaulted in just one Boarding School, with estimates that 21% of one year group in 1979 had endured profound abuse, sexual assault physical violence, psychological and emotional coercive abuse.
This speaks to a culture of violence  and a culture of protective cover-up, that there clearly was an awareness of the malign behaviour of these abusive clerics amongst the Holy Ghost Congregations high officials, who adopted a reactionary defensive stance which in turn enabled these abusers to continue to abuse children.

Two current issues have emerged from this recent developments, in terms of State and Church Institutional response to the 'sudden' appearance of Survivors speaking in public, as they have done.

One being a Restorative Justice process crafted by a group of Blackrock College Past Pupils seeking a public apology for the abuse and the lack of accountability from The Spiritans (formerly The Holy Ghost Fathers), funded by The Spiritans, who are working with Past Pupils and Survivors. 

The second being the matter of Survivors, Survivors Advocates and the wider populations call for a full Public Inquiry into Child Abuse to cover all Irish Boarding and Day Schools, since the inception under the Irish State, 1926. These Schools were operated by the Church, received funding from the Irish Government since the get-go. As Survivors age, the imperative to hold those Institutions to account before we pass away, often too early, often after decades of distress is clear.

The former matter, Restorative Justice, is understood by many Survivor groups, and their advocates as inadequate, in that it is a process that is usually activated when someone who has been convicted of a crime of harm shows due remorse, where the people victimised want to help bring the assailant towards rehabilitation as part of their recovery from the harm caused to them.  With this in mind, the previous defensive stance of The Spiritans remains intact. They had made a public apology, but have not yet fully acknowledged the scale of harms caused by their stance thus far. This remains a concern, that such an acknowledgement is yet to emerge.
Restoration after an open and transparent admission of responsibility, for all the harms caused, in good faith, must not be utilised as a defence of the culpable party, but as a meaningful social and material attempt to heal, by both parties. To restore peace.

That said, some Survivors have taken up the Restorative Justice process that The Spiritans have started. The work done by past pupils to gain this has been an important part of the current developments. To the extent that the Restorative Justice process can handle a few cases, rather than look at the whole, it has obvious limitations.

The latter item, a Public Inquiry into the School systems of Ireland since 1926, is deemed by most people looking at this to be essential.

Previous Inquiries

There have been three previous major extensive Public Inquiries in Ireland - Ryan, Ferns, and Murphy, looking at the response to allegations and proven cases of abuse within residential care institutions overseen and funded by The State, operated by The Churches.

There have been campaigns and reports that focused on Industrial Schools, Mothers and Babies homes, Mental Health Asylums and The Magdalene Launderies, all residential institutions, operated by the Church, funded and overseen by the State.

In spite of regular public calls from Survivors, no Public Inquiry into the School system in general, and Boarding Schools in particular, has been considered by the Irish Government, up to 2022/23.

Irish Government response.

In the days and weeks following these media events in 2022, the Irish Government acknowledged the matter and paid heed to  Survivors call for a Public Inquiry. The Irish Government made a number of commitments to make this Public Inquiry happen, stating in March 2023 that it would ensure the Public Inquiry was 'survivor led' and set a deadline of 9 months to prepare for it.

They have initiated a 'Scoping Exercise', to engage with Survivors, to assess the number of cases, to gather more information to feed into a future Public Inquiry. This exercise is aimed at the 220 Survivors who have contacted the Government. It is well understood that there are many, many more Survivors, across Ireland and among the Irish Diaspora who have not spoken of their experience. What Survivors need is a process that is demonstrably safe, a place guided by proven expertise, a space where Survivors can share insight and solidarity as a demographic. We are a significant sector of Irish Society.

I had contacted the Irish Government and asked to be considered for inclusion in this engagement. 
My stance, as a Survivor, of five Irish Boarding Schools, is that a Public Inquiry is necessary.  I can speak to the culture of violence and abuse in all five of those Boarding Schools. How could I not seek an Inquiry into the whole, when the parts I experienced were so atrocious?
A brief look at a timeline, published by the Irish Times,  from 1986 - 2011 of the emergence of Survivors of Child Sexual Assault, Violence and psychological abuse, as a group seeking Justice and Accountability within Ireland, shows that time and time again, Government and Church evaded the issue in relation to Boarding and Day Schools, where the Church Congregations have taken an aggressively defensive stance. 

All of this, and more, is the background to the current situation.

My experience of Survivor Engagement.

I have had no communications to me from the Survivor Engagement team until last week.  I had viewed Government website pages and read announcements on the matter. I received two posted letters, the first to apologise that they were unable to deliver emails to me, as they were returned, due to failure to arrive or find my email address.

The second letter was to set out the parameters of the next stages of the Survivor Engagement Scoping Exercise, and invite me to participate. This is the document referred to.

It appears to me to be the case that no Survivors nor Survivor Advocacy nor Survivor Support Expertise with experience of these matters has been consulted by the Irish Government, since December 2022, let alone since March this year, when the Government announced their intention to prepare for a Public Inquiry, to carry out a scoping enquiry to inform their deliberations, in spite of frequent efforts and communications by Survivors to assert their right and their status as Survivors to direct, inform and guide Government on the process, as equals, as a 'survivor led' process, from the get-go.

