Prison Blues

In a recent Scotsman article it is estimated that the Scottish prison population will reach American-type proportions . Prof Coyle, head of prison studies at Kings College in London, said Britain was "ten to 15 years behind the US", which he said was already using prisons as a quasi-welfare state. America has a prisoner rate of 738 per 100,000 head of population, nearly six times more than Scotland's rate of 139 per 100,000.

Presently standing at around 7,200 people prison service estimates that the number could hit 10,000 within the next decade but Professor Andrew Coyle, a former governor of Peterhead and Shotts prisons, yesterday said that if courts keep sending mentally ill people, along with offenders whose crimes arise from drug and alcohol addictions, to prison, Scotland could end up with a prison population as high as 35,000.

He notes that seven out of ten prisoners in Scotland have mental health problems, with seven per cent displaying "psychotic elements" and eighty per cent suffering drug addiction problems .

Prof Coyle said that, instead of being used as a "punishment of last resort" for serious criminals, prisons were increasingly being forced to cope with mentally ill people and other problematic cases, such as drug addicts, who should be diverted into the health service rather than the criminal justice system.

Prof Coyle said a lack of adequate facilities for people with mental health problems was fuelling the growth in the prison population.

"I'm talking about the 'too difficult' groups, the mentally disturbed, the drug addicts. People with these health issues are not being given the help they need through the health system. They then appear in the 'system' for committing crimes. That system simply isn't equipped for dealing with people with health and addiction problems."

And what has Scotland got to look forward to if it follows the American incarceration trend .

The USA has the most prisoners in the world .

A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.

China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners

Followed by Russia with 870,000.

The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population

Ryan King, a policy analyst at The Sentencing Project, a group advocating sentencing reform, said the United States has a more punitive criminal justice system than other countries. King said various social programs, including those dealing with education, poverty, urban development, health care and child care, have failed.

"There are a number of social programs we have failed to deliver. There are systemic failures going on . A lot of these people then end up in the criminal justice system."

The easy fix of "lock em up and throw away the keys" isn't working . And the remedy of patching up and reforming the system don't change things either .

There requires to be a more profound and revolutionary approach to the causes of crime and all the many other social ills . Socialists cannot see prisons simply as the dumping grounds for the discarded and the despised .

Eugene Debs once said :-

" Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. "

OFF THE BALL AND ON THE BALL

Off the ball
Monday 4th December the football show hosted by Tam Cowan had for one of his guests George Galloway; the week previous he had Tommy Sheridan as a guest, George confessed he was a very good friend of Tommy.

The hilarity of the situations, both George and Tommy provided for Tam Cowan ensured a great night for the audience. Galloway was asked what was the one thing over and above everything else he would like done in the very unlikely scenario of him getting power.

This would be free meals in school for every child: a proposition well applauded by the audience. This indicated to me George knew this was a vote catcher.

Are socialists against children having a free meal?

George seeks power to administer capitalism and reforms like a free meal are among the many he supports. Reformism, within the Market System is what George is propagating as a solution to working class problems; he is off the ball because, Reformism doesn’t work. There have been many reforms to the capitalist system over the last hundred years and the poverty problems are still around in one way or another.

Socialists do not wish to administer capitalism but seeks the understanding of the working class in support of socialism where everything will be freely available as a right. Socialists elected to Parliament or to local councils would treat individual reforms on their merits, principally as to whether they would benefit the working class at large, or indeed the movement for socialism in particular. Socialism is a solution to all the poverty problems the working class suffer, that is what makes it a revolutionary solution.
If you want to be on the ball read ‘The Market System Must Go’ It’s in your interest, how do I know? Well I know you are a worker.

Workers of the World Unite

The BBC reports that textile workers in Bangladesh get paid as little as five pence an hour and the mainly female workers regularly spend 80 hours per week in "potential death trap" factories, according to anti-poverty group War On Want to make cheap clothes for UK companies Tesco, Asda and Primark.
Starting wages at the factories were as little as £8 a month, barely one third of the living wage in Bangladesh. War On Want added that wages rose to £16 per month for better-paid sewing machine operators, but that some workers spent up to 96 hours per week in the factories without even a day a week off.

"Bargain retailers such as Primark, Asda and Tesco are only able to sell at rock bottom prices in the UK because women workers in Bangladesh are being exploited," said War on Want chief executive Louise Richards. "The companies are not even living up to their own commitments towards their overseas suppliers."

