The Free Speech Union has written to Downing College, Cambridge about its new ‘Report Racism Guidance‘, which reproduces many of the legally questionable aspects of the university-wide ‘Report + Support’ policy that was abandoned by the Vice-Chancellor last May after the FSU complained to him about it. The Telegraph‘s Camilla Turner has more about this latest manifestation of Critical Race Theory.
A Cambridge college is encouraging students to report dons for “micro-aggressions”, despite the university’s Vice-Chancellor saying this was a “mistake”.
Downing College has been accused of promoting “highly contestable” and “pernicious” ideas in its new guidance on how to report racism.
The college, which was founded in 1800, counts the actor John Cleese and the illustrator Quentin Blake among its alumni.
Dons fear the guidance will lead to a “culture of fear” within the college, which is “antithetical to free speech”.
The guidance defines racism as “an ideology and a set of practices based on ideas of inherited white ‘racial’ superiority that normalises control, domination and exclusion over people of colour, while legitimating privilege and oppression”.
It goes on to say that: “One of the ways in which racism is perpetuated as a system of oppression is through everyday manifestations and micro-aggressions.
“Micro-aggressions are everyday acts that serve to subjugate people of colour in more or less covert ways.”
The document cites the question: “Where are you really from?” as an example of a “micro-aggression”, saying there are many other instances where “apparently building inclusivity” only serves to “reinforce racialised differences”.
But dons have pointed out that this definition of racism is itself racist, because it implies that it is impossible for anyone who is white – including Jewish, Polish and Irish people, for example – to be a victim of racism.
“The main concern is the definition of racism and the inclusion of micro-aggressions,” one Cambridge academic told the Telegraph.
“These are highly contestable, pernicious ideas about racism and they will generate a horrendous culture of fear within the college.”
I am quoted further down in the piece:
Toby Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, has written to Alan Bookbinder, master of Downing College, to raise concerns about their policy.
He said that considering the similarities with the university-wide policy, which was published in May and then swiftly removed, “I can only assume there was some governance failure within Downing College that allowed this guidance to slip through”.
His letter said: “We were disappointed to find that Downing’s new guidance – in what it asserts and promotes – appears to be a thinly-veiled attempt to reintroduce the same potentially unlawful policy through the back door.”
Worth reading in full.
You can read the FSU’s letter to Alan Bookbinder, the Master of Downing, here, and join the campaigning organisation here.
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It’s me again. Hopefully I will piss off the miserable downtickers who belong elsewhere.
To the best Sceptics, – Good Morning All.
Good morning, hp. Saw what you did there, but I don’t think the downtickers are easily discouraged.
A sense of stern superiority sustains their self-righteousness?
Thanks AE.
Is there anything we are allowed to down tick? For instance, is it acceptable to down tick posts that are 90% canned spam, or is that forbidden too?
I am not a fan of downticking in general, but I will do it to those who are just being dicks for the sake of it.
Ditto!
I think there are more worthy things for people to gripe about and get their knickers in a twist over than people greeting one another in a courteous fashion on a morning.
I agree. However, I believe that expressing dislike is something we are entitled to do. This is not some wokite safe space where dissent is forbidden.
Why would anyone express dislike to somebody merely saying “Good morning” though? It’s not normal behaviour it’s just petty. It doesn’t bother me though. The more dislikes are clocked up the more I’m inclined to keep coming back with more of the same. I enjoy winding grumpy people up and will never be discouraged by the misery guts of the world.
Now, let’s turn that frown upside down!
I can’t understand that, to be honest. I guess it takes all sorts.
I used to downtick trolls: indignantly but foolishly, as they almost certainly regarded each one as a badge of honour.
Good morning to you and all the pleasant folk.
Many thanks to you Mogwai.
It’s a pleasant day here in North West England. I hope you have a good weekend in NL.
Happy Easter!
And a Happy Easter to you Aethelred.
