Wednesday 23 December 2020

Return to Oz

 
The Festive Season is a time for films on TV. One of the great holiday favourites is the classic fantasy, The Wizard of Oz; however it had a less famous sequel made in 1985 called Return to Oz. This second film is very different in many ways to the original. It is not a musical and has a much darker tone. It has some excellent special effects. It is set a few months after the original, following Dorothy's return to Kansas from the Land of Oz. She is obsessed with her experience in the magical kingdom and badly misses the friends she made there, the Scarecrow, the Tim Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. Her parents start to worry about Dorothy's mental health. They dismiss her ravings as hysteria and are concerned that she cannot forget what they believe was nothing but a hallucination when she received a head injury during the tornado. They decide to take her to a doctor specializing in electrical brain stimulation. For a brief period during the turn of the twentieth century, doctors believed EBS could cure mental illnesses. What it did instead was make the patients worse by causing brain damage, like it did to the Aston character in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker. The supposed hospital Dorothy is taken to looks like Dracula's castle and the matron wears a dark vampiric dress. The first two people she meets are a pair of porters pushing a trolley onto which she is secured with leather straps like a prisoner for execution. It's an extremely disturbing scene and obviously terrifying for Dorothy, who is played by a pre-teen Fairuza Balk, which is odd seeing as Judy Garland in the original is clearly a good few years older, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EXoqJKE6Eg. To cut a long story short, Dorothy escapes and ends up back in the Land of Oz.
 
As with The Wizard of Oz, a lot of Dorothy's experiences in Return to Oz, as well as the characters she interacts with, are seemingly connected to her original life in Kansas; and so the possibility is never eliminated that her adventure really is all just a dream, something purely internal to her imagination. She reaches the Emerald City to find it in ruins. It has been sacked by the evil "Nome King" and the protagonists from the original film have been imprisoned. The ruins of the city are patrolled by "the Wheelers", a group of strange four legged humanoids with wheels instead of feet. It is clear that these are based on the porters Dorothy encountered at the hospital. Their locomotion even makes the same squeaking sounds that the un-oiled wheels of the porters' trolley did; and they are played by the same actors, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM0RFE3QGAU. Could this be an example I could add to my article Hospital Porters in the Media? In that case it is our strangest portrayal as all. We begin as ghoulish assistants in an electrical brain torturing facility and turn into freaky four-wheeled evil clowns. I'm not sure what the implication is.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2016/12/hospital-porters-in-media.html.

Wednesday 16 December 2020

Oxford Grooming Gang

 
This article is partly a follow-on to this one: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/11/gosh-porter-admits-child-abuse.html. The details of the "grooming gang" scandal are slowly coming out bit by bit. The Home Office has just released a major report. The true scale, horror and longevity of this syndrome of crimes are almost too terrible to describe. I will not even post links to news stories about it. One of the branches of this conspiracy of evil was in Oxford. It was not only an act of child abuse and sexual violence; it was an outburst of racial hatred and religious supremacy. Some of the victims were black, Hindu or Sikh, but the vast majority were white. What makes it all the more galling is that the authorities whose duty it was to protect these young girls tacitly collaborated with it simply because they couldn't endure being called "racists!" What I personally find very difficult to deal with is that some of the twenty-two men were hospital porters. I served alongside them as a brother porter. I will not name them. Like Paul Farrell, they are no longer hospital porters and I reject and despise them forever.

