Could Climate Change Fuel the Rise of Right-Wing Nationalism?

Could Climate Change Fuel the Rise of Right-Wing Nationalism?

By Joshua Conrad Jackson, Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Michele Gelfand, Distinguished University Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland. First published on The Conversation.

Two trends have defined the past decade and both have been on display at this year’s session of the United Nations General Assembly.

One has been the escalating effects of climate change, which were the focus of the United Nations’ Climate Action Summit. Forest fires, floods and hurricanes are all rising in their frequency and severity. Eight of the last 10 years have been the warmest on record. Marine biologists warned that coral reefs in the U.S. could disappear entirely by the 2040s.

The other trend has been the surge of right-wing nationalist politics across Western nations, which includes Donald Trump’s election in the U.S., and the rise of nationalist political parties around the world.

Indeed, the first four speeches of the United Nations general debate were given by Brazilian right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, Trump, Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and far-right Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

"Yellow Vest" ? The Majority of French People Are Among the Richest 10% in the World

THOUSANDS OF YELLOW VESTS (GILETS JAUNES) PROTESTS IN PARIS CALLING FOR LOWER FUEL TAXES, REINTRODUCTION OF THE SOLIDARITY TAX ON WEALTH, A MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE, AND EMMANUEL MACRON'S RESIGNATION AS PRESIDENT OF FRANCE, 09 FEBRUARY 2019. BY NORBU GYACHUNG, CC BY-SA 4.0. VIA WIKI COMMONS.

" Yellow Vest " ? The Majority of French People Are Among the Richest 10% in the World

In France, the concern for inequality makes poverty invisible. For example, the organization Oxfam, whose name is related to the famine ( Ox ford Committee for Fam ine Relief), focused his campaign on the rich. The media gave the names of billionaires who would own as much as half of humanity but did not say a word about the poor. Yet, naming poor people increases their sympathy for them and promotes altruistic decision, as many studiesshow.

The invisibility of the poor could be explained by the current context. After long months of saying that yellow jackets "suffer", that they are "in distress" and can not "make ends meet" or "fill their fridge", can we still talk about those who live on $ 1.90 a day?

There is certainly good news: the proportion of the world's poor has fallen drastically. Forty years ago, it was over 40%. Today, only 10% of the world's population lives on $ 1.90 a day. Half of these people live in Africa.

So, imagine that you have 100 euros to give. You can give them to Christian, one of my students, born in Burkina Faso: he will send them to his family who live with $ 1.90 a day, as nearly half of Burkinabe. But you can also give them to Eric, father and driver, who earns a little more than 54 euros per day, the value of the daily smic.

How are you going to spend those 100 euros?

Greg Abbott Invoked Mental Illness After the El Paso Shooting. Where Is Evidence?

Greg Abbott Invoked Mental Illness After the El Paso Shooting. Where Is Evidence?

Hours after a white gunman walked into an El Paso Walmart on Saturday and killed nearly two dozen Hispanic shoppers, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott addressed a room full of reporters in the border city and expressed grief and support for the community.

As high-profile mass shootings continue to erupt across the country — three of which occurred in Texas in the last two years — a reporter asked the governor what he planned on doing to ensure one doesn’t happen again.

Abbott, a Republican, hesitated, then spoke at length about how the state Legislature reacted to the 2018 high school shooting in Santa Fe, eventually focusing on what he said was the most agreed-upon need: addressing mental health issues.

“Bottom line is mental health is a large contributor to any type of violence or shooting violence, and the state of Texas this past session passed a lot of legislation and provided funding for the state to better address that challenge,” he concluded, referring to bills aimed at improving children’s mental health care.

Behind him, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso, visibly stiffened, shaking her head slightly as Abbott connected mental illness to what appears to be an act of domestic terrorism fueled by a white supremacist ideology.

The next day, before a downtown El Paso vigil for the victims, she put into words what had been apparent on her face.

“I would also call on those who use mental illness as an excuse to please stop. Please stop,” Escobar told reporters, to light applause from those beginning to arrive for the service. “It further stigmatizes those who truly suffer from mental illness, and the fact of the matter is people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violent crime, not perpetrators.”

“This tragedy is not in vain if we can finally have a reckoning in this country as to what is really going on,” she added.

