#because the uk government don’t Support people like me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bonefall · 5 months

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Don’t know if this is the right place to ask, but could you talk more about zoos? I’ve seen many people say that zoos are inherently exploitative and that we should instead focus on advocating for wildlife preserves, etc., but I’m not sure what to think of that. You seem to know a lot about wildlife protection, so what’s your opinion on this?

There are folks faaaar better than myself to talk about the issues of zoos specifically and I'll try to toss in some sources so you can go and learn more, but let me try and explain my mindset here.

Summary of my opinion on this: BOTH of these things can be poorly managed, and I broadly support both. They should exist in tandem. I am pro-accredited zoo and am extremely sensitive towards misinformation. I also do think the best place for animals to be is in their natural environment, but nature "preserves" aren't inherently perfect. They can also be prone to the capitalist (and colonialist) pressures that less informed people believe they're somehow immune to.

Because of the goal of my project being to make the setting of WC accurate to Northwestern England, my research is based on UK laws, ecology, and conservation programs.

On Zoos

On Nature Reserves

An Aside on Fortress Conservation

On Zoos

The legal definition of a Zoo in the UK (because that is what BB's ecological education is based around), as defined by the Zoo Licensing Act of 1981 (ZLA), is a "place where wild animals are kept for exhibition to the public," excluding circuses and pet shops (which are covered by different laws.)

This applies equally to private, for-profit zoos, as well as zoos run by wildlife charities and conservation organizations. Profit does not define a zoo. If there's a place trying to tell you it's not a zoo but a "sanctuary" or a "wildlife park," but you can still go visit and see captive wild animals, even if it's totally free, it's a marketing trick. Legally that is still a zoo in the UK.

(for fellow Americans; OUR definition is broader, more patchwork because we are 50 little countries in a trenchcoat, and can include collections of animals not displayed to the public.)

That said, there's a HUGE difference between Chester Zoo, run by the North of England Zoological Society, which personally holds the studbooks for maintaining the genetic diversity of 10 endangered species, has 134 captive breeding projects, cultivates 265 threatened plant species, and sends its members as consultants to United Nations conferences on climate change, and Sam Tiddles' Personal Zebra Pit.

Sam Tiddles' Personal Zebra Pit ONLY has to worry about the UK government. There's another standard zoos can hold themselves to if they want to get serious about conservation like Chester Zoo; Accreditation. There are two major zoo organizations in the UK, BIAZA and EAZA.

(Americans may wonder about AZA; that's ours. AZA, EAZA, and BIAZA are all members of the World Association of Aquariums and Zoos, or WAZA, but they are all individual organizations.)

A zoo going for EAZA's "accreditation" has to undergo an entire year of evaluation to make sure they fit the strict standards, and renewal is ongoing. You don't just earn it once. You have to keep your animal welfare up-to-date and in compliance or you will lose it.

The benefit of joining with an accredited org is that it puts the zoo into a huge network of other organizations. They work together for various conservation efforts.

There are DOZENS of species that were prevented from going extinct, and are being reintroduced back to their habitats, because of the work done by zoos. The scimitar-horned oryx, takhi, California condor, the Galapagos tortoise, etc. Some of these WERE extinct in the wild and wouldn't BE here if it hadn't been for zoos!

The San Diego zoo is preventing the last remaining hawaiian crows from embracing oblivion right now, a species for which SO LITTLE of its wild behavior is known they had to write the book on caring for them, and Chester zoo worked in tandem with the Uganda Wildlife Authority to provide tech and funding towards breakthroughs in surveying wild pangolins.

Don't get me wrong;

MOST zoos are not accredited,

nor is accreditation is REQUIRED to make a good zoo,

nor does it automatically PROVE nothing bad has happened in the zoo,

There are a lot more Sam Tiddles' Personal Zebra Pits than there are Chester Zoos.

That's worth talking about! We SHOULD be having conversations on things like,

Is it appropriate to keep and breed difficult, social megafauna, like elephants or cetaceans? What does the data say? Are there any circumstances where that would be okay, IF the data does confirm we can never provide enough space or stimulation to perfectly meet those species' needs?

How can we improve animal welfare for private zoos? Should we tighten up regulations on who can start or run one (yes)? Are there enough inspectors (no)?

Do those smaller zoos meaningfully contribute to better conservation? How do we know if they are properly educating their visitors? Can we prove this one way or the other?

Who watches the watchmen? Accreditation societies hold themselves accountable. Do these organizations truly have enough transparency?

(I don't agree with Born Free's ultimate conclusion that we should "phase out" zoos, but you should always understand the opposing arguments)

But bottom line of my opinion is; Good zoos are deeply important, and they have a tangible benefit to wildlife conservation. Anyone who tries to tell you that "zoos are inherently unethical" either knows very little about zoos or real conservation work, or... is hiding some deeper, more batshit take, like "having wild animals in any kind of captivity is unlawful imprisonment."

(you'll also get a lot more work done in regulating the exotic animal trade in the UK if you go after private owners, btw. zoos have nothing to do with how lax those laws are.)

Anyway I'm a funny cat blog about battle kitties, and the stuff I do for BB is to educate about the ecosystem of Northern England. If you want to know more about zoos, debunking misconceptions, and critiques from someone with more personal experience, go talk to @why-animals-do-the-thing!

Keep in mind though, again, they talk about American zoos, where this post was written with the UK in mind.

(and even then, England specifically. ALL UK members and also the Isle of Man have differences in their laws.)

(If anyone has other zoo education tumblr blogs in mind, especially if they are European, lmk and I'll edit this post)

On Nature Reserves

Remember how broad the legal definition of a zoo actually was? Same thing over here. A "nature reserve" in the UK is a broad, unofficial generic term for several things. It doesn't inherently involve statutory protection, either, meaning there's some situations where there's no laws to hold anyone accountable for damage

These are the "nature reserve" types relevant to my project; (NOTE: Ramsar sites, SACs, and SPAs are EU-related and honestly, I do not know how Brexit has effected them, if at all, so I won't be explaining something I don't understand.)

Local Wildlife Site (LWS) Selected via scientific survey and managed locally, connecting wildlife habitats together and keeping nature close to home. VERY important... and yet, incredibly prone to destruction because there aren't good reporting processes in place. Whenever a report comes out every few years, the Wildlife Trust says it often only gets data for 15% of all their registered sites, and 12% get destroyed in that timeframe.

Local Nature Reserve (LNR) A site that can be declared by a district or county council, if proven to have geographic, educational, biodiversity, or recreational value. The local authority manages this, BUT, the landowner can remain in control of the property and "lease" it out (and boy oh boy, landowners do some RIDICULOUS things)

National Nature Reserve (NNR) This is probably closest to what you think of when someone says "nature reserve." Designated by Natural England to protect significant habitat ranges and geographic formations, but still usually operates in tandem with private land owners who must get consent if they want to do something potentially damaging to the NNR.

Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) (pronounced Triple S-I) A conservation designation for a particular place, assessed and defined by Natural England for its biological or geographic significance. SSSIs are protected areas, and often become the basis for NNRs, LNRs, Ramsar sites, SACs, SPAs, etc.

So you probably noticed that 3/4 of those needed to have the private ownership problem mentioned right in the summary, and it doesn't end there. Even fully government-managed NNRs and SSSIs work with the private sectors of forestry, tourism, and recreation.

We live under Capitalism; EVERYTHING has a profit motive, not just zoos.

I brushed over some of those factors in my Moorland Research Notes and DESPERATELY tried to stay succinct with them, but it was hard. The things that can happen to skirt around the UK's laws protecting wildlife could make an entire season of Monty Python sketches.

Protestors can angrily oppose felling silver birch (a "weed" in this context which can change the ecosystem) because it made a hike less 'pretty' and they don't understand heath management.

Management can be reluctant to ban dogs and horses for fear of backlash, even as they turn heath to sward before our eyes.

