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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AI, Fake News, Grooming and Legislation to protect and enhance Free Speech

The AI snaps were made by Luca Allievi using Midjourney. (Luca Allievi/SWNS)AI generated image of the much loved late Queen Elizabeth II, on the decks, mixing it up. Obviously fake.
To the Editor
This morning, an article in The Guardian newspaper discussed the potential of AI generated content that could pose a risk to political elections.
The solution is quite straightforward.
Yet nobody seems prepared to articulate it.
Targeting people who present with biases, lack of accurate knowledge, fears and worries with content designed to exacerbate the emotional reactions associated with those vulnerabilities, in order to drive behavioural change that can be exploited for political gain, is the problem here.
Many media are utilised to do this. It is not something new.
What is the best term to describe this activity?
It is grooming. It is psychological and emotional abuse.
AI increases the scale and precision of delivery systems of such content. 
We know that the problem is already part of current political activism. Brexit, Trump, anti-LGBTQA+ 'activism', misogyny, anti-abortion have all 'influenced' elections. Cambridge Analytica and SCL are two well known entities proven to have engaged in this kind of content delivery.
The solution is Legislation that defines this activity, and makes it a criminal offence to engage in this activity. Such legislation does not impede or limit Free Speech, it protects Free Speech, in as much as it sets a standard of evidence, honesty and integrity as an essential element of Free Speech. Such legislation is protective, rather than oppressive. It does not impede Freedom of Religion. What it might do is create a firewall between Religious Belief and Secular Governance, which in my view, is an essential step, long overdue.
Human Rights Legislation and evidence is the basis for healthy Governance, and Human Rights Legislation protects the rights of Religious communities and individuals to practice their respective faiths.




Kindest Regards
Corneilius Crowley
London

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Impact II

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

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

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

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

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

Progress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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







Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

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Safe Spaces - for women, for trans-women, for men and children, and The Doctrine of Discovery.

On the question of 'Is a trans-woman a woman?', Safe Spaces and The Doctrine of Discovery. 

This piece is me taking a look at two hot topics - Transgender Rights and Indigenous Cultures Rights - in the context of the challenge of historical honesty and forward looking empathy based Governance. 
There is a widespread assumption that Democratic Governance ought protect the ordinary folk from avoidable harms caused by the powerful and others with malign intent. 
Seatbelts. Gun Bans. Health and Safety. Declarations of Interest. Laws criminalising rape, domestic abuse, wars of aggression, invasion, occupation etc.

For thousands of years, certain cultures have oppressed females as a class, a generic group.

For 5OO years, Eurocentric Conquest Culture has oppressed indigenous, native cultures on other continents. In both instances, legal and cultural structures and belief systems were created to permit and maintain the systems of oppression.

The impacts of this long history live on today because the most honest reality of that historical oppression remains obscured, deliberately, in order to preserve the gains accrued by the so-called 'victors'.

People who topple statues celebrating personages associated with that great harm - Slavers and Warlords - are accused of 're-writing history' as if they are doing so with malign and harmful intent. The reality is they do it with good intent, often after much effort to have the issue settled in a just manner, by an honest, public recording of History, in frustration with the obstacles and avoidable delays set against such an outcome.

To tell the truth is the first step in achieving justice and without justice there is neither peace nor equity..

The Truth about Biological Sex and Gender
Biology, at genetic, hormonal, cell chemistry and neurology levels reveals that biological sex is a spectrum, rather than a binary. This information is decades old, garnered from the work of many thousands of scientists, over time, peer reviewed, tested and checked to the extent of providing enough data and evidence to generate new scientific theory - not hypotheses or suppositions. Working models that work.

I urge readers to view this video. It contains critically important information. It helps us understand why so many older, egalitarian and hierarchy cultures alike, presented a wide variety of Gender assignations.

Forrest Valkai, an evolutionary paleo-biologist, walks us through the biology of sex, gender.

