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paperbackwritersblog · 4 years

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Modern movements

There is a cultural shift on a very grand scale in the west atm, none more so than in the USA, but this has as always sailed over to the UK, allbeit in a much smaller and less aggressive scale.

Its led me to ponder on the ideas that drive us , the ones that pick up momentum and large followings.

When I look back through history the vast majority of ideas came through the need to balance out society. Pushing through rights to the masses that before only applied to a select few. It seemed only natural that this would happen at some point in time, the only difference in the last few hundred years is that instead of the group being pushed down eventually rising up to overthrow those with the grip on power in the form of revolution and or civil war , we now have a democratic process and the worst case scenario is mostly protesting with the odd riot. The slaughter that used to be associated with wholesale change is seen now as brutal, thuggish and mindless.

The moment a group decides on this course of action they instantly loose support and the public no longer want to be associated with their movement! An active example of this is the BLM movement that has sweeped across the west in the last 3 months.

The movement had been simmering low key for a few years but had not really grabbed the attention of anyone that wasnt an activist. However, making the most of an opportunity and thanks to media behaving like a modern gerbles, they managed to muster lots of sympathy and support after the seemingly unjust death of a black man at the hands(or knee to be exact) of a white police officer.

When this first happened, the subsequent outrage caused the world to rise. This also intertwined with a global pandemic, peoples frustration and fears were given a focus. Yet after 3 months thankfully the bias narrative is coming apart due to technology and the ability to share information. I cant imagine what state we would be in right now if all narratives were controlled like it was back 80 years ago!

We are now seing the true nature of those screaming with outrage and their ideas as unpalletable, hardly anyone with any sense agrees with neither their demands nor how they think its ok to go about getting them.

In conversations I have had as well as my knowledge of past movements, it is the peaceful protests with reasonable request that have picked up steam amungst the masses. One can only wonder how bad things had gotten in history for the average person for them to rise and fight in the ways that they did! And also with chinese whispers , what did they think was actually going on in comparison to what was going on?! When I look at ghandis message and how he implemented his ideas as well as martin luther king, I see there was nothing unreasonable about what they were saying! Even with how bad things were for minority groups at the time. Neither of these men felt that in order for there to be balance that any one group should be destroyed, they just wanted the groups being pushed down to be up on the same footing as everyone else. Equal opportunity was the desire and I think even people in better positions agreed with this on the whole.

So what is it about todays movements that has changed? From my own perspective, it seems that society in the west has been picking up steam when it comes to moving in the right direction! Theres movements all across the western world that have accomplished their aims and things are better on average than they have ever been. Most of the unbalances are on a small scale now and if anything certain parts of our society arent functioning correctly through fear of hurting peoples feelings!

History shows there are always sections of society fuelled with rage, the younger people of society who are still trying to figure out how they fit with the landscape as well as those who have lived a life of luxury who are detactched from the realities of the average person , using popular movements they sympathise with in order to get out there and be heard, basically wanting to infuse meaning into their lives and so engage in things they dont fully understand nor support, we see this in the hypocrisy of people following the movement. Just recently watching lots of anti capitalism activists queing up at macdonalds, one of the biggest capitalist franchises in the world!!Racism is being called out when its not there, sexism and LGBT rights have gone off the deep end and it feels like the momentum of activism has ploughed forward with the same steam it had in the 70s through till the 80s without anything to really latch onto! And so they are projecting great outrage energy into the slightest transgression.

With all this going on I am wondering what great movements are left in the west that will grip society in the way antislavery, womens rights and gay rights movements have?! I guess it is hard for me to say, being a white male in the west gives me very little experience in comparison to people of colour or alternative sexual orientation. However I know I would be rejected by some members of family if I came out as gay, I cannot force people to change their feelings on the mater, the laws have already been adjusted and that hasnt changed peoples feelings!

