The food problem
The lunatics are most definitely running the asylum. This Week, Next Week (BBC1. 6 April) devoted one hour to a studio discussion about the problem of food surpluses. You see, there is too much food in Europe — 14 million tons of EEC grain is currently locked away in store and by 1990 the grain surplus is predicted to reach 90 million tons Minister of Agricultural Lunacy, John Selwyn Gummer, stated that "Now we're producing too much . . . it's damaging the rest of the world, especially the poorest people" Funny that: I thought that "the poorest" people were dying in their millions for lack of food. Grain production has increased from two to four tons an acre in a very short time, moaned NFU spokesman David Naish. and this is causing major problems. Indeed, it seems that the British government is now storing beef in secret warehouses in London — Gummer admitted that this was the case but not one of the experts presented proposed that this beef and grain and all this other "surplus" food should be available immediately for free access. Had someone made such a suggestion — the idea of forgetting about money and profits and the nonsense of the market and producing food solely to eat — they would no doubt have been dismissed as a utopian crank. So the lunatics proceeded to think of ways to solve the problem of food over-production and the starving continued to starve and we have no doubt that Selwyn Gummer and the company had a pleasant Sunday lunch when they left the studio.
Make ’em work
This was the title of a Panorama programme (BBC 1. 7 April) about new policies in certain states of the USA to make it compulsory to work for the state before any welfare payments are granted. In Oklahoma it is compulsory for single women to seek work, even if they have given birth within the previous two months. No work, no payment — no payment, no money to spend — no money to spend, no food for them or their children. It's known as Workfare — a better term is wage slavery In West Virginia unemployed miners are forced to sweep the streets or help the police force as uniformed agents of coercion if they want to receive benefits. So much for the "land of the free" In California unemployed wage slaves are forced to go on courses designed to "make them want to work for wages". In the room where this course is being run is a large sign saying "THINK EMPLOYER". What can be better for capitalism than to educate the working class to be desperate for wage slavery to take whatever jobs are on offer — to look at themselves at all times from the angle of how exploitable they can be? In Britain young workers are already pushed on to YTS schemes where they are ripped off because of their economically insecure and unprotected position. How long might it be before "Workfare" is tried on the unemployed of Britain? Watching this programme showed just how unfree and vulnerable to economic coercion the wage-slave class is.
An orange fool
World In Action (ITV, 7 April) offered an introduction to a political leader who is arguably crazier than Ian Paisley. Peter Robinson, an MP who has close links with the para-military UDA, was shown to be a calculating, bigoted nationalist who is quite happy to let workers stone and kill one another for the sake of obsolete national aims. Robinson was asked why he attacked the IRA for its murders when he failed to criticise the recent violent rampages of the Loyalist thugs. We can answer the question: under capitalism a leader needs to be a committed hypocrite who will justify the indefensible when it is being carried out by his followers for the sake of his political interest. Anti-working-class leaders like Peter Robinson would not know a genuine political principle if it smacked them in the face Unfortunately for the workers of Ireland, it is they who are receiving the body blows and not well-protected, well-salaried stirrers of sectarian hatred like Robinson.
Update
Readers who followed our reference to the C4 Diverse Reports programme which was given over to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers" Party will be interested to learn that Channel Four have felt unable to deal with our complaint of being excluded and have passed our message to the IBA. We await their considered response.
Steve Coleman
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