DANGER: Fast Food Exposes Eaters to Harmful Industrial Chemicals

Fast food contains an "alarming" amount of potentially toxic industrial chemicals like phthalates, according to a new study that links high fast-food consumption with increased levels of the harmful, non-natural substances.

People who said they consumed more fast food were exposed to higher levels of phthalates – chemicals found in processed foods and consumer-product packaging that have been linked to infertility, especially in males – according to researchers at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health.

"People who ate the most fast food had phthalate levels that were as much as 40 percent higher," said study lead author Ami Zota, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at Milken Institute SPH. "Our findings raise concerns because phthalates have been linked to a number of serious health problems in children and adults."

The researchers gathered data from federal nutrition surveys taken by about 9,000 people between the years 2003 and 2010. The surveys detailed diet choices in the previous 24 hours, as well as results of concurrently gathered urine samples. The researchers found that one-third of the subjects reported consuming fast food in the 24 hours prior to the urine samples. Those participants tended to show much higher levels of two phthalates, DEHP and DiNP.

Zota and the research team found that the more fast food consumed, the higher the exposure to phthalates. Those consuming the most fast food showed 23.8 percent more DEHP in their urine, and nearly 40 percent more DiNP metabolites compared to those who did not consume fast food in the previous 24 hours.

Grain and meat items were the top contributors to phthalate exposure, the researchers found.

"We're not trying to create paranoia or anxiety, but I do think our findings are alarming," said Zota, according to the Washington Post. "It's not every day that you conduct a study where the results are this strong."

DEHP and DiNP are used in a variety of products and packaging, including cosmetic items and toys. Used in industrial food production, they can leach into consumable substances. DEHP exposure has been linked to diabetes, allergies in children, and negative child behavior, among other conditions. In 2008, some phthalates, including DEHP, were banned in the US for the production of children's toys.

"Phthalates are chemical plasticizers that are often used in the production of many types of plastics," the US Consumer Product Safety Commission says. "Phthalates most often, but not always, are used to make plastics softer and/or more pliable."

Zota said the the study took into account the participants' background and other factors that could have exacerbated the findings.

"We looked at it in so many different ways, and the effect still remains," said Zota.

The study did not find that high fast-food intake was associated with increased levels of BPA (bisphenol-A), a chemical used in plastic food packaging. Yet the study did find that participants who ate fast-food meat products had higher levels of BPA than those who did not eat fast food.

"I really hope this study helps raise public awareness about the exposure problems caused by our industrialized food system," said Zota.

The findings were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Editorial

END THE BLOCKADE

The illegal and inhumane blockage imposed on Cuba by the United States of America (USA) is still in place, 55 years on and after Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The blockade affects the country in importation of essential drugs, medical equipment, transport, commence and many other areas.

Indeed, the blockade is for the sole purpose of bullying the Cuban people and Government into abandoning their chosen path to economic and political development.

It is strange that after 55 years, the political elite in the USA can still not understand that the people of Cuba cannot be bullied.

The Insight calls on all progressives throughout the world to intensify their solidarity with Cuba in the effort to dismantle the blockade.

The blockade is illegal and immoral and it must go!

Free SHS likely to fail – IMANI

By Mohammed Awal

Government’s plan to implement a Free Senior High School policy from September is likely to face some challenges due to the country’s wobbling financial status, the Head of Economics at IMANI, Patrick Stephenson has warned.

President Akufo-Addo over the weekend disclosed that his government’s plan to fully implement its much touted campaign promise is on course.

“By free SHS, we mean that, in addition to tuition which is already free, there will be no admission fees, no library fees, no science centre fees, no computer lab fees, no examination fees, no utility fees; there will be free textbooks, free boarding and free meals, and day students will get a meal at school for free,” the President stated over the weekend.

Speaking in the aftermath of the president’s declaration, Mr. Stephenson challenged the government to disclose the source of funding for the implementation of the programme.

He said without a comprehensive funding mechanism, the programme is likely to fail.

“The way we had talked about the whole free senior higher education and how it’s going to be implemented, the idea itself may not be a problem, but how we should treat it within the structure of the educational system as we speak today so that the targeted persons get to benefit,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.

“I think that’s been the problem to the extent that we have not seen sufficient clarity from the current government, is making it very difficult to appreciate what the intended objectives are.”

