Garry Smith – Page 11 – Conflict Manager

Teaching Self-Defense in the Face of Domestic Violence Part I – Tammy Yard McCracken

As a topic, Domestic Violence is complex. There is a multitude of research on the causes, the correlations and intervention strategies aimed at reducing the incidence of domestic violence. In the United States, for example, statisticians generally settle on 1 in 3 women will experience some sort of domestic violence in their lifetime. This is an unsettling statistic and has driven funding and research for decades. Add to this, 1 in 10 female homicide victims are murdered by someone known the them, frequently by a former or current domestic partner. These stats are generated by a variety of sources and the numbers do vary. Do not take them as solid numbers but rather as a context for the prevalence of the dynamic.

It is also important to shift the numbers out of a statistical context and into the reality of people. The next time you are out in public, look for three women. By the numbers, one of these three is in a domestically violent relationship. If there are six women in the group, two of them are being abused by their partners, etc. Put real people to the numbers and the gravitas shifts.

This will be a two-part article series and is the product of conversations I have had with self-defense instructors from different parts of the globe over the past few years. The question comes up: how do I handle a student in a domestic violence situation?

I am glad the question is being asked because what lives under the question in many of the instructors I have talked with is an instinct that the instructor should be doing something to help her.

-Note: I am using the feminine pronoun for ease of writing. This does not negate that there are men in domestic violence situations but instead reflects the provenance in women is significantly higher based on what is reported.

To get started, we need to look at why domestic violence is the cycle that it is. The abuser lashes out, she gets hit/beaten, etc. In the aftermath the abuser expresses remorse – which does not always mean accepting responsibility – the couple puts the violence behind them and then the gradual tension begins again until there is another physical outburst. Even if she leaves, she typically comes home in the remorse stage.

Our discussion of why this happens is going to be a short and, as a result, an incomplete review. There are entire books written on just this piece of the topic. Here we go:

As humans, we are deeply social creatures. It is part of our survival blueprint. In hostile territory a single human’s survival chances are questionable. With a tribe, survival chances increase. For the individual to survive, the tribe must survive. The family unit is interpreted by primitive brain function as our current concept of tribe. Add to this, the social and cultural ideas of family structure, which are equally powerful and programmed into our thinking from birth. This is the concept of the Monkey Brain.

Instability in our tribe is interpreted as a threat. Remember, if the tribe doesn’t survive – you die. If the tribe is unstable or at risk of falling apart, then your survival is threatened. These perceptions are deeply unconscious and primitive. Logic based conversation will rarely be enough to overpower these instincts.

All of this adds up to two things.

The pattern of domestic violence becomes one of the defining scripts of the relationship. As the cycle continues, the Monkey Brain see this as stability. “My tribe is stable; therefore, it will survive. Tribe survives, I survive.”
2. Leaving means the tribe is no longer stable. The family disintegrates = the tribe disintegrates and this feels like a powerful threat to personal survival.

Logically, we all know this doesn’t make sense. Domestic violence can be fatal. It is clear the abuse is a direct threat to the physical well-being of the victim.

BUT…and this is a very powerful and important “but”… the Monkey Brain and the more primitive survival mechanisms see the pattern rather than the physical violence. The pattern indicates that whatever the victim of domestic violence is doing, it is working exceedingly well.

How? Simple. Each time there is a physical altercation, a slap, a beating, the primitive survival mechanism in her brain notices something very important “I am still alive. Whatever I did during this violence, it kept me alive.”

Being alive is more important than being injured. If the decision she is making gets her hurt but doesn’t kill her, the unconscious primitive mind will see this as a good decision and will work to have her repeat this choice in similar future events.

The pattern of domestic violence becomes a script defining stability and survival. Leaving and stopping the pattern is experienced as a powerful threat to survival.

So the pattern continues and for self-defense instructors, this pattern can be deeply frustrating. If you teach, you likely teach because you want to help people lead stronger, happier, healthier lives. You want people to find strength and the internal fortitude for liberty v. oppression. Knowing one of your students leaves class only to return home to a situation of violence and presumed oppression is vexing enough to keep you up at night.

