Why The EU Is An Ass.

Unbelievable, the Guardian reports:

“Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, is to represent the European parliament at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, which opens next week.

Last night politicians and scientists reacted furiously to news that the far-right politician and climate change denier should be attending the summit on behalf of the EU.

Griffin, who was elected to the European parliament in June, confirmed last night that he would attend as the representative of the parliament’s environmental committee. World leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, are hoping to forge a new global agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

Without such a deal, scientists warn that world temperatures will increase by more than 2C by the end of the century, triggering ice cap melting, sea-level rises, widespread flooding, the spread of deserts and devastating storms.

In a speech in the parliament last week, Griffin denounced those who warn of the consequences of climate change as “cranks”. He said they had reached “an Orwellian consensus” that was “based not on scientific agreement, but on bullying, censorship and fraudulent statistics”. “

Antifascist Action.

AFA has uploaded a documentary on antifascism, they are posted on YouTube.

I have only seen two so far, but seeing Mickey Fenn again brought back old memories.

There’s a lot of good reminiscences and plenty of sound antifascist common sense. One of the clips has an astute piece of advice, which I wish modern day antifascists, of all shades of opinion, would bear in mind (I paraphrase) “Shouting Nazis at them is of no use, they already know they are Nazis.”

Certainly, we need to move beyond the slogans of the late 1970s, which might have worked with NF but are showing their age now. I think we need to take on the BNP is a generalised neofascist phenomena, make that the point and raise the level of debate beyond merely shouting “Nazi, Nazi”

Unquestionably, many of the leaders of the BNP have neo-Nazi connections and you only need to see the tattoos on the back of Nick Griffin’s bodyguard to appreciate that.

However, it seems certainly possible, if not immediately likely, that the BNP could transform themselves into a “Le Pen” type of generalised neo-fascist movement, so combating them with shouts of “Nazi, Nazi” won’t work.

Rather the whole history of fascism needs bringing up, its barbarism and their quest for a xenophobic dystopia, and in doing so raise the conscious understanding of the threat of neofascism and how the BNP might fit into that framework and what it all means.

There is a potential for a massive increase in support for neofascism and so its opponents must think, rethink, their strategies to guarantee success, because failure and its consequences are not worth thinking about. The advent of the EDL and the BNP’s electoral gains requires us to reconsider the situation anew.

(H/T: Ross)

Update 1: The CST has details of an “alleged” BNP member and suspected would-be bomb maker, Terry Gavan and his recent arrest.

Graphics.

This is a marvellous (or slightly depressing, depends how you look at it) way of representing figures, the Billion Dollar Gram by David McCandless, more at the Beeb.

It certainly puts things in perspective.

Not My View.

This post from Left Foot Forward is not my view, but as there is a poverty of anything meaningful elsewhere, it will have to do:

“President Barack Obama will announce his plan for Afghanistan in a national address to the US next Tuesday, and it is reported that the plan will include sending as many as 30,000 additional troops to the region.

From the beginning of his now weeks-old consultation process with his diplomatic and military advisors, Mr Obama has made it clear that he was looking for a solution beyond the one requested and recommended by the top US regional commander, Stanley McChrystal, which called for an additional 40,000 US troops and increased focus on population-protection based counterinsurgency.
…”

Later on it discusses the various options, I’d suggest that a decentralised government might be more workable. The problem I have with many of these articles is that they look at Afghanistan almost purely from a Western point of view, whereas I, as an anti-Taliban type, think that the defeat of the Taliban should be the end goal, if possible, as that will ensure better conditions for the majority of Afghans. Any way plenty to think about.

Update 1: Terry Gavin often has good stuff on Afghanistan, he’s well worth a read.

Update 2: Some related links, The Afghanistan Analyst’s list of links.

Update 3: The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Update 4: The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee.

Update 5: Afghan women and what would happen if the Taliban return to power:

“Like many of her female colleagues, Wazhma believes women will be the first victims of the chaos and civil war that will ensue if troops withdraw in the near future. And they are in no doubt as to who will fill the power vacuum. ”Look at all the international troops in Afghanistan, and yet still the Taliban is getting stronger ever day,” Hamida says.

The greatest fear about a return to Taliban control – be they ”old”, ”new” or ”moderate” Taliban – is that women will inevitably be thrust back into the dark ages, again forced to submit to the most draconian rules and human rights abuses ever imposed on women anywhere in the world. It was only eight years ago when Afghan women couldn’t work, go to school, or leave their homes without permission and a male escort.

