Author: cassandrasboxmedia

Independent Writer from the UK, blending alternative media perspectives, gender critical views, conspiracy, left wing politics and economics, support for Julian Assange and alternative spirituality.

What’s Going On In Ukraine? Part 2: Putin’s Take

Introduction

Western media outlets have been promoting a particular perspective on the Ukraine conflict, but also on Vladimir Putin himself. Western media have a long history of attempting to demonise foreign leaders as ‘madmen’: for example Kim Jong Un or Bashar Al-Assad. This is done to obscure any reasons or motivations that a leader may have had for doing something to downplay any Western role, but also to set up a susceptibility to belief in possible future false flags (for who would gas their own civilians other than an unhinged maniac?) In fact, however, Putin has laid out his logic for the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, and this is what we are going to examine here.

A Note of Caution

Many people like to strawman individuals who are sceptical of the Ukraine narrative. So let’s state the obvious for the record: just because Putin says something, it does not mean it is true. Nor does it automatically mean that it is Putin’s sincere motive. This is blatantly obvious to everyone except MSM ideologues and their followers, but I will state it just in case. We should apply scepticism and critical thinking to Putin’s claims in the same way we apply them to Western claims.

Putin’s Speech on the ‘Special Military Operation’

Putin gave a 28 minute speech announcing his ‘Special Military Operation’ (his words) in Ukraine. The speech can be found with English subtitles here. I have summarised the main points below:

Putin’s speech starts with criticism of Western governments for expanding NATO closer to Russia’s borders, and claims that he wanted to work with the West on the issue of security. However, he follows up by stating that his proposals were rejected. To explain this, he goes back to the 1980s and the failing Soviet Union, which allowed the US to assert complete dominance. He then lists examples of the US/NATO unilateral military actions. He starts with the bombing of Belgrade by the US, then discussing Libya and Syria and then the invasion of Iraq. While discussing these examples he emphasises the illegality under international law.

He believes Russia in the 1990s was willing to be a partner, but instead of taking this on board the West tried to destroy Russia by supporting terrorism in the Caucasus. Putin insists that he has continued to make attempts to get NATO to not expand further but has failed. He then claims that the USSR was not fully prepared for war against the Nazis and that Putin will not make the same mistake. NATO has hardened its position against Russia, and so Russia must react to the threat. It is a matter of “life or death” for Russia, and NATO have crossed his red line.

Putin then returns to the topic of Donbass. Putin says that Russia has been trying to resolve the conflict there for 8 years but has failed and so is taking military action. He then adds that the West is supporting Nazis in Ukraine, and the threat being posed by NATO in Ukraine makes Russia’s actions defensive. They have been asked for help by the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. In order to protect them, Ukraine will be denazified and demilitarised but the territory will not be occupied. He tells Ukrainians he is not concerned with them but those who are in charge of the country.

Putin’s Truth Claims

If we apply our knowledge of history to Putin’s factual claims (rather than his motives, which are more difficult to assess, or the morals of his actions) we will find that Putin makes a large number of truth claims and reasonable extrapolations.

Point #1: NATO did expand to be closer to Russia’s border. Instead of just having united Germany in their alliance they added ex-Soviet countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as several ex-Warsaw Pact countries (such as Bulgaria, one of the most pro-Moscow Soviet states).

Point #2: NATO has destroyed multiple countries, including those highlighted by Putin (Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria). Putin reasonably extrapolates from this that NATO is a threat to Russia’s security. A military alliance that has a long history of being aggressive and murdering civilians is an obvious threat, especially since the West has lied about and demonised Russia. The situation in Syria is of particular relevance given that Russia intervened to help the Syrian government fight Islamic extremism.

Point #3: The Ukrainian Neo-Nazi problem. Putin is correct that Ukraine has a significant problem with Neo-Nazis. The mainstream media, while they have talked about Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, downplay the issue. Supporters of the Ukrainian government generally say that all Western countries have fascist/white supremacist groups, so that the fact that they exist in Ukraine is normal, if undesirable. They also complain that talking about the Neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine we are supporting Putin.

However, they ignore the fact that these groups (such as the Azov Battalion) are embedded within the Ukrainian military. They openly wear Neo-Nazi symbols, such as the ‘Wolfsangel’, which would not be allowed in any military organisation that was not infiltrated by Nazi influence, including Russia’s.

Even when they acknowledge the fact that it is embedded within Ukraine’s national guard forces, they generally state that it is a very small group and therefore not relevant. However, precisely how many of these Neo-Nazis there are is not they key question, it is their influence that is most relevant. The official Ukrainian National Guard account tweeted out a video of an Azov fighter dipping bullets in pig fat to kill Muslims:

Tweet from Richard Medhurst "The Ukrainian National Guard greasing bullets in pork far to kill Muslims with. Just right there on Twitter for you to see. And they say the "Neo-Nazi/racist forces in Ukraine" is a myth" Medhurst is responding to a tweet stating "Azov fighters of the National Guard greased the bullets with lard against the Kadyrov orcs".

More importantly, this article from Max Blumenthal and Alexander Rubenstein outlines the ways in which Neo-Nazi groups have significant influence over the government. It points out that Zelensky, when initially elected, tried to get the neo-Nazi brigades in Zolote to disarm, only to be threatened with more violence.