Saturday 28 November 2020

GOSH Porter admits Child Abuse

 
The hospital portering service has done so many wonderful things. We have changed the world! See here for details: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2011/07/hospital-porters-who-changed-world.html. However, we are not a separate species. We are human beings in uniform. There are evil people in the Hospital Portering Service, terribly destructive people; people I believe are demonically possessed. I've known one or two... Another is, of course, Jimmy Savile, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/02/jimmy-savile-nhs-knew.html. One such person has just brought shame on the Hospital Portering Service. Paul Farrell was a porter at the world famous Great Ormond Street Hospital, a dedicated children's hospital in London that has cared for the youngest members of society since 1852. He pleaded guilty to fifty-eight sexual offences against children carried out between 1985 and 2020. One of his victims is now aged forty-three. This was a multi-generational reign of terror. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57229868. The sad and frustrating thing is that the civilian staff at GOSH will henceforth inevitably regard Farrell's crimes as a part of something related to the nature of all porters and/or hospital portering in general. The same is never the case when it comes to one of their own. Hospital civilians who commit crimes, even the worst crimes of all, are shrugged off as "a few bad apples!"; for example see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/05/killer-nurses.html. It's a horrific thing when young people enter hospital for help and healing, and only suffer exploitation and abuse. I said a long time ago: "once a hospital porter, always a hospital porter". In the case of Mr Farrell I make an exception. Like Jimmy Savile, he is no longer one of us.

Tuesday 13 October 2020

HP's NDE

 
24 Hours in A&E is a long running hospital documentary on Channel 4. In their recent series they featured a porter called Jeremain. Jeremain serves at Kings College Hospital in Camberwell, London and the programme follows him on a few jobs which include "POV" shots where the camera shows us what he would see as he manoeuvres patient transport vehicles along the corridors. He's a cheerful kind of porter who sings to himself while he works. He originally comes from the Cayman Islands and in his youth was very keen on fast cars. He once drove a sports car round a corner at ninety miles per hour... something you could never do with a patient trolley; and the car left the road and overturned. In that terrible moment, Jeremain thought he was about to die. Then he saw a big white light shaped like a triangle. He felt that it was God intervening to save him, telling him that it was too soon for him to die and that God had made divine plans for what Jeremain had to do with his life. Based on the duty Jeremain is performing now, I cannot disagree. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUbU2sbfeDE. An increasing number of people have been reporting experiences similar to that of MEP&DBP Jeremain. Most of these are in hospital and the reason they have become more common is medical technology. Before modern resuscitation techniques, once a patient's heart stopped they were generally declared dead straight away. Today there are ways of restarting their heart which are sometimes successful, allowing for the first time in history, people to continue their lives able to describe the experience of beginning to die. Their stories are incredible. They talk about visiting a heavenly realm and meeting with God. Sometimes dead friends and relatives commune with them. Occasionally this happens outside hospital with people who are seriously hurt, but not at immediately death's door, like MEP&DBP Jeremain. I'm glad he managed to be featured in this series and tell his story. It is good to see hospital portering portrayed respectfully by the media.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/10/return-from-dead.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/10/proof-of-life-after-death.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/11/consciousness-beyond-individual.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/11/near-death-experience-proved-true.html.

Monday 31 August 2020

COVID 19 Whistleblower

A video has been currently circulating produced by a healthworker called Louise Hampton. She is employed by a contractor called Care UK and reports that her hospital was very quiet during the COVID 19 pandemic. This tallies with what I myself have heard from insiders I am still in touch with. She was awarded a certificate of merit for being part of the coronavirus response team, but she has returned it, calling it "a certificate of bollocks!" Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KWfuhe5YhY. This was a brave thing to do because, as I know only too well, the NHS is merciless towards whistleblowers; see the background links below. Predictably, her Trust and contractor authorities have retaliated with typical bureaucratic ferocity. They have placed Ms Hampton under an investigation which is eerily similar to my own discharge from the NHS, see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2013/01/one-year-on.html. The BBC have now got on the case and their own reaction has been equally unsurprising. They have published an article written by somebody called Shayan Sardarizadeh from the BBC's "Anti-disinformation unit". Talk about an Orwellian name! The article is as biased, deceptive and derogatory as the BBC's typical output. Care UK issued a statement: "We are aware of this video, which we consider to be materially inaccurate in a number of ways, and can confirm that a member of staff is subject to investigation. We expect all our colleagues and services to support the work of the NHS in giving the public the right information and support during the pandemic." The article then leans on the fact that Ms Hampton is a QAnon supporter. They call QAnon "...an unfounded rightwing conspiracy theory that says President Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satanic paedophiles in government, business and the media known as the 'Deep State' or 'Cabal'... (They believe) prominent people such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be arrested and executed." The Guardian has recently called QAnon "anti-Semitic"... Of course they have! Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-53948820. I salute my civilian sister for her courage and feel loathing for the management who are persecuting her for her beliefs. I know her career is now in jeopardy and I wish her all the best.

