Monday, February 21, 2011

Lucy Parsons Redux


I originally posted here about Lucy Parsons for Black History Month. Here are some updates from the web about Lucy. And as you read about her you realize that she could be celebrated during Womens History Month, Labour History Month, as Mexican American an Indigenous woman, an American proletarian revolutionary.

As I researched this post I came across a number of references to Lucy being a member or supporter of the Communist Party of the USA.

This is a historiographical case of mistaken identity confusing her with her wobbly sister Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the Rebel Girl, who was national Chairman of the CPUSA.


Lucy was a Revolutionary Socialist and Anarchist till the end of her life.



A Fury For Justice: Lucy Parsons And The Revolutionary Anarchist Movement in Chicago
For six and a half decades Lucy Parsons played a pivotal role in some
of the most influential social movements of her time. A fiery speaker,
bold social critic, and tireless organizer, Parsons was a prominent figure
in radical American political movements from the late 1870s until
her death at the age of 89 on March 7th, 1942. Despite playing an
important part in such iconic struggles as the movement for the 8-
hour day, the defense of the Haymarket martyrs, and the founding
of the IWW, Lucy Parsons has been largely ignored by historians of
all stripes. Parsons sole biographer, writing in 1976, explained her
invisibility thusly: “Lucy Parsons was black, a woman, and working
class — three reasons people are often excluded from history.”1
While this helps explain in part Parsons’ absence from mainstream
historiography, it is not entirely satisfying. While other working
class black women found their way into academic writing and political
iconography with the rise of Black Nationalist movements in
the 1960s and 70s and the concurrent proliferation of Black Studies
programs at American universities, Lucy Parsons was mostly left behind.
Unfortunately, when she has been included in academic writing
she has usually not been allowed to speak for herself. Most of the
academics that have mentioned Lucy Parsons (generally very briefly)
have recast her as they would have preferred her to be, usually as
either a reflection of their own politics or as an example of the failures
of past movements. The only biography of Parsons, Carolyn
Ashbaugh’s Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary, combines misrepresentation
with inaccuracy. Ashbaugh nonsensically claims that
Parsons was not an anarchist, a fact beyond the point of argument
for anyone that has read Lucy Parsons’s work, and she groundlessly
claims that Parsons joined the Communist Party towards the end of
her life. Sadly, this has allowed every writer after Ashabugh to make
the same erroneous claim

FOUNDING CONVENTION

Industrial Workers of the World

THIRD DAY

Thursday, June 29, 1905

AFTERNOON SESSION

SPEECH OF LUCY E. PARSONS

DEL. LUCY E. PARSONS: I can assure you that after the intellectual feast that I have enjoyed immensely this afternoon, I feel fortunate to appear before you now in response to your call. I do not wish you to think that I am here to play upon words when I tell you that I stand before you and feel much like a pigmy before intellectual giants, but that is only the fact. I wish to state to you that I have taken the floor because no other woman has responded, and I feel that it would not be out of place for me to say in my poor way a few words about this movement.

We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to use it, and the only way that we can be represented is to take a man to represent us. You men have made such a mess of it in representing us that we have not much confidence in asking you; and I for one feel very backward in asking the men to represent me. We have no ballot, but we have our labor. I think it is August Bebel, in his “Woman in the Past, Present and Future”—a book that should be read by every woman that works for wages—I think it is Bebel that says that men have been slaves through-out all the ages, but that woman’s condition has been worse, for she has been the slave of a slave. I think there was never a greater truth uttered. We are the slaves of the slaves. We are exploited more ruthlessly than men. Wherever wages are to be reduced the capitalist class use women to reduce them, and if there is anything that you men should do in the future it is to organize the women.

And I tell you that if the women had inaugurated a boycott of the State street stores since the teamsters’ strike they would have surrendered long ago. (Applause). I do not strike before you to brag. I had no man connected with that strike to make it of interest to me to boycott the stores, but I have not bought one penny’s worth there since that strike was inaugurated. I intended to boycott all of them as one individual at least, so it is important to educate the women. Now I wish to show my sisters here that we fasten the chains of slavery upon our sisters, sometimes unwittingly, when we go down to the department store and look around for cheap bargains and go home and exhibit what we have got so cheap. When we come to reflect it simply means the robbery of our sisters, for we know that the things cannot be made for such prices and give the women who made them fair wages.

I wish to say that I have attended many conventions in the twenty-seven years since I came here to Chicago’ a young girl, so full of life and animation and hope. It is to youth that hope comes; it is to age that reflection comes. I have attended conventions from that day to this of one kind and another and taken part in them. I have taken part in some in which our Comrade Debs had a part. I was at the organization that he organized in this city some eight or ten years ago. Now, the point I want to make is that these conventions are full of enthusiasm. And that is right; we should sometimes mix sentiment with soberness; it is a part of life. But, as I know from experience, there are sober moments ahead of us, and when you go out of this hall, when you have laid aside your enthusiasm, then comes solid work. Are you going out with the reflection that you appreciate and grasp the situation that you are to tackle? Are you going out of here with your minds made up that the class in which we call ourselves, revolutionary Socialists so-called—that that class is organized to meet organized capital with the millions at its command? It has many weapons to fight .us. First it has money. Then it has legislative tools. Then it has its judiciary; it has its army and its navy; it has its guns; it has armories; and last, it has the gallows. We call ourselves revolutionists. Do you know what the capitalists mean to do to you revolutionists? I simply throw these hints out that you young people may become reflective and know what you have to face at the first’ and then it will give you strength. I am not here to cause any discouragement, but simply to encourage you to go on in your grand work.

Now, that is the solid foundation that I hope this organization will be built on; that it may be built not like a house upon the sand, that when the waves of adversity come it may go over into the ocean of oblivion; but that it shall be built upon a strong, granite, hard foundation; a foundation made up of the hearts, and aspirations of the men and women of this twentieth century who have set their minds, their bands, their hearts and their heads against the past with all its miserable poverty, with its wage slavery, with its children ground into dividends, with its miners away down under the earth and with never the light of sunshine, and with its women selling the holy name of womanhood for a day’s board. I hope we understand that this organization has set its face against that iniquity, and that it has set its eyes to the rising star of liberty, that means fraternity, solidarity, the universal brotherhood of man. I hope that while politics have been mentioned here I am not one of those who, because a man or woman disagrees with me, cannot act with them—I am glad and proud to say I am too broad-minded to say they are a fakir or fool or a fraud because they disagree with me. My view may be narrow and theirs may be broad; but I do say to those who have intimated politics here as being necessary or a part of this organization, that I do not impute to them dishonesty or impure motives. But as I understand the call for this convention, politics had no place here; it was simply to be an economic organization, and I hope for the good of this organization that when we go away from this hall, and our comrades go some to the west, some to the east, some to the north and some to the south, while some remain in Chicago, and all spread this light over this broad land and carry the message of what this convention has done, that there will be no room for politics at all. There may be room for politics; I have nothing to say about that; but it is a bread and butter question, an economic issue, upon which the fight must be made.

Now, what do we mean when we say revolutionary Socialist? We mean that the land shall belong to the landless, the tools to the toiler, and the products to the producers. (Applause.) Now, let us analyze that for just a moment, before you applaud me. First, the land belongs to the landless. Is there a single land owner in this country who owns his land by the constitutional rights given by the constitution of the United States who will allow you to vote it away from him? I am not such a fool as to believe it. We say, “The tools belong to the toiler.” They are owned by the capitalist class. Do you believe they will allow you to go into the halls of the legislature and simply say, “Be it enacted that on and after a certain day the capitalist shall no longer own the tools and the factories and the places of industry, the ships that plow the ocean and our lakes?” Do you believe that they will submit? I do not. We say, “The products belong to the producers.” It belongs to the capitalist class as their legal property. Do you think that they will allow you to vote them away from them by passing a law and saying, “Be it enacted that on and after a certain day Mr. Capitalist shall be dispossessed?” You may, but I do not believe it. Hence, when you roll under your tongue the expression that you are revolutionists, remember what that word means. It means a revolution that shall turn all these things over where they belong to the wealth producers. Now, how shall the wealth producers come into possession of them? I believe that if every man and every woman who works, or who toils in the mines, the mills, the workshops, the fields, the factories and the farms in our broad America should decide in their minds that they shall have that which of right belongs to them, and that no idler shall live upon their toil, and when your new organization, your economic organization, shall declare as man to man and women to woman, as brothers and sisters, that you are determined that you will possess these things, then there is no army that is large enough to overcome you, for you yourselves constitute the army. (Applause). Now, when you have decided that you will take possession of these things, there will not need to be one gun fired or one scaffold erected. You will simply come into your own, by your own independence and your own manhood, and by asserting your own individuality, and not sending any man to any legislature in any State of the American Union to enact a law that you shall have what is your own; yours by nature and by your manhood and by your very presence upon this earth.

