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.

The Censorship of Women for Stating Biological Truth and the Contradiction of Left Wing Independent Media

Gagged woman cartoon, the gag reads 'Biological Truth'.

Introduction

A large number of women (and in some cases, men) have been censored, and in some cases legally harassed, for stating the fact that biological sex is immutable and men cannot become women. Left wing independent media, though they often decry online censorship, ignore this aspect of the phenomena despite its prominence. Left wing independent media fails to address the fundamental contradiction of maintaining that trans rights are anti-establishment, while its critics are banned by that very same establishment.

The Evidence

We can start with people who have been banned from Twitter for expressing opinions that disagree with gender identity ideology.

Meghan Murphy. Meghan Murphy is the editor of the publication Feminist Current. She was banned from twitter for calling ‘Jessica Yaniv’ – an infamous pervert who unsuccessfully sued female beauticians for refusing to wax his genitals – a ‘he’ pronoun.

Helen Staniland. Helen Staniland is a campaigner for women’s single sex spaces who was banned from Twitter for asking ‘The Staniland Question’. This is: “Do you believe that male-sexed people should have the right to undress and shower in a communal changing room with women and girls.” [Note: While I was in the process of writing this post, Staniland’s account was reinstated.]

Kellie Jay Keen (Posie Parker). Kellie Jay Keen was banned by Twitter for criticising Susie Green, the current leader of the ‘trans-child’ charity Mermaids. Green took her child to Thailand when he was 16 to have genital surgery. Keen accurately referred to Green having her son castrated (the surgery involves castration).

Karen Davis. She runs the Youtube channel You’re Kidding Right. She has also been banned from twitter.

Graham Linehan. Linehan is a well-known comedy writer who was banned from twitter for tweeting that ‘men aren’t women’.

Fred Sargeant. A gay activist who was present at Stonewall in 1969. His wesbite states that:

In December 2019 he became active again over his concern that the historical record of the late 60s and early 70s had undergone a significant change that erased the prominent figures and their contributions as well as the primary role of same-sex activism during that period.

On in other words, the reframing of Stonewall to be primarily about ‘black trans women’. He has been banned from Twitter.

Furthermore, whole subreddits have been banned from Reddit. In particular, the Gender Critical subreddit was banned on grounds of it being ‘hateful‘. This subreddit had 65,000 subscribers and 7 years of content.

Books have also been targeted. For example, Abigail Shrier, author of a book exploring Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria in teenage girls called Irreversible Damage, had her book pulled from Target and Amazon refused to allow her publisher to advertise the work. Ryan Anderson, another conservative writer, had his book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, completely removed from Amazon.

Consequences can go beyond censorship. There have been women that have lost jobs and work because of expressing gender critical views. In reality, this amounts to a form of censorship because it prevents viewpoints being expressed. The situation regarding this has improved in the UK with the ruling in the Maya Forstater case that people cannot be fired for gender critical opinions, but it is only through hard work that an absurd original ruling was overturned. Furthermore:

What’s chilling about the cases of Forstater, Keogh and gender-critical feminists who have lost their jobs or been No Platformed from universities is the warning they send to others tempted to stick their heads above the parapet. Say what you know to be true and you might ultimately be vindicated. But you will have to endure the gut-wrenching anguish of thinking your career is over and your livelihood wiped out. […] Despite notable successes the message remains: if you want a quiet life, shut up.

This article, from the highly recommended website Women are Human, provides an excellent list of cases of women losing work and facing violent threats for disagreeing with gender identity ideology. Here are a few examples from the article, I would suggest that you click to read the rest:

Author Gillian Philip, who was part of a team of writers of hugely successful animal fantasy novels for children under the name Erin Hunter, was sacked following a Twitter pile-on when she Tweeted her support for JK Rowling. In the 24 hours after adding #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter handle, the Scots author received hundreds of abusive messages.

Stella Perrett: the cartoonist was fired by the Morning Star newspaper and Public and Commercial Services Union after one of her pieces was branded ‘transphobic’. It depicted a crocodile entering a pool of newts with the caption ‘Don’t worry your pretty little heads. I’m transitioning as a newt!’

Another woman, Lisa Keogh, was recently investigated by her university for stating that ‘women have vaginas’ and that men are physically stronger than women. Although the investigation did not lead to any punishment it did lead to two months of unnecessary uncertainty and stress for Keogh.

There are even cases of legal consequences for women who disagree with gender ideology. Marion Millar, a woman from Scotland, was recently arrested and charged with a ‘hate crime’ for tweeting out pictures of Suffragette ribbons.  Kate Scottow was also harassed legally for calling Stephanie Hayden male. She did manage to get this overturned, but as pointed out above, process can also be a form of punishment.

The Contradiction of Left Wing Independent Media

Independent media can be defined as media that gets funding from non-corporate sources or no funding at all. In this article, I am referring to the online video content produced by a particular section of the left – from very soft alternatives such as Kyle Kulinski, to somewhat more critical alternatives such as Jimmy Dore, MCSC Network, Graham Elwood and The Grayzone. There are also some channels that are not independent as they are funded by other state broadcasters but fit in in terms of style and presentation here, such as Lee Camp and Abby Martin (when she worked for Telesur). There are also writers who would fit into this bracket, such as Caitlin Johnstone.

It is a milieu with which I am very familiar, having watched hours of content from Dore in particular. Of course, to what degree some of the people in this milieu are ‘left wing’ can be debated, but all of these market themselves as such, and also market themselves as pro free speech.

Such independent media outlets have a vested interest in defending free speech on the grounds that they are often on the receiving end of censorship, or soft censorship. For example, MCSC Network and Graham Elwood have been demonetised by Youtube. The reason for this is obvious: these channels often oppose certain narratives which the government wish to promote. For example, Elwood has done many videos on relationships between members of the elite and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Many people in this milieu also claim to be anti-censorship on principle.