But the working class don't take exploitation lying down . Previously the BBC has reported here and here thousands of garment workers resisting factory owners .

Pension Theft

A previous blog mentioned how the Clydesdale bank got a boost to their profits by cutting their employees pension entitlements . The Herald today reports that other companies have now gotten the same idea .

Standard Life recently commenced a 90-day consultation period with staff . The company's pensions working group has recommended to the board, led by chairman Sir Brian Stewart and chief executive Sandy Crombie, that it also adopt a career-average salary rather than its more beneficial pension scheme of "final-salary".
Stewart is reported in 2003 to be on a salary of £906,753 , and what it is now , who knows .
It is also nice to learn that Crombie earned £1.36m last year, including a bonus of £686,000 and that his pension jack-pot is worth £8.3m.
It's clear to say that neither in their old age will be scrimping and saving to pay their council tax and heating bills .

Meanwhile , another institution to have moved staff from final salary to career average pensions is the Cooperative Group, - yes , that local caring sharing Co-op . Interim financial statements for the year to July 29 show that Co-operative Bank alone booked an exceptional gain to profits of £109.2m stemming from the introduction of the new Co-operative group pension (average career earnings) plan. Not going to be much of a "divi" for their workers after a life-time of toil .

Good News for a change ?

Good News for a change ?

If you were to Google search for "migrant workers" or "East Europeans", on the Scotsman or BBC websites you will find a lot of disgusting racist emphasis on incoming workers to the U.K.

Scare stories abound about "our jobs" being under threat from fellow workers .The newspapers and media are full of loaded information telling us about this problem.
In the workplace derogatory comments about the incomers being "white Pakis",are not uncommon,indicators of prejudice,and antipathy which seems to know no bounds.

There is no question that the capitalist class will use every trick in their sordid book of tricks to drive down labour costs,but trade unionists, never mind socialists, should be alive to this and alert to the solution,in the short term,the class struggle, which is to make common cause with their fellow workers, taking on the employers and confounding their tricks.

Instead of spinelessly castigating their fellow workers from foreign lands,saddling them with responsibility for the native workers slavishness and capitulation to low wages, they should be making common cause,extending the hand of friendship and expressing solidarity with them to drive wages up.

This article link here from Duncan Campbell,whom I know is a pro-worker journalist, in a recent Guardian,sums up better what I have been trying to say.
"Poles are bringing many skills to this country. One of the most valuable could well be their much-needed involvement in the union movement and the part they play in providing just the kind of solidarity that many employers had hoped was now unfashionable."

I will only,add to this that the long term solution is Marx's one,of socialism/communism when he said to "Inscribe upon your banner the abolition of the wages system"

Unfortunately some workers will have to get up off their knees enough, to stop grovelling to the boss class, enough to be class conscious trade unionists, before they even begin to be socialists.

A nice little nest-egg for some

Are the press stories never ending about capitalists feather-bedding themselves ?

Yet again , The Herald reports and further to our earlier post , the Stagecoach owners , Brian Souter and Ann Gloag are preparing for a £104m pay day after the company disclosed plans to hand at least £400m of surplus cash back to investors. Souter, the chief executive who owns 15% of the company, will get £60m and Gloag, who has 11%, £44m. The windfall is their second in two years. In 2004 they divided £65m through the issue of a special class of shares which saw £250m returned to investors.

And for Stagecoach workers ??

Stagecoach shut its final salary pension scheme to all new staff members because of a funding shortfall in the scheme that stood at £103m at October 31 . Existing staff remaining in the scheme will be paying higher company pension contributions out of their wages .

And while we are talking about pension funds .

The Herald , also carries the story that by cutting staff pension benefits enabled Clydesdale Bank to boost profits by £145m this year . On April 1 the group moved staff from final salary pensions to inferior "career average" terms.
Chief executive Lynne Peacock, meanwhile, took home nearly £500,000 more in pay , picking up £1.1m in 2006 . This compares with her £600,000 in 2005 . This year's accounts disclose that "key management personnel" at Clydesdale group received £11m in pay and share-based benefits in 2006 compared with £8m last time .
No doubt their reward for restucturing the business at a cost of 1,700 jobs and the closure of a hundred branches .

