The air you breathe is poisoned

Air pollution is risking the lives of thousands of Scots, the Scottish Government has been warned.

A lethal pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, is being spewed out by traffic in such large quantities in four areas of the country that Scotland is in breach of levels set by the European Commission. The pollutants have been found to reduce the life expectancy of everyone in the UK by an average of seven to eight months and in central Scotland alone 600 deaths each year are attributed to air pollution. The EU restricts emissions of NO2 and other pollutants because of their health impacts. High levels of air pollution are associated with respiratory illness and are estimated to cause premature death for up to 50,000 people a year in the UK.

The Scottish Government plans next month to ask for an extra ten years to meet the targets in Glasgow city centre, and five more years for Edinburgh city centre, central Scotland and the North-east. In total, 82 miles of roads in Scotland exceed the pollution limits. If air quality in these areas does not improve, the government could be taken to court by the commission and risk hefty fines.

Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy at WWF Scotland, said: "It is shocking that in the 21st century so many people are still being exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution in Scotland. Scotland has had plenty of time to take preventative action, so it is completely unacceptable that not only are we set to breach air quality targets, but attempts are being made to delay compliance by a further decade. This situation is a direct result of Scotland's failure to produce a sensible strategy that adequately addresses air pollution and climate emissions from road traffic." He added: "With air pollution already responsible for bringing forward the death of hundreds of people in Scotland, the longer we delay action to address this, the more lives will be put at risk."

The environmental law organisation ClientEarth has issued legal proceedings against the UK government for its failure to meet air pollution targets. Chief executive James Thornton said: "Since air quality laws were introduced, successive governments have failed to clean up the air we breathe. We cannot afford to waste any more time by ignoring this invisible killer."

For all of us concerned with the degradation of our lived-in environments by air pollution removing the link between money and work will us free to address these matters.

THE MADNESS OF CAPITALISM

During the present economic crisis many capitalists have looked for alternatives to the stock market to invest their money in. Some have bought up gold or silver as a hedge against the following dividends. Some have even taken up stamp collecting. Stanley Gibbons the stamp sellers have reported increased profits as the rich scramble for stamps. "It's a horrible time to be rich," said Michael Hall, the company's chief executive. Not that I'd complain." (Times, 6 August) Apparently China is proving to be a big market with 24 Penny Blacks sold there for six figure sum and a particularly rare local stamp fetching £625,000. RD

Food for thought

As mentioned previously, Toronto's mayor was elected on the "stop the City hall gravy train in Toronto" which is right-wing speak for slashing  programs for the needy and saving the rich from tax increases. Mayor Ford commissioned a $3 million report which failed to find much in the way of gravy but lots in program cuts, such as closing branch libraries and cutting the hours of operation at others, closing day care for low-income families so they could to go out to work, recreation programs for city children and youth, breakfasts for needy children, cutting transit routes. Ford gave the people a chance to present their cases – an all night session, designed so that many would go home and get ready for work rather than stay up all night. But the voters fell for his pitch and may well do so again as the Conservatives are challenging in the upcoming provincial election with a 'tough on crime line', i.e. full serving of sentences that will crowd the jails, and getting prisoners to clean up the highways, Georgia style. Time for the electorate to wake up and start afresh with common ownership and real democracy. John Ayers

"this is an announcement..."

Angry Edinburgh call centre staff have hit out after being told by bosses they were getting the sack - over speaker phone. Up to 200 workers at Sykes (Europe) offices in Calder Road were told that they had 90 days to find new jobs after a major account was lost to a rival firm.

Workers said they were told there would be no further employment opportunities at Sykes unless they spoke a second language. After the call ended on the speaker phone one of the team leaders just said 'right, go back to your desks and log in'. The worker added: "We have been told that there are no other opportunities unless you speak German or Italian."

One worker said: "We were packed into a conference room, about 80 of us, and the account manager for O2 came on the speaker phone to explain that a firm in Ireland had come in to do the work cheaper and we would have 90 days before the contract was ended...People were really shocked because we were never told losing the account was a possibility and we are mostly on permanent contracts but they were also really annoyed that they didn't tell us face to face"

Caring capitalism at work.

War Brutalises

Further to this blog post

Socialist Courier reads that the Ministry of Defence is investigating claims that a soldier sliced fingers off dead Taliban fighters to keep as souvenirs. The allegations relate to a soldier from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who was serving in Afghanistan.

