Rent-a-priest.com

Came across this news item which led to this website that led me to read this article .

Quite illuminating upon the rise of Christianity and the power of the Vatican and the enforced celibacy of the priesthood :-

"...It began in AD 313, when the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity within the Roman Empire. With his legislation, the early Church evolved from a persecuted group of small communities to become the official faith of a world power under Emperor Theodosius in AD 380.Constantine’s intentions in adopting Christianity were not entirely spiritual. His position was being challenged by political groups; he needed to display his power. Forcing other politicians to become Christians was a test of their loyalty.Constantine used the new religion as an effective tool to weed out his enemies. It strengthened his political power. Constantine also was faced with unifying the many peoples his armies had vanquished. Christianity was the key to establishing a new Roman identity in the conquered peoples. On the surface he made them Christians to save their souls, but this new religion was his final act of conquest over them.

With Christianity now the official religion of the Roman Empire, many things changed very quickly in the Church. Priests from the small communities were given special social rank among their new Roman friends. They no longer had to hide from Roman soldiers and fear for their lives. Instead, they received pay for their services as priests and enjoyed special privileges in Roman society. Bishops were given civil authority and assigned jurisdiction over the people in their area. Romans, who were members of the local ruling elite, quickly converted to Christianity as ordered by the Emperor. These were men trained in public life and skilled in city politics. They became priests and rapidly moved into positions of leadership in the Church.These Roman politicians, with their newly acquired priesthood, brought the impersonal and legalistic attitudes of government to the Church. The celebration of the Eucharist moved from small home gatherings to what we now call "mass" involving huge numbers of people in large buildings. The celebration of the Eucharist became a highly structured ritual that imitated the ceremonies of Rome’s imperial court. This Roman influence is the source of our vestments, genuflection, kneeling, and the strict formality of Mass.An institutional Church structure emerged mirroring that of the Roman government. Large buildings, church tribunal courts, rulers and subjects began to replace the family-based small communities that were served by a local married priesthood. The new Roman priests worked to shift authority away from the married priests in the small communities and consolidate political power around themselves. With the assistance of the Roman Empire, Church leadership became a hierarchy that moved away from its family origins and into the Roman mindset of a ruling class that was above the people in the street. Other changes occurred that shifted emphasis away from the people and towards the preferences of the Roman politicians. The Church adopted the Roman practice of men alone holding institutional authority. There is solid historical evidence that women served as priests and pastors prior to this time..."

Later on in the early Middle Ages :-

"...In this growing atmosphere of power and legalism, certain medieval popes abused their authority. In the year 1075, Pope Gregory VII declared that nobody could judge a pope except God. Introducing the concept of infallibility, he was the first pope to decree that Rome can never be in error. He had statues made in his likeness and placed them in churches throughout Europe. He insisted that everyone must obey the pope, and that all popes are saints by virtue of their association with St. Peter. The hierarchy viewed married priests as an obstacle to their quest for total control of the church and focused a two pronged attack against them. They used mandatory celibacy to attack and dissolve the influential priestly families throughout Europe and the Mediterranean world. At the same time they claimed ownership of the churches and the lands owned by married priests. As landowners the medieval hierarchy knew that they would gain the political power they sought in every country in Europe. An additional benefit of land ownership was money. They now had the ability to collect taxes from the faithful and charge money for indulgences and other sacramental ministry.This practice contributed to the Protestant reformation and the splintering of the Roman Catholic church community in the sixteenth century.In the eleventh century, the attacks against the married priesthood grew in intensity.

In 1074, Pope Gregory VII legislated that anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy. Continuing his attack against women, he publicly stated that "...the Church cannot escape from the clutches of the laity unless priests first escape the clutches of their wives". Within twenty years, things took a turn for the worse.In the year 1095, there was an escalation of brutal force against married priests and their families. Pope Urban II ordered that married priests who ignored the celibacy laws be imprisoned for the good of their souls. He had the wives and children of those married priests sold into slavery, and the money went to church coffers. The effort to consolidate church power in the medieval hierarchy and to seize the land assets the married priest families saw its victory in 1139. The legislation that effectively ended optional celibacy for priests came from the Second Lateran Council under Pope Innocent II. The true motivation for these laws was the desire to acquire land throughout Europe and strengthen the papal power base. The laws demanding mandatory celibacy for priests used the language of purity and holiness, but their true intent was to solidify control over the lower clergy and eliminate any challenge to the political objectives of the medieval hierarchy..."

