Jailhouse Blues

Sometimes Socialists feel for our political rivals . Yes , we really do . We know they know that their political programme and policies are worthless yet they are unable to refute them .
One such politician is Mark Oaten one-time Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman .

The Winchester MP desperately wanted to say that all prisons should be demolished and replaced with education and training centres, mental health facilities and drug rehabilitation units. But his Lib Dem colleagues would never allow him to air this radical view in public.

"It was clear to me that prison wasn't working," says Mr Oaten. "But I would have been crucified as a front line politician for saying this in public and the party would have tumbled in the opinion polls."

Since he is no longer seeking re-election he is now able to disclose his real views on political and social matters .

"Prison is not fit for purpose and it's beyond reform. We need to abolish it and replace it with more workable alternatives," he tells BBC Radio 4

The Winchester MP identifies mental health problems, drug addiction and illiteracy as three of the main reasons for criminal behaviour. According to Mr Oaten 72% of prisoners have mental health problems. These people, he argues, should be held in secure therapeutic facilities where they would undergo treatment. Mr Oaten believes offenders detained in mental health facilities should only be released when they are no longer considered a threat to society.
Mr Oaten envisages the drug treatment facilities he proposes attracting plenty of offenders, claiming that currently around 50% of all prisoners have a drug problem.
For those identified as committing crime because of their lack of employability, Mr Oaten would like the government to establish a network of secure education and training centres.
He says: "Thirty seven per cent of prisoners are functionally illiterate. They should be in classrooms learning to read and write or in training and getting skills." Those sentenced to education and training would be released upon successful completion of their course.

This Liberal Democrat may believe he is on to something but we would suggest that he has one big huge glaring omission in his analysis - Capitalism and its alienating deprivation of ownership and control of everyday life that contributes to the crime situation and the anti-social behaviour of many of our fellow workers . He is as it turns out just another reformer seeking palliatives and cures for problems that are inherent within the capitalist system and which cannot be removed by good intentions . A jail will be a jail , prison walls or not , and as the rest of the article indicates , there is more to solving crime than Mark Oaten's penal reforms .

"Law is nothing but a class instrument – a weapon of the capitalist State for its own preservation. It is necessary to the capitalist State because the ruling class in capitalism have laid thieves’ hands upon the means of life... However much he may be made to fear the Law, the proletarian will no longer respect it. He will come to regard it in its true light, as the enemy, not the friend, of the working class; as the necessary adjunct of class rule, by means of which alone the producers of all wealth can be robbed and murdered and debauched, with some sort of one-sided orderliness, by a class of idle, drunken parasites, steeped to the neck in moral turpitude, sunk to the eye-brows in abomination which even the hardened Law dares find no name for. That superstitious awe which, quite apart from the fear of policeman and prison surrounds the Majesty of the Law, will dissipate, and no longer will the worker "blush for shame" at being caught in the act of law-breaking. (Socialist Standard, July 1911)

And as Eugene Debs once remarked :-

While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Red Crosses for Johnson and Johnson

Capitalism cares little for society other than as a milk-cow for profits and further profits . Socialists are rarely shocked by the depths of decency that capitalists will go to accrue profits .

Johnson and Johnson is suing the American Red Cross, alleging the charity has misused the famous red cross symbol for commercial purposes. The lawsuit asks for sales of disputed products - also including medical gloves, nail clippers, combs and toothbrushes - to be stopped and unsold items to be handed over to Johnson and Johnson . The firm is also seeking damages equivalent to the value of such goods sold in supermarkets such as Wal-Mart .

Johnson and Johnson claim a deal with the charity's founder in 1895 gave it the "exclusive use" of the symbol as a trademark for drug, chemical and surgical products. It said American Red Cross had violated this agreement by licensing the symbol to other firms to sell certain goods. The lawsuit argues that the firm reached an agreement with the charity's founder Clara Barton about the commercial use of the symbol for certain products. It maintains that the charter did not give the charity the right to engage in commercial activities which would conflict with a private company.

The American Red Cross described the lawsuit as "obscene" , adding that it believed the firm's actions were financially motivated.
It said many of the products at issue were health and safety kits and that profits from their sale had been used to support disaster-relief campaigns.

Who Owns the North Pole , part 6

Further to our earlier post pointing out the Russian expansion into the Arctic Circle , we now offer an update on the Canadian competition .

Canada raised the stakes in the battle to claim ownership of the Arctic by sending Stephen Harper, prime minister, on a three-day trek to the region, just days after the Russians planted a flag on the seabed at the North Pole.

“Our government has an aggressive Arctic agenda,” Dimitri Soudas, Mr Harper’s spokesman, said on Wednesday.

“The Russians sent a submarine to drop a small flag at the bottom of the ocean. We’re sending our prime minister to reassert Canadian sovereignty,” said a senior government official, according to Canadian press.