Source:StarrFMonline

2,000 VISITORS AT FIDEL’S GRAVE EVERYDAY

Commandante Fidel Castro

The world does not seem to have had enough of Cuba’s revolutionary leader, Commandante Fidel Castro who died on the 25^th of November 2016.

Yudy García Delís, Supervisor of the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, where a huge rock containing the ashes of Fidel is found has released exciting figures that reveal that more than 2000 visitors visit the cemetery every day since it was opened to the public on the 4^th of December last year, to pay their homage to the Commandante.

International visitors from the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, Africa and many Latin American countries, have gone to the cemetery to testify of Fidel's greatness and his contribution to the world's just causes, Martha Hernández Cobas from the City Conservator's Office has reported.

Among the most recent of the 30,000 visitors was a delegation from the Judicial Federation of Argentina carrying a flag dedicated to the undefeated Comandante; a group of Italian supporters of the Revolution; and several Iranian friends who read a poem at the grave.

The Santa Ifigenia Cemetery also holds the mausoleum of Cuba’s national hero Jose’ Marti, with whom Fidel Castro identified so strongly.

No doubt! Fidel has caught the heart and mind of the world indeed!

The Nat Turners of the 21st century

Nat Turner

By Ama Biney

The new film on the former slave, Nat Turner, whilst deeply flawed should inspire people to find out more about this historical heroic figure, beyond populist narratives. More importantly, his legacy of revolt should inspire the generation of Black Lives Matter to struggle against new forms of domination in our capitalist, imperialist white supremacist patriarchal world.

In 1967 William Styron, a white Virginian published his novel entitled “The Confessions of Nat Turner” which caused a firestorm amongst black intellectuals for the manner in which it portrayed the historical figure of Nat Turner, who led a slave uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831. Styron portrayed Nat Turner as a depraved fanatical sex-craved creature. Nat Turner was wholly devoid of political and religious motivations and lusted after white women. Nate Parker’s film, “The Birth of a Nation” which depicts the famous slave revolt also caused controversy when it came out in the US in October 2016 and in London in early December.

It received a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. Soon after, Fox Searchlight purchased the film for $17.5 million. Nate Parker is a gifted actor who directed, produced, co-wrote and played the lead role in the movie. Moreover, in August this year he was dogged by controversy during the height of his publicity tour to promote the film. As Parker went on tour the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite went viral, which some anticipated could help the fortunes of the film to win an Oscar. 

However, voices on social media vociferously boycotted the film on account of the fact that in October 1999 a 19-year-old Nate Parker, with his roommate Jean Celestin of the same age, were both accused of raping an 18 year old white female student at Penn State University. In 2001 Parker was acquitted of the crime and Celestin was given a two-year sentence for sexual assault that was eventually overturned. In 2012, the 30-year-old woman committed suicide.

 A candlelit vigil was held outside the ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood in mid-October during the first public screening of the film by the group called “Fuck Rape Culture.” The group issued a statement that helped cast a shadow over the film and particularly its director, Nate Parker. It said: “FRC recognizes the need to hold space for those celebrating the advancement of people of color in Hollywood while continuing to fight for the victims of sexual assault and rape around the world.”

Parker was besieged with a barrage of questions and demands for accountability during his promotional tour that many believe he handled with deflection. In August 2016 Parker maintained his innocence and stated on Facebook in relation to the alleged crime and victim: “I see now that I may not have shown enough empathy even as I fought to clear my name.”

Exacerbating the controversy around Parker is also his depiction of women in the film (a point, I will return to shortly).

Overall, there is a divide between those who are pro- and those who are anti- the movie as a result of the controversy surrounding its director and Jean Celestin, who assisted Parker in co-writing and developing the film.

Historical inaccuracies

Whilst the acting was excellent, particularly of Nate Parker and Aga Naomi King (respectively as Nat Turner and Turner’s wife, Cherry), in the light of considerable historical work on Nat Turner, the film is grossly historically inaccurate. As the writer-director, Nate Parker should have prefaced the film with the words: “While Nat Turner’s revolt was a true event, I have taken creative license with some aspects of the plot.” Instead at the beginning of the film there are some vague misleading words that state that the film is based on true events.

Leslie Alexander, an African American historian points out that Parker failed miserably in his mission to maintain “historical fidelity in his depiction of the leader of the rebellion.” She correctly  argues that the film “contains only a smidgen of historical fact.”

