Category: activism
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Where is ‘the West’ on a ball?

‘The West’ is one of the many charged words the media are using, words that feed into social media conversations about what’s going on in Ukraine, and what we should do about it. This morning, I saw a post from a bloke who’s off to join in the war and ‘fight for the West’ and…
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The behaviour required of our councillors

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece for the local paper, asking that we remember borough councillors are our fellow citizens, and should be treated decently. I am now in the rather contrary position of needing to remind borough councillors to treat each other decently. I don’t want to see any of our…
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What kind of country tolerates police seizing people’s books?

Yep, it happened. It happened in Wales. As one woman put it to me recently, surely that’s a red line for everyone. This was a gathering in support of a woman who was arrested, detained for ten hours, and has been messed about ever since. The police searched her house, and took a book they…
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The G-police* and the gender-wars

You cannot stop the women. All you can do is make their lives difficult and harm your reputation by being seen bullying them. These are the armies you are trying to fight (do you want to pick a side?) Mothers, sisters and allies 1. The confabulators Almost all women and girls – the vast majority…
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UBI or bust

A few years ago now, we in Hastings had a visit from Guy Standing, talking about various aspects of the New Economics. One of the ideas that interested me was UBI (universal basic income). I see it doing the rounds again now. Our own borough council have recently been taking steps to get involved, with…
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A message from Mrs Mouthy

We were all anxiously talking about the founding of a People’s Assembly for our town: It’s the People’s Assembly Against Austerity. The purpose is to facilitate a group coming together in each and every town in the country, to defend our services and demand the resources to provide for our people and our environment. It…
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Politics: the viral divide

I begin to think the virus blame-game is even more misleading than the rest of the political hot potatoes put together. Sham lockdown When the whole masks and lockdown thing started, many of us thought it impossible to ‘stop’ a virus in a crowded country where many people still had to go to work. Many…
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Why sign that petition?

In many ways, the petition text does not actually touch on the issues that most people see as the ‘Sir Tony’ problem. I’d say there’s a big one, and an earth-shatteringly enormous one – but I keep changing my mind over which is which. Here they are, in no particular order… The ‘rescind Blair’s knighthood’…
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Sorry, we broke the revolution?

I have a great view of the pincers of sexism from here just now. When we talk about gender being oppression, we’re not just talking about different dress codes. There have been ructions recently within feminism over women working with right wing organisations – particularly when trans-Atlantic link-ups have blurred people’s view, and led to…
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2022: Sisters, the campaign starts here

“This is the year our collective righteous bloody-minded refusal to shut the fuck up finally broke the impenetrable wall of ‘no debate’” – Jane Clare Jones on Twitter, 31st Dec 2021 Click here to read the whole message. So we have won the right to have the debate. Now, we need to win the debate.…