UC62 December 1983 - January 1984 by Christopher Squire

ost communes are NOT hippy dope scenes or gurus exploiting innocent babies. That's just the media trying to sell papers to bored suburbia. There are a t least 100 commui ies in Britain already - why don't you,live in one? Someday most people will live in communes -why are you waiting? ecome part of the future join the culture of the future vou don't have to live in a bedsit you don't have to get married 'cos there's nothing else to do get lots of friends and work for your own leave the fossiled culture of the past All you have t o lose are your chains stop worrying about your security learn t o make friends instead So what, you make mistakes those who don't take risks don't learn 8 s o what, you're shy so what, you're scared who's running you if you know it all already, go back to sleep

why lock yourself in a house with one person, wh

Worried about the standards of the local school? Why not join a commune and run your own school? Stop thinking about communes - join one Stop being put off by problems solve them So what, the first one collapses learn from it and make sure the next one is better send off for more information else you'll always be trapped by fear Alternative Communities Movement you only live once 18 Garth Road, Bangor, N.Wales 0

No groans, no wingeing this issue, because quite simply money doesn't touch us any more. True it passes us by, but there are compensations. The staff (see left) are knocking back Worcester Sauce in the office, cavalierly priming their kidneys for the festering season. Your eegw correspondence must be held up. Or it is the niggardly behaviour of our postman who for some reason never has time to check the Paddington rail depot for the crate. We think self-reliance has come of age (see mag pages 1-32), so we may well start writing our own. We feel and are told however that kudos in these worrying times is filling in surveys. It is plainly a very unfoggy thing to do. We have one. (Page 19).Please use it And fill i t in, we should like to see the result. We'd also like to see you, all tho& especially who enjoy writing editorials, emptying bins, sensible journalism, exchanging ideas, paying the m i t . . . o n t o thebackpage

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HORNY AND SEDUCTIVE I a m writing t o tell y o u h o w disgusted I was b y t h e p h o t o graph o n t h e subscription f r o m o f UC 61. E x p l o i t i n g animals is b a d enough, but f o r god's sake - w h a t is t h e m e a n i n g o f s h o w i n g a topless w o m a n ? A n d w i t h such a n expression? Where d i d y o u d i g up s u c h a f o u l p h o t o graph, o r d i d y o u a c t u a l l y get someone t o pose f o r y o u ? T h e m i n d boggles. I c a n o n l y assume : 1. t h a t y o u r brains were fogged a f t e r a l o n g night's paste-up, o r 2. t h a t someone sabotaged the copy, o r 3. t h a t y o u ' r e all a b u n c h o f sexist pigs a n d t h e sooner y o u r r a g collapses t h e better. I a w a i t y o u r p a t h e t i c excuses w i t h interest. B.Carrington Bath ( E v e r y o n e o n t h e collective w h o I ' v e s p o k e n t o agrees t h a t i t was a s i l l y a n d c h i l d ish thing t o d o . F o r t h e record, I saw t h e o r i g i n a l p h o t o g r a p h a n d c a n assure v o u t h a t t h e w o m a n is &dly f u l l y dressed imlike the rhino. B u t I k n o w t h e p i c t u r e is misleading. Ed.)

r- - - - - - I A Co-operatively- run 1

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variety, many rare. Send stamp for lists t o Philip Royal (UC), 19. Ollertor. Green, Old Ford, London E32LB.

COURSES HANDWEAVING in Pembrokeshire (weekly Apr-Oct) on secluded organic small holding. Spin, dye and weave your own rugs, furnishings, wallhangings, clothing, accessories etc. Learn t o make your own simple equipment. Expert tuition, friendly atmosphere. SAE Martin Weatherhead (UC), Snail Trail Handweavers, Penwenallt Farm, Cilgerran, Cardigan, Dyfed.

Zrwood, Builth Wells, Powys.

WORK MORE collective members needed to run eco-shop. N o wage initially but limitless possibilities! Enquiries Earth 'n' Wear, 389 Cowley Road, Oxford. Tel: 776628. WHOLEFOOD vegetarian cook wanted t o co-ordinate restaurant at the Centre for Alternative Technology. We are looking for an experienced cook and organiser. For further details send SAE t o NCAT, Machynlleth, Powys.

HOLIDAYS

GRADUATE electronics engineer wanted t o join small specialist measurement and control co pany bgsed at National Cent for Alternative Technology. Must be versatile and experienced. SAE for details t o NCAT, Machynnleth, Powys.

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COURSES co-ordinator t o take responsibility for all stages of organising courses of sustainable ways of living. SAE for details t o Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynnleth, Powys.

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I EDDIES

LC-:. and peace

Nine of the women plaintiffs prepared for their case against Cruise.

Subs could whip upwar believe that an American WHEN NUCLEAR missile President would risk an all-out start t o be exchanged t o and fro across central Europe, the nuclear war just because one first task of the American and of America's allies was being Russian commanders will be taken out?' The third worry has now t o compare notes and then been spelt out by Nigel help one another t o sink Calder, author of The Nuclear British and French subNightmare who writes: marines. That is the stark probability spelt out by one 'Suppose the American and leading expert on the military Russian leaders were trying tacitly or by Hot Line to save scene recently. their own peoples, by conUntil now, British nuclear fining the nuclear war to the strategists with a military or territories of their European naval background had two worries. The first was whethei allies. The British and French missile-carrying submarines the Americans would launch a war against the Soviet Unior would remain capable of hitby mistake - perhaps through ting Moscow and Leningrad and thus forcing the escalatiot misinterpretation of a radar to a final exchange of missiles signal. The other is that the Americans would fail to press between the superpowers. Their destruction would then the button when it was only become so urgently necessary Britain under attack. As one that it is not far-fetched to naval officer put it, 'Do you December 83lJanuary 1984

imagine the Americans and Russians comparing notes about the last known positiol of HMS Revenge. This scenario is offered . . . to illustrate the brutal simplicity of nuclear logic and the frailt of alliances in the nuclear age with which military leaders must be entirely familiar in their war games.' There is a precedent for this: the Royal Navy sunk thi French fleet in 1940 t o prevent it joining or being taken over by the Germans once France had surrendered; the battleship Bretagne was sunk and most of the Mediterranef fleet immobilised. French fascists still cite this act of perfidious Albion with bitter ness. No-one was ever called upon t o account for this action before a court of law. The moral for the Americans and Russians might be to make sure that there aren't any British or French widows around to take them to a war court. That shouldn' be difficult. David Ros

ON NOVEMBER 9th Greenham Women against Cruise filed a lawsuit in the US Federal Court in New York seeking to halt the deployment of American nuclear missiles in Britain. Defendants in the case are Ronald Reagan, Caspar Weinberger and the Secretaries of State for the army and air force. The fifteen plaintiffs include, besides the women, two US Congressmen, Led Weiss from New York, and Ronald Dellums from California. The case which has been jointly prepared by British and American lawyers argues that the deployment of a nuclear weapon which is designed for first use, as is Cruise, contravenes international law and the American constitution. It relies on a body of international agreements collectively known as the laws of war which regulate how wars should be fought. Up to now some have argued that the possession of nuclear weapons is not illegal, since deference means that, in theory, no-one intends to use them. But Cruise is part of NATO's strategy of 'flexible response', as the US attorney's brief admits, in which Americans would deploy cruise if they were losing a conventional exchange. This clear act of aggression is the first plank of the case. The second, the first use capability, relates specifically to the two Congressmen. Under the US constitution the power to declare war rests with Congress. The women's brief supported by affidavits from a broad range of witnesses, has already been opposed. The US attorney for the southern district of New York filed a motion to have the case struck out. He claims that matters of foreign affairs and defence are not subject to judicial review. The women argue that such a view puts the government above the law. A decision on this will come soon from Judge Edelstein. If he grants a full hearing the case against Cruise will then begin. Fhu-fhu Elsabbagh

How - to hunt Li-. .-quangos

an attack o n TRINGOs, Tax-Receiving Independent Non-Governmental Organisations. Such a weapon is a blunderbuss however; the far-right's targets are hidden in thickets also occupied by bodies such as the Scout The New Right (they're Association and public ie mob who think Ronald schools. A more accurate eagan's t o o moderate J have weapon may be the restriceen running a Defund t h e tions on political activity noi eft campaign - and with being imposed through variou )me success. *The Left' in government programmes. iis case is non-profit organRecipients of Urban Aid ations or other voluntary grants from the Department coups that the New Right of the Environment have insiders too liberal. been checked t o see if they The aim of the campaign is are 'political'. o stop the billions of taxMore recently there's beel ayers' dollars that have been a row over political educatio elping, for the last dozen on the Manpower Services ears, advance the liberals' Commission Youth Training omestic and foreign political Scheme. genda' says Richard Viguerie, Government minister Pete >under of a magazine called Morrison is trying t o force onservatiue Digest. the MSC t o rule o u t anythin1 In the current budget cuts, that isn't about 'preparing rganisations involved in young people for the world icial services will lose 64% of work'. The MSC's f their funds, as will those Community Programme is oncerned with community evelopment, organising poor already subject to tight restrictions - TUC Centres eople and minorities, for the Unemployed are What chance of such an prevented from displaying ttack over here? Some 'political' posters such as rould claim it has already those advertising trade unions egun. The QUANGO hunting ?at became such a fetish for activities. George Orwell's Big overnment ministers was Brother and the American romoted by the far-right ,dam Smith Institute, which New Right are so unsubtle softly, softly seems t o cage as links with the US-based far more monkeys as we heritage Foundation. The Stephe ime outfit recently launched begin 1 9 8 4 . . . .

OLUNTARY rganisations in Britain re becoming concerned mat the radical right in ne UK will adopt an idea rom its blood brothers 1 the USA.

ERSIAN GULF:More than 0,000 barrels of crude oil [sh fr-- -t least nine wells

daily into the gulf, coagulate into tarry balls and sink below the water's surface. Since Iraqi jets blew u p oil platforms in Iran's Nowruz offshore field, many sea turtles, fish, sea snakes, and birds have died. All but three of the dugong population of 56, now survive. Not Man Apai BOTSWANA: Renewable energy schemes, set up by the Rural Industries Innovation Centre, are partly relieving the lack of pula (rain) in the long drought, and helpin! independence from South African oil supplies. In place of diesel oil windmills, biogas and photovoltaic cells are driving water pumps Earthsca,

Carry on PWR AS THE Sizewell Inquiry noves towards the start of ts second year (on January l l ) , and a great mountain of iterature builds up into the world's biggest energy library .here are inevitably some leople who are wondering vhat will happen if anything prevents t h e Inspector from zontinuing his vital function. Just suppose that, staggerng under the burden of Â¥esponsibilitand preocculied with consideration of he conclusions that he must each, he stepped into the oad outside the Snape Saltings and was unfortulately knocked down by a 'lo.11 bus. What then would lappen to the Inquiry? There is a precedent: an nquiry into a widening cheme for the North Circulai load was interrupted when he Inspector had a stroke. iverything had t o be started IAPAN: Stricter controls on litrogen oxide discharges nto the air by coal fuelled ndustries, will take effect 'rom 1987. This autumn ,he maximum level of NOx !missions at 400ppm -was iropped t o 3OOppm. By L995 coal consumption is !xpected t o be treble he level three years ago. Mainichi Daily Newt USA: Twenty five current leads of State at one time rained in US Senior Milittry Schools.The source of his information is not a :ommunist PR handout, but ,he US Joint Chief of Staff 'osture Statement for the %cal Year 1984. Access

again. But that Inquiry had lasted only four days. Sizewell is now approaching 1 5 0 days (compared with 100 days for the Windscale Inquiry) and it is still only about half way. For anyone who hasn't been involved, the quantity of documentation is difficult to imagine, let alone t o read. Every day at 9 o'clock the Secretariat produces a transcript of the previous day's proceedings, 90 or more pages of typescript. In it, there are references t o other documents which are available (free) to anyone who wants them. A new Inspector would certainly need to stud; them. They range from the famous leaked Minutes of a Cabinet Committee, which said that we needed nuclear energy to release us from the power of the miners and transport workers (DR/S/13) t o 40 pages called Large-scale Electrical Energy Storage (CEGBISl100 (Gen[N/E I Ãˆ There are 107 documents alone filed by the Greater London Council. No-one has read all Sizewell's documents except the Inspector - who sits up every night going through everything, accordini to his aides. Yet the fact mus be faced that the longer the Inquiry lasts, the greater is the likelihood that some of the participants, including thi Inspector, won't make the grand finale. And if the Inspector is absent, then there'll be no finale all v e r ~ worrying were it not for the fact that the need for a Sizewell B in the foreseeable future is now very widely doubted.