Nature has been lavish to her children. She has placed in this earth all the material of wealth that is necessary to make men and women happy. She has given us brains to go into her store house and bring from its recesses all that is necessary. She has given us these two hands and these brains to manufacture them suited to the wants of men and women. Our civilization stands on a parallel with all other civilizations. There is just one thing we lack, and we have only ourselves to blame if we do not become free. We simply lack the intelligence to take possession of that which we have produced. (Applause). And I believe and I hope and I feel that the men and women who constitute a convention like this can come together and organize that intelligence. I must say that I do not know whether I am saying anything that interests you or not, but I feel so delighted that I am talking to your heads and not to your hands and feet this afternoon. I feel that you will at least listen to me, and maybe you will disagree with me, but I care not; I simply want to shed the light as I see it. I wish to say that my conception of the future method of taking possession of this is that of the general strike: that is my conception of it. The trouble with all the strikes in the past has been this: the workingmen like the teamsters in our cities, these hard-working teamsters, strike and go out and starve. Their children starve. Their wives get discouraged. Some feel that they have to go out and beg for relief, and to get a little coal to keep the children warm, or a little bread to keep the wife from starving, or a little something to keep the spark of life in them so that they can remain wage slaves. That is the way with the strikes in the past. My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production. If any one is to starve—I do not say it is necessary—let it be the capitalist class. They have starved us long enough, while they have had wealth and luxury and all that is necessary. You men and women should be imbued with the spirit that is now displayed in far-off Russia and far-off Siberia where we thought the spark of manhood and womanhood had been crushed out of them. Let us take example from them. We see the capitalist class fortifying themselves to-day behind their Citizens’ Associations and Employers’ Associations in order that they may crush the American labor movement. Let us cast our eyes over to far-off Russia and take heart and courage from those who are fighting the battle there, and from the further fact shown in the dispatches that appear this morning in the news that carries the greatest terror to the capitalist class throughout all the world—the emblem that has been the terror of all tyrants through all the ages, and there you will see that the red flag has been raised. (Applause). According to the Tribune, the greatest terror is evinced in Odessa and all through Russia because the red flag has been raised. They know that where the red flag has been raised whoever enroll themselves beneath that flag recognize the universal brotherhood of man; they recognize that the red current that flows through the veins of all humanity is identical, that the ideas of all humanity are identical; that those who raise the red flag, it matters not where, whether on the sunny plains of China, or on the sun-beaten hills of Africa, or on the far-off snow-capped shores of the north, or in Russia or in America—that they all belong to the human family and have an identity of interest. (Applause). That is what they know.

So when we come to decide, let us sink such differences as nationality, religion, politics, and set our eyes eternally and forever towards the rising star of the industrial republic of labor; remembering that we have left the old behind and have set our faces toward the future. There is no power on earth that can stop men and women who are determined to be free at all hazards. There is no power on earth so great as the power of intellect. It moves the world and it moves the earth.

Now, in conclusion, I wish to say to you—and you will excuse me because of what I am going to say and only attribute it to my interest in humanity. I wish to say that nineteen years ago on the fourth of May of this year, I was one of those at a meeting at the Haymarket in this city to protest against eleven workingmen being shot to pieces at a factory in the southeastern part of this city because they had dared to strike for the eight-hour movement that was to be inaugurated in America in 1886. The Haymarket meeting was called primarily and entirely to protest against the murder of comrades at the McCormick factory. When that meeting was nearing its close some one threw a bomb. No one knows to this day who threw it except the man who threw it. Possibly he has rendered his account with nature and has passed away. But no human being alive knows who threw it. And yet in the soil of Illinois, the soil that gave a Lincoln to America, the soil in which the great, magnificent Lincoln was buried in the State that was supposed to be the most liberal in the union, five men sleep the last sleep in Waldheim under a monument that, has been raised there because they dared to raise their voices for humanity. I say to any of you who are here and who can do so, it is well worth your time to go out there and draw some inspiration around the graves of the first martyrs who fell in the great industrial struggle for liberty on American soil. (Applause). I say to you that even within the sound of my voice, only two short blocks from where we meet to-day, the scaffold was erected on which those five men paid the penalty for daring to raise their voices against the iniquities of the age in which we live. We arc assembled here for the same purpose. And do any of you older men remember the telegrams that were sent out from Chicago while our comrades were not yet even cut down from the cruel gallows? “Anarchy is dead, and these miscreants have been put out of the way.” Oh, friends, I am sorry that I even had to use that word, “anarchy” just now in your presence, which was not in my mind at the outset. So if any of you wish to go out there and look at this monument that has been raised by those who believed in their comrades’ innocence and sincerity, I will ask you, when you have gone out and looked at the monument, that you will go to the reverse side of the monument and there read on the reverse side the words of a man, himself the purest and the noblest man who ever sat in the gubernatorial chair of the State of Illinois, John P. Altgeld. (Applause). On that monument you will read the clause of his message in which he pardoned the men who were lingering then in Joliet. I have nothing more to say. I ask you to read the words of Altgeld, who was at that time the governor, and had been a lawyer and a judge, and knew whereof he spoke, and then take out your copy books and copy the words of Altgeld when he released those who had not been slaughtered at the capitalists’ behest, and then take them home and change your minds about what those men were put to death for.

Now, I have taken up your time in this because I simply feel that I have a right as a mother and as a wife of one of those sacrificed men to say whatever I can to bring the light to bear upon this conspiracy and to show you the way it was. Now, I thank you for the time that I have taken up of yours. I hope that we will meet again some time, you and I, in some hall where we can meet and organize the wage workers of America, the men and women, so that the children may not go into the factories, nor the women into the factories, unless they go under proper conditions. I hope even now to live to see the day when the first dawn of the new era of labor will have arisen, when capitalism will be a thing of the past, and the new industrial republic, the commonwealth of labor, shall be in operation. I thank you. (Applause.)

Carr, Mary M. "Jay Fox: Anarchist of Home." Columbia Magazine. 4.1 (Spring 1990): 3-10.

The utopian colony of Home was founded in 1896 on Von Geldern Cove, across the Tacoma Narrows on the Key Peninsula. Established by three families who were refugees from another failed utopian community, it became in time a successful anarchist colony whose most famed inhabitant was the sometimes elusive Jay Fox, anarchist and labor radical.

In 1904 Fox worked closely with Lucy Parsons, widow of the Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons, in an attempt to launch an anarchist, English-language newspaper. In the spring of that year Parsons, Fox and others discussed the possibility of starting a paper to replace The Free Society which had folded in the wake of the persecution of radicals following the McKinley assassination. Throughout the summer the group held socials and picnics to raise money for the cause.

However, by late summer a rift had developed between Fox and Parsons. A group headed by Fox felt that The Demonstrator of Home Colony should be adopted and backed. The other faction, headed by Parsons, felt strongly that such a paper should emanate from the radical and industrial center of Chicago rather than from the backwater colony of Home. Before the controversy was settled, Fox sent the money to Home. Parsons, undaunted, started a Chicago-based paper, The Liberator. It should be noted that Fox had good reason for his position. He had been invited to assume the editorship of The Demonstrator, planning to move to Home in the fall of 1905. He was delayed that fall and again in the spring.


by Robert Black

Not for its intrinsic interest - no part of this book has much of that - but as a case study in Salerno's shortcomings, let me review in much more detail than it deserves his chapter on "Anarchists at the Founding Convention." Here is his most of his case for significantly raising prevailing estimates of anarchist influence on the IWW. He first cites the expressions of solidarity with the Haymarket anarchists martyred two decades before which issued from the podium; there was even a pilgrimage to their graves. Indeed , one of the opening speakers was Lucy Parsons, widow of executed Haymarket defendant Albert Parsons.(112) Mrs. Parsons, however, was so far from speaking as an anarchist that she actually apologized for using the word "anarchy." As Joseph Conlin described the scene, "while almost all the delegates claimed to be socialists, there was also present a small group of anarchists, the remnants of the Chicago group. Lucy Parsons was honored by a prominent seat and spoke several times. But she functioned primarily as platform decoration and had little influence on the proceedings. Her ignominious role characterized the dilemma of the less eminent anarchists: tolerated in attendance, they went all but unheard. Mrs. Parsons sheepishly apologized for employing the term 'anarchy' in a speech, and the few avowedly anarchist proposals that reached the floor were summarily rejected."(113)

None of this is evidence of anarchist influence at the founding convention. The Haymarket labor martyrs had been anarchists - although even that has been called into question(114) -- but they were commemorated in Chicago, not as anarchists, but as labor martyrs. By then, their anarchism long since interred with them, they were remembered as heroic leaders of the eight-hour movement, a lowest common denominator cause any unionist could rally around at a convention bent on forging unity. (115) That they assembled in Chicago made it only that much more obligatory as a matter of common courtesy to pay homage to the local heroes. The presence of Lucy Parsons on the platform had exactly, and only, the honorific significance of the presence of, say, Coretta King on the platform of a Democratic Party convention. Coretta King has no influence on the Democrats and Lucy Parsons had none on the Wobblies.

Women that Wobbled but Didn’t Fall Down

Lucy Parsons, an adamant socialist and ‘Wobbly’ (a term for IWW members), stands out as a great example of a woman in the IWW. While little is known about her earliest background, we do know that she was born in 1853. Her ethnicity was the convergence of African, Mexican and Native roots, and, because of this, she was keenly aware of injustices in society in respect to those groups to which she belonged (Bird, Georgakas and Schaffer). Furthermore, it is supposed that she was born into slavery, which, again, gives her an interesting perspective in regards to the injustices perpetrated by the rich on the destitute.

Lucy Parsons

Lucy Parsons
(1853 - 1942)

Lucy Parsons was born in Texas in 1853 (most likely as a slave) to parents of Native, African and Mexican American ancestry. She was an anarchist labor activist and powerful orator who fought against poverty, capitalism, social injustice and racism her whole life.

