What the Papers Say

The scandals spewed up by the capitalist system would fill volumes But there's no need to search through obscure financial journals to find them. Just flick through the newspapers published on any average day Take last Sunday, 11th October, for example. Financial and business scandals enough to sicken even lukewarm socialists fill column after column of all the usual Sunday papers on that day.

One paper tells how slick Rolls Razor genius John Bloom cleverly lost £13 millions of his share holders', salesmen's and employees' money before he was thirtythree years old. Now Bloom is cash -ing in on his incompetent welshing by selling the story of his swindles to the ''People'’ newspaper and by writing a book. It is characteristic of capitalists to make their crimes pay even in failure. And mugs will buy his book to find out how it's done.

Sunday's papers also reveal that the American Gramco Company has diddled its 23,000 investors out of 50 million dollars. All the sharp manipulators involved, like the late pseudo-Irish President Kennedy's press secretary Pierre Salinger, can bluff it out and will doubtless emerge unscathed. But the small investor lured by capitalism's promises of easy wealth gets his finger burned. This is the getditched-quick society.

The ''Sunday Times" exposes the immoral methods by which cigarette companies are swindling smokers. Cigarette prices rise while tobacco content falls. Filters lengthen while fags shorten. The main swind: lers are Gallahers of Belfast and Ballymena. They have reduced the tobacco content of their ''Cadets" brand by 73% since 1969. But they haven't reduced the price. If you Members of the G.A.A., as we smoke their "Park Drive Plain" you're getting 34% less weed for the same 4/9d. ''Senior Service Extra'' are far from being extra. In fact, they now contain 63% less tobacco than a year ago. Smart boys our local fag fiddlers! And like any “good capitalist they swindled the Inland Revenue (that is you and me and all the other taxpayers) out of one million pounds duty during 1969 alone simply by cheating on the weight of tobacco they put into their cigarettes. We Irish capitalists can show those English smart Alecs a whiff or two.

Another Sunday tale is that of dear old Reggie Maudling, No.2 in the Tory party who still holds shares in the suspect ''Real Estate Fund of America" run by an evasive smoothie called Jerome D. Hoffman. Or you can read of the fiddling of Bernie Cornfeld whose "Investors Overseas Services" bleeds to death, as they so charmingly say in financial circles. It bleeds to death the mugs who invested in it as well.

Sunday's papers all tell how financierEllis Seillon, Chairman of Stanley Weston Chemists, Mesco Consolidated Industries etc. was arrested on Saturday and charged with fraud involving £4 millions.

The peculiar financial juggling with Harland and Wolff's shares gets some space but it's so complicated and painful for the Ulsterman to read that it's just greek to him. Morasses for Anassis.

And all this smelly mess of cupidity, stupidity, and perfidy comes from the newspapers of one single average Sunday.

Do you still think capitalism works? Still fancy the "liberal" Alliance mob pledged to keep the system going? Jobs for the boys but shares for the mugs!

Bobby Seale (Arrow 9/-d.)

Bobby Seale is the Chairman of the Black Panther Party in AmeriKKA. He was the defendant in the Chicargo conspiracy trial/farce who was gagged and bound in his chair for continually protesting that he had a constitutional right to defend himself. He was then sentenced to 4 years in jail 'contempt of court'. (Come back Walmsley, all is forgiven). At present he is facing a trumped up murder charge which is part and parcel of the forces of 'law and order' in AmeriKKKa to wipe out the Black Panthers - over 40 murdered by police in the last 18 months.

In this book he tells of the formation of the Black Panthers by Huey Newton, its development, its political programme, its analysis of the racism in the U.S. today, its attitude to defence (armed), the repression against it, its present organisation and methods. Although many people in Britain reading "Seize the time'' may be put off by the repetitive language - 'pig', 'motherfucker', 'right on’, 'off! (meaning kill) etc. , we should realize that this is the current idiom of the day in the States and that the book is written for the black in the ghetto, not the middleclass theorist in his comfortable house. We may also disagree sharply with some of the tendencies in the Pan-ther movement, such as the hero worship given to such reactionaries as Kimm Il Sung of North Korea, and Nkrumah, now in exile, but it is desirable that socialists should read this book, for there is much which we can learn from it. The Panthers are one of the most important developments in the left in AmeriKKKa today and their courage and determination are an inspiration to oppressed people all around the world. This is the