The perspective from outside the US globalist woke borg
The War in Ukraine and the Collapsing World Order
I would have said that Ritter is overstating the likelihood of a military response from Russia to Finland joining NATO, but then again I said the same thing about Ukraine – most analysts felt that the costs to Russia of such action would be too great, but it appears the Russians saw it differently. (Both borg and anti-borg analysts mostly had this view – the former predicted an attack but viewed it as an opportunity to destroy Russia, whereas the latter group thought the Russians would not risk such losses).
I think a Chinese attack on Taiwan is very likely, though, especially given the repeated US provocations there.
The wider external perspective – that these events represent a pushback against the US push for global domination – is correct, imo.
But the Russian and Chinese decision to act represents a roll of the dice – if they lose, and Russia is driven into collapse and China into a new Cold War position wrt the dominant US sphere – then this will be painted (falsely) as an aggressive attempt by the weak powers to grab power by attacking other counties – almost the opposite of the truth, but the narrative our elites wish to establish.
The winners write the history books.
But at the moment, the biggest losers, after the people of the Ukraine, from the US attempt to use the Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia appear likely to be the people of the EU, because it’s hard to see how the German economy can survive this confrontation. And that means the EU won’t survive it.
But as we’ve seen before, the neocon warmongers behind this assault on Russia, who dominate the US and UK political and media elites, respond to pushback by doubling down and escalating, which means the costs – born by others – increase dramatically.
39m:
Alastair Crooke:
“I remember one of the neocon people saying explicitly:
We write the script, we have the film-makers, we have the team that is gonna produce the film, we direct the film, we distribute the film, and the other side has to sit quietly in silence and fume with anger, because they can do nothing about it.”
This is the same neocon interventionist creed as was on display over Iraqi WMD twenty years ago, when they treated dissent with the same contempt:
“The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
They don’t even need to hide what they do, because they can rely on the media and the political elites to determinedly ignore it..
1h17m:
Blumenthal:
“Right now, the main constituency for confronting Russia is…”liberal wine moms” … people who might have had Obama stickers on their Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles, people who might have had Black Lives Matter signs on their front lawns now want to send Javelin missiles to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.”
Pretty much the same people fell for the Ukraine hysteria as fell for Iraqi WMD twenty years ago, and who fell for the covid, climate alarmist and BLM hysterias as well more recently, with the addition of a few gullible right wingers who think we still live in the Cold War.
It is quite spectacular, though, how intensely relaxed people are about actual openly nazi military units and government figures in Ukraine, who would be having fits of anguish at the mere suggestion that anyone even close to government in a US sphere country had even covert or historical nazi sympathies.
1h29m:
Crooke:
“And this is my concern, really, because you already hear new noises coming from America, from various quarters. Kagan has now uprated his argument which was before that he was right all along that America needed to have a military exercise: “what’s wrong with using the military?”, he keeps saying. Now there’s a new version that’s just come out in recent days, which says “look, not only should we use our military, there should be a military solution to Russia and Ukraine, but we shouldn’t worry about nukes. Why are we worrying about the fact that Russia has got nuclear power? They won’t use it. Putin would never do that. So we can just ignore it…”
If you aren’t worried about the very same people who were so catastrophically wrong on Iraq, Libya and Syria now reassuring us that we don’t need to worry about nuclear war because they’ve calculated it won’t happen no matter what risks we allow them to run, well you damned well should be!
1h36m:
Crooke:
“the forces that are against it are the ones that want to see this elite, this neo-liberal, integrationist, pro-NATO, pro-EU elite in Europe, out.”
Count me as one of those.
All of the contributors on this video – Ritter, Crooke and Blumenthal (together with their Iranian host) – are excellent. We need more of this kind of link ATL, instead of the usual bumfluff.
They are very good, I agree, and imo they provide the vital different perspective that all sceptics should be looking for on any issue where the mainstream in our society is so lockstep and dissent so suppressed.
Thank you for the link.
For anyone who might be discouraged by the initial sound quality, it’s fine by the time you get to 2.45.
Great discussion.
I may be mistaken but I think there was a treaty between Finland and the old Soviet Union that if there was a war between the Soviet Bloc and NATO, Finland would be fighting alongside the USSR. Which is why Finland has never been part of NATO, unlike the other Scandinavian countries.
