World Mental Health Day :Suicide Isn't Painless

Today, most of us are aware,  we are currently in the grips of a mental health crisis. An epidemic. killing indiscriminately, especially the young .One in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Today is World Mental Health Day, which occurs annually on October 10 and aims to educate and raise awareness of mental health issues.
We should not  forget that mental illness doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers. and within the monopoly-capitalist nations, mental-health disorders are the leading cause of life expectancy decline behind cardiovascular disease and cancer. In the European Union, 27.0 percent of the adult population between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five are said to have experienced mental-health complications.
 Recent estimates by the World Health Organization suggest that more than three hundred million people suffer from depression worldwide. And it is important to note that most of the medications currently available  fail to manage symptoms at all.
Approximately eight hundred thousand individuals commit suicide globally each year. In the UK in 2018, there were 6,507 deaths by suicide (a rate of 11.2 deaths per 100,000 people).
Suicide and suicide attempts can have lasting effects on individuals and their social networks and communities. The causes of suicide are many, and it is important to understand the psychological processes that underlie suicidal thoughts, and the factors that can lead to feelings of hopelessness or despair. 
In recognition of this, the 2019 theme for World Mental Health Day (as set by the World Federation for Mental Health) is “Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention”.
Suicide behaviours are complex, there is no single explanation of why people die by suicide. Social, psychological, and cultural factors can all interact to lead a person to suicidal thoughts or behaviour. For many people, an attempt may occur after a long period of suicidal thoughts or feelings, while in other cases, it may be more impulsive.
 Despite some excellent media guidelines produced by Samaritans and Mind, journalists often still revert to outdated language and stereotypes when reporting suicide. There is a difficult balance between reporting known facts and introducing elements of the story into the public domain which may encourage others to emulate what they have read, as is described in the Werther effect - so called because of the spate of imitational suicides that were said to have taken place after the publication of Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Research carried out across the world over the last five decades shows that when specific methods of suicide are reported – details of types and amounts of pills, for example – it can lead to vulnerable people copying them.
Young people in particular are more influenced by what they see and hear in the media than other age groups and are more susceptible to what is often referred to as suicide contagion.
We should not describe a suicide as ‘easy’, ‘painless’, ‘quick’ or ‘effective’, and we should remember to look at the long-term consequences of suicide attempts, not forgetting the significant life-long pain for those left behind when someone does take their own life.
It is also important to bear in mind that reports of celebrity deaths carry greater risk of encouraging others to take their own lives, due to the increased likelihood of over-identification by vulnerable people. A recent study, which examined news reports covering the suicide of US actor Robin Williams, identified a 10% increase in people taking their own lives in the months following his death. This emphasises the responsibility that we all have when it comes to talking about suicide.
We often read speculation about the cause of suicide, linking a death to a previous event such as the loss of a job, the break-up of a relationship or bullying. It is impossible to say with any certainty why someone takes their own life. As Samaritans state: ‘there is no simple explanation for why someone chooses to die by suicide, and it is rarely due to one particular factor.’
Suicide is often the culmination of a complex set of factors,The aim today for this Mental Health Foundation is simple - to send out a message of hope, #YouBelongHere. Hope is like oxygen for our mental health. It is the vital ingredient in supporting people to hold on
 In support of  World Mental Health Day, the green ribbon, an international symbol of mental health The Mental Health Foundation  simultaneously organised projections of the green ribbon onto the  buildings across Britain  in Glasgow, and Edinburgh’s St Andrews House. There was also up to 100 mental health advocates and people affected by suicide gathered in Trafalgar Square London, to form a human green ribbon.
 

Let us today think of people suffering untold mental anguish leading them to take this step. and the relatives and friends  who are bereaved  their lives often left in tatters. The  mind is a very delicate place, It's good to talk or to be listened to.

Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation said:

 "We should not be so scared of suicide that we can't talk about it. Suicide is a devastating and gut-wrenching tragedy that ends a life and shatters countless others. But we also know that we can all help prevent such deaths, as individuals and as a society. We are not powerless. Far better to say something that feels awkward than to stay silent, whether you're worried about another person or needing help yourself. Sometimes we need to talk about suicide." 

I will  end by saying that the alleviation of mental distress is only possible in a society without exploitation and oppression. All members of society are affected by the inhumane nature of capitalism, and for many who suffer  it is the consequence of  concrete inequalities and hardships  that are a direct product of our economic system . As the basis on which society’s superstructural formation is erected, capitalism is a major determinant of poor mental health leading to discontent and alienation. As the Marxist professor of social work and social policy Iain Ferguson has argued,

“it is the economic and political system under which we live—capitalism—which is responsible for the enormously high levels of mental-health problems which we see in the world today.”

