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For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Politics and Democracy page.
Governments and international agencies frequently boast that small farmers control the largest share of the world's agricultural land. When the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization inaugurated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, he sang the praises of family farmers but didn't once mention the need for land reform. Instead, he announced that family farms already manage most of the world's farmland - a whopping 70%, according to his team.
But a new review of the data carried out by GRAIN reveals that the opposite is true. Small farms, which produce most of the world's food, are currently squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world's farmland - or less than one fifth if you leave out China and India.
"We are fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of the rich and powerful," said Henk Hobbelink, coordinator of GRAIN. "The overwhelming majority of farming families today have less than two hectares to cultivate and that share is shrinking. If we do nothing to reverse this trend, the world will lose its capacity to feed itself."
Marina Dos Santos of the Coordination of the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST), and of La Via Campesina, states: "Today, the peasantry is criminalised, taken to court and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. Currently, there are an alarming numbers of deaths that go unpunished. States have created legal concepts such as terrorism and sabotage to intimidate our struggle. Every day we are exposed to systematic expulsion from our land. This affects not only peasants fighting to stay on the land, but also many other small farmers and indigenous peoples who are the target of greedy foreign interests. We want the land in order to live and to produce, as these are our basic rights against land grabbing corporations who seek only speculation and profit."
"People need to understand that if the current processes of land concentration continue, then no matter how hard-working, efficient and productive they are, small farmers will simply not be able to carry on," said GRAIN's Camila Montecinos. "The concentration of fertile agricultural land in fewer and fewer hands is directly related to the increasing number of people going hungry every day."
Hungry for Land--Small Farmers Feed the World
Grain, May 28, 2014
Straight to the Source

subset: commoncrawl


text:
When an "American Gangster" bumped into "Vito Corleone" at Leonardo DiCaprio's New York City birthday party, attendees witnessed firsthand how rival celebrity Gangs of New York settle unfinished business. And it wasn't pretty for Jay-Z. According to the New York Post, Jigga waltzed over to Rober ... More >>
Pastor Vincent Spann will save Liberty City's soul one addict at a time if he can stay out of jail.
Jacob Katel Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny painted on a wall in Miami's Wynwood Arts District. Jack Nicholson, aka Jack Torrance, in The Shining appears with an assortment of other killers, psychos and sociopaths from recent film history.
The Godfather game isn't personal. It's strictly business.
In the wake of Miami's fire fee scandal, the city manager goes nuclear on the Herald, Tomas Regalado, and taxpayers
For two years Goya Foods has waged a war to prevent its workers from unionizing. Now things are starting to get really ugly.


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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-120166022014-11-20T00:28:20.157ZMAILSTROM"I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the World." - Eugene V. Debsajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-49671796277811796402014-11-17T02:22:00.000Z2014-11-17T02:22:24.012ZSome people are more equal than others.

Today, the United States has the fourth most uneven income distribution among economically developed nations. According to Forbes, a leading business magazine, the combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans has now reached the staggering total of $2.3 trillion. This gives them an average net worth of $5.7 billion–an increase of 14 percent over the previous year.<o:p></o:p>

Other Americans aren't doing nearly as well. According to the Census Bureau, more than 45 million Americans are living in poverty, which it defines as under $11,490 a year for an individual and under $23,550 for a family of four. Many of them endure lives of hunger, misery, and despair, helped along by a Congress that has slashed billions from government food stamp programs, ended extended unemployment benefits, and refused to raise the minimum wage. <o:p></o:p>

From 1978 to 2013, CEO compensation, inflation-adjusted, grew by 937 percent, while the typical worker's compensation over that same period grew by only 10 percent. Thus, although the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965, it stood at 296-to-1 in 2013. <o:p></o:p>

Americans on middle income, plagued by stagnant income and declining wealth, has also suffered. According to the Federal Reserve, between 2010 and 2013 median income in the United States fell by five percent. Indeed, since 1989, the median net worth of the statistical 'middle class'–the middle 20 percent of Americans–has dropped by nearly 18 percent.<o:p></o:p>

From 1989 to 2013, the wealthiest three percent of Americans increased their share of the wealth from 44.8 percent to 54.4 percent, while the bottom 90 percent found their share of the wealth dropping from 33.2 percent to 24.7 percent.<o:p></o:p>

The wealthiest Americans have grown richer at the expense of others. In 2005, Larry Ellison ho now is worth $50 billion, and reportedly has 15 or so homes scattered all around the world. Among his yachts are two exceptionally big ones, each over half as long as a football field. bought out PeopleSoft, an 11,000-employee competitor, and then eliminated the jobs of 5,000 of them. <o:p></o:p>

Or consider the four members of the Walton family–owners of Wal-Mart, the country's biggest private employer–who rank among the top 10 richest Americans, with a combined net worth of $143.7 billion. Most of their full-time workers are paid less than $25,000 a year. Wal-Mart's cashiers, for example, average $8.48 an hour, and thousands of Wal-Mart workers receive no more than the minimum wage ($7.25 an hour). These low wages keep many of the company's workers mired in poverty and dependent upon government assistance. Indeed, it is estimated that Wal-Mart's low-wage workers cost American taxpayers $6.2 billion a year in public assistance, including food stamps, Medicaid, and subsidized housing.<o:p></o:p>

Charles and David Koch, the sons of a wealthy founder of the John Birch Society, as well as the fourth and fifth richest Americans (with $84 billion). Over the years, the Koch brothers have used their vast wealth to champion the abolition of public schools, the postal system, minimum wage laws, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Bankrolling a broad variety of right-wing groups and foundations, they have zealously opposed legislation providing for environmental protection, health care reform, and limits on campaign contributions. As massive financiers of right-wing election campaigns–including more than $400 million to candidates in 2011-2012 alone–they have been very effective in pulling the Republican Party and American politics rightward.<o:p></o:p>

pt foundations often use them for questionable purposes. Since 2008, the Gates Foundation–funded by Bill Gates (the nation's wealthiest individual, with $81 billion)–has spent at least $2 billion to undermine public schools by promoting charter schools, high-stakes standardized testing, and other corporate educational initiatives. The Gates Foundation has also played a key role in creating organizations opposing teacher unions and teacher tenure. Meanwhile, the Walton Foundation contributed more than $750 million to these efforts. Both the Gates and Walton Foundations have funded the work of ALEC, the right-wing operation that has successfully promoted the passage of state laws that restrict voting rights, weaken unions, privatize education, harass immigrants, encourage "Stand Your Ground" behavior, and, of course, provide big tax cuts for the rich.<o:p></o:p>

According to Forbes, the top "industry" among the 400 richest Americans is "investments." Are these stock market and hedge fund speculators really the most valuable members of society?<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> From here </o:p>

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-31841315968229824382014-11-16T01:30:00.001Z2014-11-16T01:30:08.143Zour choice

While science and technology have increased the land's capacity for producing food, it is sobering thought to realize that of the 7 billion people inhabiting the earth, 1 billion are hungry.<o:p></o:p>

Sustainability. That's the popular word today in discussions of food production and the environment. But for farmers, 'sustainability' means not only those practices that are good for managing soil, water, and land, it also means a few things practical to the business side of the farm, such as having enough land and feed to sustain the cattle, or managing the farm to stay profitable and in business, or managing the land in a way that brings opportunities to future generations. At its basic level, sustainability can mean maximizing the land's potential to produce more forage per acre and more milk per cow. Profitability. Whatever the specific definition of 'sustainable,' one thing is for certain: economics drive solutions within capitalism.<o:p></o:p>

We humans face a choice. As populations grow towards crisis levels and earth resources come under near-intolerable pressure, we have to decide how to feed ourselves.<o:p></o:p>

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-77744904539869175012014-11-13T14:42:00.002Z2014-11-13T14:42:39.366ZAnother Day of Infamy

October 2003, an independent, blue-ribbon commission released its findings from an investigation into an internationally significant 36-year-old attack on a US Navy ship that left more than 200 American sailors killed or wounded.<o:p></o:p>

The commission consists of:<o:p></o:p>

A former ambassador to one of the US's most important allies<o:p></o:p>

A US Navy rear admiral and former head of the Navy's legal division<o:p></o:p>

A Marine general, America's highest ranking recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the former Assistant Commandant of Marines<o:p></o:p>

A US Navy four-star admiral, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest military position in the country), former Chief of Naval Operations, a World War II hero, and the only Naval admiral to have commanded both the Pacific and the Atlantic fleets<o:p></o:p>

The panel is moderated by a former ambassador who served as Chief of Mission in Iraq and Deputy Director of Ronald Reagan's White House Task Force on Terrorism.<o:p></o:p>

