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Category: Opinion

  • There’s a stupor in Catalonia over Spanish judicial abuse

    In order to form a government of PSOE and Sumar (centre and left) and avoid one of PP and VOX (right and extreme right), they made a pact with eight parties, with 179 seats, representing 12.3 million citizens. The Catalonia pro-independence supporters, essential to achieve the pact, demanded, as an initial condition, the approval of an amnesty law that would deactivate the judicial repression with which the high judiciary, motivated by its exacerbated Spanish nationalism, has persecuted Catalan nationalists (500 people have convictions or pending trials). The PSOE, which is also very nationalist and which rejected the amnesty, did a U-turn after the elections and accepted the amnesty in order not to lose the government.

    Spanish nationalism is not accepting Catalonia amnesty

    However, the amnesty law is not being accepted by Spanish nationalism, so we will see how it will be applied. But in reality what would have been fair would have been a process of nullification of the cases, admitting that the Catalan independence supporters had not committed any crime in organising a referendum on self-determination and that the accusations against them were part of the “lawfare” (instrumentalising justice for political ends) used by the state against them.

    Then the police officers who improperly attacked the referendum voters could have been tried. The amnesty, on the other hand, annuls the crimes that are understood to have been committed by both sides, but the fact is that the pro-independence side acted democratically and committed no crime, while the state acted outside the law.

    Although the amnesty is unfair to the pro-independence supporters because it attributes crimes to them, what makes Spanish nationalism mad is that, being the strong side, they cannot win and humiliate the weak, as they have always done.

    As the state is the strong party, its approval of the amnesty implies that it implicitly accepts that it played dirty with the illegitimate aim of trying to destroy a perfectly legitimate political movement.

    Legal twists and turns

    The Spanish Congress ensured that the law was unambiguous because it was certain that the judges would try to interpret it in a distorted way against the Catalan pro-independence supporters.

    As it is not possible to grant amnesty to specific individuals for the fact that they are pro-independence (in fact being pro-independence “was their crime”), specific crimes were amnestied, in the context of the Catalan independence process, with some exclusions: embezzlement (with personal enrichment or affecting the financial interests of the EU), high treason (with “an effective use of force against territorial integrity”), and terrorism (“that has intentionally caused serious violations of human rights”).

    The law, passed on 7 March, was rejected by the right and judges, and former President Aznar said that “whoever could do something against the amnesty law, should do it”. A manual on how to paralyse the application of the amnesty law, ignoring the spirit of the legislator, was distributed to all judges from the official email of the General Council of the Judiciary (the highest body of the Spanish judiciary), which nullifies the rule of law for Catalan pro-independence supporters.

    Many missing from Catalonia amnesty

    As for the crime of high treason, Judge Joaquín Aguirre does not want to grant amnesty to those accused of the secret plan that, according to him, the Catalan independence movement had with Putin to destabilise Europe. He himself has made statements to German television, spreading secret information from the case to discredit the accused.

    Nor did judge Manuel García-Castellón want to grant amnesty to Puigdemont and seven other people (who had gone into exile in Switzerland) for the crime of terrorism that he attributed to demonstrations in 2019.

    Fortunately, the judge was forced to close the case, but not because of the application of the amnesty, but because of a procedural error. Five of the defendants were finally able to return from exile.

    Nor is there any desire to grant amnesty to the seven young men who, in 2019, were arrested for terrorism in an impressive police operation that made all the news, seemingly in an attempt to influence the elections that were to be held two months later, by insinuating that the peaceful Catalan independence movement had swung towards terrorism.

    Information and decontextualised pieces of video footage of the interrogations were leaked to the press in a serious breach of the secrecy of the case file. After the elections, they were released on bail. Would they have been released if they were really terrorists?

    The judge has decided not to grant amnesty and to take the case to the European Court of Justice, which will further delay their final acquittal.

    Embezzlement?

    As for embezzlement, the Supreme Court rejected the amnesty and will keep the arrest warrants against Puigdemont, Comín and Puig (with charges of 12 years in prison!) in force.

    They argue that the politicians embezzled in the organisation of the referendum with “personal enrichment” because, although they did not keep a single euro, they can be considered to have saved from putting up personal money. They also argue that they would have harmed the financial interests of the EU.

    The judges never specify the amount embezzled because they would not even know what to record, but the fact is that in 2017 the finances of the government of Catalonia were intervened by the Madrid government, and the finance minister Cristóbal Montoro of the PP already assured that no public euro had been used to finance the referendum.

    In reality, there was no embezzlement of any kind because the referendum was carried out on a voluntary basis and with private funds.

    Moreover, the judges want to justify financial damage to the EU, using an EU directive that has not yet been approved (!) and that refers to appropriating European economic funds, which was not stated in the 2019 Supreme Court ruling, but now they argue that there was.

    The positive thing is that, in this pronouncement of the Supreme Court, five magistrates have voted in favour, but one magistrate, Ana Ferrer (unequivocally anti-independence), has voted against because she considers that, by not granting the amnesty, the interpretation of the law is being twisted and sees the danger of this implying a condemnation of Spanish justice by the European Court of Human Rights.

    Catalonia amnesty: granted, in part, for now

    At the moment, amnesty has been granted: on the one hand, 20 activists and four Catalan public officials and, on the other hand, 50 Spanish police officers. It is doubly insulting that the amnesty cannot be applied normally to peaceful Catalan pro-independence activists, but is instead applied to the police officers who attacked them.

    And the most serious thing on a human level is that the Spanish population, except for the Catalans, is justifying the abuse of justice against the Catalan independence fighters, because the media have dehumanised them and presented their objective as totally unacceptable.

    By taking rights away from the Catalans, they are feeding the beast of fascism. This beast, which worries the EU, has been attacking the Catalans for centuries, and now that Catalonia is claiming political rights, this fascism is accepted across the board in the Spanish state without any objection.

    In Catalonia, it has caused stupor that the high magistrates are not applying the amnesty law as it is written, but as they see fit, in a kind of judicial coup d’état against the Spanish parliament, and that nothing will happen to them for doing so.

    If even the Constitutional Court allows them to do so, there will be no way to stop them in Spain, and they will have to resort to European Justice, where the cases will be delayed for years.

    The only solution is for Catalonia to be like Andorra or Portugal, a new state in Europe.

    By Jordi Oriola Folch

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • More bars is not the answer: why Labour should focus on prison rehabilitation not reform

    UK prisons are “on the point of collapse” and in need of reform. This was the verdict from new Labour Party justice secretary Shabana Mahmood.

    On Friday 12 July, she announced plans for the early release of thousands of prisoners. But overcrowding isn’t the only issue when it comes to the UK prison system. With crumbling buildings, staff shortages and inadequate training, it’s no surprise that one in four prisoners go on to reoffend. In fact, prisons are perhaps the most unrivalled example of a country crying out for the reality of Labour’s promised “Change.”

    It’s about time that Britain’s justice system focusses on rehabilitation rather than ineffectual punishment.  However, it remains to be seen if the government will move on from the regressive cycle of harsher sentencing.

    Labour prison reform: early releases

    Of the nearly 84,500 places in men’s prisons, barely 700 cells are empty.

    Early release is only an emergency solution but the implications are still huge. According to the Big Issue, around 785 prisoners could be at risk of homelessness, when prisons release them last minute and without the support to help them with their transition. As the Times previously put it:

    It is not an announcement that any sane politician would wish to make, or member of the public to hear

    However, it is not as if Mahmood had much choice in the matter given the extent of overcrowding in UK prisons. Rishi Sunak’s justice secretary Alex Chalk had proposed a practically identical early release scheme. Despite this, Sunak blocked it earlier this year out of fear for political backlash.

    The justice and prison system has always been a contentious topic in public opinion. Too often politicians have pursued increasingly authoritarian crime policy for the sake of popular approval. However the early release of prisoners due to overcrowding demonstrates that this does not work.

    Overcrowding

    Overcrowding in prisons has become an acute issue for two main reasons: tougher sentences and court backlogs. In an effort for politicians to appear ‘tough on crime’, custodial sentences are increasing.

    According to the Prison Reform Trust, more than three times as many people were sentenced to ten years or more in 2022 than in 2008. In fact, England and Wales have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe. And yet ironically, most people seem to think that sentences are getting shorter, fueling a pointless partisan competition over sentencing.

    The result is inhumane overcrowding that undermines the prison system’s ability to meet basic human needs, such as healthcare and accommodation.

    Tory-inflicted austerity has undoubtedly impacted this. The Conservatives began to reduce prison funding in 2011/12 as part of this policy, and it reached an all time low in 2014/15 at £393bn. Combine this with pre-existing overcrowding, and the Tories have sacrificed rehabilitation, mental health training, and even maintenance to the cost of building more prisons.

    In a February 2024 report, chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, described walking into a unit in Eastwood Park:

    Acutely mentally unwell women were being held in appalling conditions with bloodstains on the floor and scratch marks on the walls; evidence of the levels of distress of the women being held there.

    Unfortunately, horrific conditions such as these are not uncommon. This is especially the case following the Covid pandemic, which further isolated vulnerable inmates. Ultimately, our prisons are a disgrace to ethics, cost, and reoffending rates.

    A different kind of justice

    In September 2023, a German court in Karlsruhe refused to extradite a man to the UK. The report cited concerns over the safety and conditions of UK prisons.

    The England and Wales prison watchdog has said that the government should shut down one in ten prisons in those two countries because of overcrowding and inhumane conditions. England and Wales’ rate of prison admissions is approximately three times that of Italy and Spain and almost twice as high as Germany. So what is it that we are getting wrong?

    Halden prison Norway is referred to as the most humane prison in the world. “Who do we want as our neighbour?” has become almost like a slogan within its walls. The prison is situated within a luscious pine forest and with shared kitchens and ensuite bathrooms some have described it as more like a university campus.

    The comparison is not without substance. There is a school on site that provides prisoners a proper education. It also offers training in tasks such as car mechanics and cooking to help them find a job on the outside. Perhaps the most striking thing about Halden is the relationship between prisoners and guards. Not only do they eat together and play sports, but inmates purportedly view guards as role models.

    Of course many people object to such a ‘cushy’ lifestyle awarded to drug traffickers and murderers, including the heinous criminal Anders Breivik. However there is no denying the system its successes. Defenders of Norway’s prison system argue that the removal of freedom is punishment enough.

    Moreover, Norway’s prisons have proven that keeping normal routines and helping prisoners line up a job on the outside keeps down reoffending rates. Since the reforms, this has fallen to only 20% after two years.

    Changing the UK system

    Almost 130 years ago, in 1895, the a government’s Gladstone Committee published a key report on prisons. This stated that reform and rehabilitation should be the primary objectives of imprisonment – men and women should be better people upon release. This ran contrary to the perception of British prisons at the time, infamous for their brutality, even in Russia.

    However, the report also emphasised that the purpose of imprisonment was to punish. If this dual focus may appear to be a contradiction – that’s because it is.  And it effectively sums up the British dilemma when it comes to the goal of imprisonment. As Stephen Bush has put it in the Financial Times, Conservative governments in the last 14 years have tried to:

    pursue draconian ends when it came to prisons, but on a reform-minded minister’s budget.

    Striking the balance between rehabilitation and punitive punishment is not a new problem. Despite prison reforming legislation throughout the 20th century, politicians have been de-prioritising rehabilitation since the late 1970s. Michael Cavadino and James Dignan’s research for their 2003 book The Penal System found that this change was based on a loss of public confidence in the rehabilitation scheme.

    In 1993, Conservative home secretary, Michael Howard, uttered the words: “prison works”.

    Indeed, crime rates have dropped significantly since then. But as Stephen Bush rightfully notes, this has as much to do with being a government in the second half of the 20th century as anything else. The problems with a purely punitive system of justice are not just ethical – there are also practical issues.

    More people means more crimes, which in turn means more cells, more prisons, and ultimately more money. It’s a system with an insatiable appetite for funds, not least considering the annual £18bn bill stemming from reoffending. As Mahmood noted in her speech on 12 July, nearly 80% of offences in the UK are second offences.

    What now on Labour prison reform?

    With the largest governmental majority since 1997, Labour now has a fleeting opportunity to change prisons. Nevertheless, it’s important to note the distinction between official rhetoric and practical solutions.

    Despite fluctuating legislation and attitudes around rehabilitation in the last 100 years, the key problems in prisons have remained predominantly consistent. Undoubtedly, Britain’s prison problem will not be an easy fix. However there is evidence that the government is taking steps in the right direction.

    Keir Starmer has appointed James Timpson as the new prisons minister. His family key-cutting business is known for recruiting thousands of prison leavers and he was also chair of the Prison Reform Trust. Timpson is an advocate for the Dutch system of community sentencing. He also previously said that only a third of prisoners should definitely be in custody.

    So the question is this: what direction will Labour prison reform take?

    Perhaps a former prosecution officer at the helm will finally lead the way to meaningful change? What is for certain is that whatever Labour chooses to do will have a hefty price tag attached. However, it’s about time that governments considered the long-term future. Changing the focus of the prison system from punitive to rehabilitative would be just that – an essential piece in a sustainable future.

    Feature image via Youtube – Channel 4 Documentaries

    By Emily Csernus

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • One sentence from the coroner accidentally summed up why the NHS failed Maeve

    It has been day three of the inquest into the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, who died of myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) on 3 October 2021, aged just 27 – but due to catastrophic failings from the NHS.

    The inquest, which began on Monday 22 July, has already been exhausting and distressing for those affected, directly and indirectly. You can read more on it here. But for some of us, it has also been highly frustrating – not least on 24 July. One line from the coroner in the case summed this up.

    Maeve’s inquest: Dr William Weir gives evidence

    Dr William Weir was giving evidence at Maeve’s inquest. He is one of the UK’s leading experts in ME/CFS. In the interests of transparency, I know William very well and speak with him on a regular basis. However, at Maeve’s inquest it was obvious that everyone else present, giving evidence, or mentioned in a professional capacity – including the coroner – had little idea what they were talking about, yet acted as if they did anyway.

    The line of questioning from the coroner revolved around William’s “opinions” on Maeve’s care versus what so-called ‘professionals’ at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital carried out.

    We learned that, for example, Dr David Strain (who previously gave evidence on Tuesday 23 July) was sometimes at odds with William’s advice. Anyone who knows Strain’s history will not be surprised by this. I believe him to be at best, compromised, and at worst, a fool.

    One such occasion was on the issue of feeding.

    Disagreements over feeding

    Strain was adamant that Maeve’s vomiting would have continued regardless of what method of feeding the hospital gave her. This could have been nasogastric (NG). nasojejunal (NJ), or total parenteral nutrition (TPN).

    William disagreed. He noted that many severe and very severe ME/CFS patients also live with gastroparesis. This is where the stomach does not empty properly or voluntarily. William said this was likely due to a problem with the vagus nerve. He noted that NJ feeding would have overridden this issue and allowed Maeve to take adequate nutrition without vomiting – in combination with IV saline to increase her blood volume, which he believed was likely due to pituitary dysfunction.

    The hospital’s dismissal of William’s clinical opinions was a running theme – and still is in other cases where he’s involved. The Canary and the Chronic Collaboration have been supporting Carla Naoum who lives with very severe ME and is currently being abused by West Middlesex NHS hospital. I have personally had oversight of nearly a dozen emails containing evidence-based recommendations that William has sent to the hospital. It and its staff have ignored nearly all of them.

    Maeve could have been saved

    At Maeve’s inquest, this line of questioning around feeding continued for most of 24 July morning.

    Dr Ovi Roy from the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital was noted as saying IV feeding or TPN was the “most dangerous” option for Maeve. He said it would “significantly increase nursing needs”, would “increase disruption to Maeve”, and “increase the risk of sepsis”. Dr Roy said the latter would be “inevitable”, leading to a “worse quality of life”.

    William disagreed, said “risk/benefit analysis” would have shown TPN to be the best option to save Maeve’s life because “at least she would have been properly nourished”. While Roy noted the downsides, William said:

    nonetheless, Maeve clearly reached a point where she need further nutrition and the usual route was a difficult one

    Therefore she need TPN. Contrary to what the hospital believed (and the coroner repeated), TPN was, William said:

    not experimental in any way with people receiving it in the community and [it has] standarised procedures.

    Ultimately, William believed that if the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital had addressed Maeve’s feeding earlier and more robustly, and put aside their flawed beliefs, then they could have saved her life.

    The counsel representing the NHS Trust, whose name escapes me not least because of his robotic, monotone delivery, clearly thought he was on an episode of The Good Fight or another legal drama. His ideas-above-his-station, passive-aggressive line of questioning of William – which the good doctor repeatedly batted back at time – showed an NHS trust clearly feeling it had to defend itself; ergo – it knows it was in the wrong.

    There are not two sides to the ME/CFS argument

    However, this backwards and forwards – with William giving his clinical expertise and other medical professionals ignoring it – underscores Maeve’s tragic case. One line from the coroner perhaps summed it up best when she said:

    I’m trying to understand the different sides of the argument around feeding Maeve…

    Much like the climate crisis, management of ME/CFS is NOT about people’s opinions. There is scientific, evidenced-based approaches to management which have been shown to work – and then there’s arrogant professionals’ “dogma” as William often describes it to me as.

    There’s also the problem of people being in highly responsible jobs when they really shouldn’t be.

    One such example was a representative from the local authority’s adult social care team. She could not even pronounce ‘myalgic encephalomyelitis’ correctly in front of a coroner. We heard that essentially the local authority’s first response to Sarah Boothby’s requests for support for Maeve included looking for safeguarding risks.

    This is, undeniably, standard practice – which is exactly the problem.

    Local authority failings

    Local authorities have no provision, and no idea, how to deal with chronically ill people. For example, we heard from in the afternoon session that the council had failed to invite Maeve’s family or an advocate to crucial meetings surrounding discharge planning. Sarah said this led to the risk of dying of malnutrition and dehydration being lost in discussions.

    Also, in August 2021 when the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital discharged her again, the council failed to do an updated care plan for her. The council had also stipulated that care staff could not assist with food and fluids – leaving it to Sarah, Maeve’s mother.

    It began to emerge that (to me anyway) there seems to have been a complete breakdown of communication between the NHS trust and local authority. It got to the point where, in my opinion, someone from one of those bodies has been lying about what has gone on.

    The point being that, when someone presents as desperately ill as Maeve did, these people do not have a clue what to do. Generally, they get it wrong – and in Maeve’s case, catastrophically.

    Maeve’s inquest opens a microcosm of the problem

    Overall, we learned very little from day three of Maeve’s inquiry that many people affected by ME/CFS don’t already know.

    Arrogant yet ignorant – and quite frankly at times promoted beyond their intelligence – professionals dismiss the severity of how sick chronically ill women like Maeve are because they’re women. They ignore experts because their jobs enable their own God complexes to flourish. And they are so entrenched in failed academia that they are told is correct, that they cannot see the wood for the trees.

    An inquiry will not resolve this combination of dogma, misogyny, laziness, hierarchy, and arrogance. Nor will polite campaigns such as #ThereForME fix this – however good their intentions are.

    We are dealing with societal-level problems; Maeve’s case being a microcosm of them. If we learned anything from day three of her inquest, it is that even in death, her case and ME as an illness are still viewed as ‘debatable’ – a damning indictment of the system we live under, and the society we live in.

    Featured image supplied

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • In Australia, pro-Palestinian voices face a frenzy of Zionist McCarthyism

    ANALYSIS: By Randa Abdel-Fattah

    Since 7 October 2023, across every profession and social realm in Australia — teachers, students, doctors, nurses, academics, public servants, lawyers, journalists, artists, food and hospitality workers, protesters and politicians — speaking out against Israel’s genocide and the Zionist political project has been met with blatant anti-Palestinian racism.

    This has manifested in repressive silencing campaigns, disciplinary processes and lawfare.

    As coercive repression of anti-Zionist voices escalates at a frenzied pace in Western society, what is at stake extends beyond individuals’ livelihoods and mental health, for these ultimately constitute collateral damage.

    The real target and objective of anti-Palestinian racism is discursive disarmament, specifically, disarming the Palestinian movement of its capacity to critique and resist Zionism and hold Israel to account.

    This disarmament campaign — the immobilising of our discursive and explanatory frameworks, our analysis and commentary, our slogans, protest language and chants — is emboldened and empowered by the collusion and complicity of institutions, media outlets and employers.

    The past fortnight alone has seen a frenzy of Zionist McCarthyism. Both I and Special Broadcasting Service veteran journalist, Mary Kostakidis, were defamed as “7 October deniers” and rape apologists, and as being on a par with Holocaust deniers.