Instead of continuing down the road of trying to disarm or weaken the Neo-Nazi presence in the country, Zelensky came to accept and promote it.

Putin is also correct when he points to the West’s support for such Neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. This was most obvious during the 2014 coup, when US figures like Victoria Nuland and John McCain met with far right individuals such as Oleh Tyahnybok.

Point #4: The killing of civilians in Donbass. Many critics of Putin’s actions are simply ignoring the Donbass region, pointing to alleged war crimes by the Russians but ignoring the same in the Donbass.

Contrary to the mainstream media, which acts as if Russia started the conflict in Ukraine, there was already a war in Ukraine. This is the conflict between the Kiev government and the separatists in the Donbass region. In short, the separatists in Donbass wish to be independent from the Ukraine government due to their hostility to Russian speakers. The Ukraine government has committed violence against those areas wishing to be independent, including killing many civilians. Independent journalists such as Patrick Lancaster have documented this through video footage and interviews.

Of course, the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine are part of this campaign to terrorise civilians in the Donbass, given that they see Russians as ethnically inferior to Ukrainians.

Conclusion

Putin has highlighted many points in his speech that are factually true, and form a rational basis for invasion of Ukraine (regardless of one’s moral stance on the question). NATO aggression in other countries and the expansion of such a military alliance is a logical reason for Putin’s actions and explains them without having to resort to calling Putin a maniac or madman. Whether he is sincere about denazifying Ukraine remains to be seen, although it is valid to sceptical of this claim due to Putin’s authoritarianism (though, pace Western media claims, he is is not a fascist or Neo-Nazi).

Part 3 of this article will discuss the biggest and most difficult questions of this whole Ukraine issue and that is its connection with the Covid narrative. There is a large debate in independent media about Putin’s stance on ‘The Great Reset’ and his alleged opposition or support for this. Part 3 will look at the evidence.

Cost of Living Crisis Protest Birmingham 2nd April 2022

Black banner stating "The People's Assembly Birmingham: Against Austerity". Advertisements for Birmingham Commonwealth Games are in the background.

The People’s Assembly organised another round of protests against the rising costs of living in the UK (although of course, issues like inflation are not just affecting the UK). This included another Birmingham protest. The previous action took place on the 12 February, although there was also supposed to be an action on the 5 March. No one turned up to this action other than a few activists with tables (I have a couple of videos on my channel, see here).

There was a larger selection of speakers at this event with a presence of a few hundred people. This included some people from the crowd as well as many union, climate activist, etc speakers that you would expect to appear at a bread and butter left wing event such as this.

Several unions were represented with the University and College Union and the Musicians’ Union as well as others. There were housing campaigners speaking as well as pensioners and climate activists (of course, there is a bit of a contradiction here with the fuel costs issue).

https://twitter.com/NeilClark66/status/1510295099741249537

I thought the speeches at this one were a little bit better than the previous one, though there was some left wing/woke liberal nonsense involved in some of them, including references to Brexit (I really don’t get why anyone is talking about Brexit at this point) and the ‘pandemic’ and ‘Covid’ being the cause of things that were actually caused by lockdowns. For example, this speaker talks about the legitimate issues caused by lockdowns for jobbing musicians, but frames it as if it was caused by ‘the pandemic’ as some sort of disembodied entity not connected to government policy. So ultimately the root of the issue still was not attacked.

The Birmingham Stop the War leader Stuart Richardson also talked about the Ukraine issue and how that was affecting prices. Although placing sanctions on Russia will clearly exacerbate this issue I do not see it as a root cause, rather the government/elites will try to blame Putin for what they created. While any Russian retaliation is understandable in the context of sanctions the media will pretend it is all down to Putin being a ‘maniac’ and ‘madman’ (and hell, maybe Maddow was right about Russians wanting to freeze us to death?)

I spoke in my previous article on this issue about the difficulties relating to this issue of the cost of living, and I am still not sure how to resolve it:

I don’t want working class people to have to pay more money for energy bills etc., especially since they were the primary victims of lockdowns. I think that is fairly obvious. The question is how we tackle the problem. In general, even though I disagree with capitalist economics I have become a lot more sceptical of calling on the (capitalist) state to do anything about anything, since they will just use it to push more pain onto working people (a good example is the environment: while it’s clear that many things humans are doing are negatively affecting the environment, any state action is likely to be more authoritarian nonsense that will punish the working class like carbon based digital IDs). Unlike libertarians I believe that this authoritarianism is inherently interlinked with the capitalist system.

Alternative systems within the current one such as opting out as much as possible and doing other things within the freedom based community are a good idea. However, they are difficult to implement in practice given that people still have to survive within the current system (e.g. people have to go to work full time, leaving limited time and energy for alternatives). Such suggestions can come across as a bit naïve in some cases though I advocate them where realistically possible.

There is due to be further protests on the cost of living issue with a protest taking place on June 12 in London.

Footage from the protest has been uploaded to Bitchute.

Oh and the award for the worst protest sign:

Woman in mask holding sign stating "Is this really Building Back Better?".