Who needs a safe space? Please keep this in mind as you read on. 
1. Sex at the genetic and biological level is 'male', 'female' and intersex, with intersex reflecting a natural biological variation, across the linear of 'male-female' rather than aberrations. No question. That is the Science. This is not opinion.
2. Intersex is less a third sex than it is a biologically created range of variations of sex that could suggest any number of genders. Intersex is not a choice. It's a reality. None of us choose what we biologically sexed as, in utero or upon birth. A biological reality. It cannot be wished away. Keep this in mind. Bio-logical Variety has purpose and functional utility. This is not opinion.
3. Gendering is a social cultural activity. It is the behaviour of assigning or attributing a set of traits, qualities, roles and behaviours to persons based only on what is seen in body form and it reflects what is culturally expected behaviour. Gendering has never been rooted in biological science, genetics or brain development. Because for a long time Science did not have the data to understand the true range of sex attribution until recently. Gendering has always been rooted in cultural expectations and practice. This is not an opinion. 

To accept this is so, is to accept the facts. And that means to accept that the culture ought to change to meet our new evidence based understandings in how to avoid avoidable harm. Because culture changes all the time, we know this can be done, by choice, by effort. Trade Unions struggled for workers rights. They changed the culture. This is not an opinion.

Trans rights is about Human Rights.

Struggle for cultural and public and legal recognition, understanding and healthy change. The only reason it is a struggle is because there is resistance, and that resistance is often violent and well organised. The new emerging understandings are marginalised and their proponents are othered to protect the old traditions.

Women's Rights, Feminism, Indigenous Peoples Rights, Environmental Rights, Animal Rights and of course Human Rights. They all seek changes in the culture. Healthy changes designed to make the  lives of those afflicted by adverse cultural violence and practices safer. Who opposes this?
4. Body form - what one can see - can disguise or veil the biological, genetic sex-at-birth status and variations thereof, and the person carrying the intersex genetic may well feel alienated from the prevailing culturally imposed gendering, because they in their body do not feel or sense those gendered traits as their own, and the task of presenting those sets of associated traits and characteristics attributed to that gendering leads to sense of distress that is not responded to healthfully. This is not an opinion. This happens all too frequently.

On external stimuli and their effects.

This commentator from tiktok asks the question - can being transgender be influenced by outside stimuli? He raises some important points about hostility  a form of influence - towards trans-gender people and what it means.

@kilt.dad Replying to @_x01z_ #sociology #psychology #trans #transgender #protecttranskids #transman #transwoman #nonbinary #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #gender #genderidentity #impostersyndrome #genderexpectations #transphobia #transtiktok ♬ Love You So - The King Khan & BBQ Show

5. In a progressive society, a mature society, a humane society, knowing all this we really ought to be prepared to set the absolutist binary gendering to one side, precisely because it causes harm to a lot of people. We ought to expand our definitions to meet the facts of the case. Cultural change, making life safer for persons. This is my opinion, based on the facts.
6. The binary limitation of Western gendering is a social construct. We can change it and not face an apocalypse. This is a fact.
Exclusive Male/Female binary is entirely a cultural construct. 
We know this because many different cultures hold varied gendering dynamics. Facts.
7. It is an echo or form of colonialism to suggest that the Western Euro-Christian gendering is the Natural Law governing all human life as a species. Not least because when Western Culture met many other cultures with a Gender Spectrum of their own, beyond the gender binary of The Christian West, it criminalised those cultures and the existing gender variation presenting demographics of the conquered, the colonised.

Because that binary view was largely informed by Religion rather than Science, it is maintained by indoctrinated belief and is utilised within systemic oppression of Western Colonisation as a weapon of conquest, extirpation and assimilation.
8. The Christian Right is leading the charge on anti-trans activism. By a large margin, it is really well funded and very well organised. Belief as a root of Governance is ideology.

There is a thread of very public hatred directed at trans-gender, homosexual and other people who do not fit the binary denominations. Trans-gender folk, homosexual folk and others are at greater risk, per capita, of violence perpetrated against them by men. Women are at greater risk of sexualised mistreatment and assault by men, than men are, by a long, long margin.

