Occupy AIPAC: Young Jewish woman confronts AIPAC

Here's a great clip of a young Jewish woman at the AIPAC meeting. She is so right, the Zionist organization is destroying Jewish community.
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On March 4, 2012, 22 year old member of Young Jewish and Proud (the youth wing of Jewish Voice for Peace) Liza Behrendt stood up at the 2012 AIPAC Policy Conference in a breakout session called "The Struggle to Secure Israel on Campus" to call attention to the silencing of Palestinians— and young Jews who support them — on U.S. campuses. This action was part of OCCUPY AIPAC. www.occupyaipac.org

World economy: A low growth world

by Michael Roberts

Back in January I reviewed the latest evidence on the state of the world’s major economies (see my post, World economy: where are we now?, 18 January 2012).  I concluded then that “Capitalism is weak, but the patient is not having a relapse and going back into intensive care.”  That conclusion was based on reviewing the economic forecast from the World Bank and analysing a couple of key high-frequency indicators of economic activity in the US.  The World Bank had forecast just 2.5% real GDP growth for the world economy this year and even lower at 1.3% for the mature capitalist economies of the OECD.  Capitalism appears to be recovering from the slump of 2008-9 but very sluggishly and with even a small setback in 2011 compared with 2010.

Indeed, in a new paper, Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke (A tale of two depressions, http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7696) conclude “that, while industrial production and trade recovered much more quickly than during the Great Depression, both series now appear to be slowing down”. Since the World Bank report, both the IMF and the EU Commission have issued economic forecasts that conclude something similar – namely that capitalism is still recovering but at a snail-like pace.  This gives the Great Recession the character more of a Long Depression, similar to that experienced by capitalism in Europe and America in the 1880s and early 1890s.  Recovery from a significant slump in 1873 was quick but then further slumps ensued and economic growth remained fragile right through the 1880s.

Having said that, again I must emphasise that capitalism is not yet slipping back into economic recession or slump.  I have found that the best high-frequency guide to where US capitalism is going is to look at the monthly Institute of Supply Management (ISM) survey of US businesses, both in the manufacturing and services sectors, for the evidence of orders, employment and costs.  I have combined the ISM indexes in the two sectors to produce a good indicator of the state of the US economy.  Last January, that combined index showed that the US was in ‘low growth’ territory (defined as below trend average of about 3% a year) at the end of 2011, but not in recession.  The latest ISM figures were released this week and they confirm that position.  Indeed, the latest chart suggests that there has been a slight pick-up in US economic activity in its capitalist sectors.

Another high-frequency measure of US economic activity is the ECRI’s leading indicator, which compiles various measures of the economy into one index.   This also shows that the US economy is in a low-growth mode (still well below pre-crisis levels of activity), but not heading back into recession.

What about the rest of the capitalist world?  Well, a quick look at the last two months of purchasing managers data for Europe, Japan and China suggest much the same.  If a PM index is greater than 50, that is supposed to show that an economy is still growing, with anything below 50 suggesting contraction.   JP Morgan have a world index that scored above that 50 in both January and February with the direction up (First bar in red).  Japan is scoring just on 50 (last bar in red).  Only Europe appears to be contracting (slightly) – last bar in blue.  As for China, it depends on which PM measure you want to follow, that of the HSBC survey (first blue) or the official government survey (third red).  HSBC shows China to be contracting (but only just), while the official index shows it still to expanding,if at a slower pace than this time last year,

In sum, the capitalist world economy struggles on at a rate of growth that is not enough to restore the jobs lost in the Great Recession and not enough to encourage big business to kick in with sizeable new investment, or for consumers to want to spend more.  I have argued in this blog before that the reason for this low-growth world is primarily that the recovery in profitability in the major capitalist economies has not been enough; and that these economies are still weighed down by debt (or ‘dead capital’).   This makes it impossible to have a ‘normal’ cyclical recovery for recession as in 1999-2 or 2001.

Limbaugh, Planned Parenthood -- the mood in the USA.

It is easy to be confused about the mood in the USA, especially when we see these extreme right wing nuts fighting for the Republican nomination and the equally right wing nuts who attend the caucuses to vote for them. But two events in the last couple of weeks should be noted.