One World - One People 2

Further to my earlier blog , The Independent followed up with this story concerning the immigration from Eastern Europe . Most of the article was of statements by spokesmen of Big Business supporting the principle of the free mobility of labour within the European Union .
Strange bed-fellows for Socialists , indeed .

Immigration: The facts:-

600,000 people from eastern Europe have successfully applied for the right to work in the United Kingdom over the past two years. This means that they now account for 2 per cent of the country's 30 million strong workforce

62 per cent of the new workers have come from Poland

£2.54bn is contributed to the economy annually by eastern European immigrants in the UK

0.5-1 per cent of economic growth in the United Kingdom in 2005 and 2006 has been
contributed by migrants

70,000 migrant workers help with harvesting farms, according to the National Farmers Union

10 per cent of employees on Britain's building sites are from overseas - making a total labour force of up to 100,000 workers

80 per cent of new migrants are working people between the ages of 18 and 35. This offsets the tendency for the country's population to age, addressing the difficulties in providing for an ageing population. There is evidence that National Insurance contributions would have to be higher under lower migration scenarios

250,000 jobs a year are created by the UK economy. The economy continues to grow only because there is the population to carry such continued growth

31 per cent of doctors working in hospitals and general practices throughout the UK are migrants

13 per cent of nurses who are working in the UK were born abroad

12.5 cent of teaching staff working in schools across the UK are non-British

70 per cent of catering jobs in London are filled by migrant workers

13 per cent higher average wages earned by migrant workers (compared to workers who are not migrants) suggests that migrant workers are more highly skilled and more productive

The Poor Are Killing Themselves

Read this BBC news item

Ian Banks, president of the Men's Health Forum, said: "These figures confirm that social class is the biggest single factor for suicide among young men.
"It is almost exclusively among the lowest income families that suicide is taking place. The geographic distribution shown in today's figures reflects the social inequalities that exist in the UK..."

Scotland has the highest suicide rate in the UK, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
From 1991 to 2004 the suicide rate among men was 50% higher in Scotland than other UK countries, while the rate for women was double that of elsewhere.
During 2002/04 the suicide rate among Scottish men was 30 per 100,000 compared with 22.4 in Wales, 18.3 in Northern Ireland and 16.7 in England.
For Scots women the rate was 10 per 100,000 compared with 5.4 in England.
The figures published in the Health Statistics Quarterly showed the suicide rate among women in Wales was 6 per 100,000 and 5.6 in Northern Ireland.
The report said Scotland's highest rate of male suicide was found in Shetland, Blackpool for England, north Belfast in Northern Ireland and Denbighshire in Wales.

Suicide rates
For women the highest suicide rate in Scotland was found in Glasgow, Camden in England, Conwy in Wales and west Belfast in Northern Ireland.
In men, the highest suicide rate was found in the 15 to 44 age group from 1998 until the present day, while in women it was for those aged 75 and over.
Scotland had the highest suicide rate for men in all age groups over the same period.
It also had the highest rate for women aged under 75.
The figures show London had the highest rate of suicide for women aged over 75.

The SSP - Sheridan's Solidarity Party

So Sheridans new party will be called Solidarity . Now Solidarity Federation , the anarcho-syndicalist organisation will face the problems of identity theft , although they no doubt will increasingly call themselves SolFed to distinguish themselves . ( at least , it won't be an electoral feud between the two groups )

I wish Tommy Sheridan all success in splitting and splintering the Scottish Socialist Party , and hopefully the SSP will now quickly become defunct and once more we can again be the only Socialist Party on the ballot papers in Scotland , as it should be .
( Arggg, forgot about Scargill's Socialist Labour Party but i don't really think they will be able to stop the SPGB from being the THE Socialist Party at the elections )

As for Sheridan , the debate he has called for has not even extended to the name of the party by even providing options for the potential members to choose from when the inaugural meeting is held . He has decided upon it already , and , of course , also decided who the leader will be . And guess who that will be ?
If for over 2 or 3 years as he claims the SSP EC has not been reflective of the membership , he has to question how they were supposedly democratically elected to their seats on the EC . Which means he has to question the way his new party will be democratically organised .
I think we all know that won't be happening . Like party policy , the party structure will remain unchanged. How will Tommy avoid the Socialist Workers Platform and the Committee for a Workers International faction from contesting control ?