Reserves can be owned by Count Bloodsnurt who thinks crashing through the forest with a pack of dogs to exhaust an animal to death is a profitable traditional British passtime.

Or you can literally just pretend that you accidentally chased a deer for several hours and then killed it while innocently sending your baying hounds down a trail. (NOTE: I am pro-hunting, but not pro-animal cruelty.)

The Forestry Commission can slobber enthusiastically while replacing endangered wildlife habitats with non-native, invasive sitka spruce plantations, pretending most trees are equal while conveniently prioritizing profitable timber species.

I have STORIES to tell about the absolute Looney Tunes bullshit that's going on between conservationists and rich assholes who want to sell grouse hunting access, but I'll leave it at this fascinating tidbit about air guns and mannequins which are "totally, absolutely there for no nefarious reason at all, certainly not to prevent marsh harriers from nesting in an area where they also keep winding up mysteriously killed in illegal snares, no no no"

BUT. Since Nature Reserve isn't a hard defined legal concept, and any organization could get involved in local conservation in the UK, and just about anyone or anything could own one... IT'S CHESTER ZOO WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!!

They received a grant in 2021 to restore habitat to a stretch of 10 miles extending outside of their borders, working with TONS of other entities such as local government and conservation charities in the process. There's now 6,000 square meters of restored meadow, an orchard, new ponds, and maintained reedbeds, because of them.

It isn't just Chester Zoo, either. It's all over the UK. Durrel Wildlife, which runs Jersey Zoo, just acquired 18,500 acres to rewild in Perthshire. Citizen Zoo is working with the Beaver Trust to bring beavers back to London and is always looking for volunteers to help with their river projects, and the Edinburgh Zoo is equipped with gene labs being used to monitor and analyze the remaining populations of non-hybrid Scottish Wildcats.

The point being,

Nature preserves have problems too. They are not magical fairy kingdoms that you put up a fence around and then declare you Saved Nature Hooray! They need to be protected. They need to be continuously assessed. They are prone to capitalist pressures just like everything else on this hell planet. Go talk to my boy Karl he'll give you a hug about it.

"Nature Preserves" are NOT an "alternative" to zoos and vice versa. They do not do the same thing. A zoo is a center of education and wildlife research which displays exotic animals. A nature preserve is a parcel of native ecosystem. We need LOTS of nature preserves and we need them well-managed ASAP.

We could never just "replace" zoos with nature preserves, and we're nowhere near the amount of protected ecosystem space to start thinking of scaling back animals in captivity. Until King Arthur comes out of hibernation to save Britain, that's the world we live in.

An Aside

My project and my research is based on the isle of Great Britain. The more I learn about the ecosystems that are naturally found there, the more venomously I reject the old lie, "humans are a blight."

YOU are an animal. You're a big one, too. You know what the role of big animals in an ecosystem are? Change. Elephants knock over trees, wolves alter the course of rivers, bison fertilize the plains from coast-to-coast. In Great Britain, that's what hominids have done for 900,000 years, their populations ebbing and flowing with every ice age.

Early farming created the moors and grazing sheep and cattle maintain it, hosting hundreds of specialist species. Every old-growth forest has signs of ancient coppicing and pollarding, which create havens for wildlife when well-managed. Corn cockle evolved as a mimic of wheat seeds, so farmers would plant it over and over within their fields.

This garbage idea that humans are somehow "separate" from or "above" nature is poison. It's not true ANYWHERE.

It contributes to an idea that our very presence is somehow damaging to natural spaces, and to "protect" it, we have to completely leave it alone. NO! Absolutely NOT! There are places where we have to limit harvesting and foot traffic, but humans ALWAYS lived in nature.

Even the ecosystems that this mindset comes from rejects it, but this shit doesn't JUST get applied to British people who become alienated and disconnected from their surroundings to the point where they don't know what silver birch does.

It's DEADLY for the indigenous people who protect 80% of our most important ecosystems.

It's a weapon against the Maasai people, stopped from hunting or growing crops on their own land. It's violence for 9 San hunters shot at by a helicopter with a "kill poachers on-sight" policy, as one of the world's LARGEST diamond mines operates in the same motherfucking park. The Havasupai people are kept out of the Grand Canyon that they managed for generations because they might "collect too many nuts" and starve squirrels, Dukha reindeer herders suddenly get banned from chopping wood or fishing, and watch wolves decimate their animals in the absence of their herding dogs.

It's nightmare after nightmare of human displacement in the name of "conservation."

That all ties back to that mindset. This idea that nature is pure, "pristine," and should be totally untouched. There are some starting to call it Fortress Conservation.

You can't begin to understand the criticisms of modern conservation without acknowledging that we are still living under the influence of capitalism and colonialism. Those who fixate on speaking for "animals/nature/trees who don't have a voice" often seem to have no interest in the indigenous people who do.

Listen. There's no simple answer; and the solution will vary for each region.

Again, my project is within the UK, one of the most ecologically devastated areas in the world. There are bad zoos that the law allows a pass. There are incredible zoos that are vital to conservation, in and outside of the country. There's not enough nature preserves. The best ones that exist are often exploited for profit.

I hope that my silly little blog sparks an interest in a handful of people to understand more about their own local ecosystems, and teaches folks about the unique beauty even within a place as "boring" as England.

But, my straightforward statement is that I have no patience for nonconstructive, broad zoo slander that lumps together ALL of them, and open contempt for anyone who tries to sell nature preserves like a perfect, morally superior "alternative." We need them BOTH right now, and we need to acknowledge that zoos AND preserves have legal and ethical issues that aren't openly talked about.

#ALSO THAT GUIDE IVE BEEN WORKING ON IS DONE #Im just waiting for the input of the sensitivity readers bc I made a whole section on--#How ableis m might express in the different clans #And part of it became a thunder-callout post lmaooooo #Also this zoo doc has been sitting competed in my drafts for a while #All this to say that uh. I hope the strange place they visit in the upcoming se is not a zoo :J #I will hit it with a golf club if it is <3 #Leaning heavily towards the 'oh no two DEMIGODS ended up in a zoo' idea #Which is objectively funnier #And you know what else is objectively funny. When these posts break orbit and then ppl are surprised that i am a kitty cat blog #Hal. It's about Cats.#Bone Babble

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mariacallous · 1 month

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In the summer of 2022, when Liz Truss was about to become prime minister, I noticed that she was an admirer of Rick Perlstein, one of the great historians of modern America.

Aspiring politicians like to tell the media about their favourite writers, even if they barely look at a book from one year to the next. It gives them a touch of class.

But there was no doubt in this case that Truss was sincere, and knew Perlstein’s work intimately.

She told journalists from the Times that she read “anything” Perlstein wrote. An interviewer from the Atlantic magazine saw a copy of Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge on her shelf, the third of his four-volume series on the rise of the radical right in the United States between 1960 and 1980, and said it was just the kind of book you’d expect her to read.

Then there was a weird moment in an interview with the Spectator when an anonymous spokeswoman for the Truss campaign, who sounded very like Truss herself, explained that her rival Rishi Sunak was failing to win over Tory members because he refused to pander to their prejudices.

“If people think there is an imaginary river,” the source said, “you don’t tell them there isn’t, you build them an imaginary bridge.”

You can find that quote at the beginning of the Perlstein history of the US right in the mid-1970s that was on Liz Truss’s bookcase. And it is highly revealing. Perlstein picked it from a meeting between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon in the late 1950s. The Soviet leader told the then US vice-president that politicians must create their own reality by pandering to the fear in their supporters’ minds.

“If the people believe there is an imaginary river out there,” Khrushchev said, “you don’t tell them there’s no river out there. You build an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river.”

Truss, or someone close to her was saying that Tories did not want to face facts. They wanted their fantasies confirmed, which is exactly what she did — at enormous cost to the country.

I contacted Perlstein and asked what he thought of having the UK’s next prime minister as a fan.

