[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Hence their program to characterize (stereotype) and vilify “The left”, misdefined as necessarily being in international Marxist, anti-ethnonational or Cultural Marxist, anti White terms.
Smalls was having trouble following social distancing requirements. The powers that be want to promote blacks as the left unionizing heroes. But it’s not ok for you to unionize in your interests, Whitey. In fact, they are watching for where there is too large a majority of Whites, and thus susceptibility of your unionization, collective bargaining power.
Whole Foods, an Amazon subsidiary, tracking “lack of diversity” to head-off susceptibility to unionization
The heat map apparently uses more than two dozen different metrics to track which Whole Foods stores may unionize. The heat map focuses on monitoring three main areas: “external risks,” “store risks,” and “team member sentiment,” Business Insider.
Here are some examples of “external risks,” reports Business Insider:
Some of the factors that contribute to external risk scores include local union membership size; distance in miles between the store and the closest union; number of charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board alleging labor-law violations; and a “labor incident tracker,” which logs incidents related to organizing and union activity.
Other external factors include the percentage of families within the store’s zip code that fall below the poverty line and the local unemployment rate.
Here are some examples of “store risks”:
Store-risk metrics include average store compensation, average total store sales, and a “diversity index” that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity and lower employee compensation, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers’ compensation claims, according to the documents.
And here are some examples of how “team member sentiment” is tracked:
Amazon has resisted Whole Foods unionization efforts before — in 2018, the company sent a 45-minute anti-union training video to Whole Foods team leaders that was obtained by Gizmodo. “Throughout, the video claims Amazon prefers a ‘direct management’ structure where employees can bring grievances to their bosses individually, rather than union representation,” according to Gizmodo.
Whole Foods used similar language about direct management in a statement to Business Insider, which it also shared with The Verge. “Whole Foods Market recognizes the rights of our Team Members to decide whether union representation is right for them,” Whole Foods said in the statement. “We agree with the overwhelming majority of our Team Members that a direct relationship with Whole Foods Market and its leadership, where Team Members have open lines of communication and every individual is empowered to share feedback directly with their team leaders, is best.”
Amazon has not replied to a request for comment from The Verge.
Amazon has a history of aggressively combating unionization efforts, and its anti-labor stance has also come to light due to recent organizing efforts by warehouse employees to protest Amazon’s handling of worker safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. In late March, Amazon fired a warehouse worker named Chris Smalls who organized a walkout in New York City, claiming he violated COVID-19 safety instructions after coming into contact with a co-worker who tested positive for the virus.
However, Amazon executives later attacked Smalls on Twitter after Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) criticized the company. Shortly after, notes from an Amazon executive meeting obtained by Vice News revealed a plan to publicly smear the worker in an effort to discredit broader labor movements within Amazon.
Update April 20th, 6:31PM ET: Whole Foods provided the same statement to The Verge that it provided to Business Insider.
It should be noted that left-leaning organizations have made use of the same technology in their organizing efforts, although some predictably differentiate their use of heat maps from what Bezos and Amazon are doing by calling the latter, “surveillance.”
The Black Socialists in America (BSA), for example, have created a “Dual Power Map”, a digital tool originally created to help organisers find and connect with other groups or initiatives building alternative, democratic and anti-capitalist structures or institutions.
Now, at the request of organisers throughout the US, BSA is also using the map to plot where strikes and Covid-related mutual aid efforts have happened, so that people can tap into a wider network of support and coordinate further actions together.
As a small organisation with limited resources and capacity, BSA has been using open, publicly available data collected and aggregated by a range of journalists and grassroots groups to feed into the backend of the Dual Power Map.
“In this particular situation, you’re talking about one thing that’s designed by Leftists for public use and covering efforts that are already out in the open, led by poor and working-class people who want their efforts signal boosted and supported, and another thing that was a secret, private surveillance tool designed by members of the ruling class to stop working-class efforts before they can even begin,” said Z, one of the founders of BSA and its current national coordinator, who has adopted the name to protect their identity.
In the age of COVID-19, where discussion about drone use and public cameras employed to help identify outbreaks has revolved around making sure civil liberties are also being protected, Bezos’ heat map strategy to prevent unionization at Whole Foods could come under scrutiny.
