#to dismantle the institutions that have denied their humanity

[fatehbaz]

There are thousands of people homeless in Edmonton. About only one week ahead of the winter holidays in December 2023, the City of Edmonton pursued plans to sweep over 130 homeless encampments as part of a what has been described as a "shocking" eviction plan. But at the same time, in January 2024, the city was clearing camps amidst sustained deadly severe weather, during a polar vortex event with temperatures of -50 F/-46 C. Meanwhile, a court case presented by homeless advocates with Coalition for Justice and Human Rights was trying to slow brutal sweeps and evictions. But when a judge shut down the case in the middle of January 2024, it took the City of Edmonton just one single day to turn around and set up an "operations centre" to expand sweeps again, as the daytime high temperatures for the preceding week and over the next few days were sometimes as low as -25 F/-31 C. In less than two weeks after the lawsuit was scrapped, by the beginning of February 2024, the city had already cleared 49 encampments. (The city ostensibly has access to institutional and financial power as the Alberta provincial capital and a center of the province's massive fossil fuel industry, yet the city spends its effort on evictions.)

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[Quote.] Two weeks since a lawsuit challenging Edmonton's practice of dismantling homeless encampments was scrapped by a judge, nearly 50 encampments around the city have been torn down. A new emergency operations centre - set up by city administration one day after the suit was dismissed - is helping co-ordinate sweeps as evictions continue at an accelerated pace. The Emergency Operations Centre has overseen the removal of 49 encampments, the city said in a statement. About 211 structures were removed during the sweeps [...]. The encampment operations centre was established on Jan. 17, as Edmonton police promised to hasten tearing down encampments [...]. The day before, a judge ruled Coalition for Justice and Human Rights, a group that challenged the city's encampment policies, did not have legal standing in the case, putting an end to the high-profile legal challenge and, in turn, lifting restrictions on how the evictions could proceed. "The bottom line is they're doing this because that lawsuit longer exists," [A.N.], a lawyer for the group, said. "They feel emboldened.[...] And that means, from our perspective, they're continuing to breach the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized within our city." [End quote.]

Text by: Wallis Snowdon. "49 homeless encampments dismantled in Edmonton since lawsuit scrapped". CBC News. 1 February 2024. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

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Screenshot of headline from 15 December 2023.

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Headline from 12 January 2024 (updated 15 January 2024).

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[Quote.] It feels like housing is at a tipping point in the city of Edmonton. There have been four main events highlighting the situation: [1] A case that was brought against the City of Edmonton by the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights about encampment sweeps; [2] Encampment sweeps perpetrated by the Edmonton police days before a forecasted deadly cold snap; [3] A decision by Edmonton City Council to declare a housing and homelessness emergency; [4] The Alberta government’s announcement that encampments will continue to be cleared out, while also arguing there’s sufficient shelter room. That contention has been refuted by advocates, shelter workers and the province’s official housing critic. [...]

The state of housing both in Canada and globally is worsening, but the housing crisis is not new. [...] Under Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act passed in 2019, the federal government affirmed the human right to housing. [...] This isn’t happening, apparently, when it comes to encampments, which are both a site of human rights violations and of human rights claims. The Coalition for Justice and Human Rights was denied legal standing by the judge in its case against Edmonton because he ruled it wasn’t the right group to represent the interests of people experiencing homelessness. While that means this particular case will not proceed, it garnered significant media attention and does not refute the claims by the coalition, only its standing. The coalition argued human rights were violated during encampment sweeps. It sought to maintain permanent restrictions on encampment evictions, and had been supported by many advocates in Edmonton, including those who submitted affidavits. [...]

[U]nhoused people [...] are disproportionately Indigenous [...]. When authorities make reference to “public safety” concerns about encampment, unhoused people are positioned as dangerous.

The destruction of those encampments simply drives people who are unhoused further to the margins. Sweeps do not end people’s experiences of homelessness; they move them out of public view. [...] Homelessness in Edmonton has resulted in increased amputations due to exposure to extreme cold, while encampment sweeps lead to the overburdening of a shelter system that is already inadequate and the denial of rest for people who are unhoused. [End quote.]

Text by: Katie MacDonald. "Encampment sweeps in Edmonton are yet another example of settler colonialism". The Conversation. 8 February 2024. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Image shows screenshot of article's headline.]

[fullhalalalchemist]

It cannot be overstated how genocidal Biden is. Before October with Gaza, it was of disabled people with COVID. He completely dismantled public health we've had for decades. He removed all of the tools we need to assess our actual risk and reduce spreading illness, ot just for COVID but ALL future pandemics, which we will have more of due to climate change. Data reporting, testing sites, free tests, expanded health coverage, isolation time. It was calculated. Deliberate. That's on top of instituting eugenicists at the head of the CDC, and allowing companies to pay their way to reduce amd diminish and deny any guideline and science. That's on top of letting all the money that was put aside to prevent the spread to be sent to cops. That's on top of so, so, so much harm he has done that NO ONE pays attention to other than disabled people here.

The same way he tore apart thr systems in place here to divert all money to cops is the same thing he's doing with Israel. He has no regard for human life whatsoever. Why should he care about dead Palestinian children when American children are catching covid 5-6 times, becoming permanently disabled and dying? "Lesser of two evils" my ass.

This is not to diminish the Palestinian genocide in any way, btw. Please dont think that. This is merely to shine light on the fact that this man wants to kill for the sake of upholding capitalism and white supremacy, whether its with bombs or disease.

#palestine #covid

[wikinomnom]

Oppenheimer

The man staring back at you with a cigarette enclosed between his lips, not quite an inviting one, but a deep gaze holding your eyes - that is what I remember as my first memory of American Prometheus. I do not quite remember how I came to the book. Maybe it was from some early reading on Oppenheimer, or maybe I found my way to it once I finished reading Feynman's "Surely You're Joking..." autobiography. In any case, I know reading it at the time I thought the Prometheus analogy fit perfectly. A man who knew too much, revealed to much to the humans; punished for it, tortured for it, forever haunted by it.

Then to see the words come to life, in and through Cillian Murphy's eyes - what a treat. To see Oppenheimer be himself on screen, dressing up in a small Los Alamos building room as he discards the military uniform and adorns his hat, takes his pipe and the same deep gaze peering back was life coming full circle. The realization of my imagination of the words could not have been rewarded more aptly. In his performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Murphy lights up the screen and by the end I was left with a gut-wrenching knot in the pit of my stomach as he looked back into nothingness in the final moment of the movie before all cuts to black.

Nolan, so expertly, has fit in so much into one film. I felt transported between a historical drama, a court room thriller, a piercing look into a not so simple marriage and yet at the center of it all a psychological dismantling of a man, who pursued the responsibility of unearthing some awesome but life-altering truths about scientific forces and was left to bear the weight of how he had changed the very nature of our world. One scene early on in the film that thundered in was the switch in Oppenheimer's attire as the camera pans during his witch hunt of an AEC hearing. Pivoting behind the attorney pecking away at Oppenheimer's fragile mental armor, the camera reveals a naked man. Vulnerable. Laid bare in front of his contemporaries. As you think his humiliation could not be further, a layer is added from his wife's perspective when her point of view of her husband's affair is imagined by the now dead-girlfriend nakedly and lifelessly staring back at Katherine Oppenheimer.

Emily Blunt does so much with her eyes as well and many a times without them. In her few minutes giving testimony to the people tearing down her husband, Katherine Oppenheimer shudders initially, unable to meet the eyes of the men who are doing so. As they lock in on her, that unease is replaced with fight, tenacity and a determination to defend her truth, personifying what she has been pleading her husband to do since the witch hunt started. Equally significant is Kitty Oppenheimer's stare back at Edward Teller during a final montage where Teller hopes to mend broken fences but instead is met with deathly eyes, unforgiving of the statements he made to contribute to her husband's witch hunt.