Let me put it like this: he may have been her favourite historian, but she was not his favourite politician. Not even close. Not even in the top 1,000. He found her astonishingly stupid.

”Liz. Can’t. Read,” he replied, and began a long – and for British readers frightening – account of how and why our new government of wannabe Reaganites would crash the economy.

As they went on to do.

Truss’s notion that tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves had been developed in the 1970s. The new wealth of the already wealthy was meant to boost the economy and tax base and trickle down to the rest of society.

In the fourth volume of his series, Perlstein covered the grifters who sold the idea of self-funding tax cuts and explained how dubious they were.

And yet here, 50-years on, was his devoted reader Liz Truss reading his history as a guidebook rather than a warning.

Why do terrible ideas refuse to die?

You could say in this case that Truss was so stupid she did not understand the past. This was Perlstein’s point.

Then there’s greed. If you want to proselytise for tax cuts for the rich, you will never be short of a paying audience, as the Tufton Street think tanks well know.

Finally, there’s deceit. Conservatives don’t necessarily believe that they will raise money for public services. The enterprise of pretending tax cuts are self-financing is a con designed to weaken state provision.

All three played their part in the voodoo economics of US conservatism and the disastrous reign of Liz Truss.

Here’s how…

Neo-liberalism was forged in the 1970s as the post-war Keynesian or New Deal consensus fell apart.

One of the new ideas that emerged was trickle-down economics. Until then, the traditional conservative argument was that you needed to reduce spending or increase growth if you wanted to reduce taxes.

This was the case that Rishi Sunak put in his failed attempt to defeat Truss in the 2022 leadership contest.

But in the mid-1970s hucksters and ideologues maintained that there was no need to cut spending. The growth tax cuts inspired would more than cover the cost.

The Laffer curve suggested that there was a point where tax rises were counterproductive. People would turn down work if the state took too much of their income, although where that point was is always disputed.

Getting into these practical arguments misses the point, however. There was an exuberant eruption of voodoo economics in the mid-1970s, which had no concern for technical accuracy.

Perlstein put it to me like this

“[With] conventional Keynesian – ‘liberal’ – solutions failing, all sorts of intellectual entrepreneurs on the right came forth with their solutions to the problem, as I narrate in Reaganland, a volume Liz claims to have read. [Of the] many solutions on the table, the one that prevailed was the one that all the actually half-way qualified experts on the right knew was nothing but a fairy tale on a par with Jack in the Beanstalk. [It was] devised by a dude whose only economic training, in his own description, came from learning to count cards at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. I wish I were making this up, but I am not.”

Perlstein was referring to Jude Wanniski, a journalist who did indeed coin the term “supply-side economics” in the 1970s after a spell working in Las Vegas. He attracted the attention of Reagan, Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes with his promise that the Laffer curve guaranteed that, if conservative politicians cut taxes, the economy would boom.

As Perlstein notes, Wanniski’s first piece promoting the idea in a 1975 issue of the Conservative journal Public Interest “lacked almost everything that made economic arguments convincing to other economists”. There were only four footnotes. No data. No formal models. Economists thought supply-side economics was a joke. It would take decades to recoup the money lost in tax cuts to wealthy people, they argued.

Milton Friedman, who was hardly a socialist, said the inflation that unfunded tax cuts would produce meant that supply-side economics was merely a “proposal to change the form of taxes” rather than lower them. They would generate price and interest rates rises as indeed happened during the Truss debacle.

Alan Greenspan, who once again was a man of the right, who hung out with Ayn Rand no less, nevertheless said he knew of no one who believed that Arthur Laffer’s curve would magically turn tax cuts into increased government revenues.

And so it has proved again and again. Ronald Reagan’s administration provided the classic example. It cut taxes but the promised surge in tax revenues did not happen. All that happened was the national debt increased.

David Stockman, Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget admitted that "none of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," as the experiment played out. He rapidly came to the conclusion that the administration needed to cut spending to balance the books. But as he said in his The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed Conservative politicians preferred large deficits and an increasing national debt to cutting programmes their constituents liked.

Under Reagan, Bush and Trump they were happy to keep cutting. One of the features of US politics is that the national debt is as likely to rise under right-wing as left-wing governments,

Obviously, arguing that cutting the wealthy’s taxes was virtuous in itself pleased the wealthy. It pleased Republican party donors in the 1970s, and it pleased the Tory donors who poured money into Liz Truss’s campaign in 2022.

But there is more to it than that.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal in 1976, Wanniski said the problem with the old right with its insistence on saving money was that it wanted to be Scrooge when it should be Santa Claus.

It should deliver tax cuts, forget about the national debt, and sit back as a grateful citizenry showed their gratitude at polling stations. Left-wingers wanted to give taxpayer-funded goodies to their supporters. Very well, right-wingers should want to give tax cuts to theirs.

In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget.

“The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums,’ he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “He wants to shape the future and will leave it to his opponents to tidy up afterwards.”

We are now in a moment like the 1970s. Taxes keep rising and Conservatives and indeed the rest of us have yet to come to terms with the cost of an ageing society. As anger grows, I doubt that Truss will be the last Tory to try to magic away reality and build an invisible bridge to a fantastical future.

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laurensprentiss · 3 months

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I’ve been a long time follower of yours but after seeing your recent reposts of the war - I can’t in good conscience continue to support you. Quite frankly I think it’s disgusting and I never pegged you for an anti semite but I guess people can surprise us.

I’m literally not even on this site anymore but like. Sooooo many things about this ask are so skeevy???

Number 1: why did you format this like it’s a letter of resignation? You don’t want to support me? All you have to do is click unfollow it’s never that deep? Did you think I was gonna beg and cry for forgiveness or for u not to leave me 😢😢 ?? 💀

Number 2: “the war” - I’m guessing you’re talking about the siege and genocide that Israel is committing against Palestine?? A war would indicate two powers with somewhat equal footing and standing, equal access to weapons and resources to defend themselves - one is a superpower with the backing of the USA, UK and Canada. The other entity - and mind you these are official provable statements - are mostly civilians who are being kidnapped, held prisoner, murdered, starved, driven out of their homes and have had entire bloodlines wiped out. Bloodlines that literally date back to Christ. Hospitals bombed with innocent civilians, men, women, children, the elderly who need emergency access to medical care. You can’t in good conscience support me reposting a few little things drawing people’s attention to the atrocities being committed by the terrorist state of Israel? Ok. Don’t. It says a lot that THAT is where your conscience draws the line.

Also war has rules you fucking moron - that’s where war crimes come from and Israel is guilty of PLENTY.

3. Me condemning israel and thinking. “Hey. Maybe a terrorist state with an army that’s been brainwashed and indoctrinated to the point where innocent CHILDREN being bl*wn to pieces, babies stuck under rubble slowly dy*ng and families being starved is just another day at work shouldn’t really do That.” does not make me an anti semite. I’m not going to sit here and argue about all the reasons I’m NOT, because why am I going to clarify my stance on basic humanity to someone who has literal shit for brains, but you’re also invalidating Jewish people who also condemn Israel’s actions - not to mention. What they’re doing is literally criminal and a GENOCIDE.

It goes back GENERATIONS and decades, systematic ethnic cleansing of people who have lived there dating back to their ancestors. Driving people out of their homes, stealing land, property, implementing laws that actively discriminate against Palestinians, indoctrinating children, government officials stating on the record that Palestinian children deserve what happened to them and that they will not stop until they’re eradicated?

Good fucking riddance dickhead I hope you choke to death

#I don’t even care anymore sorry #you can go fuck yourself

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befemininenow · 1 year

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The worst that can happen to you is either going back to the closet or continue denying your identity until something triggers you at an unprepared situation. The small, vocal minority demeaning you with laws and hurtful rhetoric are seeing their inevitable downfall and want to drag you down with them. Don’t fall down to their level. Fight back by making your presence known; you and other trans people exist and are valid.

