Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to "feeding stray animals." Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor ( of South Carolina), made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food suply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behaviour. They don't know any better," Bauer said."
( Greenville News, 23 January) RD
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Jewish and Israeli opposition to Israel's Gaza slaughter
Jewish and Israeli opposition to Israel's Gaza slaughter
Israel's young conscientious objectors (shministim) tell why they refuse to serve in an army that occupies ``another people'', the Palestinians.
Israel's young conscientious objectors (shministim) tell why they refuse to serve in an army that occupies ``another people'', the Palestinians.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
INDIAN CLASS DIVISION
"India might have more billionaires on the Forbes 400 than ever before, but 80% of its population still lives on less than $2 a day. Public schools are ineffective: 40% of enrolled 8- to 11-year-olds cannot read a page. More than 440 million Indians, 40% of the population, are under 18, and it is not clear how India will generate enough jobs over the next two decades to employ them."
(Time, 4 December) RD
(Time, 4 December) RD
SIGN ON OR STARVE
"Sgt. Ryan Nyhus spent 14 months patrolling the deadly streets of Baghdad, where five members of his platoon were shot and one died. As bad as that was, he would rather go back there than take his chances in this brutal job market. Nyhus re-enlisted last Wednesday, and in so doing joined the growing ranks of those choosing to stay in the U.S. military because of the bleak economy. "In the Army, you're always guaranteed a steady paycheck and a job," said the 21-year-old Nyhus. "Deploying's something that's going to happen. That's a fact of life in the Army — a fact of life in the infantry." In 2008, as the stock market cratered and the housing market collapsed, more young members of the Army, Air Force and Navy decided to re-up." (Yahoo News, 2 December) RD
HIGH STREET BARGAINS
Beautifully coloured magazines with gorgeously gowned young women photographed in exotic locations will be used to advertise the wares of multi-millionaire chain stores, but behind this glossy facade lurks the realities of modern capitalism. "Workers producing clothes in Bangladesh for some of the UK's biggest retailers are being forced to work up to 80 hours a week for as little as 7p an hour, according to a report published today. The study from War on Want claims that conditions in six factories supplying Primark, Tesco and Asda are worse than they were two years ago when the charity carried out its first investigation. Based on interviews with 115 workers in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, today's report claims many were struggling to survive on meagre wages and some were subjected to physical and verbal abuse."
(Guardian, 5 December) RD
(Guardian, 5 December) RD
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Thursday, November 08, 2007
THE UNTOUCHABLES
The plight of Guzar Ahmed seems almost idyllic when compared to the fate of the following Indian woman.
"Soon after she was married, at the age of 10, Usha Chaumar began collecting human excrement for a living - as her mother and her grandmother did before her. Every day for the next 20 years she gathered night soil from 20 houses without lavatories in the state of Rajasthan, carrying it in a pan on her head to the nearest dump. She was paid 200 rupees (£2) a month - the money usually dropped at her feet so that her hands did not touch her employers." (Times, 2 November)
Apparently there are estimated to be 500,000 Indian Untouchables who still earn a living this way. The Indian government have promised to eradicate open-air defecation by 2012, but as this is the same government who say that talk of children in sweat shops is exaggerated we wouldn't put too much store by such a claim. RD
"Soon after she was married, at the age of 10, Usha Chaumar began collecting human excrement for a living - as her mother and her grandmother did before her. Every day for the next 20 years she gathered night soil from 20 houses without lavatories in the state of Rajasthan, carrying it in a pan on her head to the nearest dump. She was paid 200 rupees (£2) a month - the money usually dropped at her feet so that her hands did not touch her employers." (Times, 2 November)
Apparently there are estimated to be 500,000 Indian Untouchables who still earn a living this way. The Indian government have promised to eradicate open-air defecation by 2012, but as this is the same government who say that talk of children in sweat shops is exaggerated we wouldn't put too much store by such a claim. RD
SWEAT SHOP INDIA
Behind the amazing development of capitalism in India lies the harsh reality of child exploitation. "Delhi children's rights activists said that they had received 70 boys who were embroidering garments in small squalid factories in the Indian capital. The boys aged 8 to 14, were mostly the children of farmers in Bihar, India's poorest eastern state. They had been brought to Delhi to make saris worn by Indian women. Gulzar Ahmed, 12, said that he was paid 3,000 rupees (£36) a month for working up to 15 hours a day. The activists, from the Save the Children Mission, said that the children would be returned to their parents. The Indian Government has accused activists of exaggerating the problem of child labour." (Times, 2 November)
We imagine the prospect of one of the government's children working in a sweat shop at 12 years of age is so remote they are unconcerned about poor farmers' kids. RD
We imagine the prospect of one of the government's children working in a sweat shop at 12 years of age is so remote they are unconcerned about poor farmers' kids. RD
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Police leaders attack calls for greater use of civilians
They must have got their act together at some Grand or Super Masonic Lodge somewhere, but the Cop-Bosses have joined up, in opposing the use of more civilians, to pretend that they operate in the public's interest in general.
