23yo Woman Biker Attacked in Road Rage - Shoots Attacker Dead After Struggle - Anti-Gun Campaigners Memorialize Attacker As Victim - by Lesley Hollywood - 16 Dec 2018

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Lesley Hollywood

 

Aubrey Bowlin


On February 8, 2018 a young woman shot and killed her attacker during a public road rage incident.  23 year old Aubrey Bowlin, was riding her motorcycle along I-5 in Milton, Washington when an irate driver began to act recklessly.

According to witnesses, 60 year old Bruce Jones was distraught by the way Bowlin was driving her motorcycle.  He boxed her into a location she could not drive away from. Jones exited his vehicle and physically attacked the young woman who was sitting on her bike. A fight followed, initiated by the much larger man.  At one point, Bowlin head-butted Jones, who then drove Bowlin’s head into the jersey barrier before taking her to the ground.  He hit her and shook her, she described, like a dog shaking a toy in its mouth. He violently tried to rip her helmet off and was choking her with the neck strap.  She believed he was going to choke her to death. Bowlin shot Jones once in the chest when he attempted to climb on top of her.  Jones died at the scene.

No charges were filed and Bowlin was exonerated by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, as this was a clear case of self defense.  Bowlin was a permitted concealed pistol carrier.  She called 911 after ending the attack with her fatal shot, and waited at the scene.  She did everything right, although according to her, she still suffers from PTSD.

Seems like an open and shut case, right?  Nope.

It’s been discovered that the website gunmemorial.org, which puts up photos of people whose lives have been “lost to gun violence,” is memorializing this perpetrator as a “gun violence victim”.  In fact, 90 virtual candles have been lit for him at the time of this writing.  This is a man who nearly pummeled a 23 year old woman to death on the side of the interstate for the public to see.  And he is being held up as the victim by the anti-gun community.



It begs the question of how many other of these so-called “victims” are actually perpetrators.  The anti-gun movement has adopted the term “homicide” when speaking of stats.  But did you know homicide and murder are not the same?  Homicide is all death except suicide – even justified deaths, such as those killed in self defense, as is the example here, as well as law enforcement related deaths.  Murder is a malicious act with the intent to cause death (or serious harm resulting in death).  Aubrey Bowlin could have been a murder victim, but she was not because instead she made Bruce Jones a homicide case.  See how that works?  With the ability to sway public opinion so easily by simply using a different word, it’s no wonder those who wish to to take away an individual’s right to self defense with a firearm would use the term homicide in their argument as it carries a much higher number.  A number that portrays perpetrators as victims.

It doesn’t take much digging into this Gun Memorial website to find their connection to the Gun Violence Archive – the website behind the widely spread number of 307 “mass shootings” in 2018 – a story we completely debunked after doing some serious research. (By the way, that real number is 6, not 307).  Gun Violence Archive also makes a habit out of holding up violent criminals as victims – simply by using the word homicide.

Why is it the some of the  people who claim to support women’s rights, want to take away a woman’s right to defend herself with a firearm?

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Author: Lesley Hollywood

UPDATE:  On Sunday evening, December 16th, the GunMemorial website quietly removed this perpetrator from their pages after receiving so much backlash from this article.  Unfortunately, we have discovered thousands of other violent criminals who were killed in self defense on their site. We’ll be exposing some of the worst here soon.

https://archive.is/L27IV 

Capitalist Industrial Murder Machine - Boeing suspends production of deadly 737 Max 8 aircraft - 23 Dec 2019

Aerospace giant Boeing announced on Monday it is suspending production of the deadly 737 Max 8 aircraft starting in January. The plane was grounded nine months ago after two crashes—the first outside of Jakarta, Indonesia on Lion Air Flight 610, which killed 189 passengers and crew, and the second on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 a few minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, costing a further 157 human lives.
While Boeing has insisted that the shutdown of the line will not result in any layoffs—the company has assured the 12,000 workers at the Renton, Washington production facility they will continue 737-related work or be reassigned to other facilities in the Seattle area—the announcement does not preclude the company from letting workers go in the future. If the plane is never put back into service, a distinct possibility, it will be the company’s employees and their families who will bear the consequences of the criminal activity of the company’s executives.

The shutdown of the line came the week after Boeing ex-employee Ed Pierson testified before the House that senior Boeing management were aware that the Max 8 was an unsafe plane prior to the twin disasters. He warned them twice in the months before the first crash that “deteriorating factory conditions” at the Renton facility were making aircraft that would eventually fall out of the sky and asked for the line to be shut down in order to ensure the planes were safe.

A Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliner at the Renton, Washington assembly plan

 

That same hearing also exposed the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration knew after the first crash that, unless the plane was grounded, the Max 8 would average one fatal crash every two or three years, far above what Boeing or the agency considers safe. The supposed regulatory agency suppressed this information for a year, a decision that allowed Boeing stock prices to soar in the run-up to hundreds more deaths.

Since the Max 8 was announced in 2011 to when the fleet was grounded in March, the corporation increased in value by nearly $200 billion, making its continued sale and operation critical for Boeing’s bottom line.

However, it is unclear when, or even if, production of the Max 8 will resume. Boeing was originally supposed to submit a comprehensive fix to the fatal aircraft in September, and the company line was that the plane would fly again by the end of 2019. Numerous problems, however, have been uncovered with the aircraft and the certification process itself, resulting in months of delays. As a result, Southwest and American Airlines have canceled flights on Max 8 jets until April, while United has canceled its Max 8 flights until June.

While Boeing is promising to shift the workers at Renton to other jobs for the time being, the companies that make critical components, including the engines, ventilation systems, wings and fuselages, are poised to lose a significant amount of income.

This includes large corporations such as General Electric. When Boeing reduced its production of the Max 8 from 52 to 42 a month in April, GE, which makes the engines for the jet, announced it would lose $1.4 billion throughout the rest of the year. It is poised to lose five times that much in 2020 if the Max 8 stays grounded.

The situation at Spirit AeroSystems is worse. The Wichita, Kansas-based company earns 80 percent of its revenue from Boeing, a significant portion of that from making fuselages for the 737 Max. While no layoffs have been announced, both the company and Kansas governor Laura Kelly have said that the state may have to pay salaries for Spirit workers if the grounding continues. The company has dozens of Boeing hulls waiting to be delivered sitting outside at the company’s Wichita factory.

Other companies, including Senior PLC, United Technologies Corp., Honeywell, Hexcel, Woodward and Meggitt, make numerous other equipment ranging from landing systems, avionics, pylons, thrust reversers, smoke detectors and engine nacelles. There are an estimated 642,000 employees at these companies alone, many of whom work on Boeing systems and are at risk of losing their jobs if the production of the Max 8 is halted for any significant length of time or ended permanently.

