The internet is a relatively new conception, being invented in the mid-20th century, some of us remember before it was developed (and most of us remember it not being a part of our lives). Like most inventions, it has been used by both the ‘Establishment’ or ‘The Powers That Be’ and by ordinary people. The internet and computers in general have both empowered people to take control of their own lives and created a whole new level of surveillance and ‘The Big Brother State’.
Ever since the personal computer has been in mainstream use and since Microsoft bought the DOS operating system, Microsoft has had an iron grip on the computer market. Their vision was that everyone would have a personal computer and they would be the ones to let them use it (for their price and under their control), while IBM envisioned great servers around the world that would be controlled by individuals’ terminals, they would not need Microsoft’s software and so hardware was where the money was. As we know, Microsoft were correct in their analysis and the idea that people could have their own computer that they thought they could control was popular. But some people didn’t like that they had to pay £100 just to use their computer and that if they wanted to do useful tasks such as write letters or store information for an organisation or group they would have to pay yet more. Microsoft have made it harder and harder for anyone to use software other than their own and increased the price accordingly.
Some have turned away from Microsoft’s model of “every extra thing you want to do costs extra” and turned to Apple who will give you most things that you need but you have to buy everything from them. Others have created a community where people make software for themselves. The idea is that if ordinary people all around the world make our own software, it can be as good and even better than its commercial counterpart. This software does not have its code encrypted like Microsoft’s and Apple’s but is open for all to see, this is the world of open source software.
For many years this movement has been small and its products have been pale in comparison to their mainstream version. For years after most people were using a mouse to control their computer through a graphical user interface, these people were still typing out commands. But over that last decade their numbers have grown and their progress accelerated, most open source operating systems now use advanced graphical user interfaces and have more and more advanced programs to match. Linux is the most common type of software within this world and its browser ‘Firefox’ has become quite famous for its ‘Port’ to Microsoft Windows and is accepted by most to be better than Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer, even on its native Windows. This is just an example of the powerful software that is produced by the open source movement and now that the UN has chosen ‘Ubuntu’ (a Linux operating system) for its under $100 computer, to distribute in underdeveloped countries. A lot, if not most, of the movements resources are now focused on Ubuntu’s code.
Compatibility has long been an issue as with all non Microsoft software and OpenOffice has had problems creating Microsoft Office documents due to Microsoft office’s closed source nature (Microsoft obviously made no effort to read any file other than their own). The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) worked with Sun Microsystems to create a standard format for word processing documents and came up with the Open Document Format, which was then accepted as the standard word processing and office suite file format by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Microsoft refused to accept the new standardisation and Microsoft Office was still not even able to open, never mind create OpenDocument Format files. They were inundated with complaints by angry customers who were not able to use any of the standard files they were receiving and so Microsoft relented and Microsoft Office is now able to read and write OpenDocuments from Microsoft Office 2007 (from service pack 2).
People within this moment have mainly been technical in nature and have mostly let companies hold the copyrights to the names of their software, due to there being no individual creator to hold such rights. OpenOffice’s copyright was held by Sun Microsystems but when Sun were purchased by Oracle, a company with a history of commercialising and tampering with open source software, without permission from the community. The leading creators of OpenOffice became worried that the same would happen to OpenOffice so they created the document foundation to hold the copyright of OpenOffice and any other open source software that wishes to use it. Anyone can join the document foundation who agrees with its values and can take part in its democracy (based on a meritocratic, skill based division of labour). After which the developers continued to improve the software although they no longer had rights to the OpenOffice name, then owned by Oracle. The name LibreOffice was chosen for the continuation of the project until such time that the copyright of the OpenOffice name be reacquired. Oracle decided to keep offering OpenOffice and have even posted updates, but have since donated the name to Apache.
It will be interesting to see how many other software projects go down the same route and hold their copyrights in the document foundation or form similar structures. If projects continue to allow commercial entities to own and sway their products, they will likely be pushed and assimilated into commercial software such as Windows and the war will be lost.
Freedom of information goes further than just source code in this war, Wikipedia has become the largest encyclopaedia in the world and is created by specialists and knowledgeable people all around the world. Its accuracy is doubted by many due to the lack of credentials needed to modify or create an article. However Wikipedia and its users routinely remove false, unreferenced material and lock pages that have been continuously changed to the most accountable, previous state. Pages go through a hierarchy or locked states, where only the most certified users can request a change. While vandalism and incorrect posts do occur, it is a very good source of information where cross-referenced properly, as with any other source. Wikipedia recently undertook a ‘Blackout’ on the English portion of its site in protest to bills going through the US Congress. It was not designed to block users from information as they were shown how to bypass the blackout but meant that users read about the bills that implicated any site, with a link rout to illegal copyright material, as liable. Google also showed its support for the campaign by censoring its logo on Google.com.
With Google web search using a version of the Linux kernel, the engine behind Linux operating systems, and Android phones using another version of the Linux kernel, the future looks bright for open source software. It is now very possible to move away from Microsoft’s empire. Ubuntu has a very nice interface and integrates social networking far better than Windows; while those who are less techno savvy might like Linux Mint which is simpler than Ubuntu or Windows. Office files can be created by the powerful LibreOffice and free programs like Gimp can be used instead of Photoshop. Maybe one day, if this revolution is won, taxation will pay for the effort that people put into these projects, but until then, they rely upon donations based on the ability to pay and give time, from its users. The Future is ours, if we just choose to take it.
David Icke. Alex Jones. Ron Paul. The Zeigeist Movement. President Andrew Jackson. What do all these people have in common? No, they’re unfortunately not the next line up of Celebrity Big Brother. They are however a series of individuals and “movements” who despite having little sway over most political thought in the world today, have made a disturbing encroachment into movements against austerity, cuts and for social justice. This blog has already covered a few of these individuals before. And we’d be lying if we didn’t find the occasional presence of Alex Jones or David Icke amongst the internets a comedy joy we’ve all indulged in frequently.
But there is a time and a place for Alex Jones and David Icke, and that time is 3o’clock in the morning, pished, going on you tube -- NOT inside movements for real, radical social change in the UK or anywhere else. This isn’t a call that everyone inside these movements must be 100% Marxists or Socialists. Far from it, we need to engage with people who are not already activists. It’s about recognising that the ideas promoted by the groups and individuals outlined in the beginning of this post aren’t just misguided and wrong -- they’re actively dangerous to any real success over the economic misrule and capitalism.
