Christopher Lee (27/5/22 - 7/6/15) - R.I.P Ghost Riders in the Sky

What Amazon Isn't Telling You

It's been another  good year of Sales  for Amazon.  Its never far from the headlines, if its not tax avoidance , its treatement of its workers and its union busting activities. Their CEO Jeff Brazen will tell shareholders  how rosy everything is.  But that is just spin. While  Jeff is lining his pockets,  Amazon workers are paying the price with miserable working conditions, stress, poverty  wages and job insecurity
Here's the story Amazon does not want you to see. Share it far and wide.
If you use social media why don't you join others in sending them a little message.





http://www.amazonanonymous.org/home

Release the Vortex

Mass worldy observation,
immersed in delusion and devotion,
amongst the dark swell of the afternoons' call,
that comes down daily to breach the peace.

There are no safe districts,
we all carry different scars,
force fed illusion, the need for consumption,
walls built of separation and division.

It is time to disassemble, unravel, untangle,
turn of the t.v, mobile phone, computer screen,
because there is nothing to be seen or heard,
that has not been  glanced at many times before.

The compass is broken, 
the map is torn, time to escape,
create a new destination,
where the signals of obedience do not call,
because they have all been switched off.

Thread by thread, we can rearrange,
it only takes a moment for light to return,
as rain falls down, filling in holes,
sparkles of nourishment, on breathing leaves,
release the vortex as fresh candles are lit.

Remembering the Naksa ( The Setback)

                                            Poster issued in 1967, to commemorate event

Yesterday June 5th saw the 48th anniversary of  the Naksa (the setback)  when Israel illegally seized what was left of the Palestininian's historic homeland.( the Sinai, the Golan heights,the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem )
In 1967 more than 400,000 Palestinians  were expelled  by Israel from their land  , making  it the secomnd expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland since the Nakba ( the Catastrophe) in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled  to neighboring Arab countries by Zionist terror groups, and 150,000 Palestinians  became internally displaced in the newly  born state.
It took less than  a week for the Palestinians to be forcibly displaced for the second time. A truly dark moment in history. The life in refugee camps, is truly miserable, whether in Lebanon, Syria or Jordan, the Palestinians today seek justice, freedom and Israel to abide by International law and allow Palestinian refugees their right to return to their homelands.

Well done Charlotte Church

Good to hear  that Charlotte Church has been standing up against austerity and for our NHS, welfare  state and public services. At a press conference for the Peoples Assembly she outlined her position.  She should  be congratulated  for making the direct link between progressive income tax and desperately needed services. She has also said she would be happy to  pay 60 to 70 % top rate of tax  if it meant saving services, which are the lynchpins of our society, adding that inequality made her ' angry as the hulk'.. This is a Welsh working class girl who has not forgotten  her roots, we should be very proud of her,we need more like her, who are prepared to lend their voice, this is how momentum gathers.
Asked recently why as a millionaire she had taken to marching against austerity, she said 'being poor is not a  prequisite for empathy'. She also publicised an anti austerity rally to be held in London on June 20th, urging members of the public to attend. 70,000 have already pledged their support to attend.

http://www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk

Charlotte Church a leading voice against austerity

House of Greed

As the incapacitated, unemployed and elderly are about to be hit with another round  of George Osbourne's austerity  cuts, it is simply astonishing  that the Government has now agreed to a 10%  pay rise, with no cuts  to their expenses, so now an ordinary M.P will get 74k a year, while people I know are survivng on £40 ta week hardship after sanctions, which includes disabled people, rhe mentally ill and the vulnerable, who have been unfairly sanctioned. Children now need  breakfast clubs at school,  people rely on food bank vouchers, while PIP is being refused to wheelchair users. It is quite frankly bloody obscene.
It simply represents the modern politicians detachment from reality, in this House of Greed, full of a self-serving political establishment that rewards itself as ordinary people struggle.
In a period of  sky high rising energy bills  for the rest of us, job insecurities.
At the end of the day these M.Ps are being rewarded for obdedience and conformity, little else, it certainly does not seem to be based on commitment or highly held priniciples. Their rising pay, will make them  more resilient to change, complacent and loyal to the status quo. Not in touch with the tough financial  conditions that the rest of us have to endure.
Surely Nurses, teachers, etc  represent more better value, 
Perhaps their pay should be subject to a medical, as metered out to people on benefits, I am sure there would be no  increase or reward for many.
And to no ones great surprise, David Cameron, who said he would not accept a rise, takes it after all, after calling it simply unacceptable. To be expected I guess.

