Mr Brown said his mind was open on the Gurkha issue, but that he was unable to meet their demands because there were public expenditure issues to consider.
For anyone whose life, or whose nearest and dearest’s lives have been harmed or ended by the diamond-hard accretion of everything moral relativist, culturally Marxist, multicultural and inbred-secretive-bureaucratic that is contemporary social work and ancillary trades, or whose children’s’ educations have been disrupted or ruined, or who have been personally mugged or robbed or who have lost friends and relations to the depredations of social work’s end-product, we present:
Social Schadenfreude Three: The Revenge.
Community Care's campaign to protect the social work profession from media distortion
We at The Social Workers’ Anti-Defamation League do not believe that this article goes far enough, and so we have suggested some improvements and intensifications.
The great work…
.
Wasn’t that what they used to call alchemy? And how true a metaphor for our beloved profession – nay; our destiny – to turn the base metal of a randomly evolved humanity long imprisoned by oppressive and illogical laws into the gold of rational (Wo)Man
...of most social workers goes unrecognised while the profession gets pilloried
‘Pilloried’ actually refers to the Mediaeval process whereby individuals who have been tried and convicted of harming their fellow humans or their property were exposed to brief periods of public humiliation, insult, and sometimes having of rotten thrown fruit at them.
This was a procedure based upon the utterly false superstition (now entirely discredited by the pioneers of modern social work theory) that human beings possess sense organs with which they can perceive pain, loud noises, and discomfort. The folly was further compounded by the insane notion that Homo Sapiens Sapiens is equipped with a faculty called ‘memory’, whereby previous experiences can be recalled to mind at ‘will.’ (As if ‘will’ was anything other than a social construct that disguises the complete subjection of human consciousness and behaviour to environmental stimuli such as economic relations and power structures, theoppressiveness of family or other tribal structures such as nationality, and to xenophobic, sexist, imperialist and violent belief systems, except for Islam.) The madness continued in that it was felt - for centuries without number - that once pain, discomfort, or humiliation had been inflicted on some so-called malefactor, then whilst contemplating an act of challenge against outdated cultural norms such as ‘respect’ for the lives, health and property of others,they might recall the stimuli and somehow ‘reason’ that further testing of said norms might be followed by additional ‘punishment’, and therefore desist from acting freely as their natural feelings prompted.
It is impossible to exaggerate the harm that such primitive theories of ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘crime’ and ‘punishment’ have inflicted upon an innocent and blameless humanity and its individual members’ natural and healthy attempts to enjoy all of the activities and experiences that their instincts and emotions prompt them to pursue.
If social work’s mission is anything - and it is everything; everything! - it is to consign forever all of these Stone Age fetishes of ‘morality,’ ‘property,’ and ‘free will’ into the recycling box of Social Studies.
…in the media for its mistakes. The campaign to reverse this starts here
For too long, media coverage of social work has been hostile, inaccurate, misleading - or completely absent. Social work is often treated as a second class profession in news reports and much of the press focuses disproportionately on child protection,
‘Child protection.’ How redolent that is of the Victorian morality and hypocrisy that we social workers are dedicated to eradicating.
In their ignorance and phallocentric paternalism, the bourgeois Victorians imposed an ‘age of consent’ law which was aimed especially at girls – in typical sexist fashion. This atrocity asserted that young people were somehow unfit to judge for themselves when they might start to experiment with sexual activity or to decide when they were ready to become sex workers.
Imagine the guilt that adults who were accustomed to co-operating with youngsters’ natural urge to discover what their bodies could do now felt! For a century and more, caring and responsible adults and teenagers have been persecuted by an oppressive and ignorant state for their relationships with children, and it is only in recent years that social workers and like-minded professionals have been able to influence the courts and lawmakers to ease restrictions and to lighten or avoid sanctions based upon the false distinctions around adolescent and pre-adolescent sexuality.
leaving other aspects of children's and adults' services invisible.
Such as protecting children from oppressive social structures and inappropriate environments such as Christian families or the nuclear-marital home. Our profession has made great progress in influencing family law to prefer enlightened and progressive child-rearing away from these perilous backgrounds.
Portrayals of social workers in the wider media, such as TV shows, also often pander to an inaccurate stereotype - storylines perpetuate myths about social workers and fail to reflect the fact that many clients say they have a positive experience of social workers.
