GSK Scholarships for Future Health Leaders in sub-Saharan Africa 2019/2020 (Fully-funded to study in UK)

Application Deadline: 13th February 2019 midnight (GMT).

Eligible Countries: sub-Saharan Africa

To be Taken at (country): UK

About the Award: These highly competitive scholarships are available to applicants intending to study on a one-year, full-time, London-based MSc programme at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To be eligible for these scholarships, applicants must

• be nationals of, and resident in, countries in sub-Saharan Africa; and
• intend to return to sub-Saharan Africa on completion of their MSc year at the School; and
• confirm in writing that they would not otherwise be able to pay for the proposed programme of study; and
• meet the School’s minimum English language requirements; and
• hold a first degree at either a first or upper second class equivalency level, and
• hold an offer of admission for 2019-20 for one of the School’s 18 London-based MSc programmes of study.

Preference will be given to applicants who demonstrate (in their application documentation) the potential to make significant contributions to public health and/or health-related research in Africa.

Number of Awards: 3

Value of Award: Each scholarship will cover

• tuition fees, including any mandatory field trip fees, and
• a tax-free stipend (living allowance) of GBP16,950.00.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: Applicants should complete both steps below by the scholarship deadline.

• Step 1: Submit an application for 2019-20 for a London-based MSc programme of study, as per instructions under the ‘How to Apply’ tab on the relevant programme of study page. Applicants should ensure that all necessary supplementary documents (including references) are submitted via the School’s Admissions Portal by the scholarship deadline. (Where possible, we would encourage applicants to submit a complete application for study as far in advance of the scholarship deadline as possible, to allow for timely processing.)
• Step 2: Submit an online scholarships application, selecting this scholarship option from the drop-down menu by the scholarship deadline. A completed Supplementary Questions Form for this scholarship must be uploaded as part of this application. This is the only attachment required in Step 2 (as applicants should have already submitted references; transcripts; a CV etc with their application for study).

If you encounter any technical difficulties whilst using the online application system please contact LSHTM IT by email, providing them with your full name; the scholarship that you are applying for; and the issue that you have encountered. Please attach a screen shot of the difficulty.

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United Nations ECA Fellowships 2019 for Young African Professionals

Application Deadline: 9th January 2019

Eligible Countries: Member countries

To be taken at (country): Various duty stations 

About the Award: The programme aims to provide practical, on-the-job experience to the young professionals as they prepare either for a career in research and international development and the public sector. It will also familiarize them with the Commission’s broad programmes and services to member States and sub-regional bodies in addressing the social dimensions of Africa’s development. 
ECA is hereby inviting applications from qualified young African Professionals in the following thematic areas:

• Macroeconomic policy, Economic Governance & Public Finance;
• Private Sector Development & Finance, including Innovative Finance & Capital Markets;
• Poverty, Inequality and social development,
• Gender equality and women empowerment;
• Demographic Dynamics for Development;
• Innovation and Technology;
• Climate Change & Management of Natural Resources, including Green Economy;
• Industrialization and Economic Diversification Policies;
• Development Planning and Statistics;
• Regional Integration; Infrastructure and Trade;
• Labor Economics and Employment.

Type: Fellowship, Internship

Eligibility: The Fellowship programme is targeted at young Africans. Candidates applying for Fellowship position must be below 30 years of age when entering the programme. They must have Masters Degree or related Advanced degree. Candidates currently enrolled in a Ph.D programme or with an admission are also welcome to apply. 

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• Fellows must be available to travel to the assigned station by 1 March 2019;
• Will receive a return air ticket between his/her country of residence and the assigned duty station
• A one-off settling-in grant of USD 3,000 and a monthly stipend of USD 3,000 for the duration of the fellowship. Note that the final month stipend will only be paid upon submission of a peer reviewed fellowship research paper, a comprehensive fellowship report, an approved final performance evaluation of the fellow, a completed fellowship programme evaluation form and an exit boarding pass or immigration stamp showing that the fellow has departed the duty station and returned back to his/her home country, where both are not the same, at the end of the fellowship programme.

Duration of Programme: Six months

How to Apply: 

• Applications with all the supporting documents should be emailed to the address indicated below, bearing the appropriate subject line.
• Go through all application requirements on the Program Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details 

Government of Italy Invest Your Talent Scholarship and Internship Program 2019/2020 for International Students

Application Deadline: 31st January 2019

Eligible Countries: Scholarships are awarded to citizens, permanently resident in their home country, of the following list of countries:  Azerbaijan, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Mexico, People’s Republic of China, Tunisia, Turkey, Vietnam.

To Be Taken At (Country): Italy

About the Award: Scholarships are awarded for courses of Master’s degree (Laurea magistrale or Master universitario) at Italian Higher Education Institutes (state-owned institutions or institutions legally recognized by the relevant state authorities) partners of the Invest Your Talent in Italy Program. The program includes the attendance of a mandatory internship at selected Italian companies partners of the initiative.
The aim of the Program is to foster cooperation among Italian Universities and Italian companies in order to promote their internationalization by sustaining higher education courses tailored to the needs of the labor market. Thanks to this Program, young foreigners, educated in Italy and properly trained in their specific fields of expertise, will have the opportunity to make a working experience at selected Italian companies, partners of Invest Your Talent in Italy.

