1000s of student nurses were offered a 6 month contract to fill in the many gaps on the front line, owing to the pandemic. The government are going back on their word (no surprise) and ending the contracts early. Petition link below to ask the government to honour the 6 month contract. Hopefully Johnson will do yet another U turn. https://actionnetwork.org/forms/student-nurses/
Anyone noticing an abundance of Sarah36392943638399 and John25274940 commenting on Covid and BLM Twitter posts at the moment?
“Ditto? DITTO? You provincial putz!” ...... spot the movie quote .... One of my all time favourites ......
I’ll watch it whenever I want. Anyone offended by the “racism” in this movie didn’t get Mel Brooks whole idea ...... “You’ve got to remember that these are simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new west. You know .... morons” How apt some of his quotes still are today!!
Here’s George Monbiot again, with a video version of the piece I quoted yesterday. Doesn’t make for comfortable viewing. In short, what you might have learned in school about the British Empire completely leaves out the fact that it was based on the brutal murder, rape, and exploitation of the indigenous peoples.
I saw this on Facebook and it is shameful that so little/nothing about this is known. That they even went to the length of creating a tool, to crush and then remove testicles, should be mentioned in the same way and context as some of the treatment received by Jews in Nazi concentration camps. It’s inhumane. History needs to be taught, but should always include the whole story, not the sanitised version.
Indeed. The comparisons with Nazi concentration camps are appropriate, but this was done by the British, within the lifetime of many of us.
What should we do to right our fathers sins? Shall we weep in the street, shall we kneel at the door of the inflicted? Shall we hang our heads in shame, and teach our children the guilt? So many options.
Of course not. The sins of the fathers shall not be visited on the sons. We could acknowledge them though. It costs nothing to do that.
Got a feeling that's not enough. We should all be ashamed to be white. Only then can we seek forgiveness.
I think George Monbiot gives a good suggestion at the end of that piece, when he suggests completely removing any semblances of racism from our lives, and focussing on what unites us as human beings rather than what divides us. Being open about our history and teaching our children everything, warts and all, would also help. Wallowing in guilt and shame helps no one, but complete honesty does.
That sounds lovely. But there's always another stone to be upturned. There's always someone else to offend. The Empire stretched around the globe and caused more harm than liberation. But what nation on this world has no blood on its hands, has no skeleton in its cupboard? We could cure racism tomorrow and still need to delete 90% of our history. I'm kinda wondering why the searchlight hasn't set on the Queen, like the eye of sauron finding the ring. That day is coming, because we keep nodding in agreement. Me, I'm all for betterment, not because of race, but because of circumstance. Mental health, unemployment, we have a tsunami of problems coming, lets try and help society & see if that remedies the other problems. The racial divide is getting fixed with grenades, and the rift has never been wider. No more movements, lets pretend we are all in this together.