Right now it’s not only women’s rights and freedoms that are at stake. It’s their lives.

Until 2001 women like Hamida and Wazhma kept their activism well hidden. But the post-Taliban freedom has given rise to a growing movement of women who are politically active and visible. As such they are sitting ducks if there is a return to lawless patriarchy. ”They will not leave me alive for a minute,” Wazhma says. Most of the women I talk to know they are on assassination lists.”

Not Sure.

I am not sure what to make of this, I read it earlier on in the week at Jpost, but I didn’t pay it much attention until re-reading again at schalom libertad, Anti-Zionist Attack on Film Showing.

Contested Terrain has a lot more:

“At the end of October, a coalition around the “Internationalist Center B5″ blockaded a theater in their direct vicinity, the Independent Cinema B Movie. With physical blows and wild remarks, [ed. multiple sources reported that the B5 activists shouted "Jewish pigs" and "fairies" ("Shuchteln") at those seeking to enter the theater, and had physically assaulted some of them] the activists made clear that, the causing of injuries to a few people was worth it to them to prevent an engagement with the theme “Why Israel.”
…
In left antisemitism in this part of the world, Jews are represented as “capitalists,” cosmopolitans or even as “zionist agents,” that is, as enemy of the people. While with the establishment of Israel, the efforts to construct a Jewish nation could actually be realized, the State would however be reduced solely to an “imperialist bridgehead” and its population reduced to mere occupiers. Out of this ascription, in which Jews are treated as lacking a belonging in a home country on the one hand, and illegitimately establishing a State on the other hand, the resulting placelessness belongs to the fundamental semantics of antisemitism, and is always advanced from the same circles as essential components of their politics. In view of their growing isolation, the Hamburg antizionists rely on the increasing use of physical violence as the last field in which they can assert themselves.”

Here’s the original German.

Now you’d think that “anti-Zionists” and in particular those in Germany would know better than to shout “Jewish pigs” at people?

Update 1: entdinglichung points us to a link on Die Linke’s site condemning the actions of the “anti-Zionists” from the International Centre B5, but frankly the text is less than clear. That could be Google’s translation’s fault or the writer who might have used language or syntax which is a bit cryptic, as politicos often do, either way I’ll leave it to readers to decide.

Never Really Mentioned.

We have reached the first year anniversary of the killing spree that took place in Mumbai, India in 2008.

I remember following it avidly as I suspect many people did. The smoke billowing out of the plush hotel, the pictures of scattered belongings and bloodstains in the railway station, and the siege at Chabad House.

Like most people at the time I was mystified as to how this could happen and who would carry it out, but one thing struck me about the news coverage, how they never asked why Chabad House was attacked, in the first place.

Why was it attacked?

I am not sure if there was some set of unwritten assumptions at play, or it just didn’t occur to the collective journalists that this was more than a curiosity.

By that I mean, Mumbai is a massive city, comprising some 13 million inhabitants, twice the size of London, five times the size of Paris, in terms of population.

The extended city of Mumbai has about 19 million inhabitants, enormous by any standards.

Therefore, finding that very small community of Jews in that city would be a serious endeavour. It would not be a trivial task. Locating a dozen or so people of a certain ethnicity amongst 13 million people is exceedingly difficult.

Yet that point wasn’t covered in any detail, as far as I remember, by the Western media.

I suppose that if a particular group of murderers decided to hunt out any natives of Tuvalu, living in London and kill them then surely that would be odd and the reasons behind it worthy of attention?

That is the parallel, searching for a minute community in a massive city, torturing them and finally murdering them in the most brutal way.

But it was not really mentioned by the Western media. As far as I can work out the killings at Chabad House doesn’t seem to have been seen as worthy of consideration, with no significant coverage or questions being asked by the media. Curious and, in many ways, a bit disturbing as to what it tells us about certain Western attitudes.

—-
[Tuvalu (and all that comprises it) is one of the smallest nation in world]

Comments And Blogging.

Bob is hosting an informative discussion on the merits and de-merits of comments policies on blogs. Also see Flesh’s Bloggers are responsible for the comments they attract.

My own comments policy (such as it is).

Nike Justice?

Anti-German has an amusing post on Fighting for global justice while wearing Nike.

I am not sure that the ever so smug students at Sussex University Student Union will get the point about Nike, certainly not about Adidas and Puma.

(H/T: Bob)

The Curious Case Of Rupert And Gilad.

I have been waiting for Dr Rupert Read to comment on his blog without success, and I am not sure quite what to make of Dr Read’s recent conduct. I could, of course, be very critical, it is hard to see how anyone could read the racism embedded in Gilad Atzmon’s work and not be alarmed.

