Musings on the politics of youth work, community work and society at large – dedicated to the memory of Steve Waterhouse, Malcolm Ball and Sue Atkins, great youth workers, comrades and human beings
The five year delay in making a statement on the James Jones’ report is the latest example of Government complacency in responding to the suffering long endured by Hillsborough bereaved families and survivors. Following the publication of two extensive reports on the disaster in 1990 and 1995, in 1997 Howard Davis and I published a Home Office commissioned report ‘Beyond Disaster’. Its key recommendation was to establish a Charter for the Bereaved. Its 53 detailed recommendations focused on central and local government responses and obligations in the aftermath of tragedies, the need for integrated organisational structures for inter-agency cooperation, together with specialist crisis support for the bereaved and survivors. The Report was shelved.
In 2012 the findings of Hillsborough Independent Panel Report, for which I headed the research and was primary author, brought a ‘double apology’ from the then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, a new criminal investigation and new inquests. The latter reversed the verdicts of accidental death, finding that all who died had been killed unlawfully while attributing primary responsibility to the South Yorkshire Police and exonerating fans of any blame.
Since then it has taken eleven years for the Government to respond and seven years since the James Jones’ report. Yet still the Government fails to address the core issues initially raised by our research 26 years ago. Yes, a quarter of a century! While 97 men, women and children died at Hillsborough, the lives of many others have been cut short as a consequence of their struggle for justice. Today constitutes yet another blow to dignified families and survivors whose determination and fortitude has given hope to so many people involved in other campaigns.’
Credit “Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston”
I was 16 years young at the time of the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, a gauche, apolitical member of my Grammar School’s Lower Sixth Form. I never quite believed the official version of the drama but knew no better. For a time, the UK Sunday papers carried supplements covering ‘meticulously’ the minutiae of the event. Like others, intrigued I pored over them. If anything these detailed accounts left me no wiser and probably even less convinced by what we would now call the mainstream narrative. My life moved on and I pushed doubts aside. Later, by my mid-twenties, increasingly involved in Left debate and activity, a would-be revolutionary, I recollect little or no engagement with the significance of the President’s death. Much later I began to notice that the mere mention of his murder was scornfully dismissed as evidence of paranoia, that you were losing your grip. The tragedy was long gone. Scrutinising what happened seemed an obsessive, indulgent distraction from the politics of the day. In truth, it’s only in the last four years or so that escaping from my Left bubble I have revisited the times I have lived through and the strengths and weaknesses of my analysis thereof. Sometimes, faced with my take on world-shattering events, I’ve been forced to acknowledge my profound ignorance. One of those moments is to be traced to Dallas in 1963.
During this recent period of rampant intellectual and ideological promiscuity, I discovered, amongst others a bedfellow in the person of Edward Curtin, whose book, ‘Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies’ was revelatory. He describes himself as ‘a writer, researcher, and former professor of sociology, poet, essayist, journalist, novelist….writer – beyond a cage of categories’. I’m not always on the same page with him, however eloquently expressed. He is deeply religious. I remain still an irreconcilable atheist. However, I both welcome and fear the doubts he sows. A couple of years ago he put together a powerful summary of the prosecution case that the CIA murdered JFK. In a post on his blog today he urges us to read anew or afresh the argument. Even as I encourage you to do so I wonder, even suspect that to do so will be seen as proof of my further descent into an underworld, a Hades of conspiracy.
Over to Edward Curtin
What is the truth, and where did it go? Ask Oswald and Ruby, they oughta know “Shut your mouth,” said the wise old owl Business is business, and it’s a murder most foul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Don’t worry, Mr. President Help’s on the way Your brothers are coming, there’ll be hell to pay Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell? Tell them, “We’re waiting, keep coming” We’ll get them as well
Why President Kennedy was publicly murdered by the CIA sixty years ago has never been more important. All pseudo-debates to the contrary – including the numerous and growing claims that it was not the U.S. national security state but the Israelis that assassinated the president, which exonerates the CIA – the truth about the assassination has long been evident. There is nothing to debate unless one is some sort of intelligence operative, has an obsession, or is out to make a name or a buck. I suggest that all those annual JFK conferences in Dallas should finally end, but my guess is that they will be rolling along for many more decades. To make an industry out of a tragedy is wrong. And these conferences are so often devoted to examining and debating minutiae that are a distraction from the essential truth.
As for the corporate mainstream media, they will never admit the truth but will continue as long as necessary to titillate the public with lies, limited hangouts, and sensational non-sequiturs. To do otherwise would require admitting that they have long been complicit in falsely reporting the crime and the endless coverup. That they are arms of the CIA and NSA.
The Cold War, endless other wars, and the nuclear threat John Kennedy worked so hard to end have today been inflamed to a fever pitch by U.S. leaders in thrall to the forces that killed the president. President Joseph Biden, like all the presidents that followed Kennedy, is JFK’s opposite, an unrepentant war-monger, not only in Ukraine with the U.S. war against Russia and the U.S. nuclear first-strike policy, but throughout the world – the Middle East, Africa, Syria, Iran, and on and on, including the push for war with China.
