Spokesman Books

Paul Mason of The Guardian reviews  War Against War! , published by Spokesman, in his piece 'Horrific pictures of dead bodies won't stop wars' (23 November 2014).  'Friedrich’s work represented a breakthrough. Before then, imagery of war had been subject to absolute censorship during conflict and diluted for the sake of “taste and decency” by the media during peacetime.' Mason juxtaposes Friedrich's intentions in publishing this graphically illustrated book against the frustrations of contemporary war journalists and photographers; w hereas ' the first world war was begun in ignorance about the horrors of war', now  ' a disbelieving public has come to see all graphic imagery of war as potentially fake, manipulated or propagandist.' The full article is available to read online here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/23/horrific-pictures-of-dead-bodies-wont-stop-wars War Against War! by Ernst Friedrich is available fro...

July 18 2013 by Mike Marqusee http://www.mikemarqusee.com/?p=1443 The financial crisis threatening jobs and services at the Barts and London Trust hospitals is a scandal and a tragedy – because it is entirely contrived. Among the main causes of the £2 million per week deficit are “non-delivery of planned cost improvement programme schemes.” In other words, the Trust has been unable to implement the spending cuts it is required to make as part of the NHS-wide £20 billion “efficiency savings” programme. It’s not that the Trust hasn’t been trying to meet its “savings” targets or that staff have been wanton with resources; it’s that those targets cannot be met without compromising patient care. It’s a paper exercise that is inevitably disjointed from the realities of service provision. The Guardian notes that “Attempts to cut wage costs are failing because vacancies are having to be filled by agency staff.” What could better illustrate the irrationality of the NHS financial squ...

In her article for the Guardian , Green jobs: a utopia we nearly had , Green jobs: a utopia we nearly had, Anna Karpf revisits workers' plans for their enterprises to produce socially useful goods, which unleashed much creative energy during the 1970s and continue to resonate to this day. " Four decades ago, a green way out of recession was proposed. Lucas Aerospace, a major designer and manufacturer of combat aircraft and missile systems, planned to close a number of factories and make 20% of its 18,000-strong workforce redundant. The shop stewards combine committee, representing the 13 different trades unions in the company, decided to draw up "an alternative corporate plan for socially useful and environmentally desirable production". It sent out a questionnaire to the company's 17 plants, as well as outside experts, asking for an inventory of skills and machinery that already existed, and ideas about what they should make. The company's workers – both bl...