The First World War was becoming a catastrophe for Russia. From the front line there was news of defeat after defeat. The breakdown of the economy produced a shortage of bread. Crowds of half-starved and desperate women queued outside shops for bread that never arrived. But at the top of Russian society things were very different
With the New Zealand Labour Party policy moving toward introducing an Universal basic income we reproduce this UK article for our readers.
Universal basic income (or UBI), an unconditional payment to all citizens, has become part of the economic zeitgeist in recent times, embraced by advocates on both the Left and the Right as a solution to the symptoms and sores of the crisis-ridden capitalist system.
To watch the In Defence of the Russian Revolution - Part one please click the link below
One hundred years ago the Russian Revolution shook the capitalist world order to its foundations. Here for the first time ever, the Russian workers, led by Lenin and the Bolshevik party, took power into their own hands. The ruling classes have never forgiven this.
John Key has announced that he his standing down as Prime Minister on 12th December. This has sent shock waves through the National Party. He stated family reasons and getting out whilst he is ahead. These reasons are flimsy ones and bears no serious scrutiny.
Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections has delivered the biggest political upset in history; a political earthquake that has shattered the entire global Establishment, making Brexit look like a minor tremor in comparison.
Thus ends the “School of the Democrats.” What once seemed unthinkable—akin to an episode of the Twilight Zone—has become a surreal reality. As Hillary’s “blue wall” of “secure” states came tumbling down, tipping irreversibly in The Donald’s favour, the media pundits tried to maintain their composure, but they were clearly shellshocked—along with millions of others.
Obama offered the feeble consolation that “the sun will rise in the morning.” As night follows day, the sun will indeed rise in the morning. But it will rise over a very different world: one that has witnessed the overnight collapse of the rotten Clinton dynasty and the shattering of the lesser evil electoral strategy.
The world waits with bated breath as the "leader of the free world" is selected. Election 2016 has been a rollercoaster for voters, pollsters, pundits, and candidates alike. The campaign has been like no other seen in the US for a century or more.
What is money? Where does it come from? and what does it represent?
Photo: Pictures of Money/Flickr
The champions of the free market never miss an opportunity to extol its virtues: peace, prosperity, efficiency, integrity, a wide range of freedoms, and let’s not forget: lots and lots of choices. If you work hard and play by the rules, you too can get ahead. However, far from the myth peddled by the free marketeers, capitalism is organically and incurably irrational, exploitative, and corrupt.
(Editorial of the latest edition of Socialist Appeal (USA))
Trump and Clinton - by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 4.0
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ndeed, the saint-making business is thriving these days (in three years Francis has canonised 29 saints). Pope Francis has also been careful to varnish the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and its pantheon of saints with a gloss of social justice. Francis has attempted to paint his newest saint as a friend of the poor, a woman who “made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created”. The truth, however, is very far from Francis’ adulations of this “saint of the gutters”.
[Read also a longer article about the role of Mother Teresa here: Wojtyla and Teresa, or a Case of Saintly Overproduction]
Photo by Túrelio CC BY-SA 2.0 de
Dramatic events shook Turkey yesterday as armed troops moved onto the streets of Istanbul and Ankara. They closed down the main airports and bridges while military jets were roaring very low above the cities. A coup was in the works.