The commission findings:<o:p></o:p>

» That the attack, by a US ally, was a "deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew"<o:p></o:p>

» That the ally committed "acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States"<o:p></o:p>

» That the attack involved the machine-gunning of stretcher-bearers and life rafts<o:p></o:p>

» That "the White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of the [ship]... never before in American naval history has a rescue mission been cancelled when an American ship was under attack"<o:p></o:p>

» That surviving crew members were later threatened with "court-martial, imprisonment or worse" if they talked to anyone about what had happened to them; and were "abandoned by their own government"<o:p></o:p>

» That due to the influence of the ally's "powerful supporters in the United States, the White House deliberately covered up the facts of this attack from the American people"<o:p></o:p>

» That due to continuing pressure by this lobby, this attack remains "the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress"<o:p></o:p>

» That "there has been an official cover-up without precedent in American naval history"<o:p></o:p>

» That "the truth about Israel's attack and subsequent White House cover-up continues to be officially concealed from the American people to the present day and is a national disgrace"<o:p></o:p>

» That "a danger to the national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation..." and that this policy "endangers the safety of Americans and the security of the United States"<o:p></o:p>

In 1967, at the height of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, the Israeli Air Force launched an unprovoked attack on the USS Liberty, a US Navy spy ship that was monitoring the conflict from the safety of international waters in the Mediterranean. Israeli jet fighters hit the vessel with rockets, cannon fire and napalm, before three Israeli torpedo boats moved in to launch a second more devastating attack. Though she did not sink, the Liberty was badly damaged. Thirty-four US servicemen and civilian analysts were killed, another 171 were wounded. The official claim is that the Israeli attack – which lasted two hourswas somehow accidental. <o:p></o:p>

Few Americans realize that a US president chose to sacrifice US interests and US servicemen (specifically, the 25 of the 34 dead who were killed after US rescue missions were recalled) to Israeli interests, and then ordered a cover-up of his actions. The official investigation gave one week to conduct an investigation that normally would have been allotted a minimum of six months, found the attack to be a case of "mistaken identity." Its conclusions had been a sham. President Lyndon Johnson and his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, had ordered the court to cover up the fact that all the evidence had indicated clearly that the attack had been intentional.<o:p></o:p>

One of the Israeli pilots Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Yiftach Spector explained, "There was a mistake. Mistakes happen. As far as I know, the mistake was of the USS Liberty being there in the first place…" said Spector, "…The fool is one who wanders about in the dark in dangerous places, so they should not come with any complaints."

Or that Israel quibbled for years over what it would pay in compensation to the widows, children, and parents of those it killed and to the United States for the ship it destroyed. (Thirteen years later it grudgingly paid $6 million for a ship valued at $40 million.)<o:p></o:p>

From here

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/misslib.html

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-29149914424145264562014-10-17T03:46:00.002+01:002014-10-17T03:46:54.402+01:00Chomsky Thoughts
Noam Chomsky is a highly respected political commentator and activist over a number of decades. Chomsky has often often dubbed as the world's greatest living philosopher, a man who is steadfastly opposed to icons of any description, to human sheep following political shepherds. He even opposed the documentary about the book he co-wrote with Edward S. Herman (Manufacturing Consent) on the grounds that it personalised grand political issues. Noam Chomsky, one of the world's most important intellectual figures in both the sciences and the humanities, and one of the ten most quoted writers of all time, ranking with Marx, the Bible and Shakespeare, has admitted that his speeches are very boring. But, he says, that's the way he likes it. It means that, when people turn up to listen to him, and millions do, they're doing so because they're interested in the issues Chomsky is talking about, not in Chomsky himself as some kind of intellectual celebrity. Therefore it is always surprising to witness the degree of personal adulation bestowed on this man by many people. We do not underestimate the immeasurable contribution that Noam Chomsky has made, and is making, to radically change the world, but to treat him as a saviour is to misunderstand his arguments. His popularity cannot be doubted. Books and lectures are bought and attended in the thousands and he has a strong influence amongst the left and anarchists. But mere anti-capitalism is not enough as it can encourage reformism.

Chomsky's opposition to the wages-system is always clearly put: "I don't think that many people ought to be forced to rent themselves in order to survive", as he once put it. He's quoted at on point as saying, "capitalist relations of production, wage labor, competitiveness, the ideology of 'possessive individualism' - all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman." Another time he said "Presupposing that there have to be states is like saying, what kind of feudal system should we have that would be the best one? What kind of slavery would be the best kind?" Noam Chomsky puts it, "the effort to overcome 'wage-slavery' has been going on since the beginnings of the industrial revolution, [and] we haven't advanced an inch. In fact, we're worse off than we were a hundred years ago in terms of understanding the issues." Chomsky is right, and it's the reason we in the Socialist Party devote so much of our time and energy to promoting an understanding of the issues. We seem, in fact, to be the only political organisation in this country to take this task at all seriously.

Chomsky has argued that the problem of human rights abuse was just a necessary consequence of having a system run by bankers not by philanthropists or moral philosophers, yet the reformers want him to approve of huge human efforts to plead with governments to act more kindly. Chomsky seems to treat legal interference with capitalism as an unreliable solution to the problems of human rights violations. Chomsky patiently explains there was no convincing evidence that governments could be persuaded by moralists to run capitalism in accordance with anything but the principles of accounting. Many people on the Left have an unwarranted optimistic view of what can be achieved by using the law to tame and control commerce. History has shown them to be nothing but disposable guarantees whenever they prove an inconvenience to the ruling class. Chomsky's analysis of capitalist society broadly hits the mark and socialists could find little to disagree with generally. However, the leftist and anarchist supporters who look to Chomsky for inspiration miss the wider point. While Chomsky blames capitalism for poverty, human rights abuse, limited democracy and so on, his adherents support fruitless reformist campaigns banging the capitalist table with a begging bowl, waiting for some new "right" like a dog barking for a crumb from his master's plate. To blame Chomsky for his supporters may seem a touch harsh, especially as he has consistently spoken out against the following of leaders. many who read or hear Chomsky will arrive at something close to anti-capitalist conclusions but without the aim of abolishing capitalism itself this means relatively little. If Chomsky can be accused of a fault it is he does little to redress this. He does not oppose reformism as such and so unfortunately his analysis serves to assist futile reformism, however much this may not be his aim. While Chomsky's anti-leadership, anti-capitalism stance is sincere it runs counter to the adoring leftists who persist in quoting his analysis while campaigning for minimal gains and not for the abolition of the system which creates the need for such demands that seek to address problems which capitalism inevitably cannot solve.

According to Noam Chomsky, writing in On Power and Ideology and referring to the US as a 'capitalist democracy', true capitalism isn't possible, state intervention being a necessary component for several reasons: to regulate markets, to support business interests and to employ its means of violence in the international arena on behalf of business. Many would agree with this assertion and with his comment that democracy is a commodity – you can have as much of it as you can afford. It is probably pertinent to add to Chomsky's statement that true democracy also is not possible in capitalism because the system (and the market) is manipulated by the capitalists to fit their agenda by use of media, advertising and lobbying. The incompatibility of capitalism and democracy, which follow opposing principles, render democratic capitalism an oxymoron. Chomsky has said, 'Propaganda is as necessary to bourgeois democracy as repression is to the totalitarian state.' The purpose of both to keep control.

He is scathing of the so-called libertarians . "If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don't care whether other people's kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that's called "libertarian" for some wild reason. I mean, it's actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public." http://www.alternet.org/economy/chomsky-business-elites-are-waging-brutal-class-war-america-0?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Socialists aren't the only people pointing out that it is useless pleading with governments to end the problems which are endemic to capitalism. Noam Chomsky reiterates this. Chomsky's conception of socialism is not quite the same as ours. He is against the idea of providing a detailed plan of a future society, preferring to rely on general principles. He favours making changes piecemeal, since we cannot know the effects of large social changes; and if one change works out well, make further changes. But he does not explain how a major change to abolish the wages system could be carried out piecemeal. Many anarchists also disagree with him when he advocates defending and strengthening some aspects of state authority. His stance is that only the (US) federal government can protect people from the tyranny of corporations. Chomsky has also often expressed his support for 'left wing' governments such as Lula and Chavez. He gives the example of environmental regulations, but admits that these have only a limited effect. Chomsky points out that in capitalism "politics takes place in the shadow cast by big business". His objective is to get out of that shadow. "Once democracy has been enlarged far enough for citizens to control the means of production and trade, and they take part in the overall running and management of the environment in which they live, then the state will gradually be able to disappear. It will be replaced by voluntary associations at our place of work and where we live."

