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jammo | 1 Feb 07:42
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WA Maritime workers pledges boycott of Israeli goods

Without getting into "titting and tatting" and starting unnecessary arguments, s.artesian asked for
information about the attitude and opinion of Australian maritime workers towards the unfolding
revolutions in Latin America and specifics of the Western Australian branch of the Maritime Union of
Australia when it adopted the resolution Stuart posted.

Can I answer in two parts? As a member of the MUA, I moved the resolution that was adopted by the WA MUA branch
last Tuesday in front of around 100 seafarers and there was only one who voted against (couldn't figure out
whether he hated 'towelheads or jews' more). But the discussion was very healthy, not only for the obvious
reason of objecting to the horror of Operation Cast Lead, but there was a deeper understanding of the role
of the Zionist state expressed a number of times. I'm sure that a lot of the vote concerned the
disproportionality of Israel's genocide (3 civilians cf. at least 1,000) but it was heartening to know
amongst the seafarers there was an appreciation of the politics.

The secretary of the WA MUA, Chris Cain, a former member of the Australian Socialist Alliance, also spoke
forcefully for the resolutions, alluding to the long history of maritime workers in concretely
campaigning for independence movements in the post colonial era - Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa and
East Timor.

The resolutions moved were carefully crafted. There is little obvious "open" trade between Fremantle and
Israel. So the BDS campaign has also to draw in other layers, which is why the substantive issues have been
referred to a WA MUA state conference where hundreds more will be involved, thus becoming more
authorative in leading to a BDS campaign within the Australian union movement.

Time, unfortunately, didn't permit me to raise the issue at this meeting about the role of Chavez and
Morales. 

On the issue of the Bolivarian revolution. I was fortunate enough to be elected by the WA rank andf file as a
delegate to the MUA quadrennial national conference in April 2008. I drafted and presented a unanimous
resolution to the 400 delegates present supporting the governments of Venezuela and Cuba on their
achievements as workers governments. The resolutions are up on the MUA website.
(Continue reading)

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Jay Moore | 1 Feb 01:15
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Revolt in in the Air


  Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/31/global-recession-europe-protests

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Jeffrey Thomas Piercy | 1 Feb 02:16
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Al Jazeera: vote in Iraq peaceful

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200913122502669508.html

Iraq poll counting started

Counting is under way in Iraq after millions of voters cast ballots for 
influential regional councils around most of the country.

The elections on Saturday were hailed by Barack Obama, the US president, 
as an important step towards Iraqis taking responsibility for their future.

"I congratulate the people of Iraq on holding significant provincial 
elections today," Obama said in a statement on Saturday.

He said the United States was proud to have provided technical 
assistance to the electorial commission, "which performed professionally 
under difficult circumstances."

The polls, seen as a test of the security situation in Iraq, closed at 
6pm (1500GMT) following an hour's extension by electoral authorities 
aimed at giving more Iraqis the opportunity to vote.

Except for a few stray incidents, officials said the elections went 
peacefully.

Police said three mortar shells landed in Tikrit after polling stations 
opened. No casualties were reported, but a vehicle was reportedly set on 
fire.

'A victory'
(Continue reading)

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Jeffrey Thomas Piercy | 1 Feb 02:24
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Re: Revolt in in the Air

Also from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/russia-protests-vladivostok-moscow

Russia rocked by financial crisis protests

A wave of protests swept across Russia yesterday in one of the first 
signs of mass discontent with the Kremlin's handling of the financial 
crisis.

More than 2,500 people attended a demonstration in Vladivostok against 
the government's decision to raise import tariffs on cars.

In Moscow, about 2,000 gathered at protests uniting civil rights 
activists, communists and pensioners disgruntled at rising food and 
utility bills. There were smaller demonstrations in other cities. It was 
the first time such diverse groups had co-ordinated activities to direct 
their anger at president Dmitry Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin.

In Moscow, one of the leaders of the Other Russia movement, Eduard 
Limonov, was surrounded by riot police as he arrived at a central 
square. As he was arrested, Limonov said: "The government is bailing out 
its friends in banking corporations but doing nothing to help ordinary 
Russians survive this crisis."

Jay Moore wrote:
>   Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/31/global-recession-europe-protests
> 
>
(Continue reading)

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Jeffrey Thomas Piercy | 1 Feb 02:29
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Re: Revolt in in the Air

Also, photos:
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2IFGmDAiUSVQ6g8ICWiJVCWmpdaVZqak5iXmFNZnFkMFA3h4nIuTUrMU_BLLS_WclFKL0rMy01UyMwrSS3KSyzJzAcqVapRCihKzStOVPABiuQlKtUkg7QANdQoJWcWGBmZOAApPaDhJXrJpUoQK5OAlIaWipJ7UWpqnoJPalqJQnhqanZOpZKCrlJaZnoG0KR0hbTSvBSohhIIlQuhiiFUKpBS5RLzzS_NK0nMzFMIy0wt11FwdtRRCA12NOB0YrU0MTAx9pi7TF-ITYgpNceAExZ-RgIfZ0gLN3_Y8WWOzNUvKdM0q36xARX8YmPNyU9OBNLMRanJAKVrVz0/2-6i-0&fp=4984a0229bb288d0&ei=q_aESZ3fNJXGlQTytbCnAw&url=http%3A//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7863286.stm&cid=1299304589&sig2=5L-FT9uhzWgj1zzbBYCKgg&usg=AFQjCNGAnpFt17-EQlTzb6cCbBiYVjou3g
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j0fsqtM5Yr_CAcXli04gJCfK5sHA
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/world/europe/01russia.html?hp

video:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7862370.stm

Jeffrey Thomas Piercy wrote:
> Also from the Guardian:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/russia-protests-vladivostok-moscow
> 
> Russia rocked by financial crisis protests

--

-- 
Human: An animal so lost in loathing contemplation of what it thinks it 
is as to overlook what it ought to be.