Managing that is for article number two.

When We Were Warriors, Discovering the Samurai Spirit – Kevin O’Hagan

This new book from contributor Kevin O’Hagan is available via the CRGI Bookstore now.

‘Give me your money or I ll cut you’. I stared helplessly at the knife pressed to my belly. I was powerless to do anything and I hated myself for that. How I longed to have the courage and skills to fight this bully. This is the true story of Kevin O’Hagan told in his own words. A 7th Dan black belt in Combat Ju Jutsu. A man who has relentlessly dedicated 40 years of his life to the Martial Arts. He has trained, taught and fought to the top in his chosen field. He transformed himself from a small and insecure 14-year-old schoolboy born with a walking disability. A young man that lacked confidence and belief in himself, who feared and hated violence to one of today’s most respected Martial artists. A fanatical Martial Artist. An obsessive fitness junkie. A man who constantly challenged and punished himself through the tough Budo regimes of the fighting arts in his quest to become a true warrior and fight his fears. His story is bound to excite, inform, shock and inspire you. Share his highs and lows, his struggles and successes. Read about his battles to face and conquer his fears and his handicap. Find out about the immense struggles he faced in pursuing his dreams. Learn about his training, the old school regimes, the fights on the mats, in the cage and on the streets. Get a true insight into the characters and the tales from the mad, bad and crazy world of Martial Arts and its ever changing scene through 4 decades. This an insight into what makes a real warrior tick and how the lifestyle stretches well beyond the dojo or gym and becomes a code and blueprint for life in general. No punches are pulled in this candid and honest autiobiography. ‘The iron ore feels itself needlessly tortured as it goes through the furnace. The tempered blade looks back and knows better’.

Training and the Joy of Cake – Peter Jones

I attend seminars, lots of seminars. The first year of full time work, post-university, I estimate that I spent the equivalent of a month’s wage on seminars. I recent years I’ve become much more discerning over what seminars I attend. Seminars have to have value.

Value in terms of information learned, techniques practiced, principles absorbed, bruises earned. But there’s more to it than that. There’s the social aspect, friendships forged, laughs shared, stories swapped and deals made. And then there is cake.

Until recently I have found no pleasure in cooking, it was just a necessary chore. However, I love food, my abdomen gives evidence of that despite how much I train. I have great respect for those with the ability to create dishes that tempt the senses and pleasure the palate. I suppose I’ve just never had the time or inclination to get good at cooking and I was terminally uninspired by food preparation in school and at home. The food I create is bland and simple, but functional. I am a true product of university where beer is more important than nutrition and cutlery should not be necessary as we eat with one hand and scribble annotations to lecture notes with the other.

As an aside, and there is a link here, I’m also a Star Wars fan, I love Star Wars. The wise words of Master Yoda frequently feature into my dojo teachings and I’ve read too many of the novels to recount. So my best friend bought me the Star Wars Cookbook for my birthday one year. Yes, there’s a Star Wars Cookbook, two of them actually. Well being the man of manners that I am, if I am going to be bought such a thing then I am going to appreciate it. So, with trepidation I had a try of Wookiee Cookies. Like a kata, I copied the recipe precisely initially. Over time I’ve experimented. These cookies seem to have become a trademark of sorts. In the not-too-distant past my club held a first aid update day to which I brought some of these cookies. I recall vividly our teacher talking us through anaphylaxis whilst chomping on yet another cookie! I have to say I started to take pride and pleasure in my cookies and so my adventurousness began.

My current love is making cheesecake, chocolate orange cheesecake, Aero mint cheesecake, crème egg cheesecake. I’ve never had one fail, and I starting taking my cookies or my cheesecake to seminars. The third Bunkai Bash saw a bake-off of sorts and I would like to believe our respective deserts were the highlight of the visit for Kris Wilder from West Seatle Karate Academy.

or me, the social aspect is every bit as important as the training aspect of classes, seminars, camps and residential weekends. I have formed what I would like to believe is an extended family through different organisations and through meeting and training with fellow martial artists over an almost thirty-year plus period. Everybody brings something to the table, be it humour, experience, wisdom, knowledge, philosophy. Me, I bring cheesecake.

