Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Leonard Peltier's Freedom Is A Triumph of Spirit and Justice


Yesterday marked a significant and uplifting moment,  with some really  beautiful news Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) Leonard Peltier is free at  last  after  nearly 50 years of wrongful imprisonment and unjust persecution by the US government and the FBI for his leading role in the movement for Native sovereignty.
Last month President Joseph Biden commuted Peltier's  life sentence to serve the remainder of his time under house arrest. This development is a testament to the power of compassion and justice.
Peltier  who is 80 years old, has long maintained his innocence over the 1975 shootout that occurred on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation between two FBI agents, who had entered the private property to serve arrest warrants, and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), a cold war-era liberation group that sought to address police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans.  
The group of Native American men who traded gunfire with the FBI agents included Peltier. The shootout resulted in the deaths of both agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, who were shot in the head. Joseph Stuntz, a Native American, was killed, too.  
Two other AIM  leaders were initially charged with the agents' murders and were tried seperately, no evidence at the time was presented to link them to the killings. They were subsequently acquitted after evidence emerged about the atmosphere and intimidation on the reservation, with the conclusion that they might  have been acting in self-defence. Following their acquittal, the FBI renewed its efforts to pursue Leonard Peltier, they needed a scapegoat  and he was arrested on February 6th 1976.
Peltier had joined American Indian Movement (AIM) members in defending the traditional people at Pine Ridge, who were under attack from the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs). The paramilitary group was established by notoriously corrupt tribal chairman Dick Wilson, who had the backing of the FBI. 
The FBI presence on Pine Ridge rose significantly after the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2023/02/remembering-occupation-of-wounded-knee.html  during which the federal government constructed roadblocks and cut off access to electricity, food, and water in a brutal 71-day siege. 
In the two years after Wounded Knee, known as the "reign of terror," more than 60 Indigenous people were killed on the reservation, prompting residents to call on AIM for protection.
Tensions came to a head on June 26, 1975, when gunfire broke out killing  the FBI special agents, Peltier has consistently claimed that he did not shoot the agents. His supporters have long argued that prosecutors withheld critical evidence that could have supported his defense while also fabricating affidavits against him.  
Peltier fled to Canada before his 1977 trial. He was eventually extradited back to the United States, found guilty and given two life sentences. Peltier, part of a movement upholding Native American treaty rights with the U.S. government, has long maintained  his innocence since his conviction 
For decades, Peltier's supporters, ranging from tribal leaders to figures like the Dalai Lama, Robert Redford, Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis and James H Reynolds, the US attorney who handled the prosecution and appeal of Peltier’s case, have fought for his release. Arguing he was falsely convicted in an unfair trial. A global symbol of the struggle for indigenous peoples' rights.
Prosecutors argued during trial that Peltier shot both agents in the head at point-blank range. Peltier admitted to being present and firing a gun at a distance, but he claimed that it was in self-defense. And the litany of offenses committed by the government against Peltier was lengthy. The government lied, cheated, and threw the Constitution out the window to ensure a conviction. 
The U.S. government used three perjured affidavits to force Peltier’s extradition from Canada.To secure these, federal officials shamelessly threatened and intimidated Myrtle Poor Bear, the source of these affidavits.
Poor Bear later recanted their contents entirely. The jury at Peltier’s February 1976 trial in Fargo, North Dakota, was all-white; the government used racism and fear-mongering to deliberately make the jury feel vulnerable to attack,sequestering them unnecessarily, for example. 
The judge, who actually had meetings with the FBI during the trial, constantly and aggressively ruled against the defense’s objections, and refused to allow Peltier’s attorneys to argue “self-defense” as his defense.
During the trial, the Assistant U.S. Attorney, Lynn Crooks, did not produce any witnesses who could identify Peltier as the one who killed the agents. 
The prosecution presented false evidence regarding the murder weapon; they held that there was only one AR-15 and it belonged to Peltier. Yet there were many AR-15 rifles found at the site. 
The government also withheld evidence,critical ballistic reports that showed the gun they said Peltier had been using could not be matched to the bullet casing they found near the agents who had been killed. 
None of this was  disputed by the U.S. government. At the appellate hearing in the 1980s, the government attorney conceded, “We had a murder, we had numerous shooters, we do not know who specifically fired what killing shots.... [W]e do not know, quote unquote, who shot the agents.” 
Though the Eighth Circuit Court at this time found that the jury in Peltier’s trial might have acquitted him had the FBI not withheld certain evidence, they refused to grant him a new trial. 
This is just a barebones overview of the main injustices that colored Leonard’s trial. 
In 1993 Peltier became eligible for parole, but was denied several times over the next 32 years. He served 46 years total in prison. 
In recent years, James H Reynolds has written to various presidents, asking them to grant Peltier clemency and calling his prosecution “unjust”.  
In a letter to Biden in 2021, Reynolds stated that Peltier’s continued incarceration reflected a flawed justice system. Peltier’s “conviction and continued incarceration is a testament to a time and a system of justice that no longer has a place in our society”, he wrote. Peltier was denied parole as recently as July and was not eligible to be considered for it again until 2026. 
The commutation, granted by Biden on his last day in office, was long opposed by the FBI. Former agency Director Christopher Wray called Peltier a "remorseless killer."  His supporters say prosecutors withheld critical evidence that would have been favorable to Peltier and fabricated affidavits that painted him as guilty.  
Peltier was freed from a federal detention center in Coleman, North Florida at around 9 a.m. (1400 GMT), according to a Reuters witness. He departed in a car which was part of a motorcade, and did not speak to supporters or media.  
 “Today I am finally free! They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” Peltier said in a statement provided by the NDN Collective activist group.  “I am finally going home. I look forward to seeing my friends, my family, and my community. It’s a good day today.” 
Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe, is partially blind and in poor health, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble. The 80-year-old will be allowed to live under house arrest. 
A homecoming celebration is planned for Peltier today at the Turtle Mountain Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota.   
Just as his wrongful incarceration represented the oppression of Indigenous Peoples everywhere, his release today is a symbol of our collective power and inherent freedom,” Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective Founder and CEO, said in the release. 
Outgoing U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Halaand said in a statement that she believes Peltier’s commutation was a step toward justice and that it was a long-awaited moment for supporters. 
 “I am beyond words about the commutation of Leonard Peltier. His release from prison signifies a measure of justice that has long evaded so many Native Americans for so many decades,” Haaland said. “I am grateful that Leonard can now go home to his family. I applaud President Biden for this action and understanding what this means to Indian Country.
Amnesty International USA, one of the largest and oldest human rights organizations in the country, is one of the grassroots movements that advocated for Peltier’s release. The global movement has millions of members and has provided support for Peltier by organizing an online petition and mobilizing others to write letters of solidarity during his sentence.
 In a statement from Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien, the organization continues to stand firm on their position that Peltier should have been granted clemency a long time ago. 
 “President Biden was right to commute the life sentence of Indigenous elder and activist Leonard Peltier given the serious human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial,” O’Brien said. “Amnesty International has advocated for the U.S. government to grant Leonard Peltier clemency for years, following the leadership of Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples.
The National Congress of American Indians celebrated the commutation, calling it “historic” and adding that the case “has long symbolized the systemic injustices faced by Indigenous Peoples”.
 “We never thought he would get out,” Ray St Clair, a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, said shortly before Peltier’s release. “It shows you should never give up hope. We can take this repairing the damage that was done. This is a start.
A hero to many Leonard Peltier was one of American society’s longest serving political prisoners. His prosecution and conviction were driven solely by his participation in the American Indian Movement, and Leonard Peltier has been a victim, time and time again, of the racism that is embedded in the U.S. criminal justice system.  
But Leonard Peltier is not simply a victim. He is a fighter, writer, activist, grandfather, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was the presidential candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party in 2004.In 1982, from Marion Federal Prison, Leonard Peltier wrote with "uncompromising solidarity" to the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, fighting back the genocidal invasion of Lebanon by zionists.  
In the years since his conviction, millions upon millions of people around the world have come to learn of his case, agree that he is innocent, and demand his freedom. This is in part due to the famous documentary, Incident at Oglala, directed by Michael Apted and narrated by Robert Redford, and the bestselling book that everyone from the FBI to former South Dakota governor Bill Janklow tried to block from publication—Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.
This tremendous victory, though it has to  be said that  he should not be restricted to home confinement but given his total freedom is a result of decades of tireless struggle for Leonard's freedom by people and movements across the country, .and  marks Leonard Peltier's Journey,  which is a triumph of Spirit and Justice. 
Times are looking bleak  and it's hard to feel optimistic about the future,  but Leonard Peltier is free and that’s something to celebrate. He can finally see the sky again  Because Peltier is free, we are all a little  more freer  too. Salute to the legend that is Leonard Peltier.

