[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.
Posted by DanielS on Tuesday, 20 February 2018 12:18.
New Observer, “Who is killing the Whites Trying to Stop the African/Asian Illegal Ivory Trade?”, 8 Feb 2018:
The vicious murder of anti-elephant poaching activist Esmond Martin in Kenya last weekend is the second murder of a high-profile white anti-ivory trade activist in Africa, coming as it does only five months after the shooting assassination of Tanzanian-based Wayne Lotter.
Martin, who was stabbed to death at his home in Nairobi, Kenya, was famous for his decades-long activism to save Africa’s elephant population from the uncaring rampage of African poachers who supply the Far East with illegal ivory.
Esmond Martin and his beloved elephants.
According to statistics issued by his affiliated organization, Save the Elephants (STE), without urgent action to save their species, elephants could be gone from the wild within a single generation.
According to STE, 100,000 elephants in Africa were killed for their ivory in just three years between the years 2010 and 2012.
In 1979 there were 1.3 million elephants, but current estimates that there are just between 419,000 and 650,000 African elephants left alive—and overall, their numbers are still “catastrophically declining.
Martin, a UK national by birth, was one of STE’s most famous activists, and the world’s leading ivory trade expert. STE said in a statement that his surveys “shone a powerful spotlight on the wildlife markets around the world that are sucking ivory, rhino horn and countless other African species into their maw.
“By charting the scale of these markets and tracking fluctuations with rigour and consistency, he provided a solid foundation for action to close them down. On Friday he was in our office, excited to see the Laotian translation of his latest report into Laos’ growing trade, and eager to discuss how it could be used to greatest effect,” the statement continued.
“Conservation has lost an important figure, elephants have lost a great champion and the shock of Esmond’s death will be felt around the world.”
Wayne Lotter was a South African- wildlife conservationist who was the co-founder and president of conservation organisation the PAMS (Protected Area Management Solutions) Foundation.
Lotter’s organization was involved in funding the National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit in Tanzania which pursued a number of high-profile ivory traffickers, and regularly received death threats.
His most high-profile success was in 2015 when his intelligence work left to the the arrest of a Chinese woman, Yang Feng Glan, known as the “Queen of Ivory” who ran a $2.6m ivory smuggling ring along with a large number of Chinese nationals living in Africa.
Lotter was shot dead on August 16, 2017 while travelling in a taxi in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in what was clearly a targeted assassination.
How would you like to tell your constituents that there was an extra $758,000,000 each year to spend in their district? How could you help direct the spending of $758,000,000 ($758 MILLION!) in your district each year?
According to a study by noted Economist, John Williams, which can be viewed at Carrying Capacity Network [1] which sponsored the Study, U.S. Taxpayers pay out a NET $330 BILLION ANNUALLY (believe it or not) on LEGAL Immigration. That is, LEGAL Immigration costs U.S. tax-payers $330 BILLION AFTER SUBTRACTING ALL TAXES IMMIGRANTS PAY. [And this $330 Billion does NOT include the additional NET amount of Taxes State and Local Taxpayers pay to finance this LEGAL Immigration.]
Hundreds of jobs at BAE Systems are threatened by a lack of orders. Unfortunately, the Typhoon multi-role aircraft is not suitable for use on our new aircraft carriers which require planes capable of short take-off and vertical landing. Instead of developing our own aircraft we have ordered fourteen F35B’s from Lockheed Martin at a cost of £2.5 billion. We will eventually buy 48 planes, the cost of which will escalate as the pound falls against the dollar. We must also consider the cost of putting British aerospace engineers on the dole.
Our former Defence Minister, Michael Fallon, suggested that we support America by sending our new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to North Korea before she is properly commissioned and without aircraft. Perhaps he wants to ram the first North Korean ship that we encounter?
The government has wasted billions of pounds on two aircraft carriers with no means of launching or landing aircraft. Nuclear ships use steam to power ‘cat and trap’ equipment, but our new ships are diesels which generate no steam. We, therefore, have to use STOVL aircraft which are not readily available.
When we get our expensive American planes we will be capable of fighting all over the world but what we really need are more destroyers and frigates to defend the homeland. We are a European country with no empire to defend.
Michael Heseltine resigned from the Cabinet over the Westland helicopter affair in 1986. Margaret Thatcher wanted to sell the company to America but he insisted on keeping it in Britain. Today, Westland is part of Leonardo, an Italian company employing 3,300 workers in the UK
Airbus is a French company which employs 15,000 workers in the UK. They have just signed an order for thirty-six A320 superjumbos with the Emirates.