Meanwhile, the Boeing executives who oversaw the development and production of the 737 Max 8 have been cashing in. During the rise in the company’s stock after the first crash, Chief Financial Officer Gregory Smith, Executive Vice President John Keating, general counsel Michael Luttig and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenberg all sold Boeing shares worth $9.5 million, $10.1 million, $9.5 million and $6.5 million, respectively.

These sums were all made just one month before the second crash. Boeing admitted at the time that it was aware of the potentially lethal issues with certain Max 8 computer systems and was attempting to introduce a software patch even as another of its planes plunged into the ground.

Officials at the FAA informed Reuters that the current plan is to have Boeing’s beleaguered jet back in the air by March. Agency administrator Steve Dickson stated that they are attempting to be “very detailed rather than try to rush a partially completed project,” and that they are waiting for answers from Boeing about the aircraft.

No doubt the families of the 346 dead individuals would have appreciated such a comprehensive review of the Max 8 before the planes crashed. Instead, a variety of reports and leaks have shown that the agency was well aware of the problems with the Max 8, particularly the software known as MCAS, which has been determined to be the immediate cause of the crashes. Documents and congressional testimony show that the agency handed oversight of this system to Boeing and did not insist on grounding the plane after the first crash even after its own internal review suggested it would happen again.

Rather than criminal murder investigations and charges against executives following the crashes, the ability for Boeing and other aerospace manufacturers to regulate themselves continues unabated. At the end of 2018 the House Transportation Committee, headed by Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio from Oregon, approved the FAA Reauthorization Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, expanding a law passed in 2005 that allows airplane companies to operate without independent oversight or safety inspections. Even if the Max 8 stays grounded, the framework exists for similar or greater air travel catastrophes to happen again.

Love you Reddit, Merry Christmas - Rick x

Movie Review: 'Knives Out' - Anti-White People - Rian Johnson "The Man Who Killed Star Wars" - Sharpens the blade of anti-white Liberals - by Michael McCaffrey - 13 Dec 2019

Knives Out, 2019 (Lionsgate) 

Knives Out is not the seemingly innocuous piece of mainstream filmmaking it pretends to be. Beneath the movie’s welcoming veneer hides a shamelessly pandering, politically trite, vicious and virulent piece of racial propaganda. 

I recently watched The Birth of a Nation (1915), D.W. Griffith’s century old ode to the Ku Klux Klan. Griffith’s masterpiece is a disgusting piece of racial propaganda, but it was a huge box office success and no doubt kicked off Hollywood’s long and ugly history of demeaning and belittling portrayals of people of color in its movies.

I thought of The Birth of a Nation while watching Knives Out this week. Knives Out, a star-studded and fun-loving murder mystery that boasts a 92 percent audience score at Rotten Tomatoes, has banked over $128 million at the box office.

You may be wondering why on earth something as seemingly innocent as Knives Out made me think of The Birth of a Nation? Well, when I went and saw Knives Out, I fully expected a light-hearted and comedic take on the whodunit genre, but what I got instead was a politically charged, thinly veiled allegory of immigration in America fueled by a pernicious anti-white racism. The racial animus on display in Knives Out is certainly not as vicious as anything seen in The Birth of a Nation, but it is just as gratuitous.

The plot of Knives Out revolves around the death of successful crime writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), who may or may not have committed suicide. Harlan’s Latina immigrant nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), is the protagonist of the story, and she works with famed private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to try and solve the case.

The main suspects are Harlan’s adult children Walt and Linda, Linda’s husband Richard, a widowed daughter-in-law, Joni, and the grandchildren, chief among them Ransom. The Thrombeys all have a reason for wanting Harlan dead, the most notable of which is inheriting his vast fortune and palatial estate.

Knives Out, 2019 (Lionsgate) Dir: Rian Johnson

The Thrombeys are the picture of spoiled white privilege as they live off their father’s largess, and are so self-absorbed they can’t even be bothered to remember what Latin American country Marta originally came from. They are a conniving and scheming bunch who, without hesitation, threaten to have Marta and her family deported when she becomes a threat to their fortune.

Knives Out drips with a visceral hatred for white people that permeates its every scene. All the white characters are portrayed as morally, ethically and intellectually revolting. It isn’t just the rich Thrombeys who are held up for scorn by Knives Out, as the film’s anti-white animus crosses class barriers as well. For example, even the Thrombey’s white housekeeper, Fran, is shown to be greedy and duplicitous. Another example is Trooper Wagner, a dim-witted white police officer obsessed with pop culture who provides comedic relief by being an empty-headed buffoon.

In contrast to the loathsome and irredeemable white characters, the Latina immigrant Marta is portrayed as a near saint, so much so that she is literally incapable of lying without vomiting. Marta is inherently noble and good, which is very evident when the watchdogs do her the courtesy of never barking at her, and also when the esteemed Benoit Blanc simply declares her to be “a good person” upon meeting her and takes her on as his accomplice in solving the crime. But even Blanc is not up to Marta’s intellectual standard as she consistently outwits him in some of the movie’s funniest scenes.

  I enjoy it when a film has a political perspective, and I think making the immigration debate a part of a film’s text or sub-text is a noble venture, but that venture loses its moral authority when the politics put forth are as racially-driven, odious and insipid as that on display in Knives Out.

Hollywood has long misrepresented minorities with cheap caricature and stereotype because it is the easy path. The hard path is that of nuance, where characters, regardless of race, are comprised of differing shades and motivations that highlight their humanity. When even the most villainous of characters are multi-dimensional, art flourishes and insight is soon to follow… look no further than the artistic and commercial success of Joker for evidence of that. But when characters are stereotyped and caricatured, especially out of racial animosity, art stagnates and insights recede; Knives Out is proof of that.

What is seemingly contradictory about Knives Out being insidious anti-white propaganda is that the film is written and directed by a white man, Rian Johnson, and the cast is majority white. This should come as no surprise though, as it has become de rigueur out here in Hollywood for white people to consistently self-loathe over their whiteness.

White social justice warriors basking in self-loathing is the most vacuous and common form of virtue signaling nowadays. Woke white self-flagellation has become performance art posing as racial sensitivity that, in actuality, is the most pernicious form of cheap grace as it costs the self-loather nothing and reduces fighting racism to mere narcissism and masturbatory theatre.

https://archive.is/DnJJz

How to hunt rabbit

Rabbit hunting is the third most popular type of hunting activity in the U.S., behind wild turkey and deer hunting. Few people take advantage of it in Oregon, but they should—rabbits and hares are abundant and there is no closed season or bag limit. Plus, they taste good!