Firstly, nowhere in the film is there a depiction of Nat Turner being interviewed by Thomas R. Gray after his arrest on October 30, 1831 whilst in Southampton County prison. Gray was a Southern physician and lawyer who interviewed Turner as he awaited trial. It is this most significant interview that was published by Gray in 1831 as The Confessions of Nat Turner, that could have assisted Parker to frame the story line and give the film some valid historical authenticity and fidelity.

Whilst there are debates as to the extent to which Gray could have doctored Turner’s words, there is in The Confessions of Nat Turner several parenthetical and editorial comments made by Gray that distinguish Gray’s voice from that of Turner’s. During this trial Turner publicly endorsed Gray’s work as faithfully representing his confessions.

The Confessions of Nat Turner remains an important document for, as the historian Patrick H. Breen states, “Few sources provide access to the minds of slaves, let alone the mind of a man who may be the most famous American to live and die in slavery” (p. 169)

Surely, a scene in which Nat Turner narrates to Thomas Gray some of the influences on his life, why he was motivated by divine voices to fulfil his dream to liberate his people would have allowed Parker to remain faithful to the historical record that he claims he aspired to? This was a huge failure of Parker. A scene in which Nat Turner is interviewed by Thomas Gray would have given us further insight into the inner mind, motivations and values of Nat Turner which would have been based on the true historical fact that Nat Turner did in fact confess to his actions and went to his executioner with absolutely no regrets whatsoever. Imprisoned, Turner tells Gray, “I am here loaded with chains, and willing to suffer the fate that awaits me.”

Second, among the many flaws in the film, is that Turner did not kill his master,  Samuel Turner. Nat Turner had a number of owners and the owner that was killed was a Joseph Travis. Even in the killing of Travis, if Nate Parker had read The Confessions of Nat Turner, in the narration Nat Turner himself declared that on entering his master’s house armed with a hatchet: “accompanied by Will [a co-conspirator], I could not give a death blow, the hatchet glanced from his head, he sprang from the bed and called his wife, it was his last word. Will laid him dead, with a blow of his axe, and Mrs Travis shared the same fate, as she lay in bed.”[4] Nat Turner confessed to Thomas Gray that he killed the young teenager Margaret Whitehead “by a blow on the head, with a fence rail.”

Third, whilst rape of enslaved women was intrinsic to the horrors of slavery, there is no historical evidence that Nat Turner’s wife was raped by slave patrollers as depicted in the film. More importantly, how many people who see or have seen the movie will leave the cinema believing this to be a historical fact and therefore a critical factor in Nat’s Turner radicalisation that led to insurrection? The reality is, Nat Turner was prepared to die because he was motivated by the unshakeable political and religious belief that as a God-fearing Black man he and all Black people had a right to be free. 

In addition to this, how Parker depicts the rape of Cherry (Nat Turner’s wife) and that of Esther, another enslaved woman (played by Gabrielle Union) is grossly problematic. Esther is voiceless. It appears that in the film Nat Turner seeks to save the women around him and is emasculated in doing so.  In the view of Leslie Alexander, “the rape storyline is carefully constructed to redeem Black masculinity at Black women’s expense.” Or is the rape storyline calculated on the part of Parker in order to redeem himself in the lingering shadow of the 1999 allegations against him, whereby Parker can project love and empathy for the character of Cherry but failed to do so for the real-life victim who he was acquitted of raping?

The only small redeeming act on the part of one of the female characters that we see in the film is when Nat Turner’s grandmother faces the white slave patroller who is looking for Nat Turner’s father. The slave patroller stands on a floor board that allows a stolen jar to roll from under his foot and the grandmother’s quick witted action dictates she throw herself at the feet of the white man to conceal this stolen jar. Her action shows her dissembling, which many slaves cultivated to an art in order to survive life under the control of whites.  Her feigned contrition as she retrieved the jar in her long flowing skirts saves her and the young Nat from the prospect of further verbal or physical abuse from the white patroller. 

Fourth, there is no historical evidence that Nat Turner convinced his master, Samuel Turner, to buy the enslaved woman Cherry, who later in the film was to become his wife. This storyline is likely to be the fanciful imagination of the film director.  