The fallout of this witch hunt comes back to haunt its architect - played so beautifully by Robert Downey Jr. With an almost youthful energy he welcomes Oppenheimer to join the Institute of Advanced Studies and a within a handful of moments you see the ego-bruising disappointment in him, as he feels a rejection and the lack of embrace from the very legend of Oppenheimer he imagines he has helped create. Till the final turn of the film, I almost thought the narrative did so well to present a redeeming side to the Lewis Strauss of Downey Jr. But as the black and white scenes reveal the final layers of Strauss's story through his senate confirmation hearing, you are presented with an equally piercing image of a self-centered man who has worked so hard, all his life really, to get to the pinnacle of his life, only to see his machinations behind Oppenheimer's downfall come back to haunt him and deny him that reward.

Able to elicit wonderful performances from all the supporting cast and breath taking visuals to show them in, Nolan is relentless in his mastery of the craft. I was curious to see how he would capture the sheer scale of the atomic bomb explosion. I was not disappointed by his interpretation. He does not go about romanticizing the bomb or its effects. The explosion fills up the screen, and with it your senses. The sound, and in some instances, the lack of it, bring through the nothingness and destruction that such a "gadget" leave in its wake. The raw and bare colors of the explosion are left on the screen for your eyes to soak in. Letting you take a moment to think of the scale, washing over you. And then comes the sound, and in some instances the lack of it. Accurately conveying the physics of it, the light from the explosion reaching you before the sound of the blast comes blazing at you.

By the end, I was left with a hollowness akin to the gaze of Oppenheimer's eyes. Leaving the theater to a soundtrack that is magnificent yet intimate and vulnerable, I came out into the night feeling haunted. Haunted by the simple reality I was transported back into, away from the magnum opus of a vision that had been imprinted in my mind. A haunting is what will stay with me.

[kamillia]

Okay, so I have been thinking about this for an hour now and I don’t know how to ask this that doesn’t sound like an troll

But like, if gender ideology is BS and it’s not real, why do a lot think we (guys) are inherently worthless and no point of existence

Like, I soooooorta get it, we are privileged and allow to much shit and harm pass by, and if an radfem killed me, I wouldn’t mind cause I have no self worth

But I’m just not understanding the “institution” thing, because like, if you take two babies form both sexs outside of planet Earth and never teach them about anything about us, I don’t really think the male baby would come out an rapist or anything like that

Coming from an black person, that what I was taught, I thought stuff was this was thought subconsciously, not inherently born with

the reason males are more likely to be violent is because of male socialization first and foremost. There are also other things that may make males more prone to being violent, but since we are human beings with free will it is mostly the cause of male socialization rather than biology. Gender roles ARE real. They are constructs made by the patriarchy to oppress women and keep us under men. Just like trans people and gender ideology exists and no one denies it. However all these ideas are not based on actual fact and biology but rather are tools of oppression. This is why it's important to dismantle the idea of gender and gender roles. Creating more genders or more gender roles or saying that a man who fits into feminine gender roles is a woman doesn't help us dismantle these things, it just builds on them. It instills the idea that to be a woman is to be weak and feminine, and to be a man is to be strong and masculine, and that the act of not aligning yourself with the traditional misogynistic ideas of womanhood must mean you're not a woman at all. A woman isn't a woman because she's girly, or likes putting on makeup or wearing feminine clothes. A woman is a woman simply due to her being born female, which means having xx chromosomes. To say otherwise is to be pushing misogynistic ideas.

[nova0000scotia]

Our broken hearts.... 18 million girls were going to school before political international interference stole Dr. Abdullah Abdullah's democratic won election and all the incredible things accomplished.... we won Afghanistan war three times.... and now they call it # AfghanistanApartheid

Is Taliban’s war on women in Afghanistan gender apartheid?

The Chronicle Herald (Metro)

12 Aug 2023

HOMA HOODFAR MONA TAJALI SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPORT

The second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is fast approaching. Since then, Afghan women have been denied the most basic human rights in what can only be described as gender apartheid.

Only by labelling it as such and making clear the situation in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity can the international community legally fight the systematic discrimination against the country’s women and girls.

Erasing women from the public sphere is central to Taliban ideology. Women’s rights institutions in Afghanistan, notably the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, have been dismantled while the dreaded Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has been resurrected.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has been dissolved and the country’s 2004 constitution repealed, while legislation guaranteeing gender equality has been invalidated.

Today, Afghan women are denied a post-secondary education, they cannot leave the house without a male chaperone, they cannot work, except in health care and some private businesses and they are barred from parks, gyms and beauty salons.

WOMEN TARGETED

Of the approximately 80 edicts issued by the Taliban, 54 specifically target women, severely restricting their rights and violating Afghanistan’s international obligations and its previous constitutional and domestic laws.

The Taliban appear undeterred, continuing where they left off 20 years ago when they first held power. The results of their ambitions are nearly apocalyptic.

Afghanistan is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. About 19 million people are suffering from acute food insecurity, while more than 90 per cent of Afghans are experiencing some form of food insecurity, with female-headed households and children most impacted.

Gender-based violence has increased exponentially with corresponding impunity for the perpetrators and lack of support for the victims, while ethnic, religious and sexual minorities are suffering intense persecution.

This grim reality underscores the urgent need to address how civil, political, socioeconomic and genderbased harms are interconnected.

INTERNATIONAL CRIME

Karima Bennoune, an Algerian-american international law scholar, has advocated recognizing gender apartheid as a crime under international law. Such recognition would stem from states’ international legal commitments to gender equality and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5 aimed at achieving global gender equality by 2030.

Criminalizing gender apartheid would provide the international community with a powerful legal framework to effectively respond to Taliban abuses. While the UN has already labelled the situation in Afghanistan gender apartheid, the term is not currently recognized under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as being among the worst international crimes.

Presenting his report at the UN Human Rights Council, Richard Bennett — the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan — stated:

“A grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid.”

Criminalizing gender apartheid globally would allow the international community to fulfil its obligation to respond effectively and try to eradicate it permanently. It would provide the necessary legal tools to ensure that international commitments to women’s rights in all aspects of life are upheld.

Shaharzad Akbar, head of the Rawadari human rights group and former chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, has urged the Human Rights Council to acknowledge the situation in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.

She’s noted that the “Taliban have turned Afghanistan to a mass graveyard of Afghan women and girls’ ambitions, dreams and potential.”

A number of Afghan women’s rights defenders have also called for the inclusion of gender apartheid in the UN’S Draft Convention on Crimes Against Humanity.

Most remarkably, Bronwen Levy, South Africa’s representative at the Security Council, has urged the international community to “take action against what (Bennett’s) report describes as gender apartheid, much like it did in support of South Africa’s struggle against racial apartheid.”

Elsewhere, the chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, as well as the head of its Delegation for Relations with Afghanistan, have described the “unacceptable” situation in Afghanistan as one of gender apartheid.

Whenever and wherever apartheid systems emerge, it represents a failure of the international community. The situation in Afghanistan must compel it to respond effectively to the persecution of women.

Recognizing Taliban rule as gender apartheid is not only critical for Afghans, it is equally critical for the credibility of the entire UN system. As Afghan human rights activist Zubaida Akbar told the Security Council:

“If you do not defend women’s rights here, you have no credibility to do so anywhere else.”

The Taliban’s brutal two years in power in Afghanistan have taught us that ordinary human rights initiatives, while important, are insufficient for addressing gender apartheid.

The world needs resolute collective international action to end the war on women. Not in two months. Not in two years. But now.

Homa Hoodfar is professor of Anthropology, Emerita, at Concordia University in Montreal, Que. Mona Tajali is associate professor of international relations and women’s gender and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College in Decatar, Georgia, U.S.A.

[fauyen]

Feelings about the left in America? Asking because your posts come off as right-leaning or at least seem to be from a right-wing perspective?

