Category: Finland

California Wolverine Re-discovered After 86 Years

Note: Repost.

In stunning news, researchers at Oregon State University snapped a photo of a possible California Wolverine (Gulo gulo luteus) north of Lake Tahoe between Truckee and Sierraville in the Tahoe National Forest. This is the first proven detection of a wolverine in California in 86 years – the last one was shot dead in 1922.

According to new data, the wolverine in the photo at the top of the page is from the Rocky Mountains and is not a California wolverine. Reginald Barrett, dean of furbearer studies in the West, told me in an in a recent interview that he felt that this wolverine had come down from Idaho through the Great Basin into California.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, California wolverines never left this state.

The actual location was on Sagehen Road in the Sagehen Creek area at the Sagehen Creek Field Station. This station is in the Sagehen Creek Experimental Forest. The field station itself, where the photo was taken, is at 6,375 feet.

California wolverines seem to exist more at lower elevations as one travels north in California. Towards the south in the Sierra Nevada, they are found more at 8,000-9,000 feet if sightings are any guide. It is 8.4 miles north of Truckee and 20 miles north of Lake Tahoe. Sagehen Basin itself ranges from 5,900 to 8,700 feet.

Despite much theory stating that wolverines hate any human presence, the area where the photo was taken is only 1.5 miles away from a major highway, Highway 89.

An excellent brochure about the Sagehen Creek area, listing hydrology, geology, geography, botany and biology, including insects, reptiles, amphibians and mammals, is here. Katie Moriarty, the graduate student who took the photos, was probably staying at the field station, which has excellent lodging facilities for researchers and has served as the study area for more than 80 theses and dissertations.

A photo of the first California Wolverine documented since 1922. This wild region where they were found in being proposed as a wilderness area by Senator Barbara Boxer. The probable proposed area is the proposed Castle Creek Wilderness Area . The photo shows the wolverine from the rear view.
It is probably next to a Red Fir.
In the background is what appears to be a White Fir and the tree in the foreground looks like some kind of pine. In this part of the Sierras, the Red Fir Zone (where this photo was probably taken) starts around 7,000 feet elevation.A much larger version of this pic, too large to put on this blog, is available here on the researchers’ website.

The area is in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California.

What they mean by confirmed sighting is that it has to be backed up by a photo or a specimen. They say fur or scat also counts, but apparently that is not true, as California wolverines were confirmed via fur samples from Del Norte Siskiyou and Shasta Counties by the California Department of Fish and Game in the late 1980’s.

I know that a wildlife biologist saw one above Bishop, California in 1980, and I understand that there have been a number of other sightings by biologists. There have been quite regular sightings of these very elusive animals in California down through the years.

Live wolverines have also been trapped in far Northern Washington state in the Cascades near the Canadian border in the past couple of years.

The natural range of the California wolverine extends in California only and has been separated from wolverines in the Washington Cascades for at least 2,000 years, according to genetic studies. As a subspecies, it is controversial and is not yet accepted across the board by the scientific community.

The first description of a California wolverine was published in the Field Colombian Museum of Zoology Zoological Series in 1903 (rare online copy here). You can see in the description of the type specimen from Mount Whitney that the California wolverine was much paler than the wolverine normally found in the rest of North America.

The California wolverine is a subspecies of wolverine that split off from other branches about 2,000-11,000 years ago. The California wolverine formerly ranged into the Cascades of California and even over towards the Coast in the Northern Coast Range all the way down to San Fransisco.

It then ranged down the Sierra Nevada Mountains all the way down to the southern end of the range at the Southern Sierra Wilderness, where they were last sighted in the 1950’s. Monache Meadows is usually given as the southern end of the range, but the Southern Sierra Wilderness is south of there.

Based on sightings, it was felt that the California wolverine had declined to a very low level near extinction in the early 1930’s and then the population had been increasing slowly ever since. William Zielinski is an expert on wolverines who participated in this study.

Thomas Kucera, a researcher at San Fransisco State University, undertook a wolverine survey in the state in the early 1990’s with bait stations and cameras.

They saw quite a few animals, including many martens, a few fishers, coyotes, bears, bobcats, and mountain lions, but they found no wolverines in the exhaustive survey. The guarded conclusion then was that California wolverines were extinct in the state. I did a web search on the California Wolverine recently and most experts were saying that the the general conclusion was that they were gone from the state.

Wolverines in the Sierra Nevada

I never thought this animal went extinct in the state because I was aware of regular sightings, mostly around the Sierra National Forest, which is near where I lived for 16 years.

There has been an undated sighting of a wolverine four miles west of the Snow Canyon Research Natural Area on the Amador Ranger District of the El Dorado National Forest. This area is near Highway 88 about three miles south of Carson Pass, and part of it is in the Mokelumne Wilderness.

There have also been undated wolverine sightings in the Pacific Valley area north of the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness, an area that connects the Carson-Iceberg with the Mokelumne Wilderness on the El Dorado National Forest. Pacific Valley (map) is being considered as an addition to the Carson-Iceberg. The date of these sightings is not known.

There have been sightings at Green Island Lakes, a National Forest Service Research Station at 6,100 feet in the Lassen National Forest in Plumas County.

Wolverines have also been sighted around Eagle Lake on the Lassen National Forest.

There have been two sightings on the Collins-Almanor Forest, a large commercial forest northwest of Lake Almanor. This area is where the Northern Sierra Nevada meets the Southern Cascades.

There was also an unverified sighting of a California wolverine four miles west of Truckee on Highway 80. It had scavenged road kill from this busy interstate highway and was dragging it down into the rocks to eat it. I traveled over Donner Pass in Summer 1979. It’s quite a beautiful area.

 


Approaching Donner Pass from the east. Highway 80 does not actually cross Donner Pass itself anymore but actually goes two miles to the north at Euer Saddle. Donner Pass gets 415 inches of snow a year, making it one of the snowiest places in the US. Wind gusts of over 100 miles an hour are common during winter storms.

North and east of Yosemite, in the Hoover Wilderness Area, wolverines are said to persist. One was spotted there near the Virginia Lakes in the 1970’s.

In 1978, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine near Disaster Peak (10,047 feet) in the Sonora Pass area in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. I went through the Sonora Pass area in 1987.

In 1979, a wolverine was spotted at Hilton Creek Lakes near Mt. Stanford (map). This area is east of Lake Edison and west of Tom’s Place in the John Muir Wilderness on the Sierra National Forest.

Hilton Creek Lakes in the John Muir Wilderness, elevation 10,705 feet. This area is near Stanford Peak. Access is out of the Rock Creek Trailhead on the East Side of the Sierras. A wolverine was seen here in 1979.

In 1980, a wildlife biologist saw a wolverine in the Robinson Flat area of the Foresthill Ranger District on the Tahoe National Forest.

In 1984, the district ranger of the Sierraville Ranger District, near where this photo was taken, saw a California wolverine running down a road in the middle of the day.

 

California wolverine tracks were seen here, at Courtright Reservoir, in 1990. The tracks were verified by a Forest Service biologist, but this counts as an unverified sighting, since tracks don’t count (Go figure!)
On the Downieville Ranger District on the Tahoe National Forest, a wolverine was sighted in 1989 in the Haskell Peak area.
Also on the Downieville District, another wolverine was seen in 1990 in the Upper Sardine Lake area.

Around 1990, tracks were sighted near Courtright Reservoir at 8,200 feet near Kings Canyon National Park in the southern Sierra National Forest. A local Forest Service biologist had seen the tracks.

Around 1990, a wolverine was spotted on the back side of Lembert Dome in Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park the middle of winter.

North of Yosemite on the Stanislaus National Forest, there was a wolverine sighting in the Emigrant Wilderness in 1990.

There are wolverine sightings near South Lake Tahoe. In 1990, a wolverine was sighted two miles from where Highways 50 and 89 meet in South Lake Tahoe and the southern end of the lake (map). This area is close to Emerald Bay, DL Bliss, and Sugar Pine Point State Parks. I have been to all of these parks on the shore of Lake Tahoe, but that was 45 years ago. It’s a beautiful place.

A wolverine was sighted in 1991 in the Euer Valley on the Truckee Ranger District in Tahoe National Forest.

A wolverine was seen in 1992 in the Harding Point area on the Tahoe National Forest northeast of Sierraville, and this sighting was confirmed by tracks.

In 1992, as wildlife biologist saw a wolverine in the Granite Chief Wilderness Area on the Tahoe National Forest.

In 1992 and 1993, a Biology teacher at the local high school in Oakhurst, Gary Spence, saw them two years in a row at Spotted Lakes (9,100 feet) in the far southeast corner of Yosemite National Park near the National Forest border. Spence is a good biologist and he used to go out on field surveys with the local Forest Service biologist.

Also on the Downieville District of the Tahoe National Forest, a wolverine was seen in 1993 in the Gold Lake Road and Salmon Lakes Road area.

In 1993, a wildlife biologist on the Lassen National Forest sighted a wolverine in a den near the headwaters of Deer Creek at 5,000 feet (note that even sightings by wildlife biologists are said to be unconfirmed). This area is near Child’s Meadow and is next to the southern border of Lassen National Park.

Lassen National Park’s draft management plan proposes to reintroduce wolverines to the park.

 

Child’s Meadow at the headwaters of Deer Creek near the southern boundary of Lassen National Forest. A wildlife biologist spotted a wolverine in a den here in 1993.

Those who keep saying that California wolverines no longer exist ought to note that all sightings are regarded as unconfirmed, even those by wildlife biologists.

Tracks are also regarded as unconfirmed sightings. This area was in private hands and was recently purchased by the Nature Conservancy. Incredibly, the private landowner wanted to put a golf course in here!

There was also a sighting in 1994 in Kaiser Pass near Huntington Lake at about 9,200 feet in the Sierra National Forest. The local Forest Service biologist said she believed the man who saw it.

 

Kaiser Pass east of Huntington Lake in the High Sierras. I was here in the summer of 1991 when I drove a relative and a friend to a drop-off at Florence Lake further on down the road. The road across Kaiser Pass was truly horrid and terrifying at the time, and I doubt if it has been improved. It’s beautiful up there though, and if you get the chance, check it out. A unverified sighting of a California wolverine was reported here in 1994.

 

The area to the west of Lake Tahoe continues to get sightings. A sighting was reported from Island Lake in the Desolation Wilderness Area just southwest of Lake Tahoe in 1994.