Fifth, the young Black boy who becomes a turncoat and betrays Nat Turner and his small band of insurrectionists is a falsification of history. Turner who had a bounty of $500 on his head [6] (that was later increased to a thousand) was eventually captured after six weeks of being a fugitive. He confesses: “I know not how long I might have led this life, if accident had not betrayed me, a dog in the neighbourhood passing by my hiding place one night while I was out, was attracted by some meat I had in my cave, and crawled in and stole it, and was coming out just as I returned.” The dog barked and two slaves saw Nat Turner and fled. Turner was aware that the two slaves would betray him and therefore he was forced to find a new hideout “under the top of a fallen tree.” Two weeks later, he was discovered by Mr Benjamin Phipps who was taking a walk across farmland and saw the overturned pine tree under which Turner hid.[10] Phipps tied up his prisoner who was to be taken to the Southampton County prison.

The historical reality is that the revolt failed not because Turner was betrayed but that Turner’s band of men, who amounted to no more than between 60- 80 men, were in reality not only poorly equipped (initially with axes, clubs and later rifles) but his group of men were ill-disciplined and fell into disarray, drunkenness and confusion as they moved from plantation to plantation killing all whites – men, women and children. Their aim was to get to the town of Jerusalem – a few miles away, to capture the cache of arms, but they were stopped in their tracks by the whites. Turner’s men had not moved as rapidly and mobilised as effectively as they should have and therefore alarm had spread among the whites. However as the historian Herbert Aptheker points out, “…had Nat Turner been successful in capturing Jerusalem, with its arms and ammunition, he might have prolonged the conflict for many days; perhaps, with guerrilla warfare, for weeks.”

Dilemmas and tensions of art and history

History is a narrative that is often told from varied and conflicting ideological visions and perspectives. Tensions arise between historians on what are the facts, sequence of events and interpretations of events within the prevailing socio-political and economic contexts in which the past occurred. There is also a long-standing tension between art (i.e. creative writing, film making, etc.) and history in terms of to what extent should filmmakers and novelists remain faithful to the historical record and/or engage in literary and creative imagination? If they do engage in unleashing their creative imaginations, should novelists and filmmakers not openly tell us they are inspired by historical acts/events and depart from the historical interpretation into their own imaginations? Or is “historical fidelity” paramount?

I appreciate the power of film to reach far wider audiences than a mere academic history book could ever wish for. Film and novels have a power to evoke understanding and a spirit of the times in a manner terse abstract historical jargon and description often fails to do.

In our society and world that forever seeks to simplify complex realities in a “dumbing down,” popular and populist films on which millions have been spent may not stimulate ordinary people to seek to find out more about Nat Turner and be inspired to read a little of the copious amounts that have written on him, nor seek to find out the truth about what really happened during the revolt and why it failed. How many audience viewers will leave the cinema and be inspired to dig further into history and read The Confessions of Nat Turner or any book on Nat Turner?

A filmmaker claiming “historical fidelity in his depiction of the leader of the rebellion,”(i.e. of Nat Turner)  should be judged on whether he (or she) has lived up to this noble aspiration or not. Sadly, Nate Parker does not fulfil this aspiration.

Ultimately, Roxane Gay, the feminist writer and professor, succinctly captures the position of some who decided not to see the film. In her piece in The New York Times entitled “Nate Parker and the Limits of Empathy,” she writes:

“As the movie’s publicity machine roars to life in advance of the October release, there is renewed interest in Mr. Parker and his history with sexual assault. There are renewed questions about whether we can or should separate the artist from his art. I am reminded that I cannot. I cannot separate the art and the artist, just as I cannot separate my Blackness and my continuing desire for more representation of the Black experience in film from my womanhood, my feminism, my own history of sexual violence, my humanity.”

For some of us the prism of how we view the film is predetermined by the actions and words of the filmmaker both on screen and off screen because the personal is political. There can be no separation between the two. In separating the two, we have a distorted understanding and analysis of the filmmaker, ourselves and the world.

Nat Turners of the 21st century

Nate Parker deliberately gave the film the title of D. W. Griffith’s silent film, “The Birth of a Nation”, which portrays the racist Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force. Certainly, for white liberals Nat Turner’s rebellion was part of the long tortuous and brutal birth of a new American nation in which slavery, Jim Crow, segregation were to become relics of the past. However, in the 21st century new manifestations of “colour blind racism”  as Dr Eduardo Bonilla-Silva cogently argues in his book entitled “Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America” (2013), have become the reality. Covert racism or “new racism” has replaced the more overt forms of the atrocities of chattel slavery and segregation. Instead of lynchings and beatings, Black people in both the UK and US are open season for police killings and institutional racism that has led to death at the hands of mental health systems, prisons and police stations.

