Scottish Socialist Voice
Issue 312
7th September 2007
—front page—
Cuts victory in
by Sarah Higgins
Students Against Closures
As if proof were ever needed,
the actions of the City of Edinburgh Council over the last few
weeks have ensured that the people of Edinburgh have finally
woken up to the realisation that their elected councillors are
no more than a bunch of chancers who care nothing for the welfare
of the very people they were elected to serve.
Council leader Jenny Dawe’s insulting idea last Wednesday to
bring back ceremonial robes for Councillors ‘to set us apart
from the hoi polloi’ could not have come at a worse time - a
time when Councillors from the LibDem/SNP coalition had announced
only a week previously that they planned to close a staggering
four community centres, four nurseries, 13 primaries and three
secondary schools, a list of targets of massive importance and
value to their local communities.
On Monday, thanks in no small part to the loud and angry protests
of an assortment of campaigners across Edinburgh, the SNP announced
a ‘spectacular’ turnaround - they now claim they no longer support
the Liberal Democrat proposals for mass school closures across
the city (the proposals that passed through a Council vote by
a single casting vote to take the plans into a sham ‘consultation’
period thanks to the Liberals and SNP).
Sounds like someone at SNP HQ cracked the whip for fear of losing
popularity in their precarious parliamentary position.
A fantastic result
for the concerned campaigners in
A mere two weeks after the formation of pupil
campaign group Students Against Closures
and councillors are already fearing for their jobs at the hands
of current and future voters.
But the people, especially the students, are not so easily fooled,
and they are unlikely to forget.
Students Against Closures co-founder
and Scottish Socialist Youth member Ailsa Donaldson, a sixth
year pupil at Drummond Community High, one of the targeted schools,
said:
“We’re still very wary of cuts and closures being snuck in through
the back door, so the campaign is definitely not over. Cuts
to our much-needed services are unacceptable, and our voices
will be heard, whether the Council like it or not.”
—page two—
by Ken Ferguson
Since it has been denied by no less
a towering figure as Wendy Alexander’s brother Douglas,
the odds on a
Alexander’s denial was carefully confined to a ‘not this
week’ dismissal, leaving the door open for Brown to call
a snap election in the next few weeks.
Certainly the latest polls provide a major boost for New
Labour supporters of an early poll to give Brown his own
mandate, showing that they would see an increase to around
100 in their Commons majority.
Even more significantly they clearly suggest that the
shine is well and truly off Tory chief Cameron’s Teflon
image, with Brown favoured by 44 per cent of voters to
Cameron’s 20 per cent.
Unionist
Speculation about a possible UK election comes
as the Scottish Parliament returns from holiday amidst
reports - clearly sourced from Labour - that the unionist
parties would unite to ‘seize the agenda’ in Edinburgh
from the SNP.
Seldom can the divergence between
In
That’s what lies behind the well sourced - and then denied
- stories about a Lab/Lib/Tory front in Holyrood.
Even if such a front was cobbled together, this uneasy
alliance would melt rapidly in the heat of a UK election
in which all three would be fighting each other and firmly
ditching ‘consensus’ politics.
Meanwhile Brown surveys the picture through his Union
Jack lens and ponders, is this as good as it gets?
Certainly the poll figures are reinforced with the danger
of looming events. Generals are now queuing up to denounce
the
Public pay
The unlikely spectacle of militant prison warders
walking out despite supposed legal bans may well be the
tip of a public sector pay iceberg heading towards the
SS Brown.
If he goes for an election, probably announced at Labour’s
October conference, then a British pullout from
In addition an election would decisively halt growing
demands from Labour MPs and big unions for a referendum
on the EU treaty which, if it went ahead, would prove
a difficult issue for Brown.
Ironically the only apparent danger is in Brown’s own
Scottish powerbase where his party is in near meltdown
and the politics it has peddled since 1997 increasingly
rejected.
As surveys show growing support for independence, Brown
will have to carefully weigh up the consequences of -
as seems highly possible - sweeping SNP gains at a
Just such a position scared Labour witless in the 1970s
and led to the current Scottish Parliament. Repeated,
it might just boost both the case for an independence
referendum and a victory for a Yes vote.
What is clear is that any phoney war that was around the
referendum is about to be blown away by events, election
or no election.
Whatever happens the independence debate will be central
in the weeks and months ahead and supporters will need
to work flat out to ensure it is not smothered either
by a Holyrood unionist front or a
Katrina survivors march for justice
“Houses and lives were washed away and
we are facing a government that has done nothing to bring
the people home.”
With these words Malcolm Suber, director of the People’s
Hurricane Relief Fund, summed up the aims of victims of
Hurricane Katrina who took to the streets demanding justice
last month.
Their protest took place as the annual hurricane season
got underway yet again.
Despite a tropical downpour, Katrina survivors rallied
in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward and marched across the
Claiborne Street bridge, chanting, “Justice - now!”
They were protesting at President Bush’s failure to deliver
on his promise two years ago of quick, generous assistance
in rebuilding this devastated city.
The mood was caught by Suber, who also told marchers:
“We’re going to keep fighting until all the people come
home.”
The marchers had gathered for a prayer service at the
point on the
Poignant placards propped against the new concrete levee
wall listed names of those who died. At a makeshift altar
covered with flowers and candles Olay Eela Daste, a Yoruba
preacher, led the crowd in a prayer.
The broken levee has been rebuilt, but behind it street
after street has been swept clear of houses, with concrete
slabs and porch steps are all that remain.
Beyond these devastated streets stand thousands more of
boarded up, abandoned homes, most of them the quaint ‘shotgun’
houses with ornate gingerbread decorations that make
One survivor, Patrice Milton, knelt and pointed at a name
on one of the memorial placards: “Darryl Milton”.
“He was my cousin. His home was right across the street
from mine. He and his house were swept away. My house
was knocked off the foundation but here I am.
“I am saddened because we have not had the attention that
was given to some other national disasters.”
Many people want to come home, she says, “but can’t because
they lack the resources. Even if you find a job, finding
affordable housing here is really hard. My husband was
working as a carpenter in
Public housing projects in the stricken city have been
halted and getting them restarted is emerging as a key
demand in the struggled to rebuild.
One marcher explained:
“They closed down the Lafitte housing project and displaced
900 families,” she said. “They closed down the St Bernard
project where I lived. That displaced 1,400 families.
They don’t want to reopen it.”
There is a widespread suspicion that public officials
aim to turn these public housing sites over to a developer
who plans to build a movie theatre and luxury condos where
low-income workers once lived.