But, slowly and determinedly, the fight is being to end this  led most explicitly by the most oppressed and exploited. So lets keep fighting and  spreading awareness, and be kind to the people that are around  us, but for fucks sake don't just tell anyone to simply cheer up. Much love.

Need to talk?  
 
Samaritans – offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week support service

116 123

Shout Crisis Text Line

85258

C.A.L.M. 

Available helpline (5pm – midnight) and webchat to support men


Papyrus – (dedicated service for young people up to the age of 35)

0800 068 4141

Support After Suicide Partnership offers practical and emotional support on their website for people bereaved and affected by suicide.

In Autumn : Some Praise for George Eliot (22/11/1819 - 22/12/1880 )

Mary Anne (Sometimes Marian) Evans  who  was better known by her pen name George Eliot.was born at Chilvers Coton, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. An acclaimed English novelist, philosopher and poet, who as a woman  was ahead of her time,in the way she  defied the sexual, religious and social rules of her day.
The daughter of an estate manager known for his conscientious work habits and staunchly conservative political views.Not much is said about George Eliot's mother except that she died when Mary was 17 years old. This caused Mary  to leave Mrs. Wallington's School at Nuneaton where she had attended from 1832 to 1835. She left to help care for her father and keep the house. It seems her mother's death was sudden but there is no available cause of death listed.  Recognized at an early age for her intelligence, Evans gained access to the estate’s library. At school, as an adolescent, she was allowed considerable freedom in what she read; she devoured books, including Sir Walter Scott’s novels.
Evans was strongly touched by Evangelicalism in her later teenage years, and devoted several years to taking religion and religious study seriously. During that time, she disapproved of frivolities such as the theater and novels. However, her theological ardor eventually cooled and she found herself reading all of Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Southey and, especially, Wordsworth, among others.
In 1841, she and her father moved to a house near Coventry where Mary Anne  came under different intellectual influences. There was clearly something in the social air as well, including no doubt the impact of the Chartist movement and the depression of 1841-1842, that made her susceptible to new ideas, among them those advanced by Charles and Caroline Bray, who became her close friends. Charles Bray was a ribbon manufacturer and a free thinker. He was an acquaintance of, among other figures, Robert Owen, the utopian socialist, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher, to both of whom he introduced Mary Anne, who had by now stopped attending church. She “was quickly brought,” as biographer Gordon S. Haight writes, “from provincial isolation into touch with the world of ideas.”
 Formidably knowledgeable across a range of subjects: Mary Anne was able to speak several languages including German, Hebrew, and Greek, she translated two books into English that were central to the rejection of Christianity by the intellectual avant-garde: David Friedrich Strauss' Life of Jesus (1846) and Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). These translations lead to Eliot's atheism and her eventual renunciation of the Christian faith, that  led her tp  to develop a sense of secular humanism, which is the belief that humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without belief in God.
After her fathers death in 1849 when she was 30 she travelled extensively abroad  in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and France. After settling in London  in 1850, from 1851 to 1854 she  served as a writer and editor of the left wing journal  Westminster Review. In London she met she met George Henry Lewes, a journalist and advanced thinker. Lewes was separated from his wife, who had had two sons by another man, but had been unable to obtain a divorce. In a step daring for Victorian times, Mary Ann Evans began living openly with Lewes in 1854, in a union they both considered as sacred as a legal marriage and one that lasted until his death in 1878. The fact that they publicly acknowledged their relationship rather than hiding it brought them disapproval from the rest of society. Her brother Isaac ceased contact with her.
Many people over time  have made comments about George Eliot' appearance. She did not adhere to what consensus society considered beautiful, but beauty is after all skin deep, but what Eliot was gifted  with was a radiant, luminous intelligence,, and emphatic tenderness  that more than outshone many others on the planet, that did not prevent many  admiring her'and before her immensely happy, 23 year liaison  with George Henry Lewes, she had attracted the attentions, of several personable and  distinguished men.
With Lewes’s encouragement, Mary Ann Evans wrote her first fictional work, “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” for Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857, when she was 37, it was followed by two more stories published under the pseudonym George Elliot,  partly in order to avoid her work being judged in relation to her scandalous domestic situation., and  "George” because it was Lewes’s name and “Eliot” because, she said, it was good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word.” It also  gave Eliot a shield against a society that despised her decision to question the church, speak her mind and live, for 25 years, with a married man.
At the age of thirty-nine she used her memories of Warwickshire to write her first long novel, Adam Bede (1859), it  caused such a sensation on its publication in February 1859 and, tired of the intense speculation surrounding the author’s identity, she revealed her real name in June of the same year. It established her as the foremost woman novelist in her day. Then came The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Romola (1863). Her masterpiece and one of the greatest English novels, Middlemarch, was published in 1871. Her last work was Daniel Deronda (1876).
From the outset of her career as a novelist, she was convinced that a writer's first obligation was a moral one and she would use her words  to write with a politically astute pen, and understood and wrote about the daily life of people at all levels of English society with great empathy and passion.
From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution. Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political, and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch, in which she presents the stories of a number of denizens of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832; the novel is notable for its deep psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits, the roots of this realist philosophy in her review of John Ruskin's Modern Painters in Westminster Review in 1856. Readers in the Victorian era particularly praised her books for their depictions of rural society, for which she drew on her own early experiences, and she shared with Wordsworth the belief that there was much interest and importance in the mundane details of ordinary country lives.
In her own works she emphasized two major doctrines - that of renunciation and that of retribution. She chose the novel as the best medium for moral teaching because it was the popular literary type of the age. Her moral principles were not those of any particular religious creed, but were the universal ideals of reason, love of mankind, and renunciation of mean and selfish aims. She said that the “inspiring principle” that gave her courage to write was that of “so presenting our human life as to help my readers in getting a clearer conception and a more active admiration of those vital elements which bind men together and give a higher worthiness to their existence”. She took satisfaction in having produced work that would “gladden and chasten human hearts”
What is important to remember is Eliot wrote with neither an exclusively male nor an exclusively female sensibility, but from a well-rounded human perspective. She mixed with some of the greatest intellectuals of her day, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Charles Dickens. Proselytizing  however was not her thing though, because she knew that her scandalous liaison with Lewes could only make her discussion of controversial matters a liability, but  she thought of herself as an a activist, "teaching the world through books." Thinking that she could more forcefully present her views by maintaining the persona of a neutral observer in her fiction, she objected to the role of political activist, who presents ideas in her own person. Finally, as a shy woman who cared only for her husband and her writing, who was often ill, and who hated publicity, she had neither the taste nor energy for public life, but who can fail to admire her rebellion against Victorian conventions  by living with a married man in spite knowing it would cause a scandal.
And despite causing both scandal and outrage  in Victorian English society, love for her work would eventually overwhelm many of the prejudices that she encountered. From being an outcast, she  even enjoyed royal approval. Queen Victoria was an avid reader of all her work, and by the time of her death , she had become the richest and most successful, self-made women in the country with her celebrated across the world.
After Lewes’s death in 1878, George Eliot found comfort with and married John Walter Cross on 16th May 1880. He was forty; she was sixty-one, and this again opened her to gossip because of the age difference, but this legal marriage helped at least to reconcile her with her brother. They moved to Chelsea but George Eliot fell ill with a throat infection. She was already suffering with kidney disease and she died on 22nd December 1880.
Before her death, she had been recognized by her contemporaries as the greatest living writer of English fiction and her thoughts, writings and books  have since become  renowned for their psychological insight and realism, touching boldly on timeless issues such as gender, justice, love, morality. politics and religion. None of her characters are perfect, and come with flaws as do most people.
Due to her unconventional lifestyle and atheist principles, she was refused  internment at Westminster Abbey. Instead, she was buried in the area reserved for religious dissenters or agnostics  alongside her beloved George Lewes at Highgate Cemetery. In 1980, 100 years after her  death, a plaque was erected in Poets' Corner in recognition of George Eliot's literary achievements and lasting reputation.
She lives on through her written works , and to quote George Eliot herself :"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them"
I will end with the  following lovely quote written  in a  letter written to her teacher Maria  Lewis  in  October, 1841,  in which she reflects on autumn :