Friday 21 August 2020

The All New Gas Spanner Show

There will shortly be a new programme series beginning on HPANWO Radio. This programme will be called The Gas Spanner and will become the official radio show of the HPWA. It will join the HPANWO Radio programmes list along with The HPANWO Show, Third Rail Radio and The Cry Freedom Show with Lisa. I hope it will become part of the "newspaper of record" for the Hospital Portering Service along with the HPWA and, more obliquely, HPANWO in general. The Gas Spanner will be specifically directed to cover the theme of hospital portering and associated subjects. I know that the prime contributor will always be myself, but I don't intend it to be purely a solo series. If I can bring on guests I will; I'm thinking specifically of MEP&DBP (ret) Trevor Murray who co-hosts Third Rail Radio with me. I don't expect serving hospital porters or NHS civilians to take the risk of being on the show. I'm well aware that being featured anywhere with me could be the kiss of death to somebody's career; but I will never include anybody unless I can totally safeguard their professional life. I am going to start design work on The Gas Spanner and will produce the pilot show as soon as possible.

Friday 7 August 2020

RoboPorter!

This news video has appeared: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c4G6QcrvWY. It has a lot to say about the general issue of automation, which I will not detail here because I do so in this episode of Third Rail Radio, see: https://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2020/08/third-rail-radio-programme-89.html. It starts with the story of "Maxi", a robot in a hospital that performs many of the tasks that are normally the duty of the hospital portering services, such as delivering laboratory specimens, linen and medications. It is the porters' job, not the nurses' as the clip claims. The portering job involves logistics, the movement of anything from anywhere to anywhere. It is something that probably could easily be automated, by the technology of the past, let alone today. So does this mean "RoboPorter" is here to stay? No. Although it is possible, and indeed feasible, that non-patient contact duties could be done by machines, what about the patient contact work? The role of a hospital porter is not just to transport patients, but to embody the human factor. Hospital patients are very often frightened, upset, in pain, angry and vulnerable. Having a human being at the controls of your bed or wheelchair is a very important part of relieving those negative feelings; and therefore the healing process. The word "porter" originates from the Latin portare, meaning "to carry", but the hospital porter acts and counsellor and comforter as well as carrier. Many time, patients will actually confide in a porter more than they will with somebody directly providing clinical interventions. The detachment of the porters' position can allow the patient an intimacy with them that is difficult with somebody who is injecting or stitching them. I heard some of the most incredible stories imaginable from the patients I served during my twenty-three years in hospital portering. How could that necessary element of therapy be reduced to a faceless, soulless automaton attached by a metal hook to the back of your trolley or wheelchair? Therefore I doubt if patient transport will be automated in the foreseeable future. It won't be unless human beings themselves can stripped of their humanity... You have twenty seconds to comply!

Monday 1 June 2020

Happy St Theo's Day 2020!

On behalf of every serving hospital porter, every former hospital porter, and everybody else who loves, appreciates and supports us, with all the Pride and Dignity of my Extremely Proud and Dignified Brother and Sister Porters, I'd like to wish all my friends and readers, a very happy St Theo's Day. 
Here is my HPANWO TV video for St Theo's this year: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/06/st-theo-2020.html.