Of course, Smalls being a Negro and his wanting to unionize, either for Negroes or being encouraged to do so in order to have a more diversified working class, now that’s ok and newsworthy. Unionizing for your interests, Whitey, that’s not ok, that’s “racist.”
So we all have to stay in our houses to stop the spread, everyday there’s videos of the police abusing their powers in the name of this ‘lockdown’ but they don’t mind 15,000 people a day flying into the country? - From Good Morning Britain audience. Reported by Daily Express
UK coronavirus lockdown: what are the rules, and when will it be lifted?
Government has closed schools, pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms and other businesses under new lockdown measures.
Boris Johnson has placed the UK on a police-enforced lockdown with drastic new measures in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
The Prime Minister ordered people only to leave their homes under a list of “very limited purposes”, banned public gatherings of anyone not from the same household and ordered the closure of non-essential shops.
Every citizen must comply with these new measures and the relevant authorities, including the police, have been given the powers to enforce them through fines and dispersing gatherings.
These measures were introduced on March 23, and theThese measures were introduced on March 23, and the Government had stated these measures would be reviewed after three weeks, and relaxed if the evidence showed this was possible….
Britons furious as UK not testing 15,000-a-day arriving in UK airports: ‘Ridiculous!
MATT HANCOCK joined Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain today in a heated discussion regarding the government’s current plans to continue to tackle coronavirus. However, fans were left furious as they heard the Health Secretary reveal that people are arriving in the UK from coronavirus hotspots and are not being tested for the deadly virus.
Good Morning Britain viewers were left furious today as Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed there was a distinct lack of testing at airports for people coming into the UK from coronavirus hotspots. Morgan and Hancock engaged in a very heated debate over the subject and viewers also hit out at the health secretary online.
After Reid quizzed Hancock on the government’s exit strategy for the end of the lockdown, Morgan was keen to ask whether those still arriving in the UK were being tested for Covid-19
Referencing the importance of testing, Morgan asked: “If it’s so crucial, why are we still having all our airports open, flying in from coronavirus hotspots like New York, like Italy, like China.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that we are allowing tens of thousands of people to come into our airports and walk into our communities without even a basic test.
“And given that we know that many people can be asymptomatic. Can you explain that?
“We do of course have different treatment from different places according to how serious the outbreak is-” Hancock began to respond.
But Morgan interrupted: “How many people are you testing at airports?
Hancock explained: “The number of people coming through has dropped very very dramatically and very low -
“How many have come in this week?” Morgan interrupted.
“About 15,000,” Hancock replied, with Morgan hitting back: “So that’s about 15,000 a day without any test?”
Hancock’s admission left those watching at home furious and many took to Twitter to express their anger.
“#GMB @piersmorgan great question on why are all these people coming in from hotspots untested, why!!!? We will never get out of this going round in circles,” one viewer raged.
Another added: “So we all have to stay in our houses to stop the spread, everyday there’s videos of the police abusing their powers in the name of this ‘lockdown’ but they don’t mind 15,000 people a day flying into the country?” #GMB.
Progressive liberals are advancing their strategy, however winners make the fewest mistakes and I feel that the viral #YouClapForMeNow video is a big mistake by our opponents - mancinblack
The numbers on some countries do NOT appear to be updated - particularly not for China.
This updater is being posted primarily because the initial general posts meant to update the COVID-19 pandemic have fallen out of Majorityrights News carousel.
“If trouble comes when you least expect it, then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Writing anything about COVID-19 at this moment is a daunting task since the situation is evolving so rapidly, and in so many different locations. Information contained in this piece could be thoroughly outpaced by transformative events by the time it reaches publication, or even by the time I finish up and click “save.” There is also a glut of information online right now, some of it reliable and fascinating, and some of it misleading and counterproductive. Everywhere there is a mixture of growing apprehension, clashing opinion, and outright confusion. If the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center’s interactive map is accurate, there are currently 284,566 cases of COVID-19 worldwide, a figure that is growing. The “true” number of infections, that includes asymptomatic carriers, will be much higher. Beginning on February 24th, an accelerating number of new transmissions emerged outside China, primarily in Italy which currently has over 47,021 cases. At time of writing, France and Germany are also experiencing rapid increases in affected persons, together totaling over 33,000 cases, and Spain is on the brink of a national lockdown with over 25,374. Almost every European country has now been affected, and COVID-19 is now spreading in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. How will it test the West?
