A Divisive Issue for the Freedom Movement

I don’t choose to write about this issue on Halloween from any lack of concern about its seriousness, but the very different views on this traditional celebration are a good place to start. My hope is that, by observing this difference about one topic that’s not very emotive, we might be able to do the same about another that in my experience can sunder fast friends and close allies like no other.

While Neo-Pagans celebrate the old Celtic Quarter Feast of Samhain this evening, tracing a line of continuity with the customs and beliefs of an ancient community that—like all religious claims based on historical fact—is contentious, to most families in the UK, Halloween is a bit of fun for the kids, a bit of careful safeguarding for the adults and no more religious than St Valentine’s Day.

The reaction of the western liberal and even fairly traditional Church includes a similar sense of indulgence, while stressing the significance of the images of ghosts and goblins—similar to that of the gargoyles on the Cathedral of Notre Dame—and that of the name: the Eve of All Hallows, the evening before All Saints Day. More Evangelical/ Pentecostal communities, especially those whose members originate from Africa, take the light-hearted devilry of the day extremely seriously, as evidence of Satanism. What the congregants of the latter religion feel about folk dressing up as demons I have no idea. Finally, commercial interests clearly see it as yet another way to make money selling unhealthy snacks and non-biodegradable single-use tat.

So that’s Halloween; what about abortion?

Stop for a moment and observe your immediate reaction: anger? sadness? dismay and disbelief? dispassion? Only you know why you feel about this issue as you do, and only you know the reason for the strength of that feeling.

A thought experiment—what would what is sometimes described as “the Freedom Movement” be like if everyone felt the same way as you do about this most divisive issue? What if everyone felt the opposite?

Breathe. Is it vitally important to you that we all are unanimous in support of your opinion on this topic? Can you allow for freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and freedom of expression?

Would it be possible for you to work shoulder-to-shoulder with someone who differs slightly, or even distinctly, from your stance? Could you accept their freedom to choose their own political path, even while utterly disagreeing with their ethical judgement?

Let’s break it down, because abortion means many things to many people but in terms of ethics the components are fairly clear: termination of a pregnancy (viable or not) by the action of an agent (self or other) with the intent to end the life in the womb (or at least begin that process inside and end it outside).

Ethics can seem like a cold calculation. It analyses according to categories, attempting to cut up the complexity of human experience to fit it into little conceptual boxes—but as the wonderful Professor Martha Nussbaum says,

…this is not how it feels to be in that situation. It does not feel like solving a puzzle

(The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge: University Press, 2001, p.32)

Before we continue let’s address a common reaction to any man venturing an opinion on this most female issue. Standpoint epistemology is a fancy name for “I know cos I am one/ cos I’ve done this/ cos I was there”. It’s a seductive stance and very popular these days, especially on social media but, if taken to its logical conclusion, it means accepting absurdities like “only cows have a say in their welfare”, “only astronauts can argue about footage of the moon landings” and “only the dead have a stake in their funeral arrangements”.

That said, anyone who could not possibly be faced with the choice of whether to continue with or terminate a pregnancy must at least acknowledge the moral gravity of the issue—as well as the deeply personal and emotional nature of that decision. So a basic respect for women in general and pregnant women (whatever the outcome) in particular would be a good start.

Abortion is ethically complex because pregnancy is ethically complex: one body inside another and utterly dependent; one mature and (otherwise) autonomous adult human being with a socially stable status, one developing human being whose status may change from one day to the next—from blastula to zygote to foetus to baby—or from one moment to the next—from wanted to unwanted, or vice-versa.

Immediately the reduction of complexity can be seen on both sides: pro-life attention to the baby, as if he or she is an astronaut in a space capsule instead of intimately involved in a particular woman’s body; pro-choice attention to “my body, myself”, ignoring the existence of another self, like and unlike, not-quite-identical.

At this point it has to be said that the “half my DNA” argument from the father, while factual, is overstated. Nature and nurture intertwine in gene expression so it’s very clear that the mother is not doing only half of the labour of pregnancy.

With all this in mind, the agency involved in abortion is similarly complex. Here are very different ethical categories:

• I act, affecting my body
• I act, affecting my body and another
• I act, affecting my body and a dependent other
• I act, affecting my body and a dependant other inside my body
• I act to ask another to act…
• I act to require another to act…
• I act to coerce another to act…

This brings us to issues of rights and duties, and the ethical basis of both. “It’s gonna be my way cos I’m powerful enough to force you to comply” is not an ethical argument that commands widespread approval, yet both sides employ it and present it as such. “I know you don’t agree but if you’re a good person you’ll change your mind” is similarly manipulative and “this is too important for you to disagree with me” is also, at least, undemocratic.

I’m writing about abortion on Halloween because if the Freedom Movement is manipulated into in-fighting it will be over this issue. Just now, because we’re so powerless (no, Donald Trump is not and never was fighting for freedom and neither BTW is Vladimir Putin or Volodymyr Zelensky) this clear division isn’t being highlighted. When we, hopefully, start getting elected, will it be the hairline crack that the clever masons of the new world order chisel apart?

I suggest a pragmatic, principled truce. Call it the All Hallows Eve Agreement if you will:

1. We respect each other’s right to disagree and to campaign to maintain or change the law.
2. We acknowledge the coherence of our opponents’ stance on abortion with their view of pregnancy.
3. We commit to work together to improve the socio-economic status of vulnerable women so that they may have better choices.

