politics

The Belarus saga exposes the hollowness of the west's support for human rights and democracy Neil Clark Monday March 27, 2006 The Guardian When is an election not considered free and fair by the west? Answer: when it delivers victory to a government that rejects neoliberal orthodoxy and refuses to orientate its foreign policy towards Washington or Brussels. There is no other conclusion one can come to after both the US and the EU announced swingeing sanctions on Belarus after the re-election of President Lukashenko....

It's started. The attack on Venezuela, of course this has been going on for sometime - but now it's bringing it to the people. To demonise the Venezuelan adminstration in the eyes of the public - in preparation for a long running campaign to restore the domination of capital. Hands off Venezuela: On Monday March 27, the British Channel 4 screened a documentary on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that can only be described as scandalous....

This is fantastic stuff, we're really making progress here. The government as of February the 1st increased wages for everyone in the public sector by on average 47%. The public sector now makes up about 10% of the economy (more work needs to be done there). Those in the private sector, despite more moaning from the capitalists have seen their wages rise another 15%, Chavez's government has been raising the minimum wage since around 2002, usually by 20%-30% per year....

I always said they'd never find him guilty of genocide, the prosecution in the trial suffered set back after set back. With only a few months to go finding him guilty on anything but the minor charges was looking more and more unlikely. Now just a few days ago he's found dead, apparently of natural causes. How convenient. This is an absolute disgrace. His requests for medical treatment were all denied....

As it's the 8th of March I'd thought I'd steal some history of IWD from some other website and post it here. The early years: 1909 In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913. 1910 The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women....

Well I don't understand why David Davis didn't win, may be the Tory Party has really lost it, I would of thought Davis had a much better chance of defeating Labour, after all he doesn't reek of the same ol' Tory scum that Cameron does, it's just a shame Ken Clarke always gets knocked out, there's a man no government would like to fight. At least Davis from a presentability standpoint doesn't have Tory stench leaking out of every pore on his body like Cameron....

Had a bit of a discussion with Ruth today (new work type person), she seems to believe that class is an artificial categorisation of people's wages. Class is a natural phenomenon that occurs when their is a surplus product in society. In modern capitalist society there are two grand classes that directly oppose one another, the bourgeoisie (the capitalists, the owners of production) and the proletarians (the workers, whose only ability to live is by selling their ability to labour to the capitalists)....

Oh jeez, while I was at work some woman was having a moan about the Video Recordings Act, and that her children know it's a game and they wouldn't go and bla bla murder people because it's not real etc. OK fair enough, then she crossed the line blaming it all upon "Blair's bureaucracy". Yup a Tory, anyone wearing a coat like she had on had to be one. When was the Video Recordings Act made law?...

I'm republishing another article I wrote back in 2003, this one on how Marxists should operate in regards to the European Union. It has been quite shocking and disappointing for myself with regards to the position of some so called 'Marxist' groups in respect to their policy on the European Union. Seemingly unable to spot how they're falling straight into the hands of the more extreme reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie....

Lewis Sidnick... When the wage was introduced it was set at a reasonable level but since we have seen large increases [...] The government needs to recognise that the economy is worsening, while business costs are rising. Sir Digby Jones, director general of the CBI added that next year's planned rise to £5.35 an hour would have a "serious impact" on some sectors of the economy. Yawn. Same old tired rubbish, the same tired rubbish you peddled when Labour started the minimum wage in 1999, which at that time was £3....