The rebellion that Nat Turner set in motion – though short-lived and small-scale, created a deep-seated panic and fear among southern whites that remained for decades – and some would argue, that, that specific fear and white supremacist attitude remains among some whites in the US (and elsewhere) today. Nat Turner in the history of African American and Pan-African history is part of the continuum of resistance of people of African descent. His life and actions need to be known by people of African descent and all progressive individuals as a life that stood in opposition to domination and injustice.

  

Nat Turner was only 31 years old when he was hanged. He was therefore a young man, just like the millions of young men and women involved in the civil rights movement, the anti-colonial struggles in Africa, and the millions involved in the present day Black Lives Movement. There is a historical umbilical cord of struggle that links Nat Turner to the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in August 1955, as well as to the lives and conditions of people of African descent today, for we remain engaged in a struggle for economic, social and political justice whether in the US, UK or in Africa. We continue to struggle demanding justice for the Mario Woods, Trayvon Martins, Michael Browns, Sandra Blands, Stephen Lawrences, Jermaine Bakers  and numerous other Black women and men killed in a white supremacist society that sees no justice for these modern day lynchings. People of African descent continue to struggle for reparations; for recognition that our bodies and lives be respected; that our dignity and humanity be respected no less than it should be for any other human being.

Will the emergence of President-elect Donald Trump who will take office in January 2017 produce new Nat Turners in the 21st century? The great 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass once remarked: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”  Douglass also said: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

As the 21st century continues to unfold there needs to be new embodiments of Nat Turners seeking to overturn the system of capitalist, imperialist white supremacist patriarchy. And there needs to be the equivalent Sojourner Truths, Harriet Tubmans, Yaa Asantewas, Mekatilili wa Menzas and Nzingas alongside the future Nat Turners.

* Dr Ama Biney is a historian and political scientist living in the U.K. She can be contacted at ama@fahamu.org

US Blockade Against Cuba Still in Place 55 Years Later

Cuban President Raul Castro said during Barack Obama's visit to the island that the blockade must end. | Photo: Reuters

After acknowledging that bullying Cuba for decades proved to be a bad and losing strategy, the U.S. changed course, but not entirely.

Many believe since U.S. and Cuba restored diplomatic relations, the blockade imposed on Cuba by the U.S. is over, but 55 years later, it remains in place.

But despite this economic blockade and an international campaign by the U.S. to isolate Cuba from the world arena by trying to deny it health equipment, financial transactions, and even cultural performances and sports competitions, the socialist nation has kept its head high and shown the world it can advance no matter what the obstacles.

After acknowledging that bullying Cuba for decades proved to be a bad and losing strategy and that, in fact, it had turned Latin America against the U.S., former President Barack Obama decided to announce a change in policy, reestablishing relations.

It was historic — well, sort of. International media had its story: U.S. citizens could now buy Cuban cigars and rum and bring them back home.

But, unfortunately, for the Cuban people, the blockade is far from over.

What did change?

During the last part of his second term in office, Obama announced he had begun negotiations with the Cuban government to reestablish diplomatic ties and begin the path to normalizing relations between the two countries.

The first step was easing travel restrictions for U.S. citizens by setting up a system of licenses under 12 categories that would allow those who met certain qualifications travel to Cuba, but many restrictions remained.

The government also reestablished commercial flights and allowed cruise ships to land in the island's harbors. Tourists were no longer limited to only taking US$100 worth of Cuban cigars and rum back to the U.S.

Acknowledging Cuba’s top cancer research institutes, the U.S. also deregulated joint medical investigation and cooperation.

Then came the opening of an embassy in each country's capital in 2014, the Cuban office in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. one in Havana.

By 2016, the State Department removed Cuba from a list of states that sponsor terrorism, where it had found itself since 1982.

The Department of Homeland Security ended the so-called 'Wet-foot/Dry-foot' immigration policy in January 2017, which was put in place more than 20 years ago. The Cuban government always maintained it was a provocation, encouraging illegal and risky migration by water and demanded its repeal.

The policy allowed only Cubans — no one else from any other country — who reach U.S. soil an expedited legal permanent residency and eventual U.S. citizenship.

What stayed the same?

The blockade. The blockade remains intact.

A picture of Obama in 2016 in a historic visit to Havana, in front of the famous Che Guevara portrait at Revolution Plaza, wasn’t enough to ensure Cubans that the hostile blockade would be lifted.