Charles Kennedy (25/10/59 - 1/6/15) R.I.P Principled man of integrity

Sad news, former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has been  found dead at his home aged 55. A liberal yes,  but also a staunch internationalist and proud scot. On all accounts a kind hearted man, seemingly unencumbered by institutional  political spite, humorous and quick to smile. Unlike most politicians he seemed almost human and was one of the few politicians that I respected.
The only Lib Dem who retained his integrity while the rest betrayed us all, who in his  innate wisdom stood  out against the coalition, while the rest of his party ignored him. Always a man of the left, he acted as the unofficial leader of the opposition to the coalition in the Labour Party's  5 year absence. Such a shame people will only learn  about this mans steadfast principles through todays obituary columns.
I remember too  his courageous opposition to the Iraq war, the only party leader to do so,  while others flinched, who said at the time ' I  find it personally and politically very difficult indeed to support a war in which there is no mandate from the UN and no sense of legitimacy on the international stage.' Not afraid  to stand up  for social justice and what he believed in,  who was able to admit his own human failings, with great dignity, his humanity and his kind nature endured him to many. Sadly  this did not extend to the Palestinians, he did have close links to the JNF , a group that wants to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian, sometimes we make mistakes. But for many a  good and decent man, a genuine person. And at end of the day we all have to make hard choices and then live with them.
He will be missed by all that encountered him.
Charles Kennedy R.I.P 

Charles Kennedy's finest hour

30 years anniversary of Battle of Beanfield

The Battle of the Beanfield took place over several hours , 30 years ago  today on the afternoom  of Saturday 1 June 1985. When Wiltshire police prevented a vehicle convoy of several hundred New Age Travelers, known as the 'Convoy'  and referred  to  as the ' Peace Convoy' by the media,  from setting up at the 11th Stonehenge Free Festival in Wiltshire, England. 
It resulted in innocent people, women and children being violently beaten up in their own homes, after 12 years of gathering  in the same place of celebration, by the combined  forces of the state, who armed with shields and batons ran savagely amok. There was carnage and mayham as the marginalised  and dispossessed were brutally  targeted by a police forces  under the auspices of  Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government,  were allowed to get seriously out of control, trying to suppress a peoples thirst for freedom, this quasi military force carried out serious abuses of their power with an unrelenting  frenzied brutality following similar attacks in the year on the miners. 
A horrible time, like today, when people who live on societies  edges are attacked simply for being different. Women and their babies were left showered with glass after the police had smashed up their vehicles. It would  leave over 116 travelers  hospitalised. and 420  of their number arrested ( few arrested were ever prosecuted) as  their homes were systematically looted, smashed and burnt  with their possessions stolen..
A dark day for British justice and civil liberties.  30 years later people still  suffering the consequences , and bearing the scars of this dark passage in history. But the stones remain.

Marx on Commune de Paris

March 11 - May 28  1871

This month marks the anniversary of the World's first socialist working class uprising.On March 18 1877, the people of Paris rose up against a despised and detested government and proclaimed the city independent, belonging to itself. The workers of Paris, joined by mutinous National Guardsmen, seized the city and set about reorganising society in their own interests based on workers' councils. They could not hold out, however, when more troops retook the city and massacred 30,000 workers in bloody revenge.
It is said to be one of the first examples of  working people taking power.