    Complaint lodged
    A week later, the Zionist Federation of Australia announced it had lodged a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) against Kostakidis, alleging racial vilification for her social media posts on Gaza.

    On July 11, Australian-Palestinian activist and businessman Hash Tayeh was notified of arrest for allegedly inciting hatred of Jewish people over protest chants including “all Zionists are terrorists” and other statements equating Zionism with terrorism.

    The same day, right-wing shock jock radio host Ray Hadley interrogated the AHRC about Australian-Palestinian Sara Saleh, employed as legal and research adviser to the AHRC’s president.

    In violation of Saleh’s privacy, the AHRC went on the defensive and revealed that Saleh had resigned. Saleh had been subjected to months of anti-Palestinian racism and marginalisation at the commission.

    On July 15, documents released under a freedom of information request revealed that the State Library of Victoria was actively surveilling the social media activity of four writers and poets — Arab and Muslim poet Omar Sakr, Jinghua Qian, Alison Evans and Ariel Slamet Ries, specifically around Palestine.

    The documents provided more evidence that the writers’ pro-Palestine social media posts were the likely reason for the State Library cancelling a series of online creative writing workshops for teens which the writers had been contracted to host — corroborating what library staff whistleblowers had revealed earlier this year.

    Political ideology
    It is impossible to overstate how the repression we are witnessing is occurring because governments, media, institutions and employers are legitimating disingenuous complaints and blatant hit-jobs by acquiescing to the egregious and false equivalence between Zionism and Judaism.

    Despite pro-Palestine voices explicitly critiquing and targeting Zionist ideology and practice in clear distinction to Judaism and Jewish identity, and despite standing alongside anti-Zionist Jews, we are accused of antisemitism.

    Zionism is a political ideology that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century. It explicitly argued for settler colonialism to replace the majority indigenous population of Palestine.

    Zionism is not a religious, racial, ethnic or cultural identity. It is a political doctrine that a member of any culture, religion, race or ethnic category can subscribe to.

    Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. Jews and Judaism existed for thousands of years before Zionism. These are not controversial contentions. They are borne out by almost a century of academic scholarship and have been adopted by anti-Zionist Jewish scholars, lawyers, human rights organisations and clerics.

    They are supported by facts. Consider, for example, that the largest pro-Israel organisation in the United States is Christians United for Israel.

    A Zionist can be an adherent of any religion and come from any ethnic or racial background. US President Joe Biden is an Irish-American Catholic and a Zionist.

    Australia’s former prime minister, Scott Morrison, is an evangelical Christian and a Zionist. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong is an Australian-Malay Christian and a Zionist.

    Inherently racist
    Zionist ideology is recognised as inherently racist because it denies the inalienable right of indigenous Palestinian people to self-determination, and the right to live free of genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism and domination.

    Palestinian subjugation is an existential necessity for the supremacist goal of Israel’s political project. This is not even contested.

    Israel’s 2018 nation-state law explicitly states that “the right to exercise national self-determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” and established “Jewish settlement as a national value”, mandating that the state “will labour to encourage and promote its establishment and development”.

    Anti-Zionism is directed at a state-building project and a political regime. Rather than protect people’s right to subject Zionism to normative interrogation, as is the case with all political ideologies, institutions panic at complaints and uncritically legitimate the false claim that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism.

    Protected cultural identity
    Indulging vexatious claims and dishonest conflations is why we are seeing extraordinary coercive repression and anti-Palestinian racism across institutions.

    To posit Zionism as a religious or ethnic identity is like saying white supremacy, Marxism, socialism or settler colonialism are all categories of identity. The perverse logic we are being asked to indulge is essentially this: Zionism equals Judaism therefore a white Christian Zionist is a protected cultural identity category.

    Indulging the notion that the ideology of Zionism is a protected cultural identity sets a precedent that would be absurd if it were not so dangerous.

    By this logic, communists can claim the status of a protected category of identity on the basis that there are Chinese communists who feel threatened by critiques of communism.

    Adherents of doctrines and ideologies including white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, socialism, liberalism and communism could claim to be protected identities.

    Adherents of doctrines and ideologies including white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, socialism, liberalism and communism could claim to be protected identities

    Further, if Zionism is a protected cultural identity, what does this mean for anti-Zionist Jews? And what is Zionism from the standpoint of its victims, as Edward Said famously said?

    Genocide in name of Zionism
    What does it mean for Palestinians whose lives are marked by dispossession, exile, refugee camps, land theft and now, as I write, genocide explicitly enacted in the name of Zionism?

    In the context of a genocide that has so far, on a recent conservative by The Lancet, one of the world’s highest-impact academic journals, caused an estimated 186,000 deaths and counting, governments, institutions and mainstream media are prepared to effectively destroy any vestige of democratic principles, fundamental rights and intellectual rigour in order to exceptionalise Zionism and Israel and shield a political ideology and a state from critique.

    While institutions stand with Israel, the vast majority of the public, witnessing the massacres, are daring to question Israel’s actions. This includes questioning the Zionist ideology that underpins that state.

    Institutions and employers may choose to discipline and sack those calling out Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in this moment, but will be held to account for their complicity in the political suppression of our collective protest against crimes against humanity.

    Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah is a Future Fellow at Macquarie University. Her research areas cover Islamophobia, race, Palestine, the war on terror, youth identities and social movement activism. She is also a lawyer and the multi-award-winning author of 12 books for children and young adults. This article was republished from Middle East Eye.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Murdoch’s Times now pushing DWP benefit fraud propaganda for Labour

    The now Labour-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published its annual report. So predictably, it was prime opportunity for the right-wing hacks at the Times to punch down on benefit claimants. Top of its benefit claimant-bashing agenda – the usual – DWP benefit fraud, naturally.

    Only this time, there was a twist! A particular revelation must have the right-wing gutter publication spitting feathers after its wall-to-wall benefit fraud-busting hit pieces. Because as it turned out: the public now give less of a shit about people committing benefit fraud. Cue, a vitriol-fueled crusade chock-full of fact manipulation.

    Times’ latest DWP benefit fraud bullshit

    On Monday 22 July, the Times published an article which led with the headline:

    ‘Britons’ tolerance of fraud could cost benefits system £2bn a year’

    The Canary will spare you the effort of reading it. Spoiler: it’s not worth the subscription fee. The article’s key take-away? People are about to commit MORE benefit fraud. To be precise, according to the Times, it’s looking set to soar 5% year on year.

    Its basis? A DWP annual report which details supposed economic fraudulence. Specifically, these included exhibit a: an increase in fraud against businesses. Then – and this is a real clincher if ever there were – an uptick in… shoplifting. But if none of that was damning enough, the DWP had one last piece of incontrovertible evidence. That is, that attitudes to fraud have “softened” since 2016.

    You read that right. The public care less about benefit fraud than they did eight years ago. Ergo, expect more of it.

    If you’re not following how any of this proves that there’ll be a rise in benefit fraud, that’s because it’s palpable nonsense. Specifically, the report itself says that:

    The overall conclusion of this analysis is that there is an increasing trend in the underlying propensity towards fraudulent behaviour, which can be expected to place an upwards pressure on fraud in the welfare system. DWP has estimated through the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expenditure forecasts that this long-term behavioural trend creates a headwind that would cause fraud levels to grow at around 5% per year without action to reduce it.

    Then, in reality, it based this claim solely on a flawed evaluation promulgating an “inexact science” (the DWP’s own words, not mine). In short, the DWP assessment looked at the so-called “propensity” to commit fraud overall. Moreover, this pertained to entirely disparate forms of crime, unrelated to benefit fraud. So it couldn’t actually show trends for DWP benefit fraud specifically: meaning of course, that the 5% figure is effectively bogus.

    ‘Dark money’ think tank has a take on it

    Not that this mattered to the Times. Two plus two equals five, or indeed *insert whatever alarming-sounding figure here*. Because the point is, the facts aren’t important. So long as the right-wing lapdog can drum up legitimacy for the new Labour government’s “tough on crime” publicity machismo, any figure will do.

    Of course, it’s not exactly unexpected from a lynchpin publication of the Murdoch media empire. That’s because the shit rag pumps out this bile hell-bent on demonising poor, chronically ill, and disabled people accessing the welfare system for a past-time.

    And for good measure, the DWP mouthpiece threw in a comment from the right-wing think tank with the best-worst misnomer – the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). This is the brainchild of ostensible ex-DWP grim reaper and all-round Universal Credit-machinating cunt Iain Duncan-Smith. Calling it an “independent centre-right think tank”, the Times introduced its policy director Edward Davies saying:

    The pandemic seemed to somewhere break the social contract and pour petrol on harmful behaviours —we’ve seen that coming through in economic inactivity, school exclusions and now fraud.

    First, let’s clear this up. The CSJ is as far from “independent” as you can get. In actual fact, it’s a “dark money” think tank – in other words, it doesn’t disclose its funders. Open Democracy has rated it among the worst for transparency, which isn’t surprising given how tight-lipped it is about its financial benefactors.

    Plus, I guess anything passes as “centre” these days, since both major political parties have lurched so far to the right. Yet, the CSJ is regularly the haunt of a ghoulish line-up of right-wing politicians launching their cruel new policies. A recent example of this was Rishi Sunak and his “sicknote culture” strongman stunt, front and centre at a CSJ event. The CSJ’s CEO was a fan by the way, in case you were wondering.

    Fictitious fact-fiddling over DWP benefit fraud

    Largely, Davies’s odious spiel boiled down to suggesting that people are committing more benefit fraud because of some totally mysterious and unknown reason relating to the pandemic. This chimes perfectly with DWP boss Liz Kendall’s persistent post-election “economic inactivity” and back to work guff. Both aim squarely at chronically ill and disabled people claiming benefits. It’s almost like a global mass disabling and chronic illness triggering event never happened. Except of course, it did.

    What’s more, people couldn’t possibly be claiming benefits more now, after Tory pandemic corruption, Brexit, and rampant recession-teetering inflation sent the cost of living sky-rocketing. Or you know, because parasitic employers diddle workers out of job security and a livable wage, while reaping killer dividends. Nope, for the DWP and the CSJ, more benefit fraud must be afoot.

    However, here’s the thing. By now, the Canary must sound like a broken record saying this (take it up with the corporate media), but DWP benefit fraud is virtually non-existent. We’ve consistently shown how everything from Universal Credit fraud, to supposed Personal Independence Payment (PIP) fraud is either fictitious fiddling of the facts, or quite literally zilch.

    British public have ‘low integrity’? Now that’s rich

    Labour left MP and Mother of the House Diane Abbott called the Times article out for what it is:

    As did consultant clinical psychologist and chronic illness ally Dr Jay Watts:

    Moreover, if timing is everything, it’s telling that the Times put out this scapegoat-mongering piece the same day the DWP closed an inaccessible and discriminatory consultation on dangerous PIP reforms. The new Labour government has hugely distressed chronically ill and disabled people for its silence on this – which includes the Tories’ callous ‘voucher’ scheme vanity project proposals.

    Oh, and did I mention? If you’re one of those people who couldn’t give a toss about non-existent benefit fraud, while the DWP pays out an unlivable pittance, denies sick and disabled people payments, and kills tens of thousands of people, breaking the UNCRPD international disabled rights law in the process, then the DWP and the Times think you have “low integrity”. Go figure.

    At the end of the day, the Times article is nothing more than a sly pretext-setting exercise for Kendall’s fraud-busting fantasies. When she dons a bullet-proof vest and puffs out her chest Pursglove style in a police ride along raid-turned-DWP-publicity promo, don’t be surprised. It’s media trash like this Times piece that paved the way for it.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

  • Perimenopause: I broke an unspoken rule at the chemist

    There’s an unwritten rule at the chemist that you try not to overhear what the person in front of you is discussing with the pharmacist at the “scripts in” counter. This is hard because you are often barely three feet away.

    Earlier this week a woman in front of me flashed her e-script at the pharmacist and asked quickly for estradiol patches. The tone of her question sounded as if she already knew the answer would be no. The pharmacist replied that no, they didn’t have any patches. She started walking quickly away. I stepped in. “Excuse me, did you know that you can also maybe use the gel with the current shortage of patches?”

    The woman was understandably alarmed at my unsolicited intervention.

    What on earth was I doing? Firstly, only a medical practitioner or pharmacist should be talking to a person about medication. Secondly, I had broken the aforementioned rule of the chemist “scripts in” counter.

    Transdermal estradiol patches are sometimes prescribed by doctors for perimenopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms as part of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT). Hormone replacement therapy is also used during gender-affirming hormone therapy. The patches are applied to the skin and deliver oestrogen directly into the bloodstream.

    As Associate Professor Ada Cheung wrote in an article in March this year, Oestradiol is important for bone health, heart health and maintaining mental health and wellbeing. Interestingly, post‐menopausal MHT is also approved for the prevention of bone mineral density loss. A fun fact is that oestradiol is derived from soya beans or sweet potatoes. For more than 12 months there have been serious shortages Australia wide (of the patches, that is, not the vegetables).

    The reason I spoke to the woman in the chemist this week, is because I have become quite desperate in my search for these patches. Every week I ring or visit 10 -15 chemists to see if any patches have come in. The answer? No. No. No. No.

    The pharmacists always tell me they have no idea when supply will come in. My GP equally has no information about when the patches will be available again. I have been to my GP several times for advice. Most recently she gave me literally 10 different scripts to help me get the required level of estradiol I need, including in the more expensive gel.

    Would it be cheaper to eat a tonne of sweet potatoes? Unfortunately that wouldn’t work and I much prefer a little sticker on my bum.

    For me, these little patches have been life changing. Before I started on Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT) I was a cross between Cruella De Vil and the Sadness character from Inside Out. I was not sleeping. I was depressed. I had horrible hot flashes. I had insane skin crawling that feels like ants and spiders and running all over my skin. A couple of times I literally slapped myself in the face thinking there was a spider there. It was embarrassing  and deeply unpleasant.

    When I started on MHT my symptoms literally vanished within two days. They do not work this effectively for everyone, but for me they are little angels of saneness.

    The Australian Medical Association (AMA) submission to the current senate inquiry into the issues related to menopause and perimenopause initiated by Senator Larissa Waters, has identified that while some Australians have few or no symptoms, many will have symptoms that can be prolonged and severe.

    Australia is not currently doing anywhere near enough to make sure we have a regular and secure supply of oestradiol patches.

    The AMA has said that MHT medication supply shortages need to be urgently addressed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

    The TGA, Australia’s medicines and medical devices regulator, is not treating this with urgency and seems to be doing little to ensure regular supply.

    Meanwhile our New Zealand neighbours appear to be taking this seriously. The New Zealand medicines regulator, Pharmac, has a clear and long list of actions they are undertaking including:

    • Tendering for the supply of patches
    • Called for proposals (RFP) from suppliers for oestradiol gel.
    • Funding a range of alternative brands of the patches
    • Exploring if there are other presentations or products NZ can secure and fund
    • Asking suppliers and wholesalers to limit patches they send out trying to make distribution of the limited stock as fair as possible
    • Supporting suppliers to speed up delivery of stock into New Zealand and out to wholesalers and suppliers

    Why can’t I see a list this extensive on our TGA website? Can we please try as hard as New Zealand?

    Right now tens of thousands of Australians are unable to access these potentially life changing medications. Australia pushed hard to get a good supply of Covid Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) when we needed them. Now the Australian government needs to work harder to get a good supply of these medications.

    Or is “women’s” health still not important enough?

    • Picture at top: Daisy Gardener. Credit: Pru Aja 

    The post Perimenopause: I broke an unspoken rule at the chemist appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Perimenopause: I broke an unspoken rule at the chemist

    There’s an unwritten rule at the chemist that you try not to overhear what the person in front of you is discussing with the pharmacist at the “scripts in” counter. This is hard because you are often barely three feet away.

    Earlier this week a woman in front of me flashed her e-script at the pharmacist and asked quickly for estradiol patches. The tone of her question sounded as if she already knew the answer would be no. The pharmacist replied that no, they didn’t have any patches. She started walking quickly away. I stepped in. “Excuse me, did you know that you can also maybe use the gel with the current shortage of patches?”

    The woman was understandably alarmed at my unsolicited intervention.

    What on earth was I doing? Firstly, only a medical practitioner or pharmacist should be talking to a person about medication. Secondly, I had broken the aforementioned rule of the chemist “scripts in” counter.

    Transdermal estradiol patches are sometimes prescribed by doctors for perimenopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms as part of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT). Hormone replacement therapy is also used during gender-affirming hormone therapy. The patches are applied to the skin and deliver oestrogen directly into the bloodstream.

    As Associate Professor Ada Cheung wrote in an article in March this year, Oestradiol is important for bone health, heart health and maintaining mental health and wellbeing. Interestingly, post‐menopausal MHT is also approved for the prevention of bone mineral density loss. A fun fact is that oestradiol is derived from soya beans or sweet potatoes. For more than 12 months there have been serious shortages Australia wide (of the patches, that is, not the vegetables).

    The reason I spoke to the woman in the chemist this week, is because I have become quite desperate in my search for these patches. Every week I ring or visit 10 -15 chemists to see if any patches have come in. The answer? No. No. No. No.

    The pharmacists always tell me they have no idea when supply will come in. My GP equally has no information about when the patches will be available again. I have been to my GP several times for advice. Most recently she gave me literally 10 different scripts to help me get the required level of estradiol I need, including in the more expensive gel.

    Would it be cheaper to eat a tonne of sweet potatoes? Unfortunately that wouldn’t work and I much prefer a little sticker on my bum.

    For me, these little patches have been life changing. Before I started on Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT) I was a cross between Cruella De Vil and the Sadness character from Inside Out. I was not sleeping. I was depressed. I had horrible hot flashes. I had insane skin crawling that feels like ants and spiders and running all over my skin. A couple of times I literally slapped myself in the face thinking there was a spider there. It was embarrassing  and deeply unpleasant.

    When I started on MHT my symptoms literally vanished within two days. They do not work this effectively for everyone, but for me they are little angels of saneness.

    The Australian Medical Association (AMA) submission to the current senate inquiry into the issues related to menopause and perimenopause initiated by Senator Larissa Waters, has identified that while some Australians have few or no symptoms, many will have symptoms that can be prolonged and severe.

    Australia is not currently doing anywhere near enough to make sure we have a regular and secure supply of oestradiol patches.

    The AMA has said that MHT medication supply shortages need to be urgently addressed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

    The TGA, Australia’s medicines and medical devices regulator, is not treating this with urgency and seems to be doing little to ensure regular supply.

    Meanwhile our New Zealand neighbours appear to be taking this seriously. The New Zealand medicines regulator, Pharmac, has a clear and long list of actions they are undertaking including:

    • Tendering for the supply of patches
    • Called for proposals (RFP) from suppliers for oestradiol gel.
    • Funding a range of alternative brands of the patches
    • Exploring if there are other presentations or products NZ can secure and fund
    • Asking suppliers and wholesalers to limit patches they send out trying to make distribution of the limited stock as fair as possible
    • Supporting suppliers to speed up delivery of stock into New Zealand and out to wholesalers and suppliers

    Why can’t I see a list this extensive on our TGA website? Can we please try as hard as New Zealand?

    Right now tens of thousands of Australians are unable to access these potentially life changing medications. Australia pushed hard to get a good supply of Covid Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) when we needed them. Now the Australian government needs to work harder to get a good supply of these medications.

    Or is “women’s” health still not important enough?

    • Picture at top: Daisy Gardener. Credit: Pru Aja 

    The post Perimenopause: I broke an unspoken rule at the chemist appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • My life as the Great Dictator just came full circle with Starmer’s Double Cross Party

    In 2006, I started to embody a new, difficult and edgy character – Adenoid Hynkel, the Great Dictator, Chaplin’s spirited and timely parody of Hitler. Finding myself trawling all the charity shops in the area looking for something that would pass as a jacket, I knew what I had wanted. It had to be white and stylishly cut, with silver buttons and breast pockets; perhaps a safari suit. This had pretty much narrowed my search down to the power suits in the lady’s section.

    Charity shop fingerings

    “That’s a woman’s jacket!” the shop assistant had barked at me, eyeing me up and down as I fingered a delicate crisp cream number with a plunging neckline.

    “I know”, I had answered – innocently groping a generous 80’s style shoulder pad. “I’ll take it.”

    That had been the final piece of the jigsaw. I had the shirt and a clip-on black tie, white tracksuit bottoms for the trousers, and thick black woolen socks pulled up for the jackboots. My mate had knocked me up an armband carrying the insignia of Hynkel’s Double Cross party, and I’d nicked an Essex policeman’s cap and painted it white:

    I’d once gone to a party dressed as the Chaplin’s Little Tramp and been accosted by a drunken fool on the dance floor who’d kept giving me fascist salutes. But wearing that outfit, with white face paint and toothbrush tash, there could be no mistake.