As an active combatant on the German side in WW2, Finland had to tread very carefully indeed afterwards….
this assault on Russia
Except for a couple of recent minor interventions all the fighting has taken place in Ukraine. It is Ukrainian cities that are being destroyed. The refugees are Ukrainian. Somehow this is an assault on Russia?
It is a pity the video you link to is so long.
I only watched about 15 minutes but I get the impression there is an underlying assumption that the USA (or sometimes it is “The West” as though they were the same thing) is pushing for a global hegemony. This may have been true of the neocon Bush government of 2000, who were rather too keen to inflict democracy by force, but Obama, Biden and even Trump have been trying to disentangle themselves from these commitments ever since, inhibited the appalling mess they were likely to leave behind as a result.
Well, Trump does not count as he was ousted by the deep state. But you could be right in that the “West” may accept that hegemony is unattainable but be trying for maximum global reach and a permanent standoff with the remaining global powers.
You also need to factor in the global financial meltdown which has preceded this. Russian assets would come in handy – 1/7th of the world’s landmass and massive natural resources.
Peter Hitchens characteristically prescient 5 years ago (remember that it is now beyond question that the “Russiagate” nonsense they are discussing was a fabrication by the US and UK security deep state together with the US Democrat Party):
Hitchens, March 2017:
“the folly in which we are engaging towards Russia, which could actually conceivably lead to a European war in perhaps the next ten years, if it’s pursued, is just beyond belief to me.
Peter Hitchens Interview w/ Michael Tracey
And an excellent interview with Jacques Baud, who has directly relevant experience and knowledge (former Swiss military intel, NATO seconded, and Ukraine military consultant):
“remember that [Zelensky] was elected with the idea of achieving peace in the Donbass, that was..his programme as a President. But I think the West, and…the Americans and the British didn’t want this peace to occur. And of course the Germans and the French who were the guarantors of the Minsk agreement for the Ukrainian side, they never really implemented their function, they have never done their job, clearly. And especially France, which is simultaneously a member of the Security Council.. I will remind you that the
Minsk agreement was also part of a Resolution of the Security Council, meaning that they have not only the signature of the different parties that was done in Minsk, but you have also the members of the Security Council who were responsible for implementation of the agreement. And nobody wanted to have this agreement made.”
NATO Insider on Ukraine
I’ll bet this forum could easily add another 101 (possibly more) to that list.
Diane Abbott, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Claudia Webbe and George Aylett weren’t the only UK MPs calling for lockdowns; there were plenty more:
Jeremy (K)Hunt for starters; Gove, Most of Starmer’s cabinet (although they now deny it!).
Not an MP, but Cummings was a hard lockdown zealot.
Most, if not all, of ‘Independent SAGE’; not just (Mad) Michie.
It goes without saying: Ferguson (and all his Imperial colleagues), Whitty and Valance called several times for restrictions NOT to be stopped, or reimposed when they were. All 3 producing very dodgy data to make ther case.
The list in the UK alone is huge.
The lockdowns and eventual implementation of digital ID/vaccine passports are not to control covid but to control us.
If you look at Mark’s posts above it appears that what is going on is a highly risky geopolitical restructuring. The world is being broken up into opposing power blocs, and those in power do not want any trouble from the population or any nuisance from “democracy” during this savagery.
Covid is just the first stage in this battle for spheres of influence/world resources/ global dominance.
Our MPs are just puppets now, to maintain an appearance of democracy so that most people remain blind. They have no power at all and seem quite content with their role.
Our MP’s are “quite content with their big, fat wages and expenses” package.
Yes that story about the body builder being the 3rd to die from heart-related issues is sad but why have DS included it in the Round-Up? Presumably they’re implying “It’s the vaccine what done it” but there is no mention in the article of the vaccination status of the guy or the other two. And body building is REALLY unhealthy. No question, they abuse their bodies terribly, all to meet some aesthetic criteria. And messing about with your body’s hydration and electrolytes is always a risky business. I’m obviously referring to the steroid-users more so but is there even a “natural” category in competitions?
