Socialism is the antidote

Some say the world is divided into independent, territorially-based states representing and pursuing the interests of capitalists from within their borders, and that the world economy is characterised by competing separate national capitals only. Others view the capitalist system as a single economy, even if divided politically and geographically, into separate “nation states”, and that the recent globalisation represents the emergence of a global capitalist class not tied to a particular national state. Those holding the latter idea fully understand that national states have not disappeared and are still powerful players in the capitalist economy but argue that the transnational capitalist class uses them, through favourable politicians and governments, to pursue its transnational interests (rather than them being used by a national capitalist class to pursue its national interests).

However, any transnational capitalist class would only be a section of the capitalist class of the world. There are still plenty of national capitalists, actual and would-be, whose interests are not the same as those of the transnational section. So, although political power in the advanced capitalist countries, may be in the hands of politicians favourable to transnational capitalists, there is still opposition to them. From the point of view of the transnational corporations, states no longer have important policy-making functions. It is enough if they enforce property rights and maintain basic infrastructure in areas important for business. Small states can do these jobs as well as large ones. In fact, they have definite advantages. They are more easily controlled, less likely to develop the will or capacity to challenge the prerogatives of global capital.

The ideology of national capitalism, reflecting the interests of small-scale capitalists, is still strong and finds support both from the “right” and the “left” who beat the same nationalist drum during the referendum debate. Being against capitalist globalisation is not the same as being against capitalism in general. We have ample past experience of a world of competing national capitalisms – quite enough to demonstrate that there is no good reason for preferring such a world to a world under the sway of global capital. Leftists such as the SSP in effect argue that workers should support national as opposed to transnational capitalism. Socialists, on the other hand, don’t take sides in this conflict between different sections of the capitalist class. Socialism will do away with all national oppression, because it removes the class interests that furnish the driving force of such oppression. Nor do we have any reason to assume that the nation, in socialist society, will form the basic politico-economic unit.

The Socialist Party is part of the World Socialist Movement which didn't get its name for nothing. Unique amongst all political parties left and right we have no national axe to grind. We side with no particular state, no government. We have no time for border controls. The world over, workers must do what they can to survive and resist capitalism. In many parts of the world that means escaping the tyranny of political terror or economic poverty. Workers should resist taking sides in the battles of the economic entities named on your passport.

One World Socialists

The Greeks in the 4th Century BCE  coined the term “cosmopolitan” – meaning citizen of the world and that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community.   Diogenes it is said was asked where he came from and he answered: "'I am a citizen of the world". Eugene Debs of the American Socialist Party at the turn of the 20th Century said "I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World."

The importance of local democracy has to be seen in the context of the modern world. People aren't just concerned about whether a piece of local land should be used for housing, growing food, a cricket pitch or left as it is. People are engaged with issues affecting them which extend far beyond their local areas. So, as well as being citizens of their parish or district they would also be citizens of the world with all the opportunities for, and responsibilities of decision making and action in every sphere of life. Some of the problems which face mankind are "whole-world" problems. People are beginning to think in world terms. More and more people are coming to appreciate world music and world theatre. Millions more follow world sporting events, and there is a growing consciousness that all humans are part of one world, that we share a common planet. As more than one astronaut has remarked, when looking down on the Earth you can't see any frontiers. Millions of people throughout the world are concerned about world poverty and world hunger and problems such as global warming and tropical deforestation.Think globally, act locally.

We are all one species. Our world is the only one we've got and we must share it with everybody. Socialists do not stand for world government because we are opposed to governments everywhere. One World represents an entirely different vision of the future to the "United Nations" or "Internationalism" which, as their names imply, are attempts to improvise a patchwork from the fragments which capitalism makes of the world. We are for the planned production and distribution of wealth on a world scale to meet human needs. To move forward the dispossessed of the world must now look beyond the artificial barriers of nation-states and regional blocs, to perceive a common identity and purpose. We seek a global community with no private property beyond immediate possessions, no need for money, no racism or sexism, no enslavement of children, no profit motive to drive the oppression of working people, no battles over personal interpretations of spirituality, and no disrespect for the 'other'.

The socialist aim is a world where we peacefully cohabit our home planet. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country. No longer will there be governments and their state machinery, or national frontiers. Instead of government over people there would be various levels of democratic administration, from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups or individuals. A united humanity, sharing a world of common interests, would also share world administration. It is sometimes said that world administration would mean power of central control over local democracy. We, however, envisage an integrated system that would be adaptable and could be used for decision-making and action on any scale between the local and the world. In socialism, for the first time, local communities will be free to make decisions about the development of their areas. These would be decisions about local services such as health, education and transport; public facilities such as parks, libraries, leisure centres and sports grounds; local housing, the siting of production units, management of farming, care of the local environment, cultural events, and so on. The principle of local democracy would be that decisions affecting just local populations would be made by them and not for them by any larger or outside body. Local communities, nevertheless, cannot be completely independent or self-reliant as far as meeting their material needs goes; they are interdependent. People in small communities aren't able to produce all they need, or anything like it. The final stage of the production of a range of goods for everyday use could be done locally -- food, clothes, shoes, furniture -- as well as repairs but most of the raw materials cannot be produced locally. It is a question of them being interlinked in a single network of production which in the end embraces the whole world.

There is in reality only one world. Capitalism brought into being the one world. It is high time we reclaimed it. We have no country but have a world to win. Socialists aren't dreaming up a “perfect” or an “ideal” world. What we struggle to establish is a better world. Why we should prefer Scottish rather than British police to be used against strikes and pickets? Why we should want the government that presides over the operation of capitalism in Britain to be situated in Edinburgh rather than London? We remain unconvinced that we should take sides in the referendum debate about the political structure for running capitalism today.

A Thieves Den

"Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen." - Woody Guthrie

It has been described as the biggest banking fraud in history yet no-one has been prosecuted for the Libor fixing scandal. The financial rewards of rigging rates were, and are, immense. For example RBS’s rates, currencies and commodities group — the one where Libor rigging and other forms of market manipulation are believed to be commonplace — saw its income rise by 87% in the half year to June 2008, at a time when the overall income RBS Global Banking and Markets fell 10%. Royal Bank of Scotland admitted that between 2006 and 2010 staff based in London, Singapore, Tokyo and the US conspired to manipulate the global financial benchmark, the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) calculated in both Swiss Francs and Japanese Yen. By pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud in its Japanese arm, RBS managed to avoid having its US operations shut down by the US Department of Justice.  Libor is a global benchmark used to price some $300 trillion of contracts, ranging from mortgages to student loans to interest-rate swaps, calculated by averaging out submissions from up to 40 global banks.  Two other global banks have reached settlements along similar lines over Libor crimes. UBS was fined $1.5 billion (£950m) in December, and Barclays was fined $451m (£287m) in June 2012. A further 20 or so global banks are have yet to reach settlements. In the UK they are thought to include Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC.

“This is the biggest scandal, the biggest anti-trust felony, in the history of the world, and it continued for years,” said Bill Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and a world leading expert on financial crime. “Even after the investigation became public knowledge, the felony continued, and it continued with greater efforts being made to cover it up, with people being instructed to no longer to use instant messages and such like in order to make it harder for the regulators What is most stunning is that these traders and submitters were willing to say these things, knowing that there was a verbatim record being kept. What does that tell you not just about the institution itself, but also about the FSA and the Serious Fraud Office? That is the one of the most important and revealing fact that comes out of this. The perception inside the bank was ‘we don’t need to worry about those clowns’.” He added "The bank is too big to prosecute, it’s too big to run honestly... it’s created catastrophic harm to the British people. RBS holds the British economy and the British people hostage."


Since being found out by regulators, RBS’s strategy has been to blame junior and middle-ranking people for the scandal, claiming that no one at the top of the bank knew it was going on. This is surprising, given that in September 2007, the Financial Times’s Gillian Tett highlighted concerns that Libor was “a bit of a fiction” [FT 25 September 2007], and that in April 2008 the British Bankers’ Association sent a memo to ‘panel’ banks including RBS asking them to check their Libor submission processes and ensure they were “submitting honest rates” after the Wall Street Journal’s Carrick Mollenkamp highlighted “growing suspicions about Libor’s veracity” [WSJ 16 April 2008]. Some RBS traders who have been dismissed for Libor rigging argue that they are being used as scapegoats, claiming that their superiors  ‘condoned collusion’. Tan Chi Min, RBS’s ex-head of Japanese Yen interest-rate trading, declared that Libor rigging was a well-known and common practice at the bank in 2006-11. The FSA said that, in March 2011, RBS misled the regulator, indicating that it had put proper systems and controls in place when it had not.