I'm a radical feminist. I think both Democrats and Republicans are anti-woman, and therefore neither support my politics. Conservatives are in the business of upholding white supremacy and the patriarchy. They've lost the script of what they claim to care about and they are clinging to the most vile among us for money and power. Conversely, leftists have no spine or ambition to progress society towards a better future. Instead, they're riding on the coattails of past achievements, being marginally better than Republicans, and appeal to people's basic deceny to get them hired. Then when they do have power they do the bare minimum but don't actually try to dismantle sexist, classist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, colonialist or imperialist institutions/policies/laws that keep white, old, heterosexual men in power and everyone else subjugated. I'm pro-female seperatism, pro-choice, anti-porn, anti-prostitution, anti-surrogacy, anti-war, anti-capitalist, pro-universal healthcare, pro-union, anti-fgm, and anti-money. Women have the right to say no and have their boundaries respected. I support all women, Black Lives Matter, first nation's and indigenous people, lgb rights, disability rights, immigration reform, refugees seeking asylum, and the poverty stricken. I believe the homeless should be given homes, treatment, and mental healthcare. I believe the wage gap needs to be closed, period products should be free, childcare should be free, women should get paid days off for their periods, birth control and abortions should be free, clothing regulations should ensure that women's clothing is the same high quality, durability, and affordability as men's clothing, rapists should be executed and people shouldn't be convicted for murdering them because rape is the only crime that has no justification and offenders will rape again, abusers and murders should be locked up and denied child custody, all advertisements should be illegal, prisons shouldn't be for profit, the 13th amendment shifted slavery from a private institution to a state mandated one, all drugs, medical procedures and health recommendations should be retested on woman to know how they affect us. I think trans people deserve respect, dignity and compassion. They deserve the same things all humans have a right to: safety, rights to privacy, access to healthcare, affordable housing, clean drinking water, food, clothing, opportunities to achieve their dreams, justice, and freedom. However, males do not have the right to redefine women, to take away our rights, endanger us, to silence us, abuse, rape or murder us, take away our opportunities, use our resources that we built for women, or demand that we cater to them. Sex is real, but gender is a hierarchical form of oppression with men on top and women on the bottom. I want to get rid of gender. I want to dismantle the patriarchy and liberate women from men.

I'm an environmentalist. Climate change is a very real threat to humanity and all living things. We should produce less. Constant growth is a cancer. A flood. And we are all going to drown. Or burn. We should repair the things, houses, infrastructure we already have rather than always throwing it all away and buying new. All around the world there should be fast, safe, reliable public transit. Cities and towns should be walkable or bike-able. We should only produce that which we need. Food should be produced as we need it, organically and locally. Farm animals shouldn't be in factory farms, but in fields and sunshine. We should also eat less meat. Biodiversity should be a number one priority. People should be able to live where they work. And they should be given priority over people that don't work there. People should only own one home. If they own more than one, then they should be heavily taxed. Everyone should own their own home. The rich should be taxed heavily with no loopholes. Militaries and police should be heavily defunded. Corporations should not be considered people, should not be allowed to fund politicians, and need to be more regulated. Same with banks. Women should be 100% independent and child free if they wish. And life shouldn't cost more for them. Schools, libraries, music and art, public works, parks and recreation should get the bulk of municipalities revenue. Taxes should be spent on the people.

[comradekatara]

teenage girls who are full of rage are so important to me actually... 

#avatar the last airbender #atla #katara #toph #katara&toph #sort of #art #mart #is there anything more important in the world? than the fury of teenage girls? #i think not #their anger is so important #they are going to make waves and move mountains (literally) #to dismantle the institutions that have denied their humanity #and i love them so much for that!! #role models forever and ever #❤️❤️❤️

[meret118]

Banning books is always bigger than just the ban or just the book. It’s a concerted effort to whitewash and sugarcoat history, to deny the truth of what happened and who we are as a nation, and to continue the dismantling of our public educational institutions. This current surge is not a grassroots movement of individual parents wanting to protect their children. No, for the most part these are extremely well-funded, politically connected, and highly coordinated conservative groups determined to dominate and oppress. Calling queer books “pornography,” passing anti-Critical Race Theory laws, removing books for the “crime” of asserting the humanity of marginalized people, threatening library workers and teachers with bounties and jail time, it’s all part of the same rotten plot.

More at the link.

#Books #Censorship #Fascism

[plannedparenthood]

Thank You, RBG

We are heartbroken. Supreme Court Justice and gender equality hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, Sept. 18. Her death is a painful loss for our country. She was a fierce and unapologetic warrior for equality, and her achievements are endless. As we mourn we’re also embracing our gratitude for her service to our country.

Cherishing RBG’s Legacy

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg committed her life to protecting the rights, freedoms, and health of people across the country — in particular women, communities of color, and others whose voices too often go unheard. She was a true trailblazer who inspired millions of girls and women to fight through sexism and discrimination to make American a better place to work, to live, and to love. 

Her powerful words over the years, including her razor-sharp dissents, helped push our nation toward freedom and opportunity for all. Her spirit, values, and words will be deeply missed.

A Modern Revolutionary

Some revolutionaries shook up a society with anger burning and guns blazing. Others studied hard, knocked down an unfair system one peg at a time, and spoke truth to power while wearing a lace collar. That was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

She got two mottoes from her mother, Celia Bader (who marched for women’s suffrage): 

“Be independent,” take care of yourself without being financially beholden to a man, and

“Be a lady,” don't allow emotions like anger to be so consuming they get in your way.

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw anything repugnant — like systemic discrimination — she would get straight to work. It wasn’t easy. Over decades, Ruth Bader Ginsburg faced a slew of indignities. But she harnessed courage and resolve to strategically break down America’s sexist, unethical laws and institutions. 

To honor the Notorious RBG, we’ve collected our seven favorite facts about her life and her legacy.

7) RBG was defiant in the face of entrenched sexism in college and law school.

Most colleges didn’t accept women in the 1950s, and Ruth Bader was one of the first to break the gender barrier. At Cornell University, she was sexually harassed by a professor, who offered answers to a test in exchange for sex. She confronted him: “I went to his office and I said, ‘How dare you? How dare you do this?’ And that was the end of that.” 

At Harvard Law School, she and the eight other women in her class of more than 500 students were ogled, ignored in the classroom, excluded from the library, and asked by the dean how they could possibly justify taking a seat away from a man. But that hostile environment didn’t stop her. 

She fought it with brain power and superhuman physical endurance. She was so obsessed with the law that she’d regularly stay up until dawn studying. Well into her 80s, she retained her reputation for working until 3 a.m. and living on just two hours of sleep. 

While she was kicking butt at the top of her classes, she was also taking care of her young daughter and sick husband. Martin (Marty) Ginsburg contracted testicular cancer and had extensive radiation therapy, which kept him from going to his own law school classes. So, RBG organized his friends to attend his classes, worked through their notes with Marty, and typed up Marty’s papers — all while doing her own schoolwork on top of it. 

She tied for first in her class from Columbia Law School in 1959. She also was the first person to become a member of both the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and the Columbia Law Review — one of many of her unprecedented feats. She proved to those elite schools that a woman could succeed.

6) RBG showed the world what a partnership looks like in a husband-wife relationship.

Ruth Bader met Marty Ginsburg while they were both at Cornell University, and they forged an equal partnership from the beginning. He learned to cook so she didn’t have to. Later, he lobbied for her seats on the Court of Appeals in D.C. and on the Supreme Court. And he gave up his law firm in New York to follow her to Washington — a shocking move at the time. 

Here’s how she put it at her 1993 Senate confirmation hearing:

“I surely would not be in this room today without the determined efforts of men and women who kept dreams of equal citizenship alive. I have had the great good fortune to share life with a partner truly extraordinary for his generation. A man who believed at age 18 when we met that a woman’s work, whether at home or on the job, is as important as a man’s. I became a lawyer when women were not wanted by most members of the legal profession. I became a lawyer because Marty supported that choice unreservedly.”

5.) RBG won a whopping five cases before the Supreme Court — and they all advanced the Constitutional protection of equal rights for all Americans.

