Friday, November 08, 2024


‘4B’ movement: Liberal women launch sex strike after Trump win

A woman supporting abortion-rights holds a sign outside the South Carolina Statehouse on Thursday, July 7, 2022, in Columbia, S.C. Protesters clashed outside a legislative building, where lawmakers were taking testimony as they consider new restrictions on abortion in the … more >
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By Victor Morton - The Washington Times - Thursday, November 7, 2024

Making America Great Again may not work out so great for some American men in the bedroom.

A number of feminists are going on a sex strike in retaliation for Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

According to videos and social-media posts compiled and cited by the Daily Telegraph, liberal women are drawing inspiration from the South Korean “4B” movement, which commits women to four “no” behaviors toward men — dating, sex, marriage and children. (The Korean prefix for negative words is “bi.”)

Interest in the movement has spiked since Mr. Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, who not only would have been the first female U.S. president but who also sought to make the election a referendum on abortion.

“For the next four years I am going to abstain from sex with men,” said a woman in one TikTok video cited by the Telegraph.

Abortion was specifically cited by one woman who said “if all these men are voting to take our rights away, they don’t deserve to touch a woman for the next four years. So, hope you thought that through you guys.”

Another woman referring to Florida’s rejection of a proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state and said “good luck getting laid. Especially in Florida, because me and my girlies are participating in the 4B movement.”

In another TikTok video, the young woman not only vows to refuse sex but encourages others to delete dating apps.

“As a woman, my bodily autonomy matters and this is my way to exercise sovereignty over that,” she says. “I highly encourage any other women who are single and still care about progressing women’s rights and still fighting for our bodily autonomy to do the same. Delete your dating apps.”

She described the 4B movement as a “point of inspiration.”

Another video was captioned: “I think it’s time for American women to participate in our own 4B movement.”


Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.


The movement to swear off men: No sex. No dating. No marriage. No children.


In the days after Donald Trump was elected president, the 4B feminist movement is capturing young women’s interest on social media.


Young women on Instagram and TikTok are the primary demographic behind the recent American surge in interest in the 4B movement.
 (DELMAINE DONSON/GETTY IMAGES)


Mariel Padilla
General Assignment Reporter
THE 19th
November 7, 2024

In the hours following former President Donald Trump’s election victory, Google searches related to 4B — a fringe South Korean feminist movement that made a name for itself in the mid to late 2010s — surged in the United States.

It’s called “4B” because “B” is a shorthand for the word “no” in Korean — and a series of “nos” is what the movement calls for.

No sex.

Young women on Instagram and TikTok are the primary demographic behind the recent American surge in interest. The idea behind the movement is individual resistance against what it defines as a conservative political environment and the corrosion of reproductive rights.

Michaela Thomas, a 21-year-old artist in Georgia, told The Washington Post that she first heard about the 4B movement about a year ago.

“Young men expect sex, but they also want us to not be able to have access to abortion,” Thomas told The Post. “They can’t have both. Young women don’t want to be intimate with men who don’t fight for women’s rights; it’s showing they don’t respect us.”

The concept of a “sex strike” is not new. The ancient Greek play “Lysistrata” highlights women swearing off sex to protest the Peloponnesian War. In South Korea, the 4B movement took root at a time when the country was undergoing its own reckoning with gender violence and equality issues. (It is a country with one of the widest wage gaps in the world.)

In the United States, there is a growing ideological divide between young men and women: Women aged 18 to 30 are 30 percent more liberal than men of the same age, according to The Financial Times. Some experts point to the 2018 #MeToo movement as the key trigger in the rise in feminist values among women and the subsequent backlash among young men.




Israel's targeting of UNIFIL, Lebanese forces ‘war crimes’: Lebanon

At least 3 civilians killed, 5 UNIFIL peacekeepers and 3 Lebanese soldiers injured in Israeli 
drone attack in Sidon in southern Lebanon


Wassim Seifeddine |08.11.2024 - TRT/AA



BEIRUT

Lebanon condemned an Israeli drone strike Thursday in the southern city of Sidon that killed three civilians and injured several Lebanese soldiers and UN peacekeepers, labeling it a "war crime."

Five peacekeepers were injured in the drone strike near a military checkpoint in Sidon in southern Lebanon, the UN mission said.

In a statement, the mission said the injuries occurred as a convoy from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) bringing newly arrived peacekeepers to the southern part of the country was passing Sidon when a drone strike hit nearby.

The Lebanese army confirmed that the attack was carried out by an Israeli drone targeting a vehicle which killed three people inside and injured three of its soldiers stationed at a military checkpoint nearby.

In response, Lebanon's Foreign Ministry said it strongly condemns the Israeli assault and called on the international community to denounce such attacks and hold Israel accountable.

The ministry described the attack as "an escalation in Israel's targeting of UNIFIL forces, Lebanese soldiers and civilians constituting war crimes and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law."

