Mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Years Eve Part II

[Pinkchampchoccies]

Just in case people want to continue discussing this.

Noeffingidea, yes it does have a twitter account. The journalist may have one too.

Tension, like you, I can't see how anyone would look at these events and fail to notice that it had to be pre-meditated, deliberate and organised. But apparently this is not obvious to the entire editorial board of the Guardian, James Was-is-face at LBC, the police in Cologne on the night (who went on to actually file a report saying the night had passed off with no more than the usual level of incident).

James O Brien is so tedious, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw him on News night!

Cologne and the London bus stop incident mentioned by James :

It is the difference between two blokes fighting in a pub and city centre battles by armies of football hooligans.

They are going to do everything in their power to minimise and rationalise this. To have it brushed under the carpet and trivialised. It's up to us to keep it in the news, to keep the truth out there.

What most of what claig says I believe to be true: "As Orban says, the ultimate aim is to weaken Europe and change its way of life. The aim is to weaken independent sovereign nations and make them part of a supranational union. National identity and independence needs to be weakened for that and divide and rule is a part of the destabilisation process." But none of us know WHY, and the why is what is stopping us from fully accepting the reality.

For many years I made the mistake of not believing what was in front of my eyes because I couldn’t figure out WHY someone was behaving in an undermining way at work, for example. I was no threat on any level, but the bullying continued. I made the mistake of spending too much brain time on the Why, instead of dealing better with my situation.

It is far easier for world leaders to control a melded, unified Europe with no central culture. This is not just a plan for Europe, because it is happening in N. America too. The melding continues and I think the aim is probably New World Order. A friend of mine spoke of this about 20+ years ago but I thought he was talking nonsense. I don’t anymore.

That's along the lines of why I am voting to leave Europe. I want to be able to complain to my MP and for them to have more power than they do to change.

I'm not sure they have an aim. I'm not sure they are 'they'. It's a class, loosely allied, but not all the same, who want to protect their own wealth and privileges, who have no understanding of how ordinary folk live, who cannot even really see us in any meaningful way. What they're doing is incompetence and inability to see us or the bigger picture. I think, most days.

We have to make them see us.

I think you're right Bungo. I think they don't really see women's issues as important, and this has been shelved as a women's issue. And they are very resistant to ever discussing male sexual violence against women as having any pattern to it - it is continually minimised as "just something that some bad men (who are totally different from us) sometimes do". So they don't attempt to see the bigger picture because they're so used to not seeing it.

Luna said: I don't think it is fear of their culture changing. I think it is pure racism.

Not in the accepted term that you mean. Once a nation and its culture is diluted there is no cohesion. Look at fragmented Britain for God's sake.

I feel so disturbed by this all and this thread is helping me to formulate my thoughts and to broaden my perspective.

Somebody upthread (apologies this is moving so fast I have troupe keeping up and reading through all the intelligent and encouraging posts, so don't remember which user) asked about:

Lobbying. Women lobbying politicians. What 'we' would want to say. i.e. '#reclaiming the night'.....

I just wanted to bring this up again so it doesn't get lost among the many great posts.

Should we talk a little bit about this? At the moment I feel like a keyboard warrior. This thread is great but the flames may soon get smaller and then we will all return to business as usual.

• troupe = trouble

"We have to make them see us."
^This

Some great, clear thinking here. Thank you for the posts. I am really interested in this line of thought:
I don't go for conspiracy theories. I think incompetence and a lack of intellectual acumen can explain most of this
I don't go for conspiracy theories, either. I've worked in central and local government. I spend a lot of time in archives. Now and then something is premeditated, but there's a lot of stupidity, arsiness, point-scoring and short-term thinking

Are we witnessing merely generalised incompetence and bungled decision making or a more malign chain of events? The answer to this will determine how we respond to the Cologne events. To put another way, should we view the sexual assaults as a stand-alone issue where these events demonstrated yet more subjugation of women via sexual assault (and we thus protest, march, vocally write counters to this) or do we view these events as one of a series of incidents and actions, which are destabilising the European way of life? Is this about sexual violence only or is there more to it than that? Neither position is preferable and both should be strongly countered but the answer does determine where we go next.

I am inclined toward Bungo's comment where we do know that decision making hegemony appears to be the preserve of a handful of certain characteristic individuals. How important is this and how important is it that we recognise it?

Agree, I can't stsand right-on James O'Brien and I turn Newsnight off when his scowling face is on.

