alanjjohnstone
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Labour Party’s Jewish members described by Board of Deputies as “The usual bunch of anti-Semitism deniers” …
And the mention of ex-member Luciana Berger is denounced as “particularly disrespectful” by simply repeating her claim that Labour was “sickeningly institutionally racist” on the basis that she had suffered “years of anti-Semitic abuse, much of it from fellow party members”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47322921
So just who is trying to suppress opinions and views?
Your comment reminded me of a story once told of Baron Rothschild, Marcos
He was out walking and was recognized by two workers who accosted him and said it was not fair that one man should have all that wealth and it should be shared out equally. Without hesitation Rothschild pulled out his purse
“I possess 50 million marks and there are 50 million in the country, so good sirs, accept one mark each as your individual share of my riches”
He gave them the money and walked away leaving the two workers somewhat confused.
Probably not true but it is a capitalist story that we socialists can use against the concept of re-distribution of wealth rather than expropriation of the means of production
https://www.france24.com/en/20190220-france-new-bill-equating-anti-zionism-anti-semitism-illegal
French lawmakers have proposed a bill on Monday that would make anti-Zionism a criminal offence in the same way that anti-Semitism is illegal in France.
Sylvain Maillard, one of the French lawmakers behind the proposal to criminalise anti-Zionism, has rejected accusations that his bill conflates the two issues.
“You can criticise the Israeli government, but not question the state’s right to exist,” he said. “No one is questioning the France or Germany’s right to exist.”Macron also spoke out against the measure during a press conference on Tuesday yet explained. “Those who want Israel to disappear are the same people who want to attack Jews.”
Another article that focuses on approaches to giving messages
“…the climate movement has suffered from a debilitating self-inflicted wound: the assumption that “we can’t tell the public the truth” about the urgency of the crisis, or the scale and speed of the necessary solution. Many climate scientists joined forces with professional “climate communicators” and corporate philanthropies to decree: Fear doesn’t work as a motivator! Only hope “works,” so let’s keep things positive and promote gradualist policies like carbon pricing! This counterproductive mentality is finally changing…”
truth-telling to spur sufficient action.
“…Wallace-Wells describes how even the best-case scenarios for climate change will involve millions of deaths, and tens or hundreds of millions of refugees. We are looking at a “best-case outcome … death and suffering at the scale of twenty-five Holocausts.”…Those calling for mass mobilization, starting today and no later, remember — they can be counted as environmental technocrats. To their left are those who see no solution short of political revolution.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47312006
Derek Hatton suspended for 2012 tweet that
“Jewish people with any sense of humanity need to start speaking out publicly against the ruthless murdering being carried out by Israel!”
This would be presumably in breach of the IHRA guideline
“Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/20/manifesto-youth-climate-strikers-win-fight
George Monbiot’s version.
A central task for any campaign is to develop a narrative: a short, simple story explaining where we are, how we got here and where we need to go. Using the narrative structure common to almost all successful political and religious transformations, the restoration story, it might go something like this.
“The world has been thrown into climate chaos, caused by fossil fuel companies, the billionaires who profit from them and the politicians they have bought. But we, the young heroes, will confront these oligarchs, using our moral authority to create a movement so big and politically dangerous that our governments are forced to shut down the fossil economy and restore the benign conditions in which humans and other species can thrive.”
Here is mine
“The world has been thrown into climate chaos, caused by capitalism and the politicians they have bought. But we, the younger generation will change the economic system by advocating the socialist alternative to create a movement so big it will end capitalism and then we can restore the benign conditions in which humans and other species can thrive.”
I’m sure others can express the narrative story so lets hear it and base our approach to communication upon it.
Sustainable food for 530 million Europeans with drops of 30% for plant products and 40% for animal products
A week after research revealed a steep decline in global insect populations that has been linked to the use of pesticides, the study from European thinktank IDDRI claims such chemicals can be phased out and greenhouse gas emissions radically reduced in Europe through agroecological farming, while still producing enough nutritious food for an increasing population.Agroecology takes into account natural ecosystems and uses local knowledge to plant crops that increase the sustainability of the farming system as a whole. The IDDRI study, entitled Ten Years for Agroecology, used modelling to examine the reduction in yields that would result from a transition to such an approach.
Reductions, the authors argue, could be mitigated by eliminating food-feed competition – reorienting diets towards plant-based proteins and pasture-fed livestock, and away from grain-fed white meat. More than half the EU’s cereals and oilseed crops are fed to animals. The study models a future in which European meat production has been cut by 40%, with the greatest reductions in grain-fed pork and poultry.
