The capitalists get richer while the poor suffer more. Left: Living in luxury out of a fortune made from doing nothing! Mining heiress Angela Bennett’s former mansion. Bennett, whose wealth comes from receiving royalties from Rio Tinto’s Pilbara iron ore mines, sold her Perth mansion in late 2009 to another mining tycoon, Chris Ellison, for $57.5 million! Right: A homeless person living in the same city as that $57.5 million mansion.
Let this serve as both a warning and a reprimand to those on the left who still harbour any illusions about Western imperialist-basked regime change: a child’s ball haunts a deserted and gutted out street in Sirte after the horrific onslaught of 415 “Key” NATO airstrikes and untold indiscriminate shelling by the NATO-backed “rebels”. The few residents that had begun to return, the UK’s The Daily Mail reported in late October, stared “in disbelief at the ruins of their homes, many of which seem to have been looted by the rebels”. A 26-year-old engineer said: ‘Our homes have been wiped out and our friends and family lie dead in the streets.’ His friend added: ‘Look at this place, at the bodies/ It is an act of vengeance.’ A third resident declared: ‘The war is not over yet. This war has only just begun.’
October 16, Parramatta Mall, Sydney: Demonstrators stand in defence of the persecuted Riverstone Hickey family, oppose racist and anti-working class police violence.
Yeongpyeong Island, Korea, December 2010: Troops from capitalist South Korea prepare for a highly provocative live fire exercise in this military outpost, lying in disputed waters.
The hated Basics Card. As a result of the racist Northern Territory intervention, 50% of the income of an Aboriginal person receiving welfare payments is quarantined so that it can only be accessed with the Basics Card and cannot be used for purchasing “non-essential” items. The federal ALP government has extended this “welfare quarantining” scheme to other parts of the country including to non-Aboriginal communities like Sydney’s Bankstown. Now, the latest federal budget introduces additional humiliations against the poor.
Part of a massive oil refinery complex in Kwinana, Western Australia. The refinery is owned by a foreign corporation. Chinese owned? Wrong! The refinery is owned by British-based BP. Latest available figures show that Britain’s total stock of foreign investment in Australia is more than 25 times that from Mainland China.
Ghazl el-Mahalla, Egypt, September 2007: 10,000 workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving mill down tools and occupy the factory in protest at management remerging on previous agreements. This action was part of a wave of workers struggle that has swept Egypt over the last five years.
5 May, 1920: Lenin addresses Red Army soldiers about to depart for Civil War operations against the invading forces of capitalist Poland. Standing beside the platform to Lenin’s left is Red Army leader Leon Trotsky.