White Nationalist James Fields Jr, Heather Heyer's Charlottesville Assassin Sentenced To Life In Prison

White Nationalist James Fields Jr, Heather Hyer's Charlottesville Assasin Sentenced To Life In Prison

James Fields, Jr., the white supremacist who murdered Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others driving his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 has received a life sentence in federal prison.

Prosecutors had argued that Mr. Fields’s racist, anti-Semitic beliefs motivated his decision to attend the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and use his automobile in an act of domestic terrorism. Thomas T. Cullen, the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said after hearing the sentence that the case set a precedent for future instances of domestic terrorism.

Mr. Fields was one of hundreds of young white supremacists who swarmed Charlottesville in August 2017, marching with tiki torches shouting “The Jews will not replace us.”

Why the Catholic Church Is So Slow To Act In Sex Abuse Cases: 4 Essential Reads

Why the Catholic Church Is So Slow To Act In Sex Abuse Cases: 4 Essential Reads

By Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor. First published on The Conversation

The Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States, Carlo Maria Vigano, has accusedPope Francis and other officials of covering up that they were aware of sex abuse allegations against Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington.

The accusation follows a grand jury report in Pennsylvania that revealed a long and shocking scale of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Francis, who accepted McCarrick’s resignation last month, after an investigation found the allegations to be credible, has refused to comment on Vigano’s letter.

A Minimum of 30-40% Of Catholic Priests Are Gay, Asserts NY Times, As Vatican Prepares Sex Abuse Summit

Theodore McCarrick, previously the Archbishop of Washington, DC and Newark and a high-ranking Cardinal was defrocked last week and sent to live out his days in “prayer and penance'“ over sex abuse claims against him.

A Minimum of 30-40% Of Catholic Priests Are Gay, Asserts NY Times, As Vatican Prepares Sex Abuse Summit

The New York Times has delivered a staggering, in-depth look at the Catholic Church and its crisis over sexual abuse — and sexual abstinence generally, considering the scale of it homosexual population among priests. Entitled ‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’ Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out, writer Elizabeth Dias navigates the complexity of church doctrine that drives away homosexuals in shame, while attracting a preistly population estimated to be minimally one-third gay.

Mitch Landrieu Launches E Pluribus Unum Fund For Racial Reconciliation With Backing By Emerson Collective

Mitch Landrieu Launches E Pluribus Unum Fund For Racial Reconciliation With Backing By Emerson Collective

The removal of the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, was the second of four Confederate monuments scheduled by then New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu for relocation in advance of the city’s 300 anniversary. The larger-than-life image of Davis atop an ornate granite pedestal roughly 15-feet high was erected in 1911, nearly 50 years after the end of the war, and commissioned by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association.

A month earlier workers dismantled an obelisk that was erected in 1891 to honor members of the Crescent City White League who in 1874 fought in the Reconstruction-era Battle of Liberty Place against the racially integrated New Orleans police and state militia.

Two other works were also removed in the summer of 2017: a bronze statue of Gen. Robert E Lee that has stood in a traffic circle, named Lee Circle, in the city’s central business district since 1884, and an equestrian statue of P.G.T. Beauregard, a Confederate general. 

Former Alabama Senator and Attorney General in the Trump Administration Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III bears the Confederate general’s name.

Protests on both sides of the Confederate statue debate were fierce, prompting Mayor Landrieu to make an eloquent, emotional and gifted speech on the subject of removing the Confederate monuments on Friday, May 19, 2017.

The full text of Landrieu’s speech was published by The New York Times. I consider it to be one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard — from its sweeping beginning to its soul-wrenching end.

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way — for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans — the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando De Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more. Read on.

Tallahassee Shooter Of Six Women, Killing Two, Had History of Incel Ideology & Misogyny

DR. NANCY VAN VESSEM (L) AND MAURA BINKLEY (R). PHOTO: TBH/FACEBOOK

Tallahassee Shooter Of Six Women, Killing Two, Had History of Incel Ideology & Misogyny

While Trump tries to scare the hell out of women over immigrants, he doesn't mention the white dude firing on six women -- killing Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, who worked at Florida State University’s College of Medicine, and FSU student Maura Binkley, 21. -- in a yoga studio in Tallahassee on Friday.

NY Mag writes that the assassin -- who killed himself -- left a digital footprint of right-wing extremism and references to the anti-women 'incel ideology'. There is a strong probability that this unreported attack due to Tues. elections is the fourth attack by a right-wing extremist in the US in less than 2 weeks.