Here are some particularly insulting and misleading examples of how extreme examples of our work is vilified by self-appointed and unqualified investigations in the capitalist media.
This type of coverage, together with generally low levels of awareness about what social workers do, leads to a low public opinion of them. Such attitudes damage the profession's credibility in the eyes of service users and other professions, make it difficult to keep hold of experienced staff and find new recruits, and ultimately put vulnerable children and adults at risk.
You have told Community Care that enough is enough – and we agree. For the past two months we have been calling on The Sun to improve its coverage of social work issues and now we are launching our Stand Up Now for Social Work campaign.
Furthermore, we at SWADL insist on the banning of provocative and misleading ‘journalism’ such as the following;
…the social services sent out a social worker from her own community. He chose not to believe Hannah and, in effect, shopped her to her father, who gave her the most brutal beating of her life.
And…..But the problem is bigger than one paper and so is our campaign. We are reaching out to the media as a whole - and to government and social work leaders - in a bid to curb inaccurate and misleading reporting and promote social work's success stories.Community Care spoke out in 2006 in its Stand Up for Social Care campaign, when social work was under threat as traditional social work departments were disbanded and social care was increasingly becoming an after-thought rather than an integral part of public policy. Today that threat to the profession continues - in the form of unfair portrayals in the media and subsequent low public opinion. Once again we are taking a stand. Join us and Stand up Now for Social Work.To achieve our demands (above) we are calling on:● The media to portray social work in an accurate and balanced way, be accountable for the information they provide, and agree and adhere to guidelines for reporting on social work● The government to do more to support and promote respect and positive images to enhance the professional standing of social work, as it has done for teachers.● Social services departments and councils to improve their media skills to help improve their responses to the press in times of crisis and increase opportunities for positive coverage.What Community Care will do In the next few weeks we will publish articles in the magazine and online, run special podcasts and videos on our website, and lobby the media and politicians. Our plans include:● Protesting against the Press Gazette's decision to shortlist The Sun's Baby P campaign for the best editorial campaign of the year accolade in the newspaper's British Press Awards.● Holding the media to account by highlighting good and bad coverage of social work.● Drawing up guidelines to advise journalists and the wider media about what social workers do and how to accurately portray the profession.● Promoting positive stories about social workers and the difference they make to people's lives, and highlighting positive social work role models.● Demanding that government offers more support to the profession. ● Continuing to collect more signatures to our petition and parliamentary motion calling for better media coverage of social work blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Oh sod it. It’s not funny.
North Northwester here.
You know what? I reckon that social work is indeed hard, demanding and exhausting work – way and above more harrowing than my own experiences in the education system and the welfare benefits world where the everyday stories you hear are heartbreaking enough. I know that people in those trades lose sleep and obsess and worry at home and go to work and serve way beyond their job descriptions to help their fellow human beings.
Social work can be and should be and sometimes is painstakingly undertaken by thoroughgoing professionals… I guess.
Not that I’ve seen it - you understand – ever. But as I know that there are great teachers out there and benefits bods who aren’t insane tax-fountains raring to let illegal immigrants impregnate teenagers in exchange for six bed roomed mansions…I’ll assume that some, and maybe many, social workers have a grip on reality and are making furious efforts not to allow the repetition of the mistakes and hideous negligence above.
But.
Just point me to the root-and-branch humility and top-down professional self-criticism in social work about this lot. You get it from police after they’ve gone over the top or just failed – and they got lumbered with the McPherson Report. Where’s the verdict of ‘institutional doziness?’ Where the hell is it?
Vampire menace deniers are "ridiculous" and akin to "flat-earthers", according to Sir Abraham Van Helsing, who advised the government about the supernatural threat posed by teenage virginity. The respected economist compared vampirism naysayers to those who deny the link between smoking and cancer or HIV and Aids in the face of mounting scientific evidence.
Van Helsing — who prepared his influential report to the UK Treasury in 2007 at Gordon Brown's request — said the evidence that virginity-induced vampire menace was occurring was "crystal clear".
"If you look at all the serious theologians in the world, there is no big disagreement on the basics of this ... it would be absolute lunacy to act as if vampire menace is not occurring," he said.
His comments came in response to news that the Czech president Václav Klaus would this week attend a New York conference of vampire menace naysayers from around the world. Van Helsing said Klaus was "totally confused on this issue" and liked to "gather rather confused people around him".
