Rupert Murdoch, arguably, (using arguments somewhat similar to xenophobes’ for whom especially non white people are “immigrants” even if their ancestors have lived for hundreds of years in a so called “white” country) is an immigrant in his native Australia, as he descends from people who immigrated to that continent … fair enough … while its Aboriginal people were robbed of their land and massacred … not so fair.
Rupert Murdoch is an immigrant in Britain. That unfortunately does not stop his media empire there from whipping up hysteria against immigrants. Including refugees, who fled to Britain from torture and war.
Zimbabwean former asylum seeker Urginia Mauluka is shocked after being used in an anti-immigrant Sun article. She spoke to Matthew Cookson
The Sun newspaper is not known for its sympathetic portrayal of asylum seekers—so Urginia Mauluka was a little surprised to get a call saying that it wanted to interview her about her experiences.
Urginia, who fled from her native Zimbabwe in 2002 and became a British citizen earlier this year, nevertheless agreed.
The Zimbabwean state and pro-government independence war veterans had targeted Urginia because of her role as an independent photographer documenting the violence of the regime and its supporters.
She said, “I thought my story could be documented in such a way to inform people and other asylum seekers about the reality of life for us. I thought the Sun would be responsible.”
But when she saw the printed version of the article, the mistakes it contained and the way it was presented left her “shocked” and “angry”.
The Sun printed Urginia’s story as part of a double page spread on immigration on Friday of last week, launching a new anti-immigrant campaign.
“I feel like somebody has used me for their own agenda,” Urginia told Socialist Worker.
“I had been attacked several times before June 2002 as I was a photographer who went onto the farms as well as the war veterans’ demonstrations. My life was exposed because of my job.
“I had also been arrested, detained and beaten by the police and war veterans a number of times. The pain was so intense I couldn’t cry. These occasions come back to me at times.
“My uncle decided to bring me over to Britain and I had a plane ticket in my camera bag when I was attacked by the police in June 2002—not May 2002 as claimed in the Sun.
“The Sun said that my uncle ‘moved to Britain five years ago to escape the torture’ but he had been settled here around 12 years before I arrived. And how could he invite me in 2002 if he didn’t move here until 2004?
“He has been very upset by the article.
Angry
“I am very angry that the headline over the article is ‘I’m Staying’ and the final sentence is ‘I will never go back.’ I did not say this.
“I miss home every day. Like every Zimbabwean who has been forced to move from home, I eat, breathe and live Zimbabwe. All we want to do is go home to rebuild our country, but only when it is safe for us.
“I have always said I want to return, but only when Robert Mugabe is gone as Zimbabwe’s leader.
“After that treatment from my country, now I’m getting this from the Sun.
“The article is irresponsible and full of mistakes. The Sun has printed a letter in response by me, but they edited and cut it.”
Urginia is concerned at the way her experiences were used by the newspaper, which she feels doesn’t understand what many migrants and asylum seekers have gone through.
She said, “I didn’t realise that I was going to be part of an anti-immigrant feature. My story was next to a box on eastern European criminals.
“Asylum seekers want to work, but they aren’t allowed to. It’s hard enough to survive when you flee, leaving your family behind.
“And then you get into this immigration system going through more horrible things.
“I had to live off my uncle when I moved here, even though I was a grown woman and could have worked. I did voluntary work with the Refugee Council to feel like someone again.
“This experience shows that refugees and migrants need to be careful when they are interviewed.”
Former Fox News Host Calls Fox A ‘Right-Wing Partial-News-But-Mostly-Opinion Network’: here.
SANTIAGO, Dec 3 (IPS) - Chile is a classic example of the concentration of media ownership in too few hands, says Chilean journalist María Olivia Mönckeberg in her latest book “Los magnates de la prensa” (The Press Magnates). If the state does not exercise stricter regulation, democracy itself may be undermined, she warns: here.
The BNP claimed that Mr Griffin’s attendance at the summit would be a major coup, but others insisted that his role would be minimal.
Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said that the views held by Mr Griffin, who has claimed that climate change is a “Marxist mantra” and has disputed the evidence, were both irresponsible and in error.
Mr Miliband said:”Nick Griffin cannot and does not represent the views of the people of the UK or of Europe.”
“His views on climate change are irresponsible and wrong.
“He will not be part of the formal Copenhagen negotiations and, rightly, he will not be listened to by anyone with any credibility who is part of these negotiations.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman and former MEP Chris Huhne said: “Nick Griffin was always going to get some role in the European Parliament, because jobs are divvied up fairly.
“The crying shame is that he is representing Europe at a key summit for the future of humanity when he does not even concede that man-made climate change exists.”
The subject of this video is The Marshall Institute is a key player in the climate change denial industry.
A new report, America’s Hottest Species, highlights a variety of American wildlife that is currently threatened by climate change from a small bird to a coral reef to the world’s largest marine turtle: here.
Group promoting climate skepticism has extensive ties to Exxon-Mobil: here.
Birds and climate change: indicators of a changing world: here.
This is a video from the USA, criticizing the role of “Zwarte Piet” in Dutch Saint Nicholas celebrations.
Today, there is an interview in Dutch daily Metro with Member of Parliament Ad Koppejan. He is a member of the CDA, the biggest party in the three party government coalition.
The subject is the Dutch St. Nicholas holiday; Sinterklaas, on 5-6 December. It is an important day for children and others, who get presents then.
The Saint Nicholas celebrations later evolved into US Santa Claus.
In 1850, Jan Schenkman published his influential book on the Saint Nicholas celebration, Sint Nicolaas en zijn knecht.
Though incorporating some really traditional elements, Schenkman was an example of “invention of tradition“.
The original Saint Nicholas tradition was about an Orthodox Christian bishop from what is now Turkey, a friend of children; not an owner of African slaves. While Schenkman wrote that Saint Nicholas owned an African slave.
The restyling by Schenkman and others, among other aspects, had two sides related to sugar: many of the presents for children, later also for adults, were sweets or otherwise contained much sugar.
And from now on, Piet (Peter; Zwarte Piet, Black Peter), as later post Schenkman authors called the black servant of Bishop Nicholas, played a major role during the holiday.
Authors like Schenkman based Piet on (caricatures of) the black slaves then in the sugar and other plantations in the Dutch colonies of Surinam and the Antilles.
Still about 1960, a child opened a book of “traditional” Saint Nicholas songs.
One song line went: “Servant Piet, as black as soot, with a chain around his foot …”
The chain was also depicted in the picture on the same page.
“Mummy, why does Piet have a chain around his foot?”
“Because he is a slave, my child!”
Since about 1960, many people immigrated into The Netherlands from Suriname.
Sometimes, these objections get reactions of the type: “Zwarte Piet does not have anything to do with slavery!” Those defenders of the blackface Piet say that he is black, not because of any African background, but because of clambering in chimneys. Or that he is originally a devil, not a slave of African origin. Or, they say … well, err, maybe it IS a question of complexion. But then, again, nothing to do with Dutch slavery history. Sinterklaas supposedly comes from Spain (though older versions say Turkey, or Italy). And Piet’s dark skin reminds people of the Muslim inhabitants of medieval Spain.
Well, today Mr Koppejan was asked by the Metro interviewer:
Sinterklaas used to be obviously the master, and Zwarte Piet obviously the servant. Piet acted submissively and spoke broken Dutch with a Surinamese accent. Is this a tradition as well?
Koppejan replied:
I do not support a white Piet. It is also no problem to me if he talks with a Surinamese accent. We should have no problems with that. Zwarte Piet should keep on being Zwarte Piet.
Here, blackface supporter Koppejan undermines the points of his fellow blackface supporters. “Nothing to do with slavery”, really? Then, why the references to Suriname, the main country in Dutch slavery history?