The Northwest Passage, which is the main focus of the dispute, has become a sought-after territory thanks to global warming, which has begun to melt the ice in these waters, exposing a potentially vast haul of natural resources. Studies have estimated that the Arctic has as much as 25 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas. According to some estimates, the Arctic contains billions of tonnes of gas and oil deposits, which could become more accessible as the ice cap that cover them begins to melt. This is happening just as their exploitation becomes more economically viable because of high hydrocarbon prices.
The melting ice could also open up a route through the Arctic archipelago that could shave off as much as 6,500km on a journey between North American and Asia, instead of using the Panama Canal.

The US, Norway and Denmark are also competing alongside Russia and Canada to secure rights to the natural resources of the Arctic.

BLINDED BY CAPITALISM

"Patients losing their eyesight are facing a postcode lottery over accessing groundbreaking treatment for their condition. While the drug Lucentis is already available in some of Scotland's board areas, it is yet to be introduced in key cities including Glasgow. In June, the Scottish Medicines Consortium, the body which advises NHS Scotland on new treatments, backed the therapy ahead of any moves by England and the decision was applauded. However, almost two months on, a number of health boards have still to make the injections available to patients. ...In Scotland, some 2300 people are diagnosed with wet AMD every year and experts emphasise the importance of delivering the injections as early as possible because sufferers' vision can deteriorate rapidly." (Herald, 8 August) So what is causing the delay? Is it mere bureaucratic ineptitude or could it be that the Scottish Medicines Consortium reckon it would cost £7.1 million in the first two years? RD

PROTECTION MONEY

"Sir Tom Cowie's decision to stop funding the Conservatives has been met with shrugs within the party presumably because, as revealed by publication of the party accounts, the party is very well off. So well off, in fact, that it could lose a couple of million pounds down the side of a sofa and still have the £20m traditionally thought needed to fight a general election. The Electoral Commission shows that in 2006 the Conservative party received nearly 50 individual donations each over £50,000 including 14 donors giving more than £250,000 each." (Guardian, 7 August) Anyone interested in a healthy democracy must ask themselves why these wealthy individuals are prepared to lavish such largess on a political party. Is it solely philanthropic and civil minded? We imagine the reason these millionaires are so apparently generous, is because of self interest. The reformist parties that they support are all in favour of capitalism and they look upon these donations as protection money. RD

A STRANGE DEMOCRACY

Politicians and political commentators laud British democracy to the skies and contrast how wonderful it is compared to some countries where the rich and powerful dictate events. This is of course a complete sham, as recently illustrated by events. "A major Conservative donor has accused David Cameron of an "arrogant, Old Etonian" style of leadership and said he would give the party no more money. Sir Tom Cowie, who has donated £630,000 to the Tories over the past six years, said he had become "disillusioned". ... The paper quotes Sir Tom as saying the Tory party seems to be run by "arrogant old Etonians who don't understand how other people live". ...Sir Tom, who founded the transport firm Arriva, gave £500,000 to the Conservatives ahead of the 2005 general election." (BBC News, 7 August) What a strange democracy it is that allows rich men to dictate political policy. RD

HOMELESS HEROES

We are all familiar with cheering crowds applauding soldiers as they march off to war and the unstinting praise of politicians as they fall over each other in heaping adulation on service veterans, but the reality is far different. "One in 10 homeless people in the UK are former members of the armed forces, a charity working with veterans says. A survey in 1997 by the Ex-Service Action Group on Homelessness suggested that 22% of people who were "street homeless" had a military background. Veterans’ charity, the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, said that efforts by the government and the voluntary sector had brought that down to about 10%. It fears the numbers may rise because of service in Iraq and Afghanistan." (BBC News, 7 August) RD

OVER THE TOP

"The green campaign against patio heaters is stepping up. Those devices like giant, fiery standard lamps that once you may have seen only outside the few British restaurants bold enough to put tables on the pavement, are spreading, into more and more catering outlets - and into the home. Yet they are anathema to environmentalists because of their profligate emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. "It's difficult to conceive of an article that inflicts more gratuitous damage on the environment than a patio heater," says Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth. "They just blaze energy out into the open air. Given what we know about climate change, they're just not justifiable." (Independent, 6 August) Mr Juniper's concern about global warming may well be justified, but we can think of a few articles that are more damaging to the environment. Has he heard of the A bomb or the H bomb? RD

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE?