Crow standing on skull silhouetted by full moon in graveyard.

Thanks to Karen Arnold for releasing her image Halloween Background Poster Invite into the Public Domain.

5 Parties Standing Up for Scottish Women

As my contract was illegally terminated by a Russell Group university recently, following over 2 years of victimisation for blowing the whistle on violation of disabled rights, I have even more respect for anyone willing to stand up for what’s right, no matter the consequences.

Although there are individuals in other parties, and some opposition to self-ID without clear commitment to female safe space (yes, Scots Libertarians I’m looking at you) there are only 5 parties that I know are unequivocally standing up for Scottish women. I want to provide a link to their policies so that voters can make an informed—and perhaps strategic—choice.

In alphabetical order:

Alba—Manifesto—“Standing up for women and girls” starts at p.10. Unique relevant points are that the Scottish Government should pause GRA reform until views of women’s groups, the EHRC and the Court of Session ruling on sex and gender are all taken into consideration—and calls for a citizens assembly to consult over any future reforms. These points are reinforced in the Scotland’s Many People section under Women’s Rights.

With the very greatest respect for the elder statesman at the head of Alba, I’d love to read his political (not personal) memoirs and I think it’s time he retired, let Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh take over and so remove the block to victory that is the lingering taint of the court case that means many women won’t vote for the party—despite the not guilty/ not proven verdicts.

Freedom Alliance—Manifesto—(This is my party but I’ll try to be fair to all.) Under “Personal Freedom”, unique relevant points are: “Freedom Alliance will: Legislate specifically to protect individual’s right to body autonomy and to prevent the state from mandating any medical procedures.” and “Always oppose any form of discrimination based on gender, age, sexual orientation, race, nationality, disability, health or medical choices.” So, to be honest, the clear commitment isn’t here—however it is in the section in Latest News named YOUR SEX IS A FACT : YOUR GENDER IS A FEELING which states clearly:

“We will protect sex-based rights and single-sex spaces. We oppose the Scottish Government’s reforms to the Gender Recognition Act”

I feel the phrase “bodily autonomy” is unhelpfully unspecific as may confuse positive rights (entitlements) and negative rights (protections). I suspect it’s being used a bit vaguely to cover the fact that the party supports politicians who agree on other party policies but have opposing views on abortion. Unlike the SNP, Freedom Alliance does not agree with a party whip, especially on matters on conscience.

Independence for Scotland Party—Manifesto—the only mentions here are: “ISP supports the Equality Act (2010) and the Gender Recognition Act (2004).” However there is explicit endorsement of Women Speak Scotland’s Manifesto for Women’s Rights in Scotland. I can’t find that exactly (however that website is amazing for gender-critical resources) but I’m guessing it refers to the Joint Statement by Scottish Woman’s Organisations which contains this:

The Scottish Government must therefore:

• ensure single-sex spaces, facilities and other provisions are fully protected;
• strengthen the rights of women to create and access them through clear guidance;
• ensure in-depth and thorough Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessments are carried out, especially in sectors and services where sex self-ID has been introduced by stealth ahead of legislation, so that public bodies in Scotland are not potentially in breach of their Public Sector Equality Duty.

Again I really respect the ISP, especially as they were so gracious in regard to not stepping on Alba’s toes, and my only personal concern is over their massive support for vaccines. I’m also not sure what differentiates them from Alba and I wonder (as my own party is exploring with ADF) whether a merger would be mutually beneficial.

Scottish Family Party—Manifesto—basically they say everything about supporting women and children that everyone else says (at length but there’s a helpful electronic ToCs) with the difference that, although they explicitly condemn bullying of LGBT people, they are very clear that the heterosexual family is the basis of morality and stability in society, and that undermining it leads to a multitude of ills. Under “Supporting families”:

As well as being a great source of joy, family life underpins our society. In the family, care and love are embodied, and resources are shared freely. The state should not seek to supplant the fundamental role of the family in bringing up children and should refrain from interfering in family life. Instead, the state should be supporting families to enable them to provide for themselves, structure their family life according to their priorities, and bring up their children according to their values.

While I respect the honesty of the Scottish Family Party, I do feel that the tone and content of some of its messaging, especially on video clips, lacks the urbane respect for diversity that people in the 21st century expect from politicians. That said, there is absolutely no doubt that they oppose gender theory. Under “Values education”:

The philosophy of gender fluidity is dangerous to young people, leading to confusion and unhelpful experimentation.

Under “Policies”:

Currently children and young people are being harmed by the message that choosing a new gender identity is normal, natural and healthy. While we sympathise with those experiencing gender confusion, we do not believe that legal gender change should be possible.

Sovereignty (formerly Restore Scotland)—Manifesto—under “A Free Scotland”, unique relevant points are:

We oppose the SNP’s illiberal family policies. We believe in family autonomy and we will fight for parental rights, and the right of children to be raised in line with their parents’ beliefs.

We pledge to:
• Repeal the Hate Crime and Public Order Act.
• Ensure parents are not criminalised for using mild physical discipline.
• Outlaw Self ID as inimical to women and children’s rights and safety.
• Criminalise the purchase of sexual services and strengthen anti-voyeurism legislation.
• Mandate age verification on websites offering adult content.

Under “Investing in Education”:

• Replace Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood education with politically neutral teaching.