However, I have never seen anyone in left wing independent media address the issue of women being censored for speaking out about transgender ideology, or not believing that obviously predatory males that declare themselves women are actually women. To be honest, I have seen more people on the left defend Alex Jones’s right to freedom of speech than I have them defending any woman on this issue. The only independent media that sometimes defend women on this issue are on the right.

Why are left wing independent media ignoring this issue despite the fact it fits in with their free speech stance?

The first point to note here is that this environment is heavily male dominated, and there is virtually no overlap with feminist circles. Women in this environment – such as Fiorella Isobel – are the exception. This means that there is virtually no female perspective to push back on the problems with letting men into women’s spaces and the misogyny of men claiming a ‘female identity’ based on gender stereotypes.

Because these spaces have no overlap with actual feminist media, I doubt that the (primarily) men in this milieu could even outline a gender critical or radical feminist position on the question, let alone come up with an argument to rebut it.

Secondly, it is important to note that this environment is largely made up a group that we could refer to as ‘disgruntled liberals’, mainly American ones. The path for people in this group is something like this: they initially supported the Barack Obama electoral campaign, hoping that electing a liberal black man could bring change after the warmongering, homophobic George W. Bush presidency. However, they quickly became disillusioned by Obama continuing the wars and neoliberal economic policies. They turned to Bernie Sanders, but saw even his soft social democratic campaign be sabotaged by the estabishment so Hillary Clinton could be installed as Democratic nominee. Such people began to look at alternatives to the status quo for completely understandable reasons. But they lack the grounding in socialism and feminism to fully understand how women are oppressed as a group due to biological reality as this reality is obscured by liberalism.

There is also a traditional urge among modern American liberals to differentiate themselves from the American Christian right, due to their opposition to policies such as same sex marriage. While the religious aspect of the American culture wars has faded, it was one of the most important aspects of the George W. Bush presidency when these people were forming their political views. Implicitly they think that taking a pro-transgender stance does this, as they believe that trans rights are the new gay rights. (It’s worth noting that there are examples of right-wing Christians that support transgender ideology, primarily to avoid having an effeminate gay son. Such as this parent promoted by the ACLU, and the case of Kai Shappley.)

They, of course, may also have concerns about cancellation, if they are aware of the problems with gender identity ideology. Individuals who receive money from platforms such as Patreon do have to ensure an income stream by playing to what their audience wants. The audience of such programs shares a similar background to the channels themselves and gender critical feminism is not on the audience’s agenda either.

There is a further question we need to ask. Independent media know full well that the stuff that is censored is the stuff that the MSM don’t want you listening to. Why, then, do independent media refuse to question what this censorship states about transgenderism?

Actual human rights movements are smeared by the establishment. Look at how – for example – the Free Palestine movement are endlessly smeared as being anti-Semitic, Free Assange supporters as being Russian assets and rape apologists, and people who question state narratives on Covid are crazy conspiracy theorists. This also applies to historical movements such as the Suffragettes or the Civil Rights movements – the state and media smeared them and in some cases used outright violence (the force feeding of women, the murder of Fred Hampton).

On the other hand, transgender identified people are celebrated in the media. Look at the case of Ellen Page, previously an open lesbian and now calling herself a ‘transgender man’. This is celebrated as brave and progressive and her existence as a woman is erased from all media reports – now only male name and male pronouns are used for her. The extremely lesbophobic message sent by the celebration of Page’s ‘transition’, that lesbians are really men and should have their breasts cut off, is nowhere criticised except by feminist media and a few right wing outlets.

Independent left wing media looks at this issue through the human rights lens. They fail to see the problem because they ignore the lens they apply to other issues – often very well, in the case of people like Robbie Jaeger – that is, Follow the Money.

Transgender ideology is a huge cash cow for Big Pharma. The more people that take puberty blockers, hormones, and have surgery the more money they make. They have a vested interest in making as many people identify as trans as possible and transgender surgery is considered to be a growing market. Not to mention that if children take puberty blockers followed by hormones, or if adults have their ovaries/testes removed, they can no longer produce their own hormones. This makes them lifelong patients of Big Pharma, and as far as the industry is concerned, a lifelong patient is the best kind of patient. The genital surgeries themselves are expensive, and often require multiple revisions because they are riddled with complications – which means even more money is made by unscrupulous surgeons. Women who speak out are threatening to throw a wrench in this gravy train, so they must be shut up.

Conclusion

The censorship of women is a notable facet of narrative control carried out by the establishment that is ignored by the left due to its own internal biases, even when they claim to be pro free speech.

See also: The Modern Left Has Lost Touch with Reality: Part 2: Transgender Ideology. This article focuses on the British left wing alternative outfits such as The Canary. The milieu focused on in this article is a bit different, as these American independent media outlets are a bit different, although they both ultimately fail in following the money.

Boycott Puma Day of Action

Collection of Palestine signs propped against a tree: Boycott Puma, Free Palestine

A quick post about the Boycott Puma Day of Action that took place on the 10th of July for Palestine.

The Boycott Puma idea comes from the fact that Puma sponsors the Israeli Football Association.

As one of the world’s top athletic apparel makers and the only international sponsor of the Israel Football Association, Puma’s sponsorship brings international legitimacy to the IFA’s actions. The IFA, as documented by Human Rights Watch, includes football clubs based in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Puma’s current and past exclusive licensees in Israel have operations in illegal Israeli settlements.

The Boycott Puma action was taking place as part of a set of actions across 8th-10th July. Yesterday there was a student protest in London, going to different universities that support Israeli apartheid.

The Boycott Puma Day of Action was taking place in many different cities around the country.

There was an action in London at the Puma store located there, but most of the other actions were outside retailers that stock Puma products such as JD Sports and Sports Direct.