 "Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

Paradigm Shift

( Facebook status turned into poem)

Another world is possible
Beyond days of sleeping
Unsolved dreams can become a reality
Fulcrums of necessity
Flaming passion
Burning with fire
Released by comrades
Into the timeless bones of the universe.

Enjoying freedom
Wings of liberty
Unleashing stardust
Sweetness that contains mercy
Not bound by cages or prison walls
Through solidarity all made stronger
Breaking borders, spreading internationalism
Transforming with arms unrestrained.

The love we share
Can be a mover against injustice
Adjusting and shaping
Making waves that carry all
A communal roar spreading light
Against chains of command
Reinforcing pride with  eyes glistening
Still gripping to the rays filled with hope

Postscript, 7/10/ 19 above  poem  can also be found here
https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2019/10/07/paradigm-shift-by-dave-rendle/

They Shall Not Pass - The Battle for Cable Street.

On this day  on October 4, 1936, Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists attempted to march through East London. They were met by over 100,000 local residents and workers who fought with the fascists and the police  in order to protect their community, which forced the march to be abandoned.  The people of the East End inflicted a massive defeat on Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that could never be forgotten.
During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems,  with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to 50,000. Mosley's  fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that “fascism can and will win in Britain”. The British fascists took on a more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’  The notorious Daily Mail headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.

