Education, Paleontology, Science

Know Your Bones: October 2013

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I have been inspired by Minda Berbeco’s Fossil Friday! posts over at the National Center for Science Education and have decided to start my own similar series.

 

At the beginning of every month, I will post a photo of a bone/fossil/skeleton. In the comment section, readers can guess the name of the critter that the bone/fossil/skeleton belonged too and at the beginning of the next month, I will post the answer, a short summary of said bone/fossil/skeleton and next month’s challenge. First person that guesses correctly will be quoted in the blog post and have bragging rights for the whole month.

 

I hope everyone will enjoy this, so on to the challenge. This month’s will be an easy one.

 

(Take at the Natural Academy of Science.)

Culture, History, Random

The Lord Kitchener Poster myth?

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One could perhaps expect something of an increase in news-stories about the first World war to pop-up in the run into it’s 100th anniversary. There will be the very human stories such as this from the Birmingham Mail about a Private Henry Tandey who could well have killed a wounded Hitler (and thus could have produced a very different 20th century) or this from the Daily Mail about a “Captain Robert Campbell” who was a POW in a German camp and how he was let out by the Kaiser to go see his dying mother. All very touching and interesting to read if i might add. And in addition to all that there will be the stories about individual historians that are trying their utmost (rightly or wrongly) to challenge a national consensus, for example the stories of Max Hastings’ new book which i touched upon in my last blog post which the things i said there will be subject to a critique by myself in the near future.

The following as reported by the Daily Telegraph certainly belongs in the latter camp, and there’s very little to say about it other than to point out the sheer sensationalism of the article and of the historian being reported upon here. Because according to it the Lord Kitchener poster, perhaps arguably the single most iconic army recruitment poster of either World war …. “never existed”!?

“..[N]ew research has found that no such poster was actually produced during the war and that the image was never used for official recruitment purposes. In fact, it only became popular and widely-used after the conflict ended. […] As part of his research, he [James Taylor] studied the official records of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, the body responsible for recruitment posters, in the National Archives at Kew. These documents provided details of the production of almost 200 official recruitment posters produced during the war and indicated which ones were deemed popular. The so-called ‘Your Country Needs You’ poster is absent. He also analysed thousands of photographs of street scenes and recruitment offices from the period in search of the image, again, without finding it.”

But is that true?

“Mr Taylor’s book shows how the Kitchener image did inspire similar posters, which were used, including one, which was produced by LO [London Opinion], with the word BRITONS, above the same picture of the Field Marshal pointing, with the words “wants YOU – Join Your Country’s Army!”, beneath, and the words ‘God Save The King’ printed along the bottom.”

To properly understand this one needs to have a look at both versions described in the paragraph side by side. The one on the left is the version being derided as being mythical, the one on the Right is the Kitchener poster being conceded as genuine.

Of course the way to prove that the poster on the left is a genuine poster is to find it within any old photo taken during the war but on the Internet that is not as easy to do as it sounds. Because of the modern popularity of the “poster” a “Google images” search will only turn out either with replicas such as a recent “Colman’s Mustard” advertising campaign or digitisations which is what you see on both cases above without substantial indications that what you’re looking it are taken from photos of originals. That being said i know of 2, and only 2, potential examples of the left poster. This and something akin to it appearing right at the beginning of this 1959 doc about the Great War here. I have to give credit to a good friend of mine for alerting me to these examples.

If you have any more examples of the left poster (as opposed to the Right one) in old photos, please feel free to share them. As for the rest of the Telegraph article it conveys truths that have already long been known about. The poster failed to halt a relative decline in recruitment in late 1914, and those who have seen my old poster collection thread will know the poster was later adapted by the Nazis, the Soviets, and indeed Churchill (among others) for their own propaganda purposes. So i don’t think i really have much more to say on the matter.

Culture, Education, Reason, Religion

Creationism – Cargo Cult Science

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In a Caltech-address given in 1974, Richard Feynman coined the term “Cargo Cult Science” to describe any group of scientists who follow the external traits of being a scientist (like wearing lab coats and saying “Deoxyribonucleic acid”) but who don’t follow the rigorous scientific method (like trying not to fool yourself and publishing in the peer-reviewed literature).

There are quite a few stories about how creationism is cargo cult science. For example, the story about the Discovery Institute using a stock photo of a lab to gain scientific credibility. Or take the Creation Science Museum. Those are all good examples of cargo cult science. They follow some external traits (having a laboratory, having a museum) but none of the rigorous scientific method.

I’ll introduce you to another aspect: Peer review. A few of you will be familiar with the Discovery Institute’s list of ID peer reviewed articles. They count 50 articles in seven years (2004-2011) a lot, a “boom” even. Wow, impressive.

Some of you will know the Answers in Genesis research journal. I wrote about an article of theirs a while back, calling their article one of the “most dishonest creationist “research paper”“. They’ve got another article up, one I’ll look at in due time.

A third attempt by creationists to get peer reviewed is CreationWiki’s attempt at peer review. “No articles submitted” should tell you something. Why hilarious? Because of this quote by Chris Ashcraft: “That is the goal of peer reviews in general – to uphold the consensus position. Peer reviews are just what the phrase describes – reviews by peers. Atheists and creationists are not peers regarding theories formed from these worldviews. Only creationists can provide peer reviews of creationist views.”

