Government Backed Corporate Imperialism.

 

       Giants like Monsanto don't get what they want without the help of the various governments. Governments listen to the corporate wish list, and then proceed to set up funding to smooth the process, and pass legislation to put the stamp of legitimacy on their greed driven agenda. Of course it is all shrouded under the banner of development and aid. Western aid has always been loaded to assist Western corporate giants take advantage of developing nations, the first thought has never been the welfare of the people.

         The new imperialist adventure in Africa goes by the name of “The New Alliance for Food and Nutrition”, for the African nations that sign up, this means that their agriculture policies will be at the mercy of the big greed driven giants like Monsanto, Unilever and DuPont. Just to make it easier for those corporate plunderers, the UK government is throwing £395 million into the pot. Imperialism is not something from the last couple of centuries, it is here and now, and we the tax payers are still funding, the plundering of the African continent. 

This from War On Want:

 

      The New Alliance has been modelled on the ‘new vision’ of private investment in agriculture developed by management consultants McKinsey in conjunction with the ABCD group of leading grain traders (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus) and other multinational agribusiness companies. Government officials have acknowledged that most of the content in the national cooperation frameworks has been taken from other corporate initiatives such as AGRA (the Alliance for a New Green Revolution in Africa) and the Grow Africa investment platform of the World Economic Forum. Policy commitments required of African countries joining the New Alliance include ending the free distribution of seeds, phasing out national export controls and making it easier for private investors to take over agricultural land. The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has announced that it will be contributing £395 million from the UK aid budget to the New Alliance over the coming three years.

Read the full article HERE:

         People are now more aware of the greed and corruption that goes on between  corporatism and governments and are organising against this destructive system. Saturday May 24th sees the world event of March against Monsanto, though it should be noted that Monsanto are not the only viper in this basket.

 

Details:

    The global March Against Monsanto will take place this coming Saturday, May 24th! If you haven't RSVP'd to your local event yet, you can find a location near you on this event list. If there isn't a march in your area, you can still start one! Here's how: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/2014/02/directions-to-organize-march-against.html
      Whether you are physically marching or not, please join our social media hashtag storm that will be coinciding with the march on Saturday. The details and hashtags will be released through the event page and our Facebook page. You can RSVP to the event here.
     Please invite your friends lists to your local events and to the social media storm. Here's an easy plugin for Firefox users to automatically invite all of their Facebook friends: http://mzl.la/1eIy3Ct
      To view March Against Monsanto's press release, go here. Please forward this press release to any and all of your press contacts.
       Hope to see everyone out there! Here are our links to stay up to date and get involved:
Website www.March-Against-Monsanto.com
    Global event list: www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page_5.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarchAgainstM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto -

     See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf
     If there isn't a march in your area, you can still start one! Here's how: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/2014/02/directions-to-organize-march-against.html

Website www.March-Against-Monsanto.com
      Global event list: www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page_5.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarchAgainstM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto - See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The global March Against Monsanto will take place this coming Saturday, May 24th! If you haven't RSVP'd to your local event yet, you can find a location near you on this event list. - See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf

The global March Against Monsanto will take place this coming Saturday, May 24th! If you haven't RSVP'd to your local event yet, you can find a location near you on this event list.


If there isn't a march in your area, you can still start one! Here's how: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/2014/02/directions-to-organize-march-against.html

Whether you are physically marching or not, please join our social media hashtag storm that will be coinciding with the march on Saturday. The details and hashtags will be released through the event page and our Facebook page. You can RSVP to the event here.

Please invite your friends lists to your local events and to the social media storm. Here's an easy plugin for Firefox users to automatically invite all of their Facebook friends: http://mzl.la/1eIy3Ct

To view March Against Monsanto's press release, go here. Please forward this press release to any and all of your press contacts.

Hope to see everyone out there! Here are our links to stay up to date and get involved:

Website www.March-Against-Monsanto.com
Global event list: www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page_5.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarchAgainstM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto - See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf

What Is In a Name?

       Thousands of brands but just a handful that control them all. Are you being conned?

Infographic from: Popular Science

INTERESTING???

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OUR PRIVATISED HEALTH SERVICE.

        I suppose you still remember those ConDem millionaires spouting how they would protect the NHS? Well they are working hard at making sure it becomes International Health Services, PLC. The big corporate greed merchants are all lined up waiting for that little extra perk from their millionaire friends in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, they want tax relief for companies buying up the NHS. They believe that we the public should pay for the privilege of letting the blood sucking corporate beast make millions from our sick and elderly. Recently Paul Polman, chief executive Officer of Unilever, the world's third-largest consumer goods company, stated,“The structural changes that need to be made for society still haven’t been made," he says. "There has been a growing realisation that our present model of growth, while it has served us well for a long time, certainly has enormous shortcomings which are increasingly transparent." “Individuals need to get used to lower pensions and welfare payments.(my emphases added) Government needs to get used to lower spending levels, businesses need to get used to the costs that come with it and bear their part. Everybody has to chip in. People are realising in the West that our model is not a sustainable model.”

      I love that bit, "Everybody has to chip in", we, the public, take a massive cut in our living standards, see our pensions evaporate like early morning mist in the sun, stand idly by as our social services become a commodity to be purchased from Fatcat Incorporated, buy our health care from FastBuck Ltd. then send our elderly to LastChanceSaloon, PLC. This is their idea of how to encourage growth, growth for who? Well it is obvious that the only growth to come from such a blood sucking idea will be in the bank accounts of the parasite shareholders, bank accounts that will no doubt be shuffled off to some sunny little tax haven. 

