Shark Bait

More stupid human speciesism.

Since all sharks look the same.

Lucky for the shark there was a 'Life' guard at the beach to save his life.

These are Michael Coren's kind of folks, beating up on a poor shark.

When a Coney Island lifeguard spied a shark near an upset group of swimmers, he did what he thought was right: He rescued the fish

Marisu Mironescu, 39, said he was prompted to action Monday after seeing about 75 to 100 people circling the 60-centimetre sand shark off the beach and "bugging out."

"They were holding onto it and some people were actually hitting him, smacking his face," said Mironescu. "Well, I wasn't going to let them hurt the poor thing."

He grabbed the largely harmless shark in his arms and carried it, backstroking out to sea, where he let it go. "He was making believe like he's dead, then he wriggled his whole body and tried to bite me," Mironescu said.

The rescue ended a holiday weekend that began with another city shark scare Saturday, when a 1.5-metre thresher shark washed up on Rockaway Beach, sending hundreds of swimmers out of the water.

And size does matter. Five feet is a lot bigger than 3.5 feet.

At least these New Yorkers did do the 'right thing'. Since sharks are an endangered species thanks to stupid humans.

A five-foot-long thresher shark that washed up on a crowded city beach this weekend — and was pushed back into the sea by beachgoers — is dead.

Rockaway Beach was back open Sunday, a day after a shark sighting shut it down.

Park officials say a shark washed up on the shore Saturday near Beach 109th Street. Some New Yorkers approached the creature and pushed it back into the water.

The Parks Department ordered swimmers back on the shore and closed the beach and surrounding bay for the rest of the day.

Sunday morning, a dead thresher shark, five feet in length, washed up on the shore at Beach 113th Street. Parks officials say they believe it was the same shark as Saturday.

An expert from the New York Aquarium told the New York Post that thresher sharks don't attack nearly as often as the famous Great White, although swimmers have been injured by their tails.

Thresher Shark

The genus and family name derive from the Greek word alopex, meaning fox. Indeed the long-tailed thresher shark, Alopias vulpinus, is named the fox shark by some authorities.

All three thresher shark species have been recently listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

Sand Shark

The sand tiger (Carcharias taurus) is a coastal shark often encountered by shore fishermen while fishing for striped bass and bluefish. Please note that this species is protected by both State and Federal laws .

Sand tigers have two dorsal fins of equal size and are grayish brown in appearance, often with dusky spots on their sides and tail. They are most often confused with smooth dogfish (Mustelus canis), but sand tigers have very noticeable long thin teeth while smooth dogfish do not. The spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) is another small coastal shark, but can easily be distinguished from a sand tiger by its two dorsal fin spines and the lack of anal fin. If you accidentally catch a sand tiger,you should take care to return it to the water unharmed.

SEE:

Prison Zoo Complex

They Walk Among Us

Nessies Relative

Nessie?

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
frilled, shark, prehistoric shark, , rare, animals, biology, marine biology, fish,
New York, sand shark, thresher shark, Coney island, lifeguard, sharks

Pentti Linkola is dead

THE CONTROVERSIAL FATHER OF DEEP ECOLOGY HAS DIED
YOU DON'T KNOW HIS NAME
BUT FASCIST ANTI HUMANIST GREEN ACTIVISTS DO
SO DID RADICAL ECOLOGIST MURRAY BOOKCHIN 
WHO CHALLENGED DEEP ECOLOGY

ARTICLES ARE FROM TELLERPRESS AND TRANSLATED FROM FINNISH

Yle: Pentti Linkola is dead
4/5/2020
The matter was confirmed to Yle by her daughter.
Nature conservationist Pentti Linkola, 87, is dead, says Yle.
The matter was confirmed to Yle by her daughter Leena Linkola.
Source: isfi

Pentti Linkola is remembered for these things
4/5/2020
A vibrant, curious and energetic thinker-fisherman has fascinated many.
Pentti Linkola in 1968.
Image: IS archive

Fisherman and deep ecologist Pentti Linkola died at the age of 87.

Kaarlo Pentti Linkola was born on December 7, 1932 in Helsinki to the family of Kaarlo Linkola and Hilkka Suolahti, a professor and lecturer at the University of Helsinki. Both parents represented Finnish cultural families.

Linkola attended the Finnish Joint School and enrolled as a student in 1950. Born and raised in Helsinki, he already had a strong connection to the countryside at a young age. The family spent the summers on the mother's family's farm in Vanajavesi in Häme.

He began his studies in zoology and botany at the University of Helsinki, but dropped out in his first year. Theoretical studies did not interest Linkola.

In the 1970s, Linkola settled in Vanajavesi on the farm of his mother's family to fish. The deforestation that changed the landscape was always a big shock to him.

Pentti Linkola has often been called Finland's most uncompromising, if not the only real dissident.

At first he was known as a pacifist, then as a conservationist who, at least in theory, was willing to use violence to achieve goals.

Linkola's core message has not changed over the decades. According to him, man is driving the earth towards disaster, and the end is near.

The climate change debate made many people think more carefully about his message. The message wasn’t light, even less comfortable, but it turned out - unfortunately - timeless.

Linkola met his future wife, Aliisa, when she was only 19 years old and she was 28 at the time. Linkola was anxious about the state of the world and wanted to live a simple life on land.

Fishing in Kuhmoinen on April 20, 1969.
Photo: Kaius Hedenström / Lehtikuva

- I'm calculating. Aliisa is pretty like what and strong looking and strong it was. I thought it had a suitable partner for fishing as well, as it was. For many years, Linkola herself told Riitta Kylänpää 's book Pentti Linkola - Man and Legend (Siltala). The biography was awarded 2017 at Tieto-Finlandia.

