YOUR FUTURE

All those workers who claim that capitalism is not only the only possible society but also a wonderful one should pay attention to a recent government report. "Vulnerable elderly people are being subjected to neglect, abuse, discrimination and ill-treatment in the hospitals and care homes that should be looking after them, according to a report published today by a parliamentary committee. The study by the joint committee on human rights warns that many older people are facing maltreatment ranging from physical neglect so severe they are left lying in their own faeces or urine to malnutrition and dehydration through lack of help with eating. Lack of dignity, especially for personal care needs, inappropriate medication designed more to subdue patients than treat them, and over-hasty discharge from hospital are also causing suffering for many older people, the MPs and peers conclude." (Guardian, 15 August) You have a nice future inside capitalism, don't you? RD

ILLUSION AND REALITY

Many people imagine that with retirement comes a pleasant period in a hard-working life. Alas, the reality is far from idyllic for many workers. "Pensioners are burdened with debts of £57 billion from mortgages and credit cards, new figures show. One fifth of retired people are still paying off a mortgage and a third owes an average of £5,900 on credit cards and loans, says Scottish Widows, the insurer. The 11 million pensioners who are still making repayments owe an average of £38,000 on their homes, compared with £35,000 last year. One in eight owes more than £50,000." (Times, 13 August) RD

Scotland's poor , again

The Daily Record carries a report from the children's charity NCH Scotland on Scotland's poor .

More than 100,000 lone parent families in Scotland are trying to live on less than £15,000 a year, and more than 50,000 have to scrape by on less than £10,000.
162,000 lone parents in Scotland, bringing up around 280,000 children. Two thirds of all teenage mums are lone parents.

Lone parents are more likely to fall ill, and a quarter of them - more than 40,000 - admit they are struggling to cope with emotional problems.

Crime is a growing problem among poor kids from all family backgrounds. A record-breaking 53,883 youngsters were reported to the Children's Panel in 2005-6. The number of pre-school children in Scotland requiring "care and protection" has increased four-fold in the past decade - up from 2995 in 1996 to 11,975 last year. Almost half of the children included in the 2006 figures lived in lone parent families.
Scottish girls are among the most violent on Earth. They came sixth in an international league table of violence, with almost a third of 11-15-year-olds involved in at least one fight in the past year.
And the lives of no fewer than 100,000 Scottish children are blighted by their parents' abuse of alcohol. Scotland has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the developed world.

Director of children's services for NCH Scotland, said : "Having a poor start in life is condemning far too many of our young people to a life of difficulty and disadvantage."

What a waste and what a depressing life youth of to-day have . Imagine if all that energy and creativity of young people was not bent on self-destruction , if all those single parents were not exiled to a life of alienated isolation and lonliness on council schemes , and all had their attentions turned to solving the World's desperate problems.

Migrants ‘go home for medical needs’

One of the myths about the arrival of foreign workers is that they are a drain on the British Welfare State .

However when it comes to using the NHS , according to this report , a study reveals that the majority of migrant workers who have experienced health care systems in Scotland perceive the medical services in their own countries to be generally of better quality. Most migrants from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia preferred to return home for treatment of non-acute medical problems, as well as dental care and visits to opticians.

Voluntourism

Young people would be better off travelling the world than taking part in "spurious" overseas gap-year aid projects said Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).

" Young people want to make a difference but they would be better off travelling and experiencing different cultures, rather than wasting time on projects that have no impact and can leave a big hole in their wallet." - Judith Brodie , Director of VSO


"voluntourism" often cost students thousands of pounds and did nothing to help developing countries. The gap-year industry catered for the needs of participants rather than those they claimed to help . VSO said projects offered to students taking a year off were often badly planned and could have a negative impact on participants and the communities they worked with.

"...we are increasingly concerned about the number of badly planned and supported schemes that are spurious - ultimately benefiting no one apart from the travel companies that organise them," said Judith Brodie.

In June, VSO warned "consumer-driven volunteer tourism" was jeopardising the charity's development work in countries most in need. People were increasingly approaching the organisation about volunteering "as if it was a holiday" .
And last year VSO said gap-year programmes risked becoming "outdated and colonial" by focusing on how UK youngsters could help poor communities, rather than what they could learn from them.

