Gangster Capitalism By William Bowles

17 July 2017 — Investigating Imperialism

Image by Julian Stallabrass via Flickr. Thank you Dandelion Salad

London has become “a desert of wealth“. Comment by a former planning officer for London heard on TV yesterday in a movie made by the BBC that managed to spend an hour on the destruction of London without mentioning capitalism once!

It’s all that ‘surplus’ cash the pirates have stolen from us (trillions) and put into luxury apartments that stand empty, monuments to greed. It’s simply an investment, a way of banking stolen wealth. It’s destroyed the London I grew up in, made a misery of all our lives, forced an estimated 200,000 people out of London, denuded entire neighbourhoods of shops, restaurants and services simply because nobody lives in them anymore, so no customers, no neighbourhood and definitely no community!

And the source of this ‘investment’ is endless, it comes from the global super rich, the 1%. It adds nothing to the wealth of society, in fact masks the reality that we are becoming poorer and poorer whilst these transnational parasites live it up in the city of my birth.

Every day, London grows to look more and more like the old Johannesburg under Apartheid capitalism, with the peons making their daily trudge into the city to serve their masters and then trudging back out again. A trudge by the way, that costs on average £3000 a year if you live outside London! A monthly travel card for bus and tube is now £135 or over £1600 a year.

The average rent for an apartment in London is now £1500 a month. In my neighbourhood, it’s £2500 a month! That’s £30,000 a year without adding in council tax, energy and transportation, or food and clothes, let alone books or movies or any kind of fun.

This is parasitical capitalism. It produces nothing and consumes everything! No wonder people think Corbyn is a Godsend, yet it’s his Labour Party that has contributed directly to this situation. Will we never learn?

 

Video: The Russian Revolution: triumph or tragedy – Alan Woods and Orlando Figes

8 November 2013 — Socialist Appeal

We here publish the video footage of the debate between Alan Woods – editor of www.marxist.com and author of “Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution” – and Orlando Figes – Professor of History at Birkbeck University and author of “A People’s Tragedy” – on the true nature of the Russian Revolution, and what it meant for the people of Russia and the class struggle internationally.

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Police State Britain By Stephen Lendman

4 November 2013 — Stephen Lendman

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Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) operates like NSA. They work cooperatively. They’re out-of-control rogue agencies.  They spy on their own populations. They do it globally. They conduct espionage. They collect enormous amounts of personal information. They do it illegally.  Obama wages war on freedom. He targets whistleblowers and investigative journalists exposing government wrongdoing. So does Britain. It equates doing so with terrorism.

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#BurnAusterity: Join a ‘Bonfire of Austerity’ action near you

4 November 2013 — Change:How?

[How indeed? I’m not sure what to make of this stuff frankly. The major sponsor is the Observer newspaper! They seem to come out once a year, talk a lot and then disappear until the next crisis comes along. It’s all slick PR stuff, no doubt pro bono work from a mind-fucker but what does it all mean and does it lead anywhere?  I mean really, “pin the blame on Cameron”? But not on capitalism? Burn your energy bill? I despair WB]

Tomorrow’s ‘Bonfire of Austerity’ looks set to be one of the biggest days of action for many years. Actions are taking place up and down the country as people are forced into poverty, forced to choose whether to heat the home or put food on the table and forced into the hands of legal loan sharks.

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‘Go Home’ texts expose racist, anti-migrant British policy to the world By Les Back and Shamser Sinha

26 October 2013 — Our Kingdom

Last week two London academics exposed a racist government blunder, sparking international embarrassment and a statement from the Prime Minister. A small victory in the jaws of defeat, they say. Here is their report on one week in anti-immigrant times.

People’s Inquiry – a grassroots vision for our NHS? By John Lister

14 October 2013 — Our NHS

As the NHS groans under cuts and chaotic reorganisation, government bodies are calling for yet more ‘radical change‘ and ‘difficult decisions’. Will their answers be hospital closures and privatisations? The new People’s Inquiry is calling for evidence to support a different way forward. 

Welcome to Britain. Go Home. And have a pleasant journey By Les Back and Shamser Sinha

16 October 2013 — Our Kingdom?

The Home Office gave Capita the mobile phone number of a leading civil rights activist. They texted him and told him to Go Home. Landlords, doctors, health visitors, teachers are being enlisted as agents of border control. What’s happening to the character of Britain?

 

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Global Protest: ‘March Against Monsanto’ – Live Updates

12 October 2013 — 21st Century Wire

Protesters around the globe are taking the GMO and fake seed industry head on this week…

RT is providing live updates on what started as a small event back on May 25, but has turned into a global campaign – with over 2 million people in 436 cities, across 52 countries… Continue reading

The ‘Bedroom Tax’: A Two-Pronged Attack By Insa Koch

1 September 2013 — New Left Project

The ‘bedroom tax’, which was implemented on the 1 April 2013, has been widely criticised as a fundamental attack on the welfare state in Britain. It exposes many people to the risk of losing their houses, threatening to break up family homes and communities. But there is also another problem with the ‘bedroom tax’ which has been largely overlooked: in addition to undermining the welfare state, it fosters feelings of resentment which may well reinforce social divisions among the most marginalised sectors of society.

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The Folly of World War I: and the folly of ‘commemorating’ war By Lesley Docksey

9 September 2013 — williambowles.info

Any student of history knows that many of the problems the Middle East and Africa are now experiencing stem from the Great Powers having parceled up the land, drawn borders where none had existed and put into power various friendly leaders in the aftermath of World War I.  That includes the failures of Western actions in Iraq and Libya, and the ongoing failure of Syria, the West’s refusal to accept a popular President in Bashar al Assad and its efforts to undermine him, resulting in a horrific humanitarian mess.

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London Underground prepares mass closure of ticket offices By James Hatton and Paul Bond

3 September 2013 — WSWS

Recent disclosures have again confirmed London Underground management is planning to close all its 268 ticket offices over the next two years. Around 2,000 jobs are expected to be lost during that period, with job losses across the rail and underground network rising to 6,000 by 2020. The job losses are part of Transport for London (TfL) and London Conservative mayor Boris Johnson’s £7.6 billion cuts programme to the London transport budget.

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Eviction Brixton: creating housing insecurity in London By Hannah Schling

22 July 2013 — Open Security

The marketisation of access to housing security is central to the increasingly normative experience of housing precarity in London. Lambeth Council’s eviction of long-term squatted and short-life housing co-op communities is pouring fuel onto the fire: making people homeless to clear the way for public housing stock sell-offs.

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America’s assault on a free press moves into high gear: Detention of Greenwald Partner in London Clearly Came on US Orders By Dave Lindorff

20 August 2013 — This Can’t Be Happening

It is becoming perfectly clear that the outrageous detention of American journalist Glenn Greenwald’s Brazilian partner David Miranda by British police during a flight transfer at London’s Heathrow Airport was, behind the scenes, the work of US intelligence authorities.

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