Category: activism
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What journalists and reporters should be doing
On home affairs, every day, all the time, they should be asking politicians why they apply ‘austerity’, saying there is no money, when they want to take things away from people (the winter fuel allowance, for example) and then proudly announce vast sums to be spent on private, profiteering projects such as carbon capture (which…
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Bombs, poverty and toilets
At an academy school in the UK in the 21st century They have anti-bullying toilets – wide halls opening onto the main corridor with toilet cubicles down each side and rows of dirty sinks back-to-back in the centre. Originally, they were boys-side and girls-side – so that if you, for example, needed to rinse something…
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Outcry and Condemnation
Yesterday, at the Parliamentary Committee of the Council of Europe, Kristin Hrafnsson made an appeal that should have gone straight to the hearts of all the journalists in the UK, as well as any citizens who have managed to hang onto their moral compass, or any memory of the basic requirements of democracy and human…
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Sausages, pylons and prisons
Notes from afar on the post-socialist ‘Labour’ conference Actually, the bit about the sausages was the most effective of Starmer’s strategies I was surprised to hear there appeared to be at least three socialists left to attend conference – well, people with a scrap of conscience, anyway. One was assaulted and dragged from the hall,…
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There is absolutely no justification for supporting Israel
We were talking about language this afternoon, about how you can be led astray by accepting the wrong words for things, or by allowing yourself to be persuaded to reject words that others find uncomfortable hearing. The event was a talk by Ghada Karmi and I assure you, listening to a Palestinian whose family were…
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The old stories are the best
When a good author gets hold of a classic theme, like Antigone for example, and applies it to an important current topic like what happens to Muslim families when politicians are trading on hatred and fear, the result is likely to be a gripping read. That’s why although Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire is a story…
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What do you do when your country is complicit in such a crime? Here’s what…
First Gaza, now the West Bank. We’ve been out protesting for nearly a year, and the forces of the establishment are taking a toll on our activists — but here’s an idea that could change that: Any of us can, at any time get called up for jury service and right now, what you do…
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Different century, same result – nameless corpses
When it comes up in conversation – or worse, as it does all too often, in confrontation, it’s always difficult to explain the distinction between traditional, class-based left politics and the post-modernist, identity-based kind (often called ‘progressive’). Trying to do so can seem like a pedantic intervention, and often gets those who don’t know much…
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Justice delayed…
I believe the crisis in our politics has reached a stage now where there’s a real danger of good people going to jail for their efforts to stop bad politicians breaking the law. People from Hastings gathered at the Magistrates Court this morning in support of three of our local Palestine Solidarity Group who were…
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Is this the weirdest book review I’ve ever written?
First off, I’ll need to apologize to the friend who lent me the book. It is not as new as it was. I have wrestled with it, I have wept over it, there was even a stress-related incident with a strawberry jam sandwich. I am not normally like that with books but this was that…
Kay Green 