The Steve Norman “come on and take me to court then” story appears in today’s Evening Cancer.

A couple of passages are worth further analysis:

Police, social services and the watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CSCI) investigated earlier this year after five former care workers at Kingsmead Lodge gave statements on practices that they claimed to have seen at the care home.

Interesting use of the past tense – “investigated’ here. Because if the police have “investigated” and the case is now closed, they haven’t informed any of the original complainants about this.

Whether this is a case of good old-fashioned police incompetence or whether the investigation is, in fact, still ongoing is something that will now be looked at.

The claims that social services have “investigated” are equally confusing. No complainants to Bristol City Council have been informed of the outcome of this “investigation” for starters.

Neither has Bristol City Council published any terms of reference for this “investigation” nor have any complainants been interviewed in the course of this “investigation” and democratic oversight of this “investigation” through either scrutiny commissions or the relevant Executive Member is nowhere to be seen.

In fact it’s hard to locate even one characteristic normally associated with an “investigation” into this affair by Bristol social services.

Then there’s the so-called CSCI “investigation”. Now, this really is bollocks. CSCI are a regulator – with a role similar to OFSTED’s in education. They set national standards and inspect care homes on the basis of those standards. They don’t carry out investigations into individual allegations of abuse in care homes. It’s not their job.

Meanwhile on the substance of Norman’s court challenge the council are simply reduced to waffle:

“Bristol, with other local authorities, follows national ‘Fairer Charging’ guidance in charging for all social services provided. Under the guidelines, all residents in care homes are required to make a financial contribution to the cost of their care, depending on their income. This is subject to a means test to determine what a person can afford to pay.”

So what? Who gives a toss what shitty rules you’re following? The question is: are you going to enforce these rules in court in order that Steve Norman can invite the complainants to give evidence and state the nature of their grievances?

It would certainly be interesting to see if the general public, having heard their complaints, will be as complacent as the authorities seem to be about them.

I’ve come across some self-serving, backsliding, cowardly tosh from senior officers at Bristol City Council in my time but Stephen McNamara’s response to Steve Norman’s recent invitation to take him to court takes the biscuit:

“I do not know anything about this issue”? Er Hello? What’s happened to the basic senior management tasks of delegation and taking responsibility here?

Are you in control of your department Mr McNamara? Or are you just some vastly overpaid wig and photocopied signature for ornamental purposes?

If you don’t know what’s going on in your own department then you’re no fucking use. Resign now!

As a city do we really want some unaccountable upper-middle class snooty git firing out letters willy-nilly threatening court action to the city’s hard-up and vulnerable who then – when invited to get his sorry arse down to a courtroom – immediately denies all responsibility and tries to pin the blame on a “relevant officer” ie. Some mug somewhere down the line McNamara will blame to get himself off the hook.

He is the relevant officer. He signed the letter. Why’s he signing potentially life-destroying legal papers and  letters to people about things he knows nothing about?

Welcome to another Bristol City Council senior officer shambles. What’s the point in paying people a small bloody fortune to take responsibility if they won’t?

This petition to save the canal properties of Waterways stirred me to put as succinctly as possible why the National or Public Debt has reached its most heinous peak of abusing “public” for private enrichment. The sell-off of “Government assets” is in the news: BBC, Mail Online, the Telegraph and more.

The National or “Public” Debt in a Nutshell

A Mechanism for the Oppression of Their Majesties’ Subjects

The first National Debt of £1.2 million at 8% interest was created with the Bank of England Act 1694 – when the Corporation was founded with the intention not to oppress Their Majesties’ subjects.  See Enforcement of Bank of England Act 1694.

This graph shows the exponential rise of the debt (red) in £ billion and the percentage of GDP (blue).

During history, the National Debt was at times annulled, because it was not repayable.

The national debt between 1855 and 2002, published by the Debt Management Office, has unfortunately not been accessible since it was downloaded.

Appreciating the exponential growth of compounding interest means that the purpose of the National Debt is not to be paid off, since it is too large. Its purpose is to provide long-term (30 years) interest payments to those who buy the Treasury Bonds with which it keeps growing. Public debt interest payments form a regular item in all budgets, in the UK as large as military expenditure. See United Nations Statistics Division.

The principle of National Debts has been copied by the Federal Reserve System and “exported” to all Nation States. See The World Factbook by the CIA, where the USA are not listed and the UK is in position 35 after Zimbabwe as the most indebted of 126 countries.

Instead of issuing their own money, as the Monarch used to, Treasuries or National Finance Ministers are persuaded to borrow money at interest, or to raise taxes to supply public services. In democracies, the State prints money and mints coins, i.e. creates Cash – free of interest.

With the National or Public Debt, the Government creates the need for “interest money”. In addition, banks are creating that demand by supplying money into the economy as Credit.

After World War II, the share of interest-free Cash in the economy was nearly 50%. Now it is 3%. Hence the increasing need for “interest money” via real resources such as canal properties. Seeour submission to the Treasury Select Committee Green Credit for Green Purposes.

Healthcare Republic | Nick Bostock | 26 November 2009

Unions have launched a campaign to protest at private healthcare firms working with the NHS but trying to derail proposals to extend public health provision in the US.

They point to the ‘irony’ of firms bidding for contracts to provide services for the UK NHS, but at the same time ’spending millions to stop reforms’ that could offer services to the 47 million Americans who currently have no healthcare cover.

A global union – Workers Uniting – set up by UK union Unite in partnership with the United Steelworkers union, which operates in the US and Canada, has expressed ‘dismay’ at the firms’ stance.

Gail Cartmail, Unite assistant secretary, said: ‘The global union is launching an investigation of the preferred bidders chosen by the DoH to work within the NHS.’

It’s getting just like the old days. Who can forget that fine June of 2005 when our city’s esteemed wig-wearer -in-Chief, Stephen McNamara decided to take action after the Campaign to Save Daycare in Bristol paraded 10ft-high placards through the city naming seven council officers under the banner: “Bristol social services’ list of uncaring professionals”?

“The council will not tolerate its employees being harassed in this way,” thundered the council’s all-powerful lawyer from the pages of the Evening Cancer on June 7. “If necessary, the council will take legal action through the courts to prevent any such activity.”

Good. Came the reply from campaigner Steve Norman who immediately supplied McNamara with an address for the service of court papers and come June 11 what did we read in the Cancer?

Protesters campaigning against cuts to Bristol’s day care services defied a threat of legal action to drive round the city centre in a truck bearing placards naming seven council employees.

At which point McNamara performed a extraordinarily quiet exit with wig firmly between his lycra-clad legs – never to be heard from again – without a court action in sight.

Roll-on four years. And what do we find?

Only another exercise in futility from Mr McNamara with yet more of his grandiose legal threats aimed at Steve Norman and his family. This time around he wants them to settle their bill with the council’s controversial private nursing care provider Mimosa Healthcare who are currently mired in all kinds of scandal following abuse allegations from their own employees.

And Steve’s response received by the city council this morning?

Due to the lack of care received by my father and late mother and the subsequent revelations regarding this provider and the fact that there is currently an inquest pending in to the death and treatment of a former resident, we as a family are not prepared to condone or support the lack of care and abuse that Mimosa Healthcare provides to the elderly citizens of Bristol placed in their care.

…

Obviously you are fully aware of the signed statements I obtained from former employees at Kingsmead Lodge detailing what they had witnessed during the course of their employment with Mimosa Healthcare and I feel a public court room and a Judge would be the ideal place for a legal ruling in respect of this outstanding matter.

[We] look forward to receiving your court papers in the very near future and I look forward to defending [this] case for not paying you any fees in relation to this provider or for the safe haven placement we had to find for our parents.

What a great idea! Why hide behind all this secrecy, censorship and bureaucracy and string everything out with interminable never-ending investigations when you can just pop down a court room and get it all out in the open for the public to hear?

Hang on … Is that a lycra-clad lawyer clutching an old wig I see disappearing over the horizon?

That Steve Norman letter in full:

En Chine, survivre au barrage des Trois-Gorges

Plus de 1 million de personnes déplacées par la gigantesque retenue d’eau s’entassent dans des villes nouvelles.