The US-based Heartland Institute, which had been funded by The Girl Guides until 2006, launched its gathering of more than 70 participants in an event entitled ‘Vampire invasion: Was it ever really a crisis?'
Lord Van Helsing addressed a large conference in London yesterday, organised by the Department for Eternal Defence, where he said the battle against virginity and the management of the vampire menace were the "two great challenges of the 21st century".
"We know that the virgin population rates are rising. And we know the [global] death rate is rising. We can look back through burial data and see over 800,000 years, relationships between numbers of teenage virgins and the death rates of the world," he told the Durngaia.
"So those people who deny the importance of vampire menace are just wasting their time. They're also being diversionary because if we don't act the risks are enormous."
Asked if the public debate on the issue was being won, he said: "Those who say that vampire menace doesn't exist are being understood as the flat-earthers that they are, as the people who deny the link between smoking and cancer, as the people who denied the link between HIV and AIDS.
"They are marginal and they are ridiculous. And they are very confused."
He admitted that while some time still had to be spent dealing with "the silly arguments that [deniers] put", discussions around the world had moved on and were focused on the details of "reducing teenage virginity and managing the impact of the vampire menace".
His comments will be bolstered this week by President Barack Obama's directive that American government agencies should pick advisers based on expertise, not political ideology. The move was hailed by theologians who felt the previous administration had filled agencies with supporters who shared George Bush's scepticism about the vampire menace.
In 2007 a US committee on oversight and government reform published a report documenting systematic efforts "to censor theologians by controlling their access to the press and editing testimony to Congress" by the Bush administration.
Just in case you were afraid our taxes weren’t being spent on generating wealth and getting the economy back on track, this ad is from the Times. I just love that last slogan.
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You’ll lead and manage all aspects of business in the Area, delivering the Environment Agency’s business plan at a local level. With 300 staff to lead and inspire, you’ll help shape necessary change and ensure we meet the needs of our citizens and customers.
Embracing our vision of creating a better place, you’ll have proven experience of operational leadership within a diverse organisation. You’ll be ready to delegate, but equally ready to manage a large budget, spending it wisely to deliver maximum impact for every pound. This is about turning strategy into action. Considering our work, an understanding of environmental issues is essential, but you will also need the ability to motivate and guide a large team to deliver results.
For more information and to apply please visit www.environment-agency.gov.uk/jobs Alternatively, please call 0845 601 2233 or email jobs@environment-agency.gov.uk quoting reference 14013 for an application pack.
If you are a disabled applicant meeting the minimum criteria, we will guarantee you an interview.
To quote Julia, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at this.
The piece of ‘journalism’ itself, and the ventriloquist dummy statements from the politicos concerned. Oh, and the comments….
And the elephants in the room in are reading between the lines, casting the runes, and generally examining any crystal balls that might be going. But what does it all mean?...Now read on, dear surfer…
Lancashire County Council suspensions: Email 'linked to Gaza conflict'
You’re going to love – and I do mean love – that journalist’s surname. Any time…
...Now. THE email which led to the suspension of 14 Lancashire County Council staff is believed to have compared the Israeli occupation of Palestine to Nazi Germany.
Israel? Palestine? Nazis? Which race can possibly be involved?
It is understood to contain images from Nazi concentration camps alongside graphic pictures said to have come from Palestine.
I like that cautious, measured and skeptical ‘said to have come’, but can’t help noticing the casual fait accompli of the ‘Palestine,’ though.
Still, that’s a small thing in a 'profession' that has spent fifty years referring to a speech that did not contain the phrase ‘rivers of blood' as The Notorious Rivers Of Blood Speech.
The email is said to urge the reader to 'show the world the true face of this murderous state'.
Who, oh who, might be responsible for such strange and, one might suggest tasteless juxtaposition? Perhaps The Lancashire Telegraph had a clue?
On Monday, the Lancashire Telegraph exclusively revealed how county bosses had suspended the staff after launching an investigation.
Did The Lancashire Telegraph reveal, exclusively or otherwise our email Photoshop , um, graphic artists? Tasteless cartoonists, one is almost tempted to say, for some reason one can’t quite define…
The staff, who work in different departments across County Hall,
So they’re diverse right from the start, which has got to be good, right?