Assange Wedding Footage

Protesters outside Belmarsh Prison. Yellow ribbons are tied to the fence and trees.

I was able to attend the Assange wedding celebration/protest outside Belmarsh prison on the 23rd March. I have some footage which I will post samples of below.

About 150 people turned up outside the prison.

The independent media people present (that I saw) were Craig Murray, Gordon Dimmack, Mohammad Elmaazi, and Resistance GB. Chris Hedges was also there which I wasn’t expecting.

Craig Murray spoke to some of the media (primarily Gordon Dimmack, see below) regarding his exclusion from being a witness at the wedding. Apparently, he was considered a threat to the prison by the British state:

Murray also talked about the meaning of the Assange wedding.

You can see the crowd in the video below:

The microphone was set up next to the tent. Julian Assange activist Truman read out some messages from worldwide Assange supporters.

After that there were more formal speeches. Chris Hedges gave a 13 minute speech that can be seen in this video where he talks about the collapse of the rule of law and the power of the ruling elite, as well as the need for mass civil disobedience:

Gordon Dimmack and Daniel Fooks were also invited up to give short speeches.

The police were mostly standing around looking bored and preventing anyone from getting too close to the prison. They would shoo people out of the road but that was about it. However, when ‘Lean on Me’ started playing through the stereo at around 3.40pm, the police decided to be extremely petty and turn of the music, claiming that it violated Greenwich by-laws.

After that the police started standing in the road and being more in your face about their presence. So that there was a line of 3-4 police keeping people on the street and not the road and generally trying to look more intimidating. I am not sure what the point was since before they turned the music off there hadn’t been any issues with the crowd but it seemed to me to be an exercise in willy waving from the officers.

Further footage is available on my channel.

What’s Going On in Ukraine? Part 1: History

Introduction

The mainstream media is awash with feverish condemnations of Putin for invading Ukraine. Western governments and mainstream media are, of course, completely untrustworthy when it comes to any issue of foreign policy. In particular, prior to the Official Covid Narrative, they lied endlessly about Russia: Russia hacking emails to send them to Wikileaks, Russia swinging the election with Facebook ads, the bizarre Skripal psyop, and let’s not forget Russia freezing Americans to death. There have also been half assed attempts to maintain the Russia fear narrative throughout the Covid psyop: the Navalny narrative and the return from the dead of Boshirov and Petrov for one news cycle. In order to start to address this question, we have to be aware of the actual history of Ukraine, western intervention in that country, and how the US and NATO provoked Russia to act.

The Post-Soviet Space & Western Involvement: A Brief History

Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, as eventually the USSR became 15 different successor states. The largest of these is the Russian Federation, which existed in a state of shambles throughout the 1990s under the leadership of the alcoholic Boris Yeltsin. During this period Russia’s influence outside its borders massively waned as it was consumed with issues such as economic crisis, a rampant mafia, and possible further territorial losses in places such as the Caucasus.

The Western powers used this period to consolidate a bulwark against Russia by expanding NATO. The Baltic states – who always had more anti-Soviet/Russian sentiment – joined NATO in 2004 along with several other former socialist republics that were not part of the USSR. The other post-Soviet states remain outside of NATO, but there has been talk of trying to get certain other post-Soviet states (mostly Georgia and Ukraine) into the bloc.

The West has attempted to install and maintain anti-Russian, pro EU/neo-liberal governments in the post-Soviet states and former socialist republics, with varying degrees of success. This has involved the sponsorship of colour revolutions and the promise of EU integration. For example, the West opposed Shevardnadze’s government in Georgia (ousted in the 2003 Rose revolution) and Lukashenko’s government in Belarus (who they have tried and failed to oust several times, as recently as 2021).

The EU has also been involved in attempting to get 6 of the post-Soviet states to sign an Association Agreement. This plan was known as the ‘Eastern Partnership’ and started in 2009, targeting Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and most notably Ukraine. Some of these states, like Georgia, were fully on board, whereas others, such as Belarus and Armenia, were not (these countries preferred the Eurasian alternative promoted by Russia).

This initiative was portrayed by the EU as a technocratic and economic agenda, primarily about trade deals and reforms to make said countries more in line with neo-liberal ideology, such as deregulation. In reality such initiatives were designed to weaken Russia, the carrot to the regime change stick.

The ‘Euromaidan’ Coup, The Azov Battalion and The Donbass

The details of the Euromaidan Coup have been outlined in detail in multiple articles, both written at the time and more recently.

The Official Narrative of the Euromaidan is something like this. The corrupt, unpopular and pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych was ruling over Ukraine. The EU reached out an olive branch to Yanukovych in terms of of an Association Agreement, a deal beneficial to both parties that would improve and modernise Ukraine’s economy and help to harmonise it with the EU. However, Yanukovych, after negotiating this deal, rejected it under pressure from Putin.

The Ukrainian people desired integration with Europe and were outraged by Yanukovych’s choice for Russia over the West. So they went into the streets en masse to oppose Yanukovych’s unpopular decision. His strategy of police brutality failed. Following this, his unpopularity led him to flee the country and to be replaced by a pro-European leader who was in line with the desires of the Ukrainian people.

