Rawabi - A city of hope

Palestinians see the West Bank, which Israel captured in the Six-Day War in 1967, as part of their independent state, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Under the Oslo Accords reached two decades ago, the Palestinian government now rules about a third of the territory. The rest remains under Israeli control and is home to some 370,000 Jewish settlers. The last round of peace talks broke down two years ago, and prospects for resuming negotiations—much less reaching an agreement—are dim.
But after years of setbacks, Palestinians are proudly starting to move into their first planned city, Rawabiwhich is currently being built in the West Bank. This move is not just about real estate but also a symbol of Palestinians quest for statehood after nearly 50 years of Israeli military occupation.This privately financed city project in the heart of occupied West Bank symbolises both a possible future for the beleaguered Palestinian people.
That it has got this far in a place under military rule for almost half a century, and in the teeth of political obstruction, controversy and criticism, is a testament to the vision of its founder and driving force, a Palestinian-American entrepeneur called Bashar al-Masri,who dreamed up Rawabi, or hills in Arabic, in 2007. Work only began in 2012.Palestinian critics accused it of "normalising the occupation", of making deals with Israel for private profit. Jewish settlers on nearby hills watch and worry as Rawabi rises from the ground."I am defying the occupation," insists  Masri “Some people say Rawabi sugarcoats the occupation. I disagree. Rawabi is being built despite the occupation. We expose the occupation by our battle for basic things like water and a road.” For the last nine-years the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has created multiple delays in the development of the city. But the last hurdle has been the much needed approval for a water hookup from the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee.According to a 1995 interim agreement under the Oslo Accords, the JWC must approve water and sewage projects for Israelis and Palestinian in the West Bank. Although its first batch of apartment buildings is finished, homeowners have been unable to move in for the past year because the city lacked water. Masri said one of the major hurdles in starting Rawabi was getting approval from Israel for an access road and water supply to the city, which took years. "Dealing with occupation is not dealing with a proper nation," he said. "It's dealing with an ugly system."
Water has not been the only problem though. Rawabi is situated in Area A, the 18% of the West Bank that is under Palestinian control. But access to the city lies through Area C, the 60% that is under full Israeli control. Masri had to negotiate for permission to build a road on which trucks could deliver construction materials and cars and buses carry Rawabi workers – and, eventually, give Rawabi residents access to the rest of the West Bank.
Rawabi which is north of Ramallah perched on a once desolate hilltop, is the first Palestinian city being built according to a modern urban design plan. The organized layout and modern facilities are in jarring contrast to chaotic Palestinian towns and villages in the area. It now has a yearly renewable permit to use a narrow road that passes through an adjacent 1-kilometer stretch under Israeli control. A pipeline, which passes through the same area, brings in 300 cubic meters of water a day—insufficient for the residents as well as the construction that's underway.Additional water is currently being brought in on tankers, and some people supplement their supply from a nearby village. Masri said his next battle is to triple both the width of the seven-meter road and the water supply.Currently 250 families live in the city. That population is expected to swell to 60,000 when construction ends in about five years. A three-bedroom apartment averages about $100,000, about 25 percent less than in the main Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah nearby.At the heart of Rawabi will be the city center where art and culture will enjoy center stage,along with a large amphitheater that can hold 12,000 people, Rawabi now boasts also an industrial zone, schools, and the first big Western-style open-air shopping center in the West Bank. Such attractions lumped together in one city are unheard of in Palestinian areas.There is a mosque under construction and also a church which will serve the Palestinian Christian minority. About 10 percent of Rawabi residents are expected to be Christian.
Meanwhile though in sharp contrast no place in Palestine is less like Rawabi than Gaza. Sadly two years after the last of the three wars in six years whole districts lie in ruins, families are living in homes missing large sections of walls and roofs.  In these desolate streets there is neither electricity nor water and families say bitterly they are forgotten. The war displaced 500,00 people and 90,000 are displaced today, and 1.3 million people need aid, according to the UN.
Only 40% of the $3.5 billion pledged for reconstruction after the 2014 war has been delivered. The most basic infrastructure is in tatters, only kept functioning at all by resourceful engineers and administrators. In districts where there is electricity the cuts are sometimes 18 hours at a time. Ninety per cent of the water is contaminated. Stinking lakes of untreated sewage lie right by where people live and a visitor must cover the nose to bear driving close. UN technical reports have said that by 2020 Gaza will be unliveable – mainly because of the water crisis. One teacher said simply, “our life is already hell.” During our visit to his office patients twice burst in, and only agreed to wait because he was seeing “foreigners”.
In addition Israeli airstrikes still hit the Strip – as recently as last week. Even worse is the eight year blockade of the 1.8 million people — internationally recognised as collective punishment breaching international law.
Rawabi though  the first Palestinian city to be established in thousands of years can at least at a time of growing malaise over a standstill in Middle East peace efforts, offer some source of pride, hope and excitement for the Palestinian people while at the same time not distracting from the harsh realities of life under occupation.