 
On Sunday Oct. 4, 1936, Mosley planned to lead his Blackshirt supporters on a march through the East End, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East End’s community solidarity. Political leaders in the East End petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with 100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.” Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to accompany it.
They were not to be welcomed, instead they were met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as 'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, famous republican slogan from the Spanish Civil War) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.'  A mighty force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them.
Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow Mosley's  march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves. A mighty battle ensued, leaving many arrested and injured. 
Cable Street  is rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists, socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching through a Jewish area in London.Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement.The  fascists did not get to march and they did not pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living history in celebration and pride.
Significantly, for some people that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the Republicans there, this year also marks the 80th anniversary founding of the International Brigades. The legend that was Cable Street became the lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also  launched movements for tenant rights, against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
 In 1979, artist Dave Binnington started painting a large mural commemorating the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall.  In 1982, the still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust.  It was subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort, and officially unveiled in 1983.  It has subsequently been vandalised, and repainted, several times. The mural depicts the events  of a very physical confrontation  between police and protestors  iin stunning detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches bing thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden  by baton-wielding police, and fascist  with a startling resemblance  to Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks.  

 
 There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of prejudice and discrimination in our society  and communities today.
We might like to think those days are behind us, but anti-semitism, racism and intolerance  is on the rise. The far-right, and the forces of fascism are growing throughout Europe.  See for instance the likes of Tommy Robinson and his acolytes. And following the divisive and anti-immigrant rhetoric surrounding Brexit  there have been  reports of a fuel in the rise of racist hate crimes. The foul winds that blew across Cable Street ago still exist today, we must remain vigilant to this.
And, to be sure, the terms of the demonisation of Muslims today mirror the terms of the demonisation of Jews in the 1930s – i.e. they’re not like us; their culture and religion is primitive and barbaric; they refuse to assimilate; they’re not loyal to this country or its values; they’re a threat, dirty, backward; they are children of a lesser God. More sinister, still, is the way the normalisation of anti-Muslim bigotry has found its way to the top of the Tory Party, with Boris Johnson’s carefully calibrated attack on the small minority of women within the Muslim community who wear the burqa/nikab. Johnson knew precisely what he was doing. Moreover, the fact that this particular demand came soon after the former foreign secretary and now very unpopular prime minister enjoyed a face to face meeting with Trump’s erstwhile white nationalist brain, Steve Bannon, not a point we can afford to skate over either. As we again face racism, violence, and division today, waves of intolerance we must  never forget  the battle of Cable Street and remember the community solidarity that turned Mosley and his mob of fascists away. Teach your kids about it. 
Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass

Video Ghosts of Cable Street, set to the music of Men they couldn't hang

Cable Street - The Young 'Uns

On the fourth of October 1936
I was only a lad of sixteen.
But I stood beside men
Who were threescore and ten
And every age in between.

We were dockers and teachers,
Busmen, engineers,
And those with no jobs to do.
We were women and children
Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.

And we had so much to lose.

For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain,
We knew what fascism meant.
So when Mosley came trouncing,
Denouncing the Jews,
To the East End of London we went.

For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas,
Germans, Italians, and Jews.
And I knew their despair
For what they’d seen there
And I couldn’t let them be abused.

We had so much to lose.

Now 3,000 fascists — their uniforms black —
Had set out to march on that day.
And 6,000 policemen
Intended to greet them
By making clear the way.

But we were there ready —
Our nerves they were steady —
One hundred thousand en masse.
And we planted our feet along Cable Street
And we sang: They shall not pass!

We sang: They shall not pass!

Then all us young lads,
We were sent to the side streets
To stop the police breaking through.
And with swift hands we made strong barricades
Out of anything we could use.

And they came to charge us,
But they couldn’t barge us,
With fists, batons, and hooves.
With as good as we got, we withstood the lot,
For we would not be moved.

We would not be moved.

And, yes, there was violence.
And, yes, there was blood.
And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see.
But I’ll not regret the day I stood
And London stood with me.

And when the news spread the day had been won
And Mosley was limping away —
There were shouts, there were cheers,
There were songs, there were tears,
And I hear them all to this day.

And we all swore then we’d stand up again
For as long as our legs could
And that when we were gone,
Our daughters and sons
Would stand where we stood.

Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words
Said by every woman and man.
Now I say them still
And I always will:
¡NO PASARÁN!

Lyrics and music  by Sean Conney

Cheryl Ann Jones (23/ 1/ 60 ) - Resetting the mould.

( Debut poem from my cousin from Cross Keys for National Poetry Day)

Cheryl Ann Jones  - Resetting the  mould.

The picture is motionless yet zesty
A diffusion of tranquillity and energy,
Nature coinciding with anthropogenic degradation
Amid endemic stemming of apathy and denial.