As smart and accomplished as Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, no law firm would hire her after she graduated from law school. Law firms slammed the door in her face time after time because they only hired men. She realized that “being a woman was an impediment.”

As Ginsburg navigated the legal working world in the 1960s, she saw how thousands of state and federal laws were treating women as second-class citizens. At that time, most states’ laws allowed employment termination for pregnancy, and let banks deny credit to women without a male co-signer. The Supreme Court had rejected every challenge to laws that treated women worse than men.

All this gender discrimination fueled Ginsburg’s drive for social justice. In the early 1970s, she followed the strategy of NAACP civil rights lawyer and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who helped dismantle Jim Crow laws case by case over many years — leading to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed racial segregation in schools in 1954. Like Marshall, Ginsburg centered her arguments on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says all persons should be treated equally under the law.

Throughout the ‘70s, Ginsburg led the ACLU’s Women's Rights Project, for which she argued and won five landmark gender equality cases before the Supreme Court. As she said in the 2018 documentary RBG: "I knew that I was speaking to men who didn't think there was such a thing as gender-based discrimination, and my job was to tell them it really exists.”

These cases set the foundation for the country’s laws against sex discrimination, and helped eliminate being male as the criteria for employment, pay, and benefits:

Two cases in 1975 and 1979 established the requirement that women serve on juries, recognizing that they should enjoy both the benefits and the responsibilities of our judicial system.

“The vaunted woman's privilege viewed against history's backdrop simply reflects and perpetuates a certain way of thinking about women. Women traditionally were deemed lesser citizens.”

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Duren v. Missouri, 1979)

An employment benefits case in 1973 required the U.S. military to equally distribute family-based benefits for service members regardless of sex.

“In asking the Court to declare sex a suspect criterion, we urge a position forcibly stated in 1837 by Sara Grimke, noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. She said, ‘I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.'”

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973)

Two cases in 1974 and 1975 threw out gender-based distinctions in survivors’ benefits, granting widowers the same benefits as widows. RBG argued that while giving widows special treatment sounded nice, it wasn’t. Withholding benefits to widowers devalued the work of their deceased wives.

“A gender line...helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.”

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 1975)

4) At her confirmation hearings, RBG openly declared that abortion access is a Constitutional right.

At her 1993 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed what it looks like to uphold constitutional rights. Unlike recent Supreme Court nominees, she affirmatively declared the Constitutional right to safe, legal abortion. When Sen. Hank Brown (R-CO) grilled her about her views on abortion, she declared:

“But you asked me about my thinking about equal protection versus individual autonomy, and my answer to you is it's both. This is something central to a woman's life, to her dignity. It's a decision that she must make for herself. And when Government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

3) RBG wrote the historic decision ruling that state-funded schools must admit women.

In 1996, Justice Ginsburg wrote the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in United States v. Virginia, which ruled that the Virginia Military Institute’s men-only admission policy violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Justice Ginsburg destroyed the Institute’s argument that its program wasn’t suitable for women. Instead, she wrote that:

“[G]eneralizations about ‘the way women are,’ estimates of what is appropriate for most women, no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description.”

The school has admitted women since then, and — as Justice Ginsburg predicted — they have made the school proud.

2) RBG’s dissent from the majority in Lilly Ledbetter’s case led to the passage a fair pay law.

In 2007, Justice Ginsburg dissented in the ruling against Lilly Ledbetter — a tire factory employee who learned, decades into her tenure, that she was being paid much less than men in the exact same supervisory role: She was making $3,727 per month, while her male counterparts were making between $4,286 and $5,236 per month. However, she lost the case because the Civil Rights Act had a statute of limitations for reporting on discrimination. 

In her scathing dissent, Justice Ginsburg wrote that gender discrimination can be hidden for a long time and “the ball is in Congress’s court” to change the rule. In 2009, Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the Civil Rights Act’s statute of limitations and guarantees women equal pay for equal work.

1.) RBG put the smack down on TRAP laws in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. 

In the landmark Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt case in 2016, the Supreme Court — including Justice Ginsburg — ruled that two abortion restrictions in Texas were unconstitutional because they would shut down most clinics in the state and cause Texans an “undue burden” on access to safe, legal abortion. The case exposed the lie that anti-abortion politicians have been peddling for years: that it’s somehow “safer” when the state imposes medically unnecessary, onerous targeted restrictions against abortion providers (TRAP) laws. 

In her concurring opinion to the majority, Justice Ginsburg wrote:

“Given those realities [that keep abortion access out of reach], it is beyond rational belief that H.B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions’... When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners... at great risk to their health and safety.”

With this historic decision, the Court reaffirmed the constitutional right to access legal abortion. This decision was a triumph for abortion access. And when one of the restrictions that Ginsburg helped strike down came up in another lawsuit this year, Ginsburg again helped lead the Court to protecting abortion access in a major Supreme Court victory for reproductive rights.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg rose for all of us. How will we work together to rise for her?

From day one, Justice Ginsburg recognized our constitutional right to control our bodies and our destinies. That is a legacy that cannot and must not depart with her. 

Justice Ginsburg stood up for us. Now it’s our turn. 

Follow Planned Parenthood at facebook.com/PlannedParenthood and twitter.com/PPFA to stay updated on how to get involved. Together, we will rise. 

By Miriam at PPFA

[themuffinlord]

U.K. PEOPLE LISTEN UP

If y'all haven't already, please email your MP regarding the super racist nationality and borders bill in the UK

And remember to include your postcode in the email

Template below:

Dear [insert MP name],

I am writing to ask you to oppose the nationality and borders bill. This bill criminalises the act of coming to the UK to seek sanctuary, erodes the meagre rights of those subject to immigration control and sows division in UK society. It seeks to inflame an already toxic debate about migration and seeks to further denigrate and stigmatise those who migrate.

There are countless harmful paragraphs and clauses in this bill. It disingenuously reinterprets the Refugee Convention in a restrictive way and has been found by the UNHCR to be in breach of International Law. It will criminalise people and deny them access to the asylum system solely on the basis of the route they travelled. It reintroduces a fast-track appeals system for people in detention that was previously found to be unlawful; dismantles hard-won protections for victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, and removes people’s rights to appeal against Home Office decisions in a number of different scenarios. Many of these proposals will harm vulnerable people.

The bill marks a watershed moment in the transition from a hostile environment to full-blown social segregation. It will discriminate between refugees and leave the majority stuck in limbo for years, potentially segregated from the rest of society in isolated and unsanitary ‘accommodation centres’, unable to work or participate in society. People could also be flown thousands of miles away to offshore detention centres. As with the rollout of the Hostile Environment, the profound immediate and long-term impact this will have upon the fabric of society does not appear to have been considered.

This is not just about people who come here to seek protection. The bill will change the law on detention, making it even more difficult for people to be released. This will affect everybody in detention including people with strong connections to the UK, who have families here, children here, people who themselves grew up here or were even born here, and who face removal to countries with which they have no connection.

If this bill passes, more people will be locked up, for longer. It creates new criminal offences and lengthens maximum sentences for other existing offences. It continues a trend begun by the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill. The new offences and heavier sentencing will be filtered through a criminal justice system whose racial biases are known and accepted. This will lead to more foreign nationals brought within the ambit of the UK’s automatic deportation system, under which any foreign national who receives a 12-month sentence must be considered for deportation. Cases will be ‘certified’ so as to remove any right of appeal.

The bill makes it more difficult for people subject to immigration control to challenge life-changing decisions taken by the Home Office. It introduces many more hurdles in what is already an incredibly dehumanising system, punishing late evidence or behaviour deemed to be ‘in bad faith’ and introducing demanding procedural requirements for those seeking to challenge their removal. Combined with the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill; the Judicial Review and Courts Bill; and the proposed overhaul of the Human Rights Act, we are witnessing a sinister and coordinated power grab. The government is seeking to make itself unchallengeable, silence dissent and erode the institutions of democracy.