The real danger,is in showing that the police arent necessary at all,to the general population, as this consists of people who are personally, generally,law abiding, self policing, socially motivated individuals,well programmed by school,church and media to be good citizens and,unfortunately for their own class interests, accommodating of their own exploitation by the people ,whose real interests are served by the coppers,the rich and powerfull capitalist class.
If there are only a few of them,civilian citizen workers,they can be 'pretend cops' enough for people not to notice, but if there are thousands of them,then word might get out.
We really dont need cops.We could be our own 'pretend cops'.
The really difficult ,thuggish work done 'by' the cops is usually reserved to be done 'on', poorer people whose desperation,tempts them to try short-cuts to accumulate enough to live on reasonably,but can't get their act together enough to do it within legal bounds, owing to the system being more loaded against you, the poorer you are.
Even when getting pissed to blot out the degradation of their everyday existence,these poorer workers can be subject of just cordial foot-breaking ,as in general again they won't remember, or be believed the next day, even if they survive.
This is just teaching 'respect' for capitalisms enforcers,when the bairns have grown up and forgotten the nice police bobby who came to their classroom..
There is a systematic failure of capitalism in that, it cannot provide to meet human needs.It can only do so at a profit. The consequences of this means, a socially created struggle ensues to maximise ones advantage,which puts us in competition with each other, for access to the means of living.
Common-ownership and democratic control of all our wealth making potential,with free access to it,rather than redistribution,according to our self defined needs,will ensure a civilised society, un-alienatated from ,the products of our labour and each other by class or privelege of access,and which will not need any thuggish reinforcement, as the end product.
Socialism's organising tenet is,"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".
A wholy different mindset would exist in a population which was self organised in this way .
Capitalism needs thugs to deal with its social consquences, but we dont need them.
This brutalised aspect of police-work can readily be provided in capitalism by a, socially hardened ,conditioned, private thug army of such as they use in Iraq.It is a system of society which has to deliberately ration access to wealth along priveleged lines.
Normal people wouldn't do it.
The sooner they join with us in recognising that their demands have to be set against a well entrenched economic and social system, based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding law of profits first,then they can turn their natural talents into creating,accessing and distributing the common wealth.
Not an enforcer in sight in socialism.
Anyway the spin is here to be seen.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1813920.0.0.php
If you scroll down to comments on the above linked page you'll see comrade prolerat has paid a visit,with nicked statistics from class warfare to emphasize some current concerns at what the cops get up to when they are allowed out in our streets.Maybe we should tag cops?
MC
The real danger,is in showing that the police arent necessary at all,to the general population, as this consists of people who are personally, generally,law abiding, self policing, socially motivated individuals,well programmed by school,church and media to be good citizens and,unfortunately for their own class interests, accommodating of their own exploitation by the people ,whose real interests are served by the coppers,the rich and powerfull capitalist class.
If there are only a few of them,civilian citizen workers,they can be 'pretend cops' enough for people not to notice, but if there are thousands of them,then word might get out.
We really dont need cops.We could be our own 'pretend cops'.
