The Paradox Of Numbers

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There have been some stabbings then. It happened yesterday, three were killed and three badly injured. It was announced today that Khairi Saadallah has been held on suspicion of terrorist activities. Apparently he shouted some “unintelligible words” before attacking a group of people. I don’t know about the intricacies of law and being able to name people but there must be a reason for the discrepancies over naming suspects, and in this case not even someone who has been charged but is just being held on suspicion. They must have a pretty strong, let’s say definite, case against him to make what is ultimately a public announcement of his guilt. Perhaps the ones not mentioned are down to the issuing of injunctions of some sort and the standard approach is to be able to name people. Either way it it’s something new for people to get horrified over and will now be the new thing to focus our attention on.

I mentioned a week or two ago about how we seem to be lurching from one crisis to the next; be it Brexit, disastrous elections, back to Brexit, coronavirus, police violence and now we can add these stabbings to this years list of events. It does seem to be one thing after another and I wondered how long it would take for something extreme to happen so as to distract people from what feels like genuine social change. The Black Lives Matter movement was helped by people being dissatisfied and restless after the virus. I thought with the return of capitalism and the opening of shops that people would forget but they’ll have this now to take the headlines completely. I’m not suggesting or going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy but undoubtedly the government, media and anyone else who’s vested interests were in danger will use this event to maximum effect and personal gain. The old maxim of never letting a good crisis go to waste can yet again be expected to ring true.

Let’s not forget that people have been mercilessly murdered but I’m not going to dwell on that because I doubt beyond the public statements neither will the authorities. Maybe it’s just my mood today but I feel incredibly sceptical about the expected response or just immune to being horrified about the extinguishing of more life. It also highlights a difference in our responses to virus deaths and these ones. Over forty-thousand people have died of coronavirus based upon one set of statistics, some suggest more and some less, but despite everything we have seen and felt, there is still an underlying feeling inspired by that being nothing more than a number. It comes back to the idea that we feel more of an emotive reaction to the deaths of three people than forty thousand people. Perhaps we can comprehend three people, there’s a good chance there are three people in the same room as us now but forty thousand is difficult, if not impossible to comprehend. It also makes you realise football crowds are enormous. Wembley stadium can hold double the number of people killed in the virus. Which make it feel like not many people have died at all. Yet they have, but have they really? Three have now died and that’ll feel perversely like a higher number. All it does is makes me feel even more that worldwide events, disasters and news are better off ignored, the spare energy from this can be put towards embracing our immediate environments. Perhaps that’s the way forward. Or at least embracing a little more of what’s around us than living in a version of reality the news wants us to.

Footballers Stepping Up

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There is something that has always been incredibly frustrating about footballers and the footballing world. I can only talk of modern times and my first club football memory was in 1992 when I was watching the news of Manchester United winning the Premier League for the first time, and the league title for twenty-six years. I’ve been a fan since. Total glory hunting six year old. I grew up in an era in which football was gentrified and became squeaky clean. This is all I’ve known. I have no idea of what depths it was at in the 1980s beyond the stories both damning and glorifying in equal measures. Even in the Premier League era there have still been numerous incidents, mainly from fans but from players too, and there has seemingly been a desire to at least on the surface stamp it out. I must also acknowledge that were the desire to expose inaction over the last twenty-five years this would be an easy thing to do. It has not always been a smooth journey as there will always be people whose existence depends upon the status quo remaining in whatever shape put them there to start with. I have been rather ambiguous so far over incidents because while I am going to focus on racism, it is important not to ignore homophobic attacks, Islamophobic anti-semitic, anti-traveller etc.

What is really interesting now though is how much the footballers are getting involved. I’m not talking about them all taking the knee before the game because I doubt any player would jeopardise their entire career by refusing to take part. That doesn’t dismiss the important message it is making though. Individually footballers are really stepping up. While racism is amongst many things a political act, in the world of football, in which footballers can be fined tens of thousands of pounds for political actions, anti-racism doesn’t fall into that category. The anti-racism movement in football did not begin in the last few months but has been around for years. The organisation Show Racism The Red Card was established in 1996 and there will most certainly be organisations fighting long before that.

There have also been footballers making anti-racism statements in that time but it does feel like they’re really getting acceptance and coverage in a way that would have been impossible in the past. Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford seem to get a large amount of the coverage, which is inevitable given they are such massive stars, but there are others like Liverpool’s Rhian Brewster, who is in the photo at the top, and who is only twenty years old. I remember when he was seventeen after England had won the under-17 World Cup I think it was, discussing the racism he has experienced growing up and in the footballing world. This was a seventeen year old boy discussing a serious issue in a way full grown men cannot. This was an interview hailed by many but in my memory it was still challenged, even subtly, by elements of the press as to whether it was acceptable or not. It’s amazing how people can react when being put in their place by a seventeen year old. These are young men who have a platform stepping up and finally being accepted unconditionally by those who matter. What comes next is anyone’s guess but it does finally feel there have been some real seismic shifts.