As evidenced by the Windrush scandal, the Home Office already has excessive power that it can wield without meaningful external scrutiny. In the last 3 years, the Home Office has been found to have detained 914 people unlawfully and been required to pay out a total of £24.4 million in compensation to those individuals. We should not be giving it more power.

An alternative is possible. I believe in an immigration system based on principles of justice, compassion and dignity, where no one is detained and deprived of their liberty for the sake of administrative convenience and no one can be exiled from the only home they know.

The UK must provide sanctuary to those forced to flee and give vulnerable people the opportunity to heal, it should enable families to stay together and afford everyone basic rights and the opportunity for rehabilitation. That is key to creating cohesive communities in the UK. This requires a shift in culture and attitude at the Home Office of the kind recommended by Wendy Williams in her Windrush review.

People move for many reasons, including legacies of colonialism that we have not properly reckoned with in this country. Those that are forced to flee and seek asylum are a particular target of this bill. The government assumes their anti-refugee bill is a vote-winner. I do not believe that is the case.

Yours sincerely,

[your name]

#important #windrush #email template #ways to help #anti racism #immigration #xenophobia #uk #government

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 36, June 2016 - The status of cannabis in Japan, Tokyo Governer expenses scandal, Hillary Clinton's promise to share govt UFO info if elected President.

Kaoru starts by introducing Joe, and they comment on how fast the year has gone by. Joe wonders when the next live special is due. Kaoru says he's heard from the higher levels that it may be sometime in the Summer, but he isn't sure. He tells the listeners that if they send in lots of messages asking for another live special, it might be more likely to happen.

Kaoru's first story is another piece of 'taboo' news. This is the news that a person advocating for the legalisation of cannabis for medical use in Japan, is going to run in the next upper house elections, and this person thinks that Japan is behind the rest of the world in its restrictions and failure to recognize the medical benefits of cannabis. (*He does not mention the person's name, but its Takagi Saya*) Kaoru then jokingly refers to Joe as 大麻番長/Cannabis chief. Joe tells him to stop it, although he admits he does also get the nickname 'Ganja man' when he appears on The Dave Fromm show. He insists, however, that this is due to his love for the band Grateful Dead, and not actually due to any connection with cannabis. Kaoru says he gets the impression that Joe has tried cannabis before, but Joe insists that he hasn't. He only knows a lot about it as a writer, so he can explain about it to others, but he has no personal experience. Kaoru then mentions that cannabis has been legalised in many places around the world, including 23 states in America. Joe explains that the problem in Japan is that the Cannabis Control Law means that if medicines derived from cannabis are used, both the doctor and the patient face imprisonment. This isn't an argument for letting sick people smoke cannabis, its a call to allow cannabinoids (a compound found in cannabis) to be used in medicines in Japan. Joe goes on to explain the medical benefits of cannabinoids, and how they have been recognized in many countries. Medicines containing cannabinoids get stopped when they reach the stage of clinical or human trails in Japan. Any doctor who tries to administer them to a patient would be arrested (even if the patient had a disease that cannabinoids would be effective on). This could be seen as a violation of human rights if Japanese patients are denied these medicines, when patients overseas with the same health conditions have access to them. Joe says that Japanese society is set on the misconception that cannabis = smoking marijuana, and prefers to keep it illegal whilst being uninformed of its medical benefits. As a result, cannabis derived medicines cannot reach those who need them. Kaoru asks if such medicines actually exist in Japan, and Joe says there are Japanese companies making cannabis derived medicines, but they have to conduct the clinical trails overseas, and they can only administer them overseas. If they did it on Japanese soil they would be arrested. Kaoru asks Joe if medicines containing cannabinoids can be converted into something you can smoke, and Joe says as far as he is aware, they cannot. He brings up the fact that Japan actually has a long history of growing and using hemp, for all kinds of practical purposes (e.g to make cloth etc, not to make drugs), so he thinks this matter should be decided in a more reasonable manner than it currently is being. There is also the matter of Japanese citizens going overseas to recieve cannabis derived medicines. At the time of recording, facilities with such treatments available were due to open in Guam, and it was still a very grey issue as to whether Japanese citizens who go there to recieve them would face arrest when they return to Japan. Joe says more public discourse of this issue is needed in the mass media. Kaoru says that of course there are still people who go overseas just to smoke a load of cannabis, and then return to Japan...Joe nervously laughs, 'Yes, but thats not me!'.

Next they welcome Dobashi for the Tokyo Sports corner. Kaoru says it feels different from welcoming Hiranabe. Whenever they welcome Hiranabe they all instinctivley laugh, but not with Dobashi.

Dobashi's first news, continued from last week, is the expenses scandal surrounding Tokyo Governer Masuzoe Yōichi. A poll was revealed where 99.9% of respondents think he should quit, but Dobashi wants to know whether Kaoru and Joe feel the same, and addresses the question to Joe first, calling him Ganja Man-san. After laughing this off, Joe comments that the position of Tokyo Governer  comes with a huge amount of power compared to other cities' governers. He goes on to explain that after the war, the American GHQ forces dismantled most of the power structures that had existed in Japan before the war. This was simply to make it easier to administer. The only place they didn't touch was Tokyo. The wartime Tokyo Governer was reinstated to the same position after the war. What this means is that the position of Tokyo Governer has had huge uninterrupted power for much longer than any other power institution in Japan. The people of Tokyo have had little say in its existence. As to why the Americans didn't dismantle this position, Joe says it may be partly carelessness, but they may have thought it ok to leave it alone, because Americans believe that local government should be built up by the local people. Joe thinks that people really need to stop and rethink the purpose and the influence that Tokyo Governer has, because if they don't, incidents like the one with Masuzoe will keep occurring. 

Kaoru says he also wonders why this scandal has come out into the open now. Who is behind putting the spotlight on it? Dobashi hints that he knows who, but hesitates to say. Joe tells him to say it and let Hiranabe take responsibility. He then tells him to say it off mic first. Dobashi talks, but what he says is obviously bound to get them all into trouble if broadcast, so his voice has been scrambled while he dishes up the dirt. They then say the timing of this incident is not great in regards to the election and the current economic situation. 

Speaking of financial problems, Dobashi lets loose some gossip about Hiranabe's financial losses, including the fact that he lost ¥2 million yen during the Shanghai financial crash the previous year. They others feel sorry for him.

Dobashi's next story is that American presidential candidate (at the time) Hillary Clinton has pledged that she will make public any info the government knows about aliens or UFOs if she becomes president. Dobashi says for this reason, Tokyo Sports is supporting Hillary to win the election. He says he once interviewed PM Abe Shinzo just before his first round as PM, and asked him whether he believes in UFOs. He wanted to ask him something a bit different from the usual boring questions. Abe answered, 'Oh, Tokyo Sports have found a lot of them, right?'. Dobashi adds that Abe quit a year later. Maybe was due to all the boring questions he was getting.

Dobashi then asks Kaoru if he believes in UFOs. Kaoru says he doesn't know if they really exist, but he'd like it if they did. Dobashi asks him if he or any of the other members have ever seen a UFO. Kaoru says he hasn't, and he doesn't think the other members have really, but he has seen one of the other members spotting a light in the sky and shouting 'Its a UFO!'. He is quite interested in this genre though, he likes watching shows on tv about this kind of thing, or looking into the type of thing you'd find in the occult magazine 'Mu'. He is no expert though. Dobashi says he watched the TV show about UFOs made by Yaoi Junichi, Kaoru also saw this and remembers thinking that UFOs probably weren't real after watching it.

To finish, Kaoru reminds listeners about the new jingle campaign, plugs his Budokan DVD/Dvd screenings, tours, blog, and new single Utafumi. He says the new single will be played on air for the first time next week. To end he says he feels like doing something now that the weather is getting hot, and hopes listeners will send in lots of requests for a live special.

Songs - Dir en grey/Tousei, Deftones/Korea.

