UPDATE
Minutes after I posted this article, the ludicrous Jess Phillips published an article in the Guardian which could not have been better designed to prove my thesis. A number of people have posted comments on the Guardian article pointing this out, and they have all been immediately deleted by the Guardian. I just tried it myself and was also deleted. I should be grateful if readers could now also try posting comments there, in order to make a point about censorship on the Guardian.
Catching up on a fortnight’s news, I have spent five hours searching in vain for criticism of Simon Danczuk from prominent or even just declared feminists. The Guardian was the obvious place to start, but while they had two articles by feminist writers condemning Chris Gayle’s clumsy attempt to chat up a presenter, their legion of feminist columnists were entirely silent on Danczuk. The only opinion piece was strongly defending him.
This is very peculiar. The allegation against Danczuk which is under police investigation – of initiating sex with a sleeping woman – is identical to the worst interpretation of the worst accusation against Julian Assange. The Assange allegation brought literally hundreds, probably thousands of condemnatory articles from feminist writers across the entire range of the mainstream media. I have dug up 57 in the Guardian alone with a simple and far from exhaustive search. In the case of Danczuk I can find nothing, zilch, nada. Not a single feminist peep.
The Assange case is not isolated. Tommy Sheridan has been pursuing a lone legal battle against the Murdoch empire for a decade, some of it in prison when the judicial system decided his “perjury” was imprisonable but Andy Coulson’s admitted perjury on the Murdoch side in the same case was not. I personally witnessed in court in Edinburgh last month Tommy Sheridan, with no lawyer (he has no money) arguing against a seven man Murdoch legal team including three QCs, that a letter from the husband of Jackie Bird of BBC Scotland should be admitted in evidence. Bird was working for Murdoch and suggested in his letter that a witness should be “got out of the country” to avoid giving evidence. The bias exhibited by the leading judge I found astonishing beyond belief. I was the only media in the court.
Yet even though the Murdoch allegations against Sheridan were of consensual sexual conduct, Sheridan’s fight against Murdoch has been undermined from the start by the massive and concerted attack he has faced from the forces of feminism. Just as the vital messages WikiLeaks and Assange have put out about war crimes, corruption and the relentless state attack on civil liberties have been undermined by the concerted feminist campaign promoting the self-evidently ludicrous claims of sexual offence against Assange.
As soon as the radical left pose the slightest threat to the neo-con establishment, an army of feminists can be relied upon to run a concerted campaign to undermine any progress the left wing might make. The attack on Jeremy Corbyn over the makeup of his shadow cabinet was a classic example. It is the first ever gender equal shadow cabinet, but the entire media for a 96 hour period last September ran headline news that the lack of women in the “top” posts was anti-feminist. Every feminist commentator in the UK piled in.
Among the obvious dishonesties of this campaign was the fact that Defence, Chancellor, Foreign Affairs and Home Secretary have always been considered the “great offices of State” and the argument only could be made by simply ignoring Defence. The other great irony was the “feminist” attack was led by Blairites like Harman and Cooper, and failed to address the fact that Blair had NO women in any of these posts for a full ten years as Prime Minister.
But facts did not matter in deploying the organised feminist lobby against Corbyn.
Which is why it is an important test to see what the feminists, both inside and outside the Labour Party, would do when the leading anti-Corbyn rent-a-gob, Simon Danczuk, was alleged to have some attitudes to women that seem very dubious indeed, including forcing an ex-wife into non-consensual s&m and that rape allegation.
And the answer is …nothing. Feminists who criticised Assange, Sheridan and Corbyn in droves were utterly silent on the subject of Danczuk. Because the purpose of established and paid feminism is to undermine the left in the service of the neo-cons, not to attack neo-cons like Danczuk.
Identity politics has been used to shatter any attempt to campaign for broader social justice for everybody. Instead it becomes about the rights of particular groups, and that is soon morphed into the neo-con language of opportunity. What is needed, modern feminism argues, is not a reduction of the vast gap between rich and poor, but a chance for some women to become Michelle Mone or Ann Gloag. It is not about good conditions for all, but the removal of glass ceilings for high paid feminist journalists or political hacks.
Feminism has become the main attack tool in the neo-con ideological arsenal. I am sceptical the concept can be redeemed from this.
