Ten words In the Labour Party manifesto that offend the Jewish establishment..

“A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine.”

Climate change.

  Greta Thunberg’s full speech to the UN’s climate action conference on 23 September 2019.   

This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you are doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.
You say you “hear” us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you fully understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And I refuse to believe that.
The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5C degrees, and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

Maybe 50% is acceptable to you. But those numbers don’t include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of justice and equity. They also rely on my and my children’s generation sucking hundreds of billions of tonnes of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences.

To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5C global temperature rise – the best odds given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the world had 420 gigatons of carbon dioxide left to emit back on 1 January 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with business-as-usual and some technical solutions. With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone in less than eight and a half years.

There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures today. Because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.

Boycott PUMA.

Tomorrow, October 26, groups in more than 20 countries are joining the 2nd #BoycottPuma Global Day of Action.

Puma is the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association, which includes teams in illegal Israeli settlements pushing Palestinian families off their land.

Puma continues to claim a “devotion to universal equality” and talks about the values of the “Puma Family.”

Israel’s expanding illegal settlements have a devasting impact on Palestinian families.

Tell Puma: I won’t be part of #PumaFam while Puma supports Israel’s assaults on Palestinian families

Israel’s military occupation expels Palestinian families, including children, from their homes to give way for these settlements. Its apartheid walls and military checkpoints separate families from their land and from each other. Israel’s home demolitions and forced evictions cause Palestinian families to live in a constant state of terror.

Do You Own Puma Sportswear? Join #RebrandPuma!

Supporters of Palestinian human rights who purchased Puma gear before Puma’s sponsorship deal with the IFA have been "rebranding" their Puma clothing, shoes, hats and bags. By writing “Boycott” over the Puma logo, they are advertising their support the call from Palestinian athletes. Join them!

Puma's image is its most treasured asset. 

Let Puma know on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that you support the call from Palestinian athletes to #BoycottPuma.  

Louise Ellman and the continuing campaign to smear Jeremy Corbyn.

 Since August of 2018 I have drawn attention to what I believe is a planned, and coordinated campaign by a few members of the Jewish lobby and their supporters to discredit Jeremy Corbyn with accusations of anti semitism. Initially these charges were made directly against Corbyn but failed to gain any traction because of the man’s lifetime history of opposition to any form of religious or racist hatred or discrimination on the grounds of sexuality or colour.

 Instead they have since tried to smear him by accusing him of failing to deal with those disgraceful few in the Labour Party ( so far the official figures show that it is 0.18% of the total membership ) who have been proven guilty ( by due democratic and legal process) of shameful anti semitic behaviour. It has been no coincidence that these accusations have occurred at times when they believed that they could do maximum damage to his chances of becoming Prime Minister.
 Amongst others those involved are some members of the British Board of Jewish Deputies, Tom Watson, Luciana Berger, Mike Gapes and Margaret Hodge - all M.P. ‘s and the Guardian’s Michael Frayn.
 The latest effort, which has been timed deliberately to cause maximum damage, just before a general election, is the resignation of Louise Ellman M. P. from the Labour Party and the disgraceful comments made in her resignation letter. Don’t expect that this is the last throw of the dice by this  discredited group and expect more from them and,  in particular from Margaret Hodge. Watch this space.

World Temperature Rise Since 1960.

From Berkeley Earth - without comment:-

John McDonnell to the recent Labour Party Conference.

A General Election is almost upon us, and the choice for voters couldn't be starker. I'm reminded of the words of Rosa Luxemburg. Our choice is "socialism or barbarism". Yesterday, we announced some of our boldest policies yet to rebuild Britain. A Green New Deal for our NHS – investing in solar panels, low emission ambulances and a million trees planted across our hospitals. Free prescriptions to keep our NHS truly free. An end to indefinite immigration detention. The reintegration of private schools into the state sector. This is an exciting time to be a Labour member. Today, I'll be taking the stage to flesh out our plan to overhaul our economy in the name of social justice. We're going to tax privilege, redistribute wealth, and re-invest in public services. Labour is pioneering innovative socialist solutions for our uniquely modern economic problems. I'm proud to be part of our movement.

Semitic conspiracy against Corbyn.

By Kenneth Surin

I’ve just finished reading the uncorrected proof copy an excellent study of the manufactured Labour “antisemitism crisis”. [Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Antony Lerman, Justin Schlossberg and David Miller, Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party & Public Belief (London: Pluto Press, 2019)]

The launching point for the book’s analysis is a national poll, accompanied by the use of focus groups, on how people make judgments and form opinions.

The results showed that on average people believed that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism. A key part of the authors’ investigation was to examine how it could be that so many people came to believe this when the actual figure was far less than 1%.

The book focuses on how this chasm between (mis)perception came to exist. The authors used questionnaires as part of their survey, and the anonymous written answers show just how ignorant and poorly informed many Brits are— a significant percentage believe what they read in the trashy rightwing tabloids or what they see on TV!

Some focus group members even believed Corbyn would bring in Sharia Law if elected.

Bad News for Labour begins with an overview of the focus group discussions. Several participants in the focus groups who came believing that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism revised this number downwards, sensibly, as the group discussions went on and participants took to educating each other.

At the same time focus group members believed the controversy has done serious damage to the party.