AN AREA of salt marshes at the mouth of the River Nene, Lincolnshire, renowned internationally as a haven for wintering and breeding wildfowl is intended for reclamation as arable land by its curtent owners. The 100 hectare site stands a decent chance though of remaining intact. Agricultural Land Investment Holdings with the National Farmers Union have challenged Lincolnshire County Council's five year moratorium on drainage works there, but since the marshes are part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest the owners will, in all probability, step down. If they d o they stand to gain financial compensation from the Nature Conservancy Council -for the profits lost by not developing - a sum which could add up to Â£100,000 This is just one example of the failure of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, since it was drafted in 1981,to work effectively - and economically - for conservation. Wildlife Link, composed of over thirty environmental groups, recently condemned the Act's shortcomings, pointing out that the NCC's severe

lack of funds has led to only one jn nine SSSIs - of a total of 4,000 -being properly protected, and that twenty-two sites have actuallv been damaged during the Act's life. Now Friends of the Earth has responded by drafting an alternative countryside Act. the Natural ~ e r i t & eBill. 1 t proposes an 'interlocking package' of reforms which would amend rather than obliterate present legislation. Conflicts between agrarian development and the preservation of irreplacable wildlife habitats and landscape features, says FOE, could be reduced by extending the planning controls of the Town and Country Planning Acts to cover forestry, intensive agriculture and the water authorities. Controls of the last could safeguard, for instance, wetlands (150,000 acres drained annually in recent years), or prevent extensive bankside clearance. They recommend also introducing Conservation Management Orders to help district authorities defend natural features like limestone pavements which in Britain have been depleted by 45% since 1945. Highest. quality farmland, listed as Grade 1 and 11,should be protected from urban sprawl which is presently eating into land at a rate of 20,000 hectares a year. FOE emphasises that to eliminate the financial incentives to develop land on a

large scale, grant aid should include conservation within farm planning, and should be geared towards small improvements rather than massive one-off projects.

Aid would be discretionary and most importantly break with the reigning assumption that such agriculture payments are in lieu of foregone income.

Hc-~kers' tits & bums

AS WE GO t o press a wreath is changing hands, and festive roundelays are being lung. Four hundred and fiftv million have died in the l&t year. Most, previously 'lifers', were unremarkefd in their passing, but a select few, the prettiest or biggest, were this week, dusted and polished and put o n parade for their last hours. It is tough on all that the news that the millions amount to cattle, sheep, pigs, turkeys and chickens swallowed by Brits in 1983, results usually in relief, not alarm. Tough especially for the Vegetarian Society whose mission at the Royal Smithfield Show (5th-8th December) is to draw attention to the excesses and abuses of

modern agriculture by symbolic action. It is no easy matter to avoid the tag of surplus sentimentality. The Society can however point to some absurdities many may want to ponder

upon. This Christmas your bird could be one of the freshly slaughtered 11 million, but it could also date from last year's crop, one of the three quarters of a million turkey 'stiffs', the result of overproduction in the factory. Taxpayers in this country throw Â£3,00 million per annum in subsidies to agri-business, more than the supply to British Rail and British Steel combined. And EEC butter mountains tottering at one million tonnes surplus cost Â£25 million for storage alone. Nonetheless the VS won't 1 be fighting shy of our inhumane suppers. "The meat trade is burgered", says Alan

Long, scientific officer t o the VS, referring to most cows' demise before their fourth lactation to satisfy fast food outlets. He cites too numerous breeding travesties, and cases of drug residues in meat and stressinduced 'blubbery' carcasses -which are pale, soft and exudative (PSE meat) occuring in UK farming practice. "It's a Bum and Tit industry", he says, "It's glamourised; the butchers at Smithfield are judging the hide and the udder -not just on the hoof but on the hook -the significance of this isn't always clear, certainly not to school kids. And it's all totally unnecessary."

Wind for ATG

A NEW generic type of vertical axis wind turbine produced by the Alternative Technology Group at the Open University in Milton Keynes is now ready for development as a full size wind machine, possibly for the commercial market.

Derek Taylor of ATG has invented several configurations of this type of wind turbine, but the basic design is an inverted cone; simple straight aerofoil blades attached directly to a vertical shaft, which is mounted on a relatively short support tower of about 3 to 4 metres high. It has some advantages over existing vertical axis wind generators. The most outstanding is that the turbine, unlike many of its predecessors, is self-starting, and can harness winds arriving in any direction, without the help of costly mechanisms to readjust the rotors. The human scale tower which allows easy access t o the generating machinery for maintenance work is also favoured by those concerned about the visual impact of its taller cousins. (It can, however, easily carry a e v dynamic control devices such as flaps, spoilers and moveable tips.) Preliminary research began on the two blade ' V type of turbine which features bracing wires that contribute to a strong triangulated and robust structure. This configuration, on a test scale, was put through some equally bracing wind tunnel tests ('80 revolutions a minute', a ruffled but optimistic colleague and researcher reports), and was the subject of a theoretical computer model, devised by David Sharpe of Queen Mary College to predict aerodynamic performances under various conditions. ATG now just needs an industrial collaborator to make its chunky alternative to the well known 'egg whisk' type of wind turbine, a saleable and readily available energy machine.

THIS AUTUMN a major hurdle for photovoltaic solar energy was crossed, with the technology winning credibility from government agencies and institutions at the Fifth European Commission PVSE conference in Athens. Speakers revealed, that ' after a two year gestation period there are now 15 demonstration projects in Europe, and in the US five years experience has made investors confident in PV as a power supply. At this biennial meeting of technologists and industrialists, papers on all aspects of fundamental physics and future directions for low cost solar cells were presented. But in all cases it was the prospects for building on initial operating experience that stirred most structured and informal discussions. In Greece itself plans are now being made for a third PV plant, in addition to existing EEC projects on Kythnos (lOOkw) and Crete (50kw). Some questions were raised however about the continuing institutional and

governmental support for photovoltnics. Whilst other power sources, such as nuclear, have benefitted from various credits, several commentators pointed to the emergence of a possible credibility gap if PV cost targets were not reached as predicted. But Werner Bloss from the University of Stuttgart pointed to several benefits arising from such artificial market creation: support of a new industry creating many employment opportunities and 'in-use' experience. US experience seems t o confirm the soundness of the European approach, with the proviso that time limits should be carefully thought out. There is currently a growth in use of PV. US systems as, under federal and state tax credits, customers gain up to 50% of system

cost. The scheme if planned for finish though in 1987. The importance of home markets to the North American, and the emerging European PV industry is becoming apparent. The convenient and well-defined testing areas allow exhaustiv~ trials under grid-connected and stand-alone configurations, and perhaps most importantly, photovoltaics are being accessed under the scrutiny of conventional power system engineers, oftel with better reliability and security of supply in locations inaccessible to grid extension -where no public supply if available. This will help develop better systems and components, making the current annually-installed capacity well over lOmw a year worldwide. Most impor ant for the nascent industry it brings closer the cost reductions necessary for Third world use of photovoltaics. lain Garni

routed

AN ALL party concensus ha been achieved by Avon FOE County Council's Public sector, 95% of expenditure Protection Committee a g a h on conservation measures for them comes from depart- the transport of nuclear wad from H i k l e y Point through ments other than Energy. Avon and the centre of The Raynor Report on Bristol, on route to W i d conservation sensibly suggscale. ests they all be brought The Committee will send under the DEn's realm but the department is known signed statement prepared b; Avon FOE t o William Waldeto be resisting this. grave MP for Bristol West ani Peter Walker is also Under Secretary of State for resisting inane questions, the Environment, to urge the incidentally. Someone at A HALLOWEEN prew government t o act immediati the EEO launch asked him conference for the select ly and store the waste on site few (I wasn't asked. . . ) Avon FOE'Sweek of law the enthusiastic launch action between November of the Energy Efficiency 28th and December 2nd perOffice by Peter Walker, new suaded the Torv shadow c h Secretary of State at the DEn of the ~rotectionCommittee The official stamp on the Councillor Michael Moore, tc marketing of energy conserchange his stance and supper vation confirms Walker's the move. He agreed with the earlier remark: '. . . in the Labour Chair of the Commit next two years Britain will why the 'exhortation techtee, Terry Walker that plutor move from being one of the ium extracted by reprocessin nique' referring to the most apathetic nations in could probably be used in hard sell travelling energy Energy conservation t o a exhibition, backed up by TV American warheads. position where we are the The council, in a nuclear coverage - should work now best.' when it hadn't done so before. free zone since 1981, also It is heady stuff. Especially 'Because' . . the Minister had reaffirmed its opposition t o when you remember that the government's civil them on a knife edge. . 'I ilthough 50% of the UK's defence proposals. want it to.' he concluded. buildings are in the public Sigrid Shaye David Gordon

There's a lot of work being done that isn't recorded in e Gross National Product. If you're doing some, don't tell them -they might make it illegal says Stephen Joseph

very so often you hear business men and politicians going on about the Black Economy, by which they mean all the activities that people dare to do outside their cock-eyed accounting systems. The same people then argue that it should be clamped down on, and finally stopped.

The 'Black Economy' is apparently a drain on the real or formal economy where things are bought and sold, where political reputations are made or broken, where there's personal power, money and influence. It's all theft, tax evasion, scroungers, naughty, wicked, anti-social. So they say. But look at it another way. From the point of view of many communities it's the formal economy which is failing and turning declining cities like Liverpool into almost no-go areas. The informal economy, ranging from theft t o black markets to unrecorded business, t o mutual aid, is all that's left. Denouncing it over the airwaves as the 'Black Economy' won't stop people's attempts t o get by on their own when nobody else seems able to help. The 'Black Economy' is in any case a misleading (and racist) term. It includes criminal activities at one end of the spectrum, but further along you come t o people who use their employer's time and equipment (sometimes with approval, sometimes not) for their own gain or for charitable work, or for their community; thence on t o moonlighting and eventually the domestic and neighbourhood economies. It may sound odd t o talk about housing as part of this informal economy but for long both political left and right -as well as apolitical planners - have seen housing as consumption or welfare; on which either the state or individuals spend their money. Yet housing can mean production. Hugh Stretton, in Capitalism, Socialism and the Environment (Cambridge University Press), makes this clear when hepoints out that home

work accounts for one third of total ecohomic activity in developed countries. Of course all the DIY, from mechanics t o garden produce, isn't in any economic statistics because no money has changed hands. But since it's outside those statistics it's also outside current political debate. There is no challenge t o the advocates of 'real work', and so we get more alienating work places, more support for the nuclear family and the stereotypes within it. Why should people be diverted from nationalising the top 200 monopolies? Ivan Illich, most famously, 'distinguished 'vernacular' from 'shadow' work at home (and Undercurrents too reflects that alternative culture). But what is

happening now is that community groups and voluntary organisations are also mapping out the new ground; they are asking fundamental questions about for instance, the future of work (Is there one? If so, where, in what?) -ant they are taking action. Practical initiatives are springing up in the knowledge that-neither the 'market' nor the state provides all of the necessary.

Children's Scrap Projects The lead on this has come from play organisations. The scrap projects collect 'waste' such as redundant paint (unused colours in a bulk batch to a hospital say), old wood, or bricks from demolished buildings, paper off-cuts from instant print firms, buttons from tailors or old clothes - even a telegraph pole has changed hands - from industry and councils. The projects then distribute them to community arts projects, dram! societies, play groups, adventure playgrounds, schools, and youth groups. As mediators they run between the formal economy and the informal, collecting 'waste' for rehabilitation.

Use of wasteland and buildings To meet local purposes a lot of local group* have taken control of land or old buildings going to waste. There's a very wide mnge of project! under this heading. They start very small: If you go to Rice Lane in Liverpool you'll find a traffic island that has been dug up and planted by the local community auodatlon with a board proclaiming the 'Rice IĂ&#x192;Â§nGarden Suburb'. The next thge up include* 'pocket parlm'. Theaemight be derelict comer sites or gap* in the street hit by bombs or councils turned into gardens, allotments or just places to sit or play. A large number of tenants' associations and community groups have tackled this sort of project, on the most unpromising sites, like the Wenlock Barn estate in Hackney, St Radlgunds in Canterbury and Sunnyside Gardens in Islington. The best examples of a systematic approach are to be found in Liverpool, where in Lodge Lane, part of the Toxteth area, the Residents' Association his tackled every vacant 1 site in one street, creating playgrounds, 1 sports space* and a community centre. While initially such work may be prompted by Manpower ~ e d c e s Commission schemes, sometimes people decide, a8 they did in the Lodge Lane project, to stay together is a working

arks and gardens ou find city farms. There ire over with others in the plan. ning stages. As well as the wellpublicised aim of bringing urban people into contact with natural things, the farms have in many caaes provided workshop facilities. They are parUculady well-developed at Byker in Newcastle, and at Windmill Hill where, additionilly a community bus service, "budged the local bus company into action. Wqdsworth Unemployed Youth Project ha* challenged the traditional proviaon for unemployed young people I dayha drop-in centres with table

games and not much else, and started asking y o w people what they reaW wanted. A few projects gee the use of land and buildings as put of a grander strategy. In Bristol the City Land Use Proje&(also known as GreencureTrust), with the MSC teachesyoung people to manage land and resources.And in Waster Hailea, a fairly new estate on the fringe of Edinburgh, the community association has created an adventure playground and community worksftop -huts scrounged from the Forestry Commission and transported by the army! Workshops are planned for other puts of the estate, using unused buildings from other putsof Edinburgh. The existing workihop already includes a cafe, a dbco and a 'community thrift shop', which tells things produced by local people. It could be developed into a -communitycampus' with facilities for other groups such as the elderly. There's talk of other developments too: a credit union to finance new enterprises, a licensing system for occupants of new shops on the estate to ensure that they meet real local needs. Learning Exchange Group* (LEGS!) hare already been set up with the local school.To do all thig, the Community Association ha6 been 'trusted' by public bodiw mch is the Scottish Development Agency to an extent unprecedented for a voluntary, non professional' group.

