Author Archives: CSSD editorial

“The Light”: sending women back to the Dark Ages

The Light appears to have the same attitude to women as reactionaries always have done. That is to say, women are most valued when they are barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Despite The Light’s supposed focus on bodily autonomy in relation to vaccines, it presents all the other things that give women autonomy and choices over their bodies and lives as overwhelmingly negative – be that access to contraception, abortion and education; the right to choose a different sexuality; the right to choose different partners; the existence of strong female role models in the media; a welfare state that supports women by taking on some of the caring responsibilities; even the existence of convenience food. This is also why you basically never hear The Light advocating for better childcare provision, anti-poverty measures, protection from discrimination (unless it’s to do with vaccines), or other key feminist demands.

Fact-checking the June 2023 front page of “The Light”

“It was a real shock to find that they had tried to trick me. And they had also lied” – Andy Williams picked up the June issue of “The Light” and looked into their front page story. The front page of Issue 34 of “The Light” claimed in its headline there is “No climate crisis” and “Carbon Dioxide has zero effect on temperatures” and presents two graphs in an attempt to back this up. In the piece that follows Andy outlines his investigation into the claims and graphs presented:

The Far Right in The Light

The Light isn’t a simple far right publication – it’s not the case that every article is from the far right. Yet, the Light often provides space for, points to, and includes adverts from far right individuals or organisations. The paper effectively functions as public relations / advertising for the far right. It does this by concealing the far right nature of organisations and individuals, and mixing their content with other content. By reaching audiences that would normally reject the far right, it appears to be providing a useful recruitment tool.

We want to make sure people are aware of the background of the people and organisations being promoted. We want to stop them from being sucked into working with these groups.

Mama’s War – remembering victims of the war in Bosnia

On 6th April we remember the victims of the war in Bosnia which is generally acknowledged to have started on that day in 1992. Over the next three years, Bosnian Serbs forces led a war of ‘ethnic cleansing’ targeted at Bosnia Muslims and Croats. In the piece below local resident Damir describe’s his mum’s memories of the start of the war in Bosnia. She was 50 when the war broke out. A Croat married to a Bosnian in the secular and integrated county of Yugoslavia living in a small town in Bosnia similar to Stroud where she had worked as a primary school teacher most of her life. This is her account of her experience of being put under house arrest and eventually being made to made to leave her home.

Candlelit vigil in memory of Brianna Ghey, 26th Feb 2023

On Sunday 26th February 2023, Stroud Pride organised a moving candlelit vigil in memory of Brianna Ghey, the 16 year old trans girl from Warrington who was murdered on February 11th. On this page you can read a speech by one of the organisers, Jen Hoskins, and watch another speech by a local parent

Sandi Adams and antisemitism (why she should never have been invited to speak in Stroud)

Our origins as a group lie in a letter written asking the Stroud Freedom Group to withdraw an invitation to Sandi Adams to speak at a rally in November 2020. We were concerned about antisemitic content on her website, which we discuss below (featuring some screenshots as evidence at the end of the piece). PleaseContinue reading “Sandi Adams and antisemitism (why she should never have been invited to speak in Stroud)”