Phallacy of Free Market is revealed

This is the global empire of monopoly capitalism, which plunders the world's resources to stuff the bank accounts of Western billionaires.

Meanwhile, a third of the world's population are living in absolute poverty.

West's hidden famine

Every year, 150,000 American women starve to death - voluntarily. Over 10% of the UK's female population have eating disorders and a recent survey by Swansea University revealed that 25% of 5-7 year old girls considered themselves "too fat". When women gained the vote eating disorders were a rarity. As the fashion, beauty and diet industries flood the media with a fictitious ideal of female beauty, 'deaths from dieting' have increased in proportion to advertising spend.

So why does the media continue to glorify the thin, wasted and often falsely created? Maybe it's because it keeps us buying more and more useless products in a bid to resemble an ideal only available with the help of an airbrush or the surgeon's knife.

Of all the national press only the Morning Star came close to reporting events at the Saturday 12th April 'March For Social Justice' in a way that reflected the balance of what happened. Their headline "Dockers demand jobs and justice", followed by "more than 20,000 people poured into central London at the weekend to demand social justice for the sacked Liverpool dockers" at least attempted to report what had been a demonstration, a party and a celebration of unity for a wide range of groups. This paper was also the only one to report a single word from the many speeches that afternoon.

The rest of the media clearly had a different agenda, focusing on a few ritualised skirmishes, vastly exaggerating them and then using them in an attempt to create division and dismiss the whole day's events.

The police, attempting to manage the media coverage of the day announced, at a press conference they called on Friday afternoon, that the event would be violent. This was then reported as fact by a number of papers with one having the headline: "anti-road militants spent weeks planning their bloody breakaway from London protest march". A spokesperson for Reclaim The Streets responded to this by saying, "the idea that a group who have carefully built up links with the dockers, including going to Liverpool to support their picket, would then organise a riot on a march they've called is sheer fantasy." In addition to this, many papers, using a police press release, reported that three people from the demonstration had been arrested for attempted murder; but what most then failed to say was that they were released without charge six hours later. In an insidious attempt to sow division it was also alleged that dockers and their supporters left early in disgust at the behaviour of Reclaim The Streets members , who had hi-jacked their event . In fact they left to catch coaches due to depart back to Liverpool.

The media created a 'virtual riot' where a few bottles thrown, often in response to police charges, was reported as a full-scale riot, a 'riot frenzy'. How then does one account for this virtual riot? Could it be that the media reduce real life to a vacuous spectacle because this sells more papers? Or do they, as part of the dominant structure, see any dissent as a threat and therefore use their power to misinform the public, and to divide and misrepresent movements of opposition?

The strength of the common bond between striking workers and radical greens has not been diminished by hostile and lazy media coverage. Billy jenkins of the Liverpool dockers shop steward committee said It was a marvellous day organised jointly between the liverpool dockers Reclaim The Streets and other environmental groups and if anyone hijacked the march it was the police. The only way forward is to get together more and more, speaking for the dockers, we can t wait to organise our next joint action.

The signbite riot and no amount of disinformation can wipe out the memories of the 20,000 people who will remember the joy and festivity of the day, long after the police hyped media spectacle is forgotten. What the papers missed - a riot of a party

COMMENT Groucho Marx once said "humour is the first retreat of the cynic". But as optimist we devoted only our front page to humour. The election is the defining moment of our so called democracy . Ever more hideous it confronts us like a huge advertising war between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Both claim to be the real thing and as the campaign piles farce upon farce it becomes clear that if our problems have solutions they lie outside the parliamentary fray. Martin Bell standing against Sleaze", summed up feelings felt by a lot of us "There's been a poison in the democratic system, which means the democratic system is unable to operate." There are many poisons in the democratic system - the whole notion that democracy is about representation and not direct participation for one.- and that putting a cross on a piece of paper every five years is the limit of our democracy are poisons enough - but another poison has emerged, one that eats at the heart of the concept of democracy, the fact that power is rapidly shifting away from our locally "elected representatives" towards unaccountable bodies such as TNCs and financial institutions.Bodies who exist to replicate money and to maximise their profit at any cost, and who have no other interests. Democracy has been sold to Corporate culture and we and the ecosystem are all paying the heavy price.

MP's in Sun shadow Wednesday 26 March and for the first time in the ten day old election campaign the Tories seem to be making some impression on the opposition as Labour head into trouble in its campaign over the issue of trade union rights. The next day The Sun publishes its revelations about the sexual misconduct of Piers Merchant MP, information it is believed to have known since February. The result? The Tory campaign is knocked into a swamp of sleaze for another week and Labour is left with a much needed 'window' of time in which to regroup itself. Coincidence or yet another example of the transnational media abusing its influence to insure its own omnipotent position in any future power structure? Political parties, governments and corporations have long realised the awesome power of the transnational media to sway public opinion, summed up by The Sun in its own infamous headline "It's the Sun wot won it!" after the 1992 general election. The political allegiance of the Media giants is a potent weapon for any political party and is too valuable to sacrifice for such principlesas the rights of the citizens of this country to an independent, free and democratic press. It is clear that since his meeting with News Corp executives in Australia in July 1995, Tony Blair has reassured Murdoch that any Labour government will refrain from legislation which would threaten Murdoch's grip on the British newspaper industry. Nor will Labour undermine with regulation, the monopoly that Murdoch's BSkyB holds in the UK. Blair might now have the political backing of the most widely read newspapers in the land, but he must remember that the Media Moguls are highly skilled opportunist and the same power which could take him to No 10 could also be used to devastate his government if the Tories suddenly seem a better deal. Political parties cannot solve the ecological and social problems we face, but millions are taking things into there own hands. There is a world wide movement which is reaffirming the local and is utterly opposed to the Dollar measure of life. From the workplace struggles against casualisation to the millions of Indian farmers protesting against G.A.T.T., From anti-roads campaigns to fights against hospital closures, people are fighting back and creating alternatives to the death of democracy.

NATIONAL DISASTERS        WORLD HEALTH         GLOBAL WARMING

Since 1950 - the world economy has expanded 5 fold. What this means is that in each of the five decades since 1950 we have added more things to the planet (dug more mines, built more cars, houses, roads, hospitals, airports drilled more oil, made more objects, more packaging, more computers, more telephones, more supermarkets and on and on) than we had from the moment the first stone axe was carved around 30000 BC right up to 1950! Every 10 years we have added more stuff than in the last 32000 years! As a "Healthy" economy is one whose only aim is growth, then there is no stopping this process until the planet reaches its limits, which according to most scientific studies will be some time within the next 30 years. DRY FACTS: This spring has been the driest since records began, 230 years ago. The Thames was so low this week that pleasure boats could not sail up to Hampton Court. Thames water loose 38% of its water through leakages - thats 396 litres per day for every household in the region! World demand for water will double in the next 21 years. CORPORATIONS AND NATIONS: 50 of the top 100 economies in the world are actually Transnational corporations. This includes British Petroleum, whose turnover is greater than that of Portugal and Shell, which has a greater turnover than Greece and the Czech Republic combined. Power no longer resides with government or nation states but with large transnationals and banks. Climate Change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and gas will get worse - within the next few years 36 countries will be covered by water and 100 million people forced to leave their homes. Over £100 billion is spent every year to subsides power stations that add to Global warming. Only 34% of the energy potential of electricity generating fuel is transmitted to the customer