It’s ridiculous seeing how many anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills are being enacted and supported not just in the US, but in other parts of the world like the UK. These laws only serve as a temporary “comfort” for bigots and TERFs to harass trans women and other LGBTQ+ members. Even worse, however, these laws have nastier surprises that will affect everyone in the long run. This includes democracy, such as what happened with Scotland’s Gender Bill blocked by the UK government in Westminster. Look, I’m not into politics, I have no time for “debates”, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this site takes this post down, but the fact that incompetent politicians use trans people as scapegoats is awful and disgusting.

Why am I writing this and why am I using a captioned pic? Because there seemed to be a time a few years ago where one can come out safely as a girl and only worry about chasers. Captioned pics used that back then. Today, there is the addition of being chased and hurt by bigots, whether physical, verbal, emotional, or all. A person like me would question themselves and say “I should have come out earlier”. And yet, even with all the negative press trans people and LGBTQ+ people receive, the amount of people transitioning and coming out is higher than before thanks to an abundance of research and resources available in today’s world. The amount of people supportive of our identities is also much higher. It’s only a small, vocal group of hateful people that try to persuade the neutral person into falling for their trap. We’re not doing this for sexual thrills, to “invade” gendered spaces, or defy your beliefs. We’re here because we are valid.

I’ve been wanting to write something like this for a while. Keep in mind these captions, while affirming, don’t speak for all trans and feminine-leaning people. However, as someone who is also supportive of transgender people, I couldn’t keep quiet of what’s happening at the moment. Also, I needed some time to deal with other issues in my life, which is why I don’t post as much as I used to. Be safe out there, people!

#feminine #transgender #affirmations #coming out #trans #mtf hrt #beautiful #girl #you are valid #flashback #brunette #trans women are women

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1americanconservative · 3 months

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@HilzFuld

- When Hitler started with the dangerous anti Jewish rhetoric, the world was silent. When

@RashidaTlaib

started with the dangerous anti-Jewish rhetoric, the world was silent. Again. - When Jewish businesses were labeled and boycotted in Europe, the world was silent. When Jewish businesses were labeled and boycotted in America, the world was silent. Again. - When violence against Jews in Germany skyrocketed, the world was silent. When violence against Jews in the UK skyrocketed, the world was silent. Again. - When Jewish professionals had their livelihood taken away in the 1940s, the world was silent. When Jewish professionals had their livelihood taken away in 2024, the world was silent. Again. - When governments stood by and watched the massacre of Jews in Germany, the world was silent. When governments stood by and watched the massacre of Jews in 2024, the world was silent. Again. - When Jews couldn’t walk two feet in the streets of Poland without being assaulted, the world was silent. When Jews couldn’t walk two feet in the streets of NY without being assaulted, the world was silent. Again. - When Jews were being scapegoated in Europe, the world was silent. When Jews were being scapegoated in South Africa and Ireland, the world was silent. Again. - When Hitler received support from governments and organizations to carry out his plan of annihilating the Jews, the world was silent. When Hamas received support from governments and organizations to carry out its plan of annihilating the Jews, the world was silent. Again. - When synagogues were painted with antisemitic graffiti and their windows shattered across Europe in 1940, the world was silent. When synagogues were painted with antisemitic graffiti and their windows shattered across Europe in 2024, the world was silent. Again. - When Jews were being murdered in the streets of Austria, the world was silent. When Jews were being murdered in the streets of LA, the world was silent. Again. I’ve been lied to my whole life. Never again? Right… The world will not lift a finger to ensure that the Holocaust never happens again. They’ll close their eyes and pretend they don’t see what’s happening. Just like they did before the Holocaust. Jews can no longer say “It won’t happen here, it won’t happen to me.” That is what the German Jews said to themselves. How do I know? My grandparents told me. But organizations like the UN/UNRWA, and governments like South Africa and Ireland, have shown us clearly that they stand behind Hamas’ declared plan of killing every last Jew. The Jewish people have been a bright light unto the nations, but it seems the forces of darkness want to extinguish the light. The good news is that our light will never be extinguished no matter how hard they try. What will happen is that those who stand against the Jewish people will soon disappear and will be nothing but pages in a history book alongside their friends, the many nations and empires that tried to get rid of the Jews. The only thing they got rid of is themselves. They are gone, the Jews are still very much here. Never again because this time around, the Jewish people have tanks and fighter jets and they are not afraid to use them. The world was silent then and the world is being silent now. You can make a choice. You can stand with the forces of darkness who murder, rape, decapitate, abduct, and glorify innocent death, or you can stand with the forces of light that illuminate, innovate, and glorify life. It’s your choice, and the stakes are high. Those who stand with the Jewish people, those who bless us will be blessed. Those who get in our way and curse us, will be cursed and will perish. It’s just a fact that keeps repeating itself in every generation. The only reason that it’ll never happen again? Three letters, I. D. F. Stand with the Jews, choose the right side of history. Learn from the mistakes of others. And to those who are offended by the comparison between Nazis and Hamas, you’re right. There really is no comparison. The Nazis tried to hide what they were doing, and Hamas live-streamed it.

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drdemonprince · 10 months

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Related to your Instagram story about support group for ‘high functioning’/low support needs autistics, I’m really frustrated because my local adult autism support group specifies that it’s for people without learning disabilities only and I asked why it was so exclusive and they said it was the condition for getting it funded by the local council (I’m in the uk) because they were ‘already funding too many learning disability groups’. I don’t think I can do much to combat this because it’s a decision made a lot higher up than me but it’s really frustrating because I really want to be in community with all kinds of different autistic people and I think people should be able to decide for themselves if the group is relevant to them. I also help run the disability society at my uni but obviously that selects for the sorts of disabled people who manage to go to uni. I would classify myself as having low support needs rn but it’s changed a lot since I was younger and I still struggle a lot in ways where I don’t always relate to other autistics at uni, a lot of whom are late diagnosed and struggle a lot with unmasking. I’ve never really been able to hide my autism and I was diagnosed quite young so I often feel a bit alone. I don’t know if you have any advice/comments to this, but I really wish there was more inclusive community with all kinds of different autistic people with different needs because I think we need to have that solidarity. -S

I'm so sorry to hear that is happening, that really fucking sucks. I agree that you will benefit a lot from being in community with a wide swathe of types of Autistic people, as all of us can -- and your experience points to how limiting and oversimplified "support needs" labels really are. Though the term may have a more pleasant connotation than functioning labels, it still flattens the Autistic experience to the point of being nearly useless. Many people who are nonverbal are relatively low in support needs; some people who can mask have high support needs, and many of us fluctuate depending on the day or where we are in life.

I think you may want to look outside of formal institutional channels. Nonprofits and government agencies will approach Autism inclusion in a very dehumanizing bureaucratic way. What you need I think is a community space made by us, and for us. Look up any local ASAN chapters in your area-- and since you're in the UK, look up Neurodiverse Self Advocacy UK as well. Selfadvocacygroups.co.uk is another place to turn. See if you can find local groups run by these organizations, and try hopping onto sites like Meetup and even Facebook to see if there are ongoing Autistic social groups happening as well. there is almost certainly something. Eventbrite also has a lot of virtual community events these days, oddly.

I know that it's a big ask to tell you to create your own groups, but after you've gotten the lay of the land in your area and gotten to meet a few people, consider organizing small hang outs for people in the community -- movie watching parties, outings to accessible spaces, attending a parade or festival together, something like that. We take care of one another, and community is a thing we build, one relationship at a time -- it's not a thing we can trust powerful institutions to give us or grant us.

Thanks for your message.

