Info, news & debate
Independent media
If the BBC advertises Tesco, why is there a licence fee?
Just listened to a ten-minute advert for Tesco on ‘You and Yours’ on Radio 4, masquerading as news. I have some questions:
A small key can open a large door: why we should all know what’s happening in Rojava
I don’t believe that any ethnic group anywhere in the world can truthfully claim that they have never carried out atrocities against another group. Every nation has been victim and perpetrator at some time.
Great opportunity to work with the wonderful ‘Stir to Action’
Stir to Action is a community organisation that publishes a quarterly magazine, runs workshop programmes and short courses, produces how-to resources for setting up co-operatives and community enterprises, commissions original artwork and facilitates social economy start-ups.
Should the TV licence fee be scrapped?
It’s a tricky one. The argument for the licence fee (and one that I used to subscribe to until I watched the Panorama corporate propaganda piece – see below) is that the Beeb produces drama of a quality not found anywhere else.
Hats off to Brandalism for exposing corporate greenwash
Genius campaign by a group called Brandalism. They managed to get around 600 spoof but corporate-looking adverts all over Paris in time for the climate talks. The fake ads were the work of 82 artists from 19 countries, and they parody the companies involved in sponsoring the climate talks.
There are plans to water down the Freedom of Information Act; here’s what you can do
In the great state/corporate battle against you, the latest round is an attempt to water down the Freedom of Information Act (other major assaults are TTIP and the Global Redesign Initiative). This is the act that brought you the MPs’ expenses scandal, and the fact that the UK government worked with chemical corporations to block …
What I learnt about US Middle East policy and the international oil market in a kebab shop in Tooting
I learnt something about US foreign policy (or more accurately, corporate foreign policy – this has nothing to do with the American people) in a kebab shop in Tooting – or rather, I didn’t so much learn about the foreign policy as how events that are largely unknown to most British people are common currency for …
Why Panorama’s GM propaganda was false, there is no food shortage and we don’t need GM to feed the world
Did you see the BBC’s Panorama on monday, promoting the GM (genetic modification) industry? Here are four reasons their message is just pure propaganda on behalf of the corporate sector.
How would you rank these in order of importance: truth, happiness, justice, freedom?
It’s the next readers’ question in Philosophy Now magazine (much recommended, by the way), and when I saw it yesterday, I had a very strong reaction to it that has big implications for Lowimpact’s position on sustainability and democracy
Art and the apocalypse: do artists and writers have a duty to raise the alarm?
Sometime last year I took my youngest son for a walk along the beach. I’d been reading an article about climate change and the acidification of the oceans. Bad timing you might call it.
The elephant in the room that will be present at all pre-election debates
Last night I attended an event organised by our local Transition group, Transition Town Tooting, where local people were able to meet and chat to parliamentary candidates for the upcoming general election.
Are we ‘silenced by economic power’? Paris 2015 and the Hartwell Paper
In December 2011, South Africa welcomed the United Nations Framing Convention on Climate Change. The host city was Durban, where a number of years before, and just after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela had
BBC: ‘Only by increasing productivity can we improve the quality of our lives’. Do you agree?
It’s a quote from an economist invited in to comment about the UK economy on the BBC World Service earlier this week (it doesn’t matter who – this is a point that virtually all economists agree on, to the shame of the discipline).
It’s not possible to demonise people any more, in the age of the internet
Western populations have to kept in a state of fear, so that weapons corporations can continue to make huge profits. People of America – this is your latest enemy:
Sneaky marketing: heads-up for anyone with an online presence
Here’s the incomparably wonderful Bill Hicks on marketing. If you don’t know him, just put his name into YouTube. You’re in for a treat.
Our award for most misleading and mendacious article of 2013 goes to MoneyWeek’s ‘End of Britain’
You may have seen a sensationalist video called ‘the End of Britain’ that’s been doing the rounds throughout 2013. It’s a flashy, authoritative-looking video, and well it should be, as it’s produced by MoneyWeek Magazine
Do you think you live in a democracy?
You can’t change anything by voting. Or, as Emma Goldman put it: ‘if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal’. Politicians can rearrange deckchairs but they can’t steer the ship away from the iceberg
Who says green/spiritual/progressive ideas aren’t represented in the mainstream?
When we complain that green/spiritual/progressive ideas are not represented in the mainstream, let me tell you about the Jonathan Ross show on Saturday night (and you can’t get any more mainstream than that – it’s the epicentre of mainstream).