Gun for Hire

Two British-run private military security firms have been paid £274 million over the past three years to provide mercenary guards for US Army engineers working on reconstruction projects in Iraq. The firms, Aegis Defence Services and Erinys Iraq, are now at the centre of a row over streamlining the spiralling cost of "hired guns" in a war zone . Between them, Aegis and Erinys employ up to 2000 men, many of them former British soldiers . The Pentagon estimates that at least 20,000 former soldiers from Britain, the US, Eastern Europe, Fiji and Nepal are working for private mercenary firms in Iraq.

"To pay a man or woman to come over to Iraq, put on body armour every day, and escort military personnel and civilians around knowing that people want to blow them up and kill them, you have to meet the asking price," said Colonel Douglas Gorgoni, the senior finance officer of the US Corps of Engineers .

Socialist Courier says that there is no price worth asking for if it means killing your fellow workers .

Holidays

The UK will still be at the bottom of the European Union league for holidays even after workers are given new rights to paid leave, according to a report published today.

UK workers are entitled to a minimum of 20 days but if companies include the eight bank holidays in this figure, they are in effect giving staff only 12 days. A study by Incomes Data Services (IDS) showed that workers in other EU countries had more holidays, with Germany topping the league at 39 days a year, including public holidays, followed by Austria , 38, Sweden, 36, Slovakia, Luxembourg and France, 35, Portugal, 34, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, 33, Italy, Spain and Greece, 32 and Poland and Finland, 31 days .

Minimum entitlement in this country is to increase in two stages to 28 days by April 2009 under government moves to stop firms counting public holidays in workers' annual leave. IDS said that even after the changes, the UK would still be joint bottom of the EU league table for holidays. with the Netherlands.

Olympic Misery

According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world yet The Independent is reporting about the human cost of the upcoming Beijing Games .

Many people have been forcibly resettled in the transformation of Beijing, which has seen ancient courtyard houses and hutong alleys demolished by unscrupulous developers, some in league with corrupt officials, eager for profit.
The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions reckons 1.5 million people will have been relocated for Olympics- related projects. Government estimates put the figure at just over 6,000. A strange discrepency of figures .

Most are moved to new tower blocks on the city outskirts, and they complain about the lack of community feeling - as well as the lengthy commute to their jobs in the city.

A TOWN CALLED MALICE

In the 1950s Nevil Shute wrote a novel that was so successful that it was adopted as a film. In the novel the main character is astounded by the beauty of the town. No one would have that view of the place today. "But the life of Noel Ross could barely be more removed from the gentle, hopeful Alice seen by Shute in the 1950s – a place that so reminded his character Jean Paget, in A Town Like Alice, of the lovely England that she had left. Ms Ross, an Aboriginal woman in her fifties, has lived for the past four years in the shell of a wrecked Ford in one of Alice’s black enclaves, ... She has only a sullen dog as a companion and no shield from the alcohol-fuelled violence of Alice’s black enclaves. Last month the town of 60,000 was named the stabbing capital of the world. It also claims the highest murder rate and highest consumption of alcohol in Australia." (Times, 11 August) The expansion of capitalism decimated the population of the Scottish Highlands, wiped out the culture of the native Americans and has wrecked the lives of the Australian aborigines. RD

POVERTY KILLS

Socialists are always pointing out that capitalism creates poverty that in turn leads to starvation, crime and death; but a recent news item from Manilla illustrates that the poverty that leads to desperation also can result in death. " A Second World War mortar shell found by fishermen on the seashore exploded in the Philippines yesterday, killing four men and wounding two. The 81mm shell blew up when they tried to saw it to pieces to sell to scrap metal dealers." (Times, 11 August) Capitalism is a desperate society, it often leads to desperate outcomes. RD

Who owns the North Pole , Part 7

Not to be left out for this scramble for control of the Arctic regions , Danish researchers plan to set sail for the North Pole on Sunday to collect geological data, on a mission similar to the recent Russian one .