Today I have learned that two people brought in as consultants to the Government, Mary O'Toole and Keiran McGrath appear to have relevant experience. However I am unaware of any Survivors or Survivor advocacy expertise involved in this process. The Government website shows updates have been made on 30th May.

Onevoice.ie 
Mark Vincent Healy, a Survivor and long time survivor's activist and advocate set up a web portal to foster a Survivors solidarity access point, https://www.onevoice.ie/about.html. 
Mark-Vincent has been in frequent communications with Government ministers and officials on this matter since November 2022. His attempts to gain a foothold for Survivors within the 'Engagement' process have been set aside, as can be seen, reading the correspondence between Mark-Vincent Healy and Government officials.

Three months later and from my perspective, Survivors remain practically excluded from informing or designing the Survivor Engagement process. 
It would appear the Irish Government wants data from Survivors, but not advice on how best to proceed. I could be wrong. I may well be missing something. If I am, I want to be much better informed. I do not see how the current process is Survivor led. Government announcements, their terms of reference, thus far have not clarified this in terms that meet my un-met needs as a Survivor.

I read their proposed process, as outlined in the letter, and I found it to be inadequate, unsafe and ill-prepared, and I wrote the following reply:

Open Letter : A Survivor Responds to Irish Government Survivor Engagement Scoping Exercise.
To whom it may concern,
I received two letters from Survivor Engagement Lead, Keiran McGrath, last week, on 25th and 26th of May.
The first explained that attempts to contact me via Email had failed. I have sent numerous emails to Government Ministers, and to the Taoiseach, and have received acknowledgements, so I have no idea why my email was not functioning. Nonetheless I was glad to receive the letter.
The second letter contained more details concerning the Irish Government Survivor Engagement process, in preparation for the establishment of a Public Inquiry into Historic Child Abuse within Irish Boarding and Day Schools. and the response of Institutions, with a copy of the Governments published document indicating how they intended to engage with Survivors. 
You can read their proposal here, which was sent with that letter:
https://www.gov.ie/pdf/258753/?page=null
I will quote from their document  - "In the first instance the Survivor Engagement process will endeavor to explore key matters that need to be addressed."
'Endeavor to explore' seems to me to suggest an unlikely scenario - that Church and State do not already have knowledge and understanding of the previous delays and failures to hold those responsible to account. 
Both parties know this, because they have caused the delays. Survivors know, because we have endured them. The pain, despair and frustration resulting is an everyday experience for Survivors.
As to 'addressing key matters' how does a bland questionnaire seeking private and traumatic information on crimes, without evidence that the psychological and material health support such reporting usually demands is present and at scale, help at this stage? What is being addressed by this questionnaire?
I note that the document mentions Trauma Informed Facilitators, as interfacing with Survivors, collecting this information, without providing the accreditation of same. What precisely is a trauma informed facilitator? What qualifications and experience are deemed adequate by Government?
Is this a questionnaire a process Survivors can trust in? 
From my perspective, it is not.
The key matters that must be addressed, from the start, before canvassing Survivors in the ill-thought out manner suggested, are the following:
1. Admission and acknowledgement of previous errors, mistakes, failures and delays by Government, in responding to and delivering on Survivors calls for Justice, as part of understanding how to avoid avoidable harms. 
2. A published declaration and commitment to avoiding avoidable harm to Survivors, to meet in full their un-met needs, as we step into the future.
3. The establishment of a Survivors Expert Panel, to act as a channel between all Survivors, as a Demographic of the Irish Population, and Government - to enable equity at the table between Government and Survivors, to reduce the Power Disparity between State and Survivors, in the establishment of a Public Inquiry, including setting out the tasks of such an Inquiry. No individual Survivor has all the resources that such a body, correctly set up, would be able to marshal, on behalf of Survivors.
Once these are in place, Survivors can proceed, on the understanding that Survivors have established an equal status with Government, that Government is wholly committed to avoiding avoidable harms to Survivors or to their interests, to avoid repeating past errors, and that Survivors and their professional advocates and relevant expertise will be listened to, they will be heard and their expertise, skill and insight will be properly integrated into the design and implementation of this Public Inquiry.
In essence, establishing a safe space, where one has not existed before, so that Survivors can direct Government on how best to meet the un-met needs of the children they were, and un-met needs of the adults they have had to become, aware of the heavy costs of their endurance of trauma and abuse and lack of justice.
Just to be clear, I will pose the question "What are Survivors Rights?"
In reply, ' To have our un-met needs for justice and accountability met, to have social and material support put in place, acknowledging the wounds we carry, the impact of years of abuse and decades of cover-up has had on our lives, and on the lives of our families and their communities. There is no repair of the harm caused possible. Harms of this egregious nature cannot be undone. 
Nonetheless, Justice, Legal, Criminal and Civil Accountability and an accurate, honest history can be achieved, and this will go much of the way in meeting Survivors needs.
In short, having our un-met needs met, is each and every Survivors Human Right.'
These are our rights. This is not a matter of what Government will do to/for Survivors, it is a question of whether or not Government will listen to, hear and integrate Survivors input and take it on board and thus work with Survivors as equals at the table. That said, Survivors are the seniors in this matter, Government very much the juniors.
Having established that the Government understands all of this, given that thus far, the evidence suggests otherwise, we can and should proceed.
As to the 'data the government seeks', at this early/late stage... 
To start with, the limited number of Survivors who have contacted Government on an individual basis, , who are described in the letter as 'complainants', is unlikely to be representative or even indicative of the whole Survivor demographic, living and deceased. The Government's stated objective of finding out how many 'complainants' are out there cannot be met in this manner.
Secondly, the questionnaire seeks to understand how many schools are involved, by asking Survivor Complainants to indicate which schools they were abuse within - we know already that a culture of violence and abuse prevailed across every institutional setting operated by Clergy.  It must be assumed that all such institutional settings will fall under the scope of the Public Inquiry. The Inquiry is the forum to search for and extract that data.
Thirdly, the questionnaire will ask of Survivors, the role or job or position of those who abused them. At this stage, this data is irrelevant. It will become relevant once a safe process of Survivor testimony is established to feed into the Inquiry.
Fourthly, the questionnaire will ask if the 'complainant' has approached TUSLA or Gardai, or any other relevant Institutions? This too will become more relevant as data is gathered, through a safe process, designed by Survivor advocates and expertise, working with Government Officials.
Then the letter proceeds to suggest Survivors could have their information included in the Report, anonymised. Would Survivors have editorial control of such inclusions, to ensure their perspective and context were maintained?
The last paragraph tell us Survivors that we should understand that what we are being asked to do will 'contribute to making Irish Schools and Education safer for children and young people.' The implicit assumption is that Survivors will go along with the existing process, with this noble objective in mind. It is glib and manipulative. 
As a Survivor, I'm quite sure Irish Schools are safer than ever before. I do believe that what was done to me will not be done to children within the Irish School system today.
The matter at hand is not just about the future of Irish Schools, it is in the immediate sense about the present and future of thousands of living survivors of child sexual assault, physical assault, psychological and emotional assault, within educational care settings.  The matter at hand is the most honest account of the past of those who have died early as a result, who cannot seek justice and accountability, whose case must not be brushed aside.
It is the future of Irish Society as it acknowledges the historic crimes, the culture of cruelty within the State and the Church, which enabled thousands of crimes perpetrated against innocent children on an industrial scale, and it sets a course for Justice for Survivors, accountability of the culpable before the democratic body of the people, reparations and life support for aging Survivors, who form up a significant demographic of The Irish people.
This current initiative is not safe, is neither Survivor led or Survivor informed. It has been designed by officials with limited relevant experience in this field.
I cannot participate in the current offered process, and do so in good faith. I do not trust it.
Kindest Regards
Corneilius Crowley, Survivor, 5 Irish Catholic Boarding Schools, 1965 -1977
London, England.