    That first dress rehearsal, I had put on the Sex Pistols (Holidays in the Sun) full blast, picked up my placard which had said ‘Free Sprachen Stunk’ (a quote from one of Hynkel’s speeches), puffed my chest out, and began marching round my front room saluting the pot plants. Then I had sat down to watch The Great Dictator on DVD.

    Hitler, Chaplin, and The Great Dictator

    For those who haven’t seen it, it is basically a tale of mistaken identity, where a Jewish barber from the ghetto called Schultz (Chaplin), a dead ringer for the tyrant Hynkel (also Chaplin), ends up getting the chance to deliver a message of peace and humanity to the world.

    Hitler had apparently sat down to watch the movie on at least two occasions at his Bavarian mountain retreat. Even though the Nazis had hated Chaplin’s euphoric reception during his visit to Germany in 1931, one can only assume that Hitler had got some kind of perverse kick out of seeing this international superstar lampooning him. History did not record his reaction to the movie, but Chaplin apparently said that he’d “give anything to know what [Hitler] thought of it”.

    Chaplin and Hitler were not only born the same week of the same month, but also the same year (1889). Both had difficult childhoods, with violent or alcoholic fathers and sick mothers.  Both sought their fortunes in a foreign land. Chaplin played a tramp throughout his movie career, and Hitler had found himself living the life of a tramp on the streets of Vienna.

    Legend has it that Hitler actually fashioned his ‘facial furniture’ on the Chaplin look, reducing the ‘walrus’ moustache that he had sported whilst serving as a lance corporal in the Bavarian army during the Great War, and gone for something a touch more modern and expressive.

    Whatever the reasons behind the new look, I find it hard to believe that on the day that Adolf first ventured out without his fur handlebars, someone in the street didn’t point to him and laugh, “Got en Hemel! Das es Charlie Chaplin?”

    ‘Charlie’s done it better’

    Crucially though, where the two men seem to part company is at the dawn of talking pictures, which seemed to mark the end of Chaplin’s ascendancy, and the rise of Hitler’s popularity.  The Talkies loved passion, and Hitler did ‘passion’ brilliantly, greatly bolstered by unlimited budgets, innovations in camerawork and montage techniques, actual awe-inspiring locations, and a cast of adoring thousands. As spirited and successful as it was, Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, released in 1940 (but originated in 1938), could never match the propagandist punch of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, released in 1935.

    Perhaps the last word on their relationship should go to the English comedian Tommy Handley, famous for the wartime radio programme ITMA (“It’s That Man Again“). Three days after Britain entered the war in September 1939, before the disaster at Dunkirk had truly kicked Britain awake, Handley took part in a BBC radio show called, ‘Who is that man who looks like Charlie Chaplin?’, during which he sang a song by the same title.  It went like this:

    “Who is this man who looks like Charlie Chaplin?

    What makes him think that he can win a war?

    It can’t be the moustache. That only makes us laugh!

    And Charlie’s done it better, and before.

    If it wasn’t for the boots and cane and trousers,

    You couldn’t tell the 2 of them apart.

    But the whole idea’s absurd. Charlie’s never said a word!

    And Adolf couldn’t play a silent part!”

    By the time he wrote his autobiography in 1964, with the immense gravity of hindsight, Chaplin had clearly grown embarrassed about the film’s slapstick nature, and he confessed that, had he known of “the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator: I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis”.

    My great dictator’s first outing

    I chose the State Opening of Parliament for my first outing.

    Wow! I’d never seen so many gunmen in all my life. There was bearskin and bullied boots from Parliament Square to Buck Palace, with hundreds of cops thrown in. And I was there to launch a leadership challenge, as the Queen’s golden bullet proof carriage rolled by.

    I was instantly set upon by the police when I tried a silly flappy-armed salute that I had lifted from the film. A policeman came up to me and said:

    I am aware of the films of Charlie Chaplin from the 1940s. But someone else might not be. If I see you making that arm gesture again, I will arrest you for breach of the peace.

    It was the day I got the veteran peace campaigner Brian Haw to read out the speech. And I remember thinking at the time, I’ve really got to learn this. Which didn’t happen for another 11 years.

    During that time, I very rarely dressed up as the Great Dictator, perhaps half a dozen times. A protest on the day of Trump’s inauguration outside the old American embassy. Alongside the Trump baby blimp in Parliament Square during his state visit.

    Outside an arms trade trial at Stratford Magistrate’s Court, holding a placard that said, ‘Greed has poisoned man’s soul’ – a line from the speech. At an anarchist bookfair in Cape Town.  Once outside Downing Street, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, wearing a black hard hat with a nuclear explosion coming out the side, holding a sign that said, ‘Grab ‘em by the oligarchs’.

    In truth, I’ve always felt uneasy doing the character, much preferring the playfulness and everybody’s friendliness of the Little Tramp. Dressed as Hitler means you are more likely to get challenged on the street. Which has happened a few times. Notably, when a Jewish man came up to me.

    The fine line between comedy and tragedy

    OK, full disclosure.

    A man had just walked past and given me a Nazi salute. He was laughing and joking. And I, very stupidly, gave him a Nazi salute back. And this man had seen it, and quite rightly, wanted to know why I was making fun of the Holocaust. I fumbled around for some lame excuse, but there was really nothing I could say.

    The Holocaust is no laughing matter. Full stop.  And I vowed, if I was to ever dress up as the Great Dictator again, I would just stick to the speech, which really needs to be heard, nailing quite a few unassailable truths. Snippets of which have ended up in hundreds of memes, in graffiti, on t-shirts, even as tattoos, incorporating timeless sentiment and universal truth. Touching so many lives.

    Like the policeman I met once at the station after one of my arrests, keeping watch as I used the loo, telling me he’d learnt it for his best mate’s wedding. Then the guy actually starts reciting whole chunks of it, while I’m sitting on the toilet. It was quite surreal.

    More recently, three days before the election, me and the Dictator travelled up to Westminster to film the Double Cross Party election broadcast, very much with Labour in mind. What with their centrist policies and cosying up to the corporate media, Israel and the arms trade, their purging of any shred of socialism from a socialist party. Starmer betraying every leadership election pledge.

    Labour has Double Cross written all over it.

    Always armed with a large thought bubble that has ‘Free Speech’ written on it. For which I was once arrested, inside Tony Blair’s one-mile protest exclusion zone. You could say, Britain’s first thought crime. Also, very much aware of my Article 10 rights, to Freedom of Expression, about the only defence we have left. I have always seen the freedom to recite that speech, very loudly, right outside Downing Street, as my own personal litmus test as to how authoritarian our society is becoming.

    Chaplin’s message of peace might get me arrested for breach of the peace. I might just get ignored. As I mostly have been. Lots of confused tourists, waiting for me to ‘do the box’:

    The Great Dictator

    We’ll see.

    There’s a strong risk however that the centrist policies of the Double Cross Party will fall well short of the bold steps desperately needed to fix decades of austerity, social decline, and neo-liberal looting, and that this would only serve to empower those tyrants waiting in the wings with beautiful words on their lips, always ready to steer resentment and blame far right.  And I’ll be there too, for as long as I can be, with Chaplin’s beautiful words on my lips, crying out, ‘People, don’t give yourselves to brutes!’

    Featured image and additional images via Neil Goodwin

    By Neil Goodwin

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Helen Hill: for social justice and Timor-Leste’s independence

    COMMENTARY: By Sandy Yule

    When Melbourne-born Helen Hill, an outstanding social activist, scholar and academic, died on 7 May 2024 at the age of 79, the Timorese government sent its Education Minister, Dulce de Jesus Soares, to deliver a moving eulogy at the funeral service at Church of All Nations in Carlton.

    Helen will be remembered for many things, but above all for her 50 years of dedication to friendship with the people of Timor-Leste and solidarity in their struggle for independence.

    At the funeral, Steve Bracks, chancellor of Victoria University and former premier of Victoria, also paid tribute to Helen’s lifetime commitment to social justice and to the independence and flourishing of Timor-Leste in particular.

    Further testimonies were presented by Jean McLean (formerly a member of the Victorian Legislative Council), the Australia-East Timor Association, representatives of local Timorese groups and Helen’s family. Helen’s long-time friend, the Reverend Barbara Gayler, preached on the theme of solidarity.

    Helen was born on 22 February 1945, the eldest of four children of Robert Hill and Jessie Scovell. Her sister Alison predeceased her, and she is survived by her sister Margaret and her brother Ian and their children and grandchildren.

    Her father fought with the Australian army in New Guinea before working for the Commonwealth Bank and becoming a branch manager. Her mother was a social worker at the repatriation hospital.

    The family were members of the Presbyterian Church in Blackburn, which fostered an attitude of caring for others.

    Studied political science
    Helen’s secondary schooling was at Presbyterian Ladies College, where she enjoyed communal activities such as choir. She began a science course at the University of Melbourne but transferred to Monash University to study sociology and political science, graduating with a BA (Hons) in 1970.

    At Monash, Helen was an enthusiastic member of the Labor Club and the Student Christian Movement (SCM), where issues of social justice were regularly debated.

    Opposition to the war in Vietnam was the main focus of concern during her time at Monash. In 1970, Helen was a member of the organising committee for the first moratorium demonstration in Melbourne and also a member of the executive committee of the Australian SCM (ASCM, the national body) which was based in Melbourne.

    She edited Political Concern, an alternative information service, for ASCM. In 1971, Helen was a founding member of International Development Action. Helen was a great networker, always ready to see what she could learn from others.

    Perhaps the most formative moment in Helen’s career was her appointment as a frontier intern, to work on the Southern Africa section of the Europe/Africa Project of the World Student Christian Federation, based in London (1971-1973). This project aimed to document how colonial powers had exploited the resources of their colonies, as well as the impact of apartheid in South Africa.

    In those years, she also studied at the Institute d’Action Culturelle in Geneva, which was established by Paulo Freire, arguably her most significant teacher. The insights and contacts from this time of engagement with global issues of justice and education provided a strong foundation for Helen’s subsequent career.

    In 1974, Helen embarked on a Master of Arts course supervised by the late Professor Herb Feith. Helen had met student leaders from the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola in the Europe/Africa project, who asked her about East Timor (“so close to Australia”).

    East Timor thesis topic
    Recognising that she, along with most Australians, knew very little about East Timor, Helen proposed East Timor as the focus of her master’s thesis. She began to learn Portuguese for this purpose.

    Following the overthrow of the authoritarian regime in Portugal in April 1974 and the consequent opportunities for independence in the Portuguese colonies, she visited East Timor for three months in early 1975, where she was impressed by the programme and leadership of Fretilin, the main independence party.

    Her plans were thwarted by the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975, and she was unable to revisit East Timor until after the achievement of independence in 2000. Her 1978 Master of Arts thesis included an account of the Fretilin plans rather than the Fretilin achievements.

    Her 1976 book, The Timor Story, was a significant document of the desire of East Timorese people for independence and influenced the keeping of East Timor on the UN decolonisation list. She was a co-founder of the Australia-East Timor Association, which was founded in the initial days of the Indonesian invasion.

    Helen was a founding member of the organisation Campaign Against Racial Exploitation in 1975. She was prolific in writing and speaking for these causes, not simply as an advocate, but also as a capable analyst of many situations of decolonisation. She was published regularly in Nation Review and also appeared in many other publications concerned with international affairs and development.

    Helen was awarded a rare diploma of education (tertiary education method) from the University of Melbourne in 1980. From 1980 to 1983, she was a full-time doctoral student at Australian National University, culminating in a thesis about non-formal education and development in Fiji, New Caledonia and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (the islands of the north Pacific).

    Helen participated in significant international conferences on education and development in these years and was involved in occasional teaching in the nations and territories of her thesis.

    Teaching development studies
    In 1991, she was appointed lecturer at Victoria University to teach development studies, which, among other things, attracted a steady stream of students from Timor-Leste. In 2000, she was able to return to Timor-Leste as part of her work for Victoria University.

    An immediate fruit of her work in 2001 was a memorandum of understanding between Victoria University and the Dili Institute of Technology, followed in 2005 with another between Victoria University and the National University of Timor-Leste.

    One outcome of this latter relationship has been biennial conferences on development, held in Dili. Also in 2005, she was a co-founder of the Timor-Leste Studies Association.

    Helen stood for quality education and for high academic standards that can empower all students. In 2014, Helen was honoured by the government of Timor-Leste with the award of the Order of Timor-Leste (OT-L).

    Retiring from Victoria University in 2014, Helen chose to live in Timor-Leste, while returning to Melbourne regularly. She continued to teach in Dili and was employed by the Timor-Leste Ministry of Education in 2014 and from 2018 until her death.

    Helen came to Melbourne in late 2023, planning to return to Timor-Leste early in 2024, where further work awaited her.

    A routine medical check-up unexpectedly found significant but symptom-free cancer, which developed rapidly, though it did not prevent her from attending public events days before her death on May 7. Friends and family are fulsome in their praise of Helen’s brother Ian, who took time off work to give her daily care during her last weeks.

    Helen had a distinguished academic career, with significant teaching and research focusing on the links between development and education, particularly in the Pacific context, though with a fully global perspective.

    Helen had an ever-expanding network of contacts and friends around the world, on whom she relied for critical enlightenment on issues of concern.

    From Blackburn to Dili, inspired by sharp intelligence, compassion, Christian faith and a careful reading of the signs of the times, Helen lived by a vision of the common good and strove mightily to build a world of peace and justice.

    Sandy Yule was general secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement from 1970-75, where he first met Helen Hill, and is a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia. He wrote this tribute with help from Helen Hill’s family and friends. It was first published by The Age newspaper and is republished from the DevPolicy Blog at Australian National University.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Disabled people took over Parliament Square to once again fight for their basic rights

    Chronically ill and disabled people took over Parliament Square to demand that the new Labour Party government undo years of damage caused by the Tories. From the DWP to social care via housing and hate crime, the system and its proponents have wilfully marginalised millions of people. Now, those people are demanding their rights back. But will chronically ill and disabled people’s calls be heard?

    Disabled people: out again to protest their basic rights

    Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) led a coalition of campaign groups in organising the ‘Disabled People Demand’ demo. From 12pm on Thursday 18 July, people gathered on Parliament Square’s green on what was one of the hottest days of the year:

    The turnout was one of the largest seen for a DPAC demo since before the pandemic. Over 100 people were present:

    Speakers included John McDonnell MP, Ben Sellers from People’s Assembly, and Paula Peters from DPAC:

    John McDonnell speaking to Nicola Jeffery. He is wearing a shirt and trousers, she has bright pink hair and is wearing a black top and patterned flared trousers disabled people

    There was also performances from artists and musicians, and artwork on display:

    As DPAC itself said, the overriding thrust of the event was that:

    Closing the door on the past doesn’t just mean closing it on the policies of the past – but also on the negative and exclusionary practices of the past too. This day will celebrate our communities survival through austerity, benefit cuts, assessment torture, covid and cost of living crisis – and a reminder that too many of us didn’t survive them.

    We have a long history of devising our own solutions to whatever crisis we find ourselves in. That’s why we are taking this opportunity to present our solutions to political decision makers and to the rest of the people in the UK. We are putting what we believe are both possible and achievable out there.

    So, there’s no hiding place from them. Nobody can say they didn’t know.

    We will use them as a marker to measure the success or failure of the next government.

    Various demands

    DPAC and its allies have created a template of demands that they want the new Labour Party government to enact. The core demands are:

    • Legislate to fully incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) into UK law.
    • A “triple lock” on annual benefit rate increases.
    • Legal Right to Independent Living with a National Independent Living Service.
    • Introduce a national requirement for all new build homes to be accessible and 10% to be wheelchair accessible.
    • A right to mainstream education and to education in fluent British Sign Language for Deaf and Disabled students.
    • A fully integrated, fully accessible, affordable publicly owned transport system for all.
    • A right of disabled access to built and natural environments.
    • Introduce mandatory two-week timeframe for reasonable adjustments and an enforcement framework which does not fully depend on an individual.
    • An independent public inquiry into the deaths and maltreatment of disabled children and adults incarcerated in mental health institutions.
    • Legislate to abolish forced detention and treatment of people on mental health grounds.
    • No Assisted Dying.
    • Adequate provision of technical aids and equipment, eg. wheelchairs, and adaptive communication aides for people who are nonverbal.

    There was a small police presence throughout the afternoon. The Canary noticed ‘blue bibs’ (police liaison officers) asking attendees about when the next demo was going to be. This, as group Netpol has repeatedly warned, standard behaviour from these pretend cops whose job on the ground is intelligence gathering. Fortunately, everyone there was wise to this and kept schtum.

    A mixed bag of speakers

    The rhetoric coming out of the event on 18 July was a mixed bag. A speaker from the Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG) was there talking about the letter that it had written to Keir Starmer. As the Canary’s Hannah Sharland previously noted, it really didn’t go far enough – in fact, the letter felt like a begging bowl for disabled people, rather than anything ‘demanding’.

    Moreover, the speaker from DPCG whose name the Canary missed on 18 July name-dropped Mind – a charity which should not have been anywhere near this kind of event, nor had anything to do with chronically ill and disabled people’s campaigning more broadly – given its historical involvement with the DWP.

    This was juxtaposed by the always fiery and passionate Paula Peters – who sent a clear warning to the new Labour government while also remembering allies who had died during the 13 years DPAC had been active for. She said:

    Many people are not here today because they did not survive. We will never forget our disabled friends, relatives, activists, and trade unionists. We hold them in our hearts and in our minds today, tomorrow, and always. And we promise this: that we will continue the fight that they began; that we honour them by not mourning them, but my organising, by mobilising, and fighting on for equality and social justice.

    The Chronic Collaboration’s Nicola Jeffery spoke of how having a Labour Party government won’t make any difference to chronically ill and disabled people:

    We are here because we know that regardless of which political party is in power or what policies they choose to implement, we need a wider societal change in the way that disabled people and chronically ill people are treated…

    We have already witnessed the United Nations find our country guilty of grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s civil and human rights and we have seen nothing change.

    We have already witnessed the treatment of chronically ill people being described in Parliament as the greatest medical scandal of the 21st century and we have still seen none change. This is not good enough and we as chronically ill people and disabled people demand better. We as chronically ill and disabled people demand more.

    The ball is in Labour’s court

    Now, the ball is in Labour’s court. So far, the signs have not been good. It seems that the party will not treat chronically ill and disabled people much differently to how the Tories did.

    What came across from DPAC’s event was that this was far less of a protest than normal. Road blocks were out, and music and art were in. This seemed more of a gathering, less of a demo.

    One can only assume that this paring back of tactics by DPAC and others is to give Labour a technical chance to prove they’re not a reincarnation of the Conservative Party and actually start to work with chronically ill and disabled people, instead of torturing and killing them.

    It doesn’t sound like a big ask – but based on the historical evidence, it clearly is. Unfortunately, it feels likely that DPAC and others will be back to blocking roads and blockading parliament sooner rather than later.

    Hopefully, Labour will prove us wrong.

    Featured image and additional images via the Canary

     

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Maeve Boothby O’Neill’s inquest has already highlighted how little doctors understand ME/CFS

    Monday 22 July was the start of an inquest into the death of a young woman with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS). As written in MEpedia, Maeve Boothby O’Neill:

    was a young British woman who died from very severe ME on October 3, 2021, aged just 27 years old.[1][2] Maeve Boothby O’Neill was a promising writer, a natural scholar and talented at languages. She was diagnosed after 4 years of unrecognised illness, shortly before her 18th birthday. She was writing The Alchemists, the first of a series of novels, set on Dartmoor where she grew up in Devon, England, when she died.

    Maeve’s mother Sarah Boothby and father Sean O’Neill, who is a journalist for the Times, have been publicly trying to raise awareness of their daughter’s death along with the appalling treatment of ME patients. But we have already learned from the inquest just how little doctors know about ME and how little they can do to help patients.

    What REALLY is ME/CFS?

    ME/CFS is a debilitating chronic illness that in its most severe form can cause symptoms that are worse than some late stage cancers and sometimes death in patients living with the condition. It is defined by the hallmark symptom of post-exertional malaise (PEM), which is often disregarded/misrepresented as fatigue. According to the NHS website:

    Myalgic encephalomyelitis, also called chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS, is a long-term condition that can affect different parts of the body. The most common symptom is extreme tiredness. The cause of ME/CFS is unknown.

    ME/CFS can affect anyone, including children.

    Of course, “extreme tiredness” downplays just how bad ME is. Also known as ‘Yuppie Flu’ in the 1980s, this condition has a long history of being dismissed or even psychologised by doctors – even though it has killed people, including Maeve.

