BABYLONIAN TIMES
THE FAT OF THE LAND
Sealed in the hermetic world of capitalism in which profit is the end and destruction the means, it’s nice to see that corporate-driven ills require corporate-inspired solutions. Back in July, the Department of Health announced a new programme to groom the nation into sleek, sculpted and healthy citizens in time for the Olympics (and, of course, the gaze of the media). As reported by the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7522685.stm), the DoH’s Change4Life initiative, publicly launched at the beginning of January, is set to be backed by support worth £200 million over four years from an industry consortium headed by the Advertising Association and including such estimable purveyors of healthy, unprocessed food stuffs as Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Mars and Nestle.
Baroness Peta Buscombe, the scheme’s chief executive, claimed, “Business is part of the solution to tackling obesity in the UK”. She neglected to mention the central role that fast food companies play in promoting and enabling a sedentary, office- and sofa-bound populace to consume a vast array of processed foods, themed around various permutations of corn starch, sugar, salt, fat and the odd vitamin enrichment. This coalition’s “strong statement’’ that it is ‘‘committed to working with government and the voluntary sector to transform the health of the nation and be a force for good” couldn’t be a bid to avoid compulsory legislation on clear and standardised food labelling and the curtailment of advertising and fast foods aimed at children, could it?
HUNGRY FOR PR As a neat corollary of the absurd, Pizza Hut (soon to be renamed, with a healthy glow, as Pasta Hut) and KFC teamed up with the UN’s World Food Programme in October to launch the World Hunger Relief Campaign. Some of consumer capitalism’s kings of highly processed ‘food’, it seems, are coming to save the world’s increasing numbers of hungry. Undoubtedly a great PR opportunity for Yum! Brands (a network of over 35,000 restaurants, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers, Taco Bell and A & W, operating in 112 countries with operating profits totalling US$1,357 million in 2007), the partnership represents UN’s increasing promotion of private sector partnerships in a year in which the numbers of people seeking WFP support rose to 97 million and rocketing food prices were fuelled by the self-same private sector, through corporate land grabs for feed and fuel, rampant speculation on grains and cereals, and high oil prices. PROTECTING GM, THE MILITARY WAY Reviving the fortunes of a discredited industry and presenting GM as a salvationary technology to ease the pains of corporate-created economic and food crises may seem perverse, but it seems our political leaders, agribusiness and a handful of scientists have a mission. With the biotech industry bulldozing its way to back acceptability, or inevitability, Porton Down, the UK government’s secretive site for military science and home to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, has been proposed as a ‘secure’ testing site for GM crops. Proposals for ‘secure’ testing sites have been backed by calls to demonise and punish anti-GM activists using tactics deemed successful against animal rights protestors, the Independent reported in mid-November. With steely determination to turn GM into an agricultural reality in the UK and Europe, the government’s willingness to consider military-level protection for GM trials has been complemented by proposals to revoke the law on disclosing the location of GM trial sites. Dark times, indeed, with the Dark Prince himself, Peter Mandelson, as Business Secretary, at the helm. However, the fact that our wondrous benevolent political and corporate leaders are on the back foot, resorting to extreme and underhand tactics, is also a resounding testament to the immense strength and success of anti-GM grassroots campaigning, hostile public opinion and determined direct action.
HUNGRY FOR PR As a neat corollary of the absurd, Pizza Hut (soon to be renamed, with a healthy glow, as Pasta Hut) and KFC teamed up with the UN’s World Food Programme in October to launch the World Hunger Relief Campaign. Some of consumer capitalism’s kings of highly processed ‘food’, it seems, are coming to save the world’s increasing numbers of hungry. Undoubtedly a great PR opportunity for Yum! Brands (a network of over 35,000 restaurants, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers, Taco Bell and A & W, operating in 112 countries with operating profits totalling US$1,357 million in 2007), the partnership represents UN’s increasing promotion of private sector partnerships in a year in which the numbers of people seeking WFP support rose to 97 million and rocketing food prices were fuelled by the self-same private sector, through corporate land grabs for feed and fuel, rampant speculation on grains and cereals, and high oil prices. PROTECTING GM, THE MILITARY WAY Reviving the fortunes of a discredited industry and presenting GM as a salvationary technology to ease the pains of corporate-created economic and food crises may seem perverse, but it seems our political leaders, agribusiness and a handful of scientists have a mission. With the biotech industry bulldozing its way to back acceptability, or inevitability, Porton Down, the UK government’s secretive site for military science and home to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, has been proposed as a ‘secure’ testing site for GM crops. Proposals for ‘secure’ testing sites have been backed by calls to demonise and punish anti-GM activists using tactics deemed successful against animal rights protestors, the Independent reported in mid-November. With steely determination to turn GM into an agricultural reality in the UK and Europe, the government’s willingness to consider military-level protection for GM trials has been complemented by proposals to revoke the law on disclosing the location of GM trial sites. Dark times, indeed, with the Dark Prince himself, Peter Mandelson, as Business Secretary, at the helm. However, the fact that our wondrous benevolent political and corporate leaders are on the back foot, resorting to extreme and underhand tactics, is also a resounding testament to the immense strength and success of anti-GM grassroots campaigning, hostile public opinion and determined direct action.
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