David Icke knows Boyzone will destroy the lizard people
The groups and individuals are quite diverse, ranging from a US Democratic President in the 1800’s, a Republican Congressman standing for President and a former Grandstand presenter who thinks he is Jesus and that the world is run by lizards. What could possibly unite such a disparate group? The answer is that they are all people who have argued against the forces of the wealthy and powerful in society -- generally the banks and financial institutions. So how are they any different from socialists?
The difference lies in their analysis of what problems the bankers cause, what should replace them and how they go about trying to enact that change. Their analysis ranges from completely insane to explicitly racist, and their solutions from ineffective to backwards and reactionary. The base of their analysis is that the world economic crisis is a problem inflicted by specific forms of banking (such as fractional reserve banking) and financial management, and that ultimately it is bankers and not capitalism and class society that is to blame.
These individuals obviously don’t agree on everything -- Ron Paul’s not mentioned Lizard control over the Royal Family in the GOP debates, at least not yet -- but what they basically agree on runs something like this; Banks developed their wealth and power at the expense of hardworking people (typically small businesses and artisans). They now use this wealth and power to enslave governments and control culture, media, politics, and social attitudes in a range of countries, as well as initiating wars for their own benefit. Often the phrase “International Bankers” is used interchangeably with Jews, or “Zionists”, alleging that the world is in the thrall of a gigantic Jewish-Banker conspiracy.
Alex Jones rocks out against the globalists
These theories have been able to make some headway on the left because there is a grain of truth in what they say about bankers, if not Jews. Bankers have historically used their economic power to influence society, and have a long history of exploitation of both the developing world and the working class in the West. The problem is that banks are just one part of a system of exploitation called capitalism. In capitalism the work people do to produce commodities is sold on at a profit to the employer. These employers are not just bankers, but range from retailers, oil companies, mines, factories, restaurants and so on. Banks are a fundamental part of that system, as the profit is invested in banks which then use this money to make more money, to invest in other industries and to lend so people can continue to buy products without having to raise wages.
This is the real cause of the economic crisis, and properly identifies what role the bankers played. In the past, if people wanted to buy stuff -- like cars, clothes or houses -- they either had to save up for it, or get a modest loan that was based on their ability to repay it. This meant working class people had to be paid enough so they could buy the things capitalism produced -- whether it was trainers or tellies. Karl Marx identified the problem with this a hundred years ago -- the companies which want to sell the working class trainers at £50 a pop are the same companies who want to pay them 10p an hour. Recessions come and go in capitalism because inevitably companies end up producing goods at the same time they try to keep wages down, so the working class cannot buy their goods and the companies end up going bankrupt.
For the past 30 years capitalism thought it had a way out of this problem -- make it easier for working class people to borrow lots of money, so that way they can still buy the products without having to increase wages. This kept capitalism booming, even though for the past 30 years wages in the USA have been stagnating. It also meant as well as having money to pay for consumer goods, working class people now had to pay money to banks in interest. This is what the banks have done -- lending billions of the profits working people made, so that the same people would keep buying and capitalism would stay afloat. This was not just a system endorsed by the banks, it was in the interests of capitalism as system -- every corporation, company, and business now had a market of indebted workers to sell to, and could continue to depress the wages of their workers safe in the knowledge that they could borrow money to buy their products.
Sensible and accurate version of why capitalism and the banks have collapsed
Eventually this illusion, that people could continue to afford things that were way beyond the wages they earned, came to a dramatic end with the economic crisis in 2008. This crisis began with the collapse of the housing bubble in the USA -- where banks like Freddie Mae had offered loans to people with poor credit ratings, so they could own their own houses and keep capitalism afloat. When it became clear that the Emperor had no clothes, and the housing repayments couldn’t be made, banks in the western world collapsed requiring the bailouts we’ve all heard about. The banks loaned money they couldn’t repay -- using a system called fractional reserve banking -- where they only had a fraction of the deposits people made to the banks in their accounts, while the rest was loaned out. In order to stop people losing billions of their savings, governments stepped in to guarantee these funds.
So there’s plenty of very real criticism to be made of the banks -- the fact they recklessly lent to boost their own profits, and when the shit hit the fan instead of taxing the super-rich to plug the gap, they were bailed out with public money. What should have been done is something similar to what Greg Philo and Glasgow Uni Media Group have argued for -- a one off 10% wealth tax on the richest (who made their money predominantly through the financial bubble) to pay for the mess they caused.
Unfortunately this is not what Alex Jones, Ron Paul et al call for. They won’t argue for wealth redistribution, because by their own admission they aren’t Socialists -- they are paleo-conservative Republicans. They may be Republicans who oppose the War on Terror, the developing attack on civil liberties in the USA or ongoing funding to Israel, but they all absolutely believe in capitalism -- and that the problem with the economic crash of 2008 is not the free market, but bizarrely, “socialism”. Jones says big corporations and big government are the same, in contradiction to everything that the right-wing in the USA and Europe actually rolled back. People like Jones, Ron Paul, Icke etc draw many of their ideas from a very reactionary period of US political history during the 1800’s in which the United States of America was half-feudal and half-industrial -- or as Abraham Lincoln described it “half slave and half free”.
The United States was divided in two -- the North, in which slavery was abolished and an industrial revolution was starting, and the South where the economy was based on slavery, and was backwards and feudal. In this topsy turvy time it was the Democrat Party which was racist and pro-slavery, and it was the Republican Party that wanted to ultimately abolish the institution of slavery. At that time the Republican Party correctly saw that slavery would keep the United States trapped in a backward, medieval economy. The profits made by keeping slavery going would make an industrial revolution impossible. Slavery stopped the development of a paid working class, that is necessary to consume the products of industrialisation. The South was at that time a massive producer of cotton on the backs of slave labour, and was in practice a colony of European powers who wanted to buy cotton for use in their Industrial Revolution.
US Civil War
There were many honest Republicans at that time who found slavery morally abhorrent, but the alterior motivation for Republican opposition to slavery was their backing from the new American capitalist class. This class wanted the abolition of slavery so they could compete against the Southern economy, and so white Southern workers could be paid to do the jobs of the slaves. In short they wanted to develop the United States into a modern capitalist country like Britain or France, knowing that the untapped resources of the North American continent would make them a superpower.
