On Uganda, Burma, the attempted coup in the USA, and from the news

On Uganda this week: 

• as detentions are extended, security experts and political actors have stated that "unexplained arrests are [a] major cause for concern";
• graduating police recruits have been "urged to restrain themselves from injuring civilians in the course of carrying out their duties" (how about making that an order?); 
• a "missing persons" hotline has not gone over well (comments on social media pointed out that the authorities know where the missing are, so it is up to them to advise, not the victims' families to ask). Meanwhile, nonsensical claims by police that number plates on the cars they use to kidnap people "fall off" . . . (are they claiming incompetent and illegal attachment of number plates?);
  
• there are multiple reports on social media on what is happening to those who have been kidnapped. It's the same old abuses that despots everywhere have used for decades, much of dating back to tactics used (and, in some cases, developed) by the nazis in 1930s and 1940s Germany. How does it feel, after a revisionist speech, to be an inheritor of European nazi methods, Mr Museveni?
  
• "The Archbishop of the church of Uganda ... has urged people in the country to value life and stop killing the young generation"; 
• MPs are trying to overturn a court ban on extending terms from 5 to 7 years; 
• the military are bashing  journalists; 
• a court has rejected accepting more evidence submitted by Bobi Wine, evidence delayed by security force abuses - see also this;  
• a woman whose parents fled, with her, from Uganda, under Idi Amin, to Kenya has not fled Uganda, under Museveni, to Kenya.
  

On Burma this week: 

• expert recommendations for the world on what to do (coordinated messaging against violence, targeted sanctions, directing aid away from the military & arms embargoes, talk to the generals);
  
• creative resistance as protests - by many young people - continue and grow; 
• reports of nighttime "kidnappings" (disappearances?) -and the first confirmed fatality;
  
• anger at the continuing mass arrests of protestors; 
• some police have broken ranks and joined the protestors; 
• tanks on the streets as the UN warns the military against attacking protestors and Asian companies are urged to "do their duty" and break ties with the burmese military ; 
  
• an Internet shutdown; and calls for notorious social media platform facebook to stop enabling the genocidaires;
  
• in a splendid example of non-violent resistance, cars are breaking down at intersections;  
• the UK has sanctioned Burma's coup generals "for 'violating the right to life'";  
  
• the UN Special Envoy on Myanmar has said world unity against the coup is very important; 
• journalists have resigned rather than comply with junta-imposed censorship; 
• it is the young people of Burma who are leading the protests;
• updates here and here.
  

On the attempted coup in the USA: 

• calls for "for 9/11-style commission to investigate" the attempted coup in the USA have been successful;
  
• meanwhile, the coward republicans are hoping "other courtrooms will release [trump's] grip" on what is left of their morally bereft (see here on some of the retaliation) white supremacist party . . . ; 
• a warning to the US Democrats against cooperating with the cult hiding behind the "republican party" name as one Democrat brings a "case against Mr trump ... under a provision of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was passed in response to KKK violence and prohibits violence or intimidation meant to prevent Congress or other federal officials from carrying out their constitutional duties"; 
•  a powerful call by a respected scientific organisation to address domestic white supremacist terrorism in the USA; 
• one of the trumpettes in Congress has shown herself to be an utter horse conch who does not understand the US Constitution.
  

From the news this week:

• the USA has rejoined the fight against the climate crisis;  
• an example from history showing how close we have sometimes come to accidental nuclear war reminds us why we must STILL be careful now; 
  
• an international coalition of 57 countries is condemning hostage diplomacy by China; 
• a call for change in Nigeria ("only Nigerians can change Nigeria") - and a supporting petition;
  
• the CCP's bending of rules to create a false veneer of legitimacy (it is a continental nation, not an archipelago) for its outrageous grab (based on bullying and occupation) for the South China Sea (and the USA has shot itself in the foot with regard to resisting this by not ratifying treaties and not supporting a 2016 court decisions);
• Russia is using the same sort of intimidation of ex-pats that China does - including here; 
• growing tensions between the European Union and the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia ruled by Grand Tsar Putin; 
• Burkina Faso - with over one million refugees/IDPs - urgently needs the world's help;   
• Israel is sticking to its irremediable hardline anti-Iran stance; 
• "In Iran, I was taught to hate Israel and Jews. Then I watched Schindler’s List. . . . This should be an important lesson for dictatorial regimes like Iran, North Korea and others: You cannot deny and distort history for your own purposes. You cannot promote nefarious goals such as the destruction of another nation and country by using the media and propaganda in schools and universities and infecting the minds of children and adolescents."
  