I’m sorry to hear that, Clark. Thinking of you, and take care of yourself. John
Habby.. My Appolz.. Can we All respect each other noo..and those No longer here,
Whooo hoo!
Taiwan has a woman president. This is going to be interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/16/taiwan-elects-first-female-president
BrianFujisan, thanks.
John Spencer-Davis, thanks too. I’ve been reading The Different Drum – Community-Making and Peace by M. Scott Peck (1987). Have you read this book? In one of the final chapters, Peck’s description of the internal workings of the US government is, er, (missing adjective here).
Clark Get the Fk up to Scotland.Even the Freezin can Cure me thinks
Which is the dream outcome, Craig shots down the comments and yet another antizionist bunch are removed from the cyberspace leaving the cyber settlers free to go find the next victim site to gnaw on it’s roots and destroy that one too.
The fact is these cretins have only one goal; stop any debate about the shitty strip of land! Fact that anyone with a modicum of pride and self worth would have given the site that banned/barred them a wide birth and not to return to that place is manifestly pointing to a self loathing missionary bent on discharge of duty.
As Expat pointed out;
The entities that are busy conversing among themselves, are both returnees after they have been banned at least once if not twice by the Mods, clearly pointing out to a trend. As the instructional comments are issued for the Mods and the users, reappearance of these disruptive elements, to pick up from where they left and remain on the same path of stopping any debate of any weight.
Clark
16/01/2016 1:49pm
You’re welcome. No, not familiar with it, I must get hold of it. M. Scott Peck is an interesting writer, although I do not agree with him on much. I have read The Road Less Travelled, and a remarkable book called People of the Lie, an examination of evil persons from a Christian and psychiatric perspective.
Do I take it that you do not agree with his analysis?
Thanks, John
@Fedup
Did you ever hear the sound of one hand clapping?
The Canary Wharf owned and ultra unionist rag, and co-producer of the failed “vow” the Daily Record newspaper. Has had a voting poll (May election) conducted by Survation.
More than half of all voters in Scotland will back the SNP at May’s parliamentary elections, according to a new poll.
In the constituency vote the SNP are at 52 per cent, a whole 31 points ahead of Labour on 21 per cent. The Conservatives are on 16 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on seven per cent.
The SNP remained on 42 per cent, while Labour were down two points to 20 per cent. The Tories were up three points to 16 per cent, the Greens were on nine per cent and the Liberal Democrats were on eight per cent. Ukip polled just five per cent. Rise and Solidarity made little if negligible impact on the polling.
If the sample remains true in the wider scale then the branch offices of Labour, Tories and LibDems in Scotland are seen by the public as untrustable and incompetent.
Staying on failed political parties in Scotland, today the branch manager of Labour in Scotland Kezia Dugdale, will receive a visit from the leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Both leader and branch manager will visit Clydebank to speak with members and union reps. On the agenda will be the tricky subject of Trident. To his credit Mr Corbyn wants to get rid of Trident, whilst the union reps main focus regarding Trident is to safe guard jobs.
I wonder if the branch manager Kezia Dugdale will promise the unions that if elected she’ll spend APD helping the unions, afterall she’s promised to spend it on everything else.
Renewable energy can provide far more employment than weapons systems, far more rewarding work as well, and Scotland is a renewable energy powerhouse.
CAAT – Campaign Against the Arms Trade:
https://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/arms-to-renewables
https://arms-to-renewables.org.uk/
On the immigration refugee front Austria is now in the process of restricting the amount of immigrants refugees allowed into the country. It follows similar restrictions imposed by Sweden and Denmark.
Thousands of refugees are still pouring into Greece which has neither the infrastructure nor resources to cope with such a deluge.
Angela Merkel and Claude Junckers, are concerned that the EU’s freedom of movement agreement “Schengen” could be compromised.
Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble shared that grave assessment, warning that Schengen was close to failing.
Will other EU countries follow suit and restict or refuse immigrants and refugees.
With many nations struggling to house their own citizens, the UK being a prime example, and with the restriction on benefits and other economic factors added in, are those countries right to limit immigrants and refugees for now at least. Or should they continue too take as many refugees as possible?
one had clpping..em… Am New,Watz that
“Renewable energy can provide far more employment than weapons systems, far more rewarding work as well, and Scotland is a renewable energy powerhouse.”