For those who enjoy podcasts and / or Louis Theroux, this is a link to an interview he made with Watford striker Troy Deeney recently. I have spent time disliking Deeney in the past, this is mainly down to him seemingly constantly scoring winning goals against my team but if I have to lay it all out I suspect there was some lingering unconscious bias which nobody likes to acknowledge but was interesting to see exist. Ultimately he is a man who has had to fight his way through life, and has a story and ideas worth listening to, Theroux does a good job helping bring it and them out.

Daily Recommendations Of Happy & Healthy

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To be a happy and healthy human being in this world we seem to need to combine a rather large variety of things. This combination too varies from person to person and while there are probably a few fundamentals like food, shelter and company, to be both happy and healthy may require a little more than the basic versions of these things. Perhaps being able to attach a noun modifier like good would help and add a little further clarity. We could attempt to include the idea of various possessions like a mobile phone, car or warm jacket, but it’s not worth going down that avenue as it’s validity would be questionable at best. So we stick to the three fundamentals above. There are more I imagine but right now these are the first that come to mind. Perhaps you could throw liberty in there too but unless it’s severely restricted it would probably be something we could adapt to without much fuss.

Shelter seems like an obvious one but there is a difference between a fifteenth floor inner city apartment and a countryside estate. There will be the same extreme ends of the spectrum for company too from friends and lovers to flatmates we have to endure. It is the issue of food that I want to focus on though. I definitely see happiness in food, I associate it with love and one of my favourite things is sitting around a table eating and drinking with friends and family. The happy then is covered but the healthy is were I’m a little confused. There are the obvious things like making sure you eat vegetables and wholegrains, as much organic as possible and to stay away from processed anything when you can. I have a varied level of success on all three of those but I still don’t always feel healthy. I suspect part of that is down to how healthy my gut microbiome is and I’m working on that to the point where I think I can sense and feel improvement specifically because of it. The other is whether I get my recommended daily allowance (RDA) of the required vitamins and minerals. I was looking into how to get enough magnesium yesterday and discovered that perhaps it’s not as easy to achieve this mythical RDA as previously thought. Unlike child poverty figures, it’s not possible to simply change the definition to achieve the desired outcome. Our bodies need what they need and this RDA seems to already be the minimum.

One avocado then provides 15%, a cup of lentils 30%, a two hundred gram fillet of salmon contains 15%, two bananas 20% and half a cup of cooked spinach the final 20%. That’s not impossible to imagine eating in a day but these are also some of the more magnesium heavy foods so the rest of the weeks diet would need to be of a similarly high standard. It is for this reason we must attach good to food. If you would struggle to fund such a diet, which in itself is reasonably common, then there’s a good chance you’re going to struggle to stay healthy and considering that a lack of magnesium can affect our energy and mental health, probably happy too. It seems life is complex. A good life at least. But that’s nothing a new pair of trainers can’t fix.

The Gutter Of Moral Superiority

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There are times in life in which we must criticise our own side. For those who really see themselves as having a side this is a rare occasion but for those who cringe at the idea of picking a side to immortalise over others then this is probably just another day. I’m always somewhere in the middle and I don’t see why this would be any different. I call it the curse of seeing, although not necessarily agreeing with, both sides of the argument while others would suggest it is more about being indecisive when the opposite is required. In this instance I’ll just suggest I’ve seen something I find hypocritical.

I am referring to this article and this one too. In one the Independent newspaper talks about an advert from The Lincoln Project, a Republican group who have dedicated themselves to preventing the reelection of Donald Trump, which suggests he is ill and falling to pieces. The other article suggests similar and uses some quotes by a neurologist to suggest Trump has neurological problems. While both articles reference a few different things they both mainly use the example of his struggling to walk down some ramp at a military parade the other day. Now fair enough he did look like he was struggling a little, the man is seventy-four years old so it’s not impossible to imagine he’s not fit and healthy anymore but both articles are in my opinion lazy. I remember a few years ago when Donald Trump and Theresa May met for the first time, there were photos of them holding hands as they walked down some steps and it was explained that he had some disorder which made going down things difficult, that it was a balance thing hence the hand holding, and that this is something he had had for years. It was supposedly not serious but was explained non-the-less. I can’t help but feel his inability to walk down a ramp is related to this. If I know this of course then there’s no excuse for a political correspondent for a national newspaper not knowing it.