…were suspended on Thursday ahead of disciplinary proceedings and could be sacked if found guilty of gross misconduct.
One of the worker's suspended…
Remember the strict fact-checking typical of the mainstream media which puts it way above the amateurish and slapdash blogosphere? Not to mention qualified journalists being dab hands at spell-checking and punctuation?
…has told the Lancashire Telegraph of her shock at the action taken against her.
The worker, who declined to be named,
But I’m prepared to bet she isn’t called Sharon McPherson…
Actually, alas, she may be. There are all-to-many Sharon McPhersons in this world willing to go along with whatever alleged racism it is if you compare Nazi Germany with whoever in Israel it’s possible to be racist about.
said: "At the time of the Gaza conflict everyone was receiving emails left, right and centre.
"Yes, they shouldn't have been sent to my work email, but there was nothing in them that was racist.
"I am not a racist person. I only heard that it was racist when I read the paper and heard it on the news.
Well that’s what the paper and the news do, see? They find out the truth about stuff - even stuff about you yourself that even you don’t know to be true, yeah? They supply all the details, all the facts, all the context. Like here.
"There are a lot of people who we work with in my department who receive explicit emails and pictures which I may consider offensive but they have not been suspended.
"I was very, very shocked as I do not consider myself as a racist person.
Me neither, love, but you should’ve seen what they printed about me at university for criticizing the PLO.
"If it was a racist or offensive the computer system would have blocked the email and I would have denied me access to it.
Such faith in technology has she, young Obi Wan. But hasty is she, and foolish.
And the joke is, she really means it. She really thinks that there’s some marvellous programme written in Brixton or San Francisco or somewhere that can be put into your IT and which can find all types of racism – even if you don’t use the Bad Words. And you can tell she’s grateful for it. I really think she actually wants to live in a world where ’racist’ information can be located and blocked and denied access to.
This is Very Old Labour’s Lancashire’s County Hall, dear friends; not the Libertarian Party or something.
"Emails with anything offensive on them never slip through the barrier at Lancashire County Council."
None shall pass! Call Neo and Trinity, for it seems the Matrix has re-emerged triumphant.
County Hall bosses have declined to reveal how the offensive content came to their attention.
All staff emails use a filter system which can detect offensive language.
But I’m betting that ‘zionist’ ‘apes’ and ‘dogs’ didn’t make the final cut, huh? What about ‘Tories?’ when referring to a party that’s been called Conservative for 150 years?
The suspended staff could be sacked if found to have committed gross misconduct.
Some workers are being represented by Unison, the largest union at the council.
I know: I just know without being told, that something stupid is about to be said…
Regional rep Jim Moodie said: "We are aware that three or four of our members have been affected by this.
"We have said we will represent them with regard to any allegations but we are not aware of the specific details yet."
Well, that’s probably because specific facts seem to be in such short supply at County Hall this year.
It must take years to produce an incisive intelligence like Mister Moodie’s.
Generations, even. What a cosy home life he must have up there in the backwoods country of Lancashire: sitting in the old homestead, plucking along in his family’s banjo orchestra alongside all his cousins and both his grandparents…
The police are not involved in the investigation.
Oh, so it’s that uncriminal sort of racism, if any. Hardly racism at all, really. Not the sort that requires massive police presence, local government investigation and children being interviewed and casework being set up. I don’t think that any naming and shaming will be forthcoming, as DJ pointed out in his scoop about this one.
In a letter sent to councillors, chief executive Ged Fitzgerald said the staff had been suspended for “inappropriate email use” and promised a “thorough and formal investigation”.
He warned members that “investigations of this nature may result in disciplinary action or in some cases termination of employment” and added: “I am sure you will understand the need for us to adopt a stringent approach to this issue.”
Well, yes, racism’s about as bad as it can get. There are simply some ideas and opinions that just can’t be tolerated. This is Lancashire after all, where Marx first met Engels, and no harm ever came from their ideas and opinions.
The suspensions were normal HR practice for such serious incidents, he added.
Council leader Hazel Harding said: “We have a code of conduct for anyone who uses our email systems and we take it very seriously.”
Les Parker, a Unite union rep, said: “I have been here for 40-odd years, and I have never seen anything like this number of people suspended in one go.
“Usually it’s one person or maybe two, never ever in the teens like this.
"For this to have happened it’s got to be serious.
