Tibet erupted in ethnic based rioting over the past few
days. Undoubtedly there is some outside interference, but this alone cannot
explain what is going on. At the root of the problem is the uneven spread of
wealth, which has been made worse by the introduction of market economics,
compounding the feeling of national oppression of the Tibetans.
Last Thursday it was Carlyle Capital’s turn to
go belly-up, a corporation that has George Bush and John Major on its board and
has done very well out of the Iraq war. It is a private equity company – firms
that borrow other people’s money in order to take over other firms and loot
their assets. Under capitalism firms do eat each other. Now it can be argued
that, without jackals, the veld would be full of wildebeests that had died.
Jackals keep the place tidy. But you wouldn’t really praise jackals as wealth
creators.
As young men, Marx and Engels came
out of the German philosophical tradition. They were at this time groping their
way to becoming revolutionary activists. In 1845 Marx and Engels set out their
revolutionary world view for the first time in a book, The German Ideology, that
settled accounts with the Hegelian tradition from which they had just emerged.
It points the way to the clear language of the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848 and addressed to the workers
of the world.
Five years ago the USA, Britain and various wretched bribed
‘allies’ invaded Saddam’s Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a monster – but imperialism
knew that when it backed him in his aggressive war against Iran and supplied
the chemicals for him to gas Iraqi Kurds. The invasion was justified by the lie
that Saddam had ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ He didn’t.
Last month 100,000 American private sector workers lost
their jobs. This is the third monthly rise in the unemployment figures in a
row. Capitalism is out of control. It’s
not delivering the goods. And it’s not just in the USA. Across the world alarm has greeted every bit of bad news from the States. Even if capitalism doesn’t fall
over and crush you this time, it will always be a threat to the welfare and
happiness of workers all over the world.
Now Gordon Brown has handed over the reins as Chancellor to
Alistair Darling it transpires that for the past ten years Gordon has been
displaying the fiscal prudence of a drunken sailor. The British government has
the biggest hole in their finances in Europe, a whopping £43bn – and it could
get up to £50bn. Where has it all gone?
It is a frightening possibility that, on May 2nd,
Londoners could wake up to find they have an extreme right-wing Tory as Mayor
of London. This is a truly scary scenario. Opinion polls show Boris the
Bumbling Buffoon – whom most regarded as a joke candidate when he threw his hat
into the ring – is creeping up on Ken.
School students, Ewan Gibbs and Nathan Morrison, give their views on the latest proposals on British citizenship. In this report issued by Lord
Goldsmith it states that school-leavers should take an oath of allegiance to ‘Queen
and Country’ and suggests that schools should hold citizenship ceremonies for
leavers. These proposals were made by a big business Labour government desperate to cover the glaring cracks in our public
services, below inflation pay rises, the imperialist military adventures in
Iraq and Afghanistan and the Northern Rock farce by resorting to flag
waving.
Marbles, the bank that lends to ‘sub-prime’ borrowers, has decided that if you can’t be good, then you’d better be careful. They’re walloping their customers with interest charges on their cards of up to 33.9%. So the financial crisis may be bad news for millions, but it’s all grist to the mill at Marbles.
Meet the Henwis. These are high-net-worth-individuals. You have to have $1 million to count, plus your home obviously. There were 11.4% more of them last year and they’re ‘worth’ $37 trillion all told. We now have 485,000 of these in the UK. Aren’t we lucky? They’ve raised the bar for our Rich List. You have to have at least £70m to get in. That should keep hoi polloi out!
According to the TUC, 5 million workers in this country are putting in £5,000 each in unpaid overtime. If they started working at the beginning of the year, they wouldn’t earn a penny till February 22nd. Nobody does this unless they’re under the cosh at work.
Also from the TUC (They’re a useful research body. Pity they don’t do something about all the facts they uncover) – we lose £13 billion through tax avoidance by the rich and another £12 billion through corporate tax dodging. As workers, can somebody tell us how to avoid PAYE?