HUMAN EVOLUTION

HUMAN EVOLUTION

"Despite evidence that human evolution still functions, biologists concede that it's anyone's guess where it will take us from here. Artificial selection in the form of genetic medicine could push natural selection into obsolescence, but a lethal pandemic or other cataclysm could suddenly make natural selection central to the future of the species. Whatever happens, Steve Jones, an evolutionary biologist at University College London says, it is worth remembering that Darwin's beautiful theory has suffered a long history of abuse. The bastard science of eugenics, he says, will haunt humanity as long as people are tempted to confuse evolution with improvement. "Uniquely in the living world, what makes humans what we are in our minds, in our society, and not in our evolution," he says." (TIME, 23 October) RD

HOW ABOUT SOCIALISM?

A crop of genetically modified canola grows in a field in Lake Bolac, in
the Western District of Victoria, Australia, Sept 29 2009

With food prices remaining high in developing countries, the United Nations estimates that the number of hungry people around the world could increase by 100 million in 2009 and pass the one billion mark. A summit of world leaders in Rome scheduled for November will set an agenda for ways to reduce hunger and increase investment in agriculture development in poor countries. What will drive the next Green Revolution? Is genetically modified food an answer to world hunger? Are there other factors that will make a difference in food production?

( New York Times, 26th October ) RD

DEMOCRACY, US STYLE

Michael R Bloomberg, the Wall Street mogul whose fortune catapulted him into New York's City Hall, has set another staggering financial record: He has now spent more of his own money than any other individual in United States history in the pursuit of public office. Newly released campaign records show the mayor, as of Friday, had spent $85 million on his latest re-election campaign, and is on pace to spend between $110 million and $140 million before the election on Nov 3. That means Mr. Bloomberg, in his three bids for mayor, will have easily burned through more than $250 million __the equivalent of what Warner Brothers spent on the latest Harry Potter movie. The sum easily surpasses what other titans of business have spent to seek state or federal office. New Jersy's Jon S Corzine has plunked down a total of $130 million in two races for govenor and one for United States Senate. Steve Forbes poured $114 million into his two bids for President and Ross Perot spent $65 million in hid quest for the White House in 1992 and $10 million four years later.
(New York Times, 23 October) RD

CAPITALISM ISN'T WORKING

Women spreading wet rice to dry in Bangladesh after record rains in July

Scientist and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50% over the next two decades to feed the world's growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad concenus that enough land, water and experise exists. The number of hungry people in the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people, according to United Nations Food and Argriculture Organisations, despite a 12 year concentrated effort to cut the number. The global recession added at least 100 million people by depriving them of the means to buy enough food, but the numbers were inching up even before the crisis, the United Nations noted in a report last week. "The way we manage the global agriculture and food security system doesn't work" said kostas G Stamoulis, a senior economist at the organisation. " There is this paradox of increasing global food production, even in developing countries, yet there is hunger."

( The New York Times, 22 October 09) RD

NO OLD BANGERS HERE

LEXUS

"Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Corvette, Lotus -- you can name all the ultra high-end sports vehicles in the auto industry and none of these cars hail from Japan, home of the Camry, Corolla, Civic and other family-oriented models. But the Lexus LF-A is finally ready for production after nine years in development. Just 500 units of the most powerful and most expensive car Toyota has ever produced will be available worldwide. The car offers 560 horsepower, a top speed of 202 miles per hour (325 kilometers per hour), your choice of 12 shades of leather and a price tag of over €255,000." (Independent, 22 October) RD

LAZY WORKERS?

Chris Kelsey, right, director of the C.R. England truck driving school in Burns
Harbor, Ind., received several hundred applications for an administrative
assistant position that was eventually filled by Tiffany Block, 28.

"As soon as the job opening was posted on the afternoon of Friday, July 10, the deluge began. C.R. England, a nationwide trucking company, needed an administrative assistant for its bustling driver training school here. Responsibilities included data entry, assembling paperwork and making copies. It was a bona-fide opening at a decent wage, making it the rarest of commodities here in northwest Indiana, where steel industry layoffs have helped drive unemployment to about 10 percent. When Stacey Ross, C. R. England’s head of corporate recruiting, arrived at her desk at the company’s Salt Lake City headquarters the next Monday, she found about 300 applications in the company’s e-mail inbox. And the fax machine had spit out an inch-and-a-half thick stack of résumés before running out of paper. By the time she pulled the posting off Careerbuilder.com later in the day, she guessed nearly 500 people had applied for the $13-an-hour job. “It was just shocking,” she said. “I had never seen anything so big.”

