What does it mean to be law-abiding?
In last few days , David Cameron has been keen to pontificate on the subject, droning on in front of willing cameras, eager to sound pious but not really adding anything of value. Perhaps I'm missing something, don't really think so .
Consider the following from him
" These are sickening scenes of people looting, vandalising, thieving, robbing, scenes of people attacking police officers and even attacking fire crews as they are trying to put out fires. This is criminality pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated . People should be in no doubt that we are on the side of the law-abiding people who are appalled by what has happened. " and then their's this one,
" Our security fightback must be matched by a social fightback. We must fight back against the attitudes and assumptions that have bought parts of our society to this shocking state."
Many others have since echoed these thoughts. But whose side is he really on. Should we not throw these getsures back at him.
It is him and his friends that should be held into account, according to the very same criteria that they use to judge and condemn others.
Many of the politicians that are now using these sentiments against others, is it not a fact that they themselves have sanctioned illegal wars and policies that have led to the deaths of hundred of thousands of people.
The sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s that led to the deathsof 500,000 children. Currently in Libya, a similar policy. As the body pile mounts up as do the double standards.
Cameron condemns ordinary people who have taken to the streets,some of whom echoed the tories mantra of greed is good.. Who has caused a Britain full of social deprivation, who has caused this chasm, this chaos?
Who are the real criminals?
Who has done the most robbing, the most looting, who steals aour every daily bread?
I thank othe friend in social media for most of these thoughts, borrowed, paraphrased?
Heres some statistics taken from my facebook friend Devotional Hooligan.
Highest estimated cost of riots : £ 100 million Tax avoidance by Vodafone : £ 6 billion Tax spent on Libyan intervention : £1 Billion Tax avoidance in2010 by richest people in Uk : £7 billion Tax payers bill for banking crisis : £131 billion Tax money spent in Iraq conflict : £ 4.5 million Tax money spent on Afghan conflict up until 2007 : £ 7 billion Total M>P expenses bill (2007) : £ 87.6 million
Perspective: Priceless
Cost of human decency? Nil.
Normal service will return soon , what is normal anyway.
Fuck you Mr Cameron , your democracy is a schism.
Loot a shop, go to jail,
loot a nation, pat yourself on the back....
happy days are here again, and yes I do get fixated!
I try to keep a sense of both measure and proportion.
FEARLESSNESS may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as ' grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.
Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure.
A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish,reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily actsof courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for people conditioned by the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilixed man.
The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinquishes man from the mere brute. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path toward it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilised humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.
This post is dedicated to Patrick Mac Manus R.I.P A man who stood for social justice and peace. Who's voice and ideals sail on on the side of all oppressed people. Let apathy be a stranger, let it be our foe.
When capitialism grows ill. their is always a tradition of things taking a turn for the worst. Its been ill for a while mind you.Things can spiral out of control. Mobs can be created by societies divisions. It's interesting that the rioting and vandalism committed earler is repeatedly being called mindless, but what actually is more of a disgrace, poor people often not articulate enough to express their needs, desperate and frustrated who then grab what they can, because they have seen politicians behaving like criminals , and getting away with it for so long, again and again, and who then condemns those who follow in the politicians footsteps ,the very same M.Ps who they themselves stole from the public purse by claiming expenses to which they were not entitled.
Well double standards ares definitely not the answer , to societies problems nor are draconian, disproportionate sentences, that in many cases do not bear any relation to the crime, a six month jail term for stealing 3 bottles of water, surely is not right, yes their were some terrible things that happened earlier in the week, but what about the shameful actions of the city bankers who brought about our current financial, economic crises.
Saw that dreadful woman Hazel Blears M.P on T.V last night, roundly condemning and branding people as criminals in her constituency in Salford. Yet, is she not a thief herself. The hypocricy on parade is amazing. But some peoples audacity and cheek is allowed, and they reappear freshly rehabilitated for us all to see , and are allowed somehow to be redeemed, whilst the dispossessed who take what they like as well are called looters and gaoled whilst the bankers who did what they liked too, got rewarded with their bonuses. So it seems like one rule for some and another for the powerful.