________________
Clark listening to the union reps on the radio this morning, I can well understand their position in trying to secure jobs, via Trident.
When questioned on the removal of Trident, the reps agreed that if jobs could be secured without Trident that would be fine. They then added that not one Westminster government had come up with a credible solution to that problem.
In the event of Scottish independence the Scottish government wants to maintain a conventional navy at Faslane. Which in turn would required skilled personnel such as those working now with Trident.
The rep added that many engineers working on Trident and the nuclear subs are and have been diversifying into other industries such as the NHS.
“To his credit Mr Corbyn wants to get rid of Trident, whilst the union reps main focus regarding Trident is to safe guard jobs.”
The SNP might see safeguarding jobs as a bad thing but we do have to have some people working so we can pay the benefits of people who protest outside the Tannock tea cake factory, who also provide jobs so therefore must be a bad thing.
John Spencer-Davis, 1:55 pm; I think Peck’s description of the internal machinations of the US government is a valid perspective, one of many such personal perspectives that should be more widely expressed and published.
I like Peck’s ideas and agree with him quite a lot. His Christian perspective troubles a lot of readers, especially atheists obviously. Personally, the use of religious language doesn’t trouble me in itself. I think that religious concepts offer us ways of discussing the most important intangibles such as good and bad, right and wrong, progress and decay etc. Some atheists take such religious language too literally and thus see nothing but superstition in any of it. They probably missed the bit about “God” being something beyond human understanding. A lot of the supposedly religious miss that bit too, and start thinking they’re qualified to start giving orders on behalf of “God”.
Fred, on a scale of zero to ten, how well would you say Westminster rule does for each of Caithness, Scotland, England and the City of London?
Clark
“What does Islam say about conscience?”
As I understand it , conscience is the remembrance of the heart.
See: “The human heart is mentioned (132) times in the Glorious Qur’an, besides several other notions under 50th the metaphoric expressions “human chest Fou’ad” or the inner in both the singular and the plural forms. Of these Qur’anic statements, some describe this sentient organ as having the capacity of being a center of reasoning, intentions and decision – making. Consequently, human hearts can either be healthy or diseased. Healthy (or soft hearts) can have their humane attitude and balanced rational, while diseased (or hard, stony) hearts can loose both their humane touch and their capacity to see and understand. Such Qur’anic emphasis on the role of the human hearts in the mental, emotional and spiritual decisions of man came down more than 14 centuries ago, while physicians have –for centuries – been restricting the function of the human heart to the mere process of pumping the blood throughout the human body .
However, science has recently proven that the human heart is as sentient as the human brain, if not much more, as it has its own form of intelligence. Not only this, but it has been proven experimentally that the human heart does influence the brain’s thinking capacity, and hence its physical capability of accepting, comprehending and storing knowledge. It has also been proven that the human heart communicates with both the brain and the rest of the human body neurologically (through the nervous system), biophysically (through pulse waves), biochemically (through certain hormones), and electromagnetically (through energetic waves).
The human heart’s electromagnetic field is the most powerful rhythmic field produced by the human body. It envelopes every cell in that body, and extends out in all directions into the space surrounding it, as an important carrier of information.
The recently discovered human heart –brain synchronization (or the so-called Cardiac Coherence) has become an established fact, proving that the human heart’s activity influences that of the brain, and that the heart has its own form of intelligence. Cardiac intelligence can process information about its body as well as its surroundings. This takes place through an “info- energetic code” in the form of a profuse network of blood vessels and cells that serve as energy information gathering and distributing system, recently termed “the heart code” by Paul Pearsall.
For the Noble Qur’an to spell out this fact more than 14 centuries ago is a living testimony to both its divine origin and the correct prophethood of the noble messenger who had received it.
Introduction
The Glorious Qur’an which was revealed more than 14 centuries ago emphasized the fact that the human heart is a highly sentient organ with the capacity of feeling, reasoning and decision – making. Such cardiac qualities have only been very recently discovered in later part of the twentieth century and the early part of the twenty first century. For a book revealed in the seventh century, to an unlettered Prophet, in an unlettered society to spell these facts out in a very precise language is a living testimony to both the divine nature of the book and the correct Prophethood of its recipient.”
from : http://www.elnaggarzr.com/en/main.php?id=112
(should really be “England, and the City of London”; four ratings)
Fedup
Please reflect seriously on the advisability of making political rather than personal points in order to contribute in a meaningful manner to “debates of any weight” (to use your own words).