The Democrats position was based on “states rights” -- which meant defending the rights of states to uphold slavery. Their arguments were based on racist opposition to the emancipation of slaves, and the desire to keep large parts of the USA in a feudal state. As part of this outlook, many Democrats had a crude, populist opposition to capitalism. They opposed banks and the expansion of big business, believing it would enslave white Americans. Instead they promoted a vision of the USA as a continent where all whites would be able to own their own farms and businesses as independent artisans, farmers, shop keepers and craftsmen -- with slaves to assist them.
Democrats were hostile to the industrial revolution and the development of modern capitalism because they saw (correctly) that capitalism would eliminate this parochial economic system -- replacing farmers with agrobusiness, shopowners with department stores, gold whittlers with mines etc. This process was no picnic. Capitalism was ruthless in destroying feudal opposition to it’s development, and the working conditions -- most notoriously those of Victorian Britain -- are infamous for their depravity.
BUT… capitalism was a massive improvement on what had preceded it, which was the rule of Kings and Queens, and an economy run along the whims of unelected noblemen. Capitalism produced economic growth on a scale unheard of in human history -- the development of modern industry, the mass production of consumer goods, the move from the country to the city, and most importantly, the rise of the working class. This is the most important part for socialists as now the group of people who produced clothes, dug the mines, ran the railways etc could be organised, and could eventually become the rulers of a new society -- a socialist one.
One Democrat who owned slaves at this time, President Andrew Jackson, became infamous for his opposition to any central bank for the USA using his veto power to overrule it. Jackson today is heralded by many anti-banking Occupy activists for this stance. But Jacksons opposition to banking was not based on any socialist or even progressive desire for the working class to rule society -- it was about defending small businesses and the institution of slavery against this massively powerful and dynamic economic system, that threatened to overpower all religious, nationalist and feudal opposition to it
President Andrew Jackson
Writing at the time Karl Marx identified these kind of “anti-capitalists” as feudal socialists,
“In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history”
Put simply, while many anti-banking forces in the 1800’s had legitimate points about the unaccountability of these financial institutions, their opposition fundamentally came from a desire to maintain an unfair, feudal and backward society. At that time Marx identified Capitalism as a brutal, but progressive force -- one of the reasons why he wrote a letter of congratulations to Lincoln during the US Civil War for crushing feudalism and the slave economy of the South.
This radical transformation of society, from feudalism to capitalism terrified and alarmed many people in Europe and the USA. These societies existed during a time when the theories of race were commonly accepted and discussed as a science -- to justify both slavery and the imperial exploitation of Africa and other colonies. As well as racist prejudice one other common bigotry was anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews. As capitalism developed, producing transnational, global insitutions many racists alarmed at this transformation identified the enemy behind it -- that of the Jew. As part of anti-semitic prejudice throughout Europe, Jews were forced into jobs in the financial sector that Christians deemed immoral -- like banking. So when the industrial revolution was financed by and empowered banks with Jewish owners anti-semites saw a conspiracy by the Jewish race to enslave the white Christian race.
So much wrong in just one picture
The most notorious subject of these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories was the Rothschild Family. The Rothschilds were an extremely wealthy and powerful banking family during the 1800’s, who exercised massive influence over the developing capitalist economies of Europe and North America. This combination of power and Judaism made them the frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. As a major banking institution there’s no question the Rothschild’s would have been involved in underhand and conspiratorial plans to influence governments and secure their markets -- but the accusations labelled at the Rothschilds go way beyond criticism of bankers influence, and into conspiracy nonsense about world Jewish plots to enslave the world. For example, the Rothschilds were accused of both funding American Capitalism and Russian Bolsheviks, a ridiculous allegation that had it’s base in anti-socialist racist sentiment. Many anti-Semites were disturbed at the challenge global capitalism posed to nation states sovereignty and could not understand the power of the economic system they faced, so instead chose to blame it on conspiratorial groups.
These ideas -- anti-banking sentiment of small business Democrats, and anti-semitic opposition to the Rothschilds -- unfortunately haven’t remained in the past. They continue to be advocated by people like Zeitgeist, Alex Jones and David Icke. This piece by Norfolk Community Action Group criticizes the influence these forces have in the occupy movement,
“The populist narrative is also an integral part of the political views of conspiracy theorists, far right activists, and anti-Semites. For anti-Semites, the elites are the Jews; for David Icke, the elites are the reptilians; for nationalists, they are members of minority ethnic, racial, or religious groups; for others, they are the “globalists,” the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, the Federal Reserve, etc. All of these various conspiracy theories also tend to blend in and borrow from each other. Additionally, the focus on “Wall Street” also has specific appeal to those who see the elite as represented by finance capital, a particular obsession of the anti-Semites, Larouchites, followers of David Icke, etc. “The Rothschilds” are the favorite stand-in codeword of choice to refer to the supposed Jewish control of the banking system.”
The “Rothschild Zionists” feature in both Alex Jones and Icke’s material -- which blame a 200 year old banking institution for conspiratorial involvement in global capitalism. The reality is that the Rothschilds influence declined by the early 1900s -- blaming them for the financial crisis is like blaming the British East India company for the ongoing exploitation of Asia. The Rothschilds have been surpassed and overtaken by new financial institutions.
So why do they continue to be prevalent in conspiracy theories related to banking? Because in the USA, when people are discontent and angry at the banks instead of looking to socialism -- which has historically been weak in the USA -- they go back to the most prominent anti-banking ideas and figures, which unfortunately are anti-semitic. Likewise many bankers are identified as “Rothschild Zionists” by Icke who clearly have no familial connection to the Rothschild family at all -- like David Miliband and DSK. But it’s ok, as Icke explains:
“I should also stress that when I say ‘Rothschild’, I don’t only mean those called ‘Rothschild’, nor even all of the people who are known by that name. There are many in the Rothschild family and its offshoots who have no idea what the hierarchy is doing and there are many ‘Rothschilds’ who don’t carry the name itself.
When I say ‘Rothschild’, I am referring to the Rothschild bloodline because, as I have detailed in my books, they have long had breeding programmes that produce offspring that are brought up under other names.”