Sunday, 16 February 2025

Music is the language of the soul


Music is the language of the soul, the rhythm of emotions, and the melody that makes even the hardest moments a little more bearable, releasing. messages of truth, a pulsating force,life’s heartbeat. A heartbeat that never stops, a beauty that never fades, and a friend that always is there when you need one, and a  lover that never leaves, while at the same time can serve as a powerful reminder of our fragility and strength.
A single note can unlock a memory,  take you back  in time, change your mood, ignite your imagination, it has this magical power to shape how we think, how we feel, opens our eyes to new perspectives, and awaken and inspire us to change the world. 
Music transcends language, traverses borders and  connects us all  universally , painting emotions in sound. From a sonic symphony to a quiet melody, music has the raw power to move us all. And  like all good medicine has the power to  heal both  body and mind.
If you ever feel you’re in need of being uplifted. Listen to your favorite music. No matter the genre, it is guaranteed to  make you feel better, Music is such a powerful presence , such  an  incredible thing that  elevates the praise and soul of people and cultures  across the world , that can never be erased or ignored.
Carrying stories of resilience, heritage, that can  also nurture identity, emotion, and help unite us all  in the way  that  rhythms and tones interact  and teaches us about harmony, balance, and connection, across cultures, across time. 
Music  can also allow us to dive into the unknown, to express emotions that cannot be conveyed with words,  Without music, life feels lifeless The beats, the rhythms, the symphonies soothe my heart  and assure me I'm not alone.
AI music  though I  believe  is a betrayal of all  these notions,  and  If anyone asks me why it's bad -  they are part of the problem. It's simply souless, corporatized trash. How  can  you  call it  music if it  contains no  soul. Real  music has the power to connect us with those we love, and feels so  good,.  
Somewhere along the progression of music, we  have somehow got the idea that everything needs to be perfect. autotune, quantization, melodyne, etc. while at  same time  we have  lost our humanity. and  this makes us easily replaceable by AI.  
Remember  please that it’s the imperfections, the out of tune notes ,the raw  pulses of  emotion that gives music feeling. To all  musicians-  who have  the  unmatched power to influence culture, fashion, movies, and even social movements please take a stand against the AI takeover of your art. You have so much more power than you realise.  If we lose authentic music we will have  truly  lost our way. 

Friday, 14 February 2025

Changing Course




For those who think that this world is ok 
I will allow you  to believe your delusion,
Ignore genocide, injustice and poverty 
Bombs dropped on another brother's country,
Hatred leaving many thousands dead 
Blood splatterring lands with red,  
Daily this darkness releasing tears
As hearts grow cold in selfish ways,  
This poet dreams of something different 
A time where hope never stops flowering, 
A place where terrors forever go away  
Lands of  flowing peace and sanctuary, 
A fresh beginning, letting go of all past hurts 
Beyond barbarism the removal of chains,
Carefully we will mend and rearrange 
Replace the current walls of division,
Love across nations forever reborn
Like a tempest wild and free,
Our accents and homelands may vary, 
But, human emotions will bind in unity.
As we brush every fucking fascist away
With humanity rid our days of decay,
Where light shines through without despair
Each day filled with kindness and care, 
Removing the pains and sorrows of past
A more beautiful pulsating future is cast.

Monday, 10 February 2025

Remembering Welsh Pirate Bartholomew Roberts :Barti Ddu/ Black Bar (17 May 1682- 10th February 1722)


On 10th February 1722, the pirate, nicknamed "Barti Ddu" ("Black Bart") was killed. (He was never called Black Bart in his lifetime) Barti Ddu, was born John Roberts in Little Newcastle/ Casnewydd Bach, between Fishguard  and Haverfordwest,Pembrokeshire, Wales on 17 May 1682. Most accounts point to his father being George Roberts who was included in the Pembrokeshire Hearth Tax list in 1670.
Roberts made little impact on his village home in the eleven years he spent growing up there in the late sixteen hundreds. However, when the boy left to work on a royal naval ship, he soon escalated to remarkable fame. Held in utmost regard by all that cruised the dark side of the seven seas.
Robert's legacy grew to be more extraordinary than anyone in his small home county of Pembrokeshire could have dared imagine as he would  become  one of the most successful and the last great pirates of the Golden Age of piracy which lasted roughly from 1700 to 1725.
Writer Daniel Defoe visited this area in 1724 whilst researching his book about Britain. He talked to folk who had known the dark-haired, handsome lad who left for sea at the age of ten and never returned. John Roberts is thought to have left at thirteen in 1695, but there is no further record of him until 1718 when he was a mate aboard a sloop. In 1719 he was made third mate of a slave trading ship called the Princess for the Royal Africa Company under Captain Abraham Plumb.
Age 37 Roberts’ long lowly career in the Navy has been habitually unremarkable until one day, while they were anchored along the Gold Coast of Africa (near Ghana) the Princess was captured by pirates led by Howell Davis who commanded the Royal Rover and the Royal James. 
Roberts and several of his crew were forced to join the pirates, immediately  hitting it off with his captor, who was also Welsh and also from Pembrokeshire,in his case Milford  Haven, John Roberts and Hywel Davies speak Welsh to one another and Davies values Roberts’ excellent navigational skills which were entirely overlooked by his former royal naval colleagues and this allowed John Roberts to climb through the ranks. 
Despite being conscripted into piracy, Roberts soon came to like the Pirates Culture. Considering the average sailor made only £3 per month in the Royal Navy or a merchant ship with no chance of being promoted to captain it wasn't hard to see the appeal. In fact Roberts is even quoted as saying:  In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.  — A General History Pyrates (1724), p. 213–214  
A few weeks after Roberts joined the pirates, one of the ships the Royal James had to be destroyed due to worm damage. The Royal Rover continued on towards the Portuguese controlled island of Príncipe. Davis hoisted the flags of a British man-o-war, he was allowed to enter the harbor and after a few days requested the governor board his ship for lunch, intending to hold him for ransom. However, the governor had already figured out who Davis was and set a trap. 
The governor requested Davis meet the governor at the fort for a glass of wine first and on their way to the fort the pirates were ambushed and killed, Davis included. With Davis dead and the pirates retreating, a new captain had to be elected. 
There were several candidates for the post of commander, all brisk and lively men, distinguished by the title of "Lords," such as Sympson, Ashplant, Anstis, and others. One of these "Lords," Dennis, concluded an eloquent harangue over a bowl of punch with a strong appeal for Roberts to be the new chief. This proposal was acclaimed with but one dissenting voice, that of "Lord" Sympson, who had hopes of being elected himself, and who sullenly left the meeting swearing "he did not care who they chose captain so it was not a papist." 
So Roberts was elected after being a pirate only six weeks; thus was true merit quickly appreciated and rewarded amongst them. Roberts's speech to his fellow-pirates was short but to the point, saying "that since he had dipped his hands in muddy water, and must be a pyrate, it was better being a commander than a common man," not perhaps a graceful nor grateful way of expressing his thanks, but one which was no doubt understood by his audience.
Roberts first action as captain was to lead his crew back to Principe to avenge the death of Captain Davis. In the dead of night Roberts and his crew charged onto the island and  butcher a large proportion of the male population and stole virtually all items of value that they could carry away. Next they captured a few ships and when the ship next took on supplies, it was voted they would sail to Portuguese Brazil to rob them some more. His acts of avenging Howell Davis along with his bravery and success made most of Davis crew extremely loyal to Roberts and they concluded he was "pistol proof"and that he alone could ensure their success, health and wealth. He embraced his new career path with enormous enthusiasm, he seemed to have found the role in life that he was intended to fulfil – that of a vicious murderer. 
He changed his name to Bartholomew and a short but brutal career began.Some think he adopted the name Bartholomew in reference to the legendary buccaneer Bartholomew Sharp and in order to hide his true identity.
He was described as a tall, an attractive man, who loved expensive clothes and jewelry. His preferred attire was rich crimson waistcoat and breeches, a hat with a red feather and a diamond cross hanging from his neck. his manner of dress consisted of scarlet breeches, waist sash and overcoat. Upon his head was a tricorn with a red feather in its band and around his neck hung a diamond encrusted cross on a gold chain. His brace of pistols dangled from his shoulder on a silk sash of scarlet. He was a colorful rogue by most accounts. Even in battle he was well  dressed.He fits our idea of what a pirate ought to look like perfectly.
Black Bart” was the undisputed king of swashbuckling scurvy cutthroats, a brutal murderer who decorated his ship with the hanged corpses of his mortal enemies, and a hardcore sea-reaver who terrorized merchant shipping and painted the Atlantic Ocean blood-red.