Wednesday 27 May 2020

The NHS Religion

As St Theo's Day approaches, now is a good time to reflect on the twelve months that have just passed and ask some fundamental questions about the way we can save our proud profession and the healthcare system it is a part of. My answers might be controversial and objectionable to some readers. During my career in the UK National Health Service I went through many changes. I began as a very naive and quite antagonistic teenager who quickly got sucked into leftist politics through the powerful trade union presence in the Oxford hospital community. The ethos of that mindset was very polarized and inflexible: public-good-private-bad. I became disillusioned with trade unionism very quickly. I was probably only really hardcore for about a year. As my twenties dawned I developed a more nuanced view of the NHS. However I stuck to the principles of public-good-private-bad long after I had become much more centrist on other issues. This was because I experienced NHS privatization directly, from the inside. The NHS trust introduced policies that I regarded as insane, although they were actually very cold and calculated; see the background links below. This preserved in me a dim view of private enterprise, at least when it comes to public utilities and essential services. As I matured through the years I came to understand that the public sector in its present form is actually far from perfect. I also came to understand that the private sector can take many forms and not all of them are bad. Socialists have a go-to answer whenever their critics bring up the excesses and brutality of the Soviet Union: "Yes, but that wasn't real socialism!" Well, could it be that what we see in the world today which the socialists lambaste so much is not real capitalism? This video by Niall Murphy is very interesting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwZ32nUIEFo

Niall brings up some of the same points that I have been contemplating, including an awareness of the difference between the different socio-economic models that are given the label capitalism. He uses the terms "monopolist" and "gangster capitalism", which is attributed to Terence McKenna. Stefan Molyneux calls it "crap-italism", to distinguish it from something that might turn out to be more positive and vigorous, if it's given a chance. The essence of capitalism is said to be the free market. Its supporters claim this encourages perfection through producers competing to provide the best product. Economic growth is indefinite and therefore good capitalism grows it quicker. Its critics say it leads to greed and, in an economy in which capital is limited to a fixed amount, it results in wealth being hoarded by a very few people at the expense of the majority. However, in the NHS there is no competition. The reason contractors are so awful is not because they are private companies, but because they can do whatever the hell they like because they constitute a synthetic monopoly. They're only keeping their place through corruption. They therefore enjoy a parasitic relationship with the NHS, pocketing as much of their fees as possible by doing the cheapest and nastiest job they can get away with. This maximizes short-term profit at the detriment to their employees and the patients they serve. There is no free market involved. The patient cannot choose not to use one company and choose to use another instead. Where's the competition? Also a healthy system would not only have different firms competing to maximize results. To maximize results they would have to sacrifice short-term profit to deliver a better service. To do this they would have to invest more, raise their overheads, pay their staff more and take better care of them. They would also have to value proficient staff over those who were less so, because proficient staff generate profit; whereas in the present state-corporate bureaucracy all staff are worth exactly the same, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2016/12/nurse-sacked-for-praying.html. By sacrificing short-term profit they would be building a secure future of long-term profit. Niall also describes state bureaucracies as "grim and soulless", and that's very true. I only really appreciated that point quite a while after I had moved on. I have no final answers to this matter and I am still thinking it over, but I have moved away from the more conventional suggestions that involves nothing more than better funding and reform by the state alone.

Wednesday 13 May 2020

Pride! Intelligence! Guts!

One thing a hospital porter has to learn very quickly is how to resist humiliation. This is where my dignity statement method comes from, for examples see the background links below. The essence of the dignity statement is to force your antagonist to destroy themselves by reflecting their attack back at them without initiating one of your own. In the course of perfecting this tactic, there are several intriguing and inspiring resources in cinema. Matilda is a 1996 fantasy drama directed by Danny DeVito which is based on a children's novel by Roald Dahl. It is about a young girl called Matilda who discovers that she has magical powers, however her greatest magic is not of the supernatural kind. Her teacher at school is an abusive authoritarian bully called Miss Trunchbull who is brought horribly to life with an ingenious performance by Pam Ferris. One of Matilda's classmates is an obese boy called Bruce who loves chocolate cake. One day he steals a slice from the school kitchen and Miss Trunchbull catches him. As punishment, and as a warning to the other pupils, she forces Bruce to consume the entire cake on stage in the school hall in front of the entire school. The intention is that he will stuff himself to the point of sickness in public view, degrading him. However, during this ordeal Matilda begins cheering him on. The other children follow her lead and soon all of them are encouraging Bruce in his endurance of gluttony. Bruce finishes the cake and holds the empty plate above his head in triumph. Trunchbull realizes that her plan to embarrass Bruce has totally backfired. She shouts at the children to stop, but they refuse. Bruce is their hero. It's one of the most moving film scenes I've ever watched. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOQeU_6vbeg.

