The problem is the government's (all UK including devolved) and establishment (including Police unfortunately) have created the conditions over time, for this to happen. Now instead of dealing with the underlying issues, they just shout "far right racism is to blame" to deflect from their own culpability.
To be clear, successive governments are responsible. This isn't about party politics. It's the entire political establishment that's responsible, due to them all swinging the pendulum too far the other way to combat perceived racism issues within its own ranks, especially after Stephen Lawrence, then BLM in the US.
The result? Racism against minorities replaced with self hatred and racism against the majority population. Thats when things like the police response in the Henry Nowak case happen. The conditions for it were created by overcompensation due to what were genuine cases of historical institutional racism against minorities.
In politics and in wider culture/society, the pendulum swings back and forth between extremes especially during the past 10-15 years, and more people are becoming polarised because of it. And we're seeing the results of that in the streets. The so called "Great British" Establishment which is supposed to be our safety net, has become part of the problem because it is there, where the overcompensation is happening.
All they really have to do is realign their policies (including the police) more sensibly and rebuild trust. But they're too full of their own power and influence as they seem to have forgotten where that power ultimately comes from.
Sometimes it is necessary for the people to offer a timely reminder - which is what we're seeing. Of course, there are also some genuine racists out there assaulting people and destroying property, because they feel empowered by this situation and use it as an excuse to vent their bigotry in public. There is absolutely no excuse for that. It also gives the Establishment someone to point their finger at instead of themselves, so nothing changes.
Those who want to protest responsibly should do so in great numbers - but the genuine bigots should stay at home, lest they ruin it for everyone by giving themselves up as a target for ridicule instead of helping find a solution.
Airports are high security spaces because they have to be. If you misbehave at an airport, you're highly likely in most countries to enjoy the blessings of instant karma..
This is the moment it kicked off in the Basque airport. You can see the flotilla activists made a line across the exit that blocked other passengers. The police tried to make a space for them to get through. The protester shoved the police and it started.
Nothing is so cut and dried, either with science or with religion. Both are equally ignorant of the true nature of the universe. Why?
Science is arrogant because everything it thinks it knows is based on its version of observable reality. - while also only being able to observe around 5% of reality.
Religion is arrogant because everything it thinks it knows is based on its version of learned dogma. While different religions vary in their beliefs substantially, each has absolute faith that they are right and the rest are wrong.
In the meantime, the true nature of the universe continues as it is regardless of one human mindset or another, while we all argue hopelessly about things we have no way of knowing - until we pass from this world to the next..
On combining science and spirituality, possibly the best effort so far should be credited to Rudolf Steiner and his works on anthroposophy, also called Spiritual Science.
For what it's worth, I believe there is a nature of the universe that we would call spiritual, only because it is that which we have no ability to define.
Perhaps it is that science is too far behind and simply doesn't understand..
It's true that historical images purported to depict demons are very similar to images of "ET" in more recent times. In particular, those known as "Greys".
There's a trend in New Age now to think of ET as extra dimensional beings. That doesn't mean they are or that they all are.
There is a place that has different names within different beliefs, is interpreted differently, but is essentially based on the same idea.
In New Age, it's called the 'Lower Astral Plane'. In Anthroposophy, it's called the' Eighth Sphere'. In fiction, it's been called the 'Upside Down'. In Christianity, it's called 'Hell'.
So, the Christian denouncement is true *from their perspective* due to how these ideas correlate.
Activist: "Drinking milk is for baby cows, not humans."
Farmer: "Humans have been drinking it for 10,000 years."
Activist: "We're the only species that drinks another species' milk."
Farmer: "We're also the only species that cooks food, wears clothes, and writes books. Should we pack those in too?"
Activist: "It's unnatural."
Farmer: "So are antibiotics. Refusing those next time you get pneumonia?"
Activist: "That's different."
Farmer: "How? Both are things humans do that other animals don't."
Activist: "Milk is meant for calves."
Farmer: "Wheat is meant to reproduce the wheat plant. And yet here you are eating bread."
