More on dealing with psychopaths in the workforce

I have put up with a lot of personal abuse in workplaces, some of it at the hands of, or in the course of standing up to, people who I feel are - or were - psychopaths. As an example, one manager a few decades ago tried to tell us all how to vote (liberal): I responded if people cared about the environment they should vote Green and if they cared about workers they should vote ALP.

In other words, that particular person was so arrogant they thought they were a feudal overlord who could dictate details of our life - and ignore various aspects of local anti-discrimination law (such as this - and this, but note those links are to current law: some of the other aspects did not exist at the time I am writing of).

They basically thought - staggering though it seems - they were being almost like a parent when they were trying to brainwash people into neoliberalism.

They were so incapable of handling dissent that when I was standing up to them on one occasion they put a black mark on my personnel record that was considered so blatantly unfair that it was later quietly removed by our Human Resources personnel.

That person was also such a bigot that they actively interfered with LGBT matters - including refusing to use correct pronouns for trans people. As a result, I will return that favour for the rest of this article by referring to them as “it” - which is what it was trying to do to all trans people. 

(My view is that it was a bigot that created workplaces of damaged people that were riven by fear, despair and conflict - there were a few other professional concerns as well.) 

In my decades long struggle against it and it’s legacy, what didn’t help was other people being cowards.

I got plenty of feedback from others - or acted on behalf of others. For instance, on one occasion it used a religious profanity in support of a view that people should feel despair over not making profit - no matter how good the job, which left one person who was deeply offended as the religious profanity. After the meeting I explained the reason for the person’s distress to it, but it was so fixated on “everyone should feel overwhelming emotional pain at low profits” that it could not comprehend that humans might be upset about something else.

So, as I wrote, all I did was based - in part - on feedback from others, but that tended to leave me exhausted - and the lack of gratitude from others was a problem. After around three decades of putting my neck on the chopping block for others I had had enough, and started to work less directly and actively, and attempt - unsuccessfully - to do more self-care.

Unsuccessfully because our world is still diseased by neoliberalism- an infestation that is actually far worse than the current pandemic, as neoliberalism has actively spread and supported the worldviews and values that have left us in an existential climate crisis.

That crisis is also an excellent example of the stupidity of such people - they have what I have described as a Newtonian worldview - see here (and also here).

It is also an example of the damage such people cause. I did have plans to write an article on how business was reversing civilisation, but for time and energy limits I’ll reduce that to this:

• the drive to address everything from money (which I have been fighting all the way back to the Shire Clerk in Queensland who thought all environmental values should be converted to a dollar amount so his limited brain could do a mathematical calculation [with fudge factors to get the result he wanted] ) is actually countering and reversing the specialisation that allowed  the  development  of  civilisation. Specialists are NOT motivated by money - they’re motivated by the love of the skill they have, or the intellectual challenge of the task facing them. Having a solution in mind, but having to say nothing about it because of contractual limits, is demoralising, drives people out of fields they are good at, and thus actively weakens civilisation (no matter how much money is left in various bank accounts).

(The argument that profits have to be made is true enough in our current world situation [see Star Trek for an alternative world situation], but does not change the FACT that attempting to motivate people by using something that has no resonance with people is (a) ineffective, and (b) shows incompetence at being a manager on the part of those managers who attempts to do so - such managers" need to learn to suck up the damage of their concern over profit/loss enough to motivate the humans under their care in ways that mean something to those humans.)

Here's a few more brief comments that I am not going to get the time and energy to write up properly:

• “That’s the problem with the American Dream - it makes everyone concerned for the day they’re gonna be rich.” Character President Bartlett, TV series “The West Wing“, Season 3, Episode 4 – Ways and Means (at 38:57).
• the Paul Principle
  much as Murphy’s Law (which is “whatever can go wrong will go wrong”) has an adjunct, known as Smith’s Law (which is the saying that Murphy was an optimist - see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law), I am going to propose an adjunct to the Peter Principle (which is that people are promoted until they reach the level at which they are incompetent) which, in anticipation of a future “Mary Principle” I will call the Paul principle (apologies to that wonderful band): those who stay at their level of competence are overloaded until they reach a point of failure.
• the Mary Principle
  this is a variation on the Peter principle, where talented people are put into un-resourced situations like casting seed on barren ground.