Another sighting was from the north shore of Loon Lake Reservoir near Lake Tahoe on the El Dorado National Forest on July 7, 1994. This is a few miles to the west of the Desolation Wilderness.

 

A Panorama of Loon Lake Reservoir west of the southwest shore of Lake Tahoe. A wolverine was seen here in 1994.

Another was seen in Lyell Canyon at 8,900 feet in eastern Yosemite in 1997.

 

Lyell Canyon in Yosemite National Park, where there was an unverified California wolverine sighting in 1997. This area is east of the Tuolumne River and southeast of Tuolumne Meadows. The Pacific Crest Trail runs through here, and Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep are known to exist in this area. Bighorns have been being devastated lately by mountain lions. This is poorly understood.
It appears that Bighorns are staying up high to avoid the mountain lions instead of migrating downslope as they normally do. Hence, they are being killed by avalanches when they stay in the high elevations for the winter. Bighorns and mountain lions evolved together, and it is not known why this dynamic is occurring. Domestic sheep grazing in this area is totally pointless and is ongoing.

Also in 1997, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine off Highway 120 just after it passes Tioga Pass to the east, looking down into Lee Vining Canyon. The wolverine was sighted running away about 1,000 feet down below.

 

Lee Vining Canyon just east of Tioga Pass. I was near Tioga Pass in August 2003, but I did not continue down the road a ways to the pass itself. In 1997, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine running away over a snowy ridge about 1,000 feet below near where this photo was taken. Tioga Pass is at 9,943 feet, so the wolverine was at about 9,000 feet.

In 1998, a wolverine was seen once again on the Downieville District on the Tahoe National Forest near Bassett’s Station.

The very wild area north of Lake Tahoe, especially the Granite Chief Wilderness, was considered to be one of the most likely places for the California Wolverine to be found due to the very high number of sightings in the area. In 2000, there was an excellent sighting of tracks in this area.

In 2001, a biologist spotted a wolverine somewhere on the Stanislaus National Forest, but the location was not given.

Donner Pass is where the famous Donner Party tried to cross into California in the winter of 1846-47, became trapped, turned cannibal, and ate half of their own party due to starvation. There was an unverified sighting of a California wolverine here in 2004 dragging roadkill off the highway to eat it. There have also been sightings north of Tahoe National Forest.

In 2004, there was a reported sighting north of Polly Dome Lakes at 8,500 feet near Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park.

 

The Polly Dome Lakes near Lake Tenaya, where there is an unverified California wolverine sighting from 2004. I was here in the Summer of 2003. I stayed at White Wolf campground and paid money for a cabin. Any lazy, old or out of shape person can do this, even you!
You drive your car into the campground and stay in a cabin! All you need is money. I even, at age 46, hiked up the murderous trail to Lukens Lake. You can do this too! All you need to do is get off your butt. Along the way, I saw a shrew running along the forest floor. Come on, when do you ever see such a thing?
I took a drive one day down the Tioga Road to Tuolumne Meadows and went by Lake Tenaya, where the scenery looks about like this. This part of Yosemite is beautiful! If you are in the area, take a drive up there in the summertime. There’s a nice highway, you don’t have to worry about a thing, and you are in the most beautiful scenery on Earth.

In 2004, apparent wolverine tracks were photographed on the trail up to Gabbot Pass west of Bishop by a group of hikers from Australia.

 

Possible wolverine tracks photographed in July 2004 at Gabbot Pass on the Sierra Crest west of Bishop by Australians David Noble and Lizzy Went. There have been consistent sightings in the area west of Bishop and east of Courtright Reservoir and just north of Kings Canyon National Park over a 28-year period now.
The view from Gabbot Pass is at 12,240 feet, where an unverified sighting of wolverine tracks was made in July 2004.

In 2005, a wolverine was spotted in Tuolumne Meadows, again in winter. The observer had taken zoology courses at UCLA for seven years.

Forest Service employees have made quite a few wolverine sightings in both the northern Tahoe National Forest and in the southern Plumas National Forest in recent years.

In addition, in the Duncan Canyon Proposed Wilderness Area on the Plumas National Forest, there have been two wolverine sightings in recent years. This area is near French Meadows Reservoir.

Also on the Tahoe, in 2006, a wildlife biologist saw a California wolverine at the San Fransisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus near Bassetts, 32 miles northwest of where the photo below was taken. That is also on the Tahoe National Forest.

 

San Fransisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Station, 32 miles northwest of the Sagehen Creek photo site. There was an unverified sighting of a California wolverine here by a wildlife biologist in 2006.

In September 2010, a wolverine was seen on the Pacific Crest Trail near Red Cones, which is near Devil’s Postpile and Mammoth Mountain.

Wolverines on the North Coast and in the California Cascades

On the North Coast and in the California Cascades, there have been wolverine sightings in Del Norte and Trinity Counties east through Siskiyou and Shasta Counties.

There have been sightings in the lower Pit River watershed near Carberry Flat and on the Lassen National Forest at Bald Mountain and Kosk Creek Basin.

There were a number of sightings in this area from 1960 to 1974. For instance, there was a sighting six miles north of Hyampom Road near Hyampom in 1974. Sightings are ongoing.

 

The very deep forest on the road between Hyampom and Hayfork in Trinity County. A wolverine was spotted here in 1974.

In 1980, Forest Service personnel on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest observed a wolverine on the Lower McCloud River at Chatterdown Creek several miles downstream from the Nature Conservancy McCloud River Reserve. This sighting was in Shasta County.

 

The Lower McCloud River at Ah-Di-Nah near the Nature Conservancy Reserve. Note the very deep forest here. A wolverine was sighted near here by Forest Service workers in 1980. Photo by Lily G. Stephen.

 

Dillon Creek on the Klamath National Forest is a Class V+ rapids stream. This area is extremely rugged, and it is almost impossible to hike out of this canyon. A wolverine was sighted in this area fairly recently.

There were numerous wolverine sightings in the Klamath Mountains of California in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

A wolverine was seen in Corral Bottom, 10 miles north of Hyampom, in the winter of 1989. It ran along the road in the snow for a hundred yards or so, then disappeared into a water cave in the three-foot deep snow.

Wolverine tracks were seen two times in Hyampom in the winter of 2010. Hyampom is located east of Eureka in the Trinity Alps.

The most recent sighting of a wolverine on the Klamath River was at Dillon Creek on the Klamath National Forest, 20 miles below Happy Camp (map) in 2000. This sighting occurred in Siskiyou County. The elevation here appears to be only 500 feet. Wolverines occur in deep forest at much lower elevations on the North Coast.

In Shasta County, recent sightings around 2009 are known from the Big Bend area north of Montgomery Creek near Burney Falls.

Wolverines in this part of California tend to use lower elevations and are not so restricted to the subalpine zone.

Wolverines are known to exist in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota and Michigan. Wolverines are thought to be secure and not endangered in the Idaho Sawtooths at the moment.

They were formerly present in many other states in the US, including Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, South Dakota, Nebraska (!), Iowa (!), Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland (!), New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. A good historical and present range map is here (Figure 2).

There are 14 different subspecies of the wolverine. The species is more or less circumpolar, ranging from northern Canada to Alaska across Siberia to Finland, Sweden and Norway. There are 500 wolverines in Scandinavia and 1,500 in Russia. They formerly occurred all through Norway and into Southern Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Northeastern Poland.

Wolverines in Europe

The southern populations have been extirpated except for a wolverine recorded in Estonia in 1986, which means they may be reclaiming former habitat there.

In Sweden they are limited to the far northwest where their numbers are growing but their distribution is irregular. There are 265 wolverines in Sweden. The population declined from 1870 to 1970 when they received protection. Since 1970, the population has been growing.

There are 150 wolverines in Norway. 100 years ago, they ranged through the whole country, but since then, they have been aggressively hunted to where they were limited to the north. Since 1970, they have recolonized the south-central area and remain in the north. Protections are in place.

In Finland it is an endangered species with a population of about 115. At the turn of the century, 50 wolverines a year were killed there. They then declined until they were protected in 1982. A good report on wolverines in Scandinavia is here.

Wolverines in Eurasia

They are still common, though declining, in Russia, where they are common in the far east. The are most common in the Komi region (population 880). With the return to capitalism, they have undergone radical declines in the Kola (population 160) and Karelia (population 80) regions. The chaos and insanity of the return to capitalism have probably resulted in unrestricted hunting in Russia.

Wolverines in East Asia

There is estimated to be a population of 200 wolverines in the Greater Khingan Range of Inner Mongolia in Northeast China. It is thought to be declining. There formerly was a population to the west in the Altai Mountains in Sinkiang Province, but they have not been seen there since the 1990’s. Poaching is thought to be the major threat in China.

Wolverines in Canada

They were formerly found through much Canada but are now uncommon in Ontario (though increasing), extremely rare in Quebec, and extirpated from Labrador. An excellent report on wolverines in Ontario can be found on the Internet on the Wolverine Foundation’s site here.

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, they are declining and are now found only in the northern parts of the provinces. They used to be found all through the forested areas of Alberta but are now limited to the Rockies and remote areas in the north.

They are common all through British Colombia except for the agricultural areas of the south. A subspecies on Vancouver Island is thought to be extirpated. It has not been seen since 1992. There is a horrible amount of logging occurring on that island.

Populations in the north in Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The population is estimated at 4,200 south of the 66th parallel. They may be more common in the Yukon than anywhere else on Earth other than the North Slope of Alaska. A great report on wolverines in Canada is here.

Wolverines in Alaska

They are common in Alaska but sporadic on the islands of the southeast.

Some Interesting Facts about Wolverines

Wolverines have a reputation for being solitary and antisocial creatures. It is said that they are barely social enough to reproduce. Nevertheless, there is a good bond between mothers and kits. Kits are known to stay with the mother for up to 14-15 months. That is a very long time for a mammal.

The notion that wolverines are like orangutans in being antisocial loners is being challenged. Findings out of research in Idaho’s Sawtooths have shown a three-year old male traveling with a male juvenile, showing him the ropes and how to avoid predators and find food. They also saw a grown male playing with a juvenile female in a meadow.

Previously it was thought that females alone raised kits, and males had nothing to do with their offspring like mountain lions and so many other mammals. Females reportedly remember their natal dens and recover them when their mother dies. Males may assume the role of patriarch by fathering kits with multiple females and may visit the females periodically. The legend of wolverine unsociability may have to be rewritten.