Well somethings got to change, and no, not the vision that Cameron has planned, one I do not hesitate to mention he has had planned all along. His ideas , borrowed from his tory forefathers, one of draconian punishment and backward regressive thought. It is I suppose what is to be expected from him and his mindset, they really needed no excuse....rough justice, is all some ever want. But if you push people away, without offering help, into corners and avenues of unforgiveness, some will naturally want to push back.
the Goose and the Commons - Anonymous 17th Century against English enclosure
The law locks up the man or
woman
Who steals the goose from
off the common
But leaves the greater
villain loose
Who steals the common
from off the goose.
The law demands that we
atone
When we take things we do
not own
But leaves the Lords and
ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched
don't escape
If they conspire the law to
break;
This must be so but they
endure
Those who conspire to
make the law.
The law locks up the man or
woman
Who steals the goose from
off the common
And geese will still a
common lack
Till they go and steal it
back.
Politicians offer abundant promises, plentiful enough to attract their disciples, then in swift numbers parade abhorence when in the Summers temperate atmosphere their falseness is rejected. History has a habit of repeating itself, and conditions emerge where cetrain combinations reject patronising gestures, unite and because division has been fostered the inevitable happens. Then we see it implode before us on T.V, not the cause, just the aftermath, full of condemnation, double standards that offer no solution to increasing difficult horizons.
It seems only natural that when truth is buried underneath bylines of sensation that their will be rage. Over periods communities souls have been eroded by the tories savage cuts, it starts effecting how people behave. The propoganda of empty promises never questioned in the mainstream media. Outbursts of immediacy and frustration get ignored, in the rush to condemn. This combination of rejection and complacency offers no solution to the increasingly disenfranchised.
Everything after all is connected. After all only recently corruption at the highest level has been exposed by hackgate, and the bankers disgraceful actions. The establishment have the brass neck to call rioters criminals ,it is the establishment that should feel ashamed .A lot of youngsters have had their EMAs robbed from them, and many 14- 24 year olds are not in education, training or employment, so some of them have nothing further to lose , so now have no fear. Kids are bored , some are inarticulate and some of them are smashing and grabbing the things society tells them to want. When they do try to protest legally they get clobbered by police batons, charged at by mounted armed police and kettled for hours. Also since 1998, 333 people have died in police custody,but not one single police officer has been charged and convicted. Jean-Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson andSmiley Culture are just 3 that come to mind.
When the power of speech is often ignored , sadly their will be flames, and unfortunately it is often the poor and the innocent who get affected, caught amidst this acrid mixture. We have to try and move forward and recrimination is no answer. I personally believe that the alienation and frustration increasingly felt by the masses is fed by those in power - violence is usually caused by desperation and rejection and it seems that the rulers who are so removed from those on the fringes of society that are stoking this, with their own hidden agendas. Increasingly anger will be seen and not just in the inner cities.
Meanwhile in the last 3 days children have been injured, wounded and murdered by coalition forces who are actively breaking the laws of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Where's the justice in this. I readily critisise violence committed against defenceless people, and a quick loot will not get some out of material misery nor will police be able to fix results of long term accumulated deprivation of large parts of the U.K population.
Finally , perhaps there is another virtual London, where a happy prosperous population is being watched over by a police force of incorruptibility. So take it easy out there and remember this is what happens when we live in Condem nation.Nothing happens in a vacuum, penalise the weak, reward the rich and powerful. Their will be unrest and it will not look pretty.
" Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks, we smashed the place up, and Boris set fire to the toilet."
Cult figure for sure, like an American Ivor Cutler, been listening to a C.D of him reading recently, I needed something poignant and surreal in my life , two funerals in a week, but hey gotta keep on keeping on.
Brautigan one of my favourite writers, their are many....... it's Brautigan I return to more often than not whenI 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 60s were his hey day and he was one of the most prominent to emerge from its counterculture. Born in Tacoma, Washington where he spent most of his childhood and teenage years. In the mid 50s he moved to San Fracisco where he publishe his first volume of poetry and became involved with other writers of the emerging Beat movement. The Beatles loved him, not that that in itself means anything,were they not into most things. I personally discovered him through the works of that wonderful Welsh Band, Gorkys Zygotic Mynci , that's another story , but I would recommend all his books though, wonderful, can make you wonder, giggle and laugh out loud, the 60 odd stories contained within Revenge to the Lawn I would say is his masterpiece , heres 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.
