The first black James Bond

I don’t like Strictly Come Dancing at all, in fact I really hate it. It makes me cringe when I see people dancing and putting on an act while apparently having fun. Maybe that’s because I don’t like dancing myself.  However, even I was impressed by Ore Oduba’s skills and styles as he won Strictly 2016, and I found myself considering, does this guy have what it takes to be the first black James Bond, he certainly has the looks, style and that air of refined composure that would make him an ideal choice!

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38330683

Power corrupts deceitful men

So Nigel Farage was always raving about unelected officials in Brussels. Isn’t it ironic that he wants to become an unelected official liaising between the UK and the USA?

Donald Trump promised to battle against the offshoring culure in the USA, yet the appointees to many of the major positions in his administration are the people responsible for that offshore wealth stripping culture.  I wonder if they have all had a dramatic change of mind?

What would happen to transparency, integrity and honesty if these to men actually worked together.

For some people, the only problem with conceit is that it just looks bad when someone else is clearly doing it…

Footballers and abuse

Yes, I’m really sorry to hear the stories about footballers being abused by coaching staff.  Andy Woodward’s story, and the stories of other abused players is really troubling.

However, I wonder at a time when the media and the police seems to be focused on abuse in this narrow sphere of society, what could happen to “regular” people qho are not in the public eye who are suffering from this type of abuse?

In my view an abused child, no matter what sphere of life they are invovled in, deserves as much attention and justice as an abused footballer.

Dheepan

A totally engrossing film, gritty and real:

http://gb.imdb.com/title/tt4082068/

Escaping the war in Sri Lanka, only to become embroiled in a gangland war in the suburbs of Paris.

Jeremy Corbyn re-elected Labour leader

Yes! And so it should be, with 61.8% of the vote.

What the MP’s that are in effective rebellion against Jeremy Corbyn should know is that the majority of the Labour supporters who voted for them are the same people who have voted to keep Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.

They need to get behind the leader and drop their undemocratic attitude of Westminster-led political elitism, and recognise that power and democracy are ground the ground up, not from the top down!

Don’t tell us who we should have as leader, we’ll tell you!

The fear of our potential

I’ve been deeply troubled by the attitude that the police, especially in the USA have toward black people. In recent times we have heard repeatedly about numerous shootings of unarmed black people by police officers. This has got me thinking about the relationship between black and white people in society, and why racial relations and integration keeps hitting these moments of crisis.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, in its worst form, overt racism, there is a behavioural process within those white people that are affected by this condition, that feeds off the fear of the potential of black people. Objectivity and reason are diminished, and a kind of primal, instinctive inclination to fear takes over producing a type of “fight or flight” response.

Fearing potential can come in two flavours, fearing negative or positive potential. Examining first the negative, and taking people in a position of authority, such as police officers, who work to enforce the law and limit the negative potential of all. In the kind of situation where armed police are involved, we can often see this condition manifest in a path that leads to an inevitable and tragic outcome.

Fearing the positive potential of black people, can be focused around excluding back people in society, maybe in the workplace from positions of power and authority, withholding knowledge, unfair pay, limiting the resource needed to accomplish the tasks they need to do, perhaps limiting their time.

Fearing potential is about control, it’s about preserving a mind-set that needs to continually establish and maintain its own status as dominant and superior, regardless of whether or not that in reality that is true.

Historically, black people have been controlled, victims, exploited, in need, and the whole black community suffers from the effects of the past to this day. Communities in America, the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Africa or wherever they are, are not free of the constraints and legacy of the historical events and interaction with white communities that bought them to this point in time.

Injustice in terms of exploitation of natural resources and the whirlwind caused by colonial presences in Africa, racial injustice in the workplace, or a black person shot needlessly, is all about fear of potential. To control or inflict injustice on another to prove yourself superior is no proof of valid power or authority at all, but rather a sad evidence of the fact tha the mistakes of the past haven’t been learned from, but rather are approved and affirmed.

In either case, fearing the negative or positive potential of black people, or any people for that matter, fear feeds nothing but injustice, and indeed injustice perpetuates pain in the historical wounds that society seeks to heal from its past racial conflicts, it reinforces them and gratifies the selfish cravings of those who perceive themselves to be dominant.

