Shadow Commander: Iran’s Military Mastermind

Check out this BBC documentary from February last year (on BBC iPlayer for 26 days). I suggest you watch if interested in the current crisis (and history of region) following the killing of General Qassem Suleimani by the Americans last week.

If the programme is accurate (and I think it is broadly so) he was responsible for the deaths of many British soldiers in Iraq but he also assisted in the Bush/Blair invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and the recent destruction of ISIS in Syria and Iraq which probably saved British lives.

I won't shed any tears over him but have no doubt that Trump has done this to improve his election chances and not for a better world.

"If you think terrorism is the biggest threat to the West, you need to watch this video

While not pretending that there is not a significant risk let us examine facts not emotion.

- Such as far more people were murdered by terrorism in my youth than now?

- Such as 24 Americans were murdered by terrorists between 2005 and 2015 but there was over 300,000 Americans killed by guns during the same period.

- You were therefore 12000 times more likely to be killed by guns than terrorists

- Last year more Americans were killed by toddlers with guns than by terrorists

- ISIS and the Far Right have the same aim to panic and divide us.  They are all fascists.

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July 4: Happy Birthday British Revolution (and 122nd anniversary of election Keir Hardie as first Labour MP)

The 4th July is a special day on both sides of the pond. Today is celebrated as "Independence Day" in the USA.

The American War of Independence (1775-1783) was of course the only successful "British revolution" there has ever been. In the beginning at least the "rebels" thought of themselves as British, fighting for their traditional rights against a despotic monarchy.

To my right is the first version of the American flag.

It was also on 4 July 1892 that the first independent Labour MP, Keir Hardie was elected for West Ham South.

Picture is from a tour of Stratford Town hall organised by West Ham Labour Party on July 4th 2012 to mark the occasion.

The count and declaration was held at the Hall in 1892.  

"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country"

I think many people will be surprised that an American President ever said such a thing. But it makes perfect sense. 

 

I recently discussed a national living wage with someone who argued that a living wage rate was okay for a rich area such as London but not for poorer regions such as the South-West of England. He argued it would destroy jobs in those poorer areas.

 

Thinking about it now I should have argued "why?". If it was legally binding to pay a living wage and all companies had to pay it then there would be no competitive advantage to pay poverty wages. The introduction of the national minimum wage showed that a wages floor does not destroy jobs.

I would go further than FDR and make it clear that a living wage should also include pensions, holidays and sick pay but perhaps that what he meant by "the wages of decent living". 

"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of decent living."

 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933".