Driven By Unbridled greed.

      Large corporations are having a field day, most of them are holding large volumes of cash but are still using the "austerity" plan as a method of making more. It gives them the excuse to lay-off workers by what ever means possible, it can be out-sourcing or efficiency cuts, the effects are the same, spreading the load over fewer workers, and/or lower wages, but to them more importantly, higher profits.

This appeal from Labour Start:   

      The FNV Bondgenoten is taking action in support of their members' demand for decent transfer conditions for service workers scheduled to be outsourced. Their terms and conditions under the new employer, catering and service giant Sodexo, will be severely degraded. Many of these workers, employed in catering, cleaning, security, and reception are long-serving Unilever employees. The union is demanding safeguards and compensation for being tossed on the outsourcing scrapheap - support their struggle.  Sign up to the IUF campaign by clicking here to send a message to Unilever. 

       In another 8 days we're closing down the 3rd annual LabourStart survey of trade union use of the net.  Fillling in the survey will only take you a couple of minutes and will provide invaluable information not only to us, but to the international trade union movement.  Please fill in the survey here.

       Finally, we need just over 500 more of you to send your messages of protest to the Turkish government following raids that resulted in the arrests of over a hundred trade union leaders.  If 500 of you send off your messages today, that will bring the total up to 10,000 -- a number which we hope the Turkish government will not ignore.  Please help us grow this campaign and spread the word in your unions.

 

Thank you for your support.

 

Eric Lee

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Which campaigns have I missed?  Click here to find out.

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It Is World Wide Class War.

        On reading the following article I found it hard to believe that the writer was not writing about the UK. The evaporation of private sector jobs by out sourcing, the destruction of unions and collective bargaining, the demonising of public sector workers and the demolition of social services etc.. Of course it was just a momentary lapse, for I am well aware that this assault on the living standards of the ordinary people is not just a UK event. This is a Western capitalist strategy to extract the last drop of profit from the people to further their own greed. A determined effort to create a Western capitalist sweatshop empire to compete with their Eastern sweatshop competitor. Like the article says, this is not something that is unavoidable, it is not following some immutable laws of nature. It is a man made ideology that is being rigorously pursued by people, people with an aim, to enrich themselves and their cabal of millionaires and billionaires at the expense of you and I. The class war is now fully on the world stage. You could say it is World War 3.

This extract from the article by Andy Piascik in the Connecticut Post, 

       The destruction of good-paying private-sector jobs and the current assault on the public sector is further evidence of the failure of capitalism. In many ways, this is a historical epoch as we witness the utter bankruptcy of a system where the global super-rich have bled the people dry and now seek to gut what remains of the public sector. Those efforts are being met with tremendous resistance, however, as millions work together in search of a better way.

Perhaps most instructive is the burgeoning cooperative movement where workers and communities make do without owners or bosses and instead produce cooperatively based on need. Such workplaces are mainstays in places as diverse as Argentina and Greece and shine much-needed light on how people around the world might free themselves from the clutches of corporate predators.

Read the full article HERE:

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In This Society Money Makes The Man.

       An old 1963 Soviet Union cartoon, not much has changed, it still make sense today.

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Time For Your Righteous Anger.

       As usual the anger of the people across Europe at the slashing of their standard of living, goes more or less unreported in our babbling brook of bullshit that passes for mainstream media. Week in week out some where in Europe people are on the street displaying their disgust and anger at the corruption of the puppet governments of the financial Mafia. The message from the bullshit factory is that everything is going fine and the people realise that they have to make sacrifices. The reality is that the people are aware of the smoke and mirrors of the corrupt political careerists and the financial Mafia, that awareness is backed up by anger. Anger that should, with justification, explode and drive this economic system that favours the parasites to the dustbin of history. There is an old Korean saying that fits the moment,

"Enjoy the ecstasy of your righteous anger."

Just one of the many, and for those who rely on the babbling brook of bullshit and missed it:

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Theft From The Poor.