Relations with China
Early speculation on COVID-19, especially in dissident circles, orbited conspiracy theories that the virus was engineered, and that it was either deployed by the United States or was an accidental leak from Wuhan’s Institute of Virology. In recent days, the former theory has been eagerly taken up by the Chinese themselves, with the added detail that COVID-19 may have been unleashed by visiting American soldiers during the Military World Games, which were staged in Wuhan in October 19-27, 2019. According to epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, in the course of a very interesting interview with Joe Rogan, it’s possible to date the origins of human COVID-19 through a process much like carbon dating, and scientists now have data suggesting COVID-19 became active in humans for the first time in mid-November 2019. Ron Unz has asked:
How would Americans react if 300 PRC officers had visited Chicago, and immediately afterwards, a deadly new plague broke out in that city, with a major risk of spreading throughout the country? Isn’t it also rather suspicious that Iran has been hit so hard? So the two countries in the world most subject to current American hostility just tend to be especially “unlucky.” It hit China just before Lunar New Year, the absolutely worst possible time, and the epicenter was Wuhan, a key transport hub. It really seems an *astonishing* coincidence that 300 US military servicemen had been visiting Wuhan just prior to the outbreak, at a peak of international tension.
Other than timing of course, there seems to be little or no evidence that this was a bioweapon attack. Most obviously, one would assume that any attempted bioweapon attack by the United States on China would be much more covert than what has been suggested (a deliberate release by a very public group of soldiers). Also, while we know that SARS-like viruses based on bat coronavirus can be developed in the lab, the genome of COVID-19 has also been examined countless times with the result that there are now over 300 papers on MedRXiv concerning the structure, nature, and origins of the virus. None of these papers have highlighted anything suggesting an artificial origin of any aspect of COVID-19.
Conspiracy theories on the origins of COVID-19 are of course a very convenient and useful tool for the Chinese government, because they deflect attention from the fact the outbreak can easily be attributed to bad government, and to Communism itself. I find the idea that the virus originated in a Wuhan “wild food” market to be utterly compelling (see this documentary by 60 Minutes Australia, and this short piece by Vox), and this has direct consequences for perceptions of Chinese Communism. The consumption of “exotic” foods is itself a legacy of the Great Chinese Famine 1959–1961, after which the government permitted private farming but failed to prevent the monopoly by big companies of the rearing of conventional livestock. The peasantry, priced out of the market, resorted in large numbers to the farming of wild animals, especially, in the initial stages, the farming of turtles. Since this curbed starvation to some extent, the government backed these initiatives, and then in 1988 made the encouragement of domestication and breeding of wildlife an explicit aspect of law. Wildlife farming became an industry overnight. Bears, snakes, rodents, lizards, and bats began to be mass-produced for human consumption, and sold in mass markets in many of the country’s largest cities. In these markets, multiple species, alive and dead, are stacked in cages on top of one another, with the animals soaked in cocktails of urine and excrement—each cage a petri dish for the development new diseases, especially respiratory diseases, with the potential to jump to humans from myriad mammals. Together with its failure to take decisive preventative action in January 2020, and absent conspiracy theory speculation, the origin tale of COVID-19 is ultimately an indictment of Chinese politics and culture.
How that indictment will impact relations between the West and China remains to be seen. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace have speculated that while mutual suspicion between the Chinese and the United States will remain high, the coronavirus outbreak will have no meaningful impact on trade between the two countries, and may in fact help de-escalate some prior economic tensions and involve the suspension of tariffs. In the longer term, however, COVID-19 has accelerated discussion about the need to become more independent from China in the production of goods. Several multinational corporations with supply chains based in China, having already considered diversifying their supply chains because of the U.S.-China trade war, are now likely to further their plans. Apple, for example, intends to move some manufacturing of its products (including AirPods and Apple Watches) to Taiwan due to the coronavirus. In Washington, members of Congress have used the outbreak to call for scaling back U.S. reliance on China, especially for prescription drugs, medical supplies, and other critical resources. Since Europe (Germany in particular) is the world’s largest manufacturer of drugs and medicines, we are likely to see a gradual decoupling of the United States from Chinese production, and a greater integration of European-American trade. Brexit Britain, until recently seen by the Chinese as having great potential for a lucrative trade and investment deal, may now present more of a cold house than previously thought. The EU, already resistant to increased Chinese economic influence, is also likely to dig its heels even deeper in the face of Chinese approaches. Some of the lasting challenges of COVID-19 will be how the West can distance itself from economic dependence on Chinese manufacturing, what impact this will have in both the shorter and longer term, and how the Chinese will respond.
