I have the right to my own opinions to state what I believe to be the truth, I believe in freedom of thought I believe in freedom of speech, I have the right to be free from bondage to be free from chains and mental slavery, to choose what I want to be, where I need to go because this is my right to be me.
I have the right to speak out this is my choice, this is my conscience, this is my right to freedom of expression this right allows me to speak out against oppression, a right that embraces the immortal declaration a right that recognises the concept that all men born equal, everyone has the right to life and liberty to breathe in, breathe out, scream and shout.
I have the right to dignity and pride the security of peace and protection, that allows me to love, laugh and cry to be treated kindly, not like a fool, remember when justice is forgotten and certain paths trample down opposition, keep on fighting for human rights with no inhibition decency and justice, and all that has been given.
As hard pressed families are choosing between heating and eating and news arrives of energy bills set to rise once more there is growing support for bringing all utilities into public ownership, and thanks at least to Labour's manifesto pledges, it's now on the political agenda like never before.
Speaking at a Labour Party event on 10 February last year, Jeremy Corbyn
reaffirmed Labour’s 2017 manifesto pledge “to bring energy, rail, water,
and mail into public ownership and to put democratic management at the
heart of how those industries are run”.
“By taking our public services back into public hands”, he said, “we
will not only put a stop to rip-off monopoly pricing, we will put our
shared values and collective goals at the heart of how those public
services are run”. He promised “a society which puts its most valuable
resources, the creations of our collective endeavour, in the hands of
everyone who is part of that society”. He argued that the energy
industry must be remodelled to abate carbon emissions, and declared that
“in public hands, under democratic control, workforces and their unions
will be the managers of this change, not its casualties.
“The growth of green energy and green tech offers huge opportunities
for job creation. Our publicly owned energy system will ensure a smooth
transition and protect workers and communities, seizing those
opportunities for the many, not the few...
“The next Labour Government will guarantee that all energy workers
are offered retraining, a new job on equivalent terms and conditions,
covered by collective agreements and fully supported in their housing
and income needs through transition”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4 the same day, shadow chancellor John
McDonnell refuted claims that the nationalisations would be
unaffordable. He said that shareholders in privatised utilities, which
include pension funds, could be given newly-issued government bonds in
return for their shares.
A survey by YouGov around the time of the 2017 election showed that
these policies are popular. It showed an 84% to 5% majority for the NHS
being in the public sector; a 65% to 21% majority for Royal Mail; a 60%
to 25% majority for rail; 53% to 31% for energy; 59% to 25% for water;
and 81% to 6% for schools. The case for public ownership, and against
outsourcing to private contractors, has been strengthened since then by
the Carillion scandal.
Corbyn and McDonnell are right to put public ownership back on the agenda. After Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 one by one, our public utilities, described by Harold Macmillan as the family silver, were sold of piece by piece among the first were British Telecom, then British Airways and British
Steel. The water firms followed along with the energy companies and,
finally, in the dog days of John Major, British Rail.
Privatisation, was supposed to give us a stake in the British
economy, reduce prices and improve services. Its actual track record has been abysmal with disastrous consequences with prices soring and standards falling. Just look at the ludicrously over-priced and over-complicated railway system, which we have been left with as the result of privatisation in the '90's.
Britain’s family silver is now mainly owned by overseas firms and investment groups who are able to make huge
profits from exploiting a captive market.A system was created allowing an elite few to reap extortionate profits via a
monopoly service. Executives running these firms could not believe their
luck as they were give free reign to fleece and rip of people on a massive scale.
The profits of the Big 6 energy companies in the last few years has been astronomical, their increase in profits particularly galling due to the price rises imposed by the energy companies on consumers.
The Big Six claim that the high prices consumers face are not due to their profiteering, but due to factors beyond
their control, such as fossil fuel prices, which they have to pass on. Ofgem have suggested that there is clearly a gas
wholesale driver, but that on top of this, the Big Six are not adjusting prices as they should. Overall, the Big Six are making very large profits, profits which have increased substantially over recent years.
These profits are a sign of a broken system. It’s one thing to increase profits, dividends and executive pay from
providing a good service, but it’s another to do the same while whilst the people of Britain starve and die of cold, because they cannot afford to keep themselves warm and unjustifiable level of profit are being made and they continue to shower their shareholders with vast amounts of money. This rip off game has gone on long enough, it should not be allowed to continue.The public deserves better. It's a national failure and a disgrace.
The UK public is paying through the nose for the provision of services and products previouly owned by them. These resources belong to everybody. They should be a common treasury and a human right,
not a stock market commodity or a source of profit, we can all
benefit from a fairer, not for profit, pricing
structure to everybody. All utilities are necessary for the functioning of our society and the
preservation of life. To allow life and death decisions to be made
based on profit concerns is a violation of human rights.The capital that these industries generate can work for the
benefit of us all not just the few and privileged. It is more
than time that we renationalise all privatised utilities and services,
with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need. Utilities are a public good that should be owned by the public for the people not profit.
Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1852) who was born on this day in Ausberg. Germany was a German playwright, theater director and poet.,Born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht in 1898 Germany, he came from a middle class, religious household The son of a Catholic
businessman, Brecht was raised, however, in his mother's Protestant
faith.
This clash with an authoritarian church may have fed his later ardent support for the underdog.In 1917 he matriculated at the University of Munich to study philosophy and medicine. In 1918 he served as a medical orderly at a military hospital in Augsburg. The unpleasantness of this experience confirmed his hatred of war and stimulated his sympathy for the unsuccessful Socialist revolution of 1919. Brecht served at the tail end of WWI as a hospital orderly and chafed under the restrictions his duties placed on his writing. From a young age, he guarded his time and took his art quite seriously.
More pivotal than the war for Brecht was the failed German Revolution of 1918-1919. The working class movement was split and the writer supported the Communists. He never wavered in his defense of the Soviet Union. He wrote “Epitaph 1919” about the leader of the German insurrection, Rosa Luxemburg.
Red Rosa now has vanished too,
Where she lies is hid from view.
She told the poor what life is about
And so the rich have rubbed her out.