Preservation retarded by human avarice
Poisonous propellant of profit over planet,
Consumerist culture incite resource deficit
Global bruising, incontrovertibly transparent.

As fates pendulum, fretfully ticks
The looming equation irresolute and wavering,
Fragmented groups impede progression
Obstructing the pivotal sequence of recovery.

The bridge of transition
Cries out for construction,
Infectious momentum quells ominous foreboding.
Conceptual framework firmly embraced.

The picture now a magnetic jigsaw
Stray pieces conjoined and locked,
Strength and unity precede division.
The glorified dream, tomorrow's reality.

Burger King milkshake tweet banned for encouraging anti-social behaviour

 

A Burger King tweet advertising milkshakes has been banned by watchdogs for ‘irresponsibly’ promoting its milkshakes in the wake of protesters throwing drinks over right-wing campaigners. The fast food chain was found to have broken advertising rules over a tweet sent on 18 May,a day after a Brexit Party rally in Edinburgh, a Burger King tweet read: "Dear people of Scotland. We're selling milkshakes all weekend. Have fun. Love BK. #justsaying"

Police had encouraged (and succeeded) in having a McDonald's location in Edinburgh, Scottland ban the sale of milkshakes in an attempt to stop potential customers from buying milkshakes and hurling them at Farage who was in Edinburgh for a rally. In true rival fashion, Burger King tongue-in-cheek subtweeted McDonald's in the since-deleted post above.
Milkshaking  right wing  political candidates had become popular in May this year, during  the heat of European election campaigning and the height of Brexit discussions. Far right figure Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, had been twice drenched by milkshakes in the preceding days as he campaigned in the north-west of England. In one incident, Mr Robinson appeared to throw punches at a man who had thrown milkshake over him during a heated exchange in Warrington.. and UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin, was at a public meeting in Cornwall on May 10 when a protester also tried to throw a drink over him. 48 hours after the tweet, on May 20, a man in Newcastle threw a £5.25 banana and salted caramel over Farage.

 
The post drew 24 complaints from members of the public in all, alarmed that the message would spark a wave of copycat offences, despite a follow-up message from Burger King which read: “We'd never endorse violence - or wasting our delicious milkshakes. So enjoy the weekend and please drink responsibly people.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said  'Although we acknowledged that the tweet may have been intended as a humorous response to the suspension of milkshake sales by the advertiser's competitor, in the context in which it appeared we considered it would be understood as suggesting that Burger King milkshakes could be used instead by people to 'milkshake' Nigel Farage.

'We considered the ad therefore condoned the previous anti-social behaviour and encouraged further instances. We therefore concluded that the ad was irresponsible.'

The ASA added: 'We told Burger King to ensure that its future marketing communications did not condone or encourage anti-social behaviour.'

A Burger King spokesman said: 'Our tweet regarding the situation in Edinburgh was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek reaction to the situation. It appears some have misinterpreted this as an endorsement of violence, which we absolutely reject. 'At Burger King, we totally believe in individuals' right to freedom of expression and would never do anything that conflicts with this. We'd never endorse violence or wasting our delicious milkshakes. On a personal note  I think the milkshaking victims involved all truly got their just desserts.

Elie Wiesel (September 30, 1928–July 2, 2016 ) - An eternal beacon for humanity

Elie Wiesel a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, a Nobel laureate, and the most powerful witness for the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, was born and grew up  in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania, where people of different languages and religions had lived side by side for centuries, sometimes peacefully, sometimes in bitter conflict. The region was long claimed by both Hungary and Romania. In the 20th century, it changed hands repeatedly, a hostage to the fortunes of war. Although the village changed hands from Romania to Hungary, the Wiesel family believed they were safe from the persecutions suffered by Jews in Germany and Poland.

The secure world of Wiesel’s childhood ended abruptly with the arrival of the Nazis in Sighet in 1944. The Jewish inhabitants of the village were deported en masse to concentration camps in Poland. The 15-year-old boy was separated from his mother and sister immediately on arrival in Auschwitz. He never saw them again. He managed to remain with his father for the next year as they were worked almost to death, starved, beaten, and shuttled from camp to camp on foot, or in open cattle cars, in driving snow, without food, proper shoes, or clothing. In the last months of the war, Wiesel’s father succumbed to dysentery, starvation, exhaustion and exposure. 

After the war he found asylum in France, where he learned for the first time  that his two older sisters had surived the war. Wiesel  mastered the French language and studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, He became a professional journalist writing for newspapers in both France and Israel.For ten years, he observed a self-imposed vow of silence and wrote nothing about his wartime experience. In 1955, at the urging of the Catholic writer Francois Mauriac, he set down his memories in Yiddish, in a  900-page work entitled Un die welt hot geshvign (And the world kept silent).  It was published in French in 1958 as “La Nuit” and two years later in English as “Night.”

