I realise that very many of my readers don’t agree with my gender critical views. However, I felt I had to put this video up because I don’t believe there is enough awareness of the issues it addresses. Elaine Miller is a nurse specialising in gynaecological problems, and here she talks about the severe problems that can arise from gender transition surgery on trans-identified women. One of the criticisms of the current trans movement is that the affirmative-only care being lobbied for by trans activists plays down the severe side effects that the surgery may cause. To its critics, this model of care stresses only the positive benefits, telling patients that such surgery will allow them to lead their authentic lives and that everything will be fine and dandy for them. In some cases this is true. In many others, it isn’t. Miller states that from the available evidence, which is deeply flawed and biased towards surgical conversion, it appears that the operations have a thirty per cent failure rate. This is far higher than would otherwise be permitted for other surgical operations. Mastectomies may have the result of causing tendonitis, so that some patients are unable to raise their arms above their shoulders. It may also cause persistent pain, and there is also the problem of loss of sensation in the chest area. The effects of testosterone include menstruation ceasing, so that young women taking the hormone may experience the health problems of post-menopausal women. It also causes the uterus and other sexual organs to atrophy and stick to other organs. It can also cause painful spasms of the uterus. Many young trans-identified women undergo hysterectomies, not because they really want these organs removed, but because they are in so much pain with them caused by the testosterone.
She also talks about some of the serious medical consequences that may come from legal, but not full biological transition. It has happened that trans-identified women have become pregnant without them being aware that they have or could, with the consequence that they need gynaecological care although they identify as men. She talks about a case like this in America, where a transman presented themselves at the hospital with abdominal pain. The transman had also legally transitioned, so that their birth certificate recorded that they were male. By the time people realised that she was trans and in labour, tragically the child had died.
I am not trying to scare anyone by putting this information up, but I do think people should be aware of it. These possibilities have to be properly discussed with patients, to the point where I think it’s a reasonable position that such surgery should only be performed on those who absolutely need it.
A bit more satirical art here. David Collier is part, or at least associated with, the Gnasherjew troll collective. They scour the internet looking for comments from decent people that are critical of Israel, which they can twist and misrepresent as anti-Semitic in order to get them cancelled or worse. It occurred to me that, spending all that time peering at computer screens, Collier and the rest of them were a bit like the bald surveillance agents in the 1980s version of Flash Gordon, who spend all their time locked at their screens searching for enemies of Ming the Merciless.
I also wonder what is going to happen in the Zionist ranks if the far right party led by Ben Govir (sp?) win the Israeli elections. The Beeb reported the other night that seemed to be set to win, and that Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to make a comeback with them. The reported also stated that Govir explicitly wanted the expulsion of ‘disloyal Arabs’. I thought this was quite courageous from the Beeb, as every time anyone reports or says anything about the Israeli states’ dispossession and slow ethnic cleansing of the Arabs, the Israel lobby over here goes into overdrive denouncing them as anti-Semitic. Even, and especially, if they’re Jewish.I also noted that the Beeb called Ben Govir and his wretched crew ‘far right’, whereas most people faced with that attitude and rhetoric from any other country would call them fascists or Nazis. But the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism says that it might be anti-Semitic under certain circumstances to compare a Jew to Nazis. I can well see the reasoning behind it. But the definition prevents decent, anti-racists from calling the anti-Arab, xenophobic Israeli right what they are: Nazis. It’s also hypocritical because the Israelis themselves will mock certain personalities and politicians by portraying them as friends of Adolf.
A win for Ben Govir should cause people like Collier and Keir ‘100 per cent Zionist’ Starmer moral problems. I think Collier and the rest probably soothe any qualms they might have by telling themselves that they are serving the Jewish people by serving the Jewish state, which is there to protect Jews from persecution by real Nazis. They hide behind the terrible history of the Jewish people’s persecution. But what happens when that state is run by an explicitly persecutory, far right party to the point where the persecution cannot be hidden or denied? Anyone with a decent conscience, in my opinion, would realise that everything was out of the bag now, and that any pretence about the nature of the regime was useless. They’d have to pack it in and get another job. But I suspect these people are so fanatical in their support for Israel, that they’ll carry on even when Govir and his storm troops tip the country into real, undeniable fascism.