When the extreme right pulled the funding from Planned Parenthood there was such a backlash that they had to retreat and reinstate it. Now we have had the extreme abuse from the biggest mouth in the Republican Party Rush Limbaugh calling a young woman who was testifying to congress a "slut" and "prostitute." Now the backlash to this has also been enormous. Eight corporations have pulled their ads from Limbaugh's show and he has been forced to make a half apology which has not stopped the hemorrhaging.

Both these backlashes have been led mainly by women. this is a sign that the right wing's war on women is going to evoke a mass movement of opposition if it is continued with. Do not be fooled by the propaganda of the right wing and liberal mass media in the US. There is a real mood for struggle developing and especially amongst women.

Sean.

US inequality much greater than China's

There were some important points made in response to the blog I put up the other day about the wealth of the Chinese legislators, information I had shared from a piece in Business Week.  I thought it would be important to share them with readers of the blog as the Bloomberg piece I quoted clearly intends to show that inequality is greater in China than the US which is not the case. Thanks to the comrades for their clarification.

Richard

Pat Byrne wrote:

The statistics on the incredible level of wealth owned by the Communist Party elite are very interesting but the comparison that Bloomberg makes with the United States is highly misleading. By
comparing the wealth of legislators in China with legislators in the US they seek to demonstrate that China is a more unequal society. But they fail to compare wealth distribution in China with the US as a whole thus leaving out the wealth of the super-rich in the US. Of course legislators in the US are
far less wealthy as most wealth is held in private hands compared to China, a system where the large majority of economic activity is carried out by the state and run by an unaccountable bureaucracy.

This only confirms what we have been saying about the leading role of the state in China and why it is inaccurate to describe it as a capitalist country.    I also found the (China's) 16-point reform plan interesting. Unfortunately, it is a very partial plan leaving out large areas that need improvement. More important it lacks any proposals to fully democratise the whole system which has given rise to the inequalities and corruption in the first place.

Incidentally, this morning I watched the work report on 2011 that Premier Wen Jiabao presented to the National People's Congress yesterday. As part of what he described as the country's process of "socialist modernisation" he reported the following achievements for 2011:

9.2% GDP growth
24.8% increase of government revenue (an incredible statistic compared to
the debt situation of Western governments)
Grain output reached a record high of 570 million tons
12.21 million new urban jobs created
Urban real per capita disposable income rose by 8.4%
Rural real per capita disposable income rose by 11.4%
6.3 million hectares of trees were planted
Local government debt was thoroughly reviewed and corrections introduced.
Housing speculation drastically reduced
Inflation reduced to 4.5%
Urbanisation level has now passed 50% point
Universal 9 year education has now been achieved and illiteracy completely abolished among young and middle  aged Chinese

Among the targets for 2012 the following were reported:
To create more than 9 million new urban jobs
To complete 5 million units of low-income housing this year and start
construction of another 7 million units

And Ben Leet also commented:
About China: the wage of the typical manufacture worker doubled between 2002 and 2008 according to Dept. of Labor report, see Monthly Labor Review, March 2011, look at the chart in the back. Yet the wages of $1.36 an hour were 4% of U.S. manufacturer worker wages, of $34.00 an hour. Read the report. Here's another data set, China's GDP per adult is 1 tenth the GDP of USA, So productivity (output per hour) in US is ten times greater. In the US median net worth per adult is 1/5 the average wealth, in China net worth per adult is 1/3. Meaning they share their wealth better than we do. Put it this way, our median is $53,000, our average is (5 times that) $250,000, in China their median is $7,500, their average is around $21,000. This info from Credit Suisse bank World Wealth Report, 2011. China is much poorer

How can you write or say racist things and not be a racist? Ask the judge.

Richard Cebull is the chief US district court judge in Montana.  He's in a bit of hot water for sending an e mail out, a racist joke about Obama.  Here's the joke:

"A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?'
"His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"

The joke is obviously intended to denigrate Obama for his multiracial background.  The honorable judge eventually admitted that the e mail was racist but he isn't----an interesting explanation.   "The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan," he said. "I didn't send it as racist, although that's what it is. I sent it out because it's anti-Obama."