So who needs safe spaces? 
The drivers of anti-trans activism are not the funded by the underdogs in our society. They don't represent the marginalised, even if they are often recruited from a nother marginalised group.
9. 'Trans-Women are women' means relating to the trans-woman as a woman - as who she is presenting as, as a person, worthy of respect, dignity and legal protection from discrimination and abuse.

It does not mean and is never meant to mean a trans-woman is a biological sex-at-birth woman. You and I, if we had the funds, could undergo a DNA analysis, a brain scan and other tests and ascertain where on the spectrum of biological reality our bodies and brains are.

We cannot alter our genetics at that level. Everyone knows this.

Thus if a person has mix of genetics of female and male across their biological markers, tipped one direction slightly more than another, it is totally understandable that a person in an at first glance overtly male body may have a female brain, and other markers on that spectrum, and genuinely feel confused and distressed by the limitations of binary genderism, given the strict roles and behavioural  characteristics more commonly assigned to binary gender roles in the prevailing culture, political and social.

Thus the question is set as a trap, because it relies on the lack of knowledge of the person to whom the question is posed, in the political context. It is a bully question, a tactical deflection.

The actual question is this - Why does this culture make it so that women, children and others - people of colour, the disabled, the traumatised - need a safe space at all?
10. The technology of medical therapy is available to those who want to, after much consideration and thought, undergo transition medical procedures. Everyone undergoing this knows it will not change the sex-at-birth status of that body. The desire to alter the body according to one's taste, and the choice to do so, as medical and health practice enables safely as possible, is not a problem per se. 
11. Nobody is forcing any child or any adult to undergo such treatment, anywhere. It's so obviously a crime to do so. The claims otherwise are all arguments based on inaccuracies and falsehoods.
12. Women's safe spaces are only necessary because of a pre-existing culture of patriarchy, misogyny and the male dominated violence towards women inherent in such a culture, still operating within the current social and institutional setting.

Are the London Met more a threat to women than London's trans-women, as two groups of people?
13. CisGendered men are statistically more dangerous to women than trans-women are dangerous to women, as a demographic.

Obviously this does not mean not all men are a danger or a threat to all women, or all trans-gendered folk, it is that the statistics show that a lot more men cause sexual harm and violence to a hell of a lot of women than would happen in a genuinely healthy society. Men who fall for the trap that 'not all men' sets are reacting to a perceived threat, rather than responding to the existing situation.

This is so because there has been and remains a culture of misogyny at the institutional level, and at the personal level. We internalise the values of the culture we are born into, unless we resist. Those internalisations become part of our sub-conscious psyche.

This has biological utility. For example, among egalitarian land rooted cultures, their people carry an internal mind map of their environment, to the extent that some estimate the range of ethnobotanical information a typical individual of such a culture is thirty times that of a Western trained ethnobotanist for the same environment. Obviously the way the information is gained, processed and utilised will be quite different.
The institutional level of internalised beliefs and values across the prevailing culture of Power and Wealth provides safe space to be misogynistic, be it directly, or through negligence or through patterns of protecting the institutions rather than those who have been victimised. London Met. The Catholic Church
14. CisGendered men are even more dangerous to trans-women than they are to cisGendered women, which is quite horrific when one thinks about it carefully. Trans-women suffer more violence and abuse, per capita, at the hands of men. Their rate of being harmed by men is greater than that of women. The both require and deserve safe places. One might have thought that women would be their most natural allies in this.
15. Their need - that of women and trans-women - for safe space is a shared need, and to set out an argument that puts them as competing with each other for that safe space is an abomination and it is a very carefully laid trap.
16. Don't let your mind or your emotions fall into that trap. It will drag you down and down and down and eventually you will readily dehumanise someone and feel so self righteous about yourself.