What is clear is that for Ukania’s Joe and Jill Normal, who don’t often go beyond the newspaper headlines to look at news sources, etc., it is the case that

MASSIVE MEDIA COVEREAGE OF X = X MUST BE A BIG PROBLEM.

Bad News for Labour then looks at the plethora of competing positions and interests within Labour which created a confusing context for dealing with the antisemitism controversy. The authors identify 3 main areas:

1) the argument that there was a significant and widespread problem regarding antisemitism within the Labour Party;

2) that the issue was being used to undermine Labour’s left leadership, and specifically Jeremy Corbyn, as part of the internal politics of the Party;

3) that the controversy was linked to the defence of Israel and attempts to change Labour policy with regard to that state.

The crucial factor here is that no matter what steps Labour’s left leadership takes to deal with the party’s antisemitism problems (and these steps have been taken, unevenly and somewhat slowly), those bent on ousting Corbyn as leader for reasons internal to the party’s politics will not cease their efforts no matter what Labour does to address antisemitism within its membership.

The perfect example here is Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, who is on the payroll of the UK’s Zionist lobby. Watson did his utmost to stoke the fires of the antisemitism crisis. Sensing now he has played his full hand on this issue, he is currently using Brexit as his foil for attacking Corbyn.

Labour has edged its way towards a fragile truce within itself on Brexit, by making the ridding of Johnson and the Tories its priority, so that having a general election is the first objective, and only after that can such matters as a second EU referendum with options of a viable deal and remain be contemplated.

Watson is now trying to upset this arrangement by saying a second Brexit referendum has to come before a general election (echoing a position taken by Blair a few days before)— a ridiculous proposition, because having a referendum first will simply reopen divisions within Labour that existed during and after the first Brexit referendum. Far better to win an election, which will leave Labour more in control of events (and probably more united by virtue of electoral success), and then tackle the thorny matter of a second EU referendum.

Watson was promptly slapped down by Corbyn.

Bad News for Labour sensibly suggests that the best way for Corbyn and the party’s left to overcome these attempts by Labour’s mainly Blairite rightwing to undermine the Left is for the Blairites to be deselected by their local Labour parties as candidates in the next election.

Several Blairites, knowing they face deselection, have already jumped ship and joined the centrist Lib Dems while a couple went on to be Independents. Other Blairites, knowing which way the wind is blowing, have announced they won’t be standing in the next election.

The outrage of the Labour Zionists making life difficult for Corbyn is highly selective. It is certainly true that some of these Labour MPs received antisemitic abuse (though mainly from people who were not party members).

At the same time, the Labour politician Diane Abbott, a Corbyn ally who is shadow home secretary/interior minister, was targetted by racists, though this has received much less media attention. Amnesty International’s research showed that Abbott received 45% of all abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the 6 weeks before the 2017 election.

The crux of Labour’s antisemitism controversy is the bruhaha over its grudging acceptance of the flawed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of “antisemitism”. The media’s coverage of this controversy was framed by 2 assumptions: that under Corbyn antisemitism in Labour had become “institutionalized”, and that Corbyn and his associates had failed to counter this.

The IHRA definition is deeply flawed, so much so that it is deemed not fit to be given any legal standing.

Media coverage of Labour’s disputes with this definition cloak this fact by referring to it as “the widely accepted IHRA definition”, “the widely accepted definition put forward by the IHRA”, “the IHRA’s widely accepted definition”, “the global definition of antisemitism”, “the globally recognized definition”, “the near universally accepted definition”, and so on, in effect suggesting that Labour was completely out of line in its reluctance to accept the 38-word definition, despite the fact that a powerful body of legal opinion saw it as a hopelessly vague statement accompanied by a rag-bag of “examples”.

The IHRA examples in effect make it automatic that any characterization of Israel as “racist” is perforce “antisemitic”, in this way placing Israel’s apartheid policy towards Palestinians beyond criticism.

Under immense pressure Labour alas caved-in and accepted the definition and all its examples.

Perhaps the fact that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s announcement in May that it was investigating Labour’s handling of antisemitism complaints following submissions from the Jewish Labour Movement and the Campaign Against Antisemitism had something to do with Labour’s capitulation on this score.

Bad News for Labour therefore trades on a double entendre—news that is bad for Labour, but also “faux news” that itself is bad precisely because of its all-too-common distortions, biases, and underlying malicious intent. It’s no surprise that two Murdoch papers, The Times and Sun, have been at the forefront of this campaign against Labour.

Perhaps more surprising are the outfits that kept company with Murdoch newspapers in this campaign against Corbyn, namely, the supposedly objective BBC and the “progressive” Guardian, both of which matched the Murdoch rags step for step in a rush for the gutter.

Bad News for Labour presents a flood of evidence detailing how this campaign was confected and what its effects on the party have been.

Since I’m a British citizen I’ll be in the UK next week attending the Labour Party annual conference as a member-delegate. Testing the waters on this issue will be interesting to say the least.

Meanwhile the media say nary a word about the rampant Islamophobia in the Conservative Party (starting with its leader, BoJo, and his insouciantly feeble jokes about burka-wearing women looking like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”, and so on), and the fact that surveys show antisemitism to be more prevalent in the Tories than it is in Labour.

As Americans say: go figure.