Blogs

New report on the state of the worker's movement in China

China Labour Bulletin published a report based on a study of 100 different workers' protests, which found that workers there are becoming more effective in organising outside union structures.

Covering two years of struggles, the study found the following trends:

Quote:
* Workers took matters into their own hands. Bypassing the largely ineffectual official trade union, they used public protest as a means of forcing local governments to intercede on their behalf. And, in many cases, workers were successful.

Wendy and Lucy, directed by Kelly Reichardt

This beautifully judged rites of passage (non-) shaggy dog story combines searing critique with genuine pathos.

Growing Pain. Film review – Tom Jennings

Recent events in China (July)

Taxis strikes, environmental protests, sit-ins and the aftermath of other events previously reported on libcom.

Two taxi strikes in the last week, in north and south east China. One in Heilongjiang:

http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?cat=2&&id=3949
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/30/content_11797814.htm

And a more aggressive one in Zhejiang:

http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?cat=2&&id=3926
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/29/content_11794282.htm

Sources for news on Asia

I'm going to be posting links to news from Asia (mainly China and Taiwan) for me or others to write up later. For reference, here is a list of sources I currently use to find news.

Most are corporate news, many controlled by the Chinese state, though some are independent or connected to NGOs. The list is mostly China centred.

Goldacre: 'Argument is about capitalism, not food '

organic food

Ben Goldacre points to the analogies between the 'organic' food argument and the BigPharma vs homeopathy/'alternative medicine' - mainly that all niches will be filled under capitalism.

Ben Goldacre, of Bad Science fame, reports on the Soil Association's response a recent Food Standards Agency (FSA) report on organic food. Goldacre says the FSA's report shows "that organic food is no better than normal food, in terms of composition, or health benefits".

I blame the parents!

youths

Popular media coverage often lays the blame for youth problems at the feet of parents. New report shows that contrary to received opinion, parents actually take greater interest in what their kids are up to now and monitor their activities more.

You know what it's like, you turn on a radio phone-in show or watch some soapbox commentator on TV talk about the rise of 'anti-social crime' or 'youths misbehaving' and you don't have to listen longer than two minutes before someone embarks on a hysterical rant with 'you gotta ask, where are the parents?' and starts whinging about the 'DeCl1Ne oF f@mILee VaLeWs!1!!!1!'.

State of Play, directed by Kevin Macdonald

State of Play’s pretensions to contemporary relevance break down into a bungled bog-standard retro-romp, finds Tom Jennings

None of the President’s Men. Film review – Tom Jennings

Impressions on the commute

For the last three months I've been spending a good portion of my time in commute-land, a rattling, faded bastion of middle-class conservatism and low-level lebensraum crammed into the 08.30 from Norwich to London.

Hopefully, this is soon to come to a blessed end and I can start waking up in a London bed, with London traffic and London impoliteness to look forward to as I make the jump from Suffolk buh to City cynic. Which makes this a good time to have a think about exactly what I learned on the trip down.

I think first and foremost I learned that commuting is a practice best reserved for the world's middle-management, as punishment for the shit they subsequently impose on the rest of us.

In the Loop, directed by Armando Iannucci

Venturing out of Westminster reveals the limits of The Thick Of It’s satire, concludes Tom Jennings

The Thin of It. Film review – Tom Jennings

Endgame, written by Paula Milne, Channel 4

Fact-based South African television drama? Emphatically not, says Tom Jennings

Liberation Chequemate. Television review – Tom Jennings

MMA and straightedge - nazis fuck off

Don't you hate it when you're into stuff and complete pieces of shit are into it too?

This is a just a rant about something that's bugged me recently - the appearance of openly neo-nazi bands using straightedge as part of the platform for their poisonous message.

Hoax academic articles, media meddling, and problems with 'open access' as it exists.

Some recent hoax articles are demonstrating the flaws in the control of information and particularly academic publishing. A recent hoax demonstrates that, so long as you are willing to pay, you can get anything published, even computer generated mumbo-jumbo. And if you can't pay, you either don't publish, or the company owns the product of your labour. Open access isn't as open as it seems.

Not quite as lol-worthy as the 'Sokal hoax' but certainly a nice effort is the story of a recent hoax paper submitted to, and accepted, by an open-access information science journal.

Five Minutes of Heaven, by Guy Hibbert, BBC 2

Tom Jennings is disappointed, but not surprised, at this drama reducing the legacy of the North of Ireland Troubles to personal therapeutics.

Troubles Shared. Television review – Tom Jennings

The Wire, by David Simon and Ed Burns, BBC 2

Tom Jennings endorses the accolades accorded to ground-breaking American TV drama The Wire – but with reservations.

Wired for Sound and Fury. Television review – Tom Jennings

The Red Riding trilogy, based on novels by David Peace, Channel 4

Tom Jennings detects much of the hellish intensity of David Peace’s ‘Yorkshire noir’ in Red Riding[’s television adaptations, but with its most subversive elements lost

This Septic Isle. Television review – Tom Jennings

Acpo chief, you're one low-expectation-having motherf*cker.

A quote piece by the Times from Sir Ken Jones, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers reminded me of Chris Rock's most famous, and funny skit.

Sir Ken was responding to a lightweight rebuke over protest policing tactics from the under-fire "Independent" Police Complaints Commission when he remarked: "I saw some of the footage last week of whole groups of officers being hemmed in. Nobody wants to talk about that now. Those officers behaved really well, they acted with restraint.”

Ben Goldacre 'Steal This Chapter'

Steal This Chapter

Joseph K's 'favourite liberal', NHS doctor and science writer Ben Goldacre has written about bullshit medical research, bogus science reporting, the placebo effect, and everything else from postmodernism to evolutionary psychology.

He's just made available the missing chapter from his Bad Science book, in case anyone's interested.

Not-so-fat cats: How the rich got thin

I came across an interesting Daily Mail article today (yes it does happen occasionally), which says that fat women are unfairly excluded from top jobs. Now the idea that sexism exists in the workplace, particularly at higher levels, is a bit of a no-brainer, but it got me thinking...

In amongst the statistics from the survey used for this piece came a couple of interesting notes:

Quote:
Up to 61 per cent of top male bosses were found to be overweight, which is higher than the U.S. average of 41 per cent among similarly aged men.

Libcom.org joins International Communist Current

Today, as the international bourgeoisie comes together at the G20 conference, we can inform our readers with happiness of a great coming together of the international proletariat, because as a result of deep discussions held with patience over the past two years the libcom group have been integrated into the International Communist Current and formed the online editorial section of the ICC internationally.

Thus libcom.org is no longer the publication brought out by a small number of militants in one country but is the publication of an organization centralized on the international level.

Anarchist literature and distribution

Distribution of anarchist literature has been a major difficulty for decades, and recent improvements to a range of products has repeatedly been held back by this fact. what can we do about it?

Having a soft spot for the anarcho-punk magazine Now or Never!, I listened avidly today to an interview between Resonance FM anarchist talk show host Ian Bone and the magazine's editors, Tug and Harry K.

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