Workers Diary

Scan page 6

Are you concerned about what your baby might be putting in his (or her) mouth?

You won't find out from the two biggest US baby-food manufacturers, Gerber and Heinz. They. have turned down repeated requests from an American research team to reveal the ingredients in their main products. 'The formulation of products in a highly competitive business is privileged information and I think this is as true in the food industry as in any other industry, said a spokesman for Gerber.

The researchers claim that many baby-foods are padded-out with sugar and 'modified' starches which disguise their high water content, while essential proteins, vitamins and minerals are eliminated in processing.

Flazouring is designed to increas appeal to mothers - the babies themseives not being articulate nough to influence marketing policy.

One frequent additive is sodim nitrite - known to be linked to the occurence of cancer in anima The tight-lipped Gerber spokesman denied his firm was 'motivated by commercial rather than nutritional interests' But (reassuringly for shareholders) he added 'We have been in the baby business for 28 years.' We say it's time to open beth the honks andthe bottles.

AFTER SALES SERVICE The American car giants seer to have entered a new area of competition - that of who can produce the biggest laugh in the history of capitalism's blunders.

At present Chevrolet is looking like a sure winner with its latest model the Monza, developed al massive cost in great haste in a pathetic gamble that new models will lift the demand out of it's Slump.

Unfortunately for Chevrolet the designers did not have the time te consider such mundane tasks as changing the sparking plugs - the only way to remove them is by lifting out the whole engine with a crane hoist! Since this isn't yet a standard feature of the American private garage, Chevrolet have beer forced to agree to do the job - fre of charge - every time.

CONFLICT OF OPPOSITES G. Healy of the WRP has just produced an internal bulletin explaining 'philosophically' why all opposition and discussion within that party must be met by mass expulsions and suppression.

Yet there seem to be divisions even within the pages of the Workers Press, 'organ' of the WRP On Thursday 13th February WP carried a lengthy statement by Mick Farley of the Wigan Builders Action Committee, which included this astounding passage:

"It is not a question of 'replacing Roy Jenkins', , as the revisionists have said. The question is replacing the Labour government with a socialist government that will repeal all anti-working class laws, release all political prisoners, nationalise the building industry without compensation and establish workers' control." (ie a revolutionary government).

Yet on page 2 Royston Bull, (obviausly in cahoots with Farley's 'revisionists') asks baffled readers:

"Is it not high time that Roy Jenkins was expelled from the Labour Purty...... ? "

Clearly the purges must conti even to the editorial board leve in the WRP! is the hatred of the population of the Catholic areas ir the North of Ireland for the British imperialist army.

The film continuously returns to interviews which show this -from a republican woman who thought the first question had to be to get rid of the British army before you could think of Socialism - to the two torture victims interviewed who, even though one of them twitched uncontrollably; showed great determination and including the coachload of wives and other relations visiting internees.

One wife told how her husband had first been picked up, and another told how her husband was first put on trial, found not guilt! then picked up and interned.

Vivid scenes of the RUC 'B' Special raids on the Bogside, the army (sent in by the Labour government) conducting continuous raids and arrests, and one particularly brutal scene filmed in ciose up where a man refuses to be led off and in beaten with clubs as he lies on the ground, is dragge by the hair, and finaily hauled away, together with scenes of Bloody Sunday, give some of background intes hatred.

POLITICS AVOIDED

A long section of the film lent with the 'Free Derry' experience and it is clear that the producers of the film very much idealise: the liberation' of 880 acres ar 20,000 people.

by Tony Rici The film shows the profusion of confused ideas that are current in Ireland today, not least those of the producers themselves. The first Civil Rights protest movements, the rent strike movement, aud the woman speaker in 'Free Derry' who said : "Your first civil right is your nutionality. If you can't call your self Irish you have nothing.' ‚all of course bring out the strength and importance of national feelings.

Yet this is inadequate to explain why British imperialism suppresses and divides the Irish people.

Famonn McCann shows his conplete support for political spontaneity, and on the question of the experience in Ireland all he can say is: "You are now dealing with a community which understands that when it remains together it can have a ...isive effect on what happens to it".

This compliments the worship di'simple trade union militancy : nd the refusal to fight for political consciousness which is the main characteristic of the I.S. wh. have been showing the film on tour. (In introdacing it they con veniently forget that they supported the troops being sent in by Wilson in 1969). The film is thus bankrupt of political perspective to resolve the problems it expose The commentary on the film shows how this avoidance of palitics and general confusion can lead to a reactionary position. They were unable to film in the Protestant areas, and the only mentions of the Protestant work" ing class are when one woman says that some of the slums in Protestant areas are as bad as the Catholic ones, and when the commentators in winding ap the film say: "The Protestant community is beginning to learn what the British government is" , ind go on to link up the reactionary bourgeois-led Ulster Workers Council 'Strike' with the fight f the Civi Rights movement SELF- DETERMIVATION One thing that is brought out clearly is that for the revolutionary movement in Britain it is more than just a question of see. ing Ireland as a 'training pround' for repression in Tritain.

We have to support the right ot the people of Ireland to self-deter mination, which he British army has heen sent over to prevent.

.e fight in Ircland can only be successful if faught for with the fight for leadership in the working class must be carried through against all the confused ideas shown in this film. The will to fight is clearly present, but can only reach its full potential with a Marxist leadership as a part of the Fourth International fighting for a United Socialist Ireland.

The film shows why in Britain we must fight not just for the end of internment, and not for 'Bills of Rights' to be passed through the British Parliament, thus continuing colonial rule, (as proposed by the Stalinists of the Communist Party together with the reformists and liberals) but primarily for the complete withdrawai of the British imperialist army from Ireland and the ending oï colonial rule.

DISBAND ARMY The withdrawal of troops must ve combined with the demand to disband the standing army and replace it with a workers militia based on the trade unions.

The actions of the army recently in driving lorries through picket lines and threatening pickets with guns make it clear that if this ford is not dishanded then it will remain as a threat to the organised working class in the coming struggles.

The demand that Labour disband the army will divide socialists from the 'stop our boys getting killed' brigade, and stresses the international class nature of this