The 22,000 confirmed dead and 41,000 reported missing that followed the cyclone that struck Myanmar, formerly Burma, on Saturday, revealed a tragedy of unspeakable horror, yielding nauseating stories of impossibly strong winds, damage to life and property wrought by falling trees and, as though that were not enough, the main culprit, a 12-foot high wave that ravaged coastal areas upon which resided millions of the nation’s poor in shanty towns. Myanmar is ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Senior General Than Shwe and Vice-Senior General Maung Aye since the 1990s, but who themselves followed in the footsteps of...
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The latest scandal that surrounds Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama’s previous involvement with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and that highlights his difficulty fully disowning this association with the politically radical pastor until a statement unequivocally doing so publicly on April 29th is angrily upsetting his fans and supporters who fear that the time it has taken him to do this may seriously undermine his popularity among Democrats, and so impair his bid for president. The mainstream press has not been able to provide any explanation for this hesitancy to detach himself from Rev. Wright either. It is certainly...
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According to a 2003 report on the Federal Reserve website examining changes in wealth distribution from 1989 to 2001, certain stark realities are encountered. The wealthiest individual of 1989, estimated then at a worth of 7 billion dollars, was replaced by an individual today worth 42 billion. The average wealth of the richest 400 increased from 376 to 543 million dollars. There were 97 billionaires in 1989 and 205 in 2001. One third of all wealth was held by the top 1% of the population. The wealth of the bottom 35% of the population declined. A study by the...
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On the Unicef website we learn random disturbing facts that pertain to the plight of children: “An estimated 540 million, or one in four, children in the world live with the ominous and ever-present hum of violence that might erupt at any time, or are displaced within their countries or made refugees by conflicts that are already raging. Hundreds of thousands are buffeted by floods and droughts in repetitive patterns. Many of those same children are among the more than 600 million children already beset by unyielding and merciless poverty.” In 1994, in the course of a few weeks...
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Who has seen whiter, glossier, teeth and lies whiter and glossier still than those bared on television during the recent debates between Democrats and Republicans? The race culminating in the presidential trophy in late 2008 is solidly on, with these wealthy members of the capitalist class vying for leadership of the world’s most prosperous land, brought to them by the generous contributions of our dear readers’ unpaid surplus value. These sellers of capitalist reforms are so impeccably dressed and groomed, so charming and witty, so passionate in their determination to give a structurally exploitative society a new lease on...
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Isn’t it nice to have a few days off from work, warming the cockles of our overgenerous souls after spending the past year producing large sums of wealth for the parasite class, singing Santa songs by the hearth, drinking mulled wine and pretty much anything else that will get us tipsy, opening our presents, and living those few golden days of celebration that we would wish for the other days of the year as well? But these holidays will end all too soon. We have barely begun to relax in our holiday mode when the alarm clock awakens us...
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The latest book by Aubrey De Grey, “Ending Aging” (St. Martin’s Press, 2007), raises the mind-bogglingly provocative possibility that science may within 20 years be able to extend human life long enough to develop successive improvements in life-extending therapies, thus potentially rendering humans capable of a youthful lifespan of 1,000 years. It all seems to hinge upon the much-anticipated ability to extend the lifespan of a middle-aged 2-year-old mouse to 5 years rather than the usual 3 using bioengineering techniques that would essentially clean up the junk that is produced within and outside their cells, as it is with...
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Let us make no mistake about it. The capitalist class is engaged in an ongoing class war with the working class. Those of us who must work for a living possess economic interests diametrically opposed to those who live off our surplus value. The recent Bankruptcy bill signed by President Bush makes this very clear. It attempts to limit the legal ability of working people to declare bankruptcy, which has apparently been costing credit card companies, mortgage companies, and car salesmen, among others, vast sums of money that “rightly” (according to the capitalist logic of property rights) belong to...
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How money downed the Minneapolis bridge
The Associated Press reported this week that in 1989, bridge inspectors had warned that pigeon droppings were accumulating on the steel beams of the I-35W bridge connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul. Apparently, the ammonia and acids in the droppings, the inspectors said nearly a decade ago, could corrode the beams. This span collapsed August 1st of this year, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100. It is not yet clear if the bird droppings had been the cause of the terrible accident last month, but this story illustrates how terribly accident-prone is the capitalist system. Such a system...
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