(New York Times, 21 October) RD

It often takes over three years following the death of a construction worker before a company is brought to trial and convicted.

Trade Unions are continually forced to pursue a reassessment of Health and Safety legislation. The employers in the Building Industry Management are again under scrutiny by the building workers’ union UCATT, here are a couple of extracts from the Autumn issue of the ‘Building Worker’ which only demonstrates once again that while we continue to live in capitalism, ‘running fast to stay still ‘ will always be no solution for workers.
Another young Scottish construction worker killed
UCATT Regional Secretary Harry Frew was shocked and saddened to hear of a young worker killed on a construction site in Troon, Ayrshire
" We will await the results of the HSE investigation but it is clear from the recent fatality figures that the construction industry is just as dangerous as at the time of the major health and safety summits called by the government in 2001 and 2004, we hope the upcoming summit will bring about a cultural change in the industry to health and safety. This only adds to the figures of workplace fatalities spiralling out of control this year. This year construction deaths leapt by 31%.”Last year 79 people were killed on construction sites and the HSE acknowledge that at least 70 per cent of those deaths are caused by management failures to take adequate health and safety measures.Yet Another construction fatality hits Scotland
UCATT Regional Secretary Harry Frew was shocked and saddened to hear of a young worker killed on a major construction site at the Earlsburn windfarm near Stirling. A 19 year old man died after falling 100ft while working inside a turbine.
He stressed: " This only adds to the figures of workplace fatalities which is spiralling out of control this year. Last year construction deaths leapt by 25%."Last year 79 people were killed on construction sites and the HSE acknowledge that at least 70 per cent of those deaths are caused by management failures to take adequate health and safety measures.
"The continued scale of fatalities reinforces our demand for Corporate Killing legislation, " said Mr Frew.A UCATT commissioned report has revealed that convictions of companies responsible for the death of construction workers have fallen by nearly three-quarters. The reports findings come at a time when construction deaths are rising.The report Levels of Convictions and Sentencing Following Prosecutions Arising from Deaths of Workers and Members of the Public in the Construction Sector undertaken by the Centre for Corporate Accountability on behalf of construction union UCATT, has been published to coincide with Workers Memorial Day (April 28). It reveals that in a six-year period from 1998 to 2004 Health and Safety Executive prosecutions in construction deaths plummeted from 42 per cent to just 11 per cent. The study covered the deaths of 504 construction workers. It often takes over three years following the death of a construction worker before a company is brought to trial and convicted.

Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde

Karl Marx, who famously described religion as “the opium of the people”, has joined Galileo, Charles Darwin and Oscar Wilde on a growing list of historical figures to have undergone an unlikely reappraisal by the Roman Catholic Church.
L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said yesterday that Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the “social alienation” felt by the “large part of humanity” that remained excluded, even now, from economic and political decision-making.

“We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system,” Professor Sans wrote. “If money as such does not multiply on its own, how are we to explain the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few?”
(Times 22nd October 09)

THE STATISTICS BEHIND

Sheri West operated a shelter for homeless people, but last year she lost her
home in Cleveland and had to sleep in her car.

We are all familiar with the awful figures of unemployment and the re-possession of homes of the working class but behind these statistics lie the real shock of the lack of confidence to the personality of the people involved. Here is a particular nasty example of the trauma that can be experienced by even relatively comfortable workers who lose their jobs and their homes.