Many believe the government and  authorities are being too soft on financial crimes, seeing mollycoddling miscreant financial institutions that it majority owns as more important than seeking justice. The fact that RBS’s share price rose on the day of its settlement suggests investors believe it got off lightly.  Neil Barofsky, former special inspector-general of the Troubled Asset Relief Programme and author of Bailout, said: "...each settlement on favourable terms reinforces the perception that, for a select group of executives and institutions, crime pays. It is only rational. They know that they will get to keep all of the ill-gotten profits if they go undetected, and on the small chance that they’re caught, most probably only the shareholders will pay – and only a relatively minor fine at that. The lack of meaningful consequences for those committing these frauds encourages future fraudulent conduct."



Adapted from here

More Food for thought

The recent news has brought forward another horrific fire at a nightclub in Brazil as you have probably heard. These fires rival those at clothing factories for highlighting the sheer stupidity or outright nastiness of the system. Allegations from this latest one include security staff stopping patrons from fleeing from the fire as they hadn't paid their tabs (apparently it is the custom there to run up a tab and pay at the end of the night); fire extinguishers that do not work; allowing pyrotechnics by the band members to create a spectacle; expired fire permits; locked doors. Some may not be true but all of these things pop up regularly in these continuing tragedies. There must be thousands of places like this one just waiting for an accident to happen. One must ask why the system allows it. Where are the inspections, the licences, the authorities responsible? Obviously to demand a safe environment and proper supervision would cost money, drive investors away, and lose a large source of tourism dollars. Some system that engenders and accepts such madness for the only sure thing is that
it will happen again!  
John Ayers

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

It is popular for politicians to pretend that workers in Britain are enjoying steadily improving living standards, but from time to time the truth leaks out. 'Food prices are rising more than three times faster than the average worker's pay package as the cost of living 'crisis' continues, official figures revealed yesterday. While the average private sector worker's pay has risen by just 1.4 per cent - and millions of State workers are subject to a pay freeze - food prices have risen by 4.5 per cent in the last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. The crippling cost of the weekly trip to the supermarket is the most striking figure in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) for January.' (Daily Mail, 13 February) A food price rise of 4.5 per cent against a 1.4 per cent wage rise? It doesn't take a master statistician to see the flaw in the "steadily improving standard of living" argument. RD

Food for thought

The level of paranoia in the US regarding guns and bad people around every corner has spawned some crazy solutions. In a small town in Texas, the local council elected to let teachers carry concealed weapons in the school. School Superintendent Thweatt commented, " We don't have money for a security guard, but this is a better solution. A shooter could take out a guard or officer with a visible holstered weapon, but our teachers have master's degrees and are older and have extensive training. And their guns are hidden. We can protect our children."
Better still, why not arm all the children, then you would have a couple of hundred shooters ready to blast away! John Ayers

worth every penny?

Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, asserts that its cheif executive, Stephen Hester,  is only “modestly paid” - at £7.8 million a year. “Stephen is doing one of the most difficult, demanding and challenging jobs in world business. He has been paid well below the market rate compared to others in the same job.” Hampton explained.

Hester’s £7.8m package is made up of a basic salary of £1.2m, plus a maximum annual bonus of £2.4m and a further £4.2m that can be earned through the bank’s long term incentive schemes.

Food for thought

In 1994 when South Africans voted in Nelson Mandela's government in the country's first democratic election, education was the way to raise the level of the black population. Now, as South Africa grapples with poverty, economic inequality, crime, and soaring youth unemployment (welcome to the capitalist norm), the education system, which is training for a job, hasn't done anything to change South Africa. Of the 1.1 million born since 1994, less than half have taken the Graduation Exam and the ones who take it and pass (75%) are receiving something less than valid as pass marks hover around the 30-40% range, something that probably wouldn't get them a job if any were available. This is a failure of capitalist education that is job oriented and not to develop one's knowledge and person to the fullest. John Ayers

They never learn

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the fighters France is battling in northern Mali are some of the very same ones it helped arm in Libya.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he favored the idea of arming Syrian militants.

Food for thought

The International Energy Agency has said that the US will become energy self-sufficient by 2035 and is counting on massive expansion of the technique of fracking shale to get oil and gas. Sounds good but, as usual, it comes with a price. In this case environmental -- what happens to water tables, for example? The drilling industry refuses to disclose the toxins included in the fluid injected into the shale but it is known (Toronto Star, Dec 8, 2012) that it contains the carcinogens benzene and formaldehyde. This and a host of other problems will not stop the mad search for more oil and gas (and profit) as long as we tolerate this system. John Ayers

Global Govanhill

Govanhill on the south side of Glasgow is home to some 15,000 has people from an estimated 42 different nationalities living within one square mile. Why Govanhill?  The availability of cheap, private-let housing is one practical reason. Also, immigration is self-perpetuating – the presence of an established community makes it more likely others will come and settle. Govanhill was at one time a mining village outside Glasgow. It started to expand significantly from 1837 with the foundation of the Govan Iron Works, known to this day, even though it is long gone, as Dixon’s Blazes. The Irish also began to arrive in Glasgow in large numbers at around this time, estimated at more than 1,000 people a week during 1848 – escaping the famine and seeking employment. In the 1960s, with the demolition of the Gorbals tenements, a second wave of Irish moved to Govanhill. At the end of the 19th century, heavy industry began to draw Jews from Poland and Lithuania. Significant immigration from the Indian sub-continent, in particular from Pakistan, was a phenomenon first observed in the 1960s and 1970s. The sheer numbers of Irish and Asians living in Govanhill during this period led to the area being nicknamed Bengal/Donegal.

Along Allison Street you can daunder up and down and hear not a word of Glaswegian, spoken. It’s all Urdu, Romani, Slovak, Polish, Czech, Somali, Igbo and more. Much of the shop front signage is in Arabic. Completely dominant is the presence of food and drink. A smell of spice and other aromas so strong you can taste it: haleem; nihari; fried fish; dried fish; chana chat; chips; and, of course from the pubs the reek of beer. Available is lado, barfi and gulab jamun (balls of dough, deep-fried and dipped in syrup) or ewa agoyin – a Nigerian dish of beans and stew. Italian Scots  established so many beloved chippies and ice-cream parlours. The Asian immigrants started to arrive in the 1970s. Pakistan was the main country of origin, very few Indians.  There are  biryanis, daal, mustard-leaf saag and curry options, about half of which include meat on the bone – the traditional way of doing it, with way more flavour and naan bread. Also now on the multi-cultural menu is goja, a Romani word, the bowel of a pig stuffed with potatoes and garlic, then boiled or fried.

Since 2004, when Slovakia and the Czech Republic joined the EU, another ingredient has added flavour to the Govanhill melting pot – the Roma people. There are thought to be around 3,000 in the area, and in some parts of the district they appear to be the most populous group; one local primary school has a majority eastern European population and very few English-speaking pupils. The first Roma in Glasgow were asylum seekers from Slovakia, escaping racial hatred. Most, now, are economic migrants, coming from villages in the region of Michalovce. In Glasgow, they have found casual work in potato and chicken processing factories, though, increasingly, jobs are hard to come by. Romanian nationals have very restricted access to the benefits system, and there is anecdotal evidence that some Roma from that country, now living in Govanhill, cannot afford to feed themselves and thus go through the bins of private residences and shops, looking for food.

Kelly’s is one of a number of pubs in the area which cater to those remnants of the Irish population once so dominant here. Tony Mai Gallagher, 71, from Kincasslagh, Donegal moved to Glasgow in 1954 at the age of 12. He well remembers the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic prejudice of his earlier years, and this experience softens him towards the Roma. "Harmony is what we need.” he says

Taken from here

Food for thought

lLast month I reported on the expanding military deployments of Japan.
This month it is the German's turn. Chancellor, Angela Merkle, recently
told a military gathering that German deployment overseas, "will soon
encompass the entire globe." The German defence minister concurred, "Now
we are in a position and have the duty, even, to make our impact felt."
This emphasizes yet again that capitalism is a competitive system where
everybody must look out for themselves and he who has the biggest club
wins. Not too far from our caveman days are we? John Ayers

class loyalty

The media and the political mouthpieces of capitalist ideology have done their job well. Scottish workers are being caught up by the "patriotism" of the referendum debate - either for independence or for the union. Capitalism has reached a point at which it threatens all humanity and not just the divided national, religious, racial (or other falsely labeled) identity groups.