Of course, there are massive problems with this narrative. It is true that that the (more Russian speaking) east of Ukraine supported Yanukovych much more than the west. He was elected in 2010 in replacement for the more pro-Western Yushchenko (I won’t get into the complications of the ‘Orange Revolution’ here). Ukraine is roughly divided on east/west lines politically, with the east being more pro-Russian and having more Russian speakers.

It is also the case that the failure to sign the Association Agreement acted as the trigger for regime change. After Yanukovych decided not to sign the agreement, protesters took to the streets. However, there are multiple divergences in reality from the official narrative:

  • Firstly, the association agreement was not as benign as it was originally portrayed. As Stephen F. Cohen points out: “[The agreement] included protocols requiring Ukraine to adhere to Europe’s “military and security” policies, which meant in effect, without mentioning the alliance, NATO.”
  • Secondly, the role of Neo-Nazis in the coup is brushed over, if mentioned at all by the Western media. There were multiple fascist groups involved with the protests, who idolise Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. These groups included Svoboda, a far right organisation led by Oleh Tyahnybok, and Right Sector.
  • Thirdly, the US government admitted spending “5 billion dollars ‘assisting Ukraine’. This includes 180 million dollars on ‘development programs’ for ‘judges, members of parliament [and] political parties’.”
  • Fourthly, the US Deputy Secretary of State at the time, Victoria Nuland, was also involved in maneuvering behind the scenes to ensure a government acceptable to Washington. Nuland met with the far right leader Tyahnybok personally. There is also a leaked call in which Nuland takes part, discussing how the government would be reconstituted after the coup, with Nuland identifying who should and should not go into government.

Furthermore, the situation in Donbass has been completely ignored by the mainstream media. The media acts as if Putin started a war in Ukraine, when there was already one: the shelling of the people of Donbass by the Ukrainian government. The people of Donbass rejected the coup in 2014 that massively increased the power of violent neo-Nazi groups, and instead formed the Donetsk & Lugansk People’s Republics.

Journalist Eva Bartlett, who has visited Donbass, talks about some of the atrocities committed by the Kiev government in this article.

Conclusion

Western governments and the mainstream media have misrepresented the situation in Ukraine in order to promote a pro-imperialist narrative. The situation in 2014 is directly linked to the current situation in Ukraine, which will be considered in further articles.

Human Rights Act Reform Consultation

A sign showing a large number of overlapped stickers with messages opposing the Covid 19 narrative.

Introduction

The British government, while currently appearing less authoritarian than some other Western governments due to the removal of many ‘Covid restrictions’, is seeking other ways to create a punishing authoritarian regime. Some of these I have already discussed, such as the Police Bill and the Nationality Bill, and others I have not, such as the Online Harms Bill (which seeks to ban ‘Covid misinformation’). One of the most important authoritarian moves is the reform of the Human Rights Act which has now been put out to consultation by the government. This article will look at the consultation and what is in it.

The Consultation Document

The Government has provided a document to read alongside the consultation. This document is extremely long and goes in to a lot of random detail. My guess is that the idea is to make the entire thing as intimidating as possible, so that people do not bother to respond. The questions (also listed on the page) on are also very technical and legalistic and so hard to understand. I’ve got to admit that I am not the best with legal jargon myself.

Fortunately there are already a couple of guides out there to help with filling in the consultation. It can be done via email or through an online link. The guides I have found so far for filling this in:

Here are the questions copied and pasted from the UK consultation document. You’ll see what I mean about obtuse when you have a look:

