Food for thought

The International Energy Agency has said that the US will become energy self-sufficient by 2035 and is counting on massive expansion of the technique of fracking shale to get oil and gas. Sounds good but, as usual, it comes with a price. In this case environmental -- what happens to water tables, for example? The drilling industry refuses to disclose the toxins included in the fluid injected into the shale but it is known (Toronto Star, Dec 8, 2012) that it contains the carcinogens benzene and formaldehyde. This and a host of other problems will not stop the mad search for more oil and gas (and profit) as long as we tolerate this system. John Ayers

Global Govanhill

Govanhill on the south side of Glasgow is home to some 15,000 has people from an estimated 42 different nationalities living within one square mile. Why Govanhill?  The availability of cheap, private-let housing is one practical reason. Also, immigration is self-perpetuating – the presence of an established community makes it more likely others will come and settle. Govanhill was at one time a mining village outside Glasgow. It started to expand significantly from 1837 with the foundation of the Govan Iron Works, known to this day, even though it is long gone, as Dixon’s Blazes. The Irish also began to arrive in Glasgow in large numbers at around this time, estimated at more than 1,000 people a week during 1848 – escaping the famine and seeking employment. In the 1960s, with the demolition of the Gorbals tenements, a second wave of Irish moved to Govanhill. At the end of the 19th century, heavy industry began to draw Jews from Poland and Lithuania. Significant immigration from the Indian sub-continent, in particular from Pakistan, was a phenomenon first observed in the 1960s and 1970s. The sheer numbers of Irish and Asians living in Govanhill during this period led to the area being nicknamed Bengal/Donegal.

Along Allison Street you can daunder up and down and hear not a word of Glaswegian, spoken. It’s all Urdu, Romani, Slovak, Polish, Czech, Somali, Igbo and more. Much of the shop front signage is in Arabic. Completely dominant is the presence of food and drink. A smell of spice and other aromas so strong you can taste it: haleem; nihari; fried fish; dried fish; chana chat; chips; and, of course from the pubs the reek of beer. Available is lado, barfi and gulab jamun (balls of dough, deep-fried and dipped in syrup) or ewa agoyin – a Nigerian dish of beans and stew. Italian Scots  established so many beloved chippies and ice-cream parlours. The Asian immigrants started to arrive in the 1970s. Pakistan was the main country of origin, very few Indians.  There are  biryanis, daal, mustard-leaf saag and curry options, about half of which include meat on the bone – the traditional way of doing it, with way more flavour and naan bread. Also now on the multi-cultural menu is goja, a Romani word, the bowel of a pig stuffed with potatoes and garlic, then boiled or fried.

Since 2004, when Slovakia and the Czech Republic joined the EU, another ingredient has added flavour to the Govanhill melting pot – the Roma people. There are thought to be around 3,000 in the area, and in some parts of the district they appear to be the most populous group; one local primary school has a majority eastern European population and very few English-speaking pupils. The first Roma in Glasgow were asylum seekers from Slovakia, escaping racial hatred. Most, now, are economic migrants, coming from villages in the region of Michalovce. In Glasgow, they have found casual work in potato and chicken processing factories, though, increasingly, jobs are hard to come by. Romanian nationals have very restricted access to the benefits system, and there is anecdotal evidence that some Roma from that country, now living in Govanhill, cannot afford to feed themselves and thus go through the bins of private residences and shops, looking for food.

Kelly’s is one of a number of pubs in the area which cater to those remnants of the Irish population once so dominant here. Tony Mai Gallagher, 71, from Kincasslagh, Donegal moved to Glasgow in 1954 at the age of 12. He well remembers the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic prejudice of his earlier years, and this experience softens him towards the Roma. "Harmony is what we need.” he says

Taken from here

Food for thought

lLast month I reported on the expanding military deployments of Japan.
This month it is the German's turn. Chancellor, Angela Merkle, recently
told a military gathering that German deployment overseas, "will soon
encompass the entire globe." The German defence minister concurred, "Now
we are in a position and have the duty, even, to make our impact felt."
This emphasizes yet again that capitalism is a competitive system where
everybody must look out for themselves and he who has the biggest club
wins. Not too far from our caveman days are we? John Ayers

class loyalty

The media and the political mouthpieces of capitalist ideology have done their job well. Scottish workers are being caught up by the "patriotism" of the referendum debate - either for independence or for the union. Capitalism has reached a point at which it threatens all humanity and not just the divided national, religious, racial (or other falsely labeled) identity groups.