She married Albert Parsons, a former confederate soldier, in 1871. During that time, the South was instituting repressive Jim Crow laws and Lucy and Albert fled north to Chicago . The Chicago Police Department described her as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters” in the 1920s. Lucy and Albert were highly effective anarchist organizers involved in the labor movement in the late 19 th Century. They also participated in revolutionary activism on behalf of political prisoners, people of color, the homeless and women. Albert was fired from his job at the Times because of his involvement in organizing workers and blacklisted in the Chicago printing trade. Lucy opened a dress shop to support her family and hosted meetings for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). She began to write for the radical papers The Socialist and The Alarm , weekly publications of the International Working People's Association (IWPA) which she and Albert were among the founders of in 1883.

By 1886, tension among workers across America was high due to horrid working conditions and the squelching of union activities by authorities. A peaceful strike at McCormick Harvest Works in Chicago became violent when police fired into the crowd of unarmed strikers. Many were wounded and four were killed. Radicals called a meeting in Haymarket Square and once again, this peaceful gathering turned violent when someone threw a bomb that killed a police officer. Although Albert was not present at Haymarket, he was arrested and executed on charges that he had conspired in the Riot.

In the years following the execution, Lucy lived in poverty but remained committed to the cause. In 1892, she began editing Freedom: A Revolutionary Anarchist-Communist Monthly and was frequently arrested for public speaking and distributing anarchist literature. Then, in 1905, she helped found the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and began editing The Liberator , a paper published by the IWW and based in Chicago . Here she was able to voice her opinions on women's issues, supporting a woman's right to divorce, remarry and have access to birth control. She organized the Chicago Hunger Demonstrations in 1915, which pushed the American Federation of Labor, the Socialist Party and Jane Addam's Hull House to participate in a huge demonstration on February 12.

In 1925, she began working with the National Committee of the International Labor Defense, a Communist Party group that aided with the Scottsboro Eight and Angelo Hearndon cases. These were cases where the establishment charged African-American organizers with crimes they did not commit.

With eyesight failing, she spoke at the International Harvester in February, 1941. She fought against oppression until her death in 1942 at the age of 89 when she died in an accidental house fire. Her boyfriend died the next day from injuries he sustained while trying to save her. Adding to this tragedy, the FBI stole her library of 1,500 books and all of her personal papers. The state still viewed Lucy Parsons as a threat, even in her death.



WILLIAMS, Casey. "Whose Lucy Parsons ? The mythologizing and re-appropriation of a radical hero".

Anarcho-Syndicalist Review number 47, Summer, 2007
As a radical anarchist, Lucy Parsons dedicated over sixty years of her life to fighting for America’s working class and poor. [1] and A skillful orator and passionate writer, Parsons played an important role in the history of American radicalism, especially in the labor movement of the 1880s, and remained an active force until her death in 1942. The one question from which she never swayed was "how to lift humanity from poverty and despair ?" [2] With this question propelling her life’s work, Parsons was active in a multitude of radical organizations including the Socialistic Labor Party, the International Working People’s Association, and the Industrial Workers of the World. Coupled with her long involvement in America’s labor movement was Parsons’ unbending anarchist vision of society, a philosophy which underlay her critique of America’s oppressive economic and political institutions.

Peter Linebaugh: Joe Hill and the IWW

Rosemont has a crucial chapter on the indigenous people. Lucy Parsons, "whose high cheek bones of her Indian ancestors" as her biographer says, provided the physiognomy of a countenance of utter inspiration when she spoke at the founding convention of the IWW August Spies lived with the Ojibways; Big Bill Haywood attended pow-wows. Abner Woodruff, a Wob, had a chapter on Indian agriculture in his Evolution of American Agriculture (1915-6). The Wobblies were "the spiritual successors to the Red Indians as number one public enemy and conscience botherers." Frank Little, the most effective Wobbly organizer, was lynched in Butte, Montana, by the same hard rock copper "bosses" which caused Joe Hill to be shot. Little was a Cherokee Indian.

The Wheatland Riot, The Bisbee Deportation, IWW Ties with Mexico, Workers of the World


Read more: Industrial Workers of the World - The Wheatland Riot, The Bisbee Deportation, IWW Ties with Mexico, Workers of the World http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/4003/Industrial-Workers-World.html#ixzz1EaFOqcfE

The IWW arose in response to the abysmal working conditions of many poor and unskilled workers in the United States and to what it considered the lack of concern on the part of the conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL), who sought to organize skilled, U.S.–born workers. The AFL excluded many of the groups that the IWW actively recruited: immigrants, women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and unskilled laborers. The AFL was determinedly anti-immigrant, and even Mexican Americans were viewed as “foreigners.” In order to recruit Mexican Americans to its ranks, the IWW hired Mexican American organizers and translated IWW literature into Spanish.

Mexican Americans have been a part of IWW's history since the beginning. Lucy Gonzales Parsons was a founding member of the IWW and a longtime radical whose work from the 1870s until her death in 1942 gained her the reputation of being “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” Born in Texas, Gonzales Parsons moved to Chicago in the 1870s with her husband, Albert Parsons, one of the “Haymarket Square martyrs.” Although many scholars argue that she was African American, Gonzales Parsons claimed Mexican and Indian parentage and her death certificate listed Spanish-surnamed parents.


Roots of Resistance

An interview with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The IWW spanned a decade and a half of an extremely repressive period—Jim Crow segregation of Blacks and Mexicans was firmly entrenched, Native Americans had to have passes to leave their reservations and were not allowed to join trade unions, women didn't have the vote. Yet, the IWW was able to organize and inspire inter-racial struggles. It was also the period of the prolonged Mexican Revolution and cooperation between the IWW and the Mexican revolutionary workers was constant. In Oklahoma, black, white, and Indian tenant farmers, inspired by the Wobblies, rose up together in 1917 to oppose the draft for World War I and oppose the war as a "rich man's war." It was called the "Green Corn Rebellion." And, of course, women were prominent in the IWW founding and leadership: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Emma Goldman, Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, and many local leaders.

The legacy of the IWW.

Thus Lucy Parsons, already renowned for her defense of her husband after the Haymarket incident in 1886 and as an African-American revolutionary in Chicago, famously spoke for the most lowly, women driven to prostitution. But she also spoke of workers' capacity, arguing: "My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production." In this way, the extraordinary veteran of nineteenth-century class, race, and gender struggles predicted the sit-down strike of the future, which took place first in factories, then at sit-ins to integrate public facilities, and still later in college classrooms and presidents' offices to protest the brutal war on Vietnam.


Class Struggles and Geography:
Revisiting the 1886 Haymarket Square Police Riot

Regardless of how one interprets Haymarket, their memory would have
vanished altogether by the next generation without recent efforts and those of Lucy
Parsons, along with other anarchists and labour activists, to recount and publish
Haymarket accounts. In this manner, Haymarket became an integral part of labour
movements’ lore, especially in Latin America and southern and eastern Europe.
Between 1887 and today, with uneven speed and through differing circumstances
and motivations, Haymarket was turned into the basis of a holiday with the
establishment of the first of May as labour-day in most of the world. Even if that
history was appropriated by state socialist dictatorships for their own
propagandistic and geopolitical ends during the middle and late twentieth centuries,
it remained a symbol of workers’ struggle for rights and dignity in the workplace, if
not a struggle for socialism. In the US, however, the holiday, along with its radical
referent, was banned by 1955. The observance was not revived until the 1970s with
the endeavours of veteran union activists and the renewed spread and
popularisation of anarchist perspectives (Avrich, 1984, 428-436; Green, 2006, 301-
320; Zinn, 1995, 267).

LUCY PARSONS

Lucy also wrote about the press, and how even in her own time, newspapers suppressed and manipulated information with their disinformation and misinformation in reporting incidents which occurred. Lucy wrote essays, “The Importance of a Press” and “Challenging the Lying Monopolistic Press” that alerted people that the fourth estate could be just as destructive to citizen’s interests as much as any robber baron, or government institution.

Her writings on sex and patriarchy, as well as her thoughts on race and racism, require closer reading, and certainly deserve greater attention.

In February, 1941, in one of her last major appearances, Lucy spoke at the International Harvestor, where she continued to inspire crowds. On March 7, 1942 at the age of 90, Lucy died from a fire that engulfed her home.

Her lover George Markstall died the next day from wounds he received while trying to save her. To add to this tragedy, when Lucy Parsons died, the police seized and destroyed her letters, writings and library. She almost disappeared from history, but, many of her writings did survive.

Lucy’s library of 1,500 books on sex, socialism and anarchy were mysteriously stolen, along with all of her personal papers. Neither the FBI nor the Chicago police told Irving Abrams, who had come to rescue the library, that the FBI had already confiscated all of her books. The struggle for fundamental freedom of speech, in which Lucy had engaged throughout her life, continued through her death as authorities still tried to silence this radical woman by robbing her of the work of her lifetime.

She is buried near her husband, near the Haymarket Monument.

Lucy Parsons and the call for class war -notmytribe.com

Lucy lived well up into this century,
well into this century, died in 1940.
One time, she was speaking at a big May Day rally
back in the Haymarket in the middle 1930s, she was incredibly old.
She was led carefully up to the rostrum, a multitude of people there.
She had her hair tied back in a tight white bun, her face
a mass of deeply incised lines, deep-set beady black eyes.
She was the image of everybody’s great-grandmother.
She hunched over that podium, hawk-like,
and fixed that multitude with those beady black eyes,
and said: “What I want
is for every greasy grimy tramp
to arm himself with a knife or a gun
and stationing himself at the doorways of the rich
shoot or stab them as they come out.”