The main criticism to level at Chomsky, although he would not see it as a criticism at all, is that he is insufficiently Marxian. He understands, as he puts it in the book, that many of the crimes he documents are "rooted in deeper features of prevailing socioeconomic and political systems". But he is unconvinced of the power of Marxist theory. It means that Chomsky is able to applaud efforts to democratise capitalist commodity production, without having anything much to say about whether it might be necessary to go beyond this if humanity is ever to achieve a truly free society.

 Capitalism subverts human need to profit and this is at the heart of the problems Chomsky so ably denounces. No amount of tinkering within capitalism can change this essential characteristic. Two centuries of hope has produced nothing but more capitalist misery and failed reformist efforts. Only organisation for socialism will do. The working class must organise not to reform capitalism but to abolish it and establish a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of productive wealth. A society of free access and real democracy and an end to classes, states, governments, frontiers, leaders and coercion. A world without vested "interests" and freed from the constraints of profit.

The last word should be left to Chomsky:
"There are no set anarchist principles, no libertarian creed to which we must all swear allegiance. Anarchism - at least as I understand it - is a movement that tries to identify organisations exerting authority and domination, to ask them to justify their actions and, if they are unable to do so, as often happens, to try to supersede them. Far from collapsing, anarchism and libertarian thought are flourishing. They have given rise to real progress in many fields. Forms of oppression and injustice that were once barely recognised, less still disputed, are no longer allowed. That in itself is a success, a step forward for all humankind, certainly not a failure."

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-14416785152962665162014-08-03T12:52:00.001+01:002014-08-03T12:52:18.009+01:00The Independence Ref...errr?...end...ummmm?

The Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the 2nd August adopted the following as a statement on the Scottish Breakaway Referendum on 18 September:-

Most of us don't own a single square inch of Scotland.

It doesn't belong to us: we just live here and work for the people who do own it. In or out of the Union, that won't change.

In Scotland, society is run in the interests of those who own the wealth. They argue among each other over billions of barrels of oil, GDP rates, profits and exports, because where the borders lie matters to them. Every border is an opportunity to wring cash out of other property owners. Scotland will remain dependent upon their whims and interests whatever the outcome of the referendum.

They'll try to sway us one way or another with crumbs (or the promises of crumbs) but we'll only get what they feel they can spare to protect their privilege and wealth. We will remain dependent upon their investments making a profit for them before we can get our needs and interests seen to

The only way to stop this dependency would be for us to take ownership and control of the wealth of the world into our own hands. We could, together, use the wealth of the world to meet our mutual needs and grant the true independence of being able to control our work and our lives in free and voluntary association of equals.

Though the outcome of this referendum is irrelevant, it is an opportunity for us to tell our fellow workers that this is what we want. We don't have to suffer in silence, we can go to the ballot stations and write "NEITHER YES NOR NO BUT WORLD SOCIALISM" across the voting paper. Then, join The Socialist Party to fight for an independent world."

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-50411940900481517712014-08-03T03:23:00.003+01:002014-08-03T03:24:20.993+01:00The Israeli PR

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-13523846889130186072014-07-24T01:59:00.002+01:002014-07-24T01:59:19.716+01:00Gaza - The Doctors' Response
Well worth linking to is this letter in The Lancet

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61044-8/fulltext
ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-66880455147335750572014-07-19T14:15:00.003+01:002014-07-19T14:15:08.915+01:00Global Warming
The American West is locked in what's likely to be recorded as the worst drought in U.S. history as farmers and industry from Texas to California despair over conditions so severe that California is expected to introduce statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time ever.

But the U.S. isn't alone. In South America, a drought in northeastern Brazil has wreaked havoc among coffee growers and spiked coffee prices around the world. Severe drought conditions are also plaguing Australia and some regions in Africa, threatening to cause food shortages in some of the poorest nations on earth and higher prices across the world.

Ethiopia: An estimated 8 million of Ethiopia's 60 million people are at immediate risk due to drought. UNICEF estimates that 1.4 million of those at risk are children under five.

Eritrea: Successive years of drought, combined with the border war with Ethiopia, has created major food shortages. Nearly 1.3 million people are at risk.

Somalia: Due to seven consecutive poor harvests coupled with chronic insecurity in some regions, food stability is deteriorating, affecting as many as 1 million people, including 300,000 children aged under 5 years.

Sudan: An estimated 2.8 million people in the south face food insecurity in the coming months.

Uganda: About 550,000 people face food insecurity.

Morocco: The worst drought for a decade. About 70 percent of the country's arable land has been affected.

Afghanistan: Large parts of the south are severely affected, where 60 to 80 percent of livestock have died. Almost 2.5 million people, or 10 percent of the population, are at risk.

China: In the northern Shanxi province, nearly 3 million people don't have enough water. About one-third of the province's wheat crop has been hit by the drought and more than 60 percent of its soil lacks water.

India: Madhya Pradesh, along with the western states of Rajasthan and Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh in the south, are in the grip of a severe drought following the failure of last year's monsoon rains. Nearly 130 million people living in 12 states have been seriously affected by what some officials call the worst drought in 100 years.

Pakistan: Government officials estimate that nearly 3 million people - mostly villagers - face possible starvation. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Pakistan's southern Thar Desert. The drought has devastated crops and livestock in the desert, home to 1 million people, sparking fears of a massive humanitarian crisis.

http://www.ibtimes.com/global-drought-conditions-are-drying-out-several-regions-sparking-food-production-concerns-1628770

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-75204333024000217452014-07-17T14:10:00.001+01:002014-07-17T14:10:37.930+01:00The Rise of the Right

A spokesman said police had been called to "reports of a disturbance" but no arrests had been made.

He added: "The incident is being investigated by detectives from Bexley Community Safety Unit to establish whether any offences have been committed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-first-battalion-invades-mosque-demanding-removal-of-sexist-entrance-signs-9607978.html

I can name one offence...Public Order Offence 1936 - the wearing of political uniform in public places
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ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-26849499429422620142014-07-03T02:10:00.002+01:002014-07-03T02:10:12.509+01:00The Scottish Poor
The number of people living in poverty in Scotland increased to 820,000 last year, Scottish government-published figures have said.

The 2012-13 figure, which accounts for 16% of the population, was 110,000 more than in the previous year.

The number of children in poverty rose by 30,000 to 180,000. 15% of pensioners (150,000) were living in relative poverty in 2012-13, 10,000 more than the previous year

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28106456
ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-40373273764722547822014-06-10T04:28:00.001+01:002014-06-10T04:33:07.345+01:00right wing terrorists
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27767197

 Fox News will chose to either:

1) ignore the events in Las Vegas;
2) highlight those tragic events as an example for why concealed carry gun laws should be the rule of the land;
3) that it is Barack Obama's fault;
4) advance a lazy, intellectually bankrupt, and morally empty deflection: black people in Chicago shoot each other all the time!;
5) argue that these people are "sick" and "crazy", so why are we even talking about their politics?;
6) lie and commit an intellectually rapacious and craven assault on the historical record by suggesting that white supremacist Nazis are in fact really "liberals".

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-4229761425850569552014-06-04T03:55:00.002+01:002014-06-04T03:55:21.057+01:00War and Peace
The United States has roughly 5% of the world's population and 50% of the world's military spending. The U.S. military swallows 55.2 percent of federal discretionary spending, according to the National Priorities Project. No other nation spends remotely comparable funds on militarism. The U.S. spend SEVERAL TIMES what any other nation spends on war and war preparation. Military spending produces fewer jobs than spending on education or infrastructure, or even on tax cuts for working people, according to studies by the Political Economy Research Institute. It is the ethics of a sociopath to justify killing for economic gain, but of a fool to do so for economic loss. The military is the top consumer of petroleum.

 Foreign aid is $23 billion now. It would cost very little to make the U.S. the most beloved rather than most feared nation on earth. It would cost about $30 billion per year to end starvation and hunger around the world. It would cost about $11 billion per year to provide the world with clean water. Round up to $50 billion per year to provide the world with both food and water. That's 5 percent of the roughly $1 trillion the U.S. wastes every year on militarism.