Another party I deeply respect and my only concern is that the respect Sovereignty have (which I can testify to personally) for all persons covered by the Equality Act 2010 could be more explicit in their manifesto.

Other defining (for some) policy points are here:

Abortion—the SFP and Sovereignty are explicitly pro-life, the former (although pragmatic about an incremental legal reduction in time limits) quite militantly. None of the others mention this topic, clearly, in their manifestos.

Europe—whereas Sovereignty explicitly opposes rejoining the EU, Freedom Alliance doesn’t oppose the concept of free trade in Europe but supports decentralisation and opposes the technocratic bent of the EU; the SFP is neutral but respects the referendum result; both Alba and the ISP promote joining EFTA as a means, with the will of the people, to rejoin the EU.

LGBT—apart from the anti-bullying stance, the SFP is clearly against same sex relationships and trans identity. Sovereignty recognises gender dysphoria and the need for treatment but seems silent on LGB issues. Alba, the ISP and FA all are clearly supportive of same sex relationships and all seek to balance the rights of trans people with those of women—although this balanced respect is not always reflected in all the media content put out by all their members.

Scottish Independence—Alba, the ISP and Sovereignty are manifestly for independence; FA & the SFA are neutral, the latter explicitly so and for the former you’ll just have to take my word for it, however FA is explicitly for decentralisation of power, UK-wide, and both encourage more local engagement with political activity and decision-making.

This post is inadequate to convey the complexity and professionalism of the political stances of these 5 parties. If I have misrepresented a party, I apologise and please let me know on Twitter by post or DM. Please take the time to read all of their manifestos because there is much that is admirable in each of them.

Whoever you vote for, please make sure they will stand up for the beleaguered women of Scotland!

Vintage scrap of thoughtful young White woman with blue eyes and light-brown hair with a black butterfly clip wearing red tasseled jacket, colourful scarf and tartan-trimmed highland bonnet with 3 ptarmigan feathers.

Thanks to Karen Arnold for releasing her image Woman Beautiful Art Portrait into the Public Domain.

Ash Wednesday 2022

A university library is not one of the places I would associate with Ash Wednesday, but that’s where I am. I debated going to the “Vigil for Ukraine” down the road but I know me. At some point I might have found myself on my feet shouting WHEN’S THE VIGIL FOR YEMEN? Or the DRC. Or Canada, Australia and New Zealand for that matter. When’s the wake for all our school kids? For our elderly? For all those top sportsmen suddenly collapsing on the playing field?

I’m not going to comment on Ukraine other than to say:

1. It’s been going on for 8 years. Do you really think the WEF-controlled media and Governments focussing on it right now is a coincidence?
2. If you want a critical evaluation (including the above point) I recommend as your guide, because she says what she can evidence and distinguishes that clearly from what she can’t, Whitney Webb.

[Whitney & Ryan Cristián in discussion on this.]

Meanwhile this is the third year when my elderly mother hasn’t received the ashes and heard the words “dust you are and to dust you shall return”. Actually last year I did an impromptu ceremony for her myself, burning the Holy Week palms from last year. She bears it well. Unlike most of her contemporaries she doesn’t mask (unless manipulated into it) and isn’t vaccinated. It’s probably why, ages with the Queen, she’s still alive. That and her faith, her excellent nutrition and her positive outlook.

One of the reasons why I come to the university library is to read the student newspapers, to see what their concerns are. The issue in the plastic shelves is from September last year. Presumably “Cos of Covid” (CoC). What are their concerns?

• Accommodation (or lack of, CoC)
• Administrative chaos, CoC
• Online exams, CoC
• Sexual violence (cause: toxic masculinity)
• Impact of Texas Heartbeat Law on “women, BIPOC and transgender people” (sic.)
• Phobophobia (sic.)
• Terrorism
• Mental health (lots of new counsellors)
• Student stereotypes (not true)
• Self-care
• Lookism
• The Arts
• Covid tests
• Mars
• Women’s sports (no mention of biological males in them)
• Paralympics

[Heartbeat Law]

I have great affection for the students in general and my own in particular. Sheep without a shepherd, mostly, they are trying to find their way in a world mostly out to confuse them. Because the confused are easier to control. So many have been vaccinated with these uncontrolled substances, experimental drugs used on an unsuspecting population in callous privileging of profits over people. They regularly miss class due to adverse reactions. So far, no-one has died.

But others have died in my extended family. Of course this is put down to coincidence. To compare the mortality of the vaxxed and unvaxxed is to be a conspiracy theorist – but only if your conclusions are not those sanctioned by the State. Likewise all the “sudden death”, CoC, of course. What else could it be?

So this Ash Wednesday I sit alone in a university library, wishing I was in a world where I had a symbolic mark of death on my forehead – wishing I wasn’t surrounded by a heartbreaking number of young people naive enough to have allowed death to be injected into their arms.

Dust you are and to dust you shall return.

Black and white drawing of skull and crossbones

Thanks to Dawn Hudson for releasing her image Skull and Crossbones into the public domain.