The themes of opposition to war and sympathy for the working class and its burdens dominate Brecht’s poetry. In “Lullabies” he is a mother speaking of her husband, dead in the war, and her determination to keep her son safe. She addresses her son,
My son, you must listen to your mother when she tells you
It’ll be worse than the plague, the life you’ve got in store.
But don’t think I brought you into the world so painfully
To lie down under it and meekly ask for more.
What you don’t have, don’t ever abandon
What they don’t give you, get yourself and keep.
I, your mother, haven’t borne and fed you
o see you crawl one night under a railway arch to sleep.
The poem ends with words exhorting her son to “stay close to your own people/So your power, like the dust, will spread to every place.”
In 1919 Brecht returned to his studies but devoted himself increasingly to writing plays. His first full-length plays were Baal (1922) and Trommeln in der Nacht (1922; Drums in the Night). In September 1922 Drums in the Night was presented at the Munich Kammerspiele, where Brecht was subsequently employed as resident playwright.
Brecht's early plays, including Im Dickicht der Städte (1923; Jungle of the Cities), are works in which he gradually frees himself from the expressionist conventions of the avant-garde theater of his day, especially its idealism. He parodies and ridicules the lofty sentiments and visionary optimism of his predecessors (Georg Kaiser, Fritz von Unruh, and others) while exploiting their technical advances. Baal portrays the brutalization of all finer feeling by a drunken vagabond. In Drums in the Night, a drama on the returned-soldier theme, the hero rejects the opportunity for a splendid death on the barricades, preferring to make love to his woman. Such cynicism recalls Frank Wedekind, Brecht's most revered model. Jungle of the Cities decries the possibility of spiritual freedom and reasserts the primacy of materialistic values. In these two plays Brecht emphasizes the artificiality of the theatrical medium and disregards conventional psychological motivation.
In 1924 Brecht moved to Berlin and for the next 2 years was associated as a playwright with Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. His comedy Mann ist Mann (1926; A Man's a Man) studies the social conditioning that transforms an Irish packer into a machine gunner and shows a development toward a terser, more intellectual style. By 1926 Brecht had begun a serious study of Marxism.
As a Marxist he became one of the most influential theater practitioners of the 20th century. Brecht's unique approach to theatre, with its emphasis on social and political commentary continues to inspire artists and audiences alike today.
Brecht collaborated with the composer Kurt Weill on Mahagonny (or Kleine Mahagonny), a play with music written for the Baden-Baden festival of 1927. They then wrote Die Dreigroschenoper (1928; The Threepenny Opera), which was triumphantly performed in Berlin on Aug. 31, 1928. This was the first work to make Brecht famous.
Brecht based The Threepenny Opera on Elisabeth Hauptmann's translation of The Beggar's Opera (produced 1728) by the English dramatist John Gay. While adapting and modernizing Gay's balled opera, Brecht retained the main events of the plot but added topical satirical bite through his own lyrics. In this work he develops to its first high point his own special language—that peculiar amalgam of street-colloquial, Marxist-philosophical, and quasi-biblical diction laced with cabaret wit and lyrical pathos and bound together with the unrelenting force of parody. Brecht borrows freely from many sources—among them François Villon and Rudyard Kipling—but his undisguised plagiarism generally supports sharp parody.
Brecht wrote several more plays with music in collaboration with Weill and with Paul Hindemith. Notable are Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1929; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) and Das Badener Lehrstück vom Einverständnis (1929; The Didactic Play of Baden: On Consent). The latter deals with the issue of "consent"— consent to the extinction of the individual for the sake of the progress of the masses. In Die Massnahme (1930; The Measure Taken), for which Hanns Eisler composed the score, Brecht publicly espouses Communist doctrine and concedes the necessity for the elimination of erring party members. The playwright's love of parody is well illustrated in Die Ausnahme und die Regel (1930; The Exception and the Rule) and in Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe (1932; St. Joan of the Stockyards), in which a Salvation Army girl strives to save the souls of Chicago capitalists.
Saddled with reparations to the Allied -powers that won WWI, Germany was hard hit by the Great Depression. With a fractured left wing and the disastrous Stalin-directed policy of the Communist Party refusing to ally with the reformist German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the fight against Hitler, the stage was set for his rise. Brecht marked the dictator’s coming with a satirical song, “Hitler Chorale.”
Now thank we all our God
For sending Hitler to us;
From Germany’s fair land
To clear away the rubbish…
In the end, the poet concludes
After long years he’s found you
You’ve reached your goal at last.
The butcher’s arms are round you
He holds you to him fast.
In his poem “When the Fascists Kept Getting Stronger” Brecht talks about fighting back against the right wing.
When the fascists kept getting stronger in Germany
And even workers were joining them in growing masses
We said to ourselves: We fought the wrong way.
All through our red Berlin the Nazis strutted, in fours and fives
In their new uniforms, murdering Our comrades…
So we said to the comrades of the SPD:
Are we to stand by while they murder our comrades?
The SPD was slow to react to increasing attacks against workers.
In a poem titled “To The Fighters in the Concentration Camps,” the poet speaks of the steadfastness of the workers and concludes with,
So you are
Vanished but
Not forgotten
Beaten down but
Never confuted
Along with all those incorrigibly fighting
Unteachably set on the truth
Now and forever the true
Leaders of Germany.
Brecht fled Germany when the Nazis came to power, moving to various countries, and writing several anti-fascist plays. From
1933 to 1948 Brecht was an exile, first in Scandinavia, then in the
U.S.S.R., and after 1941 in the United States. In 1933 his books were
among those publicly burned in Berlin. He continued to write in exile,
and in 1936 he completed Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe (The Roundheads and the Peakheads) and Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches (Fear and Misery of the Third Reich), which directly attacked Hitler's regime.
In 1939 Leben des Galilei (Galileo) opened the sequence of Brecht's great plays; there followed Mutter Courage (1939; Mother Courage), Der gute Mensch von Sezuan (1941; The Good Man of Szechuan), and Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (1943; The Caucasian Chalk Circle). Other important works belonging to this period are Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti (1941; Puntila and His Man Matti) and Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (1941; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui).
