30th Anniversary of Miners Strike marked by benefit compilation

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the return to work of the striking miners of 1984/85 who had remained  out in protest against the  closure of the pits. A benefit compilation has been released  featuring  a stellar cast of  some of the most influential  left wing British musicians of the past 30 years. Superb!
The album produced in association with Philosophy football  features artists like Billy Bragg, Sleaford Mods, New Model Army, Chumbawumba, TV Smith, Attilla the Stockbroker and many more singing songs of resistance and protest, passionate, angry  traditional and modern.


The Orgreave Truth and Justice cd, is available for £9.99 with all profits going to  the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.
You can order this essential collection  by visiting the following  link.
It is only £9.99 with all profits  going to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.


http://www.philosophyfootball.com/view_item.php?pid=1200

The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign includes ex miners, Trade Unionists, and activists  and others who are determined to get justice for miners who were  victims  of police and cover ups at Orgreave in June 1984.
Orgreave  was a massive injustice, where hundreds of police  under the orders of Margaret Thatcher carrying riot shields, targeted unarmed miners with truncheons, inflicting serious injury. Miners were kicked  and punched  in a savage attack of police brutality.
We should never forget the miners bitter heroic struggle, nor the fact that not one single  police officer has been disciplined, let alone prosecuted, serving as a reminder of one of the biggest miscarriages of the 1980's. We remember too how Thatcher unleashed a class war destroing peoples ways of live, that paved the way of the political climate and mess we have today.
Today many are still waiting for justice. Seeking it for all miners victimised by the police at Orgreave. We remember too how the power of the state is still used against its people.


Here is  a link to the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign


http://otjc.org.uk/

No to Maximus / WCA

In work - out of work  -  these lot have it covered. Their one aim  to take  away your entitlements and leave you penniless.


Currently a controversial American company  is taking over the contract  to assess the fitness of benefit claimants to work,  having replaced the French firm Atos, who quit the contract last March. They will be used by the government again to help cut  benefits of sick and disabled people, who have already been disproportionately targeted. Two million people have had their benefits sanctioned since 2013, this is the Governments true agenda, hand in hand with companies like Maximus are hitting the poor the hardest.
The Work Capability assessment has proved  to be a very expensive disaster in both financial and human terms.  A growing  number of suicides have been directly  linked to this stressful procedure, whilst medical  staff and claimants themselves  have warned  of the desperate consequences  for those  left with no money at all by the system.
People who  cannot work, for various reasons  should be supported, it is unnecessary to pay millions and millions of pounds to  private companies like Atos and Maximus. Are our own G.Ps not to be trusted.
Today disabled activist groups  and supporters will across  the country vigorously  protest against  these heartless work  tests.
It should also be noted  that Maximus  are also involved in helping to privatise the N.H.S, running the  fit for work occupational  health service  designed to bully and harass.
I personally am in a support group, my crime, I periodically suffer from depression and anxiety but it looks like Maximus has been given a green light to  diminish  people  like me.
Maximus like Atos  before them alongside the Work Capability Assessments must be stopped in their tracks, they are  profiteers of the sick and vulnerable and because of them combined with Tory policies people are suffering. People before profit should be the maxim.
Maximus another ruthless company doing the governments dirty work.


Here are details of the call out by DPAC ; Disabled People against cuts


Please support them, after they have finished with us they will start on the rest.


http://dpac.uk.net/2015/01/disabled-claimants-welcome-to-maximus-march-2nd-everywhere/

The Welsh Language - Alan Llwyd (b;1948 -) Happy St David's Day/Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus.

From the pen of literary critic and most prolific Welsh language poets of our time. Happy St David's day/ Dydd Dewi hapus. At the end of the day we are all different,  but fy iaith, still standing despite it all.  All the best  Heddwch/peace

Stand above the abyss, and shout into the cleft:
she's the thunder in the silence, the noise in the cold emptiness;
although fugitives grope for their splintered ropes on the cliff,
she's the one who prevents our fall into the great muteness.

She's the rain that refreshes the earth, the ruby's sheen,
the harvest breeze,rolling in the corn and the wheat;
the precious sapphire,  the emerald in the grass that is green,
the restless rustling of barley, and bright gleam of light.