Creating these dishes is actually therapeutic, I enjoy doing them. I take pleasure in friends taking pleasure from them. I’m humbled at being asked specifically to bring my cakes to seminar. I’m gratified that they’re seen as part of the event. And after a day of training, sitting down and taking in guilt-free and gorgeous-tasting calories is therapeutic too.

Training should be a joy. Cake is a joy. Make cake part of your training!

Re-Thinking Resistance Part I- Rory Miller

Years ago I wrote an article, The Myth of the Fully Resisting Opponent (http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2009/09/myth-of-fully-resisting-opponent.html). In that article, I was ranting. Largely because the force I dealt with working the jail was so unrelated to what I saw or felt in sport. The most extreme full-contact combat sport was as close to a violent assault as non-contact sport sparring was to the most extreme full-contact combat sport. The article was a rant, and while it was pertinent and accurate, it wasn’t actually very useful.

In this article, I want to explore resistance, both in training and real life.

Any time you apply force, whether in practice or in danger, that force must overcome some level of resistance.

In training, those levels can be described as:

Cooperative
Compliant
Situational
Scaled
Directed
Sport
Specific

In real life, the resistance levels are:

Cooperative
Compliant
Undecided
Passive
Active
Assaultive
Lethal
Asymmetrical

Training Levels of Resistance

In training, the goal is to build skills. The level of resistance should be geared toward maximizing the learning process but can easily be perverted to manufacturing an illusory level of competence.

Cooperative Resistance.

The cooperative level isn’t a level of resistance at all. Almost the opposite. This is the student who throws himself. Or who stumbles back before the demo punch has even landed. This is the student who responds to the “no-touch knockout.”

I’m going to try hard not to talk about systems, styles or instructors here. Kicking over a tribal hornet’s nest is fun, but rarely (if ever) makes for good communication. I’ve seen an instructor teach his students that, “Your body knows that two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space, and so when I thrust my palm toward your face, your body has no choice but to fall.” His students would actually throw themselves onto their backs if faced with anything that looked like a palm heel strike. That technique worked on nobody except his own students.

I’ve seen students so damaged by previous instruction that they fell down before I had actually touched them.

Either the students are faking, or they are not. If the students are faking, it’s pretty dark stuff. The student has been taught that in order to get along, he or she must victimize themselves. The instructor applies the technique and the student responds though there is no reason. This prepares the student for failure and it allows the person who applies the technique as well as any observers to have a completely unfounded faith in the technique and the system.

If the student is not faking, it may be worse. It implies an extreme level of brainwashing. Brainwashing can be quick. The students who want “secrets” and “magic” are especially vulnerable and can be conditioned to fall in a matter of minutes.

This is an abomination. There is no learning advantage to this level of “resistance.”

Compliant Resistance.

Compliant resistance is simply going along with the technique. It has two good training purposes.

When a student is first learning a skill or technique, excessive resistance can convince them that a good technique doesn’t work. A good BJJ or judo partner must let a beginner get the armbar at first so that the beginner learns the flow of the technique. Same goes for a rookie officer learning a handcuffing technique.

This is appropriate at a very specific, early time in training. Once the technique is understood, resistance has to increase so that the rookie learns how to overcome resistance.

Compliant resistance becomes toxic when it spreads throughout the system. Let’s face it an instructor can look really good if he or she only works with compliant partners. Some instructors, consciously or not, start rewarding compliance and punishing resistance. Compliance can then quickly spread through a class or even an entire system. The system quickly becomes useless outside of that particular system.

Compliance is also appropriate when it becomes too late to resist safely. Resisting a throw after you are in the air and hurtling to the ground can result in serious injury (writes the man who dislocated his own shoulder to deny an opponent a point). This mostly applies to well-executed locks and throws and especially throws from locks.

It’s a safety rule and a good one. It doesn’t become toxic unless the students are told that all locks and throws are equally dangerous regardless of quality and they start practicing going along with even poor technique.

To be continued.