The Birmingham event was outside the JD sports shop in the town centre.

JD Sports with Palestine protesters outside

The event was very small. There was a table for Birmingham Stop the War coalition and one for the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. It mainly consisted of handing out leaflets to passers by. One of the organisers did try to speak through a loudspeaker on a few occasions. Unfortunately there seemed to be problems with the microphone, as it kept cutting out. Here is some footage:

(Bitchute equivalent)

Tinfoil Lizards: An Essay on Conspiracy

Outline of a lizard with multiple conspiracy theories listed.

The concept of conspiracy is much maligned by the mainstream media, the government, and random liberals on social media. The phrase ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used to dismiss people who are cynical about the motivations of government and corporations.

The Concept of Conspiracy

As stated by leftist analyst Michael Parenti:

Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance.

There would be no reason for this to be a concept in law if it was a non-existent phenomenon.

We know that people from all groups and all walks of life can conspire. Everyone is aware of this, as even things like petty office politics can inspire people to get together and plot against each other. To dismiss the idea of conspiracy prima facie is an unwarranted bias. If ordinary people can conspire on a small scale than politicians, bureaucrats, and military intelligence are clearly capable of conspiring on a large scale.

I will address three points that are often invoked by anti-conspiracy analysts, who dismiss the notion of conspiracy as a relevant mode of analysis. I will argue that these arguments are flawed as a reason to reject conspiracy as a relevant factor when examining the operation of government power.

The Invocation of the Ridiculous

The first argument against conspiracy is the ‘Invocation of the Ridiculous’. This involves the anti-conspiracy theorist picking a theory that is absurd, but that has at some point been suggested seriously by a ‘conspiracy theorist’. For example, Alex Jones once suggested that 87-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, supreme court justice, died as a ‘blood sacrifice’ to help the Democratic party get the vote out and to enhance their ‘Satanic energy’.

Anti-conspiracy theorists like to invoke these sorts of examples to dismiss well-reasoned and well evidenced examples of conspiracies, or even critical questions about official narratives. This is a fallacious argument, as it involves attempting to marry the ridiculous to the reasonable in order to dismiss the reasonable.

The Psychological Analysis

Psychological analysis is used as a tool to subtly undermine the concept of conspiracy. I am not trying to argue that analysing why someone believes something, and possible psychological motivations for that belief that stem from other motivations than the factual nature of the belief, is always invalid.  

However, these ‘why people believe in conspiracy theories’ articles are generally framed in a particular way. The articles start by dismissing the idea of the ‘conspiracy theory’ prima facie, leaving only possible psychological motives for belief. This is not the same as demonstrating why a belief is incorrect or flawed, and then putting forward suggestions as to why people believe it anyway.  

In some cases, they will employ the invocation of the ridiculous in their introduction, by providing a list of conspiracy theories that includes the reasonable with the bizarre.

For example, this article:

When people encounter disparate information, it is only natural to look for explanations that connect the dots. Conspiracy theories offer explanations that provide this connection. They also suggest that the underlying causes are hidden from public view. When confusing things happen, believers can then assume that it is because they are being intentionally deceived by outside forces.

The framing of this paragraph implies that explanations are just confusing because life is confusing. The idea of government manipulators is implicitly dismissed, as is the idea of ‘intentional deception’. The role of deception in government, however, is extremely relevant, the best examples being the lies that drove Western intervention in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

There is also often a tinge of middle-class smugness about such articles. The above article is also quoted as saying:

Lower educational status tends to be associated with higher levels of conspiracy belief.

The most plausible explanation for this is that middle-class people who are doing well out of a particular system have less material reason to question that system.

Such articles also argue that the need to feel special drives a belief in conspiracy theories. For example, this article:

Big events attract conspiracies because the knowledge the theorist possesses wouldn’t be special otherwise. If the knowledge isn’t special, then they aren’t special for possessing it. The suggestion is therefore that a conspiracy theorist wants to feel special, and this desire emerges from self-worth based insecurities.

This argument would suggest that conspiracy theorists would keep their special knowledge to themselves, rather than trying to convince other people. After all, the conspiracist would no longer be special if he or she convinces others to believe in the conspiracy.

(If I were engaging in my own pop psychology argument here, I would suggest the need to feel special is not observable so much in conspiracy theorists as it is in obnoxious middle-class liberals. In their case, a sense of superiority stems from their faith in government. After all, how could any of us be so stupid as to question the authorities?)

The ‘irrelevancy’ argument

This is an argument that has been made by Noam Chomsky. On this issue he is generally compared with Michael Parenti, another left-wing scholar who believes in the relevance and importance of analysing conspiracy.  

Chomsky states that:

Take for example all this frenzy about the JFK assassination. I mean I don’t know who assassinated him and I don’t care, but what difference does it make? It’s not an issue of any general political interest. And there’s a huge amount of energy and effort going into that.

He believes that a discussion of issues such as the Kennedy Assassination and 9/11 are a distraction:

[Conspiracy theories] draw enormous amounts of time and energy away from serious activism on urgent matters (and may well be welcome to those in power for that reason, as the JFK assassination investigations have been, so internal government documents indicate).

I believe that on this issue, Parenti has by far the superior case. Chomsky is fairly hostile to the idea of high-level conspiracies, believing that they do not play an important role in government and that structural factors matter more when analysing the actions of capitalist states. Parenti rightly argues that this is a false distinction, as institutions such as the CIA are “an institutionalized conspiracy.”

As for such issues being a distraction, this argument is a weak one, because the evidence behind such conspiracies can demonstrate the true nature of power. As Parenti states:

To know the truth about the assassination of John Kennedy is to call into question the state security system and the entire politico-economic order it protects.