"Cleveland — The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom. The second night, she stayed with a friend, and so it continued for more than a year: Ms. West — mother of three grown children, grandmother to six and great-grandmother to one — passed months on the couches of friends and relatives, and in the front seat of her car. But this fall, she exhausted all options. She had once owned and overseen a group home for homeless people. Now, she succumbed to that status herself, checking in to a shelter.
“No one could have told me that in a million years: I’d wake up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “I had a house for homeless people. Now, I’m homeless.” Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates." (New York Times, 19 October)

The real lesson to be learned from Sheri's plight is that there is no security for members of the working class. That is how capitalism operates - one minute in charge of a homeless shelter, the next being homeless yourself! RD

DOLE QUEUE RECRUITMENT

"Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year. The United States already has 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and about 119,000 in Iraq. Pentagon officials said recruitment gains were fueled by the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate nearing 10 percent." (Reuters, 13 October) RD

THIS IS COMMUNISM?

Reuters – BYD (Build Your Dreams) president Wang Chuanfu sits inside
the BYD E6 Electric Car

"China's super-rich have bounced back from the financial crisis with a vengeance, and China now has more known dollar billionaires than any other country bar the United States, according to a new report released on Tuesday. The annual Hurun Report said China has 130 known dollar billionaires, up from 101 last year. The number in the United States is 359 while Russia has 32 and India 24, according to Forbes magazine. China's rich are getting richer, with the average wealth on the list $571 million, up almost one-third from last year, said compiler Rupert Hoogewerf." (Reuters, 13 October) RD

Food for Thought

Reading Notes
"Competition is the complete expression of the battle of all against all which rules in modern society. This battle, a battle for life, for existence, for everything, in case of need a battle of life and death, is fought not between the different classes of society only, but also between individual members of these classes.
Each is in the way of the other, and each seeks to crowd out all who are in his way, and to put himself in their place. The workers are in constant competition among themselves. The power-loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom weaver, the unemployed or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or is better paid, each trying to supplant the other. But this competition of the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in the hands of the bourgoisie.
Hence the effort of the workers to nullify this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgoisie towards these associations, and its triumph in every defeat which befalls them".
Frederick Engels, "The Condition of the Working Class in England" (p108)

UNDERNOURISHED

"Yesterday the UN's annual report on global food security confirmed that more than a billion people - one sixth of the world's population - are undernourished and said that the number was growing even before the economic crisis, which had only made the situation worse."
(Times, 15 October) RD

PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE

Capitalism is a ruthless society; nothing must stand in the way of profit making. The original dwellers of North America were slaughtered and driven off the land they had inhabited for thousands of years. The fate of the indigenous tribes of Australia were likewise crushed and marginalised, but in the Amazon region of South America we have this lust for profit carried to even more awful extremes - the complete destruction of the Akuntsu people. A once proud group of several hundred now have only five survivors. "Much of the Akuntsus' story is – for obvious reasons – undocumented. For millennia, they lived in obscurity, deep in the rainforest of Rondonia state, a remote region of western Brazil near the Bolivian border. They hunted wild pig, agoutis and tapir, and had small gardens in their villages, where they would grow manioc (or cassava) and corn. Then, in the 1980s, their death warrant was effectively signed: farmers and loggers were invited to begin exploring the region, cutting roads deep into the forest, and turning the once verdant wilderness into lucrative soya fields and cattle ranches. ... The only way to prevent the government finding out about this indigenous community was to wipe them off the map. At some point, believed to be around 1990, scores of Akuntsu were massacred at a site roughly five hours' drive from the town of Vilhena. Only seven members of the tribe escaped, retreating deeper into the wilderness to survive." (Independent, 13 October) RD

No work , No hope

Almost one in three households in Glasgow have no wages coming in, official statistics have revealed.

Figures released by the Scottish Government show 62,000 households in the city - 28.9% of all homes - had no working-age adult in employment last year. That puts Glasgow behind the national average of 24%. The stats also reveal a shocking 22,900 children in Glasgow live in a workless home.

The director of the Glasgow-based Poverty Alliance, branded the figures a "scandal".

"There is little doubt that unemployment means that people will struggle to afford the basics in life. For these families heating their home and putting food on the table is the challenge. In the 21st century that is quite clearly a scandal. We know that children in workless households, living in poverty, will have less chance in life than children from better-off backgrounds.We know that their education will be adversely affected and they are more likely to suffer health problems. The danger is that we perpetuate a cycle of worklessness and limited opportunity."