Le Monde.fr

Un ouvrage gigantesque

• Capacité de génération d’électricité : 18,2 gigawatts.
• Dimensions : Longueur : 2 335 m ; hauteur : environ 100 m.
• Réservoir : Long de 660 km, sa largeur varie de plusieurs centaines de mètres à quelques kilomètres. Sa superficie est de 1 084 km2.
  En tout, 13 villes, 140 bourgs et 1 350 villages ont été submergés.
• Déplacés : Quelque 1,27 million de personnes ont été déplacées. Plusieurs milliers ont été accueillies par d’autres provinces (dont Shanghaï), dans le cadre de leur contribution à la construction du barrage.

Voir aussi

• Le Monde.fr – En Chine, la vie après le barrage des Trois-Gorges

The bewigged anti-human fool that passes for a legal expert down at the Counts Louse, Stephen McNamara, excels himself again.

Now the man that took council behaviour to a new low in 2005 when he personally patrolled the entrance to the Counts Louse to prevent learning disabled protestors from using the council’s toilet facilities when they campaigned outside over the loss of their daycare services has dreamed up a new wheeze.

Because he’s only gone and started legal proceedings against families who made allegations that their elderly relatives were being abused in Mimosa’s Kingsmead Lodge care home!

Apparently the brilliant lawyer has decided, in all his wisdom, that these relatives – who had to pull their elderly parents out of Mimosa’s ‘home of horrors’ – should pay up for the dubious ‘care’ their relatives received at the hands of the council’s controversial private elderly care providers who are still under serious investigation over their conduct.

The Blogger’s assured that McNamara will be receiving a suitably robust response to his latest idea in the next few days.

Looks like the Mimosa soap opera is back then.

Michael Fullan is a leading international education consultant who is a key adviser to to the Labour government in Britain and to the Ontario Ministry of Education. In this extract from his article The Global Privatization of Education Policy George Thompson argues that Fullan has significant business connections which stand to gain directly from his reforms. The article was published on November 6 in the Daily Censored, an independent blog and news source based at Sonoma State University, USA. Read it in full at http://dailycensored.com/2009/11/06/the-global-privatization-of-education-policy-lorna-earl-conflict-of-interest-is-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

For more on education in Ontario visit Education Action: Toronto at http://educationactiontoronto.com/home/

Michael Fullan: Ontario’s reform architect

Michael Fullan has significant business connections which stand to gain directly from his reforms. All of the reforms place greater emphasis on raising literacy and numeracy “outcomes” through targeted funding, perpetual teacher and principal retraining, escalating interventions and greater accountability for standardized test performance.

He runs Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc. and Leadership4Change, and he occupies a place on the board of international advisors of Microsoft’s “Partners in Learning.” He sells twenty different reform handbooks, including the International Handbook of Educational Change as well as professional development kits for principals and he is a keynote speaker at conferences for organizations such as the Solution Tree.

Fullan has been “Special Advisor” to the Premier and the Minister of Education from April 2004 to the present. He is the chief architect of reforms in Ontario, which he was hired to bring in after helping reform Britain’s education system under Tony Blair. A May 2004 article written just after Fullan was appointed by Ontario’s Premier McGuinty, entitled “School Britannia,” gave “a preview” of the reform that was about to happen, and indeed, it turned out to be very accurate. (http://www.michaelfullan.ca/Articles_04/05_04/05_04.htm)

SPECIAL ADVISOR OR CONSULTING AGENCY?

Despite his prestigious and most influential role in public office where he has for five years been seemingly employed as a private individual in the public interest, one of his businesses, Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc. has received three payments: In 2006, the company received $58,915 (http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/budget/paccts/2006/06vol3eng.pdf), in 2007-8 the company received $75,900 (http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/budget/paccts/2008/2007-08volume3.pdf), and in 2009, Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc. received $88,750. (http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/budget/paccts/2009/09vol3eng.pdf).

Despite Fullan’s promotion of his numerous other business interests at Michaelfullan.com, “Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc.” is never mentioned on his website. According to USA Today, Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc. received $250,000 for a five month contract in 2009 to provide professional development and long range planning to improve literacy and numeracy in Louisiana. (http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=thenewsstar&sParam=30335373.story)

How much has Fullan been paid for his government position, where he has been special advisor from 2004 to the present? Surely he’s made more than 223,565, when his company commands $250,000 for five months’ work in Louisiana. Has Fullan been using his position of influence in the government to direct business to his own company? Or has the Premier deliberately misrepresented Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc. as a “Special Advisor” rather than a hired consultancy?

Michael Fullan Enterprises Inc. would appear to sell strategy for accountability reforms and solutions to teachers, principals and superintendents who must adapt to such reforms. As Fullan explains, a “big feature of our work is to play down accountability in favor of capacity building, and then re-enter accountability later. If you lead with accountability, which most states do, then people are immediately on the defensive and it doesn’t work so well. (http://www.houstonaplus.org/testimony/focus-michael-fullan)

Ontario has now reached the “re-enter accountability” phase:

OFIP (Ontario Focused Intervention Partnership) has already targeted over 1000 schools in Ontario for “intervention,” some of which can even be performing above the average, but considered “stagnating” if they are not manufacturing year over year improvement.  (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/ofip.html).  The upcoming Bill 177 will make school boards accountable for student EQAO results and pass rates, with a “no excuses” policy for lower performance in poorer areas and provisions for ministry take-over of boards who fail.

The new accountability obviously places increased pressure on principals to produce results for their boards. With the Ministry’s new “information finder website” being used to promote parental shopping, there is also considerable pressure to keep enrolment up at their school.

THE FULLAN LINE OF PRODUCTS

Fullan’s primary means of “capacity building” is leadership training. Four million dollars were invested in the “Ontario’s Institute for Education Leadership,” a branch of the ministry put in place specifically to move principals into the driver’s seat of reform. (http://www.education-leadership-ontario.ca)

Complementary to this aim is the full line of Fullan products:

First, the leader who wants to be truly aligned with the ministry’s objectives would do well to read all twenty of Fullan’s books on change, reform and leadership.  In particular the fifty percent of principals who find themselves “below average” on any given EQAO test should invest in Fullan’s Turnaround Leadership, wherein the man behind the reform that now threatens their careers “identifies the positive things turnaround schools do to get off the critical list.” http://www.principals.on.ca/cms/lucre.aspx

But Fullan’s Six Secrets of Change is the ultimate self-help resource for principals, offering “what the best leaders do to help their organizations survive and thrive.”

Next, principals who want to truly understand the new rules of the game would be well advised to buy access to Fullan’s leadership tools made available at Leadership4Change (L4C). This is a special web portal which allows you to “email Michael Fullan directly”. Also, “the L4C Learning Zone gives you access to Michael Fullan’s latest books, articles and a set of videos developed specifically for L4C membership. A vast collection of additional resources is also available here.” http://www.michaelfullan.ca/resource_assets/IntroBrochure.pdf

In addition, the leaders of tomorrow will want to buy the professional development packages. A number of Fullan’s products are available on the Ontario Principals Council website, where a principal who wants to stay off that “critical list” should be sure to get the following for just $339:

“Leadership and Sustainability Multimedia Kit for Professional Development

This all-in-one training package provides staff developers with the necessary tools for training leaders at all levels of the educational system to create large scale, sustainable reform without jeopardizing short-term results.” http://www.principals.on.ca/cms/lucre.aspx

There is also going to be a dramatic new need for achievement, which in today’s Ontario, translates into EQAO numbers. Three hundred dollars is a small price to pay for Fullan’s “Breakthrough: A Multimedia Kit for Professional Development.” This resource promises to “Give educators the keys to a transformative instructional approach that raises and sustains schoolwide achievement!” Furthermore “Facilitators will be able to demonstrate the authors’ powerful Triple P Breakthrough Model.” http://www.corwinpress.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book232361

Finally, for $375 the new generals of Fullan’s army could have seen Fullan and Hargreaves “Building a Community of Leaders: Change Wars – A Hopeful Struggle” http://www.opsoa.org/pages/members/09%20Annual%20Conference/2009_PreConf.html

ON MICROSOFT’S BOARD OF INTERNATIONAL ADVISORS

Fullan is a member of the board of international advisors on Microsoft’s Partners in Learning, whom he has been with since 2003 and which had by 2007 established partnerships with governments in over 100 countries. Partners in Learning is Microsoft’s international branch aimed at partnering Microsoft as a private corporation with governments. Microsoft is the world’s most aggressive proponent of both public-private partnerships in education and charter schools, as one may easily deduce from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Report: “We have invested $2 billion, directly reaching at least 781,000 students and opening or improving 2,602 schools in 45 states and the District of Columbia.” http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Documents/reflections-foundations-education-investments.pdf

Thus, Partners in Learning (PiL) isn’t just about promoting the use of Microsoft products and services such as hardware and software: it’s about reforming every aspect of education from teaching to administration, along the lines of PiL’s “School of the Future”, Microsoft’s flagship charter school in Philadelphia. More importantly, it is focused on influencing government policies themselves, and actively promoting “decentralization.” According to Microsoft’s own definition, this means “putting control of budgets, personnel, and academic affairs back into the hands of local communities,” but giving full control of budgets to individual schools is also a way to allow for private providers like Microsoft to gain access to markets that were previously controlled by central governments. This explains Fullan’s role as a reformer in Thailand and other countries:  “Through Learning to Lead Change, a workshop developed for Partners in Learning by international education reform expert Professor Michael Fullan, more than 13,000 educators throughout Thailand are learning strategies and tactics to prepare for decentralization and to help create a sustainable culture of leadership, collaboration, and innovation in their schools.” (http://www.microsoft.com/education/partnersinlearning/Leadership.mspx#Thailand)

The fact that Fullan’s reforms, with their emphasis on local leadership, do not differ much from those in Ontario should be a cause of great concern.