The Ulterior Motive for Anti-Conspiracy Thinking

Even an anti-conspiracist would have to acknowledge that certain conspiracies happened because they were exposed. Nixon conspired with his aides to cover up the burglary of the Watergate building. In that case we have extensive evidence of conspiracy due to the existence of recordings made by Nixon. We know that there was a conspiracy to undermine the candidate Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primary election due to the emails that were leaked to Wikileaks.

Why, given these proven cases, is it considered illegitimate to speculate about other events such as 9/11, JFK assassination, or the Skripal affair, where the full facts are not available but where evidence and reasoning can lead to reasonable inferences?

The reason is that the anti-conspiracist wants to keep certain topics off limits. According to the anti-conspiracist, criticism of government narratives can only go so far. When it comes to the current capitalist and imperialist system and the players within it, the reality is that no question should be taken off the table and evidence for all forms of evil should be critically considered.

Conclusion

The consideration of the conspiracy when it comes to analysing the function of governments is a valid approach that is unfairly criticised through the label ‘conspiracy theory’. Rather than reject the concept of conspiracy, we need to critically assess the evidence and motives for a conspiracy on a case-by-case basis. While there are some conspiracies that are not grounded in reality, there are many more that have strong evidence to support them. I will end with a quote from this article comparing Chomsky and Parenti, which is recommended to the reader:

Ultimately, the average conspiracy theorist has a better grasp of how the world works than the average liberal.

Birmingham Clean Air Zone through the lens of Techno-Tyranny

Cartoon reading Birmingham City Council, Clean Air Zone: Smart City Surveillance Ahead

Introduction

On the 1st June 2021, Birmingham (UK) introduced a ‘Clean Air Zone’. The plan is to charge vehicles that emit too many greenhouse gases a fee for every day that they enter the city centre. The supposed motivation for this is to lower emissions and improve air quality, thus improving the quality of life of people who live in Birmingham. As with any capitalist state initiative, however, we have to look beneath the surface, and in this case there is a link to the Smart City agenda.

Birmingham Clean Air Zone

The Birmingham Clean Air Zone – which came into force on the 1st June – will charge any non-compliant household vehicle that enters into the zone or drives within the zone £8 per day. Non-compliant vehicles are those that are (considered to be) non-fuel efficient and so emit too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. There are various exemptions to these rules, but for our purposes they are not important.

The main aspect which I will focus upon in this article is the mechanism by which the Clean Air Zone will be enforced. According to the BrumBreathes website, the official website for the changes:

Vehicles that do not meet the emission standards for the zone will be detected by an ANPR camera (automatic number plate recognition).

Number plates that are non-compliant with the low emissions zone will be flagged for a fine.

What precisely is ANPR? The RAC has an article discussing the basics of the technology.

ANPR technology converts an image of a number plate into machine-encoded text, this is called optical character recognition.

The technology can be used across CCTV, traffic enforcement cameras and ANPR-specific cameras. Infrared illumination can help cameras to capture a clearer image.

ANPR cameras are used to monitor speeding vehicles and handing out fines based on that basis. The police also use them to monitor stolen vehicles.

A Step Towards Smart Cities

Smart Cities – cities with endless sensors and monitoring managed by AI – are a dream of the global elite. Institutions such as the World Economic Forum are promoting the smart city concept through the creation of a ‘Pioneer Cities’ program. While smart cities are promoted as the solution to humanity’s problems, in reality, they will lead to the end of privacy – as every single device, even a kettle, will be hooked up to the ‘Internet of Things’ for monitoring. One of the main narratives being used to drive the smart city is the Official Covid Narrative – with smart cities being sold as ‘pandemic management’.

However, another idea being used to sell smart cities is the ‘green’ agenda. A significant proportion of Western populations are concerned about genuine environmental issues such as pollution and plastic waste, and this can be leveraged by Smart City promoters to push their agenda. For example, this article from 2018 talks about how the ‘Internet of Things’ is the best way to improve the environment by making everything more efficient. In reality, smart cities would devastate the environment due to the large amount of rare earth metals required for chipping everything and the creation of 5G networks, but that aspect is ignored by smart city promoters.

It is clear that the Birmingham Clean Air Zone is being used in such a manner, due to the fact that its surveillance policies will automatically slap online payable fines on non-compliant cars through ANPR processes. These cameras will be able to collect a large amount of data on drivers which allows for a higher level of privacy violation, a key concept of the Smart City.

On an even more sinister level, the idea of the Clean Air Zone may begin to normalise the exclusion of individuals from certain areas for not meeting certain criteria. This is being pushed extremely hard in Britain at the moment through the attempted normalisation of vaccine passports – preventing people from going to social events unless they have had the Covid-19 vaccine. The Official Covid Narrative and the ‘green’ agenda may merge with the concept of the ‘climate lockdown’ – an idea already being promoted and normalised in the mainstream media.

Conclusion

An initially innocuous idea – that of reducing pollution in the Birmingham City Centre – is actually tied into deeper agendas for the introduction of ‘smart cities’ and ramping up mass surveillance under the guise of ‘protecting the planet’.

Free Palestine London 12 June 2021

Free Palestine crowd in London, signs 'Sanctions on Israel' 'Free Palestine'

I went to London to attend the Free Palestine event organised by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. The event started at 1 o’clock and took place outside Downing Street.

Free Palestine crowd outside Downing Street.

According to an announcement made by one of the organisers, there were 8,000 people at the event. This was a lot smaller than I expected given that the last London protest had around 180,000 people according to media reports. I happened to see Gordon Dimmack at the protest and he told me that the previous protest was far larger.

I arrived about 1 o’clock. I walked down Whitehall approaching Downing Street from Trafalgar Square. On the way there were a few signs of the protest including a banner from the Jewish Socialist Group and also some flags.