'But none of us know WHY, and the why is what is stopping us from fully accepting the reality.

For many years I made the mistake of not believing what was in front of my eyes because I couldn’t figure out WHY someone was behaving in an undermining way at work, for example. I was no threat on any level, but the bullying continued. I made the mistake of spending too much brain time on the Why, instead of dealing better with my situation.'

Tatiana44, the why is the same as why the bully does it - for power, for a feeling of superiority, of control.

The trick is to portray it as being left liberal and nice, but when that control finally comes it won't be nice at all. Silencing of opinions via political correctness is only the start. When full control is gained by global governance, there will be no national opposition at all, no power for people at all, no independence, no sovereignty. And then things will get even worse because our rulers will solve the population problem for us.

Just catching up with this thread, thank you OP for continuing it.

Referring to Czechland and Hungary, communism and fascism are the same - control of people thru one ideology. Rather like the ideology of some refugees streaming into Europe. They way we have developed our western life grates on them and they want to subvert it.

.. and hear us and not silence us.

I reiterate: How about telling (migrant) men to keep at arm's length? Of course I don't want this but imagine the public outrage a statement like this would have brought about...

I still utterly disagree with Luna. Racism is about race. Hence the CZ (or was it Hungary?) PM only wanting Christians rather than no migrants at all.

This is about culture. There has not been a single racist remark on this thread.

Bungo, Eastern Europe is very different I think. I went off on a mahoosive tangent, mostly in response to claig.

Pink, me too! Re keyboard warrior. But I don't know where to start!

So we're all fairly clear that this is an organised terrorist attack. After the terrorist attacks in France in November - is it ok to compare? - there were politicians of all sorts talking about it, some going in all guns blazing, Corbyn warning against that, just discussing responses. That's what we need, an open acknowledgement that this has happened and we need to define a response not just throw women under the carpet. An international response condemning these assaults and stating that women have to enjoy free movement as much as men.

I suppose some kind of email/ petition asking for that?

I would also like to see sympathy marches/ demonstrations. How on earth do they get going?

I don't go for conspiracy theories. I think incompetence and a lack of intellectual acumen can explain most of this
I don't go for conspiracy theories, either. I've worked in central and local government. I spend a lot of time in archives. Now and then something is premeditated, but there's a lot of stupidity, arsiness, point-scoring and short-term thinking

I don't think it's a conspiracy per se but it reveals a lot about people's beliefs and priorities in the same way that Rotherham did.

It is not particularly surprising to me, with the level of hidden misogyny within our society, that the response so far has been

• To disbelieve women
• To minimise what happened to women
• To avoid official recording of what happened to women (police)
• To prioritise immigrant (or indeed any) men over women
• To call women hysterical for demanding the protection of their basic human rights of security and freedom of movement
• To expect women to budge up, change how they act, and appease the problem.

Yes this is more shocking when something on such a grotesque scale occurs, but it is merely the same learned behaviour that applies to women suffering from rape, domestic violence, harassment or even misogynistic bullying at work. We may think we've gained equality but when push comes to shove we're still second class citizens.

Here's a question - what sort of policy changes, ideally, would people like to result from this event?

My own ideas are somewhat confused. Temporarily restricting refugee status to women and children, or placing a huge priority on such claims over anyone else would be one of my first. I'm concerned about restrictions of right to assembly, as that's one of the first things the government will use against us if they get a chance. Some sort of formalised immediate and robust police response to reports of impromptu crowds might be better, with an emphasis on protecting women - it would also give the police a policy tool to address other forms of mass anti-social disorder, like closing down town centres at night if drinking and harassment are getting out of control.

But to be honest, I think the primary thing should be a massive shift in 'official' culture - a full commitment to a raw, honest appraisal of the impact refugee/immigrant prior socialisation may have on the inidigenous society, particularly on whether it exacerbates problems that already persist (like weak anti-harassment laws).

shins Excellent post of yours about the Guardian.
"They are supposed to be left-wing but they are cheerleaders for uncontrolled immigration, which fucks over low-income native workers but cheaper nannies and cleaners for them, yay. They are supposed to endorse liberal values but are weirdly obsessed with defending Islam, an ideology which disrespects women, gays, apostates, Jews, atheists and pretty much anyone outside that ideology."

As Stalin said, there are always a plentiful supply of Useful Idiots everywhere. To defend the indefensible as a paper means it has been knobbled.