Legal Eagles ( Vultures )

Continuing our series of "some have it cushy" , the Herald reports that partners at Scottish law firm McGrigors pocketed an average £40,000 pay rise last year, taking the typical annual package to almost £300,000.
Benefits for the firm's 650 other staff, including 350 non-partner lawyers, were more modest, with 14% of overall profit set aside for staff bonuses. That was equivalent to an average bonus of about £3000.
The firm acted in the Highland schools PFI programme. The £130m joint venture between Morrison Construction and Noble/3i was one of the largest education sector projects to close in the year.It also won a tender to provide legal advice to the North Solihull regeneration project, one of the largest in the UK, worth £1.8bn over the next 15 years. And the firm acted for Scotland-based oil company, Cairn Energy in negotiating its $1bn revolving finance facility with a syndicate of international commercial banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Capitalism proves rich pickings for the lawyers .

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - HenryVI Part 2 (Act IV, Scene II) .
On reflection , that may be a little too harsh a condemnation of the legal profession from Shakespeare .

Stoned in Iran

It's reported that currently, in Iran there are nine women sentenced to death by stoning on charges of adultery, compared to two men for the same offence . Most women sentenced to stoning are those found guilty of being accomplices in the murders of their husbands. In a few cases married women have been found guilty of prostitution . Women , if not married and found guilty of illicit sex, are sentenced to lashes the first three times. A fourth occasion can lead to the death penalty as happened to Atefeh Sahaleh, a 16-year-old girl from Neka in Northern Iran who was hanged in August 2004.

Iran made a verbal pledge to the European Union to stop stoning more than a decade ago and there was a moratorium by the Chief Justice, in December 2002, on execution by stoning. But there are reports by eye witnesses of the secret stoning of Zahra Gholami in Tehran's Evin prison in 1999. News of the stoning of a man, Abbas, and a woman, Mahboubeh, in the north-eastern city of Mashad, in May, have also emerged recently.
According to news reports the Mashad stoning was carried out in a cemetery. The two were first ritually washed as for corpses being prepared for burial and then wrapped in shrouds from head to toe. The woman was buried in the ground up to her chest and the man up to his waist. A secretly congregated crowd pelted them with stones until they were dead.

"Stoning is regarded as a highly sensitive issue by the regime and the religious and political establishment. There is so much reaction from the international community and human rights organisations to stoning news. This has made it taboo for journalists and news on the campaign is not given coverage by the press as they have been repeatedly warned to avoid it," a journalist told IPS.

Iranian laws discriminating against women can be found at The Women's Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran (WFAFI) .

If , or more likely , when , the US launch its military attack against Iran , the usual suspects of the Anti-Imperialist Left in this country will be applauding the defence of the Iranian regime with the sacrifice of workers blood . The Socialist Party , on the otherhand , will be opposing any attack on Iran but denouncing both sides , saying a plague on both your houses , and hoping that the Iranian working class will reject the demand to lay down their lives for the Mullahs , just as we in the Socialist Party reject the myth that our enemy enemies are our friends .

They are even richer than I thought.

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.

But what is new about this report, the authors say, is its coverage.
It deals with all countries in the world - either actual data or estimates based on statistical analysis - and it deals with wealth, where most previous research has looked at income. What they mean by wealth in this study is what people own, less what they owe - their debts. The assets include land, buildings, animals and financial assets.

Building Profits

The Herald reports a company boss has paid himself an £18m dividend while he takes a year out from business. An employee at Front Line said Mr Ward had "semi-retired" and was taking a year out. He was expected to return next April to serve another six months before "finishing up".
John Ward , now one of Scotland's richest men with the pay-out, which came as he prepared to hand over the reins at Front Line Construction , owns 99% of the shares in Front Line, which was formed in June 1979. He will have received the vast bulk of the special dividend of £17,988,950 which the accounts show was paid to shareholders on April 6, the first day of the current tax year. A further £396,535 was paid later in the month, mostly in non-cash assets.

The Herald also mentions in the same article as an aside that Stewart Milne became the highest-paid director in Scotland last year when he drew a £5m salary from his Aberdeen-based building firm.

Nice to know that when Shelter reports 40,000 people were found to be homeless by local authorities in Scotland alone and that 1.6 million children in Britain are either homeless , trapped in temporary accommodation, or living in overcrowded or unfit housing some people are making a nice little earner and profit out of the construction industry.