When I arrived there it was obvious that every left wing groupuscule was at the event. They generally had tents. The ubiquitous Socialist Workers Party, the International Bolshevik Tendency, Counterfire etc. The group The People’s Assembly were there handing out flyers – left wing Covid narrative believers overlapping with the Kill the Bill movement.

The Palestine events I have been to this year have an interesting demographic mixture. The events attracted Muslim protesters but also some people who would be considered ‘woke’: there were some people with signs like ‘Queers for Palestine’. (Of course, not all Muslims are socially conservative, but as a generalisation, in the UK they are more than average.)

Cardboard signs representing graves of Palestinians killed by Israel, in background sign reading "No Justice No Peace Israel is a Terrorist State'
Memorial to children killed by Israel

There were several different speakers, from union activists, Palestinian activists, and politicians. Both John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn were there. Here is John McDonnell speaking with some crowd footage.

(Bitchute Equivalent)

The rapper Lowkey was also at the event, which was awesome. He was at the first event that I went to in London, the Free Assange march on February 2020. He did some of the lines from his song ‘Long Live Palestine’.

(Bitchute Equivalent)

It was very hot on and off (the clouds going over reduced some of the heat). I wandered around the protest several times to the extent it was possible (bollards were put up, so later on it was difficult to get round the back). I have some footage filmed from the back of the event earlier on, of some marchers joining the main protest.

(Bitchute Equivalent)

To be honest I was hoping for more people to turn out at this event, given the size of the previous protest. The movement needs to make sure that it can maintain the momentum to pressure the government to stop selling weapons to Israel (the bare minimum demand). The truth is, it is easy to forget about Palestine because we are not facing the consequences of what is happening there. There are more organised events coming up in early July, so we need to keep up the pressure on this government:

https://twitter.com/PSCupdates/status/1404121648089944073?s=20
IOn

On the plus side it does seem like more ordinary people are supporting Palestine than there have been previously. I am hoping that the smears of all Palestine activists as anti-Semitic are starting to fail, although many right-wing outlets are trying to maintain that connection. The occupying of factories producing weapons to sell to Israel is also a very positive sign that shows there are people who are willing to take risks to defend Palestine.

Signs reading Stop Arming Israel, Hands of Al Aqsa, Stop Bombing Gaza, FOA Friends of Al Aqsa

More footage is available on Bitchute and Youtube.

Birmingham Protests 5th June 2021

Sign reading Boris Get our Cladrags off with a caricature of Boris Johnson

It could be just me, but it seems as if there are a huge number of protests going on, more than ‘normal’. I don’t mean this from the point of view of one ideology or another. I just mean people protesting about things in general. It could be me simply being more aware of protests, but at the moment we have multiple Free Palestine events, Kill the Bill, Anti-Lockdown events, that have all drawn significant numbers of people.

There were two events on the 5th June, both taking place in Victoria Square at the same time (12 noon). (There was also a third protest going in in Kings Heath against the Low Traffic Neighbourhood organised by the Workers’ Party of Britain, and there were some Extinction Rebellion people hanging out and chalking near the intersection between New Street and Corporation Street.)

The two protests that took place in Victoria Square were by BrumLAG (Birmingham Leaseholders Action Group) and a group seeking to stop the deportation of Osime Brown to Jamaica.

The BrumLAG protest took place near the statue of Queen Victoria, off to the side of the square. It was pretty well attended, at least a few hundred were there.

Protesters in Victoria Square, Birmingham. It is a sunny day.
BrumLAG protest about 12.20pm

The protest for Osime Brown was around 30-odd people and took place in the section of Victoria Square under the building.

Protesters with signs reading "Stop the Deportation of Osime Brown.", "No Justice, No Peace", "Black Autistic Lives Matter".
Stop the Deportation of Osime Brown protest

The BrumLAG event was about the issue of cladding in homes. In 2017, Grenfell Tower, a tower block in London, set on fire. The fire was able to spread rapidly because of the type of cladding used in the building. 72 people were killed as a result of the fire.

Safety concerns regarding the risk of fire had been raised before the fire took place.

Many other buildings contain the same or similar unsafe cladding. This has caused serious worries to those living in such buildings due to the risk of a fire.

The BrumLAG protest was focused upon the issue of who pays for the replacement of the cladding. Leaseholders have been expected to pay and their properties have no value. BrumLAG have been making the case that the developers that should be paying for the changes to make the buildings safe.

Copy of a leaflet given out by Brum LAG.
BrumLAG leaflet. The other side says ‘Is your home worth £Zero?’

I did listen to some of the things that the speakers were saying. Unfortunately, they had a fairly low quality sound system. The recordings I made of the couple of speeches I managed to film on my tablet came out pretty garbled.

The Osime Brown event, on the other hand, had a much better sound system. The event was organised by some of the people involved in Kill the Bill and there were several of the same faces there as the event on May 1st.

I am going to be honest and say that I do not know a lot about this case. I will post the leaflet handed out by the organisers below so that you can read what they have to say:

Leaflet summarising the story of Osime Brown stating he was jailed in 2018 over a trivial offense under the Joint Enterprise Law and is under threat of deportation to Jamaica.
Leaflet reading #FreeOsimeBrown summarising the case.

Some of the speakers at this event were also at the Kill the Bill event. The woman with the bright coloured hair was speaking at Kill the Bill. I’m pretty sure the man with the yellow jacket introducing the speakers spoke there as well, or was involved in some way. Joan, Osime’s mother, also spoke at Kill the Bill and this is the first that I heard about this case.

I have embedded the videos below.

Here’s some Birmingham Leaseholders Action Group footage:

I am also trying to offer a Bitchute alternative for my footage, but am having some technical problems uploading. [EDIT: This is now resolved and all the above footage is available on Bitchute}.