It reiterated Lebanon's commitment to the essential role of UNIFIL in coordination with the Lebanese Army in maintaining security and stability along Lebanon's internationally recognized borders, especially amid continued Israeli escalations threatening regional peace.

The ministry also reaffirmed Lebanon's commitment to UN Resolution 1701, stressing the need for its full and balanced implementation to protect UNIFIL forces, Lebanese soldiers and civilians and to achieve sustainable security in the area.

A massive Israeli air campaign in Lebanon has been ongoing since late September against what it claims are Hezbollah targets, an escalation in year-long cross-border warfare since the start of the Gaza war.

More than 3,100 people have been killed and over 13,800 injured in Israeli attacks since October 2023, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Israel launched a ground assault into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala

The Gallatin Range: Now is the Time to Designate It Wilderness



 November 8, 2024
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The Gallatin Range runs south from Bozeman to Yellowstone National Park.

 Photo George Wuerthner.

The Gallatin Range south of Bozeman is the last major unprotected landscape in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A minimum of 250,000 acres of the Gallatin Range as advocated by the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance should be designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act.

The Gallatin Range is a key area for wildlife, and home to grizzlies, wolves, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, wolverine and a host of other wildlife. It could be a significant area for recolonizing Yellowstone bison moving north out of the park.

Its reputation as a significant wildlife sanctuary started in 1910, when Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the Forest Service, advocated making the southern part of the Gallatin Range a wildlife refuge.

In recognition of the Gallatin Range’s fabulous wildlife habitat values, the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks created a wildlife management area (WMA) primarily in the Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages in the southern Gallatin Range.

In 1977, Senator Lee Metcalf sponsored the Montana Wilderness Study Act legislation (S.393), which created nine wilderness study areas in Montana, including in the Gallatin Range known as the 155,000-acre Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalohorn WSA.

The legislation says, “The wilderness study areas designated by this Act shall, until Congress determines otherwise, be administered by the Secretary of Agriculture to maintain their presently existing wilderness character and potential for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System.

In the 1980s, the Gallatin Range was initially included in the legislation creating the Lee Metcalf Wilderness in the Madison Range. However, during the legislative debate, the Gallatin Range was removed due to a legacy of railroad checkerboard alternative sections of land that some felt would complicate wilderness protections.

The Gallatin Range is critical habitat for grizzly bear. Photo George Wuerthner.

In the 1990s, several legislative efforts led to the removal of railroad checkboards with the express purpose that the roadless lands would eventually be designated wilderness.

Biologist Lance Craighead did a biological assessment of the Gallatin Range noting it’s importance for wildlife.

Wilderness is the “Gold Standard” for conservation. Protecting the area as wilderness is the best way to preserve and ensure the ecological integrity of the Gallatin Range and, by extension, the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

We need to create a Gallatin Range Wilderness more than ever. Watch this film to learn more about why we must protect the Gallatin Range, especially the Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages.

The Gallatin Range wilderness effort must be viewed within the context of preserving the entire Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. An expanded Greater Yellowstone National Park that included the Gallatin north to Bozeman with a wilderness overlap would be the best option for maintaining the ecological and evolutionary processes.

Wilderness designation is about humility. It’s about giving Nature a place for ecological and evolutionary processes to function. It is about sharing the Earth with the rest of life.

Visit the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness AllianceGallatin Wildlife Association, and the Alliance for Wild Rockies to learn about the potential for designated wilderness on the Custer Gallatin National Forest.

George Wuerthner has published 36 books including Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy

Billionaires Own US Climate Policy



 November 8, 2024
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Image by Francesco Ungaro.

Billions of dollars will buy almost anything anybody wants, and on November 5th billions of dollars bought the world’s leading anti-climate-change political administration, aka: the Trump Administration, which is anti-almost-everything, except for a free reign to the almighty market. Price determines policy, and it buys political office.

According to Americans for Tax Fairness, 150 billionaire families broke all campaign-spending records by a country mile, spending $2 billion in total to get a Republican majority with $1.36 billion going to Republicans versus $413 million to Democrats and the balance to specific causes, proof positive that billions of dollars can buy anything.

The System Regulating Campaign Financing Has Collapsed

“Billionaire campaign spending on this scale drowns out the voices and concerns of ordinary Americans. It is one of the most obvious and disturbing consequences of the growth of billionaire fortunes, as well as being a prime indicator that the system regulating campaign finance has collapsed,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “We need to rein in the political power of billionaire families by better taxing them and by effectively limiting their campaign donations. Until we do both, we can only expect the influence of the super-rich over our politics and government to escalate.” (Source: Billionaire Clans Spend Nearly $2 Billion On 2024 Elections, Americans for Fair Taxes, October 29, 2024)

America’s Climate Policy Cascading, into the dust bin.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Forbes magazine (Oct. 24, 2024) issued its starkest, scariest climate warning… ever… a couple of weeks before the US election: We Are Afraid: Scientists Issue New Warning as World Enters ‘Unchartered Climate Territory.