Food for thought

 In the 'futility of Reform' Department – five months after their "Revolution", Egyptians are back in Tahrir Square protesting lack of movement on democracy and justice, and low living standards. If only they had a class consciousness and put themselves in charge instead of waiting for the next great leader to screw them again.
In Toronto, the strike by workers against Infinity Rubber reaches twenty Months. The strikers have an average of 30 years service with the company and rejected no surprise, a 25% wage cut and the demand that they pay half their benefits, effectively reducing their wages from $20 to $13 per hour. The company is facing many economic challenges, such as competition from China-based companies, and thus have to wring concessions from workers to keep up. Thus goes the capitalist system where the worker always gets the short end of the stick.
- Meanwhile, the workers at the former telecommunications giant, Nortel, have to settle for 57 to 75 % of their pensions and about half their benefits. They were lucky to get that much as only the sale of the company's patents put enough into the fund to bring it up to that.
- On the other hand, while workers are getting shafted at every turn, the executives are doing very well, particularly if they fail. David Olive, writing in the Toronto Star (23/07/11) tells us that the top managers at News of The World scandal got $9.7 million severance pay with Rebekah Brooks taking $3.9 million; between 1976 and 2009 Canadian workers' pay rose just 5.5% while median pay for the top 500 CEOs jumped 35% last year alone to $8.4 million (Olive asks if they got 35% smarter or worked 35% harder! Good question); General Electric shares have dropped 60.8% during the tenure of CEO Jeffrey Immelt who was rewarded with $37.2 million in free stock; drugmaker Pfizer's shares dropped 48.1% in the past decade yet CEO Jeffrey Kinder retired with a 434.4 million severance package; ExxonMobil's shares showed a 5.8% negative return in 2010 but Rex Tillerson got $88 million. And the list goes on and on with the same old tales. No money for social programs and health, plenty of money for the already rich. No, reforms won't work, only a revolution will do the job as socialists continually point out. John Ayers

A TORTUROUS SYSTEM

It is the stuff of movie legend. How those devilish foreigners torture our gallant British soldiers. It is not the sort chicanery that our chivalrous lads would engage in. Alas, it is just movie nonsense. "A top-secret document revealing how officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian. The interrogation policy - details of which are believed to be too sensitive to be publicly released at the government inquiry into the UK's role in torture and rendition - instructed senior intelligence officers to weigh the importance of the information being sought against the amount of pain they expected a prisoner to suffer. It was operated by the British government for almost a decade." (Guardian 4, August) This revelation makes the claims of a number of men who said that they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured at Guantanamo Bay seem highly likely. Capitalism is a filthy system and isn't run according to any rules of fair play. RD

THE PERFECT WORKER

Newspaper editors have a difficult task every day - what should be their front page headline? Millions starving in a famine in East Africa? Demonstrators gunned down in Lybia? A difficult choice perhaps but the editor of The Times led with a really important headline. "Welfare in chaos as thousands live to 100" (Times, 4 August) In any sane society the news that human beings are managing to live a little longer would be the cause for celebration, but this is capitalism and there will be no dancing in the street at the news. The news that the working class who produce all the wealth of the world are tending to live longer is bad news for the capitalist class who live on the surplus value that the workers produce. To the owning class the perfect worker is one who goes to work after they leave school, works two nights overtime and a Sunday and on the day he retires goes to the Post Office to collect his state pension and drops dead at the counter. No pension, no drain on the owning class's surplus value - Perfect! RD

capitalism won't collapse

Official figures released last month by the Accountant in Bankruptcy showed that a record number of Scottish firms went to the wall in the three months to 30 June. The number of Scots companies failing rose by 19.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter.

Matt Henderson, business recovery and insolvency partner at accountancy firm Johnston Carmichael, said: "This makes for truly miserable reading, particularly when we see the stock markets in global meltdown."

"I believe that many of these failures are among smaller Scottish firms and that some will simply be victims of larger firms going bust. The 'domino' effect of larger firms taking smaller firms with them is well known but I have seen many examples of firms who were not massively in debt but who simply lost their order book when a larger company went bust." Bryan Jackson, corporate recovery partner at accountancy firm PKFwarned: "I have continued to see many long-established, well-known businesses going bust. Some of the owners, who may have been through two or three or more recessions in the past, have tended to believe that they can ride out the recession as they have in previous years. Unfortunately, this recession is unprecedented and its impact is still being felt by many businesses across Scotland. The much-anticipated upturn may be some way off."

