Today marks Holocaust Memorial Day, on the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz Birkenau, where 1.6 million men, women children were killed in the holocaust.
The day aims to remind people of the crimes, racism and loss of life during this holocaust 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.
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.
There is still so much to learn, we should stand united against genocide wherever it occurs.
Some other places and people that the world sometimes forgets.
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.
Today St Dwynwen's day Welsh Patron Saint of Lovers. Dream of hope, dream of happiness the feel of protection, listen to old choruses sparks of history, people who circumnavigated with inspired attitude.
Souls - direct manifestations keep touching, turning, over and over ferociously spinning. The scanner verifies words to steal calm amidst the storms, comprehension becomes jumbled follow shootings stars, the phases of the moon.
Flashes inspire, lists become endless every man and woman a star. In world of wonder, ergot blossoms, the image has not yet cracked, unconscious rambling everyday we ressurrect. Fingerprints glowing hearts beat in synchronisation.
The land of my mothers the green, green grass of home. A saints day parade of names old relics shape us our heritage forever to be hummed. In difficult times, lose ourselves in imaginations wander waiting to be fed let ancient currents hum as day ripples with orgasmic sweet cocktails.
Write it all down sometimes we get what we need caught and taken in the breeze Temperature is rising head full of elevated thought flickers tonight will touch palms will not starve senses will tremble the firebox rekindled tomorrow smoulders with today'safterglow. In dreams and love, there are no impossibilities.
painting by A.C Hemming in 1918 held in Wellcome Collection, London
I currently live in the present and hopefully the future, but often visit the past for inspiration, especially to those before us who have gone wild with their ideas.
One individual that I have recently been fascinated by is one Dr William Price. Archdruid, healer, political activist, non-conformist, vegetarian, animist, cremator, and abundant dreamer of schemes.
Born on the 4th of March 1800 to an Anglican clergyman in the village of Rudry , Monmouthshire he became a radical in almost everything he did.
From his early days he displayed signs of an evident refusal to obey societies so called norms, often roaming naked across the mounrains close to his home. By the age of 20 he was fluent in many languages and his journey towards a life of rebellion was formed. In addition to being an incredibly forward thinking vegetarian who also oppsed practices such as vivisection and vaccination, he believed in equality between men and women, a believer in the abolition of marriage ( which he considered as enslavement of women), he was also an advocate of conservation.
At 20 he went to London where he was admiitted to the Royal Colege of Surgeons, and after gaining his accreditations returned to Potypridd in Wales where he became a General Practitioner and physician.He formed what could be considered an embryonic National Health Service, for local workers, concentrating on causes, not symptoms, charging his patients only when he failed to cure them, ( he did however not treat patients who he knew smoked ) and washed every coin he recieved. An advocate of herbal remedies, he dispensed his own potions to the sick under his care.
A photograph of Dr.Price taken in 1844.
He became an early supporter of the Chartist cause,( and was a probable member of the daughters of Rebecca) recognising their uncompromising demand for a new social order, and the concept of equal rights. Their Charter embodied many of the principles which he had been advocating for years, such as universal manhood suffrage, annual parliaments, secret ballot, egual electoral districts, salaries for members of parliament, and the abolition of property qualifications for members of parliament. These demands he considered vital and urgent, and so all his other interests were, for the time being set aside.
At a secret nocturnal conclave, lit up by flickering torches, he was appointed leader of the Pontypridd section of the movement. On July 12th, 1839, the petition for the Charter. with its one and a half million signatures, was rejected by the ruling class in Parliament by 235 votes to 46. The advocates of 'moral force' had failed, and so the advocates of 'direct action' took control of the situation.
John Frost of Newport, Taylor of Birmingham, Bussey of Yorkshire, and other leaders met in secret and decided that the only alternative was to emancipate the working class by means of an insurrection.