Between the years 1719 and 1722, an astoundingly-long career considering that most pirates were lucky to go twelve months without being hanged from the neck until dead, Roberts and his veritable armada of heavily-armed pirate warships is credited with single-handedly plundering and destroying over  470  prize ships and over 50 million pounds of loot from the coasts of America and West Africa.. More than any other pirate in the Atlantic, bringing trade to a screeching halt. He rightfully earned the title of “King of the Atlantic Pirates.” 
While these numbers might be an exaggeration, there is no doubt, he was a dangerous and daring pirate when he came into his own. As for the claim of most successful pirate, Henry Morgan captured more, but Morgan, rogue that he was, was still technically a privateer. However, several Chinese pirates also captured more ships, had longer careers and attained more wealth; for example 19th centure female pirate Ching Shih. 
One of the keys to Roberts success was the Welsh language. As a speaker of Cymraeg/ Welsh, he  was able to communicate to allies in the language, ensuring that enemies were unaware of his intentions. His success was also due to his organization, charisma and daring. 
Roberts followed the common egalitarian socio-cultural foundation of pirate life as explicated in Marcus Rediker’s 1981 analysis of Anglo-American pirates, the first of its kind. Roberts created and enforced a pirate code, called articles,which crew members had to swear on a Bible to uphold, which actually gave more power to the crew than the captain, allowed for a more equal distribution of plunder, and demanded discipline from himself and his crew; he established alliances with other pirate captains and targeted those responsible for oppressive systems of authority or those known for taking actions against pirates, displaying pirates’ symbolic unity; and he enacted revenge on those that wronged him or attempted to capture him. 
Roberts has been called a pious man in that he had religious services onboard his ships, and never attacked on the Sabbath. He never drank alcohol, only tea, did not allow alcohol consumption or gambling onboard his ships (although his crew was completely drunk when he finally met his end). Yet, we can see from his actions mentioned earlier, his piety was confused at best and possibly psychotic. He also devised amusing ways to kill his captives. 
While some sources say he only killed one or two people other accounts are contrary to this opinion. He was known to torture, The Africans members of his crew were still considered slaves and were not given shares of the booty, and at least 1/3 of his crew were forced, that is made to be pirates. He had a hatred for the Irish and Spaniards. 
Once, he captured a slaver with 80 slaves on board. He burned that ship with all slaves on it. The reason was he wouldn't waste any time or efforts to unshackle the unfortunate people.This was the pathologic nature of Black Bart; he would butcher the innocent and then demand his men pray to God. 
Some sources claimed that crew loved him and would follow him in to the bowels of Hell if he asked. Other sources claim a good third of his crew was always on the verge of mutiny and Roberts would rule with an iron fist and do what ever necessary to break up mutiny plots, including in at least on case killing a possible mutineer.  As mentioned at least a third of his crew was forced to be in his crew. The forced men were not given shares or were given share only in an attempt to get them to join the crew outright. Men who deserted Robert's crew were often chained and sometime killed. in order to prevent desertions, Roberts often avoided hospitable towns and often would just remain at sea.
As time passed and his fame grew, he amassed a great pirate fleet, often said to be between seven to twenty ships of various sizes. In reality he never had more than three ships and most often he sailed with just two ships. But two well armed pirate ships was enough to terrorize the merchant fleets because the Royal Navy was not present in the Caribbean in any great numbers.
Calling himself “The Admiral of the Leeward Islands,” It is said that Roberts brought trans-Atlantic shipping to a standstill. His legendary 30-month career took him to the West Indies, New England, Newfoundland and Liberia.Roberts was also an early user of the Skull and Crossbones pirate flag; etching him into folklore and inspiring not just other pirates, but pop culture centuries after his death. 


The crews of his ships are said to have comprised freed slaves, of many nationalities and senior pirates who called themselves ‘The House of Lords’. The House of Lords was actually the name given to senior pirates on Howell Davis ship. Roberts senior pirates were actually known as the "Old Standards". Despite the so called democracy on pirate ships, Roberts crew had an established pecking order with long time crew members getting larger shares than new comers. Men forced to be pirates were given even less and Pirates of African descent given no share at all.
After the Pirates had avenged Davis’s death by destroying harbor, they sailed towards the coast of Brazil where they plundered many ships including some warships. A large amount of goods were taken from the Portuguese.
But this is also when one of his crew, Walter Kennedy, who he'd left  in charge (so he could go and capture another sloop) chose to sail away with the Royal Rover and all the loot it contained.This act of betrayal did little for Kennedy, he headed home for Ireland but his navigation was poor and he ended up in Scotland. Most of his crew were arrested and hanged but Kennedy escaped to London, where he started a new career as a brothel keeper but was imprisoned for stealing from one of his girls. In prison he was recognised by a past victim and was subsequently executed for piracy. The judge said later “He was a sad dog and deserved the fate he met with” and no doubt Roberts would have agreed. It is another story but he did have an unexpected influence on the history of piracy. An action that caused Roberts to rename the recently captured sloop the Fortune.
By late February 1720, they were in the West Indies just in time to meet two ships; the Summerset and the Philipa from Barbados, which had been dispatched to try to put an end to the pirate menace. They found the Fortune and engaged with it and after sustaining considerable damage, Bart broke off the engagement and was able to escape. He headed for Dominica to repair the sloop, with twenty of his crew dying of their wounds on the voyage – It was the first time he had come under fire himself at sea and he didn’t like it.  
Dominica was a well-known pirate refuge and it was here that they repaired the sloop and recruited replacement crew members before sailing north to Grenada. The governor of Dominica sent word to Martinique that pirates were at sea, so now two sloops from Martinique were searching for them causing Bart to swear vengeance against the inhabitants of Barbados and Martinique. He was especially cruel whenever he came across a ship from either island, he had a new flag made with a drawing of himself standing upon 2 skulls, one labelled ABH (A Barbadian Head) and the other AMH (A Martiniquian Head). This was a forerunner of the famous Jolly Roger flag.  


He changed his plans and sailed on to the coast of Newfoundland, In June 1720, they came to a port called Trepassy where they engaged in one of the most infamous pirate assaults of its age. They entered Trepassy harbour with their black flags flying, where over twenty ships lay at anchor and destroyed all of them except one, which they kept for themselves. They then went ashore and set fire to the harbour side which was burnt to the ground. 
With their new ship they returned to the warmer seas of the Caribbean where they struck lucky. The pirates captured a French man-of-war and discovered that one of the passengers was the Governor of Martinique-Time for revenge – He was hanged from the yardarm.To really drive home that point about holding grudges, Roberts spent the next couple months sailing around with the governor’s dead body suspended above his ship’s deck as a warning to others. They sailed on, spreading fear and destruction wherever they went.


By the spring of 1721, Roberts had almost brought sea-borne trade in the West Indies to a standstill. However, their success brought problems, the more they achieved, the less business there was for them. They had to relocate to the coast of West Africa in their ship The Royal Fortune.
They sailed up and down the coast, raiding ships as they went, their base for a while was a small settlement run by a retired pirate called Jack Crackers.In Porto-Nova in Benin they took eleven ships which were either ransomed or plundered. Ransom meant that their goods were no good for the pirates and so the ships would be sunk unless they were ransomed with a suitable cash payment. 
In a most bizarre development, the captains of the ships asked for a receipt for the goods stolen and the ransom money paid so that they could explain things to the owners. It is hard to believe and even harder to realise that Roberts obliged- such generosity. However, it was also here that he set fire to a slave ship and watched it burn, whilst those who could escape jumped into the shark infested waters and were torn to pieces in a feeding frenzy.
By the 1720's the Royal Navy and pirate hunter had begun chasing and catching pirates in earnest. However Roberts had started his career after the Kings Pardon (1718) and therefore had no intentions of surrendering or stopping.
In early February of 1722, Captain Challoner Ogle was dispatched by the British Government to find and capture Roberts. On February 5th, 1722, the warship  HMS Swallow which was commanded by Captain Ogle found Roberts and his three pirate ships, the Royal Fortune, the Ranger and the Little Ranger anchored off the coast of Cape Lopez (now Gabon).. 
As HMS Swallow turned to avoid a shoal, the pirates thought it was a merchant ship and the Ranger captained by James Skyrme gave chase. As soon as the Royal Navy was out of sight of the other pirates they opened fire and gave the Ranger a devastating broadside attack which killed ten pirates and took Skyrme's leg off. Eventually the pirates surrendered and were captured. 
On February 10th, HMS Swallow returned to Cape Lopez to surprisingly find the Royal Fortune still anchored. The day before Roberts and his crew had captured the Neptune and most of the crew was still celebrating and drunk when the Swallow approached. At first the crew thought it was the Ranger returning, however a deserter from the Royal Navy recognized the ship and informed Roberts who was having breakfast with Captain Hill of the Neptune. As Roberts usually did, he prepared himself for battle.  
Roberts plan was to sail directly past the enemy ship, take one broadside but eventually escape to open ocean. However Roberts' helmsman failed to keep the ship on the right course and HMS Swallow was able to get off two successful broadsides.
The fight started and Roberts was the first to fall as he was hit in the throat by a grape-shot and killed.  His body, fully dressed, with his arms and ornaments, was thrown overboard according to his repeated request made during his lifetime. Thus the arch-pirate died, as he always said he wished to die, fighting. His motto had always been "A short life and a merry one."  His  body has never been recovered.


