PROFITS
AND OILY WORDS
You
have seen advertisements by oil companies that express concern for
the environment and claim they fight global warming. It is of course
a fraud. "Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US
oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to
undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. In an
unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain premier scientific
academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company
withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented
the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence." (Guardian,
20 September) Capitalists are only
interested in
profits, they don't give a damn about your children or their
children's future. That is capitalism.
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A
TOXIC SOCIETY
The
World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate at least 90,000 people die
every year of asbestos related diseases but that didn't stop the
manufacture of the obnoxious material. "Chrysotile asbestos, a
known human carcinogen, will remain off a global "watch list"
of toxic substances for at least two more years after countries led
by Canada blocked consenus in United Nations talks on Friday. ...
Canada, whose French-speaking Quebec province is a major asbestos
producer and exporter, led opposition to its addition to the list,
according to environmentalists tracking the talks. Canadian officials
say puting chrysotile asbestos on the list would be tantamount to
banning international trade in it and threaten jobs." (Yahoo!
News, 13 October) 90,000 deaths a year is a mere inconvenience
compared to a couple of bucks for the owning class who make their
money from death and disease. That is why we are socialists, also
some of us once worked in shipyards, where they used asbestos, and we
have difficulty breathing.
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CUT
PRICE KILLERS
"BP,
the British oil group, had a "checkbook mentality" towards
safety and was aware of maintenance backlogs and
unsafe equipment at
its Texas City refinery years before the fire there in 2005 in which
15 workers died, according to findings from US safety officials. ..
Safety was compromised by a succession of budget cuts ... The company
implemented a 25 per cut on fixed costs between 1998 and 2000 which
adversely affected maintenance expenditure at the refinery."
(Times, 31 October) In order to compete inside capitalism
firms are constantly trying to cut overheads. In this case leading to
the death and injury of many workers. That is how capitalism
operates. Nasty aint it?
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GANGSTER
TALK
The
recent electoral losses of the Republican Party in the USA have led
to the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quitting his post. His
political demise led to newspapers running articles on him. Here are
a couple of his past statements that were quoted. "Death has a
tendency to encourage a depressing view of war" and "You
get a lot more with a kind word and a gun than you do with a kind
word alone." (Times, 9 November) It is significant that
this last statement of Runsfeld was a quote from the gangster Al
Capone. We can understand why a US Defence Secretary would have
admired a murderous gangster chief, after all they both lived in a
capitalist society based on violence.
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BULL
IN A CHINA SHOP
The
media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been making strenous efforts to break
in to the Chinese market, but in 1993 he made a mess of it by
stating, "Advances in the technology of telecommunications are
an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere." The
Chinese took this threat seriously and imposed strict rules on
satellite dishes thus depriving Murdoch's Star TV of the huge
chineses potential audience. "The following year Star
removed BBC World Television from its Chinese service, in a
move that was regarded by many as a sop to the Chinese government."
(Observer, 12 November) Last month Murdoch was in China trying
to sweet talk his way in with government officials. When it comes to
making money democratic views take a back seat with capitalists like
Murdoch. What is supression of political ideas, imprisonment, torture
and death compared with more money to a billionaire? Very little it
seems.
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AN
AMERICAN MYTH
Supporters
of the profit system often site the USA as a good example of how
democratic capitalism really
is. They give us the old homily about
"log cabin to White House" although today it should
probably be "trailer park to White House". It is of course
a complete fallacy as the following item about the recent mid-term
election illustrates. "This election proved that it pays to
spend big(ger). The average House winner burned through about $1
million on the stump - and the candidate who spent the most won in
93% of House races. The most expensive victory was, oddly, one of the
Dems' safe bets: New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who won a second
term with 67% of the vote - and $35.9 million." (Time, 20
November) Forget the myths, for a lot of Americans it is "trailer
park to trailer park".
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