 Instead a WIN/Gallup poll of 65 nations at the end of 2013 found the U.S. far ahead of any other as the nation people believed was the greatest threat to peace in the world.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/honestly-war.html
ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-2983200276532648262014-05-22T01:22:00.000+01:002014-05-22T01:22:08.075+01:00Fight Big Mac
Chanting "Hey McDonald's, You Can't Hide, We Can See Your Greedy Side," and "No Big Macs, No French Fries, Make our Wage Supersize," protesters blocked the entrance to McDonald's Hamburger University training facility in Oakbrook. Thousands of McDonald's workers demanding higher wages and the right to form a union without retaliation. Protesters want the fast food giant pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour. According to organizers, more than 100 McDonald's workers and supporters were arrested.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/05/21/363631/100-mcdonalds-workers-arrested-in-us/
ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-1500824283972222632014-05-20T01:22:00.003+01:002014-07-03T02:11:40.591+01:00workers are better people
1. The Poor Don't Cheat As Much

An analysis of seven different psychological studies found that "upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals." A series of experiments showed that upper-class individuals were more likely to break traffic laws, take valued goods from others, lie in a negotiation, and cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize.

And this doesn't even begin to examine the many, many significant cases of fraudulent behavior in the banking industry. Or private equity firms that cheat their investors over 50 percent of the time. Or the many unscrupulous corporate tax avoidance strategies.

2. The Poor Care More About Other People

Numerous reputable sources have concluded that lower class individuals tend to be more generous and trusting and helpful, compared to the upper class. As people gain in wealth, they depend less on others, and thus they have less reason to understand the feelings and needs of the less fortunate. The poor are better at interpersonal relationships because they need other people.

In addition, careful studies have determined that money pushes people further to the right, making them less egalitarian, and less willing, as a practical consequence, to provide broad educational opportunities to all members of society.

One neuro-imaging analysis even suggested that the super-wealthy view photos of impoverished people as things rather than as human beings. They react to the poor not with sympathy, but with contempt.

3. The Rich Focus on Me, Me, Me

The authors of a recent psychological study argue that rich people are different because they have the freedom to focus on self. In support of this, a number of studies have demonstrated that higher social class is associated with increased narcissism, even to the point of looking at themselves more frequently in a mirror. The rich feel entitled. They attribute success to their 'superior' traits, while people from lower economic backgrounds attribute success to societal values, such as educational opportunities.

4. The Poor Give a Greater Percentage of Their Money to Others

Research has shown that low-income Americans spend a much higher percentage of their income on charitable giving. Results from three studies average out to 4.5% from low-income people, 2.7% from those with high incomes. With respect to helping people in need, the rich give even less. As Robert Reich notes, about two-thirds of 'charitable' donations from the rich go to their foundations and alma maters, and to "culture palaces" – operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters.

Charles Koch said, "I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington." The well-being of high society, perhaps.

5. Entrepreneurs are not in the Capitalist Class

The meritorious behavior of job creation comes from the "middle class", which is quickly sliding toward lower-income status. The very rich generally don't risk their money in job-creating startup businesses. Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate.

With the demise of the "middle class", entrepreneurship is decreasing. According to a Brookings Institute report, the "firm entry rate," a measure of new firms and thus of entrepreneurial startup activity, fell by nearly half in the thirty-plus years between 1978 and 2011. America's average entrepreneur is 26 years old, but most of our 26-year-olds are burdened by student loan debt.

 9 out of 10 of the fastest-growing occupations are considered low-wage, generally not requiring a college degree.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-ways-poor-are-more-ethical-rich
ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-66985472755041618502014-05-19T02:09:00.002+01:002014-05-19T02:09:25.231+01:00Screening Out Poverty
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2631333/Mexico-divided-Stark-photos-urban-wealth-poverty-side.html
ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-54145219400488805272014-05-13T02:15:00.002+01:002014-05-13T02:15:47.978+01:00class war america
Forget the pro-Soviet sympathies and enjoy certain other truths in this video.

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-41073058805104908572014-05-05T02:24:00.002+01:002014-05-05T02:24:23.132+01:00SPGB Election Video

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-42901812948608344042014-05-01T02:47:00.005+01:002014-05-01T02:47:36.286+01:00The Insanity Of Nuclear War Thinking
First posted on the Countercurrents website

"If the adversary feels that you are unpredictable, even rash, he will be deterred from pressing you too far. The odds that he will fold increase greatly, and the unpredictable president will win another hand." - Richard Nixon

The UK-based military think-tank has produced a report (1) that uses many declassified documents, testimonies and interviews suggests that the world has, indeed, been lucky avoiding nuclear catastrophe, given the number of instances in which nuclear weapons were nearly used inadvertently as a result of miscalculation or error. Historical cases of war resulting from misunderstanding demonstrate the importance of the 'human judgment factor' in decision-making. The report describes the history of the Indian-Pakistan nuclear stand-offs, the latest being the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks which risked nuclear escalation through a possible rapid conventional response by India and a potential nuclear response by Pakistan.

India maintains civilian control over its nuclear weapons, routinely separates its warheads and missiles, and has an official policy of no first use. Its strategic posture evolved significantly as a result of the 1999 and 2002 incidents. After the 2001–02 crisis, it developed a rapid response conventional posture (dubbed the 'Cold Start' doctrine). India's military doctrine centres on the use of conventional military force in order to gain territory as quickly as possible, which might be used later as potential leverage in demanding concessions from the Pakistani government. A cable from US Ambassador to India Tim Roemer, entitled 'A Mixture of Myth and Reality', expressed doubts that India's conventional force posture would ever be used beyond the purpose of deterrence owing to operational and logistical complications, and referred to this type of military planning as rolling "the nuclear dice".

India particularly relies on a significant degree of unpredictability in the deployment of eight specialized divisions known as Integrated Battle Groups (IBG)– including infantry and artillery units – in Pakistan's territory to strike at its military's cohesion. In response, Pakistan has fielded the nuclear-tipped short-range Nasr missile, thus introducing tactical nuclear weapons into an already charged atmosphere.

Pakistan's nuclear command-and-control structure is officially divided between three authorities. The first is the National Command Authority, which is chaired by the prime minister. The second is the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), a body comprising government and military representatives set up as the result of command-and-control reforms between 1999 and 2001. The third is Strategic Forces Command, comprised of the military. The storage status of Pakistan's nuclear weapons during peacetime has not been explicitly clarified, but it is widely believed that the SPD exercises heightened vigilance against the possibility that they could go missing. Reports indicate that Pakistan does separate its warheads from its delivery systems, and that the warheads themselves are separated by 'isolating the fissile "core" or trigger from the weapon and storing it elsewhere'. While Pakistan's nuclear weapons are therefore not susceptible to being used while on a hair-trigger alert, the warhead's components are nevertheless stored at military bases and can be put together at short notice. The disputed nature of command and control over Pakistan's military raises questions regarding the stability of its nuclear forces in a context where conventional confrontations can potentially escalate without authorization from the civilian leadership. The Chatham House authors describe the near use of nuclear weapons in the confrontations between India and Pakistan.

Brasstacks

Brasstacks, was an Indian military exercise that took place in 1986–87 and involved and involved 400,000 Indian troops within 100 miles of the Rajasthan border with Pakistan, which responded with its own exercises, Flying Horse and Sledgehammer. The Indian military leadership spent two weeks debating how to respond before passing on news of the escalation to newly elected Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. On 18 January 1987, the US ambassador intervened by meeting with the Indian minister of state for defence and securing an agreement to resolve the crisis, a message he subsequently passed to Pakistani officials. Only then did India and Pakistan activate the crisis hotline. Brasstacks demonstrated miscommunication and misperception on both sides. India, for example, did not fully notify Pakistan of the exercise beforehand. In addition, Pakistan claims that Gandhi earlier agreed that Brasstacks should be reviewed and provided vague assurances. However, the exercise continued as planned and the situation escalated further, possibly because Gandhi knew so little about it.

Leading the Operation Brasstacks was Indian Chief of Army Staff General K. Sundarji, and there is reason to believe he intentionally escalated the crisis in the hope of provoking Pakistan into a military confrontation that would allow India to take out Pakistan's burgeoning nuclear weapons programme. The Pakistani intelligence service, which, rightly or wrongly, interpreted Brasstacks as a test of will with the potential for confrontation and chose to reciprocate with its own military exercises. Shortly afterwards the nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan acknowledged the existence of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Kargil Crisis

The 1999 Kargil crisis arose out of a conventional military conflict between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir. In May 1999, Pakistani troops and pro-Pakistani militants were spotted by Indian intelligence in the Kargil region of Kashmir on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC). The Indian Air Force bombed Pakistani bases along the LoC in Kargil.

The incident soon escalated into a military confrontation involving the threat to use nuclear weapons. In the midst of the crisis, Pakistan moved its nuclear weapons from storage. At the end of May, Shamshad Ahmad, Pakistan's foreign secretary, declared that Pakistan would "not hesitate to use any weapon in its arsenal to protect its territorial integrity".

