Lurker > threetimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6isXNVdguI8

Context matters.

Ian Dury suffered from polio and wrote this song. It was never played on the BBC at the time but In 2012 it was sung as a celebration at the Paralympics.

Ians own words about the song:
Id written this in the Year Of The Disabled. I was going to start a band called Spastic & The Autistics, because the word spastic is a swear word. There was that girl group Bananarama who used to talk about Spazz Dancing. Their ignorance is their own affair. I wanted to do something for the Year Of The Disabled so I wrote Spasticus Autisticus knowing it would be unacceptable to the BBC. They banned it as they did Wake Up And Make Love To Me and Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll. They actually dont BAN it. They just dont play it. Apparently you could only play it after dark, with written permission. I did about 140 interviews related to the song that year. It was a war cry for my brothers and sisters who are disabled. Only a spastic could understand that. Its not describing a condition. Its just being spirited

Pathetic.

When you think of the teachers who died to try and protest their pupils. That kid at Parkland, Peter Wang, who died protecting his classmates.

https://www.wlrn.org/news/2018-02-20/peter-wang-who-died-protecting-other-children-given-military-honors

I hope people wake up to the real role of the police: to protect property and keep people of colour in order.

Dark_Spiret posted...

iv always found this to be very disingenuous. Same with Australia's situation. Both countries barely had any gun violence to begin in no small part to their cultures with Aus already showing a downward decline in gun violence years prior to their massacre. when something is rare to begin with it doesnt provide enough data to show that that was the defining cause or solution. especially in Aus when stabbings and arson deaths suspiciously increased by 50% shortly after their gun buy back for something like a solid 10 years before it started to come back down.

No. The question for the topic is how do other nations deal with mass shootings. This is how the UK dealt with it.

It's not to say the US should do exactly the same, because of course we all know how very different the gun culture is in the US. But the point is that the UK DID SOMETHING and it had an effect. The USA doesn't seem to do anything to respond to multiple school shootings (and other mass shootings) besides offering thoughts and prayers.

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668

There was a primary school shooting in Scotland in 1996 at Dunblane when 16 children and a teacher were shot. After that the UK government banned all handguns. There hasn't been a school shooting since then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILUVKIUdHNo

Explains a lot. How the US gun culture started and got boosted in the 1980s. More mass shootings = more guns get sold.
UK and Australis acted immediately when a school shooting killed lots of kids. The US ... thoughts and prayers.

They hate women and kids. They only like embryos that can't talk back.

Tyranthraxus posted...

If you have an ectopic pregnancy you basically have to pray for a miscarriage if you can't get an abortion. It's like a super Saiyan kidney stone and it will kill you.

This. And to distinguish between an abortion and a miscarriage is difficult. This would criminalise women who have a miscarriage: and that's a hell of a lot of women. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriages. The whole thing is insane. Valuing grown women less than a collection of cells is really crazy.

Anyone that voted 9 has never visited Europe.

It's also a rapist's charter. A man wants a child. He rapes a woman or child who cannot access an abortion. Chances of him getting a conviction are slight (given the current situation with rape and sexual assault). There are already girls that have been denied abortions after rape by fathers or other family members. It's horrifying beyond thought...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas
/11yearold-paraguay-girl-denied-abortion-
after-being-raped-by-stepfather-gives-birth-
10455520.html

These Republicans are insane.

It is simple. Decisions should be made by women/girls about their own body. The state should not be involved. But making that decision is NOT a simple thing: it's often heart breaking. Read stories from women that have had abortions for all kinds of reasons and you will weep.

Also the choice for the state is between legal and illegal abortions. The latter kill women and former don't. (And don't forget about ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, which are very common and often require medical procedures to save the woman's life.)

pinky0926 posted...

Imagine how good the world would be if conservatives cared even 5% as much about alive and suffering people as they do about hypothetical cell clusters

Supporting the rights of cell clusters is an easy thing to do.

"By opposing abortion, religious people can feel the intoxicating, easy high of self-righteousness and moral virtuewithout having to actually love or help people: strange, disparate, uncomfortable-for-you-to-be-around people. Thats because embryos can be idealized into something pleasant and palatable, devoid of any of the messy characteristics they find undesirable in actual walking-around human beings. They arent yet gay or Muslim or liberal or Black or poor or atheist (or whatever other qualifiers trouble you), and so affinity with them is uncomplicated, solidarity with them does not cross the lines of their tribalism.

---

To be truly pro-life should mean to be for humanity. I dont see that in this movement.
I so wish these people would show a fraction of passion for the world that they do for the womb."

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/09/03/the-easy-selective-morality-of-the-pro-life-movement/

It won't stop abortion: it will prevent safe abortions. So, more women will die.

It would be nice if Americans opposed to abortion campaigned for better birth control, better health care so giving birth didn't cost money, and generous parental leave for new mothers and fathers. America is an outlier country on this.

The US is the only high-income country in the world that doesnt offer even a single day of maternity leave.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190615-parental-leave-how-rich-countries-compare

The government has also given itself much more control of the media. The chair appointed to the BBC is a conservative donor and former banker, and the BBC has had its revenue cut with plans to cut it even more. They are selling off Channel 4 ( a free public network that is funded through advertising) partly because their reporters dared to challenge government ministers. And of course the majority of the newspapers are owned by right wing companies.

Here is a short overview of the situation. https://www.mediareform.org.uk/media-ownership/who-owns-the-uk-media

People don't understand what is going because it's hard to find out.

I was following one of the votes in the House of Lords (tweeted from a Green Party rep) and she explained that the tory votes were disciplined, staying late into the night to ensure things got through. The Opposition was ground down, many of them old people and tired out from a long day. it's crazy the way things work here - the House of Lords can try to alter parts of bills but they don't meet in the morning or follow a normal working day. Often finish their debates at around midnight.

All the various scandals (party gate etc) are useful to keep eyes away from the really serious things that are being done. Johnson explained in an interview that distraction is how he works - throws a dead cat into the room and let\s people get annoyed about it. Very effective.

And South Africa learned how to do apartheid from the USA.
https://bcrw.barnard.edu/event/white-rights-what-apartheid-south-africa-learned-from-the-united-states/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4zojyuzvI

Watch and learn. Really good Italian pasta sauce.

Also, a nice meat alternative is brown lentils.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYoiCStDTQg

Poly Styrene and X Ray Spex : Identity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZxxhxjgnC0

Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl

Just happened to be listening to some old music for another topic so...
Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp4339EbVn8

And
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - DIdn't it Rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NFywQdeKSo

More recent
Warpaint - Billie Holiday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWcTp1r_Nls

Vienna Teng - The Hymn of Acxiom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF-7WiLykGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6xMOTjLIaY

Moody Blues - Knights in White Satin .

A male friend recommended the Alchemist to me and I bought it. It is a horrible book and I stopped reading after the first chapter. Dense prose and very off putting. Felt the same about Atlas Shrugged. Nothing to recommend such books but I wouldn't say they were red-flag books. After all, I have them, and a few more from that list, doesn't mean to say I've read them or like them.

But I draw the line at Nadine Dorries. Just why would anyone even attempt to read her *novels*.

Roast lamb.