Leeds University Union’s No Platform policy was renewed two weeks ago at one of their Better Union forums but a motion to extend it to the student newspaper was sent to referendum. The reason for the second motion was an interview that was published with Griffin in Leeds Student a month ago, which caused a massive controversy on campus because it didn’t technically break the No Platform policy. The whole controversy, though, I think exposes exactly why the policy is broken as it currently stands.
Politics
Tom Harris is not a nice man
People who know me know that I really don’t like Tom Harris, the current MP for Glasgow South. Hell, my second blog post was basically about him being totally awful on the issue of tuition fees (a lie he continues to this day), and he relishes in being the tribal kind of Labour MP, especially on Twitter. So savvy he is on Twitter, that he became Labour’s internet adviser.
Until he posted a Downfall parody of Alex Salmond, effectively comparing the Scottish National Party leader to Adolf Hitler. Yep. After he lost the Scottish Labour leadership election, he might’ve been a bit angry. Who knows? But he did end up having to resign the post.
Transphobia and patriarchy in action: Jason Wong
On Tuesday night, I wrote and published this piece on transphobic feminism, and how it’s inherently part of the patriarchy.
On Wednesday morning, I woke up to find out about a comment piece written by LSE student Jason Wong that was printed in London Student on the subject of gender-neutral toilets:
Those homophobic Lib Dems and those gay-friendly Tories
“Homophobia”, cried Conservative Future on Friday, the day after the Lib Dems won the Grove Ward by-election in Kingston. “A return to 1983!”, cried the Lib Dem bashers around the internet (including famous opponent of equal marriage Ben Summerskill, but that’s for the next post). Why? Because the election was described as a “straight fight”, when the Tory opponent just so happened to be gay.
Headingley
It’s one of those things that every Lib Dem was dreading to hear: that, even with months of campaigning, their candidate had lost to the Labour candidate. Not more was the hurt felt in Headingley two weeks ago. We – as in Leeds Liberal Youth – had been campaigning hard since last September to ensure that the then-incumbent councillor, Jamie Matthews, was re-elected. Jamie was a superb councillor, and was a better pick to represent students than the Labour candidate. Even after tuition fees. When thousands of students had problems with their internet connection, Labour, with a majority on the council, were nowhere to be seen. But Jamie carved out the niche of the “councillor who took on Virgin Media”.
I use the past tense, because he lost. By 32 votes.
The American justice system is rockin’ the suburbs
Let me tell y’all what it’s like
Being male, middle class and white
It’s a bitch, if you don’t believe,
Listen up to my new cd, shamone
–Ben Folds, “Rockin’ the Suburbs”
First off, I apologise to Mr. Folds for using his song about nu metal bands in a blog post about racism.
A common meme in the political systems is that “racism is over”, because Barack Obama was elected in 2012. It’s pretty patently bullshit, though, because Obama is subject to a lot of racist shit that Bush, Clinton, Reagan, et cetera, did not receive as President, and it’s all sugar-coated in the guise of “I’m just asking questions” or “I’m just a concerned citizen”. Take a look at the birth certificate conspiracy theories, for example. Where are the people demanding Romney’s birth certificate? When you consider that the only other President to have received such questions was Chester A. Arthur, who was a) born close to the border and b) was Irish by descent (and therefore, the argument goes, Catholic, a political suicide in the 1800s), it’s seen in a different light. It runs through American conservatism, where the patriarchy of straight cis white Christian men must be upheld: look at their erasure of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement as racial conflicts, which they claim was about “state’s rights”, when it was about keeping the black population as second class citizens.
Transgender health in Leeds: An addendum
Last month I wrote a post about the state of transgender health in the NHS in Leeds. However, I realise that the post, written from the perspective of a cisgender ally, misses out the most important aspect of all: the transgender perspective. I hence asked on the LUU LGBT Society’s group page for said perspective, … Read more
Liberal Youth Spring Conference 2012
The Spring Conference of Liberal Youth was held in the lovely city of Leeds, thanks to a successful bid submitted by our branch, Leeds Liberal Youth. I have to admit, I was a Conference virgin, having not been to either a Liberal Youth nor a Federal Conference before (rather stupidly electing not to go to the 2011 Conference in Sheffield). But, with a Conference taking place in my proverbial back yard, I felt I was obligated to go. That, and I was part of the host.
Stop SOPA
I’m not an American, but I still think that the [[Stop Online Piracy Act]] should be killed. With fire. Then resurrected to be killed again, to emphasise it’s a really bad idea. Watch the below video, or get involved at AmericanCensorship.org If you want a handy guide, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The darker side of Occupy and the language of conspiracy theory
So, the Occupy movement. Let’s get something straight, first: I like the idea of Occupy, what it was like in its infancy around the world: a grassroots movement to expose corporate malfeasance and the like. A left-wing version of the Tea Party, but without birther idiots. But I don’t like Occupy as it is today. There’s a reason for that. People have stopped caring, so a lot of sympathisers, like myself, stopped being involved. It left the movement with only the dedicated people. And it’s not dedicated anarchists or dedicated socialists or dedicated liberals, it’s the dedicated anti-establishment.