License requirements

You need a valid hunting license to hunt rabbit on public or private land. No other tag or validation is needed. If you are hunting on your own property or as the agent of a landowner, no hunting license, tag or validation is required.

When to hunt

There is no specific statewide season for hunting rabbit, so they can legally be hunted at any time of year in many places. Check your hunting area for any date restrictions or season closures. If hunting with dogs, keep in mind that dogs may not be trained or permitted to run at large in game bird nesting habitat from April to July 31 every year. Early spring is one of the best times to hunt rabbits, as grasses and forbs are growing and rabbits are on the move. Hunting anytime after the first frost (or late fall) is also ideal because unhealthy rabbits won’t have survived the colder temperatures. Hunters with dogs find early morning is an ideal time to hunt; rabbits move around at night and dogs can easily find scent in the morning.

Hunting techniques

With a dog: Beagles are a popular rabbit hunting dog because they are small and can get through brambles and brush. A dog will force a rabbit out of the brush and then follow it by scent. Rabbits generally travel in circles, usually counter-clockwise, and will attempt to return to the same spot. Position yourself to cut the circle off.

Without a dog: Try hunting with one or more partners— one or two beat the brush while the other watches from a good vantage point for the rabbit to run and for the opportunity to take a shot. Also try hunting in snow—look for tracks to identify high-use areas or follow fresh tracks. Or, quietly still-hunt and look for rabbits before they bolt. This method is challenging, but a rabbit holding still can offer the opportunity for a clean shot with a .22, thus preserving the meat for the table.

Where to hunt

Rabbits can harm crops so you may find a landowner willing to grant you access; remember you must ask permission to hunt on private land.

Eastern Oregon: Hunt around alfalfa circles on private land and sage-brush covered BLM lands. Find cottontails in rimrock and boulder areas in sage-brush country. Jackrabbits are more often found in sage-brush and greasewood flats.

Western Oregon: Rabbits like thick cover (Himalayan blackberry, snowberry, wild rose bushes) and forage (mowed grass, legumes). Look for areas that have these two in close proximity. The edges of working farmland are often good spots to work in the spring; mowed crops and grasses will provide the fresh green-up rabbits like. ODFW’s EE Wilson Wildlife Area (near Corvallis) is a popular public hunting area for rabbits and is open from Nov. 1 through the last day of February each year.

Sometimes rabbits and hares can also be found on national forest and BLM lands in western Oregon.

Which rabbits can I hunt?

Hunters can pursue three species of rabbit and two species of hare in Oregon: brush rabbit (westside Ore.), Nuttal’s cottontail (eastside Ore.), eastern cottontail (Willamette Valley), snowshoe hare (found at high elevations), and black-tailed jackrabbit (found everywhere, especially central and southeastern Ore.).

Protected species

Due to their low abundance, the white-tailed jackrabbit (eastern Ore.) and the pygmy rabbit (southeast Ore.) cannot be hunted. The white-tailed jackrabbit can be identified by its entirely white tail; it tends to live in grassland habitat. The pygmy rabbit is small (it usually weighs less than a pound), appears to lack a tail or has a uniform colored tail (usually buffy brown) and lacks the white undertail of most other rabbits.

Equipment

Shotguns are often used for rabbit and hare hunting because one rarely sees the animal before it is off and running. Rabbits are generally considered to be “thin skinned” so the smaller shot sizes of #6 to #8 can be effective. Open chokes, such as improved cylinder, are good choices in the brushy areas where rabbits and hares are often found. Any shotgun can be used; the most popular choices are 12 and 20 gauge with open chokes, and #6-#8 shot in lead, or #4-#6 in steel. The shooting distance will depend on your choice of weapon and shot, but generally do not take a shot beyond 35 yards. Marksman can use a .22 rimfire long rifle. When using a rifle, aim for the head so as not to spoil the meat.

Dressing your rabbit

Rabbit is truly great table fare if handled properly in the field. Field dress (e.g. remove the guts) immediately after killing it. This will help keep the meat safe and is easier to do before the animal gets cold. Also, remember to keep the rabbit clean. Don’t use dirty water and keep the carcass away from mud, dirt and leaves. Use a clean knife and wear latex or rubber gloves.

Steps to field-dress your rabbit:

• Holding the back skin of the rabbit with your fingers, make a cut through the skin and over the back (not into the meat).
• Peel back the skin/hide of the rabbit in both directions with your fingers. Take care not to let the fur side of the hide touch the carcass.
• Remove the complete skin of the rabbit, including the tail.

• Remove the complete entrails. Insert an appropriately-sized knife blade at the bottom of the sternum and make a cut all the way to the tail. Then insert the knife blade just under the bottom edge of the sternum and make a cut up to the rabbit’s neck. Be careful not to insert the knife so far into the body cavity that you puncture any of the organs. You only want to “unzip” the rabbit at this point.
•  
• Inspect the liver for any spotting which is a sign of Tularemia or “rabbit fever.”
• Grasp the back feet in one hand and the chest above the incision in your other hand. Lift the rabbit to about your shoulders, and thrust it downward quickly to release the innards. They may still be attached at the front and back so you’ll need to carefully pull the organs out with your hands. To prevent contamination, be careful not to smash or break anything. 
• Remove the head, then cut at the ankles to remove the feet of the rabbit. 
• Put your rabbit in a cooler or a game meat bag to keep it cool until you get home and refrigerate or freeze it.

Be sure to thoroughly cook your rabbit to at least 165 degrees F; use a meat thermometer to ensure the inside of the meat reaches that temperature. This is important to kill any bacteria still in the meat. Some people dip the carcass in boiling water before cooking it.

Rabbit fever

Rabbit fever, or tularemia, is not commonly seen in Oregon, but it does occur in rabbits and rodents. It can be spread from infected animals to people through tick bites, handling of infected animals, eating or drinking infected material, and even through inhalation. Tularemia is identified through inspection of an infected animal’s internal organs, so when field dressing your animal look for any light spotting on the liver. If you even suspect you see white, yellow or any other liver spotting, place the animal in a plastic bag, thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer, and contact an ODFW office. State veterinarians will run tests on the liver to determine if the animal was infected. Do not eat the meat.

Hunting safely

Always know the location of your fellow hunters, including your dog, and follow these safety precautions when hunting:

• Keep your firearm’s muzzle pointed in a safe direction.
• Keep your finger outside of the trigger guard until ready to shoot.
• Treat every firearm as if it were loaded.
• Be sure of your target and what is in front of it and beyond it.
• Wear blaze orange.