‘Mussolini: I’ll build an island and put all the Jews there’
By Haaretz Service
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was a rabid anti-Semite who called Adolf Hitler “a big romantic” and despised the pope, a new book of his mistress Claretta Petacci’s diaries revealed, AFP reported on Monday.
The Corriere della Sera daily reportedly published extracts of the book “Secret Mussolini,” taken from diaries written between 1932 and 1938, on Monday two days before it hits Italian book shops.
While on a boating trip on August 4, 1938, Mussolini talked about the German dictator’s new anti-Semitic laws with his mistress, saying “I’ve been racist since 1921,” according to AFP.
“I don’t know how they can think that I’m imitating Hitler, he wasn’t born yet…” he was quoted as saying. “We must give Italians a feeling of race so that they don’t create half-castes, so that they don’t spoil what is beautiful about us.”
Two months later, on October 11, Mussolini is again at sea with Petacci, when he was quoted as saying: “Those bloody Jews, they should be destroyed … I’ll build an island and put them all there… They don’t even have any gratitude, recognition, not even a letter of thanks… They say we need them, their money, their help.”
Mussolini’s regime was generally considered less ideologically extreme than that of Hitler, who created concentration camps during the Holocaust to exterminate what he considered “inferior” people and races, including Jews.
On October 1, 1938, after the Munich Conference that gave Hitler a slice of Czechoslovakia, Mussolini tells his mistress that “the Fuhrer is very nice. Hitler is a big romantic at heart. When he saw me he had tears in his eyes. He really likes me a lot,” AFP reported.
A “bombshell.” That is the word used by Patrick Karam, the inter-ministerial delegate for equal opportunity for French citizens from the overseas départements and territories, to describe the report submitted to him by the Fédération nationale des Maisons des potes and SOS Racisme.
The subject is an explosive one: the practice of keeping files on the ethnic identity of people seeking housing or a job.
A revelation of the darker side to Walt Disney’s character looking at his racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist tendencies which finally led to a pathological hatred of communists and an active particpation in McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities.
The Danish army has admitted that a leading neo-Nazi and Hitler admirer is serving as a member of the military unit charged with protecting the Royal family.
Daniel Carlsen, aged 19, is a member of the Danish National Socialist movement (DNSB) and has said Hitler is his idol, he is an enemy of democracy and he does not believe the Nazis exterminated the Jews during World War II.
Carlsen, considered by many as the country’s most prominent neo-Nazi after DNSB leader Jonni Hansen, celebrates Hitler’s birthday and wears a Nazi uniform to official functions. Carlsen served a short prison sentence for painting swastikas on walls. On his Facebook site, he calls himself, “White, proud and National Socialist,”and says his favourite film is the 1935 Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film The Triumph of the Will. The openly Nazi party is legal in Denmark and DNSB members can contest elections.
USA: Neo-Nazis and far-right extremists are not only recruiting more openly, they’re being much more public in their full-on expressions of racism, nativism, and xenophobia: here.
Britain: Scout ’shouted death threats at Jewish war veterans’: here.
Nazi camp guard Demjanjuk on trial: here. And here.
Similar things are happening among the US’ Czech NATO allies. And not just among simple soldiers; also among commissioned and non-commissioned officers.
Lieutenant Jan Cermak wore the SS Dirlewanger brigade, and sergeant Hynek Matonoha wore the symbol of the 9th SS panzer division Hohenstaufen.
The SS units were the cruelest of German dictator Adolf Hitler’s armed forces, which actively exterminated civil population of occupied countries during the Second World War.
Even today, it is a crime to boast their emblems in the Czech Republic as well as in most European countries, Bartak said. …
Both men, having served in Afghan’s Logar province, were decorated for bravery on Friday after they returned home from the mission.
Prague - The Czech military has sacked soldier Lukas Sedlacek who co-founded and trained the White Justice neo-Nazi organisation, Defence Minister Martin Bartak said today. …
White Justice was preparing terrorist attacks on power plants and unit substations and kidnappings of “Jews in high posts” and the police.