The patriotism of the capitalist class is better called national chauvinism. This "patriotism" equates loyalty to the nation with loyalty to the capitalist-controlled government and its policies. It seeks the acquiescence of workers in the crimes, aggressions, depredations and depravities of the ruling class and its agents.  It is intended to trick workers into sanctioning whatever is deemed in the interests of the business class. It's nationalistic baloney asserts that our interests as a “nation” are totally bound up with, if not identical , to those of our exploiters. But as we know, in class societies the state does not serve everyone equally. Instead, its main efforts are directed to helping the class that rules over the economy. In capitalism, that means essentially helping the capitalist class accumulate capital, repress opposition to their exploitative rule, and legitimise all the forms in which this goes on.  But to do this job well, the state has to appear legitimate in the eyes of most of its citizens, which requires above all else that its consistent bias on behalf of the capitalist ruling class be hidden from view. The flag and other patriotic symbolism are crucial to the success of this effort. Throughout, emotions play a much larger role than reason or thinking generally, and the strongest emotion evoked by patriotism is the pleasure of belonging to a cooperative social community where everyone is concerned with the fate of others. Unfortunately, the social community only exists in the shadow of an illusory community dominated by the ruling economic class and its state, where none of this applies.

Then there is a form of patriotism to which workers should adhere; it is loyalty, not to the institutions of the nation, but to the people; more precisely, to the majority of the people -- the working class -- with whom they share a common material interest. For workers today, class consciousness -- loyalty to one's class -- is patriotism. International working-class interests are the paramount interests to be served -- not those of any capitalist nation state. Without solidarity to one's class and to one's comrades. workers are helpless in the face of the ruling class's monopoly of the means of production. If workers can stick together, they can respond to employers' control of work. Solidarity between workers is therefore an essential prerequisite for success in class struggle. Class consciousness is the key to working-class victory in ending the class struggle.

Patriotism works to disguise the real differences which exist amongst people—which are differences of class and which involve irreconcilable differences of interests—and to encourage workers to identify with the institution—the state—which is the primary defender of class society. The slogan “workers of the world unite” is in part a call on proletarians to acknowledge that their home is in the company of other members of their class wherever they are to be found.

Scotland is divided into two classes -- the working class and the class of employers/investors that lives off its labour.  We can wonder how a capitalist party which of course the SNP is can keep on winning all the elections. The answer often lies far less in their programs than in the flag and other patriotic symbols with which these programs come wrapped. Most workers vote against their class interests because they "love" their "country".

There are a various definitions of what class is. Many of them assign people to class groups on the basis of cultural and behavioural attributes such as dress, speech, education levels, shopping habits, and employment sector. Such concepts are fallacious in that they reduce class to a matter of choice, taste, when it is nothing of the sort. Whether you read the Sun or the Times, or whether you shop at Asda or at Sainsbury's, is entirely irrelevant. The middle class are, in reality, workers. They too have to sell their labour to a master in order to survive, and the fact that the wages of that labour may be more, or that the job may be “white collar” rather than “blue collar” is of no significance.

In essence, there are two classes: the working class and the capitalist or ruling class. What matters is your relation to capital. The working class are the vast majority of people on the planet, those who must sell their labour in order to earn a living and survive. The ruling class are, to use a rough figure, the top one-percent of society. They do not have to sell their labour or work, but instead are maintained by expropriating rent, interest, and profit from the working class who produce it. They are, in short, parasites. The bourgeoisie are united across the national divide and therefore so should we. The working class must unite to fight against attacks and refuse to be divided or distracted. This is the only way to defend the gains of the past and fight for a future society worth living in.

Working people have only one country—the planet earth. There is only one foreigner—the boss.

Food for thought

In a remote corner of the Amazon lies one of its most stunning sites --
a series of caves and rock shelters guarding the secrets of human beings
who lived there more than 8 000 years ago. The mining companies, with
the compliance of the Brazilian government have discovered iron ore in
the region, mined and sent to China to make steel. It's a huge source of
income for the country that is hosting the next Olympics and the World
Cup of soccer. Expansion of the mining operation will destroy the caves,
treasured by scholars. What a dilemma! What to do? As we know, capital
will win out in the end as logic goes out of the window. John Ayers

TOUGH AT THE TOP?