       Most of us realise that the present economic system is crazy, unjust, and corrupt, and we will spout this from time to time. However sometimes, even those who are steeped in its rituals and take the reigns of power, can't help but comment on its stupidity, brutality and unfairness.

"Every gun that is made, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

General Dwight Eisenhower, formed US President.

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Who Owns The Basics of Life?

    Some things are necessary for survival, like water, shelter and food, without any one of these basics your survival is in jeopardy, yet we tolerate a system where by if you don't have enough of that stuff called money, you can be denied these basic necessities. Probably one reason this cruel unjust system survives is because you don't die suddenly. With poverty you can be denied one or all of these basics, not enough money means cheap crap food, not enough food, and you die, rather slowly. We won't see people fall over and die in the street, they will just simply deteriorate and die young, the shock factor isn't there. Likewise the homeless, a hidden slow death by poverty, murder by shareholders. Across the world day in day out, millions of lives are shortened by not having access to clean drinking water. Why should the flow and distribution of the very basics of life be under the control of the Davos Club, that group of greedy, pampered, parasitical, millionaire shareholders?

      Under our millionaire's scheme of "debt reduction" and "austerity cuts" we are seeing more and more of our public assets being handed over to those shiny suits of the Davos Club. Soon there will be nothing that belongs to the people. In the UK they already own, among other things, our energy resources and we have seen the prices rocket, as they pursue ever greater profits. Social housing has long been under attack and is disappearing, financial institutions own our homes, and they are working hard at getting our water.

      These corporate conditions will produce a world where we will be completely at the mercy of those greedy, pampered, parasitical, millionaire shareholders of the Davos Club, for everything we need, and if you are poor, your only means of survival will be dependent on charity organisations. Of course we can take everything back, creating co-operatives and community controlled enterprises, it is happening in all sorts of places across the globe. People have seen enough of "free market", "neo-liberalism", which translates into ripping-off the people and widespread deprivation. The tide is turning, it has to, it must be our world, or it is a destroyed world of abject poverty.

We are the ones who knead and yet we have no bread,
we are the ones who dig for coal and yet we are cold.

We are the ones who have nothing,
and we are coming to take the world.

~ Tassos Livaditis (Greek poet, 1922-1988)

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Glasgow and International Women's Day.

 

      International Women's Day (March 8) has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910
In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.

1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. 1911 also saw women's 'Bread and Roses' campaign.    Read the full article HERE:

   

      Here in our own city of Glasgow can boast an army of women who have fought not just to raise the profile and rights of women, but fought in that greater struggle, the struggle for justice and freedom for all. The early part of the 20th century through the hungry 30's Glasgow had battling heroes such as Mary Barbour, Helen Crawfurd, Agnes Dollan, Jane Hamilton Patrick, Helen Brown Scott Lennox, Ethel MacDonald, and Rita Milton. From then until now there have been many more. Our city and indeed the world, owe a debt to those women who stood and fought against the tide of the conventionalism, injustice and war. 

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The Advance of the Soldier-less War.

     War is always a brutal nightmare, but the rapid advancement of the "soldier-less war" takes us into the realms of some science fiction horror movie. The idea of states controlling vast swaths of the planet by a bunch of youngsters sitting in a comfortable office near their home, in front of their console, boringly doing their 9-to-5 job, must be the nightmare of nightmares. Brutal death and devastation administered from a swivel-chair in an air conditioned office by people who have no conception of the death and destruction that they are implementing. It separates real bloodshed and death from the reality of those administering the devastation.

This appeal from Stop The War Coalition:

  Ground the Drones - sign the petition

    Stop Britain being a launchpad for killer drones. We call on the government to abandon the use of drones as a weapon of war.

     Signed by: Chris Cole (Drone Campaign Network); Jeremy Corbyn (MP for Islington North); Lindsey German (Convenor, Stop the War Coalition); Kate Hudson (CND); Rafeef Ziahdah (War On Want).

