Thursday 16 March 2017

Rachel Corrie, still not forgotten ( 10/4/79 - 16/3/03)


It has become customary of me to mark the passing of  Rachel Aliene Corrie a 23 year old American Peace activist  from Olympia, Washington who was crushed to death by an Israeli military, caterpiller D 912 bulldozer in 2003, while undertaking non-violent direct action trying to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition in Rafah in the Gaza strip.
Justice has never been served for her, along with others killed under the Israeli occupation.
Today I reflect upon Rachel's brave stand in Gaza 14 years ago today and her courage to resist and all  those who continue to live and struggle there, and all those passionate change makers across the globe who each day act with conscience, work tirelessly to try and make a difference.
Remember that what is happening in Palestine which we keep on witnessing  is an equal  cycle of violence as seen in apartheid South Africa. Being against  this injustice  is not anti-Jewish anymore than being against a British governments military aggression marks you as as anti-British. Rachel Corrie understood these links and connections and would have known about an active Israeli peace movement, and of the hundreds  of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories, many of whom have been jailed for their stance. Israel has invaded Palestinian land in breach of international law. Rachel died while attempting to prevent a demolition of a home, a common practice of the Israeli army's collective punishment that has left more than 12,000 Palestinians homeless since the beginning of the second uprising in September 2000. A practice that violates International Law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention.The struggle against demolition and occupation of Palestinian  homes and lands continues unabated.
So here's to the memory and bravery of Rachel Corrie  a true American hero but another pointless death.Bulldozed and suffocated  her memory though will remain.

http://www.rachelcorrie.org

Wednesday 15 March 2017

No to Balfour Royal Visit to Israel: Time now for an apology


A member of the  Royal family maybe visiting Israel in an official capacity later this year, on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, according to British media reports.Though members of the royal family have travelled to Israel in the past on personal visits,an official visit of this kind would be a historic first, and would mean breaking decades of precedent in which invitations to visit have been previously rejected.
President Reuven Rivlin  extended the invitation at a meeting with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in Jerusalem last week, citing the importance of the Balfour centenary. According to Whitehall sources, such a visit could take place this year, the Independent reported.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/palestinian-campaign-israel-royal-visit-israel-netanyahu-israel-prince-charles-a7620251.html
The invitation comes on the 100 years anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.On November 2, 1917, the then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a letter in what is now known as the Balfour Declaration  in what is considered to be the first political recognition of the Zionist aims by a foreign government. This  cursed declaration, by means of which those who had no ownership (Britain) permitted those who had no right to establish a national homeland on an established country Palestine, inevitably bought about a promise that marked  the  beginning of confiscation of the Palestinians homeland and displacement of its people. I personally believe it is time not for Royal visits but a moment  that my rulers  apologise  about this historical injustice which Britain committed against the Palestinian people.

                                    
                                           UK Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur Balfour

Palestinians believe the Balfour Declaration marked the beginning of a series of moves by the British government in Palestine, which facilitated Jewish migration in Palestine, which initiated a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Palestine in 1947-8, which led to the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinians.The population of Palestinian refugees today currently stands at 6,000,000 and their issue is considered the longest standing in the world.
A statement by the London based Balfour Apology campaign  (BAC) http://balfourcampaign.com/recently said that :-
"
The royal family visit to Israel is seen by the campaign and Palestinians under occupation and in the diaspora as ‘unhelpful’. Such   visit will only encourage Israel to continue its human rights violations against Palestinians and provide free publicity to cover Israel’s ongoing settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid policies.”
.
Surely it is now  time for the Royal  family and the British Government to simply say sorry for what has bought untold misery through nearly a century of conflict, ethnic cleansing, ongoing human rights abuse, brutal occupation and apartheid.It has a responsibility and duty and  to redress the pain and suffering of individual Palestinians that have had to  endured ever since, and keep up pressure on the state of Israel as they keep  continuing to breaking international law and finally apologise for distributing land when they had absolutely no right to do so in the first place and redress the historical injustice that Britain committed against the Palestinian people .This surely would be a sensible approach to reconciliation  and the road to peace.
Here is a petition you could sign if you wish, cheers :-

UK must apologise for the Balfour Declaration and lead peace efforts in Palestine:- https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/184398

Tuesday 14 March 2017

For the Rivers ( a Poem)

 
Today is  the 20th annual International Day of Action for Rivers!
For two decades, communities all over the world have gathered to defend, protect and celebrate their rivers as sources of life and renewal. It’s an amazing moment of global solidarity, for an event to join, discover this interactive global action map. Each year, this event reminds us that we’re not alone in the struggle for our freshwater. We share a common purpose with sisters and brothers all over the planet who are fighting for their rights and their rivers. It is a day to educate one another about the threat facing our rivers, and learn about how to protect them. Here's a little poem I wrote for the rivers.