Despite the death of Roberts the battle continued for several more hours until the mainmast of the Royal Fortune was destroyed. Without their captain, the pirates could not resist much longer, and they surrendered and asked for quarter. When the smoke had cleared and the weapons laid down, it was found only three pirates including Roberts were killed and the rest were taken into custody. One crew member named John Philips tried to explode a gunpowder magazine intending to blow up the ship but was restrained by other crew members. 
The Royal Navy ended up capturing 272 pirates, 65 of them being freed black slaves. The black pirates were sold back into slavery and the rest were taken to Cape Coast Castle. Of the remainder who did not die in custody, 54 were sentenced to hang. 52 were actually hung and twenty of Roberts crew was allowed to become indentured servants for the Royal African Company. Over one third of Robert's crew were acquitted and released. 
Captain Chaloner Ogle was rewarded with a knighthood for his slaying of Roberts, and he also profited financially by stealing gold dust from his cabin. Ogle went on to become Admiral of the Fleet for the British Royal Navy.  
The death of Roberts really signaled the end of the golden age of piracy. He was the final pirate captain that was able to ruthlessly control the high seas and brazenly defy the imperial powers of the time. While piracy and smuggling would persist throughout the rest of the 18th and even into the 19th centuries it would face a slow death as the various locations were rooted out by the empires and pirates were vigorously sentenced and executed. It would never reach the heights of Bartholomew Roberts who commanded a fleet of warships. 
Brave, daring and commanding, he was the model buccaneer. So, if ever anyone says to you that ‘real’ pirates were not as interesting as those we see on the silver screen, just mention the name of Bartholomew Roberts/Barti Ddu.
The last words on the crew’s loyalty to Roberts and sense of adventure attributed to the life of a pirate is probably best summed up in the final words of Thomas Sutton, one of the crew members, when discussing heaven with a follow prisoner: “Give me hell, it’s a merrier place: I’ll give Roberts a salute of 13 guns at entrance
The pirate code of Roberts would be recovered because of the speedy end to the naval battle and the death of their captain. The documents did not have a chance to be destroyed and were later used in the trial against the pirates as proof of their collusion.
This is the reason why most pirates destroyed their codes and any and all documents related to them as it would have all been used against them at trial. 
Thus, this lends to the mystery and lack of understanding of the true history of pirates because we only have brief glimpses as to what their private and mysterious lives were all about. The lack of historical documentation about the pirates will always be a hinderance to anyone trying to studying them.

The Pirate Code of Bartholomew Roberts

I. Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment. He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized.
II. Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes. But if they defraud the company to the value of even one dollar, they shall be marooned. If any man robs another, he shall have his nose and ears slit and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships. 
III. None shall game for money either with dice or cards.  IV. The lights and candles shall be put out at eight at night and if any of the crew desire to drink after that hour, they shall sit upon the open deck without lights. 
V. Each man shall keep his piece, cutlass, and pistols at all times clean and ready for action.  VI. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man shall be found seducing any of the latter sex and carrying her to sea in disguise he shall suffer death. 
VII. He that shall desert the ship or his quarters in time of battle shall be punished by death or marooning. 
VIII. None shall strike another on board the ship, but every man's quarrel shall be ended on shore by sword or pistol.
IX. No man shall talk of breaking up their way of living till each has a share of 1,000. Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have 800 pieces of eight from the common stock and for lesser hurts proportionately. 
X. The captain and quartermaster shall each receive two shares of a prize, the master gunner and boatswain, one and one half shares, all other officers one and one quarter, and private gentlemen of fortune one share each.  
XI. The musicians shall have rest on the Sabbath Day.  

The most unique is the ban of gambling on board, most other pirates wished to limit it but not ban it altogether. As pirates were mainly known for their lack of religious practice, it is also a rare example of the observance of the Sabbath. It’s claimed that Roberts even read the bible out to the crew on Sundays. Despite some of these rules sounding harsh, it was clear discipline on board was a priority to Roberts, and is probably the reason why he was known for being a good leader of his men
News of  Robert's death shocked the world as most sea merchants thought of him as invincible. His death was seen as the end of the Golden Age of Piracy and became one of the pivotal moments in the naval history of history of Caribbean and West Africa.
 It was after his death that Roberts became known as the infamous Black Bart, or Barti Ddu in Welsh. The tales of Roberts’ piracy were so glamorous, so unfettered, they seemed to be more the work of legend than truth. But true, they were,well documented by history.
Most of the information on Roberts comes from the book A General History of the Pyrates, published a few years after Roberts' death. The original 1724 title page credits one Captain Charles Johnson as the author. (The book is often printed under the byline of Daniel Defoe on the assumption that "Charles Johnson" is a pseudonym, but there is no proof that Defoe is the author, and the matter remains in dispute.) 
Johnson devotes more space to Roberts than to any of the other pirates in his book, describing him as:  ... a tall black [i.e. dark complexioned] Man, near forty Years of Age ... of good natural Parts, and personal Bravery, tho' he apply'd them to such wicked Purposes, as made them of no Commendation, frequently drinking 'Damn to him who ever lived to wear a Halter'.  — A General History of the ... Pyrates (1724), p.213[54]


 Note: It is thought that Charles Johnson was a pseudonym for Robinson Crusoe author Daniel Defoe.

As the most successful of the Caribbean pirates, Roberts has appeared in many media adaptations of pirates. The “Dread Pirate Roberts” from the book and film The Princess Bride was based on him  besides the name, the character Westley, who uses the alias, is a refined individual who is captured by pirates and befriends the captain, ultimately taking his place. 
He appeared as a character in the game Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, in which he is a mythical figure as well as a pirate. He also appeared in Sid Meier’s Pirates! as a rival to the player, complete with his red coat and diamond cross in battle. Additionally, he has been mentioned in passing in numerous tales, such as in Treasure Island,  the classic of pirate literature,  and has been the subject of several  books.
There is also a Pembrokeshire seaweed spiced rum made up of a blend of the finest Caribbean rum, seasoned with not only the most delicate notes of vanilla, clove and subtle orange, but with hand picked laver seaweed from the  beautiful Pembrokeshire coast named after him called Barti Ddu Rum. 
Ironic really as he  was not known  total abstainer, instead  as mentioned  earlier his tipple of choice was tea. It would have been easy to get hold of as many of the merchant ships at that time would have carried it. Unusually the crew often would “vote him small parcels of plate and china” if any were found on board captured ships. The somewhat sophisticated notion of drinking tea from china cups was certainly not replicated by  many  others  in  the pirate fraternity. Would love to hav tried  some if this rum,  but I'm on  the  wagon. 


Barti Ddu’s memorial in its full limestone glory. Can be found in his birthplace, Casnewydd-bach/Little Newcastle in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. 




Links






Sources:

Cordingly, David.  Under the Black Flag.  Random House, 2013. 

Farman, John.  The Short and Bloody History of Pirates.  Millbrook, 2002.

Breverton, Terry. Black Bart Roberts: The Greatest Pirate of Them All. Gretna: Pelican, 2004
     
Burl, Aubrey. Black Barty: The Real Pirate of the Caribbean. Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 2006.  

Defoe, Daniel. “Of Captain Bartho. Roberts and His Crew.” A General History of the Pyrates. Ed. Manuel Schonhorn. New York: Dover, 1999.

Sunday, 9 February 2025

The Oak- Lord Alfred Tennyson


Art : Wise Old Oak, Joyce Gibson

The Oak tree is King of the Forest. Sacred to the druids, its energy brings courage, strength  and endurance. Because of its warmth and friendliness to humankind, the oak tree is an emblem of hospitality and strength. It is also a tree of protection.
In Greek mythology dryads are mythological tree nymphs and the protectors of the oak tree. Legend says that if the tree dies, the dryad will also die, and for this reason the Gods will punish any mortals who brings harm to trees.
The story of the Holly King and Oak King in Celtic myth represents the cyclical nature of the seasons. These two mythical kings are seen as dual aspects of the Green Man, battling for dominance over the Earth. 
They battle each other twice a year, and with each solstice, one is defeated and retreats, allowing the other to rule. This story illustrates the balance and interplay between light and darkness, growth and rest, and the natural rhythms of the Earth.
The following  poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson is a three stanza poem, each made up of five lines, making it 15 lines. It celebrates the natural world and its beauty, with Tennyson's vivid descriptions of the oak tree and its surroundings creating a sense of wonder and awe.
At the same time, the poem also acknowledges the passage of time and the inevitability of change. The oak tree, once a slender sapling, becomes a mighty presence in the forest before eventually decaying and dying. 
Tennyson draws the inference that we should look at this particular tree which, although outward circumstances - both good and bad - may change, it is resolute as it has inward strength and this cycle of growth and decay represents the natural order of things. 
Tennyson's use of the oak tree as a symbol and a metaphor for human  llife also  reinforces the idea that all things must come to an end.