Heartbeats Under a Lone Star

The chances are that your stance on the recent Texas Heartbeat Law differs not at all from that of (at least) the majority of people you recognise as family, your close friends and your social media mutuals. Their stance, of course, is determined by their collective identity. Broadly, very broadly (because these terms are colliding and confused these days) Left or Right:

The Leftwing will believe this law that prohibits abortion (termination of pregnancy is a euphemism when the intent is always to kill, not remove) after the fetal heartbeat is discerned is the most insidious attack on female emancipation (they’d say women’s not female because that adjective, for reasons that no-one has yet explained, is now shunned by feminists) since the Epistles of St Paul. Well, okay, they won’t, because hardly any of them have ever read any of the Bible.

The Rightwing will believe that the Heartbeat law is the first step, long-awaited, towards making America great again (which apparently they feel it was, at some unspecified point) and one that drives back legions of devils (and/ or feminists) and protects women, children born and unborn, and is due, somehow, to the divine favour currently shining on one D. Trump who will yet reascend the Presidential throne—as long as they all Trust The Plan.

Both Left and Right are utterly convinced (and very self-congratulatory about it) that they, and they alone, really support the well-being of women. Ditto for children and this smug sensibility extends to the Left with the ethical sleight-of-hand that:

A) The products of abortion are no more than fetal tissue and the fact that foetus means baby in Latin is neither here nor there.

B) Abortion care includes what is being killed in the womb (or someway outside or even completely) as it’s selfish to bring unwanted children into this big bad world so it’s no more than kindness to kill them.

In my view (goodbye social media acquaintances) both sides are almost entirely hypocritical and don’t actually give a damn about the welfare of women and the idea that they actually care about life in or out of their womb is, if it weren’t so tragic in consequence, laughable.

Why do I say this? Is it just to stir up both sides so they’ll read my book on the subject? Well, they’re very welcome to but, as it was published some years ago and annual sales have risen to about the price of a posh fish supper (and I’m vegan) I don’t really see that as my major motivation.

It may be that, despite the above polemic, I see good women fighting each other over this and wasting so much valuable time and energy in a screaming match that in its modern form is at least a century old and doesn’t even attempt to be a debate. I was very careful when I wrote that book (and the many women on all sides that I reference are well worth reading) but I’m not convinced now that being careful accomplishes anything so here’s my thoughts:

The Left is hypocritical because if they actually cared about the welfare of women they wouldn’t ban any information (including personal testimony) on the often profound physical and mental stress caused by abortion that can last for decades.

The Right is similarly hypocritical because they make it so very difficult, socially and economically, for so many pregnant women to feel able to give birth—and to bring up a child with decency.

The Left concede more rights to lobsters than to babies that survive initial abortion attempts (a saline bath sounds very clinical but its purpose is to burn the skin off the screaming baby) and only refer to such situations by focusing on the distress caused to staffers! As for the findings of human pain studies in utero, they just don’t want to know.

The Right misrepresent the Biblical tradition (which is ambiguous on the moment of ensoulment) and typically promote an anti-maternal economics that ignores completely the prophetic tradition of hospitality to the stranger, care of the widow and the orphan, leaving the edges of the field for the poor to glean and forgiving debts in the year of Jubilee.

Both sides save face, reject all and any critique of their stance (selective abortion is racist, classist, ableist and sexist—and precisely those same prejudices, along with religious sectarianism and demonisation of other faiths, create a climate of snobbish rejection of pregnant women by communities intent on keeping up appearances and producing progeny of the right sort).

What’s the solution?

1) Realise that someone’s stance on abortion is likely to be coherent with their view of pregnancy (baby or blood clot) and reinforced by the collective ideological identity they value.

2) Accept that criticism of your own stance is possible—and that you may even learn from it. At least you might earn the right to be heard if you demonstrate an ability to listen rather than keep shouting THEM down.

3) Try to see your side from the other (and there aren’t just two sides on this) and acknowledge the possibility of your opponent being motivated by as benevolent an intent as yours.

4) Agree to disagree, if that finally is inevitable but ask yourself what part of the project of your interlocutor might overlap with your own.

5) Try to be honest with yourself about your real motivation regarding ostentatiously adhering to the ideological purity of your familial and social circle. Is that badge of honour more important to you than strategically collaborating with someone they despise—for the real well-being of women and children?

6) Ask yourself how much you and your cronies actually do, practically, to support women who want to give birth and bring up their children well. If you had access to the resources of the other side, how much more could you do? Would you be willing to work with them for that—knowing they’re still campaigning to change the law in a way you utterly oppose?

7) Consider the expression of ambiguity on this issue. How do you deal with it? Sweep it under the carpet or allow the uncertain voice of what “the woman who had been Jane Roe […] Norma McCorvey” called “the messy middle” to be heard?

Chrome stethoscope with yellow rubber cover looped over a red image of a heart

5 Ways to Disagree

This is a more structured version of my podcast of the same title which reflects on how we can discuss and even argue with people who hold opinions opposed to ours, irrespective of logic or empirical evidence, and so passionately, that we may be justified in calling them beliefs – and they may be justified in doing the same.

Although many of us moderns (especially White, slick urbanites) like to think of ourselves as all about science and having nothing to do with belief, there are some convictions on issues which are clearly not evidence-based and about which we are immune to rational persuasion.

Rather than identifying particular positions as irrational, I prefer to present examples of opposing beliefs, and some middle ground, without (too much) judgement. After doing so, I suggest 5 ways we can dialogue with each other, even when we disagree. The table below is not a nuanced account of any of these positions but serves to show their conflict. The middle position is not necessarily the one I consider most rational in all cases.