"I didn't send it as a racist." says the judge, "although that's what it is".  I had to repeat that to let it penetrate my brain.  Perhaps his honorship has multiple personality syndrome disorder and one of his other personalities did it.  You wouldn't get very far with that argument in his courtroom I'm sure.  Can you imagine how "not racist" he is when handing out decisions from the bench to people of color in the dock.  The KKK is full of non racists too. I am no fan of Obama, he is a representative of the 1% and a consummate bourgeois politician.  He is an enemy of working class people throughout the world. But it would not enter my head to think of him in the way the judge does let alone write about it--------unless I was a racist, acting in a racist way.  We live in a racist society, so I am one of those people that expects such ideas to be expressed by workers at times. How can they not?  The same with sexism.  But not every worker that expresses prejudicial ideas is a racist or sexist, it depends how they react to being made aware of certain backward ideas and what they said an meant.  In the judges case I cannot be so generous.

Mother Jones Magazine covered the story and had this to say about his honors conduct:
The US Code of Judicial Conduct mandates that a judge "should personally observe high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the Judiciary are preserved." It also says that a judge "should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities"—which applies to both professional and personal conduct. With regard to politics, it says judges "should refrain from partisan political activity" and "should not publicly endorse or oppose a partisan political organization or candidate."
Of course there is no such thing as an in dependent judiciary either. The laws in society have a class base so it would be impossible for a judge to be independent.  They have a bias against all workers no matter what their color but the evidence speaks for itself; over 50% of the prison population are people of color and the laws and sentences are mush harsher for them and judges like this one make use of them I'm sure.  These statistics though are not all the result of the prejudices of individual judges but the inherent racism in society, it is a social problem.

The full story is here.

A lifetime media ban for Rush Limbaugh for his violent attacks on womens' rights.

Four marriages, no kids? Contraception?

The young woman who addressed the US Congress to protest the attacks on women's rights was called a "slut" and a "prostitute" by Rush Limbaugh, the misogynist and former drug addict.  Limbaugh is a wealthy man, a "fortunate son" as the song goes. He is a mouthpiece for the capitalist class whose interests he serves by pitting one section of the working class against the other.  Blaming immigrants, gays, workers and the unemployed for what is a crisis of capitalism.  Here's a guy who got out of going to Vietnam due to a cyst we heard. His whole clan is an infested mass of lawyers, politicians of the 1% and judges, those who suppress the struggles of workers and youth, bring injunctions against workers on strike or have the cops help the scabs break strikes by crossing picket lines.  He is a multi-millionaire if not a billionaire signing an 8-year, $400 million contract extension with the 1% media propaganda machine, Clear Channel in 2008.

He is publicly opposed by the slicker, more astute representatives of his class for his extreme right wing views that have the potential to threaten the stability of the system and capital accumulation. But many of those that openly oppose him now will, in the event of a deeper crisis and a united mass movement of the working class, not be reluctant to use his special talents.

After Ted Kennedy's death Limbaugh commented, “…he took money from people who worked, used the government to do it, and gave the money to people who don’t work..”.  It's hard to imagine that some workers (white, male workers) give Limbaugh any credibility.  He attacks his class brother Ted Kennedy for his liberal views, supporting unemployment insurance, welfare and other social safety nets that workers won in the streets through mass action.  This is from a man who does no productive Labor.  Limbaugh avoided the draft and produces no wealth in society. He is a social parasite as far as workers are concerned but has too much useful potential to be completely abandoned by the 1% despite their reservations.

I read that some of the advertisers have and/or are threatening to pull their sponsorship of his radio show due to his sexist comments.  The response from the 1% though is pretty mild.  There is no doubt in my mind that things can be said about women by these public figures that would never be tolerated if they were racial in nature. I think Limbaugh would be off the air if he were to refer to a black person in equally derogatory racist terms.

Sexism is still prevalent in many of the institutions in society.  Women face huge barriers in the trade Union movement and socialist groups are notorious for their treatment of women within their organizations while they advocate against sexism in general.  Look at what happened to Don Imus.  He made sexist remarks but I believe it was the racial element that cost him his job. The black population reacts very strongly to these attacks, not simply through letter writing campaigns but in the streets where it counts. The sports commentator Jimmy the Greek was let go rapidly for his comments about black people.

The way women are portrayed in advertising is the offensive and has the most pernicious affect on young women and men in particular.  Some ads are really pornographic.  A country that is is the porno capital of the world won't expose a "tit" on mainstream TV and if someone does, (Janet Jackson although most of us never noticed it) all hell breaks loose.  The ads on that very same media, especially during sporting events where a male audience is guaranteed, are full of sexual content and semi-pornographic-------all in the interests of selling the commodity from cars to ice cream.