The conflict ended thanks to the successful mediation of US President Bill Clinton, who was able to persuade Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to withdraw his forces from the Indian side of the LoC in Kargil. It then emerged how little Sharif knew of the Kargil incursion relative to the head of the military, General Musharraf. A government minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, later commented that Pakistan's army "very consciously only provided [Sharif] an outline of the exercise in which the focus was totally different … [It] did not involve the armed forces or crossing the [Line of Control]."

Clinton explicitly asked Sharif if he was aware of how "advanced the threat of nuclear war really was" and whether he knew that Pakistan's military had begun preparing its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif explained "I was taken aback by this revelation because I knew nothing about it. The American President further told me during the meeting that the nuclear warheads have been moved so that these could be used against India."

Bruce Riedel, an adviser to Clinton at the time of the Kargil incident, implied that Sharif was under considerable pressure to reach a solution which would allow Pakistan to save face.

Sharif feared that otherwise "fundamentalists would move against him and this meeting would be his last with Clinton". Furthermore, Sharif's denial that he gave the order to prepare Pakistan's missile forces raised concerns about the nature of military and civilian control at the time of the Kargil conflict.

The Kashmir Again

In 2001 and 2002, India and Pakistan went into a renewed cycle of hostility as a result of the unresolved Kashmir conflict and additional provocations. For 10 months, between December 2001 and October 2002, India and Pakistan kept one million soldiers in a state of high readiness. India had rejected the first use of nuclear weapons, but President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan refused to do the same and stated that the "possession of nuclear weapons by any state obviously implies they will be used under some circumstances".

The Chatham House report describes:

"The crisis was a combination of logical decision-making and seemingly irrational behaviour by decision-makers on both sides, most likely owing to misperceptions."

India assumed that Pakistan would not resort to nuclear use if it was involved in a limited conventional war, as the United States would intervene early before the crisis escalated to that level. India's defence minister maintained that Pakistan would eventually refrain from a nuclear strike because a nuclear exchange would 'destroy' Pakistan while India would 'win' and lose 'only a part of its population'.

The conflict was resolved when US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage made public a pledge by Musharraf to move against specific terrorist groups (such as Lashkar-e-Taiba) and seek negotiations with India. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was also involved in the talks with the Pakistani side to defuse the nuclear dimension of the crisis. "All this chatter about nuclear weapons is very interesting, but let's talk general-to-general,' Powell on one occasion maintained in a conversation with the Pakistani military leadership. "You know and I know that you can't possibly use nuclear weapons […] It's really an existential weapon that has not been used since 1945. So stop scaring everyone."

One socialist journal at the time wrote "What a barbaric age we live in. Still, borders are to be fought over. Still, gods to be avenged and, still, that age-old cursed prize – profit – to be sought in every stinking orifice. And were the mushroom clouds to start rising over Islamabad and New Delhi, western capitalists would still ponder how they could cash in on this hell, this hell of their system's making." (2)

Conclusion

India and Pakistan rely heavily on the diplomatic mediation of third-party states, particularly the US, to resolve their stand-offs and its presence in the region as "insurance against escalation to war". Yet the 2001–02 crisis highlighted that "what-if"... is it possible in the next crisis, US diplomacy may fail to prevent nuclear first use by Pakistan and/or nuclear retaliation by India.

Decisions about nuclear use in many of these cases came down to only a handful of people. Nuclear weapons require constant vigilance and caution. For as long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of an inadvertent, accidental or deliberate detonation remains.

(1) "Too Close for Comfort"
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/home/chatham/public_html/sites/
default/files/20140428TooCloseforComfortNuclearUseLewisWilliamsPelopidasAghlani.pdf

(2) Socialist Standard, July 2002.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1175-july-2002/world-view-kashmir-and-threat-nuclear-war

ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-71547493197943449622014-05-01T02:13:00.000+01:002014-05-01T02:15:22.221+01:00May Day

Into the Streets May First

Into the streets May First!
Into the roaring Square!
Shake the midtown towers!
Shatter the downtown air!
Come with a storm of banners,
Come with an earthquake tread,
Bells, hurl out of your belfries,
Red flag, leap out your red!
Out of the shops and factories,
Up with the sickle and hammer,
Comrades, these are our tools,
A song and a banner!
Roll song, from the sea of our hearts,
Banner, leap and be free;
Song and banner together,
Down with the bourgeoisie!
Sweep the big city, march forward,
The day is a barricade;
We hurl the bright bomb of the sun,
The moon like a hand grenade.
Pour forth like a second flood!
Thunder the alps of the air!
Subways are roaring our milllons--
Comrades, into the square!

Alfred Hayes

New Masses, May, 1934.

This world is run by a small clique – a tiny group of people who own and control the wealth and power – the 1% that controls the majority. And they have at their beck and call a host of bought and paid for politicians that do their bidding.

The economic system we live under exists to serve this small elite. In this society you don't get rich by working hard, you get rich by having others work hard for you. In fact: the harder the work, the less you get paid. Everything of value is the product of human labor; it was created by women and men working hard. The capitalists own the places where we work, we produce the goods and services and everything worthwhile – they get the profits. We are dealing with a class that is made up of parasites. Malcolm X was entirely right to say "Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker."

We seek to end the rule of the rich and build a socialist system – a system where all political and economic power is in the hands of the people. This is not a dream. Working people are the majority. We have every right to reorganise society in such a way that it serves our interests. Provided that we have the democratic organisation, determination, and understanding necessary, the future is ours.
ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-2878535046850908342014-04-25T14:12:00.002+01:002014-04-25T14:16:24.048+01:00Our Task
In the next 30 to 40 years, we must make significant progress toward solving one of the world's grand challenges by providing a safe, affordable, nutritious food supply for a growing population. It is estimated the earth will have 9 billion people by the year 2050. Even today, almost 1 billion of the 7 billion inhabitants are malnourished. Global climate change could make the situation even more dire.

Specifically, food production will have to increase 60 percent to 100 percent as population grows and people in developing countries consume more meat and dairy products. (It takes a lot of acres to rear life-stock.)

It is likely that new acres won't be as productive, so we'll need to raise yields on the land we have. Otherwise, there won't be very much wild habitat left for future generations.

A recent study by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) says, "As experts have been suspecting for a while, people's diets around the world have become very similar and in the past 50 years the world has come to rely increasingly on just a few crops for most of its food supplies." While rice remains a top cereal, people in several countries are increasingly moving from rice to a wheat and meat-based diet due to changing lifestyles and economic growth. According to the CIAT study, many local crops that used to be important in Africa or Asia such as sorghum, millet, rye, sweet potato, cassava, and yam are being eaten less and less;the same could be said of rice as is seen in Japan, South Korea and several other Asian countries. Some major crops like soybeans and corn are mostly used for animal feed and energy production, a trend blamed on urbanization and economic development.

Globalized food poses several health risks, but the real danger of relying upon just a few crops increases the risk of food crises. Similar to the concept of portfolio diversification in finance, a diversified agriculture is more resilient to major threats like drought, insect pests, and diseases, all expected to worsen with climate change. And can we rule out a food crisis due to war, or war due to a food crisis?

Prior to globalization, the risk was a local crop failure could endanger the lives of local people and trade was much more cumbersome and expensive. Now, relatively speaking, many consumers have the world at their fingertips but the vulnerability of the food system has become global. We take it for granted that we can go order a pizza because the restaurant assumes it can buy flour, and the flour mill is betting on a good wheat crop…on the other side of the world.

The socialists task is to feed the world and protect the planet
ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-75571684077881782872014-04-24T10:24:00.002+01:002014-04-24T10:40:46.172+01:00Socialism in the Euro-Elections

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-51017183364804530372014-04-24T02:32:00.000+01:002014-04-24T02:32:27.888+01:00Open the Borders
Willie fort

The influx of eastern Europeans is nothing new to the labour movement, particularly in Scotland. Upon reading "class-struggle trade unionist" Willie Hunter's letter, what struck me was the absence of a class response, and particularly a trade union one, to foreign workers. Instead there is an expectation that the capitalist state will protect the 'privileges' of the native-born worker.

At the beginning of the 20th century in Lanarkshire, there was much vitriol against Lithuanian incomers. They were employed in the iron works and the coal pits, and they too were accused of wage-cutting and scabbing. Nevertheless, the Lanarkshire County Miners' Union, in the space of some 15 years, went from offering support to miners willing to strike against Lithuanian workers to demanding that Lithuanian miners in Lanarkshire should not be deported. During those 15 years, the Lithuanians had joined the union in large numbers and were active in it. Unionisation was the key to improved relations between the Lithuanian labour force and the LCMU.

Once the Lithuanians began to respond positively to local strike demands, the other allegations made against them were simply not an issue. The adoption of a more class-conscious attitude and the strength of their new found loyalty to the union was in part due to the fact that the union had taken some very positive steps to encourage Lithuanian membership, such as printing the rules in Lithuanian and offering entitlement to claim full benefits.