The really difficult ,thuggish work done 'by' the cops is usually reserved to be done 'on', poorer people whose desperation,tempts them to try short-cuts to accumulate enough to live on reasonably,but can't get their act together enough to do it within legal bounds, owing to the system being more loaded against you, the poorer you are.
Even when getting pissed to blot out the degradation of their everyday existence,these poorer workers can be subject of just cordial foot-breaking ,as in general again they won't remember, or be believed the next day, even if they survive.
This is just teaching 'respect' for capitalisms enforcers,when the bairns have grown up and forgotten the nice police bobby who came to their classroom..
There is a systematic failure of capitalism in that, it cannot provide to meet human needs.It can only do so at a profit. The consequences of this means, a socially created struggle ensues to maximise ones advantage,which puts us in competition with each other, for access to the means of living.
Common-ownership and democratic control of all our wealth making potential,with free access to it,rather than redistribution,according to our self defined needs,will ensure a civilised society, un-alienatated from ,the products of our labour and each other by class or privelege of access,and which will not need any thuggish reinforcement, as the end product.
Socialism's organising tenet is,"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".
A wholy different mindset would exist in a population which was self organised in this way .
Capitalism needs thugs to deal with its social consquences, but we dont need them.
This brutalised aspect of police-work can readily be provided in capitalism by a, socially hardened ,conditioned, private thug army of such as they use in Iraq.It is a system of society which has to deliberately ration access to wealth along priveleged lines.
Normal people wouldn't do it.
The sooner they join with us in recognising that their demands have to be set against a well entrenched economic and social system, based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding law of profits first,then they can turn their natural talents into creating,accessing and distributing the common wealth.
Not an enforcer in sight in socialism.
Anyway the spin is here to be seen.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1813920.0.0.php
If you scroll down to comments on the above linked page you'll see comrade prolerat has paid a visit,with nicked statistics from class warfare to emphasize some current concerns at what the cops get up to when they are allowed out in our streets.Maybe we should tag cops?
MC
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Some Prolecat Comments on the BBC site.
DEBATE:
DEBATE:
SENT:
01-Jul-2007 14:11
COMMENT:
I'm pleased to see most contributers to this have been reasonable and are showing some perspective.If we look at suicide bombers worldwide,we find, surprisingl,most terrorist operatives are psychologically normal and secular even in Muslim states. Their attacks were always premeditated and the perpetrators were aware of the consequences of their actions to themselves and others.There is a timely article on this at http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/jul07/ Well worth a look.Keep the heid everybody.
DEBATE:
SENT:
19-Dec-2006 16:16
COMMENT:
How influential is the UK these days? As the worlds biggest arms dealer ,next to US, rather. Mr Bush overlooked & the Mr Blair loyalty? Silly questions from the BEEB.You seem to regard the personal as important.What trivialisation of news. Europe? In a Global capitalsm,any prime minister will do what it takes to serve their masters interest.War is just business as usual. Abolish capitalism and war at one stroke. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb
Click to view comment
Click to view comment
DEBATE:
SENT:
19-Dec-2006 15:48
COMMENT:
It really doesn't matter if it was Blair ,Brown or Mr Blobby was the head of the U.K. government.War is caused in a capitalist society over ,strategic influence,raw materials or trade routes.In Iraq's case it was about oil,oil and oil.Historical amnesiacs would do well to remember that Saddam came to power via CIA assistance and was financed and chemically-armed by the West for many years in his war against Iran. Successive American and British governments turned a blind eye to his atrocities.
Nicked from WSM Forum
It is however difficult to know what to do when you find yourself in
the surreal Alice in Wonderland world of 21st century world
capitalism or British capitalism.
On the day that our dear leader Tony Bliar was announced `Peace
Envoy' to the Middle East, with no sense of sick irony by the BBC,
I went out with some friends and we discussed it. When something
absurd happens, you attempt to parody it with a satirical example
like;
"appointing Emperor Nero to be the chief fireman of Rome, and add to
that the notion of having the fox look after the henhouse."