The Vatican Repudiates Doctrine of Discovery

For the past 5OO years, older native cultures have sought a safe space. A space free of colonial oppression, conquest and extermination of people, culture, language, polity and land tenure. Who needs a safe space?

Native children, removed from their homes, families and communities, placed in residential schools approved by the State, operated by The Churches, to erase their links to their traditions, to assimilate them into White Christian Society, an outcome of The Doctrine of Discovery. 

Last week, The Vatican officially announced its repudiation of The Doctrine of Discovery, which provided the 'spiritual' and 'legal' status of colonisation of lands by Euro-Christian powers for 5OO years and more. Until this announcement was made.

The Vatican's official statement is published online for all to read. Here it is. It is a brief statement.

Joint Statement of the Dicasteries for Culture and Education and for Promoting Integral Human Development on the “Doctrine of Discovery”, 30.03.2023

1. In fidelity to the mandate received from Christ, the Catholic Church strives to promote universal fraternity and respect for the dignity of every human being.

2. For this reason, in the course of history the Popes have condemned acts of violence, oppression, social injustice and slavery, including those committed against indigenous peoples. There have also been numerous examples of bishops, priests, women and men religious and lay faithful who gave their lives in defense of the dignity of those peoples.

3. At the same time, respect for the facts of history demands an acknowledgement of the human weakness and failings of Christ’s disciples in every generation. Many Christians have committed evil acts against indigenous peoples for which recent Popes have asked forgiveness on numerous occasions.

4. In our own day, a renewed dialogue with indigenous peoples, especially with those who profess the Catholic Faith, has helped the Church to understand better their values and cultures. With their help, the Church has acquired a greater awareness of their sufferings, past and present, due to the expropriation of their lands, which they consider a sacred gift from God and their ancestors, as well as the policies of forced assimilation, promoted by the governmental authorities of the time, intended to eliminate their indigenous cultures. As Pope Francis has emphasized, their sufferings constitute a powerful summons to abandon the colonizing mentality and to walk with them side by side, in mutual respect and dialogue, recognizing the rights and cultural values of all individuals and peoples. In this regard, the Church is committed to accompany indigenous peoples and to foster efforts aimed at promoting reconciliation and healing.

5. It is in this context of listening to indigenous peoples that the Church has heard the importance of addressing the concept referred to as the “doctrine of discovery.” The legal concept of “discovery” was debated by colonial powers from the sixteenth century onward and found particular expression in the nineteenth century jurisprudence of courts in several countries, according to which the discovery of lands by settlers granted an exclusive right to extinguish, either by purchase or conquest, the title to or possession of those lands by indigenous peoples. Certain scholars have argued that the basis of the aforementioned “doctrine” is to be found in several papal documents, such as the Bulls Dum Diversas (1452), Romanus Pontifex (1455) and Inter Caetera (1493).

6. The “doctrine of discovery” is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Historical research clearly demonstrates that the papal documents in question, written in a specific historical period and linked to political questions, have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith. At the same time, the Church acknowledges that these papal bulls did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of indigenous peoples. The Church is also aware that the contents of these documents were manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers in order to justify immoral acts against indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities. It is only just to recognize these errors, acknowledge the terrible effects of the assimilation policies and the pain experienced by indigenous peoples, and ask for pardon. Furthermore, Pope Francis has urged: “Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.”

7. In no uncertain terms, the Church’s magisterium upholds the respect due to every human being. The Catholic Church therefore repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political “doctrine of discovery”.

8. Numerous and repeated statements by the Church and the Popes uphold the rights of indigenous peoples. For example, in the 1537 Bull Sublimis Deus, Pope Paul III wrote, “We define and declare [ ... ] that [, .. ] the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the Christian faith; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect”.

9. More recently, the Church’s solidarity with indigenous peoples has given rise to the Holy See’s strong support for the principles contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The implementation of those principles would improve the living conditions and help protect the rights of indigenous peoples as well as facilitate their development in a way that respects their identity, language and culture.

The National Congress of American Indians issued the following initial brief response. 