Unemployment projects Publicity centres on the Youth Training Scheme, but outside it there are a lot 'of inspiring projects run by and for unemployed people. All over the country there are TUGsponsored Centres for the Unemployed, nearly , 200 now. Many of them just provide individual advice on welfare rights and benefits. But some hare a bigger role. The Carnegie Unemployed Centre in Workington, Cumbria, rung a number of workshops the aim of which is to transfer skull from older people to young people. The welding shop for instance mikes play equipment, theftfoiling devices for letterboxes and handrails for the disabled. The hope Is that as needs are identified new businesses cm be set up. It's particularly important for Worklngton, where the old industries which traditionally allowed skills to be transferred, have shut down, but so far few other centres have followed Carnegie's lead. In Tooting, a youth project plans to

set up a (kill*exchange;the worker there gees this as a start to an alternative to the money economy: Scotland too is a fed& p u b d for this kind of iniative, with community education

.. .- - .- - . ...

I s a result, a number of real jobs

"lave been created. Even Manpower Services Commisionfunded training workshops have oned this wider aomoach. identifyixqnew products. Rhondda Enterprises is one such workshop which five years ago wrote to local firms to identify products that woe currently imported into the Rhondda outside, In order to replace @em with local labour. Recycling is also entering the vocabulary of unemployment projects. Brass Tacks projects have already received publicity. They collect old furniture and electrical goods and recondition it, then (ire it to nenitonen and others or sell it. T& Initial project in Hackney, sponsored by the Mutual Aid centre as a MSC workshop, has been mccexful enough to be copied in other parts of London and elsewhere. Co-operatlvetare increasingly being looked to as a solution. The Industrial Common O w n d p Movement warns against overoptimism about this, pointing out the difficulties in starting co-operatives. Nonetheless, a wide range of groups, including the Wales TUC which has a unit for encourging co-operatives. t is not easy to go it done. There are masses of problems in the way; funding, the maze of professionals and the law to name but three. But h. some of the fields mentioned thew Is now technical aid available. In particular, group* using urban wasteland and buildings can call on the right kind of professional help. Then are now 'community technical aid services' in a number of major cities. There Is the h c lation of Communi Technical Aid Centres (ACTAC). e of the foundem of that association b the Community p x h l c a l Services Agency (COMI'ECHSA) in Liverpool. COMTECHSA

helps local community groups with architectual, planning and landscaping advice. But their philosophy is very much one of professionals supporting their clients, meeting ideas not imposing their own. In some ways then, Illich's ideas about the professions are being put into practice since associations like the Royal Institutes for British Architects and the Royal Town Planning Institute have accepted such aid centres and have in fact set up their own in some places. Yet it would be unrealistic t o suggest that these do-it-yourself schemes will be the answer to the problems, particularly unemployment. They can only ever stratch at the surface of these problems. This does not mean, either, that there are two independent types of economy growing side by side. For better or worse they interlink and depend on each other. None more so than informal initiatives which rely on Manpower Services Commission schemes, Inner City Partnership or Urban Aid programmes, and other government

EDUCATION FOR NEIGHBOURHOOD CHANGE, School of Educate Nottingham University, Nottingham NG7 3RA. Publish packs and booklet and 'try-outs' aimed at helping group; get together and plan their own neigh bourhoods or new work. Includes 'Planning for Real', 'Don't Let them Waste Your Time', 'Work Fact Bank', (and other fact banks). See UC50 for description of philosophy.

funds. But the schemes mentioned have significance. They can show that alternatives to complete passive acceptance of economic orthodoxy, especially the orthodoxy that holds that ordinary people can't produce ideas, or that they don't have any expertise, are possible. The new shift towards the idea of socially useful work based on existing resources has come, in the main, from the identification of the needs of neighbourhoods by the people who live in them. Stephen Joseph

TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING ASSOCIATION, 17 Carlton H o w Terrace, London SW1. Offers plannin aid services and other help for community groups. NATIONAL FEDERATION OF cm FARMS, 66 Fraser Street, Bedminste~ Bristol BS3 4LY.

CHILDREN'S SCRAP PROJECT, Wenlock Barn, Sutton House, Homerton High Street, London E9.

ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY TECHNICAL AIDS CENTRES. Secretariat. COMTECHSA. weitmimi Chambers, 3 Crosshall St., 'Liverpool L16DQ.

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Electric bicycles are riding into the mainstream of transport. But they're just the start. Tom Langdan-Davies free-wheels t o ecstasy in a Bedford van

uiet pollution free inner cities, liberated from dependence on the multinational oil companies and OPEC are a vision worthy of pursuit. Can petrol cars follow open drains, the horse and cart, and smog inducing open coal fires into the annals of obsolescence?

Getting to the point, is electric propulsion becoming a serious alternative which can provide a springboard for another leap towards the city for people, rather than the city for machines and waste which we still experience? Springboards are slippery things at the best of times, and even after leaping off, things do not always go as planned. In America, over 200 million dollars has been spent on electric vehicle development in the last six years, thanks to Jimmy Carter's imaginative energy policy. With Reaganomics in full swing, the passenger car projects that were financed by most of this money have now disappeared, leaving behind them some valuable results as well as some salutory lessons. The present day passenger car, especially the American gas-guzzler, is the worst possible target for conversion to electricity. Look at its characteristics in comparison with, say, a 1ton pay load van for urban delivery work: Cadillac 120 mph

1ton van for urban delivery 50 mph

Required speed Required 250 miles range Gross 1.5 tonnes vehicle wt. Required on-board 1 5 galls petrol energy

50 miles 1.5 tonnes 2% galls petrol

It should therefore come as no surprise t o anyone that both in Europe, especially UK, and now America, the work on batteries and other compon-

ents (motors, controllers, chargers) that has been and is now being carried out, is now applied largely t o the urban delivery van rather than the gas-guzzling family sized car we all know and love t o hate. So what is happening here in Britain? There are 30,000 milk floats on the road running on battery power, and at least four battery manufacturers have an interest in maintaining and developing this valuable market. As a result, we have the best batteries in the world for electric road vehicles. No one else has more than a tiny fraction of our electric vehicle industry on which to base further development, and this is why we are in the lead with faster vehicles too. The government has recognised this and put money into taking things further, by giving Ă&#x201A; ÂŁmillion a year to a company called Lucas Chloride EV Systems. There has been a snowball effect as a result of this, which nevertheless is relatively modest -less than, for example, that spent on research and development for wind power. 11 the major light commercial motor manufacturers in this country except Ford now have electric drive as an option on at least one of their range. British Leyland have two, the Leyland Electric Terrier, and the Freight Rover Electric Sherpa. Bedford have the Bedford CF Electric, and RenaultIDodge have the Dodge 50 electric: Vehicle Payload Range Top speed Sherpa 950 Kg 50 miles 50 rnph Bedford CF 950 Kg 50 miles 50 rnph Dodge 50 2 tonnes 50 miles 40 rnph Leyland 2 tonnes 50 miles 40 rnph Terrier The total number of these faster vehicles on the road is still numbered in hundreds rather than thousands, but the commitment of government and manufacturers to the production of these vehicles will mean that anyone can order them through a local dealer. The range limitation on pure electric vehicles has led to the development of the hybrid vehicle concept, using two or more sources of power. The main hybrid projects underway in this country are the Lucas hybrid car, and the Manchester hybrid bus. Both of these have lead acid battery drive and @ninternal combustion engine. The Lucas car has been designed to test out all the possible drive combinations, on electric motor only and petrol engine only, but also by electric motor and

petrol engine together, and the electric motor with a petrol engine charging the batteries via an alternator. In a practical vehicle, only two or three of these options would normally be available. The fuel economy that can be achieved by the right balance of power sources might make this concept attractive when oil prices rise to two or three times their present level. The situation with the bus is somewhat different. The relentless stop-start operation of buses plays havoc with conventional diesel engines and transmission, especially clutches. In Manchester, the bus company (or Passenger Transport Executive t o be precise) is testing out a novel idea t o overcome this. A relatively small diesel engine together with an electric motor of similar output pump oil round a circuit to power the wheels, through a hydraulic motor. Electric vans are here today, hybrid cars and buses have reached the demonstration stage. What else is happening? Electric bicycles and tricycles can now be driven with small motors and batteries up t o 1 5 rnph without a licence or crash helmet. There are rumours that a certain well known electronics wizard is working on a variety of vehicles which are neither bicycles nor cars. Perhaps in a few years a whole new class of subbubblecar transport will have been created. In theory, then, there are plausible electric alternatives to both urban freight and passenger transport, electric vehicles exist which can carry goods up t o fifty miles, and small, short distance 'people movers' are a realistic possibility. Long distance movement of people and goods is a different matter, but the success of electric vehicles in city centres will clearly depend on careful integration with trunk systems. Railways (preferably electric!) will need to be accessible and extensive. Road movement of goods between cities will require depots on their outskirts for unloading of large juggernauts. Depending on your shade of green, you might wish to ban all internal combustion engines from the centre of towns or ban large lorries from within a larger radius. You may also wish t o call a halt on the building of orbital motorways and on the increase in the size of radial roads. There are many infrastructural issues raised by the introduction of electric vehicles in large numbers which are beyond the scope of this article.

Who shot Ronald Reagan? In this exclusive article, Robin ,.amsay picks up the pieces and comes up with some disturbing conclusions

he morning after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the BBC 'Today' programme broadcast an interview with an eyewitness at the scene, a woman journalist (unnamed!. who snoke of a man firine rifle from the r&f across the street.Hearing the report I decided to read the press accounts of the incident rather more carefully than I might have normally. And yes, before John Hinkley as leading man, with Jodie Foster as support, in a re-run of the film Taxi Driver had been firmly established as 'the story', the usual strange reports and anomalies which have followed every major American assassination w e r e there.

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The creation of the American 'lone nut' assassin was a stroke of genius. For those willing to consider killing a major political figure, the 'lone assassin' is the safest of all methods. Rigging up 'accidents' of one kind or another is always likely to arouse suspicion. The 'lone assassin' model, on the other hand, offers to leave no loose ends, provoke no awkward examinations. The deed can be done and then accounted for

simultaneously; and the important message - look, no political meaning to this dead politician -can be broadcast loud and clear. All that is required is a 'lone assassin' figure at the scene. And if that seems a large requirement, go and see Martin St. James or any of the other hypnotists working the club circuits. Programming an individual to fire a pistol at a given signal is no big trick. Of necessity, assassination attempts are complex affairs, involving a large number of people and things tend to go slightly awry. To convince us that Oswald did the dirty deed in Dallas, the Warren Commission lumbered itself with the so-called 'magic bullet' which passed through two bodies, breaking various bones en route, to emerge, in pristine condition. Scotland Yard arrested not one, but two 'James Earl Rays'. The autopsy on Robert Kennedy showed that Sirhan Sirhan did not fire the shots which killed him, and more shots were fired in that hotel kitchen than could have come from Sirhan's gun.1 The account of the rifleman on the roof opposite thescrimmage with Hinkley suggested that the Reagan attempt was a version of Sirhan's on Robert Kennedy: the 'lone assassin*is there, firing his pistol at the scene, while someone else does the serious shooting. With this as a hypothesis I first looked for discrepancies between the number of shots Hinkley was supposed to have fired and the number of bullets at the scene. Hinkley was supposed to have fired six shots. All reports finally settled on this figure though the Secret Service insisted for some time after the event that there had only been 5 . (International Herald Tribune, 2/4/81).Brady, the . press secretary, Reagan and the Secret Serviceman took one shot each. The policeman took one or two: reports are divided on this. Assume one. Therefore 4 bullets hit people. One bullet missed the scene entirely and broke a window across the street. (Observer, 5 / 4 / 8 1and Time 13/4/81).Which makes 5 . But there are others. The WashingtonPost (in Guardian Weekly 5 / 4 / 8 1 )and the Times ( 1 / 4 / 8 1 )describe two bullets hitting the Presidential limousine. In the Post story it is seen with bullet holes in rear door and window. Time, in the biggest coverage of the event I have seen manages to tell

born Vietnam and start reducing U.S.