As was suggested in a recent post elsewhere.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17956.htm
We all decided that there was no satirical comparison available to
our considerable collective imaginations that could do it justice.
Robert Fisk subsequently understated it I think when he said;
"I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction
comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears."
The expression `lost for words' comes to mind. When I listen to
those serious straight faced talking heads on the BBC, I often end
up concentrating on the expressions on their faces, the inflexions
in their dialogue and the body language, to try to figure out what
must be going on in these `intelligent' peoples heads.
I suppose maybe the best paid prostitutes are the ones that can most
convincingly fake it , with `Oh what a big boy you are' and such
like, although I have no personal experience of anything like that.
National pride can be a pernicious thing although it does not always
have to be negative. I have noticed, having travelled around the
globe a bit, that especially when you get away from the tourist
traps that the natives are always keen to create a good impression
of their own community. This is often expressed with an enthusiastic
attempt to be especially helpful to visitors in order to create a
good impression of the excellence of their own community.
I suppose courage and determination to face up to the cruel
adversities that life throws at you is an admirable trait that
everyone would like to think of as innate, or at least as part of
your national cultural heritage.
But these kinds of things are always relative.
I am being embarrassed.
Britain is on a critical security alert, the nation is in crisis, a
car has caught fire at Glasgow airport.
Endless loops on the BBC news have attempted to terrify us, to small
effect I am pleased to say, that our very existence is at peril.
Meanwhile in Iraq millions have fled their homes in real terror and
hundreds of thousands are dead. Whilst Iraq really does burn the
talking heads of the BBC continuously fiddle over a burning car.
I thought I would never be able to live down the national ignominy
of our brave `Royal Marines', our toughest of the tough, complaining
about being forced to wear pyjamas by the wicked Iranians.
Will there be no end to this national humiliation।
Dave B
It is however difficult to know what to do when you find yourself in
the surreal Alice in Wonderland world of 21st century world
capitalism or British capitalism.
On the day that our dear leader Tony Bliar was announced `Peace
Envoy' to the Middle East, with no sense of sick irony by the BBC,
I went out with some friends and we discussed it. When something
absurd happens, you attempt to parody it with a satirical example
like;
"appointing Emperor Nero to be the chief fireman of Rome, and add to
that the notion of having the fox look after the henhouse."
As was suggested in a recent post elsewhere.
http://www.informat
We all decided that there was no satirical comparison available to
our considerable collective imaginations that could do it justice.
Robert Fisk subsequently understated it I think when he said;
"I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction
comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears."
The expression `lost for words' comes to mind. When I listen to
those serious straight faced talking heads on the BBC, I often end
up concentrating on the expressions on their faces, the inflexions
in their dialogue and the body language, to try to figure out what
must be going on in these `intelligent' peoples heads.
I suppose maybe the best paid prostitutes are the ones that can most
convincingly fake it , with `Oh what a big boy you are' and such
like, although I have no personal experience of anything like that.
National pride can be a pernicious thing although it does not always
have to be negative. I have noticed, having travelled around the
globe a bit, that especially when you get away from the tourist
traps that the natives are always keen to create a good impression
of their own community. This is often expressed with an enthusiastic
attempt to be especially helpful to visitors in order to create a
good impression of the excellence of their own community.
I suppose courage and determination to face up to the cruel
adversities that life throws at you is an admirable trait that
everyone would like to think of as innate, or at least as part of
your national cultural heritage.
But these kinds of things are always relative.
I am being embarrassed.
Britain is on a critical security alert, the nation is in crisis, a
car has caught fire at Glasgow airport.
Endless loops on the BBC news have attempted to terrify us, to small
effect I am pleased to say, that our very existence is at peril.
Meanwhile in Iraq millions have fled their homes in real terror and
hundreds of thousands are dead. Whilst Iraq really does burn the
talking heads of the BBC continuously fiddle over a burning car.
I thought I would never be able to live down the national ignominy
of our brave `Royal Marines', our toughest of the tough, complaining
about being forced to wear pyjamas by the wicked Iranians.
Will there be no end to this national humiliation।
Dave B
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