For the Rivers

From their source, delivers hope 
helps release  joy instead of sorrow;
into the sea allows freedom to grow
gives us 
hope for a brighter future,
currents moving more precious than gold
forever running, constantly turning,
rippling inspiration, reaching horizons of
                                            another tide
the rivers trace generations of memory,
constant  treasures  full of magic
veins of life that help sustain the planet,
we must conserve these flowing waters
help them replenish  our mother earth.

Monday 13 March 2017

Question Everything, Why? : Some thoughts by Doris Lessing ( 22 10/19-17/11/13)



Some wise words from the late British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer, Doris Lessing.

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: ‘You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”

Doris Lessing - extract from, The Golden Notebook, 1962
 

Sunday 12 March 2017

Happy birthday Jack Kerouac (12/3/22 - 21/10/69)

'
" the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time the one's who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everything goes Awww!'
- Jack Kerouac.

Today is the anniversary of visionary, iconclastic writer and poet,Jack Kerouac being born. The shaman of the Beat Generation arrived today as  Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac to a  French-Canadian family in the factory town of  Lowell, Massachusettsus USA. Variously called the Beat Generations apostle, poet, hero, laureate, saint?  Through his own life story he created  a work of fiction .Soared so high, that in the end unfortunately found his own human skin, then found himself out of his depth in bottled delusion, where the burning ship had become his own.
Kerouac learned to speak French at home before he learned English at school. Reportedly he did not learn English until he was six years old . His father Leo Kerouac owned his own print shop, Spotlight Print, in downtown Lowell, and his mother Gabrielle Kerouac, known to her children as Memere, was a homemaker. Kerouac later described the family’s home life: “My father comes home from his printing shop and undoes his tie and removes his1920s vest, and sits himself down at hamburger and boiled potatoes and bread and butter, and with the kiddies and the good wife.”
Jack Kerouac endured a childhood tragedy in the summer of 1926, when his beloved older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever at the age of 9. Drowning in grief, the Kerouac family embraced their Catholic faith more deeply. Kerouac’s writing is full of vivid memories of attending church as a child: “From the open door of the church warm and golden light swarmed out on the snow. The sound of the organ and singing could be heard.”
 Jack would earn a football scholarship to Columbia University, and planned to work in insurance after finishing school, according to the Beat Museum,http://www.kerouac.com/ which goes into detail about Kerouac’s rise to literary and cultural stardom. But his life only took a more hectic turn once he arrived in New York City, and he quickly clashed with his football coach. Jack dropped out of school, joined the Merchant Marines and then fell in with New York’s literary crowd. Around this time, Kerouac took several cross-country road trips with friend Neal Cassady that would later inspire his seminal work, “On the Road.”
In his life, he had been part of a culture and people, who burned like meteors. Jack Kerouac was the Beat Generations very own mythologiser, he and his band of brothers helped  redeem a bit of America's soul. His legacy, like that of the Beat Culture, still alive, still relevant, still taking root.
This influential poet and writer who originated the term “beatific” as a the defining term for the group of artists and writers of the Beat Generation, who along with his friends, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferllinghetti, Gary Snyder etc, paved a way for a whole host of dreamers searching for risk, some form of adventure. Colouring our worlds with their crazy visions, their minds in revolt, searching for future's possibilities. Hand in hand with rebellion, against the conventions of the times.
Jack Kerouac in his eighteen books  and many others under Jack's influence were to me important epiphanies on my own path of self discovery. He taught me about "Spontaneous prose." - writing without revising....... He called this " a spontaneous bop prosody."  which is a bit like a jazz musician taking an improvised solo, and he took it as far as he could go, with  no editing and no pause of breath. Sometimes what is left, has no meaning, a void, but often their is a glimmer, that spells hope, that can become endless, can run off the page, infinite but still accessible.
On my bookshelf at home Kerouacs influence groans on my bookcases, his own works, sharing spaces with others , that were touched by his inspiration. I a very grateful to a friend called Charlotte who recently added  more to my personal collection.
There is something about his tragic, magic life that still resonates, hums, there will always be new connections, outhouses where seeds will forever drift. New poets will emerge, to experience, among the whole wide world, words will dance, impulsively between time, forever and forever. Enthusiasm will be shared, thoughts will be exchanged, and for some the personal will always be political.Passion will ignite.
Jack had a wild  spirit,  but such a dazzling voice, who through his writing  revealed him as a believer in humanity, a dreamer, a doer and an explorer of metaphysical depth. He was however also a recluse, socially awkward, a drug abuser, an alcoholic and a man who became so overwhelmed with his own fame it ultimately destroyed him. Still yearning for his mother, but lost in a catholic guilt, that had always consumed him. Stuck in a sad exile,this  mystical breath had grown tired , what was once beautiful  had begun to  drift towards bitterness. Jack was not immortal, though for me his words are, and he left this planet on October 21 1969,  47 years, related to alcoholism  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Kerouac “was known to consume 17 shots of Johnny Walker Red per hour, washed down with Colt malt liquor.” and because of this his search for inner lamentation was  cut tragically far to short.
There are two types of people in this world; those that ‘get’ Kerouac, and those that do not. I am in the first category, of course, so  happy birthday Jack, your impact continues to be felt , your satori breath released , and your legacy today is stronger today than ever ... om  switchin on.... tomorrow's dawns chorus echoes,anesthesising the sky.... sentences littered with wild perception, language as  a spell that  leaves us forever hooked. In human existence our contradictions will abound, freeze framed, on the road to nowhere. Kicks joy darkness.blessed be you in golden eternity., and as Jack said "Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven  now."