The biography written by Kylänpää sheds light on Linkola's sometimes turbulent private life.

Linkola supported himself as a fisherman, whose career he began as early as the late 1950s.

Linkola at home at his desk in Kuhmoinen in 1969.
Photo: Kaius Hedenström / Lehtikuva

Linkola had been married to Aliisa for a long time, and they had two daughters. Because Linkola lived a hermit life, he was a difficult partner and an irritable father.

Read more: The new book reveals Pentti Linkola's popularity among women

Pentti Linkola - a man and a legend says that the marriage finally failed in 1974 on a seven - week rowing boat trip around Åland. The whole family was involved. Sometimes there was a danger to life due to the sea. The divorce was also affected by Linkola's relationship with publisher Sirkka Kurki-Suonio. According to the biography, the information about the relationship was just a relief for Aliisa.

Later, Linkola had other feminine relationships.

Linkola was sometimes hospitalized for her severe depression.

Although Linkola’s father died when the son was only ten, his mother remained an important influence in his life until he was almost 70 years old.

In 1971, Linkola published a collection of essays Dreams of a Better World. In essays written in the 1960s, he justified his view of the ecological way of life. Other topics were the idea of ​​peace, emigration, the brotherhood of the people, and the future.

Fisherman Pentti Linkola speaking at the dea-72 days at Espoo Dipoli in November 1971.
Photo: Jarmo Hietaranta / Lehtikuva

At the beginning of the essay collection is a chapter that aims to “banish unwanted readers, cultural dudes of Helsinki taverns and other logheads who fear sincere naivety more than elegant cynicism”.

The ideal of Linkola’s essays was a society where people and their families live as far apart as possible in order to love each other.

Linkola said in an interview with Yle in 2007, after the Madrid bombing, that “any action that disrupts the development of Western culture that destroys life on Earth is a positive one”.

In an interview, Linkola marveled at the news uproar over the Madrid attack, which killed 200 people.

"These deaths, if we wanted to see human tragedy in them now, are insignificant compared to the so-called legal wars of these societies," he said.

- It's not even newsworthy.

The reporter asked why Linkola himself had not become a terrorist if he once considered acts of terrorism a positive thing.

- Lack of both courage and ability. I can’t build any bomb at all, I’m not a handy person at all, Linkola replied.

At the same time, he also spoke about his position on immigration policy. According to Linkola, no refugees or migrants should be admitted to Finland from countries with a low standard of living. It would increase consumption, which is already at a fatal level.

In 2015, Yle made a comprehensive portrait of Linkola. In it, Linkola compared democracy to a “market kilometer hall where a person has been allowed to rage and realize himself. Yes, you can already see from the door that a person has no future. ”


Linkola was filmed for HS’s 80th anniversary interview in 2012.
Photo: Rami Marjamäki


The dictatorship was preferred by Linkola because it had other values ​​than consumption and burden.

In the same interview, he also commented on the discussion he had caused himself.

- It has bothered me to always be comforted that yes they have provoked a lot of discussion. I do not want to stimulate discussion, but I've wanted to for advice, how should the people live.

Exploring the network.
Photo: Rami Marjamäki

In June 2016, Helsingin Sanomat's Monthly Supplement went on a birding tour with Linkola. Linkola's oldest bird diaries date from 1949. According to the Monthly Supplement, he conscientiously and systematically recorded his bird observations in booklets, according to the manual of the German ornithologist Ernst Hartert.

In the same interview, he also recalled a moment when he bowed to car dealerships. First, of course, he had to go to driving school, in his fifties. Earlier, he had exaggerated cars into resource-like beasts like the beast of Revelation. So only the old Toyota Hiace appeared in the yard of Lincoln.

Linkola raising potatoes on his home farm in Valkeakoski in September 2012.
Photo: Jarno Mela / Lehtikuva

Something about Linkola's interest is also shown by the fact that when Helsingin Sanomat asked a total of 175 cultural and scientific figures in 1989 and 2002 who are Finland's number one intelligentsia, only three Finns rose to the Top 10 on both occasions. They were philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright, diplomat Max Jakobson and Pentti Linkola.

In 2017, HS wrote that many foreigners would not understand the love of Finns for Linkola, because outside Finland, Linkola is seen with completely different eyes. According to HS, “Linkola is, for example, a cult figure of neo-Nazi districts of international militants”.

Even worse happened. The biography written by Kylänpää mentions that in June 2014, Linkola received a letter from the American ecoterrorist Theodore Kaczynski, known by the nickname Unabomber.

In 2018, IS published a story in which Linkola said he still kept a nature diary, even though his own mobility was already weak. Linkola suffered from diabetes and dizziness.

Read more: Pentti Linkola, 85: “I recently went to the sauna and decided it was the last sauna of my life”

- I don't think there's anything left. I am quite unable to move, he said at the time.

Recently, Linkola also had time to comment briefly on the coronavirus pandemic. He shared his views on the matter with the online publication Cultural Journalism, which specializes in cultural journalism.

The interview was published just a few days ago, on Thursday.

In Valkeakoski on November 15, 2012.
Photo: Markku Ulander / Lehtikuva

"The coronavirus may slow the destruction of the earth a little, but once it has been discouraged, the same way of life will continue," Linkola said, and continued:

- As long as economic progress and development are key human goals, saving the planet is lost.

Source: isfi

In his last interview, Linkola spoke about his well-being, his attitude to the coronavirus pandemic and the future of the planet, among other things.

Pentti Linkola gave an interview shortly before his death.

Linkola's interview with Kulttuuritoimitus was his last interview. The interview was released on Thursday, April 2th.

In the interview, Linkola was asked about, among other things, his well-being, his attitude towards the coronavirus pandemic and the future prospects of the planet.