Update 31/5/23 - I was contacted by phone, from the Department of Education, seeking to check whether or not I wish to continue 'engaging'. I said I was willing to continue, and I made my concerns clear, that Survivors needed more than a questionnaire, that we needed a Survivors Panel to represent our side in the planning of the Public Inquiry, setting out the task of the Public Inquiry.  The person I was speaking to was an admin within the Department and could not speak to my concerns. I said I understood that, and that I hoped the message would filter up the chain.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Tory Death Parties - celebrating not avoiding avoidable harms. Indict them all - seriously. We must indict them.

We must never forget: this is how Johnson started the Westminster misGovernment 'Strategy' on dealing with an infectious virus.  'Herd Immunity, taking it on the chin!'

#torydeathparties

They did die, because this Government rejected suppression of community transmission in favour of 'Herd Immunity'.

Making an error, and repeating it? Deliberate policy. "Who will we not save?"

Lies and Gaslighting, a CDO salesman takes over responsibility for the populations Right to Health and thrashes it.

@corneiliusmusic Tory Death Parties #torycorruption #torydeathparties ♬ original sound - corneiliusmusic

Have we seen how people die of COVID? Our News Media has not shown us much of that reality - but NHS staff are forced to deal with this every day.
Have we seen how people who are afflicted with Long COVID suffer, day in day out, from a Vascular Disease? Yes, it's not the 'Flu - it is a vascular disease that attacks every organ of the human body, and lingers. We do not know the long term implications of infection into future decades and we cannot say with any confidence there are none.

Do we know people whose businesses have been destroyed? 

Do we know how many overnight millionaires have been minted by unlawful crony contracts in the midst of all this harm?
Do we fully understand the realities of the harms imposed upon the population of the UK by the manner in which this misGovernment deliberately engineered their Herd Immunity strategic stance, since February 2020?

Indictments are deserved.
Johnson must not be allowed to resign - he must be indicted for Misconduct in Public Office, Malfeasance, Corporate Manslaughter by deliberate negligence and, of course, he must be indicted for corruption. It is written on the wallpaper.
He and the entire Cabinet, and the Corona Virus Recovery Group of Conservative and Unionist MPs and their sponsors must be indicted for Misconduct in Public Office, Malfeasance, Corporate Manslaughter by deliberate negligence.
They are all intimately involved in promoting and advocating the policy of allowing the virus to spread in the community, and rejecting any concerted attempt at Suppression of Community Transmission of the virus. They are all involved in peddling dangerous misinformation that has killed and maimed many, many innocent and vulnerable people. 