In the West, dens are made very high in the mountains near treeline. Denning is probably the major risk to wolverines in the US, as mothers readily abandon dens at the slightest disturbance. Hence, we may need to limit snowmobiling and cross-country skiing to help preserve American wolverines.

I do not think logging has much of an effect on wolverines since they live at such high elevations. It may even be beneficial if it increases the numbers of rodents, which they prey heavily on.

Wolverines are said to be scavengers, and there is something to this, but they are also omnivores who eat just about anything. They cover amazing distances in their never-ending search for feed. They are so ferocious that they have very few enemies.

There is a recorded instance of a wolverine stealing a mountain lion’s kill and then chasing the puma away. However, a black bear was recently recorded killing a wolverine in Yellowstone National Park. The intrepid and ferocious wolverine had tried to steal the bear’s elk kill right out from under the bear’s paws.

The wolverine is member of the weasel family, and it is best described as a weasel on steroids blown up to King Kong size. They have a reputation for ferocity and viciousness. This reputation is derived in part from the tales of fur trappers.

Wolverines were notorious for following fur trappers along their lines and destroying and eating any animals caught in traps. To trappers it often seemed that the wolverine was doing this out of pure spite. Wolverines also had a reputation for entering trapper’s cabins when trappers were away and destroying everything inside. To top it off, they would spray their foul scent from their glands all over the cabin.

A wolverine is hardly man’s best friend. Here a sweet, cuddly wolverine purrs and spreads the love around. Old-timers in the Truckee area, near where the photo was shot above, say it takes only two swoops of those claws to kill a dog. The old-timers said that wolverines in that area “lived in holes.” I have seen the claws on a road-killed badger, though, and those were just amazing.

It is often said that wolverines love wilderness and refuse to have anything to do with humans. This is not necessarily true.

In Northern Ontario, many sightings were made by trappers within 1/2 mile of Amerindian settlements.

In the Yukon, wolverines frequently raid garbage dumps on the outskirts of towns.

In Scandinavia, they prey quite heavily on sheep and reindeer such that they are becoming a major predator problem. Further, they are recolonizing former territory that is now inhabited by humans, with homes, towns, roads, etc.

Wolverine fur is very valuable. It is the only fur that has the ability to withstand frost without freezing over. Hence it is often used to line the areas of parkas right around the mouth where the breath comes out. Otherwise, moist breath tends to cause frost buildup around the parka wearer’s mouth.

The low elevation record for a wolverine in California is an unbelievable 1,300 feet in Tulare County.

Conservation organizations have repeatedly petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service over the past decade to list the wolverine in the lower 48 as an endangered species. The petitions are constantly returned on a Catch-22 basis – the wolverine has to be studied, especially population dynamics, to determine if it qualifies as an endangered species, and it is so rare that it is almost impossible to study it.

Earlier, a wolverine petition was returned by the Bush Administration as invalid. After that, on March 11, 2008, the Bush Administration denied listing the wolverine in the Lower 48 on the basis that healthy populations in Canada and Alaska should be able to keep the wolverine from going extinct even if the wolverine is extirpated from the Lower 48.

In this, the Bush Administration took a new tack. Under Clinton and probably under all previous Presidents, a number of species were listed even though they had healthy populations in Alaska and Canada. After all, most of us live in the Lower 48, not Alaska, Canada or Mexico. And it seems odd to depend on the kindness of nations to the north and south of us to keep species from going extinct.

One problem of the lack of listing of wolverines is that wolverines can still be trapped. 8-18 are trapped every year in Montana, and biologists feel that none should be trapped anymore in the state. It appears that trapping in Montana is untenable based on new evidence.

A great wolverine article is here. It’s written by Physical Geography Professor Randall J. Schaetzl of Michigan State University. Among many other fascinating observations, he notes that the last Michigan wolverine was killed in 1860, not the early 1800’s. So the Ubly sighting was the first in about 150 years, not 200 years as most references state.

References

Armentrout, S. et al. (Watershed Analysis Team). 1998. “Watershed Analysis For Mill, Deer, and Antelope Creeks.” USDA: National Forest Service, Lassen National Forest, Almanor Ranger District.
Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Predator Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, and Superior Wilderness Action Network. 2000. “Petition for a Rule to List the Wolverine (Gulo gulo luscus) as Threatened or Endangered under the Endangered Species Act within the Contiguous United States.” Submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service on July 11, 2000.
California Department of Transportation. 2007. “ED-89 PM 8.6-13.8 Water Quality Improvements U.S. Highway 50/State Route 89 “Y” to Cascade Road. El Dorado County, CA. Initial Study with Proposed Negative Declaration.” Marysville, CA: Caltrans Office of Environmental Management.
Devine Tarbell & Associates, Inc. Sacramento Municipal Utility District. 2004. “Upper American River Project (FERC No. 2101). Mesocarnivore Technical Report.” Sacramento, CA: Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
Elliot, Daniel Giraud. 1903. “Descriptions Of Twenty-Seven Apparently New Species And Subspecies Of Mammals. All But Six Collected By Edmund Heller.” Publication No. 87. Volume Fieldiana Zoology 3:14. Chicago: Field Colombian Museum.
Groves, Craig R. 1988. “Distribution of the Wolverine in Idaho as Determined by Mail Questionnaire.” Northwest Science 62, 4:181-5.
Hesseldenz, Thomas F. 1981. “Developing a Long-Term Protection Plan for the McCloud River, California.” Paper presented at the California Riparian Systems Conference, University of California, Davis, September 17-19, 1981.
Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. 2005. “Heavenly Mountain Resort Master Plan Amendment 2005.”. USDA: USFS.
Lassen County Planning Department. 1981. “The Eagle Lake Area Plan, A Part of the Lassen County General Plan 1990.” Lassen County, CA.
Moyle, P.B., P.L. Randall, and R.M. Yoshiyama. 1996. “Potential Aquatic Diversity Management Areas in the Sierra Nevada.” In Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project: Final Report to Congress, Vol III, Chap. 9, p. 15. Davis: University of California, Centers for Water and Wildland Resources.
Nachlinger, Janet and Miller, Connie, eds. 2002. “An Ecological Survey Of The Snow Canyon Research Natural Area, Eldorado National Forest, California.” Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experimental Station.
Pace, Felice. 2008. “Protecting Far Northern California’s
Unprotected Wilderness – Time to Rethink California Wilderness Strategy?” Sierra Club California/Nevada Regional Wilderness Committee. Words of the Wild XI: 1. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club.
Predator Conservation Alliance. 2001. Predator Conservation Alliance’s Literature Summary – Draft – January 24, 2001 – Draft Conservation Status and Needs of the Wolverine (Gulo gulo) .
Randla, T. 1986. “On a New Occurrence of Wolverine in Estonia.” Eesti Ulukik 4: 77-78.
Schempf, P. F. and M. White. 1977. “Status of Six Furbearer Populations in the Mountains of Northern California.” USDA: Forest Service, California Region, San Francisco.
Shasta County Board of Supervisors. 1993. Shasta County General Plan. Redding, CA: Shasta County Department of Resource Management, Planning Division.
Stanislaus National Forest. 2001. California State Parks Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division, 2001/2002 OHV Grant and Cooperative Agreement Application, Wildlife Habitat Protection Plan. USDA: USFS.
Southern California Edison Company. 2001. Final Technical Study Plan Package (FTSPP) for the Big Creek Hydroelectric Projects (FERC Project Nos. 67, 120, 2085, and 2175). Terrestrial Resources – Chapter 13 – Mesocarnivores. Rosemead, CA.
Tahoe National Forest. 2002. Final Environmental Impact Statement. Red Star Restoration Project. USDA: USFS, Pacific Southwest Region, Forestville, CA.
TC Dot and Hughes Environmental Consultants. 2003. Trinity County Hyampom Road Improvements Project Draft Environmental Impact Report. Trinity County, CA: Trinity County Planning Department,
Zhang, M-H.; Liu, Q-X.; Piao, R-Z.; & Jiang, G-H. 2007. “The Wolverine Gulo Gulo Population and its Distribution in the Great Khingan Mountains, Northeastern China.” Wildlife Biology 13, 2: 83-88.
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About East European Nationalism

You see, in a number of these countries, they never really had an actual nation. They were always a part of some empire or duchy or whatever. The real nation-building process was quite recent. Since they never really had a history as a nation, they had to build a nationalist project more or less out of thin air or at least out of castles of sand.

Hence the national heroes of these places goes back to World War 2, when the Nazis promised the Baltics, Belorussians, and Ukrainians with independence from the USSR. The USSR had just recently taken over the Baltic states in order to have strategic depth against the Nazis. The Ukrainians had been independence-minded, at least in the west, since the Bolshevik Revolution. These nationalists claimed that the USSR and Russia have always dismissed the idea that they have separate countries. While in the USSR, nationalist aspirations were largely forbidden and played down.

After the USSR took the Balts away from the Nazis and incorporated them into the USSR, they lost the independence they had had during the interwar period. They claimed that the USSR did not allow them to develop their national languages but that does not seem correct. Anyway, the USSR and Russia were always seen as the thorn in the side of the national aspirations of these peoples.

Since they never had much of a recent history, most of the nationalist heroes of Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine end up being some nationalist Nazi collaborator from 1942 named Vyashlev the Jewslayer or something along those lines. There are statues and monuments to these guys all over these countries with the exception of Belarus. At the same time,  all of the Soviet era statues, including to heroes of the Great Patriotic War, have been torn down or vandalized.

The Litts (Lithuanians), Letts (Latvians), and Ukrainians were the biggest Nazi collaborators of all of the national groups in the region.

Poland and Finland are extreme Russia-haters for nationalist reasons, but the Poles don’t like Nazis, and I don’t think the Finns are all that Nazi. Poles hate Communism, in part for religious reasons of extreme Catholicism.

In Hungary, the right wing has Nazi tendencies. The Hungarians had a sort of nation long before the modern era. A fascist dictator named Horthy ruled Hungary in the interwar period and during WW2. I believe he was a Nazi collaborator.  The leader of Hungary, Victor Orban, has praised Horthy. The nationalists here are Nazis, but they are not a large movement. The party is called Fideliz and its origins are in the Red Arrow of WW2. They are Nazis.

Romanian nationalists are descendants of the Iron Cross of WW2, but they are not very popular for some reason. I believe Romania has been a national idea for some time. Also, they are Orthodox. Czechoslovakia is another national idea that has been around a long time. Nationalists are not popular in either country, as you can see in the amicable breakup they had into two separate states.