There are also several others out there attempting to do the same, but we shan’t worry about them for the time being. (Nor ever, as far as I’m concerned.)

Why is peer review so important for creationists? Well, proponents of evolution (hereafter called “scientists”) have often told creationists to “put up or shut up“: Either produce peer-reviewed evidence positively indicative of magical creation or get out of our schools.

Creationists now had two options: To either try and get their articles passed through proper channels or create their own journals. The first option failed horribly so they went for number two.

In very clear terms: If creationists are unable to produce peer-reviewed articles, they will not be regarded as science. Or so they think. The problem, of course, lies not with the publications, that is to say whether there are any published or not. Nor, as Casey Luskin claims, with the quantity of the research. It lies solely with the truth and evidence of the publications. Creationists could have published only a single article and, if it were correct, that would sufficiently throw any theory into doubt. Yet creationists don’t have that silver bullet, nor do they have anything else of value. They could have millions of articles out there and still not convince anyone, simply because their articles (as I showed) are full of crap.

Creationists don’t agree, of course, and rectified their problem (not getting published enough) by simply making up their own journals. Pretty awesome logic, right? Read the link, it’s rife with hilarity. First the author suggests that peer review is ineffective anyway, then he goes on to casually mention “therefore we’ve got our own journals”. Yeah, good on ya.

Anyway, back on topic. What makes this “cargo cult science”? Well, look again at the AiG journal. Doesn’t it remind you of some other journal? I think it looks a lot like a mix between the design from Nature and Science. (I seem to remember there’s another journal that looks even more like AiG’s but I can neither find it nor claim with certainty that I’m correct on that one.) That could be a coincidence, right?

Well, consider the fact that trueorigins looks identical to talkorigins and you might not feel like it’s that much of a coincidence any more.

In conclusion:
Creationists and ID-folk alike use fancy look-alike pages to make their audience think they’re real scientists. They use “big words” (Beta-Globin Pseudogene yadda yadda) and write articles hat look like real scientific articles, so much even that one of their articles slipped into a journal some years ago. They have editors, rules for submission, peer reviewers… everything a real journal has. Except for one thing: Evidence-based articles.

/a

Geology, History, Paleontology, Science

Clash of the Titans

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One of my favorite displays at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is found in the hall Age of the Super Giants. This hall covers the Jurassic period found in New Mexico. There are several displays found in this hall, but the crowning jewel is the two titans in the middle.

 

The photo above is the first thing one sees when walking into this Hall. The Stegosaur (right) looks on as Saurophaganax (left) is rushing in to attack the Seismosaurus (center).

 

Seismosaurus is one of the largest sauropods/land animals to ever live. Scientist believe that it reach a length of 33 meters, making this tied for the longest dinosaur ever discovered. It is believed to have weighed 27 metric tons. It was found in New Mexico and is the only one known from the fossil record.

 

There is some debate over whether Seismosaurus is actually a new genus or if it is just the largest specimen of Diplodocus ever discovered. The consensus at this point is that Seismosaurus is just the largest Diplodocus to have ever been discovered. The only way to settle this debate is if some lucky paleontologist finds another specimen that includes the anatomy that we are lacking.

 

The erect skeleton is a fabrication of the fossils found. Above are the actual fossils from Seismosaurus. They include most of the pelvis, part of the tail, the lower back section, and a few ribs. The rest of the anatomy on the erect skeleton was created by scaling up the bones from Diplodocus.

 

Seismosaurus would have had two lines of defense against predators, such as Saurophaganax. The first would have been it size. When it reached, adulthood a predator would have to be very desperate to attack one of them. The second would be the tail you see above. Sauropods, such as Seismosaurus were able to whip their tails at supersonic speeds, just like a bullwhip. It could have been used for defense, but it also could have been used for communicating with other sauropods with sound.

 

Saurophaganax would have been the apex predator of the late Jurassic. Saurophaganax was closely related to Allosaurus, however, Saurophaganax was ~ 12 meters long (just shy of the length of a T. rex). Saurophaganax shared many of the same attributes that made Allosaurus such a fearsome predator. Some of those include strong legs for running and a large head with teeth like steak knives.

 

However, the feature that I feel made Saurophaganax a terrifying predator was its clawed hands. Saurophaganax would have been able to run up to an animal and slash at its belly with one hand, while holding it with the other. The largest claw was over 15 cm long.

 

Again, the erect skeleton is a fabrication, but above is a photo of the actual fossils of Saurophaganax that were found in New Mexico. Some specimens of Saurophaganax have been found in other states, but none were complete. Much like with Seismosaurus, Saurophaganax was reconstructed by scaling up bones from Allosaurus.

This display is a jaw dropping experience. The size of these two animals is astonishing. The WOW! one hears from children and adults walking through this hall never ends. It is quite amazing just to sit in this hall and imagine the world that held these beasts in it. This display is just one of the extraordinary exhibits one can find at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

Paleontology, Science

Cotyledion and creationists

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I often search creationist websites for new arguments, but they’re usually the same: “Evolution is wrong because of X, therefore creation”. In addition to that, they haven’t really found new examples for the last five or so years. Since Kitzmiller vs. Dover, there has been surprisingly little from creationists. Even finding a new organism to criticize is a relative novelty for creationists.