Another example is a 1993 film called Bopha! and is a rare directional curiosity by Morgan Freeman. It stars Danny Glover as a South African policeman during the final years of the Apartheid era. His force is constantly under attack by rioters who assault and kill his men at every opportunity. They hurl the insult: "Pig!" at them; it is a derogatory slur for a police officer in my country, Britain, as well. Unfortunately the clip is not available but I remember the scene well and will try to paraphrase it correctly. Glover's character is training new police recruits in a classroom. He says: "Everywhere you go, the people will shout at you: 'pig!... pig!... pig!', but there is something they don't know..." He begins writing on the blackboard. "The word 'pig!' is an acronym: 'P.I.G.' You know what that stands for?: 'Pride... Intelligence... Guts'!" Once again we have a way in which attempts at humiliation fail because the people being attacked know how to defend themselves effectively. During the course of your service you, as a hospital porter, can develop your own versions of these tactics. The two examples from Hollywood I've shown you are just there to give you ideas, as can my own dignity statement experiences. Or even if you're not a hospital porter, you might find this information useful with social and professional interactions in your civilian life. Or perhaps the positive message just makes you feel happy. Good luck!

Friday 1 May 2020

Sick Hospital Video

A group of nurses have been slammed after a video they made went viral on that usual platform for controversial material, TikTok. The video shows them dancing through their hospital carrying what looks like a shrouded corpse with the word "COVID 19" written on it. The video, which was shot at a hospital in Ghana, has disgusted the world, not long after people first started appreciating healthcarers in a way that they never have before, for example see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/04/captain-toms-number-one.html. Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11520259/sick-vid-dancing-nurses-carrying-corpse-coronavirus-victim-tiktok/. I do express condemnation myself, but only for the video being made and published, not for the action in itself. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals have a ghoulish sense of humour. To an outsider, this will probably appear heartless and facetious. Another good example that I came across many times would be a doctor writing in a patient's notes the acronym T.F. BUNDY. This stands for "Totally Fucked But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet". Horrible, you might think. Vicious! Cruel!... But it is something only done in confidential correspondence. Under no circumstances would a doctor ever speak like that about a patient to their relatives and other loved ones. These ghastly jokes are shared exclusively among healthcare providers in private when they are alone together. In truth it is merely a survival mechanism. Hospitals are places full of pain, fear, illness, injury and death. Staff there have to cope with that every working hour of their lives. If these people did not make sick jokes about their work they would not be able to do it; it's as simple as that.

Saturday 25 April 2020

Captain Tom's Number One

Thomas Moore has just become the oldest person ever to top the singles charts in the UK. He beat the sixty-eight year old Tom Jones by over thirty years; Tom is ninety-nine. The Rogers and Hammerstein cover of You'll Never Walk Alone by Captain Tom and Michael Ball has raised twenty-eight million pounds for various welfare schemes in the NHS. (The HPWA is not officially registered as a charity and so will receive nothing, although I do not ask for anything.) Captain Tom turns one hundred years old next Thursday so he will be still be at number one for at least one day into his second century. He also has successfully completed a sponsored walk; one hundred laps of his garden, a twenty-seven yard circuit. This makes just over one and a half miles. Quite an achievement for a man of his age who cannot walk without a wheeled zimmer. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52415966. The title of the song is ironic of course considering the social distancing rules currently enforced. Tom has lived a rich and varied life. He was an army officer who served in World War II and afterwards ran a concrete mixing company and raced motorcycles. When he finished the last lap of his walk there was a guard of honour from his old regiment to greet him. As an NHS veteran myself of twenty-three years, I'm deeply touched by Captain Tom, Michael Ball and everybody who has supported the NHS. I say that mourning the loss of my colleagues, see: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/04/ive-lost-another-brother.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/04/ive-lost-two-brothers.html. I know some people reading this believe that what Captain Tom did was a staged publicity stunt as part of coronavirus disinformation conspiracy. There is a coronavirus conspiracy, but this is not a part of it.