    Similar to long Covid, many patients remember their symptoms beginning after catching a virus, leading many to believe that this is a post-viral illness or condition. Unfortunately many patients also discover that the only support offered to them by the NHS is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which is again viewed as a dismissal of patients – effectively blaming them for their own symptoms.

    The irony of this condition is that many patients find themselves living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the years they often face being dismissed by various health professionals just to have their condition taking seriously.

    Many of these patients also live with other conditions like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), gastroparesis, and dumping syndrome which also very rarely get diagnosed properly.

    From PACE to PTSD with ME/CFS

    The extent of some ME/CFS patients’ symptoms are quite shocking – yet medical professionals seem surprised, even unable to cope, when they have to face the reality of the illness.

    As a person diagnosed with ME, I remember going to an appointment with my partner, explaining my situation to a GP – and they literally broke down in tears in front of us; disgusted at the state of both the NHS and how people with these conditions and chronic illness are treated, feeling helpless.

    During today’s opening day of Maeve Boothby O’Neill’s inquest we also learned that her GP has developed PTSD as a direct result of Maeve’s deteriorating condition, her death, and its aftermath.

    This speaks volumes on firstly how little current doctors and GPs understand ME, and secondly how little support they can offer, if they can offer any at all – effectively leaving patients with psychologisation as a treatment.

    As many patients know, this treatment approach unfortunately has links to a part-DWP funded clinical trial.

    It’s not just ME

    Whilst this inquest is taking place, there are also currently three other women that the Canary is aware of that are living with severe/very severe ME/CFS.

    We have recently reported on #BringMillieHome, #SaveCarlasLife, and Karen Gordon. All of these women have again faced neglect and mistreatment, and are desperate for support.

    But these are just the ones we know about via social media. There are so many more people suffering in silence. There are an estimated 250,000 people living with ME in the UK – which is likely a huge underestimate. So what, if anything, is actually being done to support these women and the thousands of other adults and children that have been diagnoses of ME?

    Can anyone help ME?

    In 2023 campaign group the Chronic Collaboration along with many other ME/CFS patients, groups, and allies successfully (both online and directly outside) forced NICE to remove graded exercise therapy (GET) from its ME guidelines. This treatment had for many years caused patients extreme harm, making their symptoms worse and often irreparable.

    Along with Maeve’s inquest this week and a new Labour government, the Canary has heard that John McDonnell MP will be asking a question in parliament regarding ME, which we will be reporting on.

    It’s not the first time ME has been mentioned in parliament – most recently with a Westminster Hall debate. Former SNP MP Carol Monaghan stated that ME and the treatment of patients with it was the potentially the ‘biggest medical scandal of the 21st century’.

    But thankfully the voices fighting for this chronic condition are getting louder. So, it will only be a matter of time before they will have to be listened to.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Nicola Jeffery

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • #SwindonsSundaySermon: a lot changes in a week and I owe Keir Starmer an apology

    The Canary only had a week-or-so off, and in that short period of time we have seen Donald Trump survive an apparent assassination attempt, Joe Biden addressing the Ukrainian comedy guy as “President Putin”, football fail to come home for the umpteenth time, and the new prime minister Keir Starmer prancing around on the global stage as if little insular Britain is recognised as anything more than a good place to buy arms and launder dirty money.

    I also vaguely recall the new foreign secretary, David Lammy, posing for a photo with a man that is facing an arrest warrant from the Hague for crimes against humanity, but nobody gives a fuck about that because it’s not Jeremy Corbyn dining with the corpse of Osama Bin Laden.

    So, just sixteen days into Keir Rodney Starmer’s prime ministership and I feel like it is time for me to apologise, because I got it wrong.

    Rachael Swindon: an apology to Keir Starmer

    Even I didn’t think Keir Starmer would be enough of an intolerable, foolish shithouse to give the thumbs up to supplying billions of pounds worth of arms to the Ukrainian regime, every year, “as long as it takes”, while so blatantly allowing British children to languish in poverty and hunger, within a week of being in office.

    Is this what you red Thatcherite relics call “patriotism”? To me, it would appear Starmer’s loyalties lie with Washington, Tel Aviv and Kyiv before Warrington, Telford and Kettering even get a look-in.

    The public antipathy towards the deliciously-routed Conservative Party isn’t going to disappear at the drop of a Rees-Mogg bowler hat, but if you are expecting an end to the politics of short-termism, instability, and division, I think you are going to be extremely disappointed.

    Keir Starmer’s quicksand majority could be put to excellent use.

    Plenty of options

    Instead of a Border Force Control, build council houses. Ask not who we can blow out of the water, but what these human beings can offer our exhausted and broken society.

    Instead of arming and enabling war and genocide, lead the way in searching for peaceful and just resolutions to global atrocities. We do not have to slavishly sign up to this bomb-first-ask-questions-later strategy favoured by the neocons. This is a political choice.

    Instead of rubbing shoulders with the elite, try doing a shift in your local foodbank or homeless shelter, but away from the ghastly spectacle of self-serving publicity.

    Starmer doesn’t need to put your future on the never-never with huge corporations when he can adequately tax the same huge, obscenely rich corporations to pay for it.

    The 2024 Taxing Wealth Report demonstrates to Labour just how simple it would be to make some tweaks to existing UK taxes to raise up to £90 BILLION of new tax revenue – every single year.

    Better still, Mr Starmer, these easily-made adjustments would be raised only from those who are already well off or who are absolutely fucking minted, which only applies to people that are lucky enough to be in the top 10% of income earners.

    But you know as well as I do, there’s more chance of Keir Starmer ditching the public-purse-funded private jet — that carried his over-privileged arse to the Euro 2024 final to watch England lose to Spain — than there ever will be of Keir Starmer taking a meaningful bite from the very hand that feeds his lust for power, free from morals, ethics and principles.

    Labour corporatocracy

    This new Labour government has seamlessly picked up the corporatocracy baton from the Tories with an alarming ease.

    Despite promising to “get a grip” of the huge water companies, Starmer has wasted no time in rubber-stamping bill increases of up to 44%. The new prime minister has the majority to crush these disproportionate price hikes, simply by renationalising water companies.

    I am old enough to remember the time Keir Starmer said:

    Public services should be in public hands, not making profits for shareholders. Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water.

    That was pledge number five of the infamous ten pledges that Keir Starmer put forward to Labour Party members back in 2020.

    Keir Starmer is a proven liar. I give zero fucks for the size of his majority and even fewer fucks if I have to keep calling out this malignant, fraudulent, servant of the immoral elite until I turn blue in the face.

    Meanwhile, somewhere in the UK’s broken ‘justice’ system…

    As reported earlier this week in the Canary, five Just Stop Oil supporters were sent to prison for a combined TWENTY ONE YEARS for doing nothing more than attending a Zoom call.

    Is it not quite incredible that in the week the new government are forced to announce they are having to release some 5,500 prisoners to “avert disaster”, some creepy batshit judge is locking up climate change protestors for having the temerity to attend a Zoom call, or am I missing something blindingly obvious?

    In my humble opinion, and my opinion alone, I believe the judge in question — Judge Christopher Hehir — is a climate-change-denying, paedo-sympathiser, and the fact he is dishing out ‘justice’ is a grave injustice in itself.

    Is this the kind of good old fashioned British justice that Keir Starmer will continue to support without reservation?

    If society begins to accept the imprisonment of climate protestors is of greater importance than the non-imprisonment of a man found to be in possession of three category A images, the most serious type, and five category C images, which depicted victims aged eight to 12, as well as accessing a website known to contain indecent images of children 393 times, would it be wrong of me to suggest we are heading down an extremely dangerous path?

    Same judge, very different sentences.

    I’ll pass on your ‘national renewal’, thanks Keir Starmer

    All of this talk of “change”, “national renewal”, and “doing things differently”, may well convince the 20% of those eligible to vote that voted for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party to run the country, but your average Joe isn’t going to feel, or be any better off than this time last year.

    It should go without saying, we shouldn’t judge Starmer’s tinpot government on what they have or haven’t done in the space of just two weeks, but we can certainly begin to get a good idea of which way the river is flowing, merely reinforcing our judgement of Starmer and his cabal of metropolitan spinners before they managed to get anywhere near the corridors of power.

    If your idea of “change” looks like a guaranteed £3 billion every year for Ukraine to fight a proxy war on behalf of the West, I’m not interested in your idea of change.

    If your idea of “doing things differently” looks like offering out another £700 million worth of NHS contracts to the private sector, I’m not interested in your idea of doing things differently.

    And if your idea of “national renewal” looks like bowing down to Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel by refusing to withdraw your objections to the pariah state being dragged kicking and screaming through the International Criminal Courts, you can go to hell.

    Featured image via Rachael Swindon

    By Rachael Swindon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • A role for Pacific media in charting a pragmatic global outlook

    By Shailendra Bahadur Singh and Amit Sarwal in Suva

    Given the intensifying situation, journalists, academics and experts joined to state the need for the Pacific, including its media, to re-assert itself and chart its own path, rooted in its unique cultural, economic and environmental context.

    The tone for the discussions was set by Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu, chief guest at the official dinner of the Suva conference.

    The conference heard that the Pacific media sector is small and under-resourced, so its abilities to carry out its public interest role is limited, even in a free media environment.

    PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024
    PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024

    Masiu asked how Pacific media was being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve Pacific identities in the light of “outside influences on our media in the region”. He said the Pacific was “increasingly being used as the backyard” for geopolitics, with regional media “targeted by the more developed nations as a tool to drive their geopolitical agenda”.

    Masiu is the latest to draw attention to the widespread impacts of the global contest on the Pacific, with his focus on the media sector, and potential implications for editorial independence.

    In some ways, Pacific media have benefitted from the geopolitical contest with the increased injection of foreign funds into the sector, prompting some at the Suva conference to ponder whether “too much of a good thing could turn out to be bad”.

    Experts echoed Masiu’s concerns about island nations’ increased wariness of being mere pawns in a larger game.

    Fiji a compelling example
    Fiji offers a compelling example of a nation navigating this complex landscape with a balanced approach. Fiji has sought to diversify its diplomatic relations, strengthening ties with China and India, without a wholesale pivot away from traditional partners Australia and New Zealand.

    Some Pacific Island leaders espouse the “friends to all, enemies to none” doctrine in the face of concerns about getting caught in the crossfire of any military conflict.

    A media crush at the recent Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji
    A media crush at the recent Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network

    This is manifest in Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s incessant calls for a “zone of peace” during both the Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ meeting in Port Vila in August, and the United Nations General Assembly debate in New York in September.

    Rabuka expressed fears about growing geopolitical rivalry contributing to escalating tensions, stating that “we must consider the Pacific a zone of peace”.

    Papua New Guinea, rich in natural resources, has similarly navigated its relationships with major powers. While Chinese investments in infrastructure and mining have surged, PNG has also actively engaged with Australia, its closest neighbour and long-time partner.

    “Don’t get me wrong – we welcome and appreciate the support of our development partners – but we must be free to navigate our own destiny,” Masiu told the Suva conference.

    Masiu’s proposed media policy for PNG was also discussed at the Suva conference, with former PNG newspaper editor Alex Rheeney stating that the media fraternity saw it as a threat, although the minister spoke positively about it in his address.

    Criticism and praise
    In 2019, Solomon Islands shifted diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, a move that was met with both criticism and praise. While this opened the door to increased Chinese investment in infrastructure, it also highlighted an effort to balance existing ties to Australia and other Western partners.

    Samoa and Tonga too have taken significant strides in using environmental diplomacy as a cornerstone of their international engagement.

    As small island nations, they are on the frontlines of climate change, a reality that shapes their global interactions. In the world’s least visited country, Tuvalu (population 12,000), “climate change is not some distant hypothetical but a reality of daily life”.

    One of the outcomes of the debates at the Suva conference was that media freedom in the Pacific is a critical factor in shaping an independent and pragmatic global outlook.

    Fiji has seen fluctuations in media freedom following political upheavals, with periods of restrictive press laws. However, with the repeal of the draconian media act last year, there is a growing recognition that a free and vibrant media landscape is essential for transparent governance and informed decision-making.

    But the conference also heard that the Pacific media sector is small and under-resourced, so its ability to carry out its public interest role is limited, even in a free media environment.

    Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific
    Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific. Image: Kula Press

    Vulnerability worsened
    The Pacific media sector’s vulnerability had worsened due to the financial damage from the digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic. It underscored the need to address the financial side of the equation if media organisations are to remain viable.

    For the Pacific, the path forward lies in pragmatism and self-reliance, as argued in the book of collected essays Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, edited by Shailendra Bahadur Singh, Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad and Amit Sarwal, launched at the Suva conference by Masiu.

    No doubt, as was commonly expressed at the Suva media conference, the world is watching as the Pacific charts its own course.

    As the renowned Pacific writer Epeli Hau’ofa once envisioned, the Pacific Islands are not small and isolated, but a “sea of islands” with deep connections and vast potential to contribute in the global order.

    As they continue to engage with the world, the Pacific nations will need to carve out a path that reflects their unique traditional wisdom, values and aspirations.

    Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is head of journalism at The University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, Fiji, and chair of the recent Pacific International Media Conference. Dr Amit Sarwal is an Indian-origin academic, translator, and journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. He is formerly a senior lecturer and deputy head of school (research) at the USP. This article was first published by The Interpreter and is republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • When are we going to talk about the corporate media’s complicity in Covid deaths?

    The first report from the Covid-19 inquiry came out yesterday and told us what many of us already knew – the government had failed to prepare for a pandemic and in turn, had failed to protect the public.

    Covid-19 Inquiry: the wrong pandemic

    Chair of the inquiry, baroness Heather Hallett said:

    “Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering,”

    One group of people disproportionately failed was disabled people. In England six in 10 covid deaths were disabled people, this rose to seven in 10 in Wales. 

    At the start of the pandemic, disabled people were told to shield whilst given no other support. Whilst the government focused on “getting back to normal” we feared that we’d be left to die if ‘do not resuscitate orders’ were put on us without our knowledge.

    Every time “freedom day” and more restrictions were loosened we were treated like we wanted people caged up indoors forever, whilst we were traumatised from seeing our community decimated.

    Whilst they partied, we feared that we would be one of the bodies that would be piled high.

    Whilst the report focuses on preparedness for the pandemic, it’s still pretty clear how little fucks Boris and his cronies gave about allowing disabled people to live.

    Vulnerable what?

    The report wholly criticises the government for preparing for the wrong pandemic – a flu outbreak – but even then they weren’t bothered about protecting “vulnerable” people (I hate that term btw).

    The 2019 National Security Risk Assessment made only passing comments on the risks associated with age and health. The influenza-type pandemic scenario only included a short section on the “impact on vulnerable groups”.

    The report draws on a familiar stereotype for disabled people, that we’re a burden to society and service:

    It was too narrowly drawn and had too limited focus on the impact on public services and staff capacity.

    The main problem with any plans for “the vulnerable” was that none of them could decide on a definition of “vulnerable”. I wish I was joking but one of the recommendations is literally for the government to decide what vulnerable means.

    So whilst they were lumping us all in as “vulnerable” and using it as an excuse for us dying, none of them could actually agree on what that meant. Which, as it was so vague, meant it was easier to apply to people who weren’t more susceptible to infection such as learning disabled people. 

    But there’s one thing that isn’t being covered in any of the inquiries – the part the media played.

    Where’s the corporate media’s accountability?

    In all my years reporting on the issues disabled people face, I’ve never felt as ignored by editors as I did during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here I was – a disabled journalist with a history of writing about my experiences – whilst a deadly pandemic was ripping through the world and mostly affecting disabled people, and suddenly nobody wanted to know. 

    Whilst I and other disabled journalists and activists were trying to get the word out about our community having ‘do not resuscitate orders’ put on them in hospitals, the media focused on how awful it was to be “locked up”. Whilst we were trying to shout about how six in 10 deaths in England were of us, I saw how much of the focus was on “getting back to normal”.

    Newspapers held countdowns to Freedom Day. They ran columns deriding mask wearers and vaccine takers, which were contradictory to their waning coverage of why masking and vaccines were still important. They focused on the mental health of non-disabled people and disregarded ours.

    Figures like Andy Burnham were mocked when northern communities were subjected to continuous changes to lockdown rules whilst receiving little support.

    Last year I chaired a panel of media representatives at the Disability Wales Conference. It was absolutely brutal but so lethargic to see them get absolutely ripped into by hurt members of the disabled community who had been let down by their reporting of Covid. 

    Covid-19 Inquiry exposes a disease at the heart of it all

    But it’s not enough to hold just a few people to account. This is a vile disease within the heart of corporate media that puts white, non disabled, straight, and well-off people before anyone else and uses its power to convince the public that anyone raising concerns is a threat to their way of life.

    Whilst governments are being held to account at the Covid-19 Inquiry (though they won’t face any justice), so too must the corporate media who turned the public against disabled people and made it acceptable for us to die – so they could go to pubs.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • It’s past time to call out pathetic liberal hypocrisy on the Trump assassination attempt

    After the assassination attempt of former (and likely future) president of the US Donald Trump, we have seen a shift to the supposedly moderate centre ground by liberals and nominally democratic socialists in the general Western political discourse. Senators for the US Democrats, cabinet members of the Parliamentary Labour Party and, high profile left-wing journalists/activists have all come out to condemn not just this act of political violence, but political violence in its totality.

    This is a pathetic piece of hypocrisy on the matter of political violence, which helps in turn to obscure the historical truth about the conduct of Western nation states.

    Trump assassination attempt: a frequently occurring phenomenon

    The violence of the American imperialist project, the violence of the European ones which are its forebears, and even the violence of the 19 mass-murderers active this year in Pennsylvania alone seem to hold much less pertinence for neoliberal and ostensibly leftist figures than the grazed ear of neo-fascist presidential candidate Trump.

    Targeted assassination has a long history in the United States, largely due to the lacklustre restrictions on and profound cultural influence of firearms amongst the American citizenry, and the simultaneous repression of organised collective resistance in the country.

    Whether it’s the assassination of presidential figures, high-profile governors or activists, the lone gunman (a problematically romanticised image in American life) is nonetheless a prominent and frequently occurring one.

    When this political phenomenon occurs, it is almost unanimously condemned by members of the political classes, yet when it is, the ensuing discourse is frequently flavoured with an odd hypocrisy. The curious phrase often touted by these figures in the sociopolitical centre is that “violence has no place in politics”.

    Political power = violence

    Unfortunately, this is not an accurate description of any public sphere that has ever, or will ever, exist. Violence in one form or another holds a dominating place in every aspect of political life; the pretence that it holds none is either a lie motivated by thinly-veiled malice or a blunder, the consequences of which are incalculable.

    Political power, as it’s understood by most theorists and researchers, is defined as the ability or capacity to influence an individual or group’s course of action/ belief. This means violence. This means violence in daily life, violence in moments of catastrophe, violence in moments of triumph.

    Political power translates into violence in every political act aside from those incidents of persuasion, which, in the harsh daylight of political life, make up only a tiny portion of true power in our society.

    So, how does this blatant hypocrisy translate into the discourse surrounding the Butler, PA shooting?

    Legitimising colonialism

    It means that despite their support of an ideology that sees violence committed on a cataclysmic scale globally, liberals and conservatives merge to a condemnation of this particular kind of violence, in this particular space.

    They regard the genocides, massacres, and assassinations funded by their money and committed by their soldiers on foreign soil to be a mere “foreign” or “foreigner” problem. They minimise and trivialise that neocolonial violence in the Global South, whilst this incident is an egregious stain on the Euro-American democratic tradition.

    Every thinking, feeling person accepts political violence of one kind or another; the choice of which violence is acceptable – and when – determines one’s political opinion. Nearly all accept the collection of taxes at the threat of imprisonment, many accept even the petty laws of the state threating fines or jailtime.

    Almost as many accept the practices of class war and climate catastrophe which fund their consumption and survival. Many still have become complacent in the face of the colonialism and imperialism which oxygenate the financial lifeblood of the West.

    Blatant, flagrant hypocrisy

    All of this is accepted by a large number of actively and passively political people, but this single act provokes widespread condemnation. The contradiction from the centre is beyond comprehension or rationalisation. One even wonders whether a fearful consciousness has arisen amongst this class, many of whom are aware that the public view them in the same vein as Trump and his political cronies.

    This act in particular smacks of blatant flagrant hypocrisy, as the man targetted is widely regarded by many as a threat to the American democratic system.