Rabbit recipes 

Hasenpfeffer (a traditional German rabbit stew)

2 rabbits
½ cup + 3 Tbsp flour
Salt and paper to taste
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
Cooking oil or clarified butter
Marinade:
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dry mustard
Mix ingredients for marinade. Cut rabbit into serving size pieces and marinate overnight, turning pieces occasionally.
To cook, remove pieces from marinade and pat dry with clean towel. Save marinade. Mix salt and pepper with ½ cup flour in covered bowl or paper bag. Add rabbit pieces to flour mixture and shake until all pieces are coated.
Heat enough oil to cover the bottom of a large pot or Dutch oven. Brown rabbit pieces on both sides. Reduce heat to low and cover with juice from marinade. Slowly bring to a boil and simmer 45 minutes. Add sugar. Make paste with water and 3 Tbsp flour. Thicken gravy with flour paste. When desired thickness is reached, take dish off heat. Add small amounts of gravy to 1 cup yogurt to equalize temperatures, then add yogurt to dish.
Serve over egg noodles. Serves 4.
From “Recipes from the Wild Side,” ODFW cookbook printed 1993. Contributed by MaryLou Keefe.

Baked stuffed rabbit

4 cups of fine bread crumbs
2 Tbsp onions
1/4 cup margarine
3 or 4 thin slices of salt pork
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp savory
1/4 tsp pepper
Gravy: 2 Tbsp flour, dairy sour cream

Pastry: 1/3 cup margarine, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 or 3 Tbsp cold water.
Dressing: In a mixing bowl, mix together 4 cups of bread crumbs, 2 Tbsp of chopped onion, 1/4 cup of soft margarine, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp savory, and 1/4 tsp pepper.

Cooking: Stuff the rabbit with the dressing and fasten with skewers. Place in roasting pan and lay four or five slices of fat pork across the top. Add a little water and cover the pan. Bake at 350 degrees F or until the meat is tender (about 25 minutes per pound).

Remove from oven and make gravy.

Gravy: Skim fat from cooking liquid, reserving 2 Tbsp. In a saucepan, heat the 2 Tbsp fat and blend in 2 Tbsp flour. Gradually stir in 1 cup of the liquid remaining in the roasting pan from the meat. Cook, stirring until thickened. Mix in 1 cup of dairy sour cream and heat thoroughly.

Pastry: Cut margarine into flour, baking powder, and salt until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Sprinkle in water, 1 Tbsp at a time and mix. Gather the pastry into a ball and place on lightly floured board. Roll out the pastry to the correct size to cover the rabbit.

Pour the gravy over the rabbit and cover with pastry. Return to oven. Bake at 450 degrees until the pastry is browned. Serve at once.

Recipe provided by Mary’s Peak Hound Club

Buttermilk fried rabbit

1 rabbit cut up into 6 pieces
1 small onion, cut-up
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup or more buttermilk
Shortening and flour
Salt and pepper rabbit, dip in buttermilk, then in flour. Dip in buttermilk again, then in flour again. Fry in very hot fat until brown. Remove rabbit from fat. Brown flour for gravy. Add onion and simmer about 1 minute. Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of buttermilk and enough water to make the gravy as thick as you like it. Put rabbit back into gravy and simmer for 35 minutes. Let cool normally, remove rabbit from gravy and serve.
Recipe provided by Mary’s Peak Hound Club

Colonial rabbit

2 rabbits, sectioned
Flour
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 can chicken broth or stock
½ onion, diced
3 carrots, peeled and coined
3 bay leaves
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 small can tomato paste
¼ cup very cold water
2 Tbsp flour
4 Tbsp currant jelly
½ lb. mushrooms, sliced
Flour meat and brown in skillet with oil. Remove meat from pan. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Stir in onion, carrots, bay leaves and garlic and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add tomato puree and continue to simmer. Remove ¼ cup broth from pan and combine with water and flour, mixing until smooth. Return rabbit to pan. When rabbit is cooked through, remove from mixture. Strain the mixture to catch bones. Sauté mushroom and add to broth or serve on the side.
Yields 4-6 servings.
Recipe provided by Mary’s Peak Hound Club

Rabbit casserole

2 rabbit fryers (about 2 pounds each) -- cut up
4 slices bacon
3 medium onions -- quartered
2 green peppers -- cut up
1 clove garlic -- crushed
1/2 cup white wine
1 can (16oz) whole tomatoes
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp marjoram -- crushed
1 tsp thyme -- crushed
Sauté bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels and set aside. Brown rabbit a few pieces at a time in bacon drippings, then arrange in a 10-cup casserole dish. Add onion, green peppers, and garlic to same skillet and add wine. Cook, stirring, and crushing tomatoes until slightly thickened (about 5 minutes). Then stir in cream of mushroom soup, marjoram, and thyme. Heat to boiling, stirring frequently. Spoon over rabbit in baking dish and cover. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour until rabbit is tender. Just before serving, crumble reserved bacon and sprinkle over the rabbit and vegetables. Serve with hot buttered rice or noodles.
Recipe provided by Mary’s Peak Hound Club

Peppered poached rabbit

2 quarter sections of rabbit, poached
1 large or two medium onions, diced
2 cups of peeled eggplant diced 1/2” thick
4 large tomatoes diced (1/2” thick with stem & skin removed)
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cup bell or banana pepper diced
2 cups of diced zucchini
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp celery salt
1 tsp salt
To poach, place the quarters in a pot with a half gallon of water, 2 Tbsp of salt, and 1 tsp of Rosemary. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, then shred meat from the bones and add to other ingredients.
Place all ingredients in a 3-quart saucepan; cover and simmer 20 minutes, then uncover, slow simmer, and stir for 8 minutes. If desired serve over rice or noodles.
Recipe provided by Mary’s Peak Hound Club

Barbeque rabbit

2 rabbits, quartered
1 cup olive oil
¼ cup vinegar
¼ cup red wine
1 small minced onion
2 cloves minced garlic
Juice from ½ lemon
5 Tbsp catsup
4 Tbsp A-1 sauce
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Dash of Tabasco
¼ tsp black pepper
Combine all ingredients except the rabbit in a medium saucepan. Mix well and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Place the quartered rabbits on a medium-hot grill. Baste the rabbits generously every 5 minutes with the sauce mixture, turning frequently. It will take about 40-50 minutes until they are done, make sure you have used all of your sauce. With this recipe the sauce is the key!

Recipe provided by Mary’s Peak Hound Club

The government used to bomb this Massachusetts island. Now, they’re filling it with bunnies - By Nik DeCosta-Klipa (Boston.com) 8 May 2019

Officials foresee hundreds of rabbits peacefully coexisting with the island's undetonated bombs.

