Very sad to hear of the Death of Roger Lloyd- Pack, Only Fools and Horses, Vicar of Dibley and the Old Guys star, a fine actor and contributor to moments of comical genius, who has died at his London home, after suffering from pancreatic cancer.
He was also a tireless committed socialist, dedicated follower of peace and social justice, a supporter of Left Unity, a recently formed 'radical party of the left, and gave unstinting support to various radical causes and movements such as Stop the War Coalition and the People's Assembly, as well as being a vocal supporter for Palestinian rights.
A versatile character actor who was at home with both comedy and drama, his expressive face and comical timing will be missed.
My thoughts go out to his family and friends. So long Trigger. R.I.P
My Name is Rodney - Classic scene from Only fools and horses.
Trigger and Ghandi
Trigger gets wrong Idea
Roger Lloyd- Pack speaking about why he would be at Anti-War Mass Assembly tback in 2011, to mark 10th anniversary of Afghanistan War and the war on terror.
Today I remember the murder in 1919 of the Jewish agitator, internationalist and theoritician, Rosa Luxemburg who was killed by right wing troops opossed to the revolutionary movement that swept through Germany in the wake of the First World War. A leader of the radical wing of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), since 1899,she became an important figure in the world socialist movement, and became involved in the international organisation of workers, she broke with the SPD however after it supported the imperialist drive towards war, she believed in the build up to the First World War that ' workers blood should not be shed in defence of the captalist system' Because of her socialist agitation during this terrible war , she was imprisoned for it's duration, but after Germany's defeat she was released, and with her friend Karl Liebnecht, forming the Spartacus league, and she assumed the leadership of the radical independent socialists. Her will and her desire was to see an end to all exploitation and oppression.
She herself took part in revolutionary events , recognising the need of a revolutionary party, which could unite and give a lead in a revolutionary situation, seeing socialism as a movement of the proletarian masses that should emphasise unity and equality rather than highlight the oppression of any particular group, with an undogmatic committment to an unfinished notion of freedom that still appeals to many people today.
In November 1918 after four years of war, German society crumbled both at the front at home, and a revolutionary fervour swept the land, the working class took to the streets in a series of strikes and the navy mutinied., though critical with some demands of the revolutionary movement, Rosa threw in her lot with her comrades, believing that she could not simply wait on the sidelines. Subsequently on January 15, she and some of her her comrades were arrested, including Karl Liebnecht, Rosa was shot and dumped in the Landweher canal, Berlin.
Famously on the evening of her murder almost certainly knowing that her fate was sealed she wrote.
'"The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and muust be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built... Order reigns in Berlin! You stupid henchmen! Your 'order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am , I shall be!"
Today her ideas can be pressed into many meanings. There is a feminist Rosa, an anarchist Rosa, then there is a red Rosa, but she remains an icon inthe truest sense of the word.Here is poem written by Bertolt Brecht in 1920 about Rosa.
About the drowned girl - Bertolt Brecht
As she drowned, she swam downwards and was borne,
From the smaller streams to the larger rivers,
In wonder the opal of the heavens shone,
As if wishing to placate the body that was hers.
Catching hold of her were the seaweed , the algae,
Slowly she became heavy as downwards she went,
Cool fish swam around her legs, freely,
Animals and plants weight to her body lent.
Dark light smoke in the evenings the heavens grew,
But early in the morning the stars dangled, there was light,
So that for her, there remained too,
Morning and evening, day and night.
Her cold body rotted in the waters there,
Slowly, step by step, god too forgot,
First her face, then her hands, and finally her hair
She became carrion of which the rivers have a lot.
Last night Channel 4, broadcast again their programme Benefits Street in what appeared to me, to be blatant tory propoganda and poverty porn. The programme focuses on the lives of hard-up families on James Turner Street, in Winston Green, Birmingham, but so sensational is its approach the only thing that Channel 4 seems to be concerned about is their lazy attempt at boosting its ratings, Channel 4 after all is a 'public service broadcaster' but has not got the luxury of the BBC's license fee, so instead relies on advertising, and cheap programmes like this. A programme condemned by many organisations for being damaging and grossly unbalanced, whose only true intention is to demonise the poor. It seems to be suggesting that all benefit claimants are like the poor people of Benefit Street, stigmatising and hunting down the most negative examples in an attempt to stir up some controversy, or carry on the tory's agenda of trying to lay the countries economic problems on the poorest and most vulnerable in society.
I guess the programme has fulfilled Channel 4's intentions, divide and rule, target audience achieved, as the tories continue reducing millions of people to abject penury while their friends, much better off, cheers them on, and the bankers still wave their wads of cash at us and laugh. As M.Ps spend £250,000 of taxpayers money on portraits of themselves, in the real world, the governments cruel welfare cuts, have led to people taking their own lives, and the fact is that tax fraud and error outweigh welfare claims by some 20 billion pounds!