    His campaign in his first run at the executive office of this powerful government was riddled with controversy, and violent controversy at that. His loss after his second run was followed by an attempt at an insurrection, with his impromptu militia invading the Capitol Building on his stumbling orders, sniffing for blood down the corridors Abraham Lincoln once patrolled. And his continued funding of violent foreign regimes, whilst imprisoning immigrants on the southern border, show his track record of a neo-fascist approach to politics.

    The man who survived is a deeply violent and authoritarian man, who condoned the violent mobs in Charlottesville, at which a counter-protester was murdered with a vehicle. He excuses, encourages, and enjoys a particularly nasty kind of violence in his politics, and would not have shown the same level of tenderness should this have occurred on the campaign trail of a political opponent.

    Shame on those coddling Trump

    Donald John Trump is a threatening phenomenon, whose lack of serious opposition makes him even more threatening. His victimhood by a would-be assassin is not any more valid and worthy of castigation than the victims of his murderous actions.

    Does this point, made in full, justify or endorse the actions taken by that right-wing gunman?

    No, but what it demands is a level of ethical consistency from the political chattering classes in the West in regard to political violence.

    If one can rise to their feet in trembling indignation at the near miss of a former American President, then they ought to have a good word to say about Gaza.

    They ought to have a good word to say about the DRC, about Sudan, about Yemen, and about the fact that this is the 19th mass shooting to happen in the state of Pennsylvania so far this year.

    Shame on those who would coddle the man who brought the far-right back into American politics, but refuse to weep for those trapped under the rubble of Rafah, or buried in the graveyard of that historic US state.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By James Horton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • It’s past time to call out pathetic liberal hypocrisy on the Trump assassination attempt

    After the assassination attempt of former (and likely future) president of the US Donald Trump, we have seen a shift to the supposedly moderate centre ground by liberals and nominally democratic socialists in the general Western political discourse. Senators for the US Democrats, cabinet members of the Parliamentary Labour Party and, high profile left-wing journalists/activists have all come out to condemn not just this act of political violence, but political violence in its totality.

    This is a pathetic piece of hypocrisy on the matter of political violence, which helps in turn to obscure the historical truth about the conduct of Western nation states.

    Trump assassination attempt: a frequently occurring phenomenon

    The violence of the American imperialist project, the violence of the European ones which are its forebears, and even the violence of the 19 mass-murderers active this year in Pennsylvania alone seem to hold much less pertinence for neoliberal and ostensibly leftist figures than the grazed ear of neo-fascist presidential candidate Trump.

    Targeted assassination has a long history in the United States, largely due to the lacklustre restrictions on and profound cultural influence of firearms amongst the American citizenry, and the simultaneous repression of organised collective resistance in the country.

    Whether it’s the assassination of presidential figures, high-profile governors or activists, the lone gunman (a problematically romanticised image in American life) is nonetheless a prominent and frequently occurring one.

    When this political phenomenon occurs, it is almost unanimously condemned by members of the political classes, yet when it is, the ensuing discourse is frequently flavoured with an odd hypocrisy. The curious phrase often touted by these figures in the sociopolitical centre is that “violence has no place in politics”.

    Political power = violence

    Unfortunately, this is not an accurate description of any public sphere that has ever, or will ever, exist. Violence in one form or another holds a dominating place in every aspect of political life; the pretence that it holds none is either a lie motivated by thinly-veiled malice or a blunder, the consequences of which are incalculable.

    Political power, as it’s understood by most theorists and researchers, is defined as the ability or capacity to influence an individual or group’s course of action/ belief. This means violence. This means violence in daily life, violence in moments of catastrophe, violence in moments of triumph.

    Political power translates into violence in every political act aside from those incidents of persuasion, which, in the harsh daylight of political life, make up only a tiny portion of true power in our society.

    So, how does this blatant hypocrisy translate into the discourse surrounding the Butler, PA shooting?

    Legitimising colonialism

    It means that despite their support of an ideology that sees violence committed on a cataclysmic scale globally, liberals and conservatives merge to a condemnation of this particular kind of violence, in this particular space.

    They regard the genocides, massacres, and assassinations funded by their money and committed by their soldiers on foreign soil to be a mere “foreign” or “foreigner” problem. They minimise and trivialise that neocolonial violence in the Global South, whilst this incident is an egregious stain on the Euro-American democratic tradition.

    Every thinking, feeling person accepts political violence of one kind or another; the choice of which violence is acceptable – and when – determines one’s political opinion. Nearly all accept the collection of taxes at the threat of imprisonment, many accept even the petty laws of the state threating fines or jailtime.

    Almost as many accept the practices of class war and climate catastrophe which fund their consumption and survival. Many still have become complacent in the face of the colonialism and imperialism which oxygenate the financial lifeblood of the West.

    Blatant, flagrant hypocrisy

    All of this is accepted by a large number of actively and passively political people, but this single act provokes widespread condemnation. The contradiction from the centre is beyond comprehension or rationalisation. One even wonders whether a fearful consciousness has arisen amongst this class, many of whom are aware that the public view them in the same vein as Trump and his political cronies.

    This act in particular smacks of blatant flagrant hypocrisy, as the man targetted is widely regarded by many as a threat to the American democratic system.

    His campaign in his first run at the executive office of this powerful government was riddled with controversy, and violent controversy at that. His loss after his second run was followed by an attempt at an insurrection, with his impromptu militia invading the Capitol Building on his stumbling orders, sniffing for blood down the corridors Abraham Lincoln once patrolled. And his continued funding of violent foreign regimes, whilst imprisoning immigrants on the southern border, show his track record of a neo-fascist approach to politics.

    The man who survived is a deeply violent and authoritarian man, who condoned the violent mobs in Charlottesville, at which a counter-protester was murdered with a vehicle. He excuses, encourages, and enjoys a particularly nasty kind of violence in his politics, and would not have shown the same level of tenderness should this have occurred on the campaign trail of a political opponent.

    Shame on those coddling Trump

    Donald John Trump is a threatening phenomenon, whose lack of serious opposition makes him even more threatening. His victimhood by a would-be assassin is not any more valid and worthy of castigation than the victims of his murderous actions.

    Does this point, made in full, justify or endorse the actions taken by that right-wing gunman?

    No, but what it demands is a level of ethical consistency from the political chattering classes in the West in regard to political violence.

    If one can rise to their feet in trembling indignation at the near miss of a former American President, then they ought to have a good word to say about Gaza.

    They ought to have a good word to say about the DRC, about Sudan, about Yemen, and about the fact that this is the 19th mass shooting to happen in the state of Pennsylvania so far this year.

    Shame on those who would coddle the man who brought the far-right back into American politics, but refuse to weep for those trapped under the rubble of Rafah, or buried in the graveyard of that historic US state.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By James Horton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The BBC knew EXACTLY what it was doing with THAT pro-Israel headline

    Of all the disgusting genocide-apologist headlines pumped out by the establishment media on Gaza, a recent BBC article might now top them all. In a utterly disgraceful move, the news broadcaster entitled a piece about a disabled man the IDF had horrifically murdered in words so blatantly bristling with pro-Israel bias, it beggared belief.

    Outrage on social media forced the BBC to change it. However, research shows that far from being a mistake, it’s likely the BBC had a reason to run its propaganda-laced headline.

    BBC pro-Israel headline the latest in establishment media bias

    It’s ten months now that Israel has been carrying out its brutal genocide in Gaza. People on social media have born witness to ten indescribably atrocious months of Israeli war crimes. At the same time, the corporate and Western press has pushed ten months of whitewashing media to obfuscate and absolve Israel of precisely these unconscionable acts.

    There have been too many of these propaganda pieces to note here. That’s because Western outlets have published near wall-to-wall coverage dripping in this bias – and by extension, complicity in Israel’s bloody crusade of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

    People on social media have consistently called this out. Meanwhile, journalists and civilians in Gaza, alongside independent sites (including the Canary) have been left to tell the truth about Israel’s unrelenting fascistic massacres.

    When Israeli soldiers killed six-year-old Hind Rajab and her family, the appalling Western establishment media spin was plain for all to see:

    Then, in June, the Canary’s Rachel Swindon reported on a BBC headline that flagrantly ignored Israel slaughtering nearly three hundred Palestinians. It relegated them to the subtext, while celebrating how the IDF had “freed” four Israeli hostages

    More recently, folks on X underscored the shocking double standards Western media displayed when Russia attacked a hospital in Ukraine. Particularly, they compared its emotive coverage condemning Russia, with the passive language it applied to Israel bombing Gaza health facilities:

    Now, the BBC has added a new sickeningly sanitising headline to the whitewashing hall of infamy and complicity.

    BBC whitewashes IDF murder of disabled Palestinian

    The article detailed how IDF soldiers had brutally set a combat dog on a autistic disabled man with Down Syndrome. It described how the IDF dog mauled 24-year-old Muhammed Bhar in his family home. His family later found his decomposing body where the IDF had left him to die. But in its editorial wisdom – or deliberate lack thereof – the BBC headline meekly read:

    The lonely death of Gaza man with Down’s syndrome

    So once again, people on X had to speak out about another horrendous headline:

    UK ambassador to Palestine Husam Zomlot expressed how despicable the BBC’s framing was:

    Some noted the shocking double standards at work again with the BBC baring its racist arse:

    Others couldn’t quite believe the language the BBC had used that implied something altogether different from the true order of events:

    Because quite apart from a “lonely” death, the IDF viciously murdered Bhar with a military dog. But passive voice – the feat of shameless linguistic gymnastics that avoids placing blame – reigned supreme again:

    After enormous backlash, the BBC removed the social media post, and amended the headline:

    Beyond the biased headlines…

    Of course, the BBC knew exactly what it was doing. Editors would have been aware that in a digital, social media-fueled churnalism landscape, people don’t actually read the news. That is, many will in fact only read the headline, and do not engage with the article content itself. As the previously Independent reported, a 2016 study illuminated this reality, showing how across X (then Twitter):

    59 percent of links shared on social media have never actually been clicked: In other words, most people appear to retweet news without ever reading it.

    Given this, BBC’s latest offence shows how the establishment press can weaponise this media illiteracy to shape a pro-Israel narrative.

    US-based linguist and journalist Abdulkader Assad previously told the Middle East Eye how headlines in particular propagate this pro-Israel bias:

    The way the western media is “framing” headlines and opening paragraphs of their news coverage of the Israeli occupation’s war on Gaza is intentionally meant to sway opinions and help consolidate a perception of Gaza with its entire population as ‘militants’, and thus the bombardment and killing then becomes justified

    Ultimately, the mismatch between the headline and the story itself was almost inconceivably depraved. Almost. Only, this has been the Western establishment press writ large.

    Evidencing this, in March, the New Arab conducted an analysis on UK mainstream media coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This did specifically focus on the rightwing press, but is still instructive. In particular, it looked at articles by the Times, the Telegraph, the Sun, and the Daily Mail. Notably, it identified that:

    in their headlines, all four sources exhibit bias against Palestinians in the following three ways: uniquely deploying a vast amount of emotive language when describing Israeli suffering, amplifying Israeli justifications for violence, and qualifying Palestinian deaths.

    Echoing these findings, researchers at the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain, produced a report on UK media coverage of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. This research looked more comprehensively at the UK press, assessing 28 outlets, including the BBC.

    Again, it stated how:

    One noticeable feature of this coverage has been the use of imagery which has shown Israeli aggression or Palestinian suffering and headlines which have favoured an Israeli position or narrative. The dehumanisation of Palestinians in this respect starts with the minimisation of their suffering, effectively rendering them invisible despite the huge numbers of those killed whilst focusing solely on the deaths of Israelis.

    With the recent article, it’s clear that he BBC is firmly among this Zionist propaganda ecosystem. This liberally employs techniques like bias by omission, and passive language describing Israel in order to deprioritise Palestinians voices and experiences.

    Overall, the incident showed the BBC indisputably as the servile media handmaiden to a violent colonial state. This latest headline is testament to the fact the BBC – like Western establishment media en masse – promotes a hierarchy of human life. And a disabled Palestinian man’s life wasn’t worth enough to condemn the Israeli war criminals it has spent months unrepentantly whitewashing.

    Feature image via the Canary/BBC

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Week in Ableist Bullsh*t: we got the f*ckers out, now the real fight begins

    Well hello again.

    It’s been a while hasn’t it?

    When we last spoke (well I last spoke at you) we were finally about to be free of the fascist-supporting, forcing disabled people into work and killing trans people Conservative Party government and I know we’re all so glad that definitely happened.

    Lol, we’ll come back to that.

    So long Wet Wi- oh ffs…

    As regular readers of TWIABS will know, my mortal enemy for some time has been the now-former DWP boss Mel Stride 

    For a while now my ultimate dream had been to see Mel Stride the evil bastard formerly in charge of the DWP lose not only his job, but his seat. With this in mind, I made the pledge that I wasn’t going to bed until the Wet Wipe Wept.

    Well, I was kept up a long fucking time wasn’t I?

    Of course, being the little hanger on he is, Stride’s constituency was one of the last to declare. By that time of course much like his constant media appearances, people had grown weary of him so nobody was paying attention by the time it was called. 

    And after a night of ecstasy with many ministers and MPs crying in sports halls, the chief wet wipe had to ruin the mood. But as is often the case with justice, it comes in unsuspecting ways. 

    Instead of easing into the role of media commentator he’d been laying the groundwork for, he has to sit in parliament for another five years – and in the shadow cabinet no less. Sorry Wet Wipe babes, the Strictly glitter ball will have to wait. 

    Wet Wipes crying in sports halls: a megamix

    While the chief wet wipe might’ve managed to cling onto his seat by 61 votes, many many terrible people who’d inflicted cruelty on disabled people did get to have a little huff in a leisure centre at 2am – and it was bloody beautiful.

    Among them was Thérèse Coffey, who in her time in office said the DWP had no duty of care to ensure vulnerable benefits claimants didn’t kill themselves, then flat refused to hand over the data for how many had already done just that. 

    Luckily for that monster though, Rishi had just named her in his honours and she’s going to go ruin lives in the House of Lords.

    Another who I didn’t get to actually see crying in a sports hall (thanks BBC coverage) but emotionally I did is Tom Pursglove. The ex-minister for disabled people who was responsible for stoking hatred against disabled people by among other things wearing a stab vest to benefits raids, bizarrely.

    One of the first to lose their seat was Justin Tomlinson who at the beginning of the pandemic was nowhere to be found and left disabled people to die. 

    A fate worse than death: remaining in the dying Tory Party

    Whilst at first, I delighted in so many bastards losing their seats, I’ve come to realise that the only thing worse than being part of the mass Tory casualties is being one of the survivors: part of the most dead Tory Party ever who still has to go to PMQs or if you’re even unluckier- be in the shadow cabinet.

    As previously mentioned, the Wet Wipe (somehow) kept his seat and joining him are the other two most hateful ex-DWP bosses.

    Esther McVey who is responsible for god knows how many deaths due to Universal Credit annoyingly is still an MP. This is also the evil cunt behind the two-child benefit cap clause that means you can receive benefits only if the third is a product of rape – tarring your child with that forever.

    Joining her is someone who is responsible for some of the cruellest DWP decisions of the lot: Iain Duncan Smith. This death merchant’s victory is only thanks to the Labour Party, who deselected candidate Faiza Shaheen after she liked BDS-and Corbyn-supporting tweets. The new mum said she faced racism and harassment from within the party and decided to run as an independent.

    Labour’s stubbornness around this split the left vote and meant IDS won. The blood is on their hands now.

    So what now?

    Like many disabled people, I’ve been (rightly as far as I see it) cynical that a Labour government would be any different for disabled people. 

    I’m not ashamed to admit that after 14 years of Tory cruelty, I felt a spark of hope on 5 July for what Labour would bring – but that spark was quickly snuffed out when Labour opened their mouths.

    More of the same from Labour

    Despite it being obvious that they were going to make Liz Kendall the secretary for the DWP, it still felt galling that a woman who focuses solely on work. She’s so far pledged to reform job centres and “help” disabled people. 

    She’s also, as the Canary’s Hannah Sharland reported, been completely silent on the proposed PIP reforms, coincidentally while the consultation is due to run out on 22 July. There are reports however though that instead of throwing out the reform plans, Kendall will be taking the responses into consideration. Which is why it’s vital you fill it in if you can. 

    Where’s our minister?

    The minister for disabled people position felt like it was destined to go to Vicky Foxcroft, who’s done the shadow role for four years – so it was a shock when she was given Whip. It feels too great a coincidence that someone who has been instrumental in opposing welfare reforms now can’t have an opinion on them or join in debates.

    Instead of Vicky, we got an over a week’s wait to find out who our minister for disabled people would be – which again feels cruel that she couldn’t address considering she’s pulled the government up twice in recent years for failing to give her an opposite number.

    Finally, after spaffing on about getting disabled people back into work in a plan that looks suspiciously like the Tories Back to Work one, Liz Kendall appointed Stephen Timms – but not as minister for disabled people.

    No, Timms’s new role is minister for disability and social security, which, whilst it takes away the work aspect that was in the ministerial title, instead lumps us in with benefits. Whilst this is hopefully a good thing and means benefits reform is coming, if it’s not it will make it easier for benefit scrounger rhetoric to take hold. 

    For what it’s worth though, Timms has an excellent record on disability rights, having chaired committees that stuck up for us and taken the former government to task on the cover-up of claimants deaths and cruel benefits reforms – but it must be noted that he also opposes gay marriage. 

    Labour needs to take us seriously or be prepared to fight

    There’s so much Labour needs to do to prove themselves to disabled people, from benefit reforms to social housing to taking the UNCRPD seriously. But to do all of that they need to actually engage with us.

    At the moment Labour’s strategy seems to be to ignore us and hope we’ll go away, but that’s the opposite of what they should be doing. Labour needs to compassionately and earnestly work with disabled people, or be prepared to have us fight against them. 

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour starts as it means to go on: doing NOTHING for the poorest people

    The king’s speech on Wednesday 17 July was nothing if a direct play to the Labour Party’s now-target audience: the middle classes and middle England. Because within the 39 bills, there was nothing that would directly support the poorest and most marginalised people in the UK.

    Labour: the party of Gordon Brittases

    Keir Starmer’s ‘landslide’ victory was mainly thanks to politicians and those in power spending decades disenfranchising the poorest people from democracy – so, on 4 July they didn’t even bother voting. Labour, rather than ‘sweeping’ to power, cuckolded in off the back of a hatred of the Tories and an equal disdain for politicians of all stripes.

    Based on preliminary analysis, Labour’s voter base consisted of the middle classes and middle England. There was a smattering of working-class people who voted for them. But overall, the poorest people abandoned all political parties; a theme since 2015.

    So, New-New Labour has a mandate – but only if that mandate is a government of middle managers tasked with overseeing the dregs of colonial Britain. Ergo, the king’s speech on 17 July was a fitting agenda for this party of Gordon Brittases.

    Mealy-mouthed measures dressed up as radicality

    For example, snivelling trade unions have been making an almighty fuss about Labour’s New Deal for Working People. In reality, it’s a mealy-mouthed piece of corporate servility dressed up as something radical. For the avoidance of any doubt, Labour is:

    • NOT giving all workers rights from day one. There is a loophole which will let bosses “operate probationary periods to assess new hires”. Cue said bosses making one-year probationary period.
    • NOT making flexible working mandatory. Bosses only have to implement this “as far as is reasonable”.

    In other words, Starmer’s band of David Lloyd area managers have promised a load of shit with their fingers crossed behind their backs.

    Elsewhere in the king’s speech, there was the predictable anti-immigrant laws, an improvement on conversion therapy nullified by Wes ‘twunk on a ship‘ Streeting’s ban on treatments for trans teenagers, and the renationalisation of the railways which isn’t really full renationalisation at all.

    A lot for the few, nothing for me and you

    However, the glaring omission from Labour’s plan to *insert PR firm-created buzz phrase here* was anything – literally ANYTHING – for poor people.

    For example, outlets like the Big Issue – which present themselves as somehow radical, LOL – have trumpeted Labour’s Renter’s Rights Bill because of the banning of no-fault evictions and laws around safety in properties. But this is window-dressing when parasitic landlords (i.e. all of them) can still charge whatever the hell they want.

    Moreover, this particular bill is the prime example of Labour playing to its new voter base. Most of the poorest people in the UK do NOT privately rent. They live in social housing. It’s the middle classes who have the largest proportion of private renters.

    So, what are Labour going to do about housing associations who systemically neglect, abuse, and mistreat tenants while upping rents by 7.7% a year for squalid properties? Ask Carleen Anderson.

    Fuck Labour and all who sail in her

    There was, of course, nothing for chronically ill, disabled, homeless, and social security-reliant people either.

    But why would Labour do anything for any of these people? In the hollowed-out husk of the already splintered remnants of what politicians repeatedly told us was a democracy, their voices don’t matter – and never really have.

