January 2007 Archives

It is debatable whether the governance mechanisms of voluntary bodies such as co-operatives should be specified in the Constitution, as the Cooperatives Bill proposes to do through an amendment. Kaushiki Sanyal presents a legislative brief.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth) Amendment Bill, 2006 proposes to insert a new part IX B in the Constitution (adding Articles 243ZH through 243ZT), which provides for incorporation, regulation and winding up of co-operative societies.

The Bill specifies the maximum number of Board members and the tenure of the members. Elections have to be held before the expiry of the term of the Board.

"According to Karl Marx, the creation of surplus value is the source of economic exploitation. Capitalists convert the surplus value into money value and that is how they accumulate profit. After analysing the capitalist economy, Marx reasoned that all profit is exploitation because profit means the denial of the legitimate right of the working class to the wealth they produce. Consequently, profit is nothing but the exploitation of labour. Marx concluded that the creation of surplus value will stop only when economic exploitation ends. All communist states, including the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam, have rejected Marx's theory of exploitation. According to these countries, the creation of surplus value in the economy is an indispensable part of national prosperity. In repudiation of Marxist ideas, profit is not considered exploitation. If Marx made the first attempt to analyse and define exploitation, then it must be said that his work is not free from defects. This is because Marx tried to interpret exploitation only from the economic point of view.

According to PROUT, economic exploitation involves the unrestricted plunder of the physical and psychic labour of a particular community together with the natural resources in their local area. In PROUT's view, exploitation is not confined to only economic exploitation, but includes psychic and spiritual exploitation as well. Economic exploitation has various forms and includes colonial exploitation, imperialist exploitation and fascist exploitation. There are similarities and dissimilarities in both the principles and characters of these forms of exploitation."

Introduction

Theocracy is a widely used word referring to a government comprised of priests / clergy who claim to represent God. These priests have full executive, legislative and judicial power over the people of that community or nation. Theocrats are those who advocate for theocratic governments. Theodemocracy is a lesser known and lesser used word which refers to a democracy under religious rule. The greatest threat today in the world is not terrorism, but rather theodemocracy due to its assault on the fundamental rights and freedoms of human beings.

"The U.S. has routinely destroyed democracy throughout the globe while its leaders spout words about spreading democracy."

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism....

"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." - Major General SmedleyButler, 1933.

A survey in 565 villages across 11 states reveals that in 73% of villages, dalits cannot enter non-dalit homes, and in 33% of villages non-dalit health workers will not visit dalit homes. Clearly, independent India’s efforts to eradicate untouchability have not substantially shaken core beliefs

Underlying much of the heated debate on reservations is the belief that too much is being made of the discrimination suffered by dalits.

"A group of exploiters loudly object to a remark that was made by the great Karl Marx concerning religion. It should be remembered that Karl Marx never opposed spirituality, morality and proper conduct. What he said was directed against the religion of his time, because he perceived, understood and realized that religion had psychologically paralysed the people and reduced them to impotence by persuading them to surrender to a group of sinners." (Human Society - Part 2)

Editor's note: Alternatives to modern Western medicine exist that are effective and safe. Homeopathy, used by millions worldwide but without enormous advertising budgets to make itself well known, is one of those and is based on its own unique, valid, and scientific principles.

When I walked into the office of Raymond Seidel, MD, in 1972, I never thought that it would change my life. I was new in Philadelphia and looking for a doctor. Someone sent me to Dr. Seidel. During the next eight years, I found that the old doctor changed my health dramatically. By the time he passed away in 1980, I had found homeopathy and the way to take charge of my own health. I also had discovered a philosophy that fascinated me and a colorful history filled with amazing people.

BANGKOK -- Buddhists are fleeing their homes in southern Thailand in the face of an increasingly militant Muslim insurgency that has begun calling for an independent and pure Islamist nation in the impoverished region bordering Malaysia.

What began as an indigenous protest against heavy-handed rule from the mainly Buddhist capital, Bangkok, has developed into a battle reflecting extremism in Iraq and Afghanistan, including beheadings and the burning of schools.

