In Service

O.K. call me behind the times but I was recently clearing out the magazine draw and I came across a Big Issue that contains something that I would like to take issue with (if you will pardon the pun).

The thing that bugged me was Noel Hoey's letter in the September 2-8 issue of the Big Issue.  There again I correct myself, it wasn't the whole of the letter, just the last to paragraphs that I objected to.

The main body of the letter, which tackled the issues of the 'single point of view' that is becoming mainstream in our newscasts (are we surprised when most of them are owned by one person) and the fact that forty per cent (40%) of the newspapers output is used up by fashion addicts and royal gossip.

Now I am not adverse to knowing that Will and Kate's little un made it into the world healthy, good on both Mother and child as far as I'm concerned, but I don't need an update about it every single week.  And as for the fashion columns, what planet are they on?  People are having to decide between heating and eating, we don't have the money for those fads.

I also heartily agreed with Noel Hoey's summary of the US and UK politicians who sit there in judgement of the 'Arab Spring':

"without seeking to impart a big slice of the fact - that a large part of the blame for the Middle East turmoil lies squarely at the doors of our UK and Us politicians, who put in place and funded the dictators in Iran, Iraq and Egypt and turned a blind eye to their atrocities."

The other thing that they have tried their best to sweep under the rug of history is the fact that the UK is directly responsible for the shape of the modern Middle East.  The British Empire and Common Wealth stuck it's big nose into the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, sending troops to Egypt and Turkey and bringing about the fall of one of the longest lasting Empires of history.  The UK then had a direct hand in divided up the land of the Ottoman Empire and setting out the boundary lines of the modern countries.

We did it in Africa and we did it in the Middle East and guess what?  It hasn't brought lasting peace in either place.

So for the most part I thoroughly agree with Noel's view of the world.  However, I dislike his comments about:

"we feel browbeaten if we dare to question the hypocrisy of the wars we are engaged in and the fact that every returning soldier must be named a hero, fearing we might be hospitalised if we dare question the moral right of the jingoistic charity Help for Heroes, which demands we all pay homage to injured or fallen soldiers, ignoring the countless dead and injured victims left behind in these war torn countries."

For one thing, just about every soldier in Her Majesties Armed Forces did not want to go to war in either Afghanistan or Iraq, especially Iraq.  However, they were told that they either went or were dishonourably discharged.  If you are dishonourably discharged from the Armed Services your chance of getting a job any where else are slim to nothing, in the most part nothing.  So getting dishonourably discharged is passing a sentence of poverty and destitution on your family.  When you are facing that you have to obey orders because how are you going to explain to your children that you have just destroyed their chances of growing up normally?

Or, if they want to, going into work for the police force because if you have a parent who has been dishonourably discharged from the Armed Services you can't join the police force.  It is illegal to join the police force if one of your parents has a criminal record and a dishonourable discharge counts as a criminal record in the eyes of the police.

For another, Help for Heroes only exists because if it didn't then those soldiers who have come home leaving half of themselves on the sand of the desert would have no help at all.  After all there is one young man who had his leg blown off by a landmine and his local Council refused to give him a blue badge for disabled parking because "his condition might improve".  Oh really?  Just how, exactly is 'his condition' going to improve, may I ask?

Also, if Noel Hoey had read 'It's All About Treo' by Dave Heyhoe, he would understand that, particularly in Afghanistan, the Armed Forces were not just removing landmines from areas of military activity.  They were also removing them from civilian areas to try and protect those civilians from the Taliban.

So question the hypocrisy of the politics that has embroiled our country in these illegal wars by all means, but leave the men and women who are being blown up on the front line out of it; at least until you've listen to 'Letters Home from the Garden of Stone', sung by Everlast, written by an unnamed soldier in his last letter home to his family before his death.

Unnatural

What do you see in the mirror?

According to the What I See project, a lot more and a lot less than a twenty seven year old with not quite brushed hair and a blood shot eye from doing too much computer work all in one go.

The self style 'online platform for women's voices' has spent months asking the above question of women around the world and they have had responses that range from the affirmative 'I see me' to the hurting 'I see flaws that need covering up' to the one that sums up the entire problem 'I see a society obsessed with appearances.