The patriotism of the capitalist class is better called national chauvinism. This "patriotism" equates loyalty to the nation with loyalty to the capitalist-controlled government and its policies. It seeks the acquiescence of workers in the crimes, aggressions, depredations and depravities of the ruling class and its agents.  It is intended to trick workers into sanctioning whatever is deemed in the interests of the business class. It's nationalistic baloney asserts that our interests as a “nation” are totally bound up with, if not identical , to those of our exploiters. But as we know, in class societies the state does not serve everyone equally. Instead, its main efforts are directed to helping the class that rules over the economy. In capitalism, that means essentially helping the capitalist class accumulate capital, repress opposition to their exploitative rule, and legitimise all the forms in which this goes on.  But to do this job well, the state has to appear legitimate in the eyes of most of its citizens, which requires above all else that its consistent bias on behalf of the capitalist ruling class be hidden from view. The flag and other patriotic symbolism are crucial to the success of this effort. Throughout, emotions play a much larger role than reason or thinking generally, and the strongest emotion evoked by patriotism is the pleasure of belonging to a cooperative social community where everyone is concerned with the fate of others. Unfortunately, the social community only exists in the shadow of an illusory community dominated by the ruling economic class and its state, where none of this applies.

Then there is a form of patriotism to which workers should adhere; it is loyalty, not to the institutions of the nation, but to the people; more precisely, to the majority of the people -- the working class -- with whom they share a common material interest. For workers today, class consciousness -- loyalty to one's class -- is patriotism. International working-class interests are the paramount interests to be served -- not those of any capitalist nation state. Without solidarity to one's class and to one's comrades. workers are helpless in the face of the ruling class's monopoly of the means of production. If workers can stick together, they can respond to employers' control of work. Solidarity between workers is therefore an essential prerequisite for success in class struggle. Class consciousness is the key to working-class victory in ending the class struggle.

Patriotism works to disguise the real differences which exist amongst people—which are differences of class and which involve irreconcilable differences of interests—and to encourage workers to identify with the institution—the state—which is the primary defender of class society. The slogan “workers of the world unite” is in part a call on proletarians to acknowledge that their home is in the company of other members of their class wherever they are to be found.

Scotland is divided into two classes -- the working class and the class of employers/investors that lives off its labour.  We can wonder how a capitalist party which of course the SNP is can keep on winning all the elections. The answer often lies far less in their programs than in the flag and other patriotic symbols with which these programs come wrapped. Most workers vote against their class interests because they "love" their "country".

There are a various definitions of what class is. Many of them assign people to class groups on the basis of cultural and behavioural attributes such as dress, speech, education levels, shopping habits, and employment sector. Such concepts are fallacious in that they reduce class to a matter of choice, taste, when it is nothing of the sort. Whether you read the Sun or the Times, or whether you shop at Asda or at Sainsbury's, is entirely irrelevant. The middle class are, in reality, workers. They too have to sell their labour to a master in order to survive, and the fact that the wages of that labour may be more, or that the job may be “white collar” rather than “blue collar” is of no significance.

In essence, there are two classes: the working class and the capitalist or ruling class. What matters is your relation to capital. The working class are the vast majority of people on the planet, those who must sell their labour in order to earn a living and survive. The ruling class are, to use a rough figure, the top one-percent of society. They do not have to sell their labour or work, but instead are maintained by expropriating rent, interest, and profit from the working class who produce it. They are, in short, parasites. The bourgeoisie are united across the national divide and therefore so should we. The working class must unite to fight against attacks and refuse to be divided or distracted. This is the only way to defend the gains of the past and fight for a future society worth living in.

Working people have only one country—the planet earth. There is only one foreigner—the boss.

Food for thought

In a remote corner of the Amazon lies one of its most stunning sites --
a series of caves and rock shelters guarding the secrets of human beings
who lived there more than 8 000 years ago. The mining companies, with
the compliance of the Brazilian government have discovered iron ore in
the region, mined and sent to China to make steel. It's a huge source of
income for the country that is hosting the next Olympics and the World
Cup of soccer. Expansion of the mining operation will destroy the caves,
treasured by scholars. What a dilemma! What to do? As we know, capital
will win out in the end as logic goes out of the window. John Ayers

TOUGH AT THE TOP?

The new governor of the Bank of England has taken over this top post at a time when we are told we will all have to make sacrifices in order to get out of this economic slump. 'The next Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has been forced to defend his £800,000-a-year deal under questioning from MPs. Mr Carney's base salary of £480,000 is more than that of his US and European equivalents combined – and he will also receive a £250,000 housing allowance on top. ............... Justifying the housing allowance, Mr Carney pointed out that London was a far more costly place to live than his present home city of Ottawa. "I am moving from one of the cheapest capitals in the world to one of the most expensive," he said.' (Independent, 7 February) Mr Carney is an example to us all. He is prepared to scrape by in expensive London on a mere £250,000 housing allowance. RD

Food for thought

Recent years have seen a massive flood in New Orleans caused by neglect, the sub-prime mortgage disaster, the Enron and Lehman Brothers scandals, several European countries on the edge of bankruptcy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an un-civil war in Syria, massive unemployment around the world, blatant rape and genocide in the Congo, global warming, destruction of the land, sea, and air by pollution, deforestation, people losing their pensions, escalating violence, riots, and arson. Have we missed something? People tell us that socialism would bring chaos! John Ayers

BALDERDASH FROM A BILLIONAIRE

Socialists are not the only people to comment on the gap between the rich and the poor inside capitalism. Here is an Indian billionaire on the subject. 'Azim Premji, the billionaire philanthropist and chairman of Wipro, the IT service group, said that practices such as flying in American bands for weddings at $1 million a time were damaging in India, where official statistics last year suggested that 360 million people were living in the depths of poverty.' (Times, 4 February) Mr Premji's futile solution to the problem is philanthropy by the owning class whereas the solution of socialists is for the working class to abolish capitalism. RD

Food for thought

The Toronto Star (Jan 12) had an article that focused on the enormous difference between capitalism and, if not socialism, at least communalism. A young woman, Mariangela, and her boyfriend had moved to Rome having lost their jobs in Italy's economic slump, one that has resulted in thirty-five per cent youth unemployment. They didn't move to Rome to find work, but to find a home. They joined other squatters in an abandoned building. Mariangela commented, " The first night I slept here, I woke up in the morning and thought, how nice! I don't have to pay rent anymore. I don't have to worry about not being able to make ends meet." Though the building leaves a lot to be desired, the communal atmosphere makes up for it. Mariangela continued, " You don't have to worry about going hungry. People check on their neighbours and help each other out if they need something." This proves the communal ethic exists, works, and hasn't been entirely crushed by the alienating affects of life under capitalism. It's human nature! John Ayers

Rab Wilson - poet

Continuing our occasional working-class/socialist themed poetry posts

Labour


The bricht rays o the Winter Solstice daws,
Streakin oot owre the Mauchline Basin Plain,
Lichtin oan a slumberin colossus,
The lanely relic o a bygone age.
The horrals o the Barony proudly staun,
Implacable; a great, grey ghaist o steel.
The ‘A’ Frame, lik some occult wicker-man,
Grim emissary o some auncient god,
Wha, like a god, demandit sweit an tears,
An the bluid o thaim wha wir sacrificed
Oan the altar o Mammon an progress.
They're mindit oan a memorial stane,
The men wha dee'd here, an the men wha leeved.
Twa thoosan pair o eident carefu hauns,
The miners an jiners an engineers,
Wha nevvir aince thocht, as they lauched an joked,
That Fate micht hae a sense o humour tae.
The knowledge they hud sae painfully won,
Wid disappear in that terrible year,
Swept awa bi the haun o history.

Nou the bus drives by wi young Jim an Tam,
Past chain-link fences, roostit 'Keep-Oot' signs,
Oan their wey tae the Technical College.
They ken they're lucky tae hae goat a trade,
It sets thaim apairt frae the ither boys.
The mantle o the village artisan
Is still a badge fir thaim tae wear wi pride;
Council jiners, plumbers or bricklayers,
Electricians, painters an plaisterers.
Aneath thon giant bestridin the yird,
Aneath the lengthnin sheddas o the past,
They'll stoop an gaither up the worn-oot tools,
An forge thaim wi a newer, keener edge,
O Comradeship an Unity an Strength.

