MOTHER OF THE FREE

At the last night of the Proms exploited members of the working class like nothing better than to bawl out the words of Land of Hope and Glory. Poor, deluded workers image that there is something superior about being born on a piece of dirt thrown up on the Atlantic Ocean. They never realise that it is an accident where you happen to be born, and indeed that it was probably an accident that they were born at all. This misguided nationalism is fostered by governments and the media. Britain is superior to Johnny Foreigner with his deceitful regimes. No underhanded politics in dear old Britain says the patriot critical of foreign powers, but what is the reality? "MI5 faced an unprecedented and damaging crisis last night after one of the country's most senior judges found that the Security Service failed to respect human rights, deliberately misled parliament, and had a "culture of suspicion" that undermined government assurances about its conduct. The condemnation by Lord Neuberger, the master of rolls, was drafted shortly before the foreign secretary, David Miliband, lost his long legal battle to suppress a seven paragraph court document showing that MI5 officers were involved in the ill-treatment of a British resident, Binyam Mohamed." (Guardian, 11 February)
Yet another example of how the quest for markets soon overcomes any ethical scruples. Not so much a case of Britain Rules The Waves as Britain Waives The Rules. RD

CLASS DIVISION

Socialists are often pilloried because we look at the world from a class perspective. We are accused of being outdated, old fashioned and living in the 19th Century. All that Marxists stuff about class division has been outdated by the new dynamic capitalism of the 21st Century we are told by our critics. A recent government sponsored health review seems to give the lie to that notion.

 " Healthy living is cut short by 17 years for poorest in Britain. The poor not only die sooner, they also spend more of their lives with a disability, an "avoidable difference which is unacceptable and unfair", a government-ordered review into Britain's widening health inequalities said yesterday. ... Not only is life expectancy linked to social standing, but so is the time spent in good health: the average difference in "disability-free life expectancy" is now 17 years between those at the top and those at the bottom of the economic ladder, the report says." (Guardian, 11 February)

A GREATFUL NATION

Capitalist nations are continually in conflict with their rivals and inside capitalism economic rivalry leads to military action. During these actions the press praise " Our Boys" in uniform and regale us with tales of heroism. Nothing is to good for "Our Boys" they claim, but the reality is far different. "Britain's military veterans are too often descending into alcoholism, criminality or suicide because of a lack of support from the Government according to the Mental Healtlh Foundation. Veterans under 24 are two to three times more likely to kill themselves than civilians of the same age. An estimated one in five veterans and Service personnel is said to have a drinking problem. The charity said:"More needs to be done to help veterans stay well."
(Times, 28 January) Having risked life and limb in pursuing the interests of their masters in these hellish conflicts the heroes of yesterday are thrown on the social scrapheap. RD

Food for Thought

The economy seems to be improving but that may be an illusion. Stocks and shares are up mainly because interest rates are so low that capital has flowed there. The real numbers show a different perspective - Ontario lost 17,000 jobs in December and the managed unemployment rate is at 9.3%. Meanwhile, in the US, food stamps are needed by one adult in eight and one child in four to keep food on the table. Real wages there, adjusted for inflation, are lower than they were a decade ago.
How capitalism works on the East coast - no jobs, put your life in hock to buy a boat and catch lobsters, sell them to the US market and make ends meet, wait for the recession that drops the lobster prices to $3/lb when the break even point is $5, what to do? "That ( boat is ) my retirement package. If I sell it to pay my bills, then I'm finished" says a fisherman
( Toronto Star, 26/Dec/2009 )
It's a great competition - a few win, most lose. John Ayers

Summer School 2010

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The Socialist Party's Summer School is being held at Fircroft College, Selly Oak, Birmingham, over the long weekend 23rd - 25th July.

The theme is 'Future Visions' - This year's weekend of talks and discussion looks to the future. But what kind of future? For centuries, people have imagined utopias where advances in technology and attitudes create freedom for all. Or, they have described dystopias, where society turns into a nightmare. Back in the real world, how will capitalism survive and adapt to ongoing economic and environmental concerns? And what kind of socialist society can we aim for as an antidote to this?