So I was surprised to find that the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) had an article up (this was about mid January) criticizing the evolutionary history of Cotyledion tylodes. Now even though this article appears under my name, this is a joint project between Isotelus and me. I wrote it and she heavily criticized and improved it. So, let’s take a look at the ICR article.

Another Cambrian Discovery Discredits Evolution

A fossil creature from the phylum Entoprocta (invertebrate animals that have tentacles and lacking a mineralized skeleton) was found in marked abundance (over 400 individuals) in Burgess Shale. The Burgess is a sedimentary layer that’s purportedly part of the Cambrian period about a half-billion years ago, according to evolutionists.1 The problem for paleontologists is that the supposedly 520 million year old creature looks exactly like its living counterparts, only up to 8 eight times larger.

First, let’s quickly explain what Entoprocta is and where it fits in. They are animals in the superphylum “Lophotrochozoa“, just like we are in the superphylum “Deuterostopmia“. Lophotrochozoa includes Molluscs, Annelids and of course Entoprocta.

Entoprocta differs from the largely similar Bryozoa (or Ectoprocta, archaic) in one major aspect: All Bryozoa have the anus on the outside, while Entoprocta have the anus on the inside. Entoprocta range from the early Cambrian until today, with a fair number of living relatives still around. (Examples include Loxosomatidae, Barentsiidae, Pedicellinidae and Loxokalypodidae) These represent four families with around 150 species.

One thing to note is that I couldn’t trace C. tylodes to the Burgess Shale (Canada), but rather to Chengjiang in China. Now that’s not a huge problem since both “lagerstätten” are roughly of the same time period. (505mya and 520mya respectively) However, the fossils are significantly closer to the Cambrian Explosion (~550mya) I could also be missing something and this fossil was actually found in the Burgess Shale, but there’s no indication for that. Indeed, Zhang et al. (2013) and Luo et al. (1999, original find) both mention the Chengjiang Konservat-Lagerstätte.

This is another testament to the stunningly thorough research abilities of creationists: The Burgess shale fossil they’re confusing C. tylodes with is Dinomischus, which has an unknown affinity.

But let’s now look at the anatomy. Sadly, the picture provided by LiveScience is incorrectly labelled (Isophagus instead of Esophagus), the original one can be found in Zhang et al. (2013), Figure 1.

Here’s the incorrectly labelled version for better viewing pleasure, the original is too small:

Figure 1.: Extinct Entoprocta, C. tylodes, interpretative drawing

The creationist contention is that C. tylodes look the same as their living relatives. Now I already pointed to the four families above, so we’ll look at a few species. Loxosomella vivipara (apparently now called Loxocalyx raja?), Loxomitra kefersteinii, Loxosomella crassicauda… They all look fairly different from C. tylodes, though of course the main structure remains.

A quote from this article is spot on:

Indeed, researchers are coming to realize that the term “living fossil” is a misnomer. One by one, the classic examples—horseshoe crabs, coelacanths, cycads, and more—have turned out to be very different from the fossils that they apparently resemble, either at a genetic level or through subtle physical changes. Their recognizable nature is a red herring—these creatures simply did not exist in their current form millions of years ago.

Let’s recap those last two points: Contrary to the creationists statements, extinct Entoprocta look different than their extant counterparts. But even if they did not change much morphologically, it’s certain that they would have changed genetically.

Now we already know that size isn’t at all relevant when it comes to animals’ and plants’ evolutionary status, but what if C. tylodes really was more complex than his ancestors? That would be a completely different discussion. Now to check that, the only resources available to us are the pictures I provided above and peer-reviewed articles talking about their structures/anatomy/etc.

The pictures already showed some differences, but that doesn’t solve the question of complexity. In the case of C. tylodes, the creationists were very specific in their criticism:

Interestingly, the fossils of C. tylodes also appear to have somewhat more complex features than modern entoprocts. Unlike living entoprocts, the stem and flowerlike feeding cup of the “ancient” version was covered by tiny hardened protuberances (sclerites), and the creatures were much larger.

Now there’s absolutely no denying that the average C. tylodes was much larger than modern Entoprocta, extant ones being between 0.1mm and 7mm, extinct ones between 8mm and 56mm long. I already explained that size really doesn’t matter, so we can safely skip over that point.

So on to the next point: tiny scelerites. This too is true, in fact the 2013 paper (Zhang et al.) is actually called “A scelerite-bearing stem group…” But is that really a sign of complexity? Let’s look at the rest.

Figure 2.: Extant Entoprocta anatomy

This picture shows what extant Entoprocta look like. Well, it’s of course either a general form or one specific species, I couldn’t determine that. (Note: Isotelus suggests it’s most likely a general form.) Notice the tentacles on the left (extended) and on the right (retracted). This is actually a very important quality in this Phylum, because they feed by putting stuff into their mouths with their tentacles. In Zhang et al., they specifically state that C. tylodes was able to retract the tentacles a bit, but not as much as extant Entoprocta.

In addition, there is some evidence that the tentacles may have been contractible and could have been retracted into the membranous band where they originate from (Fig. S4a–c), suggesting some degree of retractability of the tentacles that corresponds functionally and structurally to that seen in those of the extant entoprocts [1].