She protects from the mute edge, the fort that keeps  enemies at bay,
and above the gaping abyss, she is our tether;
she keeps our dignity; our home against all disarray,
the knot that unites; she gathers her people together.

should the link shatter and break, what would be amiss?
Knot  by knot the rope now opens above the abyss.

trans. the author

Reprinted from ; A Book of Wales, an anthology;
selected by Meic Stephens;
JM Dent, 1987

Time to Change/Amser i Newid

On St David's day/ Dydd Gwyl Dewi a hopefully eye opening film about Wales's share of global inequalities/ Ffilm fydd gobeithio yn agorad llygad fewn i shar Cymru o anghydraddoldebau byd-eang

Banksy leaves his mark on Gaza!

The anonymous but eminent British artist known as Banksy  has again taken aim at Israel's policies regarding the Palestinians, and the daily injustices that they face. Sneaking into the Gaza strip and filming the devastation in the wake  of last summers IDF Operation Protective Edge. The two minute video is entitled "Make this the year you discover a new destination". Showing us what the mainstream media do not want us  to know or see. Depicting for us the lives of the ordinary Palestinian . The destruction that he witnesses was the result of the 50 day conflict which saw 539 Palestinian children dead, and close to 3,000 injured. In total more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed according to United Nations figures.l
Utilising the  language of a low budget tourist video, with the footage of the Palestinians quarantined within. A brilliant charged combination  of art and politics in a place  now devoid of beauty.
And we should remember that today and tomorrow, children like the ones portrayed in the video, will continue to  play amid the rubble and destroyed  building, and that resistance is existence, that existence is resistance.

Dear David Cameron

Last week I talked about Margaret Thatcher's legacy, now I turn on her heir. With  his slicked back hair, Mr Cameron always seems to be willing  to  pose for a photo. Always with his friends keen to castigate  poor people on benefits, with their 'culture of entitlement ' jibe, a man who  stands next to the likes  of Malcolm Rifkind and his ilk, people who  seem to think they are entitled to more as they try to defend themselves after recent  'cash for access scandal.
David Cameron sure keeps delivering, giving us pain, pain and pain, he does not seem to want to give us any hope.
So David Cameron, is this your vision,  to scapegoat the poorest and the most vulnerable  in our land.  Your Big Society initiative, is largely seen as a failure, those at the bottom are clearly  bearing the brunt of austerity. People living daily in fuel and food poverty, the escalating costs  of lifes' basics, please  don't get me started on our beloved N.H.S. Remember  the state provision that we paid for, you have demolished purely for ideological  reasons. You and your party clearly believe  that society should be founded on inequality - that the poor deserve poverty, whilst the wealthy deserve incentives. I am sorry to dissapoint you, but the people are growing tired, and will not  tolerate your hands of unfairness anymore.
We have noticed  that you are nothing  but a slave-owning descendent who has never worked a single day  of your life. With your inherited wealth and all the vestiges of privilege that has been bestowed on you, it is clear that you do not have much  understanding of the real world.
Oh and delivering speeches that threaten to throw teenagers  out onto the freezing streets, it does however reveal something heartless, a person devoid of compassion. Your ideas  reek of arrogance, toxic, the whiff of inequality stalks your foul breath, as you keep cosying up to your friends and crony's the super rich.
As your friends dodge   and fail to answer questions on their tax avoiding  millionaire friends, your party has decided to stigmatise benefit claimants who are deemed  overweight with the threat of punitive sanctions. Picking on the vulnerable again, is your way of life, your creed.
So out of touch you are verging on the ridiculous, cheap and nasty is your cloth. We have not got time  to go,  but I sincerely hope you are soon kicked out of No 10, as well as your rabble of right wing wreckers. Yes I hope we do without you, as support  for anti-austerity policies grow, it is time to create an economy that works for everone, based on fairness,  not just for the privileged few and those nesting at the top. So Mr Cameron I believe your time is up,  it is time  that you and the rest of  your nasty party are kicked out of power.


( oh and remember)

Journey of Sound

( for sapientia, she who knows)

Some haunting blues
sounds of the desert,
the holler of liberation
breezy kora  leaping,
reggae bass, middle eastern oud drifting 
ragas and  dub mutation,
tabla and djembe's rhythms mixing
percussive beats soaring,
releasing chords of souls simplicity.
I love the wind, when  it blows on through
breathe in rhymes, messages of freedom,
a familiar dance, moving through spaces
coming down easy, on a sunday afternoon,
the revolution is right here
the groove is in my heart,
got that high time feeling
it don't hurt at all,
releasing pressure 
respites of musical pleasure,
here on the edges of time.