It’s interesting that the Forbes’ We Are Afraid article came out just before the most important election of all time for the future, or lack of future, for the planet’s habitability. The initial paragraph of the Forbes’ article contains a stark warning that is shared by many top-level scientists around the world: “A distinguished international team of scientists on Tuesday issued the starkest warning yet that human activity is pushing Earth into a climate crisis that could threaten the lives of up to 6 billion people this century, stating candidly: ‘We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.”

Now the Trump Anti-Climate-Change administration is about to take control over the world’s leading democracy (maybe, but not). One can only wonder what impact this may have on scientists that claim we’re: “pushing our planetary systems into dangerous instability” with consequences this century of 6 billion threatened because of massive uninhabitable regions of the planet. Extreme heat and dwindling food supplies will prevail. The American electorate made this possible, winning the award for the Most Ill-Informed Ignorant People on the Planet, maybe of all time. As for demonstrated ignorance, all that’s required is to look at what’s happening to the climate system, weird, unprecedented stuff that doesn’t happen, ever, until now. And it’s broadcast on nightly news (1) atmospheric rivers flooding communities within minutes (2) Category Five hurricanes laying waste outside of normal hurricane season (3) tornadoes further North than ever before (4) hailstorms like golf balls destroying siding and roofs of buildings (5) home insurers dropping coverage in Florida and California (6) insurance premiums nearly doubling for homeowners. The list could go on and on, but the point is climate change is driving ordinary people out of homes and broke. The disasters are the result of human-generated fossil fuel CO2 bringing on an overheated haywire climate system that has exceeded the Paris ’15 climate conference agreement among all nations warning don’t go over +1.5°C pre-industrial by limiting CO2 emissions that blanket the planet and hold heat because it turns the climate system into an ogre of destruction, now in its early stages, worldwide. The proof is palpable on every continent, 2024 Will be World’s Hottest Year on Record, EU Scientists Say, Reuters, Nov. 7, 2024.

And this is only the start, with the anti-climate-change new administration in place, “it’ll get much worse.” But “getting much worse” on top of a climate system that is already exploding in our faces is destined to create havoc, destruction, and darkness like nobody can imagine possible. Trump will rescind climate-related commitments by the US such as the Paris 2015 climate agreement. The US is out, count on it as the country dusts-off its hands and walks away from tackling the most rambunctious dangerous climate system in human history just as it’s starting to brutalize major life-sourcing ecosystems, like the Amazon rainforest, drying up because of severe drought as the Mississippi River’s low depth severely diminishes barge traffic transport of crucial agricultural product: “For the third year in a row, extreme drought conditions in the Midwest are drawing down water levels on the Mississippi River, raising prices for companies that transport goods downstream and forcing governments and business owners to seek alternative solutions,” Governing, Oct. 18, 2024.

Bloomberg Green/Green Daily published an article entitled: US Election 2024, presented by IBM, What a Trump Victory Means for Energy: “The win empowers him to deliver on his campaign pledges to go after climate policies he’s dubbed the ‘green new scam’ while reorienting the federal government toward pumping more crude and building more power plants.”

He’ll end federal policies that encourage EV sales. The EPA regulation on tailpipe pollution, which penalizes gas-guzzlers, thereby favoring EVs will be a top target. An executive order to accomplish this has already been drafted. Additionally, going after California’s strict car pollution standards via changes to the Clean Air Act. Trump favors dirty air to stimulate more gas-powered vehicle sales.

From A-to-Z Trump will unleash the fossil fuel industry to full blast operations, including lower tax rates, literally taking off the gloves of any federal regulation. This will be comparable to the Wild West at the turn of the 19th century, no holds barred with plans to open America’s public lands for oil development. Go for it!

Offshore wind is another target for closure, impacting developmental work already underway of multi-billion-dollar wind farms up and down the US East Coast. Trump intends to target offshore wind on “day one” probably via a moratorium imposed administratively.

The Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, flush with hundreds of billions of dollars of loan-backed authority readily avaiblable for clean-tech thanks to Biden’s IRA, is at risk. “Trump will be under dueling pressure to either kill off the program, ending a major source of support for green-technology commercialization, or to keep it running, just with a decidedly pro-fossil-fuel bent. Advocates of the latter approach say the office has made billions of dollars in interest for the federal government and that its support can be used to back natural gas, carbon capture and nuclear energy ventures.” (Bloomberg Green)

Additionally, Trump will terminate a suite of EPA rules that inhibit power-plant pollution, for example coal burning plants. Trump believes AI needs twice the amount of electricity currently supplied to the US. A 2024 rule limiting emissions from existing coal plants and new gas-fired units will be a top focus for removal.

Millions of members (over 70 million voters in the 2024 election) of the Most Ill-Informed Ignorant People on the Planet have sealed the fate of an abrupt enormously destructive climate system that’s already started misbehaving in earnest because of excessive levels of greenhouse gases like CO2 emitted by burning fossil fuels, thus slamming the climate system down onto the mat, defeated, for the worse. How will it get better?

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.