It is worth pointing out that on the Ministry’s website, one of it’s four overall initiatives has been to “enhance the way education is delivered to students by expanding e-learning opportunities, creating more online resources, increasing opportunities for experiential learning and supporting specialized schools.” http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/about/whatwedo.html

Could such “specialized schools” be charters? Could the e-learning be moving us in the direction of the virtual charter schools which have emerged as a force in the US due to the low cost and high margin of profit compared to having buildings and live teachers? With the impending closure of over 140 schools in Ontario due to under-enrolment, it is interesting to note that the declining enrolment working group made reference to “e-learning” 25 times in their 78 page report entitled “Planning and Possibilities”. (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/DEWG.pdf)

One of the key groups consulted by the Declining Enrolment Working Group was the OASBO (Ontario Association of School Business Officers), who, in their newsletter, did not fail to see “possibilities”. Bill Blackie, the Executive Director of OASBO, explains in an article called “A Perfect Storm” in OASBO newsletter the enrolment crisis plus the economic recession equals opportunity:  “Boards and their senior staff may need to consider making overtures to potential business partners and service providers that could share sites, or processes that would produce a benefit t to both partners. The declining enrolment working group also made reference to the need to examine the expanded role of technology in delivering programs. This too might be an area to consider for partnerships….If we can capture some of these opportunities, the business functions in education will emerge as a vital and integral part of a new education environment.” http://www.oasbo.org/admin/eZeditor/files/f_9_June2009.pdf

COMPUTER GIANTS IN CHARGE OF ASSESSMENT

In his article, “Large-Scale Reform Comes of Age,” Fullan’s own research betrays a strong bias, for he sees Microsoft, along with Intel and Cisco, as the new leaders to take command of the high-stakes standardized testing which currently regulates the entire U.S. education system: “Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft have just launched a much needed global project with leading academics to develop assessments and corresponding instructional practices for twenty-first Century skills thereby addressing the narrowness, and low level of current testing in the U.S. and elsewhere.” http://www.michaelfullan.ca/Articles_09/LargeScaleReform.pdf

Clearly Fullan sees no conflict of interest in handing the computer giants both assessment and “corresponding instructional practices” —in essence giving them control of the tail of assessment that now wags the dog (instruction) and controls the whole system.

REFORM=PRIVATIZATION

Fullan lauds Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reform, which has accelerated privatization of schools in many ways, for “put[ting] the spotlight on those falling behind, and [because it] has sparked greater attention to data and its use.” But he criticizes NCLB for  “too narrow tests, short time lines, little capacity building, and a punitive strategy. No state or the federal level has an explicit system reform strategy that comes even close to what we know is needed. The only good news is that there is a rapidly growing realization that existing strategies are not working as the U.S. continues to lose ground internationally; and the best news: key leaders are beginning to show interest in particular strategies that get results….” http://www.michaelfullan.ca/Articles_09/LargeScaleReform.pdf

The four references to “strategy” in the above quote make it abundantly clear that Fullan is critical of the strategies, not the goal.

More than 300 workers in the Abadan oil refinery gathered on Thursday November 12 to protest against non-payment of wages and bonuses, saying they had not been paid for more than three months. Yassamine Mather reports

The refinery authorities associated with what remains of the state-owned Iran National Oil Company say the workers are employed by a contractor and they cannot do anything about their demands. The protest followed a strike by the whole workforce of 450 involved in the development of Bandar Abbas Oil refinery. This was their third walkout in less than three months and the strike is continuing. The Iranian government’s privatisation plans are notoriously corrupt and generally help empower and enrich the Islamic Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards). But in the oil industry it is different from elsewhere. Privatisation has been undertaken with the aim of dividing workers and hampering national negotiations over wages and conditions, in the knowledge that for oil workers deployed in various sectors of the industry, working for so many different contractors, it would be impossible to negotiate common terms and conditions.

Private ownership of some oil functions is still prohibited under the Iranian constitution, but the government has permitted buy-back contracts, allowing international oil companies to participate in exploration and development through an Iranian affiliate. The contractor receives a remuneration fee, usually an entitlement to oil or gas from the developed operation. Iran’s total refinery capacity in 2008 was about 1.5 million barrels per day (bbl/d), with its nine refineries operated by the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company. Iranian refineries are unable to keep pace with domestic demand, while the threat of sanctions and removal of fuel subsidies have created price rises and the fear of a shortage of refined fuel.

The current protests are very significant because the Islamic government, wary of the power of oil employees, has so far avoided confrontation with this section of the working class by making sure they receive regular payment and imposing very strict security measures in refineries, services to the oil industry and oil extraction fields.

Iran ranks among the world’s top three holders of both proven oil and natural gas reserves. It is Opec’s second largest producer and exporter after Saudi Arabia, and fourth largest exporter of crude oil globally. Natural gas accounts for half of Iran’s total domestic energy consumption, while the remaining half consists predominantly of oil. The continued exploration and production of the offshore South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf is a key part of the country’s energy sector development plan. Iran has nine oil refineries with a total capacity of 1.4 million bbl/d. They include Abadan, which was one of world’s largest when it was destroyed in 1980 in the Iraq-Iran war. It was also the refinery where the first political strike took place in the late 1970s. Meanwhile, gasoline demand is forecast to grow at around 11.4% per year.¹

The Islamic government has not forgotten the significant role of oil workers in the events that led to the February uprising of 1979. In November 1978, a strike by 37,000 workers at Iran’s nationalised oil refineries initially reduced production from six million barrels per day to about 1.5 million. That strike not only cost the government about $60 million a day in oil revenue, but also suddenly raised the spectre of petroleum shortages in Japan, Israel, western Europe and, to a much lesser degree, in the US; all these countries to one extent or another depended at the time on Iranian crude. After a week of strikes and protests, some oil employees went back to work. But the strike played a crucial role in encouraging further militant action and boosted opposition to the regime. It was also significant in asserting the role of the working class in political struggles. The oil workers’ walkout climaxed two months of labour unrest that had spread to nearly every sector of the economy. Demands ranged from pay rises to compensate for spiralling inflation to political reforms, an end to martial law and the release of all remaining political prisoners. A strike of a million civil servants and government workers followed that of the oil workers.

There are many parallels between those strikes and the current unrest amongst oil employees. The present strikes follow weeks of political protests up and down the country. Also Iran’s economic situation is worse than anyone can remember – in addition to rocketing inflation, mass unemployment and systematic non-payment of wages, the new subsidies legislation, passed only a week ago, has already increased the price of basic goods. Everyone is predicting major price hikes.

Bread prices reached 1,000 tomans ($1) in Tehran this week. The newspaper Hemayat said that the two traditional breads, barbari and sangak, were being sold for 600 and 2,000 tomans respectively. The semi-official news agency, ILNA, predicts that both a litre of milk and a kilogram of sugar will soon reach 1,000 tomans. The estimated average wage is around $223 a month, and many workers are not paid for months at a time, while the employer can use the threat of job losses to get away with this form of systematic super-exploitation. In recent statements Iranian workers have once more called for international solidarity and support for their demands – and they are adamant that such support must be from fellow workers. Over the last few years labour activists inside Iran have sometimes been innocent victims of the foolish mistakes of sections of the Iranian ‘left’ that have collaborated with social-imperialist political groups and pro-imperialist, rightwing trade unions.