Israeli settlement Ateret in background as the Palestinian national flag flies from the highest point of Rawabi

              A large amphitheater will hold about 12,000 people in the entertainment complex.

Letter of support to Standing Rock: Stop pipelines, climate change, and capitalism

Dakota Access—a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP—has proposed a $3.7 billion, 1,168-mile pipeline that will transfer up to 570,000 of crude oil per day from the  North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota and Iowa into Illinois.The potential of oil leaks would contaminate the only source of water for the reservation. While Dakota Access claims oil leaks are unlikely, an oil leak from a separate pipeline in North Dakota was discovered (8/15/16) to have leaked over 500 barrels of oil since the leak began on July 19, 2016. You can read the article here: http://bit.ly/2aVm5cv. A leak like this from the Dakota Access pipeline would leave the Standing Rock Sioux without any clean water. However, for the past several months, native American communities and landowners have been battling the construction of the DAPL.
A couple hundred tribal members went to the construction site on Aug. 12 with a vow to stop the pipeline. And to make that point clear, Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault chose to be arrested after crossing into the construction zone. Since that day, hundreds of Native Americans and allies from across the country have been camped near the Missouri River to join the protest. For now, construction has ceased while a court hears the tribe’s suit against the Army Corps for failing to comply with environmental and historic preservation laws.
The people of Standing Rock, often called Sioux, warn that a potential oil spill into the river would threaten the water, land, health  and sacred lands of their reservation.Their fight is also against a system of domination that has been imposed on the original nations.The Hunkpapa Nation (including the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) is part of the larger Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of the Teton Nation), sometimes known as “the Great Sioux Nation.” The United States regards the entire geographical area of the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota (Oceti Sakowin) territory as part of the national territory of the United States. The United States sees itself as a nation that possesses the territory of original Native nations “in full sovereignty and dominion.But this sovereignty is really an unjust form of domination that limits human freedom, the government stealing indigenous peoples land for corporate profits.I admire the bravery of these people prepared to stand up for the earth and their health. I stand with the Lakota Tribe and Protesters against the pipeline, I hope they keep fighting and never give up.


Please sign the following petition:-

Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline

 https://www.change.org/p/jo-ellen-darcy-stop-the-dakota-access-pipeline

The following statement is reposted from the website of The Red Nation.