This is effectively an excuse to link all Jewish people in areas of power together, based on racist ideas of “bloodlines”, and using the code “Zionist” instead of what people really mean, which is Jew. Whatever crimes have been committed in the Zionist enterprise of the State of Israel against the Palestinians, the idea a country of five million Israelis control international finance is absurd and only makes sense if you believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Last year SSY wrote about how an internet documentary called Zeitgeist played upon many of these conspiracy theories around finance, with reference to the banks. As well as the Zeitgeist movement another video has been doing the rounds -- this one was posted by Occupy Glasgow:
The documentary is nowhere near as anti-Semitic as Icke’s rants. But it does have the same disturbing focus on the Rothschilds -- along with lizardesque imagery for bankers -- and puts slaveowner and Native American killer President Jackson in a good light. It makes its focus the inequities of the banking system -- many of its criticisms have a point, such as the fact that the US Federal Reserve isn’t actually publically owned, but controlled by unaccountable and unelected bankers who have the power to control the US currency. However all of it stems from the same Jacksonian fear of big business and banking and not capitalism itself. Taking a look at its website -- called “The American Dream” -- it identifies the “good guys” as Alex Jones, The Cato Institute, The Drudge Report and other right-wing sites. They also link to Ron Paul, a Libertarian Republican who thinks someone dying from lack of medical care is choosing ‘freedom’.
The 99% can fuck off and die if they don’t have health insurance
Elsewhere on its website it calls for less government intervention in medicare, social security and federal spending. In short, a demand that the Government’s debt should be cut so we aren’t slaves to evil bankers -- regardless of the massive job cuts entailed. They also ask you to be more like your grandfather, and not get into debt -- ignoring that consumer debt would not be as massive if peoples wages went up at the same rate as profits in the USA. There’s also consideration to reintroduce the gold standard -- that is link the value of your currency to the amount of gold you have. It’s very popular amongst the headbanger right, particularly with Glenn Beck fans, who like the idea as if you have gold the bankers can’t control you with their easily printed “fiat” money. But why would you want to organise a society’s currency on the value of a base metal, and have it fluctuate depending on mining rates? And why is it people who are demanding a rush to the gold standard are quite happy to sell you lots of precious gold for your useless fiat money?
The new Shitegeist
Jones, Ron Paul and the libertarian US right don’t call for the debt to be paid by taxing the rich, or for the economy to be restructured on need. This is because they’ve picked anti banking sentiment from a time when small scale traders were trying to survive against the onslaught of capitalism -- a hopeless and reactionary struggle. Trying to solve the world economic crisis by trying to resurrect an economic system from 200 years ago is doomed to failure -- it couldn’t withstand the force of capitalism then, in its progressive phase and it can’t stand against it now even if it’s clearly dying. What’s neccessary is a movement which organises not in the interests of small businesses vs banks, but workers and the poor vs all strands of capitalism. Only then will the interests of the 99% genuinely be enforced.
Being a Socialist is a tricky job. In the 20 years since the Berlin Wall came down, there’s been very little space for the ideas of the radical left to express itself and pro-free market politicians have a variety of swanky PR firms to do work for them that we can only dream of. That’s why it’s always good when a rogue bastard comes along and tactlessly gives the game away to the horror of thousands of stockbrokers.
He is not joking. He would shoot a kitten for money.
One case of this is the BBC interview with Alessio Rastanii. Alessio describes himself as an “independent trader”, which is probably why his answers ranged from “meh” to “fuck you”. When a BBC journalist asked him, with all the sincerity of a small child looking for it’s lost mum, if the Eurozone would be saved he responded that he “didn’t care”, his job was to “make money” and he “dreamed of another recession”. As if this wasn’t enough, he went on to say “Governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs does”.
Fellow honest evil bastard Paul McMullen. I haven’t seen someone this rough and stressed out since I last watched Downfall.
It’s a great example of an evil bastard being so completely honest that you can’t help but admire him -- a bit like crater faced and increasingly-stressed-out with each interview phone hacking bastard Paul McMullen, who repeatedly said he hacked phones, enjoyed it, and who really gives a fuck about Hugh Grant anyway.
Unsurprisingly, the interview went viral as someone finally said what millions of people suspect traders actually believe. As it spread round the internets, rumours flew that Alessio wasn’t actually a trader but was in fact one of the “Yes Men”. The Yes Men are a hilarious bunch o lads that once pretended to be the representatives of Dow Chemicals, and wiped several billions of their stock market value when they falsely announced they would be providing compensation to the hundreds of family members of the folk their company killed in the Bhopal disaster. Had they fooled the BBC again?
This guy is a joker. He doesn’t have the same evil glint in his eye.
Nope, the Yes Men denied that Alessio was their guy and like the IRA or Cheryl Cole, they always take credit for their work. That makes Alessio a genuine evil bastard, not joking, not making things up, not being a spoof, not a Noel Edmonds “Gotcha” sketch and not a comic. He is actually genuinely one of the people the entire political mainstream in the developed world have asked you to trust in for the past 40 years, and have been bailed out to the tune of Trillions.
Talk of deficits, massive debt and brutal public spending cuts are pretty much in the British news 24/7 these days, so if you’ve noticed the recent debt crisis in the USA you’ll have noticed some of the same terms being thrown about, but if you paid close attention you might have noticed that unlike the UK there’s been a standoff between the two main political parties in how to handle the debt crisis.
This crisis started when the US Treasury requested an increase in the amount of money it was able to borrow -- but this amount, known as the debt ceiling has to achieve backing for the US Congress. Unfortunately for Democratic President Barack Obama, the Congress is currently in the control of the Republican Party. Ouch. And many of these Republican Congressmen and women are members of the Tea Party, a political movement that was formed in opposition to public spending and incurring any more government debt. Double ouch.
This standoff between the Republicans -- who wanted no tax increases but massive public spending cuts and the Democrats, who wanted some tax increases, but still some massive cuts as well -- went on for weeks with angry Americans venting their frustration on twitter, as pundits warned that the most powerful superpower in human history was about to follow in the footsteps of Hearts of Midlothian FC. Fortunately, after days of wrangling the politicians managed to sort it all out -- a compromise was reached, and the USA can go back to hopey changey goodness under President Obama -- right?
Unfortunately not -- the Democrats led a full scale surrender to the most extreme Republican demands in Congress. In exchange for extending the debt ceiling, there will be spending cuts of a whopping $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years, made in the very, very limited welfare net of the USA. Just to clarify, $2.5 trillion is how much money you would need to pay Bill Gates for him to shit himself in public with his mum and dad watching. These cuts come a few months after Republican hardliners -- many of them from the Tea Party -- refused to ditch Bush era tax cuts, designed to help the richest 2% of Americans. At the same time as these cuts are made, there will be no new taxes to raise revenue -- not even on the super rich in the USA, who have seen their personal wealth skyrocket in the past 30 years.
