Oxfam and Channel 4 - Say No to Occupation, No to Sodastream..

 

One of the main reasons that people don't like Oxfam and Channel 4's ( who are currently promoting Sodastream via their programme ' The Jump' ) association with this company is the fact that Palestine Solidarity activists across the globe are  currently boycotting  it, because it is produced in an illegal Israeli settlement, on stolen Palestinian land. This is why Oxfam, a charity I volunteer for,must disassociate itself from their current ambassador Scarlet Johannson, who has recently also been seen promoting this soft drinks firm, who despite valid  criticism has continued her support in a display of casual disregard to the core issues at stake. I respect Oxfams recent statement in response to the bad publicity to  one of their ambassadors seemingly endorsing a product that for many is complicit in profits made from occupation and apartheid.
Oxfam and Channel 4  I believe should drop their association, they cannot be allowed to  cosy up to this unethical  company.
SodaStream is made in the Mishor Edomim industrial zone, that is part of the illegal Israeli settlement Ma'aleh Adumim, which cuts deeply into Palestine's West Bank, severing Palestinian towns and devastating their economy and daily lives, Sodastream's factorty is built on stolen land, on seperated Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho.

The fact remains that daily, Palestinian workers in  factories  like this  are underpaid, denied basic rights such as holiday or sick pay, denied the riht to organise into unions, and are left to fend for themselves if injured at work, and lets remember that the  Israeli government encourages companies like this to locate within its illegal settlements by allowing less environmental and labor standards than those required in Israel., allowing a complete disregard for human rights and international law to continue.
I believe it is impossible to be an 'ambassador'  or pretend to be a respectable Public broadcasting Company whilst at the same time through association  promote what in my eyes is a  human rights abuser. Businesses that operate from illegal settlements further the ongoing poverty of the Palestinian Communities,  we should keep up the pressure on Oxfam and Channel 4, any one of value really, to  dissasociate from a company that  profits from the exploitation of Palestinain land, labour and resources. Sodastream tries to garner repectability,  but under international law, operates illegally , exploiting the poor of this region, whilst promoting a dubious ecological agenda, and while it remains constitutes as a barrier to peace in this region.
There is nothing clean about SodaStreams product, parroting  its message does not build bridges, it is time to let it's bubbles free.

Further information here:-

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/scarlettjohansson/

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/complain-to-your-local-shop-about-sodastream/


https://www.change.org/petitions/tell-stores-don-t-buy-or-sell-sodastream-3

Love Actually - A poem for Dydd Santes Dwynwen/ St Dwynwen's Day (Welsh Patron Saint of Lovers)

Under Ceredigion sky,
the wind catches my breath,
her presence all around,
plants her smile on our lips,
takes us to places where we don't mind,
sighing, bursting, laughing, singing,
her voice lingers long in our hearts,
turns grey spaces, into colourful bloom,
wraps us up in warm swoon,
like a marvellous scent,
that runs inside and out,
takes away the darkness,
overcomes barriers and borders,
in every language, releases poet's tonque,
there is consolation in love's certainty,
deep, deep, deep, it's roots are strong,
I try my utmost, that she is not hurt,
share it's sap, for this fragile world to consume.

Illumination :- (For an old dear friend, who never returned)

Image:- Emma Ferreira, 2009 

I remember when, reason got lost,
wild rivers, ran their ragged course,
on old mountains, the sky spat its blood,
veins  of burnt silver burst,vapours released,
thick white smoke, waved it's dragons tail,
and the pretence of tomorrow, released a form of
                                                     satisfaction.

A line was drawn,
bunkerered down, in a dream of rest,
measured vision one by one,
navigated, transcended, forgot,
released abandonment,
from the weight of perception.

The night softly dissolved into flames,
and comforts ambience, lifted its finger,
wrapped up in a warm place, of numbed release,
consciously blinking, in stretched defiance,
he fell asleep, to quietly wait,
for mornings hungry breath, to wake,
and the return of summer,
bringing some new shards of hope.

The Benefits System: EXPOSED

People aren't 'playing the system' to even a fraction of the degree the media and politicians make out.
Scapegoating just paves the way for further cuts in support to people who need and deserve help - including pensioners, low waged workers and people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
The government is currently using  the right wing tabloids and media to lead an assault on the welfare system, in a deliberate  attempt at misleading the public with this constant onslaught of propoganda.
In the above video from the T.U.C  it tries to tackle some of the media and political myths about the benefit system, with the aid of a talking dog.
Oh and  lets remember the words of H.L Mencken who once said ' The whole aim of  practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed ( and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

UKIP Shipping Forecast

The claim by (now suspended)  UKIP coucillor David Silvetor that the recent flooding in Britain was caused  by Gay marriage, has been met with confustion and more than a touch of anger. But most people hacve just subjected this party to severe mockery and all the disdain that they deserve.
Here is  Nicholas Peggs spoof BBC Radio 4 UKIP shipping forecast. A wonderful comedic response.

https://soundcloud.com/#nicholas-pegg/ukip-shipping-forecast

Lets target the real scroungers.

At the moment, we have a government made up of public school educated millionaires, presiding over the dismantling of the welfare state. These are the real scroungers in our midsts. A healthy media would tell us about them, but  they stay silent, carrying on this governments vile agends.
People are daily suffering, the consequences of an economic crisis, caused by the governments friends, and they expect us to accept  it, as they try to lay the blame on the marginalised and the powerless, at the same time demanding a wage rise.
It seems there is  rule for them, and stuff the rest of us. Yes, the biggest scroungers in this country comprises of  an unelected Tory Government, and their allies, claiming every last penny from the taxpayers.
Cruel headlines from the right wing media,  daily create false narratives, luckily we have our own media now, and we can answer back.
This is a war that Cameron and his cronies should not be allowed to win, for all our sakes and all of our tomorrows.

R.I.P Roger 'Trigger' Lloyd-Pack ( 8/2/44 -15/1/14) - Comical Genius.

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.

Rosa Luxemburg (5/3/1871 -15/1/19) - Citizen of the Proletariat

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.

A post from  last year here

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rosa-luxemburg-541871-150119.html

Benefits Street : Tory Propaganda

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.

http://www.whobenefits.org.uk/page/5/benefits-street-petition

 

 

  

Sa-Ra-Ga - Ananda Shankar

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.'

- Guy Debord:-  The Society of the Spectacle