- The coronavirus may slow down the destruction of the earth a little, but once it has been discouraged, the same way of life will continue, Linkola said about the effects of the prevailing pandemic.

He said he was pessimistic about the future of the planet.

- Man is the most horrible of the species produced by evolution, although he has created a great culture and civilization.

Linkola said he believes humanity will overcome the coronavirus. When asked about his well-being, he said he was a “troublemaker”.

- I walk with a cane inside the rooms. I can’t even follow these interest stuff anymore. It helps something, but climate change and species extinction are by far larger issues.

The last interview ended with Linkola’s statement about the conversation caused by the virus.

- Now man is accelerating when its economy is threatened, not because of the earth.


Pentti Linkola snapped hard text in his last interview - and praised Greta Thunberg
4/5/2020
Finland's perhaps most legendary environmental philosopher told Ilta-Sanomat about his climate views in his last interview in November 2019.
In his last interview with Ilta-Sanomat in November, the sleeping environmental philosopher Pentti Linkola commented on the global statement on the environmental catastrophe threatening the planet, which was a big topic of conversation in November. 

According to the petition, the population explosion in most developing countries could be tackled by increasing the education of girls.

Pentti Linkola, an environmental philosopher who had already warned about overpopulation in the 1970s, commented to IS at the time that he was pleased that population policy had merged into the international climate debate. The proposal to educate girls living in developing countries, on the other hand, received a complete blow from the man.

- The more educated, the more is consumed. In their clay huts, African girls consume less. When trained, they will start flying around the world and consumption will increase 5-10 times, Linkola roared.

In an interview, Linkola proposed the abolition of development aid and the closure of Europe's borders in order to curb population growth itself.
Professor Kristina Lindström interviewed for the same story was not enthusiastic about Linkola's thoughts.

- No one has another greater right to consume. We can’t tell African girls to stay there in your clay huts, Lindström said.

Linkola sees Europe's indigenous population dwindling in the way it is hoped for today, although child benefits and other birth incentives should be abandoned. According to Linkola, the population forecast that shocked Finland in September about the record low birth rate of Finns was the greatest good news of all time.

The environmental philosopher at the time did not believe that the global position of scientists would spur action at the political level. He recalled that scientists had expressed similar views before.

- For decision makers, it's growth, growth and growth only. I don’t think they’ll listen to anything except forestrymen and industrialists, of course.

Despite the lack of confidence in the state, Linkola did not consider the efforts of environmental activists and researchers to be futile. In particular, the heart of the 86-year-old environmental philosopher was warmed by seventy(SEVENTEEN)-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

- I follow closely what is said about her. After all, she's even a great girl in a little crazy way. Let's see how long she can still fight, Linkola says.

Source: isfi
Pentti Linkola's last interview was published on Thursday on Kulttuuritoimitus - he talked about the coronavirus: “It helps something”
4/5/2020, 8:42:28 AM

A friend tells IS: “Pentti Linkola was a great person who always had time to listen to others”
4/5/2020

Pentti Linkola had a dark-speaking sense of humor and a scientist's common sense, says a close friend Olavi Virtanen.

This Sunday was supposed to be a regular April day for Olavi Virtanen, who lives in Konnevesi. Or as ordinary as it can now be in exceptional circumstances in Finland during a corona pandemic.

A beautiful day came. At noon, Virtanen's phone rings. An acquaintance said that Virtanen's long-time friend, fisherman and ecophilosopher Pentti Linkola had died.

Olavi Virtanen immediately left for the shores of Siikakoski to talk about rapids.

- I sat on the rock, right on the water's edge. The overriding feeling is a longing miss. Pent's departure didn't come as a surprise, I could already wait for it. Now Pent's place is empty, Virtanen says.

Virtanen and Linkola became friends in the late 1990s. They were united by an endless interest in nature, especially birds.

The duo sat in the same boat on numerous bird counting trips. In winter, they toured all over Pirkanmaa.

- Of course, everything was discussed on that page, the world was improved. Pentti was an extremely intelligent person, he had the brain of a scientist.

Linkola's physical condition was poor in the latter years.

- When Penti started hearing, I was an ear to him in bird counting. They were great, important trips.

It was about 250 kilometers from Konnevesi to Linkola's hut. It did not interfere with communication.

- I went to greet Pentti regularly, sometimes on purpose and in passing, always, Virtanen says.

Linkola always had enough to talk to both acquaintances and strangers.

- Pentti was hard to talk and an accurate listener. He had an innate ability to face man genuinely.

Linkola had time. He didn't have a TV. Radio and telephone were. Linkola was happy to write letters.

Photo: Viena Kytöjoki

Virtanen describes Lincola as a master of black humor.

- Pentti's humor was pretty hard, mostly that kind of situation comedy. Time never went long.

Linkola and didn't like to make a number of himself. Not even when he rejoined the church in 2011.

- I happened to be with him when he said that "now let's go to the pastor's office". We went there and took care of the matter off the agenda.

Everyone knew Linkola. As the duo toured the fish shops, the van driven by Virtanen was rightly expected.

- Coffee had been brewed for us in those living rooms and houses.

Virtanen last visited Linkola at the end of February. During the visit, familiar evening and morning discussions were conducted.

That’s when Linkola said, as many times before, he didn’t want to move out of his living room.

- He always said very firmly that "I cannot be left here except death". For Penti, nature was the greatest, most sacred, and most untouched thing. He wanted to die in the open or in the evergreen forest, or in his own home.

Virtanen last called Linkola a week ago.

Virtai smiles as he thinks about his conversations with Linkola. They often followed a certain formula.

- He also listed the names of my six children on the phone and asked about my own affiliations and my family affiliations, as always.