Not too taxing for the rich

The Sunday Times commissioned Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm, to calculate the scale of legal tax avoidance by the country’s wealthiest people.

UK billionaires paid income tax totalling just £14.7million on their £126 BILLION combined fortunes, and only a handful paid any capital gains tax. - and the bulk was paid by just one man , £9m of the £14.7m from James Dyson, the inventor , worth £1,050m

Out of the 54 billionaires in The Sunday Times Rich List , 32 of the individual billionaires or family groupings are calculated not to have paid any personal taxes on their fortunes .

Of the 22 billionaires who paid tax, this was mostly on share dividends paid by their companies. The wealthy usually choose to pay themselves in dividends rather than with a conventional salary — as the tax on dividends is at an effective rate of 25% rather than the 40% higher rate of income tax.

42 of the 54 billionaires make use of havens such as the Channel Islands, Switzerland and the Caribbean . Sir Richard Branson has a complicated series of offshore trusts and companies that own his business empire. Branson, whose wealth is calculated at £3,065m, pays relatively little tax as his wealth is tied up in these companies. Yes , that British patriot for all things British - except British taxes .

The Irish authorities release similar figures, which show that 184 people earning more than £1m last year paid no personal taxes.

The Socialist Party's condemnation of capitalism is not based on the workers being robbed by paying too much tax ( or see here for more detail ) . It is because we are exploited and get robbed at the point of production , to pay those capitalists their share dividends .

But the above is a useful reminder when we hear all that cant from the privileged about the scroungers and the fiddlers that the real culprits on a grand scale are themselves .

Fare comment!

Bus tycoons net a £75m Christmas bonus
The Stagecoach tycoon and his sister, Ann Gloag, have paid themselves an estimated £37.5m each as part of a massive handout to shareholders in the cash-rich firm.
They would require £125m in order to overhaul Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who is at number eight in the Scottish richest league. Any donations?

The Keir Hardie Myth

I note from the BBC that a memorial to one of the the founders of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, has been unveiled in his former constituency . And the unveiler of the bronze bust was no other than that pro-Iraqi War- propagandist Ann Clywd MP .
One shouldn't be so surprised because the real facts of Keir Hardie's supposed principled stand against the slaughter of World War One is not all that what one has been led to believe as this article in the Socialist Standard from 1961 reveals .

The Keir Hardie myth

The myth about Keir Hardie's attitude to war is very persistent. At an anti-Polaris rally in Glasgow last December, the Co-operative Movement representative had only to refer to him, ". . . if we could get Keir Hardie here. . ." to have his words drowned by applause. Whatever the sentiments of the audience may have been, it was certainly in error about Hardie's attitude to war.

In 1914, with the Great War drawing near, the Second International called for "Peace demonstrations" throughout Europe. On August 2nd, in Trafalgar Square, Hardie spoke at the "Peace demonstration". Sentimentality and emotionalism were offered in place of the sound education and organisation needed by the workers. Two days later the War began, and the Second International collapsed, its unsound base giving way beneath the strain. In the Labour Leader Hardie proclaimed, "The I.L.P. will at least stand firm. Keep the Red Flag flying!" Brave words indeed, but wholly false. For the I.L.P. turned out to be standing firm on one issue and that was on the question of party unity. To preserve this unity, to retain the greatest number of members within the fold, the most opportunist and unprincipled formulas were applied to justify the conduct of individual party members. The flag hoisted by Hardie and his fellow "Labour Leaders" was a clear and unmistakeable Union Jack. In articles directed at his electorate in Merthyr, Keir Hardie made his position clear.

"A nation at war must be united especially when its existence is at stake. In such filibustering expeditions as our own Boer War or the recent Italian war over Tripoli, where no national danger of any kind was involved there were many occasions for diversity of opinion and this was given voice to by the Socialist Party of Italy and the Stop the War Party in this country. Now the situation is different. With the boom of the enemy's guns within earshot, the lads who have gone forth by sea and land to fight their country's battles must not be disheartened by any discordant note at home." (Pioneer, Methyr 15th Aug., 1914).

The man who recoiled from the talk of waging the Class War was quite prepared to have workers serve "their Motherland" in Imperialist War; he wrote that

"We must see the war through, but we must also make ourselves so familiar with the facts as to be able to intervene at the earliest possible moment in the interests of peace" (Pioneer 15th Aug., 1914.)