 

Empty rabbit boxes are loaded for transport back to the mainland on Nomans Land Island off the coast of Martha's Vineyard where U.S. Fish and Wildlife researchers released 13 New England cottontail rabbits, five females and eight males on Tuesday. –Steve Heaslip / Pool

 

By

Nik DeCosta-Klipa Boston.com Staff

May 8, 2019

So long “Rattlesnake Island” (we hardly knew ye); hello Rabbit Island.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is executing a plan to make Nomans Land Island a refuge for New England cottontails, as part of a larger effort to rebuild the species’ population. According to the Cape Cod Times, officials ferried the first 13 cottontails Tuesday to the 628-acre island, located three miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard.

Unfortunately for rabbit enthusiasts, Nomans Land Island and its surrounding waters remain closed to the public — but for good reason.

In the 1940s, the Navy began leasing the entire island to use for aerial bombing practice. This went on for more than 50 years. And officials say the scenic, shrub-covered island remains dangerously littered with unexploded bombs.

But don’t worry, the cottontails will probably be OK.

Meagan Racey, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which took over management of the island in 1998 (the Navy stopped using it as a bombing range in 1996), says the small mammals should be able to safely coexist with the island’s undetonated explosives.

“We considered and analyzed this when we did an environmental assessment on the proposed project (for releasing the rabbits), and believe the rabbits are too light in weight to set anything off,” Racey told Boston.com in an email.

The small mammals weigh only two to three pounds.

 

 

Eileen McGourty hauls an empty rabbit box back to the beach head on Nomans Land Island. —Steve Heaslip / Pool

Additionally, Racey says that the Navy informed them that “most of the munitions are dummies.” So far, she said there’s no evidence of any other wildlife encountering or setting off ordnance on the island. While Nomans Land does not have any larger mammals, it does support many migratory bird species, including the peregrine falcon.

Officials say the remote island should be able to support at least 600 cottontails. According to an environmental assessment released by the service last November, their goal is for the population to reach at least 500. The same assessment notes that, due to all the unexploded bombs, removing cottontails from the island could be difficult, if they somehow become overpopulated.

 

A rabbit checks out its surroundings on Nomans Land Island. —Steve Heaslip / Pool

But right now overpopulation is not a concern.

While New England cottontails are not a federally endangered species, officials say their population has “dwindled” due to habitat loss. The rabbits depend on dense thickets associated with young forests, shrublands, and coastal barrens for protection. And, as forests matured and their habitats were cleared for development, the New England cottontail’s range has plummeted by more than 80 percent since 1960, according to the service.

The population also has had to compete for resources with the nonnative (and nearly identical) eastern cottontail, which replaced the New England cottontail as the region’s most abundant rabbit in the mid-1900s.

New England cottontail range. —U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

According to the service, the New England cottontail now only lives in southern Maine, southern New Hampshire, and parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York east of the Hudson River.

The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife captured the 13 New England cottontails — five females and eight males — on the mainland last winter. And after being cared for by students at Bristol County Agricultural High School in Dighton, the group was brought out to Nomans Land in wooden boxes and released by service workers Tuesday.

Without any human development, mammalian predators (predation by birds is expected to be “low“), or competing eastern cottontails, officials hope the island’s new rabbit population should be able to thrive.

“They look like they are at home,” Eileen McGourty, a biologist with the service who helped deliver the rabbits to the island Tuesday, told the Cape Cod Times.

A newly released rabbit hops off down a trail after being release Tuesday.

 

North Dakota: Jack rabbits overrun south Fargo neighborhood - By Archie Ingersoll - 3 Feb 2015

North Dakota - Jack rabbits overrun south Fargo neighborhood

Written By: Archie Ingersoll | Feb 3rd 2015 - 8pm.

Jackrabbits run 

FARGO – Close to 40 jack rabbits huddled against the cold Tuesday afternoon, looking like snow-covered hillocks rising from an open field.

Nearby, Joe Kovacs was playing fetch with his dog, Winston – a Shih Tzu-Cavalier mix, about the same size as the 2-foot-long jack rabbits, also known as hares.

“They’re just kind of cool,” 24-year-old Kovacs said as the white-furred animals sat, and occasionally scurried across the snow. “But I could see how that would be annoying if they were in your yard.”


These droves of hares have invaded a newly developed neighborhood along 33rd Avenue South, west of 45th Street, and some residents are not pleased by what they consider a nuisance.

“The front yard is full of droppings,” said Darren Schneibel, who sees hares settle down in his yard at night. “They eat the grass, and they just kill it.”

Fargo police have received a few complaints about the unsettling number of hares. But at this point, the city has no solution, Lt. Joel Vettel said.

“Typically, we don’t deal with wild animals per se, especially if they’re not a safety concern,” he said.
Ginny Naujokas, 67, said her neighbors gripe about the hares damaging their gardens. In her yard, she has plastic guards around the trunks of saplings to protect against gnawing.

“There’s probably an overabundance of (hares). I mean, we can see them out the bedroom window,” Naujokas said. “But I think they are beautiful.”

Police do not endorse poisoning the hares, and trying to catch the sizable animals in live traps seems problematic, Vettel said.

Hunting is illegal in Fargo, except through the city’s bow-hunting program for managing turkey and deer populations. For jack rabbits to become part of the program, the City Commission would have to take action, Vettel said.

Schneibel, 26, said the packs of hares do appear in the summer, but their ranks seem to swell in the winter. He said they seek out quiet spots and hop away when people come close.

On Tuesday, bunches of hares were gathered next to the dog run in Brandt Crossing park.
“That’s definitely a normal thing,” Schneibel said. “They’re there all the time.”

Jackrabbit

https://www.inforum.com/news/3670922-urban-prairie-jack-rabbits-overrun-south-fargo-neighborhood

Israel First! - Massachusetts lawmaker pushes bill to target opponents of the Jewish Police State - Government Blacklist for Supporters of BDS - 13 Dec 2019

A Massachusetts lawmaker is pushing a bill that targets BDS and creates a blacklist of companies that support the movement

by Michael Arria

Massachusetts State Representatives Steve Howitt 

Last year, activists in Massachusetts were able to defeat an unconstitutional anti-BDS bill before it got off the ground. State Representatives Steve Howitt (R) and Paul McMurtry (D) had filed Bill H.1685 in 2017 with help from the pro-Israel Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). The legislation would have barred states agencies from entering into contracts with companies that carry out boycott actions “based upon such other person’s race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.”

Although the bill didn’t mention the BDS movement, its sponsors left no doubts about its intentions. “This is a proud moment where the legislature can stand together in support of Israel” said Howitt after introducing it, “This bill clarifies to businesses that either support BDS or who boycott Israeli-owned businesses and products that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will not engage in commerce with them. I look forward to its quick passage.”