Those who maintain the principled position of opposing war and sanctions have a duty to show genuine international solidarity with Iranian workers. We can do so by supporting their immediate demands. One of the major organisations trying to unite the current nationwide struggles, the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations, has issued a number of statements regarding recent events, as well as a list of basic demands. Sections of that statement can be summed up as follows:

• The Iranian working class is struggling against the entire capitalist system (all factions of the regime). There is a need to safeguard the independence of the working class in the class struggle. Our movement uses the strength of its organised and conscious forces against political power in its totality; that is why workers must unmask ruthlessly the reformist capitalist faction, a faction that misleads workers by creating the illusion of reform within the system.
• The unity of the working masses in the struggle against capitalism and the need for promoting its material and moral ability to struggle for the abolition of the wage-slavery system requires that this class initiates its organised and conscious struggle from basic demands as described in the Charter of the Fundamental Demands of the Working Class of Iran.
• The main condition for the success of these efforts, including the takeover of factories, the general strike or any struggle for the abolition of capitalist social relations and seizing political power, is the existence of anti-capitalist councils of the working class.
• There must be a struggle against unemployment caused by factory closures, against various forms of intensification of exploitation in the workplace. Proposed tactics include taking over closed down factories or those that are on the brink of closing down in the first instance, and strikes in the second instance.

“Based on the above points,” the statement reads, “we call upon all anti-capitalist activists of the working class movement to unite around the following points” for the organisation of the class against capitalism:

• Agreement on the basic demands of the working class.
• Efforts to form anti-capitalist councils of the working class within workplaces and neighbourhoods.
• Unified planning for launching strikes in all centres of work and centres of production.
• Preparations for the takeover of factories that have closed down or those on the verge of closing down.
• Participation within the current movement, with the aim of forming an independent line for the realisation of the basic demands of the working class.

“Workers, let’s get organised against capital!” concludes the call from the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations.

We in Hands Off the People of Iran must continue our efforts in support of Iranian workers, not just as an act of international solidarity, but as an integral part of our international efforts to confront the economic crisis. Excellent work has been done in 2009, with funds raised by the Fire Brigades Union, Unite, Unison and the RMT, and the efforts of the Labour Representation Committee and Hopi cricket teams. But we must do a lot more in 2010.

Notes

1. www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Iran/Profile.html
2. hopinewsfromiran.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/fundamental-demands-of-the-working-class-of-iran-coordinating-committee-to-form-workers%E2%80%99-organization

An opinion piece by the SFU economist appeared in the Georgia Straight yesterday. It was prompted by the release, back in August, by Partnerships BC of a draft discussion paper, Methodology for Quantitative Procurement Options Analysis, for review and comment.

As Shaffer points out this paper comes “after more than six years in the business of assessing and promoting P3s” by Parnerships BC. This blog, of course has consistently exoriated P3s in general and BC’s process of analysis of them. In Britain, where this process was a centrepiece of Thatcherism there was at least the appearance of objective analysis. There every P3 was held up to a “public sector comparator” to determine if there really were benefits to be had from a private sector approach. In the early days of these projects, some savings were garnered simply by having the project conducted by one proponent. Often major public sector projects were developed in several stages or in multiple contracts, and simply bringing the whole thing together as an integrated whole produce efficiencies. Initially these were “turn key” projects, like the Docklands Light railway where the construction of the line, stations and trains as well as all of the supporting systems were the responsibility of one contractor and not several as has been common up to that time. Later, maintenance and operations were added to design build contracts. In some cases much of the savings of this type of contract came from not being obliged to employ public sector union labour. The great push for the privatisation of bus services, for example, was driven by Thatcher’s determination to end the practice, as she put it, of putting subsidies into bus drivers’ pockets. If anyone was going to get public sector largesse, it was going to be her friends and supporters. (Though, of course, she did not say that bit in public.)

The methodology – which is said to be “proposed” but has clearly been in use for some time – from Partnerships BC bends over backwards to ensure that P3s are to be the favoured procurement method. The assumption is made, says Shaffer, the the cost of capital is the same for both private and publicly finance projects. This of course is false, as governments pay lower interest rates for capital, as they cannot go bust and, as a last resort, always have access to the taxpayers’ pockets. The governments ability to raise taxes effectively underwrites the risk to the lenders. That is why government debt is referred to as “gilt edged”. Shaffer also draws attention to the fact that while risk is supposed to be transferred to the private sector in a P3, “Partnerships B.C. doesn’t explain why risks can’t be transferred under traditional fixed-price design-build contracts, and why long-term performance can’t be guaranteed with bonds or similar mechanisms as is commonly done in traditional (non-P3) contracts”. Indeed, the risk transfer was supposed to be the justification of higher cost of capital, which PBC actually does not acknowledge.

But what surprised me is that Shaffer does not talk about profits. When a company bids for a public sector contract, it includes in its bid an estimate of what it needs to stay in business. Public sector contracting can be very profitable, but competition is supposed to ensure that profits are not unreasonable. And in a fixed price contract, if there are cost overruns then the profit gets eaten away. Of course there are models of public sector procurement where the price is not fixed but “cost plus”. This is the sort of contracting that companies like Blackwater enjoy from the Pentagon. Indeed, there is now a long track record of companies making grossly excessive profits in the defence business. One of the most scandalous contracts in BC was the result of the privatisation of health care support services, where the public sector unions won an important court case over the government’s contemptuous action in ripping up contracts. That action may have cut costs but also greatly reduced the quality of services delivered and put patients’ health at risk through poor performance of essential tasks like cleaning.

The rush to sell off BC Rail certainly had a negative impact, if only due to the shocking safety record of CN after it took over operations, largely through irresponsible cost cutting measures such as the removal of locomotives with effective braking systems for the steep, winding route. The collapse of the P3 to build the PMH1 project was blamed on the financial crisis, but also saved significant sums in financing costs alone. In Britain, one of the greatest failures of privatisation was seen on British railways, where the companies that look after the track and now the one that operates the east coast mainline had to be taken back into public ownership. Costs of running the railway escalated as the interlocking contracts required scores of consultants and lawyers were brought into conduct negotiations that were never necessary in an integrated public sector corporation. The train drivers’ union also did very well since instead of dealing with one employer, there were now many, all competing for a shrinking pool of expertise. That was certainly not the Tories intention, but also neither was the appalling safety record – and on that they were most definitely warned, repeatedly, by the civil servants.

The ethos of privatisation is born from the belief that competition makes companies more efficient. It is a belief system that has not been supported by experience. There are certainly examples of companies that do well through innovation and improved customer service. But sadly those are not always the most successful companies. The pressure to perform well is often not directed towards satisfied customers but to the satisfaction of shareholders, which is not the same thing at all. Long term growth and stability is sacrificed to keeping up dividends or more often a rising share price. And there are companies that do really well out of providing really bad products and poor customer service – Microsoft being one of the worst offenders, but also these days nearly every airline. Competition is just as likely to produce a “race to the bottom” as in the fast food industry, which is actually killing off its customers (see “Supersize Me) or tobacco companies.

What the right wing ideologues misunderstood, or chose to ignore, was that in public services there is more than one objective. Profit – when it is the only objective – produces quite dreadful outcomes, such as the US “health” industry. Almost no other country follows that model. The health of the patient – or better the community as a whole – is a much better performance measure than the size of the CEO’s bonuses. Most public enterprises were created when former private sector operations failed to produce what society needed. Competition was seen to be wasteful: for example the free for for all grabbing for passengers on busy routes while off peak and low density areas were ignored. When bus service was privatised this was exactly the outcome that occurred. In Britain, the cost of bus services did fall, but the quality of services fell even faster, and lack of bus service and social isolation among the poor and those who cannot drive themselves became a huge problem. And all of that was predicted, and clearly spelled out, because it was what had been happening prior to taking bus service into the public sector.

If recent experience teaches us anything it is that the free market model has not worked. Just as socialism failed, so did capitalism. But the dogma supporting both lives on. Privatisation was the shibboleth of the Chicago school. It has had some successes, in some places, but only when subject to stringent state oversight, and very careful analysis of both proposals and  performance. Partnerships BC has shown that is is in a conflict of interest. It cannot both promote P3s and effectively manage them. Indeed, on the strength of this document alone I suggest that either the Comptroller General or the Auditor General be called in forthwith to ensure that the public interest is protected. For what we have seen in BC (BC Rail, BC Hydro, public health) is an extraordinary giveaway of public assets and well being simply for the benefit of a few corporations.