"The National Congress of American Indians commends Pope Francis and the Catholic Church for finally repudiating the dehumanizing Doctrine of Discovery and acknowledging what Indigenous peoples have known all along—that the Doctrine ‘did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples'. 
It is no secret that many governments -- including the United States -- have relied on this doctrine to justify the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and the taking of our lands.
 It is our sincere hope that today’s announcement is more than mere words, but rather is the beginning of a full acknowledgement of the history of oppression and a full accounting of the legacies of colonialism—not just by the Roman Catholic Church, but by all the world governments that have used racism, prejudice and religious authority to not only justify past inequalities, but to allow, fuel, and perpetuate the institutionalization of those inequalities that continue to this very day.

We thank the Creator that Indigenous peoples are strong, resilient, full of wisdom, faith, hope, and love, and we stand ready to have difficult conversations about the future and to work together to build off of today’s  step forward to bring about meaningful positive change to our people and nations, and for the healing, reconciliation and restoration of all peoples across the globe.”

Here is a video, 46 minutes, from a Native American, Mark Charles, commenting on the Vatican's Statement, making some useful and accurate observations on the purpose behind it, on the careful language it uses and why The Vatican is trying to insulate itself from varying levels of culpability and the responsibility to make reparations, to correct the situation in full.

Who needs safe spaces and why? And who obstructs the creation and maintenance of those safe spaces?

These are important questions we must deal with, honestly.

Repudiation of The Doctrine of Discovery  - what ought flow from this, what 'reparations' really means.
1. Acknowledge the Native Land Tenure as equal standing, as a State, as a Nation, internationally, legally.
2. Acknowledge the Native Polity as a valid polity, with the UN Declaration of Human Rights as their protection.
3. Acknowledge the harm caused, and the harm still being caused and stop it.
4. Acknowledge the loss. Fully. An honest history must be recorded.
5. Make reparations, as determined by the Native people's and the UN, with co-operation from all existing Governments involved. 

And regarding Gender and Trans-Gender folk, the movement that opposes their full recognition, status and respect as human beings, with so much hatred and lies, is a cruel movement and it is evasive - it evades the truth. We live within an old, though not really ancient, bully culture, a hierarchy of wealth and power that determines the boxes and categories and class we are forced to internalise.

Who needs safe spaces and why? And who obstructs the creation and maintenance of those safe spaces?

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 - donations gratefully received

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A week of Committees and Hearings, pop-corn delights of bullies in full flow

A week of Committees and Hearings, pop-corn delights of bullies in full flow, their flawed arguments exposed, their tactics revealed, their bile discharged in one case to a patient, calm and willing witness and in the other aimed at a patient, calm and willing Committee.

If you ever need to watch something to remind yourself you are not a bully, that you'd prefer to not have to vote for bullies, the combined 1O hours of public legislative broadcast questioning under oath  of the past few days might have something to offer.

To be honest, I didn't buy any pop-corn, and I watched less than three hours of both combined. Others watched it, and reviewed it so that I, lazily, languidly, did not have to.

To have watched it all, live, would have been too much for heart. Heartbreakers. 
The drama.
Boris Johnson and The House of Commons Privileges Committee.

On one side of 'the pond' we had a High Official ex-Prime Minister being given a chance to speak his defence, facing an allegation he intentionally lied to Parliament.

Johnson, ex-Pm, Brexiteer Virus Spreader, ex-Mayor, of Bridge to Nowhere infamy, Press Pundit Hack blustered and obfuscated and tried to bring in the entire Civil Service as part of his defence as he dished up shared blame by association. Johnson's tactic - "If I can't blind them with brilliance, I must baffle them with bullshit."

And so he tried on the "I'm obviously an idiot." without saying "Obviously, I'm an idiot." ploy. Innocence by virtue of stupidity.

He wagged his fingers, he accused the committee of bias, he opined he would not accept their ruling if it went against him. That and so much else. Raw Sewage in the river.

Apparently expensive treatment advice, piping at 5K£ an hour, to no avail. 