Labour county councillor Terry Burns, who represents Burnley North East, said: “We have a very strict policy on emails, and all the staff know about it.”
Lib Dem group leader David Whipp said: “I am concerned that something like this is happening with public employees.”
So my public employee boss can get away with dropping little gems into his casual conversation as ‘Whose idea was this? Some nob of a Tory, I suppose?’ over some unLeftie aspect of Mister Blair’s home justice policy, and can escape unscathed after repeatedly celebrating Mrs. Thatcher’s death with gleeful anticipation, and all but weeps about Hillsborough and will brook no questioning of The Line, but some delicate sensitivities must be treated more fairly, or indeed not named at all…
Lancashire Council of Mosques senior vice chairman Salim Mulla said his group had been in contact with County Hall relating to the suspensions.
Whoa! Hang on a minute! What the heck’s going on here? What on Earth has any of this got to do with religion? Did I miss something in the finely-balanced journalism and facts-feast that is this story?
He said: “I believe it was an exchange of views on the Israeli Palestine situation.
“Lancashire County Council should be sensible in dealing with these issues.
I wonder how ‘sensible’ is defined in this context, and how, precisely, it differs from ‘Muslims can’t be racist so don’t even think about it, buster?’
Of course, it would be unjust to tar all Muslims and all their criticisms of Israeli conduct with the same Islamo-fascist brush. Most of them are just trying to get by in life and paying back the tax burden that we now all owe to the government unto the twentieth generation, and aren’t interested in the politics of the Middle East at all. (And I write this here despite being known and feared throughout the Islamist world as the dreaded and crusading Khali men al rasas.*)
Still and all I can’t help wondering if in some funny sort of way the brush itself might be under attack here.
"In any organisation you get emails that do not relate to the job, and to suspend people for it sends out the wrong message.”
Unlike a message that implies or states that Jews are Nazis, that is.
It’s so difficult to know where to start on this one because it’s such a fouled-up mess that typifies so much that‘s wrong with Britain. That it’s happening in my neck of the woods is doubly vexing.
The pussy-footing around the issue of Islamist anti-Semitism might be a subtle and responsible way of protecting the Muslim community, and trying to prevent inter-racial violence between ‘Asians’ and others. But this in itself begs the question of who would fear violence, and what evidence would a responsible journalist be working with that violence might follow?
Well, quite: lots and lots, actually.
So the first elephant in the room is Islamist violence and intimidation – its constant threat to native white population and the law-abiding majority of Muslims who’ll suffer if the large minority of hot-heads decides to kick off.
And there’s the fact-free journalism typical of the mainstream media; perhaps intimidated and self-censoring due to aforementioned Islamist violence or Political Correctness. In which cases, what and who is this Jimmy Olsen look-alike protecting?
Come on Mister Moseley, isn’t there anything you can write to contextualize any of this?
Then there’s the racism-as-satanism meme that Left-wing councils maintain as an alternative to free speech – free speech that might continue to articulate the utter failure of socialism as a source or preserver of human happiness and decency. Leftism sucks, but fortunately its supporters’ disasters in the economic, moral, and legal spheres can be forgotten if we all join hands to face the common foe of racism stalking our land and poisoning its institutions; stealing our jobs and women, and threatening our precious bodily fluids.
Then there’s the witch-hunt itself: the power and intrusiveness being used and the assumption that monitoring and controlling peoples’ private thoughts and feelings is an okay thing for local government to do to its employees.
Don’t get me wrong, I can understand a responsible public body wanting to keep its internal email use responsible and professional, and agree that it should do so. And in no way do I endorse Islamist anti-Semitism, but still, is there any chance at all that the language of emails regarding strikes and party politics would be investigated at all let alone with anything like this vigour? Describing conservatives as baby-killing fascists is the Marxian Left’s long-term moral goal here. Today this is ‘good power’ by my lights but next time it could be me emailing this very post home to publish it who gets investigated.
What’s all this aboot Iran, Mister Anderson?
But the last elephant; and the really nice elephant that I’m sure I want to celebrate here, is that someone in County Hall’s been forced to acknowledge the possibility of some connection between the defamation of Israel’s self-defence (which is intended to prevent the genocide of the Middle East’s Jews) with racism. The defamers’ ideological soul mates are the Islamist terrorists, as well, so this could be a national security measure, don’t forget. And they’re doing something pretty big about it.