Nowhere is this truer than with the U.S. support for the current Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, a slaughter also supported by Robert Kennedy, Jr., who, ironically, is campaigning for the presidency on the coattails of JFK and his father Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who would be appalled by his unequivocal support for the Israeli government. By such support and his silence as the slaughter in Gaza continues, RFK, Jr. is, contrary to his other expressed opinions, supporting a wide range of war-related matters that involve the U.S.- Israel alliance, which is central to the military-industrial forces running U.S. foreign policy. To say this is dispiriting is a great understatement, for RFK, Jr., a very intelligent man, knows that the CIA killed his uncle and father, and he is campaigning as a spiritually awakened man intent on ending the U.S. warfare state, something impossible to accomplish when one gives full-fledged support to Israel. And I believe he will be elected the next U.S. president.
The Biden administration is doing all in its power to undo the legacy of JFK’s last year in office when on every front he fought for peace, not war. It is not hard to realize that all presidents since John Kennedy have been fully aware that a bullet to the head in broad daylightcould be their fate if they bucked their bosses. They knew this when they sought the office because they were run by the same bosses before election. Small-souled men, cowards on the make, willing to sacrifice millions to their ambition.
I believe that the following article – my final one on this matter – which I published two years ago, is worth reading again if you have once done so, and even more important if you have never read it. It is not based on speculation but on well-sourced facts, and it will make clear the importance of President Kennedy and why his assassination lay the foundation for today’s dire events. In this dark time, when the world is spinning out of control, the story of his great courage in the face of an assassination he expected, can inspire us to oppose the systemic forces of evil that control the United States and are leading the world into the abyss.
An antidote to the despair induced by the combined ferocity of Zionism (“Christian,” “Jewish”) and Judaeophobia
At this nightmarish moment of pandemic hate, we badly need to be reminded of the possibility that we can come together, and thereby defeat the forces dedicated to dividing us, by keeping both sides in a genocidal rage—which, if it doesn’t kill you outright, will only make you that much easier to kill, through other means.
To put it differently, we can and must resist the atavistic call to join the sort of “holy war” that drenched the Middle East, and so much of Europe, and Byzantium, in blood throughout the centuries of the Crusades, with oceans more spilled during the Reformation, then the Counter-Reformation. We need, in short, to rediscover the great prior time of Convivencia, in Spain, when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in harmony, and flourished culturally, for some three centuries of the (so-called) “Dark Ages.”
The glory of that possibility resounds from this exhilarating mass performance of “One Day,” sung in English, Arabic and Hebrew, in Haifa, just five years ago.
Please watch and listen, and then share it if you like, because its spirit is enough to help us overcome the hate that has now been so deftly engineered to have us at each other’s throats, so that we fail to see what’s coming down on all of us, and has been for some four years.
From M. Hall:
“Matthew Paul Miller – known by his Hebrew name Matisyahu is a Jewish reggae singer.
In 2018 he asked 3,000 Muslims and Jews in Haifa (none of whom had ever met before) to come together and learn the song “One Day” with him in less than an hour. Not only that, they also learned to sing and harmonize the song in threedifferent languages. The concert that resulted from this brings the spirit of the new era into the world.
There is an incomprehensible power inherent in the spirit of UNITY, LOVE and CONNECTION.
Carrying this power TOGETHER into the world is the new WE ❤️ “
On the possibility of Convivencia—a possibility that was once realized in the “Dark Ages,” which evidently were less “dark” than the later centuries of Christian (or “Christian”) primacy.
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for those who think differently” – Rosa Luxemburg
On the subject of failing to put words on paper, the cliche is at hand. I am suffering from writer’s block, a psychological inability to write. One definition suggests this has to do with having nothing to say. Such a judgement scratches a raw nerve, its implication too close for comfort. Indeed I often feel wearily repetitive and stale. Haven’t others said much the same thing and better? Haven’t I said much the same thing and forgotten saying it? And, even when I think I’ve said it well, how many have noticed? Hence the obvious, why am I so bothered about the paralysis, both in thought and action?
Well, one reason for sure is that I seem to compose endlessly, from dawn to dusk and then in my dreams. Walking the dog, sitting on the terrace or in the kafeneio, or riding my bike, I string sentences and plait paragraphs into captivating prose, only to see the words slip from my grasp. This hardly matters. Unlike the novelist, I am not searching for an unexpected, yet unknown twist in a story. Unlike the poet, I am not seeking a subtle alliterative allusion.
The crude and sophisticated thoughts, sometimes pounding, other times petalling the interior of my head are here, there and everywhere. They are the stuff of gossip, of idle and animated conversations, of the media in all its forms, of propaganda, both good and bad. Whatever our education such ruminations are a messy mix of the psychological, social and political. All of us in one way or another psychologise, offering opinions about why people, including ourselves, say what they say, do what they do.
In my case the psychological, social and political explanations to hand owe still a great deal to my chance recruitment in the mid-70s to a small Trotskyist organisation, the Marxist Workers Group. There I tussled with the inextricable relationships between class, gender, race and sexuality – long before if I might say so, the appearance of intersectionality. Privileged later to spend a year in Higher Education I sought with Marilyn Taylor to sketch the outline of a grounded Marxist-Feminist psychology, which situated the unique individual within the constraints of her circumstances. The project remains incomplete but snatches of our exploration are to be heard in the tinnitus of voices accompanying me as I wend my way along the paths of my daily existence.