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brian-in-finance · 1 year

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Video 📹 Forget Me Not Gin Instagram 14 August 2020 (Caitríona posted it 11 August 2020)

The Staff Canteen GrilledLIVE Podcast, streamed 11 April 2023, recorded 8 March 2023 in Glasgow Apple Spotify

Cara Bouchon, Host: We’ve been drinking some lovely wine whilst we’ve been sat here, but Caitríona, you have your own gin, just staying on tipples, Forget Me Not Gin, correct? What made you want to do that, and you’ve done a batch, are you doing another?

Caitríona Balfe, Guest: Yeah, we did one batch. We are in the process of getting it up and running again. Obviously the pandemic happened and Brexit happened… when we did our first batch… Why did I want to do it in the beginning? We were talking, me and my husband*and a friend** of his who’s in the hospitality and drinks business, and we were talking about the Arts and how it’s been so underfunded here, abroad, everywhere I travelled. Governments are slashing support for the Arts left, right, and centre, and we were talking about “what if we did something where we could use a percentage of the profits to give back, and that the whole ethos of the brand would be that it’s about getting artists to help?” We would fund them, we would support them, and in their turn we could have artists use their art and promote it.

We were just riffing and we were “let’s try one batch and see what happens.” We did something like 2000 bottles and it sold within a day, and were were “that’s kind of cool, let’s go and do more of this.” And when we did that, were were able to take the order, ship it, get it to anywhere in Europe within two days. And then Brexit happened, and it was like, “well you can’t do that.” And then to ship to the U.S. there’s a lot of complicated loopholes because there’s a very strange system in the U.S. that still exists since prohibition. And then I got pregnant, so you can’t really be flogging booze when you’re pregnant, so we just put a pause on everything. And we’re about to launch… well, I don’t want to give a time because there’s still stuff we’re sorting out, but we’re going again. It’s coming soon. Forget Me Not is not (forgotten).

Cara: Why gin? Is gin your favourite drink?

Caitríona: Look, I’m somebody who likes a lot of drinks, but gin is something I think you can play around with the flavours in a really interesting way within a very short space of time. Obviously, if you want to do a real whisky or things like that, that takes a long time to get them aged and all of that.

I love a gin during the summer. So it’s about being able to… hopefully we do this one, our staple, and then I would like to do interesting flavours. The idea is to build special batches and stuff like that, make it something that’s a little bit more unique and have artists come in, or have people come in, to put their stamp on it as well, and work in conjunction with people.

And we’re working with SWG3***, we’re going to fund artist spaces. We’ve done it with our last batch. We’re going to do that continuing, and we hope to do those projects in various different countries as well.

It’s to do something fun. I like to do things like this in terms of it’s an interesting outlet for me in a different type of creative way, and it’s also something where I can invest in stuff I’m interested in and help in a way.

I’m not necessarily… I’m not going to take over the gin business for the rest of the world. It’s fun.

FMN DRINKS (UK) LIMITED, incorporated 14 December 2022. Directors: Caitríona Mary Balfe, Duncan Glen Frew**, Anthony Gerard McGill*

SWG3 Studio Warehouse***, Glasgow

Photo: Forget Me Not Gin on Instagram

Remember… it’s to do something fun… and it’s also something where I can invest in stuff I’m interested in and help in a way. — Caitríona Balfe

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beardedmrbean · 7 months

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Am I dreaming? The woke Left are suddenly worried about freedom of expression. The very people who have spent years calling cancel culture a myth, and dismissing the rise of censorship as some pearl-clutching moral panic, are now railing against the clampdown on dissent and protest, specifically Suella Braverman’s attempts to ban tomorrow’s “pro-Palestine” Armistice Day march.

Owen Jones, Guardian columnist and Corbynista TV personality, has slammed what he calls the “deliberate and hysterical campaign” to ban the march. In a video, he took aim at those Right-wingers who have forgotten their supposed liberal principles where these demos are concerned: “[S]ome of those who talk about threats to free speech, cancel culture, ‘the Left are dangerous authoritarians’, they’re the ones leading the charge, trying to ban a mass, peaceful protest because they don’t like it.”

Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar has also been getting in on the act. “Why is it that supporters of Israel have such a low tolerance for dissenting opinion?”, she asked on Twitter / X.

The University and College Union (UCU) is similarly up in arms after the government sent a letter to UK Research and Innovation, the national funding agency for science and research, demanding to know why it had appointed two people to an advisory group on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) who had made questionable comments in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. (One had said the government’s planned crackdown on “Hamas support” was “disturbing”.) The EDI group has since been disbanded and UCU chief Jo Grady has written to the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, Michelle Donelan, expressing her concerns about a “chilling effect on freedom of speech and academic freedom”.

So, in an apparently stunning turnaround, the bourgeois, academic Left has gone from sneering at we “free-speech warriors” to trying to claim the mantle for themselves. Last night, Owen Jones tried to do just this at an online UCU event. “We hold the flame of genuine free speech”, he said, calling on the Left to mount a campaign for “actual free speech” – as opposed to the presumably phoney free speech advocated by all those awful culture warriors. UCU put out a clip of his speech online, but then deleted it, following an almighty roasting on social media.

The reason the clip was roasted was, of course, because Owen Jones and the UCU and many other Left-wingers currently speaking up for the right to dissent are completely full of it. It is clear to me that they do not believe in free speech or academic freedom at all. If they did, they wouldn’t have expended so much energy in recent years insisting that campus censorship was a non-issue, all while demonising dissenting academics.

In 2020, Jones tried to get an Oxford employee sacked over an unpleasant tweet he posted about Sarkar. UCU, for its part, is a paid-up supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which blacklists Israeli academics. It has also led the crusade against trans-sceptical voices within academia. Kathleen Stock, the gender-critical philosopher, finally decided to leave the University of Sussex, after months of agitation against her, when her own UCU branch denounced her and sided with the trans activists who had been making her life hell.

As for the right to protest, the woke Left had nothing to say when anti-lockdown protesters had their collars felt, time and again, during the pandemic. Apparently, those opposing the unprecedented theft of our civil liberties were undesirables, unworthy of the right to assemble. Meanwhile, those who have taken to the streets every Saturday in recent weeks to chant genocidal slogans like “From the river to the sea”, while plastered in pro-Hamas stickers, are actually noble freedom fighters whose rights must be respected.

To say that Jones et al are inconsistent on free speech isn’t strictly accurate. They’re incredibly consistent… in their double standards. They only ever defend free speech and the right to protest for those who happen to agree with them. They’re fierce supporters of the freedom to think exactly as they do. Which is why they can carry on like modern-day Mary Whitehouses one minute, then bemoan the clampdown on dissent the next.

No doubt, there have been many on the Right who have jettisoned their free-speech credentials in the wake of Hamas’s brutal pogrom in Israel and the disgusting response it has sparked on Britain’s streets. To my mind, the best way to oppose this anti-Semitic bile is not censorship, but more speech, more counter-protests and more agitation. We need to challenge the Israelophobes out in the open and deny them the status of free-speech martyrs.

But the Tories’ double standards on free expression are as nothing when compared to the rank hypocrisy of the woke Left. They don’t believe in free speech. They believe in me speech. And we shouldn’t let them get away with pretending otherwise.

#nunyas news #if not for double standards #some would have none

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green-and-grey-solarpunk · 2 years

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Both me and my computer are finally feeling up to posting again, sadly a bit too late to celebrate queen Lizzy’s death. Get your tea ready, this one’s a doozy.

For those of you who might find it weird to celebrate a death, let me make one thing clear: I don’t even wish death on my enemies, I am an advocate for reformative justice and I have faith that people can change. But there’s no fucking reason to be sorry about the queen’s death. She died after a lavishly rich life at nearly 100 years old, it’s natural and normal, and there is no cruelty in not mourning.