The reason I take issue with this is not because he is a defensible man in any way but because we on the anti-Trump and his ilk spectrum of society and politics scream foul of immoral, corrupt and lying elements on the other side of the fence. We behave outraged at the lies and the deceit, and justifiably so, see politics and society as being in the gutter. The right wing are in many ways hugely responsible for that but it’s very easy to look through our partisan eyes and not see the hypocrisy of our own actions and spokespeople. The reality in this situation is that with stories like this we are being played just as much as the supporters of Trump or Brexit that we decry as manipulated idiots. I want my people to be in the right to such an extent that they don’t need to lie or blur the facts of a story. If my people need to manipulate me to believe an argument then they’re not my people and it’s not my argument. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I believe it’s okay to be human and fallible, but to manipulate people is different. I expect nothing less of those idiots I feel I’m fighting against but I’ll always come down harder on those professing moral superiority and failing to deliver. At that point we find ourselves in the very same gutter and we must always be better.

The News Today, Today

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While looking for something to write about I stumbled upon an article describing a very recent fight between the Indian and Chinese armies on the border in the Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas. While border squabbles happen quite often in that part of the world, be it with India and Pakistan, India and China or China and seemingly every neighbour they have disputed borders with; this one raised a few eyebrows. While versions of events seem to differ with which nation is recounting the story, it does seem twenty Indian soldiers and an as yet unspecified number of Chinese soldiers – forty according to the Indians – were killed in the fighting. While both sides have tried to play it down, certain quite shocking details have still been released. On this border they have since 1996 agreed that there will be a two kilometre ‘no gun zone’ either side of the border which means these soldiers fought hand to hand combat. According to an Indian official fifty-five Indian soldiers with nothing but bare hands faced off against a three hundred strong Chinese “Death Squad” armed with metal bats wrapped with barbed wire. Some were beaten to death while others died from drowning in the river after falling or being push in. This all just seems completely remarkable and in a perverse kind of way; comic. To keep the border from being a flash point they remove guns but come armed with metal bats. Perhaps it’s not just the guns that are the issue here.

The second story I came across is less brutal for sure and is about Elon Musk’s quest for world domination, or at east in the realms of batteries that he operates in. Apparently he has invented or is close to inventing a game changing battery that will render the combustion engine the equivalent of film cameras in the age of digital technology. When put like that it actually sounds feasible, it’s amazing how the mind works. This will be a great step on the journey to save the world from runaway climate change. The article thankfully mentioned the ethical reality of lithium mines in South America and cobalt in Congolese mines renowned for the use of child labour. Bolivia which recently was taken over in a right-wing coup, coincidentally has vast reserves of lithium which Evo Morales didn’t make freely available to foreign corporations but perhaps that’s for another time, and I heard recently Afghanistan has such vast reserves it’s being viewed as the Saudi Arabia of lithium, lucky Afghanistan. There’s just something demoralising about us celebrating the movement away from fossil fuels to another finite natural resource. The long term implications may be unclear but it’s as if we haven’t learnt anything. It’ll also be interesting to see if we start using less fossil fuels in the world economy or this use of ‘green’ energy is just supplementing our increased energy consumption. There is certainly much evidence to suggest this is the case.

Marcus The Man

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Footballers have a reasonably well known reputation for being a bit thick. This is probably a little unfair and is as much down to being constantly under a media fuelled microscope. At any opportunity they’re straight on the front page; from Gazza being a drunkard, Rooney sleeping with prostitutes who happen to be grandmas, Raheem Sterling getting a misunderstood tattoo, Cantona fighting xenophobic racists and David Beckham’s new haircut. There are an infinite number of examples but these are the ones which spring to mind immediately and which also probably show my age. If you take any spectrum of society and put it in the spotlight for long enough you’ll get exciting stories you can smuggly judge them over while feeling morally superior. It just so appears though that one of them has gone and reversed the trend.

Marcus Rashford, the Manchester United and England striker, has used his fame to pressure the government into fulfilling their end of the social contract and feeding the 1.3 million children on free school meal vouchers. Ordinarily they would stop as term time ended but with the unprecedented events relating to the coronavirus this year there have been calls for the scheme to extend throughout the six weeks of summer holiday too, as will be happening in Scotland and Wales. The government initially rejected his call, with some MPs putting their rather callous foot in it, but with widespread coverage of his request over the last twenty four hours they’ve been forced to back down and make a u-turn. There’s nothing politicians like less than admitting they were wrong and being forced to change their mind.