Let no one be deceived by the mention of the "earliest possible moment" because for Hardie this was a very long way off and he was in fact prepared to support a long, drawn-out conflict in Europe. As he put it on 28th November, 1914,

"May I once again revert for the moment to the I.L.P. pamphlets? None of them clamour for
immediately stopping the war. That would be foolish in the extreme, until at least the Germans have been driven back across their own frontier, a consummation which, I fear, carries us forward through a long and dismal vista" (Pioneer, Merthyr).

Time after time Hardie fed workers the lie that they were part of a "nation " and as such were bound up in the quarrels of their masters. Not "International Working Class Solidarity". but "Class Collaboration" was his rallying cry, for Hardie was a patriot and proud of it.

"I am not a pro-German" he wrote, "and still less am I a pro-Russian. I am a pro-Briton, loving my country and caring for her people. Any war of aggression against the rights and
liberties of my country I would resist to the last drop of blood in my veins. But I have not seen, outside the columns of the yellow Jingo Press, any proofs that our interests as a nation were in any way imperilled or threatened by a war in which Austria and Germany and Russia and France were involved" (Pioneer,Merthyr. 22nd Aug 1914).

But although he was a patriot, Hardie would not appear on the official Government recruiting platforms. In the first place he could not stomach the crude jingoism and Imperialism that emerged from these platforms and secondly he wished to remain free to present the I.L.P. version of the events that had led to Britain's involvement in the war. He believed that if the people were toldfrankly about the "Secret Diplomacy" that had piloted Britain into the war, and
were shown how the war, though "unjust," had put the country in peril, the needed volunteers would emerge and there would be no need for jingoistic exhortations or conscription. This in Hardie's view was the "right method" and belief in this method led Hardie to boast that he had been instrumental (together with his colleagues) in securing more recruits for the Armed Forces
than his Liberal opponents.
Writing in the Pioneer of November 28th, 1914, Keir Hardie made his claim thus:

"I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting; I know too well all there is at stake. But, frankly, were I once more young and anxious to enlist, I would resent more than anything the spectacle of young, strong, flippant upstarts, whether M.P.s or candidates, who had the audacity to ask me to do for my country what they had not the heart to do themselves. Of all causes, this surely is the one in which actions speak louder than words. If I can get the recruiting figures for Merthyr week by week. which I find a very difficult job, I hope by another week to be able to PROVE that whereas our Rink Meeting gave a stimulus to recruiting, those meetings at the Drill Hall at which the Liberal member or the Liberal candidate spoke, had the exactly opposite effect."

Hardie was so determined to prove his point that he tried on a number of occasions to obtain the relevant recruiting figures. The figures were refused him, but this did not daunt Hardie. In the meantime, his staunch supporter J.B. (John Barr). writing in the Pioneer enthusiastically endorsed Hardie's claim; he wrote. "I am still of the opinion that the Rink meeting gave a fillip to recruiting, and my opinion is based on the belief that the I.L.P. method is the right one. . ."

Two weeks later Hardie was able to proclaim that he had obtained the recruiting figures for his constituency and was able to make good his boast. He set out his claim in this manner:

"(1) That for the five weeks before the Rink Meeting. recruiting had been steadily going down week by week;
(2) that our I.L.P. meeting was held on Sunday, October 25th, and that for the next three
weeks the number of recruits secured in Merthyr kept steadily rising. . . If Mr.Jones challenges this statement I shall produce the figures, though not inclined to do so for very obvious patriotic reasons. Unlike my colleague I am more concerned with aiding the army than with trying to take a mean advantage of a political opponent" (Pioneer, 19th Dec., 1914).

Ample evidence exists to prove that in supporting the war Hardie in no way acted as a renegade. His actions were in fact in concord with the actions of his colleagues in the party leadership and these actions were never repudiated, but were endorsed and underwritten by the party as a whole.

MELVIN HARRIS

The Last Conflict

Now for some shameless plugging of a comrade's book .

The Last Conflict by Pieter Lawrence, Booksurge, 2006

One of the more pleasing aspects of the last couple of decades of socialist activity has been the proliferation of books written by socialists, previously quite a rare phenomenon. Almost all of these books have been non-fiction, either putting the case for socialism directly or else discussing the socialist movement itself. This book, by long-standing Socialist Party member Pieter Lawrence, is somewhat different. It is a work of fiction – and an interesting one too, in that while it is a gripping political novel set in Britain it doesn’t mention any political parties, and introduces the idea of socialism without ever explicitly identifying it as such.