They are culpable and should be made liable.
They are all culpable. 
The parties are small beer. A stale, sour beer. They are indicative of the character of this misGovernment.
The massive toll of avoidable harms deliberately not avoided is the main course. 
The entire media sphere is studiously avoiding detailing the reality of the main course. They helped set the toxic table upon which it was served, so it's no surprise they are generally mute on this. Those who enabled misinformation to percolate are culpable for the harms that has caused.
This Government misused furlough.

When they should have been chasing the virus down, protecting our borders with quarantine so that the virus is neither imported nor exported, enhancing NHS capabilities, recruiting more NHS Staff, enhancing NHS Test and Trace by funding it from an expert base, when they should have been localising the Test & Trace workforce, providing economic support to anyone exposed to the virus so that they could safely and comfortably isolate and not be forced to return to work, and take the risk of spreading the virus, when they should have been mandating PPF2 masks, alerting the population to the realities of COVID as an aerosol transmitted risk, when they should have been noting the understanding that COVID is also vascular disease in order to inform people of the long haul risks of infection with SARSCOV2, be they symptomatic or asymptomatic - they did none of this.

They also neglected the 3 million 'excluded' from any form of economic or moral assistance. Furlough was designed to protect the employers interests, rather that the populations right to health. Getting people back to work in offices even as the virus was among us was about the rents the property developers and owners were concerned with.

The removal of the paltry 'Covid Uplift' by Sunak plunged more people into poverty and reliance on food banks and will expose millions of people to increased fuel poverty as a direct result. It was a spiteful move. Especially when one considers that every penny of that uplift would be put into the economy, rather than extracted from the economy and hoarded in off shore facilities, much of it to be used as a Free Market political weapon. 

Their abandonment of mitigations in our schools is an appalling deliberate failure. Using children as super spreaders to generate booster infections in the adult vaccinated population? Yes, they did that too. 'Herd Immunity' was/is their 'objective' in spite of it's mythical status. Look at the death and disease rates among their teachers.
Everything they did impose upon us all was designed to look like help and designed to allow the virus to transmit, with the tactical calculation involved in trying to maintain the harms at a level below the collapse of NHS and other services, to remain below radar of polling and electoral loss of popularity, as they pursued 'Herd Immunity' - an imaginary state for a virus that mutates as rapidly and as unpredictably as this virus has been proven to do.  
Every measure they undertook was designed to extract wealth from the Public Purse, and pass it to cronies and allies. Their profit, our loss. Pretending to help us they raided the kitty.

Herd Immunity, Endemicity, Vaccines
There is no such thing as endemicity with this Virus whilst the entire world is struggling with a Pandemic. 

IndependentSAGE hosted a brief chat on what endemic really means. Malaria is endemic, and it kills millions every year. Many other diseases are endemic, and not at all 'mild'. There are global programs to reduce all of those diseases. We do not accept that people must simply 'live with them'.

This Government opposes waiving Intellectual Property rights on Vaccines which undermines global populations Right to Health and increases the risk of variants of concern becoming variants that cause even more harm. Omicron is not 'mild'. The Vaccines are doing a decent job of reducing the harm of Omicron,  but the increased infections are increasing hospitalisation, deaths and other adverse impacts.

A more detailed, nuance charge sheet.
The People's Covid Inquiry has, in addition to all of the above, laid out the charge sheet that this Government abrogated their duty to protect the population's Right to Health. 

Here's the legal requirements of a Government faced with a public health threat:

1. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948 Article 25); 
2. The Constitutional provisions of the World Health Organisation (WHO) 
3. Constitution of the World Health Assembly  International Health Regulations (IHR 2005).
4.  1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights* (ICESCR). 
Article 12 by which the government must act in a manner compatible with the 
5. European Convention Articles (ECHR), for example Art 2, the Right to Life.
6. National Health Service Act 2006 section 2A - which imposes a duty to protect public health from diseases and other dangers to public health, and indicates appropriate steps which may be taken.
*(1) and (2) read:‘The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest standard of physical and mental health.The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right SHALL include those necessary for ... (c) The prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases.’
Corruption, Anti-Democratic legislation.
And then we come to the corruption, the lies and gaslighting by Johnson and every senior minister, and much of the Press and Broadcast Media and the on-line grooming operations that push conspiracy hypotheses that are intimately linked to the CRG and the ERG.

Then there's the anti-democratic legislation criminalising democratic protest, endangering our elections in order to retain power, removing independent electoral oversight, criminalising the entire Traveller community for their way of life, (an established and acknowledged ethnic group and way of life - 'first they came for....') and much else besides, as blatant a political power grab as any by Hitler, Stalin, Trump or Mao.

A Home Secretary whose wet dream is Capital Punishment bodes ill for this nation.

A decade imprisonment for defacing a Statue, less than the Tariff for many much more egregious crimes that cause harm to the person, their body or mind - Rape, for example draws a 5 year sentence.