Linkola was very independent in his actions until the end, and did not easily ask for help. Although it was available. Families and strangers carried trees and when anything. Water was brought in when the living room's own well was empty.

- Pentti was fresh until the end of himself. I guess he would say he couldn't talk for long. Pent had a phone in such a place in his room that he had to talk from his stand.

The last words told to a friend were the same as always when separated:

"Well hello."

Source: isfi

https://www.amazon.ca/Can-Life-Prevail-Pentti-Linkola-ebook/dp/B007USAVRM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=


I LINK TO AMAZON KINDLE SO YOU CAN DOWNLOAD A FREE CHAPTER TO READ
AS PDF, EBOOK ETC.

With the train of civilisation hurtling at ever-increasing speed towards self-destruction, the most pressing question facing humanity in the 21st century is that of the preservation of life itself. Can Life Prevail?, the latest book by Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola, provides a radical yet firmly grounded perspective on the ecological problems threatening both the biosphere and human culture. With essays covering topics as diverse as animal rights, extinction, deforestation, terrorism and overpopulation, Can Life Prevail? for the first time makes the lucid, challenging writing of Linkola available to an English-speaking public.

"By decimating its woodlands, Finland has created the grounds for prosperity. We can now thank prosperity for bringing us – among other things – two million cars, millions of glaring, grey-black electronic entertainment boxes, and many unnecessary buildings to cover the green earth. Wealth and surplus money have led to financial gambling and rampant social injustice, whereby ‘the common people’ end up contributing to the construction of golf courses, classy hotels, and holiday resorts, while fattening Swiss bank accounts. Besides, the people of wealthy countries are the most frustrated, unemployed, unhappy, suicidal, sedentary, worthless and aimless people in history. What a miserable exchange." - Pentti Linkola

Kaarlo Pentti Linkola was born in Helsinki in 1932. His father was the rector of Helsinki University and his grandfather had worked as chancellor of that same university. Pentti Linkola, however, chose a very different path. Having spent most of his life working as a professional fisherman, he now continues to lead a materially simple existence in the countryside. A renowned figure in Finland, since the 1960s Linkola has published numerous books on environmentalism. Today, he is among the foremost exponents of the philosophy of deep ecology.

H. Orton

4.0 out of 5 stars The Thinking of Pentti Linkola

Reviewed in Canada on September 13, 2009

Format: Paperback

The Thinking of Pentti Linkola: A Review

By David Orton

"What matters for me is the preservation of life on Earth until a distant future." (p. 19)

"The underlying values of a society ought to be questioned, when such a society is headed to its doom." (p. 138)

"The United States is the most colossally aggressive empire in world history: the number of US military bases around the world is simply bewildering. Through its bases, the US spreads its economic and cultural influence by profaning, subjugating and silencing others. On all continents it finances and arms the governments and guerrilla movements it favours, frequently switching sides. The US employs death squads to do away with dissidents, and personally wages war when needed.... The US is the most wretched villainous state of all times." (p. 164)

Introduction
For the past few years I have occasionally come across references to a Finnish eco-philosopher, born in 1932, by the name of Pentti Linkola. I knew he was also a fisherman (apparently for about 35 years) and, as we find out in Can Life Prevail?, lives simply in the countryside, his place surrounded by clear cuts. After reading the Introduction by Brett Stevens, I now know that he was born into an affluent, university-employed family and attended college where he studied zoology and botany. He was never jailed and he is not a pacifist. I have not read anything by Linkola before - though I have had, for a long time, a quote by him pinned on my wall, designed to keep me focused on what is important: "Unemployment is always better than doing harmful work." I have used this quote to infuriate, in forest discussions in Nova Scotia where the forest destroyers always talk about the jobs at stake for those of us trying to curtail their activities.

Prior to the appearance of this book of essays in 2009, Linkola's writings were not available in English. Like another significant deep ecology-oriented thinker, Sigmund Kval y of Norway, Linkola was hard to access. Usually this writer's views were described as "controversial." Sometimes he was labeled an "eco-fascist", as mentioned in the Introduction. Knowing that this label was sometimes used as an attack term against ecocentric writers who put the well being of the Earth before that of humans (see my 2000 article Ecofascism: What is It? A Left Biocentric Analysis), I very much wanted to examine the ideas of this person.

Thanks to the internet, I recently became aware that Linkola has a book out in English ­ a selection of articles. Although it has a "hurried into print" feel about it, on reading Linkola I thought of Aldo Leopold's book of essays A Sand County Almanac. Both these writers are excellent naturalists (Linkola is a "birder" with a lot of bird banding under his belt), students of the forests, and philosophical but grounded in practicality.

Can Life Prevail?, with its title addressing the fundamental question of our time, is relatively slender, just over 200 large-print pages, and is divided into five chapters. There are altogether 37 short articles, most of them dating back to the 1990s. They are grouped under the following chapter headings:

Chapter 1: Finland (six articles)
Chapter 2: Forests (six articles)
Chapter 3: Animals (eleven articles)
Chapter 4: The World and Us (eleven articles)
Chapter 5: The Prerequisites for Life (three articles)

Linkola has written a number of books ­ we are told his first book was published in 1955 ­ and is a well-known public voice in Finland. My comments are based solely on Can Life Prevail?, as I am not familiar, because of language barriers, with his other writings.

This review was written to introduce Linkola to other deeper Greens and environmentalists. I also wanted to assess the validity of the claim on the cover, that this Finnish writer "is among the foremost exponents of the philosophy of deep ecology." (Yet Arne Naess is directly referred to by name only once in the whole book.) I believe that supporters of deep ecology will find various "wild" statements by Linkola used by our opponents, to try and discredit deep ecology. It would be good to go to the source to have an overview of this writer's contribution to Green theory, and to place any perceived or real negativism in context.