Belarussian nationalists are Nazis, but they are not popular. They only get 20-25% of the vote. This is because Belarus is rather new in terms of national ideas.

Croatian nationalists are absolutely Nazis, descendants of the Ustasha collaborationist regime. That’s why Communist Yugoslavia cracked down so hard on them. They are also Catholics. The recent president Franz Tudjman was absolutely a fascist, though I don’t think he was a Nazi. Over there, Croatian nationalism often just boils down to “Serb-hater.”

There is a racial aspect to Ukrainian nationalism. It holds that the true Ukrainians are a sort of Aryanized Germano-Scandinavian people, descendants of the Kievan Rus, which was after all settled by Swedes.

The others, the Slavs (Russians) are simply undermenscen to be destroyed. So they copied Nazi racial ideas and said that they were not Slavs to get away form Nazi anti-Slavic theory. The Slavs were hated by the Germans mostly because the Nazis saw all of them as Communists. They were also said to have a “slave (Slav) mentality” (see Nietzsche) which made them too weak to resist against Communism. The Ukrainian nationalists also saw Russians as Communists.

Ukrainian nationalists hated Jews because they saw the Jews as the leading edge of Soviet imperialism (anti-Ukrainian nationalism) and Bolshevism. In other words, they were following the Judeo-Bolshevik theory of the Nazis. It is true that Ukrainian Jews were passionate Communists at this time, in part because the USSR cracked down so heavily on antisemitism.

As I mentioned earlier, Ukraine or Malorussia (literally Small Russia but in this context Central Russia) has long been seen as a land of bandits and robbers, a lawless place. This tradition continues today with oligarchs robbing the place blind. An anarchist named Makho was a Ukrainian in the Russian Civil War. Originally allied with the Soviets, he turned on them during the war and led and anarchist rebellion. Makho is also seen by Russians as a typical Ukrainian. He was a bandit before he was an anarchist, and anarchism is associated with lawlessness and chaos, hence he’s an archetypal Ukrainian.

There is another culture war going on here, and that is the Roman Catholic West versus the Istanbul (or Antioch) Eastern Orthodox. Few people realize this but the Catholic Crusaders killed as many Orthodox Christians in Palestine as Muslims. They were seen as heathens. Afterwards, another sort of Catholic crusader in the form of German crusaders attacked the Orthodox communities to the northeast. And it looks like they converted them to Catholicism while they were at it. The German crusaders saw the people to the northeast as forest-dwelling barbarians and heathens.

Western Catholics again attacked the Orthodox in the East under Napoleon, and once again were beaten back. The result in part was two Russian borrowings in the French language – bistro and douche (the original French “water toilet”).

The Germans in World War 2 and their Roman Catholic collaborators were seen as another in the line of Western Catholic attacks on the Orthodox East.

In Ukraine, this also has a religious form as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church split from the Russian Orthodox Church at some point and became what some see as a heretical schismatics. They adopted a sort of “Greek Catholicism” (I’m not even sure what that is, but supposedly it’s a heretical schismatic split from the Orthodox) and allied themselves with Roman Catholicism and the West against the Russian and Russian Orthodox Church of the East. The Ukrainian Nazi nationalist battalions often attack Orthodox churches for some reason. I’m not entirely sure why they do that.

So as you can see, there is a lot of history going on here.

Alt Left: For the Hundredth Time, There Was No Holodomor

Igor: A couple of ‘Nazis’ in a town here or there doesn’t justify a full scale invasion of the whole country.

All Ukrainians hate Russians though. And rightly so. Remember the ‘Holdymor’? Or all the other bulking tactics Russia did on them?

Russia are a plague to their neighbors, and Ukraine wants nothing to do with ten and that is their right.

Luckily, the Russian army are getting flogged at time of writing.

Russia is a plague to its neighbors? It has an excellent relationship with Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan, Mongolia, China and especially Belarus, which is right next door. It’s true that nationalists in Ukraine and the Baltics hate Russia because the USSR thwarted their drive for independence. They also moved a lot of Russians into the Baltics, or perhaps the Russians moved themselves into the Baltics.

The Baltics and Ukrainians complain that Russia suppressed their national languages but I do not think that is true. They got to go to K-12 school all in their native language, there were newspapers, magazines, journals, TV and radio stations and literarure in their national languages. They even had universities where the language was that of the republic. And the USSR did set all of them free at the end. How many other nations would have set them free? None! You see any other countries setting their separatist regions free elsewhere in the world? Of course not.

The Germans came in and promised the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine independence from the USSR, so they were popular with  the nationalists in these places, all of whom still love Nazis to this day. In the Baltics and Ukraine, all of the statues to the nationalist heroes were of Nazi collaborators. All four countries have a serious Nazi problem.

I’m not sure why Poles hate Russia. Poland has always been a football in between Poland and Russia. She has felt bullied by those two countries. Poland attacked Russia in 1919 for no good reason. Poles are also angry about Communism because it never went over well there. I think the Poles are just too Catholic for Communism to work well.

Stalin himself said that trying to impose Communism on the Poles was like “trying to put a saddle on a horse.” The Russia-hatred in these places is due to nationalism and the drive for independence, which they saw as thwarted by the USSR. Finns hate Russia too. The USSR attacked Finland and annexed some of their land in the Winter War in 1940. I’m not sure why the USSR did that.

The Fake Holodomor That Never Happened

Holodomor was fake. It never even happened! There was a famine but there was no terror famine. 2-3 million people died in Ukraine but they were concentrated in Eastern Ukraine where they were Russian and loved Stalin. It was even worse in the Volga region where Stalin was very popular. In addition, 1 million people died in Siberia. People died in Moscow. And lots of people died in Kazakhstan. And plenty of people died in the parts of Poland next to Ukraine.

In order to believe the crazy Holodomor myth, you have to believe

  1. Stalin deliberately starved Ukraine because he hated Ukrainians. But why? Why did he hate Ukrainians?

And why did his terror famine focus on Eastern Ukraine where they supported him. If he only wanted to starve Ukrainians, why did he starve people in the Volga too where they supported him. Stalin also had a lot of support in Kazakhstan. Why did he starve people there” That was almost as bad as Ukraine. Did he hate them too? How come they get left out of this debate? Why did he starve 1 million people in Siberia? Did he hated Siberians? Why did he starve people in Moscow? Did he hate Moscovites?

Wow, it looks like Stalin hated everyone because he starved the whole damn country! Why did people starve in Poland? Were the Poles in bed with Stalin in a plot to starve Ukrainians? Then why did they starve themselves? Are they retards?

None of that makes sense!

Or…

2. Maybe the terror famine story of a bumper harvest crop that was confiscated by Stalin just to starve Ukrainians is fake?

Which is more likely, one or two?

The whole story of a bumper harvest confiscated by Stalin just to kill Ukrainians has now been proven wrong. 1932 was a famine harvest. It was only 50% that year. The harvest simply collapsed that year. See Mark Tauber’s latest writing where he proves that. See Davies and Wheatcroft’s extensive book which is now the last word on the subject. The truth is that in the journals, this debate ended a while back. Even the worst Russia-haters and Holodomor-mongers like Timothy Snyder and Richard Pipes have now admitted that there was no terror famine in their publications. What they say on TV is another matter.

There was also a long insurgency versus the kulaks which centered in Ukraine. 390,000 people died in the anti-kulak campaign, which was a very vicious war.

In early 1932, Ukrainian kulaks were raiding collective farms up to 20 times a day, murdering the men and raping and then murdering the women and then destroying the crops and killing the livestock. The Ukies were piling their crops in the fields to get rained on or setting them on fire!

The Ukie morons destroyed their own crops and then said, “Duh, whoa we have a famine, dudes! Maybe we shouldn’t have set our own crops on fire!”

The moron kulaks killed half the livestock in the USSR! “Duh, we killed all the farm animals. Now we don’t have any meat to eat!” Fields were plowed with horses back then, and they killed so many horses that this contributed to the famine harvest.

The famine occurred for a variety of reasons. In part it was stupidity on the part of the USSR. They shut down the old system before they were able to get the new one going very well, and this contributed to a bad crop. But most of it was natural. There was a wheat rust epidemic that swept through the entire region from Poland to Kazakhstan. True, Ukies suffered the worst losses, but that was where the epidemic was worst and the harvest collapsed the most.

Most people died of disease, not starvation. The USSR still had rudimentary sanitation at the time, and many people died of cholera. You can often survive this disease, but in their malnourished weakened condition, it proved fatal. A reporter drove through Ukraine during the famine but he saw little out of place. There were long but orderly lines outside some clinics. There were no dead people lying in the streets. All of the Holodomor photos you see of starved people lying in the streets were put out by Ukies. Those are photos from another famine that occurred during the Russian Civil War.

The next year though, 1933, was a bumper harvest so it was just one year. The USSR never had another famine. In the days of the Czar, famines used to sweep through feudal Ukraine on a regular basis. The USSR ended the regular tradition of frequent famines in Russia.

Alt Left: The Death of Social Democracy in Europe

If you haven’t noticed, there’s no more social democracy or democratic socialism in Europe. Probably the only thing left is Belarus, Moldova, Turkey, and Russia. Possibly Iceland because they told the banks to go pound sand. Greece elected a Leftist government, Syriza, that quickly went full-blown neoliberal, reportedly out of necessity. What has happened to social democracy is something that any Marxist could have predicted – the incompatibility of even trying to have any sort of socialist society in the midst of a capitalist economy.

The fate of social democracy is the what has always been the fate of social liberalism in the US and its counterpart in Canada and Australia. All of these variants have never been anything but reactionary on foreign policy – smashing the slightest sign of liberalism anywhere in the world if it even dared to peek its head out. Many governments in Latin America were overthrown for the crime of raising the minimum wage.

And most of these were overthrown by “liberal” Democratic governments. Bill Clinton set the stage for the overthrow of Aristide. Aristide’s crime? He dared to raise the minimum wage. He had investments in some factories there. So did Hilary. Hilary overthrew Honduras. The crime? Raising the minimum wage.

Even FDR, the most progressive President of the 20th century, was a raving reactionary freak on foreign policy. “Somoza may be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.”

Teddy Roosevelt was progressive at home but an imperialist brute overseas. “Walk softly and carry a big stick.”

The standard formula for all of these countries has always been some form of liberalism at home combined with hard right or ultra right policies that favored rightwing dictatorships, death squads, the genocide of the Left, and out and out fascism overseas. Liberal at home, reactionary abroad. And now Joe Biden, one of the most liberal Presidents in modern memory, is already treading down the same worn path.