At the end of August public housing tenants converged
on the Housing Authority of New Orleans’ office with the
aim of staging a sit-in to demand full funding of public
housing and the re-opening of the closed housing units.
They were met by
But marchers made it clear - “we are going to go back.
We’re not going to give up. Affordable housing is our
right.”
TUC unmasks widespread abuse of migrant workers
Thousands of Polish and Lithuanian workers
are being exploited at work in the
Since 2004, when ten new states joined the EU, more than
475,000 Polish and Lithuanian workers have come to work
in the
This study by Compass, a research unit based at
A quarter of the workers in the study reported having
no written contract - a figure which rose to nearly a
third amongst agency workers.
Over a quarter had faced problems with payment - including
not being paid for hours worked, discrepancies between
pay and payslips, and unauthorised deductions and errors
in pay calculation.
Ten times as many migrants as indigenous workers were
paid less than the minimum wage.
Control
The study also uncovers that migration has re-introduced
the ‘tied cottage’ - where employers provide accommodation
(at a cost) and use it to increase their control over
migrant workers.
Nearly a third of the workers in the report were living
in accommodation provided by their employer, and as a
result described excessive hours (due to their employment
being linked to where they lived) and poor living conditions.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “This study
reveals systematic abuse of migrant workers which is tantamount
to modern day slavery.
“Too many unscrupulous bosses are getting rich by exploiting
migrant workers and the full force of the law should be
used against those profiting from such appalling ill treatment.”
To tie in with the Compass research, the TUC is also publishing
Living and working in the
It’s a guide written in conjunction with the Citizens
Advice service, with migrants from
—page three—
Spin and smoke can’t
hide
by Ken Ferguson
The pull out by British forces
from
Brave tales of how well planned the pull out was, how professional
the troops and how nobody attacked them as they left can only
be described as desperate, face-saving spin from the Defence
Ministry.
Only four short years ago the confident talk was about winning
hearts and minds and how the occupiers were loved by the locals.
Breathless TV reporters beamed pictures of soft-hatted squaddies
strolling in the bazaars and joshing the kids about Manchester
United, much as they had 30 years earlier in
But, as in
It quickly became apparent that boasting about their superior
tactics in dealing with ‘natives’ based on a long imperial experience
was at best wishful thinking and at worst came close to racism.
What began as the supposed triumphant removal of Saddam is now
petering out as the remaining Brits, far from providing security
to the locals, are working full time just to defend themselves.
Indeed the simple truth about the decision to vacate
As the troops stowed their kit in the new airport base, BBC
listeners were being told more fairy tales from the high command
that all was well.
However the brigadier briefing the media rather let things slip
when he predicted that the entire province of Basra could be
handed over in the autumn, which, by my calendar, is any day
now.
Al Jazeera hit the target when it reported:
“Members of the al-Mahdi Army cheered the withdrawal as a victory
for the militia and a defeat for
Catastrophe
“They were facing catastrophe and withdrew because
of the attacks by the Mahdi Army,” Abu Safaa, one of the group’s
fighters, told Reuters news agency.
In contrast the crisply pressed military spinners claimed:
“All British forces moved early this morning from the
The latter view is in the best traditions of the once mighty
Brits who have said much the same thing about being forced out
of other people’s countries across the globe.
However any reader doubting the defeat need only turn to the
writings of a growing number of senior British officers who
are now openly critical of the Neo-Cons calling the shots in
the war.
Indeed it is worth noting that the generals have been both more
honest about the extremists running US policies, and more critical,
than any of New Labour’s ministers.
No word of dissent has passed the lips of John Reid, Geoff Hoon
or Jack Straw - all of whom cheered on Bush and his fellow warmongers.
Unlike the generals they cannot claim to have been following
orders.
The predictable outcome now reaching the end game at Basra has
been scores of UK dead and wounded - many simply guarding supplies
being moved into besieged bases - and misery for Iraqis.
Sadly, despite the abject failure in the Gulf, the Brits show
that they are still slow learners as they get out the maps and
draw up the marching orders for the next futile imperialist
foray into
Fat cats’ cream overflows despite city share plunge
by Ken Ferguson
That startling and mysterious
place the City of
Expert after expert filled newspapers and TV screens with ever
more grave news of the crisis as it took banks and moneylenders
from
Now imagine that all this was taking place in, say, a car factory
- what would happen next?
On past evidence we could expect at least calls for pay cuts,
harder work and probably some ‘cost saving’ redundancies.
If that combination didn’t do the trick, then more drastic action
would have to be, as the bosses always say, ‘regrettably’ taken
and closures would follow.
Car workers whose plants closed, from Linwood to Longbridge,
thousands of miners, dockers, engineers, civil servants - the
list of those who’ve felt the reality of this ‘solution’ goes
on and on.
So you would think that, with this serious crisis in the money
shuffling industry, queues must be forming at City of
But - surprise, surprise - it didn’t happen. In the red braces
world of city fat cats, different rules apply.
Rather than sackings they found themselves trousering (it usually
is trousers) a whopping 30 per cent bonus from an eye-watering
total of £14.1billion across the famous square mile.
Crisis, what crisis?
The city bonus scandal came hard on the heels of the revelation
that tax dodging among major companies across the UK is rife,
with many paying next to nothing to the state.
As usual the normal rules apply - those with least can expect
most hassle and demands on their cash while the super rich go
on getting richer.
Bomb revelations catch yet more New Labour lies
Once again New Labour ministers
have confirmed the old adage that you know they are lying...
when their lips are moving.
This time it is the Right Honourable Des Browne MP, part time
Defence Secretary with a moonlighting job as Scottish Secretary,
who has confirmed the fact that government ministers are strangers
to the truth.
Speaking in the Mother of Parliaments last December, Browne
gravely assured MPs that ‘modernisation’ of British nuclear
weapons was not likely in the next five years.
The Right Honourable gentleman then added that, “decisions on
whether and how we may need to refurbish or replace the warhead
stockpile are likely to be necessary in the next parliament”.
So after a totally sham ‘consultation’ about the future of the
British nuclear terror weapons - the conclusion was already
written - it has now emerged that work has been underway to
upgrade the UK’s weapons of mass destruction all along.
While joining in the chorus of criticism about North Korea and
Iran’s nuclear programmes, Aldermaston scientists - the brains
behind the Brit bomb - have been beavering away to ensure bigger
bangs for Brown’s buck.