It is an event that has become significant to revolutionary socialists, anarchists as well as Marxists.  But for many Anarchists,even the existance even a proletarian one was intolerable For Karl Marx however it was to act as a confirmation of his ideas. Here from a performance of  Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn, Marx describes the Paris Commune and shows how Socialism could really work.
There are many valuable lessons that we can learn today.

Edward Carpenter ( 29/8/1844 - 28/6/1929) - The simple need and hunger of the human heart; a poetical vision

On short break this week, to recharge my batteries, I have been reminded of the pioneering  visionary writings of Edward Carpenter, the English socialist and radical philosopher poet, after attending an event called Land of Promise in Hay-on -Wye, which explored through words and music, Britain's radical utopian tradition.This rich legacy of hope which was the dominant strand of political thought for five centuries, which sadly in the past  40 years  we have stopped asking the question.
 I have written before of this great man, an early champion of homosexuality, animal rights, ecology, womens' suffrage, recycling, prison reform, and sexual freedom, opposing imperialism and war, s simpler, more sustainable way of living. A man so ahead of his time, who throughout his  life campaigned and wrote on a whole range of social concerns, he is  a huge inspiration ( who incidentally also happens to share a birthday with me).
Influenced by the work of John Ruskin, Carpenter began to develop ideas about a utopian future that took the form of a primitive communism, that still resonates strongly today.He sought a personal liberation of brotherhood and emancipation, a life of liberty and love,a world free of class struggles,ways of life he embraced himself,ideals that we should all be proud of,
The following is an extract from one of my favourite books Towards Democracy which has served me well over the years, acting as a kind of personal bible. Nearly every word contained within its covers, glistens with beautiful reasoning. I would urge anyone to seek out this vivid book, and carry on hungrily building upon the seeds that are contained within. How come though, are still seeking?

' As I walked restless and desperate through the gloomy city.
And I saw the eager unresting to and fro - as of ghosts in some sulphorous Hades -
And saw the crowds of tall chimneys going up, and the pall of smoke, covering the sun,
covering the earth, lying heavy against the very ground -
And saw the ghastly half-roofless smoke -blackened house and the black river flowing below, -
As I saw these, and as I saw again far away the capitalist quarter.
With its villa references and its high-walled gardens and its well-appointed carriages, and its face turned away from the waggling poverty which made it rich, -
As I saw and remembered the drawing room airs and affectations and its wheezy wheezy pursy Church going and its gas reeking heavy-furnish rooms and its scent bottles and its other abominations-
half consious - knowing not clearly - the shape of the evil - on the grasp of some heavy nightmare.

Then out the crowd descending towards me came a ragged little boy,
Came - from the background of dirt disengaging itself  - an innocent wistful child - faces begrimed like the rest but strangely pale, and pensive before its time.
And in an instant ( it was as if a trumpet had been blown in that place ) I saw it clearly, the lie I saw and the truth, the false dream and the awakening.
For the smoke-blackened walls and the hills and the tall chimneys, and the dreary habitations of the poor, and the drearier inhabitations of the rich, crumbled and conveyed themselves as if by magic;
And instead, in the blackened vista of that face, I see the joy of free life open under the sun :
The green sun - delighting earth and rolling sea I saw - The free sufficing life - sweet comradeship, few needs and common pleasures - the readings endless burdens all and aside,
Not as a sentimental vision, but as a fact and a necessity existing, I saw
In the background vista of that face.

Stronger than all the combinations of Capital, wiser than all the committees representative of Labor, the simple need and hunger of the human heart.
Nothing more is needed.
All the books of political economy ever written, all the proved impossibilities, are of account.
The smoke-blackened walls and tall chimneys  duly crumble and convey themselves away:
The falsehood of a gorged and satiated society curls and shrivels like a withered leaf,
Before the forces which lie dormant in  the pale and wistful face of a little child.

1896