arms expenditure; Kennedy junior was Â¥bouto win the Democratic no&

tlon for the 1968 Preddential campaig~ 'and Dr. King was about to shift the bai of his movement from Its black/rural origins to a new multi-raciÃ§l/urba coalition of the poor. The. question cm"bono? in the cam of Reagan suggests George Bush, the Vice-President, the representative of th East Coat, Trilateral Commission sectors of the Republican Party. And perhaps it was indeed that sector wold organised the hit. And yet. I t seem* out of character, somehow, for that particular sector of the American rulizq elites. There are rumours floating around in the States: it was the Trilateral Co ple; it was to retrieve its puichffie (>lÃ§cfrontheir i u n f o r p t Mdint b t computeis, how then did they manage month on George Bush; it was a coup to confuse it w&h another pistol? fronted by which went wrong. Of And elmwhere -re ue odd repork these three it is the last which has some The Guartfian (214181) reports that the degree of immediate surface plausibili~ manager of an apartment For a few days before Haig had been which Hinkley had lived in involved Ina colossal row with the and the Guardian put this in inverted White House. The Guardian (2713181) commas, indicating direct quotation report of those events included thai the Secret Servicearrived 'within half curious sentences: an hour after 'State Department sources describe him Half an hour of (Haig) poyding the table Inrage. . thi a man who by all accounts had spent his bloody little skirmish. . they were not life wandering around America? Half an actually washing the blood off the hour to work.it all back over 5 years? White House steps yesterday but it had And this foe'someone who was not on been a &mmjclose run thing'. the Secret Service list of potential Three (toys later up pops Hinkley ant assassins?Where did the Secret &vice Haig marches into the White House and get the information from? announces that he's in charge here. One By the time that Time magazine of his State Department colleagues, came to write their big piece on the watching that performance, is quoted at event the carious smell about the went saying he thought he was watching had TOD InfectedHut stalwart defender Seven Days in Mi@!,the John Frankenof the lone assassin' myth. Just percep- heimer film about a Generals' coup In tibly Time hints that, in theirview, all America. (In Time 13 14\81)Who ' may not be quite kosher. They ask: knows? Whatever did happen, poor 'Why was not (sic) the Presidential car John Hinkley's now consigned to the in front of the exit instead of 15feet tender mercies of the American away? The Secret Service claim the psychiatric world, Haig has resigned and positioning was n o d and permitted the moron in the White House is stW a faster exit "They are wrongWinsists there. The only thing that is certain is Time photographer, Direk (sic) Halstead. that, once again, the mainstream mass - "I've cowered that exit many times media of America (and this country) and the President's car was always in demonstrated their unwillingness to deal front of it". (Time 13/4/81) with the real nature of American political life. or anyone who has reed any of the Robin Rammy critical accounts of the assassinations of the 19606, all this is (1 i On Dallas and the assassination of Robert routine the tusk mechanics of Kennedy see, most recently, The Amatnaaem&mtion. What h ' t tiom edited by Scon, Hoch and Stttler dear, at all, is who? or why? ~quoving (Pelican 1978). The Scotland Yard cock-up is in Scotland Yard mil the Mirtin Luther King the Kennedys or Dr. King had dear Killing by Ptar Dawnay in (the now defunct) political consequences. Lo&, Autumn 1969,publhhed by New Kennedy senior was about to withdraw English Library.

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two quite contradictory stortee.In their main dnwteg of the scene as HinkleYtbwtheyshowbuUets striking the tout people, one IUUtog tbt a rof the Bmousine and one, which dtampeanoff the edge of the dnwtng,either mfesine the scene entirely or hit* the car windscreen. But then, in the text accompanying this drawing they , describe the four people being strode, one bullet missing the scene and breaking a window and , one hitting a window of the limwdue. And that, unfortunately makes 7: the tour striking people, the h o t which missed, the shot which rtruck the window of the limousine and the one which struck the rear of the limousine. (Time, 13/4/81,page 18). From puss reports we appear to have 6 shots and (at least) 7 bullets. en there is the curious case of the two guns. International Herald Tribune (214181) reports that 'as late as Monday midnight' Le. nearly 10 hours after the event - thÃ Secret Service were identifying the gun Hinkley used as an American-made &r&g$on-.Ricliarison, $-ah& pistol. Then they changed their minds and identified it as a Getman-made Roehm, 6&ot pistol. This to difficult to make mum of. Either they had the gun became Htnkley was grabbed on the spot or they didn't. Given that they did, why is it so difficult to identify the gun? This puzzle to deepened by the report in Time (13/4/81) that 'demonstrating the imoortance of resittertne hand-suns the T'r&ury &&nt% Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,within minutes (empftatit added) discovered where H ~ M had Y P U E - ~ the gun '.

t is the Wednesday evening adults' meeting for White Lion Free School, and we are in a temporary hut at the front of the Old Royal ree Hospital in Liverpool Road, ilington in North London. Unable to se their own premises at 57 White Lion treet, while the builders are in, the ~hoolhas had to split up and occupy iree sites. But this disruption is not hat is determining whether I will or I ill not be able to get an interview with ne of the Free School workers. Before ~y such interview or indeed one with ie children is granted, the kids them'Ives must vote on it at one of their wn meetings. If this all sounds very democratic, ell that is the way things are done at hite Lion Street Free School. 'he kids have every opportunity, as dividuals and as a population of fifty, guide the direction of the school' Jan Allain White Lion Street is one of a small imber of free schools that still exist. It is been going now for about 11years. ntil last year, the school was funded y raising money, often by the workers temselves, and by donations from

private trusts, rich benefactors and the like. But for the last year or so it has been funded by ILEA and has been established as an alternative within the state system. It aims to meet the basic social and educational needs of the children in the area. In fact it achieves much, much more. 'It gives them confidence to speak their minds and express their feelings with their peer group and with adults. . . and it gives them a lot of emotional support, which is an area that is neglected in larger state institutions'. Jan Allain The free school is made up of children from the ages of 3 to 16. Though the children's attendance has to conform to legislative conditions, the children are never forced to do or 'learn' anything, but are empowered with the enthusiasm for working and learning. Basic skills such as literacy and numeracy are greatly encouraged, but a wide variety of activities are provided at the free school, ranging from academic subjects like biology, history and chemistry, to dance, photography and horse-riding. This does not mean kids are protected from what is happening outside the school. Such topics as

racism, sexuality, nuclear weapons and the like are openly discussed at the school, the teachers' opinions never forced down the throats of the kids; during the elections, the teachers took on the roles of political parties - as Tories or the Labour Party, Ecology Party or Communist Party - and encouraged the children to vote. (The children's sense of humour won the day and the Loony Party was elected!) The children in fact are treated as equals at the school, their voices are heard and their views respected and, more importantly, acted upon. 'Yeah, we have debates about the nuclear bomb and unemployment and Maggie Thatcher and the Queen and things like that. And like, a lot of us have strong opinions about everything and they offer u s . . . they offered all the girls to go to Greenham Common the other day and they offer us to go on marches. I mean they're prepared to stop the whole school to go on a march, for the kids' sake.' Karen n his book, Teach Your Own, radical American educationalist and advocator of de-schooling, John Holt discusses the conference in

Well if I went to that school, I'd bunk off every da\ can just walk out But 'cos you go here and and bunk off all the time, you just don't

. ..

Minneaoolis. USA. where a ladv stood ask h a t he would do with children . .o were 'just plain lazy'. This comment was greeted with loud applause from the audience, to which Holt concluded that most people held the opinion that children were just 'no good'. But, Holt argues, children in schools are lazy because they are simply too afraid, too bored and too confused to cope. Young pre-school children, he says, are rarely perceived as feeling this way towards 'learning'. But learning as perceived by the state system and that which is practised is completely different from the way in which the free school and schooling movements work. s the relationship between the ~erienceand that understanding and u-eness, it can happen outside the 2 school. it can hanoen in it. it can Ă&#x201A;ÂĽpedown the canal, it can happen in bed. See, I always associated learning with the force that's put upon one, I experience is like. it just happens -I experience is learning.' Jan Allain The workers, and importantly, the children in the free school demand that learning should be a part of the life process, not just something that's discriminately rammed down your throat, by someone given the authority to do it against your will. The aim is that children, and adults, anyone, should learn from life itself rather than just through learning tools like schools, )ks and computers. This learning uld be basically in the control of the learner. Since no amount-of threatening, cajoling or punishment will make kids learn if thev are iust not interested. 'Adults arelazy in particular things and it's not just a thing to do with children. Some are lazy about some topics that don't interest them, and not lazy about other things. So to say that just children need to go to school to stop them being lazy isn't an argument because we all know that adults are lazy as well.' Lesley Taylor Furthermore, it's only because knowledge and learning are packaged up into 'specialist' areas which are considered 'appropriate learning' by educationalists and vested interest groups, that children are branded lazy or 'problem kids', or more likely nowadays, 'maladjusted'. In fact, children and adults never stop 'learning'. ---deed, if learning was to be made in me way taboo - it could be said that maybe Real Learning is, or at least an attempt30 make it so - children and adults would be desperate to gain

...

knowledge. A parallel here could be drawn with schoolchildren playing truant. Ibis not surprising, perhaps, that it is not much of a problem at White Lion Street Free School. 'Friends say, "Well if I went to that school, I'd bunk off every day." But 'cos you go here and because you can just walk out and bunk off all the time, you just don't, because you know you can. But in other schools, because they know they can't, they wanna.' Karen, pupil It would be wrong t o think, though, that the idea of the free school was just to woo the children to get them to do voluntarily what you would otherwise force them to do anyway. The children are too wised up to fall for that at White Lion Street. And though free schools may not offer the abundance of specialist teachers in academic subjects such as geography or history, the free school can offer much beyond the scope of the average class of 30-40 pupils in

secondary state schools. Particularly practical experience - such as coping with not getting a job - is supported. 'I think that the way they deal with it . [unemployment] would be very different. I can see hundreds of kids coming out of local stat& schools into jobs being totally bored out of their heads but they feel paralysed about moving from one of them. They haven't got the confidence to get out. They don't even recognise their feelings in that situation. All I can say is our kids, if they are unemployed for a year, will be fully aware of why they're unemployed. They'll be able to cope with it and they'll be aware of what it is they wish they could do -and they'll bloody well aim for it.' Teacher, White Lion

arlier I referred to children having 'learning' imposed upon them whether they liked it or not, and though White Lion Street and other free schools place educational freedom at the top of their list of priorities, free school children, and the free schools themselves, are still part of what Ivan Illich, like Holt an advocate of deschooling, calls 'the real hidden curriculum'. He means that it is compulsory for children t o receive an 'acceptable' level, and kind, of education between the ages of 5 and 16. For most children, in practice, this means compulsory school attendance for eleven years. John Holt, writing to the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that if any other section of society were ordered by law t o attend a particular place one hundred and eighty days of the year, for six o r more hours a day, and to do whatever they were told, they would consider this a terrible violation of their civil liberties. Unbelievably, apart from a very few people, this inhuman state of affairs goes absolutely unquestioned. Indeed it is quite remarkable how this bending of children to the wills of adults is seen as a civil liberty itself. Indeed the lack of personal rights that children suffer can only be compared to those of animals, and they at least have many pressure groups fighting on their behalf. As I have said, both John Holt and Ivan Illich have been 'spokesmen' on behalf of the de-schooling movement. Illich, in particular, has formulated a detailed alternative to replace the school system. He suggests a system of Learning Networks. Illich believes that an education system, in order to provide the opportunity for Real Learning that which develops from the person him/her self, by way of active discovery - should serve three purposes: it should provide everyone with the access to available resources at any time in their lives; it should empower all those who want to share their knowledge with the opportunity to find those who want to learn from them; and it should help those who want assistance in their learning to find the right teacher. These aims would be facilitated by opening up all those areas that play a part in the workings of society factories, airports, farms, laboratories, theatres, whatever -and making them available to everyone who wants to learn. In other words, making the physical environment an Education Tool. And it should open up possibili-

ties, provided by modem technology, to weryone, using this freedom to set up communication networks and director& IBtch believes that this would facilitate access to resources by abolishing the control by institutions over their iducatlonal values, and allow the during of skills.It would liberate the Individual's own learning from estabHshed orthodoxy by returning to than mlf-directed education. At the moment, though de-schooling may em a long way off, there is some encouragement in the growing number of people educating their children at home. Education Otherwise, a self-help organisation, set up by a small group of parents at the beginning of 1977 to otter support and advice to people waiting to withdraw their children from the school system, estimates that about 800 children are being educated now at

Inter-Action, Community Resource Centre based in NW5, seeks to fill the following posts:COMMUNITY WORKER: with special responsibilities in areas of work with women, young people and the unemployed. FIELD.WORKER & :with youth work experience to work with groups of young unADMIN. ASSISTANT employed. Useful skills include video, graphic*, photography, computing and sound recording. ACCOUNTANTS : with experience and qualifications to work in friendly Fimmce Office. VOLUNTEERS :to help with variety of exciting projects. For more details on any of these posts or information about the organisation contact:Veronica dc Heer at Intel-Action Centre, 15 WU& Street, London NW5 3NG (Tel) 01-287 9421.

owti discusses the reasons why people

c h o w to teach their children themwives in great depth and is well worth miding, if you are interested in taking this coune of action (and even if you're not). As this article is mainly about children I'll leave it to one of the kids from White Lion Street Free School to hÃ§v the last word: 'Yuh. We shouldn't have to go to achool we should have education, butÃ§choiceoffoingornot...Not forced. I don't Chink kid*should be forced to do anything they don't want todo theycanmakeuptheirown mind*,that's the impiewlou I've got in the [bee] school.'Whao make up our ownminib.'

...

, .

,,.ji:Jef:..

. i %.