Coupled with the Dove 'Real Beauty Sketches' and The Daily Mail 'silhouette test' they underline just how many women have been indoctrinated from birth to find flaws with the way we look.  Women are not allowed to be content with how we look.  We are too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too young, too old.

This can be seen every time we walk down the 'beauty produce' aisle in the supermarkets.  Compare the number of beauty produces on sale for women and the number on sale for men.  Without getting out a tape measure and measuring it I'm pretty sure that four fifths of the shelf space is for women and only a fifth for men.

Women are not allowed to believe that we can be naturally beautiful.  We must have a beauty routine, we must have thing we buy and use to make ourselves look better.

In short the female body is an unnatural thing that must be washed, powered, painted, scented, coloured and splashed to be acceptable.  A whole industry has grown up around this obsession that women cannot be proud of who and what they are.

Being passive and modest are the tradition female attributes and part of that is the belief that you must be continually striving to improve yourself to be acceptable.  What is more while you try and reach the bar of what society believes you must do to make yourself acceptable to it you will be accused of crimes as varied as supporting feminism ("If women have such bad judgement, why should we let them become board directors?") and existing in the first place. (See the comments from the Mail readership on the response page to the silhouette test on Mail Online.)

And yet if you try and break the model and say 'I am a women who is comfortable with her beauty and I don't need all that stuff' you will receive a torrent of abuse for being , among other things, vain, selfish and not feminine.  Is it me or can we not seem to win either way?

If we feed into society's demands that we aren't comfortable with ourselves we are abused for having poor judgement but if we take the stand and say that we are comfortable with ourselves and don't need all that crap we are slayed for being 'unfeminine'.

It seems that we have been fed this idea that only 'women who aren't like women' or 'women who don't like women' succeed.  In other words, the only women who is comfortable with her appearance and is therefore not distracted from her chosen path in life by it, is a ball breaker who is an unnatural woman.

Why can't we be women who are comfortable in our own skin and feminine?  After all, men can be comfortable in their own skin and be considered masculine.

I'd say it's about time we stopped listening to all those voices that say that we aren't 'natural' and start supporting each other to enjoy who and what we are exactly as we are.  And to Hell with the commercials!

Sluts

That's the word that has been doing the rounds in the media again this year, in connection to Milney Cyrus.

I don't like the term.  It has a very bad meaning.  I'm sorry but it does.  If a girl is deemed a slut then all she cares about is sex, sex and more sex.  It's a case of you don't even have to have the right moves, if your males she'll spread her legs.

Quite frankly, it's disgusting, the meaning of that word that is.

It seems that any woman who is open about the fact that she is a sexual creature, that she has needs for physical contact, that she enjoys or talks about or simulates or even 'invites' sex is a slut who wouldn't say no, or if she does then it's only a joke.  How you 'invite' sex depends on which misogynist you are talking to but is not limited to your clothes, your make-up, whether you are drunk or if you are saying no.  I had an experience in High School where the more I said no the more they put their hands where they weren't wanted.  Considering I wore dress that reached at least my knees in an effort to stop that sort of thing you would think that I would not be 'slut' material but apparently if you say no then you are a slut who's giving the come on.  Thankfully I have developed a good set of lungs over the years and when the enraged shrieks started drawing attention to the boys loos where they had dragged me they decided to leave off.

And that's the major problem.  We were meant to have a sexual liberation when we went through the sixties and seventies but I'm sorry, we are still stuck in the same old cycle where boys are encouraged by various medias to think of girls as 'only good for just one thing' and any woman who speaks up against this is shouted down as being 'unable to take a joke'.

Woman should be able to be open about the fact that we are sexually alive and active creatures but any woman who does speak out about the fact that she's had more than one sexual partner risks being judged as 'demeaning sex itself' rather than a real live human being.

Then people wonder why hordes of young girls go crazy over boy bands.  Most are too young for the mad wanting to be labelled 'lust', its the safety of a boy band crush.  By fixating on someone securely unobtainable you get to practise all the wildness of desire without making too many mistakes, embarrassing yourself too badly or hurting anyone too much.

What does it say about me that when I caught up with my peer group my crushes were always on the older actors?  Maybe that I'm drawn to maturity more than most.