There are many oxymorons, "Christian Science" is one of our favourites but the following news item would probably put "Military Intelligence" up there with the worst of them. "The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Pentagon cannot track about 30% of the weapons distributed in Iraq over the past three years. The Pentagon did not dispute the figures, but said it was reviewing arms deliveries procedures. About $19.2bn has been spent by the US since 2003 on Iraqi security forces. GAO, the investigative arm of the US Congress, said at least $2.8bn of this money was used to buy and deliver weapons and other equipment. Correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq." (BBC News, 6 August) RD

IT’S THE SAME THE WORLD OVER

"Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, who is estimated by some calculations to be wealthier than Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said Thursday he did not care if he was the world's richest person. ...In July, a journalist who tracks the fortunes of wealthy Mexicans said Slim was worth an estimated $67.8 billion and had overtaken Gates as the world's richest person. Slim hit the No. 1 spot after a recent surge in the share price of his America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone company, according to Eduardo Garcia of the online financial publication Sentido Comun.Garcia said that made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, whose estimated worth was $59.2 billion. ...In Mexico, a small elite holds most of the country's wealth and about half the population lives on less than $5 a day." (Yahoo News, 3 August) RD

BUSINESS IS BUSINESS

The gravestone in Springfield, Utah may have said "rest in peace", but it should have added "only if you keep up the payments. "The cemetery headstone for a teenager who died in a car wreck was repossessed after a $750 bill went unpaid. "That's just business," said Linda Anderson of Memorial Art Monument. "If we give every stone to everybody, we'd be out of business. They'd repossess your car if you didn't make payments." (Yahoo News, 31 July) RD

Victory for the Scottish Homeless

The number of people having their homes repossessed has surged, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has said. An estimated 14,000 properties were repossessed in the first six months of the year, a 30% increase on the same time last year.

Scotland have won the Homeless World Cup.

Every cloud has a silver lining , hasn't it ?

Personal debt increases

Over 8 million British adults are in serious debt and over 2 million are struggling with repayments. 18% of adults in Britain are in £10,000 or more of unsecured debt such as credit cards, overdrafts, loans and store cards .The number of bankruptcies rose by 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006. Around 420,000 people were prosecuted for defaulting on loan repayments in the first six months of this year - up eight per cent on 2006. Scotland was revealed as the area with the highest proportion of indebted residents .

The Bank of England has raised the cost of borrowing five times in the past year to 5.75 percent -- the highest level in six years. Analysts expect another rise to 6 percent by the year end . High levels of unsecured debt are clearly linked to the rise in interest rates over the last 12 months . The record rise in house prices -- especially in London and the south-east -- has led to a growing discrepancy between mortgage payments and salaries. The high pressure to maintain social and commercial status often goes hand in hand with high expenditure on the high street. Borrowers affected by the higher interest rates now are storing up debt problems for the future; instead of making cuts in their personal expenditure, they are taking on further unsecured loans and credit cards .

See here about the bubble bursting

Exploiting kids

Wal-Mart ( ASDA here in the UK ) prides itself on cutting costs at home and abroad, and its Mexican operations are no exception. Wal-Mart is taking advantage of local customs to pinch pennies at a time when its Mexican operations have never been more profitable. 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores, mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico—and none of them receives a red cent in wages or fringe benefits.

The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico because the kids are said to be “volunteering” their services to Wal-Mart and are therefore not subject to the requirements and regulations that would otherwise apply under the country’s labor laws. Although Wal-Mart’s worldwide code of ethics expressly forbids any “associate” from working without compensation, the company’s Mexican subsidiary asserts that the grocery baggers “cannot be considered workers.”

Wal-Mart is Mexico’s largest private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. Wal-Mart de Mexico reported net earnings of $1.148 billion in 2006 and $280 million in profits in the second quarter of this year, a 7 percent increase in real terms over the same period last year and have announced plans in February to add 125 new stores and restaurants to its existing network of 893 retail establishments during the course of 2007. That expansion plan will represent new investment totaling nearly a billion dollars

In a country where nearly half of the population scrapes by on less than $4 a day, any income source is welcome in millions of households, even if it hinges on the goodwill of a tipping customer. But says Federal District Labor Secretary Benito Mirón Lince. “In economic terms, Wal-Mart does have the capability to pay the minimum wage [of less than $5 a day], and this represents an injustice.”

TOUR DE FARCE

The Tour de France has been a spectacular example of how capitalism ruins everything it touches but this is true of all sport not just cycling. The sports writer Simon Barnes summed it up well when he wrote: "The race lost the favourite, Alexander Vinokourov, to a positive drugs test; the leader, Michael Rasmussen, was kicked out because he lied to his team about his whereabouts during training and there are, inevitably, questions about the winner-by-default, Alberto Contador. ... Put on a good show, make the money, keep the wheels turning that's what really matters. ... Is that relevant to other sports? You bet it is. The Tour de France is in potential terminal decline because serious moral and sporting issues were ignored for the sake of financial expedient. There is not a sport in existence of which this is not true. Take football; awash with money, a substance that in sufficient quantities dehumanises people every bit as much as drugs does. The sport is at present dealing with an obscene affair in which a player is owned - as if he was a racehorse - by a private individual." (Times, 30 July) RD

CAN YOU HEAR ME, GRANDMA?

