The intellectual capacity of local authorities are staggeringly lacking

Hundreds of homeless people fined and imprisoned in England and Wales

Councils use a range of tools to crackdown on begging, but PSPOs are the most popular. Breaching a PSPO can lead to a £100 fixed-penalty notice, but offenders face a summary conviction, sometimes a criminal behaviour order (CBO) banning an individual for future begging and a fine of up to £1,000 if they fail to pay. Violating a CBO can result in five years in prison. Read More

Local councils are criminalizing poverty, however, the thought process behind the fines are laughable. A person begging or ‘sleeping rough’ can be fined up to £1,000 for so doing. Obiously someone at this state of poverty has no money. The fine therefore, will be uncollectable and the individual will go to jail, thereby costing the state more money. It costs £65,000 to imprison a person in the UK once police, court costs and all the other steps are taken into account. https://goo.gl/hf0mnj ]

However, inprisonment has vastly improved the situation for the homeless person as they now have a roof, food, a warm bed and full medical care. Eventually they may be able to sue the government for wrongfull imprisonment and collect enough to purchase a home.

Ignorance on a shocking scale

How we grew arrogant enough to believe we have the right to kill

In the aftermath of the Santa Fe High School shooting, Texas' lieutenant governor Dan Patrick blamed such attacks on gun owners who don't lock up their guns, and on the "design of schools" which have too many "entrances and exits".

While licensed gun holders should certainly take care to safely lock up their guns, that does not address the larger issue of gun ownership, nor does it address our US culture that, whether we admit it or not, has become desensitised to these mass shootings. Furthermore, blaming building design for this shooting is just one more way US officials are evading their very real responsibility to do more to stop such attacks

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/grew-arrogant-kill-180520180022502.html

1937’s Revenge

Why an Imbalanced Global Economy is a Recipe for Disaster

In the 1930s, it was countries that grew apart and unequal. Germany owed too much money to Britain and France — much more than it could ever repay. The reparations broke its economy, shattered the lives of its people, drove them into penury. Hungry, resentful, embittered, enraged, what happened next? They turned to the most strident and bombastic strongman they could find. They sought in his arms what had been taken from them, at root — dignity, a sense of belonging, pride, meaning. But instead of seeking those in healthy, positive, beneficial ways, they sought them in destructive, negative, and violent ones — turning on their neighbors, scapegoating Jews, immigrants, gays, minorities. And thus the seeds of atrocity and war were laid by the hand of austerity, indebtedness, and stagnation. Read More

Gazan Gandhis: Gaza Bleeds Alone as ‘Liberals’ and ‘Progressives’ Go Mute

Does no State or Head of State have the intestinal fortitude to speak out?

Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border.

Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing – nearly 45 dead and over 5,500 wounded – the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long chastised Palestinians for using armed resistance against the Israeli occupation are nowhere to be found, while children, journalists, women and men are all targeted by hundreds of Israeli snipers who dot the Gaza border.

Israeli officials are adamant. The likes of Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, perceives his war against the unarmed protesters as a war on terrorists. He believes that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” While the Israeli mindset is not in the least surprising, it is emboldened by the lack of meaningful action, or outright international silence to the atrocities taking place at the border.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), aside from frequent statements laced with ambiguous legal jargon, has been quite useless thus far. Its Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, derided Israel’s killings in a recent statement, but also distorted facts in her attempt at ‘even-handed language’, to the delight of Israeli media.

(https://sabrangindia.in/article/gazan-gandhis-gaza-bleeds-alone-liberals-and-progressives-go-mute