For now, though, I need to emphasise, that, although seen as something of a maverick, I saw myself as a man of the Left. Indeed I saw myself pretentiously as more Left than the majority of the Left. My increasing hostility to the authoritarian inclinations of the traditional Left, both social-democratic and revolutionary led me to seek out the dissident writings of the German, Dutch and Italian Left, dismissed by Lenin as ‘infantile’, the works of anarchists such as Bakunin and Kropotkin and somewhat later the autonomous provocations of Castoriadis. Steadfast I was always enamoured with Rosa Luxembourg, her overflowing humanity. In doing so I was fortunately able to discuss the importance or otherwise of these thinkers for over two decades in a pluralist caucus of activists, known in one of its incarnations as the Critically Chatting Collective. The group included Malcolm Ball and Steve Waterhouse, to whom this website is dedicated and I can still see them outside in the garden of Exeter Community Centre arguing passionately the toss. I wish so much they were here to take me to task for my ramblings.
Within Youth Work, which continued to occupy much of my time after ‘retirement’, my writing and activity remained rooted in a defence of a radical practice with social and political justice at its heart but one, which was ‘volatile and voluntary, creative and collective – an association and conversation without guarantees’. It was a direct refusal to bow to the diktat of behaviourism, the imposition of prescribed scripts and predictable, necessary and expected outcomes. Without quite knowing, it was a rejection of impact capitalism. Thus, almost to the dying days of In Defence of Youth Work, I focused on the destructive legacy of a destitute neoliberalism and the frightening dominance of behavioural psychology at all levels of practice and policy in welfare and education. I continued to hold to a view I expressed in 2008 that we were in danger of ‘sleepwalking into authoritarianism’. And I feared the Left was not unduly concerned. In fact, in retrospect, it was undeniably implicated.
Nevertheless, not being a purist in practice, I lent my genuine if cautious support to what now seem to be the dying moments of left social democracy, namely Corbyn’s Labour Party in the UK and SYRIZA in Greece, where I happened to live. Corbyn fell foul of foes within the Party itself and the media, not least the nauseous Guardian, hung him on the absurd charge of anti-semitism. Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA, despite referendum support to resist the demands of the International Monetary Fund and its allies, capitulated. The night previous to his treachery my small Cretan village was abuzz with an uncertain feisty excitement. Within hours this gave way to a cynical disillusionment that persists to this very day.
During 2019 I was reading analyses that argued the economic crisis was much worse than in 2008. Quantitative easing, the relentless printing of money for money’s sake could not be sustained and needed to be hidden. What was the ruling class, the elite going to do? True to form the elite has gone to war. Historically the strategy has served them well. And the enemy, whatever the appearance of things, has always been the working class, the peasantry, the dispossessed, the oppressed and exploited.
Crisis capitalism was the order of the day. First, a respiratory virus of less than existential concern was used to manufacture unprecedented global consent by way of fear-mongering propaganda for an astonishing authoritarian programme of restrictions on personal and social liberties. The Left in the UK approved, simply frustrated that it was not the government of the moment. Immune to the soaring profits of Big Pharma, it would have been even tougher. As this threat to humanity faded, the virus shrank into the shadows and the climate crisis took centre stage. Unless fossil fuels were sorted, by whom and by when was not that clear, 2030 or 2050, Armageddon was at hand,. As best I can see, many in the better-off parts of the world are less than convinced, for those less well-off so what? However, if this catastrophic scenario is not inducing sufficient angst there is always proper, bombastic war – missile after missile, death after death. Entering from the Left or Right, it matters not which entrance, the conflicts in the Ukraine and Palestine boost immeasurably the profits of the armaments industry and serve to buttress the USA’s and its allies’ desire to retain global influence whilst dismissing the slaughter of the innocents and the views and needs of folk back home, wherever that may be. Democracy is a word to be cynically abused, a rhetorical device devoid of meaning.
Of course, these are sweeping assertions, replete with contradictions, which I acknowledge and would want to discuss. Indeed I have written about these, especially with respect to COVID, without any serious engagement with my mutterings. The main point I’m clumsily trying to make is that since COVID I have broken out of my Left bubble. I have followed, read and conversed with figures across the political spectrum, critical of the authoritarian arrogance of the elite, the ruling class and its army of compromised, careerist technocrats and its team of amoral, behaviourist managerial manipulators.
I’ve found these relationships, their contempt for the deceitful discourse of ‘misinformation’ spread by all of the mainstream media thought-provoking and heartening without knowing where any of it is going. I have gained a great deal from these encounters. Little more than a month ago I would have argued that an open and questioning dialogue across ideologies premised on a challenge to hierarchy, authoritarianism and the spectre of global governance is both possible and crucial. I still do but my naive optimism has been dented. Suddenly the Israeli/Palestine’s inevitable eruption has seen free speech advocates of the past few years rush to condemn and silence pro-Palestinian sentiment. It saddens me into despair.
Glyka
And thus on tomorrow’s favoured ramble through the olive groves, I will hear another swish of doubt amidst the swirl of thoughts between my ears. What the fuck is it all about and what can I say or do? Then the gritty voice of the goatherd and the tinny clanging of their bells will interrupt my self-centredness and my uncertainty. We will exchange greetings as we would have centuries before. Such ordinariness is heart-warming. It lasts for seconds yet forever. And, I know, as best I can, I should carry on struggling with uncertainty. And then, my dearest Glyka wags her tail and I know for certain she loves me and I love her. Time to head home for breakfast.