Rab Wilson

Yvonne Hodge.

Ah wis juist nine at the time o the Strike
Ah thocht it wis great cause we goat free meals
But money wis ticht, fowk suffert fir real
Ah wis juist a wean though, nevvir knew, like.
Ah couldnae unnerstaun, we'd nae new claes
When ither yins wir getting new trainers
Ah caa'd fowk "Scab", but ye ken whit weans are
Like, ah regret some things ah used tae say.
Ah mind ma dad in the kitchen greetin
Ah asked "Whit's wrang?", an he said they wir beat
Noo things are worse, an they nevvir wir great
It's aa chainged roond here since they goat beaten.
Ah'm nineteen noo wi a wean o ma ain
Ah've seen enough anger, seen enough pain.

Rab Wilson

Food for thought

The richest people on earth got richer in 2012, adding $241 billion
(US) to their total worth according to The Bloomberg Billionaires Index,
a daily ranking of the world's one hundred wealthiest individuals. The
overall wealth of the world's top tycoons stood at $1.9 trillion by
January 1^st . "Last year was a great one for the world's billionaires"
said John Casimatidis, the owner of the Red Apple Group. This shows two
things -- just how much wealth can be made by the exploitation of the
working class, and that something is very wrong with our current society
where, for many, unemployment and being homeless is the order of the
day, and where millions exist on a dollar or two a day. John Ayers

The War-Lord

"If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game...It's a joy for me because I'm one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I'm probably quite useful,"  Prince Harry comparing war in Afghanistan where real people die to playing a virtual reality video game.

SHORTCOMINGS IN THE NHS

Some "expert" or other is always pontificating about the National Health Service. Journalists and politicians espouse various schemes of improvement. Here though are the views of people that should know a little about the subject - the nurses. 'More than half of nurses think their ward or unit is "dangerously understaffed", a survey revealed yesterday. More than three quarters said they had witnessed "poor" care in their ward or unit in the past year, with nearly 30 per cent saying they regularly saw poor care. The Nursing Times polled 600 of its readers for the survey on issues like patient safety, NHS culture and staffing, the majority claimed the ratio of patients to each nurse could compromise patient care.' (Sunday Express, 3 February) Underfunded? Understaffed? Good enough for the working class inside the profit system. RD

POLITICAL PROMISES AND POVERTY

Politicians like to pose as the friend of British working families but government ministers have admitted for the first time that as many as 100,000 children from working families will be forced into poverty as a result of the Government's plans to cut benefits for the poorest. 'Official figures show that a total of 200,000 youngsters from all families will be pushed into child poverty as a result of George Osborne's 1 per cent cap on benefits from April, in effect a real-terms cut in welfare payments. But Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, revealed in a parliamentary written answer last week that 50 per cent of those children come from families where at least one parent is in work. This new figure undermines claims by the Chancellor, George Osborne, that the cap on benefits is designed to target Britain's jobless "shirkers" . The children will join the 3.6 million already classed as living in poverty. Two-thirds of those are in families where at least one parent works.' (Independent on Sunday, 3 February) The real "shirkers" of course are members of the owning class who have no intention of working. RD

Mince and Tatties?

Next time you tuck into your mince and tatties you should be aware that it is meal of fat and gristle and tatties. And is doesn't seem like it will get any  better.

The UK have asked for an exemption from new EU regulations that limit the amount of fat and connective tissue that can be used to bulk up minced meat.Under the regulations, lean minced meat should have up to 19 per cent fat and collagen, while pure minced beef should contain no more than 35 per cent fat and collagen ( derived from the tendons and ligaments of animals and used to help bulk out meat and also used in cosmetic surgery).  In October last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued an “impact assessment” on the new EU regulations, which are due to come into force next year. The report states: “A significant proportion of mince meat currently sold in the UK contains a greater proportion of collagen than would be permitted."

BRAVERY, BOMBAST AND REALITY

Hollywood is fond of portraying the heroism of warfare. We are asked to believe that there is something ennobling about military conflict. These figures from the USA show that the horrors of war are so great that they often force soldiers to take their own life. 'In 2012, for the first time in at least a generation, the number of active-duty soldiers who killed themselves, 177, exceeded the 176 who were killed while in the war zone. To put that another way, more of America's serving soldiers died at their own hands than in pursuit of the enemy. Across all branches of the US military and the reserves, a similar disturbing trend was recorded. In all, 349 service members took their own lives in 2012, while a lesser number, 295, died in combat.' (Guardian, 1 February) RD

Capital's apologists

Blair Jenkins, chief executive of the Yes Scotland campaign, claimed that Scotland “might very well not have had a financial crisis” if it had been an independent country. This is a ridiculous claim. Some commentators have argued that, if Scotland had been independent, the banks would have been better regulated. The Scottish equivalent of the FSA would have stopped them from pursuing self-destructive courses, barred them from ballooning their balance sheets with dodgy loans and toxic assets, and insisted on higher capital ratios. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that it would have been any different.

The idea that Scotland’s banks – RBS and HBOS, whose combined assets were 21 times Scotland’s gross domestic product at the time of their near collapse (for the sake of comparison, Irish banks’ assets were 4.4 times Irish GDP at point of their October 2008 collapse, and Icelandic banks‘ assets were 9.8 times times Icelandic GDP) – would have been better-regulated if Scotland had been independent is wide of the mark. It is preposterous to suggest the liabilities of a bank are liabilities of the population of the country where the head office of that bank is located. It cost the UK £70bn to recapitalise the Scottish banks. 

Alex Salmond thought the UK authorities and the FSA in particular, were being too tough on the banks in 2007. He felt Scotland would be better off with ‘lighter touch’ regulation. “We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in ‘gold-plated’ regulation." he said in an interview with the Times on April 7th, 2007. Salmond wrote to Fred Goodwin when the latter was RBS chief executive, in May 2007 wishing Goodwin ‘good luck’ with his attempted €72 billion takeover of the Dutch Bank ABN Amro adding ‘it is in the Scottish interests for RBS to be successful’. The takeover is now recognised as one of the most disastrous in corporate history and contributed to the massive losses which caused RBS to fail and require a £45.5bn government funded bailout.

On March 31, 2008 when it was already clear to many investors and analysts that RBS and HBOS had massive holes in their balance sheets and were struggling to fund themselves, Salmond insisted that, with RBS and HBOS, “Scotland has global leaders today, tomorrow and for the long-term” in a speech given to Harvard University selling Scotland as another Celtic Tiger (but a Lion) economy like Ireland. On August 7th, 2008, the day it announced massive first-half losses of £692m, and a few weeks after it had had to tap investors for £12bn to patch up its balance sheet, Salmond told The Times that RBS was “one of the highest-performing financial institutions in the world” which would soon “overcome current challenges to become both highly profitable and highly successful once again”. On September 17th, 2008, Salmond describes the banks as "well capitalised, properly funded financial institutions" ignoring the fundamental problems and the bankers' irresponsibility.

So if the referendum bring change - little will change. Scottish politicians and Scottish parliament will continue to be the servants of capital. 

Separate Scotland

The voices of millions of Scots on low and average incomes rarely being heard, according to a report by a leading Scottish think tank. The Jimmy Reid Foundation's report, Not By The People concluded: "Scotland is run by people who pay higher-rate tax and they seek advice on how to run Scotland primarily from other people who pay higher-rate tax."

 Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teachers' union, said "This report describes a Scotland of two peoples; one runs the country, the other just lives here... Democracy is about more than simply voting twice a decade."

Although only 13% of Scots have incomes above £34,000, this group accounted for 67% of those giving evidence to committees and 71% of all appointments to public bodies.

In contrast, the 70% of Scots with incomes below the average salary of £24,500 accounted for 11% of public-sector appointments and just 3% of committee witnesses between 2007 and 2012.

The Foundation said it had deliberately erred on the side of caution in estimating incomes, and the true disconnect between income and influence was probably worse than the figures suggested.

A Bosses' Scotland

Jim McColl, the founder and chairman of Clyde Blowers and one of the country’s richest men, has argued that Scottish independence would be the same as a “management buy-out” from the UK.

McColl who lives in Monaco explained “We have a government responsible for economic policy whose focus is not growth in Scotland but rather London and the south-east of England. That tells me Scotland is a nation in desperate need of a well-planned and thought-through management buy-out.”

The the pro-independence campaign Yes Scotland team plans to intensify its wooing of the capitalist class with plans to produce a “business plan” depicting Scotland as a new company seeking investment.