Type: Masters, Internship

Eligibility: Applications may be submitted only by those who meet the following requirements by the deadline of this call.
Academic qualifications: Applications may only be submitted by those candidates referred to in Article 2 who hold the required academic qualifications (Bachelor’s Degree) to enroll in the chosen Master’s degree Program (Laurea Magistrale or Master Universitario).
Age requirements: Candidates may apply if they are no more than 28 years old on the deadline of this call, except for the only renewals.

Language skills:

• Candidates should submit an English language certificate as proof of their proficiency in English .
• Candidates should hold at least a B2 level certificate within the Common European Framework of
  Referrqence for Languages (CEFR).
  Proof of proficiency in Italian is not mandatory but will be taken in consideration in the selection process.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Candidates who have been granted scholarships under the Invest Your Talent in Italy Program are exempted from the payment of tuition fees except for the regional tax for “Diritto allo Studio”.
• Grantees must subscribe a health insurance policy to bear any expenses due to illnesses or accidents.
• Grantees will receive 888 euros monthly allowance every three months on their Italian bank account. The first installment of the scholarship can only be received after the University enrollment according to the necessary administrative procedures

Duration of Program: The scholarship will cover a period of study of 9 (nine) months starting from October 1, 2019. Students will receive the installment every three months.

How to Apply: Only those students who have submitted their application for one of the postgraduate courses (laurea Magistrale or Master) included in the Program can apply for a IYT scholarship: http://www.postgradinitaly.esteri.it/postgradinitaly/en/how-to-apply

 REGISTRATION

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: Government of Italy

The Case that Dare Not Speak Its Name: the Conviction of Cardinal Pell

Binoy Kampmark

“Freedom of the press in the world will cease to exist if a judge in one country is allowed to bar publication of information anywhere in the world.”

– Martin Baron, Executive Editor, The Washington Post, Dec 13, 2018

It had been shrouded in secrecy akin to the deepest conspiracy, but the trial of Cardinal George Pell, while not letting much in the way of publicity in Australia, was always going to interest beyond the walls of the Victorian County Court. This was the legal system of a country, and more accurately a state of that country, glancing into the workings of the world’s first global corporation and its unsavoury practices.  The Catholic Church, in other words, had been subjected to a stringent analysis, notably regarding the past behaviour of one of its anointed sons.

Cardinal Pell, a high-ranking official of the Catholic Church and financial grand wizard of the Vatican, was found guilty on December 11 of historical child sexual abuses pertaining to two choir boys from the 1990s.  But details remain sketchy. We know, for instance, that the number of charges was five, and that the trial has been designated “the cathedral trial”.  We also know that a first trial failed to reach a verdict.

Scrutiny from the Australian press gallery and those who had been victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests over the years, was limited for reasons peculiar to this country’s ambivalence to open discourse.  They were told that would be so.

The Pell case is a classic instance of suppression laws in action and, more particularly, their appeal in the Victorian jurisdiction that was not dimmed with the passage of the Open Courts Act 2013 (Vic).  Section 4 of the Act noting “a presumption in favour of disclosure of information to which a court or tribunal must have regard in determining whether to make a suppression order” has proven a fairly weak exercise.

Victorian judges, such as former Victorian Supreme Court Justice Betty King, have gone so far as to boast about the frequency they have handed down such orders.  Former Victorian Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, writing in October 2015, illustrated the classic struggle between the media which “has its own interests” and the judicial system. “Crime,” she reminds us prosaically, “sells.”

Little wonder then that Judge Peter Kidd relented to the prosecutor’s request in the Pell case that a gag order be imposed ahead of the trial “to prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice.”

The suppression order issued by the Victorian County Court is still in force, covering “all Australian states and territories” and “any website or other electronic or broadcast format accessible within Australia”. The reason lies in a connected trial, known as the swimmers’ trial, in which Pell is also being tried for allegedly abusing two other boys at a Ballarat swimming pool in Victoria during the 1970s, proceedings of which will take place in late February or early March.

Australian newspapers have engaged in what can only be regarded as an absurd song and dance that demonstrates the hollow, ceremonial nature of such restrictions.  Melbourne’s The Age noted how “we are unable to report their identity due to a suppression order.”  (Tantalising!)  The paper did, however, note that, “Google searches for the person’s name surged on Wednesday, particularly in Victoria.  Two of the top three search results on the suppressed name showed websites that were reporting the charges, the verdict and the identity of the person in full.”

The Daily Telegraph huffed with “the nation’s biggest story” in its front-page headline. “A high profile Australian with a worldwide reputation has been convicted of an awful crime.”  In evident terror, the paper has done its best to delete any links on the web to that initial story.  Likewise the Herald Sun of Melbourne, despite its agitated bold headline “Censored.”

Other Australian outlets have also been cowed. Josh Butler of 10 Daily sounded anguished.  “We’d like to tell you what happened, instead of speaking in riddles, but our legal system – specifically, the legal system of one Australian state – forbids us from telling you.”   In the words of feminist and voluble website Mamamia, “we too cannot report on the person’s identity or the crime they have been found guilty of.”  Spot the Australian in question, but in heaven’s name do not mention him in Australia proper.  The pathology of suppression proves irresistible.

It was left to foreign press services to run with the story, or not, as it were, leaving an absurd spectacle of neurotic meanderings in its wake. Some agencies, like Reuters and Associated Press, played the cautious card and resisted temptation.  Reuters’ spokeswoman, Heather Carpenter, insisted that Reuters was “subject to the laws of the countries in which we operate”.