Unsurprisingly the upgrade project is being carried out at the
Berkshire bomb plant in close consultation with the
In fact until the story broke cover this week the Scottish public
was considerably better informed about the bomb programmes in
supposedly ‘secretive’
Despite sermonising to all and sundry about the dangers of nuclear
weapons coming from two-faced New Labour hacks, not one of them
suggests that these rules might apply to Britannia.
It is the same smug imperialist superiority, which assumes that
the Brits are to be trusted with weapons capable of incinerating
millions while others should be barred from them, that underpins
the ‘liberal imperialism’ supposedly liberating Iraq and Afghanistan.
This attitude also assumes that the British have a rightful
place at the top of bodies like the UN security council and
ensures that they cling to their nuclear weapons to keep it
that way.
The dangers in this approach were seen recently as the Russian
and Chinese military staged joint exercises to show off their
weapons, Putin pours money into modern jets and Russian nuclear
capable bombers appear off the
CND has already warned that the British move breaks international
agreements and the latest revelations further underline the
fact that not only are the Brits the closest accomplices of
Bush but are also the most warlike state in
—page four—
Amnesty takes stance on abortion
And comes under attack from religious right
by Roz Paterson
Amnesty International,
the worldwide human rights organisation, has finally
dropped its neutrality towards abortion, and will
support calls for legal and safe terminations for
women who become pregnant through coercion or violence,
or whose health is threatened by their condition.
Critics, already raising ungodly cries of protest,
insist that Amnesty railroaded through this change
in policy. Not so. In fact, this decision comes
as a surprise to no-one, given that the non-governmental
organisation was one of a number that, in 2000,
sought to include the right to legal abortion in
the United Nations Fourth World Conference for Women.
At that time, the Roman Catholic church, amongst
the most vocal in-house critics of Amnesty’s democratically-reached
decision, sided with countries such as
Now, leading members of the catholic church are
calling for the withdrawal of both funding and support
for Amnesty, unless it comes to its senses and returns
to what it does best - campaigning for the release
of prisoners of conscience.
For all the world as if the mass rape and torture
of women and girls are not acts of the utmost political
violence. As if rape were a private, sexual aberration
- the act of an occasional, lusty soldier missing
his girlfriend.
As if. Amnesty critics have even cited the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948), arguing simplistically
that it does not enshrine the ‘right to kill’ unborn
babies.
This argument suggests that only the fertilised
egg comprises life; that somehow the mother’s doesn’t
come into it.
And that pregnancy means only life, pure and simple,
when it can also mean genocide, as in the case of
Darfurian women raped by Janjaweed and Sudanese
troops, who, having killed their husbands and children,
tell them they are going to ‘dilute their blood’.
This form of ethnic cleansing was at work in Bosnia
too, where Muslim women were taken to ‘rape camps’
and systematically gang-raped, then forced to give
birth to Serbian babies.
Pregnancy can also mean death, not just where a
women’s health is threatened, but where her ability
to survive is destroyed, through being dishonoured
by rape and cast out, to fend for herself. This
can include women, girls in fact, whose unborn children
have the same father as themselves.
To whom, in such cases, should the right to life
be applied? The woman, who could, if permitted safe
and legal abortion, go on to have children under
better circumstances, or the foetus, who may never
even reach birth if the mother dies?
Such considerations are clearly hair-splitting for
Christian and Catholic groups, to whom ‘life’ must
mean life.
An exodus of Christian members from Amnesty is direly
predicted - by the kinds of Christians given to
saying that, in supporting a young incest victim’s
right to safe abortion, Amnesty International is
“bidding goodbye to human rights”. That one’s courtesy
of Archbishop Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference, in
A smattering of evangelical Christian groups are
wading in too. Says Republican (the Republicans,
through their harsh cutbacks in welfare and healthcare
provision, being in charge of one of the most family-unfriendly
administrations on the planet) congressman Chris
Smith,
“(If Amnesty adopts this position), they would cease
to be a human rights organisation and morph into
just another anti-child, pro-abortion organisation.”
Strong stuff, but then, he’s like that. He’s not
afraid to describe the “abortion holocaust” sweeping
the
But will most Christians really dump the prisoners
of conscience, the persecuted people lying dying
in the darkest corners of the world, over one, long-anticipated
policy change?
Shame on them, if so.
We know that rape has been used as a weapon of war,
and a means of repression, against women and girls
since time immemorial. It is a means to degrade
women, to degrade their communities and ruin their
families, and to leave them haunted, terrorised...and
pregnant.
Some 20,000 women, aged from seven to 70, were raped
in
Mubera Zdralovic, who worked to help victims of
rape, argued that having to give birth to a child
of mass rape is simply too much for anyone to bear.
“The foetus growing inside the woman is a living
reminder of the horror she has suffered, like a
wound that keeps on growing.”
Yet the Pope warned these women against having abortions,
saying they should “learn to accept the enemy within
them.”
Should Darfurian women do this too? And Karen women
in
The problem with current human rights legislation
is that it is based around the heard victims of
conflict - men.
The unheard victims, women, who are victims in all
conflicts, are ignored, if not always intentionally.
Thus their needs fall through the human rights net.
Not just that, but the rape of women continues to
be regarded as the ‘spoils of war’, some kind of
icing on top for weary soldiers, rather than illegitimate
acts that violate human rights legislation.
Amnesty has made a first, and bold, step towards
addressing this injustice.
The churches that seek to close down this international
organisation of two million members are clearly
determined to divide victims of repression and violence
into two familiar categories - the deserving, and
the undeserving.
Hell mend them.
—page five—
Letters
Questioning the left
Brown’s accession may seem to have staunched the
flow of ‘old Labour’ out of the party (perhaps forgetting
his responsibility for handing control of the economy to the
Bank of England, legalising PFI, and providing unlimited war
chests for Blair’s imperial adventures).
Some say Labour membership is even growing (though this would
probably be due to John McDonnell’s campaign to raise the
issues of war and privatisation).
But trade union action against Brown’s public sector parsimony
could now lead to a winter of discontent - the reason Brown
might consider getting a snap election in first.
Having helped initiate the development of socialist alliances,
I have argued for left involvement in elections - as a platform
for socialist opposition, and as part of campaigning (not
a substitute for it).
The ups and downs of the last 10 years, particularly in
Seeking “power” and building up “leadership”, in a system
not of our choosing, puts socialists under pressures of the
unaccountable mass media and bourgeois parliamentary institutions.
Should we stop standing in such elections?
Meanwhile, a broad anti-war movement seems too dilute to form
a political party. Should we stop just “stopping the war”
- a war which we haven’t stopped - when we still face the
class war?
