Since last summer we have seen a widespread debate about the pros and
the cons of GM products. There are people for and against GM products from all
the different political shades. The bourgeois papers have been very keen on
giving voice to different people in the debate. What is missing, however, is a
class point of view. No one poses the question from the point of view of
ordinary working people.
On December 23, 2003 the US government officially acknowledged the outbreak of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in a herd of cattle in the state of Washington.This is officially the first case of mad cow in the US, but is in reality the second case of an outbreak in the integrated Canadian and US cattle industry. The farming and cattle crisis is at root a reflection of the crisis of capitalism worldwide and a result of "globalization".
Once again Tony Blair
and the Labour Cabinet are prepared to take on the wider labour movement and its
own natural supporters in imposing the unpopular policy of top-up university
fees. Will they get away with it this time?
In Gordon Brown’s recent Budget Report for 2003 we are told that "social
justice" is the aim of the Blair government. A closer look at official
statistics shows that the opposite is being achieved.
The festive season in Britain got off to a grim start with the discovery of two
pensioners who died weeks after their gas supply was cut off because of an
unpaid bill of £140. These events happened, not in 1840 but in our own times.
The Office of National Statistics predicts that 2,500 people will die of cold
this week. The cause of these deaths is usually attributed to things like
influenza, heart attacks, pneumonia and the like. But the real cause in most
cases is poverty and neglect.
Someone has said that one of the criteria for winning the Turner Prize is not to be understood. The philosophy behind this is: the less I am understood, the better the art. Yet the kind of art that wins the Turner competition also has merit. They have the merit of holding up a mirror to the society that produced them, and saying: “This is what you are, and this is all you are capable of producing.” These works point out to us that beneath the sleek, comfortable bourgeois surface of modern society, horrors are lurking: dead vermin, murder, death and decay.
Voters in the north of Ireland have delivered their verdict on the
Stormont Assembly. As we have consistently explained the Good Friday
Agreement, and the institutions of devolution associated with it, could
never begin to solve the problems facing ordinary working people no
matter what their background. Indeed the divide between Catholics and
Protestants has never been wider. The election result itself
demonstrates a further polarisation in the shape of Paisley’s DUP
becoming the main Unionist Party, while Sinn Fein overtook the SDLP as
the main Nationalist party.
Following last months unofficial strike action by postal workers
management seem to have been put temporarily onto the back foot. This
is in marked contrast to the period following the recent narrow
rejection of a national strike over pay and conditions. At that time,
Royal Mail management could not conceal their pleasure. Cockey
jumped-up managers all over the country engaged in a new offensive
against the workforce. Top managers were bragging that they had the
full support of the government, the DTI and Patricia Hewitt in
particular.
This is how history is made. Hundreds of thousands of protestors flood
the capital demonstrating their opposition to a President who holds office
thanks to a rigged election. They demand democracy, they demand their voices
be heard, they demand that the President go. The biggest weekday demo in
British history greeted the visit of George W. Bush. Meanwhile in Georgia, a
President and not just an effigy was overthrown.
On Tuesday November 18th, President George Bush arrived at Buckingham Palace
for a three-day state visit, complete with red carpets, banquets and cannon
salutes. Outside the palace gates, a huge security operation was under way. Some
5,000 British police officers were on hand to protect the president, along with
the 700 or so secret-service agents Mr Bush brought with him. More than 200,000
people participated in the biggest weekday demo in the history of Britain to
protest at his visit and to cheer the symbolic toppling of his statue.