Saturday 18 April 2020

I've Lost Another Brother

I'm sorry to report Brian Darlington, a porter at Mid-Cheshire Hospitals, has died of COVID 19 disease. He was described as having a sense of humour and positive outlook. I think these are essential for hospital portering. Facilities supervisor Richard Studinski said: "Nothing was ever too much trouble for Brian. He worked hard and was happy to do whatever was needed of him. He always walked round the hospital with a smile on his face, passing out sweets to colleagues he'd meet on the corridor. Mid-Cheshire's chief executive James Sumner said: "Brian had dedicated over twenty years to the trust during his NHS career and will be sadly missed by all who knew and worked with him. He was without doubt a treasured member of the team." Brian leaves behind his wife of forty-six years, Ava. Condolences to her. Rest in peace, MEP&DB Porter. Source: https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2020-04-16/porter-at-cheshire-hospital-dies-after-testing-positive-for-coronavirus/.

Wednesday 15 April 2020

I've Lost Two Brothers

I'm very sad to report that two porters at the John Radcliffe Hospital have died of COVID 19 disease. Healthcare service providers are by far the highest risk group for any contagion because anything at large in the community ends up concentrated in hospitals. Hospitals are like vacuum cleaners for bacteria and viruses. You might think the title of this article is misleading. The two men who died are not literally brothers of mine. They are not related to me at all. However all hospital porters are my brothers and, in some instances, sisters. In fact they are closer to me than that. I will not post any source links because the media has named the two porters against the wishes of their families, who asked for privacy. I shall grant them that. Rest in peace, MEP&DBP's. I salute you. At the present time thirty-six NHS personnel have died of the coronavirus. I salute them all.

Friday 10 April 2020

Thank You, St Thomas'

I would like to pay homage to MEP&DB&S Porters at St Thomas' Hospital in London, but also of course the entire civilian staff too, the doctors, nurses, PAM's and civilian ancillaries. You have saved the life of a great man, our leader Boris Johnson. Never in living memory have we had a Prime Minister we can respect. Boris is a strong man, a brave man and a decent man. Without him there would have been no Brexit, no foiling of the New World Order machinations. Boris is a starseed and a lightworker. He is where he is because of the 2016 Effect. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I'd also like to give tribute to the dedicated friends of freedom who have invaded the establishment where the Illuminati have had free reign since time immemorial. To QAnon and all those like him/her/them, much appreciation. Boris was very lucky. He had a near-miss with death. Thanks to you, he came through it safely. Bless you all!

Friday 27 March 2020

The Nation Applauds

Yesterday evening at 8 PM millions of people stopped what they were doing to clap and cheer in the streets as a tribute to National Health Service workers for healing the coronavirus crisis. I was just starting the live HPANWO Show broadcast when this happened and I heard somebody in my street playing a brass instrument. It is audible on the programme, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.com/2020/03/programme-362-podcast-lisa-phillips.html. Signboards across the nation flashed supportive messages and #ClapForCarers went viral on Twitter, if you'll excuse the pun. Shops allowed people with NHS identity badges to jump the queues at the door, which have become the icon of the COVID 19 pandemic. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52058013. It is the first time anything like this has happened before. I am no longer an NHS hospital porter, but I was one for twenty-three years. I am ex-NHS and always will be. Until the day I die this will remain a core part of my identity. I'd like to express my appreciation to everybody who took part in this event. It means an awful lot to me; and I'm sure it does to all other healthcare or former healthcare servicemen and women.