Death Parties.
The 'Work' Parties at Downing Street and across Government Offices, to give them their correct status, were Death Parties. They were celebrating their work - look at the outcomes of that work.
160 thousand deaths by Covid, millions of operations cancelled, 1.3 million cases of Long Covid, an economy in deep distress, enhanced poverty for 14 million households whilst British Billionaires added to their number, and increased their wealth by £150 billion.
And here we are into the third year of this Pandemic and there is no end in sight.
How many times have this atrocious misGovernment claimed that they had beaten the virus? 

Gaslighting, pretending to act, deliberate negligence.
How many times have this Government said - "we must not waste the success of our efforts to quell the virus"? How many times have they cited the harms they caused as reasons to drive even worse policy, such as sending our children into unsafe schools as a method of delivering a booster of infection to a vaccinated adult population, as a tactic in their overall strategic stance - 'protect the hoard, let the herd take it on the chin'?
How many more must they kill, maim and and how many businesses and social institutions must they distress and degrade before the English people understand the true nature of these awful, callous, grubby, greedy, nasty men and women who are abusing the power invested in their official positions, by a trusting electorate, a vulnerable population?

Who will rid us of this dangerous Government?
Johnson and the entire cabinet must be indicted. Resignation that allows them to walk away from the criminality of their political action is not adequate to the situation.

We need a national unity parliament, where our legislators set aside their current adversarial dynamic with regards to the Pandemic. Indeed the pandemic is, it could be said, a training run for the co-operation and mutual aid that will be necessary in dealing with Climate Change, Pollution and Poverty all of which looms as even greater causation of mass harm in the years ahead.

This is an appeal to all decent MPS, councillors and others tasked with good governance - step up to plate.
We need a Leveson II to regulate and rein in the Press and Broadcast Media that supported this odious misGovernment at every turn.
The Spectator ought to be closed down - spreading misinformation is not Free Speech, it is a deliberate abuse of Free Speech. Free Speech has, since the inception of the concept,  been understood best as a matter of speaking truth to power, of speaking honestly, of taking full responsibility in the public domain to uphold integrity and probity to counter political lies and gaslighting.
The Sun must be shut down. Murdoch and his minions must be indicted for the vast harm their misinformation operations have caused to the public perception of this virus, the disease and the pandemic in general. Their track record on Racism and Misogyny is likewise grim.

Revolution?
If the general public were to go on a general strike, and then took the path of a 'revolution' and dragged these awful men and women out of Parliament, and put them in the stocks, to be pelted with rotten fruit and humiliated in public, it would be wrong - that said the anger the population feels suggests such a reactionary move would be partially understandable, given the harms this misGovernment has deliberately caused to the English people themselves.

Luckily, for the misGovernment, the English people are not so violent, not so indecent, not so easily led down paths of political violence - and correctly so.  The point of indictments is not punishment, it is accountability and the prevention of future harms. A deterrent to future politicians behaving in such harmful manner.

Given the choice, I imagine anyone would probably much prefer to be pelted with rotten fruit than endure death by COVID, no matter how humiliating the experience.

The most important thing we can do is uphold the Law to it's fullest extent, in the most honest manner possible, so that probity, honesty, integrity are restored to Parliament and the Civil Service.

Rotten fruit will not do that. Nor will riots of any kind.
Indictments for Misconduct in Public Office would be the correct method of addressing the criminality and negligence of this misGovernment. 
Have you seen how people die of COVID?

Look at that, if you have not done so. Our NHS staff have had to witness that awful, horrific, terrifying process, day in day out. The relatives of those who died were blocked from seeing that intense traumatic and blocked from attending to loved one's in their final moments. Let that inform your view on this matter.

Celebrating their work? Death Parties one and all. 

Every Friday, a piss up to bolster the troops?

Death Parties.

PS: PS: 'Austerity' was and remains a deliberate policy of collective punishment, imposing a stress position to break the community that cares for the vulnerable.

Cruel, deliberate lethality.

The 'savings' of Austerity, de-staffing the NHS as 'efficiency', the reduction in beds as 'efficiency', knowing full well they were implemented by managers ordered to do so to get their annual funding allocations. "No new cash, if you don't make these 'savings'."
'Externalised costs' - the costs in ill health, distress, staff exhaustion and deaths are ignored, set aside in favour of the 'savings'. It's truly appalling and profoundly amoral.

Those who cause such harm run scared from the truth revealed. Allowing lies to adversely afflict  and cause such serious harm to a population is unacceptable.

The truth sets us free. Lies imprison us all.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Apologia: Distal Power does not Apologise as we know it - we the ordinary folk pay the price, bear the costs, the Rulers retain their Power.

The Dominic Cummings road show is back in town. Cummings is spilling the beans on some of the inside stories around this English Government. Cummings is as culpable for the avoidable harms not avoided as any in office today. He remains unrepentant. His apology rings hollow, even as he eviscerates his colleagues in public.

He should be prostrate on the floor, tears streaming from his eyes, wailing his sorrow for what he has occasioned since 2016, on so many matters of critical national political behaviour, action and outcomes. He should be begging for forgiveness, for his part in rejecting Elimination of Community Transmission strategy. 