Bombardier is a Canadian company that employs 25,000 workers making trains and aircraft in the UK and Northern Ireland.
The industry is led by BAE, a British company which employs 82,5000 workers making ships, tanks, missiles and aircraft. These companies employ British workers and pay their taxes. They are a vital part of our economy.
The Far Right
The first fascist movement in Britain was the British Fascists, founded by Miss Rotha Lintorn-Orman in 1923. They were fiercely anti-communist and pro-monarchist. Arnold Leese, a former BF councillor for Stamford, called them “Tories with knobs on.” In 1929 he founded a rival movement called the Imperial Fascist League which was openly anti-Semitic. According to folklore, when Ron Hargrave applied to join the IFL Arnold Leese first measured his head with a tape measure and told him to report back in a week’s time. When he returned Leese said, “A lot of people here don’t like the look of you but I have decided to let you in.”
Ron Hargrave guarding the platform for JT in 1960.
In 1932 Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascist which quickly became a mass movement but in 1940 it was banned and over a thousand Blackshirts were rounded up and thrown into prison under Defence Regulation 18B. After the war, he founded Union Movement to fight for ‘Europe a Nation’. He died in 1980 and UM was wound up in the nineties. Union Movement was never far-right but because it opposed Commonwealth immigration it was branded as such by the media.
The National Front was founded in 1967 to stop immigration, start repatriation, and get Britain out of the Common Market. It peaked in 1979 and its successor movement the BNP peaked in 2010. Both movements were eclipsed by UKIP which is now in steep decline.
The term ‘far-right’ includes everything from traditional conservatives to neo-Nazis. They command about ten to fifteen percent of the vote in most of Europe. Britain’s first-past-the-post system keeps them out of Parliament but in Germany, the AFD has won 94 seats in the Bundestag, in Austria the Freedom Party is part of the coalition government, and in the United States, Donald Trump, a billionaire Zionist warmonger, has promised to build a wall on the Mexican border and make America great again.
There is a crying need for a sensible patriotic movement to fight for Britain in Europe. Ukip and the remnants of the NF and the BNP are stuck in the past and incapable of change. Most of their members have got one foot in the grave and it’s only a matter of time before a new party emerges to cater for the younger generation.
Readers who are suffering from mental health problems, including paranoia, should ask their doctor for help. Conspiracy theory can be cured by talking therapy. If you think that “they are out to get you”, do not despair. The first step is to admit that you have a problem.
What is Nationalism?
We are familiar with Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalism but less so with English nationalism. My generation was brought up on imperialism which embraced the four nations of the British Isles and even included Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Canadians. We were all subjects of the British Empire.
I was proud to salute the Union Jack in the school playground on Empire Day but the Second World War had already destroyed the British Empire. One of the first men to realise it was Oswald Mosley who proclaimed ‘Europe a Nation’ in his book ‘The Alternative’ in 1947. Those of us who share his vision of a united continent with a progressive government are European Socialists.
Nationalism is a mixed blessing. At its best, it’s a love of country, but at its worst, it’s a fear and hatred of foreigners. Celebrating sporting achievements and holidays is a harmless expression of patriotism but beating up immigrants is entirely negative.
Some people believe in a ‘Confederation of Europe’, in which fiercely independent nation-states would co-exist with each other. But history tells a different story. The German Nazis murdered the Austrian leader Englebert Dollfuss, and the Italian Fascists invaded Greece, which was a fascist state under General Metaxas. Nationalist states do not live happily with their neighbours; they invariably attack them.
Little states tend to swagger and act tough, but great empires are self-confident. In the Roman Empire every citizen was protected by the declaration: “Civis Romanus Sum”- I am a Roman Citizen. In 1850 Lord Palmerston stated in Parliament that every citizen of the British Empire should enjoy the same protection. Britain is going through a painful divorce from the European Union but we will still be Europeans, and when the current outbreak of tribalism has subsided, it will only be necessary to say “I am a European”.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 13 December 2017 05:22.
Michael Gove in an information pod at the WWF Living Planet Centre in Woking. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
The Ecologist, “Michael Gove has it in his gift to make this a green Christmas”, 7 Dec 2017:
The restoration of life and the end of extinctions. Good land management plans for every country. The end of ocean plastics. No more pesticides. Is all this too ambitious for a Christmas wish list? Ruth Davis of the RSPB does not think so.
So now is the moment for a new generation of green campaigners to come to the table.
Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has in the last few months repeatedly said that he wants our country to be an environmental leader – and has signalled his seriousness by banning bee-harming pesticides, and laying out plans for a new green watch-dog.