This morning I spoke at length with Paul Edie, convernor of the Health, Social Care, and Housing Committee, about the defeat of his motion in the council chamber on thursday.

The measures would have begun a radical overhaul of care provisions for disabled and mentally ill people in the city, but it was defeated 29-28 by a last minute Labour amendment, supported by Green and Conservative councillors.

You can read about the day’s dramatic events here. But below is the interview with Mr.Edie; his reaction to the SLD-SNP administration’s first defeat, and his arguments in favor of the tender process.

Despite his defeat, and the strong testimony of service users and carers, he still says that the tender is the right way forward.

While our poor little diddums council officer-wofficers struggly-wuggly to get their worksy-woo done in good time to allow proper democratic oversight of their work, there’s no such problems in Derby.

Their gormless councillors agreed on Wednesday night to try and become a World Cup host city without a suspension of normal democratic procedures in sight.

But more to the point, not only are their officers faster and more efficient than our lot, they also provided vastly superior information, including a simple to understand handout (Appendix 2) on just how dodgy their city’s ‘Host City Agreement‘ with FIFA was going to be.

Here it is. It’s eye-watering in parts:

SUMMARY OF MAIN UNFAVOURABLE TERMS IN THE HOST CITY AGREEMENT

Development of Host City Obligations

1. FIFA reserves the right to unilaterally change the terms of the agreement

2. The Host Authority must comply with and bear the cost of implementing any guidelines/directions/instructions issued by FIFA at a later stage.

Absence of Compensation/Liability

3. FIFA and the LOC have the right to terminate the Host Agreement without compensation if the Stadium Agreement or Host Agreement is terminated for whatever reason.

4. In the event of a match or several matches being cancelled FIFA or the LOC will be under no obligation to compensate the Host City in any manner.

5. FIFA nor the LOC will be liable for any loss caused to the Host City even if it has been caused by the formers negligence.

Protection of Commercial Rights

6. The Host City must enact by-laws and regulations to prevent unauthorised third parties undertaking “Ambush Marketing”.

7. The Host City must appoint staff to assist FIFA in the protection and enforcement of commercial rights such as media, marketing and intellectual property rights.

8. Host Cities must warrant not to enter into any agreement that would restrict or prohibit FIFA, LOC or any of their Commercial affiliates, service providers or commercial rights holders from exercising their rights.

Host City Support

9. The Host City must provide support and assistance to FIFA in relation to the hosting and staging of the competition.

Controlled Area

10. Within the “Controlled Area” surrounding the stadium where the matches will be played the Host City must ensure that any advertisements are removed or fully covered, no sale of food, drink or souvenirs, etc is allowed and that existing permits and concessions and licences are suspended.

Host City Dressing

11. The Host City must 2 years prior to the World Cup submit for FIFA and LOC written approval a detailed plan of how it will comply with its “Host City dressing” obligation (ie comply with FIFA official decoration programme) which the Host City must at its cost be responsible for installing, maintaining and dismantling.

Traffic Plan

12. No later that 3 years prior to the World Cup the Host City must provide the LOC with a traffic management plan which it must implement at its own cost and pass all necessary by laws to implement.

I think my favourite one is, “The Host City must appoint staff to assist FIFA in the protection and enforcement of commercial rights.”

This means they’re gonna spend my council tax employing an army of little Hitler’s to march around with clipboards protecting McDonald’s exclusive advertising rights. What a sensible use of tax payers money.

It’s almost enough to make you want them to win the bid isn’t it? A month’s entrenched warfare between the city’s subvertisers and graffiti writers and suited and booted city council/McDonald’s private pseudo-cops would be quite something.

Must remember to invite Banksy along if we get it too ..

Today was meant to be the day that the council ratified controversial reforms to social care services for disabled and mentally ill people. The plans would have saved the council some £5.4 million over the next three years. But they would also have meant enormous upheaval.

Most of the city’s existing service providers, including voluntary organizations and charities with decades of experience in the capital, lost out when the contracts with the council were re-tendered. Most of the new organizations coming in have no previous record of working with people in the city.

In the ornate and formal surroundings of the council chamber, a stream of people stood up to give evidence of the impact the changes would have. Carers, parents, and people with learning difficulties spoke passionately about their lives. They spoke of the close relationships they’ve built up with carers, and how important those relationships are to their health and stability.

It was inspiring to see people who have to deal with profound disabilities coming to the city chambers and getting involved as active citizens in the democratic process. Sometimes their speeches were angry, swearing with frustration. But they proved persuasive.

People like Maggie, who has bi-polar disorder, asked Councillors to vote with their hearts.

So many people turned up to the meeting that the public gallery was soon packed, and a spill-over room was quickly filled too.

In the late afternoon, with the testimonies over, the main debate began.

Councillors Paul Edie and Jenny Dawe, Leader of the Council, tried to convince fellow councillors  (and the angry crowd in the public gallery) that tenders were a necessary measure, and that organizations had been selected principally on their quality – not their cost.

Mrs.Dawe explained that the two factors had been considered by separate and independent groups, and that the tenders were decided on a rigorous 70% quality, 30% cost basis. She said that many carers would be able to transfer to the new companies, and stay with their clients.

But service providers and users were unconvinced. Ian Wood of Disability Alliance Scotland said that disabled clients were already voting with their feet, with hundreds of them applying for direct payments. That way, they could continue to employ the carers and organizations that they know and trust.

Other people expressed their disbelief that the council could claim that the quality of the services would go up, even as the cost was cut by 21%.

In the end, it came down to a dramatic roll-call vote.

The Labour Councillors had tabled an amendment calling for a two week delay, an opportunity to re-examine the plans, and to process the swelling backlog of applications for direct payments.

Usually, the Scottish Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party ruling coalition enjoy a majority of one in the chamber. But with one of their number unable to vote, due to a declared financial interest in the proceedings, things were finely balanced.

Labour tabled the amendment, and the Greens supported it; but in the end, it would come down to the Conservative party group – and they, in general, support the process of tendering services for contracts.

But not in this case.

The votes were counted, one by one.

“Councillor Edie…”

“MOTION”

“Councillor Dawe…”

“MOTION”

“Councillor Munro…”

“AMENDMENT”

Councillor Henderson…”

“AMENDMENT.”

The final tally.

28 votes for the motion, and 29 for the amendment…

The gallery erupted in cheering, applause and relief.

For me, it was a valuable reminder that local democracy can work – messy, confusing, chaotic, but ultimately surprising in it’s ability to respond to the demands and desires of it’s citizens.

When Councillor Balfour, himself severely disabled, said that they had seen the council “at it’s best,” there was a touch of pride that was well deserved.

But the excitement of tonight’s vote belies the fact that very little has changed. In two weeks time, the council will again be faced with a vote. And it’s unlikely to vote for a complete abandonment of the tender process, which has taken eighteen months preparation. Councillors Edie and Dawe are already warning that just this short delay could result in legal action against the council by the companies that won the tender contracts.

It’s going to be an interesting fortnight.

Councillor Dawe’s reaction to the vote.

Early Day Motion | EDM 109 | Diane Abbott | 19 November 2009

That this House believes that in order for healthcare to be truly public it must be free at the point of access and run by not-for-profit organisations; is concerned by recent developments which have seen private, profit-making companies awarded contracts to run NHS healthcare clinics; notes with concern that three clinics in Hackney are already being run by private, profit-making companies; further notes with concern that there are plans to tender out two new GP-led healthcare centres in Hackney, potentially to private, profit-making companies; further believes that all healthcare should be provided by bodies that have the interests of their patients, not their shareholders, as a priority; is concerned that privately-run healthcare centres tend to offer short-term contracts for GPs instead of allowing doctors to build up a knowledge of the local area; is further concerned by evidence that the bidding process for healthcare centres is biased in favour of private, profit-making companies who have considerably more financial and legal resources to devote to the bidding process; and calls on the Government to reverse its decision to allow private, profit-making companies to tender for healthcare centre contracts.

Early Day Motions

Early day motions (EDMs) are formal motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons. However, very few EDMs are actually debated. Instead, they are used for reasons such as publicising the views of individual MPs, drawing attention to specific events or campaigns, and demonstrating the extent of parliamentary support for a particular cause or point of view.

An MP can add their signature to an EDM to show their support. They can also submit amendments to an existing EDM. Although majority of EDMs are never debated, the group of EDMs known as ‘prayers’ may be debated. Prayers are motions to overturn Statutory Instruments (laws made by Ministers under powers deriving from Acts of Parliament). Further information on EDM procedure can be found in the Commons Information Office Factsheet Early Day Motions.

