ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT delve into the strange, active – and sometimes predatory – world of plants
Politics in the rear-view mirror
A nostalgia for a false golden age pervades US politics and most of the left is adrift in a sea of old and failed ideas. It is a new future that must be fought for, argues ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
Richard Nixon (left) and (right) Barack Obama
A growing coalition, Cymru Together, is challenging traditional politics – calling for practical plans that connect climate action with economic justice, writes BETHAN SAYED
While politicians fixate on defence budgets, the real answers lie in peace-building and economic justice, says ALAN SIMPSON
ANDREA BRADLEY highlights how a City of Glasgow College health and safety dispute is the subject of an STUC Congress emergency motion
Labour government must urgently start to implement the policies on which it got elected, or it will face curtains, writes BRIAN LEISHMAN MP
CND and the Stop the War Coalition are calling for a mass protest this Saturday to end British complicity in illegal US strikes at RAF Fairford. SOPHIE BOLT explains
From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrims
And to the buffalo who once ruled the plains
Like the vultures circling beneath the dark clouds
Looking for the rain
Looking for the rain
Just like the cities staggered on the coastline
Living in a nation that just can’t stand much more
Like the forest buried beneath the highway
Never had a chance to grow
Never had a chance to grow
And now it’s winter
Winter in America
Yes and all of the healers have been killed
Or sent away, yeah
But the people know, the people know
It’s winter
Winter in America
And ain’t nobody fighting
’Cause nobody knows what to save
— Gil Scott-Heron (1974) Winter in America
WHEN Gil Scott-Heron wrote these words, the US seemed to be in swift decline. Watergate had cast a shadow over government legitimacy; the US had lost/was losing the imperialist war in Vietnam; economic inflation, unemployment and stagnation were crushing US living standards.
For many in the post-war generation, the early 1970s were a low point in the prestige and influence of the US.
Scott-Heron was masterful at blending politics with his art, without compromising either.
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