“I’ve spent all my money bombing the middle east and bailing out the worst bankers in history, at a time of capitalism in collapse. Can I get credit? AYE!”
The Republicans have pushed for these cuts supposedly to stop “out of control” Government spending, but the reality is that the US debt has been incurred largely due to the bailout of multiple US banks and corporations and maintaining the most powerful army in mankind’s history (currently at war in three countries, with dozens of bases dotted across the globe). The picture painted by Republicans of a Socialist Obama borrowing money recklessly to give to the poor is a complete fantasy . Like in the UK, the political establishment in the USA, both Democrat and Republican, supported massive bail outs of failed private enterprises with virtually no control or direction on how US taxpayers money should be spent.
This combination of no new taxes on the super rich, but also a desire to maintain a massively expensive military industrial complex is a contradiction that the credit ratings agencies of the USA haven’t ignored -- as noted by the US Darpa’s continued research into rocket planes in the same couple of weeks that Bright House came to the White House asking for their telly back. In a historic first these credit agencies downgraded the United State’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. It may not sound so bad -- if you came home with a AA+ mark in a Maths exam you’d probably be quite chuffed -- but when the self-described leader of the free world, the victor of the Cold War and the world’s only Hyperpower has a credit rating lower than those cheese eating surrender monkeys in France, you can see why a lot of the miniature American flag brigade are worried.
This supposed threat of bankruptcy in the USA has been grist to the mill of the Tea Party movement, an organisation which is known internationally for their hilarious placards and obsession with long form birth certificates. The Tea Party came to prominence in the wake of the massive bail out of US Banks at the start of the economic crisis a few years ago, alongside the election of President Barack Obama. Their raison detre is opposition to the US Government incurring any more debt and “big government”. Don’t try to point out to them that the Republican Party also voted for the bail out of Wall Street or that part and parcel of “big government” is the ability to bomb foreign people half the world away with missiles wi cameras attached so you can upload it to your you tube account. You’ll probably just get screamed at that you’re an IslamoMarxist as well.
As hilarious as many of these nutters are, they are dangerous not just to millions of the poorest Americans, but to the billions of people in the world who are intertwined with the USA through it’s domination of finance capital and military power. Right wingers in the USA often go a bit funny when a Democrat gets in, exaggerating things somewhat -- like believing Bill Clinton is a Marxist NWO member cos of Waco, or calling JFK a traitor and arranging for him to drive in an open top car at 5mph through Dallas. But the Tea Party are something special.
The Tea Party are a movement of white, upper middle class wealthy Americans fearful of the world economic crisis and it’s threat to their privilege. Regular slogans at Tea Party rallies and protests talk about how they want to “take back America” -- a declaration that the Tea Party don’t think the votes of African Americans and poor whites should determine who occupies the White House, but rather the organised block vote of Christian Evangelicals across the USA. As well as demanding massive public spending cuts, the Tea Party also gives a platform to racists angry at the first Black President in the USA -- Tea Party placards in Washington declared “The Zoo has an African Lion and the White House has a Lyin’ African”. This is alongside their ongoing campaign to demand Obama’s birth records, to prove he is a Kenyan and not an American citizen.
Mad as a bag of cats
The Tea Party’s biggest prejudice is their naked class hatred towards the poorest in the USA. The Tea Party live in a fantasy world where the unemployed, immigrant, low paid, Hispanic and African American population of the USA live a life of luxury off the back of their tax dollars in free healthcare and benefits. One Tea Party supporter, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer (no relation to Jack we presume said)
This was in reference to a program in his state that allowed students to receive subsided lunches. Tea Party supporters quite literally look upon the working class in the USA like they’re animals. They’re the worst kind of right-wing libertarians who don’t ever stop to consider the link between a massive pool of cheap exploited labour and their personal wealth. Nowhere do the Tea Party try to hold accountable the billionaires in the USA who wrecked the economy with their own rampant greed -- probably because despite the mom and pop apple pie image, the Tea Party are funded by billionaires, happy to have an astroturfed campaign to defend their right to be filthy rich.
Unfortunately there’s been little sustained attack from the Left against the Tea Party. With the exception of the heroic struggle against Republican union-busters in Wisconsin, most of the Left in the USA has fallen back to defending Obama, despite the fact he’s been totally unable to harness the millions involved in his election campaign to push forward a halfway progressive agenda in the states. This means that it’s by no means certain Barack Obama will be re-elected in next years Presidential elections -- and that the door is open for a Republican President influenced and supported by the Tea Party’s ideas.
Perry’s already made moves to court the nutter vote, by saying the Chairman of the federal reserve would be guilty of treason if he printed more money before the 2012 election -- a pretty harsh statement, given treason is more usually associated with trying to undermine or overthrow the democratic process -- possibly by systematically lying about a country’s threat in the build up to a war for example. While opposing any tax increases on the rich, Perry decries that only half of Americans pay tax -- posing towards Tea Party supporters and backing their assertions that they are the dynamic, wealth producing section of American society that keep the country afloat. In reality, in Texas the poorest 20% pay 6% of their income on sales tax while the richest 20% pay only 1.3% -- “Texas is not a low-tax state if you’re low-income” one analyst correctly noted. This is in line with other right-wing “low tax” regimes, like Thatcher in the 80’s -- where the poor ended up paying more in tax, through an increase in regressive taxes and the Poll Tax.
As well as backing Tea Party tax policy, Perry has also called for the use of (unarmed) predator drones to patrol the border between Mexico and the USA. This anti-immigrant rhetoric is justified by the ongoing “War on Drugs” across the border in Mexico, as the cartels and the Mexican Government destroy both each other and Mexican society in the crossfire. Perhaps some slack should be cut for Perry -- he identified the Mexican city of Juarez as the most dangerous city in America. Oops.
Geography lessons for Perry
If Perry’s geography skills are a bit shite his scientific knowledge isn’t better. Perry supports the teaching of intelligent design ie creationism in schools, and also believes global warming is a myth. So far this is all pretty standard fare Evangelical Christian stuff; alongside support for creationism, Perry also responded to a drought in his state with the same policy plan as the ancient babylonians -- with a three day designated “Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas”. Unfortunately, in a shocking victory for athiests in the Republican state, praying for rain did not work and the drought got worse. This might scupper some future Perry Whitehouse initiatives, such as “Praying nobody trades oil in euros instead of dollars week”, “national month of deficit reduction mass” or “Praying the Chinese never want all that money back”.
