Ten Years of The Big Issue

In the latest issue of The Big Issue, the editorial extols how business solves a social problem. It is really not Capitalism that makes it work but a form of Socialism. Could the mechanism of how this magazine works give an indication of how to implement Socialism in Australia?

Graeme C. Wise, Patron, The Big Issue, concludes the editorial in the 03-18 July 2006 issue of this magazine with:

I have long held the belief that the brightest minds gravitate to the business sector and that if we encourage businesspeople to apply their problem-solving abilities to social needs, we greatly increase the chance of finding real and eduring solutions.

I am proud to see this enterprise blossom into a viable and successful business solution to a social problem. In the past decade, more than 3000 people throughout the country have sold The Big Issue and used it as a means of pulling themselves up. Many people have found a new direction and a sense of purpose. In turn, they have made us more aware of how we can help others by giving them a hand up, not just a hand out.

Emphasis Mine

Under Capitalism, a successful business is a profitable one. It cannot be otherwise: it has to regenerate the capital invested within a reasonable time.

In the addendum to the editorial, Martin Hughes notes that:

Although The Big Issue runs on the positive energy between readers and vendors, it takes a massive effort just trying to maintain that connection every fortnight. Simply put, we wouldn't have survived all these years without the spirited band of volunteers, staff, writers, illustrators, photogrpahers, advertisers, creative types, lawyers, accountants and other folk who donate their services and work for discounted rates to sow a little more compassion in the community. On the behalf of the thousands of marginalised people who've steadied their lives with the help of The Big Issue, heartfelt thanks and an Australia-sized warm fuzzy to you all.

Emphasis Mine

Here we see the true inner workings of the magazine: there is a lot of free or cheap labour. This keeps costs down so that the vendors can sell the magazine at a reasonable price and get a reasonable return for their investment.

In a Capitalist sense, the magazine is a failure because its income does not cover the costs, hence the need for volunteer labour. In a Socialist sense, this magazine is a great sucess because it brings together people for a worthwhile purpose to fulfill a social need.

The business knowledge that is accumulated and used under Capitalism is still useful under Socialism because it is the knowledge of how to make people work together in a productive fashion to achieve a common goal.

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A House Divided

Billmon explores the issue of A House Divided. He considers the differences in US politics to be based on culture. He admits that this is a great simplication. He also considers what happened during the Spanish Civil War to be similar to the strains experienced by the USA now.

On the other hand, that America is now divided neatly into increasingly hostile cultural camps is generally treated as received wisdom. But culture is a tricky word, hard to define, and not really amenable to the kind of short-hand stereotypes (rural rednecks listen to Garth Brooks while urban liberals sip mocha lattes) that journalists like Tierney exist to propagate.

In his book The Cousins' Wars, Kevin Phillips suggested that there is indeed a deep-seated duality to Ango-American politics and culture that can be traced back as far the English Civil War. It separates high church Anglicans from low church dissenters, Puritans from Cavaliers, and merchant and financial elites from landowning and military ones. Every hundred years or so (1642, 1776, 1861) these opposing tendencies have a go at each other.

One could, I suppose, add the domestic disturbances of the late 1960s to that list. But, as the '60s demonstrated (in both senses of the word) American society and culture have changed radically since the days when British and American cousins fought their wars. So have the opposing camps. The great influx of eastern and southern immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the realignment of the South, the Vietnam War, feminism, gay liberation -- all these have stirred the melting pot, creating new alliances, new interests and, not least, new hatreds and resentments.

If I had to boil our modern kulturkampf down to two words, they wouldn't be blue and red, they would be "traditionalist" and "modern." On one side are the believers in the old ways -- patriarchy, hierarchy, faith, a reflexive nationalism, and a puritanical, if usually hypocritical, attitude towards sexual morality. On the other are the rootless cosmopolitians -- secular, skeptical (although at times susceptible to New Age mythology) libertine (although some of us aren't nearly as libertine as we'd like to be) and less willing to equate patriotism with blind allegiance, either to a flag or a government.

These differences can also be explained by class war. The dates he mentioned were events in the struggle between Capitalism and Feudalism, and between Capitalism and Slavery.

The old ruling class does not go quietly. They hang on tenanciously to their power.

The Spanish Civil started out as a war between the Feudal landlords and the Capitalists allied with the Socialists and Anarchists but ended up as a war between the Feudalists and the Communists.

The regional differences in the US and in Spain are based on the degree of industrialisation. The more industry, the greater the influence of the Capitalist is.

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Beware of the Rapture

Kevin Hilferty warns us to Beware of the Rapture in the June 2006 issue of Annals Australasia (pp.17-23). (The WikiPedia has an article on Rapture.) He is clearly worried by the influence that the rapture believers have in right wing US and Israeli politics.

A trechant critic of rapture promoters is Barbara R. Rossing, a New Testament scholar and associate professor at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicargo. She maintains that the rapture is a fraud of momumental proportions, as well as a disturbing way to instill fear in people.

'The rapture is a racket,' she wrote in the first sentence of her recent book The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in The Book of Revelation. 'Whether precribing a violent script for Israel or survivalism in the United States, this theology distorts God's vision for the world.

'In place of healing, the rapture proclaims escape. In place of Jesus' blessing of peace making, the rapture glorifies violence and war. This theology is not biblical. We are not raptured off the earth, nor is God. No, God has come to live in the world through Jesus. God created the world. God loves the world, and God will never leave the world behind!'

p.22

Emphasis Mine

On a local level, the escape mentality is very much alive in Christian communities here in Sydney. When they see me out selling the Party paper, they say that they are not worried by the troubles because Jesus is coming soon. They see no need to become politically involved in order to change the world for the better. They expect to be literally spirited away before things get too bad.

This is an extremely responsible attitude given the ideas of stewardship that Jesus proclaimed: we are responsible for the world. It is up to us to improve things.

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GIs May Have Planned Iraq Rape, Slayings

GIs May Have Planned Iraq Rape, Slayings

Investigators believe American soldiers spent nearly a week plotting an attack in which they raped an Iraqi woman, then killed her and her family in an insurgent-ridden area south of Baghdad, a U.S. military official said Saturday.

This story only came to light because of the beheadings of two US soldiers.

Those troops under investigation are from the same platoon as two soldiers kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad this month, another official said Friday. Their mutilated bodies were found June 19, three days after they were abducted by insurgents near Youssifiyah, southwest of Baghdad.

The military has said one and possibly both of the slain soldiers were tortured and beheaded. The official said the mutilation of the slain soldiers stirred feelings of guilt and led at least one member of the platoon to reveal the rape-slaying on June 22.

The senior Army official said the alleged incident was first revealed by a soldier during a routine counseling-type session. The Army official said that soldier did not witness the incident but heard about it.

A second soldier, who also was not involved, said he overhead soldiers conspiring to commit the crimes and then later saw bloodstains on their clothes, the Army official said.

It looks like the beheadings were pay-back for the rape and mass murder.

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