August 21, 2016
Brave resisters and water protectors descended on the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site to halt its construction as it lurches towards the Mni Sose, the Missouri River, at Cannonball, ND. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Oceti Sakowin (The Great Sioux Nation) have opposed the pipeline and all pipelines trespassing treaty territory, as defined by the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties. The proposed 1,172-mile pipeline would transport Bakken-produced heavy crude oil across the major freshwater source for countless human and nonhuman lives, the Missouri River.
The Red Nation calls on everyone to support resisters and water protectors as they put their lives on the line to halt this devastating wasicu, fat-taker capitalist pipeline. On July 27, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia to enforce the tribe’s federally protected rights against the pipeline’s construction. On August 24, Standing Rock as well as several other Native Nations will have a court hearing to undo the US Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of the pipeline.
[UPDATE: At the August 24 hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as hundreds rallied outside, the judge announced that the ruling would be made on September 9 and the next hearing would be September 14.]
In violation of treaty law, the Corps negotiated the pipeline’s passage with the Texas-based pipeline corporation Energy Transfers through treaty territory despite massive protests citing the desecration of burial sites and culturally sensitive areas as well as threatening clean drinking water for millions. The Corps is also responsible for the continued violation of Native water rights by altering the flow of the Missouri River. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Corps, working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, constructed 107 dams and six major dams on Native treaty territory. These dams flooded 611,642 acres. More than half of this land was Native land and resulted in the removal of 600 Native families. The Corps continues to violate Native water rights as defined by the Winters Doctrine, which prohibits altering the flow of rivers or the selling of water rights within original Native treaty territory even if that territory has been diminished. Natives and non-Natives still suffer from the devastating effects of these dams and forced relocation. The Missouri River has never recovered and 90% of its wild game and plants were annihilated.
In typical industry fashion, the public and vulnerable Native communities will pay for cleanup and contamination when — not if — the pipeline breaks.
Bakken oil and gas production, as it peaks, has already devastated the Native and non-Native communities, leaving the land and water dead and communities torn apart. Yet, oil and gas companies continue reap huge profits as Bakken jobs decline, the land becomes more unlivable, and the social malaise of violence inherent to boomtown economies continues to wreak havoc.
Meanwhile, the Energy Transfers corporation is attempting to sue the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for protesting the pipeline and law enforcement is arresting resisters and water protectors, and the true criminals walk free. Instead of merely stopping Dakota Access, we demand that the Army Corps and Energy Transfers be held accountable for the crimes of putting at risk vulnerable water supplies, the public at large, and the violation of treaty rights. We demand that their profits — and the assets of all fossil fuel companies responsible for climate change — be seized to pay for the cleanup and to help begin to mitigate the deadly effects of climate change.
Capitalism is the enemy of all life and it must be stopped!
We must also recognize that upholding Native treaty rights is essential to combat climate change and benefits everyone. We demand that the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties be fully obeyed as law and the restoration of the original treaty lands to the Oceti Sakowin.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse!
Hecetu Welo!
The Red Nation

Please sign the following petition:-

Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline

 ttps://www.change.org/p/jo-ellen-darcy-stop-the-dakota-access-pipeline

Save our Human Rights Act

Have written on this subject many times, but it is too important a subject not to broach once more. As the media currently tries to distract us with a non story about Jeremy Corbyn's train seat this ****** government of ours is still trying to abolish the Human Rights Act. Liz Truss,  the newly appointed Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, revealed the news while dismissing concerns from some Conservatives that the plan, a manifesto pledge in both 2010 and 2015, had been axed.This is  the law which gives us the right not to be tortured, the right to a fair trial and the right to an education and allows us to hold public institutions like the police, prisons and councils to account that has served the people of Great Britain well..
Lyn Truss and co want to replace it with a British "Bill of Rights and Responsibilities". It will curtail the power of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Britain..
In effect, the Conservatives will reduce the ECHR to no more than an advisory body. Should the ECHR not accept Parliament’s veto of its rulings, the government would withdraw from the Council of Europe, the human rights watchdog that is not related to any European Union (EU) institution. All Europe’s 48 countries, except Belarus—a military dictatorship—have signed up to the Council of Europe and made the Human Rights Convention part of their constitutional and domestic laws.
The new measures will erode the right to life, to privacy, to a fair trial, to protest and to freedom from torture and discrimination. It will enable the government to deport more people and defy ECHR’s requirements. In relation to foreign policy, the repeal of the act means that UK armed forces could act with impunity, as they would no longer be subject to human rights legislation. Even the right-wing Economist magazine, which speaks for British finance capital and demands a more assertive British foreign policy, lamented the “poor signal” it will send “about Britain’s commitment to international law.” The current law gives us the right to get justice from British courts without having to go to the European Court. It requires all public bodies, including central and local government, the police, the National Health Service, prisons and other services to abide by these human rights, and extends to outsourced public services such as care homes.
The legislation also  includes the right to life, not to be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment, not to be held as a slave, to liberty and security of the person, to a fair trial, not to be retrospectively convicted for a crime, to a private and family life, to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to freedom of expression, to freedom of assembly and association, to marriage, to an effective remedy, not to be discriminated against, to the peaceful enjoyment of one’s property and the right to an education.
The Human Rights Act was introduced by the Blair Labour government in 1998 and came into force in 2000. Its antecedents are in the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, drawn up after World War II in response to the horrendous crimes carried out by the Nazis. The Convention, based in part at least on the principles enshrined in the Magna Carta, drew upon the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It was one of a number of mechanisms, along with the Marshall Plan, during the Cold War against the Stalinist Soviet Union that served to rehabilitate capitalist rule—under conditions where it had been widely discredited—and show it was compatible with democracy and civil liberties, particularly those of Europe’s millions of displaced peoples and refugees.
The Conservative government proposal is simply appalling and unacceptable, trying to get rid of the Human Rights Act is a blatant open  wholesale assault on democratic rights and must be opposed part of our protection to be able to function as citizens in a democratic country as the ***** Tory's know too damn well.
The plans also contravene various national agreements. The Sewel convention dictates that parliament cannot legislate for devolved matters without the consent of Scotland and Wales and to push the bill through against this "would be horrific", said one legal expert. In Northern Ireland, abolishing the act would place the UK government in breach of the Good Friday Agreement, a direct violation of international law that would "plunge the UK into a constitutional crisis", says the Guardian.
Surely it can't have escaped the Tory's attention that our country has seen a spike in hate and division recently, considering this they should not be  pouring yet more public money, into scrapping human rights and equality protections that are needed now more than ever.People power got us these rights, and now it’s up to us to stand up for them again.We can prove public opinion is against scrapping the Human Rights Act - and show we’re prepared to fight for it. It could convince the government to nip these plans in the bud once and for all. 
Please sign and share the following petition, it  means a lot to me, thanks.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-human-rights