  • Question 1: We believe that the domestic courts should be able to draw on a wide range of law when reaching decisions on human rights issues. We would welcome your thoughts on the illustrative draft clauses found after paragraph 4 of Appendix 2, as a means of achieving this.
  • Question 2: The Bill of Rights will make clear that the UK Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial arbiter of our laws in the implementation of human rights. How can the Bill of Rights best achieve this with greater certainty and authority than the current position?
  • Question 3: Should the qualified right to jury trial be recognised in the Bill of Rights? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 4: How could the current position under section 12 of the Human Rights Act be amended to limit interference with the press and other publishers through injunctions or other relief?
  • Question 5: The government is considering how it might confine the scope for interference with Article 10 to limited and exceptional circumstances, taking into account the considerations above. To this end, how could clearer guidance be given to the courts about the utmost importance attached to Article 10? What guidance could we derive from other international models for protecting freedom of speech?
  • Question 6: What further steps could be taken in the Bill of Rights to provide stronger protection for journalists’ sources?
  • Question 7: Are there any other steps that the Bill of Rights could take to strengthen the protection for freedom of expression?
  • Question 8: Do you consider that a condition that individuals must have suffered a ‘significant disadvantage’ to bring a claim under the Bill of Rights, as part of a permission stage for such claims, would be an effective way of making sure that courts focus on genuine human rights matters? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 9: Should the permission stage include an ‘overriding public importance’ second limb for exceptional cases that fail to meet the ‘significant disadvantage’ threshold, but where there is a highly compelling reason for the case to be heard nonetheless? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 10: How else could the government best ensure that the courts can focus on genuine human rights abuses?
  • Question 11: How can the Bill of Rights address the imposition and expansion of positive obligations to prevent public service priorities from being impacted by costly human rights litigation? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 12: We would welcome your views on the options for section 3: Option 1: Repeal section 3 and do not replace it; Option 2: Repeal section 3 and replace it with a provision that where there is ambiguity, legislation should be construed compatibly with the rights in the Bill of Rights, but only where such interpretation can be done in a manner that is consistent with the wording and overriding purpose of the legislation. We would welcome comments on the above options, and the illustrative clauses in Appendix 2.
  • Question 13: How could Parliament’s role in engaging with, and scrutinising, section 3 judgments be enhanced?
  • Question 14: Should a new database be created to record all judgments that rely on section 3 in interpreting legislation?
  • Question 15: Should the courts be able to make a declaration of incompatibility for all secondary legislation, as they can currently do for Acts of Parliament?
  • Question 16: Should the proposals for suspended and prospective quashing orders put forward in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill be extended to all proceedings under the Bill of Rights where secondary legislation is found to be incompatible with the Convention rights? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 17: Should the Bill of Rights contain a remedial order power? In particular, should it be: a. similar to that contained in section 10 of the Human Rights Act; b. similar to that in the Human Rights Act, but not able to be used to amend the Bill of Rights itself; c. limited only to remedial orders made under the ‘urgent’ procedure; or d. abolished altogether? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 18: We would welcome your views on how you consider section 19 is operating in practice, and whether there is a case for change.
  • Question 19: How can the Bill of Rights best reflect the different interests, histories and legal traditions of all parts of the UK, while retaining the key principles that underlie a Bill of Rights for the whole UK?
  • Question 20: Should the existing definition of public authorities be maintained, or can more certainty be provided as to which bodies or functions are covered? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 21: The government would like to give public authorities greater confidence to perform their functions within the bounds of human rights law. Which of the following replacement options for section 6(2) would you prefer? Please explain your reasons. Option 1: Provide that wherever public authorities are clearly giving effect to primary legislation, then they are not acting unlawfully; or Option 2: Retain the current exception, but in a way which mirrors the changes to how legislation can be interpreted discussed above for section 3.
  • Question 22: Given the above, we would welcome your views on the most appropriate approach for addressing the issue of extraterritorial jurisdiction, including the tension between the law of armed conflict and the Convention in relation to extraterritorial armed conflict.
  • Question 23: To what extent has the application of the principle of ‘proportionality’ given rise to problems, in practice, under the Human Rights Act? We wish to provide more guidance to the courts on how to balance qualified and limited rights. Which of the below options do you believe is the best way to achieve this? Please provide reasons. Option 1: Clarify that when the courts are deciding whether an interference with a qualified right is ‘necessary’ in a ‘democratic society’, legislation enacted by Parliament should be given great weight, in determining what is deemed to be ‘necessary’. Option 2: Require the courts to give great weight to the expressed view of Parliament, when assessing the public interest, for the purposes of determining the compatibility of legislation, or actions by public authorities in discharging their statutory or other duties, with any right. We would welcome your views on the above options, and the draft clauses after paragraph 10 of Appendix 2.
  • Question 24: How can we make sure deportations that are in the public interest are not frustrated by human rights claims? Which of the options, below, do you believe would be the best way to achieve this objective? Please provide reasons. Option 1: Provide that certain rights in the Bill of Rights cannot prevent the deportation of a certain category of individual, for example, based on a certain threshold such as length of imprisonment; Option 2: Provide that certain rights can only prevent deportation where provided for in a legislative scheme expressly designed to balance the strong public interest in deportation against such rights; and/or Option 3: provide that a deportation decision cannot be overturned, unless it is obviously flawed, preventing the courts from substituting their view for that of the Secretary of State.
  • Question 25: While respecting our international obligations, how could we more effectively address, at both the domestic and international levels, the impediments arising from the Convention and the Human Rights Act to tackling the challenges posed by illegal and irregular migration?
  • Question 26: We think the Bill of Rights could set out a number of factors in considering when damages are awarded and how much. These include: a. the impact on the provision of public services; b. the extent to which the statutory obligation had been discharged; c. the extent of the breach; and d. where the public authority was trying to give effect to the express provisions, or clear purpose, of legislation. Which of the above considerations do you think should be included? Please provide reasons.
  • Question 27: We believe that the Bill of Rights should include some mention of responsibilities and/or the conduct of claimants, and that the remedies system could be used in this respect. Which of the following options could best achieve this? Please provide reasons. Option 1: Provide that damages may be reduced or removed on account of the applicant’s conduct specifically confined to the circumstances of the claim; or Option 2: Provide that damages may be reduced in part or in full on account of the applicant’s wider conduct, and whether there should be any limits, temporal or otherwise, as to the conduct to be considered.
  • Question 28: We would welcome comments on the options, above, for responding to adverse Strasbourg judgments, in light of the illustrative draft clause at paragraph 11 of Appendix 2.
  • Question 29: We would like your views and any evidence or data you might hold on any potential impacts that could arise as a result of the proposed Bill of Rights. In particular: a. What do you consider to be the likely costs and benefits of the proposed Bill of Rights? Please give reasons and supply evidence as appropriate. b. What do you consider to be the equalities impacts on individuals with particular protected characteristics of each of the proposed options for reform? Please give reasons and supply evidence as appropriate. c. How might any negative impacts be mitigated? Please give reasons and supply evidence as appropriate.