    Oh, and don’t think charities and campaign groups are coming to save us, either. Organisations like Disability Rights UK seem to think polite chat over tea and biccies is the order of the day WHEN PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY DYING.

    A certain geriatric straw-haired maniacal sexual predator shouted the other day (after he got his ear grazed):

    FIGHT!

    I dunno. Maybe he was right.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • For South Asian women, it’s not just medical gaslighting that pervades their ME/CFS diagnoses

    Shehla Ali from About M.E. looks at the racism and discrimination that pervades healthcare for South Asian women living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS).

    “Is everything ok at home?”

    “You’re too young to have these symptoms”.

    “Are you making it up?”

    Based on true events, these are some of the conversations I had with medical specialists. Before I was diagnosed with ME/CFS, FND (functional neurological disorder) and fibromyalgia, I was experiencing unexplained symptoms and began to experience drop attacks, migraines, chronic fatigue, and pain all around my body.

    What happened?

    A year prior to that I was hiking mountains. I reached my seventh continent, Antarctica, and worked around the globe during that year. I travelled solo, I was an avid gym-goer, and counted my calories. I thought the lifestyle I was living was ‘healthy’. So what exactly happened? Honestly, I’d love to share the root cause. I definitely have my theories of multiple factors, but I am not a medic.

    My body began to feel like it was giving up. After a few blood tests, the nurse told me it was a lack of vitamin D and low iron:

    It’s quite common for a person of your ethnicity to have this.

    I would not be able to move for hours, which progressed to days and eventually months. I battled with GP receptionists, but eventually an appointment with a GP meant I could get some answers.

    I was advised to exercise, to remain positive, and make myself better.

    Baseless advice for ME/CFS

    But according to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines on ME/CFS, exercise is no longer a suggested treatment:

    After an extensive review of the literature, that graded exercise therapy (GET) is harmful and should not be used, and that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is only an adjunctive and not a curative treatment.

    The review also found that people who were part of the research for graded exercise therapy did not all have ME. The condition is often associated with ‘just being tired’. There are also different levels of ME:

    • Mild.
    • Moderate.
    • Severe.
    • Very Severe.

    So having one route of treatment would certainly not work. However, if you are a person of colour, prepare for an extra barrier. Yes – discrimination and racism.

    One of the medical staff asked if I was married as that may have something to do with me “having panic attacks”. I was panicking because I was dropping on the floor, experiencing involuntary movements, and became bedridden. It wasn’t because of my relationship status.

    It is worth noting that chronic illnesses tend to be underfunded and ME is no exception.

    But does this bias and racism have a name?

    What is Bibi/Begum syndrome?

    Bibi/Begum Syndrome is medical terminology used to gaslight South Asian women, predominantly those who are elderly and may have a language barrier.

    The term comes from a UK doctor who struggled with understanding an elderly Pakistani woman’s symptoms. He referred to her as a ‘Bibi/Begum’. The term has been used in a derogatory manner to suggest that South Asian women exaggerate their symptoms which often leads to poorer health outcomes.

    Neurologist Fizzah Ali explains:

    In my foundation years. It was here that I first came across the term “Bibi-itis.” A decade later I found it was still being used. It happened in the doctor’s office. I was scrolling through a list of patient referrals on my computer wondering out loud what undiagnosed entity awaited me in the emergency department.

    So it’s no surprise many South Asian women may feel uncomfortable or unwelcome when seeking care. And they may be less likely to speak up about their health concerns or ask questions due to a lack of trust or understanding.

    This can lead to delays in seeking care and poorer health outcomes overall. To be judged by medical staff led me to believe I wouldn’t even be able to get treatment for ME/CFS. I lost trust, hope, and felt isolated.

    Racism and discrimination are everywhere

    When I began to accept where I was, although still bedridden with ME/CFS I began podcasting. I spoke with a guest about racism; he is Black and I am South Asian (Pakistani).

    We spoke about how we were spoken to by medical teams and also within our own communities.

    A comment is then posted by a user:

    I don’t get what you mean by neither of you are white, I have been treated poorly too.

    No one said anything about you not being treated poorly. But our experiences of inequality are valid.

    There are people I have spoken to, even if there are only a few, who have had a diagnosis within two weeks. That is their experience. To play the oppression Olympics of who had it worse often means Black and Asian people have their experiences diluted – having to go through stereotypes before symptoms is not ok.

    So we can look to different communities, as our own tribes may leave us feeling invisible:

    • “But no one will want you”.
    • “We don’t speak about these things”.
    • “You’re just not being grateful enough”.

    But a community can look like people who have not had their voices heard get together.

    Even using your own voice can amplify others, but those comments, those biases, are still there. I still have to battle during appointments, with society and people who chose ignorance. I know some days will be tougher than others. I know I am not alone, I just have to continue taking it one-step-at a time.

    Featured image via Envato Elements

    By Shehla Ali

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Don’t Say Peace in Ukraine: You Will Be Shot

    As the events surrounding the Ukraine and the cross-Atlantic West continue to defy belief, all roads of recent assassination attempts from Slovak PM Robert Fico to former US President Donald Trump lead back to Ukraine. The biggest anti-Ukrainian War critic in Europe currently is none other than Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, whom met with former President Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida just a mere 48 hours before the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024 while on the sidelines of the NATO Summit held in Washington. On the very same day of July 13, Ukrainian Intelligence officials admitted publicly that they had failed at multiple attempts to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is of no coincidence whatsoever that the string of recent assassination attempts of high ranking officials on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are also extreme anti-Ukrainian War critics as we shall see.

    Day in and day out US officials at the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon are openly admitting they are in command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian government on what they will or will not allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to do or not to do. US weapons permeate the Ukrainian War and kill Russian citizens daily and weekly. Failed attempts to shoot down incoming Russian precision cruise missile strikes end up with surface to air missiles (SAMs) veering off-course into residential buildings and even as we saw recently, a hospital in Kyiv during a Russian attack on the Artem missile plant.

    They are all conveniently blamed on Russia but never admitted to being tragedies of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as the result of Ukrainian aggression in Ukraine against ethnically Russian Ukrainians in a fratricidal and genocidal war started in the wake of the United States government violent “Euromaidan” coup and subsequent Donbass War started by then acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchyinov in April 2014. If you were ethnically Russian and disagreed with the illegal actions of the all-corrupt Ukrainian fascist junta regime or its American masters, you were a terrorist, and the label gives legal precedent to whomever makes the accusation to kill the terrorists. Since late February 2014, Ukraine is nothing but de facto occupied US-EU government and military territory.

    This has cost the citizens of the United States—as well as Europe—billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars, debt, and inflation as well as cost the United States its very status of hegemony as the preeminent power on Earth and the end of the Bretton Woods US-dollar dominated monetary system. Radical unprecedented NATO expansion eastward since 2004 has cost trillions of dollars of US debt levels and recent bellicose statements coming from NATO Secretary Jans Stoltenberg that, “…the defeat of Ukraine means the defeat of NATO” is a testament to the fact.

    US President Joe Biden, whom has more to do with the events in Ukraine than one can truly imagine up to and including organizing the violent Maidan coup in Kyiv, is serving a conflict of interest that has resulted in nothing short of a Ukrapocalypse and possibly, the next World War. All of this decade-long nightmare has come at the expense of the well-being of the West and cost hundreds of thousands of human lives with no apparent end in sight. This is all blamed and gas-lighted onto Russian President Vladimir Putin whom has been forced to react to the outrageous impending danger created by the cross-Atlanticists which has accomplished nothing but threatening us all with a disaster of the century that should have never happened to begin with.

    Voices of reason are few and far in between in Washington and Brussels but fortunately have become much louder with initiatives of people such as Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and Slovak PM Robert Fico whom are officials of countries that border Ukraine itself. Unlike the false omnipotence purported by the cross-Atlantic West, Orban and Fico understand the dangerous and unpredictable existing reality happening on their borders and refuse to be a party to the conflict and proponents of a peaceful solution.

    On May 15, 2024 Slovak PM Fico was shot in an attempted assassination which clearly was the beginning of a campaign against anti-Ukrainian War critics by the cross-Atlantic warmongers whom are extremely paranoid and guilt ridden by condemnation of ‘undesirables’ brave enough to speak the truth and speak out against a wretched puppet regime in Ukraine under direct control of Washington and its cross-Atlantic conspirators. Also in May 2024 trouble was brewing in the country of Georgia where a major feud with Washington was unfolding in the wake of the Georgian PM Irakli Kobakhidze passing a law on foreign agents accusing former US Ambassador Kelly Degnan of supporting opposition in the country: “[I] spoke to Derek Chollet and expressed my sincere disappointment with the two revolution attempts of 2020-2023 supported by the former US Ambassador and those carried out through NGOs financed from external sources.”

    On May 23, 2024 PM Kobakhidze was explicitly threatened by an EU Commissioner citing the May 15 shooting of Slovak PM Robert Fico. According to the Georgian PM, “Even amid the prolonged blackmail [by the West], it was stunning to hear this threat in a telephone conversation with one of the EU commissioners. As we spoke, the EU commissioner listed a whole range of measures that Western partners could take if the veto of the transparency law is overridden, and while listing these measures, he said, ‘You have seen what happened to Fico, and you should be very careful.” By no means a coincidence, the Georgian PM publicly stated in late June that, “Tbilisi will under no circumstances become a second Ukraine.”

    In the first days of July 2024, PM of Hungary Viktor Orban traveled to Moscow and Beijing on a peace mission to discuss solutions of the ongoing Ukrainian War, in which Slovak PM Fico was not able to accompany Orban due to recovering from being shot in May. A severe slandering campaign against PM Orban ensued in the cross-Atlantic media as Hungary was now holding the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European July 1-December 31, 2024, which Orban sloganed to “Make Europe Great Again.” Thursday July 11, 20024 PM Orban met with former US President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida on the sidelines of the NATO Summit being held in Washington. Of course, the main theme of the meeting between Trump and Orban was to concretely discuss peace planning of which both Trump and Orban are publicly campaigning and advocating to the global community to end the war in Ukraine.

    Within 48 hours of concluding Hungarian PM Viktor Orban’s meeting in Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13, 2024 in Pennsylvania, thankfully only wounding the former US President in the right ear, but most unfortunately killing one and wounding another in attendance. Also on July 13, 2024 Ukrainian intelligence officers were admitting to failed assassination attempts on the life of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is of no coincidence the chain of events from May to July 2024 of attempted assassinations against anyone and everyone seeking to stop the war in Ukraine.

    Upon PM Viktor Orban’s return from the United States, calls for stripping Hungary of its European Council Presidency and boycotts are in full swing. Orban has repeatedly refused to wear body armor and claimed he will not ever start doing so. The Hungarian PM clearly saw the writing on the wall of plans for war and the connection of Slovak PM Robert Fico’s assassination attempt in May 2024. Ladies and gentleman, war is on the horizon. Don’t say peace in Ukraine; you will be shot like President Trump just as President Joe Biden stated he would when he put Trump “in the bulls-eye.”

    The post Don’t Say Peace in Ukraine: You Will Be Shot first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A decade of advocacy fighting for ME/CFS has left me angry and frustrated

    As part of the Canary and the Chronic Collaboration’s Amplify training programme, founder of ME Foggy Dog and Stripy Lightbulb CIC Sally Callow writes for us on her 10 years of advocacy and campaigning around myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

    The year 2014 is memorable for a number of reasons. It was the year the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, the Ebola epidemic became a global health crisis, Russia did a ‘land grab’ of Crimea, and two comedy powerhouses – Robin Williams and Joan Rivers – died. And at the same time, I became a campaigner for the myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) community. My lived experience of ME informs every aspect of my advocacy and campaign work.

    While the scientific community has made medical advances in diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease, it hasn’t taken any significant steps forward with ME. In my decade of campaigning, I have witnessed this firsthand and felt varying degrees of frustration at the difference. 

    Steps in the right direction

    As part of the ME/CFS community, I am used to celebrating the reduction of harm rather than medical breakthroughs. We fight to have harmful ‘treatments’ withdrawn rather than rejoice over new drug discoveries. 

    The ME NICE guideline (2021) is the most well-known example. Graded exercise therapy (GET) and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) were acknowledged as potentially harmful for people living with ME. But this only came after people with the disease campaigned with minimal energy.

    We simply asked NICE to ‘follow the science’, rather than a flawed debunked research trial. Oh, how we celebrated the guideline publication. 

    The 2021 NICE guideline provides the basics on how to reduce the possibility of harm. It’s an imperfect compromise but an improvement on what went before.

    However, our joy was short-lived. To this day non-adherence is widespread within the NHS. Was this ‘progress’? People living with the disease are still having to fight not to be harmed by the medical profession. 

    This non-adherence was entirely predictable and is why I started my Shake It UP campaign in Autumn 2021.

    Shaking up ME/CFS

    I am campaigning for a system to report harms from non-pharmaceutical treatments. Patient communities, including ME/CFS, have nowhere to report harm from any ‘treatment’ that is not pharmaceutical or a device. 

    I knew anecdotally, through years of advocacy and thousands of conversations, that many patients had been harmed by GET/CBT and had reported the harm to the appropriate healthcare provider/organisation. Yet, during the NICE review, it was claimed there had never been any reports of harm.

    Complaints and reports of harm had been dealt with in-house by the NHS and were never collated or counted. Appropriate reporting systems are necessary, for ME and other illnesses, where cheap ‘cost-effective’ non-pharmaceutical ‘treatments’ are the NHS go-to.  

    No one seems to want to take responsibility for the harm caused to some patients by non-pharmaceutical ‘treatments’.

    The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) stated:

    these types of treatments fall outside the remit of the MHRA.

    The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has repeatedly told me that GET and CBT are no longer issues for the ME community because ‘NICE no longer recommends’ these as ‘treatments’ for ME. However, these ‘treatments’ are still suggested to this day in GP surgeries and ‘CFS clinics’ in England (and the rest of the UK).

    The pandemic and reduction of harms

    The past four years have been about reducing harm from the pandemic. I and many others did all we could to highlight the possibility that Covid-19 could cause an ME/CFS-like illness – and it doesn’t please me to know that we were correct.

    It is now known that around 50% of long Covid cases meet ME diagnostic criteria.

    Then came the fight for ‘vulnerable group’ status for people with our disease – something that was never achieved. This is unsurprising given many in medicine still think ME is psychosomatic.

    This false belief links to why ME was not included in The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) ‘at risk’/group six list for shielding and vaccine priority, even though it is scientifically known that we have issues with our immune systems.

    It also should be said that people living with ME are at risk of vaccine side effects and vaccine harms. Too many have either experienced a worsening of ME severity or have a range of new symptoms or conditions that were caused by vaccination.

    The JCVI did not factor in these implications. It did not consider ME patients to be at risk from external factors such as vaccinations or viruses. But in reality, we risk being harmed by both.

    Further to all of this, why haven’t scientists made breakthroughs for ME?

    Progress for comparable diseases

    Diseases that affect predominantly females are tarnished by medical sexism and misogyny. Both ME/CFS and MS have been known as ‘Female Hysteria’.

    Sometimes it feels like a daily fight to be believed, as we are often told the illness is ‘all in our heads‘ or we are hypochondriacs and malingerers. This is partly why it takes a long time for the condition to be acknowledged as valid, and for progress to be made in research. For ME, the label ‘female hysteria’ has been hard to shift. 

    MS has only been taken seriously in recent decades thanks to the MRI machine. It’s impossible to deny the existence of a physical biological disease when it is visible on a scan. MRIs were first used for MS in 1983. Thanks to this, MS shrugged off the label of ‘female hysteria’.

    So, the ME community now needs its own ‘MRI moment’. 

    In 2024, those living with MS have clinical trials platform Octopus. Scientists have designed Octopus to test multiple treatments at the same time, and analyse data throughout the course of the trial. This level of forward-thinking is not happening in the ME space. However, there are discussions of linking up with the Octopus platform shortly due to overlaps between the two conditions.

    Stem cell research advances in MS and Parkinson’s disease are exciting. It is wonderful to see just how far medicine has come in terms of previously heavily stigmatised and misunderstood diseases.

    These advances give me hope. Those living with MS and Parkinson’s disease still have a long way to go. However, there has been much to celebrate in a short space of time. I can only dream of the day that equivalent treatments for ME are considered a serious possibility.

    What of ME/CFS?

    Disease Modifying Therapies (DMTs) are being used in the treatment of MS. As Gal Bitan has explained:

    Acknowledging that no cure is available, neurologists prescribe “Disease-Modifying Therapy” (DMT) to reduce the frequency, severity, and residual disability of relapses… Of the various categories, relapsing-remitting MS is the most amenable to treatment.

    Given that ME/CFS is a fluctuating disease, I hope DMTs have a place in the future of ME.

    But it is not a stretch to say that people living with ME have nothing.

    It is difficult to get a clinical diagnosis of ME due to the poor knowledge base on the disease within the medical profession. Most people walk into their GP’s office with the false assumption that whatever is wrong is treatable and they will get better in time – or at least be able to manage symptoms with medication.

    That is not the case with ME. This is in part, due to the gross underfunding of ME research for decades. As Steve Topple wrote for the Canary in 2018:

    funding per patient, per year for MS was £82.20 versus an economic disease burden of £20,000. For people living with M.E, it was £4.40 versus £13,200 respectively.

    When compared to other illnesses and conditions such as chronic renal failure, lung/breast/colon cancers, stroke, and rheumatoid arthritis, research has found that people with ME have the lowest quality of life.

    I can dream

    ME is not an insignificant disease.

    As a patient and campaigner, I know the gains made in ME research are small.

    I find it angering and upsetting. Are we not worthy of a medical breakthrough?

    I feel frustration in every fibre of my being, every single day.

    Comparing progress made in ME with that of MS and Parkinson’s reinforces the sense of injustice. I am sure MS campaigners endured the same sense of injustice for decades before their big MRI breakthrough.

    But how many more decades will I be banging my head against the immovable brick wall that is government research funding allocation?

    How much longer will I be holding my head in my hands with the NHS’s seemingly immovable and rigid structure and processes?

    When will the medical profession move into the 21st century and tackle its misogyny and sexism in its own workforce?

    My campaigning continues, so that when I reach that next milestone, the government, the NHS, and clinicians will take ME seriously and treat it equitably at long last. 

    Featured image via Stripy Lightbulb CIC

    By Sally Callow

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Shameless Labour politicians play the victim card over pro-Palestine voters

    Not even two weeks into the Labour Party’s landslide that wasn’t actually a landslide, and the UK’s brand-spanking new government and its corporate media mouthpieces have gifted the public a whistle-stop tour of the worst, the dullest, the whiniest little shits the party has to offer.

    Labour’s rightwing gammon-grifters couldn’t possibly contemplate that its spineless, Tory-esque policies would bite them on the arse at the election. So when some morally principled independents, Greens, and other parties pluckily nabbed some parliamentary seats, its “pity me” machine predictably went whirring into overdrive.

    Labour playing the victim

    So far, Labour politicians have shown if there’s one thing the new government is good at, it’s playing the victim.

    First, sore losers Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire took to the television media to whine about their election losses. Their interviews signalled the start of probably quite literally a collective public groan of sheer, unbridled exasperation.

    Unsurprisingly, the pair didn’t waste a moment for some deep and conscientious reflection. But why would they spare a precious second on that, when the think tank corporate lobbyist revolving door already beckons?

    Instead, it was straight to the voter-blaming. Both bristled at the ‘bullies’ bashing them for their pathetic stances on Gaza. So that would be voters trying to get answers out their prospective MPs then. In Accidental Partridge Ashworth’s most brilliant recent example, as the Canary’s Steve Topple pointed out, this meant:

    pretending to do some ninja shit in an attempt to intimidate said Muslim uncles.

    Therefore, one person on X rightly noted:

    Because, does it get any more sickeningly hypocritical than this? In the midst of a literal genocide where Israel has brutally bombed to death over 186,000 people, the Labour rightwing are the real victims, clearly. Plenty on X had words to say on this disgraceful response:

    Faux outrage

    But if you thought that some spurned former MPs would be the end of it, you’d be dead wrong.

    Cue new Home secretary Yvette Cooper crying wolf on “political intimidation”. Unsurprisingly, liberal Labour’s biggest media bootlicker the Guardian ate this up. It reported that:

    An alarming rise in candidate intimidation during the UK’s general election campaign will be addressed next week at a meeting of ministers and civil servants, the home secretary has said.

    Yvette Cooper said there had been “disgraceful scenes” in some areas in the run-up to the 4 July vote, as she announced she would chair a meeting of the defending democracy taskforce.