In the United States, the reaction was particularly determined, though the enthusiasm did not spread to The New York Times, despite that paper having given extensive coverage to the allegations themselves. The paper’s deputy general counsel, David McCraw, claimed that the paper was abiding by the court’s order “because of the presence of our bureau there.  It is deeply disappointing that we are unable to present this important story to our readers in Australia and elsewhere.”  Press coverage of judicial proceedings, he insisted, was “a fundamental safeguard of justice and fairness.”

The Washington Post, National Review, Daily Beast and National Public Radio were all busy in their efforts to run stories on Pell.  The Daily Beast has, however, geoblocked reports to Australian readers.  In the words of the outlet’s editor, Noah Shachtman, “We understood there could be legal, and even criminal, consequences if we ran this story.”

In a global, relentless information environment, one accessible at the search on a phone, suppression orders retain an anachronistic insensibility.  When it comes to matters concerning an individual of such standing and influence as Cardinal Pell, including the clandestine institution he has represented for decades, the courts risk looking all too cosy with creatures of power.

While barristers rightly seek to defend their clients and hope, often elusively, for that fair trial to be extracted from a prejudiced milieu, such court directives smack of theatrical illusion rather than impact. Imposing suppression orders can be a case less of assisting the accused have a fair trial than preventing discussing what is already available.  To make them function in any effectual manner would be to select jurors hermetic and immune to the Internet or an interest in foreign news sources – a nigh impossible task.  Victoria’s judges, like King Canute, are attempting to control the tide in vain.

Big Pharma Fights Proposal to Keep It From Looting Medicare

Martha Rosenberg

The Trump administration has proposed that insurance plans providing drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries will no longer be forced to cover six hitherto “protected” drug classes. The classes––which include drugs for psychiatric conditions, cancer and immune diseases––are among the priciest of all drugs and account for as much as 33 percent of total outpatient drug spending under Part D of Medicare.

Under the proposal, Medicare plans could “exclude from their formularies protected class drugs with price increases that are greater than inflation, as well as certain new drug formulations that are not a significant innovation over the original product,” says Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In 2014, the Obama administration sought the same “price relief” for Medicare but was defeated by drug industry lobbyists. At the time, 100 pills of the “protected” psychiatric drug Abilify cost $1,644, 100 pills of the “protected” psych drug Geodon cost $958, 100 pills of the “protected” psychiatric drug Invega cost $1,789 and 100 pills of the “protected” psych drug Seroquel cost $2,000. Since then, even pricier psychiatric drugs have emerged as well as 6-digit cancer drugs.

The Obama proposal was roundly defeated by drug industry funded groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). NAMI received $23 million in just two years from drug makers and is heavily financed by them.

The proposal “undermines a key protection for some of the sickest, most vulnerable Medic beneficiaries,” said NAMI lobbyist Andrew Sperling, one of many voices that defeated the proposal. “You get much better outcomes when a doctor can work with patients to figure out which medications will work best.” He might have added, as long as the taxpayer pays.

Such drug industry tactics are well known. “When insurers balk at reimbursing patients for new prescription medications, these groups typically swing into action, rallying sufferers to appear before public and consumer panels, contact lawmakers, and provide media outlets a human face to attach to a cause,” writes Melissa Healy of the Los Angeles Times about this well known Pharma tactic to loot Medicare dollars.

The six protected drug classes are not the only example of lobbyist-initiated regulations which protect nothing more than drug industry profits and its expensive psychiatric drugs, many of which have cheaper alternatives. In Texas, a Medicaid “decision tree” called the Texas Medical Algorithm Project was instituted that literally requires doctors to prescribe the newest psychiatric drugs first. It was, not surprisingly, funded by the Johnson & Johnson linked Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Already drug industry lobbyists are berating the new Trump Medicare proposal on behalf of the “sickest, most vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries” who they say will be hurt if taxpayers won’t fund its 4 and 5 digit priced drugs. The Pharma-friendly Alliance for Patient Access has saturated broadcast airwaves warning cancer patients about “European style” restrictions on the “newest drugs” without which they will presumably die. The scare tactic ads even give out lawmakers’ phone numbers for patients to call.

Yet few to none of the newer psychiatric or cancer drugs show clear improvements over cheaper ones. They all lack the safety profiles of older drugs that are widely in use and their main benefit is enriching Pharma.

Will this cost-saving Medicare proposal be defeated as it was in 2014?

Democracy And The Corporation: Corporatizing The Globe

Mirza Yawar Baig

“The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.”      Edward Dowling

We’re seeing a sudden surge of dictatorial fascistic leaders around the globe. Here’s something I wrote several years ago, trying to explain what’s happening especially when people give the example of good governance as Singapore, or Malaysia under Mahatir, or Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, or India under Indira Gandhi by saying that the national leader was a CEO.

My point is that yes, they were great CEO’s and that’s precisely what was wrong with them and their style.

The fault of the rest of us was that we accepted this situation without understanding what was behind it and were happy that the trains ran on time in exchange for our freedoms which were quietly taken away. I think that in today’s political scenario where totalitarianism is sought to be passed off as the price for efficiency, it is particularly important to reflect on what we are giving up for what and ask ourselves whether it is worth it? Remember that social change is more or less permanent. Once it is done, it is almost impossible to undo. A change of government will only change the bottoms in the chairs; not the chairs or the mentality that comes with them. Let us choose wisely because our choice is about ourselves, not anyone else.