These plays demonstrate that Brecht's power and depth as a dramatist
are to a high degree independent of, and even override, his theoretical
principles. They display an astonishing capacity for creating living
characters, a moving compassion, technical virtuosity, and parodic wit. Mother Courage,
a series of scenes from the life of a camp follower during the Thirty
Years War, is often misunderstood because the overwhelmingly vital
portrait of the central character arouses the audience's sympathies. But
Brecht's actual concern was to demonstrate the self-perpetuating folly
of Mother Courage's naive collaboration with the system that exploits
her and destroys her family.
He went to the U.S in 1941, but faced repression as McCarthyist anti-communism heated up. In 1948 he moved to socialist East Germany where he lived until he died of a heart attack in August 1956 at the age of 56. He and his wife, the actress Helene Weigel, founded the Berliner
Ensemble in September 1949 with ample financial support from the state.
This group became the most famous theater company in East Germany and
the foremost interpreter of Brecht.
He wrote the following poem in exile during the early years of the Third Reich in virtue of its title, addressed himself to a posterity he believed, would be unable to understand how it felt to live in a
time of acute moral and political crisis. What defines such a time, he
wrote, is that disaster becomes the only possible subject of thought,
crowding out everything we think of as ordinary life:
“What kind of
times are these, when/To talk about trees is almost a crime/Because it
implies silence about so many horrors?” Brecht urged his readers to consider the actions of people living in these “dark times,” finsteren Zeiten, with
particular sympathy: “When you speak of our failings,” the poem
implores, “Bring to mind also the dark times/That you have escaped.”
Entitled An die Nachgebrenen or To Those Born Later in a period he referred to repeatedly as "the dark times." From the perspective of this time of desperation and despair Brecht imagined in his poem a different future a time when "man would be a helper to man"
The dark times sadly are still not over, we still bare witness to a world of global war,poverty, hunger, environmental collapse, the unchallenged reign of capitalism, and far-right groups emerging again to take advantage of the fear among us.
Brecht's words are ever so resonant as we also attempt to imagine a better future and find traces of hope before its too late, his words can still sustain us as we seek ways to escape and resist the politics of division.
These dangerous times require all of us to dig deep into our common humanity. We must build bridges across all boundaries of difference and nonviolently resist all efforts from whatever quarter to dehumanise and demonise the other as is happening all around the world at the present time.
To Those Born Later - Bertolt Brecht
I
Truly, I live in dark times!
The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead
Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs
Has simply not yet had
The terrible news.
What kind of times are they, when
A talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
That man there calmly crossing the street
Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends
Who are in need?
It is true I still earn my keep
But, believe me, that is only an accident. Nothing
I do gives me the right to eat my fill.
By chance I've been spared. (If my luck breaks, I am lost.)
They say to me: Eat and drink! Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink if I snatch what I eat
From the starving, and
My glass of water belongs to one dying of thirst?
And yet I eat and drink.
I would also like to be wise.
In the old books it says what wisdom is:
To shun the strife of the world and to live out
Your brief time without fear
Also to get along without violence
To return good for evil
Not to fulfill your desires but to forget them
Is accounted wise.
All this I cannot do:
Truly, I live in dark times.
II
I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger reigned there.
I came among men in a time of revolt
And I rebelled with them.
So passed my time
Which had been given to me on earth.
My food I ate between battles
To sleep I lay down among murderers
Love I practised carelessly
And nature I looked at without patience.
So passed my time
Which had been given to me on earth.
All roads led into the mire in my time.
My tongue betrayed me to the butchers.
There was little I could do. But those in power
Sat safer without me: that was my hope.
So passed my time
Which had been given to me on earth.
Our forces were slight. Our goal
Lay far in the distance
It was clearly visible, though I myself
Was unlikely to reach it.
So passed my time
Which had been given to me on earth.
III
You who will emerge from the flood
In which we have gone under
Remember
When you speak of our failings
The dark time too
Which you have escaped.
German; trans. John Willett, Ralph Manheim & Erich Fried
Great news today on hearing that none of the Stansted 15 will not be jailed for standing up for human rights.
The activists, who blocked a March 2017 deportation flight at London's Stansted airport had cut a fence at the airport and laid on the tarmac,
chaining themselves together and forming a ring around a Boeing 767 chartered by the Home Office that was about to violently deport 60 people on an immigration removal charter flight.
On their way to the airport, the
activists say they took turns reading aloud the emotional testimonies of
those who were due to be on board the plane, which had been collected
and published by Detained Voices, https://detainedvoices.com/ an independent human rights group
which speaks by phone to people being held in detention centers, pending
their removal from the country.The
activists said many of those detained fear persecution if they were
returned. Their desperate pleas for help had spurred the group on.
on an immigration removal charter fligh
Read more at:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/the-stansted-15-protesters-are-heros-the-government-should-be-hauled-before-the-court-instead/
on an immigration removal charter fligh
Read more at:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/the-stansted-15-protesters-are-heros-the-government-should-be-hauled-before-the-court-instead/
on an immigration removal charter fligh
Read more at:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/the-stansted-15-protesters-are-heros-the-government-should-be-hauled-before-the-court-instead/
Last December the group was found guilty
of endangering the safety of the airport following a nine-week trial at Chelmsford Crown Court.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/12/solidarity-with-stansted-15.html
Human rights campaigners
claimed that the charges brought against them were excessive.In a statement released after their conviction, the defendants said the real crime was the government’s
“cowardly, inhumane and barely legal” deportation flights and that the
Home Office’s “out of control system” must be held to account for the
dangers it puts people in.
Defendants Melanie Strickland said the verdict was “profoundly
disturbing” for democracy in Britain. “It’s the Home Office’s brutal,
secretive and barely legal practice of mass deportation flights that is
putting people in danger and their ‘hostile environment’ policy that is
hurting vulnerable people from our communities,” she said.“It’s the Home Office that should have been in the dock, not us.”
A man set to be deported on the flight but since granted the right to
remain in Britain said the Stansted 15 ” were trying to stop the
real crime from being committed.