Members of the extremist group were taught to destroy property, blast cars and fight with and without arms.
Britain: Stop The War convener Lindsey German has called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to end the human suffering and deaths in Afghanistan by pulling out the troops: here.
Britain faces a growing threat from violent right-wing extremists operating as “lone wolves,” the country’s most senior anti-terror officer has warned: here.
US anti-war groups have urged their members to launch nonviolent direct actions as soon as the long-expected escalation in Afghanistan is announced: here.
USA: With the massacre at Fort Hood and reports that President Obama is about to approve the sending of 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, “The Good Soldier” arrives at movie theaters in the nick of time. What is needed desperately right now is a shot in the arm for the antiwar movement and this deeply moving documentary about the conversion of five soldiers to the cause of peace supplies it in spades: here.
Gorbachev to Obama: ‘Prepare the ground for withdrawal’ in Afghanistan: here.
USA: Military Families Decry Move to Send More Troops to Afghanistan. “Honor Veterans by Bringing Our Troops Home!”: here.
As Israeli police arrest two settlers charged with assaulting a Palestinian family, Inside Story asks if this is a sign of a more serious investigation into settler violence by the Israeli police.
A resident of the West Bank settlement outpost Shvut Rachel was arrested last month for suspected murder and for his alleged role in a string of attempted murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed on Sunday after a gag order on the case was lifted.
According to the Shin Bet and Israel Police, Teitel has confessed to most of the allegations against him. …
Teitel, a resident of the northern West Bank outpost, was born in Florida and has moved back and forth between the United States and Israel over the last two decades. In 2000, he returned to Israel to live permanently.
During a search of his home, police discovered rifles, handguns and explosive materials; they were unable, however, to find the gun which he allegedly used to kill the Palestinians.
Teitel was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof, in Jerusalem, after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay club.
His posters were signed with the name ‘Shleisel,’ referring to the ultra-Orthodox man who stabbed and wounded a number of marchers during the Jerusalem pride parade a couple of years ago.
Police also found posters in his neighbourhood offering a one million shekel reward to anyone killing a member of Israel’s Peace Now movement, that opposes West Bank settlement activity. …
Teitel has confessed to murdering a Palestinian shepherd near Mount Hebron in 1997 and to killing an Arab taxi driver in East Jerusalem some two months later. He said that he came to Israel precisely to carry out attacks against Palestinians as revenge for suicide bombings.
‘There are Jewish terrorists still at large in Israel’: here.
Israel Divided Over ‘Illegal’ Children: here. See also here.
They earn NIS 2000 per month, are dismissed every nine months, and have few rights: meet the manual laborers of the Israel Antiquities Authority, employed via the personnel agency Brick: here.
The National Union of Journalists has called for “tough and urgent” police action in response to the physical violence, intimidation and death threats members covering far-right demonstrations endure: here.
German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk defends racist remarks by central banker
26 October 2009
The German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk has waded into the controversy surrounding German Central Bank executive member Thilo Sarrazin with an open defence of racist remarks made by Sarrazin in an interview published in a prominent European cultural magazine.
Thilo Sarrazin is a long-time member of the Social Democratic Party and was for a number of years finance senator in the SPD-Left Party Senate coalition in Berlin. Just a few months after his appointment this past summer to the executive committee of the German Central Bank, Sarrazin unleashed a tirade against the poor, the socially deprived and, in particular, immigrant communities in Germany. His interview appears in the latest edition of the cultural magazine Lettre International. (See: “The racist outburst of German Federal Bank executive member Thilo Sarrazin”).
According to Wikipedia, Sloterdijk is an ex devotee of Indian fraudulent guru Osho aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. So, this is not the first time that he does stupid things.
This is a video about Osho aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s commune Rajneeshpuram in the USA.
And not just 