CBI Scotland however disageed with McColl reasoning. "... in actual fact the developing proposals of the Scottish Government are that all economic levers would not come to Scotland – for example, control over currency and interest rates.” it said.

As Scottish Courier has repeatedly said, the issue of an independent Scotland is a dispute beteen rival capitalists and workers should have no truck with either section of our masters.

HIGH JINKS AT HIGH PRICES

From time to time the press like to run alarmist stories about young workers drinking too much. Some politicians even propose higher taxation on alcohol to stop "this national disgrace". No such alarm is expressed when the owning class have a night out celebrating though. Take the case of Tamara Eccleston daughter of the millionaire racing magnate. 'When it was her shout at Aura club in Mayfair, "haven of rich heritage and grandeur". Tamara Eccleston, 28, went for Cristal: a £5,000 Jerobaum, two bottles £2,660 and seven bottles of rose for her own table and a £465 bottle for every other table in the club, not forgetting a bottle for the paparazzi outside. With a bottle of Grey Goose vodka at only £225, the bill was £30,000 with £4,001.24 service." (Times, 31 January) RD

Fainthearts Not Bravehearts

“Let's not be English, French or German anymore. Let's be European. No not European, let's be men. Let's be Humanity. All we have to do is get rid of one last piece of egocentricity - patriotism." Victor Hugo

The curse of nationalism is not new. There is always a load of myth and romanticism surrounding nationalism. Nationalism is an idea that varies in time and places which has as it central core the belief that a national population group is the most important political category, and political rights are primarily given to individuals as members of nations. Many of the areas within the UK have arguably been "nations" at some time in the past. Nationalism, for the Left is garbed in “national liberation” clothes to make it sound even more revolutionary. Nations, borders and flags indeed give people identity but that national identity is made up for reasons of power and controlling of the population that the nation state has inside its borders. For nationalists, freedom is achieved when an independent local government is established. Nationalist politics, however, cannot deliver freedom for the majority of people. The capitalist state is a structure of coercion which concentrates power in the hands of a small ruling class and despite constitutions and “rights” the state makes it impossible for the mass of the people to actively participate in the decisions which affect their conditions of life.

 Why love a country more than any another simply on the basis of the bit of soil you happen to have been born on? The only thing that matters is class, not nationality or any of the other diversions that stop the "have nots" from challenging the "haves". Whilst the "have nots" are busy feuding with each other on behalf of the "haves" they are missing the real battle.  It is the working classes who are sent to war to kill and be killed on behalf of the "haves". They are the true enemy, not the working classes of other nations. Nationalism is a politics of a frustrated local elite who seek to build support for their own class programme by arguing that class alliances and independence are the way to resolve the genuine grievances of the people. Yet the local ruling class is dependent for its economic and political survival on the maintenance on close ties with other capitalists. They accumulate wealth by relying on the multi-national corporations, who it joins in joint business ventures. We reject the idea that there is a common "national interest" between the different classes within a "nation". Their interests are in direct contradiction. The phrase "national interests" hides the interests of the ruling classes, which are against the interests of the people themselves. Nationalism is not a vehicle for the expression of the will of the majority of the people - the workers - but is instead a tool of the ruling class. It serves to distract the people from their daily misery with a romantic invention, appealing to their emotion over their intellect in order to create a myth of "national interest", in which all classes of a country have more in common than their respective foreign brethren. The realisation of an independent Scotland means the realisation of the right of the local Scottish capitalists to take power and exploit the proletariat. It is capital that will continue to dominate our political institutions in whatever form they take and capital has no country. Separatism offers precisely nothing to the working class.

The Indian poet and Asia’s first Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore wrote:

"The last sun of the century sets amidst the blood-red clouds of the West and the whirlwind of hatred.
The naked passion of the self-love of Nations, in its drunken delirium of greed, is dancing to the clash of steel and howling verses of vengeance.
The hungry self of the Nation shall burst in a violence of fury from its shameless feeding.
For it has made the world its food.
And licking it, crunching it and swallowing it in big morsels,
It swells and swells
Till in the midst of its unholy feast descends the sudden shaft of heaven piercing its heart of grossness."

Nationalism as a source of war and carnage; death, destruction and divisiveness, rather than international solidarity remains at the heart of Tagore’s poem. He said that if nationalism is something imaginary, humanity has to readjust their imagination  by extending the horizon of their mind’s eye, so that the fellowship of the species does not stop at a geographical border. The mythical image of nationalism as as a movement of pioneering, progressive, pious, peace-loving nation-building has been more than exposed. Every form of nationalism is no less aggressive or bigoted than is ever the case under a system of society where the laws of the jungle are presented as being the rules of civilised conduct. Every nation's flag is dripping with the blood of its enemies; every ruling class pays for its power in other people's lives.

The Socialist Party case against nationalism is straightforward. We do not advocate re-drawing the border. No socialist will ever fight to defend any border — we want to do away with the divisiveness of countries and states. Nationalism can never be a solution to the problems of oppression. The problem is class, not national, racial, or religious origins. As a class, workers have no country. The Scots do not own Scotland. There are two classes in society: those who possess without producing and those who produce without possessing.  Some Scottish workers identify with the aims of their rulers — they see their national identity as more important than their class identity with other workers. In this they are dangerously mistaken. Workers across the globe share a common exploitation at the hands of an increasingly global capitalist class. Nationalism means lining up with the same people who exploit them. Rather than submitting to the divide-and-rule  policy of the nation state, they should fight alongside other workers who, like them, exist to enrich the people at the top. Socialists say that a Scottish worker has more in common with an English, French or German worker than they do with their own boss. Nationalism has served as a convenient weapon of ruling elites to keep “the people” on-side. All sorts of unpleasant dictatorships have stirred up nationalist fervour to prop themselves up. We seek to do away with artificial boundaries and borders. The world will not be divided into countries by lines drawn on a map by capitalists to mark out their property. Our vision for a free society is that of a working class revolution which can finally uproot and defeat capitalism which brings not only exploitation but alienation too. Our goal is the humanisation of the economic system. We condemn the capitalist system where it must always be "You or I" and rarely "You and I".

We advocate class war and declare that the capitalist can never have interests in harmony with the worker. We hold up socialism as the only hope of the workers.
 
“Its coming yet for a’ that"

AN INSANE SOCIETY

From time to time news filters down to us mere mortals what gigantic incomes are enjoyed by the owning class. A recent example was the case of Richard Handler, chief executive of Jefferies International the investment bank. "In a report filed with the SEC, the investment bank revealed the former junk bond trader was paid £19 million, comprising a base salary of £1 million, a cash bonus of £5 million and £13 million in stock. ..... Mr Handler still trails Lloyd Blankfein, of Goldman Sachs, who was paid £21 million last year." (Times, 30 January) These vast incomes are being enjoyed by a tiny minority whilst millions of people are trying to survive on $2 a day. RD

We need a need-based health service

The NHS is failing to provide needs-based care in areas of blanket deprivation, GPs working in Scotland's poorest areas will tell MSPs. The GPs from The Deep End group, which represents 100 practices in the poorest parts of the country are expected to warn that the health service's approach is a "recipe for widening health inequality" when they appear before the Public Audit Committee.

The report warned that the distribution of GPs in Scotland does not reflect the higher levels of poor health and greater need in poorer areas and that "deep-seated inequalities remain between the least and most deprived communities" despite research showing higher rates of multimorbidity (more than one chronic medical condition) in patients from the most deprived areas.

This, combined with "dysfunctional links between general practice and other parts of the NHS", is "a partial explanation of 20 years of failure in addressing inequalities in health. The GPs called for more time for doctors seeing patients in deprived communities, as well as better integration with other services such as social work and addiction services. "The focus should be on sustainable development, with an emphasis on continuity and the productive power of long-term relationships."

The Great Lamb Robbery

The NFU of England and Wales has highlighted  that while farm-gate prices have dropped by nearly one- quarter, and wholesale prices for UK legs of lamb are down by 17%, prices in the shops for UK product have only fallen by 2% in the same time period. Figures also show the wholesale price of New Zealand lamb has dropped by 23% (year on year), and yet the retail price for consumers has only come down 12% in the same period.

Are the supermarkets thinking it's better to be hung for a sheep than for lamb in their profiteering?

Struggling Scots

It is not independence most Scot are struggling for - it is to pay their bills.