And now the social democracies have undergone the same transformation that social liberalism, etc. has had from the start. One gets the feeling that liberalism or socialism at home in a capitalist country will always have to co-exist with ultra-right, pro-fascist politics overseas. In other words, a foreign policy of imperialism.

Most of Europe is whored to the ultra-rightwing NATO. The EU is for all intents and purposes the civilian state and NATO is the Defense Ministry of that state. Even Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are hard right countries when it comes to their NATO alliance. Finnish foreign policy has always been rightwing, a legacy of their hatred for Russia. Dutch, French, British, and Spanish foreign policy have been horribly rightwing forever now under social democratic and conservative governments both. Indeed in Europe, there is little difference between the two.

Spain strides around Latin America like a brute. Apparently they still think they rule the place as they once did.Most of this involves threats, arm-twisting, sanctions and whatnot every time countries try to assert more control over their resources, which are inevitably being exploited by Spanish corporations. Bolivia’s nationalization of oil and gas is instructive in this regard. The social democratic Spanish government was just as reactionary as the conservative one.

The French are cruel and colonialist towards their former colonies and do not allow any independent governments to form there, especially in Africa. The French and Canadians were deeply involved in the overthrow of Aristide in Haiti, apparently for the crime of raising the minimum wage. In addition, France is still demanding that Haiti repay it for its losses when the slaves of Haiti were freed and the slave-holding families were massacred. France is a social democracy.

The Dutch held a phony inquest in the M17 false flag shootdown where a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down an airliner in order to blame it on Russia. The EU was also deeply involved in this plot and especially the coverup. As were the British and in particular the BBC, the official organ of the British state. The British stole $4 million in gold from Venezuela by confiscating it. British foreign policy mimics US foreign policy in every reactionary thing we do. The UK is a social democracy.

Italy led the charge against Qaddafi and helped steal billions of his gold reserves. Italian corporations also quickly tried to get on Libya’s oil. Italy is a social democracy.

100% of the EU is sanctioning Venezuela for the crime of trying to create a social democracy in America’s backyard. No socialist country would ever sanction Venezuela. Same with Nicaragua. They’re all sanctioning Nicaragua too. Nicaragua’s even less socialist than Venezuela and Norway’s probably a lot more socialist than Venezuela.

So you see, these countries may have some sort of socialism at home (increasingly threadbare) but in foreign policy, it’s straight up full-blown reaction and imperialism, support for rightwing dictatorships and out and out fascists. The reason is simple. The economies of all EU countries are based on their multinational corporations.

Multinational corporations want nothing but rightwing dictatorship, preferably fascist, when they cannot elect hard Right democratic states. These corporations will not tolerate the slightest socialism or even liberalism overseas because they all operate on a predatory model towards the Third World.

Hence the foreign policy of all of the EU “socialist” countries is all about what’s good for the corporations that run their economies. Their corporations wish to go abroad and rape, ruin, exploit, destroy, and stripmine the economies of the Third World by exploiting their resources such that the corporations get almost everything and the countries themselves barely get a nickel.

This has always been the model and it always will be the model. So the EU social democracies have the same problem of the Democratic Party – while they can be leftwing at home to some extent, they all go hard rightwing and pro-fascist and rightwing dictatorship overseas due to their fealty to the corporations that run their economies.

The Languages of Sweden

Ethnic nationalists in Sweden got several full-fledged language removed from the Swedish section of Ethnologue by petitioning the ISO committee at SIL, the organization that gives out new language codes. I can’t believe they fell for this, but SIL is not really that smart when it comes to individual languages and they are easily swayed by slick liars.

In Sweden for instance, there are at least six different languages and probably more.

Scanian or Skåne in Southeast Sweden is a separate language – it’s actually the same language as Bornholmian in Northeast Denmark which is also a separate language. Swedes have told me that the harder forms of Scanian are not fully intelligible with Swedish.

Jämtish in Jämtland in Southwest Sweden is a separate language – actually the same language as Trøndersk in Southeast Norway. Jamtish lacks full intelligibility with Swedish. It’s closer to Norwegian, but the Norwegian lect with which it is a part is not comprehensible at all to Norwegians.

Gutnish on the isle of Gotland is a completely separate language – closer to Old Norse and modern Icelandic than to Swedish. One Swedish man said he lived on Gotland, and after eight years, he still couldn’t understand the old farmers.

Dalecarlian in Dalarna in the west is surely several different languages – Elfdalian in Älvdalen being the best known, and even Swedish linguists confess that this is a separate language. Even Wikipedia admits that a lot of the Dalecarlian dialects are not intelligible with Swedish.

The Swedes in Finland speak a completely different language called Österbotten that is full of Finnish borrowings. I have heard that Swedes cannot understand this language well.

So “Swedish” then is at least six separate languages and probably more as a number of the Dalecarlian dialects can’t even understand each other.

  • Swedish Proper
  • Scanian (closer to Danish)
  • Jamtish (closer to Norwegian)
  • Dalecarlian (same as Jamtish)
  • Gutnish (ancient, closer to Icelandic)
  • Österbotten or Finnish Swedish

However, the Swedish government, probably worried about separatism, refuses to go along with this and insists that all of these are dialects of Swedish. To be fair, there is indeed a separatist movement in Scania, but I’m not sure how popular it is.

Alt Left: Communism Is a Universal Movement Not Tied to Any Ethnicity

Communism appeals to all sorts of people on a basic level. Look at what Communism promises. It’s pretty clear that that’s something that a lot of humans would want, not any particular ethnicity or culture.

Polar Bear: NS Germany surely had a German spirit. Was Communism based on Russian farm culture or anything native? I often think it contrasts with warring Celtic tribes on the British Isles and Ireland. Maybe some of it is Slavic in nature.

I’m not sure. You know it took off in Mozambique, Grenada, Angola, Cuba, Afghanistan, China, Vietnam, Laos, Chile, Congo, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Yemen too, right?

And they almost won in Peru, El Salvador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Colombia.

The CP was huge in Iraq – the  base of Moqtada Sadr’s movement is actually the old Iraqi CP! Most of Sadr’s followers and soldiers were former members of the Iraqi CP. It had huge memberships in Sadr City. Eurocoms were huge in France and Italy. The CP is in the ANC government in South Africa.

In addition, Communism  was very popular in Kazakhstan (Turkics), Tajikistan (Iranics), Uzbekistan (Turkics), Turkmenistan (Turkics), Kyrgyzstan (Turkics), Karelia, Mari-El and Udmurtia (Finno-Urigics), the Caucasus, Azerbaijan (Turkics), Armenia, among Siberian Turkics, Buryats (Mongolics), Tungusics, the Nivkhi (Japanese types), and the Chukchi (Inuit types).

I’m afraid there’s a little more to it than Slavicism. I do not believe it was ever very popular in Poland, the Baltics, Finland or Georgia though. Stalin once said that forcing Communism on the Poles was like putting a saddle on a cow.

Anyway, Marx was German and Engels was British. Rosa Luxembourg was German. Antonio Gramschi was Italian. Carlos Luis Mariategui and Edith Lagos were Peruvian. Manuel Marulanda Gabriel Garcia Marquez were Colombians. Gabriel Mistral was Chilean. Farbundo Marti and Roque Dalton were Salvadorans.

Augustino Sandino was Nicaraguan. Pablo Picasso was a Spaniard. Ho Chi Minh was Vietnamese. Mao Zedong was Chinese. Patrice Lumumba was Congolese. Samora Machel was Mozambican. Those are all very famous Communists who were non-Slavic.

We and our pals overthrew non-Commie Leftist nationalists in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Portugal, Iraq, Iran, and Libya. We and our pals tried unsuccessfully to overthrow them in a number of other places.

Communism has universal appeal. It is nothing less than the dream of a better world. That is why in a way I was sad when the Eastern bloc collapsed because what collapsed with it was that most beautiful dream.

The Latin American Left believed in the dream of a better world. And in Latin America, that is a dangerous thing.

– Alejandra, an Argentine ex-girlfriend

Alt Left: Six European Nations Join Worthless INSTEX Trade Mechanism with Iran, by Stephen Lendman

As you can see, the much-vaunted INSTEX is more or less useless, but it allows the EU nations to say that they are doing their best to engage in humanitarian trade with Iran.

Six European Nations Join Worthless INSTEX’s Trade Mechanism with Iran

By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, December 01, 2019

The EU Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) with Iran became operational in June — a smoke and mirrors scheme to bypass dollar transactions, unrelated to restoring normal European trade with Iran.

It’s an illusory financial transactions mechanism, pretending to reinstate normal trade with Iran — not fulfilled since announced in January.

What’s supposed to be an oil for goods mechanism is only for what the Trump regime hasn’t sanctioned, failing to cover exports of Iranian oil, gas, petrochemicals, and other products. It also falls woefully short of facilitating Iranian imports of food, medicines, and medical equipment.

Establishing it created the phony appearance of Brussels wanting normal trade relations with Iran. Reality is polar opposite.

European countries operate as US colonies, following its diktats, especially regarding relations with nations on its target list for regime change like Iran. JCPOA signatories Britain, France, Germany, and the EU failed to fulfill their mandated JCPOA obligations, going along with the Trump regime’s aim to kill the deal while pretending to want it saved.

On November 29, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden issued a joint statement, saying the following:

They

attach the utmost importance to the preservation and full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program by all parties involved (sic)…

adding:

The nuclear agreement was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council and is a key instrument for the global non-proliferation regime and a major contribution to stability in the region.

In light of the continuous European support for the agreement (sic) and the ongoing efforts to implement the economic part of it (sic), and to facilitate legitimate trade between Europe and Iran (sic), we are now in the process of becoming shareholders of the Instrument in Support of…INSTEX.

Fact: The above named countries, other European ones, and Canada breached the JCPOA by failing to abide by its provisions. Since the Trump regime illegally abandoned the agreement, breaching international and US constitutional law, European countries and Canada severed normal economic, financial, and trade relations with Iran.

Nations joining INSTEX changed nothing. They remain in breach of their international obligations by failing to observe JCPOA provisions. Unless and until they change policy, they remain complicit with Trump regime economic terrorism on Iran for its opposition to US aggression, support for Palestinian rights, and unwillingness to sell its soul to the imperial state at the right price.