POSTSCRIPT
In lieu of any original offering from me, I’m determined to start sharing links to interesting and provocative articles you might well miss. I’m off for a week but hope to fulfil this promise soon.
Nine years ago, for a brief period, IDYW was aware of a group, Gaza Youth Break Out [GBYO]. We had stumbled over its Facebook page, which is now long gone. As it was, not to our credit, we lost touch.
On the 19th of July, 2014 we posted the following on our website.
Gaza Youth Speak Out: Enough is Enough!
The group, Gaza Youth Break Out [GBYO], unfailingly brave in their criticisms of both Fatah and Hamas within Palestinian politics, send a message of anguish in the face of the Israeli assault.
We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of these feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart-aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!
A fortnight later we linked to an opinion piece in the Guardian by Paul Mason, then the economics editor of Channel Four News, entitled ‘Gaza is not as I expected. Amid the terror, there is hope’. Documenting the oppressive conditions inside Gaza he noted,
I have lost track of how many times I’ve met a young guy, 18 or 19 years old, proud not to be a fighter, a militant, or a duck-and-dive artist on the street. When you ask what his job is, the common answer is “carpenter”. Working with wood – not metal or computer code – is the limit of what the blockade has enabled the skilled manual worker here to achieve.
Faced with such hopelessness, naturally, many become resigned: “Living is the same as being dead” is a phrase you hear among young men. It is the perfect rationale for the nihilist military organisation some choose to join. But its opposite is the resourcefulness that rewires a house after its front has been blown off; that sits on the carpet making bread on a hot pan after a home has been reduced to dust.
Almost a decade later, hope is in short supply – the resourcefulness exhausted?
Meanwhile, Jonathan Cook continues to offer his sense of what’s going on in Israel, Palestine and far beyond.
As Western politicians line up to cheer on Israel as it starves Gaza’s civilians and plunges them into darkness to soften them up before the coming Israeli ground invasion, it is important to understand how we reached this point – and what it portends for the future.
In a different vein, Charles Eisenstein explores making the impossible happen through the rejection of vengeance.
I was then I wasn’t going to say anything about the heart-breaking events unfolding in the continuing tragedy, that is the brutal occupation by Israel of Palestine and most immediately Gaza. Simply to venture such an understanding is at odds with the version dominating our screaming screens, mobile or fixed. My empathy with the Palestinian cause, which goes back to the 1970s and refers to my critical allegiance to the secular Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO] is to be dismissed, forgotten or ridiculed. To my shame, I was in danger of remaining silent.
Then, only a few hours ago the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman tells senior police officers that waving a Palestinian flag or singing a chant advocating freedom for Arabs in the region may be a criminal offence. In a letter to chief constables in England and Wales, she opines:
“It is not just explicit pro-Hamas symbols and chants that are cause for concern. I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.”
In this Manichean simplistic obscenity, whereby it is demanded that we agree without a murmur what and who is Good or Evil, how long before even Facebook comments or even ‘likes’ not toeing the line are deemed heinous? Or even this innocuous questioning of the mainstream narrative is seen as unacceptable?
Whilst in accord with Marx himself I am no longer a Marxist I learned much from my days under the ideology’s influence. I remain indebted enormously to the insistence that all events must be grounded,, need to be understood in both their specific and historically intertwined circumstances. This profound, even obvious observation engages with the past and present, with contradiction and complexity, with the dilemma of defining the ethical and the moral, with what is right or wrong. It precludes shallow, immediate and opportunistic readings of what’s going on. It demands, following Aristotle, ‘phronesis’, the thoughtful interrogation of what is happening and what we might do for the best.
For now, if you have the time or inclination, I offer the following links to articles of a dissenting character, although themselves, perchance, too hasty and superficial, which I hope you will read in full.
The current outpouring of sympathy for Israel should make anyone with half a heart retch.
Not because it is not awful that Israeli civilians are dying and suffering in such large numbers. But because Palestinian civilians in Gaza have faced repeated rampages from Israel decade after decade, producing far more suffering, but have never elicited a fraction of the concern currently being expressed by western politicians or publics.
The West’s hypocrisy over Palestinian fighters killing and wounding hundreds of Israelis and holding dozens more hostage in communities surrounding and inside besieged Gaza is stark indeed.
This is the first time Palestinians, caged in the coastal enclave, have managed to inflict a significant strike against Israel vaguely comparable to the savagery Palestinians in Gaza have faced repeatedly since they were entombed in a cage in 2007, when Israel began its blockade by land, sea and air.
Western media are calling the jailbreak and attack by Palestinians from Gaza “unprecedented” – and the most dismal intelligence failing by Israel since it was caught off-guard during the Yom Kippur War exactly 50 years ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas, which nominally runs the open-air prison of Gaza, of starting “a cruel and evil war”. But the truth is that the Palestinians have “started” nothing. They have managed, after so much struggle, to find a way to hurt their tormentor.
Inevitably for the Palestinians, as Netanyahu also observed, “the price will be heavy” – especially for Hamas is Israel’s creation. Israel will inflict on the prisoners the severest punishment for their impudence.