Knives, Accepted Wisdom, and Dueling – Terry Trahan

One of the greatest things about the internet and social media is the ability to see commonalities in thought, different peoples opinions, and where certain people and communities are coming from. Conversely, one of the worst things about the internet and social media is the same.

If you spend any amount of time cruising the “knife” pages on social media, you start to see a lot of assumptions, conclusions, and statements that are echoed without a lot of thought. This is not just confined to the knife world, martial arts, politics, and arts and crafts seem to suffer from the same thing, but since I’m a ‘knife guy’, I particularly see it in that area.

One of the assumptions and statements that seems to get repeated ad nauseam is the uselessness, or non-existence, of dueling in real world fights and knife encounters. We have even developed scientific sounding names for it. Symmetrical vs. Asymmetrical Engagement. Symmetrical is when both parties in the conflict are armed, usually equally, say with two butcher knives, but can also mean simply that both parties are armed, period. For example, I have witnessed or participated in fights where it was knife vs. hammer, shop rag vs. knife, chair vs. gun, baseball bat vs. knife, and several others in that vein.

Now, obviously, if our goal is to survive, we would like every fight to be asymmetrical in our favor. But, the great British sage Sir Mick of Jagger said it best, you can’t always get what you want. We have to deal with violence and reality as it is, not what we wish it to be. And this is where training in “useless” dueling can be very beneficial.

First, if you still don’t believe it is necessary, or that dueling really does not happen in real life, let me share a very unpleasant experience I had that shows reality is what it is, and doesn’t care if you believe it or not.

So, there I am sitting around the table in the bar, with the General Manager and two DJ’s, I was the Bouncer. Things had been tense, and getting worse, and this little meeting was called to try to air things out, and see if it could be calmed down. Some details. I never worked in fern bars or meet markets. I usually worked at topless bars, biker bars, or topless bars that were owned and run by bikers (1%ers, not RUBS) such as this bar. Meaning, some times negotiation really was at the pointy end. Violence was always considered a fair bargaining tactic, and it was getting very close to that in these discussions. So, as I said, the four of us were sitting there, and it is going past tense, to threatening. All the sudden, someone made a comment about the other ones Mom’s choice of species for a sexual partner. Not wise for negotiating, but prime Monkey Dance scripting. In response, before thinking could occur, we were all up, chairs knocked over, table shoved aside, and all four of us had our knives out, and taking sides. Sure sounds like a symmetrical, equal arms fight to me, how about you?

And if you’re curious, calmer heads prevailed, and nobody got hurt. Unfortunately, at the time, the calmer head wasn’t mine, wisdom would come much later.

Now, on the other side, it is very unusual in a criminal encounter (stick up, mugging, attempted kidnapping) to be able to draw your weapon in time, and this is where working and fighting to the draw, awareness, and all the rest comes into play.

But the point is, in a real fight, weird shit happens, and we need to, if we’re smart, plan for and train as much as we can, to address the variables that can occur.

Another aspect of training in a dueling capacity. In reality, what you are doing is training timing, perceptual speed, positioning, movement, and avoidance. You are also training to take a symmetrical engagement and flip it to an asymmetrical engagement in your favor. It is all in the way you categorize and conceptualize the training you are doing in your own head. If you don’t see the tools you are developing, you won’t know how or where to use them.

Violence is bigger than all of us, and it comes in a variety of flavors. Address as many aspects as you can in training, so you will be able to improvise in real life if you ever have to be in that situation. Don’t limit yourself to any one persons interpretation of violence. He has a piece of it, and so does she. As well, I have my own piece, as does that other guy. Try to learn from as many of them as possible, while making it your own, and researching the problem to be as realistic as possible.

One of the worst things about this line of thinking, especially considering we are dealing with life and death, and the possible death of you, is to use this kind of arguing and back and forth as a marketing tool. I’m sure you’ve seen it…”We only train in what works, there is no need to go out and train that other non-realistic crap, we have all the answers”… In a word, bullshit, you only have the answers to the questions you know. Nobody knows everything, and nobody can know everything. Don’t believe it. You can train in totally different things, you don’t have to limit yourself to one Poobahs way of doing things. In fact, I would advise against it. There is no place in life and death subject matter for cultish behavior or hero worship of a teacher. By doing that, you short change yourself, and are not learning a full picture.

