Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 19:08:21 -0800
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Class consciousness


Doug Henwood wrote:

> Mark, I agree that the RCP-GB stance on ecological issues is about as wrong
> as anything can be, but I don't see what would be fruitful about continuing
> to hammer James Heartfield over the head. Shouldn't we try to figure out
> instead what kinds of political adn technological changes would be
> necessary to avert catastrophe, and at the same time improve the material
> lot of the world's poor?
>

Doug

     Heartfield's politics, as Louis Proyect says or implies, are fraudulent.
Many years ago I was a shop steward in a school where asbestos was found.
Meetings were held. The asbestos manufacturer -- can't remember what they are,
huge MNC -- addressed meetings of worried parents, teachers etc. They brough
shop stewards from their factory with them. The factory was a in a company-town
in Yorkshire called Hebden Bridge, i think. They were going to lose their jobs.
They asked us not to be so hasty (we had the edcuation authority close the
school while it was all removed). These poor chaps, my fellow-stewards, were
clearly being imposed on by their disgusting, geredy employer, or else they
were merely cynical, altho I don't think you get very cynical being a manual
labourer in an asbestos plant, just morose I would guess.

I would say that Furedi/Heartfield are in the same position as the asbestos
employer, when they recruit Indian villagers to defend their spurious claims.
I don't feel inclined to say nothing in the face of this sharp practice. 

On their TV show, their spokesmen were all people like Fred Singer, the
notorious and totally-discredited 'expert' employed by Shell, Mobil and the
Global Climate Coalition. People who front for big corporations and the
political right ought not be tolerated among us, IMO, and their claims to 
represent something 'progressive' should be exposed.

But at the same time I agere with you that we should be thinking about real and
relevant alternative technologies, and about the politics of dealing with the
inevitable transition (for better or worse) to a post-fossil fuel economy in
the next century. I shall continue to post on that.

Mark




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