The Oak- Lord Alfred Tennyson

Live thy Life, 
Young and old, 
Like yon oak, 
Bright in spring, 
Living gold; 

Summer-rich 
Then; and then 
Autumn-changed
 Soberer-hued 
Gold again. 

All his leaves 
Fall'n at length,
Look, he stands, 
Trunk and bough
Naked strength.

Thursday, 6 February 2025

Donald Trump: Hands of Gaza


President Donald Trump the intelectually disabled monster welcomed  the butcher of Gaza Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Tuesday, and unveiled his newest, most extreme imperialist vision.  by floating the idea that the United States should take ownership of the Gaza Strip and permanently displace all Palestinians living there. 
If we had any doubt that the return of this unhinged megalomaniac would upend the old world order, this is the start. After everything Gaza has suffered, this is shocking, frightening and truly evil. 
After describing the Gaza Strip as a hellish environment, Trump shamefully told reporters that he wants to expel “all” Palestinians from Gaza — not just during a period of reconstruction following the Israel–Hamas war, but permanently. Trump suggested that current residents of Gaza can instead “occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety, and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony, instead of having to go back and do it again.” 
In recent days, Trump had proposed plans to temporarily relocate Palestinians living in Gaza to neighboring countries of Egypt and Jordan, which were rejected by those nation’s leaders.  
Along with the cleansing of Gaza’s Palestinian population, Trump ended  by saying that "  “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too.” .
 “We’ll own it … get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area … do something different, just can’t go back, if you go back, it’s gonna end up the same way it has for 100 years.” he said to audible gasps during the press conference, offering few details on how the United States could remove more than two million Palestinians or control the war-battered territory. and without saying a word for the 60 thousand Gazans who have been  murdered.so far.
As soon as Trump took office, Palestinian experts and advocates warned that he would accelerate and maintain even stronger support for Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land and continued ethnic cleansing, especially as Trump began to cast his eye on the rebuilding of Gaza. 
Members of Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet have long expressed desire for Israelis to reoccupy Gaza and to build new settlements there. Trump has previously described Gaza as a potential development site, touting its weather and seaside location. 
But since Netanyahu arrived in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, Trump began to express more clearly his plans in more certain and permanent terms. During the  most shameful press conference in history Trump added that Palestinians “should not go through a process of rebuilding” and suggested that Gaza’s residents “should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts … and build various domains that would be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death destruction and frankly bad luck.” 
Trump did not clarify the specifics of such a plan but said Palestinians could live in “numerous sites” or “one large site,” and that he expected it to be funded by neighboring countries. He claimed he had spoken to other leaders of Middle East countries who “loved the idea.” Trump also said he was open to the idea of using U.S. troops to carry out the plan.  
Asked whether Palestinians who leave Gaza would have an opportunity to return after reconstruction is complete, Trump asked: “Why would they want to return? The place has been hell.”   while sat next to the grinning psychopath  that  made it hell in the first place. 
When asked whether his suggestion for Gaza meant he opposed a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, Trump avoided the question and doubled down on his plan for displacement, calling Gaza a “hellhole,” even before Israel’s recent genocidal war began after October 7, 2023. While both Trump and Netanyahu expressed desire to push for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Saudi leaders have long made it clear that such a relationship would not exist without a viable pathway toward Palestinian statehood.  
 “By doing what I’m recommending we do, and it’s a very strong recommendation, by doing that, we think we’re going to bring perhaps great peace long beyond this area,” 
Trump said. He claimed the plan is not meant to benefit only Israel, but all people in the region, including Arabs.  “You have to learn from history,” Trump said. “You can’t keep doing the same mistake over and over again.”
I have to say that apart from thinking that Trumps words were  the most preposterous and audacious  I've heard  for  ages. it truly made me feel sick to hear it! No suggestions of help for Palestinians, just opportunities in Trump's eyes!The deportation or forcible transfer of a civilian population in whole or part is a war crime under international humanitarian law, and when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians, it amounts to a crime against humanity..
To see an American president endorse what would be the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from their home, in an exodus that would subvert decades of US policy, international law and basic humanity, was breathtaking.  
Trump ran on a ticket of stopping all the wars Biden engaged in. Just weeks into his term of office,he  throws his 'peace' mask to one side to reveal the ugly colonialist Western underbelly. He is not only giving a mandate to Israel to continue its war on Gaza, but he is owning it too. Trump is now complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the genocide of its people led by Israel.
OK Trump blurts out crazy shit.all the time ,but then once it's blurted out it has to be carried out because he can't be seen as someone who just talks. And you can't forget that during the campaign his son-in-law said the exact same thing. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/jared-kushner-gaza-waterfront-property-israel-negev ,
Trump doesn't think of many things by himself and Jared is maybe even more corrupt than Donald, at least he's more intelligent. And someone said not that long ago, when a wanna-be dictator tells you what he's going to do, you should believe him.
However Trumps s remarks that the U.S. should “own” Gaza and turn it from a “demolition site” into the “Riviera of the Middle East,”and transform it into a “holiday hub” without Palestinians sparked immediate blowback from Palestinian officials, their regional allies around the Middle East and key European capitals and thousands of people taken to social media to slam him.
Arnnalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said that the proposal to move the Palestinians out was “unacceptable” and against international law; in France, a government spokesperson said Paris is “fully opposed to the displacement of populations” and called Trump’s proposal “dangerous” for regional stability; and even my  own Prime Minister genocide supporting  Keir Starmer said Palestinians “must be allowed home” to rebuild.
 "our people, for which we have struggled for decades and made great sacrifices to achieve, to be infringed upon,” said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement.
This wasn't  some gag about annexing Greenland. Trump proposes nothing less than ethnic cleansing on a colossal scale. Gazans won’t just be driven from their homeland. It will cease to be their homeland and become an appendage of the United States. Donald Trump has once again proven that he is not just a megalomaniac but a soulless, morally bankrupt monster.  
His latest grand scheme? To wipe Gaza clean of Palestinians and hand it over to his billionaire cronies to build a grotesque, blood-soaked “Riviera of the Middle East.” is as sick as it is, is nothing new—it’s exactly what Netanyahu has been plotting from the beginning. Trump, with his usual arrogance, is simply saying the quiet part out loud. The strategy is as brutal as it is transparent: turn Gaza into an unlivable wasteland, obliterate homes, hospitals, and schools, starve the population into submission, and then offer them “resettlement” in the deserts of Egypt or Jordan. 
Today he nnounces that the Gaza Strip would be handed over to the US by Israel at the end of the fighting and that “no soldiers by the US would be needed.”  In a statement on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump stated that at the end of the fighting, “Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.
He also claimed that the Palestinians would have “a chance to be happy, safe, and free” due to the relocation scheme he proposed, which envisions Palestinians to be displaced to Egypt and Jordan. 
 “The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” Trump said. Expressing that no US soldiers would be needed for these efforts, Trump claimed that these actions would bring stability to the region.
The US has provided Israel with its weapons of destruction and Netanyahu with diplomatic cover for genocide. Trump is now contemplating sending US troops, alongside his real-estate agents, to take control of Palestinian land. 
In Trump’s diseased mind, forced displacement isn’t a war crime,it’s just another business deal. And what happens to Gaza once the Palestinians are gone? Trump’s real estate friends, along with the Israeli government, will swoop in to build luxury resorts on land drenched in blood.They're not even trying to hide their agenda now. Morality is of no interest when there is a real-estate deal to be made.
Trumps  approach violates international law and disregards the rights of Palestinians to their homeland.  The Gaza Strip is an integral part of historic Palestine, and its residents have a deep-rooted connection to the land.  Forcibly relocating Palestinians not only undermines their inherent rights but also sets a dangerous precedent for addressing territorial disputes. Such actions will  inevitably lead to further instability in the region.
Think about it  all for a second. Trump, the man who couldn’t manage a casino without running it into the ground.now fancies himself the ruler of an occupied territory. The sheer lunacy of it would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. This is not a “peace plan.” This is not a “solution.” This is ethnic cleansing, plain and simple, dressed up in the usual empty rhetoric of American imperialism.
The Gaza Strip is currently in the midst of a six-week ceasefire, with Hamas releasing its hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and foreign aid entering the enclave. It remains unclear whether fighting will resume after the brief truce and the call to action issued by Trump (and backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) will complicate negotiations.
While US President Donald Trump sets out his warped  vision to take over Gaza after 15 months of displacement, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have already made their long-awaited return to their homes in northern Gaza. Despite  finding  their homes and surroundings reduced to rubble. Water and sewage networks not  functioning, leaving even those homes that are still standing without running water.t they insisted on making the long trek on foot, many of them vowing never to leave again.
Residents arriving in the north told Mondoweiss have  said they were fully aware that barely any structure remained intact in northern Gaza and expected to enter into a new chapter of suffering. They also said that they would not trade what remained of their homes for anything Trump had to offer. 
 “The clear goal of this war is to make as many Palestinians as possible in Gaza homeless, because this destruction is deliberate and planned,” Alaa Subaih, a resident of the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, told Mondoweiss.https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/palestinians-reject-trumps-vision-for-gaza-if-they-offered-me-an-entire-city-instead-of-the-rubble-of-my-home-i-would-not-accept-it/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIRqllleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHeGa46p_9jyXrCSboHvM-d_DSFepyCWOwK0zci1sKPE1qHWKnbXcKoO_DA_aem_P9dGnQ9uXHTysJDQ7iTdpAThe aim is to make us suffer from lack of shelter so that we leave our country and move.”  
In direct response to Trump’s statements, Subaih said, “Even if this land is hell, it is my land. I do not want to live elsewhere. I returned to revive and rebuild it.”  “If the American president wants to help Israel, the best solution for him is to take all the Israelis to his country, America, not to transfer the owners of the land. We are attached to our land and will not go to any other country. Our country, Palestine, is the most beautiful country on earth,” Subaih added.
Though some experts speculated that Trump's proposal might be a negotiating tactic, Palestinians across the region saw in it an effort to erase them completely from their homeland, a continuation of the expulsion and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.  
That event is known among Palestinians as the “Nakba,” Arabic for the “Catastrophe.” Trump's statement , a wild swing away from years of U.S. policy,— meshed with calls from far-right politicians in Israel to push Palestinians out of Gaza, particularly into Egypt
The Israeli rights group B’tselem said Trump’s statement “constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing through uprooting and forcibly transferring some 2 million people. This is Trump and Netanyahu’s roadmap for a second Nakba of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” 
Palestinian refugees have long demanded they be allowed to return to homes in what is now Israel, citing the right to return widely recognized for refugees under international law. Israel argues that right does not apply to the Palestinians and says a mass return would end the Jewish majority in the country.  Throughout the 15-month war in Gaza, many Palestinians expressed fear that Israel’s goal was to drive the population into neighboring Egypt. The government denied that aim, though some hard-right members of the coalition called for encouraging Palestinians to leave Gaza and for restoring Jewish settlements there. The Israeli-occupied West Bank, home to more than 500,000 settlers has also seen more than a year of escalated violence. 
The rejection of Trump’s call was echoed by Palestinians in the West Bank and in surrounding Arab countries like Jordan and Lebanon that are also home to large refugee populations.  “If he wants to displace the population of Gaza,” Mohammed al-Amiri, a resident in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said of Trump, “then he should return them to their original homeland from which they were displaced in 1948, inside Israel, in the depopulated villages.” 
To be loud and clear. Gaza is not for sale. and will forever belong to the Palestinians. It is essential to recognize and uphold the rights of Palestinians to live in their ancestral lands and to seek solutions that respect their sovereignty and human rights.
The world must wake up. If this crime is allowed to happen, history will never forget the complicity of those who stood by in silence. Every nation, every person with a conscience, must rise up against this plan. Boycott Israel. Cut off all diplomatic ties. Take to the streets. Flood social media. Make it clear that this genocide will not happen under the world’s watch. 
Trump and Netanyahu are gambling that the world will do nothing. Fuck right off. Neither have  the legal or moral authority to dictate to Palestinians, they will never be defeated by land grabbing fascists. From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.