I confess I only watched the first programme in it's entirety, because after the first 20 minutes of the latest installment I just couldn't bare to continue, and was forced to switch it off, there was something cartoon like, about its lazy pigeonholing, and its editing, leaving us with images and lazy stereotypes straight out of central casting from any mainstream right wing media outlet.
Meanwhile the government has suffered a major defeat on Michael Meacher M.Ps motion to establish an enquiry into the impact of welfare reforms on the incidence of poverty. One of only a handful of M.Ps with a little conscience. So perhaps the tide is beginning to turn.
Programmes like Benefits Street, which I usually manage to avoid are designed to stir up hatred and divide communities between the rich and poor, and more dangerously, the 'deserving' and the the 'undeserving' poor. Designed to set sections of society which face the same problems, upon each other.
There is a petition people can sign about the programme, if any visitors to this site, could add their name, it would be much appreciated. Together we must stop this war on the poor and disadvantaged.
From Sa-Ra-Ga Machan (1981)
Footage from La Societe du spectacle (Society of the Spectacle) 1973 film by Situationist Guy Debord on his own 1967 book of the same name.
The Situationist International (SI) was a restricted group of international revolutionaries founded in 1957, and which had its peak in its influence on the unprecedented general wildcat strikes of May 1968 in France.
With their ideas rooted in anti-authorianism Marxism and the 20th century European artistic avant in particularly Dada and Surrealism, they advocated experiences of life being alternative to those admitted by the capitalist order, for the fulfillment of human primitive desires and the pursuing of a superior pasional quality. For this purpose they suggested and experimented with the construction of situations, namely the setting up of environments for the fulfilment of such desires.
Using methods drawn from the arts, they developed a series of experimental fields of study for the construction of such situations, like unitary urbanism and psychogeography.
They fought against the main obstacle on the fulfilment of such superior passional living, identified by them in advanced capitalism. Their theoretical work peaked on the highly influential book ' The Society of the Spectacle ' by Guy Debord. Debord argued in 1967 that spectacular features like mass media and advertising have a central role in advanced capitalist society, which is to show a fake reality in order to mask the real capitalist degradation of human life. To overthrow such a system, the Situationist International supported the May '68 revolts, and asked the workers to occupy the factories and to run them with direct democracy through workers councils composed by instantly revocable delegates.
After publishing in the last issue of the magazine an analysis of the May 1968 revolts, and the strategies that will be needed to be adopted in future revolutions, the SI was diisolved in 1972.
' The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.'
'Like lost children we live our unfinished adventures.'
' The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people mediated by images.'
Sad to hear the news this morning that Poet and activist Amiri Bakara had sadly died yesterday aged 79. Here is a link to an earlier post of mine I wrote earlier in the year that now serves as a kind of requiem.http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/amiri-bakara-leroi-jones-b71034.html
R.I.P to this great man. I believe his legacy to be one of aching beauty..
The Dead Lecturer
The end of man is his beauty
And silence
which proves/ but
a referent
to my disorder.
Your world shakes
cities die
beneath your shape.
The single shadow
at noon
like a live tree
whose leaves
are like clouds.
Weightless soul
at whose love faith moves
as a dark and
withered day.
They speak of singing who
have never heard song, of living
wghose deaths are legends
for their kind.
A scream
gathered in wet fingers,
at the top of its stalk.
- They have passed
and gone
whom you thot your lovers
In this perfect quiet, my friend,
their shapes
are not unlike
rights
Mark Duggan was demonised by the police and the facts of his killing ignored. It seems now that the marginalised live in a parallel, unjust universe. Yesterday the Mark Duggan inquest decided officers who shot Duggan dead in Tottenham in August 2011, acted lawfully. The jury voted by 8-2 that although Duggan was unarmed and did not present an immediate or real threat to the police - the police were right to kill him. Ultimately if the Duggan family had, had proper legal representation, a European Court ruling, would have lead to the proper verdicts of unlawful killing. The Duggan family now join a long list of others, seeking justice for unexplained deaths in police custody.
I would like to remind you there have been more than 333 suspicious deaths in police custody since 1998 and zero officers have been convicted. Where is the justice in this.
We seem to live in a country where a police officer can and will discharge their weapons, and avoid any form of recompense. Mark Duggans family and friends will continue to demand justice, and to seek , answers to the questions raised by this case and highlight the cover up that many believe has happened.
Remember too, that what has happened to Mark Duggan could happen to anyone of us.
Marks family are calling for a peaceful vigil on Saturday, 2pm outside Tottenham Police Station.