Issue/ Belief	Established	Middle ground	Dissenting
Abortion	Amoral medical procedure, sometimes necessary/ human right. Cornerstone of female autonomy & modern feminism. Unborn baby is basically a bloodclot.	Tragic conflict of rights in a misogynist society which still does not support female socio-economic autonomy, pregnancy, childbirth or childcare.	Lucrative immoral practice of eugenics, often racist, sexist & ableist, by selfish women, authoritarian governments & doctors breaking Hippocratic Oath. Zygote is basically a baby.
AIDS	HIV is the necessary & sufficient cause of AIDS (Gallo)  HIV is co-factor of AIDS but good nutrition/ clean water will flush it out (Montagnier)	HIV is at least a co-factor of AIDS, oxidation may be another, but epidemiological data is so flawed & positions over e.g. poppers (alkyl nitrate) & Kaposi’s Sarcoma so entrenched, it is difficult to say anything for certain.	HIV is a harmless passenger virus unconnected to AIDS – an  incoherent set of diseases caused by malnutrition & drugs including HIV meds (Duesberg) HIV has never been proved to exist (Perth Group)
Animal Farming	Natural: humans are omnivores and animals hunt eat other for food.	Factory farming & fishing bycatch/ plastic pollution unnecessary is cruel but animal welfare can be improved by a return to traditional farming/ fishing.	Immoral. We are not just wild animals and traditional ecological communities of hunters & fishers do not subject animals to a (short) lifetime of cruelty.
Black Lives Matter	Black people are causing racist division in our now totally equal societies.	The cause of BLM is good but it is funded/ infiltrated by corporate interests with a different agenda.*	It’s the 21st C. and Black people are still not safe anywhere. Defund the police!
Environment	There is no environmental problem. Big business as usual!	There may or may not be a relationship between emissions and global warming but plastic & air pollution is real. The Green movement is funded/ infiltrated by corporate interests with a different agenda.*	The Earth is in crisis and only an immediate halt to CO2 & other toxic emissions will save humanity.
5G/ Cashless Economy/ Cryptocurrency/ Blockchain	5G is useful, empowering, safe & efficient. It’s unconnected to the others which are just a more efficient & sanitory method of finance.	We should be cautious about possible harm from any new technology, especially one using microwaves. The industry promoting it is unlikely to be impartial. The others are useful but problematic in terms of money laundering/ the Dark Web.	All this is part of *The Great Reset: unelected oligarchic global governance based on citizen surveillance using biodata.
Transgender	Human right if born in the wrong body. Access all areas!	Confusing conflation of transsexual and transvestite people who have very different rights and present very different dangers to women and children.	Attack on female safe space and sovereignty. Unnatural & especially harmful to kids who end up irreversibly mutilated, scarred & sterile for life & unable to enjoy sex.
Vaccines	Totally safe.	Good in general but their proliferation is worrying as is lack of legal accountability for past & future harms by pharmaceutical industry.	Totally unsafe. Cause of autism etc.
Viruses: Covid-19/ H1N1 (Swine Flu)	Real threat to life. Masks, social distancing, citizen surveillance, vaccines are our only hope against certain destruction of the human race.	Bad (incommensurable) data; bad (incoherent) results. Censorship of dissenting experts not helping understanding of threat & solution.	Scam/ social engineering with real or fake virus. Key part of another agenda operating since the 9/11 scam.*

Some of these issues line up with bipartisan politics – especially in the USA – and so some have described this as conflict of cultures. If we accept ideologies as similar to cultures, then one solution to continual argument is an approach similar to multiculturalism – which is a social strategy that has never been tried seriously in the UK (despite the political rhetoric) because, throughout our history, no culture apart from the dominant one has ever felt sufficiently safe.

In the USA it has never been tried at all, as the famous ‘Melting Pot’ is the antithesis of cultural respect. Expression of non-dominant cultural identity in the USA is only tolerated if it is folksy, touristy, commercially packaged, relegated to the past or heavily-constrained and bounded communities. When accessible, urban, vociferous and resistant to assimilation, it is severely repressed.

However convivencia was a key virtue of much of Al-Andalus (Moorish Spain) during the years when Christians and Jews lived securely under Muslim rule. Out of their dialogue came many literary, philosophical and scientific riches.

So what are my thoughts on a more convivial way of engaging with people of different persuasions? I suggest 5 ways to disagree:

• Acknowledge the benevolence of people on the other side – they may truly believe what they do in good faith, with the information, cultural identity, emotional investment and relationships they have at this time.
• Find shared values & goals: e.g. Pro-Life & Pro-Choice women can at least agree on supporting women who want to give birth and face social & economic obstacles, without giving up their opposition over the morality & legality of abortion.
• Agree on a basis of evidence. This may be a legal or religious text that one or both parties holds as authoritative, a set of scientific studies, a certain database, etc.
• Explore coherence – using logic, the value system each claims to uphold, and perhaps one of the above, this step may serve to demolish an opponent’s argument but may also enable it to be expressed more intelligibly, enabling better mutual understanding.
• Agree to disagree. If you agree on nothing else, at least acknowledge the legal right to freedom of expression/ freedom of speech and resist attempts by others to censor this fundamental value of democracy.

Silhouette of older White man & younger Black man arguing

Thanks to Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan for releasing his image Argument Silhouette into the public domain.