As well as being fond of the old Christianity a bit much, Perry’s also controversially hinted at support for the secession of Texas from the Union -- a risky policy gambit not tried in a Whitehouse race since pre-Civil War America. Perry said to journalists after a Tea Party rally that, ”Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that… My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that.” It’s a pretty bold statement from someone who a) wants to be President of the USA and b) is happy to accuse folk of treason for pursuing different economic policies than his.
Rick Perry supports the use of B-52 bombers to defend the unborn foetus.
It’s easy just to put the blame for extreme right-wingers in the USA like the Tea Partiers and Perry down to stupid Americans voting for mad people with crazy ideas. The problem is that in one sense the Tea Partiers are right -- they are getting support because the USA is in the middle of a crisis, just not the one they think it’s in. The USA is a superpower whose economic power is dependent on a massive military industrial complex -- one big enough to stop anyone trading oil in anything other than dollars, for example -- but free market fundamentalists in the USA are unwilling to call for even slight tax increases on the super rich to fund this military power. This contradiction is what’s forced credit agencies to downgrade the credit rating of the USA, in an attempt to force the political class in the USA to get it’s act together, and run the most powerful capitalist superpower with responsibility to the needs of finance and bankers. Because this system is international -- the US debt crisis has had negative effects on the world’s stock markets -- the far-right in the USA’s total support for complete free market capitalism could help plunge the world into a second recession. Forget George Bush dragging us into Iraq -- the American empire might yet bring the world into a much greater economic disaster if we don’t find a way to declare independence from the mad, mad world of the stock market.
Today’s Daily Record reported on something I’ve been seeing for months as a pre-registration pharmacist.
If you’ve ever seen Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko, you’ll have seen how capitalism causes many Americans to have substandard or even a total lack of health care. In the Scottish pharmacy I work in, however, I have seen capitalism’s effects on medical care a lot closer to home. From manufacturer, to wholesaler, to pharmacy and finally to patient, there is plenty of opportunity for money to be made. Overall this means greater cost to the NHS and a decreased supply of medication available.
Pricey Pills
Lets start with a little quiz. These are Zyprexa 10mg tablets.
Zyprexa is one of the most common drugs currently prescribed for schizophrenia and the 10mg strength is the most commonly used. In practice, I dispense this drug just about every day. It comes in boxes of 28 tablets, each tablet about the size of a 5p piece. It isn’t a new drug, having been released 16 years ago. So how much does one single box cost? Take a guess before reading on.
…
…ready?
The exact price will vary between wholesalers. But for one box of 28 Zyprexa 10mg tablets, the pharmacy would pay around £81 (almost £3 per tablet). Once the pharmacy has dispensed the medication against a prescription, the cost of the drugs supplied is reimbursed to them by the NHS. This means that every year, NHS Scotland spends £12.1 million on Zyprexa tablets alone, making it the drug with the 9th greatest cost to the NHS in 2009-2010. This drug is by no means the most expensive medicine dispensed by pharmacies, and it leads to the question: why are drugs so expensive?
Looking at the case of Zyprexa, we can eliminate some reasons. Bringing a drug to market is a long and expensive process, but considering how much they receive each year from NHS Scotland alone, consider what they’ll be making from the rest of the world! Its pretty safe to say they’ve made back their expenditure. Its not a rarely used drug, so the price won’t have to be inflated to recoup manufacturing costs. By looking at the story of Zyprexa, we can get some clues into the real reason. For a long time, the most effective treatment for schizophrenia was a drug called clozapine. This meant that in order to gain control of this difficult condition, patients had to suffer some very nasty and potentially lethal side effects. So in the 1990s, when new antipsychotics like Zyprexa were developed, they allowed patients to gain control of their condition without the high level of potentially lethal side effects. The drug companies realised that due to the benefit posed by these drugs, health care systems like the NHS would be willing to pay large amounts of money for them. And so, to this day, as with many other drugs, the NHS pays an inflated price to keep people healthy.
Keeping people healthy isn’t a particular concern of drug manufacturers. Ask any GP about drug reps and they’ll tell you that until recently, they would have done anything to get their drug prescribed, regardless of the actual evidence. Thankfully legislation has now prevented drug companies sending GPs on golfing trips and buying them dinner to prescribe a certain drug, but health care professionals still frequently get sent graphs with no numbers and a handful of pens from drugs companies trying to prove how good their drug is.
Missing Medication
Drug companies don’t sell their products directly to pharmacies; they sell their overpriced wares to pharmaceutical wholesalers. It is around this step that the drugs get lost. You see, they may have patient information leaflets, but they don’t have maps and so they take a wrong turn and end up in Europe. Because of the value of the Euro in relation to the Pound, wholesalers can get a much better price for medicines in Europe than they can in Britain. And so why sell a box of cancer medication in Scotland for £20 when you can get £30 in France? Never mind the fact that people in Scotland will then die of cancer. Which is where we are now. For months now it has been a constant struggle to get many common medicines, drugs for conditions from breast cancer to addiction that used to be freely available. Patients have been waiting for weeks to get tablets they need now, people have to make do with less effective drugs because they can’t get what they really need and pharmacists have been spending hours every week chasing up manufacturers, wholesalers, phoning other pharmacies to borrow stock and fighting quotas on what little supplies are available. These drugs are all being produced in their millions in the UK every day, but they go straight out the country for a little extra cash, leaving us with nothing. We’re in the middle of a massive drugs crisis here in Scotland, and its caused by pure greed.
Pharmacy Profits
Despite providing NHS services, all community (i.e. shop) pharmacies in the UK are run by private companies or individuals and not by the NHS. This means that they are run, you guessed it, for profit. While the individual pharmacists who work in each shop will have the best interests of the patient at heart, they are under tremendous pressure from the company or individual owning the shop to make profit. This may often include being encouraged to take part in illegal practices such as claiming money from the NHS for dispensing prescriptions that they did not actually dispense (eg. if the patient didn’t want one of the items on the prescription) or registering patients for services without their consent. It often means that pharmacists are forced to take on as many services as possible, leaving them little time to properly carry out the services and often making them too rushed to speak to patients about how to take their medication or to effectively check that prescriptions are safe and effective and that dispensed medication is correct. Many pharmacists, if not the majority, are not entitled to any form of break during the day, as this would mean that no prescriptions can be dispensed and thus money would be lost. In an 8 hour day, the average pharmacist, almost always the only pharmacist in the shop, may be expected to check around 300 dispensed prescriptions (one every 90 seconds!), on top of any other services and speaking to patients. Its pretty easy to see how making pharmacists and pharmacy staff so rushed compromises patient care.
