The gap between the very richest and the rest of us has increased continuously over the last thirty years. Did you know that top 10% of population earns on average 6 times more than the bottom 90%?
Many factors contribute to this growing gap, but one of the most significant is least understood: the role of money creation by banks.
I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned. As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to vote for. I feel it is a far more potent political act to completely renounce the current paradigm than to participate in even the most trivial and tokenistic manner, by obediently X-ing a little box.
Billy Connolly said: “Don’t vote, it encourages them,” and, “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.”
Our roots, we are often reminded, are the anchor of our lives, both individually and collectively. But whose roots are they? Our roots are what define us, or so the theory goes. Living in Africa, I learned that the Ancestors are central to most peoples’ lives and although for me, a symbolic gesture, calling on the Ancestors for advice, creates an unbreakable link with one’s past. Moreover, a link that is in many respects, impervious to the propaganda of capitalism.
Chris Hedges speaks about suing the Obama administration for the NDAA, the conspiracy to use Al Qaeda to strip civil liberties and make a police state, the death of Osama Bin Laden, attack on journalists and more in this Buzzsaw interview hosted by Sean Stone.
“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.”
The seesaw of history has thrust the oligarchs once again into the sky. We sit humiliated and broken on the ground. It is an old battle. It has been fought over and over in human history. We never seem to learn. It is time to grab our pitchforks.
Reduced land productivity, combined with elevated oil costs and population growth, threaten a systemic, global food crisis. Citing findings from a study by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, published by the Royal Society, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed identified the links among intensifying economic inequality, debt, climate change, and fossil fuel dependency to conclude that a global food crisis is now “undeniable.”
New research shows that Alliance Boots, the high street chemist and pharmaceutical giant, has avoided more than £1 billion in tax since it went private six years ago through taking on excessive debts, profit shifting and corporate restructuring. This report, Alliance Boots & The Tax Gap, published by War on Want, Unite the Union and Change 2 Win, exposes the full scale of Boots’ tax avoidance for the first time.
It was announced today that the Red Cross will be distributing its first emergency food parcel programme in the UK since World War II. The charity is gearing up to provide food for 500,000 starving Britons this winter, as the UK government announces the British economy is back on track.
Independent police watchdog fingers police officers across the country for allegedly providing information on workers for a blacklist of over 3,000 names which was drawn up by one of Britain’s biggest construction companies.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has informed the lawyers representing the victims of the backlist that a Scotland Yard inquiry has found that it was “likely that all special branches were involved in providing information” for the blacklist.
Universal Jobmatch, the DWP’s job search website that became ‘mandatory’ for those claiming unemployment benefit on March 1st 2013, has been dogged by controversy amid claims it is simply a tool for keeping tabs on jobseekers rather than an effective aid to help them find work.
Websites like The Void and Consent Me have done sterling work exposing this and other government scams, like Workfare, designed to shame and exploit the victims of its economic criminality.
Glencore’s mines in Zambia don’t generate much wealth for Zambians. But they do make some people in Switzerland very rich. How do multinationals work the tax system and operate in Africa?
To find out more and get teaching resources, go to www.whypoverty.net
We are, each of us, purposefully chained by a leash in the Land of the Free™. But it is only those who stray from the cookie-cutter conformity who feel the leash’s harsh pull. Herman Wallace spent a lifetime tugging on that leash. We owe it to him and so many others to not only make the leash more visible but to also break the chains once and for all.