Sadly he was found dead in 1984, aged 49, beside a bottle of alcohol and a .44 calibre gun. We all cast long shadows.
Hauntingly his work still magically shines for me.
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.
Bannersof 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.
Other masterpieces are
Trout Fishing in America, Sombrero Fallout, A Confederate General from Big Sur,
and In Watermelon Sugar.
I would also strongly recommend a book of memoirs by his daughter Ianthe Brautigan, ' You can't catch death'. A fascinating glimpse into Richard Brautigans life and shedding light on some of his own ghosts.
All watched over by machines of loving Grace
Taken from the Adam Curtis series of the same name
-A short poem by Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan
(a 5 minute presentation)
Richard Brautigan reads from Trout Fishing in Watermelon Sugar
We had an island
Oh were a stomping old tribe on an island
Red faces, hairy bodies
Happy to be hairy
Happy to be hairy
When the breezes tickled
The hairs of our bodies
Happy to be hairy
Happy to be hairy
Next best thing to having feathers-
That was our national anthem.
Right. Hairy tribe,
Hairy red story-telling, song-singing, dragon fighting,
fire-drinking tribe.
Used to get invaded every other weekend.
Romans, Vikings, Celts - fire and sword-
Pushed us back but they never broke us down.
In between invasions we grew spuds and barley,
Took our animals wherever there was a river and some
grass.
When the snows came, we moved south
When the rivers dried, we moved west
When the invaders came, we burnt our crops, moved.
Until one day we were surrounded by warriors,
The same old fire and sword, but used efficiently.
They slaughtered our warriors, lined up the rest of us
And there were speeches
About law and order, and firm but fair government.
And this is what they did,
This is government.
You take an island and cut it carefully
With the razorblade called law and order
Into a jugsaw of pieces
The big, rich-coloured pieces
Go to the big, rich men.
The smaller, paler pieces
(Five beds two recep barn mooring rights five acres)
Go to the small, rich men.
And nothing at all
Goes to those who have nothing at all.
Absurd? The many nothing-at alls
Wouldn't stand back and see their island
Slashed into ten thousand pieces.
They didn't stand back, our hairy tribal anscestors.
Some of them spoke oot. Some fought back.
They were slashed down by the giant razorblade.
And now, and now the rich seldom have to kill
To defend the land they stole from all the tribe-
Wire fences, Guard Dogs Loose on these Premises
No Trespassing.
Bailiffs. Security Guards. Police. Magistrates' Courts.
Judges. Prisons-
Grey prisons where the brain and the flesh turn grey
As the green English years stroll by outside the walls.
So who needs fire and sword?
The tribe has been tamed
And our island
Our daft green stony gentle rough amazing haven
Entirely surrounded by fish
Has been stolen from the tribe.
It was robbery with most bloody violence.
And that was history, history is about the dead.
Then is our tribe dead? Is our tribe dead?
Is the tribe dead?
Revolution
Its first shots will burst out of the earth
silently, at the wrong time of year
in a silent part of the island
far from the patrolling armoured cars.
A finger, pointing towards the sun,
which will be mistaken for blades of grass
if anybody notices it at all.
One deep night, an armoured division,
returning from an easy mission
in Leicester or in Birmingham
will be crushed by the branches
of the numberless, nameless trees
of an overnight forest.
And those breeding trees
with eccentric outlines
will be no more like our theories
than a hippoptamus
is like a parrallelogram.
Poems reprinted from :-
The apeman cometh - Adrian Mitchell, Jonathan Cape, 1975
governments only serve governments let the tribes increase.
In todays Guardian , an article about what we should do if we find ourselelves living next to anarchists. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/31/westminster-police-anarchist-whistleblower-advice
Apparently according to the Metropoliton police , members of the public should report them straightaway.
No warning attached about other political groups like the fascist English Defence League. No it's calling instead for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating " Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society , or anarchy. Any infomation relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police." Hello Big Brother, I don't bloody think so. Teifidancer might have a few ideological little differences with some aspects of anarchism, but sees nothing wrong in trying to change the world, ideas of no borders, peace, social justice, removing money from the profiteers , a shared abhorence of capitalism. Since when was holding anarchist sympathies considered a crime anyway.
