New research on the history of legal #prostitution in Germany focussing on the murders of women in the sex trade by @manuelaschon and Anna Hoheide. I am proud to have helped with translating this work that shines a light into the darkest corners.

Key findings on the murders of women in German legal #prostitution: The daily fear of violence, potentially lethal, remains real for women, despite less fear of arrest by police. The primary perpetrators are sex buyers. The state does not care to collect official statistics.
Critics will claim the German law is a form of legalization (tight regulation forcing some women into illegal status) while one should support New Zealand's decriminalization (minimizing laws specific to prostitution). False distinction: German law on the left, NZ on the right...
Back to the study into murders of women in German #prostitution: The authors contacted the Federal Office for Criminal Investigations who said that they do not collect statistics on these murders because they don't want to contribute to stigma. Read that again!
The study has to rely on cases reported by police (searching for witnesses) or by the media (sometimes tactfully reporting, sometimes sensationalizing lethal violence against women in the sex trade). Of course, this data is incomplete. But that's a conscious choice by German gov!
A small group of volunteers, including sex trade survivors, have been working to collect this data through online and archive searches, Google alerts, and asking press offices for old publications on the subject. Their work is recorded here: https://t.co/61spoohExk
They found 272 cases between 1920 and 2017, but the real number is likely much higher. For example, an old Spiegel report found 88 murders between 1950 and 1965, while the team behind Sex Industry Kills could only identify 11 names and has no information on the other 77 women.
These 272 cases include 41 cases of attempted murder, which women survived, but which left many traumatized for life, some severely disabled. Finding old cases of murder attempts is nearly impossible, so no clear conclusions can be drawn about increases or decreases.
Over 98% of documented victims murdered in the German sex trade 1920-2017 were female. 2 victims were transwomen and there was 1 male victim. They were aged 15 to 67. In total there were 5 underage victims and four over the age of 60. Children sometimes exploited next to adults.
There is a strong increase in migrant women murdered in the legal German sex trade: In the 90s 27.5% were migrants, in the 00s 48.5% and in the 2010s it was 60.7% of identified victims. The number may be higher since the nationality of some victims couldn't be determined. @ENoMW
In the 90s most migrant victims were from Russia, Poland, and Slovakia. In the 00s murder victims in German legal #prostitution were predominantly Thai, Polish, and Ukrainian. Since 2010 victims are mostly from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Ukraine, and Poland.
Indoor #prostitution is often touted as considerably safer than street prostitution and while there is evidence to support this it's important to understand that 1) the vast majority of prostitution is indoors and 2) the risk of lethal violence remains a realistic fear there, too
While in the 90s most recorded murders did happen in a street prostitution context (50%), this trend reversed: In the 00s 77.6% occur in indoor #prostitution. 76% after 2010. Indoor means both mega #brothels with some security measures and small apartment brothels.
Germany's three biggest mega brothel chains (Paradise, Pascha, and Eros Center) were all the scenes of several murders of women in #prostitution despite panic buttons, cameras, and security. They collectively come up to 13 cases until 2017. No images of naked women, just pimps:
The murderers of women in German legal #prostitution: All cases were committed by men (with a tiny number of female accomplices), who cover all age groups, walks of life, and relationship statuses. If any relation existed to the victim, it was almost always as a #sexbuyer.
Motives for murders of women in German legal #prostitution include: Explicit #misogyny, attempts to cover up rape and/or robbery, jealousy, anger over disinclination to perform specific sex acts and fights resulting from price haggling. Some were killed over as little as 20€.
Obviously, no amount of money justifies murder. That should go without saying. However, this showcases how worthless prostituted women's lives are to these men, that they would use violence that ended up being lethal for just a few euros.
Killers of women in #prostitution do not even require a murder weapon: Preventing them from bringing knives or guns into brothels is not enough, a significant minority of women were strangled with bare hands or suffocated by pillows.
Frequency of murders of women in legal German #prostitution correlates with population density (e.g. most occur in Berlin, Hamburg, the Ruhr Basin, & the Rhine-Mine-Area). But women have been murdered in all 16 federal states and not only in big red-light districts in the cities.
Case Study on women murdered in legal German #prostitution: "Gerit" or "Linda" (stand-in photo), 25, Romanian, was murdered in front of the Paradise mega-brothel in Stuttgart by a sex buyer, 53, married with 4 kids, who wanted exclusive access to her.

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The Nashville Operation - A Battle in the War

A thread exploring the Nashville bombing in the context of the 2020 Digital War (via SolarWinds) against the United States perpetrated by our enemies, likely China, Iran and/or Russia.


SolarWinds Hack

A digital "Pearl Harbor" moment for the United States, whoever was responsible had access to the keys to the kingdom for months during 2020, including sensitive military infrastructure. This is war!

SunGard + SolarWinds

SolarWinds software company is owned by same company that owns SunGard, which essentially provides data center services. A secure place to host internet servers with redundant power and "big pipe" data connections.

https://t.co/U3P3SrrkM1


SunGard Data Center

In Nashville, around the corner from their "big pipe" connection, AT&T. Like any data center, highly secure. Only authorized personnel can enter, and even fewer can access the actual server rooms. Backup generators are available in case of power failure.


If the SunGard hardware was being used to "host" critical command and control software related to SolarWinds, the US powers would be very interested in gaining special access keys that are stored on the hard-drives of specific servers.
Patriotism is an interesting concept in that it’s excepted to mean something positive to all of us and certainly seen as a morally marketable trait that can fit into any definition you want for it.+


Tolstoy, found it both stupid and immoral. It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best, which obviously negates all other countries.+

It is immoral because it enjoins us to promote our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries, employing any means, including war. It is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us+

My sincere belief is that patriotism of a personal nature, which does not impede on personal and physical liberties of any other, is not only welcome but perhaps somewhat needed.

But isn’t adherence to a more humane code of life much better than nationalistic patriotism?+

Göring said, “people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”+

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Rig Ved 1.36.7

To do a Namaskaar or bow before someone means that you are humble or without pride and ego. This means that we politely bow before you since you are better than me. Pranipaat(प्राणीपात) also means the same that we respect you without any vanity.

1/9


Surrendering False pride is Namaskaar. Even in devotion or bhakti we say the same thing. We want to convey to Ishwar that we have nothing to offer but we leave all our pride and offer you ourselves without any pride in our body. You destroy all our evil karma.

2/9

We bow before you so that you assimilate us and make us that capable. Destruction of our evils and surrender is Namaskaar. Therefore we pray same thing before and after any big rituals.

3/9

तं घे॑मि॒त्था न॑म॒स्विन॒ उप॑ स्व॒राज॑मासते ।
होत्रा॑भिर॒ग्निं मनु॑षः॒ समिं॑धते तिति॒र्वांसो॒ अति॒ स्रिधः॑॥

Translation :

नमस्विनः - To bow.

स्वराजम् - Self illuminating.

तम् - His.

घ ईम् - Yours.

इत्था - This way.

उप - Upaasana.

आसते - To do.

स्त्रिधः - For enemies.

4/9

अति तितिर्वांसः - To defeat fast.

मनुषः - Yajman.

होत्राभिः - In seven numbers.

अग्निम् - Agnidev.

समिन्धते - Illuminated on all sides.

Explanation : Yajmans bow(do Namaskaar) before self illuminating Agnidev by making the offerings of Havi.

5/9
1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.