Friday 17 January 2020

The Real Eleanor Roosevelt

As regular HPWA readers know, I have created a maxim for the St Theo's Day celebrations: "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." I felt that this was a perfect motto for Hospital Porters' Pride and Dignity, the spirit of St Theo itself. The statement was coined by somebody called Eleanor Roosevelt and at the time I included it I did not know who that person was. Since then I have found out. She was a First Lady of the United States, a title which means the wife of a US President, like the incumbent Melania Trump. Her husband was the thirty-second and longest served ever US President, Franklin D Roosevelt. The role of the First Lady carries no official political office, but it is invariably one of charity work and non-partisan activism. Eleanor Roosevelt became what is today known as a "goodwill ambassador". She worked hard to improve the lives of workers left jobless and poor by the Great Depression and was one of the pioneers in the quest for civil rights for black people. She was also heavily influenced by the first wave feminist Marie Souvestre who had been her schoolteacher. She was rumoured to have had homosexual relationships with a number of famous women, including the aviator Amelia Earhart and the journalist Lorena Hickok. (To be fair, her own husband was reportedly doing the same thing with women, as presidents often do; so what's good for the goose is good for the gander, you might say.) Her support for leftwing causes drew the ire of many American conservatives, such as J Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI. As to be expected in the mid-20th century, Eleanor Roosevelt was accused of being a communist agent. This video is particularly condemnatory: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Cum7gEyObVoT/.

During the 1940's and 50's the United States of America was struck down by an hysterical fear of "communists!". That word had a very different colloquial use to that of today. It didn't necessarily mean an orthodox Marxist; it could be applied to anybody who was not a table-thumping redneck. With retrospect, it turns out that there was some justification for that fear. The Venona project was a counterintelligence operation by the Signal Intelligence Service, later the NSA, that exposed the Cambridge spies; Blunt, Burgess, MacLean and Philby along with the espionage ring within the Manhattan project to develop the nuclear bomb. Yet that was just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of Venona intercepts were never deciphered. The agents who sent and received them were never caught. Some may still be alive today and walking free. Even the man whose very name was coined for institutional paranoid suspicion, Senator Joseph McCarthy, has been absolved somewhat, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wljpYZ8wejA. Yet none of these facts legitimize the depths and extremes of the "anti-communist!" obsession of that era. It was even suggested that Superman's red cape was actually a red flag in disguise. A number of films emerged at the time which capture that terrified mania. They are almost funny when viewed through modern eyes, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KWHDNPdoCg, and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8zhmCjV71w, and: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4alzh3. The only excuse I can think of was that this was the early Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust had just emerged; something so horrific that it caused mass insanity among the population in a way that those born under the shadow of the bomb could never comprehend. A number of cinema actors, writers and directors were subpoenaed by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Most refused to testify and were found in contempt. The "Hollywood Ten" as they were called were blacklisted from America's famous movie industry. These included some household names such as Arthur Miller, Humphrey Bogart and Lionel Stander. This film is a good history of the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ-dKru9RWM. Could Eleanor Roosevelt have been falsely accused of being a Soviet agent because of her leftist biases? Maybe. Was she wrong to be concerned about the legitimate iniquities of the era she lived in? I don't have a problem with civil rights; in fact I regularly defend them for all people. I would not tolerate black people being forced to sit at the back of buses and women not being allowed to buy houses, or any other similar injustices. I have no opinions at all regarding other people's private lives. What I object to is that the civil rights movement has been warped into a mockery of itself through cultural Marxism, for example see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/11/sjw-ufo.html. However, Eleanor Roosevelt was a keen supporter of the United Nations which, as G Edward Griffin has correctly pointed out, is an embryonic one-world government, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwPy7oSs6Yc. In fact she was the United States' first ever ambassador to the UN. She was the powerhouse behind the American Youth Congress and National Youth Administration which were definitely infiltrated by socialist tendencies supporting the USSR, such as the Young Communist League. I don't have an answer to this conundrum; I've only just started investigating who Eleanor Roosevelt really was. We can't ask her because she died in 1962. Really, for the purposes of St Theo's Day, does it matter who she was? I am quite willing to repeat quotes of wisdom from many people who I consider deplorable. Winston Churchill was another one-worlder, but he said something truly enlightening, and during my Larry Warren research project I reproduced it in this post without a qualm: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2017/02/is-larry-warren-fraud-part-6.html. I am also a big fan of the author China MiƩville, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-city-and-city-by-china-mieville.html, and he is a raving socialist. In fact, far from being an undercover agent he wears it on his sleeve. Eleanor Roosevelt's quote: "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." is one that resonates with my hospital portering experience enormously, regardless of the character of the one who said it; therefore I will continue to use it in HPWA publications and the St Theo's Day posters.