Facts-driven people know that right-wing extremism is a far greater threat to women than refugees. The Friday shooter Scott Paul Beierle, 40, shot one of the women six times. The Florida graduate and military veteran has a history of harassing young women, including two arrests for groping in 2012 and 2016.

Buzzfeed  News characterized the shooter as “a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed misogynist who railed against women, black people, and immigrants in a series of online videos and songs”:

In 2014, Beierle filmed several videos of himself in a You Tube channel, offering extremely racist and misogynistic opinions, in which he called women “sluts” and “whores,” and lamented “the collective treachery” of girls he had went to high school with.”

Melania Trump Honors Africa's Colonial Past While Ignoring Devastating Cuts To African Women's Health

Melania Trump Honors Africa's Colonial Past While Ignoring Devastating Cuts To African Women's Health

Two people were in the global news in Africa yesterday -- Melania Trump in her colonial hat rolling around Kenya -- and Dr. Denis Mukwege, with his Nobel Peace Prize, co-shared with Nadia Murad.

I spent my time writing Friday about the revered Dr. Mukewege, who I’ve followed for over a decade. One wonders just how much funding Trump has cut to the women in the Congo and across Africa. It's billions.

Regarding Melania Trump, to roll into Africa looking like she just stepped out of the colonial masters period is just too much. I'm tired of her making statements with clothes and then professing that we are attacking her and not listening to her voice.

The Blame Game: Taylor Swift Delivers Emotional Thank You; PA Condemns Over 300 Priests As Perpetrators Of Sexual Abuse

The Blame Game: Taylor Swift Delivers Emotional Thank You; PA Condemns Over 300 Priests As Perpetrators Of Sexual Abuse

It's a year ago that Taylor Swift won her sexual assault case against Colorado DJ David Mueller, who sued her for $3 million in damages after she claimed he placed his hand under her skirt and grabbed her butt hile posing for a photo. Swift filed a countersuit asking for a symbolic $1 in damages, which the jury awarded her in winning her case. 

Swift addresed the issue during an emotional speech for her Tampa Reputation concert. Thanking her fans for their support while stressing the need for better justice for sexual assault victims, Taylor said: "I guess I just think about all the people that weren’t believed and people who haven’t been believed and the people who are afraid to speak up because they think they won’t be believed. And I just wanted to say that I’m sorry to anyone who ever wasn’t believed because I don’t know what turn my life would take if people didn’t believe me when I said that something had happened to me. And so I guess I just wanted to say that we have so, so, so much further to go, and I’m so grateful to you guys for being there for me during what was a really, really horrible part of my life." viaELLE US

The pop star's words ring so relevant this morning, with publication of "a searing report" about bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covering up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over 70 years. The report covered six of the state's eight Catholic dioceses, identifying more tha 1,000 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests. 

LeBron James Opens I PROMISE School | Trump Calls Lemon & LeBron Really Dumb | Melania Trump Praises James' New School Referencing A Future Visit

LeBron James Opens I PROMISE School | Trump Calls Lemon & LeBron Really Dumb | Melania Trump Praises James' New School Referencing A Future Visit

In a Tuesday tweet, Michelle Obama praised LeBron James for his recently-announced I PROMISE School, a joint venture between the Akron, Ohio school system and the LeBron James Family Foundation. The I PROMISE school officially launched on Monday with classes for third and fourth graders. It will expand each year with the goal of having grades one through eight by 2022. 

Obama tweeted, “.@BarackObama and I are so proud of @KingJames and @IPROMISESchool. Kids in Akron and across the US are lucky to have you as a role model on and off the court. Keep using your platform for good and giving our kids a chance to shoot for the stars.  #ReachHigher #BetterMakeRoom”

The new school's principal, Brandi Davis, is a veteran of the Akron school district, and she has served on the board of the LeBron James Family Foundation since its origination.  Davis has worked for Akron Public Schools for 18 years, as a teacher and principal at Central Hower, as an assistant principal at East High School and a principal at Schumacher Elementary School. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Akron, and lives on the west side.

As LeBron James' admirers far and wide -- including the business community -- appauded his new school initiative, America's racist, white nationalist president created a uproar, taking to Twitter on Friday night after James spoke calmly and with composure in a CNN interview with Don Lemon recorded on Monday.