These can all be overcome - at least in part - by treating people with decency - as individuals, not economic cogs driven by dreams of someone else’s profit / KPIs.

How does that happen in modern businesses?

By activist shareholders starting to take an interest in the personalities of those they appoint, and how much human damage is being created in the quest for profit.

And if such people consider they can outsource being human (or if they are uncomfortable with that wording: “outsource being decent”) , they should remember my comments above about cowardice - because they are.

They should also remember this.

The TV comedian Stephen Colbert - who I like for his stance for democracy, decency, and human rights under the nightmare of #45 in the USA - has started a series of questions to ask celebrities as a “getting to know you” exercise. One of those questions is “What is the scariest animal?” My answer to that would be, especially as I look out at a world ruined by the climate crisis and riven by inequity, inequality, and discrimination, humans.

 

Australians

Aussies used to be proud of a stereotype - that few went anywhere near, and was exclusively male - of being self reliant, laconic, bushies.

That stereotype got gradually replaced as we moved through the 20th Century with others - of being larrikins, then of being able to fix anything with a bit of "baling wire" and so on, and then - from the 70s on - with being multicultural and having gotten over the cultural cringe. 

Again, none of them ever really fit reality. 

Now we've got a range of stereotypes that people hold up when it suits them to show off not so much the reality of being an Australian, but what each person thinks - or thinks at that time - we should be holding up as an ideal. 

The truth is we're a mix of around 25 million people - there's no one stereotype that can embrace the real mix of cultures in our nation. 

But there are a few flaws we need to admit to, and then deal with - racism, classism (yes, it does exist in Australian society), small-minded bigotry and xenophobia, simple-minded "thinking", and wanting to be one of the rich - not even wanting to be one of the squattocracy, just one of the rich elites, which is another fatal flaw that the evil John Howard nurtured and polished in our collective psyche until it came to tarnish everything else.

Blog into long, possibly permanent hibernation

When I started this blog, back in 2016, one of the things I had in the back of my mind was a possible change of career. My situation (age [i.e., age-based discrimination], prolonged care of a family member) is such that a change of career is no longer a possibility. I still love the study I was trying to do, but I have to be realistic with my available time and energy - and my current job is exhausting, time-absorbing, and soul killing, and requires a lot of effort simply to survive.

As a result, I've decided to put this blog into hibernation. I'll still do the occassional posts - but I'll shift the news posts to my main blog so they don't bury the occassional post I do here. 

If I get to retire - which is by no means certain, given our mean-spirited neolib national nitwit government, elected by our either equally mean-spirited or profoundly stupid voters - I'll resume my study, purely for fun, and possibly resume my more regular blogs here. 

Thank you for your time.

On Uganda, Burma, and from the news

On Uganda this week:

• Museveni is continuing his stay in, and abuse of, power; 
• now that the election is over, several Bobi Wine supporters have been granted bail;
  

On Burma this week:

• the protests and killing continue - see here, 
• “the United Nations human rights chief has warned that violence is intensifying across Myanmar, slamming the country’s military government for being “singularly responsible” for a “human rights catastrophe” ”; 
• the drift towards violence on the part of those resisting the coup will make boosting the current miniscule international support more difficult;
  
• Burma is abusing the families of activists; 
• UN sharing of refugee data puts Rohingya at risk;
  

From the news this week:

• on the climate crisis and the environment:
  a vast thermonuclear solar power plant has been opened in Chile;   "G7 leaders agree to end new government support for coal power by the end of 2021";   "a coal seam gas company has drilled under farmland without notifying landholders, potentially leaving them uninsured and their land devalued";   an unprecedented doubling of heat trapped by the Earth;   "large methane leak detected over South Africa coal mining region";   16 major philanthropists have cut themselves off from a uni that appointed a climate-change-denying pro-coal businessperson to the position of chancellor;   a call to include environmental aspects (pollution of the night sky) when planning or approving flocks of satellites;  
  