Every time anyone protested the State-Corporation reacted like its business model; put down revolts mercilessly; interpreting dissent as treason and punishing it accordingly. That’s why I don’t see Occupy Wall Street, Arab Sprung (not a typo) and the latest Women’s Protest in Washington after the Inauguration of President Trump and similar things as winds of change but as incipient rebellions which will be crushed. Sorry for the jaundiced opinion but I don’t like to fool myself or anyone else. The Arab Spring is a case in point.

Those who want change will have to do a lot more than marching in the streets.

Today the biggest crime is not what The Empire commits daily, openly and blatantly but to criticize the Empire. The saddest/funniest thing is to see this new morality being enforced; not by agents of the Empire but by stupid little slave leaders who don’t even realize what they’re doing. The victims are enforcing their own victimization. How convenient for the oppressors…you get what you want without the bad name that should go with oppression.

Of late we have been seeing many articles lamenting the role of the Press and Media in today’s society and complaining how it is no longer objective and principled but seems to be more a propaganda machine than anything else. I thought it therefore necessary to try to put things in perspective so that we can recognize what is really happening to our world. That way we will either take the trouble to change matters or at least see how entirely expected and appropriate the role of the media and press is, under the circumstances.

The play Mouse Trap is the longest running play in history. It has been going on since 1947. But strangely the ending is always the same. Now isn’t that very peculiar? Or is it really quite understandable because though the actors have changed since 1947, the script is the same and so no matter which actor comes, he or she is forced to speak the same lines and so the play begins in the same way and the ending is the same.

I would like you to remember this analogy while I recall a quick history lesson. Once upon a time there was a multi-national company, run from a warehouse in London where its Board sat. It sent out its managers at first to trade with Indian kings. They took permission to build trading posts, then permission to recruit a small force to secure their goods. Gradually these trading posts metamorphosed into forts, the security guards into a private army and the country managers into Governors. The enslavement of India was well on its way, before the Indian leadership such as there was, even woke up to the fact. That India was more a geography than a political reality at the time was no doubt helpful to those who had a more global view. Robert Clive, Country Manager, British East India Company, became the Governor General (notice the title and its implication) of India, annexed independent states and assassinated their legitimate heads and installed his own Agents to administer what had been in effect independent countries in their own right. All with the knowledge and tacit approval of the British Crown.

It was the so-called ‘Mutiny’ of 1857, which only the last of the Great Mughals, Bahadur Shah Zafar had the courage to call by its real name, ‘The Indian War of Independence’, that forced the British Crown to take a more active role. The slavery of India did not end however; we just changed our owners. Bahadur Shah Zafar was accused of treason and banished from the land of his forefathers. His three sons were shot dead in cold blood and their bodies stripped naked and left in the street with orders not to be buried for three days. So much for the great justice of the British Raj. Bahadur Shah Zafar defended his position and pointed out that it was he, who was the king of the land, not the British East India Company and so he couldn’t possibly have committed treason against himself. It was the Company Sahib (note the address of respect, enforced on India) which was the intruder into a land where they came to trade and stayed to rule. Of course, the plea fell on the deaf ears of the British East India Company’s judge and Bahadur Shah Zafar was banished from the home of his forefathers forever.  That is when he wrote his famous couplet:

kitnaahaibad_naseeb “Zafar” dafn key liye
do gazzaminbhinamilikuu-e-yaarmein

(How unfortunate is Zafar that even to be buried
He couldn’t get two yards of earth in the land of his love)

He was banished to Burma and died in Rangoon; even his grave there today is all but forgotten.

Cut to 2017; a century and a half later and what do we see? The names have changed. The actors have changed but the script is the same and so the play continues. The objectives are the same and so are the methods; grabbing raw material, fuel, land, labor, power and markets in any way possible using any means at one’s disposal and treating any attempt by the rightful owners at self-defense as rebellion, to be crushed mercilessly with overwhelming force. The foundation of this method is of course even more ancient. The industrial-military complex and its methodology for global domination is first recorded more than 2000 years ago, in the annals of the history of the Roman Empire. The Empire is long gone, but ideology outlasts its proponents and so the lessons have been learned and are being practiced. The centurion replaced by the present-day soldier performing the same role; following orders from on high, crushing all attempts at exercising local freedom.

The world however has changed in some ways, in that public opinion does have a bigger say in things, than used to be the case with the Romans or the British Empire. So, thought-steering evolved to a fine art. That and the art of influencing others by means of repeating a lie over and over. Lessons once again learnt from a master, the head of Hitler’s Propaganda Ministry, Goebbels. Only, we are not silly enough to actually call it Propaganda Ministry. Instead we call it the Free Press. So, the lie becomes the truth. The victim deserves to die and the law is a handmaiden of the tyrant, designed to give his every action the veneer of legitimacy.

The New World Order is well on its way to achieving its aim of global domination, called by yet another harmless, even benevolent sounding name, Globalization.

Just reflect a bit on this: what differentiates a Corporation from a Democracy?