Clark
16/01/2016 3:27pm
Oh, I see. I thought your phrase (missing adjective here) meant that you would describe his analysis with a rude word if you were not too genteel.
M. Scott Peck appears to me to be a Christian universalist, a highly agreeable philosophy.
Cheers, John
Meanwhile sacked shadow cabinet minister Michael Dugher, has attack Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over his stance on Trident.
The former shadow culture secretary said the Labour leader’s decision to review the party’s support for Trident was “divisive and self-indulgent” and would distract attention from the vital job of fighting the Conservative government.
Embittered Dugher, appears to be representing the right wing and Blairites of the Labour party. Although I don’t agree with Jeremy Corbyn on Scottish independence, I do think he’s the right man for the job, when it comes to weeding out the champagne socialists hiding within the Labour party.
Humbug
““You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.
“I don’t,” said Scrooge.
“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”
“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.
“Why do you doubt your senses?”
“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
Giyane, 3:32 pm, thanks. This piece is particularly moving:
Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist imprisoned in Iran for more than a year, has been released along with three other dual-nationality prisoners as Tehran prepares to implement a historic nuclear agreement with western leaders.
Ahead of senior diplomats announcing the lifting of sanctions on Iran later on Saturday, Tehran’s prosecutor said four dual nationals had been released. The move is believed to be part of a prisoner swap with the US.
The closed-door trial of Rezaian began in May when he appeared before a hardline judge on charges of espionage, collecting confidential information and spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic.
This cosying up to the US, by Iran seems far too good to be true. Especially when you take into consideration that many in the House of Representatives loathed Obama’s softening stance on Iran.
Obama will be gone from the Whitehouse later in the year, will the next incumbent take a similar stance, on Iran, or will the gloves come off.
RoS:
“weeding out the champagne socialists hiding within the Labour party.”
The champagne socialists were something else altogether. They pre-dated the neo-cons.
Might as well try and elide ( long word not sure what Craig uses it for ), Jurassic and Triassic eras.
Neo=cons are :- a collection of npn-entities from various countries who have aligned themselves with the zionist chaos- theory of nihilistic politics, meaning in effect that the US and its allies will have no future unless they subvert and destroy all of their competitors. By this means they have individually come to political prominence and personal wealth, whether from the nominal left or right, like Obama, Blair, Liam Byrne, Ian Duncan Smith, Cameron or Hillary Clinton.
( Trump is what it says on the tin, a trump/ a loud and smelly fart)
Gyiane the Cambridge definition of a Champagne Socialist, is as relevant now as it was when it was first coined.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/champagne-socialist
Certain tabloids today have reported that David Cameron has made over £500,000 pounds in rent since becoming prime minister.
This comes days after Conservative MP’s voted against an amendment to the Housing Bill which would require landlords to ensure homes are suitable for human habitation.
Clark
Thank you in turn. You are back to your old occupation of peace-making, which you know full-well will end in tears.
Co-dependency is a psychological explanation for trying and failing to help people who don’t want help, but would rather stay as they are. It is often learned by children pf addictive parents when the parents use addiction as a tool for coping with instead of changing the injustices of the world around them. The children end up being the ones that prop up the prop-uppers who are busy propping up the Popes and bent lawyers at the top of the pile who sponge off society and live in luxury.
A good kick in the balls is the best remedy for the apologists for criminal zionist neo=cons. For ladies a symbolic knee in the crutch will also knock the stuffing out of their symbolic balls.
John Spencer-Davis, I just didn’t know how to describe it. I still don’t.
Giyane, so the conscience or heart* is like a connection to others, it helps us understand what they’re having to cope with. To the extent that we can be healthy, conscience or heart can give us a little of God’s view* of others; not just their external actions which we apprehend with the physical senses, but their internal predicaments which lead to those actions.
*Notes to the non-religious:
(1) it doesn’t really matter if it’s the physical heart, though to some that seems the physical location of such feelings,
(2) Take “God” as an element in a thought experiment, a theoretical construct, in this case something that is aware of everything including everyone’s experience, emotions and thoughts.