   

• Add your name to the petition
• Join us in Lincoln on the 27th April to protest against drones
  
• Share the event with your Facebook contacts

This spring, the UK will double its number of armed Reaper drones in Afghanistan and will for the first time begin operating drones over Afghanistan from a new facility at RAF Waddington near Lincoln.

    CND, Drone Campaign Network, Stop the War Coalition, War on Want and others will protest against the drones at RAF Waddington, Lincoln on the 27 April.

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FAQ by Iain McKay.

‘Everything you ever wanted to know about Anarchism, but were afraid to ask’ with Iain McKay.

Wednesday 20^th March, 7pm
_________________________________________

    Iain McKay is the author of the encyclopaedic two-volume set ‘ An Anarchist FAQ’ which sets out to cover all aspects of the Anarchist tradition, in terms of theory, history and practice. He has also written an extensive introduction to the 2011 AK Press published ‘Property Is Theft!: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader’, and is currently completing work on a new translation of the writings of Bakunin.

    Housmans are very happy to welcome Iain, who will be starting off the evening by flying through a brief history of Anarchism and highlighting the major traditions within it, before opening it up to the floor for questions and discussion. Whatever your current understanding  of Anarchism, this is a chance to ask questions, share knowledge, and raise your and others awareness in a friendly setting.

Event informationHousmans Bookshop
5 Caledonian Road
King's Cross
London N1 9DX
Tel: 020 7837 4473www.housmans.com

Entry £3, redeemable against purchase.
Nearest tube: King's Cross

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Time to Start Pushing.

     In these so called “difficult times” it is hard to grasp the difference between the rich and the poor. As you and I continue to struggle to maintain a decent standard of life, and millions fail in that attempt, the wealth of the richest parasites looks more and more like monopoly money. According to the Forbes “rich list”, the combined wealth of the world's 1,426 billionaires is a staggering $5.4 trillion. If they decided to fall out with us and form their own country, they would be the fourth richest country in the world, just behind Japan but ahead of Germany. Think of it, a country richer than Germany, with a population of just 1,426??

      At the other end of the scale, approximately one person every 3.5 seconds of each and every day, dies of hunger-related causes, a staggering 25,000 each day, most of these are children. At least 80% of the world's population lives on less than $10 a day. The world is a wealthy place but the split is criminal, with the poorest 40% of the world's population having 5% of the total income and the richest 20% accounting for 75%.

     In a world where 25,000 a day die every day because of hunger, there is an abundance of food. The problem is not the shortage of food, the problem is the system. In this capitalist system everything has to make a profit, the system traps people in poverty and the spiral is downward. Malnutrition means ill health and you are less able to earn your living, and in country after country that is a slow spiralling down to death.

      At one end, a small army with money to burn, obscene wealth for a handful of pampered parasites, private jets, yachts, mansions dotted across the world, the purchase of islands for family homes. All this off the sweat, tears and death of the many. At the other end, a multitude of hungry people, mother after mother watching her child slowly die of hunger.

     By any analysis, the system is unjust, immoral, plain wrong, stinkingly corrupt, unsustainable and not fit for purpose. That is not in doubt, the question is how long will we allow this murder for wealth to continue? How many more mothers will see their children slowly die of hunger while surrounded by food, before we say enough is enough? In a world of abundance, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to take food and distribute it to all who need it, those who stand in the way have to be pushed aside.

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Greece Today.

     A run through modern Greece today, courtesy of Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

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The Justice in Capitalism.

      Listening to our millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, spouting their “economic strategy” of austerity and debt reduction, is a lesson in double speak, smoke and mirrors and illusion. As they slash at all our social services, benefits, pensions, etc. while freezing/cutting wages, we are told that there is no alternative, it is all for our benefit and will all come right in the end.   