Obama assured Cuban President Raul Castro that the blockade would be lifted, but didn’t specify a timeline of when that might happen. Raul made it very clear that relations could never be normal until the U.S. ended the blockade, the largest commercial blockade in modern history.

Cuba has also called time and again on the U.S. to return the naval-occupied territory of Guantanamo to the island and to respect Cuban sovereignty by halting all funding of anti-government groups and other organizations.

But then, at the end of 2016, Obama renewed the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act, extending the blockade against Cuba for another year.

Under the current foreign policy in the U.S., Cuba can’t export or import from the U.S. Even if the island does acquire a permit to buy anything, the country is obligated to pay in advance and only in cash, in a different currency than dollars, and through bank institution from other countries.

Medicine imports are conditioned, Cuba needs to specifically detail the final destination of medicine acquired, and once again it has to be done through third countries and in another currency.

U.S. companies that export machinery and equipment, services, or technical information that are key to providing drinking water for Cubans and equipping hospitals are also prohibited from doing business with Cuba.

The U.S. went even further and prohibited and threatened to sanction third countries if they sold products or services to the islands.

Several professional players and sports team have denounced barriers imposed by the U.S. government against their participation in seminars, competitions, and practices on U.S. soil.

U.S. citizens still cannot use U.S. credit and debit cards while on the island and U.S. banks cannot carry out any transactions to and from Cuba. The U.S. continues to limit the amount of money that individuals in the U.S. can send to families living in Cuba.

According to a report given by the Cuban government at the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. blockade costs the island nation US$4.7 billion in 2016 and a staggering US$753.7 since it began almost six decades ago.

At the U.N. General Assembly, 191 of the 193 of the nations voted to condemn the blockade in 2016, as the majority have done for several decades. The difference in 2016 being that the U.S. and Israel abstained from voting for the first time since both nations have continuously voted against it.

Now with the Trump administration overturning many Obama-era acts, the likelihood of any more concessions from the U.S. are unlikely.

Rex Tillerson, the newly appointed secretary of state and former ExxonMobil chief executive, said that he would reverse, or comprehensively review, Obama’s executive orders. The Republican majority in congress will most likely follow suit.

The international struggle will continue regardless, to finally end to what many world leaders have called a “criminal blockade.”

THE FETISHISM OF COMMODITIES
(or is Adidas cooler than Nike?)

Karl Marx

The Socialist Party must as a scientific organisation constantly re-examine its principles and practice. I intend to re-examine a small part of Marx’s Das Kapital (published in 1867). This is a mere 12 pages long and is entitled ‘The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.’ I intend to show:

1. This is a major insight into how society operates;

2. This fetishism explains many modern social developments;

3. Why a non-commodity producing society is our goal.

Major Insight

According to The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, “fetish” is of French derivation, first used in 1613 and defined as, “Any object used by the Negroes of the Guinea coast and neighbourhood as an amulet or means of enchantment, or regarded by them with dread.” and further, “Any inanimate object worshipped by savages…”

A fetishism is defined as, “The worship of fetishes, or the superstition of which this is the feature.” Why did Marx use such a term for value in a commodity-producing society? In his own words:

“There it is a definite relation between men that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.”

Marx is here showing that what appears to be a relationship between things is in fact a relationship between the producers of those things. Marx viewed everything historically. For him the capitalist mode of production disguised the value relationship so that it appears as a relationship between things instead of between producers. In his own words:

“As a general rule, articles of utility become commodities only because they are products of the labour of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other. The sum total of the labour of all these private individuals forms the aggregate labour of society. It is only by being exchanged that the products of labour acquire, as values, one uniform social status, distinct from their varied form of existence as objects of utility.”

For Marx, capitalism was distinct from all previous modes of production because wealth took the form of commodities. Articles that were produced and reproduced for the purpose of sale or exchange on the market with a view to realising a profit.

Previous societies had produced commodities but inside capitalism commodity production was the prevailing form of production. In order to analyse how capitalism operated it was necessary for Marx to take an historical approach or, as he writes:

“Man’s reflection on the forms of social life, and consequently, also, his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly opposite to that of their actual historical development. He begins, post festum, with the results of the process of development ready to hand before him. The characters that stamp products as commodities , and whose establishment is a necessary preliminary to the circulation of commodities, have already acquired the stability of natural, self-understood forms of social life, before man seeks to decipher, not their historical character, for in his eyes they are immutable, but their meaning.”