The new governor of the Bank of England has taken over this top post at a time when we are told we will all have to make sacrifices in order to get out of this economic slump. 'The next Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has been forced to defend his £800,000-a-year deal under questioning from MPs. Mr Carney's base salary of £480,000 is more than that of his US and European equivalents combined – and he will also receive a £250,000 housing allowance on top. ............... Justifying the housing allowance, Mr Carney pointed out that London was a far more costly place to live than his present home city of Ottawa. "I am moving from one of the cheapest capitals in the world to one of the most expensive," he said.' (Independent, 7 February) Mr Carney is an example to us all. He is prepared to scrape by in expensive London on a mere £250,000 housing allowance. RD

Food for thought

Recent years have seen a massive flood in New Orleans caused by neglect, the sub-prime mortgage disaster, the Enron and Lehman Brothers scandals, several European countries on the edge of bankruptcy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an un-civil war in Syria, massive unemployment around the world, blatant rape and genocide in the Congo, global warming, destruction of the land, sea, and air by pollution, deforestation, people losing their pensions, escalating violence, riots, and arson. Have we missed something? People tell us that socialism would bring chaos! John Ayers

BALDERDASH FROM A BILLIONAIRE

Socialists are not the only people to comment on the gap between the rich and the poor inside capitalism. Here is an Indian billionaire on the subject. 'Azim Premji, the billionaire philanthropist and chairman of Wipro, the IT service group, said that practices such as flying in American bands for weddings at $1 million a time were damaging in India, where official statistics last year suggested that 360 million people were living in the depths of poverty.' (Times, 4 February) Mr Premji's futile solution to the problem is philanthropy by the owning class whereas the solution of socialists is for the working class to abolish capitalism. RD

Food for thought

The Toronto Star (Jan 12) had an article that focused on the enormous difference between capitalism and, if not socialism, at least communalism. A young woman, Mariangela, and her boyfriend had moved to Rome having lost their jobs in Italy's economic slump, one that has resulted in thirty-five per cent youth unemployment. They didn't move to Rome to find work, but to find a home. They joined other squatters in an abandoned building. Mariangela commented, " The first night I slept here, I woke up in the morning and thought, how nice! I don't have to pay rent anymore. I don't have to worry about not being able to make ends meet." Though the building leaves a lot to be desired, the communal atmosphere makes up for it. Mariangela continued, " You don't have to worry about going hungry. People check on their neighbours and help each other out if they need something." This proves the communal ethic exists, works, and hasn't been entirely crushed by the alienating affects of life under capitalism. It's human nature! John Ayers

Rab Wilson - poet

Continuing our occasional working-class/socialist themed poetry posts

Labour


The bricht rays o the Winter Solstice daws,
Streakin oot owre the Mauchline Basin Plain,
Lichtin oan a slumberin colossus,
The lanely relic o a bygone age.
The horrals o the Barony proudly staun,
Implacable; a great, grey ghaist o steel.
The ‘A’ Frame, lik some occult wicker-man,
Grim emissary o some auncient god,
Wha, like a god, demandit sweit an tears,
An the bluid o thaim wha wir sacrificed
Oan the altar o Mammon an progress.
They're mindit oan a memorial stane,
The men wha dee'd here, an the men wha leeved.
Twa thoosan pair o eident carefu hauns,
The miners an jiners an engineers,
Wha nevvir aince thocht, as they lauched an joked,
That Fate micht hae a sense o humour tae.
The knowledge they hud sae painfully won,
Wid disappear in that terrible year,
Swept awa bi the haun o history.

Nou the bus drives by wi young Jim an Tam,
Past chain-link fences, roostit 'Keep-Oot' signs,
Oan their wey tae the Technical College.
They ken they're lucky tae hae goat a trade,
It sets thaim apairt frae the ither boys.
The mantle o the village artisan
Is still a badge fir thaim tae wear wi pride;
Council jiners, plumbers or bricklayers,
Electricians, painters an plaisterers.
Aneath thon giant bestridin the yird,
Aneath the lengthnin sheddas o the past,
They'll stoop an gaither up the worn-oot tools,
An forge thaim wi a newer, keener edge,
O Comradeship an Unity an Strength.

Rab Wilson

Yvonne Hodge.

Ah wis juist nine at the time o the Strike
Ah thocht it wis great cause we goat free meals
But money wis ticht, fowk suffert fir real
Ah wis juist a wean though, nevvir knew, like.
Ah couldnae unnerstaun, we'd nae new claes
When ither yins wir getting new trainers
Ah caa'd fowk "Scab", but ye ken whit weans are
Like, ah regret some things ah used tae say.
Ah mind ma dad in the kitchen greetin
Ah asked "Whit's wrang?", an he said they wir beat
Noo things are worse, an they nevvir wir great
It's aa chainged roond here since they goat beaten.
Ah'm nineteen noo wi a wean o ma ain
Ah've seen enough anger, seen enough pain.