The Problem with the Anti-Woke Right: The Demonisation of Anti-Imperialism as ‘Woke’

Cartoon reading on the left "Woke left: everything I don't like is offensive" on the right "Anti-woke right: Everything I don't like is woke"

I have spent a lot of time on this website criticising the modern left. However, I have not as yet written much specifically addressing the modern right. This article will focus on a very notable trend within the modern right, which can be referred to as the ‘anti-woke right’. The argument of this is article is that the framing of ‘woke vs. anti-woke’ cannot convincingly address the anti-imperialist left argument.  

What is the Anti-Woke Right?

The anti-woke right is a modern trend within right wing thought, that is generally more popular among younger people. It has emerged out of the internet age, with Youtube commentators among some of the ‘pioneers’ of the anti-woke right.

The anti-woke right are generally libertarian leaning on economics, but their defining feature is that they put very heavy emphasis upon issues such as cancel culture and free speech and opposing woke attempts to redefine language and reality. The anti-woke right can be religious or non-religious. In the UK, significant examples of this tendency are the media outlet Spiked and the actor Laurence Fox.

The anti-woke right generally focus their critiques on issues that make people on the left look ridiculous. In some cases, those on the anti-woke right focus on genuine cases of left wing nonsense, such as criticising gender identity ideology – the idea that men are women if they say they are women. In fact, certain right wing outlets will publish articles on this issue that the left will not touch. For example, Spiked regularly runs articles by the excellent Jo Bartosch on this issue. Anti-woke right wingers will also criticise the ‘performative gesture’. For example, kneeling for Black Lives Matter.

Imperialism & The Anti-Woke Right

The recent focus on Israel and Palestine in the media has exposed one of the main problems with the anti-woke right. While the anti-woke right seems like a popular option when presented as an alternative to ‘woke liberalism’, in fact the anti-woke right normalises imperialism by portraying those who are anti-imperialist as merely ‘woke’ rather than taking a principled stand against imperialist aggression. While there are other examples of this trend, such as the attempt to shield Winston Churchill from the (factually true) criticism that he was a racist, this article will focus on the Israel-Palestine ‘framing’.

Laurence Fox tweeted out this comment about two Leicester City footballers who held up a Palestinian flag after Leicester’s FA Cup success:

Or give the ball chasing woke babies an atlas and ask them to pinpoint Palestine on a map.

The framing is obvious: opposing Israeli apartheid is not about anti-racism or anti-imperialism, it is ‘woke’.

This article in Spiked by Brendan O’Neill is a bit more complex in its argument. It starts by saying:

It [the modern left] sees prejudice everywhere except where it actually exists. State a biological fact and they’ll brand you transphobic. Criticise the burqa and you’re an Islamophobe. Fail to take the knee to Black Lives Matter and its every potty political belief and you’ll be called racist. Wear a sombrero and you’re cancelled. But chanting death to Jews? No biggie. 

The article then discusses examples of hatred of Jews from Palestine protesters. Whether or not these are genuine examples, or whether they are agents provocateurs I am not qualified to say.

It then equates these examples to opposition to the state of Israel itself:

Meanwhile, the Hamas slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – widely recognised as a hateful call to wipe Israel off the map – is being used more and more by the woke left.

There are several aspects of pro-imperialist framing in this sentence alone. Firstly, equating the call to free Palestine and pro-Palestinian chants with ‘Hamas’ – the boogeyman of pro-Israel right winger. It is not about the Palestinian people and their cry to be free from oppression, but ‘Hamas’. The idea of ‘wiping Israel off the map’ is framed as anti-Semitic. Of course, stating that states should not be ethno-nationalist and that this includes a Jewish state is simply being consistent in opposing apartheid. This argument also erases Jews that oppose Israel, a group which includes many Orthodox Jews as well as secular left wing Jews.

Crucially for this article, the word ‘woke’ is used to describe this slogan. How precisely it is ‘woke’ to oppose apartheid and imperialism is not explained. For example, the other examples of ‘wokeness’ quoted above are ones that many on the (actual anti imperialist) left criticise. For example, Marxism is an inherently gender critical ideology – as it bases itself on material reality (biological sex) over idealism (gender identity).

Black Lives Matter has also been heavily criticised by leftists, in particular for its funding sources. It received money from the Ford Foundation – hardly an organisation out to advocate the end of imperialism. This article discusses BLM’s relationship with the Democrats and the fact that the key founders are part of the non-profit industrial complex. This is without mentioning their support for transgender ideology.

These ‘woke’ ideas are lumped in with the completely different issue of imperialism. In truth, the promotion of transgenderism, support for Islam, and declaring that Black Lives Matter are really about ideological constructs, whereas imperialism is about material reality. This is also fundamental to the distinction between liberals (the identity politics people) and the left (focused on class & imperialism rather than abstract ‘identity’). This is a distinction the anti-woke right (deliberately or otherwise) refuse to make. These members of the anti-woke right do not distinguish between performative nonsense as promoted by woke liberals and actual anti-imperialist activism as promoted by the left.

‘Woke Imperialism’

A fundamental flaw in this position – framing resistance to imperialism as a ‘woke’ belief – is the promotion of ‘woke imperialism’ by groups such as the CIA, FBI and military. ‘Woke Imperialism’ can be defined as putting a layer of ‘diversity’ upon dropping bombs on the Middle East and promoting coups in Latin America – it’s all good so long as a black trans woman is the one pressing the button.

The CIA have recently released adverts called ‘Humans of CIA’ in which a diverse range of people extol its virtues. These adverts use woke words and ideology. For example, this advert features a Latina woman who talks about her race and sex and refers to herself using the trans ideology buzzword ‘cisgender’. Another advert features a gay man talking about rainbow lanyards.

As we can see from this example, woke ideology is entirely compatible with the values of the CIA, whereas freedom for Palestine is most certainly not. In fact, woke ideology – by putting all of the emphasis on ‘identity’ rather than oppression grounded in material reality – benefits the CIA, as it allows them to pretend to be ‘progressive’ while promoting coups.