The shame of Burkini ban.

This week we have seen an  uptick in body policing and body shaming.We saw armed police surrounding a Muslim woman on a beach in Nice and forcing her to remove clothing. This is part of the racist and sexist policy being imposed on Muslim women in France, where so far 15 towns have introduced a ban on the burkini. The bans are claimed to be “protecting the population” of France from terrorism and religious ideas, but women choosing to cover up on the beach is no threat to society.
We should be ashamed of this because forcing an old lady,  to take off her Burkini, throws all values of freedom it has straight into the trashcan, so far removed from the message of Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité. Practicing  hypocrisy and double standards seems to be the new order of the day.missing the real opportunity to acknowledge female diversity that comes in various shapes and forms.Intentionally marginalizing Muslim women, highlights the country’s own issues with misogyny and racism by ironically dictating what women can and cannot wear, treating them as ideological commodities, to be denied the  freedom to  define or express themselves surely must be questioned.It is simply absurdity born of paranoia and the impulse to dominate others.
The burkini  symbolises leisure and happiness and fitness and health, worn voluntarily and sold by popular high street and haute couture brands alike, burkinis have become a widespread sartorial choice for many practicing Muslim women in France and beyond. Being praised for blocking sun-rays and the male gaze, the attire is often also embraced by non-Muslim women, most notably also by TV chef Nigella Lawson. Hopefully, the  next generation will look at this burkini ban much as we view the chastity belt.People should be allowed to wear what they like, at a time when politicians should be doing everything to avoid tension between communities, they have done exactly the opposite.Sadly though it is not surprising that it is men who  are the ones fighting over what women ought to be doing with their bodies. Depending on the era — and often the prevailing religion — women are either showing too much or too little
So who is better, the Taliban or French politicians? An interesting link that discusses this further can be found here:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/i-created-the-burkini-to-give-women-freedom-not-to-take-it-away?CMP=share_btn_tw

There is a demo at the French Embassy, 58 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7JT this Friday, 6pm, to protest the burkini ban.

This protest is called by Stand Up to Racism and supported by MEND

Gilli Smyth ( (1/6/33-22/8/16) - Space Whisperer R.I.P

 