Towards the end of October 1839, John Frost, a draper, William Jones, a journey-man watchmaker, and Zephaniah Williams, an innkeeper, decided that the time had arrived to organise a march on Newport, They proposed to take the town by force and proceed to Cardiff, hoping that their victory would be a signal for a general uprising in the country.
Price aided the rebellion with financial support and armoury,playing a part in the planning of the Chartist rising in Newport in 1839, but on its failure he escaped to France, where he experienced a kind of spiritual epiphany. On his return to Wales in 1840 he still supported the cause and set up one of the first co-operative stores in Wales. He was known for his dislike of capitalist coal owners and the all powerful local gentry, supporting revolutionary republicanism. Whilst in France he had been inspired and been drawn to the words of the great French Anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. However he had also been drawn to the old druidical mysteries. writing his own take on the subject in his own invented Welsh, in a book called 'Gwyllis yn Nawd' translated as ' The Will of My Faith'. He tried to revive what he saw as the religion of the ancient druids and founded a Druidic group and attracted a few followers.
As a druid.Price would occassionally visit the celebrated Rocking-Stone on Pontypridd Common, where he would perform some ancient rites, and chant ;' Song of the Primitive Bard to the Moon.'
He took to wearing green trousers and fox fur hat, growing his beard and hair long. What a site to behold in conventional Victorian Britain. Raging against the world he once wrote ' there are two worlds, the world the master and the world of the slave... there can never be peace until the world of the mansion, the master and the exploiter is abolished.' He was also an advocate of the Welsh Language and the cause of nationalism.
As one steeped in Druidic lore, he was a worshipper of Nature, of the earth, the sky, the. the mountains, rivers and seas. Religion was, in his opinion, the outcome of primitive man's innate fear of the unknown, When man was still completely at the mercy of Nature's elemental powers and could not explain such natural phenonoma as change of seasons and weather storms, thunder, lightning, floods and pestilences, he ascribed them to the work of some supernatural power. Religion was primitive man;s first attempt to explain the ever-threatening and incomprehensible phenomena of nature.
Price considered the Rocking Stone at Pontypridd to be a primitive Druidic Temple, and in 1838 issued a public appeal for funds to preserve the monumental religues by the erection around them of a tower one hundred feet high, at a cost of £1,000, "Let Y Mae''n Chwyf,," he appealled, " be the banner of our heritage, around which millions, yet unborn, shall assemble to learn the language of our people."
He began having a relationship with a young woman named Ann Morgan, who in 1842 bore him a daughter. He baptised the child himself at the Rocking Stone in Pontypridd, naming her Gwenhiolan Iarlles Morganwg, ( Gwenhiolan, Countess of Glamorgan). He started holding various druidic events in the area and in 1855 led a parade through the streets of Merthyr Tydfil, accompanied by a half-naked man calling himself Myrddin ( the Welsh name for Merlin) and a goat! There was an air of performance about him.
Frequently raging against authority, he became involved in various litigations,and got into a bit of financial dissaray and off he popped to France for a while.
His story does not end here however and in 1866 he returned to Wales, (in the meantime his daughter had grown up) where he continued his work as a G.P.. In 1873 he settled in Llantrissant where he was joined by his 16 year old housekeeper- Gwenllian Llewellyn. Into his 80's he succumbed to matrimony in a druidic ceremony of his own making and they had a child that he called Iesu Crist Price ( Jesus Christ) unfortunately after 5 months the baby had died. He was devastated and believing the child was destined to restore the earth 'lost secrets of the druids' he took the body to Caerleon Field, near Llantrisant, where he decided that to bury a body was a desecration of the earth and decided to cremate it instead. He was arrested on 19th January, 1884 with illegal disposal of a body, but in court he argued that while the law did not state that cremation was legal, it did not in fact state that it was illegal. He won the case and returned to Llantrisant to a hero's welcome in order to cremate his son, involving his own Druidic prayers, that paved the way for the 1902 Cremation Act. He had fought the law and the law had lost.In 1892 he erected a pole over sixty feet high, with a crescent moon symbol at its peak on top of the hill where the cremation had taken place,
Lithograph, 19th Century.