The thing to watch for is how the training is presented and conducted. Skills must be taught in an isolated manner in order to learn them, but then that isolated skill needs to be integrated into a whole. And then that whole needs to be trained in a free range manner, and then pressure tested. All of these steps are necessary in order to make it fight worthy. If the training you are looking at does not have this progression, that is the problem, not the material.

So, like always, train for the reality you know, seek out others that can teach the reality you don’t know, but don’t accept advertising slogans or biases as the ultimate truth. Be broad based in your search, and be your own final authority.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

Personalizing Broken Windows Theory – Mark Hatmaker

Today let’s have a look at a partially-discredited theory of crime-prevention that was proposed to work on the large-scale [cities, etc.]

We’ll discuss the aspects that did and do, indeed, work.

We’ll briefly ponder the unintended consequences of following “broken windows” to the extreme.

Then we’ll wind this whole thing down discussing how the “broken windows theory” can work in your life, both in self-protection and the mundane aspects with none of the negative unintended consequences, unless you dig randomly stopping and searching yourself, then it’s a win-win.

Let’s start with, what exactly is the “broken windows theory”?

In 1982, social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling start the ball rolling with a paper titled “Broken Windows: Police and Neighborhood Safety.”

In precis, Wilson and Keller postulated that by increasing focus, or policing of small crimes [vandalism, public intoxication, toll-jumping, and the like] there would be a decrease not only in these petty crimes but also in major crimes.

The “broken windows” of their research paper’s title points to the fact that neighborhoods with high incidences of broken windows and other such vandalism are also signals of higher crime areas. This is a no-brainer as this is basic signaling 101.

We are not surprised by such observations, and lest anyone is skeptical that broken windows may or may not signal something I offer the following thought experiment.

You are alone in an unfamiliar city, walking back to your hotel. You are confronted with a choice of routes.

One shows neatly parked cars, freshly painted building fronts, well-maintained landscape, bright tasteful curtains in unbroken windows.

On the other route, we see a car on blocks with broken windows, graffiti on walls, and an over-turned trashcan.

Which route back to the hotel do you choose?

Exactly.

Now, at this point we simply see confirmation of broken windows as a signal to something, but what? Why would we assume the evidence of vandalism is also evidence of crimes a bit beyond.

Wilson and Kelling demonstrated an interesting linkage between petty crime [and I hate using that word, as to the property owner “petty” still means loss of time, money, and peace of mind] and more egregious crimes.

It seems that habitual petty crime committers are following Pareto’s Principle, that is 80% of ALL crimes are being committed by 20% of the “lawbreakers.” In other words, most of the damage in the world is done by some very busy perpetrators. Those with no compunction about randomly damaging property or toll-jumping also showed a higher likelihood of committing other crimes.

Keep in mind the link is not 100% causal, meaning that every kid with a spray paint can caught tagging a building is not necessarily destined to commit a major crime but…it does mean that that petty-crime signaler does show a far far higher likelihood of something more dire or damaging in the future than the kid we see pushing the broom in the supermarket.

Broken Windows Theory found that greater vigilance on the small reaped large-scale rewards.

Now, where this went awry had nothing to do with Wilson or Kelling, it was more a case of overreach or prior restraint. Some police departments moved from cracking down on petty criminals to attempting to stop petty crimes before they occurred—and prevention is always a great idea, but the distasteful tactics of stop and frisk and, in some cases, overzealous profiling took a solidly researched idea and moved it to something akin to the “precrime” storyline of the film “Minority Report” based on the Phillip K. Dick story.

Lest, any of my brothers in blue think I have simplified, and I have, I’m on your side—bad guys should be stopped—thank you. But, also, the constitution is pretty sweet, too.

Let’s take this to an area where we can probably all agree, and extract some personal utility out of the “broken windows” theory.

I’ve been doing this martial arts, self-protection thing for years upon years and I don’t think my estimation is off-base when I say most every self-defense class I’ve witnessed, self-protection tome I’ve slogged through, “How to be Safe & Kick-Ass” article I’ve ever read begins in SHTF territory.