But anyway, the question remains of why do we keep pretending that 'sexualisation' is something forced on girls from the outside?  Yes, I agree that twelve years old shouldn't go out wearing skirts so short they are non-existent but when you get to eighteen talking about desire and sex and relationships should be considered normal and natural.

It's a disservice to both genders that girls are still being taught that boys 'only want one thing and they mustn't give it'.  Sex stops being a collaborative pleasure and becomes a thing of take and very little give because while girls are being taught that the only 'consent' they are allowed is the ability to say no, boys are being taught that 'affection equals sex'.

Both my relationships suffered and ultimately broke down because of the 'affection = sex' syndrome.  I'm sorry but there is a lot more to a relationship than how often you are in bed.  Every kiss and touch and cuddle does not need to end with his hands in your pants and your hands in his.

Affection is the little things, like hugging you while you are washing up, giving him a kiss while his working on the computer, sitting with your sides touching when you are having a read in the evening.  This affection!  Yes affection is part of sex but sex is not the whole of affection.

This is where we are going wrong, we are teaching about sex and contraception in school (so again, a girl can say 'no') but we are not teaching about affection and we are certainly not teaching about how to build long lasting relationships.

As far as I can see, while this one sided education goes on, women who are open about their sexual desires are going to continue to be called 'sluts' and girls who say 'no' are going to continue being ignored.

Mental Health

Some of you may recall the Sun's drooling headline '1,200 killed by mental patients' last week.  The Sun claims that it isn't really trying to stigmatise people with mental heal issues but rather draw attention to the number of people who have been let down by the poor mental health provision of this country.

Well, if that was true then they would point out that there has, according to the most recently available figures, been "a fall in homicide by people with mental illness, including people with psychosis".  They would also lead, as the Eastern Daily Press did, with a headline about the number of vulnerable people who have committed suicide while supposedly receiving support from the mental health profession.

Across the global north, one in four people will experience mental health problems in their lifetimes.  Most make a full recovery, some of us need on going care.  However a huge number of us struggle on without help, mostly because we fear what we will get if we speak out considering the 'Mental Patient' and 'Psycho Ward' Halloween costumes on sale this year.  That's just brilliant Tesco and Asda, just encourage the cruel stereotypes 'cause that's exactly just what we don't need.

Then people wonder why places like the Winterbourne View care home and Rycroft go on for years without anything being done about them.  It's because people with mental disabilities and mental health problems have been depicted as animalist, sub-human, violent monsters for years.  That's why the Government has been able to leave the mental care system so beggarly short of funds.  It's easy to syphon money away from the benefits of mentally ill 'animals' and give it to 'real people'.

I can well believe that people with severe and on going mental health problems are ten times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than they are to perpetrate it.  I should know I've been there.  I've been to the bottom of that deep, dark pit called depression and far from knifing someone else, all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner some where and just die.

Depression like that leaves it's marks but I did not have any help, either during my mental breakdown or for ten years afterwards until I was offered mental support while I was nursing my Mother during the treatment for her diagnosed terminal cancer.

This is why people with mental illnesses won't speak out - if we do, half the time we are ignored and the other half the time we might get help but only if it's coupled to people looking at us as if we are a threat to society.

One last thing, By law anyone who has been sectioned due to mental health problems has no human rights.  So all those nursing staff that beat them up can be done for cruelty and a breach of the Hippocratic Oath but not for a breach of human rights because the patients have none.

Shame

I remember noticing a poor kid at school.  She was spotty, had greasy hair and her clothes were about a decade behind the fashion.  The only time she ever updated her equipment was when it literally fell apart on her.  I should know, the only time I saw her was when I looked in the mirror in the girl's loos.

Yeah, that spotty, greasy geek was me.  The joys of growing up being a benefits kid.  No matter what you do when you are a benefits kid your differences stand out.  Even then being on benefits came with a heavy does of shame, a thing that seems to be increasing as more and more benefits are reduced or cut all together.

It seems the current Government is good at shame.  Stay at home Mothers who bring their children up themselves instead of leaving up to a child minder are stigmatized, single Mothers even more so.  Disable people only have fifteen minutes visits from their carers, elderly people have to choose between staying warm or having something to eat.