I suggest Willie refreshes his class-struggle credentials with a read of A voice from the aliens from 1895 and one of the earliest appeals against immigration controls (http://goo.gl/GIPkUV).

Yes, Willie, we are worlds apart. Fear-mongering and divisive politics play well in creating more xenophobia and it has a long history, as I have shown. But those who fall for the propaganda should know that keeping out immigrants with a 'fortress Britain' (or a 'fortress Europe') has not and will not solve our problems and make us better off.

Alan Johnstone
Socialist Party of Great Britain

Xenophobic

I cannot escape the conclusion that there exists a nasty xenophobic undertone to Dave Vincent's reply (Letters, March 13).

First, has Dave never heard of the Irish immigration to Scotland and in particular to the Lanarkshire coal pits? So the Lithuanians were indeed not the only immigrant population used as cheaper labour by the bosses. Indeed many encouraged the division and the bitter consequences are still felt today every time an Orange Walk takes place locally.

But, that aside, he writes: "[Lithuanians] joined unions in their own defence" (my emphasis). How's that for a jaundiced interpretation? The local union sought them out to join for everybody's mutual defence, Dave. He then goes on to claim that "many foreign workers coming here readily line up with the employers and Tories by denigrating the British unemployed as lazy and workshy". Perhaps some do, but I hazard to guess that they are heavily outnumbered by native-born who are just as ready to point the finger at those on the so-called 'Benefit Streets' as shirkers.

Many years ago I would hear seasoned trade unionists justify pay differentials between women and male workers by claiming they worked only for pin-money and stole jobs from those who had families to raise. Dave's argument proves to be little different from those against these earlier 'interlopers' into the labour market.

The plea that immigration controls should be imposed and certain foreigners excluded should have no place in a workers' movement that is calling upon the exploited of all the world to unite for their emancipation. Any policy for the exclusion of other suffering wage-slaves is more consistent with the attitudes of the callous capitalist class rather than of the movement whose proud boast it is that it stands uncompromisingly for the oppressed and downtrodden of all the world. Immigrants have just as good a right to enter this country as British workers have in exiting it.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain will not sacrifice principle and jeopardise our goal for some immediate advantage. We will not spurn fellow workers lured here by the glimmer of hope that their burdens may be lightened by the promise of some improvement in conditions. If revolutionary socialism does not stand unflinchingly and uncompromisingly for the working class and for the exploited of all lands, then it stands for none and its claim is a false pretence.

If the Socialist Party risk losing support because we refuse to call for the border gates to be closed in the faces of our own brothers and sisters, we will be none the weaker for spurning such tactics to acquire false friends. All the votes gained would do us little good if our party ceases to be a revolutionary party, yielding to public opinion to modify our principles for the sake of popularity and membership numbers.

In the centenary year of when other supposed socialists abandoned the workers' internationalism and embraced national chauvinism - with one group under HM Hyndman going as far to demonstrate their patriotic ardour by setting up a National 'Socialist' Party - we in the Socialist Party are the party of all workers, regardless of place of birth. We stand resolutely for world socialism and if this is too encompassing for some despite them paying lip-service to the claim - so be it. We shall leave them to their various national 'socialisms'.

"Marx didn't advocate open borders because at the time he wrote border controls didn't exist. So no-one can definitively assert what he would have said then!" True enough (and fortunately for him nor was there any asylum-seekers legislation for political refugees), but Eleanor, his daughter, was particularly active in distributing the statement, "The voice of the aliens', which I recommended as a read.

I will end with a quote from it: "To punish the alien worker for the sin of the native capitalist is like the man who struck the boy because he was not strong enough to strike his father."

Alan Johnstone
Socialist Party of Great Britain

Same evils

I'm pleased that many correspondents also disagree with Dave Vincent that the nation-state is a necessary evil (Letters, March 27). It has been asked what Marx would have done. We can easily answer by describing what the First International, of which he was a member, did. They organised!

The International announced that "the emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries" and that "Each member of the International Association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the Associated Working Men". Furthermore, "To counteract the intrigues of capitalists - always ready, in cases of strikes and lockouts, to misuse the foreign workman as a tool against the native workman - is one of the particular functions which our society has hitherto performed with success. It is one of the great purposes of the Association to make the workmen of different countries not only feel but act as brethren and comrades in the army of emancipation."

The International consequently addressed fellow workers: "Help us, then, in the noble enterprise, help us to bring about a common understanding between the peoples of all countries, so that in the struggles of labour with unprincipled capitalists they may not be able to execute the threat which they so often indulge in, of using the working men of one country as instruments to defeat the just demands of the workmen in another. This has been done in the past, and seeds of discord and national antipathies have been thereby created and perpetuated. A part of our mission is to prevent the recurrence of such evils, and you can help us to achieve our aims."

Marx, in the name of the International, writes: "If the Edinburgh masters succeeded, through the import of German labour, in nullifying the concessions they had already made, it would inevitably lead to repercussions in England. No-one would suffer more than the German workers themselves, who constitute in Great Britain a larger number than the workers of all the other continental nations. And the newly imported workers, being completely helpless in a strange land, would soon sink to the level of pariahs. Furthermore, it is a point of honour with the German workers to prove to other countries that they, like their brothers in France, Belgium and Switzerland, know how to defend the common interests of their class and will not become obedient mercenaries of capital in its struggle against labour."

There is never an appeal to the capitalist state to impose immigration laws, but a call to the workers to unionise.

Borders are a means by which capitalists protect their assets, which include us. It is immigration controls that give employers greater power over migrants, particularly new arrivals or those who are dependent on them for their visa status, a power they do not always have over native workers. Nationalism is a huge barrier to developing class-consciousness. Borders cause workers in countries to care less about the other workers in the world. Across the world, national states are imposing ever more restrictive immigration policies. Nevertheless, people have become more internationalised and are acquiring a cosmopolitan identity.

Making the demand, 'No borders', reveals the importance of border controls to capitalist social relations - relationships dependent on the practices of expropriation and exploitation. The rights of property consist of the right to exclude others, while anti-nationalism is a part of a global reshaping of societies in a way that is not compatible with capitalism or of the state. Socialists must reject the concept of borders that are used as control devices over labour. By opposing the idea of borders we begin to perceive nation-states as 'theirs' and not part of 'our world'.

I'll end with another quote from the First International: "The poor have no country; in all lands they suffer from the same evils; and they therefore realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be, the more thoroughly to enslave the people, must fall."

Alan Johnstone
SPGB

First here

Firstly, if I recollect correctly, nobody in this exchange about immigration has tried to deny that supply and demand has an effect on the price of labour - which is a commodity, after all, to be bought and sold on the market.

Stephen Diamond (Letters, April 10) refers to Peter Turchin, who gives us a history lesson, in that the Black Death killed half of the population and consequently real wages tripled. Turchin also refers to high birth rates in the past as an additional cause of an increase in labour supply. Surely Stephen Diamond is not suggesting enforced eugenics as a means of protecting our living standards.

Likewise I previously mentioned in passing that the entry of women into the labour market lowered wages. In the US the demands for job equality of African Americans also had its own effect in slowing down wages. Should the labour movement have supported discrimination on the grounds of sex and race? Or shall we allot blame to those older workers who insist upon staying in their jobs, while youth unemployment soars? After all, young people do not possess the sort of savings, paid-off mortgage or upcoming pension that the elderly allegedly enjoy, do they? Let's be ageist in our search for scapegoats.

It is often pointed out that immigration rules are largely in the interests of businesses - they let in workers from low-wage countries so they can be more easily exploited and used to drive down the wage levels of the locals. But we must realise that the only way to change this would be through a powerful working class movement which had the ability to force change upon the government. And if this were the case, then it could also force change on the concrete material issues which migration impacts on (low wages, less jobs to go around, lack of affordable housing) - and, of course, a united working class is much more effective at fighting for its own interests, as opposed to one divided along national/racial/citizenship lines. So we are more likely to actually achieve something by being internationalist in regards to immigration.

The reasonable-sounding position that 'There's not enough to go around for everyone, so what we have should be kept solely for those first here' is totally antithetical to a socialist perspective. A truly working class perspective leads us to resent not each other, but what causes the shortages of resources in the first place.

Migration, for sure, generates a lot of problems, but what is the alternative? Any attempt to simply curtail it leads to a lot of suffering and plenty of draconian policies. From a working class perspective, workers from another country are not qualitatively different from workers from another gender, younger workers or workers from a different area of the same country. We are socialists for one reason only - to remove the root cause of our social problems: capitalism. The solution doesn't lie in withdrawing into these sectional interests of (simplistically put) 'First here, first served'.