The consultation allows you to only answer some of these questions and ignore others. To he honest I am going to ignore most of them and only focus on a few. I used the email method because I didn’t want to make arguments on the uber technical questions.

Questions 4/5/6/7: Free Expression

I looked at two bits that they mentioned in their consultation:

The government is committed to ensuring that the biggest social media companies protect users from abuse and harm, and in doing so ensuring that everyone can enjoy their right to freedom of expression free from the fear of abuse.

The government wishes to explore ways of strengthening the protection for freedom of expression in the Human Rights Act, mindful as always of the government’s primary duty to protect national security and keep its citizens safe.

Basically, ‘harm’ and ‘abuse’ can mean anything and ‘national security’ can also mean anything.

Question 8/9: Preliminary stages

  • These will be abused by the government to prevent cases they don’t like coming to court.
  • The examples that they gave on the consultation are very small uses of public money
  • Problematic to introduce this over a few frivolous cases, even if those cases lead to slight waste of public funds.

Question 22: Extraterritoriality

  • Concerns that they government will try to change this to prevent their soldiers being prosecuted for war crimes

Questions 26/27: Compensation

  • Deflects attention from the abuse and towards the individual making the claim
  • Divides the population into ‘good’ citizens worthy of rights and ‘bad’ citizens who are unworthy
  • Behaviour could mean anything such as attending a protest the government doesn’t like
  • May be used to discriminate against certain races, religions, etc. or against people who don’t agree with a state narrative e.g. the unvaxxed

General comments on the concept of a ‘rights culture’ and the public interest

See Naked Emperor’s post above on this one. Basically they are trying to put more emphasis on obligations to society. In other words another possible means to attempt forced injections in the ‘public interest’.

Cost of Living Protest Birmingham 12th February 2022

Protesters opposite Metro Bank in Birmingham City Centre.

This was a protest organised by the usual suspects on the left, who to be honest I find generally tiresome at this point. This included the unions – Unite and the National Education Union – and the People’s Assembly. In other words, the lockdown fanatics that advocated for the situation we now find ourselves in regarding the economy – and those who mocked people like me for pointing out the devastation that lockdown would inflict on working people.

People’s Assembly even went so far as to refuse to protest alongside ‘anti-vaxxers’ against the draconian Policing Bill:

Screenshot of Tweet from "People's Assembly": It has come to our attention that the Anti Vax movement are mobilising for the #KillTheBill event outside the House of Lords tomorrow Wednesday 8 Dec 5-7pm as a consequence the People's Assembly will no longer be protesting at this time. #KillTheBill
They later deleted this because of the backlash but here it is for posterity. As you can see it is a ratio’d tweet.

I primarily went to the protest in order to provide coverage of the event, rather than to take part. I have lost faith in the traditional and modern left to do anything useful due to their Corona fanaticism, advocacy for working class destroying lockdowns, harmful and useless (in terms of stopping viruses) face masks, and mocking and smearing anyone who even questions a dodgy Big Pharma product as an ‘anti-vaxxer’.

The framing that was present during the speeches is exactly what you would expect regarding Corona, complaining about the old staples such as ‘useless PPE’, ‘dodgy contracts’ etc., which does not get to the heart of the matter. The oblique framing of the ‘the Tories making us pay for the pandemic’ was present, but no mention of the horrific consequences of locking down and how it has harmed working class people. (The only speaker to use the word ‘lockdown’ was Nila from Stop the War coalition, from what I heard, which was not all of it due to wind noise).

Then we get the typical complaining about left wing bugbears such as Tommy Robinson (I believe he is only highlighting grooming gang victims to push a particular narrative, but the left has failed on this issue, see below), ‘The Tory government’ (as if Labour wouldn’t do the same thing), Brexit (as if this topic has any relevance to anything at this point and I say this as a Brexit/Lexit voter), etc. Though one of the speakers did call out Prince Andrew for being a pedophile and the royal family for protecting him, so maybe common sense hasn’t completely left the building.

I don’t want working class people to have to pay more money for energy bills etc., especially since they were the primary victims of lockdowns. I think that is fairly obvious. The question is how we tackle the problem. In general, even though I disagree with capitalist economics I have become a lot more sceptical of calling on the (capitalist) state to do anything about anything, since they will just use it to push more pain onto working people (a good example is the environment: while it’s clear that many things humans are doing are negatively affecting the environment, any state action is likely to be more authoritarian nonsense that will punish the working class like carbon based digital IDs). Unlike libertarians I believe that this authoritarianism is inherently interlinked with the capitalist system.

Alternative systems within the current one such as opting out as much as possible and doing other things within the freedom based community are a good idea. However, they are difficult to implement in practice given that people still have to survive within the current system (e.g. people have to go to work full time, leaving limited time and energy for alternatives). Such suggestions can come across as a bit naïve in some cases though I advocate them where realistically possible.