Corporation

1. Hereditary or nominated head
2. Absolute authority of leadership
3. If people don’t like the leader, they must leave
4. Attempts at asserting equality, freedom or questioning decisions are seen as Opposition = Rebellion = Treason = Punishment = ‘Death’: Firing from the job
5. Master plan for everyone. Others must align to it
6. Freedom is anathema except for the top leadership. Everyone else is free only to follow orders, couched in nice language.
7. Test of success = alignment to values
8. Mark of a leader = Can break unions
9. Mark of a trouble maker = represents the people = Union leader
10. Inequality is accepted even expected
11. Corporations seek to influence consumers
12. Media/Press = the PR Agency. It sings the official tune, its success lies in its ability to influence minds by interpreting (not reporting) facts, it invents language to ensure that all official actions appear good and all opposition to them appears bad
13. Freedom fighter = insurgent/terrorist; dead civilians = collateral damage; genocide = ethnic cleansing; murder = encounter. Its job is to ensure that the establishment always appears to be noble, good, pious   and kind; no matter what it does. It can never be objective

Democracy

1. Elected head
2. Participatory authority
3. If people don’t like the leader the leader must leave
4. Collective bargaining and decision making is encouraged. Citizens participate in leadership. Questioning and Opposition: Signs of a healthy democracy
5. Participatory master planning open to change as necessary
6. Equality and freedom are sacred; supported and defended by the constitution
7. Constituents are citizens, equal participants in the future of the collective
8. Citizens are equal free and encouraged to influence the government
9. Democracies seek to consult citizens
10. Media/Press is the agent of the people. It gives them a voice, it encourages debate, it provides a space for national debate/dialogue, it encourages divergent ideas and ideologies, it reports facts and it questions authority and official decisions. It is the interface between the government and citizens and by its role it tells the government what the people really want or what they think of one policy or another. It keeps authoritative tendencies in check by its ability to expose them and redresses the wrongs committed by those in power.

Corporations see people as consumers. Democracies have citizens

I can go on but I won’t. I will leave you to add to this list as you wish. Those of you who have read Collins and Porras’, Built to Last will read with interest the reasons for greatness that they cite for what they call ‘Visionary Companies’. Among them; Total Alignment to a Core Ideology and Cult-like Cultures are most critical. The single most critical need for a Cult-like Culture is a profusion of mindless followers, who will do what they are told, without question. That is what alignment is all about. And incidentally that is what the fascist state also needs. The success of the corporation is measured by how it can increase shareholder value. This is a direct result of high profits through good margins or high volumes or both. Everything else is subordinate to that goal.

That is the reason why in British India, the British rulers forced the farmers of North India to grow indigo instead of food and precipitated a famine that resulted in more than one million deaths, but of course, not one of them British. But the commercial success of the venture justified the cost in human lives. Especially when they were not British lives but those of some nameless poor black people in ‘that colony of ours’. Similarly, to create a market for the produce of the cloth mills of Yorkshire, the vibrant textile industry of Northern and Central India was deliberately destroyed including the smashing of looms. Millions of small weavers were reduced to penury overnight. And the inferior cloth from Yorkshire had a free entry into the huge Indian market. After all, one must wear clothes, no matter their origin. It is not an accident that Gandhiji took Swadeshi as his slogan, burnt his British clothes and donned the dhoti. He used the spinning wheel as his symbol and spun thread and made khadi cotton cloth.  Unlike many today, he knew his history very well and was a master at putting his finger on the nerve that hurt the most.

Corporatizing of Democracy: The Totalitarian State

The ideal situation for the corporation is when the state becomes a corporation. Then the head of state is proudly called a ‘CEO’. Productivity is at the peak, trains run on time, there is no disruption of work, students study, workers work, teachers teach their subject exclusively, parents condition the next generation properly and all government is left to those who walk the corridors of power. Indeed, this is as it should be and all is right with the ant colony. It is not accidental that countries like China, Israel and even Pakistan have long had most favored nation status with the US/Europe but India (when we were part of the Non-Aligned Movement: what an appropriate name it was!) did not. Those were the days when the trade union movement was vibrant though for those who worked for corporations this was something of a problem. Then came the criminalization (totalitarian control) of trade unions by political parties who floated their own unions and eventually trade union activity became a memory.

The Corporation is interested in one thing only as I mentioned; maximizing profit. Social, religious or political ideologies are of no interest to it in any way except in terms of how they support its goal.

Above all the corporation needs order. It calls it by many names; peace, harmony, goodness for all mankind, but what it really needs is order. The fastest and surest way to create order is by the use of overwhelming force. Zero tolerance. All protest, debate, demonstrations, criticism and ‘confusion’ must be eliminated to get silence and order.

Corporations and corporate language finds immediate resonance in the military because many if not most of modern corporate thinking has roots in military command theory. That is the reason why if you read the history of the development of any fascist totalitarian rule, you will find that the first collaborators of fascist rulers are always industrialists, businessmen; in short those who run corporations. For it is they who understand and empathize with the fascist leader the best.

Corporations are the most undemocratic structures in the world and stand for the exact opposite of all democratic values. However now we have a problem. And that is, what do we do with public opinion if we express the truth as I have done? The solution is language. Say the same thing but differently.

So, the Voice of the Corporation (their Media/Press companies) talks of freedom (they mean freedom to obey), equality (you are exactly equal to the next man on the assembly line), meeting aspirations (provided you keep your head to the corporate grinding wheel for 30 years first), progress (corporate goals are being met) and welfare (good living conditions for the enforcers). Crime and patriotism are both redefined. Any action that seeks to slow down or change the corporate goal is a crime. Any opposition to official ideology is treason. Patriotism is not love of and loyalty to the country but loyalty to the government of the day. Criticism is defined as disloyalty. Curtailing of freedom and human rights are justified in the interest of security.

In order to get people to not just agree to their freedoms being curtailed and human rights being reduced and violated, terror is used by the state or its agencies so that fear crazed people will come running into the open arms of the police asking for protection and gladly ratify the most draconian laws which imprison their minds, tongues and actions. Security is inversely proportional to functionality. People are taught this valuable lesson so that they tamely accept hours of waiting for flights, strange security guards delving into their most personal belongings and their probing hands and eyes rampaging all over their bodies, ostensibly searching for hidden arms.

