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This Week in the Guardian #17

Every week we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian, but don’t require an entire article of refutation.
We encourage reader-participation here, so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below, or send us an e-mail.

Foreign Policy Disasters Signalled in Election Aftermath

“Aftermath” might be a misnomer, since the election looks to be anything but over, but the Graun has lept on the back of Biden’s (possibly premature) declaration of victory to start pushing the agenda they’ve been saving up.

Consider this, in one The Guardian’s anonymous editorials:

[Biden] will have to reassert America’s role as the global problem-solver. Under Mr Trump the “indispensable nation” disappeared when it was needed the most.

Sounds like we might be set for another load of “responsibility to protect” talk, doesn’t it?

This one is a painful read on Biden’s raft of virtues, and contains this sentence:

[Biden] will try to bring Russia’s Vladimir Putin to heel

Which is an alarmingly jingoistic turn of phrase. If/when Biden is actually officially President, this will only get worse.

UK health professions call for climate tax on meat

The same people that put a tax on sugar because it’s bad for you are now planning to put a tax on meat because it’s bad for the planet. A report from some experts says that since meat production is contributed to climate change, we should tax it more.

This is a tax, of course. Not a ban. So while it will limit the purchase of meat, it will only limit poor people purchasing meat. The rich will still be able to buy organic, grass-fed steaks while we’re all munching down on lab-grown soy gruel.

Another story, from the next day, about a paper which called for “reform” of the food industry.

If emissions from food production are to be cut to safe levels, diets in rich countries are also likely to have to change.

It says. Plus:

Diets need to shift to contain less food in general”

This is about your wellbeing you understand, and not foisting artificial “food” made by corporate giants whilst forcing the underclass into a quasi-medieval peasant lifestyle. Not at all.

Child labour doesn’t have to be exploitation – it gave me life skills

This is an article about how, in some circumstances, child labour isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In some developing countries it’s really important for teaching children life skills.

Does anything else need to be said?

Yes actually: it’s part of the Guardian’s “Global Development” section, which is paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

BONUS: Gabriel Byrne Spitting Truth Bombs

An rare positive here – four lines of real truth, hidden away in a puff-piece interview marking the release of actor Gabriel Byrne’s autobiography. Amid his anecdotes, and the interviewer’s inane questions, are the only four lines of real truth The Graun has printed this month (if not year):

Since 1945, the US has embarked on 75 different military interventions toppling legitimate regimes. And yet the big thing is that Russia interfered in the American election? The Americans have interfered in every election around the world.”

He criticises Obama, and Clinton, and Biden. He says Reagan should have been in jail, and says nobody truly understands the blue-collar rage that supports Donald Trump.

He points out that The Pentagon has a film department, and that America uses Hollywood to push its own mythology on the world. Later he says:

now I question everything. I believe it’s a responsibility to do it.”

It’s a sign of how off-script he is that at one point the interviewer throws in a gentle rebuke for “how close he skips to conspiracy theory”.

Good work, Mr Byrne. Tell it how it is.

* * *

All told, a busy week for The Guardian. And we didn’t even mention the Guardian US Editor opportunistically begging for money.
Did we miss anything? Tell us about it in the comments below, and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue.

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