Rab Wilson

Food for thought

The richest people on earth got richer in 2012, adding $241 billion
(US) to their total worth according to The Bloomberg Billionaires Index,
a daily ranking of the world's one hundred wealthiest individuals. The
overall wealth of the world's top tycoons stood at $1.9 trillion by
January 1^st . "Last year was a great one for the world's billionaires"
said John Casimatidis, the owner of the Red Apple Group. This shows two
things -- just how much wealth can be made by the exploitation of the
working class, and that something is very wrong with our current society
where, for many, unemployment and being homeless is the order of the
day, and where millions exist on a dollar or two a day. John Ayers

The War-Lord

"If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game...It's a joy for me because I'm one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I'm probably quite useful,"  Prince Harry comparing war in Afghanistan where real people die to playing a virtual reality video game.

SHORTCOMINGS IN THE NHS

Some "expert" or other is always pontificating about the National Health Service. Journalists and politicians espouse various schemes of improvement. Here though are the views of people that should know a little about the subject - the nurses. 'More than half of nurses think their ward or unit is "dangerously understaffed", a survey revealed yesterday. More than three quarters said they had witnessed "poor" care in their ward or unit in the past year, with nearly 30 per cent saying they regularly saw poor care. The Nursing Times polled 600 of its readers for the survey on issues like patient safety, NHS culture and staffing, the majority claimed the ratio of patients to each nurse could compromise patient care.' (Sunday Express, 3 February) Underfunded? Understaffed? Good enough for the working class inside the profit system. RD

POLITICAL PROMISES AND POVERTY

Politicians like to pose as the friend of British working families but government ministers have admitted for the first time that as many as 100,000 children from working families will be forced into poverty as a result of the Government's plans to cut benefits for the poorest. 'Official figures show that a total of 200,000 youngsters from all families will be pushed into child poverty as a result of George Osborne's 1 per cent cap on benefits from April, in effect a real-terms cut in welfare payments. But Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat pensions minister, revealed in a parliamentary written answer last week that 50 per cent of those children come from families where at least one parent is in work. This new figure undermines claims by the Chancellor, George Osborne, that the cap on benefits is designed to target Britain's jobless "shirkers" . The children will join the 3.6 million already classed as living in poverty. Two-thirds of those are in families where at least one parent works.' (Independent on Sunday, 3 February) The real "shirkers" of course are members of the owning class who have no intention of working. RD

Mince and Tatties?

Next time you tuck into your mince and tatties you should be aware that it is meal of fat and gristle and tatties. And is doesn't seem like it will get any  better.

The UK have asked for an exemption from new EU regulations that limit the amount of fat and connective tissue that can be used to bulk up minced meat.Under the regulations, lean minced meat should have up to 19 per cent fat and collagen, while pure minced beef should contain no more than 35 per cent fat and collagen ( derived from the tendons and ligaments of animals and used to help bulk out meat and also used in cosmetic surgery).  In October last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued an “impact assessment” on the new EU regulations, which are due to come into force next year. The report states: “A significant proportion of mince meat currently sold in the UK contains a greater proportion of collagen than would be permitted."

BRAVERY, BOMBAST AND REALITY

Hollywood is fond of portraying the heroism of warfare. We are asked to believe that there is something ennobling about military conflict. These figures from the USA show that the horrors of war are so great that they often force soldiers to take their own life. 'In 2012, for the first time in at least a generation, the number of active-duty soldiers who killed themselves, 177, exceeded the 176 who were killed while in the war zone. To put that another way, more of America's serving soldiers died at their own hands than in pursuit of the enemy. Across all branches of the US military and the reserves, a similar disturbing trend was recorded. In all, 349 service members took their own lives in 2012, while a lesser number, 295, died in combat.' (Guardian, 1 February) RD

Capital's apologists

Blair Jenkins, chief executive of the Yes Scotland campaign, claimed that Scotland “might very well not have had a financial crisis” if it had been an independent country. This is a ridiculous claim. Some commentators have argued that, if Scotland had been independent, the banks would have been better regulated. The Scottish equivalent of the FSA would have stopped them from pursuing self-destructive courses, barred them from ballooning their balance sheets with dodgy loans and toxic assets, and insisted on higher capital ratios. There’s absolutely no reason to believe that it would have been any different.