They claimed they had already put aside £63 million to help poor families and that this would be sufficient. Providing free school meals over the summer will cost another £120 million, at £15 per week per child, which dwarfs the previously allotted money. Now either they’ve drastically underestimated the number of children living in poverty or the £63 million was insufficient and nothing more than a token gesture for appearances sake. Why they were willing to take on a hero in the eyes of many on this is anyone’s guess, but they did and they lost. This isn’t the first time a footballer has used his position to try and achieve something positive but it is the first time I can think of that the end result has been so positive and will help so many people. I can imagine there’ll be a few more kids wanting to play as Rashford in the park from now on.

Mainstream Medipulation

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Apparently according to the spell check I’ve just invented a new word. Whether that’s true or not is impossible to know but I’ll enjoy the moment non-the-less. I stumbled upon the most remarkable story of mainstream media skullduggery today. It was a story about Fox News adding two photoshopped images to a article about the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle (CHAZ). The CHAZ is an autonomous zone taken by protesters in the city which has drawn the ire and threats of Donald Trump to which the local Mayor has suggested they’re doing nothing wrong. Apparently they’re “ugly Anarchists”, he’s a bizarre man. The article then was attempting to discredit the autonomous zone with Fox News uploading these heavily edited images.

It is hard to believe that someone in a highly paid and responsible position in the Fox News studio looked at that image and thought it would acceptably pass scrutiny. It looks like I have attempted to edit it and I can’t edit. They’ve just clumsily stuck the gunman right on top of an image of the zone. It’s like they’ve not even tried.

This second image was from riots in the city at the end of May which had nothing to do with and was before the CHAZ existed. It is also incredibly lazy, they haven’t even got the proportions right. They attached images of burning vehicles too as you can see at the top of this article. For the sake of accuracy it’s just unfortunate that this particular image was from a riot in Minnesota.

It’s probably not worth getting into one about how full of shit the media are. That’s established. What makes this event worthwhile is how little effort they feel they need to put in. This isn’t just lazy, they don’t even need to care about keeping any pretence of accuracy. Yes they deleted it once awareness of it had been raised but they were still willing to put it out in the first place. Is it an indictment of them or does it suggest they haven’t the most discerning of subscribers. It is very hard to change the window you see society and the media through when you come across these kinds of images. They speak a thousand words. It all just seems so corrupt to the core. But you don’t need me to say it, just take one look at that attempt at news.

Modern Morality & Historical Identity

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There is a common theme running through our historical education at school. It is usually the simple narrative that supports our national identity and message; that we as a country haven’t really done much wrong. We learn about the two World Wars from the British perspective, the industrial revolution, The Soviet Union and never in a favourable way and sometimes the Napoleonic Wars but are taught about it and him from a very different angle than the French are. Which means every country does it and that is why this isn’t a piece bashing the UK and suggesting we’re wrong in a world of right. There is currently much discussion about Churchill or the philanthropic slave trader Edward Colston and we as a populace are being forced to explore their roles in our national identity with a different set of eyes. This can only be a good thing because to describe someone such as Churchill as the greatest Briton of all time must only ever sugar coat the actions he took that led to people suffering. Equally not everything he did was bad so it’s important to examine him and his legacy from all angles and in a fair way. We live in an age of trial by social media but once the furore dies down I suspect their will be a few historic individuals with slightly different identities than before.

We are re-addressing our own history then and as long as that’s not with corrupted intentions it can only ever be a good thing. It is important to realise though that we are doing so with our modern take on morality and while it doesn’t absolve people of their wrongs it is still important to take into consideration the times in which they lived. That doesn’t entirely excuse them of course because there are plenty of examples of people in their time expressing beliefs more attuned to our contemporary ideals. Slave traders can not be excused when there are so many examples of people trying to eradicate the practice at the time for example. It can be used by apologists as an excuse but it is important to remember that we are viewing a different time when trying to understand previous takes on racism, sexism and power.

Which begs the question of whether we need to take into consideration how future generations may view us now. Will they understand our actions on race, sex, religion or economic productivity and think us simply abhorrent. On the other hand will they view all religion as abhorrent. I have called people fascists in the past in a derogatory way but had historical events turned out differently that word would have a different meaning. Ultimately we have no idea how our societies and our moralities will evolve and how we will be viewed in the future but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it into consideration. Our behaviour in combating climate change is one such example. If we carry on like this I suspect it’ll be pretty clear how we’ll be viewed. It could be argued this will tie in with whether we manage to overcome neoliberal capitalism and what kind of society we manage to create in the next fifty years. It is easy to criticise people from the past and sometimes rightly so but it’s important now in understanding our own actions that one day we too will be someones past.