The feelings people are screaming about right now arent things the average person can see or feel! When I grew up in the 80s, not only could I see and hear racism, I could genuinely feel it! It was woven into the fabric of our lives, it was shown on t.v , it was on and in our advertisements and was actively seen in peoples behavior, but that certainly isnt so in most of the west now. So when a minority of people scream racism over something small, the average person shrugs their shoulders or just ignores and moves on. It gathers no momentum and just falls flat on the streets.

What does seem to be happening atm is the platforms that shape and mould our perspective lense are screaming and shouting about a world that most of us cant see!! This is a genuine worry in that if you shout about anything long and hard enough it will become a truth.

One of the biggest monsters in the modern world for belief and putting that belief into action was adolf hitler was quoted “ if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough , it will be believed”!!

And no matter what you may think of this man, it is undeniable that he was a master manipulator of people on a grand scale. He was able to convince very very ordinary people to do truly barbaric things with total conviction that what they were doing was right and just!

The plight of the average person in the west is nothing in comparison to the struggles of europe in the early part of the 20th century, yet with such enthusiasm the news narrative would have you think we are worse off. In my mind the biggest threat society faces right now, is the narratives we are being fed. Yet taking down an organisation is nothing like taking down a ruling tyrant hell bent on destruction! Like cutting the head of a snake and 2 replacing it, organisations gain power through ideas and the dismantling of ideas involves changing peoples hearts and minds, it is not something that can ever be achieved by bombs and bullets.

E.Plaistow

#social movements #outrage #culture

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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Idaho judge rules attack on high school football player was ‘not a rape’ or racist

Former football player gets light sentence for assaulting his disabled team-mate in a case that has drawn comparison to Stanford swimmer Brock Turner

An Idaho judge has sentenced a white former high school football player to just 300 hours of community service with probation for his part in an attack on a developmentally disabled African American team-mate, insisting the case had been wrongly portrayed by the media as racially or sexually motivated.

In a series of extraordinary remarks, district judge Randy J Stoker on Friday accused the press and the public for misrepresenting what happened in a rural Idaho high school locker room on 22 October 2015, lamenting people from the east coast have no idea what this case is about.

John RK Howard, who is now 19, was originally charged with forcible penetration by use of a foreign object for an attack on a 17-year-old in the Dietrich High School locker room after football practice.

The victims family, who are bringing a civil case, allege he was subject to sustained racist abuse and bullying in the months leading up to the incident, which involved the insertion of a coat hanger in his rectum. However Stoker was insistent the case, which has prompted nearly 150,000 people to sign change.org petition to have the judge removed from the bench in Idaho, had been misconstrued.

This is not a rape case, said an emphatic Stoker. This is not a sex case. This started out as penetration with a foreign object … Whatever happened in that locker room was not sexual. It wasnt appropriate. Theres nothing in this record that supports anything close to the sexual allegation against this young man.

In my view, this is not a case about racial bias, the judge continued, addressing the pale young man at the defense table. If I thought that you had committed this offense for racial purposes, you would go straight to the Idaho penitentiary.

According to the civil lawsuit filed by the victims family, their son had been the focus of long-term racial bullying and abuse. Howard taught him a song that glorified anal rape and the KKK, and members of the football team called him slurs including nigger, chicken eater, watermelon and Kool-Aid.

But on Friday, Stoker brushed aside those assertions. The victim was not targeted, which dispels in my view any claim of a racial incident, Stoker said. Another individual who was involved said [the victim] was called fried chicken because [he] said it was his favorite food … I dont think its a racial slur.

The case has prompted comparisons with the notorious Brock Turner case, in which the 20-year-old Stanford swimmer was convicted of multiple felonies for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. Turner was sentenced to just six months in prison and served only three, a punishment that sparked a global firestorm from critics who argued it was overly-lenient.

Referring to news reports about the case that were printed and broadcast across the country, a frustrated Stoker fumed that people from the east coast have no idea what this case is about. Theyre not going to change their mind … But Im not going to impose a sentence that is not supported by the law.