The month-long Danish expedition will study the Lomonosov Ridge. Russia believes the underwater feature is linked to its territory. Denmark , however , will investigate the ridge to see if it is geologically connected to Greenland which is a Danish territory.
The team plans to collect bathymetric, gravity and seismic data to map the seabed under the ice, according to a Danish science and technology ministry statement on the expedition.

"The preliminary investigations done so far are very promising," Denmark's minister of science, technology and innovation said "There are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the North Pole."

We will be collecting data for a possible (sovereignty) demand," expedition leader Marcussen said.

In Ottawa, the Danish ambassador to Canada, Poul Kristensen stated "it's no secret that Denmark, on behalf of Greenland" has interests in the Arctic and "of course, potentially, we can make claims."

Now the Danes - still at odds with Canada over the ownership of tiny Hans Island in the boundary waters between Ellesmere Island and Danish-controlled Greenland - are again pressing their claims to the potentially lucrative seafloor area around the North Pole.
Kristensen said Friday that "we are speaking of values in the billions" when it comes to potential Arctic oil, "and therefore the area, of course, is of interest to us."

Prime Minister Harper announced Canada will install a new army training center and a deep water port. Canada will build two new military facilities in the Arctic in a move to assert sovereignty over the contested region . Resolute Bay will be home to a new army training center for cold-weather fighting . The new deep sea port will be built for navy and civilian purposes on the north end of Baffin Island, in the abandoned old zinc-mining village of Nanisivik. Harper also announced the 4,100-member Canadian Rangers patrol will be increased by another 900 members. He stood alongside Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor and a group of Rangers — a rifle-toting, Inuit volunteer force.

"Protecting national sovereignty, the integrity of our borders, is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government, a responsibility which has too often been neglected," Harper said,


The North Pole seabed is not currently regarded as part of any single country's territory and is governed instead by complex international agreements. But for how much longer , we wonder . We also note that all this scientific investigation is not to further scienctific knowledge in geography and geology but to further business and commercial interests . Science becomes mercenary . Instead of acting in the interests of humanity , it represents the pecuniary interests of nation states .

Old and out of the way

Just how society treats our elderly is becoming cruelly more and more apparent . We had this report , a 108 year old woman having to wait a year and half for a hearing aid to improve the quality of her short remaining life and now we read about this care home evicting an 103 year old woman because she is requiring too much care , or so they say , in a squabble over how much she has to pay for the nursing care . Abbeymoor's owner, Mark Sutters, told the Nottingham Evening Post that the home could not continue to "subsidise" Mrs Collins's care.

Local authority and care services minister Ivan Lewis said " I am deeply concerned at the attempt by the home owner to use Mrs Collins as a pawn in a funding dispute. Whatever the difficulties, such treatment of a 103-year-old cannot be tolerated in a modern care system which has dignity and respect for older people at its heart."

Esme Collins was told to leave after 10 years at Abbeymoor nursing home in Worksop, because its owners refused to back down in a dispute over funding her care.

Age Concern has campaigned for the closing of a legal loophole that left the pensioner without the protection of human rights legislation.
"Forcing an older person to leave their care home can have a devastating impact on their physical and emotional health. We urge the government to act quickly to give the protection of the Human Rights Act to people living in private care homes to help prevent such situations."

Socialist Courier fully sympathises with such sentiments but to be perfectly blunt , it is just one very small example of the heartless nature of a society where everything has a price , even life and everything is valued in prices , even people . Events such as this will not stop until capitalism is superceded by a truly caring , sharing society such as Socialism

CAPITALIST CON GAMES

In 2004 Coca-Cola withdrew their bottled water Dansant in Briain when the press exposed it as merely tap water, although the revelation that some of it had become contaminated may have had something to do with the decision. Now a rival brand in the USA has also been exposed. "Last week PepsiCo announced that the label on its Aquafina brand of bottled water will soon carry the words "public water source", instead of the innocent looking "p.w.s". That's right: Aquafina is to all intents and purposes tap water. Coca-Cola is under pressure to follow suit with its Dansani brand, though so far it is refusing to do so. (Economist, 4 August) Full article is available at www.economist.com/businessview RD

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