There is indeed a place for SHTF tactics, but jumping to there from the beginning and perhaps, too often, gives far too little weight to all the wee tactics and observations we could be making along the way. Tactics and observations that might render all this SHTF side of things a bit less than useless [if we’re lucky, that is.]

I think we can all agree that locking doors, a worthy alarm system, well-lighted entrances on a home in a “good” area are all more useful than being slack in these areas and spending all your time on working dry fire “Clear the home” drills each weekend.

Locking doors, good lighting, using the wisdom of real estate agents everywhere of “Location, location, location” is essentially exercising “Broken Windows” strategy.

Take care of the small things and the large will often take care of themselves.

Let’s run a brief and admittedly incomplete checklist of personal “Broken Windows” tactics and see how many we adhere to:

Eyes up and off phones, aware of surroundings when in public.
Ear buds out, taking in the sounds of what’s around when out and about.
Scanning each new environment for alternate exits and less than savory types.
Paying attention to gut feelings and leaving locations before your gut has a chance to be right or wrong.
Realizing that never losing your keys, always having your personal items squared away and good to go is just as important, if not more, than that emergency weapon you’ve got tucked away somewhere.

You get the idea, policing ourselves for the small habits will prepare us for greater vigilance if ever needed. Always jumping to SHTF is akin to skipping the purchase of the small kitchen fire extinguisher for a chance grease fire, and rather opting for your own fire truck if the house should ever goes up in a blaze.

Take care of your leaky faucets, your creaky doors, your broken windows before they bring the whole house down.

Political Violence and the Hive Mentality Part III- Garry Smith

I agree with Hoffer on a second point that the individual’s existence is based on their feelings of dissatisfaction with themselves so the surrender their individual will to the freedom of being told what to do, who to love, who to hate, and this hate spreads through the mob when it forms. Once one member of the mob triggers the others then the hive mentality takes over and the desire to sting infects all. But it’s happening here too, we are not that far behind.

As I watch these groups ‘protest’ their behavours continue to amaze me, do these people ever see themselves afterwards? People act but do not think, their emotionally driven violent outbursts are experienced outside of our ‘normal’ frames of reference, my wife Karen Moxon Smith wrote in an article for Conflict Manager magazine “I have seen grown men cry when the CCTV shows them repeatedly kicking someone in the head when they honestly thought they had only acted lawfully”.

When individuals lose control, and I have been there, they will commit acts they would be shocked at any other time, appalled even. I have been in mobs that once a victim goes down then the kicking starts and it goes on long after they are unconscious. Football violence is fuelled by many things, the desire of young men to fight, the consumption of alcohol, the intense tribal emotions and an othered enemy who are going to attack us. I have swarmed, I have attacked and I have hurt people and just because the supported a different team. Not politics or religion or race, football.

So I understand this from a subjective perspective as well as an objective one, I may be wrong, feel free to disagree, I welcome that but I have been there and done that. To non participants the shock of the hive attacking can be as frightening as for those actually attacked, especially when lives are being taken now. Once you upset the hive and the bees come out it is almost impossible to get them back in.

We are, post event, and from the comfort of our armchairs, unable to comprehend this behavour when we see it and one coping mechanism is to other those involved. They are not human, they cannot be, and from there it is one small step to de-humanising them, whoever they are. We, whoever we are, need to stop these people; we can only do so by banding together against them.

Can anyone hear a small buzzing sound or is it just me?

The thing I have not discussed and that really bothers me is that hives are really easily triggered. Social media today allows not just one hive to be triggered but multiple hives in multiple locations. Chaos can erupt real fast now and infection can be global in seconds. The massive threat is hate groups manipulating social media to trigger their own hives and this triggering the hives of opposing hate groups. They feed of one another. They feed of truths as much as they feed off lies and often nobody knows what is truth or lie.

The social infection can go viral incredibly quickly and there are many who, as Haidt shows very clearly, act instantaneously on emotion and then proceed to rationalise the emotion. As they say the first victim when war breaks out is the truth, for me the first victim when emotion breaks out is rationality.

