Edmonton Journal: Allied soldiers — including Canadians — raped thousands of German women after Second World War: research

The exact number of rapes is unknown, with estimates ranging from tens of thousands to millions. It is clear, however, that this violence was driven in no small part by a desire to exact revenge on the Germans for atrocities committed in the East, including mass sexual violence perpetrated against “non-Aryan” women. [...]

However, wartime sex between soldiers and enemy civilian women occurs within a complex sexual economy. During the Second World War, it was common for both German women and women living in German occupied zones to enter into negotiated relationships of exchange, wherein sex was traded for protection and provision. [...]

This approach makes virtually all wartime sex between civilians and enemy soldiers criminal, regardless of whether the women involved saw it that way. The reality is that women engage in strategic bargaining under wartime conditions, often using their sexuality as a lever of power. Many of these women regard their exchange of sex for survival as a choice; a constrained one, to be sure, but nevertheless a meaningful choice. [...]

The question of how we should make sense of Allied sexual violence perpetrated against German women must be considered within the broader context of political struggles over wartime cultural memory. Feminist mobilization around the rapes, led in part by the activist and filmmaker Helke Sander, began in the 1990s and was explicitly structured around the idea of silence-breaking for the purpose of combating a patriarchy premised on women’s sexual subjugation.

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Social Europe: May’s Perpetual Brexit And Labour’s Forsaken Base

The Brexiters, and their followers who just want to be PM and are signaling to party members, have put their collective foot down over the Irish border. This could imply that May will have to finally break with the Brexiters. But first she will try to do what she has done since negotiations began, which is to find a fudge that is good enough for the EU and which just keeps the Brexiters on board. I have no idea if such a fudge is possible, but suppose she manages to achieve one and prevents a revolt from the rebels in her party, so we leave in 2019 as planned.

If that happens, we are in danger of having perpetual Brexit. A final deal cannot be fudged, and the reality is that no deal is possible that will keep the Brexiters happy and be acceptable to the EU. The stumbling block is the Irish border: the EU will not negotiate an FTA that requires a hard border, and the Brexiters will not accept either the UK staying in the Customs Union (CU) and SM for goods, or a border in the Irish Sea. A crunch point could come at the end of 2020, but to avoid that May will plead for an extension which the EU may grant. And so it will go on: perpetual Brexit.

In a strange way, it is in May’s interest for this to happen. No one thought she would last for more than a few years after the 2017 fiasco, but Brexit keeps her in place. The majority of the parliamentary party dare not allow her to go because they will get a Brexiter in her place, given that it is members who ultimately decide. Furthermore, the closer we get to 2022 the less the party will want a bust up over how transition ends, so she fights another election. [...]

I think this is a mistake, although I am happy to have experts tell me otherwise. I think it is a mistake because you will lose more votes from disillusioned Remainers than you will gain from reassured Leavers, even when you allow for where each are in parliamentary seats. I keep being told that this is the Tories Brexit, but the moment Labour enable it they become complicit. If car factories in the North East go because we leave the SM, they cannot claim this is not our fault because we abstained on a vote that could have prevented this. Voting to stay in the SM indicates economic competence, which always matters in elections and particularly matters for Labour.

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Social Europe: Armenia’s Velvet Revolution

In 1978 Vaclav Havel wrote The Power of the Powerless in which he argued against the communist regime, maintaining that it forced people to “live in a lie”. For Havel, the resistance against the lie was to begin living in the truth and to challenge one’s own powerlessness through recognising one’s agency. Fast forward forty years, and we are now witnessing a new velvet revolution in post-socialist Armenia, a country which proclaimed its independence from Soviet rule in 1991, but which has long struggled to create a democracy. More than anything else, this is a revolution about values. It is about the values of Armenian society and its domestic, socio-economic and political realities. The revolution is not about geopolitics or foreign relations. [...]

Through these actions Armenia’s citizens, who some had described as apathetic, fatalistic, and demoralised, began to challenge the regime’s hold on power and its legitimacy to govern. Today, per official statistics, over one third of Armenians live in poverty and the country’s population has declined below 3 million due to both emigration and a declining birth rate. On the one hand, there is a desire to be rid of the oligarchic system of governance and to implement a more democratic and just system of governance which recognises and respects the rule of law and the human rights of Armenia’s citizens. On the other hand, there is a desire to live in a fairer society, where citizens live with dignity and where nepotism and corruption do not lead to extremes of social and income inequality and poverty.  [...]

Inclusion and tolerance are new values to Armenian society, where not only disabled people, but also people who identify as LGBT have faced discrimination, marginalisation, and even violence. Indeed, the RPA old-guard has used the presence of feminists and LGBT activists involved in the movement to attack Pashinyan as promoting ‘Western values’. And to be sure, the old divisions may return after the revolutionary euphoria passes, but for now, suited doctors and lawyers are rallying and marching alongside young tattooed hipsters, grizzly-bearded old men, and vocal young feminists, in an atmosphere characterised by peace, joy, and tolerance.