Migrant Pressures
The first European outbreaks of COVID-19 fatefully coincided with an aggressive two-week operation by Turkey on its border with Greece, involving the movement of thousands of Syrian and African migrants. Beginning in late February, the Turkish government announced it would no longer stop migrants trying to reach Europe, and then drove thousands to the Greek border, live-streaming the process to encourage more to follow. The move was widely understood as an attempt to force European support for Turkey’s military campaign in northern Syria, and also as an attempt to extort more money from the EU. Although the effort now appears to have concluded with Turkey backtracking in the face of Greek resilience, Europe continues to have this metaphorical human “pistol” pressed to the side of its head.
COVID-19 is going to aggravate the broader migrant problem. Already the clamor is growing that migrant camps on Europe’s borders should be evacuated on health grounds, with the migrants permitted to enter Europe. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have argued that unhygienic and cramped living conditions mean COVID-19 can spread very fast, and that social distancing and hand washing are more difficult. While Europe bans mass gatherings, it’s been said that people in these camps have nowhere to go. Even within European countries, the outbreak has been associated with calls for amnesties and the opening of migrant detention centers. In the UK, lawyers and campaigners have called for hundreds immigration centers detainees to be released “because of fears they will contract coronavirus while locked up.”
The problem with such calls is that they all appear to present COVID-19 as a deadly plague slaughtering all in its path, rather than as something that afflicts the most seriously ill among the old and infirm. As is well known, the average age of Europe’s would-be migrants, particularly those from Syria, is somewhere around the late 20s. Given the known progression of COVID-19 in people in this age category, calls to permit mass influxes of masses of migrants purely because of the outbreak is tantamount to calling for open borders because potential immigrants might otherwise catch the common cold. Such calls are likely to ride the crest of a media-induced wave of panic, however, and the resolve of the West to resist further migrant flows will indeed be tested by twisted forms of moral blackmail in the weeks and months to come.
Life and Death under Liberalism
As stated in my review of Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), we live in a decaying society that is in terror of death, and pathologically so. This pathology is rooted in mistaken beliefs that our civilization is dying from, or could imminently die from, disease epidemics, climate catastrophes etc., in the midst of willful and ignorant abdication of a future (via self-hate and industrialized abortion) in favor of mass immigration, consumerism, and instant gratification. Just as one has to confront death in order to truly live (or to become “authentic” in Heidegger’s philosophy), our society is in constant flight from death and thus inevitably collapses into inauthentic decay. COVID-19, while not as lethal as media coverage would suggest, is a reminder of our mortality and human fragility and will necessarily have a jarring effect on a Western liberalism that’s become increasingly distant from the confrontation with death.
Life under liberal finance capitalism is largely one of illusion, in which the prospect of real death is pushed far into the distance, both psychologically and culturally. Postmodern Western liberal culture is largely one of perpetual adolescence, in which the primary virtues are acting according to one’s individual will, identifying oneself in a hyper-individualistic manner, and expressing these identities via conspicuous consumption and behavior. We do not “live towards” Death, with a sense of purpose and a feeling that we are part of a much grander civilizational trajectory. We do not understand that Death has shaped our historical path, and that it hangs over us in ways that should direct our actions in the present.
COVID-19, regardless of current confusion over its true mortality rate, is a corrective to illusions that “progressive” Man has overcome Nature and can shape the world according to the human image, and without consequences. Certainly throughout my own lifetime, I’ve grown accustomed to assertions that life expectancy will continue to increase, and that there will be an endless supply of innovations and social projects that will make the mechanics of life easier and more productive. One increasingly expects that one will live a long life, mostly in very good health. Such a sense of security can breed all kinds of arrogance and fantasies, including the recent perverse luxury of the delusion that one can simply decide to be this or that gender. This new virus, however, presents the possibility, both in itself and its inevitable heirs, that Death is much closer than we ever thought, and that for all our technological advancement and self-congratulation, Nature need only tweak one molecule, so small our naked eyes could never perceive it, and the grave opens before us. The Age of Fantasy is confronted with the ultimate reality.