 

5 Ways to Disagree (podcast)

Rather rambling reflections on possible strategies taken from interfaith dialogue between people committed to opposing secular ideologies they believe in and both claim to be rational and factual. Mention of: failed multiculturalism in UK and (especially) USA contrasted with success in Moorish Spain; opposing views on:

Abortion

AIDS

Animal Farming

Black Lives Matter

Environment

5G/ Cashless Economy/ Cryptocurrency/ Blockchain

Vaccines

Viruses: Covid-19/ H1N1 (Swine Flu)

(And I completely forgot about transgender ideology, which is another case in point)

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-zegba-e23cab

Bodies

Living both north and south of the Tropic of Capricorn in Brazil, I had to get used to walking slowly and smoothly­ – otherwise I’d arrive sticky with sweat (and Brazilians are extremely fastidious about hygiene). In my native Scotland, we walk at a brisk, jerky, pace because speed and friction keep us warm north of the latitude of Moscow. In the days before mobile phones, when I still had my Brazilian tan, I sat for an hour outside Holborn Tube Station waiting for a friend and watching the citizens of London walk by. Generally, the White people scurried along, head-first, frowning, shoulders tense, neck at 45^o; mostly, the Black people had shoulders back and walked with head high, evenly and upright. Of course there were exceptions.

Taking an African dance class in California (I’m White and, yes, I was hopeless) I observed a White American classmate with a very Irish name skip across the floor and asked her when she’d learned Irish dancing, because I recognised the movement. She said “what is that?” and told me her family had emigrated from Ireland centuries ago. I replied, “your legs remember”.

‘Muscle memory’ was a hot topic in those days and it was something we were well aware of in our massage class, led by our gentle, feminine New-Agey teacher – she’d burp as she worked, feeling it released the blocked somatic energy she was picking up – who summed up her philosophy: “when you bring peace to the body, you bring peace to the world”.

Although I try to do that, nowadays, I’m sorry to say, I tend to poke my neck out and scurry with the rest of my peely-wally compatriots but occasionally I am reminded (by all our stooped White elderly folk) to straighten my spine. And, when it’s hot, I still drag the back of my flip-flops along, like a good Brazilian, rather than snap them to my heels.

What’s the point? Today for Catholics is the Feast of Corpus Christi, the body of Christ, and bodies are on all our minds right now. The Italian cultural theorist and moral philosopher Giorgio Agamben critiques the church for failing in a duty which was recognised as paramount even by the Ancient Greeks:

“The first point, perhaps the most serious, concerns the bodies of dead persons. How could we have accepted, solely in the name of a risk that it was not possible to specify, that persons who are dear to us and human beings in general should not only die alone, but — something that had never happened before in history, from Antigone to today — that their cadavers should be burned without a funeral?”

As the main carer for two family members, one human, one canine, and as a vegan, I am well aware of the importance of bodies, especially right now. She can get cramped from sitting too long, her accustomed exercise, a short bus trip to the local town for mass and a potter round cafes and charity shops, greeting friends, curtailed by the powers-that-be. He’s probably getting more walks than ever but other animals are not so fortunate. All across the United States, pigs are being herded into gas chambers to cut their sad lives even shorter.

Unlike many new converts to animal liberation, I don’t watch footage of cruelty to animals. I know about our inhumanity. Instead I share the work of animal sanctuaries – and I invite you to do the same.

When I read that the bodies of our elderly, frightened and sometimes starving to death, were being discovered, alone and decomposing, in homes in London, I felt we had reached an end point in utter selfishness in metropolitan society.

Agamben, rightly, criticises the church for embracing the Covid Cult rather than the sick:

“The Church above all, which, in making itself the handmaid of science, which has now become the true religion of our time, has radically repudiated its most essential principles. The Church, under a Pope who calls himself Francis, has forgotten that Francis embraced lepers. It has forgotten that one of the works of mercy is that of visiting the sick. It has forgotten that the martyrs teach that we must be prepared to sacrifice our life rather than our faith and that renouncing our neighbour means renouncing faith.” (ibid)

Pope Francis, in his defence, has a long history of embracing those whom society repudiates as repugnant. As well as his ad hoc embraces, his annual washing of the feet of prisoners and the poor was only seized upon by the press when he became pope but for him it is nothing new – and he has publically urged respect and compassion for people caught up in prostitution. Nevertheless, I fear that the Vatican may have been overly conscious of its geographical position in the heart of Italy, so hysterically caught up in the Covid Cult and so tragically beginning to become aware that so many of its elderly were simply killed by well-meaning medics in a lethal combination of multimorbidity and iatrogenesis.

Women who advocate for reproductive justice (which should be against forced abortion and sterilisation; against state, social or economic pressure on pregnant women not to give birth; against pathologising natural somatic processes; against pro-birthers who do not support single mothers; and against any discrimination based on sex, race or ability) use the slogan OUR BODIES OUR SELVES! (Naomi Wolf, bravely, nuances the argument with a reflection on Our Bodies Our Souls.)

For human beings of any unselfish faith or philosophy, our bodies are not just commodities at the disposal of the state or the corporate forces of the market.

As we wake up from this global hypnosis, and open our eyes to the long-held plans of the biotech industrial complex, let’s remember that.

Unclothed grey sleek faceless mannequins in a shop window

Thanks to Peter Griffin for releasing his image Faceless Mannequins into the Public Domain.