In response to the bill, over 100 local organizations created a coalition called Freedom to Boycott. Activists involved in the opposition testified about the dangers of the legislation at a hearing that was held that summer. In the end, Bill H.1685  was referred to “study” by the oversight committee and seemingly died at the end of the legislative session.

The victory turned out to be short-lived. Howitt has reintroduced the same exact bill (in the form of Bill H. 2719 this time), but it lacks the institutional support that the first one possessed. A community member, who testified against the new version at a November 19th hearing, told Mondoweiss that the only local group who has returned to support the bill seems to be the Israeli-American Civic Action Network. The group’s website encouraged residents to submit testimony to the State Administration and Regulatory Oversight committee in support of the bill and supplied them with talking points. “As Israeli-Americans, American Jews, Christians, or anyone who chooses to freely associate with Israel, we face multiple forms of discrimination: anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant bias, color-based prejudice, and national origin discrimination,” claims their website.

In addition to Bill H. 2719, Howitt has also introduced a piece of companion legislation: Bill H. 2722. The companion legislation would amend Massachusetts’ debarment law in order to penalize companies that boycott sovereign nations. If a company is debarred, it ends up on a list of entities that are legally prohibited from contracting with the state. A subsection of the proposed bill allows state officials to determine whether or not a company deserves to be added to the list, regardless of whether or not it broke any state laws.

At the November hearing, former ACLU attorney Susan Wunsch provided an example of how the debarment legislation could potentially be used. “Put aside Israel for the moment, consider a company that joins a boycott and refuses to buy Saudi products to protest the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” said Wunsch, “It could be debarred and denied state contracts under H. 2722 because the US recognizes Saudi Arabia as a sovereign nation. It cannot be left to a state official to decide which boycotts are good and which are not in creating a debarment list.”

Bill H. 2722 is actually the fourth anti-BDS bill that Howitt has introduced. In addition to the three previously mentioned, he also introduced “An Act Relative to Pension Divestment from Companies that Boycott, Divest, and Sanction the State of Israel” in 2015. That legislation died before receiving a hearing.

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/12/a-massachusetts-lawmaker-is-pushing-a-law-that-targets-bds-and-a-blacklist-of-companies-that-support-it/

Boeing Airline Executive Bosses Should Be On Trial For Industrial Murder - 13 Dec 2019

Former Boeing senior manager Ed Pierson testified on Wednesday before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Commerce Committee that he warned senior company management twice in the summer of 2018 that “deteriorating factory conditions” at the Renton, Washington Boeing 737 production facility would inevitably produce faulty and potentially deadly aircraft.

The report by the ex-employee reveals another layer of the criminality and negligence of Boeing executives, abetted by the regulatory agencies, in their drive to generate multi-billion-dollar profits from the 737 Max 8 aircraft. It is more evidence, this time by someone on the shop floor, that the leadership of Boeing and the Federal Aviation Agency should be indicted for the murder of the 346 men, women and children killed in the two Max 8 crashes and for endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands more that flew on the deadly aircraft.

Pierson’s fears were realized four months after his second warning, when Lion Air Flight 610 plunged into the Java Sea after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board. This was followed by a second crash of a Max 8 jet just outside of Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which extinguished the lives of a further 157 human beings.

Deveney Williams (right) wipes a tear from her eye as she and Diana Sotomayor (left) and Hayley Freedman (center), friends of Samya Rose Stumo, hold up a sign depicting those lost in Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 during a House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearing

 

It was only after the second crash that Boeing decided to ground the deadly plane worldwide, and that only occurred after international outrage mounted when Boeing declared two days after the second crash that they had “full confidence in the safety of the 737 Max.” These comments were backed and echoed by the Federal Aviation Administration and US President Donald Trump.

The same House hearing also revealed that in the month after the first crash, an internal analysis by the FAA determined that, unless the plane was grounded, the Max 8 would average one fatal crash every two or three years, far more than Boeing or the agency indicated at the time. This report was suppressed by the agency for more than a year, even after the second crash in the span of less than six months.

In other words, the agency ostensibly responsible for ensuring the safety of airplanes knew that the Max 8 would inevitably kill more people, and did nothing to prevent the continued use of the plane.
The immediate reason for both crashes was a previously unknown piece of software known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), which erroneously activated as a result of a faulty angle-of-attack sensor and forced both planes into an uncontrollable nosedive. The sensors, Pierson noted, were replacements for the originals that were also defective, something that should not have happened on airplanes only a few months old, pointing to serious problems in the production of the Max 8 itself.

In an email from June 2018 to Boeing Vice President Scott Campbell, the head of the Max 8 program, Pierson warned that “Frankly right now all my internal warning bells are going off.” He explicitly noted the lack of skilled mechanics, electricians and technicians, and an overtime rate that more than doubled and fatigued workers. He added that “for the first time in my life, I’m sorry to say that I’m hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane.”

In his comments to the House, Pierson highlighted the “dogmatic focus on schedule” after the company demanded that the facility increase the number of planes it was making from 47 to 52 a month and the increased “product and worker-safety risks.”

As a result, Boeing’s internal quality tracking metrics found a 30 percent increase in engineering and wiring defects, which can all cause potentially fatal faults in an aircraft. This all could have impacted the broken MCAS sensors. In order to address these problems, Pierson recognized the need to shut the factory down “to allow our team time to regroup so we can safely finish the planes.”

Even as factory conditions worsened, Boeing executives continued to stonewall Pierson. During a meeting between Pierson and Campbell, in which the former reiterated his plea to shut down production to address documented safety concerns, the executive in charge of the 737 Max program told him, “We can’t do that. I can’t do that” because Boeing is “a profit-making organization.”

The naked greed embodied in this statement gives only a hint of the enormous sums of money Boeing has made thanks to the Max 8 program. While the grounding of the Max 8 and lawsuits by pilots and relatives of victims are expected to cost Boeing $8 billion, the company increased in value by nearly $200 billion from the time that the planes were announced in 2011 to when the entire fleet was grounded.

Boeing’s executives themselves also made immense personal fortunes. During the meteoric rise of the company’s stock in January and February of this year, Chief Financial Officer Gregory Smith, Executive Vice President John Keating, General Counsel Michael Luttig and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenberg all sold shares worth $9.5 million, $10.1 million, $9.5 million and $6.5 million, respectively.

These figures belie any crocodile tears Boeing’s leadership have shed, especially when one realizes that the second Max 8 crash occurred just one month after these windfalls. It points to the likely fact that Boeing’s leadership was well aware of the dangers of the aircraft and, rather than warn their pilots and passengers, used the opportunity to cash in. The stock data should be used as an exhibit for their trial.