With the market economy of capitalism established, this circulation of commodities does indeed seem to be “natural, self-understood” but behind this apparent relationship between commodities what is actually being compared is the abstract human labour embodied in these commodities.

Frederick Engels in his book On Capital shows how in pre-capitalist society the relationship was obviously one between producers and not products:

“The peasant of the Middle Ages therefore knew fairly accurately the labour time requisite for producing the things he obtained by exchange. The blacksmith and the wagoner worked in his sight, as did the tailor and she shoemaker who, in my own youth, went from hut to hut among our Rhenish peasants making clothes and shoes from home-made cloth and leather. Both the peasant and those he purchased from were themselves labourers: the articles exchanged were the products of their own labour.

What did they expend to produce these objects? Labour and only labour; for the replacement of working tools, for the production of raw material and for its working up they expended nothing but their own labour power; how could they then exchange these products otherwise than in proportion to the labour expended on them? Not only was the labour time expended on these products the sole appropriate measure for the quantitative determination of the magnitudes involved in the exchange, but any other measure was unthinkable. Or does anyone believe that the peasant and the artisan were so foolish as to exchange a thing that took ten hours’ labour for something that took only one labour hour?”

Here Engels explains how in a pre-capitalist economy the role of abstract human labour was self-evident. In modern society with all the complexity of the market this relationship is more difficult to grasp. Modern pundits talk glibly about “the dictates of the market”, forgetting that markets are human products, or possibly because they lack an historical view, not even knowing it.

Like modern day savages human beings worship at the feet of capitalism’s markets, while the high priests of Madison Avenue tell us we can only be truly human if we consume the products that they are advertising. The sum total of human possibility has been reduced to how many designer labels we can purchase, and we are assured by the inner sanctums of Whitehall that the “invisible hand of the market” deems this or that policy necessary. In 1998 the worshippers of the fetishism of commodities are everywhere.

Modern social developments

This fetishism of commodities explains many modern developments. It touches every human activity, even those apparently divorced from it. Sport, education, arts, science and politics are affected by it. At present we have the World Cup Tournament in France with 32 of the world’s best football teams competing, but this is more than a sporting event. According to the American magazine ‘Adbusters’:

“But the fiercest battle of all will be the one waged off the pitch between Stripes and Swoosh, the boot wars between the sportswear manufacturers Nike and Addidas.”

The Adidas spokesman, Steve Martin, is quoted as saying:

“Youths wear 75 to 80 per cent of our products for leisure, while only 20 to 25 per cent wear it for sport. Sportswear sales have grown at a phenomenal rate in the past five years. Football is the only truly global sport; control that and you’ve got the cornerstone of a $30 billion global sportswear industry.”

If any football supporter wondered why Brazil were playing all over the world prior to the World Cup , here is the answer:

“For the 1994 World Cup, held in the US, not one national team was sponsored by Nike. In France it will have six, including World Champions and favourites, Brazil, who’ve been signed on a ten-year deal for $400 million. Part of Brazil’s deal requires them to play five matches a year for Nike, which the company promotes and owns the TV rights to.”

In the USA sport is dominated by advertisers and manufacturers of commodities. American football (grid-iron) is played on television around the advertising slots and it is not difficult to see why. According to the San FranciscoExaminer (18.1.98):

“Over the eight years of a contract that will amount to at least $17.6 billion. Each of the 30 NFL teams will get an average of at least $73.3 million; less at the beginning, more at the end. This season they’re getting $40 million each from television.”

Sport in a pre-commodity society was a healthy, enjoyable pastime. Inside capitalism it has become a vehicle for selling commodities.

When we look at education, the pervasive influence of the commodity is even more awful. Rather than engender a spirit of enquiry and wonder in the young, capitalism sees only another potential market. In the same issue of the San Francisco Examiner we learn of Channel One TV, owned by Whittle Communications:

“Beaming news and commercials into 12,000 of the nation’s secondary schools, the programme reaches 8 million teenagers. In California, the telecast is delivered to 180 schools. In return for broadcasting the Channel One program—broken up into 10 minutes of news briefs and 2 minutes of flashy, MTV-style ads for companies such as Pepsi and Reebok—schools receive free TV monitors for each classroom, VCRs, satellite dishes and wires.”