• the USA will sideline the notorious MBS in Saudi Arabia;  
• inexplicable reluctance in Australia to accept the evidence of aerosol transmission (which has been around for months and is one of the reasons we're wearing masks!);  
• the vindictiveness behind facebook's news ban is being shown by it also blocking weather & unions & ALP politicians (but not neolibs) & health and emergency warnings & satire - but some are pointing out the connection between the proposed (flawed) law and the Murdoch press, who are alleged to have provided the wording of the law (as someone I know said, Murdoch vs. Zuckerberg is a bit like Alien vs. Predator: no matter who wins, we're still worse off). Following this, a satirical site has listed 125 out of a list of 902 items of corrupt or poor conduct by our national neolib nitwit government. My initial thoughts on this matter are here;
  
• facebook has treated some people in Indonesia, Brazil and Canada with contempt by removing political content without their consent - and may similarly gut access to information elsewhere (so much for those morons who think the argument in Australia is Zuckerberg vs. Murdoch); 
• facebook has shown it could shut down hate speech if it wanted to: why does it NOT WANT TO?;
  
• calls for "more responsible" surveillance; 
• from https://twitter.com/JoshBBornstein/status/1360722417765683200, a re-tweet from Inequality Civic Action:
  
  
  
  
  
• major concerns over our weak political donation laws; 
• as the USA discusses ways to rein in "big tech" (Reuters exclusive here) and Google enters more lucrative deals, in a farcical move that has caused anger and is based on a lie notorious (allows misogyny, is scared of breastfeeding, enables genocidaires, and appears to have a schoolboy mentality) social media platform facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content (time to get off it and go elsewhere, people); 
  
• the disastrous experience of LGBTIQ+ people who live through natural catastrophes; 
• a young woman has reported being raped in a government Minister's office, and states her job was threatened and that she was not given access to CCTV footage (some of her statements are disputed). From my experience of having been sexually assaulted and the reports of others, this is a major matter, and the FIRST consideration has to be the wellbeing of that young woman - and all other  victims (male, female, and non-binary) - of sexual assault. Police investigations are secondary, and subject to the victim's wishes, as the investigation and court cases are a further assault: in this case, she has chosen to re-activate charges, and the rules around that process now apply.
  Politics has NO place in this, and - although there may be particular vulnerabilities associated with such positions - this sort of incident happens in other places, with the victims often being or left to feel silenced and abandoned.
  This matter is now subject to legal proceedings: spare a thought for the others that aren't. In the meantime, the PM appears to be lying (he says he isn't);
  
• victim blaming and bias - including of police - against DV victims; 
  
• the "false consensus effect" results in people doing environmental damage and other socially unacceptable or illegal behaviours; 
• NO evidence the cashless welfare card reduces harm; 
• an interview about an interestingly titled new book "Work Won't Love You Back", by Sarah  Jaffe (Amazon, no e-book version as yet, so I won't buy it);   
• criticism of BMI;  
• the origins of the moronic claim that science is about disproving something - and WHY it is moronic and led to, amongst other evils, neoliberalism and climate change denial.
  

The effects of climate change

Some articles this week have illustrated the increased potential for catastrophes as a result of the climate crisis: 

• "Miniature Satellites Reveal Cause of Deadly Uttarakhand Flood That Devastated Dams"; 
• "This is what a glacial lake outburst flood looks like"; 
• "When Two Tibetan Glaciers Collapsed, the Whole Landscape Changed" - and the effects kept happening for years afterwards.
  

YouTube

I've decided I'll start posting a few "videos" (static imagery, so really "audios") on YouTube. My channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnP0CsDb36oc_TTisPCLkRw/videos, and my first offering is at https://youtu.be/KK7qhvsfnx0.

Social media and tech companies

I'm old. 

I remember the days before the Internet - before PCs, even. My high school maths class was the last to learn how to use slide  rules and the first to learn how to use a computer (one that ran off stacks of cards). When I finished uni, I recall the joy when the first company I worked for got one electric typewriter ... and then a telex ... and then another company I was at got a fax.