But Dr Read did apologise, he said sorry, which should be an end to it, and it would be, if he hadn’t compounded the problem by making some quite curious and absurd claims afterwards :

Dr. Read: “I think that the influence of ‘the Israel lobby’ in this country as in many others is nefarious.” [My emphasis.]

Nefarious, readers will remember is defined in Webster’s 1913 edition as:

”Wicked in the extreme; abominable; iniquitous; atrociously, villainous; execrable; detestably vile. ”

Further, Dr. Read went on to praise the recent Dispatches programme which has received questionable reviews, still more disappointing is Dr. Read’s inability to explain himself in a lucid and considered fashion.

Normally, we should try to be charitable to those caught up in these mistakes and if they make amends quickly then that should be it. However, from his comments Dr Read doesn’t appear to have learnt anything in the process, anything meaningful. He might well have learnt to be more careful or hide his opinion’s concerning “Israelis”, he might have learnt how to give out a quick apology. Yet it all comes over as rather unsatisfactory.

Unsatisfactory coming from a professional academic, who is one step away from a professorship, someone who in normal circumstances would be considered a critical thinker, an intellectual, someone who could balance in his head numerous arguments and counter arguments in a trice, except that is not what comes over in his statements on this topic.

This is the difficulty, imagine you know someone highly intelligent, articulate and otherwise well balanced yet they hold a strong negative opinion against a particular group of people, and are incapable of articulating why they hold such an opinion in a rational fashion.

In such circumstances the natural conclusion to draw, is not that their views are based on reason, but some bias or prejudice. Let me make it clear I am not accusing Dr. Read of being an antisemite or anywhere close, but his inability to look at these issues rationally and objectively is somewhat mystifying and rather inadequate.

I know the simple answer would be to assume prejudice on Dr. Read’s part, but I am not entirely convinced as I have run across many politicos and a few academics, who were loath to ever admit they were wrong, could not rethink their positions and often showed a striking lack of self-awareness, the recent British MPs’ expenses scandals showed that.

The same could be true for Dr Read’s attitude, that it is more of a character flaw than an active prejudice? I am not really sure. Either way it is rather peculiar that a professional philosopher cannot defend his own views, strongly held views, by clear-cut and comprehensive argumentation.

Worth A Smile.

The thought of poor and wretched neo-fascist parties begging for a few Euros to stay afloat must bring a smile to even the most stony hearted, so it is with the fate of the NPD, Kirklees Unity has more:

“The neo-Nazi NPD party is resorting to prime-rate phone lines to raise money, using the same 0900-code system employed by sex phone services and quiz hotlines.

The Berlin party headquarters has two such numbers, Der Spiegel reported this weekend, enabling supporters to donate money anonymously just by picking up the phone.

Each call raises either €5 or €10, the magazine reported.

An attempt to enable those who want to give even more while maintaining their anonymity by adding a PayPal button to the NPD website has failed though.

The party, which is facing bankruptcy, followed other smaller parties such as the Christian Social Union, Free Democratic Party, The Left and the Greens by using the PayPal system to enable supporters to donate up to €500.”

Scabs On Twitter

News in from Eric Lee, Vale Inco might try to recruit scabs using Twitter in their dispute with the USW.

The United Steelworkers in Canada have been on strike since mid-July and need support, their web site www.fairdealnow.ca has more and here’s LabourStart:

“Since being privatized in 1997, the global mining giant Vale has unleashed a vicious attack on workers. The company undermined health and safety standards in Brazil and now it’s set its sights on Canada. In 2009 negotiations with the United Steelworkers (USW), Vale claimed it needed deep concessions – despite making over $13 billion (USD) in 2008 net profits. The company’s strategy is to divide and conquer by undermining seniority and providing lesser benefits to new employees. 3,500 members of the USW rejected Vale’s demands and went on strike in mid-July. Vale has since announced it will hire replacement workers and force other union members to do the work of the striking miners. Meanwhile Vale workers throughout Brazil are struggling to hold on to jobs, earn a living wage, achieve minimum standards for safe working conditions, and guarantee basic labor rights. Vale employees and their unions in Brazil and Canada are fighting back together, reaching out to workers in a global campaign for fair treatment at Vale.”

Also at the IMF, Unions shame Vale CFO in Madrid and protest in Seoul.

The Sudbury Star covers it too.

Over In Ukraine.

It seems that Mayor of Uzhgorod, Sergey Ratushnyak is running for the Presidency of the Ukraine.