Here’s another picture suitable for Hallowe’en – Therese Coffey portrayed as something from H.R. Giger’s fevered imagination. I was inspired by one of the paintings in the Giger Necronomicon, and Coffey has such vile views and policies that it seemed suitable. She gave an answer to a interview question that was so ‘orrible and disgusting, that the left-wing vlogger Maximilien Robespierre wondered if she was even human. Good question. Certainly there’s nothing humane about her attitude to the poor and sick. Don’t have nightmares!
Here’s a really unpleasant development. I’ve blogged on here about a right-wing group and its YouTube channel, Correct, Not Political. They’re a bunch who go to various left-wing demonstrations and protests and attempt to argue the opposite case to the demonstrators. They turn up at gay pride parades, outside libraries presenting Drag Queen Story Hour, environmentalist demos by people like Extinction Rebellion, anti-racism and migrants’ rights protests, and they have a special part of their website devoted to ‘socialists and commies’. I thought first of all that might be just right-wing Tories with a few weird ideas. But no. This afternoon they’ve organised a livestream with a title quoting St. Paul about the ‘synagogue of Satan’ and ‘those who say they are Jews but are not’. St. Paul was a Jew himself, and proudly boasted that he was ‘a pharisee and the son of a pharisee’. As he believed that Christ came to save the Jew first, then the gentile, when he entered a town on his preaching mission he started by preaching in the local synagogue. The statement about false Jews and the ‘synagogue of Satan’, from what I understand, was about one particular Jewish community in what is now one of the Turkish cities, that strongly opposed early Christian preaching. I think they may have requested the local Roman authorities to clamp down on them. That’s the Biblical context of the quote, from a time when Christianity was a Messianic sect within Judaism. But passages like that from the New Testament tragically have an appeal to Fascists.
Intrigued by this title, I clicked on the channel. It was a few minutes before it started properly, but things definitely did not bode well. It showed an old B/W newsreel footage of people marching in a BUF rally, complete with the ‘Roman’ salute and the BUF banner. It also showed the cops forming up to police them. All this was set to the adagio for strings piece which gets played in films and TV programmes about the horrors of war. I think it comes from the end of Platoon or Full Metal Jacket when the film ends with its heroes being gunned down. After a few minutes of this, it began. It switched to some kind of studio with a quote from a rabbi to one side of the presenter, ‘Some call it Marxism. I call it Judaism.’ At that moment the presenter started speaking. I couldn’t hear him properly, so I have to admit I got bored and turned him off. Perhaps I’m being prejudiced, but I thought I’d seen enough.
I think the livestream was supposed to be about Israel, but it seemed to me to be a return to the old Fascist conspiracy theory that the problems of the western world, and particularly non-White immigration, all due to evil Marxist Jews. Well, to quote The Young Turks’ Ben Mankiewicz, if there is a Jewish conspiracy, nobody told him. Nor any of the other Jews I’ve met or had dealings with. As for the Biblical quote, it looks like an attempt to play down the anti-Semitism by doing what Oswald Mosley himself used to do: claim that they’re only talking about some Jews, but not all Jews. And those you’re attacking aren’t real Jews, of course.
It’s depressing and worrying that people are seemingly turning once again to the far right after the spectacular collapse of the BNP. I don’t know how many members Correct, Not Political has or how wide their audience. Probably very few. And to be fair, they also don’t seem to be violent. When they do speak to their opponents, the tone is quiet and reasonable and at a conversational level. When shouting and a bit of argy-bargy does occur, it’s more often by the left-wing protesters than them. They really don’t seem to be thugs and bruisers like the NF’s bovver boys.