In addition, I wanted to look at the use of the term "ecofascist" in the context of Linkola's writings, to see if there was any validity in its use to describe him so. This concern is part of a project which has come to increasingly involve me. If allegedly "democratic" capitalist societies, because of catering to human short-term selfish interests, are driving us all to ecological catastrophe, as Pentti Linkola asserts; and if some of us see this, when does it become incumbent upon us to move politically against such a human self-centered democracy? Under what political labels can we do this? Don't we have to move beyond an understanding of "democracy" that is only human-referenced, if we are to have any future? I have come to believe, after reading this book, that Pentti Linkola is at the forefront of this discussion in a Finnish context.

A dominant impression which remained with me after reading this book of essays, apart from the belief that the author would have serious trouble with Homeland Security if trying to visit the United States, is Pentti Linkola's love for the Earth and for all her creatures (except species introduced to Finland ). The millions of organisms on Earth which are the product of evolution are our "sisters and brothers." (p. 158) For Linkola, as for Aldo Leopold, "community" is not restricted to humankind. Beauty is "far more important" than an economy. (p. 35) One comes to see, after reading these essays, that such a love transforms how one looks at the importance of human life. Its importance becomes of a lower order of concern. As Linkola puts it, "Mankind is battling other creatures for living space. Mankind's inner disputes are only indirectly interesting, depending on the degree to which their effects either preserve or destroy the biosphere." (p. 168)

Moving away from a human-centered consciousness to an Earth-centered consciousness is the basic contribution of deep ecology. Social justice for humans must strengthen Earth justice. As the Canadian eco-philosopher and activist Stan Rowe, who was also a person of the Left, so eloquently expressed, "We are Earthlings first, humans second." (Earth Alive, p. 21.) Those who mobilize under the banners of "social justice", "eco-socialism", or of "fighting environmental racism" are often guilty of human chauvinism or speciesism. Notice how these groups tie themselves up in knots over the question of human population reduction. No matter how they publicly declare their environmental concerns, they are quite prepared to sacrifice non-human life forms and their habitat requirements to alleged human interests. Not so Pentti Linkola. Deep ecology is fundamental for environmentalism. The deep ecologist is the guardian of life, who has to go against human self-interest for preservation of biodiversity. For example, you do not destroy the forest or fill in the wetland for housing. Most people cannot accept that life as we know it in the industrialized world is coming to an end. The author believes this very strongly.

This book needs to be read and seriously thought about.

ORTON'S WHOLE ARTICLE IS HERE

HIS WEB PAGE IS 
http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/Taste-GW.html

Ryan D.

5.0 out of 5 stars This book isn't for everyone because not everyone wants to hear the truth.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Pentti Linkola is not politically correct - and I don't mean that in the edgy, "Boris-Johnson-letterbox-comments" kind of way.
Linkola, having dedicated his entire life to the study of nature, and having lived his entire life in proximity with nature, is absolutely the kind of authority on environmentalism whose advice and words of warning we should be heeding carefully. He is not politically correct because he pinpoints the precise issue which are destroying our planet: mankind. He does not shy away from making unpopular statements about current population growth and the fact that foreign aid in areas of famine is, in fact, making the problem even worse by creating an even larger population in an area of the world which clearly cannot sustain in.
Sustainability, overconsumption, overpopulation, climate change, fossil fuels, automatization, the rapid death of small-scale, subsistence-level farming, fishing and hunting... Linkola challenges all of these concepts in this collection of essays.
While is views may be radical and I certainly do not agree with all of them, "Can Life Prevail?" is, at the very least, a sobering read - and at most, inspiration to dramatically change your own life in terms of what you buy, how much you buy of it, and why you need it in the first place.

Guaranteed: after reading this book you'll never look at a cat or a car in the same way every again.

charlie

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

The book is great content and format wise. Highly recommend. If you’re a Kaczynski fan you’ll love this

ANOTHER NORTHERN EUROPEAN ECO FASCIST DEEP ECOLOGY PHILOSOPHER 
WAS THE NORWEGIAN  ARNE NAESS

 

Clara Zetkin & the socialist origins of International Women’s Day 

8th March 2024International, international womens day, Peace, socialism, SolidarityLeave a Commenton Clara Zetkin & the socialist origins of International Women’s Day 

“Zetkin, along with Rosa Luxemburg, was among those who understood that the development of capitalism had not made either the task of social reform or international relations more peaceful.”

German socialist Clara Zetkin founded International Women’s Day to acknowledge working women’s contribution to the struggle against capitalism. It’s no wonder that German socialist, Clara Zetkin’s legacy has been erased by the corporate sponsorship of #IWD – it’s all too relevant, as Katherine Connelly explains

There are many reasons to draw inspiration from Clara Zetkin (1857-1933). She dedicated her whole life to fighting for socialism no matter what the considerable personal costs. Shortly after joining the Social Democratic Party in the 1870s, which was swiftly banned by the German authorities, she was forced into an exile that lasted ten years. Whilst in exile, her husband died leaving her with two young children.

Zetkin’s own life ended in exile after she was forced to flee Germany again, this time from the Nazis. She broke that exile briefly in August 1932 when she claimed her right to open the Reichstag, as its oldest elected member. Seventy-five years old, nearly blind and in very poor health, she had to be helped to the tribune past uniformed Nazi thugs who had threatened to attack her.

Literally facing down the Nazis, she called for working-class unity against fascism. She ended her speech by voicing her wish that she would soon open the first government of German workers’ councils. It was an extraordinary final act of courage and defiance. Zetkin died less than a year later.

Revolutionary Zetkin

Born in 1857, Zetkin belonged to a generation of German socialists who had known Friedrich Engels in the last years of his life and been able to interpret the work of Marx and Engels for an emerging younger generation.