It ain't all over yet , is it ?

Katrina - An Unnatural Disaster

New Orleans-- We Shall Overcome

To remember Katrina ( with the music of Bruce Springsteen )

America's Poor

Released today statistics by the US Census Bureau that show that not much has changed at all for the poverty- stricken in America .

One in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Tuesday, releasing a figure virtually unchanged from 2004.

15.9 percent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 percent in 2004 and the fifth increase in a row.

37 million Americans lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income below around $10,000 (5,300 pounds) for an individual or $20,000 (10,600 pounds) for a family of four.

25% of blacks and 21.8 percent of Hispanics were living in poverty.
Among whites, the rate edged down to 8.3 percent from 8.7 percent in 2004.

Black median income, at $30,858 (16,300 pounds), was only 61 percent of the median for whites

17.6 percent of children under 18 and 20% of those under 6 were in poverty, higher than for any other age group.

Real median household income rose by 1.1 percent between to $46,326 (24,500 pounds) from $45,817 (24,200 pounds) -- its first increase since 1999.

The figures contained wide regional variations, ranging from a median household income of $61,672 (32,600 pounds) in New Jersey to $32,938 (17,400 pounds) for Mississippi.

Major cities with the highest proportions of poor people included Cleveland with 32.4 percent and Detroit with 31.4 percent under the poverty line.

A Postman of my Own Heart

A postman who advised people how to stop junk mail being delivered to their home could lose his job after bosses suspended him for misconduct.
Roger Annies composed and circulated a leaflet about the Royal Mail's opt-out clause for unsolicited mail during his rounds in Barry, south Wales.
With a new door-to-door agreement about to be signed with Royal Mail removing the limits of how many advertisments a postman will deliver in future , this innovative tactic of direct action by one of its members to reduce his work-load and protect the environment won't go down too well with our union leaders in the CWU .

TO STOP JUNK MAIL, CONTACT:
Unaddressed mail - Opt-Outs, Royal Mail, Kingsmead House, Oxpens Road, Oxford, OX1 1RX
Addressed mail - Mail Preference Service (MPS), Freepost 29, LON 20771, London, W1E 0ZT or call 0845 703 4599
Source: Postwatch

Not All Eastern Promise

The International Labour Organisation issued a press release today and much of it confirms that the working class in Asia are not reaping any of the benefits of a growing economy . It appears that the trickle down theory of wealth creation isn't exactly working .

1 billion "working poor" are living under the US$2 per person per day poverty line

330 million living in extreme poverty of less than US$1 a day

China labour productivity in manufacturing rose by 170 per cent between 1990 and 1999, while real wages rose by slightly less than 80 per cent

Pakistan experienced a decline in real manufacturing wages since 1990 - a drop of 8.5 per cent

India experienced a decline in real manufacturing wages since 1990 - a drop of 22 per cent in the latter. India's wage decline occurred despite an increase in manufacturing labour productivity of over 84 per cent over the same period - Deterioration in workers' livelihoods despite the increasing efficiency of their labour

The top six economies in the world in terms of annual hours worked are all Asian - Bangladesh, Hong Kong (China), Malaysia, Republic of Korea , Sri Lanka, Thailand - and a large share of people work 50 hours or more a week.- Long Hours

In Singapore females earn on average only 61 per cent of their male counterparts

2.6 million to 2.9 million workers in Asia have left their homes each year to work abroad

122.3 million working children - about 64 per cent of the global total

1 million workers are killed annually in Asia by work-related accidents and diseases

Union membership ranges from between 3 to 8 per cent of the labour force in countries such as Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia and the Republic of Korea, and 16 to 19 per cent in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.

Farewell Christiania ??