But that doesn’t alter the fact that they have seemingly turned to real Fascism, which was based on hate and violence. And the really worrying aspect of this is the possibility that it might be part of a growing trend. To which there can only be one response:
Sorry, folks, but I’m returning here to the something my favourite right-wing YouTube historian posted yesterday. Lenny Henry is the co-editor of a book that’s recently been published on the dire state of Black Britain, Black British Lives Matter, and Simon Webb has been reading it. He posted two videos attacking what he considered to be a couple of its untruths yesterday. One was a demolition of a list in the book of Black people, who have supposedly died in police custody. Except that many of them didn’t. One woman in particular, who the book claims died in 1986, really only died in 2011 or so, according to Wikipedia. The other video concentrated on a chapter about Black British health. Four times as many Black mothers die in childbirth as White mothers. Webb states that one of the causes of this is likely to be obesity. The book notes that a higher number of Black people are obese than Whites, who in turn have a higher level of obesity than east Asians. Webb likes this, as it fits in with the Bell curve and the statistical distribution of intelligence between races. Blacks are thicker than Whites, who are in turn thicker than east Asians. Now according to Webb, the book claims that Blacks have higher levels of obesity because they were fed scraps and other bits of rubbish, like molasses, by the plantation masters when they were slaves. Webb criticises this by saying this makes as much sense as blaming the rise of obesity in working class Whites on the highly calorific food working class people traditionally ate. He argues he could use that to excuse himself getting fat, but it’s still within his power to change his diet.
Now I think here he does have a point. I don’t think you can blame slavery for Black obesity, or not entirely, for the following reasons:
At some point in the 18th century, the plantation masters started giving their slaves plots of land on which they could work on Sundays growing their own food. This was partly a ploy so that they didn’t have to give them so much rations. But it resulted in the development of a market economy in the Caribbean, with the enslaved population producing food which they sold at Sunday markets.
African slaves also took some of their own foodstuffs to the New World. I’ve only read of this in the context of Black American cuisine, but apparently the slaves in the southern US also included food plants from their west African homelands. My guess is that something similar also happened in the Caribbean.
In the 19th century the British deliberately set about improving the slave diet. Yams were introduced from Polynesia and the British government also started laying down regulations on the amount of food the planters had to give their slaves. This consisted of so many plantains, so much fish and ‘farinaceous material’ – presumably wheat and cereals – per week. I’m not a nutritionist, so have no idea whether the prescribed amounts would have been enough. But the legislation is contained in the British parliamentary papers on slavery compiled in the 1820s, and anyone interested could use them very productively as a research tool.
Even if there is a link between slavery and obesity in Blacks, this would only apply to people of West Indian descent. Or rather, it would only have a racist context for those enslaved by the British. It wouldn’t apply to recent African immigrants, unless you wish to argue that they are inclined to obesity because of the diet their enslaved ancestors were fed by their African masters. African societies also owned slaves, the proportions varyiing between 30 to 70 per cent of the population according to culture. And they were fed scraps. In West Africa, people received food in relation to their position in the social hierarchy. The master of the house ate first, and passed his scraps on to his favourites, who in turned passed theirs down to their social inferiors, with the women getting whatever was left. Akapolo slaves in east Africa were also fed poorly, and expected to eat their food off the floor, rather than from pots.
The ideal of beauty in some west African societies is for plump and fat women. In some west African cultures girls are taken to a special hut when they hit puberty where they are fattened up ready for marriage. And if I remember correctly, this has been an issue of feminist concern.
There’s also a class factor at work here, I feel. The British diet traditionally contained a lot of calories and stodge because most people did physical work. Now we live more sedentary lives and so don’t need as much rich, fatty food. This would also apply to people from the West Indies, where much of the work would also have been veery physical, particularly during slavery.