Iain Fraser, Scottish spokesman for insolvency practitioners' trade body R3, added: "What these figures reveal is corporate Scotland is really struggling to cope with the after-effects of the recession."

Once the recession is upon us, conditions that are favourable to a recovery become apparent. Companies that declare bankruptcy sell off their assets cheaply to their rivals. Less demand for producer goods means lower prices. The reserve army and many others are laid off creating a competition for jobs and thus lowering wages. Lower demand for loans reduces interest rates like any other commodity. The large stocks built up before the advent of the recession gradually decline to a point where production is again necessary. All of these factors make investing in production more attractive and the cycle begins its upward swing. It is evident then that the seeds of every boom are to be found in every recession and, conversely, the seeds of every recession are to be found in every boom. This boom and bust cycle is an entirely natural occurrence of the capitalist mode of production. It hasn’t collapsed capitalism yet, and, in fact, recessions tend to strengthen the system by weeding out the weak and inefficient enterprises.

Humanist marriages

For the first time in history, the number of humanist weddings has outstripped Roman Catholic marriage ceremonies. There were 2092 humanist marriages held in Scotland in 2010 compared to 1776 Roman Catholic weddings. The Humanist Society of Scotland claimed yesterday that the numbers of such non-religious marriages would surpass Church of Scotland weddings by 2015, which last year totalled 6005.

Tim Maguire, marriage celebrant and spokesman for the society, said: “The difference is that people can choose exactly what they want to say and they can make the celebration very personal. We believe humanist weddings will be the most popular type of celebration in Scotland within four years.”

Food for thought

India is the new poster boy for capitalism as prosperity there raises all the boats. Wrong. India today produces 436 grams of food grain per person per day, a drop from 445.3 grams in 2008. As much as 40% of fruit and vegetables are wasted owing to the lack of refrigerated trucks and infrastructure. As an example, a truck loaded with 27 metric tones of pineapple travelling in 50 degree temperature had to throw out at least 20% of its produce to be fought over by cows, dogs, and starving children. In recent months, thanks to rising oil and gas prices and rampant corruption, food prices have risen by 20% and those who actually grow the food can't afford to buy it. It is estimated that 200 000 Indian farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2009 because of the hopelessness of their situation.
Then there is North Korea. While the people starve, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il and his friends have McDonald's hamburgers flown in and the amount of luxury clothing, cigarettes, watches, and cognac from China has doubled in a year. Of all the effects of the capitalist mode of production, poverty, hunger, and death by malnutrition has to be the one that should make everyone a socialist. John Ayers

Banning the SDL

Anti-racism groups are demanding the banning of a planned parade by a far-right organisation through the heart of Edinburgh. The Scottish Defence League is seeking permission for a lunchtime parade on 10 September, from Regent Road to the east end of Princes Street next month.which would see activists gather around the Duke of Wellington statue. (the Welly Boot)

Opponents claim the Scottish Defence League (SDL) has deliberately chosen the day before the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on New York for the parade, which is understood to pass the American Consulate.

Luke Henderson, spokesman for the Unite Against Fascism group, said he is "appalled" to learn of the SDL's plans for another demo in Edinburgh. "We don't think the SDL should be given permission to march in Edinburgh and will be urging people to write to the council to make their view clear before a decision is taken."

Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, spokesman for the Scotland United anti-racism alliance, added: "Our view is absolute condemnation of this application in light of what has happened in Norway. This is a violent and extremist organisation."

The SDL's racist ideology is hateful and it is understandable – and to be welcomed – that most people don't like it. But what's the best way to deal with them? The Socialist Party takes a very unpopular position with the Left. We in the Socialist Party have always insisted on the advantages, for the advancement of the cause of socialism, of the fullest possible freedom of expression of political and social ideas. No view should be prevented from being expressed. We have always practised what we preach. We opposed the banning of the Daily Worker in 1941. We have criticised the policy of “no platform for fascists” as censorship by direct action. We have debated against fascists and Islamists. The best condition for the emergence of socialist understanding remains free and frank discussion. The only effective way to deal with the SDL is to confront their arguments head on and that includes their nationalism. The other parties cannot do this because they too are nationalists. The SDL is only expressing in an extreme form a nationalist position that they themselves share. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the stench of the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it any wonder that workers fall for the scapegoating lies of fascists and the quick fix they offer? The answer is not to stop the SDL by banning them or physically fighting them. It is to organise on a world-wide class basis to end capitalism – which, necessarily, involves a rejection of nationalism. That is the socialist, anti-nationalist position which the Socialist Party maintains against all other parties, not just the SDL.