Looking for Lucy (in all the wrong places)

Considering Lucy Parsons’s life as a muckraker, incendiary wordsmith, and all-around thorn in the side of the established order, the Chicago Park District should have expected the flurry of controversy it got when it decided to name a park for her. Like most controversies, this one has made some fairly preposterous bedfellows. The two groups most vociferously opposed to naming a city park after Parsons have been the Fraternal Order of Police, and local anarchists who insist that any government-sanctioned recognition dishonors Parsons’s anarchist legacy.

In tracking this little gush of new blood from an old wound, I’ve gained an even deeper understanding of just how tortured Chicago’s relationship with its radical history is. Lucy Parsons — the anarchist formerly known to the American labor movement as one of its founding mothers, and to the Chicago Police Department as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters” — is barely known to most Chicagoans today, including the city officials who supported the park-naming. In what is surely one of the greatest ironies in the history of Chicago’s civic life, the cops were the only ones who went on record openly acknowledging Parsons’s anarchism, while her supporters both in and out of local government labored to recast her merely as a champion of rights for women and minorities (which she was, but only by extension of her lifelong fight for workers’ revolution).


Lucy Parsons :: Revolutionary Feminist

Class, Race and Gender
Parsons’ commitments towards freedom of the young Black Communist Angelo Herndon in Georgia, Tom Mooney in California, and for the Scottsoboro Nine in Alabama were unflinching. Parsons recognized the class system in America as the prime factor in perpetuating racism. She was the foremost American feminist to declare that race, gender and sexuality are not oppressed identities by themselves. It is the economic class that determines the level of oppression people of minorities have to confront. Notwithstanding her social location of being a black and a woman, Parsons declared that a black person in America is exploited not because she/he is black. “It is because he is poor. It is because he is dependent. Because he is poorer as a class than his white wage-slave brother of the North.”

Lucy Parsons was a relentless defender of working class rights. To contain her popularity, the media portrayed her more as the wife of Albert Parsons – a Haymarket martyr, who was murdered by the state of Illinois, while demanding for eight-hour working day on November 11, 1887. While identifying her with Albert’s causes, history textbooks – both liberal and conservative – seldom mention Parsons as the radical torchbearer of American communist movement.

Parsons was among the first women to join the founding convention of IWW. She thundered: “We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to use it. But we have our labor. Wherever wages are to be reduced, the capitalist class uses women to reduce them.”

In The Agitator, dated November 1, 1912 she referred to Haymarket martyrs thus: “Our comrades were not murdered by the state because they had any connection with the bombthrowing, but because they were active in organizing the wage-slaves. The capitalist class didn’t want to find the bombthrower; this class foolishly believed that by putting to death the active spirits of the labor movement of the time, it could frighten the working class back to slavery.”

She had no illusions about capitalistic world order. Parsons called for armed overthrow of the American ruling class. She refused to buy into an argument that the origin of racist violence was in racism. Instead, Parsons viewed racism as a necessary byproduct of capitalism. In 1886, she called for armed resistance to the working class: “You are not absolutely defenseless. For the torch of the incendiary, which has been known with impunity, cannot be wrested from you!”

For Parsons, her personal losses meant nothing; her oppression as a woman meant less. She was dedicated to usher in changes for the entire humanity – changes that would alter the world order in favor of the working poor class.

Even as a founding member of IWW, she was not willing to let the world’s largest labor union function in a romanticized manner. She radicalized the IWW by demanding that women, Mexican migrant workers and even the unemployed become full and equal members.

With her clarity of vision, lifelong devotion towards communist causes, her strict adherence to radical demands for a societal replacement of class structure, Lucy Parsons remains the most shining example of an American woman who turned her disadvantaged social locations of race and gender, to one of formidable strength – raising herself to bring about emancipated working class consciousness.


Baron, Fanya nee Anisimovna aka Fanny Baron 188?-1921 | libcom.org

Idealistic young anarchist who suffered the brutality of both the US cops and the Russian Cheka.

Born in Russia, Fanya Anisimovna moved to the United States where she established a relationship with Aron Baron (aka Kantarovitch), who worked as a baker. She was active in the anarchist movement in Chicago, and with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). She was involved in the hunger demonstrations of 1915 there, alongside Lucy Parsons and Aron. On January 17th 1915 she led the Russian Revolutionary Chorus at a meeting addressed by Lucy Parsons and others at Hull House, established by Jane Addams to help the poor. On the demonstration outside the police viciously attacked. Plain clothes detectives used brass knuckles on the crowd, while uniformed cops struck out with billy clubs. Fanya was knocked unconscious by one of the club wielding cops. She and five other Russian women and fifteen men were arrested. Jane Addams arranged bail for Fanya, Lucy and others who were pictured in the Chicago press.


LUCY PARSONS

FREEDOM, EQUALITY & SOLIDARITY

Writings & Speeches 1878-1937

Edited & Introduced by Gale Ahrens

With an Afterword by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

"The most prominent black woman radical of the late nineteenth century, Lucy Parsons [was also] one of the brightest lights in the history of revolutionary socialism."-Robin D. G. Kelley, in Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.

"Lucy Parsons's writings are among the best and strongest in the history of U.S. anarchism. Although written long ago, these texts tackle the major problems of our time. Her long and often traumatic experience of the capitalist injustice system-from KKK terror in her youth, through Haymarket and the judicial murder of her husband, to the U.S. government's war on the Wobblies -made her not "just another victim" but an extraordinarily articulate witness to, and vehement crusader against, all injustice. That kind of direct experience gave her a credibility and an actuality that those who lack such experience just don't have. Lucy Parsons's life and writings reflect her true-to-the-bone heroism. Her language sparkles with the love of freedom and the passion of revolt."
- Gale Ahrens
, Introduction

"More dangerous than 1000 rioters!" That's what the Chicago police called Lucy Parsons- America's most defiant and persistent anarchist agitator, whose cross-country speaking tours inspired hundreds of thousands of working people. Her friends and admirers included William Morris, Peter Kropot-kin, "Big Bill" Haywood, Ben Reitman, Sam Dolgoff-and the groups in which she was active were just as varied: the Knights of Labor, IWW, Dil Pickle Club, International Labor Defense, & others. Here for the first time is a hefty selection of her powerful writings & speeches-on anarchism, women, race matters, class war, the IWW, and the U.S. injustice system.

"Lucy Parsons's personae and historical role provide material for the makings of a truly exemplary figure ... Think of it: a lifelong anarchist, labor organizer, writer, editor, publisher, and dynamic speaker, a woman of color of mixed black, Mexican, and Native American heritage, founder of the 1880s Chicago Working Woman's Union that organized garment workers, called for equal pay for equal work, and even invited housewives to join with the demand of wages for housework; and later (1905) co-founder the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which made the organizing of women and people of color a priority. . .For a better understanding of the concept of direct action and its implications, no other historical figure can match the lessons provided by Lucy Parsons."
- Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz
, Afterword

Hobohemia: Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other ...

Alibris has Hobohemia: Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Ben Reitman & Other Agitators ... but - thanks to the prominence of the Chicago-based IWW - much more ...
www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=10370395&matches... - Cached

Scandalous Women: Lucy Parsons - An American Revolutionary

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The New National Stock Exchange

Should the Toronto and London Stock Exchanges merge? Of course they should, since the marketplace is global and other borses (exchanges) are merging in this era of global capitalism. And it fits in well with the Feds argument for one national exchange. The irony is that while business sees this as a favorable idea the right wing politicians don't.


But reaction from CEOs and chief financial officers suggests that executives at many of Canada’s largest public companies do not want politicians to step in. Corporate leaders are optimistic that a merger will benefit both traders, and firms seeking capital. Many executives added that it would be pointless to fight against the forces that are spurring consolidation in the exchange business globally.

Business case

Caldwell insisted there will be a net benefit to Canada in this deal.

Here are some of his arguments in favour of a TSX-LSE merger:

* "The listings, the fundraising, the corporate finance will still be done in Toronto." * If it gives "easier access to Canadian companies, easier access to European and Middle East funding via the London Stock Exchange, that would be a tremendous economic boom." * "The LSE does not have a derivatives platform, that is options, and Montreal does. So they're going to be using the Montreal system and staff to build their products in Europe." * "Quebec may actually get jobs out of this" * "We are going to have a greater selection of investments quite possibly, and greater access to capital."


Once again the nationalist protectionist impulses of the Federal and provincial governments (regardless of the ideology of the party in power) misses the point...

Hudak shares Liberal doubts about value of TMX-LSE merger for Ontario

....capital is global and no matter how you regulate it nationally, or provincially, until those regulations are internationalized then you have failed to address the real nature of the new global capital markets.

David Weild, a former Chairman at Nasdaq, says that might not be the case, as the exchange companies—now publicly traded—don’t adhere to the same principals they did in the past when they were private.

“They used to be quasi public utilities that had to look out for the public good by building better economies, they looked out for the entire ecosystem that included dealers, institutional and retails investors and issuers,” he tells BNN.

“They have taken their eyes off of the plight of the small cap company, which is the one that generates jobs and innovation and regenerates economic growth for the world’s economy.”