He said: “Without their actions I would have missed my daughter’s
birth and faced the utter injustice of being deported from this country.
“For me a crime is doing something that is evil, shameful or just
wrong and it’s clear that it is the actions of the Home Office tick all
of these boxes.”
This
morning, Judge Christopher Morgan at Chelmsford Crown Court declined to
sentence the Stansted 15 to immediate jail time, the Guardianreports.
(The maximum sentence for these airport endangerment charges is life in
prison.) Instead, 12 people received community service sentences, according to End Deportations,
a collective whose members include the Stansted 15. The three others
received suspended prison sentences due to prior convictions from a
Heathrow airport protest in 2015.
As the sentencing was awaited today at Chelmsford Crown Court, anti-deportation activists reportedfurther mass deportation flights to Jamaica, including of descendants of the
"Windrush" generation who have lived in the UK for decades. The "hostile
environment" policy that encourages discrimination and the abuse of human rights still continues.using ID checks by healthcare providers, landlords and employers to make
life so difficult that undocumented immigrants will voluntarily leave,
or face being removed by the state.
ad more at:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/the-stansted-15-protesters-are-heros-the-government-should-be-hauled-before-the-court-instead/
The 15 defendants sat alongside each other
in the dock and the direction from Judge Morgan was met with smiles and
hugs from the defendants. Hundreds of
supporters had spent the morning outside the courthouse with speeches given
and banners unfurled cheering as they arrived at court and posed on the steps before entering and again when the news of their non imprisonment was announced.
The Stansted 15 provided the following statement to End Deportations.
“These terror convictions and the ten-week trial that led
to them are an injustice that has profound implications for our lives.
The convictions will drastically limit our ability to work, travel and
take part in everyday life. Yet, people seeking asylum in this country
face worse than this: they are placed in destitution and their lives in
limbo, by the Home Office’s vicious system every single day.
“When a country uses draconian terror legislation against
people for peaceful protest, snatches others from their homes in dawn
raids, incarcerates them without time limit and forces them onto planes
in the middle of the night, due to take them to places where their lives
might be at risk, something is very seriously wrong. Every single one
of us should be very worried about our democracy and our future.”
If there was any real justice, the activists would probably be given some kind of award, they shouldnever have been charged in the bloody first place, they are heroes and deserve to be recognised for this and standing up against injustice. They have prompted a much needed change in attitudes, with more people arguing against
deportations and detention centers.It's so important that we continue to defend the right to protest, because it's protest that has delivered all of the rights that today we take for granted.
In a world fraught with merciless disparity
Embroiled in suffering despair and grief,
One could embrace the madness, concede defeat
Or follow rippling streams of hope glimmering,
That help in ways unseen, as thoughts keep navigating
To go to places beyond fear and desperation,
Where winds no longer deliver agitation.
As long nights still carve deep impressions
Tirelessly we try seek forms of abandonement,
Criss-crossing frantically, obstacles of existence
When all the skies are deeply overcast,
We continue to scatter ourselves among
New arrangements of the dream.
Amidst the pangs of sombre desolation
And the sporadic moments of insufferable solitude,
An infinitesmal light emerges
It's celestial infusions engaging with,
And uplifting doleful spirit
Engulfing it in a crimson cocoon.
As the sorrow laden clouds release their trembling tears
And the sun transfigures the stony sky;
Springs new heart beats and awakens
Its vibrant petals emanating with smell of regeneration;
The solace seeking spirits in succession triumph
And tethered souls are steered by tranquil serenity.
As the swallows head north through the cumulous clouds
And the suns waning rays dwindle into darkness,
Bickering bafoons and charismatic clowns with spurious smiles
Sprout their myopic pernicious poison,
To the oblivious masses and the credulous sheep
Slapping the face of humanity,
In a power-driven crestridden wave.
Revolutionary seedlings shoot through fertile virgin soil
Inducing the spawn of tomorrows cornerstone,
Bearing sweet fruit of the assemblance of unity
To nourish lifes voracious mortal chain,
Consciousness and attitude of this time
Guiding unruly glissanding ideals,
Wanting to come of age and avert the dystopian nightmare
The Specials one of the most seminal, electrifying, influential and important bands of all time,have just released their first album of new music in 20 years. Entitled Encore, the February 1st, 2019 release alsomarks the return of original lead vocalist Terry
Hall, who entered the studio with the band for the first time since
1981’s classic “Ghost Town”. Founding members Lynval Golding and Horace
Panter are also back, with drummer Kenrick Rowe and Ocean Colour Scene
guitarist Steve Cradock rounding out the lineup.
Hall, Golding, and Panter produced the 10-track effort alongside touring
keyboardist Nikolaj Torp Larsen. While eight of the songs are
originals, two are covers: an opening rendition of The Equals’ “Black
Skinned Blue-Eyed Boys” and a take on The Valentines’ “Blam Blam Fever” addressing gun violence.
The Specials’ comeback album arrives in a Britain riven by political crisis, racial tension and the rise of the far-right. The situation resembles the turbulent times of the Coventry band’s prime years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, back when they were one of the few multi-racial groups on the circuit, promoters of a powerful anti-racist message.
The Specials, who were true innovators in their field, began the British
ska revival, combining the highly danceable ska and rocksteady beat with
punk’s energy and attitude, whilst taking on a more focused and
informed political and social stance than their predecessors and peers.
Originally formed in Coventry in 1977 as the Coventry Automatics by Jerry Dammers (songwriter and keyboardist),
Terry Hall (vocals), Lynval Golding (guitar and vocals), Neville Staples
(vocals and percussion), Roddy Radiation (guitar), Sir Horace Gentleman
(bass), and John Bradbury (drums). Initially an opening slot for the
Clash stirred up interest with the major labels, but Dammers opted to
start his own 2-Tone label, named for its multiracial agenda and after
the two-tone tonic suits favoured by the like-minded mods of the 1960s.
The Dammers-designed logos, based in pop art with black and white
checks, gave the label an instantly identifiable look. Dammers’ eye for
detail and authenticity also led to the band adopting period rude-boy
outfits (porkpie hats, tonic and mohair suits, and loafers).