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #radio

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I think anyone who understates the risks of denying paternity for Louis has never felt the impact of The Sun/Daily Mail on the LGBT+ community over the years. The sheer violence and lack of human empathy/compassion is absolutely choking; Elton John, Philip Schofield, they’re all the tip of the iceberg. They were likely a playing factor in what kept billy holiday closeted for his entire life, and he had to give them the exclusive. George Michael? The Sun’s ‘friends’ at Sony dragged him through absolute hell from the second he became known to the world; they literally followed him into the woods and took pictures of him having sex with other guys & used them to forcefully out him bc he was publicly trying to get out of his contract (and also because the sun is violently, vitriolically, unapologetically and institutionally homophobic & millions of people in the UK still buy & read it today). The atrocities committed by that brand run deep; they’re cutting, open, oozing sores and it is never just ‘a few weeks of rumours’. It’s months, sometimes years of them disecting your every breath, plucking it apart, leaving it in the sun for the crows to peck at. They irrevocably dismantle careers and shred spirits and then they take pictures and print them with a punchy headline and wank all over the keyboard to the sound of pitchforks clattering in porches. It might sound dramatic, but it they are murderers; it will never just be a few weeks of ‘rumours’.

There’s a lot of details here that I don’t know about personally (and I’m not sure who you mean by billy holiday).  But I think the seriousness with which you take The Sun as an institution that does irreperable, at times murderous, harm to people’s life is accurate. 

#People who see The Sun through 1D #and think that's the worst of it #have no idea

[unfamiliarize]

Both believe that people should be able to flourish whatever their sexuality or race. They share a suspicion of authority and entrenched interests. They believe in the desirability of change.

However, classical liberals and illiberal progressives could hardly disagree more over how to bring these things about. For classical liberals, the precise direction of progress is unknowable. It must be spontaneous and from the bottom up—and it depends on the separation of powers, so that nobody nor any group is able to exert lasting control. By contrast the illiberal left put their own power at the centre of things, because they are sure real progress is possible only after they have first seen to it that racial, sexual and other hierarchies are dismantled.

This difference in method has profound implications. Classical liberals believe in setting fair initial conditions and letting events unfold through competition—by, say, eliminating corporate monopolies, opening up guilds, radically reforming taxation and making education accessible with vouchers. Progressives see laissez-faire as a pretence which powerful vested interests use to preserve the status quo. Instead, they believe in imposing “equity”—the outcomes that they deem just. For example, Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar-activist, asserts that any colour-blind policy, including the standardised testing of children, is racist if it ends up increasing average racial differentials, however enlightened the intentions behind it.

Mr Kendi is right to want an anti-racist policy that works. But his blunderbuss approach risks denying some disadvantaged children the help they need and others the chance to realise their talents. Individuals, not just groups, must be treated fairly for society to flourish. Besides, society has many goals. People worry about economic growth, welfare, crime, the environment and national security, and policies cannot be judged simply on whether they advance a particular group. Classical liberals use debate to hash out priorities and trade-offs in a pluralist society and then use elections to settle on a course. The illiberal left believe that the marketplace of ideas is rigged just like all the others. What masquerades as evidence and argument, they say, is really yet another assertion of raw power by the elite. 

Progressives of the old school remain champions of free speech. But illiberal progressives think that equity requires the field to be tilted against those who are privileged and reactionary. That means restricting their freedom of speech, using a caste system of victimhood in which those on top must defer to those with a greater claim to restorative justice. It also involves making an example of supposed reactionaries, by punishing them when they say something that is taken to make someone who is less privileged feel unsafe. The results are calling-out, cancellation and no-platforming.

Milton Friedman once said that the “society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither”. He was right. Illiberal progressives think they have a blueprint for freeing oppressed groups. In reality theirs is a formula for the oppression of individuals—and, in that, it is not so very different from the plans of the populist right. In their different ways both extremes put power before process, ends before means and the interests of the group before the freedom of the individual.

Countries run by the strongmen whom populists admire, such as Hungary under Viktor Orban and Russia under Vladimir Putin, show that unchecked power is a bad foundation for good government. Utopias like Cuba and Venezuela show that ends do not justify means. And nowhere at all do individuals willingly conform to state-imposed racial and economic stereotypes. When populists put partisanship before truth, they sabotage good government. When progressives divide people into competing castes, they turn the nation against itself. Both diminish institutions that resolve social conflict. Hence they often resort to coercion, however much they like to talk about justice.

If classical liberalism is so much better than the alternatives, why is it struggling around the world? One reason is that populists and progressives feed off each other pathologically. The hatred each camp feels for the other inflames its own supporters—to the benefit of both. Criticising your own tribe’s excesses seems like treachery. Under these conditions, liberal debate is starved of oxygen. Just look at Britain, where politics in the past few years was consumed by the rows between uncompromising Tory Brexiteers and the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

Aspects of liberalism go against the grain of human nature. It requires you to defend your opponents’ right to speak, even when you know they are wrong. You must be willing to question your deepest beliefs. Businesses must not be sheltered from the gales of creative destruction.

Your loved ones must advance on merit alone, even if all your instincts are to bend the rules for them. You must accept the victory of your enemies at the ballot box, even if you think they will bring the country to ruin.

#politics #Hate #outrage culture #sensationalism #tolerance #respect #civil discourse

[scrapironflotilla]

Anzac is so much more than Gallipoli

Another Anzac day has come around and with the lock-downs and global pandemic it seemed like it would be different. But having a listen to the news or a quick scroll through the other blue hellsite, F*c*b**k, it looks like this Anzac Day is more similar than different. The reverence, the mystique and the myths are all still there, with a massive dose of social media self indulgence. So I’ll probably stay away from that today and instead talk about some history.

I don’t have a favourite aspect of the Anzac legend. I don’t think I even can. The very concept of the Anzac Legend bothers me. This is our recent history. Its members, who have all died, are still within living memory of many millions of people. The events are so well documented that we can follow some of them minute by minute in the diaries, letters and reports created by the participants. I understand the desire to turn these stories into legend and myth, especially in a country like Australia after the war and certainly in the last decades of the 20th century.

I understand how the virtues and values of the AIF made for such fertile imaginative ground in an inter-war world. The romance of war, lost on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East, was much harder to destroy far away in the colonies, where people experienced little hardship compared to those on the continent.

I understand how and why the AIF became a legend. But I don’t think I can believe in it.

But what does it matter if I believe in it or not? It’s important to tens of millions of Australians and the government tightly controls public commemoration and the Anzac brand. The military indoctrinates its members with to strive for an unattainable Anzac perfection. A newly minted army officer once told me that during his training his instructors had screamed at these cadets, ranting at them about how unworthy they were, how they could never live up to the Anzac reputation and how they could never lead a digger.

It draws hundreds of thousands every 25 April to dawn memorial services across the world, in events whose gravitas and sombre communion even I can’t deny. It’s this secular religion that makes the legend a reality that we have to contend with. The history may vary widely from the myth, but the myth is potent enough and popular enough to be able to divorce itself from the past. “The AIF”, historian Peter Stanley points out, “has become revered as [our] romantic nationalist mystique”.

The last two or three decades has seen a steady dismantling of the Anzac legend, at least in academic circles. All its basic tenets of natural fighting prowess, mate-ship, equality and the rest have been questioned, criticised and reassessed. But this new understanding hasn’t moved far beyond academia. The short spike in Anzac TV series during the centenary showed the same romantic tragedy and nationalist triumphalism. Popular histories from the 50s and 60s were reprinted and a new slew of books turn up on shelves, from children’s books to all kinds of history and dozens of romance novels. The legend remains deeply entrenched in the Australian imagination. Little in the popular realm even attempts to challenge it in light of new understanding. Even for those in academia the revision of that history has produced harsh reaction from the right, I’m exactly one of those “cadre of academics” associated with those elite, Canberra institutions, that noted crank Bendle talks about there. But that’s the strength of this legend. Its followers take any attempt to examine it and broaden it as denigration. Lest anyone think I’m exaggerating here, just have a look at what happened to ABC presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied after she tweeted the words “LEST.WE.FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine...)” on Anzac Day 2017. She was attacked by the press and government ministers and bombarded with rape and death threats. There’s no doubt much of the faux outrage was inspired by racism and misogyny, but you don’t even need to attack Anzac, but merely recognise that Australia’s history is less than perfect, to be met with a violent, histrionic reaction.