The very markets that led to the recession and financial collapse of 2008. Denying these mergers does not address the real issue; how to regulate them.


A number of executives across various sectors said it would be difficult for them to argue that Canada should block any deal, given that they are expanding into other countries themselves.

“We at Canaccord believe that Canada should be open to foreign investment,” said Canaccord chief executive officer Paul Reynolds.

And quite a few business leaders took the argument a step further, saying flat out that Ottawa has no business weighing into this deal. “If the Canadian government subscribes to and practises free trade and open market economics, it should leave it alone,” said Ed Miu, chief financial officer of Eldorado Gold Corp.

“Who cares?” said Bill Holland, chief executive officer of CI Financial Corp., adding that exchanges are now “nothing more than a bunch of servers and a name.

“The bigger the better,” he said. “All you’re trying to do is get the most liquidity at the best prices. Is it something that is vital to Canadian interests? Not at all. It’s a non-issue.”

And this weekends G20 Finance Ministers meeting did nothing to address the need for global regulations, leaving each national capitalist regime to come up with its own policies.

This then is the anarchy of capitalism, best reflected by the unregulated Canadian stock market that allows provinces to regulate their own marketplaces.

Right wing provincial governments
oppose a single national regulator, claiming their constitutional right to have their own regulations and stock markets. Mind you in the case of Alberta and B.C. both Stock Markets have been home to many a ponzi scheme, Bre-X to just mention one.

Scandal in the Alberta Stock Exchange

Pro Sports and Criminal Capitalism the Skalbania Pocklington story


They may have a 'constitutional' right to having provincial Stock Markets but that constitution was written in 1867 when the Canadian borse but was a mote in gods eye. The City of London (the Stock exchange) still dominated the markets in Canada until the great depression.

Initial Corporate Ownership Structures
As the stock market deepened, widely held industrial firms also appeared. The Hudson’s Bay Company generally had no single dominant shareholder, though its Chief Factor often seemed to rule the company and its shares did not trade on exchange. But Canada now had numerous small, widely held mining companies and two widely held giants. Canadian Pacific was widely held from its inception; and by 1900, Bell Canada too was widely held.
However, many large Canadian firms now belonged to pyramidal corporate groups – structures in which a family or closely held apex firm controls other listed firms, each of which control yet other listed firms, and do on. The first such group, that of the Cox family, established in 1899, served as a model.
Still, Canadian pyramidal groups were usually not terribly complicated, at least relative to their modern descendents. Most had only a few tiers and a handful of firms. The economic motivations of their builders are also fairly straightforward.
Prior to the big push period, and early into it, old money families and railroad tycoons diversified their wealth by venturing into different industries. As the stock market developed, and public
shareholders became a significant source of capital, selling minority interests in these ventures to small investors became increasingly common. Listing its controlled subsidiaries lets a wealthy family leverage their retained earnings into control over much larger pools of capital than their own wealth, yet retain
complete control. It also let them diversify more extensively while operating on a larger scale in each industry. Thus, began the first corporate groups.
Larger corporate groups were often the result of takeover waves. From 1909 until 1912, when the economy abruptly slowed, 275 of Canada’s largest firms coalesced into 58 in half a billion dollars worth of M&A transactions. The most active corporate acquisitor of this period was Max Aitken, who assembled Canada’s largest pyramidal group. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he rose through the
ranks of Royal Securities, ultimately running the firm for its controlling shareholder, John Stairs, heir to the old Nova Scotia merchant family. In 1906, he used his earnings to buy Montréal Trust, and then used that firm to take over Royal Securities. Aitken issued debt in London on a huge scale and used the
proceeds to buy steel mills, cement companies, power companies, and other firms all over Canada. In this way, he built the Steel Company of Canada from Montréal Rolling Mills, Hamilton Steel and Iron, Canada Screw, Canada Bolt and many other smaller firms. Aitken also formed Canada Cement out of twelve of the country’s thirteen Portland cement makers. At the end of the big push years, Aitken, always a passionate imperialist, bought the title Lord Beaverbrook and retired to London.

More Corporate Welfare

Big Business is never satisfied, it wants tax breaks and tax credits.....either way you and I pay.....So much for being job creators....the only way they can create jobs is not with their own money but yours and mine.....which shows that contrary to the rhetorical litany of the right wing government actually does create jobs.....

Auto executives also called on the federal and Ontario governments to continue offering manufacturing incentives in light of the impact the soaring loonie is having on their industry’s competitiveness.
Since auto workers are taxpayers, and they and we have bailed out big auto with tax breaks, investments, bail outs, pension forgiveness, and pension give backs, as well as wage concession by unions then frankly we own Big Auto we should simply take over the industry and put it under workers control. Especially now that it is profitable again......thanks to you and me and the autoworkers.....

UPDATE 1-Ford, Chrysler Canada sales rise in January

SEE

Big Auto Crisis is the Crisis of Capitalism

There Is An Alternative To Capitalism

Auto Solution II



Saturday, February 19, 2011

Hewers of Wood, Drawersof Oil

This headline once again reveals the untainted truth; China is a capitalist nation and as a world power of capital is Imperialist.

PetroChina, Encana and the eventual export of B.C. natural gas

Regardless of the ideology proclaimed by the state, the fact is that China is a capitalist economy; even if it is a state capitalist one.

As Herr Dr.Marx points out it's about the relationships we have to the means of production, who controls it and who doesn't. In other words once you have industrial production and capital in perpetual production by a working class, capitalist society exists, regardless of its political superstructure. The transformation of peasants into an urban proletariat is the key function of capitalist means of production. And China fits that description as much as England did in the late 18th Century or America in the late 19th Century.


The irony in the relationship between Canada and China is that they are both state capitalist economies. One is more bourgeois democratic, the other is based on an authoritarian command economy. However the state, is crucial in both political economies in determining national interests.

In the case of Canada we are once again being the hewers of wood and drawers of water, a resource based export economy to developing industrial economies. Today we are hewers of wood and drawers of oil.

Is China Western Canada's new best friend?

``Between 2000 and 2010, Canadian exports to China have increased by 3,300 per cent. In fact, Canada surpassed Russia this year as the biggest exporter of softwood lumber to China.''

BC wood-culture push brings Chinese success


This is reminiscent of the original colonial model of Canada vis a vis France and Britain, and then our relationship with America. Now we deal with a modernizing industrial China, as their new resource base as we sell off our manufacturing to other global capitalists.

French Canada was initially a colony of resource extraction, not a colony of settlement. During brief periods when settlement became paramount, Canada was a theocratic society, reminiscent of modern Iran. And when settlement and development was finally pushed determinedly, Canada became a laboratory in
which Jean Baptiste Colbert, the father of French mercantilist economics, tested his theories with development schemes similar to Third World misadventures in the 1960s.


The irony is that the current Federal government in Canada is politically opposed to China, yet they espouse the virtues of free trade, going so far as to call themselves libertarians on this matter. But the fact is that the Harpocrites right wing ideology belies the political economic reality which is Canada, it has always been a state capitalist nation.

However the nature of Canadian political economy belies any true tradition of free trade. It evolved from mercantilism to state capitalism, without the problematic tendencies of free trade.

The first share capital corporations were the North West Company of Fur Traders, and the Hudson Bay Company, fur trading companies that still were mercantile, not really free enterprise. They relied on being monopolies. In fact all of the early capitalist development in Canada was monopoly mercantilism run by a few families. Whether it was fur trading or canal building.

Henry Hudson’s 1610 claim for Britain to the lands around Hudson’s Bay lay unexploited until 1670, when Charles II granted his cousin, Prince Rupert, a fur trade monopoly and rechristened the region Rupertsland. Rupert organized The Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudsons Bay (a.k.a.
The Hudson’s Bay Company, or ‘the Bay’), a joint stock company, to raise funds.10 The forts, trading posts, and ships required - as well as the risks inherent in the fur trade - were beyond the resources of even the wealthiest individual families. Thus, the Hudson’s Bay Company, like the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies Company, was among the first joint stock companies formed.

In 1779, British and Loyalist merchants in Montréal established the
Northwest Company to compete with the Hudson’s Bay Company for the fur trade, contesting the legitimacy of the latter’s monopoly. The original founders of the Northwest Company included Simon McTavish, Todd and McGill, Charles Grant, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, the firm of McGill and Patterson and five other merchants and firms.15 The resulting wealth gave the same names prominence in
banking, shipping, and railroad promotion decades later. Since the Hudson’s Bay Company had its own militia, the Northwest Company needed one too.
Their battle for market share is best described in military terms.

During this period, the most entrepreneurial regions of British North America were the Maritime Colonies – Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Abraham Cunard, a master carpenter, arrived in Halifax in 1783 and rapidly established stores, mills, lumbering, sawmills, shipbuilding, an accounting firm, and other businesses. Despite strong competition from other “timber barons” like Gilmour, Rankin, & Co.,
Philemon Wright & Sons, William Price, and John Egan, A. Cunard & Son prospered. Many timber barons, including Christopher Scott, John and Charles Wood, and the Cunards, expanded into shipbuilding and shipping. Bliss (1986, p. 135) remarks that all of these fortunes were technically founded on theft, for the timber was almost all harvested from Crown land. The Cunard Line prospered,
especially after it obtained a monopoly on delivering the Royal Mail between Britain and the Americas.