The Specials debuted with the ‘Gangsters’ single, which reached the
UK Top 10 in 1979. Soon after, hordes of bands and fans followed in the
same tradition and the movement reached full swing. Over the next
several months, 2-Tone enjoyed hits by similar-sounding bands such as
Madness, the (English) Beat, and the Selecter. Late in 1979, the band
released its landmark debut album, The Specials, produced by Elvis
Costello. They followed with several 2-Tone package tours and a live EP,
‘Too Much Too Young’. The title track, a pro-contraception song, was
banned by the BBC but reached the No.1 spot in the UK. 1980 saw two
further Top 10 hits with ‘Rat Race’& ‘Stereotype’.
The Specials released their follow up album, More Specials, with a
new neo-lounge persona, bookended by nostalgia nugget, ‘Enjoy Yourself
(It’s Later Than You Think)’. The group’s defining moment came during
the long hot summer of 1981, courtesy of the eerily evocative ‘Ghost
Town’, issued amid race-related unemployment riots in Brixton and
Liverpool. The song spent a total of ten weeks in the UK Top 40 and
three at No.1. By the end of the year the song had won over critics to
be named “Single of the Year” in Melody Maker, NME and Sounds.
Following the release of 1979’s The Specials and 1980’s More Specials, and the recording of “Ghost Town,” Hall left the band ,which continued for one more album, In the Studio,
under the Special AKA moniker. Between 1996 and 2001, reunited versions
of the group, sans Hall released three covers albums (Today’s Specials, Skinhead Girl and Conquering Ruler), plus 1998’s Guilty ’til Proved Innocent!, which featured new songs by original and new members of the band.
Sadly the new release will arrive without founding member Jerry Dammers, but after
their original bust up, which was so bitter, it was clear that he would
never play with them again, steadfastly refusing to participate in any Specials reunions. After the original Specials split up, he
carried on as the Special AKA, and dedicated himself to running the
British arm of Artists against Apartheid, writing the iconic song Free
Nelson Mandela. He has.steadfastly refused to participate in any Specials reunions but has continued releasing remarkable music with his wildy adventurous project the Spatial AKA Orchestra.Neither does it it feature Roddy
Radiation and Neville Staple, who both left the reunited group in recent
years to carry on releasing their own engaging music. Drummer John Bradbury died in 2015.
However “Vote For Me”, the first new Specials single released earlier this year fortunately addresses the same social
and political issues which were prevalent when the band formed in the
late ‘70s, in which Hall bemoans the state of the political class.
Specials biographer Paul "Willo" Williams posted an exclusive, glowing preview of Encore, which he states picks up "where More Specials left off" (so there will be bits of rock, pop, and soul with your 2 Tone); and if "'Ghost Town' was the anthem of 1981, then Encore is
the snapshot of the world today,-and on a global scale."
'B.L.M.' ( an acronym for Black Lives Matter) finds Lynval Golding telling the story of his own father arriving in the UK on the Windrush to help rebuild a war-torn Britain, and his own experience of racism in the UK and America.
Track 3 Vote For Me bemoans politicians 'drunk on money and power' with an atmospheric arrangement that draws comprisons to Ghost Town.
Terry Hall is open and confessional on the topic of mental health and his own life time battle with bi-polar disorder on the gently spoken ' The life And Times (Of A Man Called Depression) Showing such bravery in addressing this issue.
Saffiyah Khan, the anti-racist activist pictured in a celebrated news photograph confronting an English Defence League demonstrator in 2017, delivers a spoken-word feminist reworking of Prince Buster’s misogynist reggae song “Ten Commandments of Man”. Embarrrassed By You is as ska reggae eant with Goding and Hall, covering kife crime, hoodies, moped gangs and misguided youth spilling on our streets.
“The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum” adds an enjoyable Latin flavour to a song by Specials spin-off group Fun Boy Three, it's message ever so relevant to the world that we are living in right now., as they were back in the day. Breaking Point has a dark feel, combined with swirling keyboards. Lines like ' Social Media is a trend that'll send us all around the bend' gives you the theme of Hall's lyrics, in a world gone wrong.
The record ends with the glorious optimistic We Sell Hope for me a highight, a truly memerising haunting track, that is certainly made for these times, truly uplifting ' Looked all around the world, could be a beautiful place.' ' do what you need to do without making the world suffer,'
Needless to
say, expectations had been running high for this release (fans have been
clamoring for new material ever since the first few reunion tours, which
started back in 2008!). Even without the genius of Dammers on board, one wonders what the record would have sounded like with his involvement, and minus a few other members, some people are questioning its authenticity, but I personally am glad it's out there and welcome the defiant angry message and glorius music contained within.The Specials will take to the road in the UK and abroad throughout 2019 in support of the new album.The CD edition of Encore also includes a live album called The Best of The Specials Live.
If we vote for you, do you promise
To be upright, decent and honest
To have our best interest at heart
You understand why we don't believe you
You're way too easy to see through
Not the best places to start
There are no rocks at Rockaway beach
And all that glitters isn't gold
You're all so drunk on money and power
Inside your Ivory tower
Teaching us not to be smart
Making laws that serve to protect you
But we will never forget that
You tore our families apart
There are no rocks at Rockaway beach
And all that glitters isn't gold
So if we vote for you, do you promise
To be upright, decent and honest
And take away all of the fear
You sit and wait for us to elect you
But all we'll do is reject you
Your politics bore us to tears
There are no rocks at Rockaway beach
And all that glitters isn't gold
The Specials featuring Saffiyah Khan "Ten Commandments "
Sad to hear that Jeremy Hardy ,the much-loved British comedian and activist, died far to young earlier today after a long battle with cancer aged 57. He is survived by his wife, filmmaker and photographer Katie Barlow, and his daughter Betty who were with him when he died.