“Pesticide-hungry intensive production is not the only way to feed a growing population” said Rob Percival, the head of food policy at the Soil Association. “The Ten Years for Agroecology study shows that agroecological and organic farming can feed Europe a healthy diet, while responding to climate change, phasing out pesticides, and maintaining vital biodiversity.”
You rightly raised a comparison with Haiti. Here is an article you will find interesting
“…In the midst of the economic war against it, Venezuela has not been able to provide Haiti with subsidized fuel. Haiti’s people had to now go to the U.S. oil companies and pay U.S. prices for fuel. This has created bottlenecks in the supply of fuel and frustration at the rising prices. Novum Energy—of the United States—kept ships sitting in Port-au-Prince harbor, waiting for the cash-strapped Haitian government to pay up before unloading 164,000 barrels of petrol and 205,000 barrels of kerosene. There is no solidarity pricing here (in fact, Haiti has to pay $20,000 per day to each ship that is sitting in the harbor as a penalty). These firms want cash, and they want full price….”
Israel evicts Palestinian family in Jerusalem’s Old City and replaces them with settlers
The Abu Asab family are originally from the Baq’a neighborhood of southern Jerusalem, and were kicked out during the Nakba in 1948. In the 50’s, they relocated to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City in a home that once belonged to the Jewish Meisel family. The Meisel family left their home during the 1948 war. In 1970, the Israeli Knesset enacted the Legal and Administrative Matters Law, which stipulated that property assets formerly belonging to Jews in East Jerusalem would be returned to them. Palestinians who were forced out of their homes were not granted the same right. The Maisel family dedicated the property to a trust. A few years ago, settlers managed to appoint themselves as directors of this trust, and in their name they sued the family who lived in the property.
“‘Everything Palestinian in Jerusalem is targeted by Israeli occupation,’ said Palestinian Archbishop of Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Church, Atallah Hanna on January 29 during a meeting with a delegation from the medical aid organisation Doctors without Borders. ‘The Islamic and Christian holy sites and endowments are targeted in order to change our city, hide its identity and marginalise our Arabic and Palestinian existence,’ the archbishop added
Perhaps our election committee can comment
The Independent Group resembles a political party and is soliciting money from members of the public, it currently only exists as a limited company called Gemini A Ltd. It was incorporated last month by Gavin Shuker MP, who is its sole director.
It is unclear whether the commission, which regulates the use of political party names, would allow the name “the Independent Group” to be registered because of potential confusion on the ballot paper with candidates standing as genuine independents. As a result the group could ultimately adopt a different name to stand in election.
The group has said it intends to voluntarily disclose donations in line with the law governing political parties, only accepting money from UK donors and naming individuals who give more than £7,500.
Were it to register with the commission, the Independent Group would eventually be entitled to public “Short money” funding for opposition parties, but not until it had fought in a general election.
The Independent Group’s domain is actually registered with a company based in Phoenix, Arizona, and its website was designed by Seraph, a web design business based in Shuker’s Luton South constituency.
Israeli Immigration Minister Yoav Gallant has called on French Jews to “come home”
“The desecration of the Jewish cemetery in France conjures images of dark times in the history of the Jewish people,” Gallant said in a statement on Tuesday. “Last week I visited the Jewish community in Paris, which is under an anti-Semitic attack and in the process of assimilation. I firmly condemn the anti-Semitism in France and call on the Jews – come home, immigrate to Israel.”
80 graves were discovered to have been daubed with swastikas at a Jewish cemetery in the village of Quatzenheim, close to the border with Germany in the Alsace region. Photos show the Nazi symbols in blue spray-painted on the damaged graves, one of which bears the words “Elsassisches Schwarzen Wolfe” (“Black Alsatian Wolves”), a separatist group with links to neo-Nazis.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters
“It has nothing to do with humanitarian aid at all. It has to do with Richard Branson having bought the US saying, ‘We have decided to take over Venezuela, for whatever our reasons may be.’…Do we really want Venezuela to turn in to another Iraq or Syria or Libya? I don’t and neither do the Venezuelan people,” Waters wrote.
Bernie Sanders is to run for president again.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/19/bernie-sanders-announces-2020-run-presidency
Will the US media ignore and misrepresent him again? Depends, I think , on who will be the Wall St candidate still to declare.