Weeks earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the following:

For the past five months, Europe has been trying to give us credit in return for the sale of the Iranian crude oil to make the country stay in the JCPOA, but it has not been able to do even this little job because it is not even allowed by its master to spend its own money for its own security.

Its member states refuse to exercise their sovereign rights in dealings with Iran unless a higher power in Washington permits it.

On Saturday, Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission spokesman Hossein Naqavi Hosseini said European JCPOA signatories have been in breach of the deal since the Trump regime illegally abandoned it. Iran’s legitimate incremental pullback of its voluntary JCPOA commitments failed to encourage its European signatories “to fulfill (their) obligations.”

On Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Gholam Hossein Dehqani said:

inhumane (US) sanctions have negatively impacted the supply of medicines and treatment for more than 70,000 victims of chemical weapons in our country and have in fact hindered the treatment of chemical attacks victims.

In response to six more European nations joining INSTEX, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi  said the following:

The more European countries join the INSTEX mechanism as the shareholders, the better, but the effectiveness of the mechanism is another matter

adding that he doubts Europe will take practical steps to restore normal trade relations with Tehran.

The JCPOA is in “intensive care,” he stressed, Europe failing to save it by following hostile US policies toward Iran. Tehran joined the JCPOA to restore normal economic, financial, and trade relations with Europe. Without normalization, the deal is meaningless.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The original source of this article is Global Research.
Copyright © Stephen Lendman, Global Research, 2019

Alt Left: 53 Admitted False Flag Attacks

It’s disgusting how the minute you say the phrase false flag, people grab their foreheads and start groaning. All false flags are automatically conspiracy theories and they’re all pathetic nonsense made up by the tinfoil hat crowd. Granted a lot of so-called false flags never happened and instead were actual attacks carried out by whoever claimed responsibility for them. This is particularly true with Islamist terrorist groups.

Their attacks often terribly brutal and aimed directly at civilians. Many of their attacks in the West have been called false flags, but none of them were. It has also been common for a long time to ascribe most of the worst Palestinian terrorist attacks to Israeli false flags.

The truth is that the Palestinians, like the Islamists, are quite depraved enough to do their own horrific terrorist attacks. Their attacks are depraved enough that Israel has no need to fake depraved attacks to frame the Palestinians.

But as you can see, false flags definitely occur. I never thought that the US government did these attacks very much, but we and the rest of the West (NATO) have been going on a wild false flag spree ever since NATO’s war on Russia started heating up.

It’s been one false flag after another and one attempt to blame Russia and pro-Russians for atrocities willfully committed by the other side. This is different from a false flag. In this case, Party A attacks the enemy, typically enemy civilians, or a shell goes astray and there’s an atrocity. 

Instead of admitting that they did it, they blame the enemy who they are fighting, usually for committing an atrocity against their own supporters, which of course makes no sense.

There were many such attacks like this in the Syrian Civil War when the Free Syrian Army committed massacre after massacre of villagers who supported Assad and then turned around and blamed Assad for each and every one of these crimes. 

As it turns out, Assad did not commit any of these civilian massacres because that’s just not his style. His forces don’t rampage into villages, even of rebel supporters, and slaughter civilians in brutal fashion one by one.

If they think a civilian needs to be dealt with, Assad’s forces simply arrest them and may well put them in a military prison, where they could well be tortured and mistreated until death or executed. I’m not saying Assad is a nice guy; it’s more that his style simply does not include savage massacres of entire villages or chemical weapons attacks for that matter.  When it comes to depravity, Assad has his own style.

I can’t believe that number of attacks falsely blamed on the enemy and out and out false flag and fake attacks that the US did in Ukraine and Syria. We seem to be entering into a new era of warfare where false flags are the normal ways to fight wars.

It’s appalling and terrifying because foolish Americans insist that these attacks never happen. By believing that they give their own government carte blanche to do as many false flags and false blaming of the enemy of allied attacks as they wish. And the government knows that in any fake blames or false flags the US or its allies pull off, they know that they can count on the support of every corporate media outlet in the US to go right along.

In fact, every mainstream media outlet in the West period is on board with any false blaming or false flags the West wishes to pull off. In that sense the entire media of the West is completely controlled by the states of the West, their militaries, state departments and intelligence services. It’s downright terrifying.

53 Admitted False Flag Attacks

By Washington’s Blog
Global Research, September 03, 2019
Washington’s Blog and Global Research 24 February

Relevant article selected from the GR archive, first published in February 2015.

Not Theory … Admitted Fact

There are many documented false flag attacks where a government carries out a terror attack … and then falsely blames its enemy for political purposes.

In the following 53 instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admitted to it, either orally or in writing:

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931 and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident.”

The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this.

(2) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that under orders from the chief of the Gestapo, he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles to justify the invasion of Poland.

(3) Nazi General Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933 and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(4) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 while blaming the attack on Finland as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

(5) The Russian Parliament, current Russian President Putin, and former Soviet leader Gorbachev all admit that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940 and falsely blame it on the Nazis.

(6) The British government admits that between 1946 and 1948 it bombed five ships carrying Jews attempting to flee the Holocaust to seek safety in Palestine, set up a fake group called “Defenders of Arab Palestine”, and then had the pseudo-group falsely claim responsibility for the bombings (and see this, this and this).

(7) Israel admits that in 1954, an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this).

(8) The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

(9) The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece, also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey, and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.

(10) The British Prime Minister admitted to his defense secretary that he and American president Dwight Eisenhower approved a plan in 1957 to carry out attacks in Syria and blame it on the Syrian government as a way to effect regime change.

(11-21) The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO with the help of the Pentagon and CIA carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.

As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” (and see this).

Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred. And watch this BBC special. They also allegedly carried out terror attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and other countries.

False flag attacks carried out pursuant to this program include by way of example only the murder of the Turkish Prime Minister (1960), bombings in Portugal (1966), the Piazza Fontana massacre in Italy (1969), terror attacks in Turkey (1971), the Peteano bombing in Italy (1972), shootings in Brescia, Italy and a bombing on an Italian train (1974), shootings in Istanbul, Turkey (1977), the Atocha massacre in Madrid, Spain (1977), the abduction and murder of the Italian Prime Minister (1978), the bombing of the Bologna railway station in Italy (1980), and shooting and killing 28 shoppers in Brabant county, Belgium (1985).

(22) In 1960, American Senator George Smathers suggested that the U.S. launch “a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and [overthrow Castro].”

(23) Official State Department documents show that in 1961, the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. The plans were not carried out, but they were all discussed as serious proposals.

(24) As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in 1962, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes) and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba.

See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

(25) In 1963, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote a paper promoting attacks on nations within the Organization of American States such as Trinidad-Tobago or Jamaica and then falsely blaming them on Cuba.

(26) The U.S. Department of Defense even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on Guantanamo.”

(27) The NSA admits that it lied about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964… manipulating data to make it look like North Vietnamese boats fired on a U.S. ship so as to create a false justification for the Vietnam war.

(28) A U.S. Congressional committee admitted that as part of its “Cointelpro” campaign, the FBI had used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists.

(29) A top Turkish general admitted that Turkish forces burned down a mosque on Cyprus in the 1970s and blamed it on their enemy. He explained: “In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque.” In response to the surprised correspondent’s incredulous look, the general said, “I am giving an example.”

(30) The German government admitted (and see this) that in 1978, the German secret service detonated a bomb in the outer wall of a prison and planted “escape tools” on a prisoner – a member of the Red Army Faction – which the secret service wished to frame the bombing on.

(31) A Mossad agent admits that in 1984, Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Gaddaffi’s compound in Tripoli, Libya, which broadcast fake terrorist trasmissions recorded by Mossad in order to frame Gaddaffi as a terrorist supporter. Ronald Reagan bombed Libya immediately thereafter.

(32) The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force), approached an explosives expert and asked him “to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident,” thus framing the ANC for the bombing.

(33) An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, “French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit against Author”).

(34)    The United States Army’s 1994 publication Special Forces Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces  updated in 2004 recommends employing terrorists and using false flag operations to destabilize leftist regimes in Latin America. False flag terrorist attacks were carried out in Latin America and other regions as part of the CIA’s “Dirty Wars.” And see this.

(35) An Indonesian fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998 and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked.”

(36) Senior Russian military and intelligence officers admit that the KGB blew up Russian apartment buildings in 1999 and falsely blamed it on Chechens in order to justify an invasion of Chechnya (and see this report and this discussion).

(37) According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.

(38) The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings.

(39) As reported by BBC, the New York Times, and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that the government murdered seven innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police in order to join the “War on Terror.”

(40) Senior police officials in Genoa, Italy admitted that in July 2001 at the G8 summit in Genoa they planted two Molotov cocktails and faked the stabbing of a police officer in order to justify a violent crackdown against protesters.

(41) The U.S. falsely blamed Iraq for playing a role in the 9/11 attacks as shown by a memo from the defense secretary as one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq War.

Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Cheney “probably” had information unavailable to the Commission, and that the media was not ‘doing their homework’ in reporting such ties.

Top U.S. government officials now admit that the Iraq War was really launched for oil…not 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction. Despite previous “lone wolf” claims, many U.S. government officials now say that 9/11 was state-sponsored terror; but Iraq was not the state which backed the hijackers. Many U.S. officials have alleged that 9/11 was a false flag operation by rogue elements of the U.S. government.  

(42) Although the FBI now admits that the 2001 anthrax attacks were carried out by one or more U.S. government scientists, a senior FBI official says that the FBI was actually told to blame the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda by White House officials (remember what the anthrax letters looked like). Government officials also confirm that the White House tried to link the anthrax to Iraq as a justification for regime change in that country.

(43) Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

(44) United Press International reported in June 2005:

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers.

Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

(45) Undercover Israeli soldiers admitted in 2005 to throwing stones at other Israeli soldiers so they could blame it on Palestinians as an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests by the Palestinians.

(46) Quebec police admitted that in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers (and see this).

(47) At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plainclothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence.

(48) Egyptian politicians admitted (and see this) that government employees looted priceless museum artifacts in 2011 to try to discredit the protesters.

(49) A Colombian army colonel has admitted that his unit murdered 57 civilians, then dressed them in uniforms and claimed they were rebels killed in combat.

(50) The highly-respected writer for the Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, says that the head of Saudi intelligence Prince Bandar recently admitted that the Saudi government controls “Chechen” terrorists.

(51) High-level American sources admitted that the Turkish government – a fellow NATO country – carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government, and high-ranking Turkish government admitted on tape plans to carry out attacks and blame it on the Syrian government.