Displaced Gazans walk to Gaza City on January 27, when Israel reopened access to the territory’s north.

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

A Singular Voice

 

Art: Georges Braque

We've all got a voice, we've all got a name 
Don't ever let the fuckers tell you you're the same,
Hold on to what you believe to be true 
Whether feeling very high or rather blue, 
Don't get dictated by one particular party line 
Fall in love with who you want to and feel  fine, 
The pendulam of the mind will always oscillate 
Glimmering on pathways that celebrate or hesitate,
Complex networks of interconnected pathways
Mine dances like lightning with intricate tapestries, 
Offers those that are passing a little hum of truth
Releasing a purpose, a pro palestinan voice, 
You will find me among an ocean of song
Conveying messages, that are gentle and strong, 
Following streams that turn into rivers
Dreams awakening, seeping from my soul,
Glowing and jostling under universal influence
On an ever rollin' wheel, thirsting for justice,  
Among forcefields of ongoing oppression 
Trying to resist the borders of depression, 
From foggy dawn to evenings gleam
Thoughts worth sharing, words running free,
As lanterns, luminous in the night sky
Cast their wondrous light to the eye
Despite sadness dripping on lifes pages
Hope never lost or simply mislayed, 
Remembering, beyond negativity and darkness
Positivity is deeply seeded in all of us,
In the deep firmament of now and forever 
Released from heart, and carved with resistance.

Saturday, 1 February 2025

A Complete Unknown film review

 

Spoiler alert, dont read if you not seen new film  about Bob Dylan, called A Complete Unknown,  directed by James Mangold, I went to  see earlier with a friend. It starred Timothée Chalamet in  the leading role,  really enjoyed it.
Well I happen to  be a huge  Dylan admirer, and know  a lot  about him, and  as a result I noticed many many  embelishments.The cry of “Judas” didn’t come from Newport but a gig in Manchester a year later; Johnny Cash wasn’t at Newport in 1965, he met him there the year before I  think. 
Edward Norton is really really good at capturing the saint like essence of Pete Seeger, but he is a remarkably fine actor, nevertheless am not entirely sure that Seeger and Dylan actually met Woody  Guthrie  at  the  same time  as portayed in  the film, and Dylans girlfriend at  the time was called Suze Rotolo  not Sylvie Russo, which I thought was a bit  disrespectful, perhaps I'm taking things to  seriously and literally, after all does it  matter as was just a  ictional dramatisation, and Dylan himself makes things up  all  the time,  especially at the time  the film was set.
Anyway Chalamet truly catches Dylans voice  and persona quite  well, and what was really magical is how the  film  managed to transcend  time,  starting  with a 19  year old  Dylan arrival  in Greenwich  village, New York in  1961, culminating in his controversial electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 .
This isn't your typical boring biopic,It's more like stepping into a time machine and landing smack in the middle of 1960s Greenwich Village. The vibe, the music, the fashion - it's all there and it feels so real. 
Director James Mangold, known for his work on celebrated biopics such as 'Walk the Line,' about Johnny Cash  skillfully guides the narrative alongside co-writer Jay Cocks, utilizing the framework of Elijah Wald's acclaimed book, 'Dylan Goes Electric!' 
Wald's perspective offers depth, as it closely examines the cultural shift sparked by Dylan's electrifying performance, which famously divided audiences. Dylan’s transition from acoustic to electric music not only defined his career but also transformed the music industry.
The movie doesn't try to explain every little thing about Dylan, let's face it, can anyone really figure him out? And even though it focuses only on Bob Dylan's earlier career, the movie succeeds in showing how he shook up the folk scene and drove everyone around him crazy in the best way possible.
It also richly explored Dylans strained  relationship  with Joan Baez superbly played by Monica Barbarot. Theres also an  entirely made  up  fictional duet performance with Joan Baez in which Dylan gets so frustrated by his partner  that he throws a tantrum right in front of the audience, all but telling Baez to fuck off before storming off the stage mid-concert. 
All  in all a really good film, loved every minute of it, flowed really well thrilling and emotional at same time, beautifully shot, plus some wonderful acting and such great music. It also  reminded me  why I  love Dylan, he's  human after  all who  could be a bit  of a fucking  bastard  and an arsehole,  like all  of us. At end of the day he's  still one of the most important songwriters ever, so I for one can forgive him for  his transgressions. 
At times I thought that the movie struggled with its pacing at times and failed to convey some of Bob Dylan's motivations and self-reflection around certain major life events, but as a huge Dylan fan, I overlooked  this and managed to  not let this bother me, what it  does, it  does really well,  and I came away wanting more. So many iconic moments portrayed and an understanding of every character's reaction to who Dylan was, what he was doing to the music scene at the time and what it was doing to him. I  admit was close to  tears ar times, 
Though the film only focuses  on Bob Dylan's earlier career, the movie succeeds in showing how he shook up the folk scene and drove everyone around him crazy in the best way possible.
Incidentally when Timothée Chalamet got the role of Bob Dylan, he knew that the only way to honor a man who never plays a song the same way twice was to perform all the music live, with his own voice,  The talented actor  is said to have spent five years preparing for the role (it's amusing to think of him jamming away on the futuristic sets of the two Dune epics), and he ultimately performs 40 Bob Dylan songs for the movie. Chalamet said (via Variety): "It was important for me to sing and play live. Because if I can actually do it, why should there be an element of artifice here? And I’m proud that we took that leap.". 
Even if your not a Dylan  fan I  believe there's so much  you  could get  from it. People spoke highly about the film  as I left. Highly recommended, try  and  go see it at the cinema if you get the chance.I'm  already  looking  forward  to  seeing it  again. Walked home under a beautiful crescent moon  adorned by  a single star, a  wonderful  magical  evening. 