How the West responds to this realization will be a further cultural challenge. We have grown equally accustomed to the idea that we have “advanced” morally as a society, and that we have overcome some of the more “brutish” aspects of human existence that we perceive in the past. But in a world of apparently increasing plenty, such notions can be hard to test. It’s always easy for a man with a full stomach to condemn the actions of the starving. The conceit of the full-bellied West that it has overcome and surpassed itself and its past will now be tested. I, of course, arise from a political and philosophical tradition that insists there is no shame in the past. I see little or no place for morality in the struggle for survival. And I also see the cracks already forming in the Western conceit. This society that is against “hate” and prides itself on “coming together” is already struggling to stop people rioting over toilet paper and bottled water. If civil order breaks down, will the proud feminists be seeking their own resources, or hoping for a strong man to protect them? If the death toll does rise dramatically, and if curfews and lockdowns are imposed and intensified, I ask: How well will your beloved multicultural societies respond? If resources become scarce and tensions rise, who will you trust? These tests are coming.
Britain is now facing a ‘recession’ as first coronavirus death on UK soil sends markets in panic with FTSE 100 opening 1.85% down at 6,581 - wiping off gains made during the week
London FTSE100 index major companies loses 124 points, 1.85% to 6,581
Frankfurt DAX30 sheds 1.8% to 11,735, Paris CAC40 drops 1.8% to 5,264
Milan’s major stock index FTSE-Mib also goes down 3.1% to 20,890 points
Hong Kong & Shanghai stocks also tanked overnight amid economic fears.
European stock markets including the FTSE 100 sank further this morning as traders feared that the coronavirus crisis could plunge Britain into recession.
London‘s benchmark index of major companies lost 124 points or 1.85 per cent to 6,581 today after Britain recorded its first death from the infection.
It also comes as a top investment bank warned coronavirus could push the UK to the brink of recession in the coming months.
In eurozone, Frankfurt DAX30 shed 1.8% to 11,735 points and ParisCAC 40 dropped 1.8% to 5,264, compared with yesterday’s closing levels.
TODAY: London’s FTSE 100 of major companies lost 124 points or 1.85 per cent to 6,581 today
THIS WEEK: The FTSE fell this morning, wiping out the gains it had seen so far this week
PAST FORTNIGHT: The FTSE has plunged since the virus sparked a worldwide rout last week
Meanwhile Milan’s major stock index the FTSE-Mib went down 3.1 per cent to 20,890 points as Italy continues to face the biggest outbreak in Europe so far.
In Asia, Hong Kong and Shanghai stocks also tanked as the coronavirus crisis overshadows government and central bank moves to limit economic impact.
Global markets hit by another wave of panic selling as fears…
for the FTSE 100 erased the index’s gains from earlier this week, with export-heavy companies now having lost more than £175million in value since the epidemic sparked a worldwide rout last week.
Cruise operator Carnival dropped 4.2 per cent to its lowest level since 2012, a day after its Grand Princess ocean liner was barred from returning to its home port of San Francisco on virus fears.
Britain said an older person with underlying health problems had succumbed to the flu-like virus yesterday, while the number of infections jumped to 115.
In company news, drug maker AstraZeneca fell 1 per cent after it said its treatment for a form of bladder cancer failed to meet the main goal of improving overall survival in patients in a late-stage study.
Top investment bank Goldman Sachs analysts has warned coronavirus could push the UK to the brink of recession in the coming months.
They say the outbreak will cause a ‘substantial’ near-term hit to economic growth, decimating the tourism industry and slashing leisure spending as Britons stay indoors.
It will cause a headache for new Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is due to present his first Budget next week.
But analyst Sven Jari Stehn said: ‘The Budget may now focus on measures to safeguard public health than a broad-based expansion of spending.’
Goldman Sachs expects the economy to be flat in the first three months of 2020 and to contract by 0.2 per cent between April and June.
Smalls was having trouble following social distancing requirements. The powers that be want to promote blacks as the left unionizing heroes. But it’s not ok for you to unionize in your interests, Whitey. In fact, they are watching for where there is too large a majority of Whites, and thus susceptibility of your unionization, collective bargaining power.