THE FUTURE IS BLEAK

The illusion that many workers share is that as they reach retirement age they will be able to live in a sort of rocking-chair contentment but in reality most of us will live even more parsimonious existences than we do at present whilst we are surviving from pay-day to pay-day. "Millions of people face a "bleak old age" because they are falling through the cracks of private sector pension provision, a review suggests. The Workplace Retirement Income Commission says 14 million people are not saving into a workplace pension scheme at all." (BBC News, 1 August) Working for a wage or a salary as we all have to do is a precarious existence but when we are finally thrown on the industrial and commercial scrapheap the future for most workers according to the Commission is apparently even more awful. RD

Food for thought

As is the general rule of capitalism, poverty and hunger raise their heads on a regular basis, even though it is, of course, ever-present. In the last few weeks, the Toronto Star has reported on hunger in Toronto where the Parkdale (downtown Toronto) food bank is in trouble. A volunteer who recently lost his job was shocked to see the shelves empty when he applied for help. He was told that donations are way down and they needed $2 315 for the monthly rent and $100 000 to keep operations going into next year. The bank has 2 800 clients in the Parkdale area. Even food banks feeding the needy are challenged by the money system. John Ayers

PREMATURE CELEBRATIONS

The abolition of the hateful system of Apartheid in 1994 was correctly celebrated throughout the world, but capitalism remained intact and as long as capitalism survives it will throw up problems of exploitation and inequality. "South Africa celebrated Nelson Mandela's 93rd birthday on Monday with songs by millions of children and calls for public service, but the nation he led out of apartheid is divided by poverty and his ANC movement seems to many to be losing its moral compass. ... Mandela's calls for greater access to the economy for the poor black majority have been dealt blows by corruption eating into welfare programmes and entitlements that benefit a sliver of the black elite with close ties to the ANC." (Reuters, 18 July) There is no social reform that can end poverty and exploitation - only world socialism can accomplish that. RD

MARCHING HOME

Hollywood was always fond of depicting the heroic GI coming home to his loved ones. A full military band would play him from the railway station up the High Street of his local town while adoring residents joined in a rousing chorus of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". Unfortunately that idyllic picture is far from the truth. "Military personnel, especially those with mental illnesses, are now facing the predicament of homelessness in the US. Data published by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs shows that over 75,000 US military personnel could be homeless after they return from foreign wars. The psychological effects of war upon veterans are now being coupled with problems in the economy. Studies have recently revealed that 300,000 American veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder." (Big News Network.com, 16 July) It would seem that far from a heroic welcome Johnny quite often comes home to homelessness or even a mental hospital. RD

Spare parts for sale

People should be allowed to sell their kidneys for £28,000 in an NHS-regulated organ market Dr Sue Rabbitt Roff, of Dundee University said in an article published online today by the British Medical Journal. She called on the health service to offer financial rewards to individuals willing to give up a kidney as a means of speeding up the rate of transplants and reducing the cost of treatments and dialysis to the NHS.

Dr Roff, a senior research fellow at Dundee’s department of medical sociology explained “We already allow strangers to donate kidneys out of the goodness of their hearts. They get their costs covered, they don’t know who the recipient is, there’s no publicity, no public acknowledgement of what they do. We’ve moved away from the notion it has to be a family member or a close associate who can give you a kidney. We’ve already moved into the zone of allowing the general public to make good-hearted donations. What I’m suggesting is, why don’t we add money to this equation in order to increase the amount of provision which is there...I came to this figure of £28,000 because that’s the average national income in Britain at the moment, so it seems a fair price across all the social strata..."

The British Medical Association said it would not support money being offered in exchange for kidneys.

Dr Calum McKellar, director of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics said: “A legal, regulated market in human body parts would end up exploiting those who have very restrictive financial means, such as many students and foreigners.”