Over here in the UK the electorate defied all the major political parties, all the major institutions, interfering foreign leaders and all the celebrities they wheeled out to tell us our future was better in the European Union, and we won. Brexit should become a reality in the next few years, those who supported Brexit were attacked mercilessly as bigots, little Englanders, ignorant, stupid and racist, and we were the undesirables. The hive mentality was triggered and the stinging went on for weeks led by a fearful political class and the comfortable middle classes, it is still going on now.

I mentioned hate groups from minorities earlier, well the biggest hate group is those who have the most invested in the system, the socio-economically comfortable and the people who do their bidding, they will drop their veneer of rationality and reasonableness when threatened and they will swarm. The hive mentality has a wider reach than we thought.

Does this remind anyone of Nazi Germany or Communist Russia or even the horrors of Pol Pot and the Khymer Rouge with their year zero and killing fields? You see people love a charismatic leader and they in turn only love their true believers.

Remember that in his novel 1984, Orwell described that “the two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.”

Welcome to our brave new world where freedom of thought and expression are feared and those of us who value that freedom have a fight on our hands. The virtue signalling identity politicos are now fighting one another as allies who have even minor differences are transformed into enemies. Thought crime is now real and punishable by death, white men are terrorists and should be eliminated according to some.

In London a couple of weeks ago there was a political attack on a group of radical feminists at speakers corner, they were not attacked by chauvinistic men but transgender supporters and one very angry and possibly mentally unstable transgender person who had posted his intent to harm someone on social media earlier that day.

Members of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists had gathered at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, central London ahead of a talk on gender issues. They moved the discussion from another venue in London after threats were made by rivals Trans Activists. But the protesters discovered the 50 TERFs were meeting in Hyde Park and confronted them.

“Members of Action for Trans Health (ATH) have issued a series of incendiary statements on social media since its supporters were involved in an attack on a 60-year-old woman in London’s Hyde Park on September 13.

The victim, Maria MacLachlan, suffered bruising after being punched by an activist widely identified on social media as Tara Flik Wood, 28, a courier who lives in London. MacLachlan was with a group of feminists who were planning to hold a meeting about gender identity.

Unlike MacLachlan and her group, ATH believes that anyone who self-identifies as a woman — without having undergone transition surgery — should be allowed to use women-only spaces such as changing rooms. The ATH extremists refer to MacLachlan and women who hold similar views as “trans-exclusionary radical feminists”, or Terfs.”

So who are these evil TERF’s? We according to Action for Trans Health Terf’s are, yes you guessed it, NAZIS.

“After the attack ATH’s Edinburgh branch sent out a series of tweets defending the use of violence: “punching Terfs is the same as punching Nazis. Fascism must be smashed with the greatest violence to ensure our collective liberation from it”, and “violence against Terfs is always self defense”.

Yes you read it correctly attacking a Terf is always self defence. What disgraceful crime were these Terf’s committing, well they were peacefully standing around at Speakers Corner whilst one of them sang a little song she had written, the ATH activists arrive and begin chanting, “when Terf’s attack we fight back’ on and on until Tara Flik Wood actually attacked a woman taking pictures.

Nobody was attacking anybody, it was a group of women enjoying their democratic right to spot their views, I have been to speakers corner a few times, I have heckled good naturedly, I have heard things I agreed with and things I did not agree with. Somebody saying things you do not like is not an attack, at least not in the physical sense. The hysterical ATH, BLM, Alr-Right activists do not understand this, once the hive mentality is triggered its time to use violence against words.

The Terf’s said things ATH did not like, they deserve to die, let’s build the camps now. Fuck me sideways but once again we have people using Nazi tactics claiming their victims are Nazis because they hold a different opinion.

I am off to colour my hair purple, chop off my manhood and put on my jackboots, there must be a human face somewhere that needs stamping on, forever.

RSA Video of the Week – Changing Education Paradigms – Sir Ken Robinson

An excellent examination of how we process and dull intelligence in children, this is an incredibly interesting argument.

This RSA Animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.