Many people don’t know this but Hamas is largely a creation of the Jewish state. For years, Israel encouraged Gaza’s Islamists as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, helping to turn a bunch of fringe Palestinian Islamists in the late 1970s into one of the world’s most notorious militant groups, which has killed far more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian militant group.
Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s, later told the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief that he was giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. The funding was intended to tilt power away from both Communist and Palestinian nationalist movements in Gaza, and especially from Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel”), which Israel considered more threatening than the fundamentalists. “The Israeli government gave me a budget”, the retired brigadier general confessed, “and the military government gives to the mosques”.
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation”, Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I… suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face”, he wrote. They didn’t listen to him. What we’re witnessing is a classic case of blowback.
Israeli Bombing of Gaza, “I have ordered a “Complete Siege”… “We are fighting human animals”, Israeli Defence Minister SaysI – Global Research
Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip.
Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, an area of about 365 square km, and home to 2.3 million Palestinians, which has been under an Israeli-led blockade since 2007.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he added.
The Israeli air force has dropped 2,000 munitions and more than 1,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza in the last 20 hours, the army said on Monday morning, having shelled 20 high-rise residential buildings, mosques, hospitals, banks and other civilian infrastructure.
What Is the Gaza Strip?
Gaza was part of historic Palestine prior to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
Some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from historic Palestine in what is known as Al-Nakba, or “The Catastrophe”.
More than 60 percent of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees, following the expulsion of families from other parts of Palestine in 1948.
Bordered by Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean coast, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Gaza was captured by Egypt during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was under Egyptian control until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when the territory was seized and occupied along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In 2005, Israel purportedly pulled out of Gaza and relocated around 8,000 Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers living in 21 settlements around Gaza to the occupied West Bank.
But in 2007, following the Hamas movement’s election victory in Gaza, Israel responded by imposing an air, land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip.
According to international law, the blockade amounts to an occupation of the strip.
Since 2008, Israel has launched four invasions of Gaza, in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021, which resulted in the deaths of thouands of Palestinians, mostly civilians and many children.
The campaigns resulted in the destruction of homes and offices, damage to pipelines and sewage treatment infrastructure, impacting drinking water and spiking waterborne diseases.
In the last major operation in 2021, at least 260 Palestinians were killed in Gaza while 13 people were killed in Israel.
Open-air Prison Israel’s blockade systematically denies Palestinians access to services, hospitals, banks and other vital infrastructure, leaving the population to exist in fraught living conditions.
The blockade has also resulted in a perennial shortage of clean water, electricity, and medical supplies in what is often dubbed the world’s largest open-air prison.
Roughly 97 percent of Gaza’s drinking water is contaminated, and residents are forced to live with constant power outages due to a power grid that has been heavily damaged in repeated Israeli attacks.
Meanwhile, close to 60 percent of Palestinians live in poverty, and youth unemployment sits at 63 percent.
According to UNRWA, the UN agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, years of conflict and blockade have left 80 percent of Gaza’s population dependent on international assistance.
At our last CC meeting on September 6th, we agreed to continue the discussion on Climate Change at our next get-together on October 4th. Participants were encouraged to provide further links and comments as a stimulus to our individual and collective thinking.
Brenda got the ball rolling by drawing our attention to the video circulated by Marie-Martine of an interview with sceptic, Steve Koonin.
Brenda ventured the Steve Koonin link Marie-Martine sent us is eye-opening, and I feel it would be really good if everyone listened to that before coming on 6th October. Real fuel for a debate! A “man in the know” expressing his opinions on whether climate change is even really a thing…
This prompted a welcome and critical response from Jane Roberts.
Regarding Steven Koonin. A modern-day Freeman Dyson but arguably more extreme. Both are physicists who have chosen to criticise climate scientists. They’re not climate scientists.
Some flaws in the video: Complains about models being insufficient as did FD. But in its place he suggests the simplistic approach of taking the 1.3 increase of the last century and therefore assuming we can do the same this century and just “adapt”. How many centuries can we continue like that? Where is the tipping point – or is he sure there is not one, if so he remains silent on this.
Says it’s not his place as a scientist to discuss moral and political issues – then holds up unfairness on the third world as being a part of his argument.
Spent a lot of the discussion around anecdotal evidence. For example the argument that “there have always been extreme weather events” is made purely qualitatively- he makes no attempt to be quantitative.
Likewise his suggestion that deaths from extreme heat can be discounted because deaths from cold are greater. That may be true, but here is some quantitative data on deaths from heat, published this morning https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66890135
Positioning a 1.5 degree temperature rise as “under 1%” must be deliberately disingenuous. He is referring to under 1% of a temperature scale which falls to absolute zero (ie – 273 degrees C). But the range of temperatures at which life can survive is much smaller that 300 degrees, so this is a transparent distortion of the % and potential impact of a 1.5 degree rise.
Arguments about the cost of action seem out of place for him as a scientist too – yes it is huge – but those arguments are not for scientists either. But perhaps he has little to say as a scientist, because he is not a climate scientist?
The interview is odd as the interviewer never challenges him. He appears to be conducting the interview purely to give Steven Koonin a platform.
