Ramona's blog

After a month-long moratorium, water shut-offs in Detroit have started again this week, leaving indebted households across the city with no access to running water.

On Big Issues and Big Society.

A short response to "things lib-communists say that you hate hearing all the time", on being accused of sexism, and in jokes.

A documentary on the failures of NHS treatment for young people with mental health problems prompted a vocal defence of the NHS. Can we criticise the shortcomings of NHS mental health care whilst arguing against NHS privatisation?

A slightly polished version of a short talk for a panel discussion on post-Fordism and mental health with Hannah Black and Mark Fisher, as part of Auto Italia South East's Immaterial Labour Isn't Working 2013 event series.

A blog about welfare reform from a social care worker's perspective, and the creation of the "welfare addict" as a recession-era scapegoat. Inspired largely by today's Novara show, and the people I work with.

Some thoughts on low-income cooking, health, guilt, and the punishment of the poor.

CeCe McDonald is a transgender woman of colour, who survived a brutal assault by racist transphobes, which left her seriously injured and one of her attackers dead. She was yesterday (4th June 2012) sentenced to 41 months after being convicted of second degree manslaughter, which she is likely to serve in an all-male prison.

I've written this blog in response to a previous discussion of the safer spaces policy at the NYC Anarchist Bookfair 2012, and why I'm not convinced we need to be too preoccupied with the possibility of false rape accusations.

TRIGGER WARNING: sexual violence

Twitter today pointed out this horrific, unbelievably offensive article, titled 'Homeopathy for Domestic Violence and Abuse'. Hopefully, the title alone will be enough to fill you with materialist outrage, but I'm going to have a little rant about it anyway.

Trigger warning: domestic abuse

Last week, I added a 'trigger warning' to this thread. We've not really used these on libcom as a matter of course before, except for adding one to the introduction of Liberté Locke's excellent piece on workplace organising and sexual violence, 'My body, my rules'. But what are trigger warnings, and why do we use them?

NCAFC called a national day of action for November 23rd, a week ahead of the massive public sector strike on November 30th. Several universities have now gone into occupation...

There's been a lot of talk lately about how unfair the public sector strikes are on service users. This assumes that service users don't support the strikes, and forgets to mention that workers are striking not just for their pensions, but for the future of public services too.

Omar was sentenced to 18 months on 4th November, following the anti-cuts TUC march and rally on 26th March. This statement was written before he was sentenced. Please write to him and send him stamps and envelopes!

This was written by a radical social work student for her fellow students, to make the case for striking on N30. Workers with vulnerable client groups need to strike now more than ever, not only for their own jobs but for their clients' rights and care in years to come.

A quick guide to union ballots for strike action on November 30th so far...

My friend Joel White wrote this piece, about the president of our student's union, who is also a Special Constable. It appeared in the University's student newspaper and also on Bright Green. Personally, I'd have gone further, criticising the role of both police and elected representatives, and pointed out that Specials are worse than normal cops cos they do it for free, but still an interesting piece especially considering it was aimed initially at an apolitical student body rather than anyone directly involved with any kind of organising.

A review of the play by 1927, who knew the UK riots were going to happen before everyone else did

I'm waiting for my copy of 'Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State' which looks to be a brilliant discussion of the ethics and purpose of anthropology, specifically referring to the growing use of 'embedded anthropologists' by the US military. This review from La Jornada, a widely circulated Mexican newspaper, was translated by Chuck Morse for AK Press

A look at how some communities in London have been responding to the riots which have swept the country.