To imagine that the Anzacs were perfect, individually and as a whole, is wilful delusion. They were men and as such fallible. It is no dishonour or disrespect to recognise their humanity in all its complexities. We must know and understand their failures, their embarrassments and their crimes (for they are many and varied) to better place their successes, victories and virtues. To deify them and to force them to represent only what was best, without recognising the fullness of their character, good and bad, robs them of the complexity of their own stories. It robs them of their humanity and us of our history. But while I struggle with the Anzac Legend, I also think there are some little stories that deserve better recognition.

The Anzac mythology upholds a very particular character as representative of the AIF, but little about this legend is uniquely Australian. The language used to express the values, that of the larrikin, the digger and above all else mateship, may be particularly Australian but the values are not. Irreverence and camaraderie are close to universal.

These aren’t values to be denigrated in any way. But they’re representative of most militaries in war. But the AIF did have a character unique to the Australian experience. Much is made of the fact that the AIF was an entirely volunteer organisation. From a population of fewer than five million more than 330,000 men and women served in its ranks between 1914 and 1918. Conscription was put to the people in referenda twice and twice it was defeated. People joined the AIF for the duration of the war. Few pursued careers in the military and although many had prior service it was in the militia, the part time army.

The ranks were filled from the cities, the suburbs and the bush by civilians. Even the officer corps was fleshed out by the professional and middle classes of lawyers, bankers, teachers and the like. These men saw themselves not as regular soldiers, but as civilians in uniform. They saw their role as merely a job, not a calling. They were there to fight the war, to defeat Germany, or the Ottomans, and to go home and back to the farm or the factory.

Australia had one of the strongest trade union and labour movement in the world in the early 20th century. It was the first country to vote a labour government into office and ideas of unionism, collective bargaining and fair work practices were strong in the minds of many working Australians. The language they used and the tactics they employed to deal with the discipline and hierarchy of the military demonstrates just how powerful these beliefs were. Soldiers routinely referred to their officers as their boss, refused orders they thought were unfair and protested their ill treatment by military authorities. They released soldiers imprisoned under field punishment, refused to salute officers and rejected the distinction between officers and other ranks imposed by the British army. They went into clubs, restaurants and hotels set aside of officers, believing strongly that they had the right to drink or eat where they chose.

They took strike action when they felt too much was asked of them, when they were refused rest or when they felt hard done by. When battalions were to be broken up due to lack of replacements in 1918, they mutinied. Refusing orders to disband, they ‘counted out’ senior officers sent to negotiate with them. Counting out consisted of soldiers on parade counting down from ten to one, before shouting a final obscenity at the officer concerned. It was a powerful form of insubordination that humiliated officers when it occurred.

In autumn 1918, after months without leave, Australian battalions took to strike action when they were ordered back into battle. After being promised a fortnight’s rest they were ordered back to the front for an offensive after just a few days. Unhappy troops - veterans, mostly - refused to move. The battalions were well understrength after months of fighting and the men felt they had been lied to, that they had sacrificed enough and that they were being overused. The soldiers took action in the way they knew how. They shot no officers and destroyed no property. For men used to fighting for their rights in the workplace it was natural that they would turn to collective action in trade union style.

(Ex-union organiser and Labor prime minister Billy Hughes, seen here with some of his beloved men. Hughes was a favourite of the Australian troops who dubbed him ‘the Little Digger’)

And so it was in the 15th Brigade, under the command of Harold Elliot. Called Pompey by him men he was a courageous and fatherly figure, both liked and respected by the men under his command. It was his unique character that allowed Pompey to negotiate with his men, although rant and then plead were the words used by diarists, and convince them to follow his orders. Other officers, less well known and less admired by their men failed in similar efforts.

The civilian attitudes made them difficult soldiers to discipline. The standard punishment of the army, called ‘field punishment’ was particularly odious to Australians. Field punishment consisted of being bound to an object, a post or a wagon or gun carriage in the open for a number of hours. Due to the danger of artillery this punishment was not just humiliating but also potentially fatal. Diaries and letters from soldiers are full of stories about field punishment. They usually tell of Australian troops coming across British soldiers undergoing field punishment and freeing them, fighting with guards and military police.

There was a powerful resistance to the dehumanising and anti-individualising aspect of military discipline and authority. The AIF by and large saw themselves as civilians first and soldiers second. They understood the need for discipline and obedience and as more than one Australian noted “we have discipline where it matters”, on the battlefield. But the trappings of military culture and authority were repellent to the Australian working man. Strict obedience to hierarchy and the seemingly pointless requirements of military discipline were not only alien to Australians but went against their own values. Mutual respect was the key to the AIF as most of its officers discovered.

This side of the AIF, the strength of its civilian values is one that ought be remembered and celebrated in Anzac. The ideas from the labour and union movements, the fair go and mutual respect deserve a place alongside mateship and the larrikin as part of Anzac. The men who fought for the eight-hour work day and living wages were the same men who filled the ranks of the AIF and who fill Australian cemeteries in Europe and Turkey.

This is a part of the Anzac story that deserves a better place in our telling of it.

#anzac day #anzac #australian army #wwi #ww1

[giftofshewbread]

World Government is Rising In America!

By Daymond Duck    Published on: May 9, 2021

Here are some recent events that seem to indicate that world government is rising in America.

One, concerning hyper-inflation, economic collapse, and famine: on Apr. 29, 2021, it was reported that the price of food is soaring in Asia, a region that contains more than half of the world’s population, and history shows that soaring food prices eventually lead to social unrest (The French Revolution of 1789, Europe’s Revolutions in 1848, and a revolution in Russia in 1917).

Concerning the signs of His coming: Jesus said there will be “upon the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25).

This is usually interpreted in one of two ways: the waves and seas roaring represent an increase in cyclones, hurricanes, etc., at sea; and roaring (social unrest, rioting, demonstrating, etc.) in the sea of humanity (Rev. 17:15).

Two, also concerning hyper-inflation and an economic collapse: it is being reported that the Biden administration is planning to spend 6 trillion dollars just in the next 6 months alone.

Some economists say America’s debt-to-GDP ratio is higher than it has been since the end of WWII, and another 6 trillion dollars will destroy the U.S. dollar.

Three, concerning world government: on Apr. 28, 2021, Pres. Biden addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress.

As expected, he accused America of “systemic racism,” a vague term that many say means because of slavery and segregation in America, black people do not get fair treatment at school, at work, in elections, in housing, in anything; and everyone in America, especially white Republicans, is guilty.

Using the death of George Floyd as an illustration, Biden said, the “knee of injustice [is] on the neck of black America.”

In response, the black Senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott, said, “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” and he added, “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different discrimination.”

Aside from wondering how this black man got elected to the U.S. Senate if America is so racist, and aside from noting that this black man pointed out that Democrats want to fight racism by discriminating against all white people, U.S. citizens need to understand that the purpose of portraying America as a bad nation is to restructure America and bring it into a godless world government.

According to the Bible, America will be subjected to a godless world government that is far worse than what we have today; and billions of people, including multitudes of the black people, will regret the day it happened.

Four, concerning world government: on Apr. 30, 2021, Dr. Andy Woods and Jim McGowan discussed the U.S.-Mexico Border Crisis on Pastors’ Point of View #163.

The Biden administration has delegated authority over the crisis to Vice-Pres. Kamala Harris, but she has not even visited the border.

For whatever it is worth, she says she is working with the radical U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to get the international community’s help.

Notice this!

Kamala Harris is delegating control of the U.S. border with Mexico to unelected foreigners instead of the U.S. Border Patrol, building a wall, etc.

