On “New York school bus workers form rank-and-file committee”
I was very glad to hear the bus drivers, matrons and mechanics make the decision to take their defense into their own hands. We can only hope that their example, rather than the selling out of workers struggles by the unions and their Democrat allies, becomes the beacon for workers around the world in the coming times. Godspeed in laying the foundations for the real fight.
Vince
California, USA
25 February 2013
On “Camden Council plans to move out 761 families”
Dear Comrade Paul,
The “ethnic cleansing” being formulated by the Tory/Lib government and instigated by Labour councils will almost certainly have the same devastating social and emotional consequences as did slum clearance programs in many cities. Whole communities were then broken up, street populations distributed around the various cities leading to vast numbers, of primarily young mums, being prescribed Valium.
Delinquency and petty crime shot up, children vastly underachieved at school. The social cohesion that existed in many “old” slum clearance areas was destroyed and has taken decades to become re-established on the “new” estates. Many of these estates are now areas of massive deprivation, high unemployment, and deemed to be “problem” estates. The legacy of the destructive clearance program is still alive today.
Under capitalism the working class are just commodities to be bought, sold and thrown on the garbage heap whenever they are no longer a source of profit. In my opinion, the housing policy being pursued today is part and parcel of this naked, brutal exploitation by capitalism in its deepest crisis ever.
John U
25 February 2013
On “US preparations for cyber war against China”
Not only haven't the US authorities proved the source of the cyber-attacks (if any), it is absolutely impossible to do so unless China agrees to it.
Your web server will have logged my IP address, but a “where is” look-up will tell you it is in Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia—which is the location of the organisation that owns that address block. They sub-let smaller blocks of addresses to my ISP, and they sub-let one address to me—I could be anywhere in Australia.
Anyone with a Paypal account can get a web site hosted in Hong Kong—simply visit licosys.com, and if I load web proxy software onto the site, I could be talking to you from “Hong Kong”, or hacking the US from there.
The HK authorities aren’t going to cooperate with US authorities to reveal the IPs of the people who use the proxy, and they could be from anywhere in the world.
If China wanted to hide the origin of their cyber-attacks, they would certainly do a better job than I can do. They could make one IP automatically translate into another in any part of the world where they have an embassy, and no one would be any wiser.
I’m sure Russia, Iran, and, of course, the US itself and Israel could do the same.
The whole NYT story is a sham, and who are they friendly with?
Palloy
Australia
24 February 2013
On “Ben Affleck’s Argo: An embrace of US foreign policy”
According to Jimmy Carter, who was president during this episode of history, the movie glorified the CIA when it was not historically the hero. Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador, and the Canadian government actually were the reasons that the Americans were able to escape Iran. More CIA propaganda.
Ken S
Wisconsin, USA
25 February 2013