Goodbye to Gilli Smyth, aka Shakti Yoni, 83 years young. Poetess, cosmic feminist, priestess of space-whisper and founding member of the seminal band Gong, as well as her own band Mother Gong sadly passed away yesterday in Australia after a long illness, her son Orlando Allen has confirmed.
He says: "She passed amongst loved ones reading poetry and singing at exactly 12pm Australian time today. She is flying to the infinite through all the bardots as we speak so all your prayers of light, love gratitude and beaming energies are a shining light for her.
"Bless her psychedelic cotton socks, she will be in our and deeply in my heart forever. One of the strongest, most loving forgiving and powerful shakti being mums I have ever known.
"I give thanks for the blessing of her her being her example and shakti mumma presence and happy she is out of pain now and soon to be with, Daevid her dingo Virgin and all her favourite animals."
Gilli had three degrees from King's College London, where she first gained notoriety as the outspoken sub-editor of "Kings News", a college magazine. After a brief spell teaching at the Sorbonne (Paris) (where she became bilingual), she began doing performance poetry with the jazz-rock group Soft Machine, founded by her partner and long-time collaborator, Daevid Allen, in 1968. They would go on to co-found together the magical avant garde, anarchic musical ensemble band Gong  and all of the songs on the albums Magick Brother and Continental Circus are listed as written or co-written by her. In her spoken-word poetry, especially within Gong's "Radio Gnome Invisible" Trilogy, she portrays a prostitute, a cat, a mother, a witch, and an old woman, and was known for wearing such costumes on stage. This became part of the cult mythology, which was written into sixteen albums that were produced. Gilli pioneered a revolutionary singing style known popularly as Space Whisper, a textural ambient cosmic voice/instrument and became known for her haunting seductive voice.
Over the decades she had continued to tour and record with various incarnations of the Planet Gong family and many other visionary acts, a floating gang of individuals and idealists trying trying to effect social change for the better.Also as a poet she had published several books of artful verse.
Her 1978 album Mother which I have just been playing stands as one of the first and most uncompromising feminist dispatches from the progressive rock universe in which she bought a very needed feminine voice ( a realm overpopulated by regressive and rather misogynist views towards women), the album's exploration of gender roles, cosmic consciousness, and domesticity remain vital and rewarding.I have posted a link below, a record that for me remains powerfully rewarding.
The Goddesses which  inspired much of Gilli's work, were to  her symbolic of life force,energy flowing  through the invisible web of being that links all life. "Leave behind your old attitudes and celebrate being.You are always now and tomorrow afternoon. You unfold your life like a fresh newspaper and read whichever page you choose. Surf the far waves of emotion, explore mysterious dimensions from the danger of your own head." Her life's journey continues to be a source of inspiration to those who rode or are continuing to ride similar, artistic and political seas. Her legacy and that of her old lover, with whom she shared two children with and a long creative journey lives on.

with whom she shared two children and a long creative journey.

Read More: Gong Co-Founder Gilli Smyth Dead at 83 | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/gilli-smyth-died/?trackback=tsmclip

with whom she shared two children and a long creative journey.

Read More: Gong Co-Founder Gilli Smyth Dead at 83 | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/gilli-smyth-died/?trackback=tsmclip

Peace, love and light. R.I.P. Onwards and upwards.

Gilli Smyth - Mother (1978)

Tracklisting :-

I am a Fool
Back to the Womb
Mother
Shakti Yoni
Keep the Children Free
Prostitute Poem
OK, Man, This is Your World
Next Time Ragtime
Time of the Goddess
Taliesin

Another night in Gaza.

Last night suddenly the media went off duty. The Israelis (and by extension the US) would rather you didn't know, the Israeli army fired missiles into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia on Sunday afternoon and evening, injuring several Palestinians, including a 17-year-old boy, when Israel attacked the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday night, after a rocket fired from Gaza fell inside the southern Israeli city of Sderot, with no injuries or damage reported by the Israeli army.The heavy artillery bombardment was followed by systematic mocking raids on the area.
Israel was supposed to have ended its permanent military presence in the Gaza Strip in 2005 in what it called the "Gaza disengagement". However, the area remains effectively occupied as Israel retains control of its airspace, seafront and all vehicle access, blocking trade and free movement for the territory's two million residents.Palestinians in Gaza have been living under siege and blockade for ten years, with Israel tightly restricting what can come in and out.The latest attacks coming two years after the summer of 2014 when Israeli forces killed more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 500 children.Key parts of Gaza's infrastructure were damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes,including apartment buildings, sports fields, kindergartens , electricity substations, schools and hospitals.
Israeli forces maintained their land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, imposing collective punishment on the territory’s 1.8 million inhabitants. Israeli controls on the movement of people and goods into and from Gaza,particularly on essential construction materials, combined with Egypt’s closure of the Rafah border crossing and destruction of cross-border tunnels, severely hindered post-conflict reconstruction and essential services and exacerbated poverty..
Palestine’s youth have grown up in a war zone, in which violence, loss, and hatred have marred any semblance of normal life. In recent months, approximately 373,000 children requiring “direct and specialized psychological support have found themselves unable to return to school, in a community where unemployment stands at a staggering 43 percent. Growing feelings of abandonment and hopelessness have fed a recent spike in youth suicide rates,.Because of these conditions it has fostered even more resentment among the Palestinian people toward their Israeli occupiers.
So when a rocket is fired in anger and frustration and falls on an open area and is then  faced with 30 missiles in less than 15 minutes, the balance of powershould be recognised and the occupying forces reponse considered to becompletely disproportionate. The Gaza Strip is not responsible for the one who fired the rock. Even the one who fired it didn't know where it was to fall.However, the Israeli defence army know exactly where their bombs, shells, rickets are falling. Falling near populated areas at the middle of the night. Children asleep. Parents helpless.Electricity off. No place to hide.Living in fear. Facing collective punishment, reinforcing the hardships already imposed on the civilians of the Gaza strip.Another long night in Gaza.
It should be noted that international law forbids punishing individuals for acts that they did not personally commit. It also forbids targeting civilians.Under international law, all states are obligated to actively facilitate the passage of humanitarian supplies to civilians.Blatantly disregarded time and time again with Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and the actions that took place last night, all clearly intended to make the lives of Palestinian civilians as miserable as possible, severely affecting every man, woman and child.