   There monologue goes something like this, “All you 16 to 24 year old unemployed, (skivers), just put up with it for 8 to10 years, then, as we enter the economic land of milk and honey, you will all have a well paid job with a decent pension, in one fell swoop, you will have been transformed into upwardly mobile, (strivers). All you poor on benefit, (scroungers), quietly continue with trying to survive and bring up a family in a situation of poverty and deprivation for a mere 8 to 10 years and you will be magically transported into the land of the two car “middle class” (wealth creators). As for all you pensioners, (national burden), scrape-out your existence for a short period of 8 to 10 years and you will enter the land of bus-pass paradise, as the new UK is transformed into corporate Ecotopia.” 

     For the ordinary people of this country it is a philosophy of suffer today for pie-in-the-sky tomorrow, meanwhile, the hypocritical millionaire parasites who spew this “economic strategy” go blissfully on their greedy way, day by day amassing ever great wealth. Ah, the justice in capitalism.

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We Can Do It Ourselves.

       DIY is a well known phrase but our answer to the problems of this type of society that we live in, is DIO Do It Ourselves. We can work together to create communities that can work in federation with other like-minded communities. The ordinary people have all the skills and imagination necessary to build and sustain healthy, just and happy environments. We don't need a bunch of power hungry parasites to tell us what is best for us, why should we believe a group of egotistical arrogant political careerists that tell us that to control our lives is too difficult, so we should leave that part to them. It is our lives, it is our world.

We are the ones who knead and yet we have no bread,
we are the ones who dig for coal and yet we are cold.

We are the ones who have nothing,
and we are coming to take the world.

~ Tassos Livaditis (Greek poet, 1922-1988)

This from Edible City:

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We Are Half Way There!!

       I keep mouthing off about the financial Mafia driving us back to the deprivation of the Victorian era in their attempt at creating a European sweatshop economy, well we are half way there. The figures from a newly published study from the High Pay Centre makes for some interesting reading. Its conclusions are that the UK has returned to the pay inequalities that have not been seen since the 1930's. While we, the ordinary people have seen our incomes shrivel, the top 1% have seen their share of the national income more than double since 1979, they now claim 14.5% of the national income. The national average wage in the UK sits at £20,500, while the 26,000 top earning parasites of this country receive more than that in a month after tax, taking home a tidy sum of at least £21,500 a month. Of course average earnings can be misleading, we have approximately 6.75 million people in the UK earning less than £800 a month. Think of the difference in your standard of living, £800 a month or £21,500 a month, how do you justify that disparity?

     At least one rich retired business man doesn't seem to like this. The Independent on Sunday reported that a certain Sir Mike Darrington, retired CEO of Greggs, has written to the remuneration boards of all the FTSE 100 companies begging them to show restraint on executive pay, no this is not a joke. Strange that he should write this letter AFTER he retired and not before. However I wouldn't hold my breath on a positive response from his FTSE 100 colleagues.

     Of course it is not just in Europe that this great divide is ever widening, in the US they have the same pattern, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In that land of the free and opportunity, for the year 2009, a mere 311 Americans shared between them a staggering $54 trillion, while 80% of the American population share just 7% of the national wealth. As for the bottom 40%, well they get by with barely any wealth at all. Ah well, that's capitalism for you.

      If we want to change this, and what ordinary sane person wouldn't, we will have to take a very different approach from our Sir Mike Darrington, It is no use appealing to the charity of a bunch of greedy parasites, we have to get rid of them. Would the chickens ask the fox to help them?

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Anarchist Economics, on Circled A Radio.

Glasgow's Iain McKay chats anarchism economics on Circle A Radio.

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A Smothered Arab Spring.