The residential cost (including accommodation and all meals) is £130.
The concessionary rate (for students, unemployed people, pensioners etc.) is £80.
The non-residential cost (including meals) is £50.
If you're interested in attending, e-mail Mike Foster at spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk
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Food for Thought

On crime, it's illuminating to read James Morton's article in the Star ( 3/Jan/2010 ). Although the government and the media fuel the fear of crime, Canada is reasonably safe. Violent crime has been dropping for years and was lower in 2007 than in the last decades and property crime is 40% below 1991 levels. Poverty, he says is what drives crime, destabilizing families and areas leading to drug, alcohol, sexual and family abuse. Our abominable prisons tend to be filled with drug addicts, mental patients, poor people, and, as I can attest as a prison volunteer tutor, learning disabled people. As we are aware, poverty is a natural outcome of capitalislm. That wasn't stated , of course. John Ayers

PEACE PRIZE?

"President Obama is planning to increase spending on America's nuclear weapons stockpile just days after pledging to try to rid the world of them. In his budget to be announced on Monday, Mr Obama has allocated £4.3 billion to maintain the U.S. arsenal - £370 million more than George Bush spent on his final years on nuclear security. The announcement comes despite the American President declaring nuclear weapons were the 'greatest danger' to U.S. people during during in his State of the Union address on Wednesday. And it flies in the face of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him in October for 'his extraordinary efforts to strenghthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peaples'"
( Daily Mail, 29 January ) RD

Food for Thought

The only safe injection site for drug users in Canada is sucessfully operating in Vancouver. Other North American cities have noted its sucess and want to have their own. The federal government has tried for years to shut it down. It's much better to throw these people in jail, boost the crime statistics, bring out 'tough on crime' legislation, and look popular. Recently the Supreme Court ruled that it could not be shut down, not because it's sucessful, but because the Fed's don't have any jurisdiction over provincial health. Capitalism is not common sense!
John Ayers

"CARING" CAPITALISM

"CARING" CAPITALISM

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to "feeding stray animals." Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor ( of South Carolina), made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food suply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behaviour. They don't know any better," Bauer said."
( Greenville News, 23 January) RD

ANOTHER LABOUR FAILURE

"The divide between rich and poor is greater after 13 years of Labour rule than at any time since the Second World War, according to the Government's own report into inequality. It concludes that Britain remains a nation riven by class " from cradle to grave", despite programmes costing billions of pounds in the past decade designed to narrow the gap." ( Times, 27 January ) RD

Socialist Standard February 2010 Vol.106 Issue,No.1266

As PDF As HTML

Features Haiti - an un-natural disaster The reality with earthquakes is they kill so many only if we let them. They are inevitable, but the death toll is not...Read more > Christmas bombers The son of a Nigerian banker wasn’t the only one on a bombing mission at Christmas...Read more > Who bailed out the bankers? They tell us that we “the taxpayers” did? But it’s not as simple as that...Read more > Beyond capitalism Attempts to reform capitalism, whether through parliament or dictatorship, have failed. This leaves conscious majority revolution as the only way forward...Read more > The market versus cooperation Difficulties with cooperation arise when the restrictions of the market start to operate...Read more > Car boot capers Shopping, it’s said, is the new religion, the new opiate of the people...Read more > Regulars Editorial Contact Details Meetings Cooking the Books 1 Dreams and nightmares Cooking the Books 2 The yellow brick road Cartoons The Irate Itinerant Free Lunch Pathfinders Machine in the ghost Material World America and the S-Word Pieces Together Tiny Tips Reviews Cronies or Capitalists?; First as Tragedy...; Red Planets 50 Years Ago You’ve never had it so good” Greasy Pole Hoon or buffoon? Voice from the Back

Reading Notes

In "Fast Food Nation", Eric Schlosser comments on the line speed of slaughter houses in the meat packing business: "I could always tell the line speed," a former Montfort nurse told me, "by the number of people with lacerations coming into my office." "A faster pace means higher profits. Market pressures now exert a perverse influence on the management of beef plants: the same factors that make these slaughter houses relatively inefficient (lack of mechanization, the reliance on human labour) encourage companies to make them even more
dangerous (by speeding up the pace)" "The line speeds and labour costs at IBP's non-union plants now set the standard for the rest of the industry. Every other company must try to produce beef as quickly and cheaply as IBP does: slowing the pace to protect workers can lead to a competitive disadvantage." " From a purely economic point of view, injured workers are a drag on profits. They are less productive. Getting rid of them makes a good deal of financial sense, especially when new workers are readily available and inexpensive to train." Just some of the basic tenets of the capitalist mode of production. John Ayers

THE GAP WIDENS

"The richest 10% of the UK population are now more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10%, according to the Anatomy of Economic Inequality. The study shows that by 2008 Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality since soon after the second world war. Household wealth (including cars and other

possessions) of the top 10% amounts to £853,000 or more, while the poorest 10% amass £8,800 or less."  (Observer, 31 January) RD