And here's the really scary bit: I also remember the days when everyone was fairly naïve and idealistic - Google really did start off with a determination to "not do the evil thing", YouTube had more of an interactive, community feel, and then there was the - clunky, unsophisticated and unpolished to modern eyes - early versions of social media, like GeoCities (which I never used, but heard a great deal about), LiveJournal (which I think I briefly tried), and MySpace (which I also tried, I think). 

I started using Blogger in 2007, and it had a less polished, less functional, but far more friendly feel, in my opinion.

The Blogger platform keeps getting tweaked, and, although I have no doubt that helps new users, it is often at the expense of the functionality that more established users like myself rely on.

Still, social media and working online has become big business now, so catering for the majority is important for profit (the "bottom line"). 

This is not unique to the Internet or related tech companies: I've seen, for instance, small engineering companies that were friendly and effective (albeit with some key flaws) get sold to bigger companies, lose their identity, and become part of a big, self perpetuating machine aimed at improving profitability. As more people come in, the limited social bubble gets blown apart - for better or worse, depending of the quality of character of the residual and the new people, and how people-focused the systems and people-aware the managers are.

This has led to a lot of problems in many organisations when basic humanity and decency become subservient to the amount of profit being made - destroying Indigenous sites, for instance, or underplaying or ignoring psychological abuse (possibly due to white male effect?), and sexist abuses of the type being fixed by this activist shareholder group. 

The one difference between those companies and the early Internet platforms is that the companies had making money as a key part of their ethos right from the start: the Internet platforms weren't as mercenary - but, IMO, it is unlikely we would have seen the development and spread of the Internet and social media platforms without more money. 

The problem is, the human side got lost in the "strategic vision" ... 

To turn to facebook, I've always been wary of that platform. 

As an initial point, I objected as a matter of principle to a for-profit company collecting personal details they did not need. I've read stories suggesting that might be a hang over from facebook alleged origins as a way to "pick up chicks" - certainly the original "facemash" seems to have been in that mould, but it doesn't matter what the origin is: I have always tried to protect my privacy, and I am prepared to go without the latest fad / craze / fashion if I have to. 

At that time, many years ago, I was told by some people they "just entered false details". Well, there is a point in the process where you have to - in my words - promise that you have told the truth. I won't lie, even if others mistakenly think they are "just lying to a machine". If other people want to sacrifice their ethics, so be it: I'd prefer not to. 

Shortly after that, the cultural problems started becoming apparent on facebook - the racism, the misogyny, the LGBT-phobia, and so on, and I felt quite relieved. 

I have to admit to being flabbergasted by facebook's incredibly clumsy "responses" - reactions that really did give me the impression of an almost schoolboy mentality straight out of facemash. 

They still struggle with this - banning photos of breastfeeding because breasts can be seen????!!!!! FFS! 

Even the egregious influence of the far right (especially the religious far right) in the USA doesn't explain those problems. 

And today, in response to our national government's (flawed) attempt to stop our journalism industry being completely destroyed, facebook has instituted what I consider an extreme, vindictive and dangerous (health pages on COVID and emergency services pages - and the weather - were taken down, as were pages from ONE political party and government departments and human rights bloggers [but not homophobes . . . ] ) shut down in Australia. 

Google, perhaps remembering it's origins of "don't do the evil thing", chose the exact opposite path. 

I've lost a great deal by choosing to stay off facebook: I've been effectively shut out of a policy committee and other groups (to the extent that I left), I've lost an incredible amount of opportunity to promote the various interests and non-paying work I have, and interactions with people who have decided to stop using email has been limited. 

Today I feel that price is worth it. 

I wonder how many people will join me after today . . . 

Endorsements

This blog covers politics and human rights. I will not entertain any requests for endorsement on other (e.g., financial) matters, and any requests for endorsement are likely to be treated as spam.

Engineering has become a cult

I got around to catching up with my engineering membership paperwork yesterday, and one thing I was appalled to discover is that I am supposed to commit to always promoting engineering - despite the widespread misogyny, LGBTIQ-phobia, and ABUSIVE work conditions and practices and expectations. 

If we are so scared of honest opinion and so BLIND to the truth of working conditions in engineering that we have to ORDER people to promote engineering, then we are no longer professional: we have reduced ourselves to being a cult - and a highly stupid one at that.