Up-to-date and searchable information on EDMs is available from the Early Day Motions database. The database is updated nightly with new EDMs and signatures added to existing EDMs. To look at EDMs from any session going back to 1989/90, select the session you want from the pull down menu in the top right hand corner of the screen. For EDMs and signatures prior to 1989/90, please contact the House of Commons Information Office (020 7219 4272).

Pour les amateurs de l’histoire des Etats-Unis d’Amérique, Mecanoblog vous invite à plonger dans la rivalité meurtrière qui opposa certains présidents américains favorables à la liberté et l’égalité entre les hommes et les peuples ainsi que le développement des nations exploitées et pillées par les régimes impérialistes face au vieil Empire Britannique partisan du libre-échange, de l’esclavage, du colonialisme et du traffic d’opium. D’Abraham Lincoln à Franklin Delano Roosevelt en passant par la Première Guerre Mondiale et la montée du fascisme, 1932 dévoile la mainmise d’une poignée d’aristocrates sur les richesses du monde et leur grande influence sur la politique internationale et l’armée jusqu’à aborder la création d’une gouvernance mondiale. Un film réalisé par des membres du mouvement de jeunes de LaRouche aux Etats-Unis et sous-titré par Solidarité et Progrès, le parti politique français dirigé par Jacques Cheminade.

www.solidariteetprogres.org

Once again – you the public get access to the World Cup documents chief council officers are hiding away from us and our elected representatives.

Tonight it’s a draft of the host city agreement Bristol City Council will sign – on our behalf – in its entirety, with no negotiation allowed whatsoever, with that funny old world football body FIFA.

It’s quite a read – as it seems to have been produced by some weird McDonalds-sponsored international entity that’s got Erich Honecker in charge.

I’ve come across the privatisation of public space before but this is new. The wholesale privatisation of an entire fucking city for a month so that international big business can turn it into a giant cash register for themselves.

In the highly unlikely event this overblown nonsense can generate the £150m of revenue being claimed, most of it won’t be staying in Bristol that’s for sure. Unbelievable.

So wanna run a World Cup event? Here’s their rules:

FIFA exclusively and solely owns and controls on a world-wide basis any and all Media Rights, Marketing Rights, Intellectual Property Rights and all other commercial or other rights and opportunities, including any title and interest in, and in relation to, the Competitions, including any Competition related Events, whether existing or created in the future.

(i) The Host City shall be entitled to organise, host and stage Host City Events, subject to the terms and conditions of this Host City Agreement and the Host City Event Guidelines and, in particular, the following specific requirements:

a) Pursuant to Clause 5 below, the Host Cities may use the following Competition Marks in relation to the Host City Events, subject to the prior written approval by FIFA:

• Host City Composite Logo;
• Host City Designation;
• official Competition design as developed by FIFA;
• Official Slogan; and/or
• official Competition designation.

b) Commercial Affiliates shall, free of charge, be given appropriate recognition in relation to, and at, any Host City Event (e.g. by way of using composite towers or the Commercial Affiliate logo strip as provided by FIFA).

c) The Host City may grant marketing rights in relation to the Host City Events in such manner as to be determined by FIFA. The Host City agrees and acknowledges that entities being competitors of any of the Commercial Affiliates may not be granted any rights or opportunities in relation to any Host City Event.

d) Pursuant to Clause 4.11.2 below, Commercial Affiliates in any food and beverage product category shall have a first right of negotiation and right of last refusal for the right to offer and/or sell their products at any Host City Event, to be implemented in accordance with the procedure set out by FIFA.

e) The sale of official licensed products at any Host City Event shall be exclusively conducted by the entity appointed by FIFA as the official retailer for official licensed products in relation to the Competitions, to which the Host City shall provide space and utilities, on an at cost basis.

f) The location used for any Host City Event must be free and clean of any visible third party advertising, branding and/or other commercial identification.

Or what about Bristol’s World Cup website? That’ll be a great opportunity to promote local business won’t it?

3.5 Host City Website
(i) The Host City shall be entitled to promote and communicate its status as a host city of the Competitions on its Host City website by creating a dedicated section informing on its promotional activities and events as well as its support of the Competitions in such manner to be approved by FIFA in its sole discretion and subject to the Host City Website Guidelines.

(ii) The Host City shall ensure that no third party advertising or branding, or any other commercial content or identification of any commercial entity, appears within the Competition-related section of the Host City website.

Ok, maybe do some World Cup flyers supporting local business then?

(ii) The Host City agrees and acknowledges that the publications produced by, or on behalf of, the Host City shall a) be free of any advertising and promotional or other commercial content of any entity which is considered by FIFA a competitor of a Commercial Affiliate; and
b) bear recognition of the Commercial Affiliates in such manner as determined by FIFA (for instance, by way of using the Commercial Affiliate logo strip as provided by FIFA).

They’ll also be taking over our publicly-owned road system when they feel like it too:

(i) The Host City shall, upon FIFA and/or the LOC’s reasonable request, at any time during the Competition Periods, temporarily
a) restrict public access, or close public access completely, to any roads within the Host City; and
b) provide special traffic access lanes as well as police escorts for the participating Teams, key representatives of FIFA and the LOC, VIP guests and further Competition officials;

And who pays for the pleasure of turning our city into a giant McDonald’s advertising platform? We do!

8.1 Costs
Unless otherwise explicitly stated in this Host City Agreement, the Host City shall be responsible to bear all costs for the fulfilment of its obligations, and the exercise of the rights granted to the Host City, as set out in this Host City Agreement.

And we’ll pay their tax too:

8.2 Municipal Taxes
(i) The Host City agrees and acknowledges that all taxes, duties and levies which are imposed directly or indirectly by statute, directives or in any other binding legal form on FIFA and/or FIFA’s subsidiaries and/or the LOC as a direct or indirect consequence of the Competitions and/or the entering and/or implementation and/or cancellation of this Host City Agreement under municipal laws and regulations in the Host City shall be borne by the Host City. To the extent that FIFA and/or FIFA’s subsidiaries and/or the LOC incurs any costs for taxes imposed under municipal laws and regulations in the Host City, the Host City shall indemnify and hold free and harmless FIFA and/or FIFA’s subsidiaries and/or the LOC from and against any such tax payment.

Deal of a lifetime eh?

Well, I’m just about well enough to type one of these, after a few days of essentially staring blankly into space (went back to work today, though I probably should have had another day or so off). Proper post tomorrow, I hope:

(BTW for anyone going to the Thought Bubble comic convention in Leeds on Saturday, I’ll be the one with the biggest beard in the place. Feel free to say hello).

Bob Temuka talks about This Is Information, the Moore/Gebbie response to Sept 11, 2001, and compares it with The Invisibles.

Pillock thinks Blackest Night Sucks.

Alix has a modest proposal in regards to road privatisation.

A wonderful post about chavs from The Noughties Were Shit. Read past the first couple of paragraphs…

And Millennium reviews the latest episode of the Welsh Series.

Après avoir arrêté le décompte à plus de 2,3 millions de votants, le comité national contre la privatisation de La Poste pour un débat public et un référendum sur le service public postal a écrit au président de la République pour lui présenter les résultats et lui demander de prendre la mesure d’une mobilisation historique, révélatrice de l’opposition que provoque le projet de changement de statut de La Poste.

Nous n’avons pas de réponse du président à ce jour, ce qui constitue une marque de mépris vis-à-vis d’un exercice de citoyenneté qui a su trouver sa légitimité et sa crédibilité. Le comité national a donc décidé de continuer à construire la mobilisation sur cette question essentielle du service public postal, en créant les conditions pour amplifier la dynamique créée par la votation du 3 octobre.

Le comité national décide de lancer une campagne de carte pétition à adresser au Président de la République. Cette carte postale qui est en ligne exige :

• le respect de la votation du 3 octobre,
• le retrait du projet de loi de l’ordre du jour du Sénat et de l’Assemblée Nationale,
• l’ouverture du débat public,
• la tenue d’un référendum sur l’avenir du service public postal.

Par ailleurs, le Comité d’Orléans vous informe des dates des prochaines mobilisations pour la défense du service public postal :

Mardi 24 novembre : Manifestation commune La Poste – Éducation Nationale pour la défense des services publics

Samedi 28 novembre : Manifestation des usagers contre la privatisation de la poste.

Restons mobilisés, ce combat, il faut le gagner !