Activist: "Most humans are lactose intolerant."
Farmer: "Most humans of European descent aren't. We evolved the trait. That's how evolution works."
Activist: "It's still weird."
Farmer: "Weirder than flying across continents in a metal tube? Weirder than arguing with a stranger on a phone you didn't build, charged by electricity you can't generate, about food produced by a farmer you've never met?"
"Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless."
Exodus 22:22-24.
If you are a Christian and you afflict Erika Kirk and her children, you are sinning unto God and He shall hear their cries and the wrath of the Lord will be against you.
If you are atheist and you mistreat and attack Erika Kirk and her children, you may tell us you don't believe these verses, but what they prove even in a secular sense, is that you have less social integrity than bronze age/iron age people.
Either way.
Be compassionate and leave her alone.
@NatashaCL7 It's a tool like any other. It's up to us humans to ensure we use it for good. Unfortunately, there's that human nature thing.
But I also think it's not necessarily all that it's hyped to be. A language learning model can't farely be described as artificial intelligence.
Israel’s legal title to the Land is ironclad under international law - and it was permanently reaffirmed on this day in 1946.
On April 18, 1946, the League of Nations dissolved itself & transferred its “sacred trust” to the United Nations: the Mandate for Palestine.
That legally binding document, unanimously approved by all 51 member states on July 24, 1922, granted the Jewish people irrevocable title to settle anywhere in western Palestine - the roughly 10,000 square miles between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (today’s Israel, Gaza, and the so-called “West Bank”).
Britain had already sliced off 77% of the original Mandate to create Transjordan (today’s Jordan) out of “eastern Palestine” as a reward for the Hashemites. The remainder - from the river to the sea - remained the Jewish National Home under international law.
“Palestine” was never an Arab state, never a nationality, and never even an Arabic word. It derives from the Roman provincial name Syria Palaestina, imposed in 135 CE after the Bar Kokhba Revolt to erase the name Judea and its Jewish identity. The term itself comes from the ancient Philistines - ancient Aegean enemies of the Jews.
Under Ottoman and British rule, local Arabs considered themselves part of Greater Syria. British Mandate documents spoke of “Jews and Arabs of Palestine” - never “Jews and Palestinians.” The flagship institutions (Palestine Post, Palestine Symphony Orchestra, Anglo-Palestine Bank) were all Jewish.
Crucially, the Mandate reserved political rights to self-determination for the Jews alone. Arabs received full civil rights and their own political rights in four other mandates: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan.
Article 80 of the UN Charter preserved every Jewish right under the Mandate when the League dissolved.
Israel’s legal title isn’t a “settler-colonial” fever dream. It is the last unamended international accord on the land; and it remains in force to this day.
They’ve spent eight decades gaslighting the world with a fabricated “indigenous” peoplehood that never existed before the 1960s. The documents don’t lie.
Vegans: "Drinking cow's milk is unnatural!"
Great point.
So instead of pulling on some teats for thirty seconds, we've developed a twelve-step industrial alternative.
Step one: grow almonds in California, a drought-afflicted state currently depleting an aquifer that took twenty thousand years to fill.
Step two: ship them to a processing facility.
Step three: soak them in water. California water, specifically, because almonds need 15 gallons per ounce and California is already rationing.
Step four: pulverise them into a slurry.
Step five: filter the slurry through fine mesh, discarding most of the actual almond in the process. That was the bit with the nutrition in it. Gone now.
Step six: add more water, because the resulting liquid isn't watery enough.
Step seven: add sweeteners, because it tastes of nothing.
Step eight: add emulsifiers, because it separates in six minutes otherwise.
Step nine: add synthetic vitamins, because all the natural ones left in step five.
Step ten: add seed oils, because we apparently learned nothing.
Step eleven: homogenise, degas, pasteurise, and sterilise the mixture until it resembles no food that has ever existed in nature.
Step twelve: put it in a carton with a picture of a field on it.
The cow: stands in a field. Makes milk. Has done this for ten thousand years. No factory. No steps. No aquifer.
Unnatural, though. Very unnatural.