Cummings should be opening up to tell the fullest truth telling possible, in order to bring to an end the non-avoidance of avoidable harms, in order to cease this headlong rush towards a health disaster for the English population, in order to make the case for elimination strategy that expert epidemiologists, public health professionals, nurses, doctors, teachers, parents up and down the country know we need to implement and resource, fully and at pace.

He's none of that. He is still playing everyone. His outing is not altruism or genuine honesty.

One of the threads that I have been following for some time is the resonance down through history of what appear to be repeating patterns. It is not that history repeats itself, so much as bullies behaviour does not change much. Including publicly made apologies for long denied historical harms caused to masses of people by callous Governments, the purpose of which is to retain power, status and position rather than address the harms caused as they ought to.

I have written about the similarities in English Government attitudes, behaviour, policy and outcomes when mass trauma events 'occur' at different times in History. Some situations were genuinely events that could not have been avoided, others were events entirely man made or natural events made much, much worse than they needed to be. The difference between a Volcano erupting and a war breaking out. The difference between a crop failure and a famine.

An honest study of the Irish and Bengali Famines of the Late Victorian era will reveal similarities in English Governance attitudes towards the adverse outcomes for ordinary people vis a vis the Iraq War, the COVID19 epidemic and pandemic, Hillsborough, Grenfell, Orgreaves, collusion in Northern Ireland, arming, training and maintenance of Saudi War Planes in Yemen, and the years of support for anti-Syrian violent militia who literally destroyed most of that country.

What is seen is a callous disregard, born in part by distance and class consciousness and in part by venal greed, a dismissal of the value, the human meaning of the lived experience of the most vulnerable people,  harmed by the policy decisions made by the most powerful. The men and women who occupy positions of executive authority and who control a distal, leveraged institutional power are not vulnerable in the same way those who live where the policy has its greatest impact. Asymmetric has meaning in this context. An insensitive jackboot and a vulnerable ant. 

"Many more loved ones will die!"

I have written about the way the people in power use apologia to defend their position and status, without changing their behaviour. They make public apologies, yet they never suffer indictments, trials, convictions or incarceration. The people who occupy distal power are immune to social material civil and criminal justice. They apologise, and reparations are not made or if they are made they are piecemeal and delivered late, after many years, to exhausted survivors who are largely forgotten, obscured by the passage of time.

Apologia - a defence of one's assumed power.

And so we read in today's Guardian News Paper the story of the Apology by the English Government of Tony Blair, issued in 1997, for the behaviour of the English Government during the Irish Famine. Blair did not write it, he did not sign off on it and he did not speak it, he did not mean it and neither did the English Establishment. It was the usual publicity promotional event, nothing more. Apologia. Sorry, not sorry.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/20/tony-blairs-apology-for-irish-famine-written-by-aides-papers-reveal

“The key sentence in your message is the acknowledgment that the British government at the time could have done more to prevent the tragedy. This is no more than a statement of fact, and falls well short of an apology, but the British government have been reluctant to say much about this in the past,” added Holmes, who said he had checked with “all and sundry” including press secretary Alastair Campbell that it was right to make such a reference.

“I hope this does not cause you any problems. It should go down well with the Irish, and I cannot see anyone here or in Northern Ireland seriously objecting.”

The text was honed by No 10 aides from a draft by the Foreign Office. An implicit apology was exactly how it was interpreted by the welcoming Irish press who saw it as an attempt to inject fresh goodwill into Anglo-Irish relations and encourage the peace process.

That the Irish Establishment were so ready to accept it as such speaks to their submission to desired myth rather than their ability and willingness to face reality, honestly. But of course, faced with a neighbour far more powerful than they and understood to be more than capable of inflicting harm (collusion in Northern Ireland, false convictions of innocent Irish citizens jailed for decades in English jails, the financial power of the City of London were all well known to the Irish Establishment) upon anyone who challenged them, their readiness to accept the apology at face value contained some wisdom. It's not a good idea to confront a more powerful bully with the truth, in International politics. And when both leaderships are steeped in NeoLiberalism, it's even less likely that a confrontation with the truth will happen.

That said, the truth about the Famine and how it was 'managed' remains. Some harms are so great that they can never be forgotten, not least if those who caused the harm remain unapologetic. The Irish establishment tries its best to  say something of the truth, without going the full hog, as this RTE article outlines.

https://www.rte.ie/history/the-great-irish-famine/2020/0902/1162846-the-truth-about-trevelyan/

First and foremost, Trevelyan saw his role as essentially limiting the financial exposure of the British exchequer to funding relief for the Irish poor whose lives were devastated by the failure of the potato crop over successive years after 1846.

What he shared with the politicians and indeed the British Establishment as a whole was an ideological outlook that saw the Great Famine as an opportunity to bring about far-reaching reform of Irish society, clearing the land of the poor, developing commercialised agriculture, and making the Irish economy more ostensibly modern.

Sir Charles Edward F. Trevelyan, K.C.B. Engraved by D.J. Pound from a photograph by John Watkins, Parliament Street. Image: Getty Images

Let the Herd take it on the chin, protect the Hoard. The past 18 months described in one sentence in the 'United' Kingdom.