These are difficult questions. But it may be time to try to
develop an understanding across the left - industrially and
electorally, in the interests of the environment and equality
- about how we could work together, in and out of elections,
against consumer capitalism, inhumane imperialism, and all
the warmongers who are still running the country.
John Nicholson
Manchester
WOMEN’S Voice
Barbara Scott
Activists in
The first Reclaim the Night march was held by a group of women
in
The collective state on their website:
“The overall aim of this march is to stop violence against
women. We believe that violence against women is preventable
and reflective of unequal gender relations in our society.
We hope to challenge the myths around responsibility of rape
and gender violence, to highlight how common place violence
against women is, and that the perpetrators are by far more
likely to be known the to woman. We also want to celebrate
feminism and create a positive environment whereby sympathetic
and feminist men will engage in debate and feed into the violence
against women movement in the
The group is open to men as well as women and plans to include
a Men’s Discussion Group prior to the march on 11 October.
The march, which will start at Festival Square on Lothian
Road, go along Princes Street and finish at The Meadows, aims
to send a clear message to the media and politicians that
the Edinburgh community is appalled by the high levels of
violence against women still occurring in Scotland.
Some examples cited by the Collective are:
n 1 in 4 women will experience
domestic violence in her lifetime.
n In April 2007 the rape conviction rate in
n 1 in 4 women are survivors of rape or attempted rape.
n less than one in twenty rapes reported in
n contrary to common belief, in most cases of rape and sexual
violence, the perpetrator is someone known to the woman, 90
per cent of the women who contacted rape crisis in 1998 were
raped by someone they knew.
n in
The organisers also hope to
show solidarity with women who have experienced and are still
experiencing men’s violence. There will be a rally in the
Meadows which is particularly relevant as this area is renowned
as being unsafe for women to walk through at night. The Collective
wants to highlight the sad fact that women are still expected
to “protect themselves” against sexual assault and rape, by
avoiding certain areas for example, rather than the perpetrators
of sexual violence being held ultimately and solely responsible
for the crime. Reclaim the Night aims to reclaim the Meadows
as a safe and fun place to congregate.
Members of the SSP in
n Thursday 11 October
Website: http://reclaimthenightedinburgh.wordpress.com/
Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2371821183
Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/scotfems
Email: E_F_N@myway.com
—centre pages—
IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID
So you want to abolish capitalism and replace it with something nicer? Good for you? But what is actually wrong with the economic system that currently has the world by the short and curlies? And what can we replace it with? Here, Mick Hamilton outlines the pitfalls of the current global order and the merits of replacing it with a democratic and flexible version of the Planned Economy.
Capitalism at your service
In theory, the capitalist system makes
life better for everybody because it forces companies to produce the
things people most want, and to make them as cheaply as possible by
introducing new technologies. Companies that don’t do this are put
out of business by the competition - so things automatically keep
getting better.
This, however, is a gross simplification, and only comes near to being
accurate in the early stages of capitalist development, when economic
progress can be fuelled by herding peasants into factories.
This is what happened in
In reality, for industrially advanced societies such as Europe or
By this I mean that it can no longer make a worthwhile profit from
actually manufacturing things, because capitalism maintains its rate
of profit by exploiting labour, not through introducing new technology.
This may sound ridiculous, as it is obvious that a company which introduces
new technology will reduce its costs, and so increase profits.
However, in time, new technologies also tend to cause prices to fall.
As a result, although the first company to introduce this new technology
will increase its profits, it will prove temporary as everyone follows
suit.
In short, producing twice as many shoes only increases your profit
margin until such a time as the price of shoes falls to half of what
it originally was. All of which explains why the privatisation of
the railways was such a disaster. Running railways used to be highly
profitable - in 1907 - when it was a labour-intensive activity.
In 2007, when running the railways is mainly about investing in new
technologies, such as better trains, the profits are so low that rail
companies can only balance their books if they get massive subsidies
from the public purse.
The people who run the railways aren’t hotshot business tycoons; they’re
glorified administrators, who spend public money while skimming off
profits and inflated salaries.
One particularly disturbing consequence of capitalism’s inability
to make a profit from manufacturing in countries like
Everyone knows that working as a waiter, or a rep, is a deeply alienating
experience, but it’s not just about putting a smile on your face then
getting on with the job.
It goes a lot deeper than that.
For example, a survey of air-stewards found they had developed a whole
set of unhealthy attitude-strategies to cope with situations where
they were forced to keep smiling, despite a customer treating them
like dirt.
Often, the wound up telling themselves it was a sign of their ‘professionalism’‚
if they could keep smiling instead of losing their cool.
In other words, service industry jobs don’t just exhaust you physically,
they get right inside your head, scoop out your authentic reaction
- e.g. chucking the ignorant pig’s drink all over him - and replace
it with a series of totally malleable pre-conditioned responses.
And, of course, being fake and phoney all day at work is bound to
affect your ability to form genuine relationships in the rest of your
life.
So, for capitalism simply to continue in this country, it must find
more and more ways to invade and exploit new areas of people’s innermost
selves. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sex industry - one
of the fastest growing and most profitable parts of the service-industry
sector - where, for example, strippers have been replaced by lap-dancers.
So now, being willing to expose the most intimate parts of your body
is not enough - the new generation of sex workers is also expected
to chat up the punters and as if they are charmed by their company.
Is this a future we fancy?
A world where every last bit of what makes you a real person is turned
into a commodity that can be bought and sold?
How come I feel OK?
Yeah, but if capitalism is so bad, why do I feel so good?
This is not an unreasonable attitude, given that as we move around
our city centres we don’t, for example, see children dying of starvation,
and we’re not constantly accosted by beggars who have been mutilated
in industrial accidents.
True, things are really bad for some people, but on the other hand,
the system is still able to provide minimum benefits for most of us.
Also, for many people in this country, each year brings a bigger settee,
a nicer kitchen, or longer holidays in a more exotic location.
These same people may well be trapped in soul destroying and stressful
jobs which force them to work much longer hours than their parents
did, but the bottom line is that capitalism can still deliver the
goodies for a lot of us, here in the west.
The fact that capitalism may be working okay for a lot of people in
this country doesn’t, however, tell you much about its true nature
as a global phenomena - and doesn’t prove that it’s going to thrive
forever.
The inherent failings of capitalism are hidden to a large extent,
in the west, by the exploitation of cheap labour in other parts of
the world.