"Friends and family of comedian Jeremy Hardy are immensely sad to
announce that Jeremy died of cancer, early on Friday 1st February," said
his publicist Amanda Emery in a statement. "He was with his wife and his daughter
as he died. He retained to the end the principles that guided his life;
trying to make the world more humane, and to be wonderfully funny.He retained to the end the committed principles that guided his life; trying to make the world more humane, and to be wonderfully funny. He will be enormously missed by so many, who were inspired by him and who laughed with him. A fitting memorial will take place, details to be announced soon."
Born in Farborough, Hampshire, in 1961, he started his career as a
stand-up comedian and won the coveted Perrier Award in 1988 and best
live act at the ITV Comedy Awards in 1991.
His TV debut came in 1986 when he starred in Now - Something Else appearing alongside Rory Bremner. The impressionist posted that Hardy was "unfussy, unshowy, principled,
self-deprecating," and "funnier than the lot of us put
together"
He
went on to play Corporal Perkins in an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth
in 1989 Having studied history and politics at the University of
Southampton, the life-long socialist wrote at length about social
politics for publications including The Guardian and ES Magazine.
Hardy built a reputation for weaving socialist politics into his comedy
acts, balancing outrage at the state of the world and the United Kingdom
with a compassion for ordinary people. Away from stand-up, Hardy was known for his social justice campaigning and guest appearances on BBC Two's Mock the Week and BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. He was also an author and actor.
Like many of his '80s contemporaries, Hardy was an overtly political
comic who railed against the
perceived injustices of the Conservative governments of Margaret
Thatcher and John Major.
When he started off in comedy he said that he originally
hadn't intended to be a "political" comic, but that the atmosphere of
Margaret Thatcher's Britain made it inevitable.
"I'd always been a sort of leftist, liberal social democrat, but the
country in the 80s was so right-wing that I thought I'd become part of
some beleaguered minority of ultra-leftists," he told friend and fellow
comedian Jack Dee on the BBC show Chain Reaction.
He was also fiercely opposed to the Iraq War begun by the labour government of Tony Blair.He was ubiquitous on demonstrations against war, austerity, racism and in support of striking workers.
One of his greatest political passions was Palestine. For most comedians, especially those who regularly appeared on BBC panel shows, the
topic was too sensitive to broach. Of course, the main reason for this
is that few take the effort to do their homework, let alone travel to
the region to see the situation first hand.
In 2002, at the peak of
the Second Intifada, which had then been
raging for two years, Hardy took up an offer by his friend Leila Sansour
- chief executive of the Open Bethlehem NGO, to be the subject of a
film in which he travelled to the West Bank as part of the International
Solidarity Movement to be a human shield.
The result was
the very moving, and very funny documentary, Jeremy Hardy Vs The Israeli Army.
which saw the comedian facing down Israeli gunfire and eventually become trapped along with six other British activists in Bethlehem as the town was placed under siege by the Israelis.
Palestine activist Leila Sansour had wanted to bring a "recognised name"
- someone famous - to the West Bank to see the occupation for
themselves, and to bring the solidarity movement to a wider audience.
The only person willing to do it was Jeremy Hardy.
"I could see she had a strange faith in the power of minor celebrity," says Hardy in the film's introduction.
He remained a committed activist in solidarity with Palestinians, raising money for Palestinian causes including the Palestine Trauma Centre and Medical Aid for Palestinians.
He
campaigned against the Israeli military's use of checkpoints, forcing
patients to transfer between ambulances on either side of often
arbitrarily-placed barriers.
"People die because they don't reach the hospital in time," he told The New Arab.
"People also miss appointments all the time because of getting held up
at the checkpoints, for example for not having the right paperwork.
"It
just highlights the brutality of the occupation in the way it just
makes ordinary everyday life, things that we take for granted,
impossible."
In one of his last visits to the West Bank, a trip organised by Medical Aid for Palestinians
(MAP) along with fellow British comedian Imran Yusuf, he highlighted the
ongoing plight of the people of occupied Hebron and the attempts by
Israeli settlers to gain full control of the centre of the city.
“They want them to leave," he tells the camera. "They want
Palestinians to leave. They want the businesses to close, they want
people to stop coming here to shop. They want the economy to collapse.
And then take all of it, take all of the land, basically."
There’s been no crop failure here, there’s been no natural disaster - people have just been crushed by being occupied.”
With a few exceptions - such as his close friend Mark Steel - there
will be no mainstream voices left in the ever-shrinking pool of
"actually well-informed satire" after Hardy's passing, let alone those
who can speak and ridicule with authority about Syria or Palestine or
war and capitalism.
Tributes this morning were led by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Who said on twitter
" Jeremy Hardy was a dear, lifelong friend. He always gave his all for everyone else and the campaigns for social justice."
Fellow comedians and activists also took to Twitter to remember their friend.
Jack Dee, who worked with Hardy on Channel 4 sketch show Jack and
Jeremy's Real Lives and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, tweeted that Hardy
was "ground-breakingly brilliant, off the register funny, compassionate
and caring".
Fellow comedian David Baddiel called his death simply "a great loss to comedy".
Deputy Labour leader John McDonnell praised Hardy for "courageously supporting campaigns for social justice".
Journalist Owen Jones added: "Utterly devastated to hear of Jeremy
Hardy's death. He was such a wonderful guy, hilarious, full of humanity
and heart, committed to fighting for a world without injustice. Just a
lovely bloke."
Until 2001, Hardy wrote a column for the Guardian newspaper in which he regularly expressed his support for the Socialist Alliance .His radical views did not always go down well, however, and he was
once booed by members of the audience on Radio Four's Just A Minute for
ranting about the Royal Family when asked to talk about "parasites".
In 2004, Burnley Council cancelled one of his shows after he said
members and supporters of the British National Party should "be shot" on
an episode of his Speaks to the Nation programme.
Hardy’s political history and identity is neatly captured by two recent
tweets. The comedian’s own last message on his official account – sent
at 2.40am on 8 January – attacked Tony Blair’s latest intervention in
the Brexit debate, warning that the former premier risked precipitating
hard Brexit and a right-wing Tory government.
Hardy was twice married, to American actress and comedian Kit
Hollerbach, who appeared alongside him in radio sitcoms and with whom he
adopted a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1990. A memorial to Mr Hardy is set to be announced.