So C. tylodes was well on its way to retracting them fully, but they don’t seem to have been as mobile as their contemporary counterparts. This may be due to the fossils we found, since none of them exhibit the degree of curling that modern examples do. So on this, the jury is still out. The scelerites mentioned may also be the reason why the tentacles are so well-preserved. Which isn’t at all unexpected, given how well preserved other fossils from that location are.

However, Zhang et al. also note other differences to extant Entoprocta.

In addition, recent entoprocts are pseudocoelomate, with the cavity surrounding the calycal (aka. calyx, see Fig. 2) organs and extending into the stalk in-filled by a hydrostatic skeleton of loose mesenchyme cell or narrow primary body cavity [1].

So there we have it, folks: Extinct Entoprocta were different from their extant descendants and they were almost certainly not as complex. (Whatever creationists mean by that.)

Resources/References:

Clausen, S. B.; Hou, X. G.; Bergström, J.; Franzén, C. (2010). “The absence of echinoderms from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna of China: Palaeoecological and palaeogeographical implications”. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 294 (3–4): 133.

Iseta, Tohru. (2002) Loxocorone, a New Genus of the Family Loxosomatidae (Entoprocta: Solitaria), with Descriptions of Two New Loxomitra (sensu stricto) and a New Loxocorone from Okinawa, the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan Toological Science 19: 359–367 (2002)

Luo, Huilin, Hu, Shixue, Chen, Laingzhong, (1999). “Early Cambrian Chengjiang Fauna from Kunming Region, China. Yunnan Science and Technology press, Kunming China. (<–Only in Chinese, if you really want to read it…)

Zhang, Z.; Holmer, L. E.; Skovsted, C. B.; Brock, G. A.; Budd, G. E.; Fu, D.; Zhang, X.; Shu, D. et al. (2013). “A sclerite-bearing stem group entoproct from the early Cambrian and its implications”. Scientific Reports 3

Education, Politics

My political views

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I often feel unable to adequately describe my political views, but I thought perhaps the best way to elucidate them would be to describe my ideal world (or at least snippets thereof) rather than detail any particular philosophies I adhere to. I am ever aware that all political ideologies should be tempered with realism, however I do not feel that my intellect is entirely capable of completely sticking to this principle. For that reason I would welcome any criticisms and ideas in the comments thread.

 

I believe that a prosperous society should be focused upon improving technology. Technology greatly improves the standard of living and has many economic benefits. A better quality of life for all individuals is something that should be strived for .The pursuit of technology will greatly increase our odds of overcoming many of the issues facing our species.

 

Tied to this point is the very important topic of education. It goes without saying that we need engineers and scientists to push forward technology. Also the higher the standard of education in all subjects the greater our standard of living and culture would be. I feel rather strongly that putting barriers (such as incredibly high tuition fees) in front of university level education is going to impede our ability to generate the next generation of great thinkers. Obviously universities need to economically sustain themselves somehow, but I feel restricting access to them by having absurdly high fees is not the best way to go about it (although admittedly I could not tell you what exactly the best way to go about it would be).

 

One thing I feel that was sorely missing from my own education was critical thinking. I was in my early twenties when I first began to learn about this important subject—which is indicative of a failing in our education system. With simple critical thinking tools one is endowed with a greatly accentuated ability to educate oneself. Being taught disparate facts and snippets of information and retain them for just long enough to pass the exam was not a great way of helping me actually learn in any real sense of the word. I felt disengaged with the learning process and viewed education in a somewhat negative light until fairly recently. What we really need is a population of individuals that are highly engaged in learning as a life-long process. Though I do not presume to know exactly how this might be implemented, or whether such a radical change would be economically viable, I do feel that a nation of educated thinkers would vastly improve our culture, our innovations, and endow us with a highly skilled workforce.

 

Of course I would not wish to live in a society in which people are forced to become lifelong learners or penalized for not aspiring to this, as this would be antithetical to basic principles of liberty. However, I feel that in order to attain a fully liberal society, individuals must be given the greatest possible opportunities to achieve their potential. If you want to be a bin man that’s fine, but nobody should be in the position of being a bin man simply because other opportunities were denied of them. In my current situation, I feel denied of opportunities because my ability to gain the qualifications I need in order to fulfill my potential has been hidden behind a wall of cash. Thus I am in a position in which I am having to seek employment in areas that are completely beneath me in terms of what I know I am capable of. I would like to live in a world in which as few people as possible wind up in a similar position, and I think the flaws in the education system have a great deal to do with it.

 

In essence my political focus would be to raise the floor of our society and culture by greatly improving education and opportunities. This simple factor would, in my opinion have a knock on effect in almost all aspects of politics. A population of critical thinkers is liable to approach issues more reasonably, be less affected by the media, and more innovative—which in turn would pave the way to prosperity in the long term.

 

As for other areas of politics and economics I remain largely naïve. It can be said of me that I am a liberal secularist, with some socialist tendencies. I am also an advocate of democracy, which is something I feel could be improved with technology also (particularly information technology). I’ve never aligned myself with a particular political party, and I tend not to devote a huge amount of my time to elucidating my political views in discussions. Hence why the focus of this post is somewhat narrowed to subjects I feel comfortable expressing my views on. If you have any further questions about my political beliefs, please feel free to comment in the thread and I shall endeavour to answer them.