The idea that Scotland’s banks – RBS and HBOS, whose combined assets were 21 times Scotland’s gross domestic product at the time of their near collapse (for the sake of comparison, Irish banks’ assets were 4.4 times Irish GDP at point of their October 2008 collapse, and Icelandic banks‘ assets were 9.8 times times Icelandic GDP) – would have been better-regulated if Scotland had been independent is wide of the mark. It is preposterous to suggest the liabilities of a bank are liabilities of the population of the country where the head office of that bank is located. It cost the UK £70bn to recapitalise the Scottish banks. 

Alex Salmond thought the UK authorities and the FSA in particular, were being too tough on the banks in 2007. He felt Scotland would be better off with ‘lighter touch’ regulation. “We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in ‘gold-plated’ regulation." he said in an interview with the Times on April 7th, 2007. Salmond wrote to Fred Goodwin when the latter was RBS chief executive, in May 2007 wishing Goodwin ‘good luck’ with his attempted €72 billion takeover of the Dutch Bank ABN Amro adding ‘it is in the Scottish interests for RBS to be successful’. The takeover is now recognised as one of the most disastrous in corporate history and contributed to the massive losses which caused RBS to fail and require a £45.5bn government funded bailout.

On March 31, 2008 when it was already clear to many investors and analysts that RBS and HBOS had massive holes in their balance sheets and were struggling to fund themselves, Salmond insisted that, with RBS and HBOS, “Scotland has global leaders today, tomorrow and for the long-term” in a speech given to Harvard University selling Scotland as another Celtic Tiger (but a Lion) economy like Ireland. On August 7th, 2008, the day it announced massive first-half losses of £692m, and a few weeks after it had had to tap investors for £12bn to patch up its balance sheet, Salmond told The Times that RBS was “one of the highest-performing financial institutions in the world” which would soon “overcome current challenges to become both highly profitable and highly successful once again”. On September 17th, 2008, Salmond describes the banks as "well capitalised, properly funded financial institutions" ignoring the fundamental problems and the bankers' irresponsibility.

So if the referendum bring change - little will change. Scottish politicians and Scottish parliament will continue to be the servants of capital. 

Separate Scotland

The voices of millions of Scots on low and average incomes rarely being heard, according to a report by a leading Scottish think tank. The Jimmy Reid Foundation's report, Not By The People concluded: "Scotland is run by people who pay higher-rate tax and they seek advice on how to run Scotland primarily from other people who pay higher-rate tax."

 Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teachers' union, said "This report describes a Scotland of two peoples; one runs the country, the other just lives here... Democracy is about more than simply voting twice a decade."

Although only 13% of Scots have incomes above £34,000, this group accounted for 67% of those giving evidence to committees and 71% of all appointments to public bodies.

In contrast, the 70% of Scots with incomes below the average salary of £24,500 accounted for 11% of public-sector appointments and just 3% of committee witnesses between 2007 and 2012.

The Foundation said it had deliberately erred on the side of caution in estimating incomes, and the true disconnect between income and influence was probably worse than the figures suggested.

A Bosses' Scotland

Jim McColl, the founder and chairman of Clyde Blowers and one of the country’s richest men, has argued that Scottish independence would be the same as a “management buy-out” from the UK.

McColl who lives in Monaco explained “We have a government responsible for economic policy whose focus is not growth in Scotland but rather London and the south-east of England. That tells me Scotland is a nation in desperate need of a well-planned and thought-through management buy-out.”

The the pro-independence campaign Yes Scotland team plans to intensify its wooing of the capitalist class with plans to produce a “business plan” depicting Scotland as a new company seeking investment.

CBI Scotland however disageed with McColl reasoning. "... in actual fact the developing proposals of the Scottish Government are that all economic levers would not come to Scotland – for example, control over currency and interest rates.” it said.

As Scottish Courier has repeatedly said, the issue of an independent Scotland is a dispute beteen rival capitalists and workers should have no truck with either section of our masters.

HIGH JINKS AT HIGH PRICES

From time to time the press like to run alarmist stories about young workers drinking too much. Some politicians even propose higher taxation on alcohol to stop "this national disgrace". No such alarm is expressed when the owning class have a night out celebrating though. Take the case of Tamara Eccleston daughter of the millionaire racing magnate. 'When it was her shout at Aura club in Mayfair, "haven of rich heritage and grandeur". Tamara Eccleston, 28, went for Cristal: a £5,000 Jerobaum, two bottles £2,660 and seven bottles of rose for her own table and a £465 bottle for every other table in the club, not forgetting a bottle for the paparazzi outside. With a bottle of Grey Goose vodka at only £225, the bill was £30,000 with £4,001.24 service." (Times, 31 January) RD