Edited copy of My Submission re Victorian LGBTIQ+ Strategy

One of the many things I like about the government in my home state is their use of public consultation. I've referred to this recently (here, on police, here, on tiny homes [yet to be submitted], and there are two more I am looking at); I have just made a submission on the government's proposed LGBTIQ+ Strategy - still open for a few days here. 

A lightly edited copy of my submission is provided below.

Direction 1 Equal rights and freedom

It is CRUCIAL to ensure that these measures are introduced in a way that does NOT empower bigots in workplaces.

As an example, requiring TGD people to provide their preferred pronouns without imposing a similar requirement on cisgender people WILL enable those who are transphobic to simply resort to asking, one after another, what a TGD person’s preferred pronouns are until, exhausted by the continuous battering, the TGD person commits suicide (and exhaustion from prolonged assault IS a feature in many such suicides). Another example of such abuse is a person (who I knew and observed doing this) who used “mate” with a TGD person on the flimsy pretext that lesbians (which he obviously was not!!!) use the term, but it was actually a highly vicious transphobic attack.

It should be noted that workplace HR departments in some companies are often too conflicted personally (including for personal religious reasons) or too full of gutless cowards or too blind to the psychological damage being done (some such departments still have people who thought hazing was OK) to deal with such issues.

It must be made clear that implementing such measures in a way that creates a hostile workplace or other environment is UTTERLY unacceptable - and that MUST be CLEARLY AND SPECIFICALLY SPELLED OUT.

The attitude of some bigots are a bit like a rapist who, when they (some rapists are female) stops committing the rape and then says “there we are, what’s your problem, I’m doing what is now clear by the law so we should be close friends”. The damage done by such bigots over decades have left some people with trauma, complex trauma, and PTSD.

The cure for such trauma is NOT only counselling: it is (a) removing future discrimination, (b) removing triggers to the trauma such as the attitudes of staff, and (c) the use of apologies - including by companies who have allowed such abuses (a point for such companies to keep in mind on Indigenous issues as well).

As a final note, some TGD people ARE binary: forcing them to use gender-neutral toilets, for instance, can feel like an actively attack - by denial - of their identity.

No doubt the implementation of these measures will be monitored. In the surveys which are likely to be part of that, the use of “transgender” as a singular term encompassing all TGD people is offensive - and to get that across, the designation M or F should be replaced by a singular category “cisgender” in drafts of such surveys so cisgender people can have a personal experience of that offensiveness.

Direction 2: Equitable and accessible service systems

The inclusion of targets makes this a particularly noteworthy goal, however, implementation of this measure needs to address two issues.

Firstly, requirements for documentation must take into account that people may come outside Victoria. As an example, consider how HORRENDOUS it would be to require someone from an actively transphobic nation to have to engage with the bureaucracy of that nation on documentation.

And it should NEVER be said that this is “just once and it is all over”. Some bloody-minded, bigoted or ignorant bureaucrat somewhere will come up with a pretext to force TGD people to reprove who they are at intervals of around 5 to 10 years. (I hope that strategy stops that.)

The second point also relates to this: police checks.

The problem with police checks is that it FORCES TGD people to deadname themselves - either on the form, or face-to-face.

The simple FACT is that this causes the overwhelming majority of TGD people distress - a very small number aren’t disturbed by this, but they do NOT speak for the majority. I know many TGD people who avoid applying for jobs that say “police check may be required”. That’s probably meant to deter criminals, but it (a) is an active barrier to many TGD people, and (b) suggests strongly that there is a measure of incompetence around those trying to fill the job, as they can’t even decide if a police check is or isn’t required.

There have been suggestions for dealing with this in the past - I personally like the idea of paying for all past criminal records to made accessible under new names for those who change their gender identity documentation (and NO-ONE else - not for any other name changes), even if a MODEST fee needs to be charged for that. However, the suggestion, based on attending a police station and getting a paper document, for having “<result> for this name and any former names” from around the mid-2000s might be one way of dealing with the discrimination that is inevitably caused in some workplaces by being compulsorily outed might be a half-way measure, if it can be adapted to the current digital world.

(It is pointless to make reference to laws banning discrimination in this instance: applicants are just told they were unsuccessful, and no correspondence will be entered in to. There is no way a rejected applicant can get evidence of transphobia. I am aware this strategy is for government, but it is setting the scene for how private industry does business as well.)