Whatever your politics, this is exciting. It could also be globally significant. Because to put all his plans into action will require a revolution in environmental thinking, involving not just protection but renewal – an approach which could spearhead an international plan to save nature.
And it is this international plan that we must demand, to tackle the spiralling environmental crisis. Nothing else will do. So if I was to writing to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) today, I would include these things in my Christmas list..
Earth and seas
Bold new goals to restore life on earth - its abundance, its diversity, the amazing places where it still thrives, and the areas where it can return. Human-driven extinctions must end, as must the destruction of our last, precious intact natural ecosystems.
Land for life. Each country should have its own plan for good land management, driving investment into the ecological innovation and know-how needed to re-boot modern agriculture, and safeguard long-term food security. Governments should reward farmers for restoring soils, protecting natural stores of carbon and supporting wildlife.
An end to oceans plastics, and protection of the ‘blue commons’. We must champion global efforts to defeat the monstrous problem of plastic in our oceans. At the same time, we must set aside much larger areas where marine life can recover, building on the ambition of the Blue Belt.
Much tighter regulation of pesticides. The neonicotinoid ban is great news – but we need to rethink how we use chemicals in the environment. My old friend Nigel Bourne, of Butterfly Conservation, said it first and said it best – next time, we shouldn’t have to face a crisis before we consider a ban.
Help for people to shape the places where they live. In talking internationally, we often forget that change happens locally. To achieve more, we need to involve more people; rebuilding local economies around a shared vision for the environment, investing in industries and businesses that repair, rather than damage, the earth and seas around us.
Ordinary people
You might think this list is preposterous – too long, too ambitious - when the country has so much else on its plate. But what’s the point of Christmas, if you can’t think big? And although I am fifty this year, I have begun to feel the child-like sense of adventure that comes when something amazing is about to happen – when a movement is being born.
We are re-thinking what it means to eat well, both for our own health, and within the limits of the land available - since this land is also home to the rest of life on earth. A new generation is wondering anew about our responsibility towards animals held in captivity, and to the wild creatures trapped in the debris of our lives.
The manacles of plastic around the feet of sea-birds appall us; the heaps of elephant carcasses killed for body parts are images that will last a life-time, a silent call to action for the conservationists of the future.
But anger and grief alone are not enough. To change things for the better also takes hope and purpose. And hope is alive, not least because of the steadfastness of the climate movement. Many will claim that today’s shift away from fossil fuels was inevitable – the result of technological evolution, rather than the efforts of campaigners. But They will be wrong.
The change was catalysed by ordinary people, who succeeded in getting a few governments to listen to them when it seemed we were destined to burn every last lump of coal in the ground.
Demanding laws
As a result, the next generation of environmentalists understands that campaigning energy, coupled with disruptive technology, can challenge the status quo. They value the potential for human ingenuity to turn problems inside out – to replace rare metals in batteries with material made from apple-cores; to build homes that are also vertical farms and hanging gardens.
This is modern magic, and because of it, the future need not be more of the same.
Earth optimism – a confidence that solutions are possible and that we can and will renew the fabric of our tattered world – is a heady force. But it will need political action to give it wings.
So now is the moment for a new generation of green campaigners to come to the table. It is also the moment when we are deciding what sort of a country we want to live in; and when Mr Gove is making the environment front page news.
After Brexit, we will inherit laws from the European Union which have helped safeguard wildlife and tackle pollution. We must grasp this legacy, but we must also build on it - demanding laws and policies that will not just ‘stop the rot’, but begin to renew the tattered fabric of our living planet.
The game’s afoot! as Holmes used to say to Watson. Let’s play.
This Author
Ruth Davis is deputy director of global conservation at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
The Guardian, “Michael Gove: from ‘shy green’ to ‘full-throated environmentalist’?”, 12 Nov 2017:
Michael Gove has transformed from a “shy green” into a “full-throated environmentalist”, according to close allies who have said the Conservative MP has been heavily affected by his latest ministerial brief.
Howls of protest made by green groups, commentators and political opponents when Theresa May decided, in June this year, to elevate the high-profile Brexiter to environment secretary were slowly being proven wrong, they claim.
Woodland Trust, “Shocking declines in large old trees worldwide”
There has been: a ban on ivory sales; bigger penalties for animal cruelty; questions raised over farming subsidies; action on plastic bottles; CCTV in slaughter houses; a ban on bee-harming pesticides; and now the promise of a post-Brexit “green revolution” with a new independent watchdog as the centrepiece reform.