Without giving too much away to future readers, it is about how a British government beset by economic difficulties and strikes handles a political crisis of a different sort – emerging news of a large comet that is heading towards Earth. Over time, it appears that if the Earth will not be directly hit by the comet, it will pass by closely enough to cause a missile bombardment from space. Fragments of rock would be detached by the comet hurtling through the Earth’s atmosphere in the type of future scenario envisaged by some current astronomers, and often argued to be the real cause of the disappearance of the dinosaurs from Earth tens of millions of years ago.

The novel focuses on the attempts by the government to cover-up news of the impending disaster and then, when mass public panic and disorder arises, to initiate a massive programme of civil defence involving the creation of deep shelters for the population, including the conversion of the London underground system.

Much of the action revolves around some of the main characters in the government and their thinking about how to handle the emerging crisis. As well as maintaining social control, not the least of their problems is a financial one. At a time when the government is already under severe financial pressure, the paid construction of a huge network of deep shelters across the country would be ruinous and logistically impossible. The government’s solution is to turn to voluntary labour, of the sort that had emerged during the economic crisis and strike wave when people had been encouraged by the government to volunteer to keep the hospitals and other essential services going. It soon emerges, however, that this sort of piecemeal voluntary labour is not enough, as materials need to be purchased and production facilities harnessed quickly and on a mammoth scale if the civil defences are to be constructed in time. So voluntary labour is generalised and supplemented by a credit note system and the requisitioning of factories, building materials, land and so on.

Such is the scale of the task however, that the majority of the population becomes involved and the credit note system – initially designed as a temporary measure – becomes meaningless as the government would never be able to pay back the massive credits owed to the working population and owners of capital when life returned to capitalist ‘normality’. The only solution is for the government – after much internal discussion and dissension – to decree a temporary cashless economy while the civil defences are built. There is a suspension of all paid economic activity and bank accounts, etc are frozen, with the population being able to directly access the goods and services produced by voluntary labour, assisted by a Second World War-type rationing system for some products. All of this occurs alongside massive campaigns and mobilisations from the general population desperate that nothing (whether shortage of resources or government reticence) should halt the vital work of civil defence, a programme which literally appears to be the only chance of human survival.

In this way, the novel cleverly introduces the idea of a society based on voluntary labour without wages, money and prices as the only way in which society as a whole can pull together sufficiently to direct the largest construction programme in the history of the planet, drawing on the type of ‘wartime spirit’ previously evident during the Blitz. To what extent this programme is successful, and for what happens when the comet finally passes by, you will need to read the book.

As a novel, the narrative is well-written and fast-paced. Indeed, even if you are not a socialist it is an exceptionally good read and this is one of its strengths. It has been written with a view to introducing the idea of a socialist society to people without the usual terminology (or, in fact, much political jargon as a whole) so that the idea slowly creeps up on the reader as they progress through the book. The characterisations are strong and believable, and help to anchor the story as one about humanity and people’s very fight for survival. In this respect it is compelling and, at times, gripping too.

The artistic licence of the fiction writer is called on only minimally, mainly perhaps with the somewhat UK-centred plotline to what is, by definition, a world phenomenon and crisis. Also, the work gives small and almost subliminal hints that it was written some time ago as in some respects the general political ‘feel’ is of Britain in the 1970s, before the internet and satellite TV, and in an era when Prime Ministers still made broadcasts to the nation pipe in hand. Indeed, whether some of the communication blackouts imposed by the government at various times in the story are achievable in today’s e-society is a moot point, though again this doesn’t seem to be a huge issue for the purposes of the plot and its underlying message.

The storyline of The Last Conflict is so cleverly woven, with the plot developing in clear stages, and the characterisation is so strong, that this is a work that would lend itself to other genres quite easily. At present, the physical binding of the book by the current publishers could be better and nothing would be more fitting for the book’s wider popularisation than if a TV dramatisation of the novel was what made it known to a mass audience. To this end, it is to be hoped that the book will find itself in the hands of someone with the opportunity and vision to put this into effect, because it could without doubt, and without a hint of exaggeration, make for one of the best political dramas ever shown on British televion.
DAP
From December's Socialist Standard

Noam Chomsky

Love him or loathe him , Noam Chomsky , the political commentator discusses his new book in an interview with Z-Net . It is called Perilous Power , co-authored by Gilbert Achcar and written in the form of a dialogue between them, and is all about the United States diplomatic manouverings in the Middle East . Chomsky certainly understands the motives of competing nations when it comes to foreign policies and their raison d'etre.