My memory of the free town of Christiania was no street lights and in the pitch black a pack of huge local dogs , menacingly circling , barking and growling , having scented strangers and i also remember that the hash dealers , sat at the tables with their brass scales , all being very fetching females .
I hope that the capitalists who are pressing for the end of Christiania , a "true anarchistic village democracy where every resident can take part in the decision-making" and hope to transform it into " part of the Danish society [that] conforms to the rules and regulations of the rest of the society...and introduce normal ownership rules in the area, requiring residents to pay rent." , fail in their endeavour , although i very much doubt it since Christiania is situated in "an area that comprises prime real estate in one of the world's most expensive cities." and we have seen how the housing developers and property speculators have gotten their own way everywhere else in the world .
Help save Christiania

I am a Stalinist

Ummm , not exactly . Not really a Stalinist , but i did come across one of the more concise and accurate descriptions of Capitalism and future Socialist society , and it was written by , guess who ? Uncle Joe .

" What is proletarian socialism?
The present system is a capitalist system. This means that the world is divided up into two opposing camps, the camp of a small handful of capitalists and the camp of the majority -- the proletarians. The proletarians work day and night, nevertheless they remain poor. The capitalists do not work, nevertheless they are rich. This takes place not because the proletarians are unintelligent and the capitalists are geniuses, but because the capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of the proletarians, because the capitalists exploit the proletarians.
Why are the fruits of the labour of the proletarians appropriated by the capitalists and not by the proletarians? Why do the capitalists exploit the proletarians and not vice versa?
Because the capitalist system is based on commodity production: here everything assumes the form of a commodity, everywhere the principle of buying and selling prevails. Here you can buy not only articles of consumption, not only food products, but also the labour power of men, their blood and their consciences. The capitalists know all this and purchase the labour power of the proletarians, they hire them. This means that the capitalists become the owners of the labour power they buy.The proletarians, however, lose their right to the labour power which they have sold. That is to say, what is produced by that labour power no longer belongs to the proletarians, it belongs only to the capitalists and goes into their pockets. The labour power which you have sold may produce in the course of a day goods to the value of 100 rubles, but that is not your business, those goods do not belong to you, it is the business only of the capitalists, and the goods belong to them -- all that you are due to receive is your daily wage which, perhaps, may be sufficient to satisfy your essential needs if, of course, you live frugally. Briefly: the capitalists buy the labour power of the proletarians, they hire the proletarians, and this is precisely why the capitalists appropriate the fruits of the labour of the proletarians, this is precisely why the capitalists exploit the proletarians and not vice versa.
But why is it precisely the capitalists who buy the labour power of the proletarians? Why do the capitalists hire the proletarians and not vice versa?
Because the principal basis of the capitalist system is the private ownership of the instruments and means of production. Because the factories, mills, the land and minerals, the forests, the railways, machines and other means of production have become the private property of a small handful of capitalists. Because the proletarians lack all this. That is why the capitalists hire proletarians to keep the factories and mills going -- if they did not do that their instruments and means of production would yield no profit. That is why the proletarians sell their labour power to the capitalists -- if they did not, they would die of starvation...
...There can be no doubt that future society will be built on an entirely different basis.

Future society will be socialist society. This means primarily, that there will be no classes in that society; there will be neither capitalists nor proletarians and, con sequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society there will be only workers engaged in collective labour.
Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers.
Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists -- there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc.
As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc.
It is also clear that future production will be socialistically organised, highly developed production, which will take into account the needs of society and will produce as much as society needs. Here there will be no room whether for scattered production, competition, crises, or unemployment.
Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power..."

Anarchism or Socialism Stalin 1907

I think this pre-revolution article he wrote puts paid to the idea that Stalin had no idea what Socialism was . He fully understood it . But like Lenin , he had to change his Marxism to fit in with the reality of what Russia was and what it was to turn into .
Engels does a good job of explaining this Bolshevik "schizophrenia" of how black became white and State-capitalism became Socialism .