Paul Maynard (Conservative MP) is quoted as saying last week that emergency food parcels shouldn't be given out because people might become reliant on them, stating:

"I value responsibility.  I do not believe that immediate food relief should be the role of the Government."

In other words, "people who are struggling to stay out of debt because they were made redundant in the job cuts we caused should be left to starve because helping them might send the wrong 'message'."

As JK Rowling wrote in 2010,

"Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say 'it's not the money, it's the message'.  When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans and your child is hungry, it is the money."

Yeah, she is now one of the riches people in the UK (though not as rich as she once was, she dropped out of Forbes' billionaires list because she pays her taxes and has given away an estimated $160m to charity) but JK Rowling once was an immigrant, a single mother and a benefit claimant.  She knows how tough it can be when you are living on the bread line.

There isn't anything noble about going hungry.  There isn't anything uplifting in having to choice between feeding yourself or feeding your children.  And there certainly isn't anything character building in being abused at school because you're "the brat of a thief who takes the public's money and hides it by calling it benefits" as one of my younger sister's classmates said when they were in Year Four.

This seems to be genuinely surprising to the current Government and though people like to try to forget this, the previous Government as well (believe me I should know, I was there, remember?).

It seems that governments believe that poverty is caused by personal failing and not the failing of the Government to provide us with stable, sustainable jobs and the using benefits is the result of a lack of personal responsibility rather than doing what you need to make ends meet, just.

Responsibility?  Does the Government actually know what that word means because right now we seem to be using different dictionaries.  It lets children get poorer, to the point that one in five children are now considered to be in poverty and blames "workless" parents for this 'crime'.  Well if you'd provide us with jobs that we could do then we'd darn well do them!

It's about time that made/produced/grown in Britain actually had some pride to go with that label.  Stop taxing every single company that tries it's best to keep it's work force in Britain to its knees, give them a tax break to encourage them to take on even more British workers and then tax the ones that send their work force over seas.  We could still have industry is the Government wasn't so keen on strangling it with taxes.

Poverty causes shame, it's just it's coming down on the wrong side of the scales right now.

Why Do People Make Predictions of Doom?

In answer to the question asked on the BBC News website today I'd like to say this.  It is because the world is such a mess that it looks like it's going to end in seventeen years or so.

Given that there are more pollutants in the air than at any time previous in mankind's history, we are still making bombs while children in Britain starve to death, cancer is on the rise, there are drought threats in our temperate climate zones and the Western World still buys the blood diamonds and gold of Africa, then I'd say that there is plenty of reasons to say that the human race is going to hell in a handcart.

Perhaps the people who make these predicts hope that if they say that if mankind doesn't buck up it's act in seventeen years time then we are going to start suffering then the human race might just take notice of what it is doing and buck up its act.

However, I don't think that it will.  If you read the book of Jeremiah then you will know that people have been making these predictions since the time of Babylon.  Nobody listened to them then and nobody is going to listen to them now.  Why?  Because people don't care.  They want to carry on their lives, not bothering to change, taking what they want when they want it.  It's a case of 'today's alright and we'll deal with tomorrow when it comes'.

Well what if tomorrow comes and you can't deal because the time to deal was today and today has already become yesterday?

It is why I signed up to receive e-mails from SumOfUs .  It takes me, what, five minutes max to sign an online petition to tell Bayer to accept the pesticide ban from the EU and stop trying to sue the EU for 'loss of profits'.  SumOfUs has already done the hard work, they have tracked down the lawsuits and set up the petition to tell the greedy where to get off, all I have to do is put my name on the line and then do my best not to buy stuff from Bayer and other companies like it.

Think about, five minutes out of your day and then being more conscientious of where you buy your stuff.  Doesn't take much does it but it could just change the world.

Cause its not the big things that change the world, not really.  It's not the big predictions of doom that make people sit up and take notice.  It is the little things.  Things like, instead of having a large coffee at the Café, you settle for the medium and use the spare change to buy a Big Issue.

And if you don't believe me about how the little things change the world, think about how much the world changed when one black man walked out of a jail cell in South Africa and decided to forgive those that put him there?