Steve Strange ( 28/5/59 -12/2/15) - Fade To Grey R. I .P

Sad to hear that Steve Strange, lead singer from 1980's New Romantic band Visage  has passed away , as a result of a heart attack in Egypt. His life was not a masquerade, he could never be capable  of conforming to the logic of order, consensus reality was  very far from the pavements he walked.
In the post punk years remember his presence, the electronic pulses, danceable with shades of Bowie and Roxy, krautrock and disco, a shapeshifter of the 80's,  blitzing through it's shadows. He himself emerged from the working class mining community of Caerphilly,  liberated by punk, he saw the Sex Pistols on his home turf in 1976, he escaped to London, abandoning all hope of a conventional career. In his day, with echoes of social deprivation on a par with today, his only real options, if he had stayed at home, was life on the dole, the factory, building site. or the pit. He sought  refuge in the bright lights of London town, where he would go and look for some kind of irreverent freedom.Treated appallingly by the music industry that championed him. Chewed  up and spat out. He decamped back to South Wales,where he kept planning for his return to centre stage, a life lived full,with fantasy and wild abandon and the whiff of hedonism  never a far distance behind.
It's all a matter of taste, but being outrageous was his reality.
Steve Strange .R.I.P

Dont Buy Israel Blood Diamonds for Valentines Day 14 Feb 2015

This Valentines Day help expose the global trade in Israel's blood diamonds  - Israel's No 1 export commodity and major source of funding for the illegal occupation of Palestine. Diamond exports from Israel  generate revenue that are used to fund the Israeli military, please help raise awareness about this jewellery industry scam that facilitates  and sustains this belligerent apartheid regime.
It is worth noting that evidence given to the Russell Tribune on Palestine in 2010 indicated that the Israeli Diamond industry generated over $1billion a year  in funding the Israeli military/security complex.
Blood diamonds from Israel are often mixed with diamonds from other countries making it impossible for consumers or jewellers to identify them. The latest revelations concerning the operations of the bank H.S.B.C  reveal that a number  of Israeli Diamond dealers held accounts containing billions that were out of reach of tax authorities in the UK and Israel, dealers of a currency of broken bones and shattered lives in Gaza.
Despite claims  of honesty, openness, transparency and accountability, this  industry continues to con the public by claiming diamonds are conflict free and ethically sourced while facilitating and profiting  from the trade in blood diamonds  from Israel that bankrolls a criminal regime guilty of gross human rights violations on a daily basis. Remember too that diamond exports that generate revenue
Please do not insult your loved ones by buying a blood diamond from Israel, your hard earned money may go towards funding the next IDF massacre in Palestine.
Remember a glittering diamond that pays for oppression is not necessarily a girl or a boys' best friend.

Raise Your Voice for Shaker Aamer ; Newport, February 14th 2015

A quick  advertisement  for this event, a day of action taking place in Newport, Pembrokeshire, Wales  next Saturday 14th February, marking  the 13th anniversary of Shaker Aamers arrival at Guantanamo  its last British resident and the birthday of his youngest son. This man has faced  no charge and  has been cleared for release in 2007  and again in 2009, and over the years has had to endure all manners of torture and abuse.
We will be calling for his release, and his safe return to his family.

http://www.westandwithshaker.org/

I hope to  read the following  poem

For Shaker

Far from home, torn from  family and friends,
no place to run, no place to hide,
imprisoned in a man made hell,
in a cage of suffering, and isolation,
held without trial or charge,
Shaker's voice reaches us from afar,
from his prison cell, his shadow dances,
against the branches of iniquity,
we light candles to shine against the darkness that contain,
in the name of peace and justice,
our messages  keep calling for his freedom.

As days trickle  over captive thought,
it is time to restore some life and dignity,
as the world continues to recognise his plight,
we remember Shaker now,
his  hungry thirst for liberty,
between the sky and land,
fleeing into the future.
Every story hinges on a dream of change,
against  oppression and persecution,
with unflinching determination.
We wait for the walls of Guantanamo,
and its gates to crumble forever,
for voices within to wander freely once more.

"Let Them Freeze!" – Politicians in Frozen the Musical

Thousands will die from living in cold homes. Millions have to  make the desperate  choice between heating and eating. It is a national scandal. It is time to take action to help end  this cold home crisis.
1 person every  7 minutes freezes to death of related illnesses  as a result of being cold.
Here is a song  for our disgusting government. It is time to wake them up. In 2000 political parties promised  to end this scandal. 15 years later it is cleared they  failed. They  must be forced to commit the money to end this home crisis once and for all.


http://www.energybillrevolution.org

Royal Family : Stop pushing weapons to dictators

The Times newspaper reports today that Prince Charles " doesn't  like being used to market weapons and now sidesteps such activities where possible. " He has a funny way of showing it, at the end of the day he is nothing but a hypocrite.He is  about to go on  another little jaunt to the Middle East made at the request of the government. After  he recently  visiting Saudi Arabia, the arms company BAE systems  announced it had finished their latest multi-billion  pounds weapon deal.
Yes it's business as usual for members of the Royal family often seen dancing for autocratic rulers,  to be seen at sumptious dinner parties, where the Queen  entertains despots, torturers, dictators and murdering tyrants across the globe.
Daily they release their nauseating displays of wealth, power and privilege,  they are not powerless and  are certainly not harmless. The royal family also profits from  uranium and other components of the war machine through Royal Ordnance sales and exports.Instead of prancing around the international stage acting like arms dealers, toadying up to Friends of oppressors, perhaps they should start promoting human rights. At the moment I do not understand at all, why we offer them any respect at all.  It is time to start making peace profitable too. 

Inheritance - Heathcotte Williams, montage -Alex Cox

Palestine is not your Charity case

Palestine is not your charity case, your charity will not stop his bullets. There is only one side here. The beast  with the gun  and all his ilk must go.  The lioness has courage  and full rights, the west simply does not understand.

Langston Hughes (1/2/02 -22/5/67) - Dream Deferred

Happy birthday James Mercer Langston Hughes, pioneering African-American  social activist, novelist, playwright and Harlem Renaissance poet. He confronted racial stereotypes, and protested social conditions, he supported the Scottsboro boys, stood proudly with the anti fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and strongly opposed the McCarthy witchhunts,   and was to become known as a peoples poet. He was also one  of the earliest innovators, of the then new literary art form called jazz poetry,  the following poem of his was written 1951.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a sugary sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like  a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

here's an animated google doodle celebrating his birthday and his poem ' I dream a word.'