    Then, it was Angela Rayner’s turn to spinelessly spin the same narrative for the latest nauseating episode of the suck-up to Starmer show:

    Of course, the reality is that it’s arguably the Labour right that has ample experience in this political abuse. Cough *Labour Files* cough *Forde Report* cough:

    Aptly, journalist Jonathan Cook highlighted that Starmer’s Labour has form on smearing anyone trying to hold his party to account:

    But corporate media hacks will still likely fall all over themselves over neoliberal Labour’s fake persecution parade. That is, just as it did when Labour’s treacherous right and its press enablers ran a shocking stitch-up and sabotage of Jeremy Corbyn… oh wait:

    Meanwhile, Ashworth’s drunk on power met a titillating new game of “never have I ever”, but a poster on X called his bluff:

    Ultimately, these Labour politicians prove it: once a narcissistic political opportunist, always a narcissistic political opportunist. Independent MP candidate Faiza Shaheen laid out Labour’s rank hypocrisy in just one post:

    It’s clear that the new government’s faux outrage is designed to manufacture consent for continuing its assault on the left. One poster summed up Labour’s fragile white ego in a nutshell:

    Some suggested it also hinted that Labour might continue the Tories’ authoritarian crackdown on protesters:

    Because ultimately, that’s the thing – it’s increasingly blatant that Labour exists to serve whiteness, and the corporate capitalist and colonial forces that underpin its status quo.

    On with the show

    Maybe, just maybe, people didn’t vote for the Labour right’s best and brightest (heavy dose of sarcasm) because they’re servile Tory-lite turncunts:

    Because naturally, Labour’s defeat by pro-Palestine candidates had nothing to do with its mealy-mouthed prevarications on Gaza. Vile Islamophobia and anti-Black racism from the arrogant Starmerrhoids also had absolutely no part in it either:

    One thing’s for sure, this is all extremely predictable behaviour from Starmer’s petulant brand of Labour loyalists.

    I for one have been sharpening my tiny violin bow good and ready for Labour’s inevitable post-election melodrama meltdown for the next five years.

    Graciously, the media has started beaming it incessantly onto our screens. If the cacophony of careerists already clamouring their best victim theatrics is anything to go by, we’re in for quite the show.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Elevation, colour – and the American flag. Here’s what makes Evan Vucci’s Trump photograph so powerful

    ANALYSIS: By Sara Oscar, University of Technology Sydney

    The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania was captured by several photographers who were standing at the stage before the shooting commenced.

    The most widely circulated photograph of this event was taken by Evan Vucci, a Pulitzer Prize winning war photographer known for his coverage of protests following George Floyd’s murder.

    A number of World Press Photograph awards have been given to photographers who have covered an assassination.

    In this vein, Vucci’s image can also be regarded as already iconic, a photograph that perhaps too will win awards for its content, use of colour and framing — and will become an important piece of how we remember this moment in history.

    Social media analysis of the image
    Viewers of Vucci’s photograph have taken to social media to break down the composition of the image, including how iconic motifs such as the American flag and Trump’s raised fist are brought together in the frame according to laws of photographic composition, such as the rule of thirds.

    Such elements are believed to contribute to the photograph’s potency.

    To understand exactly what it is that makes this such a powerful image, there are several elements we can parse.

    Compositional acuity
    In this photograph, Vucci is looking up with his camera. He makes Trump appear elevated as the central figure surrounded by suited Secret Service agents who shield his body. The agents form a triangular composition that places Trump at the vertex, slightly to the left of a raised American flag in the sky.

    On the immediate right of Trump, an agent looks directly at Vucci’s lens with eyes concealed by dark glasses. The agent draws us into the image, he looks back at us, he sees the photographer and therefore, he seems to see us: he mirrors our gaze at the photograph.

    This figure is central, he leads our gaze to Trump’s raised fist.

    Another point of note is that there are strong colour elements in this image that deceptively serve to pull it together as a photograph.

    Set against a blue sky, everything else in the image is red, white and navy blue. The trickles of blood falling down Trump’s face are echoed in the red stripes of the American flag which aligns with the republican red of the podium in the lower left quadrant of the image.

    We might not see these elements initially, but they demonstrate how certain photographic conventions contribute to Vucci’s own ways of seeing and composing that align with photojournalism as a discipline.

    A photographic way of seeing
    In interviews, Vucci has referred to the importance of retaining a sense of photographic composure in being able to attain “the shot”, of being sure to cover the situation from numerous angles, including capturing the scene with the right composition and light.

    For Vucci, all of this was about “doing the job” of the photographer.

    Vucci’s statements are consistent with what most photographers would regard as a photographic way of seeing. This means being attuned to the way composition, light, timing and subject matter come together in the frame in perfect unity when photographing: it means getting the “right” shot.

    For Susan Sontag, this photographic way of seeing also corresponded to the relationship between shooting and photographing, a relationship she saw as analogous.

    Photography and guns are arguably weapons, with photography and photographic ways of seeing and representing the world able to be weaponised to change public perception.

    Writing history with photographs
    As a photographic way of seeing, there are familiar resonances in Vucci’s photograph to other iconic images of American history.

    Take for instance, the photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal, The Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima (1945) during the Pacific War. In the photograph, four marines are clustered together to raise and plant the American flag, their bodies form a pyramid structure in the lower central half of the frame.

    This photograph is also represented as a war monument in Virginia for marines who have served America.

    The visual echoes between the Rosenthal and Vucci images are strong. They also demonstrate how photographic ways of seeing stretch beyond the compositional. It leads to another photographic way of seeing, which means viewing the world and the events that take place in it as photographs, or constructing history as though it were a photograph.

    Fictions and post-truth
    The inherent paradox within “photographic seeing” is that no single person can be in all places at once, nor predict what is going to happen before reality can be transcribed as a photograph.

    In Vucci’s photograph, we are given the illusion that this photograph captures “the moment” or “a shot”. Yet it doesn’t capture the moment of the shooting, but its immediate aftermath. The photograph captures Trump’s media acuity and swift, responsive performance to the attempted assassination, standing to rise with his fist in the air.

    In a post-truth world, there has been a pervasive concern about knowing the truth. While that extends beyond photographic representation, photography and visual representation play a considerable part.

    Whether this image will further contribute to the mythology of Donald Trump, and his potential reelection, is yet to be seen.
    The Conversation

    Sara Oscar, senior lecturer in visual communication, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Has Wes Streeting started off on the right foot for the NHS?

    In many ways, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s transition to prime minister has looked seamless. The first few days of his leadership were well planned, as he swiftly recruited his ministers into position with no major hiccups, and provided few surprises among his appointments. He was keen to let us all know that he and his team were getting straight to work, when they – including new NHS health secretary Wes Streeting – assembled in Downing Street for their first cabinet meeting, on a Saturday – in an unusual move.

    The decision was clever, because it allowed no void in the media reporting, no opportunity for doubt or criticism as he got his feet under the table. Quite the opposite: a weekend cabinet meeting created photo opportunities for a cabinet who looked poised, united, and energised.

    This was impressive to see, because after a long six weeks on the campaign trail, you’d imagine that these politicians wanted to take a few days off to rest, reflect, and regroup before arriving in parliament.

    Unfortunately for them, they didn’t get a break at all. Keir Starmer has been keen to let us know that they’ll get stuck in immediately, to get started on important work before parliament’s summer recess.

    Broken Britain

    Many of us in the campaigning sphere had received this message loud and clear, and as we saw those photos of the new ministers entering Downing Street and sitting around its long table, we wondered what the first items for discussion would be. Labour, after all, have inherited a broken country, with innumerable areas which deserve immediate attention as they take the helm.

    In the NHS alone, there are dozens of issues which this new government needs to tackle, and we have waited a very long time for a group of politicians to come and do just that.

    Things are so bad now that the NHS in England alone has an unmet repair bill of almost £12bn, and we are missing 121,000 NHS staff in England. I don’t need to tell you about the waiting lists, on which millions and millions of people are waiting, unable to access the treatment they need.

    So I thought I’d let you know what Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting have prioritised in their very first week, and whether their actions have been well-targeted.

    Wes Streeting: junior doctors and primary care

    Firstly, let’s talk about the NHS junior doctor strikes.

    I’m sure you know that these strikes have been dragging on for a very long time, because doctors (and all NHS staff) were treated absolutely appallingly by the Conservative government. The staff are fighting for pay restoration to make their pay more fair, and to ensure that the NHS itself is protected. After all, we cannot hope to have an excellent health service if the staff are hugely underpaid.

    The striking doctors are taking action to help all of us.

    Wes Streeting had announced prior to election day that resolving the strikes would be a priority of his, and he’s kept his word. He held a meeting with the BMA, and it looks like things went positively. An agreement has not yet been reached, however, and we’ll have to watch to see what happens next.

    Streeting has also prioritised primary care in his first few days as health secretary, visiting a GP surgery in London with the chief executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, and explaining that he wants to improve things. This would be a welcome commitment, because GP services have been woefully under-resourced in recent years.

    A recent survey from the BMA for example showed that four out of five locum GPs in England cannot find work, despite many patients struggling to see their GP at the moment. It was alarming to see press coverage, however, which announced that Streeting plans to fund his plans for primary care by diverting billions from NHS hospitals.

    The Labour government will not fix the NHS simply by moving money around; they need to commit to proper investment.

    Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting: to close to Blair for the NHS’s liking

    Wes Streeting also attended the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change Future of Britain Conference” to give a speech. Some of his ideas are good, just as some of Labour’s plans for the NHS in general sound positive. They seem committed to longer-term thinking about the NHS, and want to invest in better technology and well-functioning community services.

    But there are many who are feeling very worried about the proximity of Wes Streeting and prime minister Starmer to New Labour Blair and his allies. After all, Blair’s tenure in office led to many costly, inefficient Private Finance Initiative hospital building projects which we are still paying off (and will be doing so until 2050).

    Starmer has chosen to push back parliamentary recess until the end of July, or even early August, in order to get started with crucial work in rebuilding things after 14 years of Conservative mismanagement and poor leadership.

    We need them to take this work seriously, listen to experts and frontline NHS staff, and reject the creep of corporate interests into the NHS and elsewhere.

    Featured image via UK government 

    By Dr Julia Grace Patterson

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Multipolarity and BRICS Once More


    The debates over “multipolarity” and the significance of an allegedly multipolar BRICS grouping continue. In an opinion piece in People’s Voice (“Multipolarity, BRICS+ and the struggle for peace, cooperation, and socialism today,” June 16-30, 2024) writer Garrett Halas mounts an earnest defense of multipolarity and the BRICS+ “as a positive step towards socialism.”

    Halas joins many others in envisioning all twenty-first-century resistance to US imperialism and the imperialism of its (largely ex-Cold War) partners as the same as resistance to imperialism in general. They divide the world into the US and its friends and those who, to some extent or another, oppose the US. Sometimes they characterize this as a conflict between the global North and the global South. Sometimes they refer to the imperialist antagonists collectively as “the West.”

    From the perspective of the multipolarity proponents, if the countries resisting the US should neutralize US domination and that of its allies, then the world will become peaceful and harmonious. In their view, it is not capitalism that obstructs enduring peace, but US imperial aspirations alone. Accordingly, in the idealized future, multiple friendly, cooperative states (poles) will engage in peaceful, equitable economic transactions that all agree will be mutually advantageous — what Chinese leaders call “win-win.” If this isn’t achieved immediately, it will soon follow. Is not socialism down the road?

    The reality is that as important as resisting US domination and aggression surely is, its decline or defeat will not put an end to imperialism, as long as monopoly capitalism continues to exist.

    In the history of modern-era imperialism, the decline of every dominating great capitalist power has spawned the rise of another. As one power recedes, others step up and contest for global dominance — that is the fundamental logic of imperialism. And, all too often, war ensues.

    • CLASS: Glaringly absent from the theory of multipolarity is the concept of class. Advocates of a multipolar world fail to explain how class relations– specifically the interests of the working class– are advanced with the existence of multiple capitalist poles. Halas tells us that the “BRICS+ is a coalition with a concrete class character rooted in the global South” but he doesn’t tell us what that “concrete class character” is. This is a critical question and a significant problem, given that Halas concedes that “most BRICS+ nations are capitalist”! Of the original BRICS members, capitalism is unquestionably the dominant economic system in Russia, India, South Africa, and Brazil. Of the candidate members scheduled for entry in 2024– Argentina (likely a withdrawal), Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates– all are capitalist. The idea that working class interests will be served, and socialism advanced by this group seems far-fetched.
  • CLASS CONFLICT: Class struggle — the motor of the struggle for workers’ advances, workers’ power, and socialism — has been stifled by the governments of nearly all the BRICS and BRICS+ countries. In Iran, for example, Communism is illegal and Communists have been executed in large numbers. Communism is likewise illegal in Saudi Arabia. Modi has conducted class war against India’s farmers. South Africa’s working class has seen unemployment and poverty rise under the disappointing government. Egyptian workers labor under a brutal military government. How does their entry into BRICS promise socialism?
  • GLOBAL NORTH/GLOBAL SOUTH: Halas and the “multipolaristas” would have it that the “contradiction” informing multipolarity is the clash between the “global north” and the “global south” or, paradoxically, the “West” and the rest of the world. Apart from the fact that the geographical division captures little—other than the imagination of social-media leftists– it gives the impression that Australia and New Zealand have something in common with impoverished Burundi. Or that Serbia and Germany are Western partners in exploiting small African countries. There is, of course, a division between wealthy countries and poor countries, between exploiters and exploited. Historically, the sharpest fault lines have been defined by colonialism and its successor, neo-colonialism. But the imperialist cards are shuffled from time to time due to resource inequities, uneven development, or other gained advantages. For example, the Arabian Peninsula was once a dominated colony of the Ottoman empire. That empire’s dissolution and subsequent developments led to an emergent Saudi Arabia infused with resource wealth and high up on the imperialist hierarchy. Today, India has three of the top 20 corporations in Asia by market value, larger than all Japanese corporations except for Toyota. India’s Tata Group has a market capitalization of over $380 billion, with its tentacles spread to 100 countries. The June 28 UK Morning Star editorial informs us: “Tata Steel’s threat to shut the blast furnaces at Port Talbot three months earlier if Unite goes ahead with strike action is blackmail. The India-based multinational does not believe steelworkers should have a say in the plant’s future… It’s outrageous that the future of British steelmaking should be at the whim of a billionaire on a different continent.”
  • DECOUPLING: Halas suggests that BRICS+ offers an opportunity for countries to break out of the capitalist international financial structures imposed after World War II and the dominance of the dollar in global transactions. Such an option may exist in the future, but clearly it is intended as an option and not a substitute for existing structures and exchange instruments. As recently as late June of this year, PRC Premier Li Qiang said that “We should broadly open our minds, work closely together, abandon camp formations, (and) oppose decoupling…” [my emphasis] It is clear that the picture of global country-to-country relations– as envisioned by Peoples’ China’s second most prominent leader, Li, at the “Summer” Davos– offers no challenge to existing financial arrangements or to the dominance of the dollar. The antagonistic conflict between the old order and the new multipolar order is more a fantasy in the minds of some on the left than a real policy goal of the leading country in BRICS.
  • ANTI-IMPERIALISM: Halas would like us to believe that twentieth-century anti-imperialism is multipolarity embodied in BRICS. He cites the UN votes on Palestinian status and oppression (predictably vetoed by the US) as an example of “global south” anti-imperialism. While symbolic and not without significance, it is hardly the principled anti-imperialist action we came to know in earlier times. It is worth reminding that Saudi Arabia was on the verge of abandoning Palestine for better relations with Israel before October 7. Egypt has long sold out the cause of Palestine, as has much of the Arab world. According to Al Jazeera, India is currently selling military supplies to Israel. Virtue-signaling at UN forums is not a substitute for concrete, material solidarity.
  • CHINA: This is not the place for debating whether the Peoples’ Republic of China is a socialist country, a favorite parlor game of the Euro-US left. However, it is worth stating that — as the only self-acclaimed socialist country currently in BRICS — the PRC does not claim to be advocating, encouraging, or materially aiding the struggle for socialism outside of China. Unlike the former Soviet Union, the PRC does not prioritize or privilege investment or material support for countries embarking on the socialist path. The word “socialism” is largely absent from its foreign policy statements. While the Chinese leadership defends its outlook as “socialism with Chinese characters,” it does not demonstrably support “socialism with anybody else’s national characters.” Yet, some on the left see multipolarity and a largely capitalist BRICS as a road to socialism for the rest of us?
  • WE HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE: In the 1960s, it was common for the left in Europe and the US to lose hope in the revolutionary potential of the working classes. Where working-class movements in Europe aligned with Communist Parties, they fully committed to a gradualist, parliamentary road to socialism. An anti-Communist New Left proposed a different vehicle of revolutionary change: The Third World. In the common parlance of the time, the Third World was the newly emergent, former colonies that were neither in the US camp nor the Soviet camp. Per this view, revolutionary change (and ultimately) socialism would grow from the independent road chosen by the leaders of these emergent nations. But instead, they were overwhelmed by the neo-colonialism of the great capitalist powers and absorbed by the global capitalist market, with few exceptions.
  • AND EVEN EARLIER: Karl Kautsky, the major theoretician of the Socialist International, anticipated multipolarity in 1914, introducing a concept that he called “ultra-imperialism.” Kautsky believed that great power imperialism and war had no future. The imperialist system would, of necessity, stabilize and, due to declining capital exports, “Imperialism is thus digging its own grave… [T]he policy of imperialism therefore cannot be continued much longer.” For Kautsky, a stage of “concentration” of capitalist states, comparable to cartelization of corporations, will lead to inter-imperialist harmony. Lenin rejected this theory out of hand. For a discussion, go here.

Imperialism is not a stable system. Capitalist participants are always seeking a competitive advantage against their rivals. Sometimes they find it useful or necessary to form (often temporary) coalitions or alliances with others in order to protect or advance their interests. One such alliance was forged by the US after the Second World War in opposition to the socialist bloc and the national liberation movements.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US sought to keep existing coalitions intact by selecting or devising new enemies– the war on drugs, the war against terrorism, and wars of humanitarian intervention. Beneath these political ties existed a US established and dominated global economic structure privileging the US, but deemed necessary to protect the capitalist system.

This politico-economic framework served capitalism well, until the great economic crash of 2007-2009 and the ensuing cracks and fractures in the framework. The turmoil unleashed by the crisis dampened the pace of growth in international trade and accelerated the competition for markets. Further challenging the US-centered framework was the ability of People’s China to navigate the crisis rather painlessly. Where the US ruling class formerly saw the PRC as an opportunity, it began to see China as a rival in the imperialist system.

The post-Soviet global market — cemented by the so-called “globalization” process — began to unravel in the wake of twentieth-century economic instability, especially the 2007-2009 crash. Rather than defend existing free-trade dogma, capitalist countries were drawn to protectionism and economic nationalism. Beginning in the Trump Administration and accelerating during the Biden Administration, the US waged a tariff-and-sanctions war against economic competitors. US dominance of international financial institutions and the nearly universal dependence upon the US dollar gave US leaders even more weapons in this competition.

The US “pivot” to China in its defense posture and its growing hostility to Russia were reflections of its losing ground to the PRC’s growing economic might and Russia’s dominance of Eurasian energy markets.

Understandably, in this new era of economic nationalism, Russia, China, the leading power on the subcontinent, India, Africa’s top economic power, South Africa, and the largest economy in Latin America, Brazil, would look to counter aggressive US and EU competition. The era of mutual cooperation was ending, and the era of intense rivalry and national self-interest was emerging. It was in this environment that BRICS was born.

It was a capitalist response to a capitalist problem, not a path to socialism.

The main task for Communists and progressives is not to take sides, but to fight to ensure that these fractures and frictions do not explode into war.

The post Multipolarity and BRICS Once More first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • From being homeless in 2019 to interviewing Akehurst in 2024 – it’s been more than a general election

    During the last general election, I was homeless. 

    On Thursday night, the Canary sent me to cover the general election results live from Durham North. Never in a million years did I expect that. Ever. Let alone four and a half years ago. 

    Back in 2019, even though I was homeless I was heavily involved in the election campaign. Spurred on by the connection I felt to our local candidate, Hugo Fearnley and of course – Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

    Hugo and the campaign team took me under their wing – they fed me, they let me stay in their houses and for a month or so they gave me a purpose. I helped run the campaign office, organise teams of canvassers, and I felt like I was finally doing something useful with my time. Ultimately though, they believed in me for the first time in my life. They gave me hope that something else was possible. 

    The local campaign embodied the hope that we saw throughout Corbyn’s campaign – and let’s face it, his career. His campaign spread the belief that a better future was possible for every single struggling person in our country. His campaign spoke directly to me and for me.