  
• on international relations including war:
  North Korea's leader appears to be in declining health - with no clear successor;   nuclear arsenals are growing;   NATO has extended its mutual defence obligations into space;   the USA is doing another "freedom of navigation": exercise in the South China Sea - this time with an entire aircraft carrier group;   major risks from the recent volcanic eruption in the eastern DRC;   the G7 will attempt to counter the CCP's "Belt and Road Initiative" with its own plan, including private capital in "in areas including climate, health, digital technology and gender equality";   Israeli-Palestinian violence has resumed;   despite lower violence, the civil war in Northern Ireland is continuing;   a reasonable meeting between the USA's President Biden and Union of Soviet Socialist Russia's grand Tsar Putin was marred by Putin attempting to compare his despotic suppression with judicial measures against the attempted insurrectionists in the USA;   "Ethiopia has rejected an Arab League resolution calling on the United Nations Security Council to intervene" in the Nile dam dispute;   "heightened risks to African citizens" from the use of Chinese security firms along the belt and road initiative;   Rwanda is exporting violent control along the lines of that used by China;   Bangladesh is becoming a regional power;   the misogynistic violent extremists in Afghanistan are rapidly turning it into Talibanistan;   a review of the complexities facing Ethiopia;  
   
• on the COVID-19 pandemic:
  ending employment support may have cost over 90,000 jobs;   vaccinations for the homeless;   the more transmissible delta variant is becoming the predominant strain;  
  
  
• on genocides and other human rights issues:
  "Genocide Watch considers Ethiopia to be at Stage 5: Organization, Stage 9: Extermination, and Stage 10: Denial";   in light of armed groups' disregard for the 2016 peace agreement and continued forced displacement, sexual violence, and extrajudicial killings of civilians, "Genocide Watch considers Colombia to be at Stage 5: Organization and Stage 8: Persecution";   details of human rights abuses - including rape, torture and murder - committed by Russian mercenaries in the CAR;   Syria has likely used chemical weapons 17 times;   "the [US] state of Arizona has refurbished its gas chamber and purchased chemical supplies to kill inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same gas used by Nazi Germany to kill millions during the Holocaust";   one pro-democracy activist in Hong Kong has been released from jail;   as COVID risks lead to calls to shut down asylum seeker/refugee detention facilities, "Nine peak medical bodies have called for a Tamil asylum seeker family to be urgently released from immigration detention ... , warning ongoing detention presents an “extreme and unacceptable” risk to children's health" ... "as a small but growing number of Coalition MPs express support for the family to remain in Australia" leading to their eventual return to the mainland as their seriously ill, Australian-born daughter is treated in a hospital;   declining affordability of home ownership;   as an expert who revealed the shocking culture of bullying refuses to bow to abuse, more alleged bullying in our military is revealed;   the CCP is pushing southern China to give up Cantonese;   "allegations of sexual harassment and racism as new report finds majority of backpackers are underpaid";   tech companies have "not yet" extended voice recognition to African languages;   Belarus is continuing to abuse a journalist snatched off a hijacked place;   business propaganda companies are trying to use sleep researchers to enable brainwashing of sleepers;   protests against police brutality in Tunisia;   in Sudan ‘humanitarian agencies reach communities in South Kordofan and Blue Nile for the first time in 10 years’;   a home furnishings company has been fined for spying on its staff;   classism in Australia;   an opinion that, in the USA, "life without parole isn’t making us any safer";   "how the 'Nigerian mafia' exploits African women in Europe" - and what is being done about that;   neolib-led NSW is targetting gig workers instead of protecting them;   the UK is supporting nations that torture - and thus is IMO financing torture;    the political party of a notorious LGBT-hating bigot has been forced into receivership;   the UK will close a loop hole that was allowing child abuse in the form of child marriage;   refoulement of refugees rescued at sea;   the US Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare for a third time;   1% of humanity are now refugees . . . ;   Turkish spies are abducting political opponents abroad;  IMF Executive Board should ensure Cameroon loan used to meet rights obligations;   Ghana’s attorney general targeting human rights defenders;   an "extraordinary admission" that a food crisis exists in North Korea;   US Supreme Court declines to give religious agencies sweeping license to discriminate against LGBT people;  
  
