The world economy is gradually recovering from the crisis that hit in 2007-08, and things will soon be back to normal, right? Wrong. The recovery from the international recession has so far applied mainly to the biggest capitalists and the highly paid executives who manage their businesses.

Diddums

“When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on.” – Karl Eidenberry, US ambassador to Afghanistan.

Rupert Murdoch is a union-bashing, racist, warmongering thief, hypocrite, liar and all round crook. That’s not news to anyone, nor are these characteristics unusual for his class of people – the capitalist class. In fact, they are prerequisites. What is unusual is that some of the crimes of his empire are being brought into the light of day.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch” is a phrase that became popular with economists many years ago. The conservative economist Milton Friedman even used it as the title of a book he published in 1975. It’s shorthand for the idea that you can’t really get something for nothing: even if something seems free, you pay for it in one way or another. Is that true?

Managing profits

“There will be impacts. But everything is monitored so we can manage it well ahead of time if there is any impact.” Ross Dunn, Queensland coal seam gas manager for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, responding to concerns about environmental damage from coal seam gas mining.

Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effects on Our lives
By Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez
Palgrave Macmillan, 272 pages

It created a small stir in late March when British journalist and columnist George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian that the ongoing nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan had convinced him that the use of nuclear power needs to be expanded in order to counter global warming.

Quiet diplomacy

“The new American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, has been quietly reaching out to Mr. [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad to urge him to stop firing on his people.” – New York Times, March 26.

Not retreating

“People say, ‘You are coming out of the Pech’; I prefer to look at it as realigning to provide better security for the Afghan people.” – Major General John F. Campbell, the US commander for eastern Afghanistan, on US forces withdrawing from the Pech Valley, where they have been trying to establish control since 2003.

[This article is based on a speech delivered to the International Women’s Day protest in Brisbane Square held on March 5. The rally of around 100 people marked the 100th year of IWD.]

The nuclear accident in Japan caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has affirmed many of the concerns that anti-nuclear campaigners have been warning of for decades. Above all else, nuclear power is a deadly form of energy production. At every point of the nuclear energy cycle, there is a risk of a major environmental and social catastrophe.

If someone approached you and offered you $1 million to let him kill you, would you accept? What if the price was $2 million? $5 million?

Most people would probably say that there is no price at which they would sell their life. But that doesn’t prevent businesses and governments from setting a dollar value on our lives.

It was almost unheard of. Last month, a Fairfax business writer hinted that capitalism – at least, the Australian capitalism that we all know and love – might be not quite perfect. Something, Stuart Washington wrote on February 7, is “broken” in Australia’s “pricing system”, and “I believe failures in pricing are posing grave dangers to what we know as capitalism”.

Interest of who?

“All options should be on the table. Surely you’ve got to get in and protect the interests of the state.” – Mike Baird, likely to be the next NSW treasurer if the Liberals win the March election, on bailing out the private-public corporation that is making a mess of producing new train carriages.

[These are extracts from the international situation and international work report presented to the Revolutionary Socialist Party Congress, December 18-20, 2010.]

[Below is an abridged version of a speech delivered at the December 9-10 rallies in Brisbane to defend WikiLeaks and for freedom for Julian Assange.]

Never ever

“We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or grow the economy.” – Timothy Geithner, US Treasury secretary, defending the Obama administration’s policy of weakening the dollar to stimulate the economy and make US exports more competitive.

There is nothing more miserable than working people stealing from other working people at any time, but when people are devastated by a natural disaster, it is an act even more worthy of hateful scorn.

The attacks on Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are a response to an information revolution that threatens old power orders in politics and journalism.

Communist Party of Vietnam 11th Congress

The 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), held in Hanoi January 12-19, endorsed Marxism-Leninism as the cornerstone of the economic renewal started 25 years ago.

The Conference on Diego Garcia & Chagos held at Grande Riviere, Port Louis, Mauritius, bringing together 150 participants from 30 October to 2 November 2010, reached consensus that we will keep the following struggles firmly bound together, never bartering one against the other:

McDonald’s School of Nutrition? BP Environmental Sciences?

“Many years ago, working with industry was not the done thing; now everyone is doing it.” – University of NSW vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer, announcing that the university will give naming rights of schools or faculties to big donors.

Mauritius – An International Conference on Diego Garcia and Chagos, organised by the socialist group Lalit, was held here October 30-November 2.

Telecom unions under attack in Pakistan

Following a strike at Pakistan Telecommunication (PTCL) that was brutally suppressed by the government, a wholesale witch-hunt of union activists is taking place. More than 250 workers have been suspended from their jobs and another 280 terminated.

Perfectly normal

“What is wrong with this? I borrowed money from the bank and made an investment.” – Mahmoud Karzai, brother of the Afghan president, who borrowed money from the shaky Kabul Bank, used it to become a shareholder of the bank, then borrowed from the bank for a profitable property transaction in Dubai.