Wiesel’s text was stark and often painfully simple: “Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.”
The book sparked discussion of the Holocaust, an event that had been the topic of relatively few books up to that point. If nothing else, it made its readers ask one unavoidable question: Why?
To Wiesel, the role of the artist was to remember and to recreate, not to imagine, since reality was far more shocking than anything that could be imagined.
Wiesel himself said: “I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end — history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with ‘Night.’”

In 1956 while in New York reporting  on the United Nations, Elie Wiesel was struck by a taxi cab. His injuries confined him to a wheelchair for almost a year. Unable to renew the French document which had allowed him to travel as a “stateless” person, Wiesel applied successfully for American citizenship. Once he recovered, he remained in New York and became a feature writer for the Yiddish-language newspaper, The Jewish Daily Forward (Der forverts). Wiesel went on to author  over 60 books, most of them memoirs and novels, but also essays and plays. Most of Wiesel’s novels, essays, and plays explore the subject that haunted him, the events that he described as “history’s worst crime.”

As these and other books brought Wiesel to the attention of readers and critics, he became a spokesman for human rights wherever they were threatened, and used his fame to plead for justice for oppressed peoples, speaking out on behalf of the victims of genocide and oppression all over the world, defending the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians, Argentina’s Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds,, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war, famine and genocide from Rwanda, Biafra, Bosnia, Kosovo to Darfur.

In 1976, Elie Wiesel was named Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities at Boston University. He also taught at the City University of New York and was a visiting scholar at Yale University. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Elie Wiesel Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel was a driving force behind the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. His words, “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness,” are engraved in stone at the entrance to the museum. In 1985 he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 1986, the Nobel Prize for Peace, In his Nobel citation, Wiesel was described as a messenger to mankind. “His message is one of peace, atonement, and human dignity,” the citation reads. “His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief.” Wiesel lived up to that moniker with exquisite eloquence on December 10 that year, exactly ninety years after Alfred Nobel died, as he took the stage at Norway’s Oslo City Hall and delivered a spectacular speech on justice, oppression, and our individual responsibility in our shared freedom.  “Sometimes we must interfere,” Wiesel said in his Nobel acceptance speech. “When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”

You can listen and read the full acceptance speech here https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/facts/ 
Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion Wiesel, (the former Marion Erster Rose), a Holocaust survivor; established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity soon after he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. The foundation’s mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance, and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding, and equality. The international conferences of the Elie Wiesel Foundation, which focus on themes of peace, education, health, the environment, and terrorism, bring together Nobel laureates and world leaders to discuss social problems and develop suggestions for change.

His advocacy against genocide left him vulnerable to criticism from extremists and once to physical assault. In 2007, he was attacked in a San Francisco hotel elevator by a Holocaust denier named Eric Hunt, who had followed Wiesel across the country. Wiesel was not injured. Although he became known to millions for his human rights activism, he by no means abandoned the art of fiction. His later novels included A Mad Desire to Dance (2009) and The Sonderberg Case (2010), a tale set in contemporary New York City, with a cast of characters including Holocaust survivors, Germans, American emigrants to Israel and New York literati. Wiesel and his wife, made their home in New York City. He died at home in Manhattan, at the age of 87.

As a writer, a peace activist, and always most important to him, a teacher, Wiesel embodied, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the words “bearing witness.” He dedicated his life advocating for peace, humanity, truth, and helping other survivors emerge stronger after the devastation they experienced,  and he not only shaped how the world remembers the Holocaust, but how the memory of atrocity can help prevent future tragedies. Defining someone’s suffering as an interruption removes their value and denies their humanity. Wiesel warned of the lure of this indifferent mindset. He explained that the temptation of inaction and apathy allows us to focus solely on our own desires and goals. Empathy and engagement with people is what makes us human and Wiesel showed us that by embracing indifference we would betray our humanity. 

In a time when the world seems like a darker place, it is important to remember those who speak up for justice, hope and humanity. Elie Wiesel, was one of them. Not only was he an influential voice reminding humanity of the damage it can inflict on itself, Wiesel also stood for action. For hope, courage, determination and the power of individuals to stand against injustice and violence, and to build a better future. He  has inspired generations to social action. He celebrated the power of law to change people's lives when he accepted the 2012 William O. Douglas Award. "This is what we must do -- not to sleep well when people suffer anywhere in the world," Professor Wiesel told the audience of more than 1,000. "Not to sleep well when someone's persecuted. Not to sleep well when people are hungry all over here or there. Not to sleep well when there are people sick and nobody is there to help them. Not to sleep well when anyone somewhere needs you. You don't sleep well. And for this... we are very grateful to you."

