WORDS OF WISDOM

"Albert Einstein regarded religions as "childish" and "primitive legends", a private letter he wrote a year before his death has revealed. The great scientist's views on religion have long been debated, with many seizing upon phrases such as "He [God] does not throw dice" as evidence that he believed in a creator. But the newly-unveiled letter, a response to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, has cast doubt on the theory that Einstein had any belief in God at all towards to the end of his life. In the letter, dated January 3 1954, he wrote: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." (Daily Telegraph, 13 May) RD

Marketing kids and education

David Buckingham, a professor at the Institute of Education, University of London and a leading authority on children and the media, said that the "privatisation" of schools could be affecting children's education...The involvement of commercial companies in the running of schools - that's something which potentially has implications for children's wellbeing," he said.
"From my point of view commercial resources in classrooms - Shell's introduction to the oil industry, Coke machines in schools - there's a continuum from there to commercial companies that provide school meals, to commercial companies being involved in education on all sorts of levels including management...Carphone Warehouse, Microsoft, Dixons and Granada Learning are all running academies. The schools minister, Lord Adonis, has said that every school should be in partnership with a business, and the government is promoting trust schools, which see businesses helping to run and advise schools.
Buckingham said the links went further than academies. Firms were increasingly sponsoring school sport, music classes and homework clubs, in what amounted to "privatising" state schools, he said...Buckingham said there was convincing evidence that the amount of marketing to children was intensifying and it was happening at a younger age.

THE NEW COLONIALISTS

"Chinese companies will be encouraged to buy farmland abroad, particularly in Africa and South America, to help guarantee food security under a plan being considered by Beijing. A proposal drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture would make supporting offshore land acquisition by domestic agricultural companies a central government policy. Beijing already has similar policies to boost offshore investment by state-owned banks, manufacturers and oil companies, but offshore agricultural investment has so far been limited to a few small projects."
(Financial Times, 8 May) RD

NICE FOR WHOM?

"Britain faces two years of economic pain and could sink into recession, the Governor of the Bank of England has warned. Mervyn King gave notice of a further squeeze on living standards, forecasting that inflation would climb to 3.7 per cent and remain high for two years. "The nice decade is behind us," he said." (Times, 15 May) RD

SAME MAG - DIFFERENT LIFES

"90 per cent of Tanzia's 36 million people live on less than £1 a day." (Page 17)
"No other supercar catches onlookers off-guard as seductively as a Ferrari, finds Polly Vernon. Ferrari F430 Spider F1 - £137,852." (Page 74)
(Observer Magazine, 11 May) RD

A MODERN THEOLOGIST?

"The current Bishop of Durham, fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England (after Canterbury, York and London), is also its leading evangelical theologian. Time magazine recently described him as "one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought" and "a hero to conservative Christians worldwide". He has also just written a book, Surprised by Hope, in which he spells out a view many will find extraordinary. It is not just that, as an evangelical, he believes forcefully in the authority of scripture and the historical truth of the Gospels. Nor is it that, like most on that conservative wing of the Church, he is strongly opposed to gay priests. The Right Reverend Wright believes in the literal truth of the Resurrection. The day will come, he says, when Christ will come to join the heavens and the earth in a new creation and the dead will rise." (New Statesman, 10 April) RD

PROFIT AND LOSS

A shocking example of capitalism's priorities was recently revealed.
"There is growing concern that the Health and Safety Executive is failing at its job as it struggles with a growing number of workplace deaths. The HSE has reduced the number of its inspectors by around 25 per cent in five years from 916 to 680. Firms on average face an HSE inspection just once every 14.5 years. ... Last year 77 construction workers died, up from 60 in 2006." (Observer, 11 May)
Last year the HSE under spent its budget by £12 million, so from the standpoint of profit and loss what are 77 grieving families? RD

CHRISTIAN DECLINE

"Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests. The fall - from four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. ... According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious trends in Britain, published by Christian Research ..." (Times, 8 May) RD

UNEXPECTED PRAISE

Socialist are used to journalists parodying the works of Karl Marx and extolling the virtues of capitalism so it comes as a pleasant surprise to read Simon Caulkin, the Management Editor in the Business and Media section of the Observer having something worthwhile to say on the subject.
"Along with creeping monopolies, growing inequalities and the all-absorbing momentum of the capitalist markets, Marx foresaw many of the effects of globalisation, which he called "the universal interdependence of nations", not least the effect of an international "reserve army of the unemployed" in disciplining and depressing the wages of workers in the developed economies. His description of the "cash nexus" foreshadowed the economic rationality at the centre of today's mainstream economic and management theories." (Observer, 11 May) RD

PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION

"In the semi-arid forests of the Chaco region of Paraguay, where summer temperatures top 40C (104F), the continent's last non contacted Indians outside of the Amazon basin are on the run, their traditional forest home increasingly encroached upon by ranchers. ... These formerly nomadic tribes’ people struggle to maintain a semblance of their traditional way of life in camps on the edge of the agricultural colonies that invaded their territory." (Times, 6 May)
This process called by Karl Marx the so-called primitive accumulation of capital was dealt with him in his Das Kapital (1867), mirrors what had happened in Europe at the beginning of capitalism. "In actual history it is notorious that conquest, murder, briefly force, play the great part ...As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic." (Page 668) A view echoed by one of the Indians in the Times - "The whites are violent. They just want land. We are afraid of them, they are very aggressive." RD

A WARMONGER SPEAKS

"John Bolton, America’s ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq. Mr. Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American’s overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be “far higher” if Washington took no action. “This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.” Mr Bolton, an influential former member of President George W Bush’s inner circle, dismissed as “dead wrong” reported British intelligence conclusions that the US military had overstated the support that Iran was providing to Iraqi fighters." (Daily Telegraph, 6 May) RD

THE NUTTY PROFESSOR

"Marxist historian, Professor Eric Hobsbawm, 90, tells the Morning Star, the comrade's bugle, that Communism is finished because "the industrial working class" isn't interested any more. But Communism is flourishing in China where it takes the form of state capitalism."
(Daily Mail, 1 May) RD

AN UPPER CLASS TWIT

On Henry Conway, 25 year-old son of disgraced MP Derek Conway: "We might reasonably have hoped that, having being exposed as receiving £32,000 in parliamentary allowances while an undergraduate at Cambridge, he might have felt chastened and laid low. The more naive among us might even have hoped he would get a proper job, with a view to paying back some of the taxpayer's money. But, no. Last month Conway - who once threw a party called "F*** off I'm rich" - arrived at Mahiki, a naff London cocktail bar favoured by Prince William and Harry, in a horse-drawn carriage and dressed as a Regency dandy." (Times, 8 May) RD

CRISIS! WHAT CRISIS?

"Auction houses Sotheby's and Christie’s are confident of selling up to $1.8bn of Impressionist, postwar and contemporary artworks during the New York season beginning on Monday– 25 per cent more than last year – in spite of signs of nervousness among collectors." (Financial Times, 9 May) RD

BUSINESS AS USUAL

"Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving surviviors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people. Sacks of rice destined for Bangladesh were being loaded on to a ship at the Thilawa container port at the mouth of the Yangon River at the end of last week, even though Burma's "rice bowl" region was devastated by the deadly storm a week ago. The Burmese regime, which has a monopoly on the country's rice exports, said it planned to meet all its contractual commitments."
(Observer, 11 May)
Inside capitalism business is business, and the fact that millions of Burmese risk death by starvation is of no concern. That is how capitalism operates, during the Irish potato famines foodstuffs were still being exported from Ireland. RD

THE KILLER SYSTEM

Supporters of capitalism claim that it is the most efficient way to run society, but that is a claim that rings hollow to millions of hungry people today, as even one of capitalism's stoutest supporters is forced to admit. "Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation,
The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry." (4 May) RD

WORDS OF WISDOM

"What's more, the genomes of complex creatures reveal a lack of any intelligence or foresight. Your DNA consists largely of millions of defunct copies of parasitic DNA. The inescapable conclusion is that if life was designed, the designer was lazy, stupid and cruel." (New Scientist, 19 April 2008) RD

RELIGIOUS CANT

"The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem". Believers may be partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a "fact in the world", he said in a lecture. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers. The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales said that a "hidden God" was active in everyone's life." (BBC News, 8 May)
This hidden god may well be evident to the well fed Archbishop but he remains well hidden to the millions of starving children throughout the world. RD

THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER?

"The number of homeowners facing repossession orders after failing to keep up with mortgage payments is up, says the Ministry of Justice. It says the number of orders made by the courts in England and Wales at an early stage of the repossession process rose 17% in the first quarter of 2008. There were 27,530 orders made, up from 23,438 in the same period of 2007."
(BBC News, 9 May) RD

A DEPRESSING SOCIETY

"Depression symptoms could be a problem for large numbers of teenagers, suggest surveys for the Children's Society. More than a quarter of 14 to 16-year-olds questioned said that they frequently felt depressed. A leading child psychiatrist said more support, and resources, for parents were essential to tackle the problem. (BBC News, 24 April) RD