Jeffrey Benge

Free Schools in UK: Leeds Free School and Community Tnut,8, Lucu Place, Leeds 8. Kirkdale School, 186, KITkdale, Sydenbun, London SE26. Hflbide School. Bdford Church, Do&

GENERAL AGRONOMIST

SummorMl, Leirton, Suffolk.

Other contacts. Education Othwwiw, 26 Diabaig, Admubon, Rom-Ehire, Scotland IV22 2HE.Membenhip is Â£1 per 8nnum. Campaign tor A t e nipported AtematIve School*, c/o Advisory Centre for Education, 18, Victoria Park Square, London E2 9PB.

To aduin a union of htehluul AndÃ‘ communitlm on raintroductio~ m d development of terming tnditloml subsistence cropt and mimi The mronomin ihould heve a training and experience In a wide r a m of oraini, veoefblea and preferably animda. Experience in I ~ t d -organic and chemical put inanagamant and land improvement, and in erosion control would be wIlMd. An interest in training and e x ~ ~ i WI* n g with pasant fwrnera is essentiei.

iiyi

FORESTRY TEACHER -SOMALIA To teach in e fomtrv colime at Afaove. heloinn deveioo curricula and suppmingnudent!on placement! in thecommun&;alÃ§ p o ~ i b l b aisining i n wildlife management course*. Applicants should hold an OND or BÃ§ in forestry and hue an inwett in training.

Catholic Institute for

Relations

u w e n # ,E!diaburgtJ & Monkton Wyld, Cbaimouth,Ridport, Whit* Ltnn Street Free School. 67.

- ECUADOR

AGRICULTUREIRURAL

- ZIMBABWE

To fch in rural secondary schools: teacher* will be encouraged to milt In developing (chool curricula, teaching materials and teaching mMhodi. to help provide a relevant ncondov education for Zimbabw a n nudent& Applkant! should hold a ~ ~ c HND o r in Â¥gricultw and should have taching or training expÃ§riÃ§nc ALL POSTS offw a two year minimum contract for dngb people, including salary, return flight! to Britain, insurance, language trainIng and briefing provided by CUR. For a job deicriptlon and applict b n form, deaw sand brief details of your experienceand a l a w SAE to CiIR Oversee Programme, 22Coieman FWda London N1 7AF. PleaM atam which pent inMrntt you and quota ref U I ~ .

Journals: Growing Without Schooling. A d able born Education Otherwiw. Subscription Â£4.2 (6 iwua) or Â£3.6 for member of Education Othenrhe. Further Reading: How Children Fail; How Children Learn, Instead of Education; The Underachieving Schod (Penguin) 6 Teach Your Own (FromEO)by John Holt.

SCIENCE TEACHERS

Deechoding Society Celebration of Awareness (Penguin) t After Deschooling What? (Writer* k Reader)by Ivan Dlich. Summerhill A.S. Neil John Walmsley-Neill and Summerhill Compulsory Miseducation Paul Goodman School is Dead Everett Reima The Free School W.Kenneth Richmot Deachoolina lan Lilter

Q3: Recently we've changed the Undercurrents format. Which do you prefer?

Dear Reader, For some time now we've been planning a survey of you - our readers. To help us write a better magazine we need to know what you like, and what you don't, what sort of people you are, ind whether you read Undercurrents regularly or not. Even if this is the first copy you've read, we'd love to hear from you. Unlike the big glossy magazines, with huge advertising revenues, we can't afford a big readership study. am wen the postage for you to return your questionnaire. So we are relying on your help, and looking forward to reading your views.

01: For how long have you been a reader of Undercurrents?

New style - 32 pages, cheaper paper, non-glossy, at 50p 0

O D D

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For occasionally tick box 0 New reader this issue.

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Less than 6 months. Over 6 months to 1year. Over 1year to 2 years. Over 2 years to 3 years.

R O N

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n n a

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' ..

Daily w d s ) ?

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~ 1 3 Db : you have any other commend about Undercurrents, or this survey?

Sunday papers?

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., .~~ 3, . ."

..,..

Monthly magazines?

Think you for your time. PI* this survey to our editorial office d27, ClerkenwellClose. LondonEâ‚¬ZeOAT.

living in swkden, trapped the& on tape and launched an investigation, which continues today, into EVP - the 'Electronic Voice Phenomenon'. Another notable researcher was Dr Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian-born psychologist also living in Sweden. By 1968, when he published his book Breakthrough, he had recorded 70,000 voice effects. "With patience there is no reason a t all why anyone cannot tape If you turn o n the radio, fiddle with thf the voice phenomena," he once said. dial and hear strange voices, they are The voices, frequently in a confusing not necessarily coming from a foreign polyglot of languages, can be picked up station. They may be coming from the on all known frequencies, including unknown. Such voices were first noted VLF, short wave, VHF and the AM by Marconi, who picked u p mysterious band. The content is often frankly signals o n his yacht in the Mediterranmundane, like the purported messages ean in 1921. The previous year, Edison from beyond the grave at spiritualist had been working o n a device which he gatherings. Sometimes they give accurhoped would put him in touch with the dead. He believed that there was a ate prophecies. One message gave indica tion of the 1976 Seveso chemical disasfrequency which could be used for tele. ter in Northern Italy, shortly before it pathic contact with the Beyond. Until his death in 1937, Marconi worked happened. In Germany there are many profes. secretly o n a device which he hoped sional EVP researchers, some working would receive voices from the past. for the Ministry of Post and TelecomMaverick voices plagued Scandinavmunications. There is a Voice Phenian military authorities in 1934135, but omenon Association in Dusseldorf. In in the absence of tape recordings the Britain research is left t o amateurs like matter was eventually dropped and asRaymond Cass, who runs a firm specialcribed t o Nazi secret transmitters. More ising in hearing aids in Hull. On 1 8 June strange voices were picked up by radio enthusiasts in Chicago in 1952, with t h ~ 1974 he recorded a voice saying "Raudive, man of oak, toward the tomb." same characteristics observed todav. hu Three months later, Raudive died. Once again they were not recorded. Finally Cass asked the voices whether they werf

stuff

Become one with Muesli, or Submit to Friendly Tyranny is the message from John Statin, vision bender andparodist. Can 'Youth Save the World'is one of eighteen probes into incongruity in Stalin's new set of designs available, by mail order, from SMERSH, 27 Old Gloucester St., London, WCl N 3XX. The set f& two bonus cards) are orice Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ3.9 o l w 350 postage. (Cheques to SMERSH). ember 83lJanuary 1984

terrestrial o r not. Back came the reply: "Doch rekording der Kosmosiamons" . -which he took t o mean they were from the cosmos in one way or another. Not very enlightening, really. There are five main explanatory hypotheses for EVP: 1. The voices are from another dimension, probably from the dead. Both Jurgehson and Raudive believe this. Many of the voices themsehes claim t o be from beyond the grave. 2. The voices are transmitted by the experimenter's subconscious which in some way influences the iron oxide particles o n magnetic tape psychokinetically. This is the view of one of the world's most experienced EVP investigators, Professor Hans Bender of Freiburg. This theory does not neces. sarily rule out the possibility that the messages originated in the spirit world. 3. The voices are transmitted by a space-ship parked in our solar system by "beings" who haven't sorted out our various languages, resulting in the Babel effect. 4. The voices stem from the Russians engaging in psychological warfare. The Russians, however, claim t o be as mystified by EVP as the rest of us. 5. The voices are some other kind of vast international hoax. The messages recorded over ten years by Mr Cass are delivered in voices varying from harsh male tones t o pleasant, even sexy, female ones, speaking singly o r in unison with others. "They come in on little-used frequencies and have a strange rhythm and speed" he says. "They are subject t o fluctuations due t o solar activities and sunspots, so reliable and clear channels have not been obtained." Some voices he categorises as "serious" such as the one which said "&ncemed without delay publish", o r "North Bridlington focal point for our defence system". (Mr Cass lives in Bridlington). On one occasion, when a German assistant was transferring Elvis Presley songs from one tape t o another, Mr Cass was listening for voices in another room, unaware that she was doing this. Suddenly he heard a German voice saying: "She loves Elvis. We noted that." Sources: Spirits and Spirit Worlds by Roy Stemman (Doubleday 1976); Hull Daily Mail, 1 2 Aug; Yorkshire post, 2 6 Aug, Hull Times, 9 Sept, Evening Standard, 20 Sept, 1977; Sunday People, 8 Oct 1978; National Enquirer, * May 1979. Thanks to: Anthony Bell, Derek Shelton, Anthony Smith, Dwight Whalen. PAUL SIEVEKING

BEAST NEWS It was left t o an excellent letter from philosophy professor Hugh Lehman in the following issue t o raise the 'nest of ethical issues' involved; criticisms t o which Pond replied in textbook fashion. A model study in attitudes. Discover (September 19831, the Time-Life pop science mag, had an excelle~~t, piece entitled The Electronic Guinca pig, sumn~arkingthe state of the art in the use of computer programs t o replace laboratory animals. The situation looks very optimistic both for the screening of new compounds and for teaching purposes, as it allows medical students t o get 'handson' experience through simulation systems. Both government agencies and corporationsare involved in developing these new technology applications which are in most cases - faster, cheaper and more effective and reliable than animal experiments - powerful incentives for further funding. The snowball begins here. .Vew Scientist ( 1 3 October 1983) had a cot-er line which read 'Health Is A Nice Warm Budgie'. a curtain-raiser t o advertise ~ a m e < ~ e ~ ~ essay e l l ' s on pet keeping and its hplications. He examines popular myths shreds them more like - revealing that the highest incidence of pet ownirship is not amongst the emotionally starved but amongst young married couples. Pets are not the prerogative of the rich or the West but are found in all societies at all levels - . the Kalapalo Indians of Brazil, for instance, bury their pet birds in special cemeteries - and pet therapy is proving an important new treatment in Western societies. Despite its obvious importance, the author claims only a handful of people in this country are currently engaged in research into human, pet relationships and most research is financed by the pet food industry. -

The recent death of Pole Pole a t London Zoo was not the only pachyderm tragedy of late. Reuters repcrted that two elephants at Canton Zoo in China died after Baibao (53, male) rebuffed the amorous advances of Vilong (42. female) and they both landed on top of each other in a narrow moat. Such moat deaths have been commonplace in m(,dern zoo history so why d o they keep constructing them? A ~ d h e thing r it's hard t o under. stand is why 4 0 baby elephants from Zinbabwe were flown t o Holland, for ultimdts d q a t c h t o zoos in Japan and elsewhere. The>-were 'saved from the drought' apparently at the same time that 'conservationists' were 'culling' elephants in their thousands due t o overpopu!ation. Ten t h ~ u s a n dat least have been killed in the last year. Elephants are thriving in Zimbabwe it seems, growing from a population of 4,000 a t the turn of the century t o almost 50,000 today, During the same period, the human population there has gone from 500,000 t o well over 7 million, In other words their numbers may have increased but the elephants are losing ground.

Isn't it time the e k p h x t was given the full worldwide mass media cam. pzigri ireatment afforded t o the whales and dolphins? The s1oga.n is THE NEXT BIG THING.

a nice Nowhere has the increased interest in animal issues been more noticeable than in the scientific press. Three recent cover stories are particularly worth noting. Scientific America11 (May 1983) featured Modern Port: Production by Wilson G.Pond of the unlikely named Roman L.Hrusa US Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska. It proved t o be a definitive description of the life and times of the modern pig, clinical and detailed. a view o f a world where living creatures have been reduced t o the level of Fiat robots.

Megamouth is the common name of an extraordinary new species of shark, dredged u p from the Pacific off Hawaii, when by chance it became entangled in a submerged parachute used in oceano. graphic research. It is the largest shark discovered for more than a century and on1)- the third shark species out of the 350 known t o feed by filtering plankton from the water,

blokchnology.' And the lives of fresh m o m of llb ulimals!