  Here are few more of his most powerful messages, still as relevant as ever, standing as an eternal beacon for humanity.

 "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

 
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

  “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”

 "One person of integrity can make a difference."

 "Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world."

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

" Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another."

  “No human being is illegal.”

Stand up for Greta Thunberg and all those fighting to save the planet

Climate activist Greta Thunberg gave an impassioned tongue-lashing to politicians, business leaders and even climate activists  when she delivered a heart wrenching speech to the UN Climate Action summit in New York about the human reality of our changing climate while the world’s leaders stand by and do nothing. Her message was clear "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean," she said with tears in her eyes. " Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams in my childhood with your empty words. Yet, I, I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying and entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?””

To get to the UN event, Thunberg sailed across the Atlantic on a zero-emissions boat to avoid the carbon emissions that would have come from flying.
For most of us Greta’s candour and firm resistance in the face of ecological breakdown is the breath of fresh air we so desperately need in order to give our world leaders a kick up the backside, they so deserve when it comes to climate change. She is right, "she shouldn't be up there" we should not be at this tipping point, our house is on fire, as a result of climate change and our Governments are failing to act fast enough. We should not forget that capitalism is the problem too, alongside the industrial military complex, these are the  systems that continue to wreak havoc,and destroy our planet, but in the meantime  we should thank Greta for being the lightning spark that so many of us had been waiting for.
Incredibly though Greta  is facing a deluge of hate across the globe and is being portrayed by some,   as a precocious schoolgirl with absolutely no idea what she’s talking about, and there are actually people jeering and mocking the warnings from a  solitary 16-year-old girl who made a stand for what she believed in, attacking her character and wilfully misinterpreting her motivations
Greta Thunberg has been  demanding that politicians act to prevent catastrophic climate change, that the scientists have been warning us for years about. We are facing droughts, floods and storms  that are devastating communities across the world every day, and thousands of species are going extinct, while those in power are carrying on as normal.
Climate change is having a devastating effect on our seas and on the frozen ice caps of the world, a new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns.The more than 100 scientists who contributed to Wednesday's report made projections of rising sea levels, and assessed different scenarios based on different levels of warming.
Worryingly, there may reportedly be some impacts that we're no longer in a position to stop, such as the amount of sea level rise. The report, which makes grim reading, concluded that that the global ocean has now warmed without pause since 1970. Greta Thunberg has made  it clear to world leaders that they can not ignore these facts any longer. No wonder students question whether there’s any point in carrying on learning. You can read the report in full here.
Greta marched into the public eye in August 2018 when she skipped school, aged 15, to protest climate change outside the Swedish parliament building. The sole person there, her parents warned her against going, her classmates declined her invitation to attend, but her skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for climate) banner stood tall.
One year later, her homemade sign has been translated into dozens of languages and her protests have travelled across over 70 countries. She has just been named GQ’s ‘Game Changer of the Year’ but for some Greta's  message makes them uncomfortable.
For those who hold the reins of power across the world, it must be hard to be told by a 16 year old that they have failed at their job. But that’s kind of her point. She wants them to be nervous. Greta told political leaders and billionaire entrepreneurs in Davos: ‘I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.’
As the clock ticks down on our time left to make a positive impact on the climate crisis, Greta has devoted her time and energy on educating our world leaders on why we need to act now, but smear campaigns have followed the teenager from the moment she stepped into the limelight fighting for her cause, and despite being accused of spreading panic and conspiracy theories about our planet, she continues to prove time and time again, that she’s  actually more mature than many politicians and media outlets.
A 16 year old who doesn’t wear makeup or conform to any of the Instagram-worshipping, generation Z stereotypes that politicians love to belittle? No wonder they don’t know how to handle her power.
Beyond attacks on her mission to force a change for our environment, some journalists have taken it upon themselves to hit below the belt, with Andrew Bolt, a columnist for The Herald Sun, an Australian paper owned by climate denier business tycoon Rupert Murdoch, called her ‘deeply disturbed’ and commented on her ‘many mental disorders.’ The 16 year old has Asperger’s and has been very open in the past about her condition. In an interview with BBC journalist Nick Robinson, Thunberg said that "being different is a gift." If she didn't have Asperger's, Thunberg added, she wouldn't have become such a passionate climate activist. Thunberg has also tweeted about her condition, saying that having Asperger's is a "superpower."
Greta has delivered a clear action for the world leaders gathered at the United Nations to respond and we should keep standing up to her and all those that keep on speaking truth to power, those that are revolting and rebelling against being exploited and abused, against an economy which puts profit above people and planet, children like Greta shouting at us to hear their voices. They’ve been forced to become the adults because we’ve become the children. They are right and we are wrong. They are the future and we are the dead, broken, failed past.
Governments have a  stark choice, to either come up with concrete action plans for large-scale CO2 reduction, or condemn Greta and future generations to more extreme heat, forest fires, drought and rising sea levels. While we hold our breath waiting for an answer from the politicians and corporations, what else can we do?
 If you have three minutes and 40 seconds today, watch the video below. In it, Greta and journalist George Monbiot simply explain that – alongside stopping burning fossil fuels immediately – nature is a tool for fighting runaway climate change. Mangroves, peat bogs, jungles, marshes, swamps and coral reefs. They’re all perfectly designed to capture normal amounts of CO2 from the air.
Yet an area of forest the size of the UK is lost to deforestation each year. With the embers of the Amazon tragedy still hot, just when we need nature the most, we’re destroying it faster than ever.
In the video, they warn how the world spends 1000 times more on global fossil fuel subsidies than on natural based solutions. Just 2% of all money spent on tackling climate change goes on projects that protect, restore and use nature.
But the message Greta and George give ends hopefully. We can support campaigns to protect forests. We can plant trees to help ecosystems bounce back. And we can stop funding things that destroy nature on a massive scale.
Vote for people who defend nature. Join natural climate movements. Tell everyone you know. While Greta wakes our leaders up, let’s protect, restore and fund natural climate solutions, do not however support a system that fuels destruction, keep holding to account fossil fuel executives as they attempt to greenwash their records and push false solutions to the climate catastrophe,help nature do what it’s designed to do, and  provide  constant solidarity and support to the Youth of the Planet,  and all those fighting to save the planet, who all play a fundamental role in shaping the better society that we currently can only dream about.