 

Welcome to Dystopia

In chapter ten of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote that a “Great Lie” is likely to be successful – as the common people, though corruptible, are not actually evil and therefore unable to conceive of deception on such a scale. A variation is to tell the truth but not the whole truth or to state something that is only true when qualified – and fail to qualify it. A Great Lie is recognisable by the insistence of those who tell it on the urgent nature of a certain outcome – even though the supporting narrative, and the supporting facts, change.

In chapter nine of George Orwell’s 1984, an incendiary speaker (receiving a written memo) alters the subject of his sentence of war, and the crowd continues to bay for the blood of their enemies – seemingly unaware that their identity has suddenly, for no apparent reason, changed. On such an occasion, an independent thinker may see clearly the true motive of such oratory: not the stated moral imperative of protecting one’s own people but the political and economic expediency of keeping them in thrall.

In chapter eight of God’s Politics: Why the American Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it, Rev Jim Wallis comments on the unchanged objective of the US government before and after the 2001 attack on the Manhattan Twin Towers: “The manipulation of intelligence to support a pre-emptive war with Iraq became one of the worst distortions of fact in modern history” (Wallis/2006/111).

In chapter seven of Inventing the AIDS Virus, Prof. Duesberg details the carrot and stick strategies of the AIDS establishment (led by Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since the year of the announcement of HIV as probable cause of AIDS, 1984) to bring dissenting scientists into line. By blocking funding, banning publication or bribing with lucrative career advancement and prestige, many researchers were led away from their unacceptable views – that drugs and endemic diseases cause the symptoms of this syndrome. Views that may clearly and economically explain the data but don’t sell pills.

In book six (485b-d) of Plato’s Republic, Socrates states that his ideal Ruler must love the truth and hate falsehood. Yet in book five – in context of eugenic arrangements for abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and suicide – Plato’s mentor advises deception of the common people by “an ingenious system” (460a) in drawing lots for the mating festival in order to bring reproduction under State control.

In his fourth video this month on Covid-19(84), independent journalist Spiro Skouras interviews libertarian and former US Representative, Dr Ron Paul, who exposes the State manipulation of the narrative regarding the death rate – and how what is presented as medical fact by independent experts is originating in the pharmaceutical industrial complex as part of an ongoing agenda of biomedical surveillance.

In her third report this month, independent journalist Whitney Webb demonstrates and references the links between the Covid-19 narrative and the long-prepared plans for AI biodata surveillance – in which China is far ahead of the USA. “Data is the new oil”, she warns. And we all know what happens to countries that have oil and aren’t prepared to agree to the terms of the USA.

There are two official sources of information on “deaths related to Covid-19” being used right now in the UK to push the narrative that elderly people are dying in care homes on an unprecedented scale and that this novel virus is the cause of their death. In fact, as the reassuringly fresh-faced David Finch (with a degree in Economics) of The Health Foundation explains, neither of these datasets list this virus as the cause of death. This is odd, given their mission statement:

“Our vision is for a future where everyone’s health and care benefits from analytics and data-driven technology.”

So you would think they would know what they were doing with numbers.

Why this inflation (actually it’s conflation) of the death rate? Because, in research, if the theory doesn’t fit the data, a researcher with integrity will re-examine and re-adjust the theory accordingly; an unscrupulous one will skew the data till it fits.

By falsifying the death rate data to make it appear that masses of elderly people are dying of Covid-19, that demographic can be used to appeal for sympathy and so force opposition to testing and tracking to stand down. Once that gets a foothold in this most vulnerable group – many isolated and confused and who therefore can be basically forced to accept it – it’s easier to roll out to the rest of the population: You visited your Gran this week? Here! You have to wear this tracking bracelet!

Back to the one and only Whitney Webb with this report on how a certain pharmaceuticals company is set to corner the market on a Covid-19 vaccine, despite their track record:

“Pentagon auditors had found that much of the money awarded to BioPort was unaccounted for and the money they were able to trace had failed to go towards renovating their vaccine production facility, which had lost its license until numerous sanitary problems (sanitary and otherwise) were fixed. Meanwhile, scores of soldiers who had suffered ill health effects from BioPort’s anthrax vaccine, some disabled for life, began speaking out, bringing BioPort’s most critical product and chief source of income under unwanted scrutiny.”

The Great Lie of Covid-19 has already succeeded. The groundwork was laid when the HIV-AIDS hypothesis diverted funding from the War on Cancer, in 1984, and when the US government began a series of biotech threat and surveillance simulations in 2001 (see the end of this post and the beginning of this clip on the latest simulation in 2019). The narrative (anthrax or smallpox bioterrorism from Iraq or Afghanistan involving Syria and Jordan; respiratory disease/ coronavirus outbreak in Germany or Venezuela or China) has changed but the outcome is always the same: State control and lucrative private exploitation of biodata in general – and of eugenic reproduction in particular. All from vaccines. All from You-Know-Who.

Welcome to Dystopia. Have a nice day.

Thanks to Kai Stachowiak who has released his image Robot Woman into the Public Domain.