No Justice , No Peace: A Poem for Mark Duggan
I thought that all life was innocent, but for some, this is not the case, if you happen to be, from the wrong part of town, justice will be abandoned, and deaths dominion, will deliver to you, a life sentence.
I can understand, the undertows, of rage and disbelief, after bullets leave another, young man dead, and a mothers pain, when her tears are washed away.
I percieve, recognise the passion and intensity, unleashed,after unwarrented, bloodshed spills on our streets, where certain hands that pull triggers, are simply protected, and that if you put your hands up, authority might not want to see, and why, when there is no justice, there can be no peace.
The following video reminds us why we struggle to rid Palestine of the Israeli occupatuion. 'Wala' in this context is like the word 'boy' used by slave-owners when addressing their slaves. The poem is from a poetry collection called 'My Voice Sought The Wind' by the exiled Palestinian American poet and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa. It speaks for the thousands of Palestinians, whose lives and livelihoods have been stolen or destroyed by Israel, as they in turn become a source of cheap labor that lines up before the sun, in long demeaning queues to work in Israel, where they are often exploited and mistreated. It also speaks for the oppressed within Palestine.
Abulhawa sees the BDS movement, according to a 2012 profile 'as one of the most effective ways to promote Palestinian rights and achieve justice against Israels ongoing ethnic cleansing."
2014 has been named ' Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.' The international community must now press on to demand statehood for the Palestinian people, and allow them their freedom.
Free Chelsea Manning and all the other whistleblowers. A song by David Roviks. Chelsea Manning should have her draconian 35 year sentence commuted immediately to the 3 and a quarter years she has already spent behind bars. What further purpose is there in further punishing a brave person, who after all is said and done, helped to publicise deeply troubling incidents. Chelsea Manning is a courageous woman who deserves are respect for exposing the lies of U.S imperialism. We should not forget her.
Join Chelsea Manning's Irish supporters along with her family and friends in West Wales for two days of events celebrating Truth. All proceeds will go to the Private Manning Family Fund http://manningfamilyfund.org/, eaising money to support family members in Wales with the cost of prison visits to Chelsea in Kansas.
As Chelsea's American grandmother said:
if you can;t tell the truth, then don't bother speaking!
Chelsea told the truth and has paid with her liberty.
PROGRAMME
( may be subject to minor changes)
THE MANNING TRUTHFEST A Gathering for Chelsea (Bradley Manning
brought by Irish musicians, performers and other supporters to Manning's family in West Wales. Suppported by Irish Justice and peace group Afri http://www.afri.ie/
Friday 10 January, 7.30pm-11pm Irish music and performance night Shamrock Bar, The Square, Fishguard
With Irish musicians Joe Black, Robbie Sinnot, Brian Fleming, Ellen Cranitch, Imogen Gunner, RoJ Whelan & singer Sorcha Fox.
Donal O'Kelly will perform his award winning solo show Fionnuala
Entry by donation.
Saturday 11 January, 2pm-5pm Solidarity with Chelsea Manning from Ireland: Public Meeting & Live Irish Music The Picton Centre, Freemans Way, Haverfordwest
Introduction by Joe Murray and Donal O' Kelly
Harry Browne, journalist, lecturer & author
Nuala Kelly, formerly Director of ICPO ( Irish Commision for Prisoners Overseas)
Ciaron O'Reilly, former prisoner of the US (Manning WISE UP solidarity network).
Human Rights Lawyer Gareth Pierce (live or as a video address)
Chaired by Andy Storey of Afri.
Live music with Brian Fleming, Joe Black, Rovbbie Sinnot, RoJ Whelan, Ellen Cranitch, Imogen Gunner.
Entry by donation.
Saturday 11 January, 7.300m-11pm Irsih music and performance night (with bar and buffet) The Labour Club, Dew Street, Haverfordwest
Muscicians: Joe Black, Rovbbie Sinnot, Imogen Gunner, Wllen Cranitch, Brian Fleming
Sorcha Fox will perform her poetry piece with film Who Am Ireland?
Brian Fleming will perform his show Have Yis No Names to Go to?
The evening will end with an Irish music session.
Entry by ticket £5
Limited tickets - Booking essential.
Amiri Baraka, incendiary and emotive poet is at moment recovering from an unspecified illness.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, he went to Howard University, then. joined the U.S Air Force for 3 years, but was given a dishonourable discharge after accusations of communism.His early work was associated with Beat and Black Mountain poetics, however after murder of Malcolm X in 1968, Bakara left the predominantly white literary world of Greenwich Village for Harlem, where he founded the Black Arts Repetory Theatre and began an intense involvement in Black Nationalism.