The reason I’m celebrating is because she was a bad person. Even before we get to the colonial shit, she vetted over 1000 laws during her reign so that they would serve her interests more. She took extra taxpayer money to fund her own endeavors despite having hundreds of millions to her name. Taxpayer money that should have gone to welfare programs to help lower poverty in her country. Taxpayer money that could’ve gone so that disabled citizens of the UK wouldn’t be dying while waiting for government benefits. Taxpayer money that allegedly went to covering up p*do allegations against her son. She was racist to Meghan, and didn’t even let poc work for her early in her reign. She had disabled relatives that were falsely reported dead and did not get support from the royal family. She and her family are a remnant of the days of monarchy that even most conservatives agree were gross and bad for the people.

And then you get into the even more heinous colonial shit. When young queen Elizabeth was granted her title, she was in Kenya, as a part of endorsing and whitewashing violent colonial structures in Africa. You can’t feel sorry for someone when you can find pictures of the people tortured under colonial powers that she allowed to continue. Even after the traditional British empire dissolved, capitalist neo-colonialism along with puppet leaders continued to destroy African populations.

And I know that to most of my followers, this is preaching to the choir, many leftists already know this much and probably more about her and her reign. But this is also for centrists, liberals, and conservatives that don’t understand the harm she has done. It doesn’t matter that ‘someone died’ or ‘this is British culture’ because it has done so much harm.

You can legit find conservatives saying with conviction that the British Empire “civilized” the world. Who think that the art and architecture of colonized cultures pales in comparison to the mere train stations the British brought, who think that after the UK “left” the colonies the natives destroyed their own countries, who think that spreading their religion is civil even if it means bringing war and torture and destruction.

Which is why I’m putting conservatives in the tags, so more people can hopefully see and understand. Even if most of them won’t change their minds and there are probably very few conservatives on tumblr of all places. I may be naive, but I choose to have faith in conservatives to realize the white supremacy inherent in revering the queen like this.

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houseofbrat · 1 year

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People are talking about George, I'm more interested in seeing how Charlotte and Louis pan out. Mind you, because of Kate's virtue signalling on how to raise your kids I know a lot of people are keeping tabs on it. I know many people who find the kids adorable (as all kids are) but are getting tired of Kate preaching parents how to raise their kids and are waiting when she herself has teenagers and adults kids on her hands.

I agree that the campaign and other stuff could have been different and in other moment. But despite not liking it a lot, I have been paying attention to it, and Catherine has never sound preachy to me nor lecturing adults of how to raise their children, in fact, she is more focused that the people can have the support they need (aka the government) in order to provide a better childhood to their children. She also pretends (according to the experts and their data) that the way to avoid teenagers or adults with mental illness, addictions, etc., is by providing them with good bases, she also has said that it doesn’t mean you won’t experience it, even in a happy childhood (but reduces the risk) also, give to the parents-children bond, the opportunity to notice a problem and trust on their parent to talk about it and accept the help (like her brother). She has never said she is the best mother nor that people should raise their kids as her, so, saying that Charlotte and Louis can become a problem and that she will a ‘mother failure’ is unfair. The problem here is that their PR and communications team aren’t too good, and that’s why people think she is lecturing, when is the less she is doing (now).

That being said, I honestly think that she really put herself on a big problem. Because the only way to help those children and the families is by making the government to put more money on initiatives. For what I’ve been reading and seeing from some articles, she has on her mind some initiatives like ‘Sure Start’ (an initiative that was created by the Labour, but the Tories brought it down by closing almost 1k centers). So, she can’t say something clear, because will be against the ‘royal’ rules, to not be partisan, but if she doesn’t do something tangible on the next 1-2 years, and if Labour comes and open again the Sure Start programs, her campaigning would be ‘useless’ (unless the government don’t open them). And, the most important, Labour won’t care less about her campaigning (they won’t mention her as the reason to wake up and open initiatives) …… so, what she needs to do is something like the DoE Awards or Prince’s Trust, not depending on governments to provide help. I mean, what she did with the baby banks was good and was a good thing in a right direction that she can continue doing. I know that she really cares about all children having the best childhood (rich and poor), but perhaps the better she can do for now:, is to focus on the disadvantaged families (specially with the crisis)

I agree with most of what you said; however, while I don't personally feel that Kate has been "preachy" or "lecturing," I can see how people would interpret it that way. That's the danger of pr campaigns like these. They're always open to interpretation by the general public. The economic situation in the UK certainly doesn't make for the most receptive climate for this kind of campaign, as far as I can tell.

Your last paragraph is a perfect explanation of why I think the future for this campaign (The Early Years) isn't going to go well. I wish she would have concentrated on more regular royal duties, such as visiting more factories, nursing homes, and civic organizations, instead of rolling out the "Shaping Us" campaign this month. It's just not timed well at all, particularly with the political situation even though it's not directly attempting to become partisan.

#ask #critique #catherine the princess of wales #The Early Years campaign

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mariacallous · 4 months

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Donald Trump’s supporters believe the “deep state” is out to get him – even though, if the USA had a deep state worthy of the name, the CIA would have sent a hitman to dispatch Trump years ago.

The Tory press, Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and their pals on the Tory right blame an establishment plot for the failure of 14 years of Tory rule – rather than blaming – oh I don’t know, let’s pick an example at random – themselves.

Everywhere you see the new right of the 21st century embracing the conspiracy theory of the old left of the 20th century. Democracy is in danger because the unelected elite in business, the civil service and the media will never allow real change.

I am not making a case for moral or political equivalence. Indeed, I want to argue that the radical right matters more than the left for one simple reason: the radical right actually wins power.

Before going any further, here is how the sworn enemies can look like bosom buddies

To understand the mental universe of the rulers of the UK and, if our luck fails us, the future rulers of the US, come back with me 40 years to the left of the 1980s.

We, too, were raging against a world that seemed to have escaped our control. Voters, including working class voters, had put Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in power, and they kept them there, despite the right of the day presiding over extraordinary levels of unemployment. The Cold War was entering a terrifying phase. The Soviet Union and the USA were placing medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe and threatening to turn the continent into a battlefield.

If I could offer you one book that encapsulates the mood on the 1980s left, I would offer Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup, published in 1982 and turned into a TV drama later in the decade. (See above).

It’s still worth reading and watching, if you have a few hours. I have nothing against it as drama. But the best way to view is as a map of what were then left-wing fears.

Mullin was a Labour MP and a follower of Tony Benn, the left-wing champion of the day. Benn failed to become Labour leader or even deputy leader. But inspired by the movement he represented, the party swung to the left in the 1980s. No good did it do Labour. It went down to landslide defeats in 1983 and 1987. I can still remember feeling scared and astonished as a young man as I watched Mrs Thatcher crush all opposition.

Mullin escaped from defeat into a kind of fantasy world. He imagined what the “elite” of the day would do to a radical Labour government. Mullin created Harry Perkins, a working-class Labour leader. He became prime minister, and was determined to put in place a Bennite programme.

Media monopolies would go, under Mullin’s fictional Labour government, so out with Rupert Murdoch. The UK would commit to unilateral nuclear disarmament, and withdraw from Europe (the old left hated Europe with a passion that matches that of today’s new Right). It would support a Palestinian state, nationalisation…and all the other courses on the left’s menu du jour.

“'Our ruling class have never been up for re-election before,” cries Perkins. “But I hereby serve notice on behalf of the people of Great Britain that their time has come.’ Such language had never been heard from a British Prime Minister before. Although received with rapture in Sheffield town hall, Harry Perkins’ words burst upon the Athenaeum as though the end of the world was at hand. Which, in a manner of speaking, it was.”

The Athenaeum for readers unfamiliar with the geography of the British class system is an establishment Pall Mall club, where in the imagination of Mullin and many, many thousands of others the privileged meet to plot their wicked schemes.

Which Mullins’ establishment duly does. It leaks details of Labour politicians’ affairs to the gutter press and drives their families to suicide. The CIA conspires to make the country ungovernable. The civil service and the military conspire against the elected government they are sworn to serve.

I could go on but you get the picture. The power elite will never allow the left to govern.