One of the activities that keeps pharmacists rushed off their feet is a little trick learned from wholesalers. It seems crazy, but while so many patients struggle to get their medication, it could well be in the pharmacy all along. Of course those medicines aren’t intended for NHS patients. Pharmacy owners have pharmacists doing everything they can to order them, phoning wholesalers, phoning manufacturers, ordering one box each day so as not to arouse suspicion, telling supplies they really need it for a prescription. Except this time its not for a prescription. Because much of the medicines that wholesalers don’t sell to Europe are bought by pharmacies. And sold to Europe. No drugs for patients, but lots for profit.
Yet after all of this, some drugs finally make their way through to actually get dispensed by a pharmacy against a prescription. When pharmacies dispense a drug, the NHS pays them the cost of the drug back, plus a small dispensing fee. This fee isn’t very much, so pharmacies have sorted out a way with wholesalers to make some profit on the cost of the drug. In exchange for ordering from them, wholesalers will charge pharmacies a massively inflated price for the drug. Doesn’t seem like a very good deal does it? But the pharmacy then has a really highly priced invoice that they can use to claim back the drug cost from the NHS, while the wholesaler refunds the pharmacy a lot of the cost at the end of the month. This means that while a pharmacy might only end up paying 50p for a drug, the NHS will pay them £10 for it. Multiply this by however many times it happens in a day, multiply by all the pharmacies in Scotland and you’ll see just how much money the NHS loses every year.
Cut Capitalism
Of course, I’m really not having a go at the profession of pharmacy here. I know that the vast majority of pharmacists have patients as their main concern and that they hate having to fleece the NHS and patients our of medicines and money. Its the business types pulling the strings who force our profession down the road of profit, not patients. Pharmacists are health care professionals, they have 5 years of University education and training before they can practice, they are experts in medicines, yet if they want a job they must put patients in harm’s way to make someone else money. And with all this going on, our government’s best idea to save money is to further cut services and further damage patient care. When we think of easily preventable deaths, we think of malaria, tropical diseases in the third world, HIV etc. Maybe we should be looking a bit closer to home.
It has emerged that youth unemployment has risen to it’s highest levels since 1992. Officially 20.5% young people are unemployed in the UK as a whole. That’s just over 1 in 5 of us! Not only is this statistic worrying for young people it is the blunt, grotesque truth that young socialists have known for years; Capitalism is oppressing the youth. These statistics have been released as part of the
The full stats showing under-24s being the worst hit age group.
overall statistics on unemployment in the three months to December which shows a rise in the number of people unemployed to 2.5 million (there was a minor decrease of people unemployed in Scotland). These stats do not paint a great picture for our future or the next generation’s future. The only way to change these stats is by changing the way in which we run our economy and it must start now!
For years we (the youth) have been told that we are a bunch of scroungers, we’re a spoilt generation and if we’re not in employment its all our own fault. That view is flawed and has been for years but now we have updated evidence to prove the knobheads who hold that view wrong. There is a reason why this current generation will be the first ever to become poorer than their parents’ generation. Unfortunately we are not going to have a public sector (becoming a bit of a luxury in the western world now!) by the time we become middle aged the way the current regime of cuts that are being forced upon us by the Tories and Lib Dems. These cuts are attacking those who are most vulnerable in society and the youth (in particular the working class youth) are being attacked by these cuts. The public sector cut-backs are being justified as being “necessary” as we are all in this together the government believe that we shouldn’t punish the bankers who caused this crisis. As a result of these public sector cuts we have all been reassured by David Cameron and co. that the private sector will employ everyone! Well one look at these stats will show that the private sector ain’t doing what Cameron wants them to do. Cameron was so distraught about the announcement of youth employment he couldn’t hold back his tears when he said “(youth employment was) a matter of great regret”. Can you feel his genuine concern for the youth of this country? I fucking can’t!
The message from the government, even though there's no jobs!
In response to this report the government somehow claimed that it showed evidence of unemployment starting to “stabilise”. By stabilising they mean its going to get to a level so unbearably high it cannot go down or rise further thus “stabilising”, I guess. I cannot understand (well I can actually) how anyone in government are not in any sort of panic over the high youth unemployment rate. The simple fact of the matter is the government is run by middle aged millionaires who do not care about investing in the future, they only look at what money they can make for themselves and people in a similar situation. That is why capitalism is exploiting the youth. Its not only this country that faces this problem. Its every capitalist country in the world. The people who are running the countries around the world are rather selfishly living for today. That’s not how govern. That’s a recipe for disaster, if you want to know how to sell out an entire generation look no further than the British governments from 1992 onwards. Although in that time we have had minimum wage act passed. This in principle is good for the youth of this country ending many years of relative slave labour for the youth but ironically the minimum wage is one of the most anti-youth acts right now (however its better than nothing.) . It is disgusting that the wage you receive is based on your age, that’s called discrimination but they get let off with it. If I was to get a job tomorrow which paid minimum wage I would receive £3.56 an hour (minimum wage for a 16-17 year old) but someone doing the same job as me but aged 21+ they would recieve £5.53 an hour (which is very poor anyway), an sad but true fact that shows how you are punished in employment if you are young, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The campaign against youth discrimination must continue. That’s why come election we must put across our policies for a higher minimum wage (without age discrimination) for those young people lucky enough to have a job. The voting age should be lowered
Home from home for young people.
to 16 so those who are being screwed over by this government can at least vote against them (after all at 16 you are allowed to fight in illegal wars and deemed fit to be a parent). This article may be about youth unemployment but it is just one factor in this society that is run by people who are determined to increase their bank balance whilst blaming the youth for their own and society’s shortcomings and its time this attitude ends before its too late.
The Coalition Government’s austerity programme gets into full-swing today with an approx. 15 percent rise in VAT in possibly the most brazen and direct attack on living standards yet put into practice. One of the headline announcements of last June’s emergency budget, it will see the cost of nearly all goods rise by 2.5 percentage points from this morning, to 20 percent.
Inevitably, this will hit the pockets of the poorest hardest. VAT is among the most regressive of all taxes that doesn’t take into account any disparity in income – children spending their pocket money pay the same flat rate of 20 percent as millionaires purchasing luxury yachts. Indeed, the richest tenth of the population look set to lose around 1 percent of their after-tax income from the rise; the poorest tenth will lose 2.25 percent. This may seem negligible but to people already struggling on the breadline, the impact will be substantial.
