(I’m heavily editing this, but the reason I’m doing it is I think it’s important for you to see and I want rjones2818 to get the credit he deserves for it.- ek)

Original page via newsocialist.org.

Che’s life humorous?  Let’s see beyond the break!

Original Article, sub-headed After seven days of bloody war in the Caucasus and growing tension between the US and Russia, John Rees asks what is it about the new world order that has made it so prone to warfare?, via socialistworker.org.uk:

There is one fundamental thing that is common to capitalism in every age that makes it a uniquely violent system. It is not a marginal or accidental part of the system but something that is part of the very definition of capitalist society. That thing is competition.

Uh-oh!  Competition being bashed…must restrain from shouting ‘USA, USA, USA.’  After all, isn’t our competitive spirit what made us greater than everybody else?  Isn’t competition what makes our ‘free market’ system of capitalism work so well?

The first original article, titled Renters caught in the housing bubble (by Adam Turl) via socialistworker.org:

EVEN THOUGH it was hard, Patricia and Michael Phillips kept up on the monthly $600 rent. Both are disabled–Patricia can’t use her right arm, and Michael is in a wheel chair–and both depend on Social Security payments for their limited income.

So they were shocked when the local sheriff’s department turned up at their front door in July and told them they were to be evicted by the end of the day. Their landlord was being foreclosed on–and even though he hadn’t been paying the mortgage for months, he had been cashing their rent checks.

Original article by Mick Brooks via Socialist Appeal.

Hedge funds are in the news again. They don’t much like being in the public gaze. We wonder why. Does their speculation cause prices to go up? Do they drive firms into bankruptcy so workers lose their jobs? These are the questions being asked. Let’s see what they get up to.

John Edward’s favorite financial instrument is quite complicated.  Mick Brooks looks at hedge funds and how they impact our lives.

Original article, subheaded The Mindlessness is Total, via counterpunch.com.

Pervez Musharraf, the puppet installed by the US to rule Pakistan in the interest of US hegemony, resigned August 18 to avoid impeachment.  Karl Rove and the Diebold electronic voting machines were unable to control the result of the last election in Pakistan, the result of which gave Pakistanis a bigger voice in their government than America’s.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.  You can read him regularly at counterpunch.com and antiwar.com.  He’s become one of the sane voices on the right (not that he doesn’t have tons to answer for being a member of the Reagan administration).  If you don’t read Roberts, you should!

Original article, and editorial/news release, vial Socialist Appeal:

On Wednesday 20th August up to 150,000 public sector workers in Scotland will be taking unified action on pay. GMB, UNISON and Unite members will all be on strike because local government workers have been offered a measly 2.5% a year deal over three years. This after the Cost and Price Index published last week shows the cost of living going up by 4.4%. This sudden jump has called the government’s bluff. Everybody knows the CPI doesn’t reflect the real increase in prices we face.

Here in Indiana, our public sector workers aren’t officially able to collective bargain.  It’s up to the whim of the governor if they’re allowed to (I belive they were able to for a bit before Mitch became governor, but he took it away from them).  Indiana, home to Eugene Debbs, Mother Jones and other great labor leaders, is a right to work state.