There were sharp debates between these socialists about how to apply Marxism to the problems of the early twentieth century. Leading figures in the SPD, Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein argued that the changing nature of capitalism and imperialism made redundant Marx and Engels’ revolutionary conclusions – perhaps the contradictions of old could be overcome piecemeal and peacefully? 

Zetkin, along with her close friend Rosa Luxemburg, was among those who understood that the development of capitalism had not made either the task of social reform or international relations more peaceful. Instead, the contradictions of competitive capitalism were deepening, making the world a more dangerous place, and could only be positively overcome through the revolutionary action of the expanding and increasingly international working class.

Their revolutionary perspective was, tragically, vindicated in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War, driven by the competition of rival, imperialist nations. The SDP leadership, which had rejected revolutionary socialism in favour of changing the system from the inside, capitulated into supporting that system and voting for war credits.

Zetkin and Luxemburg, however, campaigned against the war, for which both were taken into custody. They also began to create new organisations, independent of the SPD, which resulted in the German Communist Party.

In 1919, after a failed communist uprising in Berlin, Rosa Luxemburg was murdered by the proto-fascist Freikorps. Against the repression of the counter-revolution and rising antisemitism, Zetkin defended the memory of Luxemburg, who was Jewish, and the importance of her ideas.

Zetkin on women’s liberation  

Alongside Zetkin’s commitment to building an effective revolutionary left that was anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-fascist, she was one of the most important socialist theorists of women’s liberation. International Women’s Day originated from the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference, which met in Copenhagen ahead of the left’s Second International. The Day was proposed by Luise Zietz, a member of the Unskilled Factory Workers’ Union and the SPD, and seconded by Zetkin. 

What happened in Copenhagen in 1910 was the result of years of thinking, writing and organising by Zetkin on the questions of women’s oppression and liberation. Zetkin was challenging assumptions on the left that questions about women’s rights were somehow subordinate to the struggle for socialism, as well as the dominant view among contemporary feminists that women’s emancipation was separate from socialism.

Once again, Zetkin drew on the legacy of Marx and Engels who in their last years had become increasingly interested in questions about the historical origins of women’s oppression at a time when women were becoming more central, as workers, to capitalist production. Like Marx and Engels, Zetkin explored how the economic organisation of society affected women. She understood that in a class-divided society, women were going to be affected differently.

The rise of capitalist society had excluded women who belonged to the capitalist and upper classes from the public sphere. Confined to an idealised domestic sphere, with a profitable marriage and continuation of the family line (in property) upheld as their ultimate aims in life, these women wanted to expand their horizons and compete with men in the professional world. Their male counterparts were, in the majority, excluding them from that world, and so it made sense to these women to organise separately, as women against men.

Zetkin did not dispute that their aims were ‘completely justified’. But she did not accept that this minority of women represented the interests of all women, nor that their narrow aims for equal inclusion within a class-divided society could realise emancipation. Once they achieved their own inclusion, Zetkin predicted, wealthy women’s language of egalitarianism would swiftly be replaced as they fulfilled the functions of the offices they had so longed to join. Today’s female CEOs and Tory ministers surely prove Zetkin right.

By contrast with wealthy women, for working-class and poor women, the rise of capitalist society had not resulted in confinement to the private sphere. On the contrary, the old patriarchal system of production, where families laboured together in ‘cottage industries’ under the control of the father, were replaced with individual family members having to compete with each other in the labour market.

And women’s subordinate social status meant that working women could be subject to greater levels of exploitation through even lower pay than male workers. Therefore, for working women, the problem was not that their male peers were excluding them from ‘free competition’. The problem was the entire economic organisation of society which pitted workers against each other in a race to the bottom.

It was therefore in the interests of working-class women and men to reject those divisions by uniting in resistance to exploitation and oppression. For revolutionaries, this meant overthrowing women’s oppression had to be seen in this context: not as an abstract ‘principle, but in the interests of the proletarian [working] class.’

Anything less was to concede the ground to those who believed that women’s oppression could be solved by a bit of tinkering with, or greater ‘inclusion’, into an inherently exploitative system. Consistent with her approach to capitalism and imperialism, Zetkin’s approach to women’s emancipation was informed by the need for revolutionary change.

Zetkin today

Today, almost all big, globalised corporations manage to genuflect annually before #IWD and utter some unintelligible slogan that commits them to change precisely nothing. And none of these slogans will be ones that, as Lindsey German pointed out, working-class women are today raising in an urgent fight against inequality through widespread strike action. But these strikers are the women who stand in the real tradition of International Women’s Day.

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• This article was originally published by Counterfire here.
• Kate Connelly is a writer and historian. She led school student strikes in the anti-war movement in 2003, co-ordinated the Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign in 2013 and wrote the acclaimed biography, ‘Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire‘
• Kate is speaking at our event Clara Zetkin – Socialist fighter against fascism, women’s oppression & war on April 9 at 18.30. Register and full info here.

The socialist history of International Women's Day

Submitted by SJW on 10 March, 2020 - Author: Kelly Rogers



International Women’s Day has its roots in some of the most significant moments of our movement’s history. It is our task to remember this history and to turn International Women's Day into a day of strikes and struggle once more.

It was at the second International Conference of Socialist Women, held in Copenhagen in 1910, that the idea of an International Women’s Day was first formally agreed. German delegates Luise Zietz and Clara Zetkin brought the proposal in front of a hundred women delegates, from seventeen countries. The resolution read:

“In agreement with the class-conscious political and trade union organizations of the proletariat of their respective countries, socialist women of all nationalities have to organize a special Women’s Day (Frauentag), which must, above all, promote the propaganda of female suffrage. This demand must be discussed in connection with the whole woman’s question, according to the socialist conception” (emphasis mine).