"...The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions. He is bound to his doctrines and the demands hitherto propounded which do not emanate from the interrelations of the social classes at a given moment, or from the more or less accidental level of relations of production and means of communication, but from his more or less penetrating insight into the general result of the social and political movement. Thus he necessarily finds himself in a dilemma. What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination. In the interests of the movement itself, he is compelled to defend the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, with the assertion that the interests of that alien class are their own interests. Whoever puts himself in this awkward position is irrevocably lost..."

The Peasant War in Germany Engels 1850

One World - One People

The racists and Little Englanders are having a field day with the pending inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union with their claims that hordes of benefit scroungers will be flooding the country , and , of course , the Labour government have been fanning this xenophobia to disguise its own failings to provide adequate social and welfare services and hide the effects of their public spending cuts . The Independent ( 22 August 2006 ) , however , carried a more balanced article :-

The headlines ... and the truth

HALT THE TIDE OF EU MIGRANTS ... HIV CHILDREN BRINGING TIMEBOMB TO BRITAIN - Sunday Express, 20/8
Claim: Britain is confronted with an HIV time bomb when Romanian teenagers descend on our over-stretched health service.
Reality: There are 15,850 Romanians with HIV/Aids, according to the UN. Two thirds were infected while living in children's state institutions during the late 1980s. The infection rate is 0.7 per cent of the population - slightly less than in the UK.

EAST EUROPE MIGRANTS HELP TAKE JOBLESS TO SIX-YEAR HIGH - Daily Mail, 17/8
Claim: Unemployment has soared to its highest level for more than six years as thousands of workers arrive from eastern Europe.
Reality: While the unemployment rate rose last month, the number of people in work grew by 42,000 over the three months to March 2006 and by 240,000 over the year, to reach 28.94 million - the highest number of people in work since records began in 1971.

MIGRANTS GET BRITS' PAY SLASHED BY 50 PER CENT - The Sun, 18/8
Claim: Earnings of British builders and other manual workers have slumped by 50 per cent as a flood of east European migrants drives down wages.
Reality: The annual growth rate in average earnings excluding bonuses, was 3.9 per cent in June 2006, up 0.1 per cent on the previous month. Including bonuses wages grew by 4.3 per cent, up 0.2 per cent on the previous month.

UNCHECKED IMMIGRATION IS PUTTING BRITONS OUT OF HOMES - Daily Telegraph, 18/8
Claim: The unprecedented influx of newcomers has had an impact on the availability of social housing.
Reality: The shortage of homes in Britain pre-dates the arrival of east European workers. Accession state workers do not qualify for council housing.

CHEERS, WE'RE COMING TO RIP YOU OFF - People 20/8
Claim: Mafia chiefs in Bulgaria are plotting to flood Britain with heroin, prostitutes and guns when they join the EU in January.
Reality: The Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia-based think-tank, found the crime rate in Bulgaria was lower than the European average with crime rates falling by half between 2001 and 2004. It is now safer than Denmark and Australia.

HOW THE NEW FAGINS ARE BRINGING CHILD SLAVERY TO BRITAIN - Sunday Telegraph 4/6
Claim: The UK is likely to surge up the league of favoured destinations for trafficked women and children once Romania and Bulgaria join the EU next year.
Reality: The US State Department recently welcomed Bulgarian efforts to crack down on trafficking, offering witnesses protection and allowing suspects to be extradited to stand trial abroad. The number of trafficking convictions in Bulgarian courts increased nearly fivefold in 2005 - up to 34.

NHS AND SCHOOLS 'AT RISK FROM SURGE IN EU IMMIGRANTS' - The Times 31/07
Claim: A leaked government report warned that schools and hospitals will struggle to cope with an influx of people from eastern Europe.
Reality: Immigrants make up 8 per cent of the workforce but contribute 10 per cent of the UK's GDP. Ernst & Young reports they are net tax contributors - rather than a burden - to the public purse, easing the pensions bill through tax and keeping interest rates at least 0.5 per cent lower - equivalent to £500 a year on the average mortgage.

IMMIGRANTS TO FLOOD IN - Daily Star 24/07
Claim: Britain will be swamped by up to 145,000 poverty-stricken migrants from Bulgaria and Romania who are expected to flock here once they join the EU.
Reality: Think-tank the IPPR estimates 56,000 will arrive from both countries in the first year - 41,000 of them from Romania. A Bulgarian government survey revealed only 2.9 per cent of its nationals planned to migrate.

