Tolpuddle Martyrs remembered

On March 18th 1834, six farm labourers in Tolpuddle, Dorset England  were found guilty of taking an illegal oath and forming a union, the friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers in a backdrop of  harsh working conditions.They met at a now world famous Sycamore in Dorset  to sign their oath. Under this tree in 1834,  exploited by their employers – paid just 9 shillings a week and living in dreadful poverty – formed the first trades union in Britain to bargain for better pay and working conditions under the leadership of George Loveless.This tree is still growing strong.
The landowners, led by James Frampton and supported by the government, were desperate to put a stop to the union and to control increasing outbreaks of dissent. The Tolpuddle Six were arrested, sent to Dorchester for Trial, charged under the 1797 Mutiny Act. They were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers, sentenced to seven years and transported to Botany Bay, simply because they had made a stand against the poor treatment they received from their employees. Support for the Tolpuddle Martyrs was enormous, a massive demonstration marched through London and  over 8,000 people signed a petition protesting their sentence.
The protest campaign proved to be a success  with the Tolpuddle martyrs returning home in triumph. Their story is about how ordinary working  people combined together to defend their lives. The idea of solidarity as a basic human right is now an international demand. The act of solidarity works.
They  are commemorated every year at the Tolpuddle Martyrs festival every July, I have been planning to make a pilgrimage for years. Here is a link http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/
We need dissent and incendiary action in this land, now more than ever, to help shape it into a better place.

The Martyrs tree

 

 https://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk

Disregarding Gaza

A short  documentary that examines the absence  of Gaza and the Palestinians from the Israeli mainstream
 media and 2015 elections.
What kind of information are Israelis getting  from their press?
What king of information is missing?
And how does this effect the reality on the ground?

Remembering Rachel Corrie ( 10/4/79 - 16/3/03)

It has become traditional to remember today Rachel  Corrie, a 23 year old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death on this day by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, while undertaking non violent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition.
She was a member  of the International Solidarity Movement. An organisation that exists to help with non-violent protests against the Israeli occupation. It seeks to pressure the Israelis  and the Israel Defence force  into ending its occupation of Palestinian land, using a number of non-violent tactics, such as violating Israeli curfews  imposed on  Palestinian areas, removing roadblocks and blocking military tanks and bulldozers.
Rachel Corrie went to Rafah in the Gaza Strip in  January 2003 and was horrified at the destruction she found. She saw daily homes being destroyed  and people being detained on a daily basis. She recorded all she saw in letters and emails that she sent home to her family. She once wrote " the sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming evidence of the willful destruction of their lives,makes it seem unreal to me."
Sadly this reality combined with her  courage cost her, her life. She was run over twice  by a Caterpiller Bulldozer and killed. Her memory lives on, and because of her actions, she helps inspire many people around the  globe, who search for freedom and justice for the Palestinian people. Her memory kept alive by her deeds and her words that she left behind.

Here is a link to the Rachel Corrie foundation set up to remember her

http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/

and here is  a link to the International Solidarity Movement

http://palsolidarity.org/

Rachel Corrie - American Hero!

Reality is negotiable

( if  you give  hope a chance,  it may win .)

                                            " reality and dreaming
                                                  are different things.
                                               dreaming is beautiful
                                                  because dreams are
                                                   nearly always the
                                              predecessors of what
                                         is to come, but the most
                          sublime is to make life beautiful,
                                     to mould life beautifully."

- Nosrotos, Anarchist Daily, Spain, March 1937)

Dealing with daily battles, gives us at the end of the day some  kind of hope, we can build new pages, a society where all people are equal and free,  our dreams do not need revision, they can reinvent, bring a new logic of existence, where chains and bondage are broken, can overthrow constraints, forge a new order, lands full of promise, wild ambition, shifting sands.
Where reality  is always negotiable, today I caught a  glimpse of sunshine in the rain, life can  be bittersweet, but allows us all to live the dream, my mind is like a garden, overgrown but free. Be careful to avoid alienation try and find sustenance , beware of the weight of consensus prohibitions , follow kindred spirits rather than governments that can lead you isolated  or powerless. Keep on dreaming, keep on believing, keep spreading kindness, your own inner wildness.                        

You Can't Kill the Spirit ( For Daevid Allen ;13/1/38 - 13/3/15 R.I.P)

Proving to be a funny month so far, Terry Pratchett yesterday,  and local legendary keyboard player Mike  Vaughan - Jones yesterday, and friends dear friend the lawrence the day before and today I awake to find that another  inspiration of mine had gone travelling again too. Daevid Allen the wizard of Oz himself,  had been aware of  approaching plans for destinations anew for a bit, so had already prepared a little. Anyway thank you Daevid, now allow me to release this poem

You Can't Kill The Spirit

A long time ago,
wandering on another planet,
a mystical  magic poet,
came down to visit us,
with some epiphany 
some floating anarchy,
threads of absurdity
messages of freedom,
seeds of dadaist imagination
to plant, to help us unravel, 
the world's long slumber.

Would travel off into the future
but would always return,
with messages of love and devotion
releasing senses of wonder,
that giggled through life and beyond
glimmering along the mazes of purpose,
conjurer, delivered memories of joy
allowed laughter to rain down,
as om shantis sigh
glides with moonlights kiss,
among glissando slides
crackling,towards
faithful wish.

Revelations and enlightenment
reveal revolutions, every day now,
revolving around our skins
our beauty stands against governments,
all over the world, different cultures
shout, float, seek alternatives, 
choose not to kill the earth,
cast  layers of protection  over sky.

And transitory psychonauts
create illusions, for you and I,
to share, improvisational
rhythmic.musical explosions,
that lift us, higher.