(52) The former Ukrainian security chief admits that the sniper attacks which started the Ukrainian coup were carried out in order to frame others.

(53) Britain’s spy agency has admitted (and see this) that it carries out “digital false flag” attacks on targets, framing people by writing offensive or unlawful material … and blaming it on the target.

So Common…There’s a Name for It

“False flag terrorism” is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities.

The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy’s Strategy of Tension.

The use of the bully’s trick is so common that it was given a name hundreds of years ago. The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship. Because the enemy’s flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a “false flag” attack.

Indeed, this concept is so well-accepted that rules of engagement for naval, air and land warfare all prohibit false flag attacks.

Leaders Throughout History Have Acknowledged False Flags

Leaders throughout history have acknowledged the danger of false flags:

“A history of false flag attacks used to manipulate the minds of the people! In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.”
– Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war… But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship…

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened.”
– Josef Stalin

The original source of this article is Washington’s Blog
Copyright © Washington’s Blog, Washington’s Blog and Global Research, 2019

No Conservatives Allowed on This Website!

We have had a few conservatives posting here in the past few days. These are US-style conservatives, which are the worst kind of all. US-style conservatives are absolutely banned from posting here in any way, shape or form.
Conservatism means different things in different countries, so conservatives from much of the rest of the world (except Latin America and the UK) can continue to post. Even Canadian conservatives can continue to post, as I do not mind them. It’s not conservatism itself that is so awful. Almost every country on Earth has people who call themselves conservatives, and there are conservative parties in almost every country on Earth. But being a conservative just about anywhere outside of the Americas is more or less an acceptable position for me. I probably won’t like their politics much, but I could at least look at them and say that this is an opposition I could live with.
US conservatives and their brethren in the UK, Latin America, the Philippines, Nepal and and Indonesia are quite a different beast.
I have to think hard about conservatives in Eastern Europe, especially Estonia, Latvia and the Czech Republic. These fools had such a bad experience with Communism that they went 180 degrees in the other direction. I would have to see the positions of these conservative parties in those countries to see whether they would be OK or not.
Just to give you an example, Vladimir Putin is considered to be a right-winger, and his party United Russia advocates a politics called Russian Conservatism. Looking at the party’s platform, this is not only a conservatism that I could live with but one I might even vote for!
Conservatives in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and most other places in Asia are acceptable. The conservatives in the Stans, Georgia, Ukraine, and Armenia can be rather awful, particularly in the nationalist sense, but I will not ban them.
I dislike Indian conservatives, but I will not ban them.
Conservatives from the Muslim World are all acceptable. In the Muslim World, conservatism just means religious and sometimes nationalist. I can live with that. Even the ones in Iran are orders of magnitude better than the US type.
Conservatives in the Arab World are acceptable. They are mostly just religious people.
Turkish conservatives are awful, but I will not ban them. They are just religious and a particularly awful type of nationalist.
African conservatives are OK.
Conservatives in Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany,  the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Italy, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania are sometimes good, sometimes pretty bad, but they are all acceptable here. Conservatism in Europe mostly means nationalism. I am actually rather fond of the conservative running Hungary, Orban. LePen conservatives leave something to be desired, but they are acceptable. They’re mostly just nationalists. Hell, I might even vote for Marine LePen! If it was down to LePen versus Macron, I would absolutely support LePen!
Conservatives from Indonesia, Nepal and Philippines are not OK. These are an “everything for the rich elite, nothing for anybody else” type of conservative. Some of them even hide under the labels of Socialist or even Communist.
The word conservative has no real inherent meaning. It means whatever people say it means.
Anyway, the conservatives in the US are pure garbage and recently they have become out and out fascists after moving in that direction for a long time. And a particularly horrible type of fascist at that, a Latin American/Filipino/Indonesian style fascist. I will not allow any US conservatives to post on this board. You all are lucky I even let you lurk here. That’s an idle threat as I can’t ban lurkers, but if they all stopped lurking, I would not mind frankly.
You all really ought to go back to the gutters you crawled out of.
PS This especially applies to Libertarians, the very worst of all the US conservative vermin. We shoot Libertarians on sight here, so you better watch out.
*This applies only to economic conservatives. If you are not an economic conservative, and your conservatism is only of the social variety or you are only conservative on race, religion, guns, law and order, respect for tradition, American nationalism, the military, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity issues, you can stay. I’m not crazy about some social conservatives, but I can live with them. I will probably even let patriotards post as long as they are not economic conservatives.
I am an American nationalist myself. I just don’t like patriotards. Of course, I very much dislike and even hate the country as it is right now, but I sure don’t want to make it worse! I have to live here too you now, and it might as well be as pleasant as possible as long I stay here.
I want what’s best for my country. I don’t want to harm this country or screw it over. That will be bad for me! And believe it or not, most US patriotards do not want what is best for the country! I have dreams of a greater and better America. It’s not impossible, but we will have to undergo some serious cultural changes. One of the reasons I am so against illegal immigration is because it is ruining my country and making this place even worse. Also illegal immigration is terrible for US workers and I am for the workers. I am against H-1B visas for the same reason – they are wrecking my country. IT workers are workers too, so they are my comrades. I want what is best for America and American workers.
I cannot live with economic conservatives. I like cancer way more than I like US conservatives. Cancer is much more decent and respectable.

Net Neutrality Is Gone in the EU

Here.

I can’t believe they did this. There is absolutely nothing progressive or leftwing about the EU. Getting rid of Net Neutrality is catastrophic for the people but it’s great for the elites, the Deep States, the rich and the corporations.

You see, in the West, the rich and corporations already have 100% of the MSM because under capitalism, freedom of the press belongs anyone who can own a media outlet. No one else has any freedom of press at all. The rich, the elites, the corporations and the Deep States already have 100% of the media in the West.

The one thing they do not control is the Net, and boy are they mad about that. Because, not to toot my horn, but the Net is a place that even a radial maniac like me who spins a narrative completely opposite to all the poison the rich, the elites, the corporations and the Deep States sell can still get a voice. My site loads as fast as Fox News or CNN.

But without Net Neutrality, the rich, the elites, the corporations and the Deep States would get to put everyone selling views they don’t like in the slow, slow, slow lane because it would be very expensive to get in the fast lane so it would be similar to the cost barriers to entry to the MSM.

So getting rid of Net Neutrality means that the Net would become just like the rest of the Western media shithole – completely controlled by the the rich, the elites, the corporations and the Deep States with 0% outlets for any dissenters from their controlled narrative.

Another problem with getting rid of Net Neutrality is that we may be seeing a lot of lobbying in the near future whereby service providers bribe ISP’s to restrict access to the services provided by competing companies, etc. Revolting, isn’t it?

Interestingly, three countries within the EU – Netherlands, Slovenia and Finland – already have a range of net neutrality rules enshrined in law.

Yes, and all three of these countries will have their Net Neutrality rules overturned by Brussels! The EU overturning countries’ sovereignty again. The EU looks more and more catastrophic by the day. I think the progressive project of the day is to get rid of the EU. If we have to ally with the Right to do so, so be it. Nazis are scumbags, but I would much rather ally with Nazis than pro-corporate, pro-rich supporters of multiculturalism, the Cultural Left Freakshow and radical neoliberalism – the Elite Project Du Jour at Deep State MSM outlets like like the New York Times. You know our elites really suck when Nazis look better in comparison!

A series of amendments to a regulation on how internet traffic is managed in Europe were all rejected by MEP’s.

See how the disgusting BBC spun that? That’s how the Corporate Cancer has been spinning Net Neutrality – by calling it “regulating the Internet.” They have been selling it to people on a fake platform of “don’t regulate the Internet.” But if there’s anything on Earth that’s crying for regulation, it’s the sewer called the Internet. Almost all of the problems of the Net are caused by the fact that it is totally unregulated.

I have never for one second thought that the BBC is a progressive media outlet.

Where Does Red Hair Come From?

From a discussion in the comments threads:

mott69: Everyone in this discussion should agree that all blonde or red hair and blue eyes originates from Norse/Viking blood in the past. So, a lot of Russians, Slavs, Baltics and others have at least some Nordic blood, but not enough to change their racial sub-category.
Wade in MO: I don’t agree. Do you have any proof? How do you know that it didn’t evolve in non-Nordic regions like Finland and North western Russia? Do blonde aborigines have viking blood? Also, how do you know that blonde hair developed after the region became Germanic? Are you saying that the pre-indo European population was not blonde? Also, non northern Europeans have been know tho have red hair. I remember reading an ancient Greek account of the Scythians that said that they typically had red hair.

Actually, red hair comes from Finland 9,000 years ago. From there it spread out to Scandinavia and apparently much of the rest of the world, including Pashtuns, etc.

Somalis Attack Humans

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3WjHg03j5o&feature=player_embedded]
Here. The Blacks will soon say that White people do this too. Well, I grew up in White towns and I’ve lived in them most of my life. Yes, there is some bullying, but they target individual White boys, usually those who seem weak or soft in some way. So they might push down a White boy on a bike who seems weak or soft if they knew him. In the towns I lived in, I never heard of gangs of White teenagers carrying out random attacks of any sort for fun as we see in this video against strangers. It was simply not done. Keep in mind that I have lived 51 years of my life in White towns and I’ve never heard of such a thing. I don’t think Hispanics do this either. This seems to be a Black thing as best I can tell. I’ve heard no one of this behavior from Blacks.
Why in God’s name did we bring these Somali Hell’s spawn into our country in the first place? I know that they are refugees, but can’t they go somewhere in Africa instead? Every Western country that has invited these people in as refugees has regretted it. Norway, Finland, the US…they act the same everywhere. I understand that in Finland, Somalis are now committing something like 95% of the rapes in the country. It’s similar in Norway, where I believe they are committing 80% of the violent crime in some cities.
Here is a quote from a Black American on the Youtube page:

Fucking no good Somali pieces of shit. If it wasn’t for us black Americans they wouldn’t even have civil rights in this country yet they come over here and destroy it. Those worthless, starving pieces of shit ape Somali monkeys need to all be deported back to poor as Somalia and let them die of starvation. Fuck Africans!

It sounds like it could have come from Stormfront!

Finland Says Broadband Internet Access Is a Human Right

This is an excellent decision, but of course, conservatives all over the world are furious about this, but they don’t agree that anyone has a human right to anything, as far as I can tell. Right to food? Nope. Right to housing? Nope. Right to basic health care? Nope. Right to dental care? Nope.