Then there is the question of the amount of healthcare Black women receive compared to those of Whites and other races. Thomas Sowell in one of his books on race debates this issue. He notes that Black mothers have a higher incidence of complications and mortality than Whites, and receive less care than Whites as well. But Mexican mother receive the least healthcare, but have much less infant mortality than Blacks. He therefore argues that the amount of healthcare isn’t the cause of Black infant mortality. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there wasn’t a genetic predisposition towards obesity in Blacks in the same way that there is in people of South Asian origin, who have a higher rate of heart disease than Whites. And if Blacks are genetically more predisposed to complications in pregnancy, in the same way that they suffer higher rates of sickle cell anaemia, then it simply means that Blacks need higher levels of medical care in pregnancy. Or perhaps different kinds of medical care to search for particular kinds of complications than Whites. The fact that Black Americans have higher rates of infant mortality than Mexicans despite receiving more medical care isn’t an argument for complacency and saying that somehow it’s all their fault. Clearly Black women need particular care during pregnancy, and there are initiatives to make sure they get it. There was an article on the local BBC news for Bristol a few months ago stating that a couple of Black nurses had started a scheme to combat the higher rate of deaths of Black mothers. That’s clearly welcome and necessary.
But blaming all of this on slavery is bad history and worse race relations. And it may be doing actual harm by preventing historians and healthcare specialists examining other, possibly equal relevant causes of Black health problems.
I got this petition early today from internet democracy group 38 Degrees. One of their community, Vicky Ropner, has put up a petition calling for Liz Truss to be prevented from enjoying the perks of ex-prime ministers. These include the ability to appoint new peers to the House of Lords. Truss was only Prime Minister for three months and was simply too disastrous as premier to enjoy these benefits. I completely agree and have very definitely signed it. It is grossly unfair that she should enjoy the privilege of elevating her cronies when her wretched policies have resulted in horrific levels of inflation and increased mortgage rates. Not to mention something like a quarter of this great nation’s children relying on food banks and people having to use ‘warm banks’ to keep warm ’cause they can’t afford to heat their homes.
No to perks for Truss.
And definitely ‘No’ to the Tories.
Here’s the petition
‘Dear David,
Liz Truss left her position as Prime Minister after being in the job for less than 2 months. [1] But despite being in the job for such a short amount of time, she could still be allowed to put through a resignation honours list and choose people to promote to the House of Lords. [2]
That’s why Vicky, a 38 Degrees supporter, set up a petition demanding Truss is denied the privilege. She believes an “incompetent and disgraceful” Prime Minister should not get such rewards.
Recently, the House of Lords Appointments Committee – who decides whether or not approve new members of the House of Lords – rejected a number of nominations, and spoke out against unsuitable candidates being put forward. [3] Huge public pressure could convince them to step in and stop Liz Truss’ honours list being approved.
So, if you agree with Vicky and believe a Prime Minister forced to resign after just a few weeks should not be allowed to reward their friends with jobs for life in the Lords, can you sign the petition today? [4] It only takes 30 seconds, and we’ll hand the petition in to those in charge in the next few days!
To: The Conservative Party, Parliament and the House of Lords Appointments Commission
What: Liz Truss and the Conservative party need to realise that the public mood is for her to leave quietly without an honours list or any other perks of the job. She has been an incompetent and disgraceful Prime Minister.
Why is this important: Liz didn’t even last 3 months, there is no other occupation that would grant you anything for that, no honest one anyway. Instead she fell at the first hurdle, making huge and avoidable mistakes because of her arrogance. Consequently the people of the UK experienced even more worry and suffering.
It now must be made law that a PM that resigns or is forced to go before a year has passed, has no rights to the perks of the job after leaving. It is insulting and ridiculous that she should be able to set her friends up in the House of Lords, receive severance pay and other perks after being such an appalling PM. She blamed circumstance and not herself. She chose such an appalling cabinet that wasn’t fit for purpose.
She managed one thing, she attended the Queen’s funeral, even Larry the cat could have managed that if they’d provided a comfy enough chair!
PS. Not everyone reading this email will agree with the concept of the House of Lords at all, but one thing we can all agree on, is it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future. So we should be able to expect representatives in the House of Lords to be chosen because they want to do the best for our country, not because of who their mates are.
PPS: Vicky Ropner started their petition on the 38 Degrees website.
With 38 Degrees anyone can start their own campaign with the click of a button. But that’s just where your journey begins. Creating a petition, then sharing it with friends and colleagues, can soon give you a groundswell of support. Perhaps you’ll end up changing something really important.