We will continue to refuse their orders
break through their cordons,
we will snakedance over their forcefields
run wild and free, fuelling truth,
vision wide and full of intent
satoris invisible tempo  soars on high,
as the day beats, on and on and om
you can't kill the spirit.
    

  

R.I.P Terry Pratchett (28/4/48 - 12/3/15) - My favourite theologian R.I.P

Sad to hear that one of our countries   most lucid thinkers has passed away. Sir Terry Pratchett. Loved by both children and adults alike, he was the author of over 70 wonderful books, that overflew with life, humor, adventure and memorable characters.
I was fortunate to  see him a few years back at Hay-On-Wye, his beautiful presence loomed large.
A humanist of the first order, who was the  patron of the British humanist Association, who spoke  of the possibilities of science and reason with  joy and intelligence. After the onselt of Alzheimers was diagnosed he carried on with great optimism and bravery. Spending the last period of his tremendous life helping to raise awareness  of dementia and the desperate  need for more reearch, at the same he continued to work towards a fairer society. He apparently died peacefully in his sleep.  Sir Terry Pratchett R.I.P.

" Don't think of it as  dying, said Death, just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush."

" No one is actually dead until the ripples in the world die away."

" The pen is mightier than the sword, if the  sword  is very sharp."

" It is often said that before you die your life  passes before your eyes. It is in fact true, it's called living."

- Terry Pratchett

At the end of the day real magic never dies.

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

As Jack Kerouac once said " I spent my entire youth writing slowly with revision and endless  reshaping speculation and  deleting   and got  so I was writing one sentence a day, the sentence had no feeling, Goddam it, feeling is what I like in art, not craftiness and  the hiding of freedom."
Long has Jack Kerouac permeated my world, he has taught me a lot. This Beat icon, poet, writer and creator of spontaneous  Bop prosity. He has helped shape me into  the idealist I have become today. The eternal beatnik would have turned 93 today, his spirit lives today in my head and the road travels on and on. 
His words like a gateway drug, that helped me search for horizons, ways to be free, leading me to discover the works of his friends, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Herbert Huncke etc etc . He was flawed but deep, far from perfect, " Nothing  behind me,  everything ahead of  me,  as is ever so on the road "- Jack Kerouac; on the road . Thank you Jack, "The only people for me are  the mad ones, the ones  who are made to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirious of everything at the same time, the ones who  never yawn  or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous Roman Candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle you see the blue center - light pop and everything goes ahh..." - JK


Jack Kerouac - Jazz and prose

Jack Kerouac- American Hiaku-

Old Angel Moonlight (Friday afternoon in the universe)

Jack Kerouac reads from "On the Road"

After Banksy: the parlour guide to Gaza

In response  to graffiti artist Banksy's Make this the year you discover a New destination Gaza tourist video,  a video from the Guardian, that shows what real life is like there  and their dreams beyond the border. Here lies the world's biggest open air prison. The people daily occupied, no one allowed to enter or too leave. People forced to live among ruins, and devastated squalid condititions. Surrounded by apartheid walls, their plight daily insufferable, but despite the destruction all around, the Palestinian peoples resistance and resiliance  remains strong. Come and share with the youth of Gaza as they invite us to come and share their lives ( what's left of them)  their food ( if your ok  with a lean diet) and their culture and subculture ( things that an't be destroyed)  so  come run with them, better still stand with them, show them your solidarity. Boycott Israel.  

The Karl Marx Mastercard

Just found out recently that in Eastern Germany in a town once called Karl Marx Staad, a bank called Spakasse Chemnitz ran an online poll letting customers vote for image to put on their credit cards. They chose Karl Marx. There was  an old joke  in Russia that everything that we were told about by communism was a lie, but nowadays everything  they tell us about capitalism is true. I wonder what the annual rate for the Karl Marx mastercard would be. Everything you have. It confims  old Karl Marx's own adage that the capitalists would sell  the  very rope that would be used to hang himself.

Credit is  the new Opiate of the masses.

When you seize the means of production from the bourgeoisie, use the Karl Marx mastercard.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. For everything else here's the Karl Marx mastercard.

The only  card for internationale travel.

A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of cash bank and low low interest rates.

 Das Kapital £10, Red Flag £30  prices risings as we rise up against our oppressors.

All property is purchasable. Take the dialectic out of your materialism with a Karl Marx mastercard.

Have your proletariat revolution now,  pay  for it later.

Yes humor could be  the death of me, but not as dangerous as capitalism, that out of control  will  carry on chaining us down, and unregulated  is already killing millions. With the global economy in protracted  crisis , and workers around the world, burdened by joblessness,  debt and stagnant income.
Yes Capitalism and the system that props it up like back when Karl Marx wrote his original words, is still inherently unjust and self desctructive, impoverishing the masses as the worlds wealth is concentrated in the hands of a greedy few. Time to through the cards that they use to curtail us away, and occupy the banks.
Anyway here's an old poem of mine

Money can't buy our love

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/what-money-can-buy.html

To the sisters ( solidarity forever)

Solidarity means, that together, we must stand,  fighting hand in hand for a more dignified world. Remember on International Women's Day just  the act of  writing or speaking in public for some is a political act. We should all be aware of these conditions, bearing witness, denouncing injustice and patriarchy that can be reasons for division.
Today we remember all those women who have stood up and fought back, for their rights, for equality, for justice, for dignity, for freedom. We remember your strength and remember too that  we are all much stronger in struggle when we are united.
As I write it should be noted that there is still too much gender inequality, discrimination and injustice globally. We must continue to carry  the voices of all who are silenced.

Happy International Womens Day

Solidarity with women of Selma, Ferguson, Kobane, Mexico, Afganistan, Gaza, women of the world, to my sisters nearer home and to all the comrades  who are still fiercely opting to break every chain
solidarity forever.

Heddwch/Peace.