"This land must be separated between Muslims and the nonbelievers. This land must be liberated, and an Islamic system must be its foundation," warned a leaflet recently distributed in the south that the Thai military showed to reporters.

"This is a land of war that is no different from Palestine and Afghanistan," said the leaflet, signed by an obscure jihadist group known as the Islamic Warriors of Pattani State.

"This land is not the land of the Thais, but the land of Fathoni Darulsalam," it said, using an old Arabic name for the mainly Muslim region of southern Thailand.

Other fliers instruct Muslims not to buy or benefit financially from lands abandoned by Buddhists, saying the properties will be distributed to needy Malays once the region is liberated from the "occupying Siamese," according to a Bangkok newspaper, the Nation.

"When a capo goes down, another pops up to claim the turf. Every Mexican president wears a narco lord around his neck"

"Over a million farm families (6,000,000 Mexicans) have been forced off the land, primarily by the dumping of cheap NAFTA corn on this side of the border"

After a tumultuous year in which the red and black flags of civil insurrection unfurled on the barricades and the rancor of "los de abajo" ("those from below") took fire, newly sworn-in president Felipe Calderon and his transnational backers are banking on fading the color scheme to a ubiquitous gray in 2007. Their success will be measured by the fight back of a popular resistance that has surged from the bottom in many parts of the country during 2006.

Communism as an economic model was tried in various parts of the world such as Russia and Eastern European countries, however it failed. Under communist economies the common people became even more impoverished than they were prior to communism. Communism is symbolized by state ownership and public enterprise. In essence, it is state capitalism. Capitalism is the economic model in vogue today in most countries of the world. The United States is the bastion of capitalism. In fact, many scholars and historians refer to it as the American Empire, which has replaced the British Empire of the 19th and 20th centuries. Capitalism is symbolized by individual ownership and private enterprise. We have today not merely capitalism but global capitalism, also referred to as globalization. In all these economic systems, i.e., communism, capitalism and global capitalism, the economic system is centralized with control being in the hands of a few persons. The question begs to be asked as to whether the common people have fared well in centralized economies, and whether they have been guaranteed an improved standard of living based on increasing purchasing capacity. According to economist Prabhat Sarkar, in a centralized economy exploitation cannot be eradicated nor can the poverty of the common people be removed. In the above economic paradigms, economic policies are formulated by a handful of men for the benefit of those men who are generally indifferent to the plight of the masses.

The associated article by Srdja Trifkovic, "Eurabian Nights: A Horror Travelogue," shows that significant portions of various Muslim communities in Europe are abusing and exploiting their host countries. Rather than treat their hosts with gratitude or at least make efforts to be good citizens and integrate, in some places they struggle to create separate enclaves and have increased the degree of serious crime. Slavish European elites in turn tend to blame the members of their own societies for everything that goes wrong and counsel them to accept an "inevitable" change to a Euro-Islamic civilization. Many things can be written about curing the sickness of contemporary European immigration politics, but we would like to focus on five elements.

Thousands of young Muslims, armed with clubs and sticks and shouting, "Allahu akbar!" riot and force the police to retreat. Windows are smashed; stores are looted; cars are torched. Europeans unlucky or careless enough to be trapped by the mob are viciously attacked, and some are killed.

The scene could be Mogadishu in the aftermath of Pope Benedict's Regensburg address; or Tripoli during the Danish-cartoons fury; or Karachi, Kabul, Gaza, and countless other cities in Dar al-Islam's heartland, on any number of occasions. Yet a year ago, such scenes were unfolding, for weeks on end, in places with such names as Clichy-sous-Bois, Argenteuil, and La Courneuve.

"Thousands of new jobs have been created in the last several decades in every major city that has experienced population growth. If creating jobs in a city reduced unemployment in the city, then each of these cities should now have an unemployment rate that is less than zero, whatever that means..." April 15, 2006

Editor's note: Though less intelligent than humans, animals are not machines, should not be forced to perform endlessly like machines for corporate profits or human entertainment, and should have rights against exploitation. It is time humanism be extended within rational limits to other living entitites and become Neohumanism, a philosophy supported at this website.