I have uploaded some of the footage onto my Bitchute channel of the speeches that were audible and not ruined by wind noise.

Protesters outside Waterstones in the City Centre. Signs read 'Tax the Rich'.

RE Tommy Robinson: Robinson wants to promote the idea that foreign or Muslim men are inherently a threat to women and girls, which is false (even though I do believe Islamic ideology to be misogynistic, it does not follow that all men from these backgrounds will rape children). However the left has ignored the grooming gang victims because they were victims of Asian men and that does not fit their own narrative of foreign/Muslim men not being a threat to women and girls. In reality a minority of men of all races are a violent threat to women and girls (which is one reason why we have separate spaces for women and men). Robinson ignores victims of white men, whereas the misogyny of the current left causes them to brush over the problem. The left also allows for more abuse of women and girls to take place by pushing transgender ideology, which states that any man is a woman if he declares himself to be so (including violent males). The women from Stand up to Racism claimed that their slogan involved justice for the victims, I wasn’t there so I can’t say, but there is no evidence of that in the signage.

Wolverhampton Anti-Vax Mandate Protest 29 Jan 2022

A sign showing a large number of overlapped stickers with messages opposing the Covid 19 narrative.

Stand Up Wolverhampton organised a protest outside New Cross Hospital against the NHS jab mandate. As of the time of the protest the deadline for the first dose of the jab for NHS staff was February 3. (Since the protest took place the mandate has been paused, and so unvaccinated staff will not be getting the sack after 3rd February.)

I haven’t been to Wolverhampton in years and I ended up being late for this protest because the bus takes way longer to get there than it says it does.

I ended up being there between 1:40-3.

I didn’t know what to expect. Both sides of the street were lined with people when I arrived and they had the yellow flash cards on display. Apparently there had been previous actions in the Wolverhampton/Black Country area involving the placards. I know that the yellow placards have been used in other areas as well through the Rebels on Roundabouts activist group who have been asking questions about the jabs.

There was a really nice vibe to this protest. The artist Jaigo K was there doing some songs for the crowd.

I turned up in the middle of a song. I will post the clip of Jaigo K performing a song about the jabs below:

There is further footage on my Bitchute channel. If you want to look into Jaigo K’s music here is his youtube channel.

The speeches given focused on the jabs and the mandate and advice on the Yellow Card system:

There was also discussion about the Workers of England Union who are opposing the jab mandate. There was also a couple who stood up and talked about an example of poor care in the NHS. The event took place near the beginning of lockdowns and involved the daughter of this couple being treated with inappropriate drugs after going to hospital for an asthma attack.

This is a video of the crowd after the speeches took place with ‘Get Up Stand Up’ playing in the background to give you an idea of attendances at the protest:

Anti-Nationality and Borders Bill Protest Birmingham 27th January 2022

Protesters in a winter evening in Birmingham City Centre. Two older ladies hold signs opposing the Nationality Bill.

A quick post on this protest with uploaded footage.

The Nationalities and Borders Bill is a new piece of legislation relating to issues such as citizenship and asylum put forward by the Tory government. As such, it has enraged the Modern (aka woke) Left due to their heavy emphasis on immigration.

This bill is of concern due to its authoritarian aspects – alongside other bills and acts opposed by the Modern Left – such as the Police Bill – and ones the Modern Left refuse to oppose – such as the Coronavirus Act. The key authoritarian aspect of concern is that the bill makes it possible for the government to strip people from immigrant backgrounds of citizenship without notification. The number of people calculated to be possibly affected is 6 million including dual nationals and people born in foreign countries.

Of course, while the government claims this will only be used against criminals, we cannot trust the government not to abuse these powers and go after activists or anyone they don’t like in general.

Unfortunately, as is in line with the left today, many protesters were clearly in alignment with the Official Covid Narrative.

Here is the protest crowd:

Some of the speakers are up on my Bitchute channel. Unfortunately the sound was not the best due to an arcade game being run very close to the protest site, which is the noise that you can hear in the background in some of the clips.

Anti-Vax Mandate/Covid Tyranny Protest Birmingham 22nd January 2022

Large number of protesters, sign in front says No Mandatory vaccines.

I had a prior appointment so unfortunately was not able to stay to hear all the speakers at the rally but I did want to attend anyway to show my support for the opposition to vaccine mandates etc. I was thus only there between 12.10 and 1.10 so anything that happened outside of those times I didn’t get to see. I still got some pictures and footage to share though from the protest.

The protest was in Chamberlain Square this time and I must say the vibe of the protest was great. I felt a lot of positive energy from the protest in general. Here was the crowd at the time of arrival 12.10:

Protesters outside Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

The crowd did get quite a bit bigger than this.

Around 12.25 a group of NHS workers supporting #NHS100K walked into the rally and you can see the footage below:

Here’s some footage showing the crowd around 12.35 to give an indication of how many were at the protest. While it’s difficult to compare due to the fact that previous protests have taken place in different squares, I think this one was bigger than the previous ones I have attended in Birmingham.

The crowd can be seen in this photo, obviously there were also some people behind me and to the side on the square:

Large crowd of protesters, sign in the middle reads 'Stop Mandatory Vaccines."