Politics

Politics – Part 3: The Greens

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As promised in my last post, I now want to focus on the Greens.

As with the centre right party, their program is over 70 pages long, so I won’t read through it all. I want to make you aware of something though: The extreme right-wing party has a program 17 pages in length, the left wing party (SPÖ) has one 31 pages long, the centre right 68 pages and the Greens is 88 pages long. Now obviously the quantity of the program says nothing about the quality, but a lack of quantity… hm, maybe.

I’ve also decided to drop the extreme-left parties, instead I’ll talk about recent trends in politics, new parties and some tools. After that, as I’ve already explained, I want to start a big discussion about “the ideal party”.

Anyway, the Greens…
In general, the Greens parties will be moderately to extremely left-leaning and have “the environment” as their main agenda. Sometimes they’ll have some social issues on their agenda (LGBT-rights, women’s rights, etc.) and sometimes some lefty political/anti-state issues, but in general they’re a very specialized party and won’t attract a wide range of clientèle. As a result, it’s seldom you’ll see them top the 10% margin. Indeed, most green-parties have managed only a single 10%+ result.

In Austria specifically, there was one excellent Greens-chairman, Alexander Van der Bellen. This is irrelevant, but there’s a nice little story to it. In 2008, his party lost votes for the first time, going from 11.05% to 10.43%. Then from one day to the next, he suddenly said “duck it all” and left. The party has been in disarray since, but interestingly they’ll probably get a huge boost in 2013.

Now that in itself is rather interesting, I think. In the last ten years (you always vote every five years in Austria) the leading parties (ÖVP/SPÖ) have fucked up so badly, that Austrians sought an alternative. At first, in 2008, that alternative was the BZÖ/FPÖ, the two extreme right wing parties. (Gain 13% total, 6.5% each) Now, in 2013, there is one new party, Team Stronach (TS), and the Greens, who are the winners. TS won on average 8%, in some cases even 10%, while the Greens nearly doubled their votes in some states, but definitely grew quite drastically.

The reason for TS’s and the Greens’ gain can be attributed to them not being involved in the scandals, the huge loss of BZÖ/FPÖ to… well, nothing new, I guess. Who wants to hear “immigrants are shit” every day of the week?

Now in Austria, you get to vote for your state (we have 9 states) and then again country-wide. There were four state-votes this year:

Salzburg was a tremendous win for the greens, going from 12% to 20%. That’s the largest they’ve ever been in a state. ÖVP/SPÖ lost a huge deal 7.5%/15% respectively and both TS (8%) and FPÖ (4%) made gains.

In Carinthia,  the FPK (the FPÖ of Carinthia) went from being the strongest party (44.89%) to being the second strongest (16.85%), a whopping loss of 28.04%. The SPÖ picked up (+8% to 37%) and the Greens more than doubled. (+7% to 12%)

In both Tyrol and lower Austria, the votes remained largely the same, all parties except the Greens (+1-2%) lost a bit and TS achieved 9.5% quite consistently.

This changes the political landscape quite a bit! The Greens will achieve anything between 16% and 20% in the upcoming elections (huge boost, a potential double), the SPÖ will lose very slightly (1-2% to 27%), the ÖVP will remain roughly the same (25%) and TS will achieve about 8-10%. The huge uncertainty-factor will be the FPÖ. Having lost so much in Carinthia (~100.000 votes) and gained very little in the other states (~10.000 votes), they’re still predicted to make a net gain for the nation-wide votes (total of 17-19%). That’s because the votes are generally quite different, people lean more to the left in state elections but are very right-wing in nation-wide elections.

In any case, the Greens… Seriously now…

When reading the party’s program, I noticed that it is… wishy-washy. I’m not saying that their program is bad, I hope I’ve been fair enough to be rather neutral. (Mostly because I think all party-programs up until now were shit, but that’s a different story.) The problem is that the language is so passive, so neutral… For example:

A solid community of free people in an intact environment – that is our vision. This vision doesn’t describe an end-point, but rather an open future, which we want to form with our values, principals and our politics.

Now call me a cynic, but when I read that the first time I imagined hippies dancing to oriental music, throwing flowers through the air. The rest of the program goes on in the same tone. Anyway, I’ll try to pick out their main points and explain their ideology that way.

As stated in the opening paragraphs, the Greens have a moderate to strong “left” tendency. This is reflected in their roots:

Die historischen Wurzeln der Grünen liegen in den neuen sozialen Bewegungen: der StudentInnenbewegung, der Frauen-, Umwelt- und Friedensbewegung, in Bürgerrechtsbewegungen und BürgerInneninitiativen, den kritischen ChristInnen, WissenschafterInnen und GewerkschafterInnen, der entwicklungspolitischen Solidaritätsbewegung und den Bewegungen alter und neuer, sozialer oder kultureller “Minderheiten”.

In short: The Austrian Greens developed out of feminist, peace- and environment-movements as well as citizens’ actions committees and other grass-root organisations.

This multi-faceted history is reflected today: They are in favour of multi-cultural societies, a multi-national approach to problem-solving and, as already stated, an ecologically stable society.
However/additionally, they are also clearly opposed to labelling, as that would only add to existing divisions.