How Will Progressive Karlie Kloss Manage Ivanka Trump's Clutching Embrace Of Her New 'Sister'

How Will Progressive Karlie Kloss Manage Ivanka Trump's Clutching Embrace Of Her New 'Sister"

Rhonda Garelick has written a superb, consise analysis of Ivanka Trump and her brand and its historical fashionable roots in the rise of fascism. Garelick writes compararatively of Ivanka and Coco Chanel.

Now that the successful, progressive superwoman Karlie Kloss will be Ivanka's sister-in-law, it will be interesting to watch how Kloss handles this new sisterly love affair. Ivanka has been quick to celebrate her new 'sister' on Instagram. The Cut's headline of the engagement announcement summarizes what Karlie and Josh Kushner already know:Ivanka Trump Called Karlie Kloss Her 'Sister' in a Haunting Instagram Comment.

Karlie not so much, although reports are quick to note that Jared Kushner's brother Josh, the much more progressive Kushner son and Karlie's future husband, is very close to Ivanka -- a Manhattan liberal in her former life.

Charlottesville Car Killer James Alex Fields Jr. Charged With First Degree Murder

Charlottesville Car Killer James Alex Fields Jr. Charged With First Degree Murder

Self-professed neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr., 20, has been charged with first-degree murder Thursday, after being jailed on lesser charges since the Aug. 12 for the death of Charlottesville protester Heather D. Heyer. 

Fields had been charged with second-degree murder, punishable by five to 40 years in prison. WaPo writes:

Authorities had initially said that 19 people were injured, in addition to Heyer, when Fields allegedly rammed his 2010 Dodge Challenger into another vehicle on purpose on a crowded street. But testimony at the preliminary hearing revealed that there were many more victims. Besides first-degree murder, Fields, who lived in Ohio before his arrest, is charged with eight counts of “aggravated malicious wounding,” meaning that at least eight of the 35 people who were hurt suffered what Virginia law describes as “permanent and significant physical impairment," writes the New York Times. 

ADL Confirms James Murdoch's $1 Million Gift & $1 Million Via His Email To Friends | Fox News Hires Alleged White Nationalist Sebastian Gorka

ADL Confirms James Murdoch's $1 Million Gift & $1 Million Via His Email To Friends | Fox News Hires Alleged White Nationalist Sebastian Gorka

In August 2017, in the days after white nationalism raised its ugly head in Charlottesville, James Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox sent an email to friends and colleagues that was leaked to media. 

Commenting that he rarely discussed his family's charitable giving, Murdoch announced a pledge from him and his wife for $1 million to the Anti Defamation League (ADL) and urged others to also support the organization. 

This week the ADL confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the Murdoch donation of $1 million was received, accompanied by almost another $1 million associated with Murdoch's email. 

Billionaire Robert Mercer Denounces Milo Yiannopoulos, Calling His Prior Support 'A Mistake'

Billionaire Robert Mercer Denounces Milo Yiannopoulos, Calling His Prior Support 'A Mistake'

Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, a major Republican donor to the Trump campaign announced Thursday that he is selling his stake in Breitbart News to his daughters; pulling all of his funding from Milo Inc., the new controversial entertainment venture run by Milo Yiannopoulos, and is also relinquishing his co-CEO title at Renaissance Technologies for a non-management role. Vanity Fair writes:

In an open letter to investors, the 71-year-old strongly denounced the white nationalist movement that has come to be associated with several of his far-right political causes, tainting his reputation and putting Renaissance Technologies in the crosshairs of a divestment campaign. “Of the many mischaracterizations made of me by the press, the most repugnant to me, have been the intimations that I am a white supremacist or a member of some other noxious group,” he wrote. On the contrary, he said, “a society founded on the basis of the individual freedom that flourishes under a limited federal government has no place for discrimination . . . Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, creed, or anything of that sort is abhorrent to me. But more than that, it is ignorant.”

Mercer acknowledged his relationship with Steve Bannon, saying that he respected Bannon but also disagreed with him on political alliances. But it was Yiannopoulos, writes VF, that received condemnation for his neo-Nazis views. 