Conclusion

Woke ideology and anti-imperialist action are two separate categories – one of which is pseudo-progressive and the other which is actually progressive. The anti-woke right conflates the two in the same category as ‘woke’, which reveals the limitations of this ideological position.

‘Wait Two Weeks’: The Reasons Behind this Constant Refrain

Image showing events that may have breached lockdown regulations with the text 'Just wait two weeks...'

Believers in the Official Covid Narrative – the idea that Sars-Cov-2 is a uniquely deadly virus that means lockdowns, mandatory masks, and mass vaccinations are necessary to prevent mass death – often revel in predictions of doom and gloom. We can call this the ‘Wait Two Weeks’ phenomena, as any time that a mass gathering has happened in the UK, a Covid Narrative believer pops up in the comments making the argument that in two weeks there will be a massive spike in Covid-19 cases.

The Argument

This argument began to emerge around 9 May 2020, with the celebrations of the 75th Anniversary of V.E. Day. It increased in frequency near the end of May and beginning of June 2020, with people flocking to beaches to enjoy the warm weather and the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd. (Though, of course, the big dollop of hypocrisy from many on the BLM issue should be noted, as some defended BLM protests while condemning everyone else as ‘spreading Covid’.)

The argument has continued to be posted underneath every Twitter image that showed people ‘breaking the Covid rules’. It has particularly been employed as an argument against every single anti-lockdown protest, with narrative supporters claiming that this would lead to a huge spike in Covid cases and probably another lockdown.

The Reasons Behind The Argument

Needless to say, none of the people who make this claim have provided any evidence of a Covid spike caused by these events. Indeed, the very large anti-lockdown protest in London in April was a month ago, but zero evidence exists that this event caused a spike in Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations, or deaths. So why do people keep making this argument, when the argument has failed every single time to be substantiated by evidence two weeks later?

The first reason for the continuing repetition of this argument is that it has become a mantra of faith in the Covid Cult. Similarly to all other mantras, such as ‘Stay Safe’, it is repeated as a sign of loyalty to the cult.

Secondly, there is a sense of superiority when it comes to this mantra. The author of the post saying ‘wait two weeks’ is signalling that they would never be so devoid of virtue as to break the government’s regulations. There is also a large element of snobbery to this argument as well. It isn’t the virtuous middle class – who the author is part of – that is breaking the rules, it is those nationalist, Brexit-voting proles that want to celebrate V.E. Day. It is those ignorant working-class people who flood the beaches when there is nice weather, rather than staying at home in their non-existent garden.

We also see a perverse craving for the prediction to come true in these statements. They almost want the mass deaths from Covid to happen in order to validate their narrative. They long to say ‘I told you so’ to narrative critics, even though it would be much better for people if the narrative critics are correct. This desire comes from the denial of death. According to the Official Covid Narrative, death is preventable so long as we all follow ‘the rules’. This is what Covid narrative believers want: death to be preventable.  If death is contingent on the rules, it allows the speaker to deny their own death (as they do not ‘break the rules’) while at the same time perversely obsessing over the deaths of other people. This ‘death denial while obsessing over death’ phenomena is at the heart of the contradictory nature of the Official Covid Narrative.

Conclusion

It has never been demonstrated by Covid Narrative believers that Covid spikes occur after outdoor mass gatherings. However, they repeat the claim that mass gatherings mean mass death constantly. This is because they have other psychological reasons to believe in this claim rather than its truth.

Black Lives Matter is a Transgender Organisation

Cartoon with sign reading "Black Lives Matter' The word black is stamped over with Trans in red text.

The organisation Black Lives Matter is about protecting black people from police brutality, or that is their stated goal on the surface. Due to the media coverage of the death of a black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, BLM raised a large amount of money in 2020.

An account on Twitter drew my attention to the BLM 2020 Impact Report, about how they used the money that they raised.

It turns out that the majority of organisations that they support are LGBTQ* organisations, which means, in reality, that they are about trans identified males.

The Organisations That BLM Support

In this article, I have examined the organisations listed in the Black Lives Matter Impact Report for 2020. The report states that 6 figure grants were given to all of the organisations listed, so we are not talking about a trivial amount of money. In total, $21.7m was distributed, though some of that went to local BLM chapters.

I have cross referenced the list given on the BLM website with the list of organisations funded by the Arcus Foundation. This list was compiled by @StillTish at the Gender Critical Woman website. She has done excellent work in compiling this list and uploading an Excel spreadsheet for everyone to view.

What is the relevance of the Arcus Foundation? Why examine these two aspects together? The Arcus Foundation was created in 2000 by gay Big Pharma billionaire Jon Stryker. This organisation is one of the billionaire promoters of gender identity ideology. Billionaires (particularly Big Pharma billionaires) have a large interest in promoting this ideology, as the more people take hormones, puberty blockers and have transgender surgery, the more money goes into Big Pharma’s pockets (see also Big Pharma is no different from any other Capitalist Corporation).

As far as I can tell, four of the organisations on the BLM list are directly funded by the Arcus Foundation.

These four organisations are:

The Audre Lorde Project – Trans Justice: two $75,000 donations in 2016 and 2018, respectively. This website will not load for me but being as it’s called ‘Trans Justice’ I am going to assume it is a trans organisation or that the money is going specifically towards a trans cause.

BreakOUT: $150,000 from Arcus in 2017. The website states that it is a LGBTQ* org, but their vision clearly prioritises transgender without mentioning gay and lesbian people: “BreakOUT! envisions a city where transgender, gender non-conforming, and queer youth of color can live without fear of harassment and discrimination.” Only later on does it mention gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

BYP100: $200,000 from Arcus in 2017. Their about page initially focuses on anger about the death of Trayvon Martin. However then moves on to talking about a ‘Queer lens’. It doesn’t appear to be a 100% trans organisation but does have queer theory elements.