Capitalism has always taken advantage of its global reach - for example,
by importing cheap Indian cotton to be processed in the mills of Lancashire
during the industrial revolution - and it still does today, with that
role being filled by countries such as
This development allowed European and American capitalists to ditch
the unprofitable activity of manufacturing at home and instead, exploit
the thousands of Chinese peasants who were being herded into factories,
where they suffer all the hardships and privations that existed here
two hundred years ago.
As well as keeping us supplied with cheap commodities,
If
While Western economies mainly survive because of their Financial
sector‚ - which is just a fancy name for money-laundering - it’s Chinese
factory workers who are actually creating the wealth from which these
financial companies siphon off their profits.
And it’s not just a small minority of fat-cats who benefit.
All of us who work in the service industries - and that includes education,
by the way - are having our wages paid by a system which is heavily
reliant on the taxes and spending generated by this financial sector.
So yeah, capitalism is forcing people into overcrowded slums, mutilating
them in industrial accidents and destroying their environment - but
the reason we don’t notice is because it’s happening on the other
side of the planet.
The problem - for the capitalists - is that once these Chinese workers
start to organise trade unions and socialist parties, perhaps over
the next ten years,they too will cease to be of any use to the bosses.
And then we’ll all start to see the downside of the capitalist system
in our everyday lives.
Globalisation can’t solve capitalism’s inherent failings. It can only
provide a temporary respite by going back to the only thing it’s any
good at; herding peasants into factories.
Clearly, we need to come up with an alternative (it’s a serious job
of work!) means of running things, and there is such an alternative
- the planned economy. The
Planning the future
Under capitalism, the price of a product
is whatever the seller can get for it. In a planned economy, it would
be related to the number of Labour Hours needed to produce it.
Instead of something costing £3, it might cost two Labour Hours.
This would provide a very simple way to abolish exploitation, on the
basis that anyone who worked for, say, 40 hours would be given vouchers
worth 40 Labour Hours to spend.
No more being ripped-off by the boss!
In reality, various other factors would come into it, such as a percentage
of your labour being held back, effectively as taxes, to pay for collective
projects, like schools.
If this was set at 25 per cent, for instance, you’d only get vouchers
worth 30 hours.
Another very useful aspect of Labour Hour Vouchers (LHVs) is that
they would render the Planned Economy more flexible by allowing us
to fine tune the system so it was always producing the sort of things
that people genuinely wanted, and in the right amounts.
This is something that market-driven systems can, in principle, be
quite effective at - when advertising campaigns, etc, don’t distort
the situation.
If what people really want is, say, a new kind of mobie, then they’ll
be willing to pay a higher price for this, which tells the capitalists
that they’ll make a profit if they manufacture more of them.
In a system using LHV, the same result would be achieved through the
use of dual-pricing‚
When you went into a shop to spend your LHVs, you’d see that all the
items were showing two prices, both set by the Planning Department.
One would be its labour price, which would tell you how many hours
had gone into producing it.
The other would be its selling price - either more or less than the
labour price - which would vary as follows.
When, say, a new kind of mobie first left the factory it would have
a selling price equal to its labour price.
If there was a massive demand for it, however, the Planning Department
would raise its selling price and, at the same time, arrange to increase
production.
If this still wasn’t enough to satisfy demand, the selling price would
rise again, along with the level of production.
When demand levelled out, the selling price could then be reduced
to its original value.
A variable selling price - assuming that everyone had been given a
fair level of income in the first place - could create a reasonable
means of sharing out scarce items.
People who really wanted this new mobie could splash out and buy it
at the higher price, while those who weren’t that bothered could spend
their LHVs on some relatively expensive shoes instead, or maybe buy
up some of the cut-price things that were less popular.
More importantly, though, changing the selling price of an item and
observing how this effected demand, would give the Planning Department
a very accurate and responsive way of calibrating production to meed
people’s actual requirements.
This is in stark contrast to previous, discredited versions of economic
planning, where things were produced according to a rigid annual plan,
then dumped in a warehouse if nobody wanted to buy them.
A further of the dual-price system is that it is more immune from
corruption than, say, the Soviet style system where there existed
the potential for someone to bribe an official in the Central Planning
Department to increase the value of the products made by their factory.
With dual-pricing, information is provided by millions of people all
over the country spontaneously deciding what to buy, so it would be
very difficult indeed to corrupt the feedback process which decides
prices and levels of production.
The ideas in this article are loosely based on an excellent book called
New Socialism‚ written by Paul Cockshott & Allin Cottrell, though
the authors aren’t responsible for my particular interpretation.
Democracy now!
What is democracy? Lets say it’s a
system where people collectively reach agreements over they want to
do.
Thus, in any democratic society, there will always be the problem
of how to combine what the individual wants with what everybody else
wants.
In this article I’m going to defend the idea that in many situations,
the best way to achieve a democratic outcome is to give each individual
control over their share of society’s resources, rather than assuming
that under socialism everyone will just share everything.
In other words, I want to defend the idea of people being given money
which they can then spend however they like.
By the way, I’m using the word money‚ very loosely here, because whatever
currency we used in a money-like way would be very different from
what we know as money‚ under capitalism. For example, one individual
wouldn’t be allowed to use money to employ another. Also, the basic
unit of the currency would be hours-of-labour, not euros or pounds.
So, let me start by saying that, in principle, I don’t think there’s
anything wrong with some people travelling first class on the train.
If society’s wealth was fairly distributed to begin with, why shouldn’t
one person travel first class then stay in a cheap hotel, while another
went second class then stayed at the Ritz?
One big advantage of continuing to use money in our socialist utopia
is that we could all be a lot less opinionated.
And that would be good, because if there’s one thing that puts people
off socialism - or at least its more idealistic versions - is the
thought of living in a world where they would constantly have to justify
themselves to the committee‚ or even just fend off the disapproving
looks of their fellow citizens.
This problem was graphically illustrated during the Spanish Civil
War in those villages where the anarchists took over and abolished
money.
For example, it was decided that culture should be fully available
to all, so the cinema was to be free of charge.
Unfortunately, within a matter of weeks, those who went to the cinema
too often started to attract disapproving looks, and next thing, the
committee‚ was being asked to express its opinion on their ‘anti-social
behaviour’!
In a collective society, we need some system for deciding how to allocate
scarce resources, and if it’s not some pre-arranged, mercifully anonymous
system, it will end up being ‘social pressure‚ and denunciations to
the committee‚.
Ironically, Proudhon - who came up with the classic anarchist slogan,
Property is Theft‚ - also coined the phrase Property is Freedom, by
which he meant that it’s a wonderful thing for people to have their
own money, as this allows them to decide, with complete spontaneity
and autonomy, whether to travel first class or stay at the Ritz.