Anyway, I think it’s unfair to jump to conclusions here and really, to be honest, we’d have to find out how many body-builders typically die within a given time frame *independent of Covid jabs and even Covid* to give a comparison. I just think assuming something is always the “vaccine” is just paranoid and dumb when there’s no clue if these men were even jabbed to begin with. There are people still able to die from other completely unrelated causes after all.
Totally agree. The strain on the heart must be immense. Cardiomyopathy is probably rife.
Jab status missing from the stories about Cedric McMillan and others like him should be a big red flag. Other articles indicate he’d had an accident, heart troubles in the last year, and struggled after having had the coof. I understand there is a lot of steroid use in the bodybuilding world and some competition classes would be hard to access if competitors didn’t take them, and steroids do lead to heart issues. I tend to think we’re getting a lot of propaganda at the moment designed to lead people to think that heart issues are normal especially for sports people and happen all the time regardless of whether they’ve taken their meds.
By the way, IMHO if the jab did contribute to his death, steroids or no, that’s absolutely unacceptable.
Yes that’s as may be but it’s still unwise to jump to conclusions. Given the unnatural and damaging stresses these guys put their bodies under regularly I wonder how many body builders died within a 12 month period in 2018, for instance. If it’s none then it’s looking more likely, like the hard to ignore massive rise in footballers deaths when compared to previous years, for instance, but until more details are actually confirmed we can’t rule out it’s just their terrible steroid use, messing with fluid levels, under/over-eating by significant amounts and taking of various other supplements that have taken a toll on the heart over time.
See how many bodybuilders have died young way before Covid jabs were a thing. Many within the same year. https://fitnessvolt.com/bodybuilders-passed-away/
The HoL and HoC are supposed to represent, ultimately, the interests of the people and the nation. The language and customs used in those chambers should therefore reflect the seriousness of their roles. They are not acting for themselves, the form of address should reflect that they act within the authority conferred on them. Just as a military salute to an officer indicates respect to the authority invested in the rank, it’s not a salute of the individual.
If the HoL starts using colloquial familiarities, it is effectively telling the nation that our real governors are elsewhere, not in the houses of parliament.
“Did Covid kill budget holidays? British families face paying more than £1,000 to fly to popular European hotspots as airlines cash in on post-lockdown demand” –
Economic illiteracy… well it is Daily Mail.
There is an inextricable link between supply, demand and price. It is a spontaneous market mechanism, as demand moves away from supply, price goes up. This is how scarce resources are naturally rationed. (And all resources are scarce.)
Higher price reduces demand – so we do not run out. This was the failure with the panic buying of lavatory rolls, the idiotic supermarket management did not increase prices, so some panicky boobies got a lifetime supply, others got nothing.
Higher prices signal suppliers it is worth their while to supply more and make more money.
The overall effect is to move supply and demand back closer together, which brings price back down in due course and keeps consumers served.
So either rationing by price – those prepared to pay, or rationing by first come, first served. See NHS waiting list… still the wait is free at point of delivery, so poor people can afford the waiting list too.
‘Yes I know terrible, people with more money can afford more. People who work more can afford more. A moral there.
People who work more can afford more. A moral there.
The trouble with your moral is that some people who can afford more don’t actually have to work at all.
And then there are those who work very long hours, but can afford less than those whose work is more highly valued, perhaps by the “spontaneous market mechanism” to which you refer.
I draw no moral conclusions, but facts are facts.
“MIT’s Dean of Science responds to me: She’s not interested in looking at the vax safety data!” This makes for interesting albeit worrying reading as it shows the absolute stonewalling about any discussion whatsoever regarding vaccine safety. At MIT, almost the entire faculty has adopted this stance. Steven Kirsch attended what is called an MIT breakfast where I guess people can ask about certain policies etc. He asked the Dean what he would have to do to get her to look at data that questioned vaccine safety. She just wasn’t interested.