The following link to a Guardian article  chooses to ignore many of the above context.It does not even inform readers that Gaza is under siege by Israel.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/22/israel-launches-up-to-50-strikes-on-gaza-after-rocket-attack

The Taff Vale Railway Strike

Between 1893-98 coal mining strikes in South Wales brought suffering to railway workers and miners with the suspension of the guaranteed sixty hour week and lay offs. The Taff Vale railway workers moved a quarter of the eighteen million tons of coal dug out by South Wales miners. The Boer war increased the demand for South Wales coal and the miners won pay increases but rail workers did not even though the cost of living increased. Grievances running high  about wages and conditions, but also about a specific charge of victimisation against a signalman by the name of John Ewinfton,  General Manager of the Taff Vale Railway's  refusal to meet with their representatives the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (thw workers union),certainly did not help, so at  midnight of August 19th 1900  1,327 workers of the Taff Railway Company went on  strike. Richard Bell, ASRS general secretary, travelled to Cardiff to organise the picketing against scab labour. In the course of the struggle, tracks were greased, trucks uncoupled and locomotive engines put out of action.The picketing that took place is said to be the best organised in any railway strike in Britain with no coal trains running on the first day.At the height of the strike, a mass demonstration of around 12,000 took place at Cathays Park in Cardiff, organised by the Cardiff Trades Council, in support of the railway workers. The company drummed up strike breakers, known as blacklegs or scabs, through the National Free Labour Association and ordered strikers and their families to vacate rented company cottages.Finally furious employers plotted with the strikebreaking National Free Labour Association and the Employers Parliamentary Council to smash the strike with an injunction, which was duly granted. Although the strike was settled by mediation after only eleven days, the employers carried their legal case for compensation to the Lords and successfully sued for damages against the union to the tune of £23,000, with additional costs of £27,000 – a formidable sum at the time.

It also proved to be a landmark decision, as it shattered the belief that unions could not be held responsible for damages as a result of the actions of their members, this prosecution followed a decade of attacks on trade union rights and the verdict practically eliminated the strike as a weapon of organised labor. The newly formed unions for the unskilled workers had suffered loss of membership due to unemployment. Employers recruited the unemployed, including criminal gangs to break strikes, and a whole series of court decisions deprived the unions of the right to a closed shop and to refuse to deal with non-union firms.The Tory press launched a tirade against the unions, calling them 'our national mafia' and called upon the state to protect the public from 'working class tyranny'.
The Taff Vale case had an immediate impact it would help foster the growth of the recently formed  formed Labour Representation Committee. It was essential for the unions that legislation be put through Parliament to reverse this judgement and guarantee unions immunity during an industrial dispute. The lack of trade union support for the LRC changed. In 1900 it had less than half the trade union movement affiliated. Key unions like the Miners Federation saw the implications of Taff Vale for themselves and switched to Labour from supporting the Liberals. Within two years the affiliated membership of the LRC had doubled from 455,450 to 861,200.
The Taff Vale judgement helped make minds up in favour of a Labour Party in parliament which by now had been formed, however at the 1906 general election three corner contests were avoided through agreements between the LRC and Liberal Party. It was a Liberal landslide including 29 LRC MPs. These 29 MPs were though able to exercise enough pressure upon the Liberal Government to pass the Trades Disputes Act of 1906. Legalizing peaceful picketing and restoring union immunity against actions for damages caused by strikes.The behaviour of one employer had been sufficient to cement the links between the trade unions and the Labour Party. The ruling class now had to face a labour movement which was going from strength to strength and able to exercise influence in Parliament as well as on the industrial front. The years of the Liberal Government saw increasing industrial militancy with disputes in all the major industries such as mining, the docks and the railways. A triple alliance was forged between the unions of the three main industries. Amalgamation Committees were set up and the number of trade unionists increased. The Labor Party though in parliament seemed to be irrelevent to union militants who turned to direct action and were being pulled towards revolutionary ideas such as syndicalism and workers control . The Taff Vale Railway Strike must  be remembered as a landmark in the history of industrial relations in Britain, that should not to be forgotten today as Tory anti-trade union legislation continues to set back trade union rights back over one hundred years.