Macro Mac

The international urban pwblem @ pooch poop I w its ukhtmte solution with the tippamu& en tb Parisian streets and3pwaentsof the Cmlnettes, a 7 0 ~ f o~i w hg Mght green uniforms, who rlde spedaU#converted 2 6 0 Y -~ with four bmhes mounted on the baak. They collect 1.5 tonnes of d6gd doingdaily and the bike squads have been so mcwisful that they will mon s p W to other dties.

e&u're plwe&*&a but mpt m i ~ ~g ~ w m r ktu f ~ W I ,YOU Tn@(81).~ k & bydNorth Plastic# af Wumky, bhchester. -mourn triggem a plastic doox h traps It ~ ~so it can d h n be mbsed at a &Wce &om your d W n & A stgo of the tima? Gem fkm Hew -6 inform^ u' w * u w m u p s are that WW rtt m@k&ere, c6mthuhg the movement%unceasing global ~prqul. The ALFtook 16 rabbits from a

entally, a i e a In the Mag On entitled e Anhala Bib original), ddmed that the ALF

REVIEWS M y Country is the Whole World. Cambridge Women's Peace Collective. Pandora Press. E4.95. Greenham Women Everywhere. Alice Cook and Gwvn Kirk (eds). Pluto Press. E3.50. Reclaim the Earth. Leonie Caldecott and Ste~hanieLeland (eds). Women's p i e s . Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ4.95 THE WOMEN'S Peace Movement has taken up the anthology as the best genre we have so far discovered t o express and inspire each other with our shared accomplishments and diverse experiences of the movement. Every woman can take the opportunity t o overcome the silencing effect of her oppression and put into prose or poetry her own feeling and thinking; being published is another step in confidence-building. It is a spur t o research new information which inspires and backs up our action. Know ledge is power and we intend t o gain both. These three anthologies are a11 examples of this inspiration. My Country is the Whole World provides a historical perspective, t o remind us that millions of women have gone before us in our search for peace. The weekly French Suffragette journal Droits des Femmes proclaimed in July 1870: 'Let us protest in the name of humanity against this pastime of princes, which causes the blood of the people t o floua . . . women haue not only the right to interfere, it is their duty t o d o so, ' Peace is more than an absence of war, as Dora Russel points out in The Right to be Happy: ' L e t those men and women who know, w h o enjoy, and who are unafraid, open the prison gates for mankind Let them teach and live, conquerpublic opinion, show that they can do better than those that traffic in the old wares of superstition and hate. These feed upon destruction and despair, but they shall flourish on security and peace. Let such men and women build a human society in the image o f human beings vivid, warm, and quick with animal life, intricate and louely in thought and emotion. ' These two quotations are among over 200 taken from the writings of

women between 70OBC and the present day. toetry, prose and illustrations create page after page of thrill in the knowledge that women have always known what is right and that many have fought t o express it. The Cambridge Women's Peace Collective deserve congratulations for their wide reading, and for the questions they have raised and clearly struggled with. The passion that burst out of Greenham Women Euerywhere is outstanding. The women's words come directly from their own knowledge and experience without distancing or theorising. One woman talks about our responsibility for nuclear weapons through the taxes we pay, and the necessity t o stand out against what we d o not support: 'The implications of this line o f reasoning are enormous and different for everyone. They are also frightening 'She gives a list of things which may frighten us; knowing that other women are scared of all those ordinary things must give more women courage t o take the same risks. I would like t o see this book sold not only in the 'right-on' bookshops, but on station bookstalls and in every corner shop. Reclaim the Earth provides the broad perspective on peace issues. Here are the links with the ecological, health, class and race issues. This book will help t o show all those working in or

fighting the racist police Bill that they are intrinsically part of the peace movement. I felt a deep respect for the work the women are doing, and found many of the chapters very moving. I particularly enjoyed Wilmette Brown's Roots: Black Ghetto Ecology in which she thanks the working class of Britain (whose struggle made the NHS possible) for her life. She comparesbig business and the military.industria1 complex with cancer, a disease with a death rate for black people in the US which is 30% higher than for whites. Cancer has been her own personal struggle, and when she says: 'Getting well means organking to defeat the power relations o f sex, race and class that make cancer, illness and di4ease possible'she is relating the personal t o the political. The contributions t o Reclaim the Earth are from Europe, North America, Japan, Kenya, India, Argentina, and New Zealand (one of the latter a Maori woman). The third world contributions are particularly helpful t o those of us who may sometimes lapse into a narrow western view of the world, and certainly arouse in me a real excitement at being part of a world-wide movement in all its excellent diversity. The breadth of our movement is summed up by the editors' comment on Manami Suzuki: ' [ S h e ]is an example of a woman w h o has integreated within herself and so come to terms with the diverse ecological, political and spiritual elements necessav for a deep-rooted change in both her society and others afflicted by the dis-ease o f the twentieth century, ' Fiona Adamson

The Big March. Allan Prior. Harnish Hamilton. E8.95.

more,possible targets for the rest of the world's wea onry*) By concentding on the environmental effects of a nuclear war,and the impact these have on haman beings the authors show how many people will die a slow death as a result of lack of food and water. For inskance, uncontrollable fires would d e s b y much agriculture, and changes in the composition of the atmosphere w d climate would also decrease q o g yields In another chapter, the effects o f a nuclear war on forest structure and other vegetation is described in general, plants with a large number of chromosomes but low cell nucleus Vblume are the most resistant to radiation. d l xiety

s e ~ e sthe m e W s end^ Punks and vegetadnism, 'pot' and pine kitchens am in turn derided and a h m d in fact any and all the accoubmenb of M i d i n g an a l k ~ t i v counter-culture. e Yet his most apparent lack of fluidity i!s a writer comes through when Ire is d d @ g with Iwe scenes or any emotional involvement Totally uncomfortab~he med his own affected psychologically that they will hdeqtawks and a shallow underbe unable & cam for themselves or W@ug of what lies behind sexual relathshipor the pasion whkh fuels others. Survivors may a h be completely disorienbted and lose the sense the need to mrvive in all actions of the of time, ptaw and position of objects. k e Mwement Pe~hapswritten for . The book has an kcademic, technical t b film righla, or other Amdcan in&reatS, me Big March rev& i k l f as style which means it @best read in small doses. I don't consider this a an Matent attempt fault - it should be used as a reference t~ deride F e m b i p m d the.Id. I t book for specific i n f o ~ t i o non a@m a r h a new f m in pqahr &tion of culture, etc. rather than as a beginner's trueblue propi@n& Marlwe Packwoot guide to nuclear weapons. But if you h n ' t have a scientific background, a Ame?ican public of the fervmr of the sciefitific dictionary h probabb 8 British paw movement. A male qmera~ n-ecessity @.decode the jargon: cmw ogle6 as Alison c w m her legs , h w m a Veal and he@ her mouth shut about he^, :. mialfst polltics in the face of any med& d ~ c Thus b W O ~l B~ ofk b o w ledge about women or fhinism from War: The Aftermath. wer into hjs ~ ~ ~imagesj of i Nu~lear l J.Peterson 81D.Hinrichsen (eds). Gmnham Common women (surely gleaned from the Daily Telegruph). The bWbitants of the Norfolk pem camp Cover-up. are so sketchy in ti@deplctlon of â ‚ ¬ nudear w u p t mi$ten. Unlike most Nicholas Hiidyard* that they either heve ar do nat, m i o w books abmt the holocaust New English Libraw. Â£2.95 are fat or thin and make m d h cuw which tend to concentrate on the oftea effects on people in cities, and the THIS IS a revised edition of the book Yet the March M f is the crescendo number of wd%a& possessed by the originally published in 1981. Subtitied of this sorry tale. In the style of A&.tair superpowers, Nwlear War: The The Facts They Don't Want You to Afiennath abo mve~ the effects of Know, kt deals with how b d w h y and such a war on food upp plies and agriClovernment have suppremed informwlture, ocean ecmystemsssources of ation on the environmental effects of drinking water, the a t m o s p h e ~and ~ numerous pollutants the ecmixny. There will be nothing new to The information in the book was Undercurrents readers in the topics baed w a special issue ofthe excellent covered: Karen Silkwod/Pestiades/ m&zine 4d&,pubbhed in Sweden. Acid Rain/Microwaves/Lead etc, but The refmenee scenario involved the use of less than half the world's nuclear the detail given is revealing - and it membhmx to Tony Ben4 a&who i8 wohld certainly be a book to weapons &&pile, aimed at militay ridicuied and derided by i@%l fm installatioq iwge cities, and e~onomic/ recommend to anyone as yet unversed m k e n to mit Priofs puqms& A in the truth of what actually goes on. bdw Weekend Tekvbion w n W Q industrial ta@Wsuch as steelworks. emin thesovel as the wdting (The a u t h w muid not think of any Antonia M i b

THE HG MARCH is a con and an o b v i i s product of what pnbllshers wan&to print rather tlw.n what writem want to write. Commissioned for thfs work, Allan Prior is defi&ely their man sad r&the mst of any personal integrity has written a work whiih ha ebbs t o be '&tion'. In it the vulgarity and b r a h e s of American tekvision is acclaimed bv him and used as a back-

-Myth or Model is an edited record

People

Energy and Social Policy. fed) J.Bradshaw & T.Morris. Routledge & Kegan ~aul.Â£6.15 MANY e n e m activists demak at least at times, at the complace&y of the establishment - and the public. W th oil sloshing about the western worid in relative abundance once again, many people seem to have concluded, with relief, that the 'energy crisis' has been (olved. The realty is very different. We hive a short respite in terms of availability of north sea oil and gas and the ever more worrying future option of nuclear power, or alternatively the as yet unproven renewable energy option. There an vital public policy h u e s at stake and yet it often seemsthat 'ordinary people*an not interested in energy policy. It's all too remote from their dally lives. But, once again, the reality is very different As this book eloquently demonstrates, energy is a central day to day issue for many people - whether. it's an old age pensioner facing hypothermia and a Â£25 quarterly electricity bill, or a family on the dole being cut off for non-payment There are on average around 150,OOQguandelectricity disconnections web year. People like this are very interefted in energy policy and the resultant effect on final prices: it can be a matter of life or death for

-rgy

teem.

As the Right to Fuel campaign has argued, everyone has a right to masonable levels of heating. It's not a luxury but a necessity, especially for the old, in which case, at the very least, cash welfare provisions should be made as a remedial move. But beyond that we need to improve the energy system*

themselves.

Improvement can be made - perhaps aided by state giants - on an individual bull, but really there is a need for a more comprehensive approach to energy efficiency and energy coniei-ration. Britain has some of the worst housing In the 'advanced' world Hundreds of thousands of j o b could be created by upgrading it within the framework of a mnslbly planned nations Insulation programme.

of their exchange of view. Papers read at the conference and reprinted in the book, cover the history and present stri~ctureof Mondragon; the sources of its economic success and stability: the relevance of the Mondragon experience to another clannish region Wales; and what emerges as a cardinal issue, the role of Trade Unions in co-ops. Discussion following each paper vigorously underlines ideological differences. Despite an irritating indifference to presentation (a lilt of contents without page references and in the wrong order), the book is both informative and lively. There is a range of models for cooperative deyelopment This is aa intelligent collection of insights into the Mondragon version, and its suitability or desirability here in Britain. hbnd

But the lion's shan of funding still goes to the supply slde, with nuclear power still being given the main priority for the future. Pud prices are expected to double in nal tunasin the next twenty years, so that it will become even more urgent to link national energy policy and locial policy. This book, puked full of information and analysis and policy recommendation! covering the whole 'fuel poverty' problem, win, hopefully, help the link to be consolidated Owe Elliot! -a

Genetic Takeover end the Mineral Ori in of Life. A G Cairns- ith. Cambridge University Press. Â£5.00.

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Myth o r ~ o d e l .' (Ed.) Co-operative Research Unit PETER JAY had a Mondragon p h a d ' back in 1977. He was so impressed by the 20-year-old network of workers' co-operatives employing more than 17,000 people in the Basque country of Northern Spain that he wrote two article* in the Times recommending widespread worker ownenhip: induftria trust would replace industrial strife; ' Trade Union!, no longer needed, would quietly di~band;inflation would tall away to nothing and the lion would lie down with the lamb. The happy day has not yet dawned. But cooperative enthuilaxtl still look for inspiration to the one hundred primary co-operatives, the bank and the schools in this stubbornly separatist area of Spain. In 1981, a conference organised by the Open Univenity't Co-operative Research Unit examined the different impressions of Trade Unionists, academics and co-operative devotees, ail with first hand experience of Mondragon. Mondmgon Cooperatives

CAIRNS-SMITH is a 'chemical evolution 1st': he believes that life on Earth evolved through natural selection from inorganic crystals: our Ultimate Ancestor was, quite literally, made of mud. Further, that this mud then diecovered, by natural selection, how to do the carbon bawd organic chemistry that we now regard as the basis of all life. And finally that it was supplanted by new forms of life teat exploited its test discovery: how to use organic crystals to make replicating molecules like DNA. This was the genetic takeover. Thi is a technical book with a lot of detail but it is written in a dear and cheerful style at about the level of the Scientific American. I recommend it to AT beaks because it opens up the p d b l l i t y of a new cheap and soft technology based on living m b n k when it comes to technical flxw we ain't Men nothin' yet And then is a wider implication of this view to ponder on: life, it appeals. is nothing special, It will arise montaneoudv a n m e n in tee Unlvene which Is (table enough to let crystalline structures form and yet varied enough to allow natural selection to act. So we an not alone. Qlris Squire