  
• on democracy:
  Netanyahu has been ousted - which won't change Israel's political positions but makes accountability easier;   "the family of a man who has been friends with Prime Minister Scott ... for decades and follows the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon have revealed they are so concerned about his beliefs they have notified the national security hotline several times";   McCarthyism still lives - in Australia, where the utterly evil Howard's attack on our democracy is being continued;   "government rorting is now the Australian way of doing business";   international monitors say there were no "serious" irregularities in Peru's elections;   "jobseekers subject to obligations take longer to find work";   some states have dangerously overloaded hospital emergency departments;   an attempted attack on a senior politician in Niger has killed one of his guards and injured another;   the history of trade deals - including the USA's attack on our health system;   disputed results from elections in Peru;   more details have emerged over the "insane" attempts by #45 to stay in power;   "one in three U.S. election officials feels unsafe";   hypocrisy (nepotism?) by the national neolib nitwits towards debt recovery from their social class - as they also apply an "unprecedented" gag against a motion to investigate accusations against one of their senior MPs;   more suppression of pro-democracy media in Hong Kong;   the RBA has finally criticised businesses for not giving wage increases;   fake social media accounts were removed before elections in Ethiopia;   in a promising sign of change under the new President, leaders of a party in Tanzania advocating for self determination party for part of that nation have been released from jail and charges dropped;   "inside Nigeria's economic crisis";   after watching this, I think the US republicans ultimate aim is to register voters by having them walk through one of three doorways: the one labelled "Democrat" drops into a jail cell, the one labelled "independent / undecided" is a slide back to the start of the queue, and the one labelled "republican" (they don't deserve a capital R) goes to a limo with someone to massage the voting arm and deliver the voter to their own personalised voting booth;   rushed and reckless changes will railroad the unemployed into harmful decisions;  
  
  
• on LGBTIQ+ matters:
  the Murdoch press's transphobic reign of terror has now targeted someone on the basis of a falsehood;   rabid LGBT-phobia in Hungary;   the need to do more to address anti-LGBTIQ+ hate - especially by allies;   homophobia in sport;   the EU may sanction Hungary for its LGBTIQ-phobic laws;   violent LGBTIQ-phobia in Iran;  
  
  
• on racism:
  how to stop racism on social media;   an anti-racism taskforce in my home state;   an historical African script shows both the violence of racism and the intellectual arrogance and damage of assuming literacy is higher than verbal communication;  
  
  
• on sexism and misogyny:
  misogyny on a professional social media platform;   a sporting organisation has taken action to respond to allegations of sexism;   a misogynist backwater has voted to continue being a misogynist backwater;   "inside one woman's legal nightmare from a sexual assault case";   spy cameras in South Korea;   "most directors [are] not being held responsible for preventing sexual harassment at work";  
  
  
• on ableism:
  the need for better preventative care for people with an intellectual disability;  
  
  
• on animal rights: 
  concerns over the injuries and deaths caused to seals by a salmon farm;  
  
  
• on other matters:
  Finland is setting records for happiness;   more disquiet at a bank's conduct;   the dead bodies of illegal gold miners have been found in South Africa;   a call to include spirituality in mental health;   the importance of feeling pity to being human.  
  

Cross posting: Post No. 1,897 - Insanity Inducing Lifestyles and Their Apologists

This originally appeared on my main blog at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2021/06/post-no-1897-insanity-inducing.html. 

*** 

Here's a question for you: 

should soldiers be treated for PTSD sufficiently to send them back into active combat?

If no: 

should torture victims be healed enough to be subjected to more torture?

If no: 

should everyday people be subjected to lifestyle conditions that induce insanity? 

(If you answered yes to any of the above, you may as well not bother reading any further.) 

The first question is one that has been debated since World War One and it's identification of "shell shock", a condition that had existed before and been written about as far back as The Iliad. That question is also tied up with broader contextual questions about whether that or any other war can be justified. (For the record, about the only ones I think have some tenuous grip on justifiability are the fight against evil of World War Two, and the initial defensive war to repel North Korea out of South Korea - which ended when US-led forces crossed into North Korea in September, 1950.)

Apologists for the second often cite fears that their culture / lifestyle / society is under threat, under the idiotic misapprehension that torture provides credible intelligence - have they not thought that people either personally tortured or watching loved ones being tortured would say anything - ANYTHING - to get the pain to stop?

The reality is that torture is most widely used by despots, like Museveni and Lukashenko, to prop up their ailing regimes, but in all circumstances, because of the last point in the preceding paragraph, torture is questionable with regard to its efficacy - and then there is its moral reprehensibility.