Captain Beefheart- Flower Pot

'Take this magic flower from my flowerpot
Tell your little girl it can help you a lot
Wear it in your hair
Wear it on your heart
With the magic power of this flower
We shall never be apart
We shall never be apart
Jungle free city hot
Can’t fool me or my flowerpot
Magic petals magic stem magic mountains and magic men.'

- These are the original unused lyrics by Herb Bermann for the unreleased track Flower Pot, recorded as an instrumental only at the end of 1967.

http://www.beefheart.com/i-was-a-scribe-for-captain-beefhe…/

http://www.beefheart.com/herb-bermann-speaks-part-2/

Respect to Scottish Football fans as they show solidarity for the Palestinian people.

Fans at a football match between Glasgow Celtic and Israeli side Hapoel Beer Sheva turned whole sections of the stadium into a sea of Palestinian flags in an amazing show of unity, strength and solidarity on Wednesday night protesting against the Israeli occupation on night, ignoring an official ban on political demonstrations, despite Scottish police urging fans to not bring Palestinian flags, threatening them with arrest. However many Celtic fans have long identified with left-wing causes, among them the Palestinian struggle. The flag of Palestine is seen flying at games the club plays, and the match with Hapoel Be'er Sheva will be no exception.When hundreds of Palestinians were on hunger strike in Israeli jails in 2012, the group unfurled a banner reading "Dignity is more precious than food.".Also  through extensive fundraising work the supporters have helped bring Palestinian youth to the UK to take part in football tournaments and cultural tours.Numerous members have also visited the occupied West Bank.
Celtic could now  face penalties from UEFA, Europe’s football governing body, for allowing the protests to go ahead, but some fans said they were prepared to pay any fine themselves to show their opposition to Israel's participation in the competition.This has got Celtic into hot water with the football authorities previously. The club was fined 16,000 pounds ($20,750) by the Union of European Football Associations ( UEFA) after fans flew Palestine flags during a game against the Icelandic side KR Reykjavik. The game took place at the same time as the Israeli army's "Protective Edge Operation in Gaza", which left more than 2,200 Palestinians and at least 73 Israelis dead.
More than 800 people joined a Facebook group titled “Fly the flag for Palestine, for Celtic, for Justice.The group’s creators called on Celtic fans to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, saying that people should express their “democratic rights to display our opposition to Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and countless massacres of the Palestinian people”.The Facebook group also said that UEFA should not support Israel and its policies. “When someone is representing Israeli state institutions it is sadly never merely a game; football, UEFA, and Celtic FC are being used to whitewash Israel’s true nature and give this rogue state an air of normality and acceptance it should not and cannot enjoy until its impunity ends and it is answerable to international law and faces sanctions for the countless UN resolutions it had breached,” it read.The Palestinian flag is more than a national symbol; it has taken on the mantle of a symbol of defiance in the face of colonial oppression and apartheid, it should not be a crime to wave it.
Celtic won the match 5-2 and now appear likely to qualify for the lucrative group stages of the UEFA Champions League, in which Europe's top clubs compete for the game's most sought after trophy.Much respect to the Celtic fans, thanks from the bottom of my heart for showing humanity at its best.Sending a clear message to the Palestinians that their struggle is not forgotten. Free Palestine..

Butterfly Collector

(some free verse
for jane the flutterfurb)


I'm a collector of many things
music and books, friends who bring kindness
butterflies that roam among the flowers and grass
who often call fluttering down gently
whispering softly above my head
dancing and teaching me ways to be free
allowing my mind to drift past sadness
filling my heart with joy and gladness
under the sky and influence of love
reminding me of other things to cherish 
that continue to enrapture and capture the heart.
.