A maverick who helped shape our world. He had two further children Iesu Crist 11 and a girl called Penelopen. He died on the 23th of January 1893, in Llantrisant and his body on 31st of January was cremated,where his son had been cremated as he had instructed on a pyre of two tons of coal overlooking Llantrisant in front of a crowd of 20,000. overseen by his family ,who were dressed in a mix of Welsh and druidic clothing. in front of a crowd of 20,000. overseen by his family ,who were dressed in a mix of Welsh and druidic clothing.
His last words were said to have been ' Bring me a glass of Champagne' ( his favourite tipple had been cider)
Along with Iolo Morganwg ( see earlier post of mine http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2009/10/iolo-morganwg-10th-march-1747-to-18th.html ) -I think he could be considered in line for the title of one our nations greatest living, his legacy, powerful and impessive.His invincible belief in himself, his open defiance of all orthodox ethics and usages, and his unconcealed conceit of the world, served to secure for him. an indefinable place in hearts of many of his countrymen.There is a statue and an exhibition dedicated to him in Llantrisant.
Measured in distant history, there is fire, as restless voices still rise. Eccentric or visionary, you decide. He was no ordinary man. A life of adventure and revolutionary abundance. Long may we remember him.
Dr William Price's Cremation.
Further Reading:-
A welsh heretic - Islwyn Ap Nicholas , Ffynon Press , (1973)
Dr William Price: Saint or Sinner - Cyril Briegirdle (1997) Gwasg Garrig Gwalch.
After days of international pressure online and offline.against internet censorship legislation, the US congress has announced they are postponing votes. This is what happens when people join together. Millions and millions of people united to a common cause.
But make no mistake , this fight is far from over, this is not the end.... to be continued.....
their are still those in murky corridors who want to take away our free speech....
Stand up against these devastating bills that are due to be voted on by the Senate on the 24th of January.
If any of these bills are passed it would essentially shut down websites like youtube and as a consequence probably me and many other blogs. It would even have the powers to block google and facebook.
Sign this petition and help the fight http://www.mspaintadventures.com/blackout.html
A lot of things get taken for granted, the internet is one of them, we think we are free and can do what we want, but in reality we are very limited and restricted. The United States at this moment in time wants to hinder this even more by censoring the internet, despite wordwide protest. Many others out there are completely unaware that what they take for granted is under attack. What they want to do is basically destroy free speech, by search engine censorship, website censorship. The U.S Justice Department in their attempt to block websites that distribute links to/or hold pirated files.Credit card companies and payment gateways like Paypal could be asked to block payments and companies could be blacklisted by the U.S Justice Department if they attempt to place adds on these sites.
In solidarity websites like Wikipedia and Reddit went dark on Wednesday to protest against this proposed legislation.
Their plans will affect anyone who desires the freedom to browse anonymously, speak freely without fear of retribution, or protest without fear or arrest. SOPA will legitimise censorship in Americas continual quest for domination. If passed the U.S would be able to brand any website as illegal and cut of all support to it. This strikes me as something that dictators and repressive regimes would do. Draconian and not something I would have expected from a Western democracy, but that's what they disguise themselves as I guess.If people dared to openly critisice the U.S Government, well we would not be able to do it online anymore.
Over 9 million people have already signed petitions online and the American Government has made statements appearing to back down. but this fight is NOT over, and we must continue piling on the pressure, and keep telling Obama and his Congress to keep their filthy hands of our free speech and keep it's grubby hands off the Internet.
" Well, we have to imitate China and Syria. for our safety... to catch criminals...uhm... well... its like this see, ... when the States do it, it is OK, right? But when other countries who we do not like do it, then that is bad... yeah, that's the ticket!"