The victim, who was not in court during the Friday sentencing, described the attack during during the preliminary hearing for another of the football players involved. The young man said that one of his friends motioned for him to come over and hugged him while another player shoved a hanger into his anus. Then, the victim said, Howard kicked the hanger, which pushed it further into his rectum.

Pain that I have never felt took over my body, he said during the April hearing, according to the transcript obtained by the Guardian. I screamed, but afterwards, I kept it to myself.

Howard pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of felony injury to a child in a December agreement that limited his punishment and allowed him to avoid prison. Fridays sentencing was in accordance with the plea agreement: in addition to 300 hours of community service, Howard will be on probation for three years. If he violates probation, he will be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Howard was the only adult of the three young men charged in the case. Charges against the minors involved in the incident were resolved in juvenile court, where state statute requires that all proceedings be closed to the public.

I try to make my decisions doing what I think is appropriate justice, Stoker added before sentencing John RK Howard. Thats what Im going to do in this case. For all the people who sent the letters, told me I should die, you wasted your time … Im hoping that this sentencing today will bring to an end the misrepresentations that have occurred in this case.

After the judgment, E Lee Schlender, the victims attorney, said the truth will come out about a case which the school superintendent and attorney generals investigators agreed was a vicious rape.

Now at the sentencing of the adult who led the attack the defense attorneys proclaimed that it never happened. That the adoptive parents of not only the victim but 24 other children from around the world made all this up to get rich. They were not challenged by the attorney generals attorneys who sat silent or at times, even agreed. A sad day in the history of my beloved state. This case is not over. The federal civil case is alive and well. The truth will come out.

The sentence came at the end of a dramatic hearing that raised questions about who was telling the truth and just who was the victim in the notorious case that rocked the small, ranching town of Dietrich, Idaho, which has a population of around 330.

The afternoon hearing began with the victims tearful mother recounting how the rape, in her words, had ruined her adopted sons life, leaving him sleepless and suicidal. Although Dietrich residents started out sympathetic, she said, the family eventually felt so harassed that they had to move.

This is not the life we wanted for our son, and it is not the life he was going to have, the mother said. Our lives have all been changed so dramatically because of what happened.

She recounted chasing after her distraught son as he held a large shard of glass against his neck. She said the family dog was poisoned and they were so afraid they sold their home at a loss and left town. And she pleaded for Stoker to impose a harsher sentence than the one proscribed in the plea agreement.

Howards punishment, the victims mother said, is a slap on the hand for him, adding that for her son and her family it is a slap in the face. She talked about the humiliation and pain her family endured and asked Stoker realize that John RK Howard will have only some discomfort … Please give John RK Howard the punishment he deserves.

But Brad Calbo, Howards defense attorney, painted the victims parents as liars who were financially motivated, drawing attention to their $10m civil rights suit against the school district and its officials and suggesting they coerced their fragile son into committing perjury.

In an unexpected and bizarre twist, the defense attorney played a tape of the victim appearing to recant his earlier statements that was recorded by his football coaches.

I dont think you guys should have to lose your farms, the victim told his football coaches in the discussion, which occurred following an argument with his parents. It was never my intention. I was fed stuff, fed lies … I was pressured.

The victim continued, after being questioned about his parents intent, that its always been about the money, its always been about the $10m. I love you guys to death.

The victim was not raped, said a vehement Calbo. No one has ever been accused of raping [him] period with the notable exception of [his] mother. [He] never claimed he was raped. [He] was not pinned down while a hanger was forcibly inserted in his rectum. In fact, Calbo said, Howard helped the victim with his homework and John loves him today despite all of this nonsense.

Schlender said that his client was coerced by the coaches into making such statements about his family. The coaches knew he was mentally disabled and taking major anti-psychotic medication, when they pressed the victim and recorded the conversation, according to a document filed in the civil case.

Part of the audio recording that Calbo did not mention in court Friday was the victim saying, according to the civil document, I honestly dont know who did the hanger thing. Who did the, who held me, I was, I dont know. All I know is that it happened.