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."

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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."

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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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.

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Woke Up, and Make Peace!

Here's a rewrite of Ian Drury's "Wake Up"....

Here is the original, Have a dance and enjoy!


Here is the re-write. I think Ian might have appreciated this re-write. I will never know.

"Woke Up!"

"Woke Up And Make Peace, With Us."

I come awoke
With a gift for Humankind
Some're still asleep
But the gift don't seem to mind
Rise from the oppression
Woke has got your back
Bringing down the bullies 
Nurturing your mind....

You look so self-possessed
I won't disturb your rest
It's frightening when you're sleeping
and wide awake is best.

Wake up and make Woke  with us,
Woke up and make Peace
Wake up and make Woke today.
I don't want to make you
I'll let the heart take you
And you'll wake up and make WOKE!.

I woke up in the morning,
in a VERY peaceful mood,
I know Earth built my home.
and it's very, very good.
Air, Rock and Water
Sunshine giving light..
I'm woke and awake
And I know that WAR is SHITE!

I come awoke
In a thorny morning mood
And have a proper niggle
At the haughty rabid dudes.
Revolt against the bullies
Get them when they lie,
What happens is truth wins,
It's also very goooood.

I'll go and get the info,
And make some tea and toast
You have another sleep, love
It's you that needs woke most

Woke up and make Peace with me
Wake up and make Woke
Woke up and make Peace with me
I don't want to make you
I'll let the fancy take you
And you'll wake up and make Woke!

Woke up and make Peace with me
Woke up and make Peace
Woke up and make Peace with us
Woke up and make Peacee (PC, lol!)

Woke up
Woke up
Woke up
Wake up!

-- That's it.... lolz.
~
Some history on the term Culture Wars, as a context to this rewrite..



In American usage, "culture war" may imply a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal. This usage originated in the 1920s when urban and rural American values came into closer conflict. 

This followed several decades of immigration to the States by people who earlier European immigrants considered 'alien'. It was also a result of the cultural shifts and modernizing trends of the Roaring '20s, culminating in the presidential campaign of Al Smith in 1928. 

In subsequent decades during the 20th century, the term was published occasionally in American newspapers...

A wider, deeper context.

If we are to be honest we have to admit that's not just that there are 'culture wars' - is that we live within a War Culture.

'Culture War' is a term the Authoritarian Wealth Extraction Element(AWEE - they are taking the piss) crafted to push back against Critical Race Theory, Feminism, Equity Economics, Environmentalism, Climate Disruption being revealed and a range of other learnings that confront the AWEE with the harms they are causing to people and place, for profit.

The War Culture is waging wars for profit. Russia vs Ukraine, Israel vs Palestine, USUK vs Iraq, NATO vs Afghanistan, NATO vs Libya, NATO vs Syria, Saudi vs Yemen, propaganda abounds as 'truth is the first casualty in war'...

As ever, look towards those pouring funds into the weapon supply for the Culture Wars. 

Why are we fighting?

~

Woke is basically the status of consciously, intentionally not being a bully, of desiring de-escalation of conflict leading towards peaceful resolution, of standing on empathy and evidence over sentiment and belief in matters of Governance.

Seems like a good idea.

We workers, parents, students and communities really, really want decent, honest and transparent healthy governance that nurtures all people and our shared environment as a long term sustainable form of social organisation, a system of governance that avoids avoidable harms as it's basic theme - eliminating pollution, environment degradation, waste and wealth extraction, all driven by exploitation.



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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Why Ireland must meet the unmet needs of Survivors of predatory abuse within Ireland's schools.

Why Ireland must meet the unmet needs of Survivors of predatory abuse within Ireland's schools.

source : wikipedia
~

A short report from EURONEWS, on the matter of historical predatory abuse within educational settings operated by Church and State.


Mark Vincent Healy is a long time Survivor's Advocate, based in Ireland.

I note that whilst Mark's concerns prefaced the piece, the primary concern of the remainder of the report was the 'crisis' for The Catholic Church, not the day-to-day crisis of Survivors lived experience. The Church's needs, once again, cast their shadow over the unmet needs of Survivors. I do understand that such reporting concerns is a matter for EuroNews editorial. I assume they did not mean to be participants in casting that shadow. 

~

Leo Varadkar is reported by The Irish Times making the following statements. 

There is “no perfect option” for the type of inquiry to be set up to examine allegations of abuse at schools run by the Spiritans religious order, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.

The Government has stressed that the process of establishing an inquiry will be victim-led, Mr Varadkar reiterated, adding that he would like to avoid a “a highly legalistic in private, statutory investigation that is so wide-ranging and involves so many lawyers that it doesn’t report for five or six years, and that is a risk”.

But Mr Varadkar also added: “What matters is what the survivors think.”