And yet when he was appointed to the role, former energy secretary Ed Davey, a Liberal Democrat, said it was like “putting the fox in charge of the hen house”.
He argued that Gove had even tried to remove climate change from the geography curriculum – advisers have hit back to say he only wanted to move the subject to science.
Others were concerned that an MP whose bullish manner as education secretary alienated large parts of the teaching profession, would be ready to strip back environmental protections in the Brexit process.
But one Tory minister has told the Guardian they believe the opposite has happened – suggesting that Gove had instead undergone a conversion inside the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
“He is greener than Zac Goldsmith and best mates with Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF,” the sources said, referring to a Tory MP known for environmental views. “Fox in the chicken coop in reverse.”
Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said there was no doubt “Gove has defied many people’s expectations on the environment” with a strong stance on issues like bee-harming pesticides, single-use plastic bottles and the future of the internal combustion engine.
But he said air pollution moves had fallen well short and it was one thing to promise a green Brexit and another to deliver it. “The proof will be in the pudding, especially with the forthcoming agriculture and fisheries bills. But so far the starters are quite good.”
A friend insisted that Gove’s interest in the environment was not all new, pointing to a 2014 speech in which he told the Conservative Environment Network: “I was one of those characters we call ‘shy green.”
But the ally admitted that the MP had become much more passionate. “He is interested in policy and politics and if he is given a subject he will throw himself into it. Hence the ‘shy green’ is now a full-throated environmentalist.”
Even George Monbiot, the environmental campaigner and Guardian columnist, who was highly critical of the MP in previous roles, has claimed: “This is amazing. One by one, Michael Gove is saying the things I’ve waited years for an environment secretary to say.”
He joked that if this environment secretary ever met his former self at education, they’d hate each other.
And it is no wonder. The pleasant surprise of the green lobby is a far cry from the view of teachers and heads when Gove was in charge of the country’s schools. One union leader, Mary Bousted, called him “possibly the most contentious and divisive education secretary ever”.
And yet from environmental groups – that were deeply concerned by Gove’s promotion – there is some surprising praise.
Tanya Steele, who is chief executive at WWF, said the minister had hit the ground running with a “broad and ambitious agenda”, although she also set out the scale of the task facing him.
“A lot more needs to happen if we are to address major threats to our environment and the global crisis of biodiversity decline,” she said, calling for a 25-year plan with clear milestones.
Craig Bennett, CEO of Friends of the Earth, said that despite initial alarm at the appointment of Gove, which he said was fair enough given previous comments on EU regulations, “he has been making all the right noises and he’s started to make the right action”.
He added: “To his credit, the moment he got the job he reached out and definitely went beyond the normal pleasantries to engage, listen and debate.”
Bennett said the minister’s speech on soil fertility was one that the green lobby had been waiting and hoping that every environment secretary would deliver.
But Bennett sounded a serious note of caution. He described preparations for Brexit in time for spring, 2019, as an “impossible task” and said it was hard to see how the minister could keep to his promise to maintain environmental regulations after the UK leaves the EU.
“They say they are going to cut and paste environmental regulation – but when you cut and paste often the formatting goes awry and you lose fundamental things and that is our fear,” he said, arguing that leaving the EU would not be good for the environment.
“It will be one of the biggest shocks to environmental protections in years. And that is not to question [Gove’s] good intentions.”
Molly Scott Cato, a Green MEP for the South West England electoral region, insisted that she would keep Gove the environmentalist in “special measures”.
For example, despite the positive move to ban neonicotinoid pesticides, she said he was still allowing limited use under emergency authorisations, which could be damaging.
“I believe Gove is posturing on a series of environmental cheap wins merely to establish himself as a sheep, before revealing himself as a wolf,” she said.
Gove’s friend admitted that Gove’s time inside Defra had impacted on the minister’s views on Brexit – in particular making him embrace the idea of a two-year transition period to help cope with the complexity of preparations.
And he has taken on his cabinet colleague, Liam Fox, by insisting that Britain will not compromise on standards in order to do a trade deal with the US, for example by accepting chlorinated chicken.
But asked if environmental responsibility had made the minister regret his hefty support for Brexit, the ally responded: “Not in the slightest – he believes in it. In particular, he thinks it creates huge opportunities in Defra, what he calls a ‘green Brexit’.”
Daily Telegraph: Britain’s record-breaking trees identified: tallest, biggest, oldest and rarest trees have been identified in a new study.
It is not the first time Gove has received a reaction of pleasant surprise while heading a government department. After a rough ride at the education department, his plans to offer prisoners more freedoms and boost learning in prisons were well received when he was justice secretary.