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SciShow: Every Winter, These Squirrels Destroy Their Brains

Vintage Everyday: Believe It or Not: Human Zoos Really Existed in the Past, And There Are Pictures to Prove It

 Have you ever heard of a human zoo? A human zoo was a place (and yes, they really existed in the past) where people were kept for display, just like animals are kept in zoos. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western civilization and non-European peoples or with other Europeans who practiced a lifestyle deemed more primitive. Some of them placed indigenous populations in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and Europeans.

Human zoos were quite popular, as many of them were found around Europe during the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. However, they weren’t the only continent that liked to expose humans in this way. North America, specifically the U.S, had their fair share of human zoos; however they stepped up their game from the Europeans.

Ethnological expositions are sometimes criticized and ascertained as highly degrading and racist, depending on the show and individuals involved. It was obviously one of the most horrendous things one can imagine, and these pictures of human zoos are bound to terrify you!

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Quartz: Scientists have developed a new plastic that can be recycled infinitely

But now chemists at Colorado State University have made a new kind of plastic that can be recycled over and over again without losing its quality. The plastic, reported in the journal Science, can be broken down into its building blocks using mild temperatures and chemicals, and then built back up again to be as good as new.

The world produces around 300 million tons a year, and this is expected to exceed 500 million tons by 2050. Most plastics are produced for a single use. Only 5–10% of plastics are recycled today. And the resulting plastic is of low quality so it isn’t recycled again and also ends up in landfills. Biodegradable plastics and novel ways to break down plastic help. [...]

Eugene Chen and his colleagues have found a way to do that. They have developed a plastic that can be produced from a ring-shaped molecule in just a few minutes at room temperature and without the need for harsh solvents. The plastic is as strong as commercial plastics.

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Quartz: Hawaii pledges to become carbon neutral by 2045—the most ambitious goal of any US state

One of the bills cites a study that found that Hawaii could suffer $19 billion worth of damage to private property because of a rise in sea levels. When public infrastructure is included, the damage will likely be a lot higher. That is why it isn’t surprising that the US state most vulnerable to climate change is the one most keen to mitigate its impact. [...]

To be sure, it’s not clear if the state has thought through how hard a net-zero emissions target is to meet. The bill mentions initiatives such as planting trees and improving soil health as means of sequestering carbon, but not technologies such as carbon capture and storage that are proven to reduce emissions on a larger scale. That’s where the greenhouse-gas sequestration task force will help. It has a 2023 deadline to craft a plan that Hawaii can use to reach carbon neutrality. One of the bills also opens the door for the state to participate in carbon-trading programs, such as the one in California, and to use other market-driven tools to cut emissions.

Before Hawaii’s latest moves, Rhode Island was the state with the most ambitious climate goal: cutting emissions by 85% of 1990 levels by 2050. More importantly, Hawaii can now count itself among the most climate-friendly territories in the world. The Maldives aims to become carbon neutral by 2020, Costa Rica by 2021, Norway by 2030, Iceland by 2040, Sweden by 2045, and New Zealand by 2050. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that more states and countries will need to join this list if the world as a whole is to avoid climate catastrophe.

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The Washington Post: 5 big consequences of Trump’s Iran blunder

Ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a written statement, “While I strongly opposed the JCPOA, it is a grave mistake to walk away from this deal without a plan for ensuring that Iran does not restart its nuclear weapon program, without a strategy for countering Iran’s dangerous non-nuclear activities, and without our allies and partners.” He added, “The governments of Iran, Russia, and China will seize this opportunity of self-imposed U.S. isolation to continue major weapons sales, deepen economic ties, and further challenge the United States and Europe not only in the Middle East but in other areas like North Korea.”  [...]

Second, whether our allies will now cooperate with this on nonnuclear matters including sanctions for Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for terrorism is an open question. The European Union has every reason to be wary of U.S. promises. In making it harder to deal with issues that were outside of the JCPOA, Trump makes our overall policy to Iran weaker and less coherent. 

Third, the administration’s total inability to plan ahead is on full display. Will we exempt allies from newly imposed sanctions? Do we have a military plan if Iran does make a race for the bomb — and if so, will allies join with us after we have backed out of the deal? How will we enforce sanctions? The plethora of questions belie anti-JCPOA hawks’ assurances that the administration had figured out all the post-deal angles. Hardly. The Treasury Department advises, “Sanctions will be reimposed subject to certain 90 day and 180 day wind-down periods. At the conclusion of the wind-down periods, the applicable sanctions will come back into full effect.” It’s unclear if Trump and his negotiators intend to use this time to extract more concessions from our allies. For now, we lack a clear path forward.

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CNN: Donald Trump just accidentally revealed something very important about his 'fake news' attacks

Trump either doesn't understand or ignores the difference between a story he doesn't like and one that is not true. He conflates the two for his own political purposes -- knowing his base hates the media and is more than ready to believe that journalists are willing to make up stories just to make Trump look bad. [...]

Here's the problem: Trump's attacks on the media -- as flawed and dishonest as they are -- are working. More than 4 in 10 people in a Gallup poll earlier this year could not name a single objective news source. Almost eight in 10 (77%) in a Monmouth University poll released last month said TV and print media report "fake news." That's a 14-point bump from the number of people who said the same last year. [...]

But, it's also important for people to understand what's behind Trump's aggressive anti-media campaign. Trump is about Trump. He calls media "fake news" because the coverage of him isn't as positive as he would like.

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