One of the biggest problems with the death penalty is that is actively demonstrates that life is not held to be sacrosanct by those who use or advocate for it - to such people, life is subject to someone else's permission or oversight, someone else who can decide that another's life is NOT  ALLOWED, and can be snuffed out. 

An eye for an eye does not demonstrate respect for the sanctity of life, it shows that vengeance is held higher than life. 

Similarly, those who advocate for torture show that they do not value "good" above all else - there is a limit, whether that is set by fear based on real or perceived threats (all forms of bigotry are based on perceived threats), personal convenience, or their quest for populist-based power.

Taking this line of thought into the third question I posed, Western lifestyles have a lot that is of concern - for instance, rampant greed and materialism, environmental destruction, inequity / inequality / discrimination, and so on. There are some things which are often conflated with the Western lifestyle, such as advances in medicine and science, but the absurdity of that is well illustrated by the fact that such advances began before the industrial revolution - in, for instance, the "Age  of  Reason"; quarantine as a modern medical practice began in the 1300s, but had a history going back to the BCE era; and Australia's Indigenous people knew of the importance of keeping sources of drinking water unpolluted millennia ago.

Against that background, why would you do something that aimed to help people cope with something that is unhealthy (other than as a short term "band aid" response), rather than address the core problem? 

As an example, I know of someone who - decades ago - was driven so insane by the stresses of living in an alien nation, in an isolating religious sub-culture, that she became abusive. Why would you force that person to continue living there? 

Poverty is an enforced evil - the rampant greed and dog-eat-dog addiction to competition of the USA's version of capitalism  (and neoliberalism is the most recent and most extreme version of that) has a lot to answer for on that respect. Why would you write "lifestyle columns" as a pseudo-journalist that are aimed at enabling people to "cope" with something that is so unhealthy and evil as our version of capitalism?

Why, as a doctor allegedly committed to the principle of "first do no harm" advocate for ways to cope with high stress levels without first examining whether such stress levels should exist? (And yes, this would require doctors, too many of whom have become comfortable in their capitalist ways, to take a political position.) 

Why would you look at using tech and buying lots of "better" products to address your environmental impact rather than just live more simply - more "minimalistically"? 

Why would you live any sort of lifestyle that created vulnerabilities for you or those about you - or subjected those about you, perhaps who you rely on, to abusive work - rather than live a simpler, more self-reliant lifestyle (assuming you could - some people have health conditions, etc that preclude some of this)?

You may have valid answers for the questions I am posing. If so, well done, but please make sure you have considered the alternatives as well - including simpler lifestyles, particularly those that are not reliant on money (see, for instance here, here, and here). 

And also make sure you do not advocate against something you force others to live or do. Unintentional hypocrisy can be a problem amongst the well meaning. 

The utterly evil Howard's attack on our democracy is being continued

The heading is mine, but the article that inspired it - which merits particular attention - is: 

• "Australian democracy is fading fast", by Bruce Haigh (see also here).
  

I've written about Howard and his evil before - see, for instance, here and here.

On Uganda, Burma, and from the news

On Uganda this week:

• Museveni is continuing his stay in, and abuse of, power; 
• "a new wave of repression in Uganda has led to the abductions of dozens more opposition activists by security forces and at least one alleged death"; 
• at least 12,000 Ugandans leave every year to seek jobs in West Asia; 
• concerns over privacy with a new digital ID card - the lack of which is denying millions of Ugandans access to services.
  

On Burma this week:

• the protests and killing continue - see here, 
• more  reports on the young people who have the junta to be trained in military resistance in Burma's regional areas;
• misogynistic abuse of prisoners in Burma.
  

From the news this week:

• on the climate crisis and the environment:
  environmental protests over cruise ships in Venice;   reforestation in China;   a call to end fossil fuel subsidies;   "EU countries give final approval to multibillion euro green transition fund";   solar powered bikes for the fight against poaching in Africa;   building flood resilient housing;   calls for water theft penalities to be large enough to have some significance to businesses;   how to go beyond net zero emissions;   Scott is an utter <insert pejorative of choice>;   "Australia's multi-billion-dollar alumina and aluminium export industries could risk closure if the European Union leads other major economies into adopting ... carbon border adjustment mechanisms" - also, our lower farming standards generally are likely to become a problem;   the problem of single use plastic;   "saving Kenya's last sacred forests";   "Saami reindeer herders and others say the technology to block a share of sunlight reaching Earth, in a bid to cool the planet, is too risky and does not respect nature";   water (in)security in South East Asia;  
  