In essence, then, the ethical values of a socialist society - such
as a belief in fairness - could to some extent be expressed by the
presence or absence of coins in your pocket, rather than having to
be constantly re-asserted through a social pressure which would inevitably
become over-bearing.
We are social creatures so we need to interact, but we are also individuals
who need to express our own autonomy.
Paradoxically, the best way to defend our autonomy in a social context
is to reach a collective agreement on how to distribute scarce resources
then, having set up these parameters, forget all about them and just
assume that if we see someone going into first class, they must have
earned the right to do so
Obviously a lot of things are best used in a collective way.
For example, the whole joy of visiting a public park is knowing you
can wander wherever you want. If you were stopped at the gate and
made to pay for whichever bit you wanted to hire by the hour, that
would be some kind of Thatcherite nightmare. Even having first and
second class deck-chairs in an otherwise free park would be enough
to spoil the atmosphere.
On the other hand, different priced ice-creams wouldn’t be a problem.
But what about those things which foster elitism, such as fee-paying
schools? Perhaps we could all agree, democratically, to ban them!
It’s a huge debate, and now is the time to start it.
n For more insight into how a democratically planned economy could be organised from a practical point of view, see: http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm
—page eight—
People
Power wins over Political Dishonesty
in
by Colin Fox
First we had the Meadowbank tremor.
In 2004 the Labour administration
which ran the city announced, and
then with unseemly haste quickly confirmed,
plans to close the world famous Meadowbank
sports stadium. They aimed to sell
the land off to private housing developers
and tried to bring the issue to a
head this spring.
In the uprising which followed the
move more then 600 people turned up
at a hastily arranged public meeting
one Saturday afternoon to warn Councillors
the plans were outrageous and the
political consequences for them dire.
It is fair to say that the Labour
administration lost control of the
city due in large part to the unpopularity
of this proposal.
The SNP and Liberal Councillors lined
up, in relays virtually, to condemn
the closure and cuts in our public
services.
Yet no sooner had they been elected
and formed a coalition than a second
eruption took place.
This second one has been even more
powerful than the first. It threatens
to wipe out the credibility of the
new Lib Dem/SNP coalition. Elected
on an unequivocal no cuts ticket these
ladies and gentlemen had barely pocketed
their first months salary when they
unveiled plans to close 22 schools,
nurseries and community centres!
The Director of Children and Families
Gillian Tee sent a letter to parents
across the city in the first week
of the new term warning that falling
school roles and a £10million budget
deficit meant only cuts of this magnitude
would suffice.
The trouble for the unfortunate Mrs
T‚ was that neither argument held
much water. The population of Edinburgh
is rising as is the birth rate and
with one quarter of all children in
this city attending fee paying or
private‚ school little sympathy was
found for a proposal based on the
idea we have a shortage of youngsters
to teach.
And if that position was weak the
force behind the budget deficit argument
was practically non existent. Edinburgh
City Council has an annual budget
of £800m. Ten million pounds represents
just 1.2 per cent of that total. The
relative panic in the measures suggested,
ripping the heart out of communities
throughout
Most parents felt that the opportunity
existed in the public sector to reach
the same pupil teacher ratios which
prevail in the fee paying schools
and that this was how the Council
should respond to current pupil numbers.
Furthermore if there was a £10m budget
shortfall then there were a thousand
different measures which could be
examined none of which involved school
closures. Since 55 per cent of the
budget comes form Holyrood than approach
Alex Salmond for more. Alternatively
since 15 per cent of the money comes
from the business rate then perhaps
it was time to introduce a levy on
businesses over a certain size and
turnover. These were all preferable
to closing schools from Burdiehouse
to Bonnington, from Wester Hailes
to
At the full Council meeting on 234
August more than 1,000 people turned
up in protest at the proposed closure
plan. The onlookers watched in horror
as their democratic wishes expressed
in May were turned inside out. Virtually
all the Councillors who had been elected
on a no cuts programme voted for cuts
[only the Greens didn’t] and all those
Councillors who for the past decade
have carried out the cuts [i.e. Labour]
opposed them - some reports suggested
they didn’t even has the courtesy
to blush!
Everyone of the 29 SNP /Lib Dem Councillors
voted to close the schools and the
29 opposition Councillors [mostly
Labour] voted against. It actually
took the casting vote of the Lib Dem
Provost to carry the cuts motion,
as if such high drama was absolutely
necessary!
Now after two weeks of ructions throughout
the city and inside the SNP a dramatic,
if not entirely unpredictable volte-face
has been announced by the Nats. An
extraordinary SNP Edinburgh city meeting
which began at 2pm ran on until midnight.
It is reported that MSPs and Scottish
Government Ministers were brought
in persuade the group that it had
to disassociate themselves from the
proposals, ones which they themselves
had voted for a fortnight earlier!
The Council may well come back on
a smaller scale and try to pick off
individual schools but for the moment
the smell of victory is strong in
the nostrils of protestors across
the city.
Save Meadowbank Campaigners on track for victory
by Johanna Dind
“Let’s
not lose sight of the fact that you
here tonight, the Save Meadowbank
Campaigners have, through your protests
and resolve these past six months,
kept this place open”. With these
words SSP national convenor Colin
Fox reminded the 400 people assembled
in
All the signs now suggest the Council
has, in the face of overwhelming public
opposition, been forced to back down.
The new SNP/LibDem administration,
which runs the city, looks set to
recommend that the initial plans are
dropped and the stadium, built to
host the 1970 Commonwealth Games,
stays open.
Edinburgh City Council officials had
presented highly detailed and advanced
plans to a previous public meeting
recommending demolition of the stadium
and selling the land to private housing
developers to build 800 luxury flats.
The cash generated was to go towards
upgrading the
The opposition to this proposal for
Meadowbank stadium, the pride of the
community, and not just in Leith and
Yet, that night in Meadowbank, a disbelieved
audience heard that Terry Christie,
chair of the working group set up
to re-examine the Council’s decision,
published a report which contradicted
the view of the majority on the group.
He argued for demolition of the stadium
and concluded refurbishment would
be a “waste of money”. What the working
group really recommended is to retain
all sport facilities at Meadowbank
and modernised it to bring it up to
international sports standards. Decayed,
shabby, old, the stadium hasn’t seen
meaningful investment or even routine
maintenance since 1986.