It was exhausting, listening to slippery eel talk - the only thing he didn't do was use a Latin allusion. I might have missed it.

Tik Tok, The US Congressional Hearings and a ban
On the other side of 'pond' we see High Officials of the Government, carrying out a version of The Salem Witch Trials, attacking a patient, composed and willing witness, denying him the chance to fully speak in his own defence, or indeed his companies defence. 

TikTok is being accused, without foundation, of being an arm of the Chinese Communist Party, engaged in nefarious operations designed to undermine The American Way by influencing America's children. They are so accused as a cover for lack of legislative regulatory protection of private data.

TikTok's response is to politely spend 1.5 Billion dollars to store all data on US Soil, under US independent Third Party control, with an all American workforce. And much else that sets a new high bar for regulation of Social Media platforms industry.

Good strategy. A strategy that the likes of Facebook,  Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube and a myriad of social on-line interactive user content generation platforms that carry advertising would rather not be put in place.

Surplus Behavioural Data

The real meat of this matter, privacy and the collection of what is known as 'surplus behavioural data' - in short the entire inadvertent on-line activity and behaviour of each and every user - and it's analysis and utilisation is, of course, off the books. Because there's the advertisers alchemical gold - an analysis of current observed and measured human behaviour trails among users of the digital online content creation wannabes, categorised into thousands of very specific characterisations, many of them emotionally charged, easily triggered, vulnerable to manipulation, or for other purposes. A dollar sign on every bias. Advertisers will pay well for that access. Google will never sell it's trove of 'surplus behavioural data'. The other data we create as content, etc, is largely already in the open. All our financials, company info, car licence etc have long been shared, even prior to interwebs.

Personal data, most of which is already available for a fee, is not the issue at the heart of the Internet of Beef.

The Internet of Beef.

The online argument marketing community generating arguments that never resolve into coherence, based on biases, in order to increase engagement so more eyes see more adds. As have done most News papers ever. It's nothing new here.

It was discovered again via the emergence of online Forums and platforms of any and every kind where eyes are on screens and typing to each other, and it very quickly became integrated in to Capitalist dominance of the interwebs as a marketing tool. A dollar on every bias. Hey, people can even design products no one needs, out of toxic materials, that a certain variation on biases might trigger a sale, and make just enough useless stuff to saturate that market, extracting wealth from vulnerability. This is serious stuff, my readers. One cannot look away. This cannot stand unregulated, at any level.

Surplus Behavioural Data allows mass study of specific vulnerabilities, biases, emotional state, psychological state, moods, impulses, fears, triggers, and has led to a categorisation system which the tech companies hold close to their chest. They do not sell that data.

The social media companies sell the ability to target any selection of the thousands of specific categories they have generated by analysing trillions of hours of behavioural data, and send advertisers content to targets presenting with those variable attributes, thus increasing likelihood of a confirmed sales to ad placed ratio. That is their business, the provision of free tools to create content and share it - the user/consumer experience - is their draw.

So back to TikTok's faux spy trial... and the sophisticated, layered bully tactics routinely deployed de riguer when one is plainly in the wrong, in public. Unapologetically. Self righteously. Legislators? 
Remember Johnson above?  Exactly that.

Tactics

One tactic was for an official to cut short his or her speech, having made and allegation or attribution, so that Mr. Chew could not take time to answer the question, to explore it for better clarity. Bloody rude behaviour anywhere. Mr. Chew was stoic. I think the Congress has bitten off more than it can chew. We'll see why below.

Here's a more moderate instance, there were many more, in quick succession, that were downright repulsive and arrogant.


A staring, glowering semi-circle of angry men and women, nursing a well paid anger, implying that Mr. chew and his company  might well be supporting genocidal , secretly grooming American children for the Chinese Communist Party, to undermine American culture; they accused his company of numerous other wild conspiracy theories. The same group had within it people who did not understand how WiFi works as part of the internet.