  
• on international relations including war:
  as aid workers in Gaza are overwhelmed, confrontations have resumed over evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem;   China may have shot itself in the foot with its economic attacks on Australia;   the G7 nations have agreed to "a 15 per cent global tax rate on multinational companies";   calls for Australia to evacuate Afghans in AfghanTalibanistan who helped us during the decades of war;   "the Australian government has been ordered to pay an Iraqi asylum seeker $350,000 in damages for unlawfully detaining him for more than two years";   a machine learning ("artificial intelligence" or AI) "arms race [is] already underway";   the USA is increasing pressure to find a peaceful resolution to Cameroon's separatist conflict;   Burkina Faso has banned motorbikes - used by violent extremists (VEs) - in the region VEs are active in;   VEs in AfghanTalibanistan have murdered mine clearers;   regional anger at a second filling of Ethiopia's controversial Nile Dam;   an examination of peacebuilding;   calls for Ethiopia to negotiate genuinely over its controversial dam on the Nile River;   how the USA could use its advantages to better deter China;  
   
• on the COVID-19 pandemic:
  small businesses are falling through the cracks of business relief plans;   "the Therapeutic Goods Administration has written to [a controversial billionaire] and a regional radio network to express concern about ads that spread false information about the risks of COVID-19 vaccines";   more staggeringly irresponsible COVID criminals from my home state;   anti-vaxx RWNJ businesses ... (for the sake of the community, I hope they go bust);   the USA will donate half a billion vaccine doses to needy nations;  
  
  
• on genocides and other human rights issues:
  ways tiny homes are being made accessible;   police reforms in Colombia;   even doctors are criticising the national neolib nitwits latest attack on Medicare;   Germany's offer of compensation for its genocide in Namibia is "not enough";   Rohingya refugees have been left at terrible risk during the monsoon by Bangladesh;   an Islamophobic violent extremist attack in Canada;   the UK has continued "a long tradition — dating back to the 1960s — when the Russell tribunal investigated the US military intervention in Vietnam" by playing "host to an independent tribunal into the Chinese treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province" which creates "a permanent record of history — particular in instances where international bodies can't deal with matters";   the national neolib nitwits changes to proxy advisor laws "could" also "censor activism on issues like executive pay, gender diversity and climate change" . . . ;   my home state's "child protection authorities misled the state's privacy watchdog during an investigation of a data breach involving a sex offender and dozens of vulnerable children";   "a Liberal senator has joined a growing number of critics of her government's controversial plan to introduce independent assessments for the National Disability Insurance Scheme";   outrage at the prolonged delay of medical authorities before allowing treatment for a seriously ill child refugee (was this racism or medical incompetence? Difficult to see a third possibility for medical professionals . . . );   a controversial Australian anti-encryption law that exceeds even US powers was behind a major and valuable police sting (although the outcome was beneficial in this instance, the abuses of the USA's FBI under Hoover shows the dangers of such powers going to bigots and other unfit people - and that is why I have concerns about such laws: too many of people using them appear to be reactionary, backward, conservative misogynists, LGBT-phobes and other bigots and therefore cursed with the INHERENT bias and stupidity of all bigots and thus are untrustworthy because their bias potentially makes them incompetent) - see also here;   a Cameroonian human rights lawyer is still behind bars on a "bogus" charge;   "the UN Security Council [has] strongly condemned violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the Central African Republic and warned that attacks on United Nations peacekeepers there may constitute war crimes";   calls to investigate egregious violence by Colombia's police;   Afghan interpreters are at risk of attacks from VEs;   a discriminatory law hampers religious freedom in Indonesia;   the Defence Minister "has defended overruling senior officials and allowing special forces troops to keep their meritorious unit citations from Afghanistan despite credible allegations of war crimes";   bail has been denied for a neo-nazi;   Australia is continuing to complete the abuses committed by despots and terrorists in other nations;   another report has confirmed that China is abusing Uyghurs - this one described it as a crime against humanity;   the European Parliament alarmed over Sri Lanka's rights situation;   alarming new child labour figures;   Germany takes a positive step for corporate accountability;   $181 million from the USA to address the famine in Tigray, Ethiopia (will the armed forces allow the aid in?);   "child kidnapping being used as warfare tactic in Mozambique";   the ICC has called for Sudan to hand over Darfur war crimes suspects;   the DRC has captured a militia leader accused of murdering 19 park rangers;   actions against pirates off Nigeria;  
  