What they have done is mandate that everyone have access to it. What’s interesting is that a lot of cities in the US have decided that they are going to offer a wireless network to their citizens for free. Cities can set these things up very cheaply. Of course, the capitalist bastards are screaming bloody murder over this, and the US Congress has actually tried to pass laws banning cities from providing this service to their citizens. As our Congresspeople are all essentially whores for the rich and the corporations, these laws stand a good chance of going through.

I don’t believe they are mandating everyone have broadband. Just that you have access to it. I doubt if the state is going to buy you a computer. But if you have the computer or whatnot, you can hook into it.

Mandating it be available to everyone means that providers, state, private or whoever they are, have to make sure that everyone can have Internet access. This is good in rural areas because the capitalist bastards will never extend coverage to people in rural areas because they say it’s too expensive.

Up until the 1930’s, the capitalist scum refused to provide phone and electricity coverage to rural areas in the US on the same basis – they said it was too expensive and it would drive them out of business. But the US government forced them to provide this access. Last time I checked the phone and electric private monopolies were still in business. Unfortunately!

Another charming this the capitalists did back in the 1930’s and 1940’s was that there were different phone companies with competing networks, just as the neoliberal dipshits would love. My Mom lived through that era. She said it was totally insane. The competing phone companies refused to work with each other’s products (sort of like computer companies nowadays), so you could only call someone who had the same provider. What crap!

Finally the evil government stepped in and forced the poor, suffering phone companies to all work with each other. Now we can all call each other up, no problem, thanks to the evil government!

Wouldn’t it have been better if the evil government had just stepped back and let the moronic capitalists fight it out forever? That would be so cool. In 2010, we could still hardly even talk to each other on the phone! But who cares about that? At least the capitalists would be happy! Give the capitalists everything they want! They deserve it! For the rest of us, nothing. Or lumps of coal. Serves us right for being too lazy to set up our own businesses.

Cool Nazi-Era Photos

Here are some cool Nazi-era photos that I just ran across.

The first one below is of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1941, the famous Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. Any idiot with half a brain knows that Stalin and Hitler despised each other and that Hitler had long ago decided to invade the USSR in order to put the final stake in “Judeo-Bolshevism.”

The USSR was the heart of the Judeo-Bolshevik beast, and only the destruction of the USSR would kill it for sure, since the beast kept sending tentacles out in the form of local Communist movements in Europe that threatened to spread Communism into the heart of the Continent.

Hitler’s hatred for Slavs is hard to figure. The Slavs were said to be a “slave race.” It’s true that the Russians had a reputation for running rather than fighting, but that was the nature of this forest-dwelling peasant people and in fact it was adaptive. When the Scandinavians first invaded down into Russia to conquer part of it, they found it curiously ill-defended. Faced with a superior force, the Russians would fight a bit, then give up land and just melt away into the mysterious forests. The Scandinavians felt it was useless to go find them, and after a while, a peace of sorts was reached.

The Russians were a forest-dwelling people at the time who lived in deep forests, often near rivers. They farmed a bit, lived off wild game and other food from the forest, and especially fished in the rivers. They weren’t exactly hunter-gatherers, but they were as close to that as a European people got at that time. They had a small population and were poorly armed, and typically responded to attacks by melting away into the forests where the enemy could not find them. Military defenses have to be judged by their adaptiveness, and this one worked well.

The Mongols also conquered a bit into Russia, and the Ottomans were so enamored of taking White slaves in the form of Slavs of various sorts that this is where the word “slave” comes from – it means “Slav,” because in Medieval times, so many slaves were Slavs.

Like most of Hitler’s crap, this had a grain of truth along with a ton of bullshit. The Russians were not really a slave race. As fare as stereotypes go, one can make a better case for the Russians as being one of the primitive, barbaric, backwards and even frightening of the White Europeans. This has long been the view from the Continent, especially of, say, the Finns, who despise the Russians as “barbarians.”

Most recently, Hitler’s view had the Russians as a “slave race” once again, this time having allowed themselves, idiotically and cowardly, to be “enslaved” by the Jews in the form of Judeo-Bolshevism. In fact, a vicious Civil War had been fought in the early 1920’s and 5 million Russians had died. Maybe twice that had starved in a horrible famine. Anyway, Soviet Communism wasn’t all that Jewish after 1927, and Stalin was no Jew. The majority of Russians went along with the Soviet program and even supported it. It was certainly better than Czarism.

Stalin hated Hitler’s guts and knew full well his plans to attack the USSR. Much of the wild industrial buildup of the 1930’s, which occurred amidst another 5 million famine deaths (though the famine was by no means intentional and there was no “Holodomor”) was a mad race to build up the USSR in order to withstand a Nazi attack that Stalin had predicted as early as 1933.

Without this mad industrialization and possibly the deaths it entailed, the USSR may not have been able to defeat the Nazis, and World War 2 would have looked a lot different. So in a sense the mad Soviet buildup of the 1930’s saved the West and the world from the Nazi Orcs.

In addition, the purges of the 1937-38, cruel, insane and evil as they were, were actually intended to ferry out Nazi spies. This was the nature of Stalin’s paranoia. It occurred in the backdrop of his increasing knowledge of the Nazi threat.

Hence, anyone with any sense knows that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was a pact between two of the deadliest enemies the world has ever known.

Anti-Communists have never stopped playing up this sad pact as evidence that Nazis and Communists are the same, and that all Communists are really Nazis and all Nazis are really Communists. This makes no sense, as Hitler was much more of an anti-Communist than he was even an anti-Semite, and much of his anti-Semitism stemmed from his view that Jews were a bunch of Commies. These same folks try to say that Stalin was just as much of an anti-Semite as Hitler (this view especially popular with rightwing Zionist Jews).

This flies in the face of the common reactionary stereotype of the “JewSSR” or the USSR as a Judeo-Bolshevik state. Stalin was certainly no anti-Semite, but he wasn’t exactly a Judeophile either. The Jews suffered badly in the purges of the 1930’s. Anti-Semitism was a capital offense. When the Germans invaded later, Ilya Ehrenberg, Soviet propagandist, laid down the line, “You’re either an anti-Nazi or an anti-Semite! You can’t be both!” This at a time when traitors were getting bullets to the head in the USSR. Ehrenberg’s views were approved by and represented those of Stalin himself.

Anyway, the Pact was nothing but Stalin desperately buying another year or so before the inevitable Nazi attack. Another year to build up his defenses and to move most of their industry behind the Urals.

Although this pic is famous, I've never seen it before. That is Molotov signing the Pact, with Stalin and Ribbentrop directly in back of him. Cool pic!

Below is another interesting pic. This is of the special German Army division, the Gebrings Division, or the Handschar, made up of Bosnian Muslims that the Germans set up after they conquered the Balkans in WW2. Zionists, especially Jews, and Muslim-haters never stop talking about this division. It’s unfortunate, but the truth is that huge pro-Nazi paramilitaries were formed by citizens of many of the countries that the Germans conquered.

There were pro-Nazi divisions made up of Romanians, Hungarians, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Russians, Italians, Armenians, and peoples of the Caucasus.

So singling out 10,000 Muslims for signing up for the German army is a bit absurd. I would think that many more Bosnian Muslims fought against the Nazis as part of the anti-fascist resistance, but I don’t have figures

Bosnian Muslims of the Handschar Division of the German Army reading a Nazi pamphlet called "Islam and the Jews." Notice how White these Muslims look. So much for the White nationalist notion that Muslims are all non-Whites. Don't think so.

The next picture is very interesting. These are East Indians, apparently Sikhs, serving in the German Army. They are in the regular Army, not the SS, as you can see by the insignia on their collars. India was a British colony at the time, and there were Indian soldiers serving in the British Army. A number of these Indians were captured by the Nazis and made into POW’s. The Germans recruited some soldiers for their army from these POW’s. Some of these Indians may have been motivated by anti-colonial feelings towards the British.

This also lines up with the lunatic Nazi notion that they were going to reach India via their offensive in the Caucasus. They would conquer the Caucasus and move on to Iran and then to India, where they would set in motion and armed Indian rebellion against the British colonizers.

The Nazis had some respect for the Iranians and may have even considered them White (the name Iran comes from the word “Aryan”). Nazi race researchers had been running around India researching the Indian Caucasians in order to determine the origin of the Aryan Race. It’s not certain what the Nazis meant by “Aryan,” but I believe it meant the same thing as Indo-European. Yet Slavs were somehow not Indo-Europeans or Aryans? Whatever. Nazi race science never made much sense.

Indian troops serving in the Nazi Army. These are members of the Freies Indien (Free Indian) Division of the German Army

The next pic is really boss. This is a Nazi propaganda poster showing caricatures of evil Soviet troops raping and then murdering teenage German girls. Note that the girls are really almost prepubescent, maybe 12 years old. The blood in the pubic region is from the “pure” virgins being raped. Classic propaganda. Note that the Russians have a pronounced Asiatic look about them in order to make them appear to be non-Whites, while the German girls being raped and murdered are pure blond and blue “Aryans.”

In reality, Russians are probably only about 3-5% Asian genetically, but some have more than that. Most Russians are just another type of White people. It’s true that the Red Army did a Hell of a lot of raping of German sympathizer females, women and girls, on Eastern Front. It was just terrible what they did.

Classic Nazi propaganda shows diabolical Asiatic Red Army troops raping and murdering 12 year old blond and blue pure "Aryan" virgin girls.

Stupid Idea #743,592: Bringing Somali “Refugees” To America

Note: The PC freakazoids have accused this post, as usual, of racism. See here for my position statement on racism.

Read it and weep.

Whose bright idea was this anyway? When you’re stuck in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging. Bearing that in mind, why don’t we quit bringing these Somalis over to our country?

The Somalis are in Norway and Finland too. Same crap in those places. In those countries, immigrants, mostly Somalis, are committing up to 80-90% of the rapes in some places. These Somalis just do not seem to be able to be integrated into modern Western societies. I’m sorry their country is such a craphole, but it’s not our fault. If they’re refugees, I’m sure there’s plenty of African countries that could take them in where their feral behavior would be considered at least normal.

These Somalis have to be just about the worst immigrants on Earth. They come to the West and go straight to gangbanger, do not pass go, do not collect $200. We have enough problems with our own native feral humanoids. There’s no reason why we should be importing even more two-legged animals from overseas.

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