He said: “There’s no perfect option, and I think it’s important we engage with the survivors and go through with them what the pros and cons of the different models are.”

In this piece I will lay out why I think Ireland needs to host a Public Inquiry into the History of Sexual and Predatory abuse and Violence within State and Church funded and operated schools, on the basis of meeting the unmet needs of the children who were harmed, the unmet needs of the adults they grew up as, the unmet needs of their families and communities and in a sense, the unmet need of Ireland as a population, an ethnic group, a healthy democratic State and a just Society regarding this matter.

Mark Vincent Healy speaks on this, in 2019.

Please bear his words and insight in mind as you read on.

1. At the time of each and every assault, during every attempt to bully, groom or sway the targeted child, that child's needs for safety and nurture were unmet. Those needs remained unmet for as long as the Institutions and others covered up and masked what had really happened, in order to protect their image, status and wealth. 

2. When a few Survivors and others expressed concern or brought cases forward, and presented testimony, starting more than four decades ago, public awareness of the criminality began to grow. Slowly. But still, most Survivors needs remained unmet. The Institutions adopted a defensive stance. Survivors continued to suffer, as did their families, friendships and colleagues, from the fall out of those unmet needs, year after year. This burdened yet another generation of Irish people growing up into adulthood with unmet needs. Intergenerational trauma. Layers of distress.

3. There have been 5 public inquiries since the 1990s, with some progress in the understanding of what was done, and in attaining a degree of accountability, albeit inadequate to the needs of Survivors. There is better understanding of the harm caused, and even still, Survivors needs remain unmet. Unfinished business.

This harm was caused to tens of thousands of children (a chart of estimates of numbers of Survivors across the EU, with numbers given for Ireland) who lived with the trauma and the distress into adulthood, where it impacted every part of their lives...

Reflect for a moment on the cascade of trauma and distress that percolated out from the initial harms. for over 70 years, and try to grasp the scale of the adverse impact on families and communities during that time. This vast well of distress and trauma is what we are draining, and drain it we must, for clear water to emerge.

4. The obvious empathy, compassion and respect show to the Ryan brothers, Mark and David, who spoke as Survivors of predatory sexual abuse by two Spiritan clerics (one of whom used rape as a punishment upon David) on RTE's flagship show, The Late Late, in November last year reflects the majority view among Irish Citizens. There was sorrow and anger there too, an outrage deeply felt, a visceral shock when David spoke of the leniency in Criminal Court case shown to that vicious offender, in spite of his horrific attack, due to 'old age'!  

5. There was a sense of  determination that the needs of Survivors be fully met, that the matter be fully and correctly resolved, in the heartfelt standing ovation given to the Ryan brothers at the end of the show. 

6. The Irish Government has undertaken public commitments to holding an Inquiry into Predatory Abuse within Spiritan Boarding Schools.  Good. Survivors are calling for an Inquiry into the entire school system - all boarding schools and all day schools. Because they know that their needs are still unmet.  

7. Survivors, clinical experts and advocates are calling for a place at the table, via a Survivors Panel, when the terms of reference are being set out. Survivors deserve a place there as equals, to set out the task of the Inquiry with their experience, their pain, their  insight and their wisdom informing the process at every stage. That panel must function as a feed in from the wider Survivor demographic to the process.

8. The task of the inquiry will take whatever steps required to establish the depth and scale of abuse, the extent of cover-up and management of image by Institutions and to establish what harms both of these dynamics have caused, down through the generations, and then to design policy and protocol that meets the unmet needs of all Survivors, those who live, and those who have passed away, needs unmet until the very end, because these are also among the unmet needs of Irish Civil and Spiritual Society as a whole entity.

9. That cannot be done without the direct involvement of Survivors clinicians and advocates as equals with Irish Government officials, in setting out the terms of the Inquiry.

10. Meet the unmet needs of Survivors, allow a healthy and just accounting to emerge, and thus resolve the historical abuse, by learning from our shared history, resolving to never allow such behaviour to emerge ever again. A cognitively and materially changed culture.  A healthier culture.

11. The State is not some separate entity from the people, it is of the people, by the people and for the people.

The core social contract of regulating life, of crafting legislation so that the population are safe from avoidable harms, is inherent to the Irish State, and the Irish people.

Likewise the Church. Both Institutions are funded by the population, and both have been entrusted with care of vulnerable adults and children, and both have abused that trust - The Church operated the residential 'care' systems, day schools and boarding schools, under licence from The State.

12. Both institutions failed to protect the vulnerable from avoidable harms, both institutions understood that the Church had a strategy of aggressive action to suppress knowledge of the harms, and that this caused more harm to survivors. They justified it as 'protecting the Institution'. The Church moved predatory clerics from place to place, following allegations or discovery, repeatedly and this enabled yet more predation by these men.