As also explained, they are more socialist than conservative, which shows in the following:

Alle Versuche, Solidarität auf einen engen Kreis von NutznießerInnen zu beschränken, haben in Sackgassen geführt.

Every attempt to limit the gains of society (or to limit solidarity) to one group of beneficiaries has always resulted in a dead end.

This is a clearly socialist approach to society and economics. Interestingly, the Greens in Austria tend to form coalitions with conservative parties about as often as with socialist parties. This may be due to the above discussed problem the Greens have: They’re usually very small. (In the US, they have yet to gain more than 2.74%!)

The next bit might surprise you a bit:

Grüne Politik folgt Utopien.

Green politics follows (is) Utopia.

I have purposefully included the (is), you will hopefully forgive me for inserting judgement here. Green politics IS Utopia. One of the main criticisms levelled against the Green parties I know of is that they’re out of touch with reality. Their ideas are sometimes excellent, but they’ll not be able to deliver what they want, simply because there are political limits.

The do claim to be realistic about their goals, but that’s not true at all.

Continue reading Politics – Part 3: The Greens →

Culture, News, Politics

Bad times bring us together

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I’m sure most people will have heard of the protests in Turkey. A friend of mine is Turkish so I always get updates, however reliable they might be, through her.

A recent message on her FB recently said the following:

Sehr geehrter Herr Ministerpräsident; heute hast du uns einen Gefallen getan, dessen du dir noch nicht bewusst bist.

Ich habe heute einen Fenerbahce Fan gesehen, der vor den Polizisten, denen du den Befehl zum Angriff gegeben hast, zu Boden gestürzt ist und dem – von einem Galatasaray Fan – auf die Beine geholfen wurde. Schüler, die ihr Brot und Wasser teilen, kurdisch- und türkischstämmige Menschen, die Hand in Hand laufen. Das habe ich heute gesehen.

Frauen, die Sie als Prostituierte bezeichnen sind mit Milch und Zitrone in der Hand, aus den Bordellen, den Verletzten zur Hilfe geeilt. Ich habe gesehen, dass Menschen, die Sie als Travestien bezeichnen, ihre Hotelzimmer für Menschen geöffnet haben, die Zuflucht suchen, Ärzte und Rechtanwälte haben ihre Telefonnummern mitgeteilt, Medizinstudenten haben Erste Hilfe geleistet.

Ich habe ältere Frauen gesehen, die Essigtücher verteilen. Händler, die ihre Netzwerksicherheitsschlüssel freigeben, Hotelbesitzer, die die Verletzten in ihre Lobby nehmen.
Das habe ich heute gesehen.

Ich habe gesehen, dass ein Fahrer der Gemeinde die Straße mit seinem Bus versperrt hat, damit ja kein Panzer eindringen kann. Apotheker, die ihre Apotheken in der Nacht öffnen habe ich gesehen.

Und sei dir sicher, heute Nacht waren nicht die Gasbomben der Grund für die Tränen in unseren Augen – es war unser Stolz !!

 

That’s quite the wall of text and in German too. Here’s a google-translated version with some corrections on my part:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, today you have done us a favour, which you are not aware of yet.

Today I have seen a Fenerbahce fan who was thrown to the ground by the police, whom you have given the order to attack on the ground and said fan was raised to his feet by a Galatasaray fan. Students who share their bread and water, Kurdish and Turkish-born people who run hand in hand. I’ve seen it today.

Women who you call a prostitute with milk and lemon in hand, from the brothels, rushed to help the injured. I saw that the people you refer to as travesties, opened their hotel rooms for people seeking refuge, doctors and lawyers have posted their phone numbers, medical students have given first aid.

I have seen older women who spread vinegar cloths. Traders who share their network security key, hotel owners who take the injured in their lobby.
I’ve seen it today.

I have seen that a driver of the municipality has blocked the road with his bus, so it can not be penetrated by armour. Pharmacists who open their pharmacies in the night, I’ve seen it.

And rest assured, tonight it weren’t the gas bombs which were the reason for the tears in our eyes – it was our pride!

 

In itself, that’s a very nice letter sent to Mr Erdogan by Mr Akyut G.

What stands out though, at least to me, is the sharp contrast between “normal” times and “problematic” times. Generally, the football (and by that I mean soccer) fans would beat each other to a bloody pulp. The prostitutes would be shunned by large parts of the society, only to be required later on.

I don’t think this is at all unusual. For example, Germany was heavily shelled in WW2 (and in turned shelled others quite severely) but when a common enemy, the Soviet Union, was declared, other Western powers fairly quickly allied themselves with the Germans.

Yet as soon as this common enemy faded away, nationalist feelings would tend to grow and allies would once again become… well, not quite enemies, but relationships faded.

I’ll draw on one example to explain what I mean: In a recent blog post about right wing parties I introduced the Austrian party FPÖ. They’re probably the most right-wing party you can currently find in Austria. Looking at the results of national votes in Austria one can see a curious trend: With very few exceptions, the FPÖ had fewer than 10% in most counties, but in 1988, just as the fall of the Berlin Wall was imminent (as we now know in hindsight), the FPÖ suddenly made a tremendous jump in votes. (In some counties earlier, see Oberösterreich, in some a bit later)

Now there might be any number of reasons for that, but I’ll only focus on the two main reasons: In 1986, Jörg Haider took over the FPÖ, which may have caused votes to soar.
I don’t think so, however. If he were the reason for the jump, you’d have expected votes to go down after he split from the party in 2004 and after he died in 2008. The opposite is true: Though a slight dip can be seen in 2004 (after Haider created the BZÖ, the second right-wing party in Austria), the numbers rose again a few years later and the total right-wing voters consistently rose.