And now it is right-wing politicians who sound like the left of the 1980s. Here is Jacob Rees-Mogg, a faux aristocratic populist at this week’s launch of the satirically titled “Popular Conservatism” movement. He was a snob looking for a mob to raise

Rees-Mogg began with the language of the 1790s and quoted the anti-Jacobin Tory politician George Canning denouncing the cosmopolitan progressives of Georgian England.

“A steady patriot of the world alone, The friend of every country but his own”

Well, OK, and fair enough. Canning has been proved right down the generations. Liberals and leftists have often laid themselves open to charges of lacking patriotism. In Chris Mullin’s day we were demanding that the UK give up its nuclear weapons in return for nothing at all from the Soviet Union, to cite one of many examples.

And, yet after 14 years of Conservative rule, who is betraying whom? Who is the true friend of this country?

Wages have not increased, the public realm is derelict, the country is in decline.

Rees-Mogg refused to accept responsibility. Instead, he spent much of his speech laying into British judges. The reason this government had failed to stop asylum seekers reaching these shores was, he said, the fault of the judicial enemy within.

Speaking alongside him was Liz Truss, the Lady Jane Grey of the Conservative party. In her 49 days in power, she crashed the economy, sent interest rates hurtling upwards, and nearly destroyed the private pension industries.

Commentators covering the event focused on the admittedly absurd spectacle of the most unpopular prime minister ever appearing at a “popular conservatism” conference.

They missed the construction of a myth. Truss’s economic policy was as much a fantasy as any of the ideas of the defeated left of my youth.

When they were in power, Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced unfunded tax cuts for the rich. There were no reductions in public spending to pay for them, just the belief that tax cuts would magically pay for themselves – an idea as utopian in its way as the left’s belief in the 1980s that, if the UK unilaterally disarmed, the USSR would do the same.

Despite it burning in flames, the right cannot let go of the dream, as Truss proved with her speech

“The left don’t just compete with us at the ballot box now. They also work to take over our institutions. We see it in much of the media, we see it in the corporations, we see it in the quangos and much of the bureaucracy that emerged under Tony Blair.”

And which quangos did Ms Truss have in mind?

The Office of Budget Responsibility, home to a rather tame bunch of economists, the right wants to blame for the economic disaster Truss let loose on the British.

Notice the conspiracy theory. The crash in the British economy was brought about because generally rather right-wing men (and the occasional woman) working in the bond markets concluded that the government of the United Kingdom was in the hands of “morons”.

Rather than accept the judgement of her peers. Truss and those around her want to blame the Treasury, the Bank of England, and the Office for Budget Responsibility for the Conservative party’s mistakes

But note, too, how the right appropriated the conspiracy theory of the left.

One of the leftists in Mullins’ drama declares that

“They’ll never let a Labour government headed by Harry Perkins take power,” he told her.”

‘Who’re ‘they’?’ she had asked innocently.

‘Your friends in the City, the newspaper owners, the civil servants, all them sort of people’.”

Today he might be a Tory explaining why, to use Truss’s list, the media, the corporations and the quangos will never allow a truly Conservative government to enforce the “will of the people”.

Paranoia has its consolations. The left of the 1980s was destroyed in election after election. And yet it could think that it did not fail because leaving Europe and unilaterally disarming were terrible ideas. Rather we could believe a vast conspiracy had brainwashed the public into voting against its interests.

Conservatives think the same today, and the temptation is to make some glib remark about the “horseshoe theory” proving that the radical left and right aren’t so different after all and leave it there.

But there is one very striking difference: the radical left loses but the radical right wins.

The UK is so clearly moving towards electing a Labour government we can miss the wider picture that everywhere you look radical right parties are advancing.

Indeed, even out of power Donald Trump is controlling our lives. He is threatening to throw Ukraine to Putin and pull US forces from Europe, and can rely on his allies in the US Congress to make his malign dreams come true.

Despite calling themselves patriots, Rees Mogg and Truss are all for Trump. They prefer his America to NATO and the UK’s defence interest because Trump’s success and the successes of the European radical right allows them to believe that they are not out of the game yet.

And they may not be wrong. Unless we can find arguments to defeat them, they will be back.

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ewan-mo · 8 months

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Mo had a dream

20th September 2023

The youngest student at the workshop; 2 months old. Son of Brenda, Community MH nurse, he is just 2 months old. He’s called Zion. And very advanced, of course.

At breakfast today I decided to have avocado. Because I could, because it’s good for me, and because we normally eat quite a bit of it at home.

Our menu here tends to be based on common Ugandan everyday foods, hence yesterday’s liver and cooking banana and today’s avocado.

Ewan began the day’s programme with a snowball exercise. 2-3 people discuss first, then they join another group to become 6 and so on. Each time the group has to decide on its ‘top 3’ – in this case, their top three things learnt as a result of the partnership with Jamie’s Fund. Great to read their results. I was not surprised, but I was moved, to hear mention of loving our patients, and other similar sentiments

Long ago in Malawi, I was surprised and upset to find that the PrivateNotForProfit hospitals, which were mostly faith based, wouldn’t care for any patients with mental illness. While in government service we were developing community mental health care and reducing the population of the mental hospital, the mission hospitals were saying “We don’t do this.”

We asked a question of the Christian Medical Fellowship in UK as to why should this be? That led to a consultation: “Should faith based health institutions provide mental health services?”

An international conference followed in 1998: Developing Mental Health: a Challenge to the Churches. We brought participants from five continents - mental health workers, their managers and their bishops, and had a wonderful week in a conference centre in England.

By then I had a dream: that faith-based hospitals, especially in low-income countries, would develop community mental health services, and offer love and commitment to this group of people who are so often stigmatised, rejected and outcast.

Working in Jamie’s Fund in Uganda, my dream has come true. Our young colleagues here have a shining vision to make things better in mental health, and they are transforming lives. They also love to learn and we are having such a good week with them.

Second on today’s agenda I presented Trauma Matters, prepared by our good friend Helen, a Liverpool psychiatrist. We were all looking forward to her first visit to Uganda – and so was she, but late in the day illness stopped that happening. Interesting presenting other people’s powerpoint! But I already knew that she and I had were of the same tribe, had concerns and values in common, and that it was a privilege to present her work.

After lunch our colleague Sudaat told us about a new syndrome “Shake Shake”. Every so often these slightly odd presentations crop up, often in boarding schools, looking like some weird neurological disease. As far as I know, they never are, but are usually due to underlying stress and the girls ‘catch’ it from each other. You won’t be surprised to hear that in ShakeShake the girls’ legs shake.

Some of our colleagues had asked for screening tools to give them a straightforward and speedy way to assess those patients in medical clinics who come with physical symptoms but appear to have nothing wrong with them. So we talked about screening principles and got them doing translations of one such tool into local languages. Much hilarity ensued. Keeping control was like herding cats.

We took a group photo with the banner of the the Diversity Foundation behind the group. Diversity Travel have been very generous in their support to Jamie’s Fund and have paid about half the cost of this work shop for which we are very grateful..

Ewan enjoys data. Don’t drown in data, turn it into information! Kuule from Bwindi and Lamet from Mukono, both very able and visionary mental health clinicians, joined Ewan to show how it could be done. Kuule and Ewan have recently spent a considerable time preparing a research paper on this very subject, which shows how the number of patients attending mental health clinics around Bwindi has increased as more clinics have been opened as a result of training of clnical staff in basic mental health care, sponsored by JF. The only officially required figures are for the clinic attendances rather than how an individual attends. Just looking at the number of attendances doesn't tell you about the size of pool of patients or if individuals are attending regularly for follow up. You need this to be able to manage your service effectively.

Supper as usual and early bed.