David Davis

Tim Evans has kindly drawn my attention to this which I missed earlier:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225503/300-residents-hire-private-police-force-clean-lawless-streets.html

If one neighbourhood can do it, why not everywhere? We could soon make “The [State] Police” as redundant as the State Phone company, the State “Post Office”, and the State “hospitals”.

Moreover…

…history teaches us that it is very dangerous to allow “modern” “big” States, such as Russia, Prussia and the UK, to get involved in the minutiae and provision of policing services. Any sort of lefty mountebank could subvert their objectives.

Have our political masters gone absolutely mad or do the Theeds and Banksters totally control the whole socio-economic political system. In a so-called “sweeping overhaul” of Britain’s banking sector announced last week (06/11/09) our New Labour government are forcing those banks which have ripped off the tax payer in order to benefit from state aid to sell off some of their branches and parts of their customer base. This, apparently, is to ensure they do not have an advantage over rivals who managed to avoid ripping off non-avoiding tax payers. This news followed a previous low key notification that Northern Rock, which was taken over by the state, nationalised, in February 2008, is to be broken up into a “good” bank and a ” bad” bank. The “good” bank is to be sold to a private buyer and the “bad” bank is to be maintained in state ownership. The “government” also declared in the same week a further £39.2 billion support for RBS and Lloyds in return for which they renewed their commitment  to the lending targets set by the “government” for the two years to March 2o11.# How long are we, the people who are supposedly the basis of this “democracy” going to take this nonsense rip-off being perpetrated by this government and their controllers in the existing financial system. We need to confront them and demand a total socialisation of the whole financial system across the world.

 Rien n’obligeait le gouvernement à s’engager sur le terrain glissant de la transformation de la Poste en Société Anonyme, aucune directive européenne n’impose la privatisation de la Poste. L’idéologie ultralibérale du gouvernement trouve sur ce dossier une nouvelle application.La Poste n’est pas une entreprise comme les autres, c’est un outil majeur d’aménagement et de développement des territoires. La privatisation de la Poste fera perdre des emplois précieux dans des villes et des villages et elle mettra fin à la proximité et au lien social qui est la source de l’attachement de nos concitoyens à leur service public postal

Le fonds postal national de péréquation territorial sera menacé à terme, il est en effet à craindre que seule la rentabilité économique soit alors prise en considération, conduisant ainsi, sans concertation préalable, à la fermeture de la très grande majorité des agences postales en milieu rural et des moins rentables en milieu urbain.

Les personnels de la Poste seront les victimes directes de la privatisation, leur statut ne sera plus garanti, les contrats à durée déterminée deviendront la règle ; il est à craindre que les cadences de travail s’accélèreront au-delà du raisonnable, tout cela au détriment de la qualité du service à nos concitoyens

Face à ce projet gouvernemental inacceptable, le comité départemental contre la privatisation de la Poste qui réunit, comme vous le savez, les organisations syndicales, les partis politiques de gauche, dont le parti socialiste, multiplie les initiatives pour réaffirmer la position commune :

 Non à la privatisation, oui au débat public sur l’avenir du service public postal                                                                                                                                

Les membres du comité contre la privatisation de la Poste ont demandé au gouvernement d’organiser un référendum populaire contre cette privatisation, les députés socialistes ayant déposé à l’Assemblée Nationale une proposition de loi en ce sens. En cas de refus, le comité national et ses déclinaisons départementales se substitueront au gouvernement pour organiser cette consultation. 

Tous les français doivent pouvoir s’exprimer et donner leur avis sur l’avenir de leur service public.

Soyez assurés de ma mobilisation totale contre ce projet gouvernemental de démantèlement de notre service postal.

                                                                        Yves DURAND

Par Paul Craig Roberts

Le gouvernement des Etats-Unis est désormais si totalement sous la coupe des groupes d’intérêts organisés que « notre » gouvernement ne peut plus répondre aux préoccupations du peuple américain qui élit le président et les membres de la Chambre [des Représentants] et du Sénat. Les électeurs déchargeront leurs frustrations d’impuissance sur le président, ce qui implique dans le futur des présidents à mandat unique. Bientôt, nos présidents seront aussi inefficaces que les empereurs romains dans les derniers jours de leur empire.

Obama est déjà sur la voie d’une présidence à un seul mandat. Il a promis le changement, mais il n’en a fait aucun. Son projet de loi sur la santé est pris en otage par les compagnies d’assurance privées qui sont en quête de plus gros profits. L’issue la plus probable sera des réductions dans l’assistance médicale aux personnes âgées et aux plus démunis, afin de financer les guerres qui enrichissent le complexe militaro-industriel et les nombreuses entreprises créées en privatisant les services que l’armée se fournissait à elle-même à moindre coût. Il serait intéressant de connaître le pourcentage des 700 milliards de dollars et plus de la dépense pour la « défense » qui va aux entreprises privées. Dans le « capitalisme » américain, un montant incroyable des revenus des contribuables va aux sociétés privées en passant par le gouvernement. Pourtant, les Républicains crient à la « socialisation » du système de santé.

Les Républicains et les Démocrates ont vu l’occasion de créer de nouvelles sources de financement des campagnes électorales en privatisant autant de fonctions militaires que possible. Il y a désormais un grand nombre d’entreprises privées qui n’ont jamais fait un dollar en passant par le marché, s’abreuvant à la place directement au robinet public qui dépouille les contribuables de leurs dollars tous en bourrant les Américains d’obligations liées au service de la dette.

Obama avait hérité d’une occasion excellente de ramener les soldats américains à la maison des guerres illégales d’agression du régime de Bush. Dans ses derniers jours, le régime de Bush avait réalisé qu’il pouvait « gagner » en Irak en faisant embaucher par l’Armée des Etats-Unis les insurgés sunnites. Une fois que Bush eut 80.000 insurgés salariés de l’armée US, la violence, bien que toujours élevée, chuta de moitié. Tout ce que Obama avait à faire était de déclarer victoire et ramener nos gars à la maison, en remerciant Bush d’avoir gagné la guerre. Cela aurait cloué le bec aux Républicains.

Mais ce cours des choses intelligent aurait diminué les profits et le cours des actions de ces entreprises qui font partie du complexe militaro-industriel. Au lieu de faire ce qu’il avait promis de faire et ce pour quoi les électeurs l’avaient élu, Obama a donc redémarré la guerre en Afghanistan et lancé une nouvelle guerre au Pakistan. Bientôt, Obama allait reprendre à son compte les menaces de Bush et de Cheney d’attaquer l’Iran.

A la place de la protection médicale pour les Américains, il y aura plus de profits pour les compagnies d’assurance privées.

A la place de la paix, il y aura plus de guerre.

Les électeurs comprennent déjà que la catastrophe est imminente et se détachent d’Obama et des Démocrates. Les indépendants qui ont donné à Obama sa confortable victoire sont maintenant passés contre lui, faisant élire dernièrement deux gouverneurs républicains, l’un au New Jersey et l’autre en Virginie, pour succéder à deux Démocrates. C’est un vote de protestation, pas un vote de confiance pour les Républicains.

La crédibilité d’Obama est réduite à néant. Comme l’est celle du Congrès, à supposer qu’il en ait jamais eu une. La Chambre des Représentants vient juste de voter pour montrer au monde entier qu’elle n’est rien d’autre que servile et vénale et qu’elle est le pantin du Lobby d’Israël. La Chambre des Représentants de la « superpuissance » américaine a exécuté les ordres de son maître, l’AIPAC, et a voté à 344 voix contre 36 pour condamner le Rapport Goldstone.

Au cas où vous ne le sauriez pas, le Rapport Goldstone est le rapport de la mission d’enquête des Nations-Unies sur le conflit à Gaza. Le « conflit de Gaza » est l’attaque militaire israélienne contre le ghetto de Gaza, où vivent 1,5 millions de palestiniens dépossédés, dont les terres, les villages et les maisons ont été volés par Israël. Cette attaque a été menée contre des civils et des infrastructures civiles. Elle était sans aucun doute un crime de guerre selon les normes de Nuremberg, que les Etats-Unis ont établies afin d’exécuter les Nazis.

Goldstone est non seulement un éminent juriste juif qui a consacré sa vie à amener les gens à rendre des comptes pour leurs crimes contre l’humanité, mais il est également sioniste. Cependant, les Israéliens l’ont diabolisé en tant que « Juif qui a la haine de lui-même », parce qu’il a écrit la vérité au lieu de la propagande israélienne.