Neither can one accept the remarks made by the members of the House Transportation Committee. In response to the release of the internal FAA document, Democratic Representative Peter DeFazio from Oregon stated, “Despite its own calculations, the FAA rolled the dice of the safety of the traveling public and let the 737 Max continue to fly.” The chairman of the House Transportation Committee made no mention of the fact that he and his colleagues recently passed the FAA Reauthorization Act, which gives Boeing and other airplane manufacturers even more freedom from regulation and oversight.

Moreover, the US, state and local governments have underwritten Boeing’s operations. Since 1994, Boeing has received $74 billion in government subsidies and loans, $14 billion of which have come just from the state of Washington. This money has been funneled from the working class directly into the pockets of executives and large shareholders.

This makes clear the relationship between the US government and Boeing, the country’s second largest defense contractor and the largest exporter. They do not have an adversarial relationship, but rather represent the nexus between giant companies, the state, and the military.

Despite obvious and mounting evidence of 346 counts of murder on the part of Boeing executives and government officials, no criminal charges have been brought against the responsible parties. This is fully in keeping with recent precedent, in which even the most horrendous corporate malfeasance has resulted in no prosecutions. The purpose of the prosecution should be not only to put these corporate killers behind bars, but to expose to the public the magnitude of the criminal conspiracy to sacrifice lives for profit.

The elevation of profit above human life is the social essence of capitalism. The Max 8 disasters are not merely symptoms of corporate greed, but the end result of the capitalist system itself, which subordinates all social needs to private profit. There is a basic contradiction between the interests of society, including safe, efficient and inexpensive air travel, and the private ownership of essential industries, as well as the division of the world economy among rival nation-states. The same basic contradictions of capitalism are fueling the geopolitical and economic conflicts that threaten nuclear war and ecological disasters.

The only way to prevent further disasters is to take the profit motive out of commercial flight, end the dominance of Wall Street and replace the nightmare of the capitalist market with a rationally planned and internationally organized system of air transport. This requires the nationalization of the airline and aerospace companies and their transformation into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kchPjrWloBIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kchPjrWloBI

Boston - encuentro5 Peña Saturday December 14 2019/ Peña del encuentro5 sábado 14 de diciembre 2019

 

 

When: Saturday, December 14, 2019, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm 

 

Where: encuentro 5 • 9A Hamilton Place • -- near Park street stop on Red Line • Boston

While this year 2019 has been a very difficult year for our Liberation Struggles, Peoples globally with renewed energy and vigor are rising, growing and strengthening Liberation Movements.  The December Peña will commemorate and celebrate in a two part program. First, we will commemorate liberation struggles, movements and honor revolutionaries and leaders who have inspired us with their ultimate contributions.

Second, we will celebrate our victories, our renewed commitment to a united struggle and solidarity.
Peña information and flyer will be posted on e5 web soon and you will receive announcements within a few days.

Please bring and share traditional holiday food and beverages. Please send us titles of your favorite dance music so that we may organize an inclusive playlist.

Hola compas

Aunque este año 2019 ha sido muy difícil para nuestras luchas de liberación, pueblos a nivel mundial con energía y vigor renovados están alzando, creciendo y fortaleciendo los movimientos de liberación. La Peña de diciembre conmemorará y celebrará en un programa de dos partes. Primero, conmemoraremos las luchas y movimientos de liberación, y honraremos a los revolucionarios y líderes que nos han inspirado con sus concluyentes contribuciones.

En segundo lugar, celebraremos nuestras victorias, nuestro renovado compromiso con una lucha unida y solidaria.

La información y el volante de la Peña se publicarán en la web de e5 pronto y recibirán anuncios dentro de unos días.

Traiga y comparta refreídos- bebidas tradicionales de estos días de fiestas. Envíenos títulos de su música de baile favorita para que podamos organizar una lista musical inclusiva.

Nobel Prize Winner Peter Handke Faces Right-Wing Hate Campaign in Germany For Opposing Imperialism

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2019 is due to be awarded to the Austrian writer Peter Handke (born 1942) on December 10.

Handke’s best-known work includes his play Offending the Audience (1966), The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (the novel published in 1970 and screenplay for the 1972 film directed by Wim Wenders), the autobiographical novella A Sorrow Beyond Dreams based on the life of his mother (1972), the novel (1976) and film (1978) The Left-Handed Woman, the screenplay for Wings of Desire with Wenders (1987), The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other (one-act play, 1992) and other works.

Following the announcement of the award, Handke, an author of renown, has been the subject of a massive hate campaign.

Peter Handke in 2006

The vicious attacks are not directed at Handke’s award-winning literary work. He ranks, over the course of five decades, as one of the leading authors and translators in the German language. The attacks are aimed at his political views. A significant section of Germany’s cultural and literary elite has never forgiven Handke for his vehement opposition to the smashing up of Yugoslavia and the military intervention carried out by NATO in the 1990s.

Handke had the courage to brand the Western powers for what they were—arsonists in the Yugoslav war—and condemn the illegal NATO bombing of Serbia. For his stance he was denounced as a denier of genocide, a defender of war crimes and an anti-Semite. All of these allegations are made in an October 25 article published by the literary figure Alida Bremer in the German online cultural magazine Perlentaucher. Bremer, a holder of the Order of the Republic of Croatia, however, is far from an unbiased witness.

Bremer’s vicious tirade is just one of many. The Bosnian-German author Sasa Stanisic has also taken part in the campaign against Handke. During his speech following the awarding of the German book price for 2019, Stanisic told the media present that Handke did not deserve the prize because he used his literature to spread lies.

The fusillades from Handke’s most aggressive opponents resemble the rantings of criminals intent on covering up their own tracks.

The NATO war against Yugoslavia twenty years ago witnessed the shift of an entire layer of German intellectuals and well-to-do petty bourgeoisie former pacifists into the camp of German militarism. The embodiment of this layer was former street fighter Joschka Fischer.

In his role as the first-ever Green Party German foreign minister, Fischer cynically used the sentence “Auschwitz can never happen again” to justify the bombing of Belgrade, which was reduced to ruins by Hitler’s Wehrmacht in World War II. The Greens paved the way for the first international military mission by the German army in the postwar period. Now such missions are commonplace—and extend from Afghanistan to Mali in Africa.

Handke defiantly and angrily opposed this development. In his travelogues “Justice for Serbia” and “Supplement” he did not mince words. He aptly described NATO as a criminal organisation, denounced the hypocrisy of the Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Green coalition government, and made unmistakably clear that he deeply despised the majority of journalists as little more than paid hirelings of the major powers.

