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Back Issues |
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Established 1979 |
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These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every (usually) two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1985; the latest issue is dated May 12th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 26th. Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a readership of 4000. It printed practically everything it got sent ("except poetry and party political broadcasts, provided it isn't racist, sexist, militarist or otherwise supportive of oppression"). It aimed to provide a decent alternative coverage of local news and issues from a radical non-aligned position; to promote subversive and creative initiatives; to provide a forum for unorthodox views; to allow some sort of co-existence between a huge variety of interests. An indispensible source of local information? a forum for the self-indulgent and self-important? a continuous experiment in collective, de-centralised organisation? Who knew? But in five and a half years it had never sold a single copy. In this issue (scan / txt): in the first half of April over 100 women were arrested inside the airbase at USAF Greenham Common and charged with trespass. They had cut many holes in the perimeter fence, disturbed some rabbits, graffitied buildings with red paint, and made it onto the runway. Picnics are now being arranged inside the fence, not outside. Back in Reading, DHSS claimants under 26 living in Bed and Breakfasts will have to keep moving on every 4 weeks; a new, more severe Anarchist group hits the streets; someone around here's in trouble; and we consider the parental behaviour of the Mongolian Gerbil. At the pub, just ask where the meeting is. I don't know if the landlord will like Anarchists. | |||