Let’s Dance

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Today got a little tetchy then. It seems like the far-right turned out to defend memorials, fight and prove something. I thought it might kick off this weekend, admittedly it’s still only Saturday so plenty of time, but I never thought right wing knuckle draggers would be the ones to do it. I’m quite pleased they did actually because it only makes them look bad and strengthens the moral arguments of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as other anti-racist groups. These people have gone out onto the street to defend memorials, got drunk and kicked off. I don’t know if they planned on kicking off in advance, there is talk of it being discussed on message boards, or if the alcohol took over. I have to be careful here though because there have been times I’ve defended violence from anti racists and anti fascists, and while I see a difference it’s possible that difference only exists in my mind because of the prism I like to view the world through. I’m sure there will be elements of the media who will try to portray it as such but is it the same.

I have mentioned that you risk losing the moral high ground when you commit violence in certain situations. This doesn’t necessarily mean I think anarchists throwing petrol bombs at riot police is morally wrong but certainly it can be spun that way by the media and lead the average person to see it as wrong. Yet I don’t condone these thugs behaving as they did today. I guess we need to try and understand why they were really there and what their aim was. I know why anarchists do it but I’m not quite sure why groups like Britain First and The English Defence League do, or why they really do. They suggest they are defending British or English culture but in reality I don’t know what that means beyond white protestants, which is not the entirety of British culture. If the anarchists intention is ultimately to liberate people these people are about subjugating them. How can you argue that with any moral validity. There were apparently a few Nazi salutes done when defending the Churchill statue which suggests they miss the point and have no actual idea who Churchill was and why he is revered. Football firms apparently came together and clashed with police which would suggest the intention was violence. I just don’t get what they were trying to achieve and I’m trying not to be a patronising arsehole who thinks he’s better than others but I suspect I’m also overthinking their thinking.

There has been a lot said about these protests being born in the perfect moment as everyone looks for something to do after being confined for so long. I don’t doubt there is sincerity behind these anti-racist protests but it’s possible there is such interest and energy because of what has happened over these last three months. Why would it not be exactly the same with the far-right. They feel they have an excuse to be outraged and they’re being outraged in the only way they know how. Perhaps that is why they behaved as they did, they don’t know any other way. If violence has solved everything before why would you try a different approach. But maybe I’m overthinking all of this, maybe I’m giving them too much credit.

Perhaps they’re just angry, ignorant and bored, add alcohol to the mix and it’s the perfect storm. But that could be underestimating them and that’s very risky. So no answers then. Not unless I’m willing to suggest they have an argument based on anything credible. If an idea is so flawed it’s impossible to debate constructively with; then it’s not an argument and their actions are not based upon anything defensible. They become the indefensible. Well it was hardly going to turn out any other way here let’s be honest.

The Failed Individual

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I’m going to expose my lack of knowledge when it comes to social media and / or computers. I just watched this video on Facebook and attempted to somehow download it to put up on here. I have done this before with YouTube but clearly it’s beyond me with Facebook so please click on the link and watch the three minute video before reading ahead.

There is a lot online at the moment about police violence or things of that ilk and this video is attempting portray an American police officer over stepping the mark, or at least in this case attempting to. He is trying to get a driver who he has pulled over for speeding to step out of his car. The driver doesn’t want to and is telling him to just fine him and let him go on his way. The video is only three minutes long so we have no idea what happened prior to this recording or after when some other officers turn up. He first threatens to pepper spray him for not getting out the vehicle but in a comedic way his pepper spray is empty at which point he takes a hold of his taser. He suggests he wants him to step out of the vehicle because he is concerned for his safety. If you have watched the video then this paragraph was pointless but humour me.

This might sound counter intuitive but I actually feel a little sorry for the police officer. Yes don’t get me wrong he is clearly not handling the situation well but he’s also clearly not suited to the task he is attempting to carry out. He has no authority in a job which demands above all else authority. He is clearly either nervous, scared or simply not suitable. And that’s what I want to focus on. This man is not suited to the job he is trying to carry out. Now that could mean the job itself makes demands of people that rely on authoritative bullying, but somewhere down the line they have employed and trained this man who should not be doing a job which can lead to situations which result in potentially killing someone. One day either he will be killed or he will fuck up and kill someone. For me, he as a human being has been failed by a police force and a crumbling system, which has allowed someone clearly dangerously unsuitable to find himself in a situation above his head. He may not be a victim on par with or in the style of George Floyd but it’s important to recognise it is this kind of thing too which highlights a corrupt and failed state and it’s institutions. Thankfully this movement isn’t just focusing on the individual, people are seeing the bigger picture, but it’s also important to see the human being too even when he is being a dick.