A worker who has worked all her life has found out what an uncaring, miserable society capitalism can be to the old and infirm."A woman of 108 has been told by health chiefs that she must wait 18 months to get a new hearing aid. Olive Beal, one of the oldest women in Britain, is confined to a wheelchair and losing her sight. Being able to communicate and listen to music is her only contact with the outside world, says her family. Mrs Beal, who has six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, has used an old-fashioned analogue hearing aid for the last five years. But she struggles to hear with it and needs a modern digital hearing aid which cuts out background noise. After being told of the wait, Mrs Beal, who lives in a care home in Deal, Kent, said "I could be dead by then." ... Donna Tipping, from the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, said "I am afraid this is a common problem. There are more than half a million people waiting for hearing aids in this country." (Daily Telegraph, 30 July) RD

VOTING WITH THEIR FEET

There never was a vote in parliament about British forces invading Iraq but it seems that some service personnel have let their views be known."Army chiefs have been hit by more than 9000 cases of soldiers going absent without leave since 2004 and 1100 are still on the run at a time when the military is being stretched by its involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence denied yesterday that the incidents - the equivalent of almost 10% of the entire force - were connected to the current conflicts but admitted that there were almost 1300 cases of soldiers having gone missing in the first six months of this year alone....Figures seen by The Herald show that 3030 soldiers, 185 sailors and 55 RAF servicemen went absent in 2004, 2715, 195 and 35 respectively in 2005, 2330, 155 and 10 in 2006 and 1275, 55 and 15 to the end of June this year....Almost 7000 men and women are believed to have deserted from the US army since the invasion of Iraq." (Sunday Herald, 29 July) RD

BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME

Socialists are always saying that capitalism is a crazy society but the following news item suggests that it is stark raving bonkers! "SAN JOSE, Calif. - John Feigenbaum didn't sleep at all during his redeye flight across country. He's not a nervous flier — he had a dime worth $1.9 million in his jeans pocket. Feigenbaum, 38, of Virginia Beach, Va., is a rare coin dealer, and the dime he was carrying from San Jose to New York is a 1894-S dime, one of only nine known to exist. He picked up the dime, one of only 24 known to be coined in 1894 in San Francisco, on Monday from the seller's vault in Oakland. He delivered it to the buyer's vault the following day, in midtown Manhattan. Feigenbaum said he and the seller's agent will split a 6 percent commission on the deal. Feigenbaum said he put the dime, which is encased in a 3-inch-square block of plastic, in his pocket. Accompanied by a security guard, he drove to the airport." (Yahoo News, 28 July) RD

BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A BED

"Once in khaki dress, gee we looked swell. Full of Yankee doodle dum" goes the old song and it still applies today judging by the treatment handed out to veterans in New York. "The only homeless shelter in New York just for veterans will close in August for renovations, which city officials say will improve conditions there. But the plans are upsetting some of its residents. The shelter, the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence, in Long Island City, Queens, is to reopen in November with a little more than half its current number of beds, according to officials, who also say the refurbished facility may charge rent, which it does not do now." (New York Times, 26 July) It is all very well being cheered by the admiring public during a war but the realities of capitalism after it has used you are far from cheering. RD

Science for hire

Achieving headlines throughout the world , Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup improved men's fertility according to researchers after conducting tests involving six healthy male volunteers by the University of Portsmouth . The study found that a fortnight of tomato soup had some effect on semen.
Nigel Dickie, a spokesman for Heinz, said: "It's good to know that Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup could boost your mojo and give guys extra oomph. And for Heinz Ketchup lovers, the tomatoey goodness will put more ketchup in your bottle."

However , The Scotsman contacted fertility experts and the company admitted it had overstated the research, which it had partly funded. In fact, the Portsmouth study found that while lycopene levels rose in semen after a period of soup consumption, there was "no measurable increase" in the sperm's ability to combat damaging free radicals. The scientists said more research was needed to see if higher lycopene levels really would help boost fertility.
A University of Portsmouth spokesman said "But on the basis of this research alone, we cannot say that the lycopene levels in sperm boosted fertility."

Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said although the study found higher lycopene levels in the sperm, it did not find any improvement in its quality to tackle infertility. Dr Pacey, a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield, said sperm was produced by the body over three months, so long-term changes to diet would be most effective at improving its quality, rather than a two-week alteration.

So there we have it . Important science and research facilities at universities being hired to promote and market certain products . Commercial companies distorting scientific findings and then publicising inaccurate claims to increase its sales at the supermarket .

Capitalism , instead of using the field of medical research to advance and improve the quality of life simply employs the knowledge and brains of skilled and gifted people to make a fast buck and improve and advance advertising rather than health .