The biggest enterprises in Upper Canada in the early 19th century were canals. The government built the Rideau Canal from the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario. William Hamilton Merritt organized the Welland Canal, linking Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, as a joint stock company controlled by the Family Compact. After providing generous state subsidies and loans, the Upper Canada government finally
bought out the owners of the failing venture in 1841. The newspaperman William Lyon Mackenzie charged that the whole project was a scam to enrich the Family Compact. Upper Canada’s public finances never recovered.


The creation of both the CPR and CN rail companies was facilitated by the Canadian State, including early on in the last century when immigration was promoted to help develop Rail lands.

Economic expansion paralleled an immigration boom. Under Laurier, Canada’s population rose 44%. Western Canada was rapidly populated along the proliferating transcontinental CPR system. All sectors of the economy grew rapidly and simultaneously to accommodate this infrastructure investment,
and the millions of new consumers flooding in. The situation thus closely resembles what Murphy et al. (1989) call a big push – rapid development sustained by the simultaneous expansion of many interdependent sectors, so demand for intermediate and final goods grows apace with their supply.
The railway, and the immigrant settler farms springing up around it created an economic low pressure zone. Every sort of new business was needed to supply the railroad, the settlers, and all the othernew businesses opening to serve them.


Canada's corporate structure was always mercantile state capitalism. In fact the origin of the Canadian State coincides with the development of the Railways.
The colony’s political leaders felt hamstrung by their inability to subsidize such new ventures. Francis Hincks, an entrepreneur and Member of Parliament, partially solved this problem with a new Municipalities Act, which let towns float debt. A more complete solution appeared in 1849, when Canada began guaranteeing railroad debt, but only if prominent politicians, such as Hincks and Galt, were
on the board to “guarantee good management.” After a brief financial crisis in 1849, a boom and bust in railroad stocks ensued, and railroad construction resumed on a grand scale. Although railroads built honest fortunes, like that of the engineer Casimir Gzoski, corruption was endemic. Sir Allan Napier
MacNab, president of the Great Western Railway, served Canada as chair of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Railways and Telegraphs. The grandest project, the Grand Truck Railroad, run by Prime Minister Hincks, was ineptly built and almost unusable. A British lobbyist hired by Hincks to lobby
members of parliament wrote:I do not think there is much to be said for Canadians over Turks when contracts, places, free tickets on railways, or even cash was in question.
A Barings investigation exposed rampant fraud, kickbacks, and deceit; and Barings blocked further Canadian listings in London to obtain a veto over additional debt financing and guarantees in 1851. This merely tested the ingenuity of the colonial political elite in circumventing such checks. Railway subsidies became a top government priority. According to Naylor (1975), railroad construction and
financing in colonial Canada were “appalling even by the standards of the day.” Virtually every important politician now moonlighted as a railway officer or director, and railway subsidies both enriched political insiders and drained government coffers. Current, past, and future Prime Ministers Francis
Hincks, Alexander T. Galt, and John A. MacDonald, respectively, and most of their cabinet ministers all had railway financial ties. In 1858, Alexander Galt, now Finance Minister, subordinated Canada’s sovereign debt to railroad common stock and raised the tariff to obtain funds for larger railway subsidies. By the 1860s, Canada had both a shoddily built, poorly run railroad system and a near bankrupt
government.
Now, only union with the solvent Maritime colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick promised fiscal rescue. When the United States abrogated the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866, Galt lowered the tariff slightly on manufactured goods to match those of the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick colonies,
in preparation for their union with Canada. In 1867, British investors blocked New Brunswick and Nova Scotia financing in London to force such a union. The resulting confederation was the Dominion of Canada, a self-governing entity within the British Empire. Canadian independence is usually dated to 1867, though Responsible Government came earlier and Canada remained within the Empire long after. Since the Canadian parliament assumed almost all of the powers of the parliament in London in 1867, this date is probably more appropriate than any other.

When it comes to politics those who complain that China is a one party state overlook the fact that Alberta is a One Party State as well. The longest running one party state in North America! And of course Alberta as a resource based economy, is looking to China to sell to.

Alta.'s economic future lies in Far East

Asia’s state-owned companies have taken significant positions in Alberta’s resources over the past year-and-a-half. Encana, the second-largest natural gas company in North America, announced a $5.4-billion joint venture deal with PetroChina Co. Ltd. last Wednesday, adding to its Canadian projects. Sinopec Corp., Korea National Oil Corp., and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd. all made recent investments in Alberta. China Investment Corp. also struck a deal last year.
Like Albertans the Chinese people believe they have a peoples government. Like those on the right who mythologize Alberta's history as a perpetual enclave of right wing individualism, those in China believe that their way of life is good and it is thanks to the government. Even if like in Alberta, it is a minority that elects the government.


ZACHARY KARABELL: Right now, the Chinese government is a good government in that it's providing more affluence to more people in a way that, from anything you can glean, many people in that particular society find minimally acceptable. But I don't know if we would say that's good governance.


IAN BREMMER:You don't get to vote in China. Yet many of them seem reasonably happy with the government they have had for the last 30, 40-plus years. We're going to have to address that.

One interesting point that I want to throw out. I was with Tony Blair a few months ago. He was talking about the fact that we needed to step up and really show our leadership in the G20 and all the rest. My response was, as I raised at the beginning of this question, "The Chinese are much happier with their government today than a lot of us sitting around the table are with our own. How do you address that? How do you respond to that?"

Tony Blair said, "When you look around the world, you see that people want democracy. It's a very tough question, but ultimately, the Chinese will come around; when they get richer, they're going to understand that we have the right system."
Yep just like Alberta, we might eventually have a real democracy here to.


Without an industrial policy in Canada, we will continue to be hewers of wood, and drawers of water and oil. And despite the hang wringing from the right wing about human rights in China, capitalism has no such qualms about making deals, after all the only thing that matters is the bottom line. Without developing secondary and tertiary industries and new industries, we will remain a resource economy with all the flaws that brings.




SEE:
The New Imperial Age
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Friday, February 18, 2011

Flathead Lake Monster



It seems BC conservationists have run into a less than reluctant if not outright hostile BC government when it comes to saving Flathead Lake, part of the Waterton National Park system, from resource development. So in a variation on P3 funding, they have put up their own money to save the valley.....

Conservation groups put up $9.4-million to save Flathead Valley

Cryptozoologists should be concerned as well since Flathead Lake is home to Ogopogo's cousin the Flathead Lake Monster. And even if it is an ancient fossil fish, they too are endangered. Except in Wisconsin apparently

Slow start: Sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago

Thursday, February 17, 2011

RRSP Season No One Buying



Average Canadian family debt hits $100000

The report, released by the Vanier Institute of the Family on Thursday, suggests the debt-to-income ratio is a record 150 per cent.

Leads to this:

Banks are finding us RRSP-fatigued



America The Great Satan

Says Canadian Teen Idol Justin Bieber..... pop culture mullah....waiting for Fox News to comment.....

In the interview, Bieber also weighs in on the U.S. health care system.

"You guys are evil," he says. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2011/02/justin-bieber-shares-his-views-on-abortion-sex-healthcare/1

Yep socialized medicine works......single payer, government delivered, doctors on salary.

Old News

When I saw this on CBC news on Monday:

Dangerous bacteria found on mall food trays

I had a moment of Deja vu....

and well it turns out that in their effort to go green, the CBC is recycling old news in new bottles.....


Wed Mar 10, 2010

Which Has More Germs - A Restaurant Tray or a Park Sandbox ...

September 15, 2009

Back to School: Toilet Seats are Cleaner Than Cafeteria Trays!

Schools can be a hotbed of bacteria 10/03/06 | abc7chicago.com

October 5, 2005

Where Germs Lurk in Grade School

September 16, 2005

Millions of Germs and Bacteria Await Kids at School : Food Poison ...

* A cafeteria tray had more than ten times as many germs as a toilet seat (33,800 bacterial cells per square inch vs. 3,200 bacterial cells per square inch).
Call it germophobia news created by pandemic media outbreaks. But thanks to all that pandemic panic a simple solution to cleaning a tray, is to grab one of those ubiquitous ever present disinfectant wipes and give the tray a good wiping. And then do it again with a second cloth.

Mind you this is scary....

"We saw as many bacteria on some food trays as we saw on a toilet," said Hancock.

Swabs were taken from a gas station toilet for comparison and lab technicians did find similar types and amounts of pathogens.


Yep gas station bathrooms are notorious for being dirty.....say no more.....good thing they have those disinfectant dispensers in them too now...whenever we read or hear stories like this....disinfectant manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank......

Odaesque


Now if she ain't guilty why does she look guilty, wearing her sunglasses during question period...what was that about lying eyes....Meanwhile yesterday Rona Ambrose played blocker during question period, hiding Oda from the cameras.....Guess because Rona is Minister of Women.....a position Oda once held, when a hatchet-woman was needed to cut funds to women's groups that were deemed too liberal by the Harpocrites and as ordered by the PMO. With her new position as Minister of CIDA the PMO decided that the church funded Kairos was too liberal and too activist, so once again their hatchet-woman did the deed and cut Kairos funding...only she could not justify the cuts...so she lied to Parliament about it.
Some speculate Mr. Harper’s protection of Ms. Oda, however characteristic of his government, may be compounded by another factor: The opposition alleges the decision to modify the memo originated in the Prime Minister’s Office.


