Spiked-online update
Posted to www.marxmail.org on November 4, 2005
First, a little background. www.spiked-online.com
is the website of a group of ex-Marxists in
The reach of this group is quite remarkable. Despite their
shady connections with outfits like the PR firm Hill and Knowlton, they still
manage to con people like Norman Solomon into speaking at their confabs. Last
year he participated in "Communicating the War on Terror" at
Even when these characters were nominally Marxist, they were distinguished by their hostility to environmentalism. Using a bowdlerized version of some sections of the Communist Manifesto, they had convinced themselves (and some unsuspecting souls) that advocating nuclear power and genetically modified food was practically the same thing as erecting barricades during the Paris Commune.
This tradition, stripped of Marxist pretensions, continues
unabated in spiked-online. You can find articles on almost a daily basis filled
with skepticism about global warming, arguing that GM food is good for you,
etc. In today’s edition, there’s something on the
The director of “Sense About Science” is one Tracey Brown, another spiked online regular. Before assuming the directorship of “Sense About Science,” she was a senior analyst for the PR firm Regester Larkin. Sourcewatch.org, who keeps an eye on their shenanigans, informs us:
“Their clients are nearly all pharmaceutical, oil, or biotechnology companies, including BioIndustry Association, Shell Chemicals, TOTAL, Bayer, Pfizer, Aventis CropScience, and gas company BG Group.
“It is probable that Brown fell under the influence of LM
group godfather Frank Furedi while working as a
Research Associate in the Sociology Dept. at the
For 5000 pounds a day, Regester Larkin advises its clients how to fend off environmental assaults on Frankenfood.
There’s also an article in today's spiked-online titled
“Science Goes Down the River” by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
which assures us New Yorkers: “EPA maintains that PCBs, particularly in
Amazing.
Whelan is president of the American Council on Health and Science (http://www.acsh.org/), an outfit she founded after accepting a freelance writing assignment with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. It seems that they wanted a background paper on "the Delaney Clause" -- which Dr. Whelan had never heard of.
She “was soon to learn that the Delaney Clause was part of
the 1958 Food Additive Amendment, and it banned any food additive that caused
cancer in laboratory animals.” Apparently this capricious measure was so
offensive to her that she went through a transformation akin to Paul’s on the
road to
On the Council on Health and Science home page, you can find links to articles on the National Review website and other sordid material.
Someday a scholar will write an authoritative history on the
defection of large sections of the radical movement over the past 10 years into
the enemy camp. There certainly will be a chapter on this peculiar subspecies
of Marxism gone wrong.