My overall thought is that we simply cannot risk inaction. It’s true that climate science is a relatively young science. It is not as developed as physics – and he may find that deeply unsatisfactory as did Freeman Dyson. Having acknowledged that however either he’s right or the climate scientists are right. We have no real way of telling. Surely we owe it to future generations to act – in case the climate scientistsare right?
All the best
Paula has suggested this controversial alternative perspective.
The claims made in this hard-hitting, uncomfortable yet extraordinary crowdfunded documentary by Dr Steven Greer shows how the industrial-military complex together with human nature have conspired to keep us all in the carbon age for our electricity and transport far beyond when the invention of ‘free’ energy became known. It explores the lost century and the science we have made secret for so long and asks how we can reclaim a lost century before it is too late.
Do not watch before bedtime as it is depressing and exciting in equal measure!
I’d be interested to hear if you think this is real or just another conspiracy theory.
Taking Action Through Process and Debate
The recent and concerning collapse of the once revered scientific process in large parts of the climate change and the medical community is detailed in a highly critical ‘open review’ paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Someday, charge the authors, there will need to be an inquiry into how so many scientific bodies abandoned core principles of scientific integrity, took strong positions on unsettled science, took people’s word for things uncritically, and silenced those who tried to continue the scientific endeavour.
Find the report here – a draft out in the public sphere for debate but ignored by the mainstream media.
At present the UK has a Climate Change Committee (CCC) responsible to the Government for advice on both mitigating and adapting to future climate change. Again, this body has no ‘red team’ to challenge their many reports. One thing a ‘red team’ would have done is to insist on looking at the whole trajectory of the route to net-zero and try to estimate the financial, material, human resources, ecological and societal costs involved.Just to expand the electricity system (extra generation, transmission and distribution) to cope with the extra demands of electrified ground transport and both industrial and domestic heat is estimated at £1.4 trillion, with 40,000 professional engineers devoted to this project alone for 30 years from now until 2050 (https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Kelly-Net-Zero-Progress-Report.pdf . There may be an error of as much as 50% in these estimates, but certainly not a factor of 10. The electrification of heat and transport is only one part of the net zero target. In spite of a decade of advice, this firm grip on the scale of the problems of getting to a net-zero economy by 2050 is not to be seen spelt out in any of the CCC advice. Indeed the competences of the committee members do not extend to these extra considerations.
A key issue with red teams is to keep them from being ‘stacked’ by biased individuals, including political favourites or corporate shills. However, it is often very rapidly apparent from online discussion of research that there are some highly experienced and competent scientists who are dissenting – with logical criticisms of the ‘mainstream’. Indeed, these scientists can often be identified conveniently by the ferocity of online bullying and ad hominem attacks on their capacity and integrity by some of the enforcers of alleged ‘consensus’. In the early days of Covid some powerful dissenting voices emerged on social media such as Twitter (now X), who despite being vilified and censored have proved correct.
And a provocative excerpt from a disagreement between Rusere Shoniwa and Jonathan Cook
Cook falsely claims that I and other sceptics demand “that we wait and see how things unfold”. He then articulates a common but highly ignorant and dangerous notion of managing risk in which he posits that “even if you imagine there is some room for doubt, you should still be pushing hard for things to be done to minimise climate change and related ecological catastrophes if only on the precautionary principle”. [emphasis added]. So let’s deal with this.
First, the “wait-and-see” accusation is both false and irrelevant because it is intended to obfuscate the point I wanted to stress – it would be incredibly foolish to incur huge costs to avoid a crisis without sufficient scientific evidence for the existence of the crisis. The precautionary principle does not come without a price tag, and this is what Cook is trying to sweep away. You simply do not incur costs to avoid a crisis until you have compared those costs with the cost of the risk you are seeking to avoid. The methods for doing that are scientific, and they involve probability assessments of both sides of the equation. The sweeping application of the precautionary principle is the product of an asinine, bloated, bureaucracy-infested professional managerial class whose primary purpose is to justify its existence by manufacturing and then exaggerating risks to manage.
The costs involved in averting a ‘climate crisis’ are colossal. They involve choking the economies of the entire world. Depriving all economies, but especially poorer economies, of cheap energy and fertilisers that enhance crop productivity raises the very real prospect of killing millions of people already below the poverty line. How can any sane person be content with that horrific prospect, especially when the risk being avoided – the climate crisis – is not based on a ‘settled’ scientific proposition? I would never advocate for that position even if the ‘climate crisis’ were ‘settled science’, partly because ‘settled science’ is an oxymoron, but mainly because it can never be acceptable to kill one group of people in the expectation that you might save another group, now or in the future. That’s the alibi that has been used by every evil tyrant since the dawn of time, and it appears to be the stock-in-trade of ‘progressives’.
Another provocative argument to be found in this article, The Left is losing the climate class war Punishing the workers won’t save the planet BY MATT HUBER
Why do these climate policy technocrats repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot? Because, at the heart of their thinking, there is a deeper moralism that won’t let political reality get in the way of their historic mission. Ultimately, such approaches might be dubbed “techno-behaviouralism” — insisting that the main challenge of climate change is to reform the immoral carbon practices of dispersed consumers throughout the upper, middle and working classes. Rather than tackling the problem of who owns and controls fossil-fuel-based production (a relative minority of society), carbon behaviouralism aims its sights on the “irresponsible” choices of millions of consumers of all classes. It hopes to use policy tools to get them to drive less (or drive more efficient cars), insulate their homes, eat less meat, fly less. One notorious study in 2017 even went as far as to advise individuals to not have children.