However, what I found very revealing is that she said that ‘science advances through peer-reviewed research.’. How many times have I heard that in the past two years? I read the other day that the greatest advances in science did NOT come through peer-reviews but were actually outside that process which makes total sense to me. They were inspired moments that rocked the cradle of scientific belief until the community had accepted them. Einstein himself was not a fan of the peer review process. Watson and Crick’s foundational paper on the DNA’s double helix would probably not have seen light of day if peer reviewed. So, for the Dean of MIT, one of the foremost science institutions in the world, to say such a thing shows how limited their actual scope is and in that mirrors all of our other cultural and political spheres. The thinking is limited, the vision is hobbled. Actually, I don’t think there is any vision at all. However, if you put yourself back to the time of Galileo and how the church warned him against his heliocentric model then you’re getting to the nub of the matter: dogmatism, which is rife in our new normal world. Or perhaps it would be better to say ‘medieval normal world’.
Indeed, to all the above.
I wonder if the Dean had the same attitude towards the MIT study on the uselessness of the PCR tests which have been used to drive up the demand for (or insistence upon) “the vax”.
Extinction Rebellion protesters glue themselves to oil tanker near Hyde Park
Well leave them there and work round them.
Ban them from competing in athletics competitions. Sorted.
Mrs FP is feeling somewhat “under the weather”, sometimes hot,sometimes cold, off her food, you
know, general symptoms of a cold, a touch of the flu, a chill,etc; no increase in temperature or low blood oxygen levels.
Mrs FP at the age of 73 is still head cook and bottle washer for most of our family and of course we had to inform the family that today Mrs FP won’t be able to feed the 5,000 (5 actually), and as sure as sunrise and sunset comes the usual reply: ” Have you taken a test, it might be Covid, etc”
FFS, it’s a bloody cold or a touch of the flu.
My answer to these testing fanatics and junkies is: “If you have an headache, have you got to be tested to tell you that you have an headache?”
PS: Mrs FP is feeling slightly better or does she need a test to tell her that?
Spain was due to end the use of masks on 20th April 2022,as the law prescribing were these had to be used was to end.
However, the promise of that is not going to be realised.
Spaniards will still have to wear them in Hospitals, health centres (doctors), pharmacies, Care homes and public transport.
Link in Spanish
https://elpais.com/sociedad/2022-04-16/carolina-darias-las-mascarillas-seguiran-siendo-obligatorias-en-farmacias-y-no-habra-excepciones-en-los-transportes-publicos.html
El País has been utterly unbearable for the last two years, just unreadable. It was never good before, but now its role as establishment mouthpiece is constantly in your face as you read it. No wonder Spain is in the condition it”s in now, with its appearance as the most submissive country in Western Europe as read regards this “sanitary” idiocy. When will people wake up?
Plastered over the front page of the Sunday Times today is an article, describing how an epilepsy drug, sodium valproate, has caused birth defects in children, when given to pregnant women. This problem has apparently been known about since 1973, yet nothing has been done about it until now, and the Government is stonewalling over compensation claims.
One Jeremy Hunt has had the brass neck to describe it as being as bad as the thalidomide affair. The estimate is that perhaps 20,000 children have been affected, but the MHRA is now “going to look into it”.
I cannot but wonder whether the random and untried Covid “vaccines” now being rammed into many thousands of pregnant women and children, with the enthusiastic support of the medical establishment, and the likes of Whitty, and politicians like Hunt, will result in a “scandal” of far greater dimensions.
It was in another newspaper the other day. Just waiting for all of these medical scandals to hit the fan.
I read this today. What the actual hell? what are the MHRA actually for again?
Seems like their appalling lack of action over the COVID vaccines is actually business as normal, as far as they are concerned.
I am no supporter of LePen (or Marcon) but this is just too much of a coincidence.Coming just a week before the run off elections in France.
EU anti-fraud body accuses Marine Le Pen of embezzlement.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/17/eu-anti-fraud-body-accuses-marine-le-pen-france-election
They will pull out all the stops against Le Pen – which is beginning to seem like a good reason to support her.