Solidarity Cross the Ocean

Pleased to see my one time fellow workers in Edinburgh Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World continue their proud tradition of proclaiming that an injury for one , is an injury to all with a recent picket of the Starbucks coffee-shop conglomerate in support of sacked IWW organiser , Daniel Gross . Starbucks , who are fully prepared to cheat and diddle its customers , have been resisting IWW attempts at unionising its coffee-shops

Solidarity Cross the Oceans

Solidarity Forever (Pete Seeger & The Weavers)

Reality TV Becomes Too Real

So at long last Big Brother has come in for criticism from the professionals but one which falls short of actually accusing the show of sado-masochism and the promotion of public humiliation . The British Psychological Society questioned the involvement of its members . "...The main areas of concern, was the possibility that "vulnerable people" had been included in this year's line-up and that psychologists may have been involved in the "deliberate stressing" of individuals..." . Televised mental torture tops the ratings . Consent of those submitting to have psychological pain inflicted is no defence under the law as upheld in regards to physical cruelty as S & M devotees have discovered . But of course the boundaries between torture and manipulative mind-games has been deliberately blurred by the acceptance of Guantanamo Bay interrogation methods by the State . With BB it was sleep pattern disruption or actual deprivation , controlled drug administration ( the copious amounts of alcohol provided to BB participants and the denial of nicotine on shopping lists as a punishment to addicted smokers ) , conflict- creating rather than anger-managing role-play games , the carrot and the stick punishment regime , competition versus co-operation , and of course the all- seeing 24 hour surveilllance . The real tragedy is that it reflects what real life is really like . TV shows are no longer escapist portals into fantasy but mirrors into our own very real world .

In America the reality show Survivor has now set ethnic group against ethnic group . "... 20 "castaways" would be initially segregated into groups of blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos...".
In the home of individualism and the land of individual achievement , the game-show will now involve as Hispanics Across America founder Fernando Mateo describes "The participants will be held to the daunting and unfair challenge of representing an entire race of people..."
Why not just call the programme "Race-War" .

But , it is one of Channel 4's future programmes that saddens me the most . A programme called Reverse Anthropology is to be made . Peoples from supposedly more primitive societies will be brought to the UK to study our own social behaviour . Reverse Anthropology will show how a tribe of Pygmies will survive a hunting expedition in the UK, then report their experiences. A tribe from the nation of Vanuatu might be in the program; the tribe worships the Duke of Edinburgh as a divine leader. The series will show some of our rituals - the gym, queuing, getting drunk on a Friday night, golf, showing a lack of respect to our elders according to the makers .
Just how heartless can we be in treating innocent and unsuspecting people as mere amusements for an evenings viewing entertainment . Removing them from family and friends and confronting them with a complicated and confusing modern technological world . Would the animal welfare charities permit lions or a zebras to be brought to this country and let loose to see how they adapt to inner city London instead of the savannah . Reminds me of those childish questions we would ask in school play-grounds ...what would win in a fight between say a polar bear and a tiger for instance , questions that were sometimes answered for real in the circus arenas of the Roman Empire

I once read the Forest People by Colin Turnbull . There is a section there , where he takes some of his Pygmy friends on a trip out of the jungle . At one point Turnbull points to a herd of buffalo several miles off in the distance but the Pygmies has no concept of perspective to judge size , acquired characteristics perhaps . On a plain necessary attribute but not in a densely wooded forest where limits of visibility is measured in metres . They believes the buffalos to be insects . And as they approached closer they still are unable to comprehend that they were looking at the same animals as before .

And why should we submit such vulnerable people to deliberate exposure to culture - shock . It's the ratings - "...Channel 4 hopes the series, due to air next year, will act as a counterpoint to programmes like BBC Two's Tribe, which sees Bruce Parry explore different cultures from around the world...". And what's ratings ? Revenue . Money . Profits .
How far down this sick road can TV go ?

The Communist Manifestoon

Communist Manifesto illustrated by Disney


An introduction to Marx and Engels 1848 seminal work using what may be a little easier medium to understand their key points .