"Shalom:.. a lot of people in the antiwar movement were sort of cheering on France and Germany and Russia, and other governments that opposed the war. How reliable are these governments in their antiwar stances?
Chomsky: Their reliability is approximately zero. Sensible antiwar activists don't ally themselves with governments... Tomorrow they'll do the opposite, because they're acting out of pure cynicism -- power interests -- anyway"

And later:-

" Rulers like Chirac, Putin, or Schröder should definitely not be regarded as allies by the antiwar movement, especially since they are themselves hawkish warmongers when their interests are at stake. Russian forces are waging a terrible quasi-genocidal war in Chechnya. The French government still considers itself a colonial power in Africa, and behaves as such. Not to mention the fact that both France and Germany are involved in Afghanistan, along with the U.S. troops. To that we should add that although Paris and Berlin did not support the invasion of Iraq politically, technically speaking they did everything they could to facilitate it: the Germans, of course, by letting the whole U.S. military infrastructure on their territory be used for that purpose, the French by opening their airspace to U.S. warplanes. So we should not be fooled by such governments. "

Achcar points out :-

"The United States and British refusal to lift the embargo -- that is, to allow the lifting of the embargo if and when UN inspectors determined that Iraq had disarmed -- was rightly perceived by Paris and Moscow as a refusal to permit them to take advantage of the oil concessions they had been granted. And they very much saw the dedication of Washington and London to invade Iraq as a desire to snatch the prize from them. Actually one of the first proclamations after the invasion was that all contracts granted by Saddam Hussein were to be considered null and void. So that's the main reason why Paris and Moscow opposed that war."

And Chomsky's observations upon American lip-service to democracy can be biting .

"He [ Paul Wolfowitz] berated the Turkish military for not intervening to compel the government to overrule 95 percent of the population; he basically ordered them to apologize to the United States..."

The Socialist Party often find much merit in what Chomsky says but we do have our reservations , needless to say . Analysis of his ideas can be found in this article and reviews of two of his books here and here .

Free and Impartial and Balanced

...the US has said.

A US military statement said ...

It said...

...the statement said.

The US soldiers say...

... the statement said

It said...

Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Salas said ...

Yup , it is nice to see some independent reporting from the BBC News in Iraq when it comes to investigating the slaughter of one man and five girls by American Marines tanks .
The youngest dead girl was just six-months-old and the eldest was aged only 10 -years- old .

One World , One People , One Solution

Pakistan , they claim , like many other Asian countries , is having a boom time . Growth has soared, foreign debt has been cut, and the nation's consumers have gone on one of history's greatest shopping sprees, splashing out in record numbers on anything from fridges and flats, to luxury cars. The World Bank has given the programme a big thumb's up, and foreign investors show signs of renewed interest.

But reported by the BBC , Kaiser Bengali , a Professor of economics at Szabist University, says many have gained nothing from all the reforms. Pakistan's Government insist the poor have gained under the new economic regime, but Professor Bengali does not agree .

Instead, he says, there has been an alarming growth in inequality.

"Try to imagine," he says, "a man who sees the expensive cars in the street, but comes home unable to feed his children, because he can't find work. He is angry."

"Or an educated man who cannot support his own parents. He becomes ashamed of himself."

"Anger may lead people into crime, or self harm. Suicide rates are going up," he says. "But people also turn to religious radicalism. We see this in Pakistan every day."

It is a great pity that all this anger and rage is not turned against the cause of their poverty , the capitalist system , and the solution being sought in the socialist alternative , rather than seeking it in the dead-end political cul-de-sacs of reformism and religion .

Howard Zinn Interview

Although we in the Socialist Party may have our differences with Howard Zinn , we aren't that sectarian that we do not find many of his observations and views insightful and educational . His book A Peoples History of the United States can be found on the book shelves of many members .

Here he is in a recent interview that can be seen on the radical news outlet Democracy News .