One in six Scots households are raiding their savings to pay for day-to-day living expenses as they struggle to cope with higher utility, food and fuel bills in the face of another year of frozen wage packets. Almost half of people have admitted in a new poll to regularly delving into their savings last year, with one-third unable to put any money aside in 2012.

 40% of private-sector workers were given a freeze in their 2012 pay settlements. 250,000 council workers are due to see their wages go up by just 1% in April, ending a two-year freeze.

Citizens Advice Scotland  chief executive Margaret Lynch said: "This report shows the grim reality of what life is like for Scotland's families in today's economy...The economic equation is simple: basic living costs are going up all the time while household incomes are frozen, or falling. So people are struggling just to pay for the essentials in life – things like rent or mortgage, fuel and food."

Some Poetry by Langston Hughes

Gods

The ivory gods,
And the ebony gods,
And the gods of diamonds and jade,
Sit silently on their temple shelves
While the people
Are afraid.
Yet the ivory gods.
And the ebony gods,
And the gods of diamond-jade,
Are only silly puppet gods
That the people themselves
Have made.

I Dream A World

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

The Rid, Rid Rotten Revue show

This legendary show put on by the Glasgow branch of the Socialist Party back in the early/mid 1980s, has now been transferred from tape cassette to digital and can be accessed following the links below. The venue was The Admiral Bar. It was a 'revue' show, described as "An evening of music, songs, sketches and humour, and just a wee bit of social comment." It's all very skilfully joined together by the Master of Ceremonies, Richard Donnelly.

Peter Ross, a contemporary of a young Billy Connolly and worked with him in his pre-comedy days, plays guitar and sings.

The files have been uploaded to a site called 'DropBox', but you don't have to be a member to access them - they are publicly available to anyone with the correct web address:

The MP3 digital file for Side A can be played or downloaded from http://tiny.cc/m0jfrw Side B is at http://tiny.cc/d1jfrw

Alternatively, there's a link for each individual song/sketch etc.

If you click on:
 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xzsae909r4rhu81/uxCBhm-BRA
this opens up all 23 tracks and a note file with track info on it. You can choose to download each one individually, or do the whole lot in one download as a 'zip' file.

Here's the track listings
01 Introduction Dick Donnelly
02 The Red, Red, Rotten Revue Peter Ross
03 That's Why the Worker is a Slave Hughie Armstrong
04 The News at Ten Terry Ross
05 Survivors Terry and Ken
06 Knocking at Heaven's Door Hughie and Dick
07 Going up to Heaven Peter Ross
08 Pie in the Sky Peter Ross
09 Flash Harry Vic Vanni
10 What a Swell Party Hughie Armstrong
11 Introduction Dick Donnelly
12 Ah Wis Like That... Ken, Hughie, Ian, Campbell & Terry
13 Tra-la-la, twiddle-dee dee-dee Peter Ross
14 Drinking Doubles Peter Ross
15 The Craven Vic Vanni
16 You're a Worker... Peter Ross
17 Unemployment Blues Peter Ross
18 The Ultimate Nationalist Hughie Armstrong
19 Home Rule for Govan Peter Ross
20 A Lass in Plunderland Terry
21 Boring Employment Hughie Armstrong
22 The Red, Red, Rotten Revue (Reprise) Peter Ross
23 Closing Comments Dick Donnelly

AN EXPLOITATIVE SOCIETY

Products like iPads and iPhones may seem modern and attractive but behind their manufacture lies the usual capitalist tale of exploitation. 'Apple has discovered multiple cases of child labour in its supply chain ...... An internal audit found a flipside to the western consumer's insatiable thirst for innovative and competitively priced gadgets. It uncovered 106 cases of underage labour being used at Apple suppliers last year and 70 cases historically. The report follows a series of worker suicides over working conditions at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles must-have products such as the iPad and iPhone, and lethal explosions at other plants. (Guardian, 25 January) Child labour, lethal explosions and suicide -hardly "modern and attractive" is it? RD

Nice Norway

"If you look around the world, I think there are more or less decent societies. Norway is pretty decent in many ways." Chomsky said in an interview.

It is all a matter of degree. But we should not look at capitalist countries with rose-tinted glasses.

We read:
The Norwegian government's pension fund, which invests its huge oil income in more than 7,500 companies in 46 countries and is worth about £250bn. Its portfolio is more like a dirty list of the world's worst corporations, including numerous oil, mining and agribusiness corporations criticised for their human rights record and environmental impacts. The fund also invests in half a dozen tax havens and numerous Israeli and other companies accused of contributing to the occupation of Palestinian territories.

Norway's StatoilHydro, 67% owned by the government, operates in several countries accused of corruption and dire human rights records, such as Azerbaijan, Angola, Iran and Nigeria, and is eyeing up Iraq. Ministers have been speaking openly about reorienting Norwegian diplomacy to push into new oil markets such as Saudi Arabia.

On the environment, Norway's benign image is also removed from reality. True, nearly all domestic electricity comes from hydroelectric plants and Norway was one of the first to adopt a carbon tax to address global warming, in 1991. Yet with 0.1% of the world's population, Norway emits 0.3% of greenhouse gas emissions; if oil exports are included, the figure may be about 2%. The government is committed to making Norway carbon neutral by 2050, yet this will partly be achieved by buying carbon reductions in other countries, not reducing to zero Norway's own emissions.

Norwegian arms exports – little known outside the country – are booming. Although amounting to 0.1 per cent of world arms exports, Norway's weapons sales have tripled since 2000, reaching £336m worth in 2007. Norwegian arms were used by the US and Britain during the invasion of Iraq while a lack of controls in Oslo have allowed high explosives sold to the US to be re-exported to Israel for use in the occupied territories.

THE UNCARING SOCIETY

Whenever capitalist politicians find themselves in an economic crisis they always look for ways to cut government expenditure. They do so without recourse to their favourite electioneering ideas of "fairness" or "social justice". 'The squeeze on tax credits and benefits will push 200,000 more children into poverty, the government has admitted for the first time. This suggests that in total a million extra children will be in poverty as a result of government welfare measures. The extra 200,000 children in poverty is a result of the government's decision to lift most in-work and out-of-work benefits by only 1% a year over the next three years, instead of increasing them in line with inflation.' (Guardian 17 January) Once again it is the needy and vulnerable who suffer in capitalism's economic downturns. RD

A CHEERLESS SOCIETY

 

Politicians love to paint a picture of a Britain where the majority of people live deeply satisfying lifes, but recent statistics would seem to show a less than cheerful existence for millions of the population.'Almost 30% of people in Britain are unable to afford even a week's annual holiday, up from less than a quarter before the financial crisis, according to an analysis by the Office for National Statistics, which reveals the day-to-day struggle facing many families. The finding is part of a wider report comparing levels of poverty and social exclusion across the UK and the rest of the European Union. More than a fifth of the population – 22.7%, or 14 million people – were considered "at risk of poverty or social exclusion" in 2011, the latest year for which data is available.' (Guardian 16 January) RD

Exploiting nature

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has approved a scheme by Scottish Coal to empty Loch Fitty, near Dunfermline in Fife, to dig up 3.4 million tonnes of coal from underneath its bed. Sepa's experts initially warned the plan would have a negative impact on people and the water environment. But internal emails show their initial advice was revised to make it more favourable to the development, at the request of senior managers.

"This looks like a desperate attempt by Scottish Coal to generate extra profits by ripping out every last ounce of coal from beneath Fife that it can," said Lang Banks, the director of WWF Scotland.

Existing mines are running out of coal, so Scottish Coal is anxious to extend them or dig new sites to meet the demand for coal to burn in power stations like Longannet on the Firth of Forth.

The Tyranny of Work

The mental health of Scottish workers is being put at risk thanks to the "relentless pressure" of management systems meant to increase their productivity. Unions and researchers claim workers have suffered extreme stress, depression and in a few cases threatened suicide.  Austerity has allowed some firms to use management techniques to make their staff's lives a misery.

The impact on the mental health of employees was highlighted in the report Performance Management And The New Workplace Tyranny. Phil Taylor, professor of work and employment studies at the university in Glasgow, carried out the research.  He said performance management had evolved into a "continuous, all-encompassing" process of "tight monitoring and strict target compliance".

Taylor said: "Many who have been in the workplace for 10, 15, 20 years, talk with great pain about how the workplace they joined has been transformed beyond all recognition over those decades and the aspects of work that gave them a degree of happiness or satisfaction – such as talking to colleagues, satisfying customers or doing a good job – have been subordinated to the pressure of targets. That is a genuine degradation: people shouldn't have to work like this. You are only as good as your last score, and you can have people who have been utterly loyal and committed to an organisation and excellent performers, then being thrust into the underperformance camp. That can exacerbate feelings of pressure and can lead to stress, which compounds the difficulties of actually doing the work and makes it difficult to get out of that category."