    Real world experience this general election

    So on Thursday 4 July 2024, I felt like I was walking on a cloud – or even running. With enough adrenaline in me to resuscitate a blue whale and more caffeine than a 5ft 1 human should ever consume – I spent the night interviewing the general election candidates and reporting back to Canary HQ on what was going on on the ground. 

    And whilst I did attend the election count in Scarborough back in 2019, it was a whole different experience being there as a member of the press. Having a press badge in my back pocket made me feel like I had earned my place there rather than being brought along as a candidate’s plus one, or two, or three. 

    It was intimidating as hell walking into the press room – full of ‘well-dressed’ and intellectual-sounding journalists sharing anecdotes about their times at Edinburgh and Oxbridge. Without even a GCSE in English to my name, that could not have been further from my reality. 

    I do not have that Oxbridge degree or a relative at the Times. But I have real world experience that so many of Britain’s journalists and politicians could never even imagine. And you can bet that I will continue to use it for as much good as possible. 

    Speaking truth to power

    Journalism has always felt like a very exclusive profession. You need friends in high places or a degree from a decent uni. Well I have neither, and honestly – on Thursday l was glad of it. I watched other news outlets interviewing candidates and saw the dull looking expressions on both of their faces. Did they even want to be there? Were the results going to affect their lives in any fucking way? 

    With my two iPhone’s (one borrowed, because who can afford two?), and with my cheap tripod and microphones I managed to interview six of the seven candidates in Durham North.

    Once they announced the results, I took my chance to grab Luke Akehurst. It was already nearly 4am but I wasn’t leaving without trying. He probably thought he’d managed to avoid me – but his first question was ‘are you from [the] Canary?’ and then ‘I’m sure you’ll have the best questions of the night’ – did I detect a hint of sarcasm there Lukey?

    I was suddenly grateful for the heavy police presence. 

    Without Corbyn’s campaign back in 2019, I’m not sure where I would be today. The people I met during that month led me directly out of homelessness and into a far better future. They didn’t have to help me – but they chose to. So on Thursday, as I stood interviewing parliamentary candidates and new MPs – I could not help but think back to that election night in 2019.

    For someone like me, who has been and is still directly affected by so many of the issues our politicians spend so much time arguing over – being at the count as a member of the press and being able to hold these men to account was a huge fucking deal.

    It tells me that people like me do belong in places like that. And it goes against everything I was taught growing up – that my voice does matter and that I can speak truth to power.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • #SwindonsSundaySermon: we do not live under a democratic system – but hope is not lost

    Stop the press. I found myself feeling a little bit sorry for the new prime minister, Keir Starmer, this morning.

    Not because Britain’s 58th prime minister Starmer has the charisma of a freshly-filleted and boned puffer fish, or even because he is so boring he makes the dead want to die again.

    But surely even Starmer deserved to go out this past Friday evening for a few beers with the lads, following Labour’s ‘big’ victory on Thursday night?

    To be fair to the new prime minister, he only seems to have a beer on a Friday night when he is ‘working in Durham’, which does make me wonder what they put in the water in the North East because Dominic Cummings also thought it was an ideal place to take his car for a drive to test his eyesight during the height of lockdown restrictions in 2020, on his wife’s birthday.

    Anyway, the editor has suggested I “reflect” on Thursday’s rotation of the ruling class, so I will reflect in a way that would have client journalists from the corporate media clearing their desks overnight.

    I’m sure my editor meant “toast that Starmer bastard”…

    Anyway.

    Corbyn was right even under our batshit democracy

    So let me start by getting this right. Keir Starmer got around a half-a-million less votes than “the worst Labour performance at a general election since 1935”, but won a sizeable majority that could keep Labour in power for a generation?

    And just to double check. Less than 20% of those eligible to vote actually voted for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, but the new prime minister is sat in Downing Street holding 100% of the power?

    And for absolute clarity, despite Starmer’s deeply damaging and entirely intentional 2018 Brexit shift, and the greatest McCarthyite witch hunt and smear campaign in the history of British politics, Mr Corbyn *still* built a Labour manifesto that got more votes than the new government with the 174 seat majority, proving once again that the British people aren’t afraid of socialism?

    I’ve said it many times before and I will say it many times again. Corbyn — the new history-making independent MP for Islington North — was right.

    Don’t you just love general elections and the batshit British democracy though?

    Well no, I don’t. This is the literal antithesis of a healthy, functioning democracy. Our democracy is as corrupted and compromised as the politicians that sit in the mother of all parliaments.

    Sour grapes? I have been an advocate of proportional representation before I was able to spell it, and pronounce it without sounding like a five-year-old with a fizzy cola bottle stuck to their top gum.

    Our system of democracy is utterly broken and the neoliberal political class has thrown away the tools we need to repair it.

    The question now, that needs to be answered by the numerous left-wing factions, organisations and movements, is how on earth do we go about it?

    We need unity – and quickly

    Bringing people together is the key that will at least allow us to unlock the tool shed. We then strengthen our combined forces so we can have a thorough look inside the shed to see what other tools we possess that might even go some way to repairing the broken and battered British democracy.

    I think you know what I mean. Unity.

    We don’t have to like each other. We encounter people throughout life that we tolerate because we just want an easier time. Surely we go through enough struggles already with our day-to-day lives without the need for an ideological battle of purity?

    The morally destitute Starmerites have got nearly everything that they wanted, despite pulling off THREE FUCKING MILLION less votes than the general election of 2017.

    We’re not going to beat these dangerous red Tory establishment pawns without playing a little bit of chess ourselves.

    Starmer isn’t invincible, he is a weak leader, guided by a coercive oxygen thief that used to go on shopping trips with Jeffrey Epstein.

    Did you watch Starmer’s first speech outside Downing Street on Friday afternoon? The new prime minister had to check his notes more than 150 times during his brief speech. I do worry when a politician needs an autocue or a script to tell them what they are supposed to believe in.

    We all know Starmer’s Labour takes millions of pounds in perfectly legitimate donations from the proponents of an aggressive colonial American outpost that is currently having its genocidal arse dragged through the international courts.

    You can’t honestly be telling me Keir Starmer — an anti-socialist dog whistler that wants to clamp down on lawful protests such as Stop The War Coalition — is infallible, can you?

    An undeserved majority in our ‘democracy’

    The simple truth is this: Starmer’s undeserved parliamentary majority — secured with just 33.9% of the popular vote — is the result of a Tory collapse across the country. No Tory collapse, no Labour government.

    The Labour Party has not been endorsed by the British people. The Conservatives have been rejected by the British people.

    The Starmerites that have spent the best part of four years demanding we support their centre-right fraud of a leader will now get the chance to prove they were telling the truth when they insisted Starmer would head back to the left-wing once he lied his way into power and the Tory-lite agenda was just a ruse to secure the votes of middle England and the North.

    Seriously folks, don’t hold your breath.

    The corporate media needs to wean itself off its unhealthy addiction for Nigel Farage.

    The Liberal Democrats — not a party I find myself agreeing with very often — must be absolutely miffed as to how they get 12% of the vote share and 0% of the media publicity while the Farage party picks up just slightly more with 14% of the vote share but attracts 100% of the publicity.

    An unhealthy Farage addiction

    Nigel Farage isn’t the box office attraction the media seem to think. But they are happy to over-promote the hateful boil, wilfully pushing the British public further to the right.

    If using racism, xenophobia, sexism and Islamophobia to stir up division is your kind of thing, Farage is your man.

    If you want an elitist politician that has deeply toxic connections to extreme and far-right figures across the world, and Thatcherite beliefs that he keeps quiet from communities in deindustrialised towns, Farage is for you.

    Mr Farage is the son of a wealthy stockbroker, and attended Dulwich College, one of the most elite schools in the country, which several family members had also attended. Farage is not an anti-establishment insurgent. Farage *is* the establishment, and Reform are funded by the establishment.

    Let us not castigate the four million Reform voters. Let us educate them. Whilst I have absolutely no doubt the Reform Party has more than its fair share of uncouth, bigoted louts, they’re not all nasty little racists in the mold of the narcissistic nationalist, Nigel Farage.

    We do not live under a democratic system

    As this weeks period of reflection comes to an end, the Canary team takes a well-earned breather, and the new prime minister steps up his search for a Secretary of State for Genocide, most likely in North Durham, I only have a bit more to add.

    Tony Benn’s final speech to the House of Commons as MP was an appropriately eloquent farewell, in which he talked widely on his view of the role of parliament and the wider question of democracy:

    In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person–Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates–ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

    Friends, loved ones, and anyone else that’s managed to digest the previous twelve hundred or so words with just the slightest hint of agreement, we do not live under a democratic system.

    Featured image via Rachael Swindon

    By Rachael Swindon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • How Mossad Plotted to Assassinate Iranian President?

    Despite losing the presidential debate to Republican candidate Donald Trump, President Joe Biden’s electoral campaign appears to be in full swing now. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been set free after a plea deal in order to woo progressive voters. In Gaza, Biden is simultaneously playing the role of arsonist and the firefighter.

    Last October, he sent aircraft-carriers and nuclear submarines in support of Israel and provided military assistance to the tune of billions of dollars, including bombs, missiles and aircraft, to slaughter hapless Palestinians. But at the same time, he built a shoddy pier to let humanitarian aid flow, and persuaded Netanyahu to let him at least create optics of being a neutral arbiter while he is the main enabler of Zionists’ genocide of Palestinians.

    The only theater where the purported peacenik [Biden a peacenik? — DV ed] can’t do much is the Ukraine War because the Pentagon’s military brass won’t let him squander the opportunity to destabilize arch-rival Russia. Therefore he would have to convince gullible neoliberals by deploying Orwellian jargon that war is peace, bombs are rose petals, America’s adversaries are recalcitrant villains, while the United States is the only bastion of democracy and civil liberties under the thumb of corporate interests and the deep state.

    As far as the Zionist regime’s genocidal war in Gaza is concerned, this isn’t even a war but downright genocide of unarmed Palestinians, as war is between two comparable armies, whereas in the Gaza Holocaust, a regional power backed by the world’s most powerful military force is committing merciless ethnic cleansing of hapless Palestinians.

    Incidentally, the death toll of the savage slaughter is grossly understated by monopoly media for ulterior motives. 38,000 is just the number of dead bodies counted by aid workers, whereas the exact death toll is well above 100,000, as most dead bodies are still buried beneath the rubble of Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah and would take months, if not years, to recover after the rubble is cleared.

    Besides the Biden admin’s reluctance to start another devastating Middle East war in the election year and eliminating Biden’s chances of winning a second term, another reason the American deep state is also hesitant to greenlight Israel’s ground invasion of Hezbollah’s bastion in southern Lebanon is that all the military resources of the Pentagon are currently being consumed by the protracted proxy war in east Ukraine.

    Moreover, the Biden admin is also concerned that mounting a military offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon might provoke Iran to mount retaliatory missile and drone strikes on critical energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, such as the Abqaiq oil installation attack in September 2019, [This attack on the Abqaiq facility is usually ascribed to the Houthis in Yemen — DV ed] thus disrupting global energy supply in the election year and eliminating Biden’s chances of winning the elections.

    However, Israel’s opportunistic policymakers are yearning to draw Iran into Gaza War, thus creating a pretext for the expansion of the war in southern Lebanon in order to cash the opportunity to dismantle the Iran-Hezbollah nexus once and for all, posing a security threat to Israel’s northern borders.

    Even though by the mainstream media’s own accounts the Shiite leadership of Iran and Hezbollah wasn’t even aware of Sunni Palestinian liberation movement Hamas’ October 7 assault. It’s worth pointing out that Hamas’ main patrons are oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Egypt, not Iran, as frequently alleged by the mainstream disinformation campaign. In fact, Hamas as a political movement is the Palestinian offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

    Notwithstanding, while craven Arab petro-sheikhs, under the thumb of duplicitous American masters enabling the Zionist regime’s atrocious genocide of unarmed Palestinians, were squabbling over when would be the opportune moment to recognize Israel and establish diplomatic and trade ties, the Iran-led resistance axis, comprising Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansarallah in Yemen, has claimed stellar victories in the battlefield against Israel.

    As far as Israel’s airstrike at Iran’s consulate in Damascus on April 1 is concerned, killing two top commanders of the IRGC, it is the declared state policy of the Zionist regime of medieval assassins to use deception and subterfuge in order to eliminate formidable adversaries if it lacks the courage to cross swords with them in the battlefield.

    It’s worth noting that a tip-off from the Mossad led to the cowardly assassination of Iran’s celebrated warrior Haj Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, after Haj Soleimani gave the Zionist regime and its American patrons a bloody nose in Syria’s proxy war.

    Nonetheless, after the consulate airstrike, Iran retaliated by mounting the first direct airstrike on Israel with over 300 drones, cruise and ballistic missiles on April 13. The airstrike was codenamed Operation True Promise, or Vada-e-Sadiq in Persian.

    In response, Israel vowed to avenge the direct Iranian airstrike on its territory. Immediately afterwards, on April 19, Israeli F-15s reportedly launched Blue Sparrow ballistic target missiles at Isfahan’s military sites from Iraq’s airspace that destroyed the radar system of an S-300 air defense battery at a military airport in Isfahan.

    But the retaliatory strike failed to assuage the murderous frenzy of Israel’s military hawks who vowed to teach Iran a memorable lesson for punching above its weight. Then Mossad Director David Barnea presented a detailed plan to the war cabinet to execute Iran’s president, which was immediately approved by PM Netanyahu and Israeli military’s top brass because the covert assassination plot left sufficient room for claiming plausible deniability. The Biden admin and CIA Director William Burns also gave green light to the Mossad, according to Turkish and Azerbaijani security officials who were briefed on the matter by CIA officials.

    Thus, on the fateful day of May 19, Iran’s charismatic and eloquent President Ebrahim Raisi was due to inaugurate a hydroelectric dam in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. It’s pertinent to mention that Azerbaijan is one of the closest allies of Israel in the region that has longstanding trade and defense ties with Israel. It received generous Israeli military assistance during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia, and hosts several listening posts of Mossad in order to spy on Iran.

    After the inauguration of the dam, the Azerbaijani delegation presented a souvenir to the Iranian delegation to be conveyed to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. It was a voluminous, handwritten book on Islamic jurisprudence dating back to the Safavid era, according to Iranian security officials who refused to be identified. The book was placed in a box and handed over to representative of the Supreme Leader in East Azerbaijan Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem.

    Ale-Hashem boarded the same helicopter as President Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and placed the box with a hidden enclosure containing remotely controlled explosive device in the luggage compartment. The helicopter was part of a convoy of three helicopters that departed for Tabriz after the inauguration of the dam. But the Iranian delegation didn’t know that an Israeli stealth drone operated by Mossad was chasing the convoy.

    Forty-five minutes into the flight, the pilot of Raisi’s helicopter, who was in charge of the convoy, ordered other helicopters to increase altitude to avoid a nearby cloud. Thus, under the cover of the clouds the drone sent a signal and the explosive device in the briefcase detonated, causing the helicopter to crash on the rocks below, killing all eight people onboard.

    I’m not sure if that’s a coincidence but the crash site is identified as the village of Uzi in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. Because Uzi is a globally renowned Israeli sub-machine gun, often brandished by gangsters and assassins in the Hollywood flicks. In any case, Mossad’s operatives do have a sense of irony.

    Although Iran’s competent investigators are quite capable to figure out the Mossad’s assassination plot, they were forced by Iran’s political leadership to declare the assassination an accident. Because hardliners in Iran have been clamoring for a full-scale war with Israel after witnessing the merciless genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

    Had Iran’s political leadership admitted the fact that Ebrahim Raisi’s death was in fact an assassination by Mossad, then it would have become impossible to hold back the war hawks. Therefore, the leadership decided to bury the hatchet and immediately called elections in which moderate candidate Masoud Pezeshkian has been elected the new president of Iran.

    The post How Mossad Plotted to Assassinate Iranian President? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • HISTORY MADE! Staggering Corbyn victory leaves establishment REELING

    He’s only gone and done it.

    The allotment-loving, jam-making, peace-seeking, award-winning, greatest bearded vegan in political history, Jeremy Corbyn, has delivered the goods once more.

    Peter Mandelson, Neil Kinnock, Margaret Hodge: your boy Praful took a hell of a beating.

    Context: The Labour Party has the money, the machine, and of course, the mainstream media. Labour has held Islington North since 1937 – a staggering 87 years.

    Jeremy Corbyn has just made history, my friends.

    Corbyn: a long night

    I’ve been sat here for hours, patiently waiting for the count in Islington North to be completed, and thank fucking god Jeremy won because I don’t fancy waking up in the morning with that awful 2019 feeling.

    At first we heard the declaration would be at 1.30am, then it was 2am. To be honest I would’ve happily waited until 3am next Friday morning for the same result.

    Even up until Wednesday night, the bookies had Praful Nargund as the odds on favourite to win the seat for the Labour Party, but they forget, Jeremy Corbyn was once a massive 200/1 to lead the Labour Party.

    On Wednesday evening, which now seems a lifetime ago, YouGov had Labour and Nargund at 43% and Jeremy Corbyn at 38%.

    This is what Jeremy Corbyn does. He defies the odds time and time again, despite unenviably facing the wrath of the British establishment, and despite the vexatious and utterly vicious smears levelled at Mr Corbyn and his family, this is what Jeremy Corbyn does.

    Pleased? No. Utterly fucking ecstatic Jeremy Corbyn has won the seat of Islington North for an unprecedented ELEVENTH time? You bet I am.

    A victory for all of us

    This was a victory for Jeremy, Laura, his children and grandchild.

    This was a victory for a focused, hard-working team — from across the left — and a brilliantly-orchestrated campaign, both on the ground in the constituency and online.

    This was a victory for the politics of hope. Jeremy Corbyn has spent six decades fighting for peace, justice and equality.

    We used to believe the Labour Party was the natural vehicle for societal change, now the S*n-backed Labour Party is a greater obstacle to socialism than the utterly devastated, barely functioning Conservative Party.

    If the early results continue in the same direction, and the exit poll is anywhere near correct, this is the end of one Conservative Party and the beginning of another. It’s not like the new spivs on the block even bother hiding their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, or care if anyone correctly identifies Starmer’s guardians of the elite as conservatives – with a small “c”.

    There’s so many other words beginning with “c” that we could apply to the incoming government, but I will leave that to your imagination because tonight belongs to the new Collective-backed independent member of parliament for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn.

    It might well be well past 3am, but a Corbyn victory has just hit me like six cans of Red Bull and a month’s worth of Prozac.

    Labour had it all – but it wasn’t real or enough

    Labour had the resources, we had a plan. Labour had the political heavyweights, we had thousands of people flooding the streets of Islington. Not because it was their job — no payments are received — but because they also wanted this moment that I’m having now, some two hours and ninety two miles away from the scenes of jubilation currently underway in Islington town hall.

    I’ll level with you. I’m one of Jeremy’s biggest supporters. Both the S*n and The Mail ‘doorstepped’ me for the crime of being a left-wing woman that gives zero fucks for what people think about my backing for Jeremy and his values.

    The nearest I got to payment was rich tea biscuits and a coffee in Jeremy’s original office (the one where the anti-Black racist Starmer took the knee in solidarity against anti-Black racism), and if you was to force me to go on Mastermind my specialist subject would be the Corbyn years, 2015 – 2019.

    But even I had a few worries over the past six weeks.

    I knew Tory voters were backing privateer Praful in an attempt to defeat Jeremy, and I think most people were aware of the difficulties of attempting to inform the masses that Jeremy was no longer a Labour candidate.

    It’s easy for us to forget, social media isn’t an accurate microcosm of British politics. If the election was contested on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, Jeremy would be in his seventh year as prime minister, Keir Starmer would’ve been a toolmaker’s apprentice, and Boris Johnson would still be a lying sack of shit.

    One brilliant victory

    It’s been an incredibly long night, and bedtime isn’t far away, and whatever Labour majority I wake up to in an hour or so will mean so very little to me, because this Corbyn victory is the beginning of something very special.

    The faces of one Conservative politician after another, looking like they’ve lost a grand and found a quid, is enough to warm the coldest of hearts and invigorate the most tired of eyes.

    But none of this compares to just this one brilliant victory in Islington North for Jeremy Corbyn.

    I couldn’t be any prouder of Jeremy and the brilliant team behind him. Tonight, we have created our own little piece of history and Jeremy Corbyn is the new independent member of parliament for Islington North.

    And best of all? It wasn’t even close.

    Featured image via Rachael Swindon

    By Rachael Swindon

    This post was originally published on Canary.