William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, 1953


Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Kerouac,
Greeenwich Village, 1957.


Jack Kerouac on the Steve Allen show 1959.



Jack Keroauc: I'm sick of myself, I'm not a courageous man
a rare interview of Jack in French with English subtitles to a Canadian Television show where he explains how he  came up with the name  that described the literary movement of his generation.




There are numerous pages and books devoted to Kerouac and the Beats , if you look you will find what your looking for, the searching is part of the journey In the meantime I offer you some of his poetry

POOR SOTTISH KEROUAC

Poor sottish Kerouac with his thumb in his eye
Getting interested in literature again
Through a mote of dust just flew by

How should I know that the dead were born?
Does Master cry?

   The weeds Ophelia wound with
    and Chatterton measured in the moon
     are the weeds of Goethe, Wang Wei,
      and the Golden Courtesans

Imagining recommending a prefecture
       for a man in the madhouse
                      rain
Sleep well, my angel
Make some eggs
The house in the moor
The house is a monument
In the moor of the grave
        Whatever that means
The white dove descended in disguise?

WOMAN

      A woman is beautiful
       but
          you have to swing
          and swing and swing
          and swing like
          a hankerchief in the
                                       wind

149th Chorus

I keep falling  in love
with my mother
I dont want to hurt her
=Of all people to hurt

Every time I see her
she's grown older
But her uniform always
amazes me
For its Dutch simplicity
And the Doll she is.
The doll-like way
she stands
Bowlegged in my dreams,
Waiting to serve me

And I am only an Apache
Smoking Hashi
In old Cabashy
By the Lamp

2111th Chorus

The wheel of the quivering meat
conception
Turns in the Void expelling human beings,
Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, nits,
Mice, Lice, Lizards, rats, roan
Racing horses, poxy bucolic pig tics,
Horrible unnameable lice of vultures
Murderous attacking dog-armies
Of Africa, Rhinos roaming in the jungle
Vast boars and huge gigantic bull
Elephants, rams, eagles, condors,
Pones and Porcupines and Pills-
All the endless conception of living
beings
Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness
Throughout the ten directions of space
Occupying all the quarters in and out,
From supermicroscopic no-bug
To huge Galaxy Lightyear Bowell
Illuminating the sky of one mind


AND THEN THEY GOT HIM

The Oil of the Olive
Bittersweet taffies
Bittersweet cabbage
Cabbage soup made right
A hunk a grass
In a big barrel
Stunk but Good

163rd Chorus

Left the Tombs to go
  and look at the
  Millions of cut glass-
-a guy clocking them,
as you look you swallow,
you get so fat
you can't leave the building
-stand straight,
don't tip over, breathe
in such a way yr fatness
deflates, go back to
               the Tombs,
ride the elevator-
             he tips over again'
gazes on the Lights,
eats them, is clocked,
    gets so fat
    he can leave elevator,
has to stand straight
and breathe out the fat -
-hurry back to the Tombs