People who have learnt these lessons also learn to keep their mouths shut even if they don’t actively support legislation legalizing torture, murder, detention without cause and disappearances in the night. And those who don’t learn this lesson become examples whose fate enables others to learn.

Freedom of speech is a very well-rehearsed charade. The Corporate State allows you to say whatever you want and to hold demonstrations of as many people as you want. This serves two very important ends: it supports the illusion of freedom of speech and allows people a way of letting off steam so that there isn’t enough buildup to bring about fundamental change. This also allows the Corporate State the opportunity to identify potential threats to itself and to take care of them later once the noise has subsided and all the demonstrators have gone back to their TV screens and popcorn. Then the Corporate State does what it intended to do anyway. The Iraq war, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Tiananmen Square massacre in China are all good examples.

There are many others but I will leave you to think of them. The same is the case of Judicial Enquiries where compliant judges sign on dotted lines and the case is always closed in favor of the Corporate State. Ask, when was the last time that the State was indicted in a Judicial Enquiry and its agents went to jail?

The last thing that a Corporate State needs is a thinking, questioning, middle class that has options. So, it seeks to remove them and to change their situation where the people are completely dependent on the state which then becomes the best way of controlling them. Financial meltdowns, whether they are deliberately engineered or the result of excessive greed are a very useful tool to bring the middle class down to earth. It is the middle class which loses the shirt on its collective back and has its homes repossessed and suddenly higher goals like freedom, liberty and human rights have to be subordinated to the immediate goal of putting food on the table or ensuring a roof overhead. After the meltdown, the Corporate State steps in with its bail-out plans, all neatly packaged with a veritable spaghetti of strings attached. All sensible people fall in line. Those who protest or worse, seek to show others the reality are struck down, often by their own badly frightened compatriots. If they escape that fate, the Corporate State removes them from circulation for the common good, silently watched by the mute majority.

Ask, in the latest meltdown who’s suffering the most? Corporate heads who are responsible for the meltdown or the middle class who were their faithful employees? Ask, how is it that heads of corporations which went bankrupt went home with multi-million dollar pay and bonus packages? What are these rewards for? Ask, who are the direct and immediate beneficiaries of the bailout packages? Ask, how many corporate heads lost their jobs or suffered pay cuts or lost their homes in the financial meltdown? Ask, where were the decisions that created the meltdown taken; in board rooms or on the assembly line? Ask, but who is the one who lost the shirt on his back and the roof over his head?

The Corporate State is a great supporter of technology. It funds and supports without limit all research that enables it to control the people better and more powerfully. The official line of course is that this is in the interest of the people themselves to better be able to protect them from harm. Anyone thinking of raising his voice against more and more invasive surveillance is silenced by his own people. Some truly amazing technological developments are being mentioned. Bugs with solar powered cameras which will transmit real-time images and audio to a satellite which will beam it back to a central console monitoring the doings of the target group. The term ‘fly-on-the-wall’ suddenly has a very different and sinister meaning. Satellite maps that pinpoint your home, car and yourself exactly and can track your every move. Cell phones, credit cards, ID cards, retina scans all to identify you positively and to track your every move. Once again, I won’t go on.

The point is that the vast majority of research and development that is currently going on is not in the areas of health, food production, environmental protection, education or economic development but in the area of what is euphemistically called ‘security systems. In fact, these are not security systems but surveillance systems, control systems and more sinister systems which all dovetail to focus on the overarching goal of enhancing the hold of the Corporate State on the world.

What can we do?

What the Corporate State can’t stand is the light of day on its activities. So accurate reporting of facts, shining the light of enquiry on shady deals, asking the unasked, speaking the unspoken and raising your voice against injustice right at its inception, are all necessary. Technology today gives us the ability to do all of this without depending on the Corporate Media to give us space. Thanks to the internet, camera mobiles, smart phones and the ability to upload images and text from almost anywhere, it is possible today to ensure that at least those who are interested can see the side of the picture that the likes of CNN, Times, Fox and other mouthpieces of the establishment have been hiding.

Ultimately to act or to sit and watch is the decision of the individual. We can’t force anyone to act. What we can and must do however is to ensure that people have access to correct information so that they can make good decisions. What we can and must do is to ensure that critical questions are asked and brought into the debate so that people can demand more and better information from the agencies of the Corporate State.

Whether they get that information or not immediately is not the issue. When they start asking the questions this in itself will generate positive trends where citizens will stop acting like consumers and start to exercise some of their rights. The right to information is one. The right to justice is another. Freedom of belief and speech is another. I believe that as citizens of democracies, no matter how flawed, if we can enforce accountability by sharing information and asking questions we will have achieved a great deal in ensuring that men and women can still walk free in the land, long after we are gone.

Tumblr and the Cult of the Safe

Binoy Kampmark

Be aware of the titty. Or pudenda. Or anything else suggesting a copulative angle familiar to most adults with a decent constituency of desire. The world of Tumblr, home of the expressive identity and sexual subculture, has shrunk before the pressings of those averse to the flesh, and much more besides.  The theocrats around the world will be proud; puritans will be celebrating with book-burning (app ridding?) excitement. The cult of the safe will have asserted itself with ghastly certainty under the usual pretext of protecting people from the serpent’s apple.  In ignorant boredom, you are safe.