Others tell it like it was. 

Ireland 1845-1850: the Perfect Holocaust, and Who Kept it "Perfect."

https://www.amazon.com/Ireland-1845-1850-Perfect-Holocaust-Perfect/dp/0989610616

"This book, alone, provides the covered-up facts of 1845-1850 Ireland. There was no famine in the ordinary sense of that word. It was genocide perpetrated by more than half of Britain's army (67 regiments of its 130 regiments total). They removed, at gunpoint, Ireland's abundant meats, livestock, and food crops to the ports for export; thus starving the people. The book's colored map shows the locations of lengthy deployments of each of the sixty-seven regiments while they removed livestock, meats, flour, oatmeal, and other food crops to the ports for export. The same map names the locations of some 180 of the resultant mass graves."

The impoverished Irish native Catholic population, subsiding on potatoes, working for their Anglo landlords, were left to rot as their crop rotted. There was plenty of food, readily available, within spitting distance. It went to market, under armed guard. The Irish workers were deliberately impoverished by centuries of 'Austerity' policies designed to impoverish them, render them submissive and weak.

'Toraidh' is an Irish Gaelic word for a certain kind of egregious thief. It is also the roots of the English word 'Tory'.

Credit where credit is due?

Blair did not initiate the Northern Ireland peace process. It was initiated by Catholic and Protestant women finding solidarity in each other, building a peace movement, confronting the men of violence in their communities, building bridges across the divides, even as the British Security State was waging covert warfare from within both groups of paramilitaries and their communities. These women persisted with their humane struggle to bring the violence to an end. Mo Mowlem, Jeremy Corbyn and others followed pathways worn in by the ordinary women, the mothers, aunts and sisters of Northern Ireland.

Blair took the credit that others built up over decades. 

The English Government of 2020/21 is no different.

They and those they truly represent are not bothered by the costs they have imposed upon the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish peoples by their rejection of Elimination Strategy. They have no plans to ameliorate the situation going forwards. Herd Immunity is now the obvious strategic position, and by mass infection. 

Even as they claim kudos for the 'world beating' vaccination, developed by a pan European collective effort, administered largely by the NHS and volunteers, of which the best that can be said is the Johnson administration did not impede it  in the same that the way they have impeded effective find, test, trace, quarantine and isolate systems that could suppress community transmission of the virus.

We have ample evidence of this Government exploiting the epidemic to enhance their own power, to enrich themselves and their crony associates, to bring in profound and damaging changes across social and health care provision, to avoid dealing with climate, environmental and other pressing problems.

Their latest wheeze is to recruit the youth in this task.

Disco of Malign Intent.

Saying to young people, whose development of their frontal cortex is yet to complete, and in the middle of an intense national level surge of infection via a new more transmissible variant that has vaccine escape, that they can and indeed should (to save the night time economy, do your patriotic duty) attend night clubs, knowing the frustration and intense desire of that cohort to socialise, to 'party like it's 2019' again, given the pressures they have had to endure these past 16 months of daily mismanagement, misinformation and blatant grift, suggesting that they 'take personal responsibility' rather than the government delaying opening up, maintaining legal provision (so called legal 'restrictions') to prevent spread of the virus and then say that in one and a half months time, for Health and Safety of the whole community, they would need proof of double dose of a vaccination to attend club nights (as a 'nudge' to increase vaccine take up) shows that they really do not care about the adverse effects of their policy on people - they want people to endure mass infection in the hope or gamble that this latest scheme will work.

That is the real meaning of Freedom Day!

It really doesn't have to be this way.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-virus-will-eventually-force.html

The question is simple - the economic costs of zero community transmission strategy and quarantine borders with known benign outcomes vs the human and economic costs of slow spread towards herd immunity, with repeated cycles of re-opening and shut down as the viral infection spreads in waves, wave after wave into an indefinite future of unknowable adverse outcomes.

The Virus will eventually force governments to adopt Elimination Strategy. Duty of Care applies universally.

The Virus will eventually force governments to adopt Elimination Strategy. 

Breaking  community transmission is the go to evidence led, grounded, proven strategy. It works. 

Here's a solid report, with references, on the evidence that Elimination Strategy prevents the harms associated with Mitigation policy.

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

Study it, share it. Stopping the spread of the virus is spreading the love

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Politics is not Governance, Blame is not accountability, War never brings peace. Eagle does not fly.

Often folk make the error of conflating 'blame' and 'seeking accountability’.

Or we may equate punishment with justice.

Many equate politics with governance.

These are all quite different dynamics and it is useful to be able to distinguish between them.

Very, very pertinent, and very, very useful.

The Origins of a Foreign Policy to bomb the Iraq nation.

Oil is just one of  the mediums. Power is the issue. Psychology is the issue.

The Western Power Establishment are 100% opposed to the emergence of any independent, grass roots supported democratic Governance emerging in the Middle East because such Governments might choose to trade oil in alternative currencies and undermine the value of UK and US currencies.

Furthermore, the emergence of any Government that is truly responsive to the needs of the people is seen as an existential threat to the status quo. Rightly so.

