[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.
This French postcard from 1942 depicts our mother Europe sheltering her chicks with Switzerland and Sweden nearby and Britain heading towards the USA. Note the Star of David on the lid of the American box, and the striking image of Marshal Philippe Petain on the postage stamp. Seventy-eight years later things are much the same.
The Marshall has gone from France but their current president, Emmanuel Macron, fancies himself as ‘Father of the Nation’. Switzerland belongs to EFTA which is just outside the EU. Sweden is a member of the EU but with her own currency and an air of detachment. The Swedes, like the British, talk about ‘Europe’ as though it’s a separate place. And Britain is still drawn to America where the Star of David is as dominant as ever. As the French say: “Plus ca change…”
The big difference today is the coronavirus pandemic that has circled the world. When the EU offered us ventilators to treat the infection, Boris Johnson put Brexit before breathing by rejecting them, but now he has tested positive. His petty nationalism is in contrast to the co-operation between the EU states that are helping each other. President Donald Trump insists on calling it “the Chinese virus” but viruses don’t recognise nationalities, even paranoid North Korea is effected.
Our Day Will Come
We have quit the European Union just in time to be struck down by the coronavirus pandemic. Boris Johnson is doing his best but the crisis has revealed that we have fewer hospital beds and doctors than Spain or Italy. It has also exposed the fragility of our gig economy. Tim Martin the boss of Wetherspoons who is an apostle of the free market has told his redundant workers to get a job at Tescos.
Boris is spending money like a drunken sailor to show his concern for the workers, but at heart he is an old-fashioned Tory who described the poorest twenty percent of the population as: “chavs, losers, burglars and drug addicts.” He called single mothers: “uppity and irresponsible” and accused their children of being: “ill raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate.” When Ken Bigley was beheaded by Isis terrorists, his home city of Liverpool mourned him, but Boris Johnson condemned: “the mawkish sentimentality of a society that is hooked on grief and likes to wallow in a sense of vicarious victimhood.” Nevertheless, the punters still voted for him.
When slavery was abolished in America most of the liberated slaves stayed on the plantations because there was nowhere else to go, and it seems that the British electorate are in the same position. We don’t trust the Labour Party, and if we vote Liberal Democrat our vote will be cancelled out by an unfair ‘first past the post’ system. So we stay where we are, with a government directed by the unelected advisor Dominic Cummings.
Our new Home Secretary Priti Patel has vowed to cut inward migration by 70%, and treat all applicants equally. We shall have to see what happens but every Immigration Act so far has failed to stem the tide.
Much of our industry relies on imported labour and some of our biggest companies are foreign-owned. This makes our workers vulnerable to cutbacks and redundancies. HSBC have announced 35,000 redundancies worldwide, many of them in the UK. Naturally, as a Chinese bank they are looking after their own people. And the same is true of Honda who will be making their electric cars in Japan.
Is there any hope? Yes, we can talk, read and write. We can express our contempt for the Old Gang parties and propose alternative policies. Ideas can’t be destroyed and nothing lasts forever. One day our class-ridden country will be liberated from plutocracy. The blatant hypocrites who preach peace and make war will be gone. So will the inverted racists who promote every nation except our own. Not to mention; faux patriots, metric martyrs, Luddites, Morris dancers, flat earthers, conspiracy freaks, Holocaust deniers, and assorted fruitcakes who support Boris Johnson. Don’t despair comrades; our day will come.
Union Movement Policy
Under Priti Patel’s points based immigration policy our fellow Europeans are to be excluded but West Indians, Africans and Asians are welcome. The Tories are anxious to improve trade with the Third World and they have already promised China and India that they will make life easier for their students and workers.
They have separated us from Europe but those of us who believe in genuine liberation are not satisfied with a country divided by class, where ex-servicemen sleep in doorways and beg for food, and where whole families live in bed and breakfast accommodation. We despise the politicians who misgovern us and we recall Union Movement’s policy from 1948 which is still relevant, except for point six about Africa.
1) To secure the Union of the European peoples.
2) To resist the menace of International Communism and International Finance.
3) To win the consent and enthusiasm of the people for a new way of life.
4) To win power in Britain by the vote of the people.
5) To abolish the Party game and thus to create a system of united national action.
6) To develop Africa as an estate of the European which can solve the economic problem of our continent.
7) To abolish the values and influence of class which rests on hereditary wealth and impedes the life of the nation.
8) To provide continuing security in creative service of the people for the man who has built his own means of livelihood and desires his children to follow after him in heredity, science, art, craft, profession or business.
9) To assert the right and will of the whole British people above every faction and thus to enable all to earn what they are worth with full security in sickness and old age.
10) To create a new sense of service and a new morality in the State.
Union Movement no longer exists but Mosley’s ideas are still discussed and Brexit has actually encouraged the European movement. As the elderly Brexiteers pass away the younger generation will reverse the decision to leave Europe. It’s only a matter of time.
Steven Dick, 37, passed away on Tuesday after contracting Covid-19, the UK Foreign Office said.
London (CNN)A senior British diplomat stationed in Hungary has died after contracting coronavirus, the UK’s Foreign Office said on Wednesday.