I stayed for the first few speeches. There was quite a few mentions of this Mark Sexton legal case that is being heavily discussed in covid sceptic circles. There was also a press release regarding the case handed out, which said that:

Hugely significant allegations have been made of serious crimes being committed by a number of UK government ministers, civil servants, heads of news networks etc.

[…] The UK’s biggest criminal investigation is now live.

Personally I am a bit sceptical of this, although I will say I have not done a lot of research into the case itself. I am not convinced by the idea that the police, who are part of the corrupt system enforcing the lockdown etc. measures would be willing to investigate that corrupt system.

There was also discussion of NHS100K and the jab mandates. There was also a member of NHS staff who spoke out opposing the mandate:

Interestingly unlike previous anti-lockdown protests there were a few traditional left winger types there. There were two blokes with some Workers’ Party of Britain flags. Previously their party has claimed to attend anti-lockdown actions – I did question this but the tweet seems to have disappeared. Anyway I never saw any of their flags etc. at any previous events I attended. There was also one guy with a placard saying ‘Pro-vaccine, anti-mandatory vaccine’ with a Unison logo.

There is more footage of this event on my Bitchute channel.

Zombie Russians Part 3: In Which Bond Villain Putin Invades Ukraine

Mock film poster with Caricature of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Film title: Zombie Russians, a cassandra's box production

The Russia narrative is one of the most important ‘victims’ of the Official Covid Narrative. Prior to 2020, the Russia narrative was being sold non-stop, with endless theatre about Russia hacking the election and freezing people to death. Not to mention ridiculous nonsense about Russia smearing deadly nerve agent on door handles because the mastermind behind Donald Trump cannot assassinate people properly.

Now of course, if the Russian threat was so important and we were all at risk of being frozen out of house and home, it wouldn’t have been dropped in about 2 minutes when the next official narrative came along. However, despite the Corona fanaticism that has taken over the entirety of Western politics and society, the Russia narrative occasionally sputters out of its dead state to rise again. And then I take the piss out of it.

In part 1 of Zombie Russians, I documented the return of Boshirov and Petrov from a nice cathedral in Salisbury as a temporary distraction, the story that they blew up an Czech arsenal to disappear as soon as it arrived on the scene. In part 2, I documented the return of Christopher Steele to talk about his piss (poor) dossier on Trump.

And now we get the revival from the dead of another Russia narrative: The ‘Putin wants to invade every former Soviet country’ narrative.

Most of all this narrative focusses on Ukraine. Western commentators have been pretty obsessed with the idea that Russia is gonna go all out on Ukraine for a while. Because Putin is the one who just invades countries willy nilly to get what he wants…oops, I got Russia mixed up with the US there.

Tobias Ellwood MP has been promoting this narrative, saying Russia is going to invade Ukraine in weeks. This guy is a reservist in the 77th brigade – no I am not making this up, you can check for yourself – so you know he’s gotta be trustworthy.

He’s also promoting a particularly hilarious view of foreign policy:

We did a defence select committee visit to the United States and we were shocked by just how distracted they are from international events other than China,” he said.

[…]

There’s a 1930 to feel to the world, authoritarianism on the rise, a lack of Western leadership, weak international institutions unable to hold errant nations to account.

So the US isn’t doing enough bombing (as if), so authoritarianism is on the rise. Well yeah, I agree with that last bit. That’s what Ellwood himself has been promoting, complaining about people at Christmas seeing each other. But yeah, we keep pretending literally banning social interaction isn’t authoritarian. Because reasons.

And we also have the US government claiming that Russia is going to do a false flag to justify invading Ukraine. You couldn’t make it up. This is the best example of projection I have ever seen. And they are also complaining about Russia having troops within its own territory. I’d like to see Russia complain about Americans sticking troops in Texas and see how far they get. (Or maybe on the border with Canada, given the insane Corona fanaticism going on over there.)

Meanwhile, in the UK:

So the solution to Russian troops doing some war games in Belarus is to send some troops into Ukraine. Yeah, because it’s not like the West has ever aggravated the situation by war gaming with Ukraine, right? Right next to this thing called ‘the Russian border’?

There is zero context with any of these arguments in the mainstream media. Yeah yeah, so so what if the 2014 democratically elected Ukrainian government was overthrown with the help of some Nazis? So what if the West wanted to get Ukraine in NATO-by-proxy through the Association Agreement, which stipulates agreement on issues of security? Eh, Putin bad. Though it’s funny that Putin is still the ‘enemy’ despite his obvious compliance with the Covid narrative.

The serious discussion here is about competition versus co-operation in the clearly global Biosecurity State agenda, and what balance of those factors currently exists between the West, Russia and China. The classic imperialist European powers competed over colonies while all agreeing about the importance of the maintenance of the colonial domination over Africa, Latin America and Asia, and indeed sometimes agreed on the division of colonies between themselves for mutual benefits. We are observing the same dynamic today, in which Russia, China and the West have colluded with the Covid narrative in order to increase domestic control over their populations while the West continues its imperialist adventures abroad (often opposed by Russia/China for their own reasons).

But nah. Putin is stroking his white cat so get distracted folks!