Sadly he never lived to see the end of the occupation of Palestine or the
kind of people he thought should run the country actually taking power
in Britain. Though his death was untimely, Jeremy remained philisophical on matters of mortality and the apparent pointlessness of life:
"Why don’t they just accept that life is sad and cheer up? After all, it’s not forever."
Rest in Power to such a good man and one of the few genuinely funny and radical comedians who chose to use his comedy to change the world, rather than to fill stadiums.
Since 15 January, the situation in Venezuela has escalated dramatically
when the opposition-controlled National Assembly declared that Maduro
had usurped power. Opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself
interim president on 23 January. The United States and other countries
swiftly recognised him as the country's leader. This US-Venezuelan gambit is the latest attempt by the Washington
“swamp” to fully re-enter its historical role in Latin America as
congenital genocidals.
You have to ask yourself , why would the US and UK governments, states where millions rely on food banks, care about starving Venezuelans when they have proven they don't care about people starving in their own countries. They care because Venezuala has the largest oil reserves on the planet, and would take this time to take the opportunity of grabbing it for themselves. This together with the Bank of England refusing to return £900 million in gold bullion smacks at another attempt at regime change.
Currently President Trump faces his own crisis situation at home, with his
cave-in over the shutdown that has led to government workers, 700,000 of them,
facing day after day without pay. What better way to divert attention from the
domestic crisis than a military intervention in Venezuela. Of course, there’s more to this than that, as
the USA has always regarded Latin America as its backyard and regularly
intervenes in the region- the military coup against Allende in Chile, the
invasion of Grenada and Panama, the support for every murderous military
dictatorship from Somoza in Nicaragua to the overthrow of Juan Bosch in the
Dominican Republic to enthusiastic support for the bloody regime of Videla in
Argentina.
Some backgroud to the current cisis in Venezuela is needed ,during the early 2000s, when oil prices were high, socialist
President Hugo Chávez used oil profits to reduce inequality and poverty,
building over two million homes and capping the price of basic goods
such as flour, cooking oil and toiletries.When oil prices dropped
in 2014, the government suddenly had to make lots of cutbacks. This led
many people to begin buying goods on the black market, causing
inflation to rise and unemployment, which is set to rise above
44% by 2020. There are now chronic food
shortages. This has brought forth protests around the country, protests that were
answered with severe repression by the regime, which responded violently to strikes
and demonstrations, and reported cases of human rights abuses.There is currently a very real social crisis in Venezuela. This crisis which is very complicated manifests itself
in real hunger, shortage of basic household commodities, medicine and mass migration
to Colombia, and the US.
Now the old bourgeoisie, organised around Guaido and his
party, is attempting to overthrow the Maduro regime of the state bourgeoisie,
with the backing of the USA. The Americans are eying up the rich resources of
Venezuela, not just oil but other raw materials, diamonds,
gold, natural gas, gold, bauxite, iron ore, and hydroelectric power.
Neither Maduro nor Guaido have an answer to the severe economic and humanitarian crisis hitting
Venezuela. The masses there have to begin to organise against both these wings
of the ruling class. This will be a difficult task but is one worth engaging with and seeking to understand..We should remind ourselves for now though that the Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who I do not view uncritically is the twice democratically elected legitimate president of the country. He was sworn
in after being elected by the popular vote, on January 10, 2019, and is
legally entitled to serve a six-year term as president. Juan Guaidó is
the head of the legitimately elected National Assembly. He is an
Opposition leader, though he has declared himself “interim president of
Venezuela”. This situation is complex and fraught with possibility of
further political and social breakdown, and requires skilful and
good-faith diplomacy. Cynical political chicanery and bluster from outside forces are unwarranted at this moment in time.
Currently the Venezualan military aims to protect its privileged position and stand with rhe Maduro system. While Maduro aims to hold onto power it is at same time going to be very difficult for him to solve the Veneuala's economic crisis. He has it must be said lost confidence among huge swathes of the population. Yet for now holds the backing of the military and the majority of the populace. .
In the meantime President Maduro, has called
opposition leader Juan Guaido a US "puppet" and accused Washington
of attempting to organise a coup in Venezuela and declared his intent
to cut off diplomatic ties.
Addressing Donald Trump in English
to demand that Washington keep its “hands off” the country, after the
US imposed sanctions on its state oil company in recognition of Juan
Guaido as president.
“Donald Trump, do not get involved with Venezuela! Hands off Venezuela! Donald Trump, hands off Venezuela!” Maduro said, blaming Washington for the political conflict that is causing tremors in the country.
Maduro’s words came shortly after US imposed sanctions on the country’s state-owned oil company PDVSA in order to “help prevent the further diversion“ of assets by the country’s government. Venezuela’s president called Washington’s actions an attempt “to steal” the company, and promised to take countermeasures “to protect the interests of Venezuela.”
The US, imposing leaders, as it did earlier in the 20th century, is another
phase of its gunboat diplomacy that has been seen time and time again and they ought to keep their
bloody hands off. They and their European counterparts in France, Britain and Germany should not interfere, and stay
at home to solve their own chronic political and economic crises. This is a time for negotiation and compromise not a winner takes all showdown that could lead to civil war costing many lives. A peaceful solution is what is urgently needed, however .the planet is dividing into distinct blocks in a period of post economic collapse, each one with their own spurious agendas, whether it be China, Russia and Iran or the USA, UK and other western nations and Israel on the other. We are living in truly dangerous times.
In connection with all this I would urge people here in the UK to get their MP's to sign the following EDM (Early Day Motion) 2022 https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/52512/outside-interference-in-venezuela
Outside influence in Venezuela
' That this House express its opposition to outside interference in
Venezuela, whether from the US or elsewhere; believes that the future
governance of Venezuela is a matter for Venezuelans alone to determine;
rejects the US President Donald Trump's approach to regime change, which
violates international law; express its disappointment at the UK
Government's decision to fall in behind the US Administration's actions
towards Venezuela; and urges the Government to constructively engage
with the existing Government of Venezuela and other political forces to
support a dialogue and a negotiated peaceful settlement that can
overcome the crisis in Venezuela.
Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening terrorising fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos,it has been the authorities - the political, the religious, the educational authorities - who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules regulations, informing and forming our minds to view their reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable open-mindedness, chaotic confused vulnerability to inform yourself ".
- Timothy Leary. The definition of "authority" is the power to make orders or make decisions ; the power or right to durect or control" someone or something" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authority To question authority is to call into question the power or right of that authority to direct or control people or events. Questioning authority asks "Why do I have to do what you tell me I should do? Why can't I do as I plase instead of as you instruct me to?" The human world is in ruins. It does not seem to be getting any better, with the rise of division, sexism, religious extremism, racism, forces of fascism, xenophobia, homophobia and general intolerance.Then we have the mess that is Brexit, which was supposed to give us an element of control but in effect has left us all powerless, fighting amongst ourselves. The sooner we can withdraw from it all the better. Timothy Leary was right when he urged young people to "drop out " in 1966. His message all the more profoundly true today, in the awful times we live in. Life in modern society seems to offer us no future. The modern world has failed on all levels. Capitalism and industrialism that is fuelling catastrophic climate change cannot be reformed for the benefit of mankind. Have you ever wondered how a sickening atrocity like the Holocaust could happen. People being blindly compliant and obedient with unadulterated evil. The mantra "think for yourself and question authority" speaks a universal simple truth, which is that society isn't right, and we have to trust our own hearts and minds at end of the day, no matter what anyone tells us to do. It's not easy to stand up for something when it seems everyone else is sitting quietly in blind complacency, and turning ther heads away. But it's up to all of us to continue to question authority, when the needs be, because if we don't, who else will? No species can evolve new features or behaviours if there is no change in their environment and similarly society cannot become more equal and just unless every aspect of it is questioned. Societal progress can only be achieved by those willing to seek out what is wrong and challenge it without swaying to power nor denying reason. People worldwide are beginning to question their leaders in government and wonder if they are to blame for the mess the world finds itself in. Standing up against injustice. Ultimately the questioning of authority is not only a good thing, it is a necessary thing. It is the ever so precious backbone of freedom, that is essential to all. Cherish the right to protest . Cherish the right to be different. Cherish the right to question authority. Or as our Governments carry out policies that ae grotesquely cruel and immoral, just simply relax and keep your heads down and move along with your normal consensus lives, because after all your Government will continue to take care of you, and keep listening to the authoritarians and everything will be fine.
Today marks Holocaust Memorial Day, on the anniversary of the liberation
of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz Birkenau,the largest Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. where 1.6 million
men, women children were killed in the holocaust.
The day aims to remind people of the crimes and loss of life and encourage remembrance in a world scarred by genocide and prevent it ever being forgotten.
Alongside the six million Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, hundreds
of thousands of others were targeted by Hitler's regime - including
trade unionists, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transpeople, (LGBT) gypsies,
disabled people and the mentally ill, and others attacked for their
race or simply being different. At Belsen, Chelmno, Revensbrul to name a few more among hundreds where the inhumanity of man to man was endorseded by the Nazi regime.
The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is ‘Torn from Home’ and
encourages people to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place
to call ‘home’ is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing
persecution and genocide. ‘Home’ usually means a place of safety,
comfort and security. On Holocaust Memorial Day 2019 we will reflect on
what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out
of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or the threat
of genocide, alongside the continuing difficulties survivors face as
they try to find and build new homes when the genocide is over.
Shockingly more than 2.6 million British people think that the Holocaust is a myth a poll has found. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/holocaust-memorial-day-poll-uk-jews-murdered-nazi-germany-hope-not-hate-a8746741.html?fbclid=IwAR0IWwpY3BB_EMp9pRlMMDZzmM1GvcjQxDVAqoec7hlNbLu7jjemZkcCLuc
HMDT chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman said: "The Holocaust
threatened the fabric of civilisation and has implications for us all.
Such widespread ignorance and even denial is shocking.
"Without a basic understanding of this recent history, we are in
danger of failing to learn where a lack of respect for difference and
hostility to others can ultimately lead.
"With a rise in reported hate crime in the UK and ongoing
international conflicts with a risk of genocide, our world can feel
fragile and vulnerable. We cannot be complacent."
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust,
said: "We know that education is vital in the fight against ignorance
and hate.
"Whatever the statistics, one person questioning the truth of the
Holocaust is one too many and so it is up to us to redouble our efforts
to ensure future generations know that it did happen and become
witnesses to one of the darkest episodes in our history."
HMD is for
everyone. Each year across the UK, thousands of people come together to
learn more about the past and take action to create a safer future. We
know they learn more, empathise more and do more.Together we bear
witness for those who endured genocide, and honour the survivors and
all those whose lives were changed beyond recognition.
It is important that we do not forget, but if we look at history this
is not the only time that genocide has occurred, and history repeats.
Humanity continues to turn against itself.Yesterday for instance was Australia day or for many others Invasion
Day, when people remembered the terrible wrongs and crimes against the
aboriginal people, then there is Colombus Day on the 8th of October,
you see the list is endless.
Somehow human beings around the world are capable of so much hate, we
should work together to prevent this. Remember those who have resisted,
shown bravery and courage. We should remember them all.
Sadly we seem to forget from past pain and experience. There is still so much to lean, we should stand united against genocide wherever it occurs. We should never forget where hatred and bigotry can lead. There can never be anytime for passivity, and we must stand strong against dark forces of intolerance, bigotry and division that create them. .
Some other places and people that the world sometimes forgets.
Cambodia,
Darfur,
Siebrenica,
Karabakh,
Bosnia,
Liberia,
Sudan,
Holodonor,
Armenia, the ethnic cleansing of indigeneous Palestinians,
The Indigeneous Peoples of America,
Checknya,
Congo,
India
and the genocide of slavery
and on and on and on.
We are all human, and we should never forget, where hate and division is fostered we should
strive for equality , peace and justice for the whole of mankind.
First They Came - Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the Trade Unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade Unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left To speak out for me.