Two weeks ago, the sharing and microblogging site announced that it would be imposing a new set of guidelines.  Not that this would have surprised anyone plugged into the modern zeitgeist of virtual censorship. The platform has, at points, engaged in such grand acts of condescension as reverting to “Safe Mode” and removing any reference to explicit content. “If the service is still working for you but the Safe Mode is turned on,” wrote Vikas Shukla for Value Walk in November, “you can manually turn it off to enter the forbidden land.”

That, it transpired, was linked to claims last month that child pornography had waded made its murky way through the site’s filters, leading to Apple banning it from its iOS App Store.  The blow was so apparent as to make Motherboard remark that, “With its massive distribution and strict rules, Apple’s App Store has had a broad homogenizing and sanitizing effect on the internet.”

Mandatory in any such announcements is the preliminary salute to openness, a sure sign that it is about to be modified, if not done away with altogether.  “Since its founding in 2007,” comes the explanation from CEO Jeff D’Onofrio, “Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of the community and culture.”  The pensiveness follows. “Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr.” (The censors have been agitating.)

In true organisation agitprop, Tumblr claimed it had to change.  Community members were supposedly consulted, but evidently only certain ones.  “Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).”

This is telling: Tumblr has retreated into a world without adults, and embraced a childish, sex-free, or at the very least unsexualised space of engagement.  But it is far more than that: the platform will be a “safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community.”  The discomforting will be eschewed like the plague; the propagandists of safety will be heralded.

The company seeks to assure users that this new policy “should not be confused” with standard protocols on child protection, “including child pornography” which “has no place in our community.”  While all “bad actors” can never be prevented from using the Tumblr platform, “we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.”

The company admits, like all good censors both actual and prospective, that the task of “filtering this type of content” comes with its problems.  “Automated tools” are being used to “identity adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check.”

A parental note of apology prevails: we are aware you will be unhappy being restrained from seeing or doing certain things, and mistakes will be made.  When these happen, it “sucks”.  Daddy D’Onofrio is clear on this: if you wish to see subject matter featuring adult content, take your viewing, and loading habits, elsewhere.  We are playing happy families here in “creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.”

Many users reacted with the understandable rage of people forcibly infantilised, while also noting that other content – for instance stomach churning subject matter from the alt-right – remained permissible.  (Mammary glands insufferable; Hitler, not exactly fun but tolerable.)  Otherwise innocent posts were also netted, the result, according to the BBC, of “poorly performing algorithms”.

The company in its December 17 post, issued clarifications and adjustments.   Posts containing GIFs, videos, and photos in violation of the platform’s policy would not be confined to oblivion but hidden.  Such content would be flagged, in which case an appeal might be made.  To puzzled identitarians, Tumblr “will always be a place to explore your identity”, a home for the “marginalised”.

This has been something of a snag for the content filterers given the frequent excursions of troublesome sexual fancy, or matters of the body, that finds its way onto the site.  “LGBTQ+ conversations, exploration of sexuality and gender, efforts to document the lives and challenges of those in the sex worker industry, and posts with pictures, videos, and GIFs of gender-confirmation surgery are all examples of content that is not only permitted on Tumblr but actively encouraged.”  Where the policy fits with dull heterosexual matters is less clear.

The December 17 post also seeks to clarify, if somewhat clumsily, that “erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, specifically sculptures and illustrations, is also stuff that can be freely posted on Tumblr.” And if you want further details, breast-feeding shots displaying the nipple suckled will be fine, including “birth or after-birth moments, and health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery.”  (Such sanitised delights!)

The protests have been thickening the social media sphere, but these are about as confronting as damp lettuce in search of a colander.  There will be no street protests, and it is unlikely that a massive exodus from the site will be precipitated.  A Log Off Protest is being staged by groups wishing to avoid Tumblr for the first day of the ban, though it is unlikely to invoke the changes demanded.  Central to the digital sharing age is not enthusiastic diversity but inadvertent submission; the tech controllers intent on predicting and ultimately influencing human behaviour have become a modern priestly caste.

A sense of the amateurish revolt against these minders, revealing a child-still-in-swaddling-clothes mentality, can be found in a post insisting that the log off be for at least two days, if not seven. Don’t delete the app.  “Make noise elsewhere.”  Even think of using other platforms, but importantly “do not give up.”  Months might pass, maybe years “to make them realize that the adult band [sic] is bad.  That Nazis and bots will exist after this.”

The rage of social media is, for all that, quick fire and amnesiac.  The greater lesson in Tumblr’s approach is the realisation that the Internet and the world of apps, sharing and expression did not usher in an endless frontier of expression and engagement, but one as policed as any other.  Market your service as if to children, and be spared the trouble.

Massive collapse of UK housing built for “social rent” in last decade

Simon Whelan

According to government figures the number of new homes built for social rent in Britain has fallen by almost four-fifths in the past decade. This shocking state of affairs has developed as 1.25 million families on council waiting lists must reside in temporary and substandard accommodation.

Around two-thirds of those awaiting housing have been on the council waiting lists for at least 12 months. On average every English local authority has more than 3,500 families awaiting housing.

In Britain, homes for social rent are usually provided by local councils, housing associations and charities.

The data released by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government exposes how only 6,463 homes were built in England for social rent in 2017-18. These figures are substantially down from what was even then an already near post-war record low of just 30,000 a decade ago. At this rate it would take at least 170 years to build enough to house those currently homeless.