Mary Alexander, deputy regional secretary of Unite in Scotland, said an example from the financial industry showed it could take as little as six weeks from being put on a performance improvement process to being fired. She said, sales targets which were being set were often "not achievable and unrealistic".

Dr Andrew Fraser, director of public health science at NHS Health Scotland said: "We know that a tough and unsupportive working environment, and specifically workplace bullying and harassment can have a negative impact on a person's mental health and that, as a result of sustained bullying, some people may experience stress and anxiety. If that experience is sustained and not addressed by management at all levels, workplace stress may lead to depression which is a major risk factor for suicide." 

Meanwhile another report  reveals than more than 500 Scottish construction workers were blacklisted for jobs because of union activity. Personal details about 3213 workers were discovered at a Worcestershire-based firm called The Consulting Association. The files were used by more than 40 firms including Balfour Beatty, Robert McAlpine, Laing O'Rourke and Costain to check the backgrounds of potential workers. On the list are 142 workers from Glasgow, Clydebank and Dumbarton, 53 from Ayrshire, 51 from Edinburgh, and 28 from Aberdeen.

 The Consulting Association had links with police and security services. Construction industry directors were addressed by a "key officer" from the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit (Netcu), a Huntingdon-based police organisation set up to counter "extremist" protest groups.

Quote of the day

Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, complains that his pupils are suffering unreasonable discrimination. He claimed there are 62 pupils at Wellington bright enough to get an Oxbridge interview this year, but said he only expects 20 offers of places to come in.
He said: “From our perspective it looks as if some public school students are being discriminated against"

The rich seem to think their offspring are entitled to a place at the Oxbridge

AN ABUSIVE SOCIETY

For more than 25 years Cardinal Roger M. Mahony served the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles, but his retiral nearly 2 years ago is hardly likely to be a peaceful one. 'Internal church personnel files released this week as part of a civil court case reveal that he and his top adviser knowingly shielded priests accused of child sexual abuse from law enforcement. ...... Lawyers for the Los Angeles Archdiocese fought for years to prevent the release of the files, but a demand for transparency was a primary goal of the more than 500 victims of clergy abuse who signed a record settlement for $660 million with the archdiocese in July 2007. When a judge ordered the files to be made public despite the church's objections, the archdiocese fought to be allowed to redact names and identifying details. But it recently lost that battle and now awaits an imminent cascade of 30,000 more documents that could further tarnish Cardinal Mahony's legacy.' (New York Times, 22 January) The Roman Catholic Church like other institutions inside capitalism may speak movingly about honour and morality but in practice they are prepared to spend $660 million to keep their child abuse secret. RD

THE HUNGRY SOCIETY

Socialists are scorned by the "practical" people who want to deal with capitalism's problems one by one in a series of reforms of capitalism instead of getting rid of the whole system. Here is a recent example. 'A coalition of 100 UK development charities and faith groups will on Wednesday launch a major campaign to lobby David Cameron, the prime minister, to use Britain's presidency of the G8 to leverage action on ending global hunger. The If campaign is the largest coalition of its kind since Make Poverty History in 2005, the last time Britain held the G8 presidency. ..... In a report published to coincide with the launch, Enough Food for Everyone If, campaigners estimate that 28% of children in developing countries are underweight or stunted.' (Guardian, 23 January) The report goes on to say that at present "one in eight people go to bed hungry every night, and each year 2.3 million children die from malnutrition." This is the result of "practical" solutions. RD

Who owns the North Pole - part 56

 The white wilderness' black plague

The Arctic is changing at a breathtaking pace, which has oil and gas companies flocking to the region. Thawing sea ice and improved technology is opening up the race for natural resource exploration in the Arctic Circle, home to nearly a quarter of the world's untapped oil reserves. Natural resources that will become much more accessible when the Arctic ice melts are of critical importance. International oil companies are racing to develop new oilfields in the Arctic.

China is hungry for natural resources, and the Arctic is home to a wealth of them. Beijing insists that its interest in the region is first and foremost for research purposes, that the Arctic can help shed light on climate change, that it offers useful shipping routes, and so on and so forth. Beijing would also welcome a chance to be granted observer status on the Arctic Council. At a conference in Tromsø, the Chinese ambassador to Norway resorted to a linguistic slight of hand to justify his country's focus on the Artic region: Northeastern China, Zhao explained, stretches almost to 50 degrees north latitude, making his country what he called "a near-Arctic state." According to that logic, the German island of Sylt, which lies at 54 degrees north latitude, could also be described as "near-Arctic" -- but no one would.

Chinese companies have understood that although oil and gas from the Arctic could make a long-term contribution to the country's energy supply, it won't come cheap. China will have to "play by the rules of capitalism." China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) wants to acquire its Canadian competitor Nexen, but the deal first has to be approved by US authorities. Beijing's raw-materials managers are also eyeing Greenland. Just outside the capital, Nuuk, a British company has teamed up with Chinese financiers to develop a giant iron ore mine. Over 2,300 Chinese workers will be employed here, boosting the island's population by 4 percent. The total investment will be around €1.7 billion.  Chinese investment in Greenland's mining sector would be as welcome as investment from any other country. "China is all over the world. It is no surprise that they are also interested in Greenland's resources," said Sara Olsvig is a member of the Danish parliament who represents a separatist party in Greenland.

Norway's new Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide declared that "the Arctic is not special in legal terms; it is just an ocean." The Antarctic is protected by a special treaty. "Some people have the misconception that the Arctic is similar to the Antarctic, a common heritage of mankind. But whilst the Antarctic is a continent, the Arctic is an ocean. And it is governed by the law of the sea. It is an area of opportunity."  The fate of the Arctic affects the whole planet. Yet Norways minister insists "We need no specific rules like the ones that apply to Antarctica. The Arctic is not something completely unique compared to other waters."

For the Danes, European Union solidarity ends at the Arctic Circle. Countries like Germany are only welcome as "guests," say Danish polar strategists. Diplomats from Finland, Iceland and Sweden are upset; indigenous groups are furious. Five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are meet behind closed doors to discuss the region's future. Many of those who have interests in the Arctic are not invited. "This is our homeland, why shouldn't we have a say?" asked Gunn-Britt Retter, a Norwegian who defends the interests of the Sami people in the Arctic Council. Members of the Inuit Circumpolar Council are also displeased.

 The Arctic Council produced a carefully crafted diplomatic text. the existing legal framework "provides a solid foundation for responsible management by the five coastal States." The statement also emphasized that "We ... see no need to develop a new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean."  The Arctic Council use scientific data and the somewhat vague rules of international law to increase and extend their influence. Outside investors need legal security, and to know that the agreements they enter into won't suddenly lose their validity.

"We are witnessing a unique historical situation," says Rüdiger Gerdes, a physicist studying sea ice at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, in Bremerhaven, Germany. "As new ocean territory opens, it awakens new greed."

 "Around the Arctic there is neither the technology nor the capacity to respond to oil accidents," says Alexander Shestakov, the head of the WWF Arctic Program. "That isn't just the opinion of an environmental organization, it's an acknowledged fact." Environmental protection has never been a high priority for Russian strategists, who see the energy sector as the instrument Moscow can use to cement its position as a world power. For decades, Moscow ignored environmental degradation above the Arctic Circle. Putin has promised to adhere to "strict environmental guidelines," but just how little these assurances mean can be seen in the pioneering project at the Prirazlomnoye oilfield. If an accident occurred here, the platform's crew would be left completely to its own devices, with the closest rescue team stationed 1,000 kilometers away in the Barents Sea port city of Murmansk. Gazprom Neft Shelf is the Gazprom subsidiary that holds the license for the Prirazlomnoye oilfield, and its emergency plan for handling potential environmental damages currently consists of three axes, 25 buckets, 15 shovels, 15 rakes and two all-terrain vehicles. The drilling platform's insurance against environmental damage amounts to a laughable €180,000. In December 2011, a mobile drilling platform called Kolskaya sank in the Sea of Okhotsk, 200 kilometers off the coast of Sakhalin island, while being towed by an icebreaker. Gazflot, another Gazprom subsidiary, had been using the platform outside of the approved season. With 53 of the 67 crew members on the rig declared dead or missing in the icy sea, it was the largest number of causalities that an accident in the Russian oil sector has seen. According to state-run regulatory authorities, pipelines here in the world's largest country burst at over 25,000 locations each year. Greenpeace estimates this leads to leaks of 5 million tons of oil -- seven times the amount that flowed into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform. Snowmelt here in spring and rain in summer wash around 500,000 metric tons of oil into the region's major rivers and then into the Arctic Ocean.

