1. This is my Scottish Papa, Joseph Nicol Bell - 2nd from the right in the back row. He lied about his age to sign up to fight in WW1. He was injured in the Somme.
2. He was a Labour man all his life, and worked as a forester after the war. He was in the Home Guard during WW2.
3. He and my Nana lived in a council house all their lives (although in the 80s my Mum and Dad, who by then had done quite well in life, bought it for them so the last decade of their lives they had no rent to pay) (That's my Mum, middle left).
4. In the 80s Nana and Papa rented their telly from Radiorentals. We were up there for summer holidays, and their telly was on the blink.
5. My dad said "Don't worry. I'm going through the town. I will pop in and tell them."
Papa refused to let him. He said if they complained about the telly, Radiorentals might take it off them...
That is #DowntonAbbeySyndrome.
6. I've called it #DowntonAbbeySyndrome because my grandparents and parents were strong royalists who Knew Their Place. Even though my Dad did well in life, they knew what their position was in the pecking order. Class myths constantly reinforced by media-forced deference.
7. We are taught to bow and scrape to our betters from an early age. We are taught to "know our place" from birth. We might work hard to succeed, but we will never be part of that elite stratum of society that governs us. That is the biggest con trick every played.
8. Reject #DowntonAbbeySyndrome.
Call it out when you see it.
Boycott costume dramas and class propaganda that the media force-feeds us.
Know that you have agency, you have rights, and you just as entitled as the Bullingdon Boys to rule this country.
Disrupt the status quo.
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Controversial POV - I support everything @AntiRacismDay does, but what Saturday showed us is clear: shouting "Racists" and "Fascists!" in peoples faces will never address racism and fascism. This has to start with dialogue. 1/
2/ You can't refute deeply-held beliefs, however delusional they might be, by simply screaming at people that they're wrong/ignorant/beyond the pale. You have to dismantle those beliefs by showing WHY they are delusional.
3/We are up against powerful mega-rich forces that have poisoned discourse for decades. The "no politics no sex no religion" dinner party rules, the lack of political education from an early age means the average person sees politics as tribalism, like supporting a footy team
🧵1. I've said before: there is nothing "organic" or "spontaneous" about the anti-asylum protests. I started noticing stuff in my local FB community page around 2 years ago. Wild claims about "foreign looking men" trying to snatch their child out of a trolly in Tesco >
2. Tesco employees and police denied it had happened, but the story was out there. Chip. Chip. Chip away, as it started with jokes about asylum hotels, then the hotel occupants, then lurid stories - unverifiable of course - of people being stopped and surrounded in their cars >>
3. And if the police siad nothing or denied it, it was because they were "woke" with their "rainbow flags" and "weren't allowed to warn people". I reiterate: none of it was verigiable. Nothing to cross-reference it.
1. Hey, ECHR Haters.
Do you know what an Osman Warning is?
It is when the police are obliged by law to warn you if they believe there is a genuine, credible threat against your life.
You know where it comes from?
Article 2 ECHR.
2. None of you are too happy about the idea of digital ID's either, are you? Me neither. Do you know what protects us from that sort of interference with our private life?
Article 8 ECHR.
3. While we are on the subject of Article 8, that is what protects your right to marry who you want to marry (within reason -you can't marry a close family member or a child, or someone who is already married).
Let us, please, use the second part of this documentary as our own blue-print. We cannot allow Netanyahu and his administration to escape justice in the way Rajapaksa and his government have escaped.
37m25s into the second video (link below), one David Miliband of this parish:
"There was a propaganda battle clearly taking place in which it was very important for the Rajapaksa government to insist on the "whiter than white" nature of its own approach in order to get through this final phase, final weeks, ultimately final days of the war".
Miliband, in a released document, called the Sri Lankan government "liars". Is there no statesman prepared to stand up and call the Israeli government liars? Is there no statesman with sufficient gravitas and stature on the world stage to prevent this sickening repeat of history, where governments commit war crimes in plain sight and walk away with complete impunity? channel4.com/programmes/sri…
Was pondering earlier that, in many respects, those who suffered the ordeal by fire during the Corbyn years, being daubed as antisemites when they weren't, have actually had an enormous impact. 1/
2/ I distinctly remember the first time I was called an antisemite. It was on here, of course, and led to fear and soul-searching and self-reflection and apology at various levels over different periods.
3/ but gradually, as it all unravelled people began to see what was going on. And now nobody gives a monkeys if, in the face of standing up for peace and justice and equity, bad actors call us nasty names. Because lives are more important. Peace is more important.
As someone who spent a stint studying Third World Development, before switching to Law (then, subsequently did an MA in Reconciliation and Peacebuilding [brazen appeal to authority. Shut up!] what I see happening in the UK now is a Structural Adjustment Policy 1/
2/ SAP's were the way in which countries from the developed North intervened in the less-developed South: "We will provide funding if you roll back on public services, education, etc., focus on restructuring to the benefit of big business through transport infrastructure" etc.
3/ Thing is, vampire capitalists ran out of poor countries they could exploit. So then they started on the poorer of the rich EU nations - who remembers the PIGS? Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain in the last global recession, and how they were bled dry by oligarchs?