So here I say solidarity with the anarchists. It is the walls that divide us that should be made illegal, it has been noted 'round here that captalism does not seem to be working, bankers and media barons, their friends the tories private interests bankrupting the public realm. Power has for so long been hidden in pockets of a cosy elite, and those who yield it have been found wanting. And of course their is nothing new about this, just the same rules for them, different rules for people with opposing points of view. Is it not the case that with no pressure for higher ethical standards, the powerful elites were like kids left free in the sweatshop, going feral as they lost all self control and all touch with reality and society.
Are not the rulers of the land still supporting the mysterious rebels in Libya now murdering one another, their friends, saving money with housing benefit cuts,attacking the most vulnerable, closing hospitals and schools. Yes this is their real reality, divide and rule. If people are reawakening from transient states that is good, solidarity is a good thing, mutual coperation, a valid calling, for some complaceny is no longer enough, call me old fashioned,but the future of humanity is at stake, I think we need to stand a little more united, less divided, may the ranters and the dissenters grow. Many of the anarchist writers that I myself have on my bookshelves, the ideology contained within supports building communities without hierarchial or bueracratic structures that are seen in mainstream society. Most writers of an anarchistic bent that I ascribe to adhere to non-violent alternatives, so at the moment some are being cast as convenient scapegoats in order to distract from the state and it's allies, who are doing the real damage. Who really are doin, the most misbehaving.
So I say report the state, time again members of the state have proved themselves to be self serving, war mongering, corporate whores. If you suspect a member of your family, friends or neighbours may be a member of or helping the U.K government in any way and any of its subsidiary bodies, why not question their activities, do not condone, oh and go on report them, but do not get embroiled in witch hunts.
Oh, seperately I may have no higher secular belief to speak of but to any who follow, happy ramadan, and remember too that capitalism is only unbeatable as long as everybody thinks it is. and the powers that be don't want that do they? and even if the lovely Emma Goldman did not say " If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution." I will still sing to this tune.......finally, I have no idea what an anarchists look like, they look the same as you and me, tall, short, fat, thin, use the same language, walk the same way, one thing I'm sure of their busy making plans.
(This is ) the most accurate account I can give you of the Utopian Republic. To my mind, it's not only the best country in the world, but the only one that has any right to call itself a republic. Elsewhere, people are always talking about the public interest. but all they really care about is private property. In Utopia, where there's no private property, people take their duty to the public seriously. And both attitudes are perfectly reasonable. In other 'republics' practically everyone knows that, if he doesn't look out for himself, he'll starve to death, however prosperous his country may be. He's therefore compelled to give his own interests priority over those of the public; that is, of other people. But in Utopia, where everything's under public ownership, no one has any fear of going short, as long as the public storehouses are full. Everyone gets a fair share, so there are never any poor men or beggars. Nobody owns anything, but everyoneis rich - for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?
THOMAS MORE, 1516, Book II
Unfortunately , it seems to me, that at this moment in time , we have none of the latter. The tories and their friends, and yes they still have a few in the mainstream media, very much into the opposite ideal. They seem intent on getting rid of any egalitarian value gained, fostering divde and rule. Attacking the marginalised and the vulnerable in the name of greed.
A whole ideology based on some outdated notion on the superior rights of the wealthy. Nothing is sacred to the profit maker.
I beleve their's another way, one of dignity and equality. What do I know?
Gotta go, someones offering me a smoke.In this library at least a glimpse of our shared humanity.Now where's my rizlas? Laters have a good weekend, avoid/remove all obstacles. All together now, kick out the Tories.
The final chapter revealed as devious fate Hush now! It's just till those tears have dried; The sun goes down, but what's inside never dies Stolen moments tasting both bitter and sweet. Some are born but do not get to choose As silence stumbles their escape, Falling on crimson road, an audience of one Staggers by following, a crooked vapour, . Behind dazed curtains the world watches
Sucked into a mad man's masquerade. Across the landscape, the sound of sirens rings
Barbarous behaviour suspends belief, From this darkness we will begin again As we announce our love, from flowerbeds of dust, Hope again will become a wonderful thing standing together against xenophobic tides, Future will reveal dove's wings flapping infinitely, forever beyond humanities call.