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starlight-edith · 9 months

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You got blocked by a Trekkie for being ridiculous and wrong. You say replace Israel with any other country under a picture with other countries mentioned in the same vein as Israel and dare claim people would be mad at that. And then decide to put Palestine as an alternative as if that hasn't been the Zionist manifesto for over a century, and plenty of influential people and entities haven't erased Palestine from their maps already, like Google, and the way Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram censor and suppress information related to Palestine so hard that when a toxic chemicals spill happened in the US, it didn't trend because the place is called East Palestine. Incredulous. And then you say that you're not against Palestine, but its people weren't even a part of it, they were Jordanians, and they should go to Jordan, and leave Palestine to the people who got there roundabouts 100yrs ago to colonise it, and it's antisemitic to hate those people, and anyway the Palestinians were Jordanians and should go to Jordan. To a Trekkie. Why do you even watch Star Trek if everything it's about goes over your head and leads you to criticise those who understand what's wrong with Israel, the US, and the UK, and want their demise? Just supporting colonialism and imperialism, and getting upset at those who don't. Understand that Palestine and Palestinians have been around for thousands of years. In those thousands of years, and they were Jews(Samaritans and Judeans), Zoroastrians, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims amongst others. They were Asians, Africans, and Europeans. When the Brits and French came through, there was Palestine, not Jordan. Jordan came after Palestine, because White Europeans decided to mess with the region for control and malice. Israel came after Palestine and Jordan because White Europeans decided to mess with Palestine for control and malice. The zionists deemed the founders of Israel were very vocal about Israel being a colonial project to dispossess Palestinians of Palestine, when Palestine included present-day Jordan, and parts of Lebanon, and Syria. That's why Israel keeps bombing Lebanon and Syria. That's why one of Netanyahu's ministers keeps talking about greater Israel including those regions. Israel wasn't for safety reasons, it was for colonialism. If those zionists were about safety, they would've negotiated with Palestinians as those who'd moved to Palestine prior to the late 1800s had, and settled in Palestine as Palestinians, as those who'd moved prior to the late 1800s did. But they didn't. And the current generation of zionists like yourself continue to uphold that colonial basis for Israel existing, and it shows in your talking about Israel being all you have and Palestinians should just move. But then complain about Israel being done away with, and call anyone who wants Israel to stop existing antisemitic. Well, while you continue supporting a brutal colonial project, and want Palestinians to just go away from their homelands so your colonizer self can be comfortable and not disturbed by the effects of your colonial project on Palestinians, know that you don't have a right to Palestine and directing Palestinians to leave their lands and homes so you can feel safe from things Palestinians didn't do to you and yours in the first place. You can keep your so-called respectful advices that deem opposition to colonizers as bigotry to yourself.

I literally just asked them not to make death threats but ok.

As for why Israel is important to me even though the government sucks, I highly suggest you watch this video by George Takei (aka Hikaru Sulu)

youtube

It represents my feelings about Israel very well. The government sucks, but the people, the opportunity, the safety — that’s what matters.

I honestly don’t understand why you seem to think that Israelis are not also native to Israel? Where do you think Judaism came from? Both Jews and Muslims have claim to Israel (as do the canaanites if they still existed but I digress)

You seemed to also completely ignore the fact that I said we should have a two state solution OR Jordan should repatriate — as in, if everybody refuses to agree as has been going on for decades, we have Jordan make good on their word (whether it’s accurate or not).

X (I couldn’t find the post where the leader of Jordan said Palestine was Jordan and Jordan was Palestine that I saw like a week ago so have this article with statistics instead)

Again, to make it PERFECTLY clear — my opinion is that BOTH Israelis AND Palestinians have a right to live in Israel/Palestine but this has been hindered by the GOVERNMENTS of both!

This is also important to take into consideration:

Post here by @hero-israel

Maybe learn some actual history before endorsing death on innocent people?

#hate anons

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theladyofbloodshed · 1 year

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You’re a teacher in UK (I’m assuming based on a few posts from before). Rishi Sunak (the new prime minister) is making plans to make maths compulsary for kids upto 18 years old.

All over social media, british people have different opinions about it. Most are however against it. The most common reason is that they believe it kills creativity, and that the cirriculum could use some other useful subjects.

What is you opinion on the matter as a teacher?

(Sorry if you only take fandom related questions. You can totally ignore it if you don’t like non fandom related questions)

I think it is ridiculous. Long post so I'll put under a read more

If everybody studied maths to 18, it wouldn't make anybody more employable because all would have that qualification. The majority of jobs do not require you to use maths. So often my kids will ask me why they have to learn something and the honest answer is that the government told me I have to teach it.

The shift between GCSE to A Levels was hard. That was ten years ago for me, but it was hard. It's a big jump in terms of depth of learning. In order to study maths to 18, either students have to drop a subject they had wanted to take to fit it in (in the UK, you generally take 4 subjects for AS Level then drop one for the final year. I took biology, chemistry, psychology and philosophy & ethics then dropped the latter) or will have an extra subject wedged on top which gives them less time to focus on each class - or they won't actually care about taking maths so won't put effort into it.

I work in a primary school and how it works here is you teach the same 30 children every subject for a year. My role is slightly different as I am a cover teacher and cover all across the school so when a teacher has the afternoon to plan, I'll teach their class which means I can teach from 4-11 years old in the same week. We already have children who declare they hate maths and its hard. We have parents who when we ask them to support their children's learning will say that they were bad at maths so it doesn't matter if their children give up on it. I had a child last year who at 11 years old was greater depth for writing and reading (the highest level you can be) but wasn't secure in her number bonds to ten so massively struggled with all areas of maths. Number bonds to 10 should be secured at age 5. Our curriculum is so big that sometimes we run out of time to teach everything or children have absences and they have so many gaps. She was missed every year as somebody who should have been higher and I spent so much time trying to catch her up by filling in all of her gaps on number bonds and times table knowledge which filter into every strand of maths. We had 2 years of covid so maybe if that hadn't happened, the gaps would be apparent sooner, but she's not the only child like that.

Maths isn't valued here. Partly that comes down to the way it is taught. It's not a criticism of teachers, but the syllabus is so massive that you have to hit everything at pace and for those who can't keep up, they end up with massive gaps in their learning. If they've struggled with fractions for the 3 weeks they've studied it, too bad we're onto area and perimeter now, you'll do fractions next year!

In the mornings, I tutor a group of children who have fallen behind and I have to plug any gaps and try to catch them up to age related expectations. This past week, I taught them bus stop method for division because that was what I was told to teach by their regular teacher. I then found out what we aren't supposed to teach that method until next year.

But they had understood it, because they know how to exchange from subtraction because we ensured they really were secure and understood what exchanging means rather than "you add a 1 to the next number".

So then we had to go back a step because the government said they need to learn how to partition it into a whole part model... which is actually harder because they didn't know how many tens or ones they should be splitting it to. It's just so ridiculous. They completely understood the one on the left and will be taught that next year and will use that method forever. But the one on the right has confused them - and they won't need to do that ever again after this year - but we have to teach them like that because that's what the government says?

I didn't really enjoy maths. I never gelled with my teacher and I had the same one for 4 years and I knew I wasn't taking it beyond a compulsory level. I got a B at GCSE which was bad in my school so I had to go to a remedial math class at the start of year 12 because there was maths in biology/chemistry which I had chosen. But in the first lesson my teacher was like "why are you here?" because the small branch of maths that I needed for my science subjects was secure. I've not needed trigonometry or the quadratic equation ever in my life.

I've needed maths to teach maths but actually my understanding of fractions and place value has only become secure since I've had to teach it.

That time would be better spend in teaching young adults how to apply for jobs, for understanding taxes and insurance, for developing contacts in careers etc. The average grade for maths at GCSE level is around a low B/high C. At my school, if you received a B in a subject that you wanted to take for A Level, you would be warned that it would be difficult. If you had a C, they'd advise you against taking that subject because it would be too hard.

It would be better for the government to look at the national curriculum and see how many hoops educators have to jump through and how many boxes we have to tick to please them first. It's so stupid!!!

#anon asks

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