Because of society's fear of that one word, you are given a freedom to talk which is denied to sufferers of other equally serious diseases. Why do you let them do this to you? Why don't you do something you believe in?" ation, you are given a freedom to talk which is denied to sufferers of other equally serious and debilitating diseases. But of course in the final analysis, the real battle is fought alone.When, halfway through my course of chemotherapy, I refused t r e ~ . ... tv,".; ~ y s running and then walked out of the building past my family, one of them said despairingly: 'But it's your life.' UNDERCURRENTS photographer Mark Rogers was found to have a 'Yes,' I replied, 'It is my life.' I had realised that only I could save myself. teratoma affecting his right testis in April 1980. After removal of the So I decided not t o recommence testis, two secondary turnours were discovered in his lymphatic system. chemotherapy, but I did recommence He was admitted to Bristol Hospital for a course of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Physically I comradiation treatment; doctors told him he had an even chance of being promised my chances, mentally I cured. strengthened them. Now I knew I wanted to live, and this burnt inside me In this article he describes how the six-month course of treatment for the next seven weeks of treatment. affected him, both physically and mentally. Finally I was able to commute to the hospital every day, with none of the mental clouding of the previous drug treatment. My mind was clear now to fashion, and then I would be allowed HEMOTHERAPY, due to its very fight the disease. to go home for three weeks. Then the nature, has many side effects. Its During this period I was asked, very longer-term side effects manifested toxidty to dividing cells in the seriously by people who cared, why I themselves. Again my digestion body means that apart from had taken this treatment without suffered, and I lost my appetite attacking cancer cells, it also destroys considering any alternative forms of entirely and became constipated. The the cells in the bone marrow where medication. 'Why do you let them do most noticeable effects t o the outside blood cells constituting the body's this to you?' one friend asked. 'Why observer were my rapid loss of weight defences against disease are formed. don't you do something you really and total loss of hair. It also affects the cells in the believe in?' This hair loss is always assumed to stomach lining, rendering digestion All he could see was the obvious be traumatic, which it undoubtedly is, erratic at best. After every dosage (at pain and confusion inside me. Because but it is also reassuring in its obviousabout 4 o'clock each afternoon) my he was involved in alternative forms of ness. When asked 'What's wrong with evening would consist of half-hourly medicine he tended to rejectthe you?', all is explained with one word visits t o the toilet, vomiting, or lying in conventional choice, and believed that - 'Cancer'. Because of society's fear of a drugged stupor on my bed. In my situation he would choose a that one word and its resultant fascinFive days would be spent in this different kind of cure. I can't say that I think his altematives would have helped me in my extreme condition. I did believe in the treatment I was receiving, even at my most drugged and depressed. Con-. sequently I was able to communicate with my doctors and help them help me. The more I knew, the more I was able to fight. Belief and knowledge on their own are not enough, but together they become more than just the fusion of their respective parts. So what has come out of all this? My body has been free of disease for three years now. It took me another year to come to terms with the realisation that I was free t o make other decisions again. In many ways this is a much harder task. Before, I had a black and white choice -live or die. Now I have the choice to decide what choices I give myself. In other words, 'It's my life.' Only I can choose where I go and what I can do, and that applies - - to you too. Mark Rogers

BRIEFING I f y o u haven't y e t decided mhich diary t o get for n e x t year, here's a r u n d o w n o n some o f them.

it's expensive f o r a diary, b u t nice t o give as a present. I f y o u can't f i n d it i n a shop, it is available f r o m t h e Womens Press, 1 2 4 Shoreditch High St, L o n d o n E l .

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The Spare R i b D i a r y f o r 1 9 8 4 has w o m e n and music as its theme. It is n o t as graphical as the other diaries listed below, b u t it does have more space f o r each day ( 2 pages t o a week rather than one). The resource section contains a directory o f women's groups (and some m i x e d groups), contacts and useful reading; there is also a menstrual calendar a n d alphabetical pages f o r addresses and phone numbers. T h e diary costs Â£2.7 and is available f r o m alternative bookshops or f r o m Spare Rib, 2 7 Clerkenwell Close, L o n d o n EC1. The Housmans Peace D i a r y his year has been redesigned, w i t h a more imaginative cover and inside layout. I t is the main diary o f the peace movement, and contains profiles o f the major peace groups as well as a comprehensive list o f British peace groups a n d the better-known European groups. I m p o r t a n t historical events i n the peace movement are mentioned i n the appropriate date entry. There is also a Housmans International Peace Diary, which has the same f o r m a t as t h e other b u t a more comprehensive list o f European peace groups. B o t h diaries have pages f o r addresses a t the back. Each costs Â£2.50 they are available f r o m certain bookshops o r a t Â£2.8 f r o m Housmans, 5 Caledonian Rd, L o n d o n N 1 .

F o r m a n y people, calendars are almost as essential as diaries. Better Days is a peace calendar w i t h t h e theme 'Peace i n t h e Public Eye 1870-1984'. It has illustrations based o n posters a n d other visual materials showing aspects o f peace campaigning a n d concern since 1870. There is also a f u l l chronology o f dates f o r peace movement activists t o celebrate, commemorate, o r use when planning activities. A l l proceeds w i l l go t o the peace movement. T h e calendar costs Â£2.5 a n d is available f r o m Better Days, c / o 9 2 Western Rd, L o n d o n E13.

CAMPAIGNS Â

Yellow a n d green sunflower badges have n o w been produced w i t h the peace, anarchist, feminist and yin-yang symbols on them. Each badge has one o f the symbols w i t h the sunflower. They cost 2 0 p each, or 1 2 % each ~ f o r 1 0 o r more. Small, reflecting, green star badges are also available at 7 0 p each. T o order, make cheques payable t o the 'Green Gathering', a d d 1 5 % f o r postage, and send t o Green Gathering Collective, 4 Bridge House, St Ives, nr Huntingdon, Cambs.

RESOURCES Carry Greenham H o m e is a video documentary about the Greehnham peace camp, the bestk n o w n actions such as dancing o n the silos and t h e Easter blockades and also some o f t h e private actions that are part o f l i f e a t the camp. The video also demonstrates the power a n d strength o f this f o r m o f opposition, t h e implications o f nonviolent protest and o f living non-hierarchically i n a women's c o m m u n i t y . The f i l m is 7 0 minutes long, i n colour, and available o n U m a t i c a n d V H S format. T o hire, contact the National F i l m &Television School, Station Rd, Beaconsfield, Bucks. o r phone (049461 71234. Political photomontage is the subject o f a video programme produced b y T V Co-op entitled Photomontage Today: Peter Kennard. The video focuses o n the w o r k o f Kennard, best k n o w n for his anti-nuclear montages, a n d his a t t e m p t t o construct a visual language o f political opposition. It also relates theoretical and p o l itical concerns t o the development o f montage i n t h e cinema. The video runs f o r 3 5 minutes and can be h i r e d f r o m the Arts Council F i l m Library at Concord

a Arms

T h e Peace Education P r o j u t , part o f the Peace Pledge Union, has just produced a pamphlet for teachers entitled Language o f Silence. It is designed f o r teach ers t o alert their students t o the pervasiveness o f militarism in language, a n d t o show h o w the hidden implications o f language can be explored. Priced a t 35p, it is available f r o m the PEP, 6 Endsleigh St, L o n d o n WC1 Energy forA11 and Wildlife and t . ' A ~ t o m are t w o pamphlets w h i c h have recently been publishe d b y Greenpeace London. Energy f o r A l l looks at 'good' a n d 'bad' sources o f alternative energy w h i l e also explaining the p r o b lems o f conventional energy supplies. Wildlife a n d the A t o m describes t h e radiation experiments p e r f o r m e d o n animals, a n d also looks a t t h e ecological effects o f a nuclear war a n d the fate o f f a r m animals. The energy pamphlet costs 50p, t h e w i l d l i f e one 4 0 p . If interested, send an A5-size S A E t o Greenpeace London, 6 Endsleigh St, London WC1.

N e w G r o u n d is the new journal o f the Socialist Environmental a n d Resource Association ( S E R A ) . T h e publication was originally going t o be called C o m m o n Ground, b u t t h a t name was already taken. The idea is t o p r o m o t e dialogue between socialists, ecologists a n d other interested people. Contributors t o t h e first issue include such notables as Neil Kinnock, Jeremy Seabrook a n d R a y m o n d Williams. A sample copy costs 4 0 p post free f r o m SERA, 9 Poland St, London W1.

T h e B i g Red D i a r y al-io has disarmament as its theme f o r this year. It has its usual excellent directory o f virtually ali national groups which c o u l d be called alternative, plus a special directory o f peace groups ( b u t be warned: most o f the peace camp addresses are o u t o f date). It is also the most graphical o f these three diaries. Priced at Â£2.95 i t is available f r o m most alternative bookshops.

Finally, the Womens Press have also produced a diary f o r 1984. E n t i t l e d Contemporary Women Artists, it is illustrated w i t h full-colour photographs o f women's paintings, all very vivid. Unfortunately there is n o t much space t o a day - s o d o n ' t b u y i t i f y o u lead a busy life. A t Â£3.5

The Council f o r National Parks is a voluntary organisation w i t h over 3 0 member bodies, including the major conservation bodies i n England and Wales, w h i c h is c o m m i t t e d t o t h e conservation o f our National Parks. Recently t h e y have played a leading role i n fighting f o r i m provements t o the Wildlife a n d Countryside Act; co-ordinated the opposition o f voluntary organisations t o proposed quarry extensions i n the Yorkshire Dales; and published N e w L i f e for the Hills, a major report aimed t o secure radical changes t o upland pastures. Membership costs Â£5 f o r which y o u receive a copy of Tarn a n d Tor, the organisation's magazine, a n d is available f r o m Hobart Place, London SW1,

SEMINARS PUBLICATIONS Under Pressure is the latest pamphlet t o be published by the Anti-Nuclear Campaign. It is about the specific hazards of the Pressurised Water Reactor and is aimed a t peple w h o want t o k n o n m o r e about the risks o f t h e PWR, and at those w h o w a n t t o address meetings/lead discussions o n the topic o f PWR safety. It is w r i t t e n i n non-technical language,and w o u l d also be useful f o r those w h o want a crash course i n reactor physics. T h e pamphlet costs 5 0 p a n d can be obtained f r o m the A N C national office, PO B o x 216, Sheffield S1.

The India Development G r o u p ( U K I and the Institute of Development Studies w i l l be j o i n t l y convening a seminar o n January 14 o n Towards a Social Forestry Policy in India. One o f the aims o f the seminar is t o provide i n f o r m a t i o n f o r people w h o want t o learn more about social forestry, and hence a n u m ber o f influential speakers will be present. I t takes place at the Overseas Development Institute, 1 0 Percy St, L o n d o n W l , and lasts f r o m 10-4pm. Cost is Â£ ( Â £ unwagedl. For more i n f o r m a t i o n contact Sandra Halliday, 3 0 K i n g Richard St. Coventry, West Midlands, tel. ( 0 2 0 3 ) 21633

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Fiona Adamson has ecently been leading workshops i n effectiveness and unity in the mti-nuclear movement. Some she ies organised herself, but she is 1Iso happy t o work with existing jroups by arrangement. her basic premise is that personal support i s 1 political necessity, and that we ieed to attend t o our feelings in irder t o be effectively powerful. She hopes t o create a supportive atmosphere in the groups and illow participants t o create a new of joy and powerfulness, fterwards t o set up support ietworks t o continue after each workshop. Workshop fees will iormally be Â£7.6 (low-waged E5, unwaged Â£2.501 For details i f future workshops, contact Fiona at 2 Arundel Gardens, Lpndon W11, tel. 01-221 1310. The winter programme of Dunamis features a lecture series on the politics of persuasion. This will examine how the public may effectively influence Westminster i n d Whitehall; the role of the media and advertising; and what s of persuasion are legitimate lamocracy. The dates are: ary 11 The Media Gets the lessage. ~enuary18 The Politics of Persuasion part 1. January 25 The Politics of Persuasion part 2. February 1 Change through Persuasion. February 8 Making Democracy Work for us. February 15 How t o be Politically Effective. The January 18 lecture will be given by Michael Dobbs, director i f Saatchi & Saatchi! Entrance Jonation is Â £ 1 . 5 0unwaged; the bessions start at 6.30 at St ~ames %urch, 197 Piccadilly, London Q l . For more details phone 11-437 6851.

DEMONSTRATIONS Christian CND are irganising an action on December 18 at Daws Hill USAF base in Buckinghamshire. At 12 noon at e main gate there will be a iristian service, followed by a wocession around the base. Some aeople are also planning some sort i f symbolic nonviolent direct action for the same day. Those nterasted in taking part in the MVDA should either meet early i n December 18 t o organise into iffinity groups, or attend a neeting in High Wycombe the Jay before. The venue for this has l o t yet been fixed, so contact Barbara on 01-263 0977 for %?tail+

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Daws Hill is also the focus )fan action on Decmibsr 19. At he start of an action-packed day, usemble between 6-6.30am at ^ye Park at the bottom end of 4igh Wycombe, t o travel t o Jaws Hill bass for a blockade ram 7-1 lam. Non-blockaders will also have a role as legal obtawen and as support people. 3ack at the park again, there will m a solemn, silent procession ound High Wycombe, starting a t 11.30 and ending at 12.30. Jress in black or other dark olours. At 2pm, people should 10 t o nearby Naphill NATO :ornmand bunker, where suitable ress will be planted on excavatxl waste land which is part of a National Trust property. More nformation about proposed Daw iill activities is available from laws Hill Peace Camp, outside JSAF Base, Daws Hilt Lana, 4igh Wycombe, Bucks, or :el. (04341 32335.