The first phase of this policy outlook was to use the disciplining force of the market — particularly the price mechanism — to “nudge” consumers toward low-carbon choices. But now the severity of the climate crisis is forcing these technocrats to ratchet up their strategy to outright coercion: banning fossil-fuel boilers, gas stoves, internal combustion engines, or forcing farmers to rapidly implement costly practices. Rather than winning them over to an attractive political project, the masses must be reformed into more virtuous low-carbon practices. And even when the climate technocrats focus on society’s rampant class inequality, they only morally reprimand the lifestyles of the rich — their private jets, for example. They hardly ever consider how the rich make rather than spend their money: organising investment and for-profit production with likely far greater effects on the climate.
Also, see this long but moving piece in the Guardian
We may be getting better at talking about the mental health crisis, but few connect it to climate breakdown. Scientific studies show that young people are more likely to suffer from climate anxiety and a Lancet study of 10,000 young people living in 10 countries found that 56% believe humanity is doomed. “Most people who are polled think that mental health issues are something to do with either a chemical imbalance in the brain, some sort of neurological glitch, or genetic. That model is completely outdated,” says Hertzog Young. “There are so many demonstrable links between social, ideological, ecological and material realities outside the brain that have a far greater impact on mental health. Climate change is throwing so much pain, trauma, stress, angst and cultural toxicity at us. It can breed distrust, apathy and nihilism and it can also breed deep fear. Even for people who are experiencing the climate crisis at a distance, through the lens of the media, there’s a medically recognised causal pathway to depression, anxiety and PTSD.”
Looking ahead Steve and Brenda suggested possible topics for future discussion
There seemed to be a feeling it might be hard to come up with more topics for discussion. I thought these might be helpful. Do social media cause harm? Freedom of speech: Is it under threat? If so, how can it be saved? Democracy Does it exist? Is it under threat? If so, how can it be saved? How tolerant should the West be of other cultures, especially when there is a conflict with western ideals such as women’s liberation?
In the future, could we discuss the topic of reparations? And was self-censorship covered in the session on literary censorship which I had to miss? Is Euthanasia too old a chestnut to crack? What about, at least, care of the elderly? What would people think of having a train line from E to W Crete? Is recycling being conducted properly? One could go on and on.
Our next CC meeting is at Brenda’s on Wednesday, October 4th, starting at 10.30 a.m. I’ll send the details out again to the group via email with a map.
Yesterday in my home area back in Lancashire the Diggers Festival continued to celebrate the life of Gerard Winstanley and the history of the True Levellers or the Diggers as the group became known. The following is taken from the Diggers Festival website
Gerrard Winstanley & The Diggers In 1630, a 21-year-old textile trader moved to London. He did well at first, but as a result of the abuse of power by both the King and Parliament and then the outbreak of the English Civil War which started twelve years later, he saw his business ruined and in 1643 he became bankrupt.
His father-in-law helped him move to Cobham in Surrey, where he initially worked as a cowherd.
However, by the time of the defeat of the Royalist side and King Charles’s execution in early 1649, he and a group of others in a similar situation had got together to represent the voice of the common people, and especially that of the propertyless poor.
The man’s name was GERRARD WINSTANLEY.
He soon became the key spokesperson of the group which the people living at the time referred to as ‘THE DIGGERS’, but who were also known as the ‘True Levellers’ as distinct from another group led by John Lilburne, Richard Overton and William Walwyn known as ‘The Levellers’ who while seeking equality before the law, and an extension of the right to vote for most men, did not support the abolition of private property and common ownership of the land.
The Diggers ‘nickname’ came from their belief that the land should be available to every person to dig and sow, so that everyone, rich or poor, could live, grow and eat by the sweat of their own brows, as according to them “The earth was made to be a common treasury for all.”
THE DIGGERS also advocated absolute human equality including equality between men and women which in the 1600s was a very radical idea indeed.
WHAT DID THE DIGGERS DO?
Instead of simply voicing their opinion through the books and other papers GERRARD WINSTANLEY wrote, he and THE DIGGERS, who consisted of mainly poor families that had no land of their own (as the land was only owned by the rich) decided to take direct action by taking over common land that belonged to no one, and which was not in use, and started to farm it, to allow everyone who worked the land to eat.
At first, this went well, but unsurprisingly the ideas of THE DIGGERS were considered extremely dangerous by those with a vested interest in the preservation of privilege, property and power.
As more of these communities appeared rich landowners and the corrupt government sent soldiers (see drawing from the time depicting this below) to beat them, destroy their homes and crops and drive them off the land they were occupying.
SO WHY HAVE A DIGGERS FESTIVAL IN WIGAN?
Well, the simple answer to that is that GERRARD WINSTANLEY was born and raised in Wigan. It is also, from the earlier action of Wigan Clay and Coal ‘Diggers’ who established their right to dig up local common land for clay and coal, it is suggested by some Winstanley scholars, that he drew his inspiration for his own actions in 1649.