Thursday, 30 January 2025

Remembering Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984)


Richard Gary Brautigan  American novelist,  short story  writer, poet, would have been ninety years old today had he lived.born on January 30 1935 in Tacoma, Washington where he was baptised  as  a catholic and where he would  spend most of his childhood and teenage years.
Brautigan's mother said that Richard was a religious boy and read the Bible every night before bed. Brautigan attended church in Eugene—Lutheran, Baptist, and Catholic. 
Richard Gary Brautigan grew up in the poverty of America’s Pacific Northwest during the Depression and World War II. His boyhood was without benefit of a father. An only  child , Brautigan's parents, Bernard Frederick Brautigan and Lulu Mary Kehoe, married 18 July 1927, separated in April 1934, filed for divorce in 1938, which was officially declared in 1940. Brautigan claimed meeting his biological father only twice. 
In Eugene, Brautigan attended middle and high school. Probably through English classes, he discovered the poetry of Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams. From Dickinson he drew the notion of the poet as eccentric outsider writing telegram-like messages from a parallel universe.
From Williams he learned to write in a contemporary vernacular about subjects that had immediate impact on readers. When he graduated from Eugene High School in 1953, Brautigan aspired to be a writer. 
Brautigan had few friends. Mostly, he was alienated: the poor kid, the tall kid, the quiet kid, the writer. He hunted with a .22 caliber rifle, and fished, which seemed his second passion. Foremost was writing, which Brautigan used as both self-definition and an escape from what must have been a soul-crushing childhood of poverty, insecurity, and hunger.
In Brautigan’s juvenile writings, one can read his efforts to develop a unique authorial voice, come to grips with a dysfunctional family, and stake out his constant themes of alienation, loneliness, loss, and death.  
Throughout childhood, Brautigan was known as Richard Porterfield. Just before his high school graduation, Mary Lu told Richard of his real father and he changed his surname to “Brautigan.”Given the adversity of his childhood, and looking ahead to his own life after high school, it is not unlikely that Brautigan wanted a new identity.
His first published poems appeared in local Oregon journals.Brautigan's first poem was this:  

The Light 

Into the sorrow of the night
Through the valley of dark despair 
Across the black sea of iniquity 
Where the wind is the cry of suffering 
There came a glorious saving light 
The light of eternal peace 
Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

Brautigan became an atheist, then began to play with the Christian tradition, and wrote, "I saw Jesus coming out of a pay toilet." But in 1955, barely twenty years old, he wrote to a friend, "I believe that God is going to help me become a literary sensation by summer. God has made me know something about myself. I know that I am a genius with creative power beyond description. And I am very humble about it."  
He was arrested for disorderly behavior December 24th, 1955. Instead of  prison he was sent to Oregon State Hospital where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and subjected twelve times to ECT, electroconvulsive shock therapy. Eventually, he moved to San Francisco in 1956 where he would mostly remain the rest of his life.
It  was here where he published his first volume of poetry and became involved with other writers of the emerging Beat movement, including the poets Robert Duncan, Michael McClure, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.He was  actually  younger than the Beats and not thought by them to be serious enough; though he clearly loved hippie chicks, he stayed far away from drugs and the communal lifestyle of the Haight-Ashbury district he lived in during the Summer of Love,
His association with the socio-political group Diggers and Mad River exemplified a powerful personal connection to the youth culture of America, of which he seemed, at the time, the most representative, observing everything from the edges, and drinking with both Beat and more traditional poets at bars like No Name, Gino & Carlo’s, Vesuvio, and Enrico’s. 
He published 23 short pieces in the radical San Francisco Rolling Stone, launched in the city in 1967, before the Sixties were out. Cult figure for sure, Brautigan  happens to be one of my favourite writers, there are many,  but it's Brautigan I return to more often than not when  I want to smile, he also liked a drink or two or three,four and in his later work because of this it began to get dark.
The 1960s were his hey day and he was one of the most prominent to emerge from its counterculture. The Beatles loved him, not that that in itself means anything,were they not into most things. It comes as no surprise that John Lennon was a Brautigan fan.They both had a whimsical point of view that started in the square inch field and expanded into the cosmos. 
Brautigan recorded a spoken-word album for The Beatles' record label, Zapple, between 1968 and 1969. However, the album was not released until 1970 on Harvest Records as Listening to Richard Brautigan. I've got  a copu  it's truly wonderful. 
My first encounter with Brautigan’s writing was  Beatle-related: he wrote a very haunting intro to the mass-market paperback The Beatles Lyrics Illustrated called “The Silence of Flooded Houses.” 
Then I read his short story collection, The Revenge of the Lawn, and my lifelong love of his work began. I've since read and devoured nearly  everything he wrote,  
He showered readers of the 1960s and ’70s with inspiring spare, proletarian ideals in his novels. his works entwine pastoral American life and technological change with  works that are often surreal while combining satire,parody and black humour. 
In  the following poem he foreshadowed the vise-like, smothering grip that technology has over us today.

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think 
(and the sooner the better!) 
of a cybernetic meadow 
where mammals and computers 
live together in mutually programming harmony
like pure water touching clear sky. 

I like to think 
(right now, please!) 
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics 
where deer stroll peacefully 
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms. 

I like to think 
(it has to be!) 
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors 
and joined back to nature, 
returned to our mammal 
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

All watched over by machines of loving Grace. Taken from the Adam Curtis series of the same name


There was something great in Brautigan. He claimed that drinking fueled it. But left alone, and without liquor, he was shy, a hard and precise worker who preferred his own company. A craftsman, he worried about commas, and was familiar with French and Japanese literature. He knew hundreds of important writers in Japan, America, and France, and could liven up parties with raucous wit.
Despite his prolificacy, critics reacted with diminished enthusiasm, put off by Brautigan's apparent preoccupation with sadness and death and his refusal to write further in his earlier, more humorous vein. Critics and readers trivialized his work, criticized its lack of political focus, and called Brautigan “naïve.”He often said he did not care about the critics, but losing his readers truly broke Brautigan's heart. 
While his American audience turned its back, Japan embraced Brautigan and his writing. Brautigan traveled there often, staying at Tokyo's Keio Plaza Hotel. In Japan, he felt revered, the sensai. His experiences in Japan inspired a collection of seventy-seven poems entitled June 30th, June 30th (1978), and at least half of the short chapters in his novel, The Tokyo-Montana Express (1980). 