 

This leaves, in my opinion, only one conclusion, which incidentally is the second reason I said I’d mention above: Nationalism, at least in Austria, is on the rise. I think the same holds true for many other countries: The Front National (FN) in France has constantly gained votes in the presidential run since its inception in 1974. Both the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alantie (NV-A) and the Vlaams Belang (VB) have gained votes and would currently hold over 50% if they worked together. Even the British National Party (BNP), by the way the only party that Wikipedia claims is “right-wing extremist”, has gained votes, even though they currently barely reach 2%.

I think the trend is clear: Nationalism. right-wing tendencies and euro-scepticism is on the rise and with it a sort of “fight for yourself” attitude. I think that’s all fairly undeniable.

There are two questions I would like to pose:

1) What can be done to counter that movement? It seems a fair number of people who would have voted centre-right are now voting left, simply because they’re frightened by a right-wing takeover or a cooperation. (Lefties would never work with right-wingers… right?)

2) Seeing the post in the context of the above letter: Do you think it’s true that we will only fight side by side if there are common enemies, as opposed to common goals? I can’t shake the horrible feeling that there might be something to it.

Culture, Events, History

“Germany and Austria started WWI seeking European domination, historian says”

12 Comments

The above title was from a Daily Telegraph headline to one of its recent articles concerning the causes of the outbreak of WW1 and I thought I may take a break from blogging chronologically about leading up to WW1 in order to focus on what I have seen.

If one wishes to discuss the causes, arguably one could stretch this to the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, which was designed to settle the so-called eastern question, i.e., what belongs to what within the context of the end of the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877–1878. Initially that question between Russia and the Ottoman had been resolved through the treaty of San-Stefano signed March 3 1878. That treaty ceded effective Ottoman control of the Northern Balkans and likewise allowed the Russians to increase their political influence upon the region, much to the chagrin of the great powers of the West, namely the British, who felt that an expansionist Russia could put her far-eastern colonies at risk and the Austria-Hungarian Empire who wanted to maintain their own diplomatic influence in the Balkans.

Whilst this treaty was designed to mitigate the effects of San-Stefano and in effect allow the Ottoman Empire to retain control of the Southern Balkans, crucially to my perspective, this treaty also allowed the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be occupied and administered by the Austria-Hungarian Empire through international mandate. In 1908 however, without any legal justification, the Austria-Hungarian Empire decided to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina, triggering the Bosnian crisis and a subsequent amendment to the treaty of Berlin in 1909, recognising the Austria-Hungarian Empire’s governance of the region. This amendment denied nationalists within Serbia their ambitions to build a full “greater Serbia”, i.e., want of a restoration of the lands that once belonged to Serbia during the middle ages before the nation was subsumed by the Ottoman Empire.

Serbia for its part would go on to be a key player in the set of Balkan wars that played out just before the First World War. In the conclusion to the first Balkan War, Serbia practically doubled its territory, through expanding southwards into Kosovo and Macedonia. In the second Balkan War against Bulgaria, it consolidated these gains. This was perhaps enough for the govt but it certainly was not enough for the nationalists who were embedded within the army, such as the nationalist group “The Black hand” who had already possessed a track record for changes in Serb foreign policy through political terrorism, such as the changes in foreign policy caused by the assassination of King Alexander I for not being too belligerent enough with the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and also because he married to someone whom the Black Hand thought had a dangerous influence upon society.

But the Serbian govt wasn’t represented by terrorists and officially expressed little desire for war between itself and the Austria-Hungarian Empire in 1914. And this is what made the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand by the “Black hand” so tragic in retrospect. It wasn’t the first time that a major figure had been assassinated by nationalists either; In 1908 a Ruthenian nationalist murdered Andreas Potocki, the governor of Austria-Polish province of Galicia which was also contested for influence by both the Austria-Hungarian Empire and Russia. In this case however, the assassin was handed over and no war came about. Evidently the Galician and Sarajevo assassin events were clearly different. As of yet I have not seen anything to suggest that Austria-Hungary had suspicions that the event in Galacia was a state sponsored act of terrorism whereas with regards to Serbia they clearly did. On July 23 1914 Austria-Hungary presented to Serbia an extremely harsh ultimatum to Belgrade with the addition that a response should be delivered from Belgrade within 48 hours. And, although Serbia did say they would comply with most of the ultimatum, most wasn’t enough. On July 28 Serbia Austria-Hungary declared war and was invaded and so WW1 formally began.

It is then that the systems of entangling alliances both sides of the War had kicked in. Russia mobilised against Austria-Hungary as a response to the former’s ominous treatment of Serbia, but there was no declaration of war. Germany responded by declaring War on Russia anyway on August 1, and then on Belgium and France. Britain had an entente with France and a guarantee to Belgium that had existed since 1839 which promised, in short, that the British would go to war with whoever shall attack Belgium. On August 4 1914 that country happening to attack Belgium was Germany, and subsequently the British declared war on the Germans.

