Actuarial calculation
Public sector unions are responding to the concerns of their members over the pensions robbery. The more people know about it, the more likely they are to be angered by it.

Also there is a freedom of information issue. The government's sums are based on a cynical calculation. Teachers who work to 65 will die younger and therefore cost less in pensions. The government must have access to actuarial calculations on this. They should be made public.
(This presupposes actuaries presenting the information in a form which mere mortals can understand of course!)

The worm has turned (for now)
Now the teacher union leaders, once lukewarm, have turned around and endorsed a one day strike over pensions - urging members to vote for that option

If someone is being robbed and they have the temerity to shout out "stop thief" it makes no sense to stand around saying "oh dahling that is so seventies."

People are reluctant to take strike action for a number of reasons but now that Sinnott has been elected as leader of the union (I voted for Martin Powell-Davies) and now he is calling for action it is best to take him at his word.

Union leaders do not have to be "soft on Blair and soft on the causes of Blair". Let's see how far we can push them. It is an election year. Do that New Labour canaille want a massive public sector strike or do they want to stop bullying and start being sensible?

Excellence revisited
Even further back in the day: Men used to queue at the dock gates. A chargehand would appear before the shift was due to start and chuck a handful of tickets in the air, the men would fight sometimes to get the jobs available. Only the "excellent" ones got in.

As long as the owners could keep the dockers fighting amongst themselves they would never have to raise their pay.

If teachers spend all our time bickering amongst ourselves we will stand about as much chance against this ruthless and dishonest government as...shall we say...the People's Front of Judea?

New model army
Mr Tony Blair's latest stunt is to seek to involve NATO in the training of "new Iraqi security forces." The idea is to have a colonial model of security with Iraqi cannon fodder taking the risks and American and European advisers giving the orders. It is a policy which has been tried before. There is a name for this policy. President Nixon used to call it "Vietnamisation of the war".
It didn't work.


Apparently limb amputations have been carried out at Abu Ghraib prison. According to Time Magazine:

"Medical personnel and others who worked at the prison tell TIME that, with straitjackets unavailable, tethers--like the leash on Gus--were put to use at Abu Ghraib to control unruly or mentally disturbed detainees, sometimes with the concurrence of a doctor. That such a restraint-- which is supposed to be placed around legs, arms or torsos--ended up instead around a man's neck seems to be a case of a medically condoned practice degenerating into abuse. But there was also medical disarray at the prison: amputations performed by nondoctors, chest tubes recycled from the dead to the living, a medic ordered, by one account, to cover up a homicide. That in itself would have made Abu Ghraib a scandal even without the acts of torture inflicted on the inmates by their guards."

Excellence
The government's latest stunt is to call some teachers "excellent" and pay them more, instead of paying all teachers more. By implication most teachers do not deserve more money.
The TES website debate included the following contribution from a teacher:
"Back in the day, Enoch Powell met a delegation of nurses. He told them that they were wonderful people doing a job which really made a difference to their patients. They were angels of mercy. So they had better forget any nonsense about trying to get more pay because they would tarnish their image. (Or to put it another way the newspapers would make damned sure it was tarnished).

"Lavish words on the teachers - they don't cost anything. The "excellent" ones are defined as those who can be relied on to denigrate the rest."

The new website for Socialist Party teachers is now up and running on http://www.socialistteachers.org.uk and has articles on this and other matters including government proposals to rob teachers of their pensions.

Sex Ed - Ignorance is Strength
I have been reading today's Observer which has a whole article about the American sex education program for kids - which just tells them not to have sex. Apparently there is a survey by Yale which shows that 80 percent of them go ahead and have pre-marital sex anyway and they are more likely to get sexually transmitted diseases because they don't know about safe sex. Oh well.

Also Bush is giving 5 million dollars of the 15 million dollars allocated to fighting AIDS in Africa to fundamentalist campaigns against sex.

It sounds a bit like the junior anti-sex league in Orwell's 1984.
Still "Ignorance is Strength" goes along with "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery".

Phone taps
"Good morning, how are you? It's Osama Bin Laden here, we have a list of places we would like you to bomb this week, have you got a pencil?"
Is it likely that terrorists operate in this way? Or is it more likely that cells operate without direct communication with the centre so that phone tapping is of no use?
If so I wonder why the police are so keen to use them. Could it be that although terrorists may not be easily caught by phonetapping, peace activists or trade unionists - any legitimate protester or whistle-blower - may be less canny?
The state has blatantly used anti-terrorist legislation to target anti-capitalist and peace protestors who could not be described as terrorists by any sane person.
If they take away our rights, there will be nobody to protest when they take away yours!

Racism Ignorance Prejudice
Howard has caught the BNP in the shower and nicked their clothes. Realistically, if they want to deport all the immigrants they would have to wade through blood to do it. The holocaust worked because people (except at Treblinka) stood in line to be killed. They will never make that mistake again.
Howard knows full well that the BNP agenda cannot be carried out. He does not want to carry it out. He just wants their votes.
And I repeat the question which has been raised before. Where are the rivers of blood Enoch promised us all those years ago? Were they just lies to cultivate fear?

People fear "the number" of immigrants. This may be because they estimate between 18 and 28 percent of the population are immigrants. These are the "facts" these are the "common sense numbers" they are working from. In fact the figure is a bit less than five percent.

Racism
Ignorance
Prejudice

RIP

Auschwitz
The BBC correspondent at the memorial service at Auschwitz was visibly moved. The whole idea of the death camps is just so hard to get your head round and words seem inadequate.

Men don't cry but what else are they supposed to do?

The world leaders gathered to commemorate Auschwitz but there has to be a pinch of hypocrisy in everything they do. They wage war. They spend billions on weapons while people still starve..

I would rather listen to the voices of ordinary people. The survivors with their complex human emotions, the ordinary German civilians who honestly didn't know what was being done in their name.

I also remember the Nazis hated disabled people, gay people, trade unionists, Roma people...the list goes on. Asylum seekers would be on the list these days.

Debate on TES website
A perfectly serious debate on the TES website included the following light-hearted contribution:

"What is it with you guys?
You drive German cars,
You eat South African or Israeli oranges,
You drink tea or coffee which is really hard to grow in the Home Counties
Half of your TV is made in America
....yet as soon as you see an immigrant you hide under the table. Grow up FFS"