On the question of rape, the justice system fails miserably.  Look at some of these statistics that can be found here:

1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).
17.7 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape.
9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003.

Lifetime rate of rape /attempted rape for women by race:

• All women: 17.6%
• White women: 17.7%
• Black women: 18.8%
• Asian Pacific Islander women: 6.8%
• American Indian/Alaskan women: 34.1%
• Mixed race women: 24.4%  

Every 2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.

Here's the math. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey --there is an average of 207,754 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year.
There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. That makes 31,536,000 seconds/year. So, 31,536,000 divided by 207,754 comes out to 1 sexual assault every 152 seconds, or about 1 every 2 minutes.

Look at the events surrounding the rape of the immigrant woman from Cameroon by Dominique Strauss Kahn. Many men are sympathetic to Kahn and believe he has been  unfairly treated. I am not saying that a working class woman can't lie or falsely accuse someone.  But here was a woman, an immigrant from Africa, a maid at a hotel.  She claimed Kahn raped her.  Kahn is one of the most powerful men in the world. He was head of the world bank at the time. He had the resources and money to have this working class woman's private life dissected in order to portray her as a liar and a person of low morals.  This is the standard procedure when a woman comes forward and accuses a man of some means of rape. It is the reason so many women don't bother, along with the shame and other after effects of it all. Strauss Kahn got away with it. He has gotten away with it many times before---he is a free man.

There is less hullabaloo about Limbaugh's vicious and violent attacks on women than Janet Jackson's nipple that was reported to have been exposed on national TV.  I missed it personally as it happened so fast. When the accusations of rape were brought against Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, this blog argued against any investigation by institutions of capitalism. Assange is not Rush Limbaugh. We called for an investigation by panels independent of the 1%.  Trade Union's women's sections, rape crisis groups and other women's organizations.  The same would have applied to the Strauss Kahn case. Those with money win in their courts.

As for Limbaugh, he should be fired from working in the industry for life. Reagan did that to 11,000 air traffic controllers so there's a precedent.

Limbaugh, Santorum and the war on women.

The US is being convulsed at the moment by the war on women. This is being conducted by the right wing of the bourgeois class, the Catholic hierarchy and politicians like Santorum. It is staggering what is going on. Twenty states now require abortion providers to conduct ultra sounds before abortions in some situations. In 2011 92 new curbs on abortion were put in place in 24 states,

Look at what has been passed into law in Texas. If a woman seeks an abortion she must first endure an ultra sound probe inserted into her vagina. She must listen to the doctor describe the body parts and internal organs of the fetus on the monitor. She must also listen to the heartbeat of the fetus. Then she signs a statement saying she understands all this, and then she must go home and wait 24 hours before returning to have the abortion. This is terrorism against women. If you look up the term rape it is: the penetration of the vagina without the women's consent. This Texas law and these legislated ultra sounds are rape. One Texas doctor says: "It's state sanctioned abuse. It borders on a definition of rape. Many states describe rape as putting an object into an orifice against a person's will. Well this is what this is. The state is waging a war on women." This is state sanctioned rape. One defender of women's rights says:" It's been awful. Last year was unbelievable. We've never seen anything like it."

Look further at Texas which has just brought in the most savage anti women laws. The tiny minority of women who are not using contraceptives account for half of all abortions in the US. Yet Texas has some of the weakest sex education in the country and last year it cut family planning spending by 66%. It is obvious the way to reduce abortions is to increase sex education and access to contraception. But not for these right wing religious nuts.

The gains of the women's revolt of the 1960's are under attack. So too are the gains of the black revolt of the 1960's. And so also are the gains of the working class of the 1930's. The US capitalist class want to increase its control over all sections of the working class and to push women workers further into the role of providing cheap labor and a new workforce.

But they are stirring up a huge opposition. The right wing had to retreat when funding Planned Parenthood was cut. Now the seriously mentally disturbed and extreme right wing Republican Party leader Limbaugh has had to offer a half an apology after he called a young women who was speaking for contraceptive rights a "slut" and a "prostitute." The Republican Party is so bad they could not get anybody to condemn his remarks. Another Republican suggested that Obama's mother might have had sex with a dog.

Along with Limbaugh comes the extreme right wing fanatic Santorum, a member of the vicious right wing Catholic organization Opes Dei, and a supporter of the cultish order of priests known as the Legion of Christ. Its founder was accused for years of abusing seminarians. Santorum made two visits to Rome to meet the unelected leader of the anti women organization the Catholic Church. According to reports when this incomplete man heard that Santorum had at that time six children he told him he was a "great man." Well actually it was Santorum's wife who had the six children.