However, I also consider there are issues around double punishment that society needs to consider - the requirement for police checks, apart from often being questionable, makes it harder for those who have served their time to get decent jobs, and may ACTIVELY drive them back into crime. There are moves afoot to expunge past convictions if people apply: how about we, as a society, also look at things like time limits on how far back issues have to be divulged (including name changes) on police checks, and set some reasonable limits? It is bloody absurd that TGD people are possibly COMPELLED to deadname themselves from a time period that exceeds many of the statute of limitations (except for crimes such as murder, genocide, etc).

Until this issue is properly resolved to remove the burden of deadnaming from TGD people, there will ALWAYS be an inherent form of discrimination.

Direction 3: Visibility to inform decision-making

Data is not necessary before deciding to act with decency.

My previous comments apply to this matter as well.

Direction 4: Safe, strong and sustainable communities

My previous comments apply here as well.

While being mindful of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s admonition that “It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless”, I have always considered education to be crucial in the attainment of safety and equity for TGD people - and others in the LGBTIQ+ communities.

This education must not only be about the legal situation, it must actively address the myths and misconceptions that bigots have, and it must start in schools - where it must be implemented in a way that addresses the fact that parents, peers and others are likely to be actively resisting the truth because they were raised as bigots.

This cannot be achieved in a single step: such education will need to be monitored (amongst cisgender and hetero people) and adapted from time to time - in exactly the same way that we need to do to address white supremacists and other racists and their ilk on the far right (the sort who attempted a coup a few weeks ago in the USA).

Such flawed people, scared of difference, terrified of complexity and overwhelmed (emotionally and mentally) by change, are dangerous, and their fear and hate often encompasses all minorities in society - ethnic groups, disabled people, LGBTIQ+ people, and WOMEN. To deal with them, we will need to address all of their problems - and for most of those people. It doesn’t matter that they may be a minority: their hate can grow as shown by their growing influence amongst conservatives over the last two and a half decades (and do enough damage even without that growth).

General feedback

The issue of unintended consequences is of very considerable importance. When legislation is reviewed for conformity with the human rights charter, that review MUST include experts in the areas being considered.

The failure of the engineers registration bill to consider the issue of historical transphobia in tertiary institutions and the situation of people from outside Victoria is one example, but other examples include how gender aware a budget may be, for instance.

Whoever is advising the relevant committee on this appears to need expert support, in my opinion.

Most US republicans vote to acquit #45 - and thereby condemn themselves, what is left of their party, and the USA's moral standing to hell

So, as expected, #45 has been acquitted, and Pelosi ruled out the 14th Amendment a few days ago so trump can run again in four years time. The other trials might hurt the psychopath, but unless he is in jail in four years time, they basically won't make much of a difference.

The inevitability of this makes the outcome even more frustrating - maybe if they had called witnesses, it would have made the result closer. I consider that an error - and now the whole impeachment is going to empower the psychopathic #45 and his equally psychopathic supporters (the trumpettes). Remember: none of their vitriolic insanity has ANYTHING to be with rationality, so all the rational and self-serving congratulatory assessments will miss the fact that the USA has just given a greenlight to the world's current Mussolini/wannabe Hitler.

I suspect some of 45's marginal supporters would have changed allegiances as a result of this trial, just as seven US Republican Senators did, but the core are going to be re-energised and empowered and FAR more aggressive and bigoted as a result of the acquittal.

There's going to be hell to pay in four years' time in the USA, and hell to pay in the rest of world until then (and some in the USA, with an increase in acts of violent bigotry HIGHLY likely, in my opinion). 

Still, that's the outcome of:

(a) the white supremacist and other racist divisions in the USA;

(b) the gerrymander and stupidity of the US electoral system (which means the 43 psychopath enablers will probably not get any flak or fallout - and almost certainly will keep their elected positions); and

(c) a nation thinking it is better than everyone else when it clearly isn't (largely because of its hyper-individualism). 

The rest of us in the world can rely on a mostly reasonable sort of input from the USA for four years: after that, it is all bets off, and we need to learn to stand on our own two feet. 

PS - from the news: 

• US President Biden, who wants to get away from the distraction, says the simple majority was "evidence of the substance" of the charges (I dispute that that is enough); 
• the blemish on the USA republican party; 
• US Democrats have tried to defend their error in not calling witnesses; 
• trump still has influence; and
  
• "white supremacy won today".