Ratushnyak is a rather unsavoury individual, the Kyiv Post reports:

“Serhiy Ratushnyak, known for his combative behavior, is facing a criminal investigation.

Uzhgorod Mayor Serhiy Ratushnyak, known for combative behavior, may have outdone himself this month.

First, on Aug. 6, Ratushnyak allegedly physically attacked a woman – an activist for presidential candidate Arseniy Yatseniuk. Ratushnyak reportedly knocked down a Yatseniuk tent after Natalya Butrymko, 21, failed to produce government permits for setting it up and handing out campaign flyers.

Ratushnyak denied the assault, but then disgusted people even more by calling the woman “a stripper” and referring to Yatseniuk repeatedly as “Jew” and a “criminal.” (Yatseniuk has never identified himself as Jewish and says his religion is Greek-Catholic.)”

I think we’ll hear more of this.

Clicking Around The World And Climate Change.

The East Antarctica ice sheet is melting faster.

Modern-day Neanderthal Tory still denies climate change and existence of Europe!

Want bigger lips or cosmetic enhancements? This story should make you rethink. Liquidised fat.

Xbox players and the real James Bond.

Deep-sea beauties.

Large Hadron Collider might work, soon.

Tamils still kept in camps.

Visions of Darwin. Nice frog.

Fish and acid oceans.

Sync That.

Chrome doing wonderful multi-platform things with bookmarks.

Wine dev hits 1.1.33.

Better Ubuntu, Mint 8.

ARM and the cheapest ever laptop!

Another form of cloning.

7 megawatts of power, sort of.

Super Computers, mostly powered by Linux.

Watch out what you say, or you’ll be quoted.

Downgrade GDM.

Not so reliable MACs.

Over or under 50? Feeling your age? Try some freebies.

Chrome OS, an early review.

Green Rupert And The Anti-Jewish Racist.

Thanks to Greens Engage, we now find out that Rupert Read is pushing that well-known anti-Jewish racist, Gilad Atzmon.

Dr. Read was a perspective Parliamentary candidate for the Greens in Norwich North, and a rather shrewd individual, well-educated, articulate and even has a column on the Eastern Daily Press. To top it all he’s an author and academic.

Dr. Read on his Twitter account pushes a link to Atzmon’s site with the title “Britain must de-Zionise Itself Immediately” [I'll upload a screen dump of it later on, just in case it vanishes]

Astute readers will remember the SWP’s honeymoon with Atzmon and their weak defence of him, that was some time ago and nowadays few, if any, deny Atzmon’s racism.

One example of Atzmon’s racism is how he argues that Jews fund war and revolutions, and anyone competent enough to read Far Right and neo-Nazi web sites will remember that old racist chestnut.

More recently Atzmon was portraying Israelis and Jews as ghouls and traders in body parts.

None of this should come as a surprise to Dr Read, a simple search across the Internet would reveal the racist nature of Atzmon’s views. Even Wikipedia, which apparently tries to strike a neutral balance, acknowledges there is criticism of Atzmon’s views.

Merely substituting “Zionist” for “Jew” should not fool a sophisticate such as Dr. Read, I am sure he is familiar with the usage of euphemisms in racism, he’ll find a lot of that in Atzmon’s work.

I think Dr. Read’s support for Atzmon illustrates a long standing problem, that those who spend an inordinate amount of time swimming around in the currents of “anti-Zionism” often become desensitised towards anti-Jewish racism, and when it is staring them in the face, as with Atzmon’s filth, they can’t recognise it.

I do hope that Dr. Read will admit his mistake and take a training course on basic racism: how to recognise it.

Update 1: As promised the screen dump from Dr. Read’s twitter:

Update 2: Dr. Read after making an apology on Engage and Greens Engage compounded the problem by stating “I think that the influence of ‘the Israel lobby’ in this country as in many others is nefarious. “ [My emphasis].

Sadly, I don’t think Dr. Read has fully understood the anti-Jewish racism embedded in the sentiment that he articulated.

Update 3: Dr. Read has updated his blog, but without a mention or a moment’s regret on this issue. I will assume that he pre-wrote that last entry on Friday and hope that he’ll deal with this issue and his notion of “nefarious” in a post shortly.

Update 4: Mira Vogel made this excellent contribution. it helps explain Dr. Read’s and others misconceptions:

“Rupert, it has already been pointed out to you several times that Atzmon conflates Jews and Zionists. So when he calls for de-Zionisation, the clear implication is de-Jewification.