The Catholic Church, the main church of capitalism, is very much in the leadership of this offensive against women in the US. Dolan who calls himself a cardinal and controls the New York Catholic outfit and is president of the US conference of Catholic Bishops, not a women amongst them, calls on Catholics to be "very active, very informed and very involved in politics." This character's speech came in advance of his outfit's "lobbying day" in Albany the New York state capital, that is bribing and blackmailing the state's politicians. He said he wanted to hire more "attractive, articulate, intelligent," laywomen to speak against abortion. He went on: "In the public square, I hate to tell you the days of fat balding Irish bishops are over."

But just in case there was any confusion arising from his call to the membership of the church to mobilize he made clear who was still in charge. He said about Obama's call for the bishops to listen to "the enlightened voices of accommodation within the church." Dolan was having none of this. He quickly stated that the his cabal of unelected old men rule and that is that. He said: "We kind of got our Irish up when leaders in government seemed to be assigning an authoritative voice to Catholic groups that are not bishops. If you want an authoritative voice go to the bishops. They are the ones that speak for the truths of the faith." Yes undemocratic, extreme right wing, pro capitalist, anti women, led by old as Joyce called them "incomplete men." And i am not even getting to where the present pope was a member of the Hitler Youth.

US capitalist politics are getting sicker by the day. The top bourgeois mobilized the right wing christian right into the Republican party over the last forty years in order to push through their policies. The republican Party is now under the thumb of this mixture of extreme right wing religious nuts, idiots, paranoid freaks, racist and sexist idiots. The situation is ripe and over ripe for a workers party. But because of the refusal of the union leaders to lead and the mistakes of the left what will probably happen instead in the short term is that Obama will get another term. Or a new mass movement will explode either from the right of the left and leave US politics in tatters. Or of course they could bomb Iran and this could cut across the economic growth that exists and plunge US society into an entirely new era.

Sean.

Canada: Join OCAP on March 16, 2012

(DOWNLOAD POSTER & FLYER AT BOTTOM OF PAGE)

-Solidarity Against Austerity-
Friday, March 16, 2012
Rally and March 12 noon
College and Bay St, Toronto (Outside the Ministry of Housing)

Join the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and allies for a march and rally on Friday, March 16th, in the lead up to the 2012 Provincial Budget. The McGuinty government has hired former head of the TD bank, Don Drummond, to propose and provide the basis for massive social cutbacks in their 2012 budget. It is being drafted as the Provincial component of the austerity agenda that is gathering force across Canada and internationally. City Hall, Queen`s Park and Ottawa are delivering austerity, but clearly it is being cooked-up on Bay Street by bankers like Drummond to the benefit of their rich friends.
We have to stop the cuts and fight for what poor and working people need!
The measures they intend to hit us with will fall on top of the losses we have already faced:

-Social assistance rates have lost at least 55% of their spending power since the days of the Harris Tories; the base amount for welfare today is a despicable $599/month
-The minimum wage has been reduced in real terms and more and more workers are forced into low wage jobs with E.I, employment standards and protection for workers being steadily eroded
-The fastest growing numbers amongst the poor in Ontario are racialized people without status; forced in to an economy that benefits from their massively underpaid and exploited labour, but fails to provide even basic services
-Waiting lists for social housing across this province are decades long while people are priced out of the private housing market and homeless shelters are overcrowded
-Access to affordable childcare is almost non-existent while thousands wait for limited subsidy spaces.

For poor people and workers in this province, it has been a constant state of crisis. McGuinty is now preparing to make this situation much worse.
On March 16, we will be rallying at an Ontario Government location but taking our march to Toronto`s financial centre where the real decisions are being made by and for the '1%'.
We will be marching to oppose austerity measures but also to demand the reversing of previous cutbacks, the right to a living income, the right to affordable and accessible housing, and for good quality public services for all! We will be marching against the kind of society Drummond and the rich are creating, and for one that meets the needs and improves the lives of all of us!