—

The above presents the history of the beginnings of World War 1 that I am sure most would be familiar with, and in this summation, German blame for WW1 is implied. But is this the most explicit of finger-pointing? What I will present you now are two recent articles centered around Max Hastings who has a new book coming out, who seems very much in the explicit finger-pointing camp, stating that the central powers are mainly to blame for WW1.

(1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10110657/Germany-and-Austria-started-WWI-seeking-European-domination-historian-says.html

(2) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2339189/MAX-HASTINGS-Sucking-Germans-way-remember-Great-War-heroes-Mr-Cameron.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

In addition to Germany’s foreign policy on its southern neighbour, whom she vowed to stand by like a knight “in shining armour”, and the subsequent reaction to this from Vienna as pointed out in these articles, another point I’ve seen is that the German rationale for aggression in the west was detached from Austria-Hungarian aggression against Serbia. Indeed, part of the reason Germany said on August 3 that it was going to war with France was that because the German city of Nuremberg had earlier been bombed by French aircraft, (this bombing raid seems a nonsensical story).

So, for all the above, how much relative blame should we point to Germany and Austria-Hungary? You tell me.

(PS: With regards to the Greater Serbia that the nationalists there wanted and their base being the medieval kingdom of Serbia, I am actually writing this on the anniversary of the Battle of Blackbird’s Field, which took place just 3 miles north of Prishtina in Kosovo in the year 1389. For the Serbs, it was at most a Pyrrhic Draw, in the long term it began a slow decay and splinter in Serbian Anti-Ottoman political elite, although that being said, it did take another 132 years for Belgrade itself to fall into Ottoman hands with that city finally being captured in 1521. However because of the losses on the Ottoman side this battle is often seen as delaying Ottoman advance into the rest of the Balkans, thus this battle forms part of the modern Serbian pride in that medieval kingdom. This is the Gazimestan monument, located on the modern day battle-site.

It commemorates those Serbs who fell in battle. It was also where the late dictator Slobodan Milošević made this notorious speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8QwHrRzpeo )

Politics

Politics – Part 2: Centre right

21 Comments

Having talked about far-right parties in my first post, I wish to move slightly further toward the centre.

Centre-right parties are usually conservative parties, the examples being the Conservative Party (UK) and the Republican Party (US). I will take the specific example of the Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP) and look at their program. Note that I can’t go through it all, it’s about 70 pages long.

A quick word about the colour system: In general, conservative parties will sport blue (UK) or black (Germany, Austria) colours. Socialist (left-wing) parties will usually have red colours. (UK, Germany, Austria) I only know of the US where these roles are reversed: The conservative party (Republicans) are red and the socialist party (Democrats) are blue.

 

The first point in the program of the ÖVP is:

Wir sind die christdemokratische Partei.

Basically: “We are a Christian democratic party.”

This is quite common in most any conservative party I know: State that you are a Christian party. The CDU and the Republicans alike emphasize this point.

Point three reads:

Wir sind die Partei der Ökosozialen Marktwirtschaft.

Basically: We stand for ökosocial markets.
This isn’t exactly what they’re doing though. Many centre-right parties, the ÖVP included, are straight capitalists, usually letting market regulate itself and only interfering if a crisis is imminent. This is also called “laissez-faire capitalism”.

It is generally true that centre-right parties focus on boosting the economy, while centre-left parties focus on using money to pay for social institutions.

Point four reads:

Wir sind die Österreichpartei in Europa.

Basically: “We are the Austria-party in Europe”

This might seem redundant, they are in Austria after all, but it’s actually a statement about two things:
1) European politics are quite difficult to understand, so I’ll refrain from that here. What you should know is that the European Parliament also contains a number of parties. The ÖVP is particularly concerned with representing Austrian interests.

2) Austrian interests are, in this case, national interests. This once again shows the strong nationalist tendencies of right-wing parties.

Point five reads:

Wir sind die Volkspartei

Basically: “We are the peoples party”

Again, this is not strictly true if you look at their voters. Generally, these voters are composed of wealthier people who don’t care too much about social infrastructure, that is to say free medicare, free public transport and so on. A newspaper article in the “kleine Zeitung” characterizes ÖVP-voters in the following way: Mostly voted for by farmers (huge lobby in Austria) and independent business people.

This is generally true of other centre-right parties. They mostly appeal to rich people (see GOP in the US) and independent business owners, while generally not appealing to the working-class. Note: This is prominently not true in the UK, where the working class seems to favour the conservative party.

Another point states: We want to boost the family as the core of society. (Fun fact: They misspelled the word “Kernzelle”, meaning core. It reads “Keimzelle”, meaning gamete. “Keim” also means pathogen, so I’m not sure what they’re telling us…)

This is similar to the more extreme-right parties: Focusing on the family (defined as man + woman + kids) and exclude same-sex couples. Opposition to same-sex marriage usually stems from the more right-wing parties such as the Republican Party, the ÖVP and FPÖ, the German CDU and, in most cases, the conservative party in the UK. (Note for the last one: There seems to be some movement going on.)

 

I think that’s enough attention devoted to the centre-right. Next up: The Green party, after which I will follow with the left wing parties.