  
• on democracy:
  how humans moved from the 97% of our history where equality was the norm to society's plagued by inequality;   in a fit of pique Nigeria has suspended one social media platform, leading to Nigerians setting up VPNs;   non-religious young political activists in Lebanon;   support for a democratic opposition in coup-hit Mali (France has suspended military cooperation with the Malian military);   Netanyahu is trying it on with one of #45's lies;   participatory democracy to replace a sacked Council has worked in the NT;   El Salvador's President has announced a plan "to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender" . . . (distraction, or genuine?);   neolib conspiracy nutters have been spouting utter drivel about our injured Premier - AND attacking the right of injured workers to sick leave;   secret dossiers & decisions without any right of appeal about research applicants;   "concerns about Australia’s growing tendency to call in the defence force to deal with crises outside its usual remit. These are crises that could or should be dealt with by well-resourced civilian government agencies and institutions";   Haiti has indefinitely postponed a referendum;   a report into the USA's attempted coup on 6th January 2021 seems to indicate the silo problem still - nearly two decades after "911" - afflicts US agencies;   Mali's coup leader has strengthened his grip on power;   Nicaragua's dictator has jailed a third political opponent;   concerns over slow implementation of parts of Sudan's transition to democracy agreement;   Grand Tsar Putin is continuing his quest to quash democracy in the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia;   the threat by the 6th Jan attempted coup thugs' elected "representatives" to democracy ... ;   Peru's president is the latest RWNJ leader to try #45's lies-about-election-results on for size ... ;   "a judge has approved a $1.2 billion settlement between robodebt victims and the federal government while blasting the scheme for being a “shameful chapter” in public administration";   a message of decency from FLOTUS46 has shown a powerful contrast to the psychopathy of #45's "wife";   a tech company is trying to undermine Australian sovereignty by trying to evade Australian laws;   more deferment of elections in Ethiopia . . . ;   democracy in the CAR is showing its fragility;   scepticism about today's election in Algeria;  
  
  
• on LGBTIQ+ matters:
  homophobic abuse of LGBTIQ+ students;   an "Indian court calls for sweeping reforms to respect LGBT rights";   more transphobia from the small minds of a couple of bunches of rabid reactionary conservatives;  
  
  
• on racism:
  calls for an apology from a neochristian school in Canada were the remains of hundreds of Indigenous students were found;   the trend towards Indigenous operation and/or ownership of businesses selling Indigenous goods;   more racism and sexism in sport;   a victim of egregious racist abuse "has declined an invitation to be inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame";   another class action to recover unpaid wages for Indigenous workers;  
  
  
• on sexism and misogyny:
  more on the sexism in medicine;   "lack of holistic court support leaves survivors of domestic and sexual violence traumatised twice";   more racism and sexism in sport;   feminism in China under Xi's misogynistic and reactionary regime;   new Ecuador law could silence sexual violence survivors;   an elite level swimmer has quit trials for the olympics "citing 'misogynistic perverts' in the sport";   "sexual abuse 'normalised' in UK schools as boys pester girls for 'nudes' ";   extremely backwards thinking on domestic violence in Zimbabwe;  
  
  
• on ableism:
  "NDIS provider accused of compromising safety of people with disability in quest for growth";  
  
  
• on other matters:
  "responsible gambling – a bright shining lie Crown Resorts and others can no longer hide behind";   part of a cryptocurrency ransom paid to criminal hackers has been recovered;   malaria continues to kill 400,000 people every year but  a vaccine still has not been developed;   in an illustration of the stupidity of some crims, the wife of a notorious crim didn't expect to be jailed despite running his criminal activities while he was in jail ... ;   "some employers are looking for ways to avoid passing on legislated super rises to their workers";   that slapping is a physical assault has been confirmed by the jailing - as he should - of a man who slapped France's President;   more support for the right to repair.