RAVE: Workers of the World, Ignite!

Today is May Day or Workers' Day around the world, and millions of people in cities worldwide are marching and demonstrating and showing their solidarity for their fellow workers.

Workers of the World Unite! is a refrain over a century old.




I cannot remember a time in my lifetime in which the gap between those who control capital and have power and the rest of us has been so huge, so gaping - it is not a gap, it is a veritable chasm that makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the pavement.

Let us review the state of the world on this May the 1st:

• many countries in the world continue to wallow in the mulch that is the 'recession'
• Spain has a record 25% unemployed - and those are official figures
• Greece is on the brink
• Romania is on the brink
• Italy is close to the brink
• Portugal edges to the brink
• Belgium has never looked more shaky
• There are student riots in Montreal
• There are student riots in Madrid
• Students today in many countries could have debt well into middle age

Pundits speak of how we are in the midst of a 'Third World War', except this time the weapon of choice is debt. And it's being used against all of us.

Never before in human history have there been so many billionaires on Earth, even taking population and economic growth into consideration.

Executive pay in the financial sector in cities like London and New York reportedly went up by up to 50% in the last year - and those are no doubt conservative estimates.

And then one wonders why these bastards haven't had their swanky offices invaded and been hauled into the streets, tarred and feathered.

Let's hear a new refrain, shall we:

Workers of the World, Ignite!

When it comes to fatcat corporate bastards and their politician lackeys it should be a case of...

Burn, Baby, Burn.

Do you get my point?

It Says It All - Occupy Wall Street

I haven't commented yet on the Occupy Wall Street movement that has taken the United States by storm since September. It came slap bang in the middle of my mini-hiatus from writing in this, and also took a momentum so diverse and so unexpected that I didn't really know how to comment. Well, I did - but on so many different levels, I didn't know where to commence...

So, for now, these brilliant cartoons are what I think are the best of the wry, sardonic cartoons that have proliferated online since the Occupy movement took hold...









Possibly one of the best of the lot...

RANT: Arrogance Beyond the (Trans)Ocean

At the centre of the ecological and PR nightmare that was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year was BP. It was all BP, BP, BP. But there were other guilty parties in that fiasco of gigantic proportions, one of which was the company leasing out the oil rig and all related equipment, etc, namely Transocean.



Today it emerged that Transocean's top executives received their biggest bonuses to date, to the tune of millions of dollars, on the basis that 2010 was the company's "Best Year in Safety"...yip, that's right, their best year in safety!

Wait, let me get this right - this from a company directly involved in an explosion that killed eleven people, nine of which were Transocean workers, and, thereafter, caused the largest environmental disaster in United States history? And they see fit to give their f*#@ing executives a raise on the basis of that type of performance in safety?!

The catchphrase underneath the corporate logo seems so apt: "Now nothing is beyond your reach". Well, certainly nothing is beyond the reach of a greedy Transocean executive, that's for sure

People may argue that the spill was primarily the issue, and that was an environmental disaster, not a safety one. But the spill was caused by the explosion on the oil rig, which, in turn, killed nine workers. That is most certainly a safety issue. And a safety f*#*-up. Of monumental proportions.

I'm sure the families of the nine men killed in the blast must be real thrilled that the executives at Transocean are getting a big fat pay bonus on the basis of their sterling safety work in 2010. Real thrilled.

There is absolutely no justification for this 'safety-based' performance bonus for these execs. In any way, shape or form.

If anything, it's just in unbelievably bad taste. And, yet again, proves just how arrogant, self-aggrandizing and woefully unethical corporations and their executive spawn can be.

Do these people have no shame?

Or do they hide behind the protective nothingness that is the corporation? Yes, that must be it. Yet again.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Seeing Orange

It's World Cup time and with my seeing red because of those infernal and wretched vuvuzelas, I'm now seeing orange. A bevy of thirty-six ladies from the Netherlands dressed in orange, to be exact.

And the skimpy orange miniskirts that got them all arrested.