This popularity abroad continues, with Brautigan’s writing translated into more than twenty languages. In America, his work is mostly out of print.
Underneath his humor was a swamp into which he was slowly sinking. He had never known his dad. His mother was a flibbertigibbet. She had had almost as many lovers as her son. She would store Richard with one ex-lover while going off with a new man, then retrieve her son after her passions cooled. Brautigan told his second wife, "I never thought I was loveable. I was abandoned by my mother."  
Brautigan's second wife was a Japanese woman named Akiko. The sped-up romance that brought them together didn't allow either one to know what they were getting into. Brautigan suffered from enormous outbreaks of herpes that blotched his private areas and crawled up his belly and chest for months at a time. His new wife had to get used to this. 
When Brautigan introduced Akiko to his friends in Livingston, Montana, she formally grasped each of twenty separate hands, and said, wearing a kimono, "How the fuck are you?" Brautigan tried not to laugh. He had taught her English. For her part, Akiko was a lot tougher than she looked. Friends of the family said she was smart. She left her first husband after getting together with Brautigan. 
Brautigan's friend Don Carpenter warned Richard, "If she'll leave him, she'll leave you." She did, first sleeping with two of his friends when he left her in Montana for several months shortly after the wedding. Brautigan went to Tokyo and wrote 59 stories but returned to find a broken marriage.
By his late forties, he was a has-been, as the Flower Generation gave way to the Me Generation. Sales of his work had dwindled. He battled deep depression, punctuated by alcoholism, and he had guns.
Sadly  Brautigan was found dead from a self-inflicted gun-shot wound in 1984, aged only 49, beside a bottle of alcohol and a .44 calibre gun. while living at 6 Terrace Avenue in Bolinas, California. He was discovered by a detective a month later with insects flying out of his splattered skull.
We all cast long shadows.Hauntingly his work still  magically shines for me.Richard Brautigan was a goddamn force. A spiritual, intellectual, cultural and poetic force, and thankfully we still have the books  he left us.
 A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964) according to Newton Smith, the novel is the story of a character in Big Sur who imagines himself to be a general in the Confederate army, told by a narrator working on a textual analysis of the punctuation of Ecclesiastes. (Smith 123)  
More specifically, Lee Mellon, the novel’s protagonist, believes he is the descendent of the only Confederate General to have come from Big Sur and is himself a seeker after truth in his own modern-day (1957) war against the status quo and the state of the Union. Brautigan’s friend an eccentric character called  Price Dunn was the model for the novel’s Lee Mellon.


Brautigan’s 1967 novel  Trout Fishing in America concerns a camping trip in Idaho’s Big Stanley Basin. The narrator clearly is Brautigan, who spent the summer of 1961 there with his first wife and daughter. It's  subversive commentary on American life. Trout fishing is not only a pastime enjoyed by the novel’s narrator. It is also a character within the book, the embodiment of a primal national promise that mainstream American society and culture have rejected. 
It features a scene in which a river is sold in a shop. It's funny and crazy, like the best of George Carlin, but is also poetic and can reach for a Proustian melancholy. It became  an underground hit, credited with bridging the beat poets with the west-coast counter-culture. 


In March 1994, a teenager named Peter Eastman Jr. from Carpinteria, California, legally changed his name to Trout Fishing in America, and now teaches English at Waseda University in Japan
The  book  launched a career that had, up to that point, been prolific but commercially unsuccessful. More novels followed, as well as collections of poetry and short stories.
His 1968 book  In Watermelon Sugarwas Brautigan’s third published novel is the story of a successful commune called DEATH whose inhabitants survive in passive unity while a group of rebels live violently and end up dying in a mass suicide.It brilliantly blended themes of solitude and nature with our human intrusiveness. Always joyous reading. Always Brautigan.


The Abortion:An Historucal Romance from  1971 follows a young man, the narrator, who works and lives in the library, a Brautigan world of lonely pleasure, where he meets a woman. After impregnating the woman, the narrator supports her abortion. In the process he learns how to reenter human society.  Inspiration for the Novel  The inspiration for the library is factual.


First published in 1974, The Hawkline Monster was Richard Brautigan’s fifth published novel, and the first to parody a literary genre. Subtitled “A Gothic Western,” the novel was well received by a wider audience than Brautigan’s earlier work.  As in earlier novels, Brautigan played with the idea that imagination has both good and bad ramifications, turning it into a monster with the power to turn objects and thoughts into whatever amused it.   


In his 1976 novel' Sombrero Fallout  the  opening sentences of the book hooked me straight away:  “A sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the Main Street of town in front of the Mayor, his cousin and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday.” 
That paragraph is the start of a story being written by an American humourist. However, the man is in the middle of an emotional trauma as his Japanese girlfriend has left him after two years together. Falling apart and unable to cope, he tears up his work and throws it into the waste paper basket. He will go on to try to make it through the night alone and abandoned; and in a parallel storyline Yukiko, his ex-lover, will sleep and dream, calm and happy with only her cat for company. 
However, the story of the sombrero refuses to be abandoned, and while the writer and Yukiko are getting on with their lives, the tale of the town with the sombrero continues to develop in the waste bin. What seems a simple but inexplicable event – a sombrero which falls from the sky – causes all kinds of issues  amd  messes  with  his life. It’s a decent metaphor for our attempts to survive trauma.


Those already familiar with his work may not know of the posthumous release of An Unfortunate Woman in 2000, a dark autobiographical novel written in the eighteen months before his death. It reveals a man no longer at ease with his own head – but the book reads beautifully all the same.


The 60 odd stories contained within Revenge to the Lawn  I would say are his masterpieces, here's a few  of them , hope you enjoy. Contained within one of my favourite short stories, it's also one of the smallest in my library. Prose poetry of the highest order.

Women When They Put Their Clothes  on in the morning

It's really a very beautiful exchange of values when  women put their clothes on in the mornig and she is brand-new and you've never seen her put on her clothes before.
You've been lovers and you've slept together and there's nothing more you can do about that, so iy's time for her to put her clothes on.
Maybe you've already had breakfast and she's slipped her sweater on to cook a nice bare-assed breakfast for you, padding in sweet flesh around the kitchen, and you both discussed in length the poetry of Rilke which she knew a great deal about, surprising you.
But now it's time for her to put her clothes on because you've both had so much coffee that you can't drink any more and it's time for her to go home and it's time for her to go to work and you want to stay there alone because you've got some things to do around the house and you're going outside together for a nice walk and it's time for you  to go home and it's time for you  to go to work and she's got some things that she wants to do around the house.
Or ...maybe it's even love.
But anyway:It's time for her to put her clothes on and it's so beautiful when she does it. Her body slowly dissapears and comes out quite nicely all in clothes. There's a virginial quality to it. She's got her clothes on, and the beginning is over.

Banners of My Own Choosing

Drunk laid and drunk unlaid and drunk laid again, it makes no difference. I return to this story as one who has been away but one who was always destined to return and perhaps that's for the best.
I found no statues nor bouquets of flowers, no beloved to say: 'Now we will fly banners from the castle, and they will be of your own choosing,' and to hold my hand again, to take my hand in yours.
None of that stuff for me.
My typewriter is fast enough as if it were a horse that's just escaped from the ether, plunging through silence, and the words gallop in order while outside the sun is shining.
Perhaps the words remember me.
It is the fourth day of Marcg 1964. The birds are singing on the back porch, a bunch of them in an aviary, and I try to sing with them: Drunk laid and drunk unlaid and drunk laid again, I'm back in town.

Lint

I'm haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that shold be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.
I've been examining  half-scraps  of my childhood. They are  pieces  of distant life that have no form or meaning. They are things that just happened like lint.


The Scarlatti Tilt

' It's very hard to live in a studio apartment in San Jose with a man who's learning to play the violin.' That's what she told the police when she handed them the empty revolver.

Ernest Hemingway's Typist

It sounds like religios music. A friend of mine just came back from New York where he had Ernest Hemingway's typist do some typing for him.
He's a successful writer, so he went and got the very best which happens to be the woman who did Ernest Hemingways typing. It's enough to take your breath away, to marble your lungs with silence.
Ernest Heminway' typist!
She's every writer's dream come true with the appearance of her hands which are like a harsichord and the perfect intensity of her gaze and all to be followed by the profound sound of her typing.
He paid her fifteen dollars an hour. That's more than a plumber oran electrician gets.
$120 a day! for a typist!
He said that she does eveything for you. You must hand her the copy and like a miracle you have attractive, correct spelling and punctuation that is so beautiful that it brings tears to your eyes and paragraphs that look like Greek temples and she even finished sentences for you.
She's Ernest Heminway's
She's Ernest Hemingway's typist.

All above selections from
Revenge of the Lawn, Jonathan Cape 1972.


I would also strongly recommend a book of memoirs by his daughter Ianthe Brautigan's ' You can't catch death'.  A fascinating glimpse into Richard Brautigans life and shedding light on some of his own personal ghosts. 


Brautigan, the man and his work, has never been forgotten, far from it. Scholarly work exists that examines Brautigan’s career, and there are volumes of it at the click of a mouse. I would recommend all his books their wonderful, and can make you wonder, giggle and laugh out loud. 
Though described as a ' outsider,' I don’t think  this description entirely fits Brautigan; he was a purposeful artist who sought an audience, and thoigh there’s something about his off-kilter view of the world that subtly alters your own, they are  so well  crafted and draw you in, and whenever I return  to his books, I'm never disappointed, and  they still  resonate to  this day, and this is one of the reasons he still has a following after all these years.Long live Richard Brautigan.

It's strange how the simple things in life go on while we become more difficult.' -  Richard Brautigan

' I'll  affect you slowly as if you were having a picnic in a dream. There will be no ants. It won’t rain
-Richard Brautigan

Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself and listen to it.' 
- Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan
(a 5 minute presentation)


Richard Brautigan reads from Trout Fishing in Watermelon Sugar