ALL RIGHT FOR SOME

"Bob Diamond, president of Barclays, sold £5m of shares in the bank, days after the 21,000 investment bankers at Barclays Capital - overseen by Diamond - were awarded hefty pay rises. Diamond still has 8.3 shares, worth £20m, so don't worry about him being short of a few bob." (Observer, 31 January) RD

MILLIONS LIVE ON $2 A DAY

"NBC confirmed to the Associated Press and other news outlets that it had reached a $45 million deal for Conan O'Brien to leave The Tonight Show. The redheaded comic hosted the late-night show for seven months, but was pushed out of his 11:35 p.m. time slot to make way for the return of Jay Leno, whose new low-rated prime time series was cancelled. The Associated Press reports that O'Brien will personally receive $33 million for the early exit, with the remainder going to his staff as severance pay." (US  Magazine, 21 January) RD

The Shame of Scotland

The number of children living in poverty in Scotland remains at an "unacceptably high" level. Save the Children found 95,000 young people, almost 10% of all children in Scotland, were living with families that had less than £33-a-day to spend. The charity found the poorest families were, on average, £113-a-week short of enough money to cover essential costs.Youngsters in single parent households were about three times more likely to live in severe poverty.More than two thirds of those included in the figures lived in families where no adults worked.

The charity described government promises to end child poverty by 2020 as "increasingly hollow"

Douglas Hamilton, Save the Children's programme director in Scotland, said: "We are absolutely outraged that so many children have to go without essentials - we're talking about winter coats and proper shoes, real basics that families just can't afford...."

CAPITALISM IS WORLDWIDE

Members of the working class are taught in schools from a very early age that the country they were born in is somehow special. We are taught to be proud of the country wherein for generations our family has been exploited. We wave flags, sing patriotic songs and are taught to mistrust workers from other countries. The owning class suffer from no such zenophobia. They are prepared to exploit workers of any nationality, creed or so-called race. To them profit is much more important than patriotism. Here is a recent example from the Brighton College newspaper.

"Workers at a Sussex-based electronics firm were today left "devastated" after being told in a video message that manufacturing at their factories is to end and 220 jobs moved to Korea and the Czech Republic. Unite said Edwards planned to cease all manufacturing at its Burgess Hill and Shoreham factories. The announcement was made to employees via a video message, which the union said was "tactless"." (The Argus, 13 January) RD

MIND THE GAP

"Remember the heady days of 1997 and the promised transformation of British society? After 18 long years of rule by a Conservative government whose policies had led to greater prosperity, but also an unprecedented wealth gap, the Labour Party was back in office, offering a fresh start. In the early days, Blair, Brown, and their team promised a land where "wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few." Trouble is that the Labour Party's more equal future has yet to arrive. Despite the rhetoric, the inequality gap has only grown under New Labour. Measured by the income gap between the richest and poorest 20 percent of the population, it's not far behind the U.S.A., Singapore, and Portugal, which top the global list." (Newsweek, 7 January) RD

DEBT RIDDEN BRITAIN

"There has been a huge rise in the amount of money that banks are writing off as bad debts on their credit cards. Bank of England figures show that the total value of the write-offs doubled to £1.6bn in the third quarter of 2009. In each of the two preceding quarters, the figure had been about £800m. It totaled £3.2bn during 2008. The figures reflect the impact of the recession and are an acknowledgement by the banks that the money will never be repaid by defaulting borrowers. By contrast, the value of mortgages written off in 2008 was just £408m, and has averaged £260m in each of the first three quarters of 2009." (BBC News, 19 January) RD

SOCIALISM AND DISASTER

Inside a socialist society everything won't be perfect we will have disasters such as the recent earthquake disaster in Haiti "The leading US general in Haiti has said it is a "reasonable assumption" that up to 200,000 people may have died in last Tuesday's earthquake. Lt Gen Ken Keen said the disaster was of "epic proportions", but it was "too early to know" the full human cost. Rescuers pulled more people alive from the rubble at the weekend, but at least 70,000 people have already had burials. Relief efforts are being slowed by bottlenecks, and many thousands of survivors are fending for themselves. Many Haitians are trying to leave the devastated capital city, Port-au-Prince, and there are security concerns amid reports of looting and violence." (BBC News, 18 January)

Inside a socialist society we will have a commitment by every human being on earth to help every other human being. We won't have some well paid politician in Britain saying that we we will extend our aid from £1 million to £3million in aid. Inside a socialist society we will all try our best to help. Most of the people who died in the earthquake were poor people living in poorly constructed housing. It was ever thus. RD