Welcome to Issue 4 of Critical Mass.
First a big thank you to the Sixty Second Scribe for his work on Critical Mass. One reason his verses are so short and sharp is that we do not give him time to complete his 12 volume epic tale of the triumph of socialism in the style of Homer. The Scribe is our technical guru and we keep him busy mending things on the website when the rest of us find new and interesting ways to break them. He has also designed the covers for each issue of the magazine.
In this Issue
The Labour Party conference has prompted a number of articles this week, alongside pieces on Austerity, The Housing Crisis, Public Spending, Neoliberalism, Poverty, the Working Class, the Climate Crisis, Race, Philosophy and Social Care. And after all that you will glad of our usual helping of poetry and satire.
Spotlight
This issue we introduce a new feature, Spotlight, featuring one of our editors, Ann Marcial, who some of you may remember from the recent news article on her activity in support of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Our founding father and inspiration, Dave Middleton, asks Ann some direct questions and she gives him honest, direct answers with no waffle. So Ann is not a politician, obviously. Politics for Ann has never been a job or a career move. It is a commitment to social change and social justice that she shares with all our writers.
Remembering Sarah Everard
The biggest story of the week and the most important was the sentencing of Wayne Couzens for the premeditated murder of Sarah Everard. Femicide is an issue for all cultures and all societies around the world and this trial reached its conclusion in a week that saw yet another brutal murder of a woman in the UK.
Our once a fortnight publishing format means we cannot always be bang up to date. We are a magazine, not a newspaper. But we do publish a daily news item and I urge you to read Susie Cranic’s piece that we published this morning, which takes this horrific story as its starting point but goes on to challenge assumptions about the policing of women’s lives. It is sad but true that Critical Mass will have to return to this issue again.
Subscribe
Subscribing to Critical Mass means you never miss an article. And it’s free! Dominic Cummings charges £10 a month to read his ramblings. But like our editor, Ann Marcial, our writers give their time and effort free to Critical Mass, because we are all volunteers. We have no rich backers or donors calling the tune. We are not dependent on advertising.
As Seasick Steve said in one of his songs, “We started out with nothing and we’ve still got most of it left.” But not enough to pay our writers. For many of them writing is a job. It puts food on the table. They write for Critical Mass out of solidarity. So if you get to the end of an article and see a link to Paypal or some other way to donate, and only if you can afford it, please consider showing some solidarity in return.
Now read on and write on! Comments are open on all our posts and every writer values feedback nearly as much as food.
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