13. Thus the resolution of the matter requires an accurate, honest historical account of what happened, as laid out above.

~

It requires that the Irish, as a State, a people and a Faith (Christianity) work together to resolve this matter and meet the needs of Survivors, including end of life support, support for families affected and other supports, such as education, physical and psychological therapy, health care and most of all the validation of Survivors as reliable witnesses too long silenced because Institutions of Power deem their image and status and wealth more important than the harms caused to so many people, adults and children alike.

In terms of the economics of this, consider the cost of tens of thousands of lives afflicted, how those adverse effect reverberated in the lives of their families, colleagues and communities. The cost of prevention, had it been in place, would be nothing by comparison.

Those historical human and material 'costs' and the current unmet needs of living Survivors, their families and of deceased Survivors families ought not be limited or decreased via protocol to 'protect tax payers assets' for the States part in this matter. This ought to apply to the Church equally. Indeed that was the original assessment.

I suggest that the task is to meet those needs, and to free the Survivors of the burden of their unmet needs, needs that ought to have been met at the first contact with predatory, abusive adults. Survivors have already borne immeasurable, irredeemable harm and costs, and the cost to the Irish State and the Irish people (as tax payers and citizens) of a just settlement of this matter must be borne for Irish culture and society to thrive as a just culture, a just society.

The Survivors are all innocents.

Here is a previous longer blog I wrote about the needs of Survivors.... above all the need for safety to bear witness, to receive validation and to be afforded the empathic care due Survivors, all of whom were vulnerable children exposed to gross predation, whose lives were destroyed through no fault of their own.

Innocents, one and all.

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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Up the Tory mountain, Down the workers glen, They daren’t go a-husting For fear of Unionised men;

A rewrite of that lovely poem, 'The Fairies' by William Allingham, which was then and remains to this day a popular poem, for it is lovely indeed. That said, this re-write as a silly satire song ain't anything like the original, and I apologise to any expectations otherwise.. 

source : Metro  : New anti-Union, anti-strike, anti-protest Laws coming soon!

Someone, somewhere is very worried, stupidly so. We want balance not revenge. Equity is justice applied and made materially real. Then we're all safe, bruv, innit.

-------

Up the Tory mountain,
Down the workers glen,
They daren’t go a-husting
For fear of Unionised men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Warm pickets, no top hats,
Corbyn and Lynch unfettered!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They swim through the wake
Of sewer tide-foam.

Some in their mansions
And what their Tax Havens make,
With their CP watchdogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and grey
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of Barnum Verbiage,
England he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Palace to the masses;
Or going up with the music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen Consort
Of the cold Northern Lights.

They stole little Brexit
For fifty years long;
When they made the exit,
their friends were all gone.
They took a vacuous tack,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that we was fast asleep,
- we was drained by the horror.
They have klept it ever since
Deep within the State,
Media a bed of fig-leaves,
Watching till we wake.

By the privatised hillside,
Through the KCs* care,
They've planted legalese 
For enclosure, here and there.

Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns,
The Met, at the door, in bed at night. (Assange....)

Up the Tory mountain,
Down the workers glen,
They daren’t go a-husting
For fear of unionised men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Men and women, all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
McAnea and Sidhu KC* unfettered!

*Kings Counsel or Queens Counsel

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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Open Letter on Grooming and the need for legislation to criminalise such manipulative behaviour wherever it emerges.

Schoolgirl who faced terror charges is ‘wake-up call about grooming.

Of course, it is not just on Facebook  etc., where grooming occurs. It is a common problem right across our culture, from Religion to Politics, from Populist Rhetoric to Misogynist and Racist Dog Whistles, from Ponzi Schemes to Phishing Emails.


To the Editor

An article on the Guardian, 7th January, 2023, about a teenage girl, Rhiannon Rudd, who was arrested on terrorism charges, which were dropped when it was shown that she had been groomed, tells a terrible story.

Someone knowingly targeted a vulnerable person, having studied that person's biases, lack of knowledge, fears and hopes, provided content designed to exacerbate the emotional dynamics of those vulnerabilities, in order to drive behavioural change that could then be exploited. 

Tragically, Rhiannon Rudd committed suicide a year after this incident. 

Anyone, at any age, can be subjected to such targeting. We can see the adverse impacts of this activity all around us. It's not simply a problem with social media, it is a problem within our culture. 

This is quite clearly criminal behaviour, given the intent to manipulate others, in order to exploit them, wherever it happens, even if legislation does not exist to impose a criminal penalty.

We need  legislation that clearly identifies this activity, that imposes a robust custodial sentence upon anyone or any entity proven to have  engaged in such activity.

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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