When we know that the Meadowbank cycling
velodrome for example is the only
one in the East of Scotland, that
the international athletics track
is the only one in the city, that
the sports centre is extremely popular
and well used and that the Sighthill
community doesn’t want a new stadium
under its windows, the City’s plan
make no sense.
“This campaign is also about honesty
and transparency” said Colin Fox under
applause. “None of these councillors
here tonight were elected last May
to close Meadowbank or our schools
or community centres and other community
facilities for that matter” - referring
to the news released that day that
22 nurseries, schools and community
centres in the city face the axe in
budget cuts - adding “And this is
no time for silly political games”.
And the audience didn’t get fooled.
When Ewan Aitken, former Labour leader
of the Council, said he had changed
his mind and now opposed the closure
plans - having argued vehemently for
the past two years that it should.
Sensing his insincerity, the people
present at Meadowbank were unsympathetic
to his apparent ‘conversion’ and booed
him.
But former Olympic hammer thrower
Ian Black and Scott Hastings, the
former Scotland international rugby
player, who had both trained in the
stadium, rather better expressed the
mood of the meeting that night, saying
“Let’s modernise this place, we support
the campaign’s [Save Meadowbank] detailed
proposals to refurbish the stadium”
and concluded by “Let’s bring the
magic back to Meadowbank”.
—page nine—
cultural resistance
Keeping it reel
The Ken Loach Collection
Volumes 1 & 2
Distributed by Sixteen Films
Out now
It might seem a bit early,
but it’s time to start dropping hints about Christmas
presents.
Especially if you fancy the new Ken Loach box sets.
Two have been released - with eight films in each box
- spanning over 40 years of the director’s work.
From his pioneering days with the BBC, scripting and
directing Cathy Come Home in 1966, to the Palme D’Or
winning The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Ken Loach has
stayed true to his film making style and socially conscious
subject matter.
Released by Sixteen Films, these sets reflecting the
director’s own choice of work include the recently unavailable
titles My Name is Joe and Cathy Come Home along with
the rarely seen and never before available on UK home
video or DVD The Gamekeeper.
You also get such Loach classics as Kes, Riff-Raff,
Land and Freedom and Raining Stones.
Each box set includes a 16 page companion booklet with
rare images, production information, quotes and introductions
by Loach plus a bonus documentary DVD profiling Loach.
Special features include director commentaries, documentaries
and deleted scenes.
If you are a fan of Loach’s work - or if you’ve never
seen any of his film - try and get your hands on this
collection.
At £120 for the lot though maybe it’s time to start
sooking up to any rich aunties out there.
CHAVEZ BOOSTS YOUTH MUSIC PROGRAMME
The international acclaim
which met the performances of
The orchestra was the brainchild of José Antonio Abreu,
a 68-year-old musician and economist. Independently
of government an official support, he started giving
music lessons to a handful of poor children 32 years
ago.
Now Chavez has announced a massive expansion of the
scheme which aims to make music education available
to young people from the poorest sections of the country.
The Venezuelan leader announced the creation of “Misión
Música”, a government-funded effort to give tuition
and instruments to 1 million impoverished children on
his weekly TV show Aló Presidente .
The founder of the Simon Bolivar orchestra José Antonio
Abreu was a guest on the show and Chavez showed film
clips of the orchestra on tour in
Significantly President Chávez said thousands of newly
formed communal councils, which are seen as the engine
of the socialist revolution, would each set up a music
centre “to create the best system in the world”.
The announcement will cement links between Mr Chávez’s
oil-funded radical social agenda and the pioneering
music scheme behind the youth orchestra’s success.
Mr Abreu described the programme’s social mission as
helping “the fight of a poor and abandoned child against
everything that opposes his full realisation as a human
being”.
Graduates of the scheme include Gustavo Dudamel, who
was named conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
and acclaimed performances from the system’s flagship
Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, have attracted widespread
acclaim.
Currently it receives £15million annual government funding
and now reaches 285,000 children and is being copied
around the world, including in
Mr Chávez has spoken glowingly about the orchestra before,
but Sunday’s announcement could put it at the cultural
heart of his revolution.
Showed television clips of the orchestra’s European
tour and reading out glowing reviews, the President
said they were a welcome change from western media
reports which depicted
The Wild Brunch
Keef Tomkinson
Keef casts his eye across life’s more leisurely pursuits in order to put a wee bit of CULTure into our lives.
Chattin’ About Revolution
My experience of Tommy Sheridan is very much like my
feelings towards Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
The hype was impossible to ignore. The first listen
was full of nervous exhilaration. Repetitive listening
led to an apathetic acceptance of it’s perceived importance.
Finally I can now admit to finding it a disappointing
fraud.
Speaking of the SSP’s former speaker-in-chief, I hear
he has been keeping a low profile on stage in
After the internet and wall of the guys’ toilets, the
grapevine is my favourite source of news. Currently
word is Tam the Bam’s show has been an intellectual
revelation with him sharing his opinions on skin pigmentation
and sexually transmitted diseases in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Yeah, ok, we know that this is all about Shezzadan trying
to take his cult to new pastures and open doors to escape
from the prickly principles and less profitable pastures
of left wing politics. However, a socialist chat show
is a fantasy worth developing.
Such a concept would have embrace the two main pillars
of socialism. Fraternity and Sectarianism. If it were
me...and since I’m writing this, it is me, I would initially
opt for the Johnny Carson model.
Walking through red curtains and on stage to the music
of the Billy Bragg Orchestra I would begin with a monologue
written by Fidel Castro. Four hours later I would greet
my first guest.
Lenin would skip onto stage, smiling and waving. After
discussing his charity work he would then start to plug
his latest pamphlet. Ten minutes later and its something
for the ladies.
And who better than Rosie Kane to tell all those socialist
girls out there how to look good and revolt on a tight
budget. After so much chat, a little musical break with
Alice Sheridan and Neil Kinnock playing their new single,
‘Dream The Impossible Dream.’
Closing that evening show would be the star guest, Ken
Loach. Going back to where it all began Ken talks us
through his latest film, Glasnost Mornings: From Birthmarks
to Karl Marx, a biopic of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Meanwhile on Socialist TV, Channel 2, is our second
vision. Throwing fraternity in the bin, Jerry Springer
meets Communism, for the more bloodthirsty out there.
Jerry introduces Karl Marx:
“Karl, I understand you wrote a manifesto, a communist
one?”
“Yes, Jerry. It was my greatest achievement but now
its ruined.”
“Why Karl?”
“Because of some white trash son-of-a-bitch who horsewhipped
my notions”
“You mean Joseph, don’t you?” Karl nods. “Well Karl
we’ve got a surprise...c’mon in Joe!”