There are currently 725 people in Scotland waiting for a new kidney but the number coming up for transplant has plateaued at around 200 in recent years. How much smaller would be the number if those in various industries (chemicals, oil, tobacco, pharmaceuticals etc) had not poisoned and polluted our bodies for profit for decades?

Everything inside capitalism takes the form of a commodity, everything has its price, so it doesn't come as a surprise to Socialist Courier to read Dr. Roff's proposal.

BEHIND THE DRY STATISTICS

The economic experts on television and in the press regale as with the facts and figures of the economic downturn in Greece, but behind the dry statistics lurks a daily tragedy for many members of the Greek working class. "At precisely 3 p.m., Father Andreas, a 37-year-old Greek Orthodox priest, opens the doors of the food bank in downtown Athens. At this hour, the line of hungry people stretches all the way across the large square outside and into the street. Needy people of all ages are waiting patiently -- pensioners, unemployed people, mothers with children, immigrants, asylum seekers. But in just under half an hour, all of the kitchen's 1,200 servings have been taken, causing several dozen people to leave with empty hands and growling stomachs. They can only hope to be among the lucky ones next time. Katarina was one of the lucky ones. The 44-year-old got her hands on eight servings of a salad made of carrots, potatoes and peas, several yoghurts and a bag of bread -- the only food her family will have today. Katarina is ashamed and prefers not to give her full name." (Spiegel On Line, 19 July) Katarina was laid off from her job at a biscuit factory roughly a year ago. Since then, she's been forced to rely on the handouts paid for by what Father Andreas calls "holy money." Katarina says there are no more jobs to be had. The plight of Katarina is shared by millions throughout Greece who are the latest victims of capitalism's slump and boom cycle. RD

PROGRESS FOR SOME

Much is made in the press of how India is rapidly joining the most advanced capitalist countries in the world as a creator of more and more millionaires, indeed of billionaires, but there is another side to this development. Underneath a photograph of her family we can read this chilling caption. "Dhanuk's family are Mahadalits - members of India's lowest and most marginalised social caste. She says she sometimes has to ask her employers for the leftovers from their meals - a source of deep embarrassment to her." (Guardian, 19 July) RD

The lie of the land

Six months before South Sudan officially declared its independence, becoming the world's newest nation on 9 July, eight people met in an boardroom in Glasgow to plot one of this fledgling country's most defining features – its borders. The people at that meeting in Glasgow were not freshly appointed South Sudanese officials, members of Africa's governing bodies, or international diplomats. In fact, many of them had never even been to Sudan. Instead, these boardroom attendees were British cartographers, experts in geopolitical policy, and members of the Collins Geo division of Harper Collins, the publishing company responsible for creating and selling one of the most authoritative reference maps in circulation, The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. The atlas and its related products are used as key reference tools by governments, the United Nations, the World Bank, aid agencies and classrooms across the globe

They would attempt to define South Sudan's borders for a new issue of the atlas to be published in September – a task easier said than done. They would need to draw up a finalised map of South Sudan to meet their publishing deadline in May, despite the fact the country itself would not yet officially exist. They would need to commit to a boundary line between Sudan and South Sudan, despite the fact that areas of that border continue to be violently disputed.

"Where a new boundary is created, and a new country, there will always be small-scale disputes along it. There will always be villages along that boundary line – it happened after the Second World War – where people don't really know which country they belong in. But the boundary line needs to go somewhere and as large-scale mapping is not a top priority in Sudan at the moment, the administrative lines are as accurate as we can get."

To achieve that level of accuracy, Ashworth and the committee rely on a team of around six news-gatherers to monitor constantly the geopolitical developments to help to inform their decisions, and ultimately, the authoritative depiction of nations. They carefully examine the projections of the UN, international governments, aid agencies, geopolitical experts on the ground, and specialist academic institutions such as the International Boundaries Research Unit at Durham University.

Despite this vast amount of fact-finding, Peter Barber, head of maps at the British Library, once said that a map is, essentially, a lie. "...every map is subjective, and always will be," he explained. "You have to select what you put on it."

Mick Ashworth agrees. "Maps are a very powerful tool for presenting an agenda and propaganda," he says. "People often believe maps more than what they see in the real world. But we are aware of that, and we are aware that if we get things wrong, or don't represent things in the way that they should be, then we will hear about it."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-lie-of-the-land-mapping-the-borders-of-south-sudan-has-been-fraught-with-difficulty-2317701.html