Freezing the Snowball

Here's some food for thought
As the power lines spit and crackle
The PM currently has nowhere to hide
After attempt to subvert democracy failed
The masses now hungry for some change
With voracious appetites, belly's yearning,
Creating new recipes to heal the nation
After Johnson misled us to get prorogation,
Who once said while arrogantly boasting
"Our policy is to have our cake and eat it"
Adding lines typical of his bluff and bluster
"We are Processo, but by no means anti- pesto"
But breaking the law with contempt was his game
Now this jokers luck has finally flamed out
No more whitewash cards to play
Scheming agenda now transparent and indisputable
His ferocious duplicity unveiled
The myopic mission manacled
The floundering  fish has fallen flat
As belated comeuppance mercilessly delivered
His just desserts felicitously garnished
The final scenes curtains dance shut.

I Fought the Law - Boris Johnson x The Clash

One nation, under prorogation. Boris Johnson fought the Law and the Law won.

Amazing news The Supreme Court in  London has agreed with the Scottish Supreme Court that Boris Johnsons  controversial decision  to  prorogue Parliament  for 5 weeks was unlawful and misled the Queen. Making the PM of the United Kingdom an actual criminal.  Which could lead him to becoming the shortest  serving prime minister in history.
Speaking at the Supreme Court, the court's president Lady Hale declared that " the descioin to adise her Majesty to proroque Parliament  was unlawful - because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without proper justification."
Hale went on to state that, as the  decision to prorogue was unlawful, Parliament has not actually in effect been proroqued and could therefore be recalled immediately. The Supreme Court's decision was unanimously agreed between all 11 judges.
Immediately.  following the rulng, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow issued a statement declaring that Parliament would be recalled as soon as possible. Naturally many have responded to this decision by calling for Boris Johnson to resign, claiming that his position as Prime Minister is now untenable.
Whilst speaking at the Labour Conference, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said:
 " I will be in touch immediately to demand Parliament is recalled so we can question the Prime Ministter, demand he obey the law that has been  passed by parliament. I invite Boris Johnson to consider his position."
Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said :
"Boris Johnson should resign and Parliament out to be recalled immdiately."
The Supreme Court Juudgement is a victory for the rule of law. It is a reminder that in this country no one is above the law and  that our judges should hold the powerful to account wtihout fear or favour. Whatever you think about the decision to prorogue Parliament and whatever you think about Brexit, this is our constitutional system working exactly as it should – the judiciary independently scrutinising the actions of the Government.
This welcome news also serves to  highlight the fact that the Queen was given an instruction to do an unlawful thing, and she did it, despite being told she has the benefit of decades of experience, she couldn't see what was obvious to everyone else, that Johnson's motives were not honest. The "I was doing what I was told' is no defence.
Yes, refusing prorogation would have been dangerous territory for the monarchy, but that's the job. Truth is, this whole episode exposes the monarchy as a pointless and ineffective institution.The Queen has abdicated all responsibility for her actions and that is not a sustainable position. With the political system in disarray, and a government that has shown a willingness to go  above the law, we  need a general election and a democratic alternative to the monarchy, a written constitution  and an accountable and effective head of state.