‘Allo, mah Engleesh chums! as Antoine du Caunes used to say on Channel 4 celebration of European trash, sleaze and general weirdness. Now that Truss has resigned, and the Tory party is devouring itself over the complete absence of any kind of democracy in the appointment of Rishi Sunak, Farage and Richard Tice of the Reform are trying to stage some kind of comeback. Reform, formerly the Brexit party, has apparently been sending out letters to former Tory party members asking them if they’d like to join his nefarious, ideologically bankrupt party. Farage is also reported to have been buzzing around the place urging for the small parties like Reform to unite into a powerful rival against the Conservatives. There was also a video up from GB news today in which he declared that the channel had made some kind of breakthrough. It’s possible, though from previous experience the biggest star the channel has is Farage himself, with hardly anybody watching the other broadcasters. So, I’ve drawn another satirical piece with the mugs of Farage and Tice, and between them Eurotrash’s hosts, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Antoine du Caunes. Below them is the back end of dustcart, a broken ‘Brexit’ sign and the Eurotrash logo. Because Brexit has comprehensively wrecked the British economy and deserves to be dumped in the dustcart. There have been demonstrations to get us back into Europe. Unfortunately, the morons are still pushing the idea that somehow Brexit has been beneficial and liberating. This seems to come from the manic right-wingers at Spiked, so called, to quote Zelo Street, because it should have been, and the Spectator. Here’s the picture. Enjoy!
I was talking to a friend a few days ago, who joked that the change of Tory Prime Ministers was so farcical and stupid it was like a ‘Carry On’ film. And this inspired me to create the satirical drawing below, ‘Carry On, Prime Minister’. I thought the film would star Kenneth Williams as Rishi Sunak, Sid James as Boris Johnson, ’cause James always played bawdy schemers, while Liz Truss would be played by Barbara Windsor. I’ve therefore drawn Sunak and co. as those leading members of the ‘Carry On’ team, giving them the Williams’, James’ and Windsor’s faces with their hairstyles. Kenneth Williams actually doesn’t look much different as Sunak. This suggests the horrifying prospect that one day Sunak will arise in parliament and say, ‘Oooooh, no! Matron! ‘Ere, stop messin’ about’, and greet foreign dignitaries by telling them how ‘bona it is to barda their dolly old eke again’. I’ve also showed the characters from the BBC comedy series, Yes, Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister, looking on, highly perplexed. Because compared to these machinations and shenanigans, the Jim Hacker, Minister for Administrative Affairs, and his civil service team of Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard look like political titans.
The writing at the bottom reads ‘Humphrey, are they all morons?’ ‘Yes, Prime Minister’.
This ought to cheer a few of us up following the imposition of yet another unelected Tory prime minister. Mad right-wing Brexiteer Mahyar Tousi reported on one of his videos today that so many grass roots members of the Tory party are fed up with not being allowed to have their say in the selection of the new PM, that they’re resigning en masse. And so many of them were going on the Tory website looking for ways they could resign their memberships, that they crashed it. Apparently, they have nothing against Sunak himself, just that the party prevented them from the process of selecting who they wanted as prime minister. Richard Tice, fuehrer of Reform UK, formerly the Brexit party, is making the most of this crisis in the Tory ranks. He’s emailing former Tory members to join his wretched crew and says that Reform is planning to stand 500 candidates at the next election. As for Tousi himself, he reckons that this means trouble for the Tories, although they could just win the next election as Sunak prints money to give as handouts. That comment shows you how right-wing and out of touch Tousi is.
I’m not surprised the Tory grassroots are angry. Tousi admits that there aren’t many advantages to being a party member. You do get to go to the Tory party conference, though that costs extra, and there are one or two other perks. But there were grumblings from ordinary Tory members a little while ago about how they felt sidelined by the leadership in favour of the big donors. Now it seems that anger has come to head with the selection of Sunak by the parliamentary party in a process that excluded regular Tory members. Let’s hope a few other party leaders learn a few lessons here about the folly of ignoring the grassroots party, eh Starmer?
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