Or maybe they sunglasses are a surrogate for her need for a smoke while refusing to answer questions from the opposition or reporters......

See

Status of Women

Bev Oda

Tory Cuts

Sunday, February 13, 2011

When will BP be Charged In Workers Deaths

I have been face book posting a number of stories about BP. Since the Supreme Court of the United States not only reconfirmed that Corporations were Persons, which was first recognized in the late 1890's, but extended their rights within the political arena, then as persons, they should face the consequences of their actions.

Which is to be charged with murder since they were criminally negligent when it came to safety.The result 26 deaths over five years. But because they were 'workplace incidents' the resulting deaths of real persons, because they are workers, is not considered equivalent to murder.

“It’s an unfortunate fact that monetary penalties just aren’t enough. We believe that nothing focuses the mind like the threat of doing time in prison, which is why we need criminal penalties for employers who are determined to gamble with their workers’ lives and consider it merely a cost of doing business when a worker dies on the job.”

- Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor (OSHA)




The facts as shown in this Fortune article say otherwise, this was no accident it was an accident waiting to happen.

In the decade before the Deepwater Horizon, BP (BP) had a history of serious accidents. Each time its CEO vowed to avoid a future disaster. In 2000, after a string of fires and equipment failures, CEO John Browne announced plans to "renew our commitment to safety." In 2005, after a horrific explosion killed 15 people at BP's Texas City refinery, he swore there'd be "no stone left unturned" to investigate what happened and correct any safety issues. In 2007, after being named Browne's successor in the aftermath of more problems, Tony Hayward promised to focus "like a laser" on safety -- only to oversee the worst oil spill in history.

Fortune's investigation shows how Hayward, a fast-rising geologist once known as "Teflon Tony," fell tragically short of his goal. Despite efforts to change, BP never corrected the underlying weakness in its safety approach, which allowed earlier calamities, such as the Texas City refinery explosion. Perhaps the most crucial culprit: an emphasis on personal safety (such as reducing slips and falls) rather than process safety (avoiding a deadly explosion). That might seem like a semantic distinction at first glance, but it had profound consequences.

Consider this: BP had strict guidelines barring employees from carrying a cup of coffee without a lid -- but no standard procedure for how to conduct a "negative-pressure test," a critical last step in avoiding a well blowout. If done properly, that test might have saved the Deepwater Horizon.

Indeed, BP executives warned of serious process-safety "gaps" in the Gulf of Mexico, Fortune has learned, in a never-before-reported strategy document dated December 2008. "It's become apparent," the BP document stated, "that process-safety major hazards and risks are not fully understood by engineering or line operating personnel. Insufficient awareness is leading to missed signals that precede incidents and response after incidents, both of which increases the potential for and severity of process-safety related incidents." The document called for stronger "major hazard awareness."

But BP failed. "They just did safety wrong," says Nancy Leveson, an industrial safety expert at MIT who served on a panel that investigated BP's safety practices after its refinery explosion; she has since taught safety classes to BP executives and also advised the presidential panel that investigated the Deepwater Horizon disaster. "They were producing a lot of standards," she says, "but many were not very good, and many were irrelevant." Leveson says that she was so troubled by BP's approach that in January 2010 she told colleagues, "They are an accident waiting to happen."

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Canada Funds Private Armies in Afghanistan

Well once again it takes an American study to tell Canadians what the Harpocrites don't want us to know about their War in Afghanistan.

Canada spent more than $41 million on hired guns in Afghanistan over four years, much of it going to security companies slammed by the U.S. Senate for having warlords on the payroll.

Both the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments have employed 11 security contractors in Kabul and Kandahar since 2006, but have kept quiet about the details.

Now documents tabled in Parliament at the request of the New Democrats provide the first comprehensive picture of the use of private contractors, which have been accused of adding to the chaos in Afghanistan.

The records show Foreign Affairs paid nearly $8 million to ArmorGroup Securities Ltd., recently cited in a U.S. Senate investigation as relying on Afghan warlords who in 2007 were engaged in "murder, kidnapping, bribery and anti-Coalition activities."

Canadian Business Not Productive

Despite the tax cuts given to corporations by both the Liberals and Conservative governments, it has not translated into increased productivity, that is both technological innovation and job growth. So the Harpocrites latest national tour promoting Job Creation Through Corporate Tax Cuts, is all a dog and pony show, the facts don't meet the rhetoric. For five years tax cuts have not resulted in increased RD investment by corporations nor investment in technology upgrades, and of course few new jobs.

But hey if you don't believe me how about these guys:

Canada has made major public investments in research, primarily through universities, but private-sector innovation has remained relatively weak. The OECD ranks Canada as 16th in business spending on R&D as a share of the economy, despite having the second-highest level of government support for such investment. The overall policy and economic environment has become much more encouraging over the past decade. The marginal tax rate on new business investment has dropped sharply, making Canada more attractive internationally and opening a significant tax advantage over the United States.

Thomas d’Aquino and David Stewart-Patterson are the former chief executive and president and executive vice-president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and co-authors of the book Northern Edge: How Canadians Can Triumph in the Global Economy. Read more: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/25/unleashing-innovation/#ixzz1DCwwrEmV


And of course Bank of Canada boss Mark Carney regularly reminds us that corporate failure to invest results in lack of productivity. So why give them tax cuts, clearly it doesn't increase productivity or create jobs.

In fact continued tax breaks federally and provincially to Big Oil has had a negative impact on jobs in Canada.

A 2009 Industry Canada report found that 54 per cent of Canada's loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs since 2002 is due to the oil sands boom replacing good, stable employment with short-term construction work in the tar sands and low-wage service sector jobs elsewhere in the economy. Canada has lost one-third of its post-war gains in value-added (manufactured) exports since 1999/2000, Canadian Auto Workers senior economist Jim Stanford told the Institute for Competiveness and Productivity in 2008.

The problem is not worker productivity, since workers in Canada are highly productive, its investment in actual technology.

The Canadian manufacturing sector employed more than 2.3 million people in 2002. By last September, manufacturers had shed some 580,000 jobs - more than one in four – and most of these losses occurred before the recession. There are few signs that this trend will reverse itself soon.

the fall in manufacturing employment was largely due to attrition, not layoffs. And one of the surprises of the recession is that manufacturing unemployment is now lower than it was before the recession – although this result was largely achieved by workers leaving the sector altogether.

But it’s a puzzle nonetheless: output per worker in the manufacturing sector has been increasing more than three times as fast as the economy as a whole. If productivity growth is the key to sustained prosperity, then shouldn’t manufacturing be increasing in importance?


Tax cuts have not created jobs, since corporations have used the break to accumulate capital which if invested at all is invested in the stock market and in mergers and acquisitions, not in workers wages, technology or pensions.

Corporations in this country are flush with cash and ready to grow.

"In some ways, corporate Canada has never been stronger than it is right now," Tal said.

"Better-than-expected profitability and a reluctance to spend in recent years has left Canadian businesses sitting on a record amount of cash and confident about the future.”

Swift and strategic downsizing during the recent recession paid off, Tal said. It allowed companies to withstand the downturn and ramp up hiring at a much faster clip than in the U.S.


In fact both private corporations and ironically our public pension fund the CPP have led the way in taking that capital and investing it abroad.

Foreign investment is a two-way street.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Onex took top honours for the biggest global private equity acquisition of the year with their $4.4-billion purchase of U.K. manufacturing giant Tomkins.

PricewaterhouseCoopers suspects Canadian companies will continue look past North America to emerging markets for better deals.

Last year, Canadians made major “buys” in nearly every continent with deals in the fourth quarter alone stretching to the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

“These transformational deals are beacons for what will become the norm for Canadian deal making going forward,” Knibutat said.

Joint ventures and minority purchases will also become more popular, it said. These deals allow companies to test drive sectors while minimizing financial and political risk, PricewaterhouseCoopers said.

“Organic growth prospects within North America remain limited, so for many well capitalized corporates and funds, M&A may be the best and only tool for growth,” Knibutat said.

A “perfect storm” of companies flush with cash, improved access to financing and lacklustre organic growth prospects means the M&A outlook is even brighter for Canada in 2011.

Global public companies have an estimated $3 trillion in cash reserves. Private equity firms hold another $500 billion.

Competitive tensions stemming from strong takeover demands are likely to entice sellers back in the market and that should create a more balanced number of buyers and sellers, PricewaterhouseCoopers said.

All this means Canada will likely continue to outpace the globe when it comes to M&A activity, buoyed by a well-capitalized financial system, strong dollar and leadership in hot deal sectors.

So rather than calling corporate tax cuts job creators, we should call a spade a spade; all that tax cuts do is reduce government revenue, social capital, while giving corporations more capital. Tax cuts are public funding of private profits, without having shareholder benefits. Tax cuts are corporate welfare.

A broad look at how corporate tax rates have changed Canada in the past suggests the impact of the small cuts planned for this year and next is marginal for most companies.

The larger impact is on the government's bottom line, not the corporate bottom line — even though corporate taxes have now become key in determining whether there will be a spring election.

Indeed, federal Finance Department documents show that the reduction of corporate income tax — from 18 per cent in 2010 to 16.5 per cent in 2011 and then to 15 per cent in 2012 — will be expensive for any government battling a deficit. The cost is about $1.6 billion in foregone revenue in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, $3.9 billion the year after, and a total of more than $10 billion over three years.