While the number of properties for social rent has fallen drastically, the overall number of properties constructed in England that were classified by the government as “affordable” rose by 12 percent last year to 47,355. The misleading title of affordable housing means rental costs are capped at 80 percent of local private sector rents. Unsurprisingly these properties, rather than ones for social rent, are preferred by the construction industry and local authorities because they are more profitable than building genuine affordable public housing.

Housing campaigners have pertinently asked regarding so-called affordable housing—affordable for who exactly?—and criticised the term affordable in these circumstances as a form of Orwellian newspeak. The rent rates for social rental properties take into account local incomes, as well as house prices, unlike the criteria for affordable housing.

The number of so-called affordable rent properties built has increased since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government came to power in 2011, inversely over the same period the number of social rent properties has declined. Approximately 57 percent of all new affordable homes built last year were for affordable rent, with only 14 percent for social rent. The rest are intermediate affordable housing, which includes shared ownership properties and affordable home ownership schemes.

Housing provision for working class families has declined precipitously since its peak in the 1970s, when almost half the population of Scotland and cities like Sheffield lived in accommodation rented from the local authority. The number of council homes in Britain has halved over recent decades and is now at its lowest level since the late 1960s.

In the immediate post-war decades before mass council housing was built by British local authorities, unscrupulous and criminal private landlords like Peter Rachman predominated. Rachmanite slums have returned to the UK today, only fifty years after they were supposedly destined to the history books.

Today in the fifth richest country in the world, millions of working class families and individuals suffer chronic overcrowding, damp rooms, faulty heating systems or lack central heating or hot water, have no double glazing and/or broken windows, electrical faults and exposed live wiring, leaky plumbing, unsanitary and even outside toilets and, in more and more properties, infestations of rodents and insects.

Savage cuts to the welfare system have pushed many people into “slum tenure” in the private rented sector, according to recent research conducted by academics at the University of York. One in three homes in the cheapest 20 percent of the housing sector did not meet the government’s own Decent Homes Standard. The stock found to be in the very worst condition was located in the West Midlands, where 40 percent of private lets were deemed “non-decent.”

More than 1.3 million homes rented from private landlords failed to meet the national Decent Homes Standard. In addition, many working class families have bought properties for which they can barely afford to pay the mortgage let alone maintain. Millions of homes need urgent remedial action and regular maintenance.

Because of the destruction and privatisation of public housing since the 1980s, more people live in private rented housing now than at any time since the 1950s and hundreds of thousands of these homes are unfit to live in. Housing-related health inequalities are estimated to cost the National Health Service £1.4 billion a year.

Declining home ownership and a shortage of rented social housing have seen a surge in the number of people renting privately—particularly families with young children. These children are denied the dignity of privacy, somewhere to study, a separate bedroom and frequently must share with siblings of the other gender in addition to all the social problems associated with living in some of the most deprived parts of town.

Growing numbers of other young people do not have any stable accommodation. Figures released by the Shelter housing charity show that 131,000 children in England are homeless, the highest rate in a decade. Of these, 9,500 are living in emergency accommodation like B&Bs, with the remainder in temporary accommodation.

The housing catastrophe is a damning indictment of capitalism. The scandalous shortage of affordable housing has been meticulously designed and orchestrated over several decades, and is now delivering exactly the economic and social conditions it was intended to. In the process property developers, the construction industry and increasingly local authorities—many run by the Labour Party—and companies established by former local government figures, rake in vast amounts of money.

Since the 1980s Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat governments and local councils have conspired to destroy much public infrastructure of which public housing is only the most obvious example. In a country where the population were told to take pride in its social safety net, “from the cradle to the grave,” essential services like housing have been gutted, financialised and turned over to the capitalist market.

In London thousands are eking out an existence in sheds, garages, barges and all manner of temporary buildings, as the capital has been transformed into a playground for the global super-rich and has more billionaires than any other city in the world. In some parts of inner London, property prices have exploded by 800 percent since the 1980s. At the same time working class people are socially cleansed from London or their public housing turned into a death traps like Grenfell Tower.

Whilst the crisis finds its highest expression in London the housing crisis is not exclusive to the capital. For example, in Greater Manchester—the second largest urban region in the UK with a population of nearly 2.8 million—social housing stock has shrunk by 5 percent in just the six years since 2012. Simultaneously, waiting lists and homelessness have rocketed in the region.

Since 1980, 92,000 council homes have been privatised under the Right to Buy legislation in Greater Manchester alone, and today some 85,639 households languish on council housing waiting lists in the region.

The explosion in social inequality in the UK can be seen in the proliferation of luxury private apartments going up in all major city centres. Central Manchester’s skyline is awash with cranes constructing dozens of private residential developments. At the start of the year, 11,000 flats were being built in 41 schemes, with more underway. Last month, Labour-run Manchester City Council and one of its private development partners, Renaker, celebrated a topping out ceremony for the new 60 storey South Tower in the Deansgate area of the city. Prices for apartments there will start at £390,000 and go to £2 million. Residents will have access to a private swimming pool, sports hall and tennis court. There is no social housing of any kind in the development.

Access to decent affordable housing is a basic human right, but under capitalism it is increasingly unavailable. The never-ending austerity programme, which has plunged millions into poverty over the last decade, exacerbating the housing crisis, must be reversed and billions spent to provide decent-paying jobs, free and high-quality health care, housing, education and social services for all.

The wealth must be taken from the billionaires and used to meet essential social needs. Only a socialist reorganisation of society can satisfy the desperate and growing need for decent housing for all.