1st of May
by ronyl on November 29, 2010
It’s the 1st of May, so here’s The Internationale!
Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We’ll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
unites the human race!
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we’ll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They’ll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We’ll shoot the generals on our own side.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
unites the human race!
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E’er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we’ll strike while the iron is hot!
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
unites the human race!
Lion Heart
by ronyl on November 29, 2010
Nine years old Saleh Khalaf from Iraq was running home from school, together with his sixteen years old brother Dia, on the 8th of October 2003. Seven months had gone since the US troops had invaded his country in “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Things hadn’t settled yet, although life was bettering.
About four kilometers from school, Saleh stopped. He’d seen something in an edge of ditch. A khaki-colored ball, small and shiny. He bowed down, and picked it up. One of his school friends screamed and began to run. Saleh understood what he was holding in his hand. Tears began flowing down his innocent cheeks. Dia came running to aid him, but when he was three steps away, the explosion roared wildly in the air. Small Saleh was in the middle of it.
In a miraculous way Saleh survived, however he had lost both his hands, one eye and his stomach had burst open. The path back to life would be both long and painful.
Think you’ve had a hard day? Think again…
by ronyl on November 27, 2010
It might be one of those days in which everything seems dull and tiresome. As you come home, and sit down to relax, a single thought passes through you mind: “What a hard day!”. I suggest you think again, because the working conditions of the average worker in Europe or the US is nothing compared to what other workers, shockingly enough, has to experience in neo-industrial and underdeveloped countries – and international corporations are to blame.
For example, in China workers are forced to work 12 to 14 hours each day earning as little as 31 cents an hour producing products for Puma, an international corporation. In other words, it’s clearly unacceptable that such a world-wide known corporation ignore important human rights in favor of profit. It is even further degrading that the worker has no rights at all, and can’t in any way assemble themselves in unions and other ways. Why hasn’t the international community addressed these conditions in any way?
I think this quote from the National Labor Committee’s website adequately display how wrong things are: “Puma is making a net profit of $12.24 per hour on each worker in China making their sneakers. Annually, Puma is reaping a profit of $38,189 on each worker. In a single factory, Puma’s profit from the workers can reach over $92 million a year. It is the workers in China who are actually paying all of Puma’s bills, including the $206 million a year Puma spends on advertising. Puma spends $6.78 to advertise a $70 pair of sneakers-almost six times the $1.16 that they pay the workers to make those sneakers.”
The most frightening thing, however, might be the fact that Puma Corp. is only one of many other corporations in which working conditions are just as worse in China and other countries. It might be one of the better pictures of what influence globalization has on our society, and an even better picture of how corporations allow profit to be far more important the quality of human life. It’s obvious that Puma can raise the wages of their workers and still have high profit from their sales. That might at least give the worker’s a chance to stand up from the extreme poverty they have no other choice than to live in.
If conditions for workers all over the world are to be better, the initiative lies within the international corporations and the international communities. When the corporations fail to take responsibility for the better of human life, and instead exploit workers for profit, the international community must speak up with a critical voice. Wages must be raised and conditions bettered. Human life should not be measured in money and profit in our modern society of today. It is time things change for the better.