The exploitation of the classroom is not peculiar to the USA. McDonalds has got its greasy paws on the kids in Britain. The Observer of 26.6.98 reports:

But since 1993 the company has offered teachers in all schools ‘resource packs’ which could take the place of elusive, expensive textbooks. History, one pack recommended, should be taught by getting the children to ‘explore the changes in the use of McDonald’s site’. Music teachers were advised to encourage pupils to ‘make up words for “Old McDonald had a store” to the tune of “Old McDonaldhad a farm”. The English pack includes such literary tasks as identifying the words “Chicken McNuggets”.

Opera doesn’t escape the dead hand of big business. The thinking seems to be that if businessmen, the modern high priests of commodity worship, know about markets then they must know about everything else. Commenting on the growing involvement of capitalists with the arts, ‘The Observer’(18.1.98) reported:

“The new and dominant values were vividly expressed in the withering words with which Gerald Kaufman [in June 1998] forced the resignation of the entire board of the Royal Opera House: ‘We’d prefer to see the House run by a philistine with the requisite financial acumen than by the succession of opera and ballet lovers who have brought this great and valuable institution to its knees.”

The popular arts fare no better at the hands of the commodity worshipper. The same paper commented on Hollywood’s thraldom to the fetishism. The production of the film Godzilla cost about $120 million, but the marketing cost an additional $60 million.

“Moreover, Godzilla was released to such a monstrous flood of tie-ins—cameras from Kodak, tortillas from Taco Bell, watches by Swatch and beer by Kirin—that Robert Levin, Sony’s marketing chief, remarked: “We aren’t launching a movie, we’re launching a franchise.”

It is when we turn to the world of science that we find the commodity fetishism at its most hellish. Here one would imagine is the one field of human endeavour and achievement above the sordid cash nexus of capitalism. Alas, this is far from the truth. More and more the perversion of commodity worship has distorted the idea of a disinterested pursuit of knowledge. One of the world’s leading geneticists, R.C. Lewontin, in his book The Doctrine of DNA, explains the role of science in capitalism:

“Science uses commodities and is part of the process of commodity production. Science uses money. People earn their living by science, and as a consequence the dominant social and economic forces in society determine to a large extent what science does and how it does it.”

The idea of disinterested devotees of science is knocked on the head by his further disclosure about some of his fellow scientists:

“No prominent molecular biologist of my acquaintance is without a financial stake in the biotechnology business.”

Perhaps the maddest example of commodity fetishism is reported in ‘Adbusters’ magazine, where Pepsi Cola are reported as possibly seeking a copyright for the shade of blue they use on their cola cans. This isn’t as unlikely as it seems:

“In 1995, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a colour can be registered as a trademark provided there’s evidence that shows the colour has become associated with a particular product.”

Nor does Keith Hughes, the Pepsi Cola spokesperson, rule out their attempting to copyright Pepsi Blue:

“We’re reviewing the possibilities. We’ve got some exciting plans, but I couldn’t really address that question at this point. I think we already do own that colour of blue, in the beverage market anyhow.”

In 1848, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels saw how capitalism was turning once revered human occupations into mere wage slaves; they stated in the Communist Manifesto:

“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science into its paid wage labourers.”

Prophetic as these words were, it is unlikely that even Marx and Engels could have imagined a statesman like Mikhail Gorbachev, head of state of the USSR, ending up as the lackey of a western capitalist company. According to The Guardian (5.12.97) he was a major world figure:

“Ten years ago Mikhail Gorbachev was a name with which to move mountains. When he spoke to the UN offering unprecedented troop cuts in Eastern Europe, this newspaper’s Washington correspondent said that one could “almost feel the earth shifting inside the building.”

So there you are. A great man. What’s he doing now? Working for Pizza Hut! Not serving behind the counter but advertising for them on television:

“Mr Gorbachev will be paid more than £100,000 for the adverts, more than Pizza Hut paid to Pamela Anderson.”

Our Goal

Inside a socialist society all wealth will be produced solely for use. There will be no need for markets. Men and women will produce only use values. There will be no need for the duplicity brought about by the insane worship at the shrine of commodities. Education will be free of the hucksters and con men of advertising and can become free to inform our children of all the wonders of the world.

Science liberated from the market place can become humanity’s crowning achievement. Sport can once again become an enjoyable, healthy pursuit. Dramatists, poets and artists can depict the real world with all its natural beauty and portray human existence in all its splendour and drama.

Best of all, we can become fulfilled human beings, no longer mere consumers worshipping commodities. We will not be blinded by the market system but able to look at the world clear-eyed and clear-headed.