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Steve Palmer | 1 Feb 03:44
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Re: Debunking Third World myths

He makes Goebbels look like an amateur. Great demagogic style. Imagine trying to ask a question after he's
warmed up the audience like that.

[And what a thoroughly appropriate choice of name for his foundation! The only London underground station
where they have the 'Mind the Gap' warning is the Bank station, in the heart of the financial centre, with
exits in the wall of the Bank of England, another by the Royal Exchange which used to house Liffe, another
onto Lombard Street etc ... He takes ONE station as representative of ALL - and it just happens to be slap in
finance capital's home territory ... a metaphor for his method]

Shows the power of using logarithmic scales to distort statistics visually - things only look 1/10th to
1/100th as bad as they really are ...

Of course he completely sidestepped the awkward questions about reliability of statistics from
different countries (ask a professional statistician in any imperialist, sorry 'developed', sorry
'advanced' country how accurate GNP statistics are for the retail sector ...)

Were these current or 'constant' dollars?

If constant, how were they deflated?

Did they use official exchange rates, black market rates?

Were cost of living comparisons factored in and if so how?

etc etc.

But who cares, it was pretty and fun and we didn't have to think too hard and it took a load of guilt off our
shoulders before we left to get a latte ...

--- On Fri, 1/30/09, Paula <Paula_cerni <at> msn.com> wrote:
(Continue reading)

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Steve Palmer | 1 Feb 03:58
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Some stats about the US.

I decided to get some numbers together about the US for an article I'm writing and here is an overview. Note
that it barely begins to look at class/'race' differences within the US:

The social infrastructure is in a terrible state: 30% of school students fail to graduate from
high-school; School spending has fallen by two-fifths since 2001 and in 43% of schools, the poor state of
facilities interferes with delivering instruction. Internationally, in tests in 2006, the US was
beaten in reading by 10 other countries, in scientific literacy by 22, and in mathematical literacy by 31.
States’ expenditure on higher education has grown by 21% over the last 20 years – but on prisons by
127%. The US has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners: 1 in every 100 of its citizens are
currently in jail.

When it comes to health, life expectancy is lower than in 41 other countries; infant mortality is higher
than in 29 - and has actually increased and maternal mortality rates higher than in 35 other countries.
Some 45 million people have no health insurance coverage. Annually, more than 3.5m people suffer
homelessness, 1.35m of them children. Some 35m people, about 10% of the population suffer from hunger.

Employment has been falling absolutely for the last year and at an accelerating rate. In 2008 2.6m people
lost their jobs, 1.9m in just the last 4 months of the year. The official unemployment rate is now 7.2%, but
in some localities is more than twice that. Unofficial calculations show the rate to be considerably
higher. Unlike in other imperialist countries, those who lose their jobs lose health benefits - if they
had any. The share of employees with a work-related pension fell from 50.6% in 1979 to 42.8% in 2006. 60% of
male workers have a real hourly wage that is absolutely lower than it was in 1979.

Physically, the United States itself is literally on the verge of collapsing and crumbling: of almost
600,000 bridges, more than 25% are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete; half the locks on
12,000 miles of inland waterways are functionally obsolete; more than 3,300 dams are unsafe or
deficient, many of them susceptible to large flooding events or earthquakes; the highways need more than
$150bn annually spent to maintain and improve them, but receive less than half that; Americans spend the
equivalent of 2.5m working days every year stuck in traffic; commercial airline delays and
cancellations have been increasing every year. Altogether there is about $1.6 trillion of
(Continue reading)

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Mark Lause | 1 Feb 04:39
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Re: Some stats about the US.

Steve,

We are in your debt.  You should add the sources and post this.

Everybody on this list in the US should circulate it as widely as they can.

ML

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Fred Feldman | 1 Feb 05:09

Challenging claim UK oil strikes are xenophobic (from 'Guardian')

Our flexible friendsThe real theme of these strikes is not xenophobia but
outrage at UK and EU rules designed to keep labour cheap and weakComments
(…)  
Seumas Milne guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 January 2009 17.29 GMT  larger |
smaller Article historyGordon Brown's promise of "British jobs for British
workers" certainly counts, along with an "end to boom and bust", as his most
cynical and asinine to date. Not only was he incapable of delivering on it
under European Union law, but the slogan was bound to be exploited by the
far right in the shape of the British National party – who coined it in the
first place.

Now it's been thrown back in his face by striking energy workers across the
country, protesting against local workers being undercut and excluded from a
£200m construction project at Total's Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire
in favour of Italian and Portugese workers brought in by the Italian company
IREM. Sympathy walkouts have been staged across Britain, including at the
Aberthaw power station in Wales and the Grangemouth oil refinery in
Scotland, where last year workers won a famous victory against their private
equity owner Ineos by closing down the North Sea Forties field for two days
in protest at attempts to slash pension rights.

Of course, the BNP and its friends will try to exploit these rolling
stoppages, as they have been doing at the Staythorpe power station in
Newark, Nottinghamshire, where Alstom is refusing to hire locally and
relying on non-union Polish and Spanish contracted workers instead. But it
would be wrong – and play into the far right's hands – to portray this as a
xenophobic protest directed against foreign workers and immigration, instead
of what it actually is: a fight for jobs in the middle of a deepening
recession and a backlash against the deregulated, race-to-the-bottom
neoliberal model backed by Brown for more than a decade which produced it.
(Continue reading)

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Dan Russell | 1 Feb 06:52
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Re: Some stats about the US.

Sobering, even in these times, I look forward to seeing the final article.
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