Handke’s writings on Yugoslavia are clearly directed against a war based on falsehood and hysteria. His aim was not to justify Serb nationalism and its crimes but rather to desperately defend what once was the multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia. Even his descriptions of the countryside are permeated poetically by such considerations: landscapes and mountains are free of any ethnic-national boundaries. Nature itself embodies Yugoslavia and the people who lived there together in peace.
“Early on in his work, Handke clearly spoke out for peace and not for war and he represents a fundamentally anti-nationalist viewpoint,” was the comment by Nobel Prize Committee member Henrik Petersen to Spiegel Online, defending the decision to award the prize to Handke.

Two weeks ago in Die Zeit, Handke angrily asked: “How could Germany recognise Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, when more than a third of the population were either Orthodox or Muslim Serbs? That’s how a fratricidal war came about.”

The German government immediately recognised Slovenia and Croatia as independent states in 1991, thereby triggering bloody conflicts that claimed more than 100,000 lives and shattered Yugoslavia into seven hostile and economically unviable mini-states dominated by poverty, ethnic tensions and criminal elites. These statelets have remained playthings in the hands of the great powers.

“The old hostilities exploited by foreign powers in the First World War and then in the Second World War, broke out once again following recognition,” Handke added, and asked: “Had one forgotten that this state was founded in opposition to Hitler and his Third Reich?”

These issues are also bound up with Handke’s relationship with former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević who died in prison in 2006, following his trial by the Hague War Crimes Tribunal. Handke spoke briefly at Milošević’s grave, a contribution which was subsequently interpreted as support for war crimes and massacres. In reality, Handke merely expressed his grief and helplessness in the face of the Yugoslav disaster.

Milošević—like the Croat leader Franjo Tudjman and the Slovenian Milan Kučan—was a longtime official in the regime of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. Confronted with growing opposition from the working class, Milošević increasingly relied on nationalism and the restoration of capitalism to preserve his power and privileges.

After his death one wrote: “While there is no doubt that Milošević bore his share of responsibility for the bloodshed that erupted in the Balkans in the 1990s, in the end the political source of his guilt lay principally in his adaptation—like other Yugoslav ex-Stalinist bureaucrats turned nationalists—to the capitalist market policies of imperialism in the region and his use of nationalism to divert the opposition of working people to the economic devastation wrought by these policies.”

Handke was unwilling to uncritically accept the transformation of Milošević from an ally of the West and a man praised for his free-market reforms into a villain and a “new Hitler.” He understood that the demonisation of Milošević was profoundly reactionary. In a similar manner, Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were both transformed virtually overnight from Western partners into reincarnations of Hitler in order to justify the wars that ended in the complete subjugation and destruction of their societies.

Handke approaches these questions as a writer, not as a politician or historian. He has no solution. “Handke’s work is characterised by an approach which criticises ideologies and raises ethical questions, he does not put forward a political program,” Petersen writes. The accusation that Handke justified massacres is an infamous lie. He has expressly distanced himself years ago from the massacre in Srebrenica, which he has been accused of trivialising.

                                                         Peter Handke age 75 

The political campaign against Peter Handke takes place against the background of massive military rearmament and ideological and practical preparations by Germany for new wars. Those who stand in the way of these preparations face a relentless media campaign, irrespective of their merits.

A similar campaign took place seven years ago when Günter Grass was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. After writing a poem warning of Israeli preparations for war against Iran and the danger of a nuclear world war, Grass was viciously denounced as an anti-Semite and closet Nazi.

https://archive.is/D0fRO

Nude portrait of Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in high heels sparks fury in Mexico - by David Agren (Guardian) 11 Dec 2019

Mexico battles over legacy of revolutionary Emiliano Zapata

Campesinos storm museum to call for removal of image featuring revolutionary hero posing in pink sombrero

A new portrait of Emiliano Zapata has caused a firestorm of outrage for its portrayal of the Mexican revolutionary hero striking a seductive pose – clad only in a pink sombrero and high heels.

Furious campesinos stormed one of the country’s most renowned art museums on Thursday to demand the removal of the painting, part of a new exhibition titled Zapata after Zapata that seeks to present alternative views of the Mexican revolution.

 

 

“This isn’t freedom of expression, it is debauchery! It’s degrading. They can’t exhibit our history that way,” fumed Antonio Medrano, a spokesman for the protesters. “They can’t permit this kind of mockery.”

The small painting by Fabián Cháirez depicts a naked Zapata, astride a white horse. His willowy frame is bound by a ribbon striped with the Mexican tricolor of red, white and green, while his lips pout under his distinctive curved moustache.

Press pictures of the painting provoked strong reactions in Mexico, where Zapata has maintained an unambiguously heroic reputation since the revolution of 1910 – when he called for “reform, freedom, justice and law”.

Some of Zapata’s heirs – with matching droopy moustaches – vowed to take legal action against the exhibition.

“We are not going to allow this,” said Jorge Zapata Gonzalez. “For us as relatives, this denigrates the figure of our general – depicting him as gay.”

Apocryphal tales of a gay romances involving Zapata have been published in recent decades, but historians say there is little evidence to support the stories.

Mexican politicians of all stripes have long tried to claim Zapata as their own – including the some of his supposed revolutionary allies, who later betrayed and killed him.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared 2019 – the centennial of his death – as the “year of Zapata”, emblazoning the revolutionary leader’s familiar image of a bushy mustache, sombrero and bandolier on government letterhead and promotional materials.

“He’s the least controversial revolutionary strongman and the most ‘leftwing’ in the modern sense,’” said Harim B Gutiérrez, history professor at the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

But Zapata’s image is also the most malleable, and it has been appropriated by a host of social causes which may not have much to do with his original struggle to secure a better deal for landless peasants.

“Every 20 years or so something pops up” involving Zapata’s image, said Luis Vargas Santiago, the curator of the current exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Most recently, that “something” has been gender and sexuality. The current exhibition comes at time when Mexico’s LBGTQ communities have become more prominent and women have been more outspoken against the country’s endemic machismo, sexual harassment, and femicides.

In recent weeks, women protesting in Mexico City against sexual violence have been criticised for spraying graffiti on monuments and centuries-old buildings.

Vargas Santiago said the use of Zapata to advance social agendas followed a similar logic.
“It’s not like Zapata’s image is a fixed symbol which cannot be challenged,” he said. “Just like monuments are questioned, Zapata is also an image that can be subverted.”

Vargas Santiago said some of Zapata’s descendants had expressed support for the exhibition.
The family itself has also split over the use of Zapata’s image – with some descendants applying for a trademark to sell Zapata-branded merchandise such as T-shirts and tequila.

The core question, according to Vargas-Santiago, is: “Who does Zapata belong to? Does he belong to his family members? Does he belong to the government? Or does he belong to everyone? Our response is: he belongs to everyone who identifies with his legacy.”

https://archive.is/9N7eV

Source - Guardian