One difference, according to a source, is that Gove had spent years in opposition drawing up his plans for the country’s schools, but when he was moved to justice and environment, briefs he knew less well, he turned to the experts for advice.
Rebecca Pow, MP, on board of the Conservative Environment Network, said her colleague’s time listening to green groups had resulted in him deciding the Tories would “go up a gear” on environmental issues.
She said he had taken bold decisions, and argued that there were signs of his interests in the environment in previous roles, including making sure primary school children could name a variety of animals including amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles.
Bennett, of Friends of the Earth, said Gove was not the first politician to be affected by the role of environment secretary, pointing to former Tory MP John Gummer, whose work while in the cabinet had him branded a “green guru” by one newspaper. He said the same had happened with David Miliband.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 06 December 2017 06:48.
Though widely disavowed, Mike Cernovich is still exercising a surprising amount of power both behind the scenes and rather flamboyantly at other times - Why? Apparently because he’s being backed by higher echelons of the YKW to do their right-wing, paleocon bidding against “the left.”
The latest permutation of his being a conduit of this right wing Jewish power was to (hypocritically) expose liberal/“left” Jew, and MSNBC employee, Sam Seder, for a joke Seder made in bad judgment about fellow tribesman Roman Polanski’s rape of a 13 year old girl. Though Cernovich has actually made worse “jokes” of the same kind, MSNBC buckled to the pressure and fired Seder, apparently hearing, and cowered before, the footsteps of their right wing Jewish overlords echoed via Cernovich.
Specifically, Cernovich is looking to give paleocon backing to Judge Roy Moore, while Seder has been a high profile critic.
MediaITE, “After MSNBC Cuts Ties Over Polanski Tweet, Sam Seder Says Network is ‘Afraid’ of Mike Cernovich”, 5 Dec 2017:
Earlier this week, TheWrap’s Jon Levine — a Mediaite alum — reported that MSNBC was cutting ties with contributor Sam Seder over an eight-year-old tweet about Roman Polanski.
The tweet resurfaced after right-wing Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich convinced the alt-right and MAGA crowd to amplify the tweet in a smear campaign against Seder, making it appear he was a rape apologist (something that is more than a little ironic considering Cernovich’s own history.)
Following the news that MSNBC was not keeping Seder due to a willful misreading of an out-of-context tweet by a known provocateur, Media Twitter pilloried the network for its decision, with some claiming it was “deeply embarrassing” that MSNBC fell for “Cernovich’s smear campaign hook, line and sinker.” As for Seder, he believes that MSNBC has shown it fears Cernovich and the far-right media community.
Speaking to the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, Seder provided a timeline for how the whole thing went down between him and MSNBC. He then noted that MSNBC didn’t really discuss the tweet with him in detail but instead just decided to move on from their relationship.
According to Seder, he and MSNBC management never had a serious discussion about the tweet, what it meant and whether it posed a problem for MSNBC social-media standards. “If there was any conversation about the tweet,” says Seder, “it had nothing to do with substance. It was, ‘This is blowing up.’” And from what Seder can tell, his position with the network didn’t much concern the company’s top managers. “I only spoke to the PR guy and they only fired me after there was an imminent story,” says Seder. An MSNBC spokesman responds that the company requested Seder’s written defense of his tweet, and then considered that defense in reaching its decision on the contract renewal.
Seder’s conclusion: “I think they’re afraid of those people.”
Meanwhile, Wemple noted that an MSNBC source said that while they were given pause over “alt right figures whipping up attention” regarding their decision, it was still a fact that “Seder made a rape joke.” The WaPo writer added that the joke was actually “an edgy condemnation of rape” and that if it were really that problematic, why didn’t MSNBC bring it up earlier?
Seder goes so far as to articulate parameters of the right wing attack but not so far as to note the Jewish right wing influence (i.e., who is afraid to go against fellow tribesmen?).
Sam SederVerified account @SamSeder
First draft of the Alabama Roy Moore supporting robo call: Hi I am a Yankee and a Jew who controls the media, I will pay you 30 whole pieces of silver to vote against Roy Moore. Steve Bannon and the Mercers had nothing to do with this call. Have a good day!
And neither does (((Mike Cernovich and the Alt/Right/Lite)))
Did you know that upon his “Deploraball” that Mike Cernovich funded the shields used at “Unite The Right” Charlottesville? It’s a cohencidence.
Michael Gove in an information pod at the WWF Living Planet Centre in Woking. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA 