Miriam Makeba - Malcolm X

Miriam Makebas song for Malcolm X  on the  anniversary of his death. The prescient words  of brother Malcolm X, still  today  slice  today through our lives,  slicing through  the rhetoric of politicians and pundits alike as if he still walked among us. His opinions, his work, his deeds, still matter, strike a chord, as we  still work  towards  goals of social justice  and continue to remember his transformative power. we continue to make a stand against racism wherever it may raise its ugly head.

Everybody seems to be preaching revolution
Though no one ever seems to show appreciation
To that man  over there who  bought about a  new generation
To that man  over there who  bought about  a new black  nation

Do you remember Malcolm
Do you remember him, Malcolm
Yeah brother  Malcolm
Don't you know he was  a great man

He tried to keep the people away from oppression
From day to day M lived for liberation
Until that man with a man  took away his devotion
He and his wife and kids without protection

Do you remember Malcolm
Do you, remember him, Malcolm
Yeah brother Malcolm
Don't you know he was a  great man
Oh yeah

It seems  life  and death  seem to go  together
For me in my heart. Malcolm will live forever
Especially when I think about the blackness he reflected
I said especially when I think  about the one he represented


Do you remember Malcolm
Do you remember him, Malcolm
Oh yeah brother Malcolm
Don't you know he was a great man
Oh yeah

No to Margaret Thatcher Memorial Library and museum.

There are plans afoot to build a memorial to Margaret Thatcher, but lets  not forget their is already a memorial to her, they are called food banks.
Personally I feel  neither should ever exist, nor should they be  pitted against each other as either/ or option.
Thatchers legacy  is as one of the most divisive political figures that this country has ever known, who is still universally hated  by the majority of the citizens who lived  under her brutally destructive  policies.
To spend a single penny in her memory, whilst her dark  shadow lingers among foodbanks,  the growing number of homeless and continuing N.H.S cuts would be an absolute disgrace.
Thatcher is dead but  Thatcherism lives on. No public money should be spent on idolising this ugly spirit, it should be noted that her poisonous policies helped shape the policies of all our current mainstream policies.
I have searched deep, but have been  unable  to find anything good about her to remember. This was a woman ( can I even call her that) that  unleashed so much damage to our country, lets not forget  that because of her  our manufacturing industries were destroyed which led to mass  unemployment. She also precipitated the social housing crisis that is still felt today. Her whole manta was the destruction of peoples way of life. We are still struggling because of her, and the legacy that she left is a very bitter  pill to swallow.
She also  supported Pinochet, Saddam, Suharto, Botha and the House  of Saud, that speaks volumes about the kind of demon she was.
There was something  heartless about her,  her complete lack of compassion and blatant disregard for peoples feelings. It always seemed that she hated us all, this is what defined her twisted ideology. Miners, steelworkers, trade unionists, local councils, benefit recipients, single mothers, gay people, the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh, the entire North of England - all were in her sights.
Yes I hated all she stood for and years after her death these feelings do not rescind. Yep I still hate Thatcher  and everything she spawned, and always will
We need to bury Thatcherism and her memory now more than ever , please consider signing the following petition.


https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-taxpayer-funding-for-margaret-thatcher-memorial-museum-library#




Two earlier posts you might be interested in

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/margaret-thatcher-her-legacy-personal.html


http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-witch-is-dead.html

ON APRIL 8th WE PARTY ON

KEEP ON TREADING HER MEMORY DEEP DOWN IN THE EARTH

John Davies (b 1938 -16/2/15) The Welsh nations historian. R.I.P

Sad to hear the news earlier that I heard of the passing of John Davies, one of  Wales's most eminent historians. His book " History of Wales" I consider to be an essential read, a story of two milliennia , a masterful account  that traces  the political, social and cultural  history  of my land and country,that he weaved with much articulateness, and humor. Alongside being  a historian he contributed largely  to the fortunes of the Welsh language. He is remembered as one of the founders of the Welsh language society/Cymdeithas Y Iaith. He was also regular broadcaster here in Wales on television and the radio. It was from him and the late Gwyn Alf Williams that I rediscovered my peoples history, not the English history that was forced down our throats when we were at school. A huge loss to the nation of Wales. R.I.P
Here is a poem that I have just written in his and Gwyn's  memory.

Hanesydd/Historian.

As pages turned, they helped us remember,
what had lay forlorn, almost forgotten,
allowed us to search for the past again,
to capture memories, tales of yesterday,
the hiraeth of longing of byegone time.
In our nations soil, buried deep,
ancient shadows, greeting today and tomorrow,
reflecting what has been, what will continue to grow,
as our nation drowns in the tears of history
we hold on now, waiting for the continuance of our journey,
forever unfolding, what began so long ago.