The fact is, according to the Migration Policy Institute, during his first 100 days in office, Biden issued 94 Executive Orders that have dismantled America’s immigration policies and throw the border wide open.

Five, concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: Pres. Biden is now involved in indirect talks with Iran over that terrorist nation’s quest for nuclear weapons.

This prompted Israel’s Intelligence Minister, Eli Cohen, to warn that “a bad deal will send the region spiraling into war.”

Cohen said, “Israel will not allow Iran to attain nuclear arms. Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East.”

An Israeli attack on Iran would almost surely result in Iran attacking Israel, a war that the Bible says will happen in the latter years and latter days (Ezek. 38:8, 16).

Six, concerning the Mark of the Beast: on May 1, 2021, Dave Hodges reported on The Common Sense Show that New Zealand has just made Covid vaccinations mandatory without public notice, discussion, etc.

Seven, concerning persecution: Evangelist, Mike Gendron, bought a round-trip ticket from Texas to Green Bay on A.A. to speak at a conference.

Gendron said the only time he did not wear a mask was while he was drinking a cup of water, and no flight attendant ever asked him to put his mask on.

Two days later, when Gendron checked in at the airport to return to Texas, he was told he was banned from flying on A.A. for not wearing a mask on his trip to Green Bay.

An overnight hotel room and a ticket on another airline cost him another $600, and none of the money he paid A.A. for a round-trip ticket was refunded.

After a week of trying to straighten this out, A.A. stopped taking Gendron’s calls.

Why he was reportedly falsely banned for not wearing a mask is a matter of speculation.

Persecution of those that object to what is happening to America is intensifying almost daily.

Eight, A reader sent an e-mail reminding me that some past prophecy teachers have suggested that world leaders might use the Rapture to deceive people.

Several highly respected prophecy teachers speculated for years that globalists might promote the Rapture as an alien abduction to scare people into uniting against a threat from outer space and thereby accept a one-world government.

I consulted with a friend, and we agreed that it is time to remind people of this.

My friend even sent a link to an Apr. 30, 2021, article titled, “Pentagon whistleblower warns of UFO intelligence failure on ‘level of 911.'”

The whistleblower, a former Pentagon investigator, said there is something out there and U.S. citizens need to be told.

As it turns out, the U.S. government will release files on the subject in June.

Just know this: The Church will be removed from planet Earth by Jesus, not UFOs from outer space.

This is not to say that UFOs don’t exist or that people don’t need to know about them, but it is to say that people shouldn’t allow themselves to be deceived and scared into a world government because leaders have decided to admit that UFOs are not a conspiracy theory or because they have made up lies to convince people that a world government is needed to defend the planet.

The rise of the Antichrist over a Satanic world government is a greater threat than aliens from outer space.

Christians oppose a godless world government, but they support the coming world government of Jesus during the Millennium.

Christians oppose the false peace on earth that the Antichrist will promote, but they support the peace on earth that the Prince of Peace (Jesus) will establish.

Christians oppose the false religions of Mother Earth, the Green New Deal, Chrislam, etc., but they support the true teachings and worship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as recorded in the Bible (God’s will).

Nine, concerning godless world government: the fact that the Democrat Party left God out of their Party Platform is now old news, and so is the fact that on Feb. 26, 2021, Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, said, “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”

It has now been reported that the National Day of Prayer will not be allowed at the U.S. Capitol for the first time in 70 years.

There was a request for prayer at the Capitol, but it was denied supposedly because the Capitol is closed due to the January 6 protests.

This writer believes prayer is badly needed, and the truth is that those that have taken over the Capitol support a godless world government.

The America that was based on Judeo-Christian values no longer exists.

Jesus said the day of His coming will be like the days of Noah (Matt: 24:37).

In the days of Noah, God saw that the wickedness of man was great. He was grieved and decided to destroy man with a Flood (Gen. 6:5-7).

Ten, on May 2, 2021, it was reported that California plans to release at least 76,000 inmates.

63,000 of them have been imprisoned for violent crimes and repeat felonies.

20,000 of them have been given life sentences with the possibility of parole.

10,000 of them have been imprisoned twice.

About 2,900 of them have been imprisoned 3 times under the state’s “three strikes law.”

Critics say putting thousands of criminals back on the streets will increase wickedness and criminal activity in California.

To make matters worse, police are retiring or quitting in record numbers all over the U.S. because of the “Defund the Police” movement, the liability, and the abuse and hatred that is being directed toward them.

Finally, if you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

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[tensidestoeverystory]

A Letter to Level-Headed Conservative Friends

We are now on the second day after the failed occupation of the Capitol building, and I am seeing a lot of self-identified “level-headed Conservatives” saying that the rioters have besmirched their good name and reputation. In response, I say to you my level-headed Conservative friends, that it was you that besmirched your own good names and reputations. 

For six years you were warned about Trump and you dismissed all criticisms as oppositional hyperbole or as Trump’s bluster. You claimed that you were supporting his policies, not his personal shortcomings. You were presented with evidence upon evidence of who he has been all along, and of who he is calling upon to defend his “God-given right to the Presidency” … and still, you voted for him not just once but twice. 

This Is On You. 

Our individual rights come with responsibilities, and fixing this is your responsibility. You need to bring your level-headedness to bear and work on repairing this mess. Build on Mitt Romney’s speech: "The truth is what is needed at this moment." And the truth is that Republicans of all stripes, from the lunatic fringes to level-headed Conservatives, were willing to tear down the pillars of government and bring this country to the brink of civil war for their own selfish wants. 

The good news is that there are multiple paths out of this toxic selfishness, racism, misogyny, nativism, and white supremacy that has been normalized and assimilated. Together, we can admonish the strands of religion that preach hate and selfishness and instead support multiracial, intergenerational, cross-denominational, and non-religious organizations that promote Liberty and Justice for ALL and invite them into our hearts, our minds, our workspaces, and our governments.

We need to look at the whole mess, not just the Confederate flag-waving, Holocaust Denying, White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis that stormed the Capitol building, but also look at Trump, his family, and his sycophant enablers who were seen celebrating as they watched the rioters attack the Capitol. We need to not only denounce them in no uncertain terms but also hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.  

We need to look at our law enforcement agencies. For decades, the FBI warned of White Supremacists infiltrating law enforcement agencies across the country. Their warnings were largely ignored. The evidence can be ignored no longer. Capitol Police were seen participating in the insurrection. They must be fired and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And just as important, they must be barred from ever serving in a police agency in any municipality across the country in any capacity whatsoever. We must root out Neo-Nazi White Supremacists from law enforcement and the armed forces. 

We need to commit to an age of reason. 

We can not stand by as public education is systematically dismantled and rendered useless. We must stand together and demand a robust education that includes civics, media studies, creative arts, and sciences, along with more mundane necessities like home economics, how to grow food, and how things are made. 

We must devise an education system that assesses students’ needs, aptitudes, and disabilities, and supports them in meaningful and transformative ways. 

We need to support other educational institutions as well. For example, in an effort to survive, the History Channel began airing ridiculous conspiracy-theory-based shows on topics that should be investigated with reason and evidence, but instead, were given credibility for the sake of financial stability.  

Speaking of history, we need to understand our history from multiple points of view, not just the nostalgic rose-colored propaganda that makes us feel good about our country of origin or of choice. We need to look at the flaws of our founders, the atrocities of our past, and how they play out in the present. 

We need to usher in a new age of enlightenment and empathy.

This is where your level-headedness coupled with your kindness can help create a better future. I believe that together we can bring reason and empathy into all our actions to create a better world for humans, plants, and animals. To paraphrase James Carse from his book “Finite and Infinite Games”, rather than following an outlook on life as a game that must be won at all costs as quickly as possible, we need to approach life as an infinite game with the purpose of continuing the play for as long as we can sustain it, for generations to come. ——————————————————————— Image description: This image was taken from an article on The Guardian:  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/07/capitol-hill-trump-rioters-race-power Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

#level-headed conservatives #capitol riot #democracy #history channel #history #empathy #radical empathy #enlightenment