In 1968, he took the Bantu-Muslim name Imanu Amiri Baraka, which means 'spiritual leader,' 'prince' and 'blessed one,' he also became the main theorist of the Black Aesthetic movement, which sought to replace white models of consciousness with African/American language and values.Later he embraced the philosophy of Marxism and became a supporter of third world liberation movement.He also supported the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system , for both black and white.
For Baraka, the ideal black artist was jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, and the rhythms and pulses of jazz and blues he has devoted and written articulately about in a career spanning over fifty years, winning many literary awards..
He has become respected for his pointed social criticism and fiery writing style, his voice incendiary, emotive, confrontational, He believes poetry should rattle readers, rather than serve as decoration.
The following poem proved to be a little confrontational, but he steadfastedly refused to refute any of it.
Somebody Blew up America
This controversy threatened to cloud the poems larger message.As journalist Jeremy Pearce explains " the poem announces the plight of the downtrodden through history, repeatedly asking 'who' is responsible for political oppression across the globe." I thank Amiri Bakara for rekindling the fire of politics in poetry.
The divisive politics of race and power continue to engage him. To Barak, the vital connection between art and politics couldn't be more clear, " There's a great flock of lies that have to be refuted, and only poetry can do that." His voice has been used to speak out against oppression and injustice,he presently believes that President Obama has failed on many foreign issues, Amiri's revolution has been fought with words,that I hope continue to be shared and not silenced, and shine a light, carry on his unflinching point of view who shares the worlds mirrors, both beauty and ugliness.
I for one wish him a speedy recovery.
Political Poem ( for Basil)
Luxury,then, is a way of
being ignorant, comfortably
An approach to the open market
of least information. Where theories
can thrive, under heavy tarpaulins
without being cracked by ideas.
( I have not seen the earth for years
and think now possibly " dirt" is
negative, positive, but clearly
social. I cannot plant a seed, cannot
recognize the root with clearer dent
than indifference. Though I eat
and shit as a natural man. (Getting up
from the desk to secure a turkey sandwich
and answer the phone: the poem undone
undone by my station, by my station,
and the bad words of Newark.) Raised up
to the breech, we seek to fill for this
crumbling century. The darkness of love,
in whose sweating memory all error is forced.
Undone by the logic of any specific death. (Old gentlemen
who still follow fires, tho are quieter
and less punctual. It is a polite truth
we are left with. Who are you? What are you
saying? Something to be dealt with, as easily.
The noxious games of reason, saying, " No, No,
you cannot feel, " like my dead lecturer
lamenting thru gipsies fast
1964
The New World
The sun is folding, cars stall and rise
beyond the window. The workmen leave
the street to the bums and painters' wives
pushing their babies home. Those who realize
how fitful and indecent consciousness is
stare solemnly out on the emptying street.
The mourners and soft singers. The liars,
and seekers after ridiculous righteousness. All
my doubles, and friends, whose mistakes cannot
be duplicated by machines, and this is all of our
arrogance. Being broke or broken, dribbling
at the eyes. Wasted lyricists, and men
who have seen their dreams come true, only seconds
after they knew those dreams to be horrible conceits
and plastic fantasies of gesture and extension,
shoulders, hair and tonques distributing misinformation
about the nature of understanding. No one is that simple
or priggish, to be alone out of spite and grown strong
in its practice, mystics in two-pants suits. Our style,
and discipline, controlling the method of knowledge,
Beatniks, like Bohemians, go calmly out of style. And boys
are dying in Mexico, who did not get the word.
The lateness of their fabrication: mark their holes
with filthy needles. The lust of the world. This will not
be news. The simple damning lust.
float flat magic in low changing
evenings. Shiver your hands
in dance. Empty all of me for
knowing, and will the danger
of identification,
Let me sit and go blind in my dreaming
and be that dream in purpose and device.
A fantasy of defeat, a strong strong man
older, but no wiser than the defect of love
1969 Ka' Ba
A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream across or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk in the air
We are beautiful people
with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants
with african eyes, and noses, and arms,
though we sprawl in gray chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.
We have been captured,
brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new
correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We need magic
now we need the spells, to raise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
It's that time of the year again, as always, there are lessons to be learnt, isn't this always the case, but this does not mean we have to take it all, or put up with government crap. Anyway here's to the future, to friendship, the shadows of freedoms treasure, the petals of tomorrow, breaking down the powers that we did not choose. Stay irresponsible, alive, not kneeling in submission, follow unity's dance, take back authority, reconfigure, remain heard, refuse to negotiate when your impossible dreams are not allowed. Don't forget to sing out Blwyddyn Newydd Dda/ Happy New Year. Onwards and upwards. Heddwch/peace Free Palestine.