“he is of course Jewish which makes it hard for him to be anti-Jewish anyway”.

He calls himself an ex-Jew, Rupert. He hates Jews.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1559

Of course you can be Jewish and antisemitic. You can be gay and homophobic. You can call it the internalisation of oppression – you can call it what you like – it is not unusual. Example from a recent episode of Andrew Marr’s ‘The Making of Modern Britain’ – the way some British women joined in with attacks on the British women campaigning for the franchise.

Please do the right thing and write a further self-appraisal in which you reflect upon how antipathy against Zionism (as opposed to lucid criticism) can prejudice anti-Zionists and corner them with antisemitic thinkers. We will make sure it is the last thing people see on this post. It will of course be subject to criticism (analysis, I mean), but if it’s good it will draw a line under this episode.”

[My emphasis]

Update 5: Dr. Read has replied at Engage and Greens Engage, neither of which seems fully satisfactory to me:

“Rupert Read Says:

November 21, 2009 at 8:04 pm

Look, we obviously disagree about quite a few things. E.g. Several of you seem to think that Oborne’s documentary was wrong or biassed or dangerous. I disagree; I think it was brilliant.
Parts of the Atzmon post just rehash in a provocative way the Oborne documentary. I found that interesting. The post was forwarded me by a friend who is usually a reliable source. I read it swiftly – TOO swiftly! I _wish_ I had read it more slowly, because then I would have no doubt noticed (for instance) the dodgy way he was sliding between ‘Jewish’ and ‘Zionist’, and then I wouldn’t have retweeted it, and then we would all have been saved a lot of trouble…
I obviously regret the offence and any embarrassment caused. I’ve said sorry, and I’ve learned from this.
So, while I don’t appreciate the slagging-off and name-calling that I have suffered during this unfortunate incident, which I think has been unwarranted and does not help us to mutually ‘engage’, I _do_ appreciate having been shown just how dodgy this man and much of his writing are, and having been reminded about the need for pro-active vigilance and care against genuine anti-semitism.
So, in that regard, thank you to those who have written here.”

and

Rupert Read November 21, 2009 at 7:50 pm

“To be clear: I NEVER endorsed Atzmon’s article. I read it [too quickly - I regret that!], found some of it interesting, agreeing with some of the remarks he made [which were mostly a rehash of the excellent Oborne DISPATCHERS programme exposing the extremely-worrying influence of the Zionist lobby in politics in this country], and tweeted it. THAT’S ALL. I did _not_ endorse it as a whole.
The Atzmon post was forwarded me by a friend who is usually a reliable source. I read it swiftly; I _wish_ I had read it more slowly, because then I would have no doubt noticed the dodgy way he was sliding between ‘Jewish’ and ‘Zionist’,
and then I wouldn’t have retweeted it, and then we would all have been saved a lot of trouble…
I obviously regret the offence and any embarrassment caused. …I also distinctly regret the unpleasant personal attacks on me and false descriptions of me in a couple of comments above. Please bear in mind, colleagues, that if you really do want to ENGAGE with people, you need to try not to slag them off and make potentially damaging false allegations against them…
I welcome the chance of clarifying things, and hope that we can start to draw a line under this, now… {See also my comment on Mira’s next post.)”

and

Rupert Read November 21, 2009 at 7:39 pm

“Thanks, Mira; this is useful.
Cohen is an impressive writer, and much of what he says in Chapter 3 of the book you cite is bang on the mark. I agree 100% with the particular quotation from Cohen that you have given above. Those of us who are anti-Zionists need to ensure that we are 100% serious and active in our anti-anti-semitism. Anti-semitism fuels the ‘rebound’ (among those oppressed by that anti-semitism) into Zionism. Unless we can extirpate or at least combat/reduce anti-semitism, it is fairly certain that Zionism will continue to have wide appeal. So there is a strong onus on all of us who are not Zionists to be committed anti-anti-semites.”

Update 6: Whilst Dr. Read has managed to post on the ‘Scandal’ over hacked climate-science emails at UEA: Don’t believe the hype, he hasn’t addressed in any significant way those questions put to him at Engage/Greens Engage. I don’t think Dr. Read understand the severity of this issue, and why he must quickly deal with it.

Update 7: A few days in, and still Dr. Read hasn’t commented on his blog, or comprehensively addressed many of the points raised over at Engage. All in all rather unsatisfactory. Still a couple of other Greens quickly came out, saw the issue and acknowledge the racism, which is hopeful, shame that a Green parliamentary candidate can’t go that far. I’ll try to return to this issue shortly.