Congressman A : "If I have TikTok on my mobile phone, does TikTok have access to my Wifi?"

@cnetdotcom 😳😳😳……… #TikTok #TikTokNews #Congress #TikTokCEO #ShouChew #Wifi #internet #congressionalhearing #TikTokban #tiktokhearing ♬ original sound - CNET

The viewing public : "WTF? Did he really ask that question? Really? OMG!"

Case Closed. Ban TikTok!

Or this?

@djkirstyjay #duet with @The Herman Cain Awards #tiktokhearing #tiktoktrial #tiktoktrials #tiktokusa #algorithmtiktok #algorithm #texas ♬ original sound - The Herman Cain Awards

Knowledgeable they are not.

5 hours of this kind of behaviour, with some attempts by Mr. Chew to present a rational, evidenced case, and irrationality and conspiracy theory being presented as a righteous rebuttal of TikTok's case.

Belief and bile. Bible. Make believe, Mystical World. Fantasy and Imagination. Patience and equity. These are things I think about. A life examined and all that wisdom guff.

The presence of cruelty and bullying eradicates wisdom as the base of the dynamic, which is not restored in full until the cruelty and bullying is stopped, and further harm prevented, with an eye to a long term solution. Prevention is better than the cure, though in the case of FacebookGoogle vs TikTok, what they are preventing is a mature regulatory system for all social media, one that is democratic, transparent and effective. 

Backstory - money cows chased.
Turns out TikTok had taken away a huge share of the US and Global advertising market.  From Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.... Ooops!

A better product gains more users because it is a genuinely better product for sharing social content, in terms of it's ease of use, ability to share, algorithm designed to enable natural virality. The users inadvertently decide what is most popular, most effective. And yes, it is designed, like all social media to draw eyes to advertisements. TikTok intentionally chooses a more democratic content selection, Period.

All the social media platforms sell advertising access. That is the business model. They sell access to users who create content who, whilst viewing content, will see advertisements. Simples.

TikTok's algorithm is much more attuned to emergence, democratisation of content feed, and the deliberate restriction of content that is inciting harm in any way is part of what enables that democratisation.

TikTok has made it clear in their current operations that they are going to set new standards, beyond those in place for the social media industry, to a higher standard. Facebook et al do not want those higher standards turned into commercial legislation.

That's the service that has drawn 15O million US users in. Democratic flow of information. It's what 'the interwebs' was redeployed to do, away from the Military Industrial Complexes hegemony. 

Now who is likely the most pissed off about all of this loss of advertising market share?  Who might want to kill the neighbours golden goose, out of spite and malign business practice? Hmmm... Those who will lose profits, and those who will lose voters might form an alliance in such a situation.
Turns out someone spent a small fortune generating conspiracy theories about TikTok, and making them go viral.
Turns out someone spent a small fortune on a number of political lobbying firms, and donated to certain public representatives.
For profit.
Now, who would that be?
https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/30/23003168/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory-news-column-campaign-gop
"Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been paying one of the most prominent Republican consulting firms to run a nationwide campaign to sow distrust about one of the company’s top competitors, TikTok, according to a new report from The Washington Post on Wednesday.
The firm, Targeted Victory, reportedly planted op-eds and letters to the editor in major local and regional newspapers across the country. A Targeted Victory director told staff that the firm needed to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using,” according to emails obtained by The Post.
“TikTok is the real threat”
News of Facebook’s decision to hire the firm comes only a few weeks after the company declared that it was losing users for the first time in its 18-year history. Meta’s recent earnings report said that Facebook’s active users dropped by almost 500,000 at the end of last year. 
Several of Targeted Victory’s op-eds contained links to negative news coverage about TikTok and were often bylined by influential community figures and politicians, including Democrats. The Post reported that none of the columns disclosed their connection to the Facebook-funded firm.
Over the last few years, Facebook has been under fire by Congress for allegedly holding an illegal monopoly in the social media industry. During a 2020 hearing with tech CEOs, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, lawmakers cited internal company documents suggesting that Zuckerberg would go “destroy mode” if Instagram, a then-nascent competitor, refused to be sold to the social media giant. "
Anyway, that's so not speculative. This is all well documented. It's an interesting story indeed. How they do it.