These delegates had aspirations much grander than simply winning universal female suffrage. They sought the triumph of socialism: the liberation of workers from drudgery and wage slavery, and the liberation of women from the shackles of domestic slavery.

The first official International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 19 1911, a date chosen to celebrate the 1848 Revolution in Berlin. In Germany, more than a million women, mostly (but not exclusively ) organised in the SPD and the unions, took to the streets. They put on dozens of public assemblies, over 40 in Berlin alone, to discuss the issues they were facing in their day-to-day lives and prospects for the women’s movement.

That same year, workers in the United States chose March 8 for their Women’s Day. It was a significant date: In 1857, garment workers in New York City had struck and staged a demonstration against inhumane conditions and low pay. Fast forward to March 8 1908, and again 15,000 women garment workers, many of them Jewish immigrants, went on strike and marched through New York’s Lower East Side to demand higher pay, shorter working hours, voting rights and an end to child labour. ‘Bread and Roses’ became the slogan of the garment workers’ struggle: they didn’t merely seek money enough to eat, but fulfilling and enriched lives worth living.

From 1914 it became common practice to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8. A famous poster depicting a woman dressed in black and waving a red flag (which Workers’ Liberty has adopted for its logo) marked the occasion in Germany. It was considered so dangerous in the run up to the First World War that police prohibited it from being posted or distributed publicly. The day turned into a mass action against war and imperialism.

Three years later, March 8 1917 (in the Gregorian calendar), IWD witnessed the explosion of the February Revolution in Russia. In spite of opposition from Bolshevik men, working class women in Petrograd turned International Women’s Day into a day of mass demonstrations for “bread and peace” - demanding the end to World War One, to food shortages and to tsarism. They marched from factory to factory calling their fellow workers onto the streets and engaging in violent clashes with police and troops. Trostky wrote in The History of the Russian Revolution:

“A great role is played by women workers in relationship between workers and soldiers. They go up to the cordons more boldly than men, take hold of the rifles, beseech, almost command: “Put down your bayonets – join us.” The soldiers are excited, ashamed, exchange anxious glances, waver; someone makes up his mind first, and the bayonets rise guiltily above the shoulders of the advancing crowd.”

Not only did these women workers spark the beginning of the Russian Revolution, they were the motor that drove it forward. 7 days later Tsar Nicholas II abdicated.

SOME THOUGHTS ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

MAR

08

2024

1comments

By thecollective

From Freedom News UK

It’s International Women’s Day, and I am conflicted. I feel both elation at the opportunity to share the work and ideas of groundbreaking women throughout the centuries and thoroughly depressed that we still need a ‘day’ to remind the world that women exist, that our creative expression matters, that our intellectual endeavours are valid, and that the emotional labour we often give freely in service to our communities is valuable.

I also write this as Freedom’s new Culture Editor. It is both an honour to be working at Britain’s oldest anarchist publication and a responsibility. I’m not here to write fluff pieces. I aim to focus on the behaviour of those in power while envisaging ways in which to dismantle this power through curating thoughtful, cultural responses; the Romantic in me seeks to nourish our anarchic hearts with truth and beauty.

Speaking truth to the power of the patriarchy is unimaginably difficult, even as I live a life of relative privilege. In the past, I’ve experienced deep levels of discomfort at writing one small truth because there’s the worry that I’ll be branded a troublemaker, a man hater, a difficult woman to work with. All of which heightens my respect for those women across global history who’ve had to fight like lions for the barest modicum of political and/or cultural change. 

To quote Emma Goldman, The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul. 

Today, I asked someone who naturally uses poetic imagery in their conversation why they don’t write poetry, and they replied, Poetry doesn’t kill fascists. 

But it does, I returned; Poetry darns holes in our tattered imaginations, forces difficult dialogue with the Self, and encourages a deep empathy for all living beings. How is this radical approach not the most beautiful way to end fascism? Afterwards, I wish I’d remembered to cite the great Audre Lorde in the opening lines of her poem, Power:

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

Poetry asks us to take a deep-dive into the psyche, to kill the ego and emerge bare-naked and battered from the assault. In this way it also kills fascist ideology because the two are, in my mind, mutually exclusive. Audre Lorde, black woman, feminist, poet, lesbian, and activist understood this, as well as the horrors that rhetoric can unleash, and then managed to distil the entire philosophy down to just four lines of pure genius. 

Having said that, Ezra Pound was a great poet and a fascist, which also proves that there’s no singular solution to some people being absolute cunts. 

Is fascism the biggest threat to women today? I’m not sure. Perhaps I would argue that the sheer volume of men and women who have internalised that particularly noxious mix of capitalism and patriarchy is our biggest enemy. Especially when it manifests as gossiping about, or competing with, women in place of empathy and support.

But if that is our weakness, then our strength is the inordinate number of women (and people across the gender spectrum) who are recognising this toxicity and actively taking steps to disconnect from those elements of our culture, instead endeavouring to lift up our sisters wherever and whenever possible. There’s a great, and hilarious, example on Instagram from The Speech Professor calling out the ridiculous expectations some men have of women.

Poetry, language, film, music, and art continue to be beautiful tools for disseminating ideas that then rage across our collective psychological landscapes like La Niña. 

Take the viral Barbie speech by America Ferrara that begins: 

It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong. 

Hands up, how many of you cried during this speech? I did.

So many innovative and creative women make up the rockface of our herstory, and I wonder how many of them we inadvertently clamber over or use for a leg up without fully recognising their contribution to the artistic landscape we now inhabit. 