      In that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, there is lots of coverage of the bloodshed in Syria and lots of talk about helping the elements that are attempting to bring down the Assad regime. They spout support for democracy as why they are supporting the "Free Syrian Army", yet hardly a CS gas canister's throw away, there is another uprising which gets little or no coverage from that same babbling brook of bullshit, the uprising by the people of Bahrain. The people of Bahrain have been involved in mass protests to demand a new constitution and removal of the autocratic family that rules their country. These protests started around 2011 and are still continuing, and to date it is estimated that 114 people have been killed and approximately 2700 injured, there have been 43 deaths from excessive use of CS gas. This is an uprising by the majority of the people of Bahrain who are attempting to create a more democratic society, it has been going on as long as the Syrian bloodshed, why the difference in coverage by the babbling brook of bullshit? The main difference is that in Syria, the Assad regime doesn't let the Western corporate world get its hands on the countries resources, that really pisses off our corporate greed merchants, So he has to go, just as Saddam had to go for the same reason and why Iran is being measured up for destruction. On the other hand, the Bahrain autocratic despot family that rules that country with an iron fist, is friendly to the West and allows the Americans a free hand in keeping their massive Middle East naval killing machine based there, so that it can keep an eye on those nasty regimes that want to keep hold of their own natural resources.

       That is why our babbling brook of bullshit will always support any ragbag of armed groups as long as they get rid of any regime that doesn't play ball with the Western corporate greed machine, but will support any brutal despot dictator, family, monarch etc. as long as the allow our corporate lords and masters to profit from their existence. The people of these countries, or their conditions, are of no interest what so ever to our Western imperialists.

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February 28 - A Pointless Anniversary.

         Today 28 February 1856 the protagonists of the Crimean War, after three years of slaughter, came together in Paris and through hours of huffing and puffing, signed an armistice, which was to end on the 31 March 1856. However both sides continued the build up their defences, but they did managed to calm their blood lusts, and on March the 30 1856 the Treaty of Paris was signed, and the blood soaked land got a little respite.

      Since then right up to the present hour, the imperialists and nation states have continued to slaughter the lives of ordinary people. Treaties have come and treaties have gone but the power lust remains. Borders are crossed, borders are eliminated, power structures are destroyed and new power structures built in their place. None of this is for the benefit of those who stand in the front line, none of this carnage is for the benefit of the ordinary people. Through the years all that has changed is, why the slaughter. It used to be to further or defend the power of monarchs and imperial empires, today it is to further or defend corporate empires, resources and markets. But the pattern is still the same, we do the dying and the killing, they reap the rewards.

         Here we are in 2013 and they are still legitimising the destruction, while they make arrangements to take their killing machine out of Afghanistan, they are entering a new adventure in Mali, with warring glances at Iran. In all the recent carnage and misery, who have been the beneficiaries? An honest assessment would probably say, the arms industries and the oil and gas industry of the Western corporate empire. 

 

       The madness and killing will continue as long as we keep this greed driven system of capitalism, a system the seeks to build and defend the personal fortunes for the few. Of course there are alternatives, we could, as ordinary people, take control of our own lives and build structures that see to the needs of all our people, the type of society that we want, based on co-operation, justice, mutual aid and freedom. That means of course that capitalism must be destroyed.

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Dangerous to be in a Union.

      We should never take for granted that which our forefathers suffered and struggled to gain. So many things in today's society that we take as part of a civilised society, weren't there a generation or so ago. Most of what the ordinary people fought and struggled to achieve has to be guarded or it will be taken away from us. In this type of society it is an endless fight to move forward and to hold onto what we have achieved. Here in the UK being a member of a trade union is accepted as your choice, and once a member you don't expect to be punished. However in some parts of the world, being a union member can mean beatings, torture, prison and in some cases even death. The state will go to great lengths to crush any attempt by the people to organise to control their own lives, such ploys as labelling them terrorists, or shouting "national security", allows them to repress such movements. We don't have to go to the darkest corners of the world to find an example of how the state will try to destroy attempts by ordinary people who organise to improve their conditions. Most people see Turkey as a modern civilised country, but being a union member there is fraught with danger.

This from LabourStart:

       In the early morning of Tuesday, 19 February, Turkish police targeted members and leaders of the public sector union KESK, arresting at least 100 of them, including members of the teachers union.  

      Overall, 167 arrest warrants were issued for trade unionists.  The police have accused the trade unionists of links with terrorist organizations.