The whole debacle arose when said thirty-six Dutch beauties wore a certain orange miniskirt ensemble to their Dutch side's match against Denmark. Just after the match all the ladies were promptly arrested by our ever-vigilant South African police.

Their crime? They were supposedly part of some 'ambush marketing campaign' by the Dutch beer company, Bavaria beer. Turns out that their alluring orange attire is somehow 'sneaky' backdoor advertising by the beer company. Of course, the real issue is that one of the official sponsors to this FIFAdom love fest, namely Budweiser, took offence to a rival beer company getting a 'free ride' without having to fork out all those millions in sponsorship fees to the FIFA Mafia in Zurich. 

I also have a sneaking suspicion that another Dutch rival, Heineken, may also have sparked the FIFA-sanctioned arrests, given that Heineken are also affiliated with the FIFA capos via their deal with UEFA. 

FIFA cried foul, stating that this ambush marketing was in defiance of sponsorship money (all to FIFA, of course), trademarks, etc. South African law, uber-capitalist to the hilt, whatever the governing ANC might say about being the 'peoples' party', didn't hesitate to put the ladies in handcuffs given our particularly strong intellectual property laws.

South African law is very harsh (read: uber-capitalist, patriarchal and, ultimately, anti-competition) when it comes to ambush marketing or any other type of 'unfair' marketing or trading practice.

As a South African I'm embarrassed and infuriated. Here we are, yet again, kowtowing to corporatist special interests and the Mafiosi henchmen of the Local Organizing Committee, yes, good ol' FIFA.

This is just plain sour grapes by the likes of Budweiser (and, let me say it again, Heineken) who've spent a fortune paying the protection racket dues (aka 'sponsorship') of the FIFA Mafia, when a much smaller brewer has come along and stolen their thunder - without having spent a cent and without a single one of their logos in view. And, of course, the FIFA Mafia having to protect their racket, benevolent godfathers of the football world that they are.

Yeah, I know, it's all business. And it stinks. Copyright legislation and sponsorship contracts and deals are strangling any initiative for ordinary South Africans to make a decent buck out of this bloody World Cup. And now not even a market-savvy and smart foreign company can try and capitalize by spending less than the big boys - even if not a single one of their own logos or brands are visible in any way, shape or form.

I believe Bavaria beer pulled a similar stunt at the 2006 World Cup in Germany and were thwarted at the last minute by German authorities at the stadium. So, they did it again in 2010, this time probably thinking that they'd get away with it if they didn't show their logos or brand. But they got 'caught out'. What a damn pity - and all power to them for having tried, even if their main goal was to obviously sell more beer of their own.

Now I see pundits on Sky News parroting at how FIFA must protect their trademarks and sponsorship deals, etc. Yeah, right. And where's the free enterprise in all of this overt protectionism of contractual and commercial 'rights'?

It makes me so angry.

I'm ashamed that this gutless host country that I call home for now genuflects with such ease to foreign, corporate interests. That's right, South Africa - show your ass. That's all you're good at doing when it comes to foreign interests that line the pockets of this country's elite and strangle any attempts to not be part of the racket.

I'm ashamed that 36 women who are guests in my country are arrested and treated like common criminals, even if for four hours or so, just because they partook in a game of corporate gamesmanship, all in the name of uber-capitalist, apartheid era legislation that only protects Big Money.

And I'm furious that a bunch of unaccountable and corrupt Zurich-based Mafia in full collusion with transnational corporations, not to mention this country's authorities, see fit to allow this to happen here in this country.

It's an outrage. And the further encroachment of just how much increasing power commercial and transnational entities believe (AND KNOW) they have in a supposedly global market based on 'free enterprise'.

This is not free enterprise. It's not even about the protection of commercial rights. This is genuflection to the highest bidder; the most extreme whoring of the entire market to those with the most money vested and, therefore, the most rights.

This is a warning to us all as to just what lengths corporations will go to protect their (self) interests. It is dangerous precedent.

Do you get my point?