242nd Chorus

The sound in your mind
   is the first sound
      that you could sing

If you were singing
   at a cash register
       with nothing on yr mind-

But when that grim reper
   comes to lay you
       look out my lady

He will steal all you got
   while you dingle with the dangle
   and having robbed you

Vanish
     Which will be your best reward,
     T'were better to get rid o
     John O'Twill, then sit a mortying
     In this Half Eternity with nobody
    To save the old man being hanged
    In my closet for nothing
    And everybody watches
    When the act is done-

Stop the murder and the suicide!
   All's well!
      I am the Guard

Saturday 11 March 2017

If you wish


Though my mind
Is not like yours
Slightly in tatters
I still try to be a friend
Here you can share my thoughts
As the world spins round
Making us dizzy
As life rotates
I will be what I am
And you will too
Carried by peaceful currents
Unafraid, if you wish.

Thursday 9 March 2017

The Tories conscious cruelty is simply no laughing matter.


The Tories are taken us through the biggest cuts to welfare for 100 years, another vicious assault on people on benefits.Cuts to ESA  Employment Support Allowance will see payments for many new claimants reduced by around £30 a week, despite the Department for Work and Pensions admitting those affected will have been found unable to work following a Work Capability Assessment.
The changes, which come into force for new claims from April 2017, affect those placed in the Work Related Activity Group of ESA and will see payments reduced to the equivalent of Jobseeker’s Allowance.The Tory's claim  that these cuts are a in a bid to encourage those living with a disability to find employment, reducing the allowance to £73.10 a week, that of standard job seeker’s allowance.But it is just another example of their conscious cruelty, which is  deliberate and purposeful aimed to hurt many deeply.
Another attack on those already who are the hardest hit, disabled people,the poor, the sick,the marginalised, and vulnerable.It really saddens me that those outside the comfort blanket of society, stuck in the quaqmire of insecurity are treated like pawns in a game of chess, sacrificed  and abandoned so easily.These cuts will not help motivate people towards work,if anything it will push certain people, already in difficult circumstances, faced with mental health problems further away from work and make it harder for them to manage their condition and drive us all into deeper poverty, putting lives at risk, which does not offer even a morsel of hope to those that most deserve it.
On  top of this Theresa May has plans to restrict access to disability benefits known as Personal Independent Payments.The courts recently ruled that people who find it difficult to leave the house because of mental illness should be awarded the higher rate of PIP. Rather than adhering to the rulings of two tribunals, the Government announced that they would rewrite the law, hence denying benefits for more than 160,000 people with mental illness.Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, said: “People who find it difficult to leave the house because of anxiety, panic attacks, and other mental health problems are as restricted in their independence as many people with physical mobility problems, and face just as many higher costs in their daily lives as other disabled people do.
This all comes after the government has repeatedly stated the government is committed to building a country that works for everyone, but the truth of the matter is they simply could not give a damn.
The Tories once again  showing their complete and utter contempt for the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable. During the Budget Chancellor Hammond still managed to press ahead with tax cuts on corporate profits, capital gains and inherited wealth. At least Jeremy Corbyn had the tenacity to respond with a  very powerful speech after  Hammond delivered his cruel budget and raised concerns that are affecting millions of people across Britain. He talked about the effects Tory austerity is having on the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable. He talked about the effects welfare cuts will have on the disabled and working families. He talked about the crisis that is crippling the NHS. He talked about the Tories’ new ‘rape clause’ which has been imposed on Child Benefit. He talked about the effects Tory cuts are having on public services. He talked about underpaid and overworked public sector workers. He talked about inequality. He talked about zero hours contracts and low pay. He talked about the social care crisis. He talked about tax cuts for large corporations and the rich, while the self-employed get a National Insurance hike. He talked about wage poverty and soaring utility bills and inflation. He talked about the housing shortage and homelessness. He talked about the lack of support for mental health sufferers. He talked about cuts to Bereavement Benefit and how widowed parents will struggle. He talked about the effect Housing Benefit cuts will have on young people aged 18 to 21. He talked about women’s rights and the effects Tory austerity is having on women and mothers. And he talked about the pressures that are affecting ordinary people across the country.
While he was doing this, the Tories just sat there laughing, jeering and heckling like the evil so and so's they are, as they keep causing misery to millions of peoples lives. This is certainly no laughing matter.They truly are a nasty lot. FFS sake enough is enough. In the meantime if you could sign the following petition, it would be much appreciated. Cheers.

Treat people with mental health issues fairly under PIP


https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/pip-mental-health-cuts?utm_campaign=LLWUlV2oZJ&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=member