Debtocracy

An auditing of who a country owes it's debt to seems a compelling argument. Especially when the austerity measures including cuts to health and social spending mean that the country's own people die so that offshore bankers get paid. Bankers and international financiers who lent money in the first place with interest that reflected the riskiness of the loan.

Often, as in the case of Greece, debts were built up based on dodgy accounting and bribes. Not done by the people but by a small group of corrupt politicians and lobbyists.

This documentery, called Debtocracy, is well worth watching. It looks at Ecuador as an example of how to audit debt and reduce what is owed by discounting odious or illegitimate debt.

http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/07/debtocracy-exposing-greek-debt-crisis

Union leaders pay

The Taxpayers Alliance lists the pay of the top UK union leaders. Benefits aside, the range is from £80 - 100K. What should a union leader get? The same as a headteacher, GP? Slightly more than an MP's basic of £70K?

Greece - D Day

From Graham Summer's Market Forecast:

However, the facts remain the same. The world is awash in garbage debt. The only reason the banks and others haven’t taken the “hit” that they NEED to take is because they’ve bought out the politicians. Put another way, we are seeing clearly that the two primary principles of the West (capitalism and democracy) have both become jokes: alleged “capitalists” like the banks don’t ever actually see losses for mistakes and “democratically elected” leaders are in fact owned outright by the banks via donations/ bribes.

Another great Adam Curtis piece

Syria: The baby and the Baath water


http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/06/the_baby_and_the_baath_water.html

Egypt's Revolt

Some good understanding on Egypt

From the Nation

Nafeez Ahmed in Op Ed News

Inequality in US is greater than Egypt.

Auditors Bribe Tories

From Craig Murray:

The entire Western accounting system is based on the compliance of morally corrupt little pen pushers. The fact that it is the company which chooses its own accountants and auditors, who have a vested interest in keeping their mouths shut and are never prosecuted when a scheme folds (along with the hopes and savings of millions of investors), is a scandal.

Our jails should hold less desperate social security scammers, and a great many more accountants.

Afghan MP Malalai Joya calls for the international anti-war movement to demonstrate against the war in Afghanistan

Via Stop the War

She told the audience of the suffering of Afghans, and in particular women, at the hands of both occupation forces and the warlords who benefit from the occupation. If the war was ever about eradicating opium, 93% of global opium production now comes from Afghanistan, and £500m goes into the pockets of the Taliban every year because of the drug trade. Afghans have lost almost everything, she said, except that they have gained political knowledge. And they are against the occupation.

She holds little hope for the upcoming elections in August. She said the ballot box is controlled by a mafia of warlords and criminals, and that even if the democrats in Afghanistan could put up a candidate, they would inevitably become puppets of the US and NATO, or they wouldn't survive in office. NATO could not possibly provide a solution because the troops are despised for the carnage they have brought to the country.

As Malalai repeated a number of times in the meeting, no nation can liberate another nation, and only the oppressed can rise up against their oppressors. The only solution, she said, was for the anti-war movement internationally to speak out and demonstrate against the war in their own countries, "because our enemies are afraid of international solidarity." It will be a prolonged and risky struggle, she continued, but the Afghans must liberate themselves.