THE SECRET LIFE OF FLUORIDE ?

Last night I was searching the BBC I-Player, more in hope than expectation, but happened upon Part 3 of a factual program called "Secret Life of The Motorway" entitled, "The End of the Affair". It showed how the once worshipped idea of fast Autobahns style Motorways across the UK which would speed commerce and open up the country for the peoples enjoyment and education had become an ever growing urban nightmare, destroying homes, historic buildings and sites and irreplaceable wildlife habitats and beauty spots.

It brought back a lot of memories and a few realisations, not just about the various evils of untrammeled road building and urbanisation and the irreparable damage they cause the planet, but more importantly about Friends of the Earth itself, its original aims, and the campaigns and campaigners i have met along the way.

Some time in the early seventies I had become cognisant of the dangerous and increasing scope of a wide variety of pollutants contaminating air, ground and water and, the disastrous and deadly effects these could have on both the natural world and the human environment. I read up on the subject and upon the laws which existed to control such problems. The latter were sadly very limited and often ineffective and then even more than now, industry and commerce could virtually do what it liked providing it paid its taxes and Governments in most countries were little better and sometimes even worse.

I looked for organisations that were actively trying to do something about it. but although i respected Greenpeace for its ocean-going exploits, i found that the local branches spent most of their time fund-raising for their expeditions and did not seem particularly interested or effective. at dealing with problems in the here and now. Here at that time was Manchester and Now was the scorching summer of 1976. It was the final straw for me.

Looking out from my slightly elevated position across the city on a sweltering day with the temperatures in the 90s beheld a yellow grey photo-chemical smog every bit as thick as the ones I had seen over the city of Los Angeles and I realised that my home town had become a toxic nightmare, poisoning itself and all around it. I had already moved from my home town when the m602 had cut a concrete canyon through its heart but now i knew with inner certainty that i and my partner needed to leave the City entirely to find some green spaces and some breathable air. A couple of years later after much searching and investigation, I found myself living in Colne a small town in the North East of Lancashire.

I had only been here about a year when i discovered that yet another motorway was rumoured to be heading my way to cut its way through Colne and its surrounds on route to Hull. The M65 as it was known was already part of local culture. Some local people said it was a daft idea and would never be built, whilst others said it when governments came up with these daft ideas, they could not be stopped. Obviously i thought that both beliefs could not be true but after some reflection maybe they could, after all, it depended on what people wanted to believe.

Thus began a fifteen year fight to stop this "Road to Nowhere" during which i formed a Friends of the Earth Local Group, organised meetings, wrote countless letters and reports, and met with many able and hard working campaigners, some of them true heroes. In the end common sense and love of our green and pleasant land prevailed, the motorway ( which was discovered to be the sham we always guessed it was) was abandoned, the blight lifted and at last we knew that it was banished for ever.

So where does fluoride come into this you ask? Well in truth there are many parallels. It starts with a daft idea with minor politicos and a bunch of people from a lobbying group, in this case not the Road Transport lobby of motor manufacturers, civil engineers and oil companies but this time a bunch of aluminium, ceramics and pesticides companies even aided by some weapons manufacturers.

Next it takes a very stupid government desirous of anything that might win them votes which pushes through new laws giving them the right to poison your water and attempted immunity from all prosecution to give them the edge; And some real glove puppets without minds of their own like Andy Burnham MP or Alan Johnson. Then they try to introduce fluoride via stealth. At first its just a one-off to tackle an acute dental problem in ..... (name your town), Then they spread it from one town to the next in the same way they got motorways built by lining up lots of little bypass schemes which turned into a cross country motorway.

So how do we deal with this kind of undemocratic bullying. Well sorry to say being a nice well brought up middle class professional just isn't enough. If Government is clearly willing to bend or break rules and play dirty, campaigners have to as well. Petitions and letters are OK of course but most issues in the public domain are won by getting the issues on the Media and the only ways to do that are to stage demos, sit-ins, poster campaigns, Public meetings, and a wide variety of stunts. Like Plane Stupid are doing. It's time to drag out the Pantomime Horse again.

Its all very well for the government, especially the likes of Prescott to bluster and waffle about democracy and the law but when they are not practicing what they preach and and show a total disregard for the wishes of the people who voted them in then they should not be so surprised when democracy comes back and bites them in the bum.

Non Violent Direct Action has put a stop to a lot of government and commercial madness in the last 25 years and if people are sincere in their desire to keep sub post offices open, or stop the closure or the local Accident and Emergency Unit or stop them putting poisonous and useless shite into your drinking water then you will be unlikely to succeed unless you exercise your democratic right to protest. And if the government says you and your groups are not acting democratically by climbing onto the roof of the Palace of Westminster or whatever, Ask yourself, what does the New Labour Government really know or care about Democracy anyway? To go by recent goings on in Southampton the answers is diddly squat. Your town may be the next government fluoride target, are you ready for them ? As George Orwell said: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.