Quit Your Tweeting Over UBB Challenge the Teleco Monopolies

While thousands of Canadians blogged, tweeted and set up internet petitions about the CRTC's User Based Billing (UBB) decision this week, methinks they protest too much, or at least have missed the real issue. As Michael Geist points out; The widespread use of bandwidth caps in Canada is a function of a highly concentrated market where a handful of ISPs control so much of the market.

The fact is that the Canadian marketplace is dominated by oligopolies; the big Telco's and Cable operators. They already overcharge us for cell phone use as well as internet access. You are already getting gouged even before the CRTC ruling!

Canada’s largest telecoms don’t want to say how much it costs to deliver a gigabyte of bandwidth and have refused to disclose such data, arguing that information is both proprietary and competitively sensitive. They also argue that it’s difficult to calculate the specific cost of delivering bandwidth since the cost varies based on the technology being used, the user’s location and the time of day.


Of course they don't because as studies have shown we are charged more for our use of these "public utilities" then any other countries. And the reason is that these oligopolies make a profit off of service charges.

It’s 2010 and Canadians pay the highest cell phone bills in the world

Surveying more that 50 developed and developing countries where information is available, one country comes out on top when it comes to the most revenue extracted per subscriber on a monthly basis. And that country is of course Canada. What you are looking at here are the world rankings of mobile ARPU (Average Revenue per User). To you and me ARPU is your monthly bill, before GST/PST/HST etc. (through taxes and high spectrum license fees, our government is culprit here too)

This data is total bill including both voice and data. Canada does not have the highest proportion of data to voice charges though data usage in Canada is growing fast (we’re finally catching up after a late roll-out of 3G compared to many countries). Interestingly, Canadians are estimate to pay slightly less per minute of voice (10 cents vs 11 cents) on average than our nearest neightbour the U.S.. What is really driving bills in Canada over the top are the egregious fees like system access fees (the fees many plans still pay whether you access the system or not in a month), and especially “value pack” fees like 15$ a month for the luxury of call display and handful of voice mails



Now remember when they say that they have legacy costs, those costs are transmission lines, satellite connections, etc. Things that we the taxpayers have invested in. Telus was originally a government of Alberta phone company and it bought our city owned telco; Edmonton Telephones. So its legacy costs are the direct result of being a public utility. The Canadian government satellite program is used by telecos to transmit GPS signals, as well as broadband and mobile phone transmissions. So how come we get charged as if these companies had actually spent some money on this infrastructure.



Instead of protesting over UBB folks should be pissed off that the telecos and cable companies are gouging us using our public airwaves, and our legacy infrastructure and then charging us for it. The right wing likes to talk about how competiton will decrease prices, but that is not the case when the market is dominated by oligopolies who set base prices. While some would say its time for the CRTC to go, I would contend that since there is little interest in nationalization of these public utilities, that we direct the CRTC to set real rates based on the global market prices. Our protests should be over the costs we are charged not for usage but for service fees. Service fees should be eliminated, just as ATM and Bank charges should be.



No Cops No Violence Egyptian Self Organization

When you line up rows and rows of riot cops, they have to have something to do. So when you have cops at demonstrations you inevitably have violence. Whether it was the recent G8 G20 meetings in Toronto or last Fridays rally in Liberation Square in Egypt, riot cops present attacked the protesters.

But once the Egyptian security forces were routed and forced off the streets of Cairo, and these are not merely riot cops, they are Gestapo like security forces, rather than violence and chaos, contrary to the media headlines, something new occurred. The demonstrations were peaceful, self organized.

A carnival atmosphere was reported until last Wednesday when these same cops, plus the criminals they let out of prison to intimidate the Egyptian masses, led pro government attacks on the demonstrators. By Friday the carnival atmosphere in Liberation square returned.

People are engaging in Potlach and Potluck, bringing food, drinks, blankets, medical supplies to share with their neighbours in Liberation square.In Liberation square the people have set up hospitals, latrines, and they clean up after themselves.

When the police left the neighbourhoods open to the criminals and thugs they released from prison, Egyptians organized neighbourhood self defense committees. The media call these vigilantes, but they are not, they are classic forms of anarchist self organization. Neighbours old, young, men, women, Christian, Muslim, have met each other and helped each other.

This is Anarchy in its truest form. The people organizing themselves, without the need of leaders. And there is no violence, the only violence comes from the State, trying desperately to hold on to power. The state needs chaos, it thrives on it, in order to justify the need for police.

But without the State or the police the people organize themselves for themselves.Just as the revolutionary proletariat in Spain did in the Thirties and the Russian people did in 1917.

If CNN and the internet had existed in 1917 the early days of the Russian Revolution or in Spain in 1936 the beginning of those revolutions would have looked like Cairo.

The New Proletariat and the Coming Revolution

While students protested government increases in tuition and cuts to Education in Britain, the youth revolt has spread to the Middle East. The proletariat is no longer just blue collar, white collar or pink collar workers, it includes the mass of unemployed and underemployed educated youth who have embraced the calls to freedom to lead the seismic shift that is occurring around the world and in Egypt and the Middle East in Particular.

"In most Arab countries, a majority of the population is under 30, and unemployment rates are exceptionally high for young workers, who are the most likely to rebel," economist Chris Lafakis of Moody's Analytics said in a report today, as masses gathered in Cairo's Liberation Square and Jordan's King Abdullah sacked the government amid mounting street protests. "In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, almost 90 per cent of unemployed workers are under 30," Mr. Lafakis said. "As evidence of the risk of revolution contagion, Syria's president has already signaled that he will push for more political reforms. The events in Egypt could also spark unrest in Sudan, a politically unstable country where demonstrations are already occurring and citizens have voted to partition the country."


I have been saying for years on this blog that two groups not often considered part of the classic definition of the proletariat, but in fact are, are women and youth.

Now we see with the revolt in Tunisia and now Egypt that unemployment and rising food prices have brought out both women and youth to demonstrate against the dictators who run their countries. In Europe and North America young people face democratic governments but the same crisis of capitalism, where the governments are now demanding austerity measures, cuts to public services, to pay for bailing out the capitalist corporations and banks.

'From sacking lollipop ladies and closing youth clubs to axing college grants and trebling tuition fees, this is a government at war with our young people and therefore at war with our future. It is betraying an entire generation,' said general secretary of the (British) University and College Union, Sally Hunt.

In Canada the youth unemployment rate is double the national average, and it is increasing not decreasing. The annual unemployment rate for youth in Canada is 14%.

And while more women are in the workforce than ever before they are older, not younger women.

Employment among women aged 25 and over increased in January (+55,000), with gains for both the 25 to 54 and 55 and over age groups.Over the past 12 months, however, employment growth for women was concentrated among those aged 55 and over.

In the U.S. it is even higher and adds to further high unemployment stats amongst blacks and Hispanics.

Youth unemployment rates in all categories is an average of 18% in the United States, approaching Egyptian and Tunisian levels, but joblessness among young African-Americans and Hispanics are among the highest in the world. This poses a future political problem for the world’s richest nation.The US Department of Labor report in December 2010 broke out unemployment and participation rates into three categories: White unemployment is 8.5%, or below the national average of 9%; African-American is 15.8% and Hispanic at 13%.

Everyone compared the meltdown of 2008 to the Great Depression, and they were right, however the bail out of the banks and corporations to save capitalism from itself has not resolved the contradiction that this has been again another global jobless recovery. The very soul of the Great Depression was not the collapse of Wall Street but the mass global unemployment crisis of capitalism. That same crisis is with us today despite the bailouts!

Global economic growth is on the rebound but the labor market continues to disappoint with 205 million people unemployed in 2010, according to a UN report. The number is not expected to improve much this year. Labor markets in Europe, Africa and South America are struggling to recover from the crisis that hit them in 2008. Europe's young people under 25 are facing an especially difficult situation. The youth unemployment rate is now at a record level of 21%.

So why have not seen mass protests in North America like those that have occurred in England, Europe and now the Middle East? Because despite mass unemployment, neither the Harper nor Obama governments have brought in austerity programs like the Cameron government has. The austerity measures which have been introduced in Ireland, Greece, Spain, etc. have led to mass protests and have failed to actually resolve the continuing crisis of these Capitalist states.

Once the Harper and Obama governments begin to cut, slash, reduce, freeze, public sector spending then we will see a rage amongst youth that will make the tea party look like well a tea party.

The bail out of capitalism has not solved the crisis of capitalism, it can't. And using the tired old neo-liberal solutions of slashing government spending, which is social capital, will not succeed as the Cameron government has found out.

Furthermore unlike North America, which produces food for export, those importing food are facing a constant inflationary battle. A battle which leads to mass protests.

A recent Economist piece gives insight into the pressures felt:

Outside America, food has a bigger share than energy in consumers’ shopping baskets—and thus in inflation too (see chart). In developing countries, rising food prices can be a human as well as an economic disaster. In Asia in early 2008 a spike in the price of rice led to widespread unrest and desperate attempts by governments to secure more supplies. In December in India, for example, food prices rose at an annual rate of 14%, and there has been a run on onions, a dietary staple. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/global-macro-notes-the-deflationists-are-still-in-it-to-win-it-2011-1#ixzz1DCZFkdFo


The crisis is not over, it is spreading, and youth unemployment and rising food prices, are needed for capitalism to function, no different than has been since Marx wrote about it over 150 years ago.