     This is the millionaire ConDem way of protecting our NHS, making sure it becomes the biggest money spinner their millionaire corporate friends have seen in their lifetime. The biggest rip-off they have managed to engineer in generations. All the health care you could possibly wish for at a price and if you can't manage the price, well see some back street shady practitioner who'll do it on the cheap for you. It's market forces in health, just as you can by cheap shoes or expensive shoes, so you will be able to buy cheap health care or if you're lucky the better article, expensive health care.  

        The following from A World to Win: 

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THE USUAL CORPORATE FASCISM.

   Bank scandals, corporate fiddling taxes, trampling human rights, all in the name of greed. It is the system that is corrupt, the individual  corporate bodies just play the game of profit before all else. People, their rights and their needs don't come into the equation.

An appeal from IUF: 

    Two years after signing an agreement with the IUF which it has never implemented, Unilever is on the verge of committing itself to 4 more years of violating the basic rights of a group of Indian workers. Does the company's signature signify nothing?
       The agreement signed under the auspices of the UK government in July 2010 committed Unilever to restoring to the workers in its factory in Doom Dooma, Assam (India) their right to freely choose the union they wished to adhere to and which would represent them for collective bargaining purposes.
    The last two years, however, have seen only evasions, provocations and management lies. Management is now preparing to sign a new, long-term agreement with the organization it created to crush the IUF's affiliate and confiscate their rights for yet another 4 years. The workers have never had the possibility to do what they were promised: freely choose their union in conditions of security and anonymity,

Act now! - click here send a message to company CEO Paul Polman telling Unilever to honor the agreement they have signed.


Ron Oswald
General Secretary, IUF

International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

8, rampe du Pont-Rouge
1213 Petit Lancy, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 793 22 33
Fax: +41 22 793 22 38
web-site: www.iuf.org

     If you wish to receive regular news from the IUF in addition to our urgent action appeals Click here to subscribe to the new IUF News Service

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ANOTHER ATTACK ON OUR PENSIONS.

        A bit later than I would have liked but their is so much justified unrest among the ordinary people it can't all be reported at once. The struggle is everywhere, the struggle is global.

Date: 20 January 2012

Usdaw, the union that represents workers at Unilever’s manufacturing sites in Leeds and Port Sunlight, has accused Unilever of ‘breathtaking complacency’ in its approach to the escalating pension dispute at the company.

The accusation comes on the day Usdaw members at Port Sunlight and Leeds begin a second round of 24 hour strikes as part of a 12 day rolling programme of action involving unions at all of Unilever’s 12 UK sites.

Picket lines will be in place from 6.00pm today at Port Sunlight and from 7.00pm today at Seacroft in Leeds.

The rolling programme of action was agreed by reps from Usdaw, Unite and the GMB, following Unilever’s refusal to reconvene talks on the future of the company’s final salary pension scheme, despite a first wave of strikes in early December.

David Johnson, Usdaw National Officer said:

“Unilever’s continuing intransigence and refusal to return to the negotiating table, coupled with its statement this week saying ‘it is currently not clear how the dispute will be resolved’ demonstrates a breathtaking complacency in its approach to the dispute.”

“Our members, and I’m sure every employee at the company, knows that the dispute will only be resolved around the negotiating table and the sooner Unilever wise up to this fact the sooner this escalating and damaging dispute will end.”

“The apparent indifference of the company to the impact of the dispute has angered our members to the extent that they are now pushing for much longer and more frequent industrial action to maximise the financial and operational impact on the company.”

“Unilever’s customers, shareholders and other stakeholders could be forgiven for thinking that the company cares less for its employees and its corporate reputation than it does for one of its brands of soap powder or deodorant.”

Usdaw represents workers at Unilever’s manufacturing facilities at Port Sunlight in Wirral and Seacroft in Leeds. The union also has a small number of members at Unilever’s Research and Development facility in Port Sunlight and at the company’s factory in Warrington.

1. Unilever closed its final salary pension scheme to new members in 2008, but promised the 5,000 existing members that this would make the scheme safe for the future. Despite this promise, Unilever announced in May 2011 that it intended to close the scheme altogether and replace it with a career average scheme that will mean workers losing an average of 20% of their projected retirement income with some losing up to 40%.
2. In November 2011, Usdaw members voted by a margin of 5 to 1 in favour of industrial action in protest at Unilever’s proposals. The first 24 hour strikes took place on 8 and 9 December 2011.
3. Usdaw (the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK’s fourth biggest and fastest growing trade union with over 410,000 members. Membership has increased by more than 17% in the last five years and by nearly a third in the last decade. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemicals and other trades.
5. 

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IUF Uniting food, farm and hotel workers world-wide

      Four years after punishing lockout, one year after OECD agreement, Unilever Assam workers still waiting for their union to be recognized.

      Business is doing well at Unilever’s personal products factory at Doom Dooma in the Indian state of Assam. But nearly 4 years after management tried to destroy the union with a punishing 6-week lockout, and almost one year since the IUF and Unilever formally concluded an agreement to settle the dispute under the auspices of the UK government, the workers are still waiting for their union to be recognized as their collective bargaining agent. The workers’ mood is one of deepening frustration. How has this happened?

Read the full story here

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