 

 

Culture wars

Election fever hasn’t really hit Scotland yet. After the Referendum, when democracy was on the table, I just don’t know anyone who’s excited about it. Not that there isn’t a political process going on, among the grassroots, but no-one seems to be in love with the parties. A brief survey from a voter who, like so many, doesn’t attend rallies and doesn’t even listen to political spin, but does have a vote:

No-one loves a Tory. Nuff said. The peg-on-the-nose school of New Labour tactical voting have forgotten that we’ve heard it all before. Do I really need to even mention the LibDems? The SNP were riding high but their support of the Named Person policy is alienating their heartland from conservative families to radicals concerned for civil liberty. The Greens would do better if they came across as Scottish, in touch (at all) with the working class (Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, you were morning star of hope, why did you fall so far?) and actually embraced the diversity they’re always banging on about. Disdain of cherished values is never attractive to voters (PH isn’t even trying to win hearts and minds for the Assisted Suicide Bill among the faith community) and they were latecomers to the campaign Independence. No, we really don’t like being compared to an English county, thank-you, even a big one. Everyone else is either a nutter or a fascist.

So what’s my vote? Probably SNP (we don’t know that the Greens can actually govern and their flakey arrogance doesn’t help) but with a peg-on-my-nose. Meanwhile, here’s my contribution to some resolution on the ‘culture wars’, which govern American elections and are a major (and largely unheeded) factor over here:

• Abortion is the most divisive issue in the ‘culture wars’ and one way or another it affects us all yet no-one is listening in this debate that is not worthy of the name
• Good women on both sides are being pushed into the front line in this conflict by obsessive men aware only of their extreme ideology
• In the name of feminism and in the name of religion, women’s human expressions of ambiguity are being censored by both sides
• Under the old patriarchal tactic of ‘divine and conquer’, man-made ideological divisions are preventing the solidarity of women on common ground:
  1. resistance to (sex-based) forced abortion
  2. resistance to (class/ ethnicity-based) forced sterilisation
• Men are utilising both pro-life and pro-choice stances to leave pregnant women in difficult circumstances to do all the ethical heavy lifting and to cope with the physical and emotional aftermath of birth or abortion alone
• Rather than focusing solely on changing the law, Life Choice encourages women to find common ground in the material and emotional support of women who want to give birth but are under economic and social pressure to change this choice
• Rather than braying their disdain of any women who does not agree with their absolutist ideology, Life Choice challenges men on both sides to shut up, to stop confusing the issue with non-related topics, and to support women by dismantling misogyny
• This little book is inspired by the Sabine women who dramatically presented an alternative to conflict, by affirming the relationships we already have with one another, no matter what side we are on
• Life Choice imagines mixed groups of pro-choice and pro-life women collaborating for better choices and campaigning for workplace crèche facilities, for equal pay and opportunity, supporting breastfeeding in public, for a ‘revolving cradle’ policy in maternity hospitals so that mothers in fear of their lives do not have to give birth on park benches but may do so in anonymity   

When we, as a society, as a species, ask women to give birth to our young, we are asking for an act of heroism. Some women, in some circumstances, refuse that act. Some wish they had and some wish they had not. Instead of vilifying or coercing women in regard to their choices, would it not, squeaky clean ideology aside, make more sense to provide women with better choices?

LIFE CHOICE

‘War Hero Memorial’ by Tammy Sue released to Public Domain

Best for Baby

Outed and unjustly branded ‘hypocrite’ by a certain Scottish newspaper some years ago, the well-loved RC parish priest preached a heartfelt but sombre sermon to the Midnight Mass congregation at my home church. Tragic events this last month, a year and a century ago cast a pall over the usual joy of the weans awaiting their presents and of the old glad to see another Christmas and hoping to see in another new year. Having mostly shot the craw from my cradle Roman Catholicism some years ago, with the arrival of Ratzinger, I have always felt at home in my home parish – although not at ease. Struggles with celibacy are nothing new in the RC community and only became newsworthy when blended cleverly with both homophobia and anti-Catholicism disguised as outrage at RC episcopal ‘whitewash’. The ‘production values’ of the liturgy, and the heating systems, may never rival those of the Episcopalian cathedral where I feel at ease – although not at home – but the parish of my infancy and youth still holds warmth for me. I participated in the music ministry, the Charismatic prayer group, the Justice & Peace group, I sold (awful) Campaign Coffee, met with Focolare and went on parish retreats and on pilgrimage, served at the altar and returned there from my sojourn with the Franciscans. This year, at my mother’s house, I constricted a crib with her handpainted icon of St Francis as backdrop and Sisters from the local FMDM house have promised my mother to pop in to see it.

So all was pretty cosy, if not exactly warm, until the end of Mass when the parish priest approached the subject of the crib – which I had helped build when it first arrived. This year the proceeds, ‘I have been told to announce’, he was careful to say, will go to the St Margaret’s Adoption Society, ‘for a legal battle they are involved in’.

Oh. The one against ‘the gays’. Like plucky little Belgium against the invading Hun, like St Joan against the English, like Christ outfacing Pilate (the former manifestly representing the Scottish RC hierarchy and the latter ‘aggressive secularism’) and not at all like a Hebrew mother entrusting her babe to a reed basket, praying for someone to care for him, even someone unlike her.

The only thing nuclear families do with consistency is explode. If it takes a village to bring up a child, why are ‘pro-life’ Roman Catholics worried about the sex of the couple who have volunteered to provide for a needy child’s primary care? This is one I’ve changed my mind on. I used to think it was about freedom of conscience, like the legal battle of midwives not to supervise abortion, or about democracy, like state-supported faith schools. Now I realise it’s about limitation of options due to prejudice: it’s not about what adoption should always be about – whatever is best for Baby.