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Posts tagged ruling class.
World's Richest 8% Earn Half of All Planetary Income

The top 1 per cent has seen its real income rise by more than 60 per cent over those two decades.

05.30.13 ♥ 37
“ Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land, and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor. But this is communism, ‘impossible’ communism! Why, those members of the ruling classes who are intelligent enough to perceive the impossibility of continuing the present system – and they are many – have become the obtrusive and full-mouthed apostles of co-operative production. If co-operative production is not to remain a sham and a snare; if it is to supersede the capitalist system; if united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of capitalist production – what else, gentlemen, would it be but communism, “possible” communism?

— Karl Marx, The Civil War in France

05.28.13 ♥ 32
National Union of Mineworkers Will Oppose Layoffs in South Africa

“The NUM [National Union of Mineworkers] is opposed to any retrenchment irrespective of the numbers involved. The union is highly perturbed by Anglo’s decision to bypass the stakeholder meetings scheduled for next week and go ahead with such an announcement,” NUM general secretary Frans Baleni said in a statement on Saturday.

“The NUM will do everything within the framework of the law to oppose these retrenchments and is determined to even mobilise for strike to show its disapproval.”

Baleni said Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) decided to show its critical stakeholders “the middle finger” which undermined sound industrial relations and labour peace.

05.13.13 ♥ 3
Zoom May 8, 1933 - Diego Rivera completes the mural “Man at the Crossroads” at New York’s Rockefeller Center.  Nelson Rockefeller, heir to a global economic empire, had commissioned Rivera to paint the mural, insisting in the fine print that “no controversial figures” be included. Rivera defied the capitalist, including the faces of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky and refusing to paint over them.  Rockefeller had the mural covered, then destroyed in early 1934. Rivera recreated a smaller version, “Man, Controller of the Universe,” in Mexico City.

May 8, 1933 - Diego Rivera completes the mural “Man at the Crossroads” at New York’s Rockefeller Center. 

Nelson Rockefeller, heir to a global economic empire, had commissioned Rivera to paint the mural, insisting in the fine print that “no controversial figures” be included. Rivera defied the capitalist, including the faces of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky and refusing to paint over them. 

Rockefeller had the mural covered, then destroyed in early 1934. Rivera recreated a smaller version, “Man, Controller of the Universe,” in Mexico City.

05.08.13 ♥ 109
Zoom Welp… That explains a lot — about liberalism in the United States and how far the political climate has shifted to the right in the last 50 years. Modern-day “liberal” Democrats = Cold War, Red-Scare-era Republicans.

Welp… That explains a lot — about liberalism in the United States and how far the political climate has shifted to the right in the last 50 years.

Modern-day “liberal” Democrats = Cold War, Red-Scare-era Republicans.

05.06.13 ♥ 72
Wal-Mart, Sears Refuse Compensation for Bangladesh Factory Fire Victims

Surprise (not)

April 15, 2013 - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD) have so far declined to join Li & Fung Ltd. and other companies in voluntarily compensating victims of a fire last year at a Bangladesh garment factory.

Wal-Mart and Sears also didn’t respond to an invitation to attend a meeting today in Geneva, where companies whose clothing was manufactured at the Tazreen Design Ltd. factory are expected to discuss compensation payments, said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a Washington-based international labor-monitoring group.

The Nov. 24 blaze killed 112 workers and increased pressure on Wal-Mart and other Western retailers to help improve factory conditions and take more direct responsibility for their suppliers. Clothing bound for Wal-Mart and Sears was found in the charred ruins. Both companies have said suppliers used the Tazreen factory without their permission and were fired. Sears and Wal-Mart, which don’t directly employ workers in Bangladesh and are not legally obligated to compensate them, have instituted worker-safety programs there.

“It’s so important for Western retailers to be at this meeting,” said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, who was in the U.S. last week to ask Wal-Mart to do more to help make Bangladesh factories safe. “If they’re not there, they’re totally giving the message that they are supporting these death traps and they really don’t care how many lives go to make these clothes.”

05.03.13 ♥ 64
“ Jimmy Carter at Bush Library dedication yesterday: ‘Mr. President, let me say that I’m filled with admiration for you and deep gratitude for you about the great contributions you’ve made to the most needy people on Earth.’ What needy people are those exactly, Mr. Carter? The people of Iraq? The people of Afghanistan? The people of New Orleans?

—

Brian Trautman via Facebook

Ah yes, Jimmy Carter, the great liberal humanitarian who paved the way for Ronald Reagan…

04.26.13 ♥ 28
Zoom
04.25.13 ♥ 184

Students from the University of Dhaka join protests demanding the arrest and trial of the owners of collapsed garment factory in Sava, Bangladesh, April 25, 2013. Over 230 workers are confirmed dead so far.

Photos by Mehrab Azad

04.25.13 ♥ 9