Alan Johnstone
Socialist Party of Great Britain

From an exchange on the Weekly Worker Letter Page

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-83694485977509569472014-04-19T02:35:00.003+01:002014-04-19T02:35:28.857+01:00India Votes
India's elections promise business as usual for the country's wealthy and ongoing grinding poverty for its most poor of poor.

 As of 2010, some 68.8 per cent of the population lived on less than $2 per day and 32.7 per cent lived on less than $1.25 per day. That amounts to nearly 400 million people still living below the World Bank's poverty line. To put that figure in perspective, it's a third of the whole World's extremely poor. This poverty persists despite the fact that India registered an average annual GDP growth rate of 6.5 per cent from 1990 to 2010. As in many Western countries over the last 20 years, is that a disproportionate share of the gains from this economic growth has gone to the very wealthiest. Just 100 of the richest Indians are worth a staggering US$ 250 billion.

In the 2009 general election, the Left Front – comprised of the two main Communist parties and a number of smaller left of center parties – had its worst performance since independence in 1947. From an average of 45 seats in the Parliament over the previous 13 general elections, in 2009 it obtained only 24. In 2010, the country's last two explicitly left-wing state governments, in Kerala and West Bengal, fell. Pre-election polls suggest it is unlikely that the left will reverse the decline in the present elections. Their mantle has been taken over by the other parties making up the Third Front. They include the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), known for its anti-corruption stance; the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the lower caste party of Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh; and the Trinamool Congress and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIDMK), the regional parties of Mamata Banarjee in West Bengal and Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu respectively. These parties do not, individually or collectively, have a coherent policy agenda that would address India's need for inequality-reducing economic development. Even the AAP, more a party of the upwardly mobile middle class than of the poor, hardly promises to challenge the growing privatisation of India's public wealth.

The long-accepted wisdom that in the long run economic growth decreased inequality is now discredited. There is no reason to expect that inequality will decline simply as a result of market forces.

taken from here
ajohnstonehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-49455024184479968312014-04-09T03:15:00.000+01:002014-04-09T03:15:00.026+01:00Evolving Humans
Humans will evolve in 1,000 years into giants between 6ft and 7ft tall, he predicts, while life-spans will have extended to 120 years, Dr Curry claims.

Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve, he says, while men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises.

Women, on the other hand, will develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features, he adds. Racial differences will be ironed out by interbreeding, producing a uniform race of coffee-coloured people.

 In 10,000 years time humans may have paid a genetic price for relying on technology. Spoiled by gadgets designed to meet their every need, they could come to resemble domesticated animals. Social skills, such as communicating and interacting with others, could be lost, along with emotions such as love, sympathy, trust and respect. People would become less able to care for others, or perform in teams. Physically, they would start to appear more juvenile. Chins would recede, as a result of having to chew less on processed food. There could also be health problems caused by reliance on medicine, resulting in weak immune systems. Preventing deaths would also help to preserve the genetic defects that cause cancer.

 In 100,000 years' time people would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species. The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6057734.stm
ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-12016602.post-22880406376027114592014-04-03T03:53:00.000+01:002014-04-03T03:53:06.661+01:00Doomed !!

Over the Earth's history, about 99.9 per cent of all species to emerge have gone extinct. Many humans, however, cherish a notion that this doesn't apply to us. Typically, species survive for about 10 million years before they succumb, exceptions being sharks (420 million years), jellyfish (550 million years) and algae (2+ billion years).

To-day prominent figures warn of the possibility of human extinction as a result of man-made climate change. How could it come about that a species so intelligent, flexible and well-equipped could potentially destroy itself? But extinction theory doesn't depend entirely on climate change, at least in the first instance; rather, it depends on human behaviour and our responses.

The idea that man-made carbon emissions could trigger catastrophic global warming is based on two particular facts:
1. The fact that it has happened before, about 50 million years ago during an event called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, PETM for short, when the Earth's temperature increased by at least 5 degrees, and possibly as much as 9 or 10 degrees. This lasted about 200,000 years. The icecaps vanished, the oceans warmed as high as 35 degrees, corals almost disappeared. PETM was probably driven or accelerated by a vast release of seabed methane – a greenhouse gas more than 20 times more potent than CO2. Although PETM caused a severe setback to life in general, it wasn't as bad as the KT extinction which occurred about 10 million years earlier and removed the dinosaurs.
2. The fact that there are vast stores of methane in the Arctic permafrost and as frozen gas deposits on the sea bed, known as clathrates or gas hydrates. These are basically the accumulated detritus from billions of years of decomposition of dead organisms – plants, animals and algae. Clathrate deposits are estimated at between 500-2400 billion tonnes of methane – or around three times the size of the planet's estimated natural gas reserves. On top of these are tundra methane deposits estimated at 1500 billion tonnes. Together these two immense sources of carbon could boot global temperatures up by 5-10 degrees if they melt as a result of man-made warming of the Arctic and shallow seas around the continents.

What happens next is somewhat speculative, because it depends on incalculable factors in the Earth's system – and in the human character. The issue is whether such large increases in global temperatures in turn trigger further irreversible feedbacks, releasing yet more greenhouse gases, in an episode known as runaway global warming. For example, the oceans begin to evaporate more rapidly and water vapour, being another greenhouse gas, accelerates warming.
The current scientific worst case scenario here is an increase in global temperatures of about 16 degrees, which would render much of the planet uninhabitable by humans and eliminate agricultural food production. Such a scenario might not spell extinction however – Siberia, the Canadian north and Antarctica might remain habitable for survivors using advanced technologies to produce food.

However our own behaviour is liable to be a far more immediate determinant of human survival or extinction. Above two degrees – which we have already locked in – the world's food harvest is going to become increasingly unreliable, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this week. That means mid-century famines in places like India, China, the Middle East and Africa. But what scientists cannot predict is how humans living in the tropics and subtropics will respond to this form of stress. So let us turn to the strategic and military think tanks, who like to explore such scenarios, instead.

The Age of Consequences study by the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies says that under a 2.6 degree rise "nations around the world will be overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease. The internal cohesion of nations will be under great stress…as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and changes in agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world… has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources… is likely and nuclear war is possible. The social consequences range from increased religious fervour to outright chaos." Of five degrees – which the world is on course for by 2100 if present carbon emissions continue – it simply says the consequences are "inconceivable".

Eighteen nations currently have nuclear weapons technology or access to it, raising the stakes on nuclear conflict to the highest level since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, with more than 4 billion people living in the world's most vulnerable regions, scope for refugee tsunamis and pandemic disease is also large. It is on the basis of scenarios such as these that scientists like Peter Schellnhuber – science advisor to German President Angela Merkel – and Canadian author Gwynne Dyer have warned of the potential loss of most of the human population in the conflicts, famines and pandemics spinning out of climate impacts. Whether that adds up to extinction or not rather depends on how many of the world's 20,000 nukes are let off in the process. These issues all involve assumptions about human, national and religious behaviour and are thus beyond the remit of scientific bodies like the IPCC, which can only hint at what they truly think will happen. So you are not getting the full picture from them.

However in a classic case of improvident human behaviour, a global energy stampede is taking place as oil, gas, coal, tar sands and other miners (who, being technical folk, understand quite clearly what they are doing to the planet) rush to release as much carbon as possible as profitably as possible before society takes the inevitable decision to ban it altogether. Thanks to them, humanity isn't sleep-walking to disaster so much as racing headlong to embrace it. Do the rest of us have the foresight, and the guts, to stop them? Our ultimate survival will be predicated entirely on our behaviour – not only on how well we adapt to unavoidable change, but also how quickly we apply the brakes.