      This is not the first time that the Turkish authorities have used anti-terrorism laws to crack down on trade unionists. On 10 April, the a trial will begin against 72 additional KESK members and leaders who were arrested in June 2012.

       The International Trade Union Confederation, the Education International, Public Services International and the European Federation of Public Service Unions, representing tens of millions of organized workers around the world have launched a major new campaign demanding the immediate and unconditional release of all the arrested union members.  They also demand that the Turkish state stop harassing and labeling trade unionists as terrorists. 

 

Please take a minute and add your name to the online campaign - click here.

 

        And please make sure that your union shares this message with thousands of its members -- this is the only way to grow this campaign into something so massive that we cannot be ignored. If thousands of us send off messages, and soon, we may be able to get the Turkish government to back down and to release our brothers and sisters from jail.

 

Thank you.  And - solidarity forever!

 

Eric Lee

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Is it a Banksy?

Pixies and fairies, I'm all for them. This from Faslane Peace Camp:

Faslane Peace Camp posted in Scrap Trident! Blockade Faslane Naval Base! 3 Days of anti-Trident activities for all the family!

Faslane Peace Camp 26 February 14:13 Scrap Trident pixies spent yesterday evening painting a notice of the April Scrap Trident event on the side of the derelict Blue Ribband factory building overlooking the M8 in the Kinning Park area of Glasgow. The activists painted “Blockade Faslane April 15th 2013: www.scraptrident.org.” with the event logo on top of the building which, until now, has had an advert for the space and some graffiti. One of the painters said: “We are reclaiming this advertising space for the peace movement. The Armed Forces spend nearly £2billion a year on marketing and recruitment. The peace movement doesn't have this kind of money so we saw an opportunity for free, moral advertising and took it. We are bombarded with negative, sexist and shameless consumerist and pro-military advertising in every single space we inhabit on this planet. Even children as young as seven are targeted by military marketing via the schools we trust to educate them in their best interests. "We've reclaimed this particular space and used it to advertise direct action against nuclear weapons. An action that we believe is representative of the anti-nuclear sentiment of the majority of people in Scotland and that will have an empowering affect on all those who take part. We will continue to resist the ongoing stationing of the British nuclear weapons system on the Clyde and we will continue to fight their replacement”. The painting was done to reach out to more people in Glasgow and urge them to join in the three days of the Scrap Trident event in April.

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"Whodunnit"

       I haven't said much on the "horse meat scandal", I see it all as just one of the many aspects of the profit driven system that we have allowed to dominate our lives. The very nature of getting wealthy on the backs of others requires subterfuge, somebody has to be conned somewhere. This is just one, that for whatever reason, that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, has decided to trumpet. It is not the only "scandal" that weaves its way through the smoke and mirrors of this corrupt and exploitive system, it is just the one that is in the news.

I found this an interesting article from Socialism or Your Money Back:

 Customer to the Butcher: A pound of mince, please
Butcher to the Customer: Aye, neigh bother.

      Who is responsible for the horsemeat scandal?  "Not us’ say the government (even though they cut the number of food inspectors). ‘Nor us’, say the supermarket bosses. "Us neither" say the suppliers. "It wasn't us" say the abattoirs. As in every good ‘Whodunnit’ drama, we are looking for a bad guy. The French and then the Romanians were first to be blamed, now it is organised crime and the Mafia. The Swedes blamed the French company Spanghero who also deny the charge. The Netherlands said the Cyprus-based meat vendor Draap that sold the meat to Spanghold was responsible, and the company’s track record would suggest the Dutch had a point. In 2012 Draap was convicted of selling South American horsemeat labeled at German and Dutch beef. Draap — run by a trust in the British Virgin Islands — is owned by the company Guardstand, that in turn owns part of the arms dealing company, Ilex Ventures. According to prosecutors in New York, convicted international arms dealer Viktor Bout owns Ilex Ventures. Guardstand’s sole shareholderis Trident Trust, which sets up companies in tax-free nations. Guardstand helped set up Ilex.

Read the full article HERE:

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