Attaturk, on corruption on the US Supreme Court.
“An examination of the Supreme Court disclosure forms by ABC News found that five of the justices have accepted tens of thousand of dollars in country club memberships. And Justice Clarence Thomas has received tens of thousands of dollars in valuable gifts, including an $800 leather jacket from NASCAR, a $1,200 set of tires, a vacation trip by private jet, and a rare Bible valued at $19,000.“The rules dealing with gifts don’t apply to Justice Thomas because the rules only apply to lower court judges,” Gillers explained. “People give gifts to judges and justices because they have power. And they have power because of their position that they hold in trust. And to suggest that it doesn’t matter, no one will care, seems to me to be whistling in the dark.” “
Lenin’s Tomb on Why New Labour’s proposed welfare changes won’t work –
There is, underlying all of this, not mere opportunism or an obsession with ‘pragmatism’ or polling data or technocratic efficiency – it is an ideologically coherent project. The government intends to reduce the role of the state in the provision of key services on the basis of the neoliberal doctrine that private enterprise and markets are more efficient than planning and public ownership. And, proceeding in accordance with another dogma of neoliberalism, the idea of a ‘natural’ or ‘non-accelerating inflation’ rate of unemployment (NAIRU) which can only be reduced through supply-side measures, they intend to coerce a large number of people in incapacity benefit into the labour market, thus reducing the cost of labour in general. Finally, accepting these doctrines, the government intends to restore profitability to British industry by compelling workers who are not fortunate enough to be able to afford an early retirement to labour for longer. Despite paying tax and national insurance, despite a lifetime of contribution to the growth of the economy, workers will be obliged to work longer and harder. Some will never see a day of retirement, and many already do not: in Calton, Glasgow, the average life expectancy of a male is 53.9 years. Poverty kills, particularly pensioner poverty. The government’s response: “work is good for you”.
How to resist this neoliberal offensive? Well, striking dockers gave a glimpse of how this week when they defeated the EU’s attempt to liberalise ports and diminish working conditions. Here are some future possibilities.
On a lighter note:
No Sex Please, We’re British and Inconspicuous
Apparently the two UK students who wrote this, on exchange to California, are studying English. Perhaps they should study harder. Erotic albatross, indeed. A gem.
Despite forewarning, upon arrival at these new world shores, we were somewhat shocked to discover that the myths were more than true. Our seemingly mundane British accents were transformed into verbal Viagra. The phrase, ?You?re British, wanna make babies?? rang in our ears from dawn to dusk. Some of us truly seized the day, wandering around I.V. preying on unsuspecting freshmen with lines like, ?Does my accent make your spine shiver?? However, for many of us emasculated English, our newfound powers hung around our neck like an erotic albatross – in the words of Peter Parker, ?With great power cums [sic] great responsibility.?
Wrenched from the missionary-obsessed motherland, we had to cast away our thermal underwear and penchant for pleasuring ourselves with boiled vegetables to embrace the way of ?The Star-Spangled Boner.? Having been locked in single-sex boarding schools, having been forcibly overeducated, having spent all our youth studying Virgil rather than seducing virgins, we had to find a new language, a way of combining our unworldly academia with the underbelly of Del Playa. After many wasted weekends of research, we have painstakingly theorized the types of sexual behavior most common on a Saturday night.
Tags: USA UK Social Security Supreme Court Politics Students