http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/human-extinction-is-it-possible-20140402-zqpln.html

ajohnstonehttp://email@example.com


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Choose any 3 digits and make a 6 digit number by repeating the 3
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you choose the number will always be divisible by 7, 11 and 13.
Take any two digit number, for example 58. What do you have to do to reverse the order of the digits? Can you find a rule for reversing the order of digits for any two digit number?
A three digit number abc is always divisible by 7 when 2a+3b+c is divisible by 7. Why?
Find some examples of pairs of numbers such that their sum is a
factor of their product. eg. 4 + 12 = 16 and 4 × 12 = 48 and
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How many pairs of numbers can you find that add up to a multiple of
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Imagine we have four bags containing a large number of 1s, 4s, 7s and 10s. What numbers can we make?
For this challenge, you'll need to play Got It! Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?
List any 3 numbers. It is always possible to find a subset of
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You can work out the number someone else is thinking of as follows. Ask a friend to think of any natural number less than 100. Then ask them to tell you the remainders when this number is divided by. . . .
Can you explain how this card trick works?
The number of plants in Mr McGregor's magic potting shed increases
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Pick the number of times a week that you eat chocolate. This number must be more than one but less than ten.
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A game for two people, or play online. Given a target number, say 23, and a range of numbers to choose from, say 1-4, players take it in turns to add to the running total to hit their target.
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Take any two positive numbers. Calculate the arithmetic and geometric means. Repeat the calculations to generate a sequence of arithmetic means and geometric means. Make a note of what happens to the. . . .
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A 2 by 3 rectangle contains 8 squares and a 3 by 4 rectangle
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Can you find the values at the vertices when you know the values on
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Square numbers can be represented as the sum of consecutive odd
numbers. What is the sum of 1 + 3 + ..... + 149 + 151 + 153?
Great Granddad is very proud of his telegram from the Queen
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are even older than he is... When was he born?
Triangle numbers can be represented by a triangular array of squares. What do you notice about the sum of identical triangle numbers?
Sets of integers like 3, 4, 5 are called Pythagorean Triples, because they could be the lengths of the sides of a right-angled triangle. Can you find any more?
Some students have been working out the number of strands needed for different sizes of cable. Can you make sense of their solutions?
Start with two numbers. This is the start of a sequence. The next
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text:
The Kiwanis clubs of Glendale and Maspeth recently installed new slates of officers for the 2010 term.
On hand at Zum Stammtisch restaurant on Myrtle Avenue in Glendale, top, were immediate past President Bob Keuber, second from left, of Coldwell Banker Keuber Realty, Joe Aiello, fourth from left, newly elected lieutenant governor of Kiwanis Queens West Division and Bill Maher, fifth from right, president of the Glendale chapter.
Above, Realtor Dennis Dowd, left, Maspeth Kiwanis President Lou Bekios, Aiello, Richard Reichert of Major Lock & Glass Corp., Marie Breslin of O'Kane Realty, Thomas Rudziewick of Maspeth Federal Savings, David Gigler of Mt. Olivet Cemetery and attorney Michael Falco toasted the new officers after the installation ceremony at O'Neill's Restaurant in Maspeth. For more information, visit kiwanis.org.


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GP: Man demands pills, shows gun, pushes down pharmacist
Greenville police are looking for a man they say demanded pills, showed a gun and then pushed down a pharmacist at a CVS Wednesday morning.
Police said this happened at 6:30 a.m. at 2401 E. North Street.
According to police the man walked behind the pharmacy counter, showed a black handgun and a note demanding pills.
Police said the man then pushed the pharmacist to the ground and took off running out of the store.
They said the man did not get away with any merchandise or pills.
If you have any information call Greenville police.
Copyright 2013 by WYFF All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


text:
Dexrazoxane as a Protective Agent in Anthracycline Treated Breast Cancer (cardioprotec)
- Full Text View
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- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Chemoprotective drugs, such as dexrazoxane, may protect normal cells from the side effects of chemotherapy. Monoclonal antibodies such as trastuzumab can locate tumor cells and either kill them or deliver tumor-killing substances to them without harming normal cells. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. CTnT/cTnI/ANP/BNP were proved to be used as a biomarker of drug related cardiotoxicity. There are excellent correlations between the total cumulative dose of doxorubicin, the severity of the resulting cardiomyopathy, and the level of serum troponin-T.
Breast Cancer
Drug: Dexrazoxane hydrochloride
Phase 2
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Allocation: Randomized
Endpoint Classification: Safety/Efficacy Study
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Open Label
Primary Purpose: Treatment
|Official Title:
|Randomized Phase II Trial Of Interventional Therapy Investigate Cardiac Protection of Dexrazoxane In Women With Breast Cancer Having Experienced Grade 1 Cardiotoxicity During Prior Anthracycline-based Chemotherapy.
- Occurence of cardiac toxicity in patients with breast cancer receiving anthracycline chemotherapy [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
- Relationship between serum level of cTnT/cTnI/ANP/BNP and cardiac toxicity [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
|Study Start Date:
|June 2009
|Study Completion Date:
|February 2012
|Primary Completion Date:
|February 2012 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
|Assigned Interventions
No Intervention: control arm
anthracycline chemotherapy only
Experimental: low dose dexrazoxane group
anthracycline chemotherapy plus low dose dexrazoxane(10:1)
Drug: Dexrazoxane hydrochloride
pink power 250mg/bottle DEX:EPI,10:1 every 3 weeks
Other Name: Dexrazoxane for Injection
Experimental: middle dose dexrazoxane group
anthracycline chemotherapy plus middle dose dexrazoxane(15:1)
Drug: Dexrazoxane hydrochloride
pink power 250mg/bottle DEX:EPI,10:1 every 3 weeks
Other Name: Dexrazoxane for InjectionDrug: Dexrazoxane hydrochloride
pink powder 250mg/bottle DEX:EPI,15:1 every 3 weeks
Other Name: dexrazoxane injection
Detailed Description:
Patients with breast cancer receiving anthracycline chemotherapy randomized to 3 groups:chemotherapy plus low dose dexrazoxane,chemotherapy plus middle dose dexrazoxane, chemotherapy only.Every patient receive at least 2 cycles anthracycline chemotherapy.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|18 Years to 70 Years
|Genders Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
Inclusion Criteria:
Histologically confirmed primary infiltrating adenocarcinoma of the breast
- Confirmed by core needle biopsy or incisional biopsy or surgery
- Experienced grade 1 cardiac toxicity during prior anthracycline-based chemotherapy
- At least 2 cycles same anthracycline based chemotherapy are needed
Exclusion Criteria:
- Accumulated dose of EPI ≥1000mg/m2,ADM≥550mg/m2
- With the following risk factors: Uncontrolled or severe cardiovascular disease (e.g., myocardial infarction within the past 6 months, congestive heart failure treated with medications, or uncontrolled hypertension); Prior or Concurrent radiation to heart
- Pregnant or nursing
- Other currently active malignancy except nonmelanoma skin cancer
- Uncontrolled or severe bleeding,diarrhea,intestinal obstruction
- Grade 2 or more Cardiac Toxicity (CTC AE3.0)
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00955890
|China, Shanghai
|Fudan University Cancer Hospital
|Shanghai, Shanghai, China, 200032
|Principal Investigator:
|xichun Hu, MD
|member of Fudan University
No publications provided
|Responsible Party:
|Xichun Hu, Dr, Fudan University
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT00955890 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|August 7, 2009
|Last Updated:
|February 27, 2012
|Health Authority:
|China: Food and Drug Administration
Keywords provided by Fudan University:
anthracycline chemotherapy
breast cancer
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Breast Neoplasms
Breast Diseases
Neoplasms by Site
Skin Diseases
Antimitotic Agents
Antineoplastic Agents
Cardiotonic Agents
Cardiovascular Agents
Enzyme Inhibitors
Mitosis Modulators
Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action
Pharmacologic Actions
Physiological Effects of Drugs
Protective Agents
Therapeutic Uses
Topoisomerase II Inhibitors
Topoisomerase Inhibitors
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on November 25, 2014


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Hey baby! You'll be the sweetest thing on the dance floor in looks from our most playful theme yet - Luxe Babydoll! --Angel
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MOVIEmeterSEE RANK
Down 862 this week
Callie & Son (1981)
TV Movie - - Drama - 13 October 1981 (USA)
Callie was a teenage mother in trouble. Fresh out of the delivery room, her son was taken from her and sold on the black-market. Vowing to find him some day, this is her story.
Director:Waris Hussein
Writer:Thomas Thompson
Stars:Lindsay Wagner, Jameson Parker, Dabney Coleman | See full cast and crew »


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noun: Accourding to Samuel L. Jackson, ABSOLUTELY the worst place to have unaccounted-for snakes.
Samuel L. Jackson: We got Snakes on a Plane, man!
von Johey Christian 18. August 2006
a marijuana ciggarette. a "joint"
i just rolled a fat plane. you wanna spark it?
von i<3 MaryJane 30. Juli 2010
Something that those motherfucking snakes should get off of.
Samuel L. Jackson: Thats it! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes, on this motherfucking plane!
von Blitzkrieg999 1. Mai 2010
Shorthand for aeroplane.
I just got off the plane an hour ago.
von Gumba Gumba 4. April 2004
Anything that flies, except helicopters, birds, Superman and Jesus.
"Are those planes?!"
"No, it's just Jesus and Superman again."
"No, it's just Jesus and Superman again."
von CUNTSNUGGETSONFIRE 21. Januar 2009