Le Député américain, Dennis Kucinich, dont le nom est à présent sans aucun doute écrit en rouge sur la liste d’extermination politique de l’AIPAC, a demandé à la Chambre si ses membres réalisaient la honte que le vote condamnant le Rapport Goldstone ferait retomber sur la Chambre et le gouvernement américain. Le reste du monde, sans exception, accepte le rapport Goldstone.

La Chambre a répondu avec son vote irrationnel que le reste du monde ne compte pas, puisqu’il ne verse pas de contributions aux campagnes électorales des membres du Congrès.

Cet acte honteux et servile de la « plus grande démocratie au monde » a eu lieu la semaine même où un tribunal italien a condamné 23 agents américains de la CIA pour avoir kidnappé une personne en Italie. Ces agents de la CIA sont à présent considérés comme des « fugitifs de la justice » en Italie, et c’est ce qu’ils sont vraiment.

La personne qu’ils ont enlevée a été remise à l’état fantoche américain d’Egypte, où la victime a été détenue pendant des années et régulièrement torturée. Les charges qui pesaient contre lui étaient tellement minces que même un juge égyptien a ordonné sa libération.

L’un des agents de la CIA reconnus coupables, Sabrina de Sousa, une jeune femme séduisante, déclare que les Etats-Unis ont violé la loi en kidnappant une personne et en l’envoyant dans un autre pays pour y être torturé, dans l’objectif de fabriquer un autre « terroriste », afin d’entretenir le bobard sur le terrorisme aux Etats-Unis. Sans le bobard terroriste, les guerres de l’Amérique pour des raisons d’intérêts spéciaux deviendraient transparentes, même pour les accros aux « Infos » de la Fox.

Mme de Sousa dit que « tout ce qu’elle a fait avait reçu l’approbation de Washington », pourtant le gouvernement, qui nous admoneste continuellement pour « soutenir les troupes », n’a rien fait pour la protéger lorsqu’elle a appliqué les ordres illégaux du régime de Bush.

Il est clair que cela signifie que le crime ordonné par Bush, Cheney, le Pentagone et la CIA est trop abominable et inadmissible pour être justifié, même par les mémos du méprisable John Yoo et de la Société Fédéraliste Républicaine.

Mme de Sousa s’inquiète manifestement de sa propre personne. Mais, quelle est sa préoccupation pour la personne innocente qu’elle a envoyée vers un enfer égyptien afin d’y être torturée à mort, sauf à admettre sa qualité de terroriste ? Les remords exprimés par de Sousa sont seulement pour elle-même. Elle a obéi aux ordres de son gouvernement diabolique et le gouvernement diabolique qu’elle a si loyalement servi lui a tourné le dos. Elle n’a aucun remord pour le mal qu’elle a commis contre une personne innocente.

Peut-être de Sousa et ses 22 collègues ont-ils grandi en jouant à des jeux vidéo. C’était super de comploter pour kidnapper une personne réelle et l’envoyer en Egypte par un vol de la CIA. Etait-ce comme un pêcheur qui attrape un poisson ou un chasseur de cerf qui tue un superbe mâle ? Ils ont manifestement pris leur pied aux dépens de leur victime.

Les attendus de la cour italienne, et il faut garder en tête que l’Italie est un état fantoche acheté par les Etats-Unis, indiquent que même les pantins que nous achetons trouvent que les Etats-Unis sont trop difficiles à encaisser.

Si l’on regarde vers la partie immergée de l’iceberg, on a l’ambassadeur Craig Murray, recteur de l’Université de Dundee et, jusqu’en 2004, ambassadeur britannique en Ouzbékistan, qu’il dépeint comme un Etat stalinien totalitaire, courtisé et soutenu par les Américains.

En tant qu’ambassadeur, Murray a vu les rapports secrets du MI5 transmis par la CIA qui décrivaient les procédures les plus horribles de torture. « Des personnes étaient violées avec des tessons de bouteilles, des enfants étaient torturés devant leurs parents jusqu’à ce qu’ils [les parents] signent une confession, des gens étaient bouillis vivants. »

Les « renseignements » sur ces sessions de torture ont été passés par la CIA au MI5 et à Washington, comme preuve de la vaste conspiration d’al-Qaïda.

L’ambassadeur Murray rapporte que les personnes livrées par des vols de la CIA à des centres de torture ouzbeks « devaient confesser leur appartenance à al-Qaïda. On les obligeait à avouer qu’ils avaient été dans des camps d’entraînement en Afghanistan. On les obligeait à avouer qu’ils avaient rencontré Oussama ben Laden en personne. Et les renseignements de la CIA reprenaient constamment ces thèmes. »

« J’étais complètement abasourdi », déclare l’ambassadeur britannique, qui pensait servir un pays vertueux qui, en compagnie de son allié américain, avait de l’intégrité morale. Le formidable bastion anglo-américain de la démocratie et des droits de l’homme, les foyers de la Magna Carta et de la Constitution des Etats-Unis, les formidables démocraties morales qui avaient vaincu le nazisme et qui s’étaient dressées contre les goulags de Staline, étaient prêtes à commettre n’importe quel crime pour maximiser leurs profits.

L’ambassadeur Murray en a trop appris et il a été viré quand il a tout vomi. Il a vu les documents qui prouvaient que la motivation de l’agression militaire des Etats-Unis et de l’Angleterre en Afghanistan était en rapport avec les gisements de gaz naturel en Ouzbékistan et au Turkménistan. Les Américains voulaient un pipeline qui contourne la Russie et l’Iran et qui traverse l’Afghanistan. Pour s’en assurer, une invasion était nécessaire. On pouvait dire au public américain imbécile que l’invasion était nécessaire à cause du 11/9 et pour les sauver du « terrorisme », et ces triples idiots ont cru ce mensonge.

« Si l’on regarde le déploiement des forces étasuniennes en Afghanistan, comparé à celui des forces de l’Otan, on voit sans aucun doute que les forces américaines sont positionnées pour garder l’itinéraire du pipeline. Il ne s’agit que de ça. C’est une question d’argent et d’énergie, ce n’est pas pour la démocratie. »

Devinez qui était le consultant qui a arrangé avec le gouverneur du Texas George W. Bush les accords donnant à Enron les droits sur les gisements de gaz naturel en Ouzbékistan et au Turkménistan et attribuant à Unocal le développement du pipeline trans-afghan ? C’était Karzaï, le président imposé par les Etats-Unis à l’Afghanistan, qui n’a aucun soutien dans son pays, à part les baïonnettes américaines.

L’ambassadeur Murray a été viré des Affaires Etrangères britanniques à cause de ses révélations. Il ne fait aucun doute que notre pantin anglais avait reçu ses ordres de Washington.

Article original en anglais : Republic of Fools: The Evil Empire, Counterpunch, le 6 novembre 2009. Pour lire l’article en anglais, cliquez ici.

Traduction : JFG-QuestionsCritiques

Paul Craig Roberts fut ministre des Finances adjoint dans l’administration Reagan. Il est coauteur de The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Il peut être contacté à l’adresse : PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com.

Source : Mondialisation.ca

Edinburgh City Council is considering permanently privatising its bin services, according to a new report…. From BBC News. Full story

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Après de longs mois d’impatience et surtout après l’énorme succès de la série The Arrivals (les Arrivées), l’équipe de Wake Up Project dont Noreagaaa & Achernahr viennent enfin de lancer leur nouvelle série tant attendue : Phase 3.

Phase 3 est un projet créé en collaboration avec des cinéastes en provenance du monde entier, avec pour intention de faire un portrait de l’ère dans laquelle nous vivons à l’aide de moyens artistiques. Ce film se base sur le respect inter-religieux, le savoir, et il instruira les téléspectateurs et les inspirera à “guérir” le monde. Le film qui vous est présenté est basé sur l’analyse biblique et islamique des Prophéties par Sheikh Imran N.Hosein. Il est nullement dans l’intention des auteurs de cette vidéo de la présenter en tant que vérité absolue. Disons, que c’est une analyse bien explorée, qui peut être davantage enquêtée par vous-même.

http://www.wakeupproject.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/noreagaaa

Premier épisode : Introduction

Deuxième épisode : Symbolisme Religieux

Troisième épisode : le Temps des Grandes Tromperies

Quatrième épisode : Globalisation & Capitalisme

Cinquième épisode : Apparence & Réalité

Sixième épisode : La civilisation moderne de l’Ouest

Septième épisode : L’impérialisme par la guerre