D A series of action have also been planned around W a n hmlth USAF base/Siz*Wll over Zhristmas and New Year. A brief un-down is as follows:Barnbar 19-20 Meet at Lakanheath USAF base. Docamber 21 Lighting of beacon outside base a t 8.30pm (and hopefully on hills overlooking bases in other parts of the country too). Docember 22 Start of a sponsorec fast from 10.30am, which will raise money for a faminestruck village in Tigrey, Ethiopia. Bfcembar 31 Torch-lit processior late evening, around the base. Break fast at midnight. blurry 1Start of 6-day walk t o Sizewell. Perform Street theatre in towns along the wa! lanuary 5 Arrive at Shape, where the inquiry is, and plant a rowan tree. Jmuuy 6 Arrive at Sizewall. ample shouldn't feel obliged to fast for the whole 10 days. The ~rganisershave lots more ideas ind information too, such as agional fasting which will start it the fame time as the beacon flares. To find out more, contact Arthur on 01-806 4615 or, for the walk, Jill at Briar Cottage, Mewgate, Kirby Cane, Bungay, Suffolk, tel. (050845) 705.

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Animal Aid groups around the country are holding demonstrations and leafletting sessions throughout the country in December. to protest against all aspects of Christmas animal cruelly. One such protest will be in York on DÃ§cÃ§mb18, outside York Minster cathedral. Meet i t 4pm at York 8R station, and take candles in windproof containers. For more information about this and related demonstrations. contact Animal Aid on (07321 364546.

Another demonstration against Hazelton Laboratories in ierrogata, Yorkshire, will take >laceon January 28. Hazelton is Icontract research laboratory nvolved i n work for the drug, igrochemical, tobacco and :osmetics industry, and was also l i e subject of a protest last August As yet there are no inal details, so contact BUAV iearer the time at 16a Crane :rove, London N7, tel. 01307 1892. The British Union for tha Abolition of Vivisection is organising a national demonstration, in Norfolk against livestock markets for Deoembar 17. The assembly point is outside 'The Greyhound' pub. Market Square, Swaffham, Norfolk; the demonstration starts at 12 noon. For further details phone (0366) 382614.

CELEBRATIONS If you're tyring t o avoid a Family Christmas, the Consorvation Volunteers have two projects over Christmas week which inuolve practical tasks such as woodland management (in Lancashire) or dry stone walling, footpath repair, and replanting trees (in Snow&niaI.The Lancashire host will also offer Christmas dinner. The dates for these breaks are December 20-28 (Snowdonial and December 21-28 (Lancashire). Four projects are also planned over New Year, and others will take place in January and February Participants must pay Â£ t o join the scheme and should contribute El .20 per day towards food and overheads. For more details send an A4-sized SAE t o the BTCV, 36 St Mary's St, Wellingford, Oxon.

B Lover Shaw Farm are hosting e New Year Celebration from DÃ§c*mbe30 January 2. For Â£2 you can participate in an 'annual fling when the unpredictable is predicted'. It's supposed to be fun. If interested, send a cheque to ~ o & r Shaw Farm, Shaw, Swindon. Wilts. or phone (0793) 771080 for more details.

m Such a IUL IIUL LU LCII yuu LIIIS IIIUIILII. I p r u r r i ~ ~ enot u to say anything about the financial problems at Friends of the Earth, or about infiltration of green activists into the GLC or about Nick Lester and London Transport . so it'll have to be the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) bash at Buck House. The invite arrived, I duly had a good wrestle with my conscience and off I went (after all, i f Channel 4 can sell out, so can 1). Inside the Palace there were hundreds of others with wrestled consciences too. Famous names from Undercurrents' past - Martyn Partridge ('I do their printing'), Lin Simonon ('this would make a great children's playground') and Stephen Joseph ('what's an equerry?' he said to one) - loomed out of alcoholic mists. The punks with green hair seemed to enjoy it. So did the disguised Sun reporter ('Boozy kids in Palace rave-up') he was the one surreptitiously (good word that) referring to the "My First ABC" and the "I Spy Book of Scum". I saw Neil Kinnock and felt better - his conscience looked hardly touched. Thatcher (or Janet Brown doing a good imitation) cruised in, avoiding the CND occupation of Downing Street. 'Oh you're disabled, how terrible', she to a wheelchair occupant. One brave woman, asked by TINA what she did, described the appalling effects of cuts in her social services department. "I'm sure you do a wonderful job" said the PM, turning away. The speeches began in the ballroom; we all moved in except for Thatcher who came out saying "it's all right, the Queen's there now" (translation: my deputy is present, I think it's safe in her hands) and off she went, glinting under the chandeliers. Sir Keith Joseph was there too (will this name dropping never end?) - his name badge looked chewed. After the presentation of photos by the poor children (sorry,Youth Trainees) of Hackney to Liz and Phil, the fun began. The Sun reporter invented fights and vomiting. Kids (and Steve Joseph) nicked huge white chrysanths from a beautiful display, tables were damaged. We all disappeareu into the night back to our hovels. CSV is 21. But enough of this 'Worst of Hollywood'series ('The Bride of Dracula meets Peter Pan'). What has happened to SERA'S coffin? This custom-built job, used with dead fish on an acid rai demo (see UC 61) has disappeared from a Surrey Union office. Police are holding their noses. Edward Dawson, secretary of CoEnCo (see my last column) i s rurnoured Thave Euro-political ambitions for the SDP (shades of To Burke here?) . . . Don't know what the world's coming t( there's now a "Conservative Anti-Hunt Council". Demmi all, do these Militant chappies have no decency? Spent Nov 5 in ideological soundness at an Islington short life house discussing the future of the Labour party, eating healthy food and waving sparklers from the top of a children's climbing frame in a nearby park. What could be more agreeable? Answers on a postcard please

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LOONY DOOMSTER

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT with the publishers, Wildwood House, we are now able to offer our book Radical Technology to Undercurrents readers at less than half price - only Â£2.9 postpaid.

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at 27 Clerkenwell Close London ECIR OAT Children & the Environment- Future perfect- City jungles; Flysheet camps. Ma Gaia; ~ o k n u n i t yschoois & services.

ND U U T What you've been missing. Any ten of .. e issues listed below cost just Â£3.50Or, even letter, all the issues below PLUS a free copy of the ndex of the first nine years for only Â£12surface nail, worldwide. Please note that nos. 25.27.28.45 and 47 are low out of print. BUT some issues from 1976 and 1977 have turned up and are available for 50p 'ach, or as part of our special 38 issue bulk offer.

Third world energy; F A 0 food conference; Street fightin: man; QIY biogas; Ecotopoly; Environmental education.

38 39

Anti-nuclear campaigns Denmark- Seabrook- Guerilla tactics; The English ~ a r t h q u a k eThe ; Russians and ~ i c o l aTesla. Communes: Co-operative work; Christians; Communes & anarchism, Pearce's polemics; US Windpower Inc.

Fusion: Wave Power; Viewdata; Deprogramming Ecoropa; Third World Rip-off; Canals; Jobs & Social Change.

4 2

Co-operators Fair: Suma- Winds of change- Working collectively; Orgasmic labour; Macho nations; capitalism and Co-ops. Protopia Convivial computing- Manifesto for the 80s- END; N A T T A ; T ~ S I Darrieus ~; windmill design; Pirate Radio.

AT round the world, Building with natural energy: DIY insulation; Windmills.

Bombs into windmills- Atoms for peace- Land reform - n o thanks; Greentown; ~ i f without e TV; EST; Propertarians.

Who needs nukes? Biodynamic gardening: Radical

Media Special- Pen pushing- 4th world- Arts Council- Open radio campaign; Derek ~ a d a interview; n Ruff Tuff h e m Puff.

Garden villages; Wood food guide; DIY new towns; solar terraces; Citizens Band.

6 48

Women in Co-ops: Their Experiences and Roles' Childcare in Co-ops; Building without Men; S American collective report.

49 50

Alternative defence- DIY Super 8 films- Illich on sexism; The new West Coast; co-op impact o n the labour movement.

l5 technology; AT and job creation. l6 Self-sufficient

Dowsing, Ley lines; Christopher Wren's beehive; l7Saving your own seed. Intermediate Technology issue: Chinese science; l8I T and the T h k d b/orld.

Women against missiles' Free Sexuality Nukespeak' Edward Bond on Democracy; dilliam ~ u r r o u g h kinterview: CB Mania.

Tenth Birth Issue- Disarmin Thinking Planning for real; Revisited, 10 years o f Eco-Action. Chem/Biological c a r f a r e ;

Special health issue; Alternative medicine; Findhorn; National Centre for AT. Tony Benn o n the Diggers; Fanning; Solar energy; Broadcasting; Canals.

Pirate TV- Socialist Radio- Animal Lib- Nuclear Power guide; Wave power; Timothy L&; the new Alternative London.

Cartoonist Against the Bomb; Feminist Radio; Stuart Hood on TV; Technology in Nepal; Beyond the Beast.

Citizens Intelligence- Nuclear Disease; Hompathy; Isolation Tanks. Tantric Sex; feast-west Peace Exchanges.

Nuclear power and Trade Unions: DIY woodstove; Small-scale transmitter; Paranoia power. Eavesdroppers: DIY; Cheese and cider; Comport and communism; Alternative energy; Planning; Ma& mushrooms.

Environment S ecial: Acid Rain' Land Reform: Safe Enemy Savaged; ~ l o b a ? ~ n d e r c l a s Festivals. s;

AT & the Portuguese revolution- The RUSE& aren't coming; Boat repairs. New Age Access; drkney croftm^; Growing dope.

Ig 20 3

29 0

Petra Kelly o n ECO-ieminism.

Green Breakthrough; Computer Paranoia; CHP; Sizewell; White whales; Space Wars.

Rudolf Batero Interview; Mount Fuji Peacecamp; Lucw Aerospace; Europe's Green Parties; Women for Life on Earth.

Dora Runell; Petra Kelly and the German Greens; Lead; Drugs; Plant power; Nuclearfree Pacific.

Plannin Garden cities; Urban wasteland; National parks; shetland, Country life, WWOOFing; At workshop.

Festival! iuue; Cynics guide t o Sizewell; Green Rally: Conservation strategy; Beast New,.

COMTEK 7 9 , Wave ower. Teamwork Training Trust: Campaign for the S o n h . DIY koodstove desun. Decentralisme AT.

6 . Brenton; North Sea pollution: Acid rain update.

Windscale- Ecofeminism; Solarcal; AT & the British StateMuscle powered revolutionary samadhi; Greemne soci&.

Food politics- Factory farming- Additives- Wholefood CO-OPS; Commodity &mpaigns; common d c u l t h a l policy.

Eco olitics; British road t o Ecotopia: Laxzac; Nukes & unions; workers' plans; DIY VHF transmitter; Shotton; Micros.

551 Electric bikes- Zoos' Greenwork; 2.4.5-T; Acupuncture; 56

Women & Energy New Clear E n e r m - Feminists against nukes; Women & science. Womanthought: Alice & ATman.

Nukes and unions: Nukes in the South Pacific. Howard

CLEAN SEAS PLEASE

* Are you happy that Windscale has

made the Irish Sea the most radioactive sea in the world? * Or that hundreds of coastal towns in Britain are pumping raw sewage into the sea, polluting the beaches and wasting a valuable f e r t i r ? * Do you think that the oceans are a nice out-of-the-wayplace to dump high-level nuclear waste?, If not, order badges, stickers and records from HOPE,The Anchor, Bantry, County Cork, Ireland. Badges: 30p each plus 20p postage;10 for Â£2.50 100 for Â£20.00 Car (ticket*: 50p each plus 20p postage; 10 far Â£4.0010&fat Â£30.00 Record SOD Dogtage; 10 for Deadly Potion*': Â£1.6 ~ l m Â£13.60

foxes and hares are known to be in the name of sport u willioow-that thousandsof week-old seal pups are clubbedtodeath for their skins. ,

w.that.goÃ‡t arehaving udders grafted on to

advance the fanning industry.

ALLTXBS

I~~HAPPENING IN BRITAIN!

wever, if you weretihaware of these matters and uld like to know more about how we exploit' als, send for a free copy of the Annual orial Review of:

ee copy of your Annual

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_________________________________________________________________________ Undercurrents 62 December 1983/January 1984 5 Eddies - Greenham women put the law onto Reagan, FoE saves our heritage, and more . . 9 From Red to Black - How to be self·reliant without being shopped - Stephen Joseph 12 FreeWheeling - Electric vehicles - Tom Langdon·Davies oil-free on the road ahead 14 Who did shoot the President? - Robin Ramsay investigates 16 School for Thought - Jeffrey Benge interviews White Lion School 19 Readers’ Survey - Your chance to tell us what you think of Undercurrents 22 Beast News - John May’s animal lib column 24 Reviews 28 Briefing 30 Froth & Subscriptions _________________________________________________________________________ NO groans, no wingeing this issue, because quite simply money doesn’t touch us any more. True it passes us by, but there are compensations. The staff (see left) are knocking back Worcester Sauce in the office, cavalierly priming their kidneys for the festering season. Your eager correspondence must be held up. Or it is the niggardly behaviour of our postman who for some reason never has time to check the Paddington rail depot for the crate. We think self-reliance has come of age (see mag pages 1-32), so we may well start writing our own. We feel and are told however that kudos in these worrying times is filling in surveys. It is plainly a very unfoggy thing to do. We have one (page 19). Please use it . And fill it in, we should like to see the result. We’d also like to see you, all those especially who enjoy writing editorials, emptying bins, sensible journalism, exchanging ideas, paying the rent . . on to the back page . . _________________________________________________________________________