Capitalism cannot be reformed for the benefit of the working class and sooner the well meaning realise this fact , the sooner , we can begin the dismantling of the capitalist system .

EVEN MORE MUST STARVE

"Tens of millions of the world's poor will have their food rations cut or cancelled in the next few weeks because rich countries have slashed aid funding. The result, says Josette Sheeran, head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), could be the "loss of a generation" of children to malnutrition, food riots and political destabilisation. "We are facing a silent tsunami," said Sheeran in an exclusive interview with the Observer. "A humanitarian disaster is unrolling." The WFP feeds nearly 100 million people a year." (Observer, 11 October) RD

A NICE LITTLE EARNER

"A company producing swine flu vaccine for Britain has paid millions of pounds in out-of-court settlements after being accused of fraudulently overcharging for medicine. Baxter, the US pharmaceutical giant, reached at least seven huge settlements over the past 12 months, some of them for multimillion-dollar sums. The company has been accused of fraud amid allegations that the company had overpriced medicines by as much as 1,300%." (Observer, 11 October) RD

BE AFRAID, VERY AFRAID

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been sparring with President
Obama over whether Iran is developing the technology nuclear weapons.

"The Pentagon comptroller sent a request to shift the funds to the House and Senate Appropriations and Armed Services Committees over the summer. The comptroller said the Pentagon planned to spend $19.1 million to procure four of the bombs, $28.3 million to accelerate the bomb's "development and testing", and $21 million to accelerate the integration of the bomb onto B-2 stealth bombers. The notification was tucked inside a 93-page "reprogramming" request that included a couple hundred other more mundane items. Why now? The notification says simply, "The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON." It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran)." (ABCNews, 6 October) RD

HYPOCRICY IN THE CITY

Church and the City: bankers are said to have lost their way, with the financial
crisis being partly blamed on a culture of greed

Banking, insurance companies and the myriad financial off-shoots that make up the City of London are central to the running of modern capitalism. They produce nothing of course but then neither do the industrial capitalist class. It is probably a bit unfair to say the City produces nothing. It certainly produces nothing useful, but it certainly produces hypocrisy in large doses. "As bankers last month began gearing up for a bumper bonus season, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican church, bemoaned their lack of repentance.
“We haven’t heard people saying, ‘Well, actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, empty’,” Mr Williams told bankers in September. Such rhetoric echoes that of Lord Turner over the summer, when the chairman of the Financial Services Authority spoke in moralistic terms about the need for banking to become "socially useful" again. Hector Sants, his chief executive, has even explained his move to a regulatory job in terms of a sense of Christian “duty” to give something back to society after a 30-year career in money-making." (Financial Times, 7 October)
We expect Archbishops to utter hypocritical nonsense, after all it is their stock in trade, but when financiers rant on about "Christian duty" and banking becoming "socially useful" it is a bit hard to bear. Here’s to the day when banks and other financial institutes are part of our unlamented history along with all its apologists, both religious and secular. RD

OUTDATED MARXISM?

An oft repeated criticism of the ideas of world socialism is that it is based on a 19th Century critic of capitalism - Karl Marx. What could he know of the developments of 21st Century society ask our ultra-modern opponents.
If they had switched on their super duper plasma TV screens (or do they view on ipod now?) on Friday 9 October they would have seen a Channel 4 programme entitled Unreported World, Peru: Blood and Oil. It depicted the bloodshed and military violence that has accompanied the Peruvian government’s decision to auction off large parts of the Amazon countryside that has been used for thousands of years by the indigenous people.
"For the first time isolated indigenous groups are uniting to fight the government's plans to auction off 75% of the Amazon - which accounts for nearly two thirds of the country's territory - to oil, gas and mining companies. ... These would allow companies to bypass indigenous communities to obtain permits for exploration and extraction of natural resources, logging and the building of hydroelectric dams." (Times, 9 October)
What we have here is the modern enactment of what Marx described in Capital in 1867 as the "so-called primitive accumulation" in Europe from the 16th century onwards. As he so aptly put it when commenting on the Enclosure Acts and the Highland Clearances - "The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process." Far from being out of date Marxism is bang up to date with the current developments of the capitalist system. RD