All hell breaks loose as Stalin walks on stage with
one hand grasping his crotch and another giving the
audience the finger. Karl leaps forward and the two
trade blows.
After much soul searching and mayhem Jerry focuses on
Joseph. “Now Karl is not the only guy you’ve messed
with is he?Why don’t you join us
From stage left Trotsky sprints out to clobber Stalin
in the jaw, screaming “I’m gonna permanently revolutionise
your ass!!’ As the chaos continues Jerry would ratch
it up to an amazing climax.
“Karl, do you remember a servant girl in the service
of Engels called Maude?” Karl nods.
Who needs weekends of debate and discussion when you’ve
got chat?
—page ten—
international news
Opposition
to Musharaf growing
in
by Farooq Tariq
Labour Party
Another round
of struggle against military dictatorship
opened at the start of September when the
Lahore Bar Association decided to demand an
immediate end of military dictatorship of
General Musharaf.
This was announced at a seminar at Awani-Adal main courtroom in
The Hall was full to capacity with over 300
present.
Earlier Lahore Bar Association had printed
a colour poster declaring “no deal” referring
to the ongoing negotiation of Benazir Bhuttu, chairperson Pakistan
Peoples Party (PPP) with the present military
regime in
After the reinstatement of Iftikhar Choudry, chief justice
of the Supreme Court, the PPP went into discussions
with the military regime for a power sharing
formula, much to the disgust of many.
There is a growing pressure from the wider
population for the radical layer of lawyers
who led a successful campaign against the
military regime to reinstate the sacked Chief
Justice earlier this year.
They now want them to go all out and help
them to get rid of General Musharaf’s
dictatorship. The response of the lawyers
was to start a fresh round of struggles to
end the regime.
This move to start a second round has not
come from nowhere.
We have played a part in it, holding weeks
of continues discussions with the leadership
of the victorious lawyers movement on the
question of militarisation
and democracy.
I was probably the only political leader to
be twice jailed during the protests won our
party considerable respect.
Radical social organizations have also put
pressure on the lawyers’ leaders to go further.
The Joint Action Committee For People Rights (JAC), a radical social network, including
Labour Party Pakistan addressed a press conference
at Lahore Press Club at the end of August,
stating that they will fully support the second
round against the military dictatorship.
The press conference was lead by Asma Jahanghir, chairperson of the
Human
“We will lend our full support for the advocates
movement and political parties who are fighting
for democracy, we will not accept General Musharaf
with or without uniform.
“He must quit, we condemn the role of intelligence
agencies who are ‘negotiating with politicians’
about the power sharing formula, we are against
Musharaf policies
which has resulted in poverty, unemployment
and price hikes to an unprecedented level”
Benazir Bhutto has been in discussions with some heads of intelligence agencies
including Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)
for a deal to return to
Both sides have claimed that progress is been
made during the discussions.
She said she will support Musharaf’ for President if he takes of his military uniform.
Musharaf has made it clear that he will contest the election of president in
uniform.
The Presidential election is expected next,
though no date has been set.
The Senate, national and provincial assemblies
are the electoral college
for president.
The political situation in
There is now a mass movement in favour of
an immediate end of military dictatorship.
There is great discontent among the middle
class - and a tremendous hatred among the
working class against the military regime.
The regime is unable to control the growing
incidents of individual terrorism by the religious
fundamentalist against the security forces.
There are daily bomb blasts, suicide attacks
and firing on police and military stations.
American imperialism is trying to put pressure
on General Musharaf
to come to a power sharing deal with the PPP
in a bid the win an acceptable pro
The deal is not yet finalised but it is facing
a lot of opposition from the public. The Muslim
League Q, a split group of Muslim League,
who are currently sharing power with Musharaf are opposing the deal.
PPP activists are confused. They have been
struggling for democracy and suddenly they
are watching their leader trying to do a deal
with the military regime opposed by majority
of ordinary Pakistanis.
Those political parties who fought the military
dictatorship are been heard
—page eleven—
by Liam Young
If ever evidence were required of the environmental
destruction that the globalization of capitalism is bringing to the world
then
The health problems that industrial development has brought to
The growing awareness amongst the population of the effect that economic
growth is having on their health has led to increasing numbers of petitions,
demonstrations and riots throughout
With the increase in email and mobile phones the Chinese government is finding
it difficult to check the resistance that is building to the expansion of
industry and the damage it is reaping on the population.
As the Chinese economy has shown unprecedented growth so has the environmental
problems that accompany it.
Only one per cent of people living in Chinese cities breath air that the
European Community would consider safe and over 400,000 people a year are
believed to be dying prematurely because of air pollution.
In
Last year over a thousand new cars a day hit the roads of
The quality and quantity of crops are also steadily decreasing because of
the continuing polluting of the land and water. Severely degraded land and
desert now covers over a quarter of
Over 70 percent of the water that flows through Chinese cities is unfit
for fishing or drinking.
Contaminated water is drunk by 300 million people a day and it is thought
that 190 million people are actually drinking water that makes them sick.
All this has led to the cancer rate increasing by 23 per cent in the last
two years and becoming the biggest cause of death in
Incidents of social unrest have been on the increase as social awareness
of the effects that growing environmental problems are having on health.
The head of
He admitted there had been tens of thousands of incidents last year alone
and said some waterways resemble “sticky glue”. In December the
In June the building of a petro-chemical plant in the city of
The organisers mobilised people by issuing one million texts leaving the
Chinese authorities helpless to stop the protests.
Using the Internet bloggers relayed reports and images of the march throughout
the world.
In 2005 13 chemical plants in
A group of elderly villagers who had become seriously worried about their
children’s health and the fact that they could no longer grow rice and vegetables
on nearby plots set up a road block. After two weeks this was violently
broke up 3,000 police leading to tens of thousands of locals mobilising
in protest and declaring they would not move until the plants were closed.
These are far from isolated incidents and are part of a growing movement
amongst a population literally sick of pollution. The central government
has been forced to address some of the environmental issues but is finding
it difficult as provincial officials ignore their edicts.
One of the problems that the Communist party has is that it has depended
on economic growth to placate the public and stall calls for social change.
But it is now beginning to choke on its own success and like most governments
around the world, the Chinese are finding that corporations are much more
interested in making profit than protecting the planet.
Workers turn ice cold on Fosters anti-union deal
A bitter battle is looming after Australian
brewery workers at brewing giant Fosters refused to swallow an demand to
impose non union conditions at their