RIP Leanora

My beatiful niece Leanora, passed away earlier this week. She was just 25 years old. The cause, Neurofibramatosis – but also the failure of several key institutions.

Leanora had regular checkups while she was a child for her condition, but when she left school she wsan’t transitioned into the adult system for checkups around this disease, so from the age of 16-24 the disease progressed unchecked.

Over the past year Leanora lost a lot of weight and had difficulty walking and doing things a 24/25 year old should find easy. Her regular doctor was on meternaity leave and 12 other doctors saw her in the interim, none of them including her regular doctor made the link between Neurofribramatosis and the potential cause of the symptoms she was displaying.

Finally one doctor referred her to The Royal Marsden Hospital, where a biopsy was perfomed. Sadly the prognosis was that Leanora had 6 months to live.

From there on in the medical agencies denied negligence, the benefits agency dragged their heels to award Leanora the benefits she was entitled to, and the council couldn’t seem to find suitable disabled access accommodation to house Leanora to help the situation, as her living conditions were not right for a person in that condition.

It just seems that when you are fighting against the odds in this society, some institions lack empathy, responsiveness, even competence, and in effect this makes the odds even less favourable.

Leanora died barely a week after her 25th birthday. When I visited my sister’s house where Leanora lived, the birthday balloons were still up as we struggled to console one another and come to terms with what has happened.

I will always remember Leanora as being the most affectionate niece I aver had, always kind and helpful, and a person who should have been afforded the chance to grow and develop. Our family will miss her greatly.

Negative Interest Petition

I’ve made a petition – will you sign it?

Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/…/spons…/1AXBTMORJ36c760It8NT

My petition:

A call for The Government ban banks from charging negative interest on deposits.

The Government’s relies on low interest rates to stimulate growth via Quantitative Easing. The Government’s plans have not worked for all. After Austerity and harsh cuts on public spending, The Government needs to protect people from being charged negative interest on their own money in the bank.

References:
http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/negative-interest-rates http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36889828 https://www.societegenerale.com/…/why-are-interest-rates-so… http://moneyweek.com/wp/hands-off-our-cash-petition

Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/…/spons…/1AXBTMORJ36c760It8NT

We bailed out the banks once before and that didn’t make any bankers take a pay cut, invest responsibly or think about a sustainable way to run our financial system. Why then do we now run the risk of having to pay again for The Government’s “cosying up” attitude to the banks and big business, that always makes poorer hard working people pay more and face a tougher time, while the rules are relaxed for the rich?

I just joined the Labour Party

So I had to do it – I am a Jeremy Corbyn fan – he is not perfect, but at least he gets the notion of what democracy should be, i.e. from the people upwards, as in the origin of the word

Late 16th century: from French démocratie, via late Latin from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos ‘the people’ + -kratia ‘power, rule’. (Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/democracy)

That is to say, a strong people supporting a weak leader, is better than a strong leader overbearing on a weak people!

Check out this link for information to join.

Farenheight 911

I just watched this Farenheight 911

A very revealing and troubling yet at the same time humourous deocumentary about the George W Bush administration, he and his father’s links to Saudi Oil and the Bin Laden family, vote rigging, media manipulation, and his alliance with Tony Blair.

It seems clear that sometimes the leaders of the free world and democracy have to somehow, against the very ideals they claim to stand for, have to exlude people from the democratic process and act in undemocratic ways to get their way…  Their vested interest in big business, profit, sustaining the status quo in favour of the political and economic elete, and the lack of compassion or any conscience about the lives of innocent people who will either have their lives torn apart or die because of their often flawed and corrupt ideals and the actions that spring from this makes me feel sick.

We really need a way to rethink what democracy is all about and how it works, because no one in their right mind really wants to give power to men like Bush or Blair who ignore the wishes of the majority of the people they serve in order to stubbornly pursue an agenda based on fantasy that ultimately means innocent people will die.  The thought that my taxes go to people who act with such disregard for human life makes me really quite angry and disillusioned about this world and how true justice can be achieved.

So many times we look back at the things that have gone wrong in the past because of politicians and the economic elite, we may have demonstrated at the time, written lettes, voted, yet still injustice carries on and we are unable to stop it.  And after the event, the lies and deceptions of people in power become even more evident, there has to be a way to stop this from happening, and for the political and economic elite to loose the apparent indemnity against wrongdoing that they enjoy.