Two weeks ago, an orca named Kasatka intentionally grabbed and pulled her trainer underwater twice-nearly killing him in the process. Kasatka is a performer for Sea World Adventure Park, San Diego [United States]. She is one of seven orca entertainers at the Southern California park. With operations in five other US locations, Sea World and Busch Gardens are owned by the Anheuser-Busch corporation. Indeed, as Susan Davis demonstrated in her Spectacular Nature (1997), these flagship zoological parks are corporate enterprises: for-profit businesses.

According to a park official, the Sea World orcas perform as many as 8 times per a day, 365 days a year. The Kasatka attack happened during the final daily show. As for the performances themselves, they are finely choreographed and composed of several acts. Each is highly complex in its routines and challenging in its stunts. These shows require skill, patience, labor, and hours of weekly practice. The orcas are, in every sense, performers and entertainers.

A considerable amount of money is invested in such flagship zoological ventures. These parks are vacation destinations. There are hotels, restaurants, amusement rides, merchandise, and special events. There are adventure camps for students. There are animal exhibitions and performances. There are extensive breeding and academic-related research operations. In truth, the global trade in exotic-animals is a multi-million dollar a year industry. The Russian government, for example, just resumed its trade in captive orcas. This is not surprising, as a single orca can be worth up to 1 million dollars. Conservation is big business.

Was the two-day conference on the Holocaust held earlier this month by the Iranian government intended to cast "doubt on the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War," (1) or was it Iran's rejoinder to the Jyllands-Posten affair, an attempt "to embarrass the West and say, 'Look, we are practicing what you preach. We are allowing freedom of discussion of just about any issue, including the Holocaust' "? (2)

It's pretty clear how Western journalists summed up the event. The point of the conference was to assemble the world's most notorious Holocaust-deniers and Jew haters, among them KKK kook David Duke, to lend support to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claims that the Holocaust is a myth and to cheer on the Iranian president as he prepares to perpetrate a genocide against the Jews and 'wipe out' Israel.

The problem is, matters aren't quite as black and white as all that. Not even close.

Let's start with the claim that Ahmadinejad "has referred to the Holocaust as a 'myth'" (3), a claim made by almost every major media outlet in North America.

Ahmadinejad may have said the Holocaust is a myth, but if he has, it has escaped my attention. Of course, I don't follow him around with a tape-recorder and babel fish in my ear, so maybe I missed it. Still, the file of Ahmadinejad quotes I have before me, which goes back two years, hasn't a single quote that backs up the near media consensus that Ahmadinejad has "repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth," (4) let alone called it one even once.

"While the land allocated for management is littered with villas, fancy mansions and green areas, workers are housed in Soviet-style apartment blocks with soot covering the outside walls. The balconies are worn out, sewage is leaking and trash has piled up in little smelly hills."

MAHALA EL-KOBRA, Egypt (IPS)- More than 20,000 Egyptian textile workers have scored a rare win over plans to privatise their publicly-owned company, with a massive strike that forced the company's management and the pro-free market government to back down.

Union leaders say the triumph has breathed life into the country's ailing labour movement, weakened by repeated hits from the government of President Hosni Mubarak. The last strike in this city was in 1988.

Workers at the al-Mahala Textile Company (Ghazl al-Mahala) in the country's northwest demonstrated for five days starting last weekend and occupied several factories to protest a decision by the company's chairman Mahmoud el-Gebaly to withhold bonus payments, as promised earlier by the government. Nearly a quarter of the strikers were women.

Management had said the decision was a way to lower expenses, even though the original promise was to give workers a meagre bonus of 200 Egyptian pounds per year -- about 35 dollars.

In response, the workers launched a massive impromptu protest in this city, some 130 kms northwest of the capital Cairo, citing corruption and plans to make the company more attractive for potential buyers under Egypt's World Bank-sponsored privatisation programme. They also stopped work for two and half days.