And of course, Meta contributed donated funding to Democrats and Republicans alike to help make their case water tight, and carefully built their political combat troops, up, to fight for their Freedom from healthy competition.

Free Market my arse!
In any setting if bullying is happening and not being stopped, Freedom has ended. Period.

So what I think about these two visual overloads of bullies in action is this - in both cases we see what bullies do when they internalise political power as if it was a part of themselves, at which point it becomes blind entitlement. The freedom to make false accusations in public, to repeat known falsehoods set out as rumours as if they are true in public as their natural, God given right. The freedom to shout down the person representing TikTok, caricaturing him as a Chinese Communist Party asset for the public gallery since there is no verifiable, reliable evidence supporting that claim at all.

The Freedom to bully, using language to bully, to incite more bullying. Without consequence. By right.

Indict Putin and Blair and Bush?
That said, the matter of Johnson is minor compared to the outstanding matter of Blair, the War Criminal. Seeing as no indication that Parliament will indict Blair exists, and certainly StarmerFriedLabour won't, Parliament and the parties involved remain as unindicted War Criminals. Make of that what you will.
It's a mess. The whole hierarchy cult of wealth, power and might is a mess, and it's causing so much harm.
Whatever you may think, the fact is that I didn't mess it up, and you probably didn't mess it up, and there are those who are messing it up, big time.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog. I sincerely hope it makes some sense, and is informative, for you.

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

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Meeting unmet needs - Open Letter sent by email to Irish Government and others regards Public Inquiry into Historical Abuse within Boarding and Day Schools .

Letter sent by email to Irish Government and others regards Public Inquiry into Historical Abuse within Boarding and Day Schools - meeting unmet needs.

To whom it may concern,


The unmet needs of children deprived of their human rights, their dignity and safety permeate their lives. Their lives are live within the community. The adverse impacts in terms of human distress, ill-health percolates and permeates, wearing the survivor down, and until those needs are fully met, those percolations continue. A bitter brew, one that does not bring pleasure to life. Quite the opposite.

Mark Vincent Healy writes :

"To have lived a life tormented from the start, and left this world never knowing any peace of it, is as much part of the culture which failed to protect those children as the culture which allowed such evil to prosper for all those decades. How can one even begin to say sorry to the lives who endured such torment, to the lives of those families who witnessed such torment in their loved ones."

The immensity of the suffering precludes apology followed by horse trading and mitigation. Honest and full acknowledgement of the part State and Church and Culture played, remorse, a social and material concern to meet the unmet needs of survivors, and their families, and a cultural shift that makes society safe for all our children.

Mark continues:

 

"In many ways, the response is already late, far too late, for those no longer with us, but we can make amends and ‘do right’ by those who remain. In many ways, it is the only conscionable and compassionate act available to a tardy response by a church and state to those victims still with us, who deserved far better, if we are not a nation that ought to collectively hang our heads in shame for such failures to our own, to our own children."

What this means to me, or how I interpret this is that the Survivors story has profound historical importance, on many levels. Matters of governance, probity, health and education, social policy, development, economics and international relations are entwined. Not least because it involved harm to so many children, to men and to women, a significant demographic within a nation. So much pain and distress that could have been avoided.

I think it is fair to suggest here, say, as a Survivor, speaking for myself, that Ireland as a Nation, a people, a community, a society is at a turning point here. 

 

Will the people of Ireland bear the honest truth about this, from the assumption of Independence, in 1922, to the present period, and will they will their Government to ensure the unmet needs of the surviving children are fully met? 

 

Only then will the history be complete and accurate. 

To those who are in Governance, I say this.

Honesty brings justice. Empathy matures power towards equity. Leave a legacy of healing, gift the future with it by taking action in the present.

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 - donations gratefully received

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