Steven Dick, aged 37, was the Deputy Head of Mission for the British embassy in Budapest.
He passed away on Tuesday after contracting Covid-19, the Foreign Office said.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: “I am desperately saddened by the news of Steven’s death and my heart goes out to his parents Steven and Carol. Steven was a dedicated diplomat and represented his country with great skill and passion. He will be missed by all those who knew him and worked with him.” Dick joined the Foreign Office in 2008 and has also worked in British embassies in Riyadh and Kabul, according to his biography on the UK government’s website.
His role of Deputy Head of Mission made him a key adviser to the UK’s Ambassador to Hungary, Iain Lindsay. Dick has also worked in the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
“Steven was a much-loved son, grandson and nephew,” Dick’s parents said in a statement to the UK’s PA news agency.
“He was kind, funny and generous. It was always his dream to work for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and he was very happy representing our country overseas.”
The UK has recorded more than 8,000 coronavirus cases and 435 deaths, while Hungary has 226 cases and 10 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University on March 25.
Britain’s Prince Charles tests positive for coronavirus
Charles and other senior royals kept up a busy schedule of engagements until earlier this month, when they cut off public events as the coronavirus outbreak intensified. Photo: Britain’s Prince Charles gestures as he greets musician Ronnie Wood as he arrives at the annual Prince’s Trust Awards 2020 held at the London Palladium, March 11, 2020. (Yui Mok/PA via AP, File)
LONDON — Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, royal officials confirmed Wednesday — touching off criticism over whether his wealth and status gave him priority in receiving a test.
The 71-year-old is showing mild symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and is self-isolating at a royal estate in Scotland, the prince’s Clarence House office said. His wife, Camilla, 72, has tested negative.
“The Prince of Wales has tested positive for Coronavirus,’’ Clarence House said.
It said he “otherwise remains in good health and has been working from home throughout the last few days as usual.’‘
Britain’s Press Association, citing a source, said the prince and the duchess remained in good spirits, and that Charles was not bedridden.
British government advice advises people over 70 to take social distancing measures especially seriously.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can be more severe, causing pneumonia and sometimes death.
“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.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 21 March 2020 12:21.
Millennial Woes, in his premature assent to e-celebrity, exercises a 20/20 “hindsight” that actually serves the wishful blindness and seeks to gain audience from the large market of America’s beleaguered White demographic - particularly German/Irish - susceptible in reaction to be overly sympathetic to Nazi Germany, circulating false currency through their internet bubble with it’s insulated and instant “historical expertise”...and in Millennial Woes rookie mistake to go with that blindered perspective, he serves Jewish divide and conquer.
MW Ostracises half of Britain
Millennial Woes says “World War II shouldn’t have happened.”
Daniel Sienkiewicz
7 hours ago (edited)
World War II shouldn’t have happened: Take it to Hitler. He was the one attacking other European ethnonstates. The Nations to his east, which he wanted to take over imperialistically, were all AGAINST the Soviet Union and were All Anti-Semitic - willing to work on deportation plans. I.e, Hitler/Nazi Germany were NOT fighting a defensive war.
FiveLiver
7 hours ago
My agreement with this comment has vanished twice now despite different spellings.
Anglus Patria
2 hours ago
Chamberlain and Hitler both made grave mistakes, both cost their nations everything.
Churchill, FDR and Stalin are evil. Churchill and FDR consciously went against their own people’s interests.
Daniel Sienkiewicz
12 minutes ago
Anglus Patria and Hitler wasn’t evil? Baloney. If you want to exercise 20/20 hindsight then wish that Hitler was not such an asshole as to attack other European countries, including ones that were A) Against the Soviet Union and B) Anti Semitic and willing to deport them.
Turnip Townshend
46 minutes ago
What is this Polish trickery?
Daniel Sienkiewicz
10 minutes ago
@Turnip Townshend There is no Polish trickery here, douche bag. You just conveniently overlook the facts EVEN WITH what should be 20/20 hindsight.
If you want to exercise 20/20 hindsight then wish that Hitler was not such an asshole as to attack other European countries, including ones that were
A) Against the Soviet Union and B) Anti Semitic and willing to deport them.
Daniel Sienkiewicz
1 second ago
@Turnip Townshend And what is this J trickery of yours? “Turnip Townshend” ...you’ve got ONE subscriber. It’s a sock account with an avatar of Hitler’s idol, Frederick the Great Faggot. You obviously aim at divide and conquer of European ethnonationalisms. How kosher of you.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 21 March 2020 11:23.
Schools and universities have already been closed.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the closure of all UK pubs, restaurants, cinemas and gyms as part of coronavirus containment measures. Britain has almost 4,000 confirmed cases. The real number can be much higher as testing has been limited. Government scientists say the virus is spreading quickly across London and many people have ignored advice to stay home.
Charles and other senior royals kept up a busy schedule of engagements until earlier this month, when they cut off public events as the coronavirus outbreak intensified. Photo: Britain’s Prince Charles gestures as he greets musician Ronnie Wood as he arrives at the annual Prince’s Trust Awards 2020 held at the London Palladium, March 11, 2020. (Yui Mok/PA via AP, File)