HOW TO BE INVOLVED IN MARCH 16:
-Organize a contingent: bring a group of people from your organization, neighbourhood, city or union local to this demonstration - bring your demands
-Drum out Drummond: bring drums, noise makers, pots and pans
-Organize a group of students or a ‘kids block’ to be a part of the day as part of March Break
-Banners, flags and signs: Organize a ‘banner making day’ in your area, bring your banners to the march
-Help fund a bus, food, transit tokens, ASL, and materials for the day: if you or your organization or union local can make donations of money or in-kind, please help us make this day as participatory and accessible as possible
-Build the movement: add your organization’s to the list of endorsers for this day of action
-Get the word out: help us get the message out about this day of action, download the poster and flyer at www.ocap.ca, forward this announcement far and wide, contact us if you would like to help with postering, flyering, etc.

GET IN TOUCH: Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
Email: ocap@tao.ca
Phone: 416-925-6939
Web: OCAP.ca
Facebook: OCAP
Twitter: @OCAPtoronto
DOWNLOAD POSTER & FLYER BELOW:
POSTER:
http://ocap.ca/files/OCAP_March%20low.pdf
FLYER (FRONT):
http://ocap.ca/files/flyer_side1%20lo.pdf
FLYER (BACK):
http://ocap.ca/files/flyer_side2.pdf

Chinese Communist Party hacks: the new billionaires

At some point in the not too distant future there will be some major explosions in China.  Not that there haven't been already. The country has thousands upon thousands of protests, strikes and various clashes with the authorities every year.  The struggles at some of the factories have led to wage increases of 20% or more, enough to force some capitalists to consider moving production to Vietnam where workers are cheaper. But the massive accumulation of wealth of those among the ruling party elite and the merging of politics and big money will mean even more violent and open clashes ahead.

The rapid growth of the Chinese economy has brought in its wake increased inequality and incredible wealth for the Communist Party bureaucracy.  A recent survey, the Hurun Report, released by a Shanghai publisher of luxury magazines from public information revels the extent of the inequality.  The per capita annual income in China in 2010 was $2,425 according to Bloomberg Business Week; this is lower than in Belarus. (The Communist Party's Capitalist Elite: BW 3-5-12)

Meanwhile, the 70 richest members of the National People's Congress which is China's legislature, "Added more to their wealth last year than the combined net worth of the entire US Congress, the president, his cabinet and the entire Supreme Court." BW adds.  The combined net worth of the richest 70 legislators in the NPC  was $89.8 billion in 2011 according to the report while the Center for Responsive Politics in the US put the combined net worth of the 660 officials in the three branches of US government at $7.5 billion.  Quite tidy sums and certainly shows that politics pays, even for so-called "Communists".

And like the US, in China the political representatives of the "people"and the new capitalist class are more often than not one and the same.  China's second richest person with a family fortune of around $11 billion is a member of the legislature.  China's richest woman is also a member as are other captains of industry like Lu Guanqui, an auto parts billionaire.

The US Congress and China's legislature have much in common although the "communists" appear to have been more successful at ripping off workers.  Many of the new capitalist class not included in this exclusive club are not happy about these developments-----the power and influence of China's 1%----- not because they object to wealth stolen from the Labor of others but because of the lack of similar opportunities for them.  

"In all levels of the system there seem to be local officials in cahoots with entrepreneurs, enriching themselves" says Bruce Jacobs an Asian studies professor in Melbourne. Sounds a lot like Washington doesn't it.

Iran. "Elections in our country are like a comedy show."

This was the statement made by a woman in an upper class neighborhood in Tehran. The recent elections there saw a very low turn out in the upper and middle class neighborhoods. But a much higher turnout in the working class neighborhoods where the regime has more support and where there is greater anger against the policies and threats of the US and Israel. I would say this statement is true. The one about the "comedy show." All candidates there have to be vetted and sanctioned by the top Mullahs.

But we should not get too cocky. Here in the US the elections also are a "comedy show." Look at the clowns who are running for the Republican nomination. But it is not only that. While the Mullahs vet the candidates in Iran the candidates are vetted here in the US also. Only here they are vetted by big money. The super packs and the mass media decide who will get on the stage in debates and who will dominate the mass propaganda outlets.

When was the last time we saw a workers representative on the mass media electioneering for support. Even the so called left of the TV shows do not do this. Take Bill Maher, the atheist and supposedly great unconventional thinker. The one thing he will never do is offer an alternative to the system or to the political parties of capitalism.

Yes politics here are a "comedy show" also but one that is very tightly controlled by capitalism. What we need is a workers party to fight for working people.

Sean.