Led By NFL Players, Americans 'Take A Knee' Against Trump's Racist White Nationalism

Led By NFL Players, Americans 'Take A Knee' Against Trump's Racist White Nationalism

Once again America's racist, misogynist president Donald Trump has shown his true colors, causing more than a dozen -- 17 accounted for -- NFL players to 'take a knee' during America's anthem at today's NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars in London. The same players stood for the playing of the British anthem. 

The teams' owners also went on the record, with $1 million Trump donor Shad Khan, owner of the Jaguars,  linking arms with his players. “We recognize our players’ influence.” Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, another $1 million Trump donor, said in a statement on Sunday. “We respect their demonstration and support them 100 percent. All voices need to be heard. That’s democracy in its highest form.”

This is a developing story on Sunday. All over America, people are 'taking a knee', led by NFL players.

Waiting For A Perfect Protest? Op-Ed Argues I Am The Problem, Not Antifa

Waiting For A Perfect Protest? Op-Ed Argues I Am The Problem, Not Antifa

Anne's comment: "Your op-ed sanitizes the reality of the antifa protest in Berkeley, claiming that my white woman 'perfect march' moderation (I see myself as very progressive) is a greater problem for you than antifa's right to promote anarchy -- breaking windows, shutting down businesses, creating chaos and hurting people -- because a white nationalist wants to speak on campus.

Many antifa members are as committed to overturning our govt and creating anarchy to support their vision of justice as are the white nationalists, from all I've read. Your op-ed says clearly that I -- who sued the NYPD over events in Harlem and won -- am a greater problem for social justice -- than antifa.

Those claims are 1) absurd and 2) counter-productive to the cause of social justice. I am happy to stand (and have stood ALWAYS) for BLM, as an example.

But if you also demand that I agree to no free speech for the dreadful Ann Coulter, that Condoleezza Rice is not permitted to speak on any university campus, and that I speak proudly on behalf of black-shirt violence that breaks windows and clubs people for NO obvious reason but creating chaos and overturning our economic system, then you must explain to me 1) why this is necessary; 2) how it will succeed and 3) exactly what kind of America you imagine creating in your so-called just country. " {End comment}

On AOC yesterday, I did discuss this issue and also posted the polls referenced in this op-ed. I posted a link to the clergy group that organized the counter-protests in Charlottesville and have absolutely no issue with them. But if they are arguing -- as they seem to be -- that I must support a host of other actions, like antifa in Berkeley, I cannot support that violence. I do not support anarchy and the total overturning of capitalism in America, as antifa seeks (not that I think it's even possible). ~ Anne

Antifa Joins White Nationalists In National Spotlight As Media Explores Domestic Terrorism

PROTESTERS IN BLACK, ASSOCIATED WITH ANTIFA, SHOWN AT A "NO-TO-MARXISM" RALLY AUG. 27 IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. THE RALLY HAD BEEN CANCELED, BUT STILL ATTRACTED ATTENDEES AND DEMONSTRATORS TO MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. CIVIC PARK ALONG WITH SCORE OF POLICE IN RIOT GEAR. | M. SCOTT MAHASKEY/POLITICO

Antifa Joins White Nationalists In National Spotlight As Media Explores Domestic Terrorism

White nationalists are not the only domestic terrorists in America, although America's neo-Nazis aren't currently classified as such. In mid-August, after Charlottesville CNN explained:"While Congress chose to define "domestic terrorism," it did not actually create a crime of domestic terrorism. The punishment for committing an act of "terrorism" under federal law only covers crimes that either occur outside the United States or are initiated by people outside the United States. That means an act of pure terrorism that occurs right here at home, without foreign involvement, can't be prosecuted as terrorism under the law."

Michigan Introduces Bill To Mandate Teaching Slavery As It Existed In American History

Michigan Introduces Bill To Mandate Teaching Slavery As It Existed In American History

In the aftermath of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va, Democrats in Michigan's House of Representatives are pushing for legislation requiring that African-American history is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all public schools. 

This new legislation sponsored by Democratic Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, explains The Root, the lead sponsor, is critical due to growing attempts by Republican-led school boards to rewrite the history of slavery in America. 

The Texas Board of Education, in particular, has led the way in rewriting the history of slavery in America, changing the verbiage around the presence of Africans on plantations to 'workers' rather than slaves. More than one school board has tried to position the history of slavery as one akin to the temporary migrant workers who harvest food crops in America.