"The companies would rather pay the laughably low fines," Greenpeace activist Roman Dolgov says. When Greenpeace reported 14 oil spills in Komi last year, Russia's environmental authorities fined Lukoil, a company with annual sales of €80 billion, a total penalty equivalent to €27,500.

Yekaterina Dyakova, a biology teacher at the village of Ust-Usa said "Everywhere else, oil is seen as black gold," she adds. "For us, it's the black plague."

Once the villagers drank the water from the river, but to do so now could be fatal. In between the rainbow-colored streaks of oil, pale foam floats toward the Arctic. A doctor has kept records of patients' medical histories in Ust-Usa and the surrounding villages. The incidence of cancer is 50 percent higher than it was in 2000, and children and teenagers suffer from respiratory illnesses twice as often. Few men in these villages ever reach retirement age. Average life expectancy here is 58, compared to a national average of 70.

Scottish Nationalism

Due to a broken link Socialist Courier is re-posting Vic Vanni's 1975 articles on the history of Scottish nationalism

Scottish Nationalism

Nationalists believe that all classes in society should hold allegiance to "The Nation". Socialists do not and point out how nations have always been the creation of a ruling group having nothing to do with working-class interests.

What is a nation? It is simply the people and the territory which have been appropriated by a class of robbers at some point in history. It has less to do with a common language, religion, race, culture, and all the other things which nationalists imagine or pretend are essential ingredients in the making of nations.

This is certainly true of Scotland and far from having a common history or anything else the population there are mainly the descendants of native Picts, invaders from Ireland (the original Scots), Western Europe and Scandinavia. After centuries of what were really tribal wars the whole land came under one king by the middle of the ninth century and the nation was born –by the coercion of the people and in the interests of a class of bandit chieftains.

Right up until the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1707 there were really two distinct nations in Scotland. The Highlanders  spoke Gaelic and had a culture (way of life) very different from that of the dialect-English speaking Lowlanders. Indeed

“In rural districts, the Scottish dialect or dialects was barely intelligible even to a Scot of another district” (James G. Kellas. Modern Scotland –the Nation Since1870. p. 7)

So the nationalist idea of a once united Scotland is just a myth. Yet no one can deny that despite over two hundred years of Scotland's incorporation within the United Kingdom most Scots feel themselves to be part of a separate nation. This can be explained by the fact that the Act of Union allowed Scotland to retain its own law, religion, and education system thus ensuring the continuation of national identity.

NO MORE SURPLUS VALUE? DIE!

Socialists used to say that the perfect worker from the standpoint of an employer would be one who left school, worked two nights and a Sunday for fifty years and then dropped dead on the first day he went to collect his old age pension. If that seems a bit cynical then you haven't heard about this Japanese politician. 'Japan's new finance minister has claimed that the elderly should 'hurry up and die' to help ease the cost to the taxpayer of caring for them, it has emerged. Taro Aso made the controversial statement as he discussed how to deal with the country's emerging demographic crisis as its population continues to shrink while life expectancy soars.' (Daily Mail, 22 January) RD

A DEADLY SOCIETY

Researchers found that patients were almost 10% more likely to die when there were fewer medically-trained staff available. 'It is thought that those being treated in overstretched hospitals are more prone to developing fatal complications and infections because they are not properly monitored. The study from the University of Southampton and Imperial College London looked at almost 70 million records of patients who had surgery between 1997 and 2009. .....They found that across the NHS every year around 28,000 patients died as a result of complications which might potentially have been cured, the Daily Mail reported.' (Daily Telegraph, 22 January) The alternatives seem very clear - be a member of the owning class and get the best possible health care or be a member of the working class and risk the chance of death because of possible lack of staff. RD

Religious Belief

Readers of Socialist Courier may find this article by Jeff Schweitzer on religion of interest.

The human brain manages to make sense of a chaotic world by picking out patterns from the noise bombarding our senses. We don't see the trillions of photons coming into our eyes as pointillist smears of colors; we see trees and forests. We process all of that incessant sensory input and come up with a familiar scene filled with grasses, animals, lakes and mountains. In addition, we are extraordinarily good at matching cause to effect so that we can quickly learn the behaviors necessary for survival. Burning your hand quickly teaches that fire causes pain. Understanding patterns, combined with correlating cause and effect, will save your life.

Unfortunately, this incredible talent for seeking patterns and linking cause to effect has a dark side, too. Humans see patterns where none really exist and cause where only chance reigns supreme. We cannot seem to turn off our pattern-seeking or cause-effect neurons. Sometimes the results are benign: We identify animal shapes in cloud formations or see a human face in a rock cliff or in an outcropping on the surface of Mars. A baseball player wears the same underwear during a hitting streak, believing that the underwear is the cause of his good fortune. These are silly manifestations of our mental abilities, but with no consequence. The dark side appears when we attribute cause and effect falsely in a way that has long-term impacts on our behavior and society.

Religion was born of fear of the unknown, of the drive to control the uncontrollable, of the need to have mastery over one's fate in the face of an uncertain world. The first ideas of religion arose not from any awe of nature's wonder and order that would imply an invisible intelligent designer but from concerns for the events of everyday life and how the vast unknown of nature affected daily existence. To allay fears of disease, death, starvation, cold, injury and pain, people fervently hoped that they could solicit the aid of greater powers, hoped deeply that they could somehow control their fate and trusted that the ugly reality of death did not mean the end. Hope and fear combine powerfully in a frightening world of unknowns to stimulate comforting fantasies and myths about nature's plans.

The human brain is extraordinarily adept at posing questions but simply abhors the concept of leaving any unanswered. We are unable to accept "I don't know," because we cannot turn off our instinct to see patterns and to discern effect from cause. We demand that there be a pattern, that there be cause and effect, even when none exist. So we make up answers when we don't know. We develop elaborate creation myths, sun gods, rain gods, war gods and gods of the ocean. We believe we can communicate with our gods and influence their behavior, because by doing so we gain some control, impose some order, on the chaotic mysteries of the world. By making up answers to dull the sting of ignorance, we fool ourselves into thinking we explain the world. Religion was our first attempt at physics and astronomy.

Of course, the biggest and most wrenching unknown served by religion is that of our fate upon dying. As a matter of survival, we are programmed to fear death, but perhaps unlike other animals, we have the cruel burden of contemplating this fear. Religion is one way we cope with our knowledge that death is inevitable. Religion diminishes the hurt of death's certainty and permanence and the pain of losing a loved one with the promise of reuniting in another life.

But fear of the unknown, fear of mortality and hopes for controlling and understanding nature's course do not represent the only foundation on which religion stands. Another is social cohesion. We are social animals, gregarious by nature. Cooperation is what makes the human animal -- a weak, slow and vulnerable creature -- a powerful force on Earth. But cooperation becomes more difficult with increasing numbers. Some means of maintaining social order is necessary. Early societies soon learned that rules of behavior imposed in the form of rituals enabled large groups of people to live in close proximity. Rituals create norms against which people can readily judge the behavior of others in diverse social settings. Any deviation from the norm is easily spotted and can be quickly addressed. In this way order can be maintained. Notice that modern-day teenagers express their rugged individualism by dressing identically. Any nonconforming outlier would be easy to spot. Religion offered, and offers still, an obvious means of enforcing societal rules by promising a joyous afterlife for conformers or eternal punishment for those who misbehave. Religion is used as a bribe to induce good manners.

Finally, religion was eventually transformed into an important source of raw political power, divorced from any role more benign. If religion is used as a tool to control individual behavior, someone needs to develop those rules and ensure their enforcement. Who better to act as behavior police than religious elders, shamans or high priests? What better way is there to manipulate and bend people to your will than by making up the rules by which they must live? With that influence over the daily lives of every citizen comes power traditionally reserved for city-states and empires, with all the normal trappings, including armies, treasuries and palaces.

Fear of death, the need to explain away the unknown, hopes for controlling one's destiny, a desire for social cohesion and the corrupting allure of power are the combined masters of all religion. We see all of that in the face on Mars.

The full unedited text is here.