"...Well, do you get the feeling sometime that you’re living in an occupied country? Very often that’s a feeling I get when I wake up in the morning. I think, “I’m living in an occupied country. A small group of aliens have taken over the country and are trying to do with it what they will, you know, and really are.” I mean, they are alien to me. I mean, those people who are coming across the border from Mexico, they are not alien to me, you see. You know, Muslims who come to this country to live, they are not alien to me, you see. These demonstrations, these wonderful demonstrations that we have seen very recently on behalf of immigrant rights, say, and you’ve seen those signs saying, you know, “No human being is alien.” And I think that’s true. Except for the people in Washington, you see.

They’ve taken over the country. They’ve taken over the policy. They’ve driven us into two disastrous wars, disastrous for our country and even more disastrous for people in the Middle East. And they have sucked up the wealth of this country and given it to the rich, and given it to the multinationals, given it to Halliburton, given it to the makers of weapons. They’re ruining the environment. And they’re holding on to 10,000 nuclear weapons, while they want us to worry about the fact that Iran may, in ten years, get one nuclear weapon. You see, really, how mad can you be?

And the question is, how has this been allowed to happen? How have they gotten away with it? They’re not following the will of the people. I mean, they manufactured a will of the people for a very short time right after the war started, as governments are able to do right after the beginning of an armed conflict, in order to able to create an atmosphere of war hysteria. And so for a short time, they captivated the minds of the American people. That’s not true anymore. The American people have begun to understand what is going on and have turned against the policies in Washington, but of course they are still there. They are still in power. The question is, you know, how did they get away with that?

So, in trying to answer the question, I looked a little at the history of Nazi Germany. No, it’s not that we are Nazi Germany, but you can learn lessons from everybody and from anybody’s history. In this case, I was interested in the ideas of Hermann Göring, who, you may know, was second in command to Hitler, head of the Luftwaffe. And at the end of World War II, when the Nazi leaders were put on trial in Nuremberg, Hermann Göring was in prison along with other of the leaders of the Nazi regime. And he was visited in prison by a psychologist who was given the job of interviewing the defendants at Nuremberg.

And this psychologist took notes and, in fact, a couple of years after the war, wrote a book called Nuremberg Diary, in which he recorded -- put his notes in that book, and he recorded his conversation with Hermann Göring. And he asked Göring, how come that Hitler, the Nazis were able to get the German people to go along with such absurd and ruinous policies of war and aggression?” And I happen to have those notes with me. We always say, “We happen to have these things just, you know, by chance.”

And Göring said, “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.”

I was interested in that last line: “It works the same way in any country.” I mean, here, these are the Nazis. That’s the fascist regime. We are a democracy. But it works the same way in any country, whatever you call yourself. Whether you call yourself a totalitarian state or you call yourself a democracy, it works the same way, and that is, the leaders of the country are able to cajole or coerce and entice the people into war by scaring them, telling them they’re in danger, and threatening them and coercing them, that if they don’t go along, they will be considered unpatriotic. And this is what really happened in this country right after 9/11. And this is happened right after Bush raised the specter of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and got for a while the American people to go along with this...."

Rich benefactors and Poor benefactors!

SCOTLAND'S wealthiest man has pledged to give away his personal fortune of more than £600m to deserving causes.
Irvine Laidlaw, 63, the multi-millionaire businessman, philanthropist and the man who effectively finances the Scottish Conservatives single-handedly, made the promise as he was honoured at an awards ceremony for his lifetime of achievement in business.

Anyone who has attempted to save to be a millionaire, using the calculator in our article,
‘Think you are going to be a millionaire’ will surely agree with us this wealthy man didn’t save £600m; I think it’s undisputable, the working class, the creators of wealth, get a raw deal.
Will the working class be a deserving cause? I don’t think so. The money will be used for budding entrepreneurs who can continue the exploitation.
The accumulation of capital out of the profits produced by those who operate the means of production is what capitalism is all about. You can get rid of philanthropists, capitalist and worker varieties, by owning the means of production in common and producing for need not profit. Socialism is worth some thought.

Think you are going to be a millionaire ??

So you think you can save enough and become a millionaire in your life-time , do you ?

Then why not take the test .

This calculator will show you how long it will take you to become a millionaire.

Fill in the boxes and click Calculate to see how rich you'll be in the future and what you need to save to reach millionaire status.

Which , of course , all depends on your future . No redundancy . No ill health .

And , of course , the other economic factors . Mortgage increases . And any possible inflation . So what if you are a millionaire if it has worthless purchasing value .