So with prices set to rise across the board, on top of already high inflation, unemployment that’s set to hit 2.5 million and forecasts of hundreds of thousands of job losses across the public and private sector, it’s good to know our Chancellor, Gideon ‘George’ Osborne, is living by his mantra of ‘all being in it together’.
Or not, as it seems. For the Mad Vatter himself has been absent of these shores of late – instead choosing to bring in the new year in top toff getaway Klosters, an exclusive ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Osborne spent nearly a week with his family in the resort, reputedly “the world’s most expensive”, where chalets can cost up to £11,000 a night. Attempting to deflect any enquiries about the trip, Osborne’s office have hilariously refused to comment any further than saying he’s spent the past week in Davos, a nearby town which hosts the World Economic Forum each year – as if to suggest he’s spent the visit on important diplomatic affairs rather than a luxury ski holiday, in the same week that his VAT rise will leave millions out of pocket.
The truth is, of course, that we’re not all in together, and that Osborne is just another Eton-educated millionaire in a cabinet full of them, making a fine job of representing the interests of the rich and powerful. Likewise, the VAT increase is not about bringing down the deficit, but a calculated attempt to transfer societal wealth from the poorest to the richest, and the burden of taxation in the other direction.
OOH AHH CANTONA -- just when banks worldwide thought they were safe, Eric Cantona came flying out of the blue with a gallic karate kick to the very basis of international finance. Eric’s idea was simple, if everyone withdraws their money from banks, the banks won’t have any money or power, and if banks don’t have any power or money they won’t be able to influence politics, economics or society. Back of the net.
“We don’t pick up weapons to kill people to start the revolution. The revolution is really easy to do these days. What’s the system? The system is built on the power of the banks. So it must be destroyed through the banks.
“This means that the three million people with their placards on the streets, they go to the bank and they withdraw their money and the banks collapse. Three million, 10 million people, and the banks collapse and there is no real threat. A real revolution.
“We must go to the bank. In this case there would be a real revolution. It’s not complicated; instead of going on the streets and driving kilometres by car you simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money, and if there are a lot of people withdrawing their money the system collapses. No weapons, no blood, or anything like that.”
Unfortunately it was a bit shite and didn’t really work for some obvious reasons. People have money in their banks so it’s not at risk of theft, so it’s convenient to access, because almost all employers pay money direct to a bank and because they can get some interest on it. Also withdrawing cash might undermine banks but a) it won’t destroy them, they will still have money from commercial investments alongside punters money and b) if banks collapse what replaces them? Money to invest in the real economy like manufacturing would drastically fall and result in massive unemployment and chaos.
Eric Cantona executes his god given right of no platform.
It’s a shame because Eric Cantona is still a pretty cool guy -- he worked wi veteran Socialist Ken Loach in Looking For Eric, and has been supportive of various other lefty causes. His crowning achievement has to be his Ryu-style karate kick of a racist football fan, backed up with setting a press conference full of eejit journalists expecting him to apologise/make some halfway sensible attempt at justifying himself but actually making a cryptic riddle and leaving. Class.
If Cantona wants to take out the power of international capitalism he needs a new strategy -- support the SSP’s call to take all the banks into public ownership, and instead of withdrawing all the cash invest it in a planned economy which puts social need and environmental protection before greed and pollution. Or just find Fred Goodwin and roundhouse kick him into the pavement repeatedly.
Gettin handouts can be so frustratin Get in line son there’s five million waitin’ The Proclaimers, Cap in Hand
Dole queue under the Tories.
As a central part of actualising Dave Cameron’s glorious vision of The Big Society, the Con-Dem coalition has promised to sweep away the “cycle of dependency” that afflicts Britain’s “pockets of worklessness”. Announcing his new welfare strategy last week, Iain Duncan Smith decried the fact that a majority of benefit claimants have been claiming for nine of the past ten years, that in many areas some families have not worked in three generations and that 1 in 6 children in the UK are growing up in a household in which no one is working.
And you know what? Sitting in the midst of the largest of these “pockets of worklessness” – a barren tundra called Scotland – I agree with him. It is an absolute disgrace that across our land there are families in which three generations have never worked. It is disgusting not just because of the economic waste, but because of the inevitable social problems that arise from mass unemployment; a community in which there are ‘spongers’ will soon spawn an according number of ‘alchies’ and ‘junkies’. All of this amounts to a tragedy for our nation. But it is a tragedy that the Tories, for all their talk, have absolutely no intention of ending.
This may seem a curious assertion to make given that the Tories have only been in power for a few months. However, the following article will go on to show why the Tories were responsible for creating the very ‘underclass’ that they decry. Furthermore, I will also show how this group of hypocrites ideologically depend on the existence of long-term unemployment and that they are the least likely group of people to get the unemployed back into work. In short, this article will show why the Tories knowingly create the very ‘spongers’ that they spend so much time demonising. Read the rest of this entry »
all to see, this is the world of open source software.
People within this moment have mainly been technical in nature and have mostly let companies hold the copyrights to the names of their software, due to there being no individual creator to hold such rights. OpenOffice’s copyright was held by Sun Microsystems but when Sun were purchased by Oracle, a company with a history of commercialising and tampering with open source software, without permission from the community. The leading creators of OpenOffice became worried that the same would happen to OpenOffice so they created the document foundation to hold the copyright of OpenOffice and any other open source software that wishes to use it. Anyone can join the document foundation who agrees with its values and can take part in its democracy (based on a meritocratic, skill based division of labour). After which the developers continued to improve the software although they no longer had rights to the OpenOffice name, then owned by Oracle. The name LibreOffice was chosen for the continuation of the project until such time that the copyright of the OpenOffice name be reacquired. Oracle decided to keep offering OpenOffice and have even posted updates, but have since donated the name to Apache.
So why do they continue to be prevalent in conspiracy theories related to banking? Because in the USA, when people are discontent and angry at the banks instead of looking to socialism -- which has historically been weak in the USA -- they go back to the most prominent anti-banking ideas and figures, which unfortunately are anti-semitic. Likewise many bankers are identified as 
Zyprexa is one of the most common drugs currently prescribed for schizophrenia and the 10mg strength is the most commonly used. In practice, I dispense this drug just about every day. It comes in boxes of 28 tablets, each tablet about the size of a 5p piece. It isn’t a new drug, having been released 16 years ago. So how much does one single box cost? Take a guess before reading on.
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