They bully the strong, the weak they co-opt.

To that end they ignore the harms they are causing to real people.

They are emotionally blind to the truth of what the outcomes of their policy means in real human terms.

Watch this and you might get an insight into what is being done in the world of politics, and not being done in the world of Governance.

"Give me the child til age 7, and I will give you the man!"





Politics is quite separate from Governance.

I tend to make a distinction between Governance - the administration of a communities shared contributory resource (tax revenue) for the equal benefit if all citizens, and Politics, which is the strategic struggle to gain, retain, enhance and project Power over a people and protect it from any other contenders.

I think we need that distinction, and an understanding of how bullying operates and functions so that we can discern when that power play is usurping healthy Governance.

We need to be able to see when we are being deliberately triggered, misled, lied to, goaded and we need to be able to respond rather than react.

We are nowhere yet near a position of enough strength at the grass roots to fully support and protect a kinder, humane and evidence based Governance, which will face the strongest resistance from the Power Establishment. We are not there yet.

If you look at it, how much worse will your disappointment be if we elect a kinder Governance and we are unable to protect it from the Power Establishment?

Be realistic and honest.... if we can be triggered, then we are not yet ready for the shared responsibilities of power.

It's about exercising power rather than the attractions of greed.

Their violence requires great wealth to fund it. Their power is dependent upon the violence they can marshal, and upon their ability to indoctrinate their captive populations.

They use our cash, as consumers and as tax payers, to do all of this.

This is a long game we are playing out.

Hold the line, do not be too dismayed and stay engaged. Stay strong.

We pay their wages. Corporations pay their bonuses.

People who seek power over others get a hormonal cascade when they exercise that power - they are addicted to that exercise of power.

They also internalize their positions of power. It becomes personal for them.

"Le Etate C'est Moi!" or “I am the State!”

They seek to control Governance in order to ensure they can continue to accrue greater wealth, and maintain their status of power, and because Governance gives them the cover to abuse the people and get away with it. It is rigged.

Because they are bullies they  aim to inflict psychological injury more often than physical injury. Their main aim is to control, discredit, isolate and eliminate their target.

It's been like that for a while, it is NOT healthy human behaviour, it is not part of optimal human biological health, it is a pathology and it is institutionalised.

This blog on bullying and bystanders is recommended reading.

More healthy Governance, less political power struggles is all we are asking for. Is it really too much to ask for in the 21^st Century?

A new Conservative Government.

Do not worry about who or what personality is appointed to what post; it makes very little difference to the realities we are facing.

The policies will be pretty much a continuation.

It makes little difference to the Syrians, the Libyans, the Iraqi's.

They are the faces of oppression, and that is all you really need to know.

Do not allow yourselves to be trolled, or enervated, or dismayed or hopeful etc by the successive announcements of who is getting what job.

Turn it all off, you can see it all complete tomorrow.

Take time out to nurture, to regain some strength, to feed your heart - cook, eat, make love, sing, write, sleep, dream and just be for one day, one evening, one night.

It will all be there tomorrow, and if you are rested, nurtured and relatively calm you will be a much better place to deal with it all.

You are not Syrian, Iraqi, Libya, Yemeni.... you are very, very fortunate to be born here, in the UK.

Use that good fortune, do not waste it.

Know who you are.

Remember who you are.

Step out of short term hope into certainty as to where your heart and mind is standing and where you are going.

Do not allow yourselves to be trolled by the mainstream media or dismayed by changes and struggles within Government, my British friends.

We are not facing anything like the depravity of Iraq, Libya, Syria.... we do have space to operate in.

Know what you are about. Stand on it. Develop your stamina. Stay the course.



War Crimes. The Law. A reality check.

1. The Laws prohibiting war were then as they are now. Nothing has changed.

2. The senior Lawyer at the Foreign Office, Elizabeth Wilmshurst quit her role in protest just before the war. She did what the sitting MP's all failed to do. She stood by the Law.

She had been at the FO since 1974. She was 100% clear that the invasion was a War of Aggression, the supreme war crime, in that it contains all other war crimes.

Her letter of resignation made this clear. ALL Cabinet level politicians had access to that advice.

"I cannot in conscience go along with advice - within the Office or to the public or Parliament - which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law."

Elizabeth was the leading legal expert at the Foreign Office at that time.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4377605.stm

3. ALL MP's have a duty of care and of due diligence that is inherent in their roles as MP's. as representatives of their constituencies.

Each and everyone of them had a duty to examine the Laws prohibiting war, and to understand them as they applied at the time.

Failure to do so, along with voting for the War, on such a matter where peoples lives (the troops they were sending, their families) were being put into harms way, and where the outcomes for Iraqi civilians were likely to be horrific, was negligence of the highest order.

They all had plenty of time to exercise due diligence and honour their duty of care.

They are all culpable under the Law for their actions.

Angela Eagle is 100% culpable. She cannot fly.

4. Jeremy Corbyn is 100% committed to upholding the Law, as is John McDonnell, and as are the vast majority of grass roots electorate.

That is the threat the Establishment want to neutralise.

And they will fail. They are failing. Hold steady. Stay strong.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

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