Arcus also funds the Transgender Law Center. Black Lives Matter funds the explicitly Black LGBTQIA* Migrant Project (listed as BLMP) which is part of this centre.

Four organisations may not seem like much in common, but the story does not end there. The Arcus Foundation also sends a large amount of money to Borealis Philanthropy. Borealis happens to donate money to many more of the organisations on the Black Lives Matter list:

Trans United (trans org)

Solutions Not Punishment Coalition (trans org)

Marsha P Johnson Institute (trans org)

Highlander Centre (from what I can see this one is not explicitly trans)

Black Trans Media (trans org)

House of Pentacles (trans org)

BraveSpace Alliance (explicitly states it is trans led)

Black Visions Collective (states trans led)                                                               

TAKE Birmingham (trans org)

Borealis also funds the BLMP & BYP100.

Borealis does not provide any information on how much money they send to each organisation on their website that I could find, but it does state in various blog posts that they have sent money to these various organisations.

Some of the money from Arcus is explicitly noted to go to the Borealis ‘Trans Generations Fund’ which then sends the money to trans organisations. While it is not explicitly stated on the Borealis website that the money went from Arcus through them to these other organisations, it is likely that this is the case.

Arcus/Borealis fund 13 of the organisations listed by BLM. BLM states that 23 of the organisations they funded are LGBTQ* led. If we exclude Highlander, as this one does not seem transgender focused, we have 12/23 organisations overlapping. If we exclude BYP100 as it is more ambiguous in its focus we have 11/23. Either way, half of the transgender organisations funded by BLM are also funded by Arcus/Borealis.

What’s the Problem?

Firstly, it is dishonesty. Black Lives Matter is an organisation that markets itself as working to end police brutality against black people in the US. Therefore, logically, their funds should go to activities that focus upon police brutality. No doubt most of the well-intentioned people who donated to BLM after the murder of George Floyd donated the money because they believed that it would go towards that cause. It is dishonest to raise money on the back of police brutality and then use the money to fund black trans people in the arts.

Secondly, the extent. The truth is that black trans identified males are a tiny minority of black people in the US. Yet most of the money that BLM granted to outside organisations went to trans identified male organisations. If BLM wants to focus on funding black organisations in general and not just organisations based around police brutality, then surely black woman led organisations that focus on women’s issues should receive some of the money given that women are half the population. However, women get nothing and trans identified males get most of the outside organisation funding. This we must ask critical questions about misogyny within this organisation.

Thirdly, the use of ‘LGBTQ*’ as a shield. Though the BLM organisation promotes these organisations in this way, in reality there is nothing specifically for black lesbians, gay men, or bisexuals of either sex. The term LGBTQ* is used as an attempt to make the funding look more diverse than it is. We also have to be asking questions about homophobia.

Finally, we have to ask the question “Why are a (supposed) grassroots organisation that grew up organically funding exactly the same organisations as the billionaire founded Arcus Foundation?”

Free Palestine Birmingham (Plus a little bit of Anti-Lockdown protests)

Protesters with Palestine flags in Victoria Square, Birmingham

It looks like there have been protests all over Europe in support of Palestine, from Dublin, to Amsterdam, to France. There have also been protests in the UK as well, including in London.

The actions in the UK happened to be on the same date as anti-lockdown protests. I was not aware of any organised anti-lockdown protests in Birmingham, because although the weekend of the 15th May was the regional protests as well as London, there was no Birmingham protest mentioned on the list I saw.

I went into town because I wanted to pick up some stuff, though I was on the lookout for any protest actions. At 2:30pm I started hearing a lot of noise and had a look outside, there was a reasonably large group of anti-lockdown protesters near the Waterstones bookshop.

Protesters were holding banners and signs saying ‘No More Lockdown’, signs defending children and one woman with a sign reading ‘There’s nothing more unattractive than a muzzled up obedient man’. There was also someone with one of those smiley face flags that I saw in the London protest imagery.

Woman holding sign "Wake Up! Don't be a mug. You don't need permission to have a hug." in a crowd of protesters

I assume the protest took place earlier in the day and dispersed after this because I did not see them about afterwards. I finished what I was doing in town and then decided to look around to see if there were any protest actions still going on, I started walking towards Victoria Square. I could see a large number of Palestinian flags so I moved in that direction.

As I walked towards the square, the crowd began to walk in my direction. The crowd was way larger than I expected.

Large crowd of Palestine protesters marching through the city centre. Many in the front are wearing blue masks. Sign in the background says "Stop Funding Israel".
Crowd of protesters leaving Victoria Square

The march route. I believe it was this. Marked on the Wikimedia commons (ancient) Birmingham City Centre map:

Complex image showing the route of march from Victoria Square, round the back of Victoria Magistrates' Court near the Children's Hospital and back to Victoria Square.

The crowd must have been made up of a few thousand people. This was surprising to me because when I have been to or seen Free Palestine events in the past they have been small.

It took about an hour for the crowd to get round that route and back to Victoria Square. Here are a few more photos.

Large crowd of protesters coming into Colmore Row. Signs saying Freedom for Palestine. Barclays bank is in the distance.
Colmore Row.
Protesters holding Palestine flags opposite Lloyds Bank in Birmingham City Centre
Near Station entrance (old Pallisades)
Crowd approaching Victoria square with Palestine flags. Protesters are facing the camera.
Approaching Victoria Square.

The crowd reached Victoria Square and there was chanting but there wasn’t any speeches or anything like that. There is thus not much to comment on in that regard.

Here’s Victoria Square.

Protesters in Victoria Square with Palestine Flags.

It was good to see such large protest events in support of Palestine around the country and the world. The size of such protests compared to in the past perhaps warrants further examination as to why but would require further research.