Back Issues

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• Red Rag

Established 1979
Free! Fortnightly! Fun!

These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1982; the latest issue is dated October 31st (scan / txt); the next one is due out on November 14th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a print run by now of 1000 copies. It aimed to publicise and encourage a wide spectrum of subversion and culture in Reading; it kept people in touch with an events diary which spanned the activities of groups as diverse as organic gardeners and anarchists, anti-nuclear activists and civic planners, wild-eyed liberals and woolly communists; it contained news and views and details of things to do in and around Reading which the local press couldn't or wouldn't touch. And it was free.

In this issue (scan / txt): The Rainbow Peace Camp may have been evicted but it won't go away until everyone's collected their giros; the University Women's Group (branded as "unconstitutional" for excluding men from its weekly meetings) puts its case to the Union; Liberals on the borough council block moves for a night shelter; the government declares its intent to eradicate drug abuse by 1990; the growth of private medical care in Berkshire; the politics of the emerging video technology; Thames Valley Anarchists hold a bonfire to commiserate with the only person ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions; Ken Livingstone of the GLC is speaking at Henley; and one of the best conspiracy rants I've read for ages.

The power of these corporations is so great as to transcend all frontiers... We are witnessing a pitched battle between the great transnational corporations and sovereign states. For the fundamental political, economic and military decisions of these states are being interfered with by worldwide organisations that are not dependent on any state, and which, as regards the sum total of their activities, are not accountable to, nor regulated by, any parliament or institution representing the collective interest. In a word, the entire political structure of the world is being undermined.