I’m currently reading The Gentrification of The Mind by Sarah Schulman, an outstanding memoir on AIDS, queer culture, downtown arts movements, and innovative people from history being erased by the gentrification not only of place but of the collective memory. It’s got me thinking about the many women who create vibrant, inspiring lives during their time on earth who are no longer recognised or who’ve been side-lined, ignored in life and death by a gentrification process that doesn’t recognise idiosyncratic women even as it absorbs their singular brilliance. But that’s how the diminishment process works. Writes Schulman. 

What halts this erasure of women’s words, activism, art, and herstories are the people who recognise our pioneering women in their lifetimes and continue to celebrate them after death; who work to vividly portray the dynamic, intelligent, multifaceted woman without reducing her to the caricature of a jumble of red lipsticks or oversized cardigans or cats or plethora of lovers. 

We’re more than that, better than that, and anybody saying otherwise should have the world’s population to contend with—at least they would in my utopia. 

I’ve been handed some recommendations from Freedom Bookshop, firstly for a book that has now landed on my To Be Read list: Anarchafeminist by Chiara Bottici. Reading the blurb, I’m already taken by the author’s intersectional and anti-speciesism approach. At the bottom of this article, you can find a further list of recommended books from the bookshop that you should be able to get your hands on in-store, and below that, an eclectic (but not exhaustive) list of books by women that have spoken to me over the years.

I’ll finish with a poem by the great anarchist poet Voltairine de Cleyre, writing in memory of pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft:

Mary Wollstonecraft

The dust of a hundred years 
Is on thy breast, 
And thy day and thy night of tears 
Are centurine rest. 
Thou to whom joy was dumb, 
Life a broken rhyme, 
Lo, thy smiling time is come, 
And our weeping time. 
Thou who hadst sponge and myrrh 
And a bitter cross, 
Smile, for the day is here 
That we know our loss; — 
Loss of thine undone deed, 
Thy unfinished song, 
Th’ unspoken word for our need, 
Th’ unrighted wrong; 
Smile, for we weep, we weep, 
For the unsoothed pain, 
The unbound wound burned deep, 
That we might gain. 
Mother of sorrowful eyes 
In the dead old days, 
Mother of many sighs, 
Of pain-shod ways; 
Mother of resolute feet 
Through all the thorns, 
Mother soul-strong, soul-sweet, — 
Lo, after storms 
Have broken and beat thy dust 
For a hundred years, 
Thy memory is made just, 
And the just man hears. 
Thy children kneel and repeat: 
“Though dust be dust, 
Though sod and coffin and sheet 
And moth and rust 
Have folded and moulded and pressed, 
Yet they cannot kill; 
In the heart of the world at rest 
She liveth still.” 

Philadelphia, 27th April 1893
Taken from Collected Poems, The Anarchist Library.

Freedom Bookshop recommends: 

• Means & Ends by Zoe Baker
• Radical Intimacy by Sophie K Rosa
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Feminist & the Sex Offender by Eric R Meiners and Judith Levine
• Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman
• Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune by Carolyn Eichner
• In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet
• Labour of Love by Moira Weigel
• Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis
• Wages for Housework by Louise Toupin
• Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith & Juno Mac 
• Regretting Motherhood by Orna Donath
• Innocent Subjects by Terese Jonsson

Also anything by Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Ruth Kinna, Bell Hooks, or Audre Lorde. 

Editor’s eclectic recommends:

• Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
• Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard
• Oneness Vs the one percent by Vandana Shiva
• What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimha
• Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K le Guin
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Problems by Jade Sharma
• The World Keeps Ending and The World goes On by Franni Choi
• Deep Listening, a composer’s sound practice by Pauline Oliveros
• The Last Samurai by Helen de Witt
• Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
• Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E Butler
• Adrienne Rich by Selected Poems 1950 – 2012
• The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
• Remains of a Future City by Zoë Skoulding
• Fleabag original script by Phoebe Waller-Bridge
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
• Vengeance is Mine, Marie Ndiaye
• The Veiled Woman, Anaïs Nin

Also anything by Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison.

~ Sophie McKeand

AGAINST PATRIARCHY, IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEGATING PATHS OF ANARCHY

MAR

07

2024

0comments

By thecollective

Via Abolition Media

By: Mónica Caballero

The economic system that currently governs the territory dominated by the Chilean State and practically all Western states, is capitalism. Capitalism, in simple words, was based on the fact that trade and industry (means of production) are organized and controlled by their owners, that is: entrepreneurs.

In order for capitalism to take root and endure over time as a political-economic system, it needed a patriarchal social structure, the latter being understood as the social organization in which the authority of the male is exercised from the family, leading to all practices of domination. Therefore, it would be difficult to propose a radical emancipatory change without ending with the total destruction of capitalism and patriarchy.

Patriarchal authoritarian oppressive structures have (de)formed virtually all the relationships we have with each other and with ourselves. Another human is no longer another individual equivalent to me with whom we could help each other and develop integrally, now the relationship between humans is subject to what position they occupy within the social hierarchy.

On the other hand, the relationship with other non-human beings is contingent on the economic benefit that it could give me, transforming it into a consumer product. And finally, the vision that patriarchy has created of ourselves is limited and circumscribed to imposed canons or standards, whether aesthetic, gender, etc.

Obtaining the necessary tools to destroy the logics of domination, which makes us reproduce and perpetuate in various ways the need to dominate and to be dominated, is the task of all of us who are committed to seeing this reality burn…

Visualizing that patriarchal capitalism brings wealth to a few at the expense of the lives of many others could lead to the identification and targeting of the beneficiaries of this system of terror.

Against Patriarchy, in order to achieve the foundations of the negating paths of anarchy.

Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda

Anarchist prisoner

San Miguel prison

Written in the context of March 8, 2024.

Source: LA ZARZAMORA