As well as being able to find out more about the life, ideas, and actions of this great Wiganer, we want to celebrate him and THE DIGGERS’ movement with a festival of live music, poetry, film, great beer, and most of all a re-born sense of community spirit amongst ordinary people everywhere.
A FINAL NOTE
Historically GERRARD WINSTANLEY and THE DIGGERS movement was, and is, one of the most important parts of the English ‘Revolution’ of 1649.
This is recognized globally with GERRARD WINSTANLEY amongst those listed on a monument dedicated to ‘The great Socialist thinkers’ in Moscow, Russia.
We think Wigan should be proud to be the home of such an important historical figure, especially as he was the voice for many ordinary people then.
“For freedom is the man that will turn the world upside down, no wonder he hath enemies”
Political debate as well as good music and real ale
I am not sure if this is ignorant and unfair but the key people behind this important, locally-rooted initiative might well be described as coming from the Bennite, later Corbynite social-democratic wing of the workers’ movement and the Labour Party in cooperation with more anarchic and dissident elements. I wonder aloud to what extent these oppositional voices, inspired by the Diggers’ struggle against Authority, are discussing the political consequences of the Left’s capitulation and indeed incorporation into the State’s fearmongering authoritarianism of recent times? Or as seems to be the case, are even activists in a state of COVID denial?
It’s good to see the desire to host a cash-only festival, not only to escape bank charges but to resist the ultimate control of our existence the banks and the ruling class desire.
I’ve pasted this acknowledgement of Susan Atkins’ inspirational dedication to a challenging young person-centred, process-led youth work from across on the old IDYW website. It might be of interest to some.
I am not sure Sue will thank me for noting that, committed as ever in her ninth decade, she continues to defend. to borrow a phrase, ‘youth work that is volatile and voluntary, creative and collective – an association and conversation without guarantees’. She remains an inspiration and it’s a pleasure to draw your attention to her latest Youth Association South Yorkshire [YASY] Annual Report.
Youth Association South Yorkshire Annual Report 2023
Locally, nationally and globally our world seems to be entering another period of transition. We have weathered so many changes over the years as an organisation. There were the rich years when we were able to support organisations across the city with training in Youth Work Practice, together with supporting young people and their workers with programmes in Arts, Health Education & Accreditation of their chosen activities; when we linked up with Regional, National organisations and their infrastructure. The more recent times of diminished resources have seen changes in national policy bringing in ‘austerity’, the cost-of-living crisis and local government’s reduced ability to support development to meet the ever-growing needs of young people, especially those who have missed out on their education.
Once we were able to respond positively and creatively to issues raised by the young people we encountered; to support them and reflect their voices and experiences at Regional and National levels. Young people themselves were active and engaged in their communities and with each other across our city. Thus we have an enormous bank of goodwill and living networks among many of those young people, now adults with their own families, but the resources to carry on that work are no longer available.
Our story now is one of a much more restricted ability to meet and respond as once again the ground shifts, and yet again YASY adjusts, adapts, and looks for ways of continuing to develop our services to support young people and those who work with them. Sheffield Council have made a commitment to restoring open youth clubs across the city, and we were successful in winning their contract to deliver Youth Work Training across the statutory & voluntary sectors.
People tell me that Youth Work, has changed, that young people have changed since my day. Hello, I’m still here! Of course, things change, food has changed the way we eat, where we eat has changed AND the bottom line is we still need to eat, still need food. We also know now that the quality of that food is significant for the way we develop and lead healthy and productive lives. So yes, we live in an ever-changing world, yet there are basics, like food we always need.
For the last 150 years, some form of Youth Work has taken place. On reflection, this has always been about creating spaces for young people, maybe originally to convey certain aspects of lifestyle and ‘build character’. Yet, for me, Youth Work has always sought to enable & facilitate young people within that space to test, explore and flourish, to discover their hopes & dreams and find their focus and direction.
You may notice we have changed our address; we have downsized. In that process, we have packed up boxes of the accumulated story of Youth Work both in Sheffield and beyond, including over eighty years’ worth of our organisation’s Annual Reports. Of those, I have introduced at least twenty. Looking back over those reports, and the hundreds of other documents, in the photographs and personal stories we have assembled that are packed in boxes in our new home, a really vivid picture emerges. It demonstrates the state of Youth Work in our City, and maybe more significantly reveals the current issues faced by young people and our ability, or lack of ability, to respond to these.
We are planning to work with others on bringing these archives alive, they tell a story of social history, of young people who made it in Sheffield, of social & political change; there are lessons to be learned that could stand us in good stead as we face the uncertainty of the ever-shifting global landscape that is the future.
As for now, I am pleased and somewhat relieved to be introducing this Report on behalf of the Youth Association South Yorkshire, affectionately known as YASY. In the words of that anthem of the 80s, ‘We WILL Survive’! We look forward to continuing to play our part in the regeneration of Youth Work in communities that is happening right now across the statutory & voluntary sectors here in the City of Sheffield.
Our next CC meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 6th at – Γάιδαρος ΚοινΣΕπ in Vamos – from 10.30 a.m. to noon.
Steve Brimley will lead a discussion on the hot topic of ‘climate change’. To help us prepare for what will be a challenging conversation Steve has sent these links, which he will be drawing upon in his opening contribution. Much appreciated.
CHATTING CRITICALLY 