Here are Bradleys words as used in chat logs. Lamo's bits have been cut out, so we have Bradley talking to himself so to speak, talking things through.... it becomes a prose poem of much depth. thanks to all at http://wiseupforbradleymanning.wordpress.com/ and those who are keeping his torch alive.
"one of the more significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of asymmetrical warfare."
EXCERPTS FROM CHAT LOGS
hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks for a long time... say 8-9 months... and you saw incredible things, awful things... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC... what would you do?
or Guantanamo, Bagram, Bucca, Taji, VBC for that matter
things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people
say... a database of half a million events during the iraq war... from 2004 to 2009... with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures... ? or 260,000 state department cables fromembassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?
Hilary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack, when they wake up one morning, and finds an ntire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public...
uhm... crazy, almost criminal political backdealings... the non-PR versions of world events and crises... uhm... all kinds of stuff like everything from the buildup to the Iraq War during Powell, to what theactual content of "aid packages" is: for instance, PR that the US issendind aid to Pakistan includes funding for water/food/clothing... that much is true, it includes that, but the other 85% of it isfor F-16 fighters and munitions to aid in the Afhanistan effort, so the US can call in Pakistanis to do aerial bombing instead of americans potentially killing civilians and creating a PR crisis
theres so mush... it affects everybody on earth... everywhere there's a US post... there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed... Iceland, the Vatican, Spain, Brazil, Madagasgar, if its a country, and its recognised by the US as a countyr, its got dirt on it
it's open diplomacy... world-wide anarchy in CSV format... its Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth... its beautiful, and horrifying...
and... its important that it gets out... i feel' for some bizarre reason.
it might actually change something
i dont believe in good guys verses bad guys anymore... i only a plethora ofstates acting in self interest... with varying ethics and moral standards of course, but self-interest nonetheless
i mean, we're better in some rspects... we're much more subtle... use a lot more words and legal techniques to legitimise everything
its better than dissapearing in the middle of the night
but just because something is more subtle, doesn't make it right
i guess i'm too idealistic
i think the thing that got me most... that made me rethink the world more than anything was watching 15 detainess taken by the Iraqi Federal Police... for printing "anti-Iraqi literature" the Iraqi Federal Police would not cooperate with US forces, so i was instructed to investigate te matter, find out who the "bad guys" were, and how significant this was for the FPs... it turned out, they had printed a scholarly critique against PM Maliki... i had an interpreter read it for me... and when i found out that it was a benign critical critique titled "Where did the money go?" and following the corruption trial within the PM's cabinet.. i immediately took the information and ran to the officer to explain what was going on... he didn't want to hear any of it... he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the FPs in finding MORE detainees....
verything started slipping after that... i saw things differently
i had alays questioned the things worked, and investigated to find the truth... but that was a point where i was a part of something. i was actively involved in something that i was completely against.
but i was part of it...
and completely helpless...
event occurs in 2007,
i watch video in 2009,
with no context,
do research,
forward indfomation to group of FOI activists,
more research occurs, video is released in 2010, those involved come forward to discuss publically, even add them as friends on FB. without them knowing who i am.
they touch my life, i touch their life, they touch my life again.. full circle
i just couldn't let these things stay inside ofthe system...and inside of my head
i recognised the value ofsome things.
knew what they meant..dug deeper
i watched that video cold, for instance
at first glance it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by helicopter... no big deal... about 2 dozen more where that came from right. but something struck me as odd with the van thing... and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officers's directory... so i looked inyo it, eventually tracked down the date, and then the exact GPS co-ord.. and it was like ok, so thats what happened.. cool... then i went to the regular internet.. and it was still on my mind... so i typed into google, the date and the location.
( this is NEW YORK TIMES REPORT OF INCIDENT as it DIDN't happen.
i kept this in my mind for weeks. probably a month and a half... before i forwarded it to them
it was unreal.. i mean, i've identified bodies before.. it's rare to do so, but usually it's just nobody
it humanized the whole thing... re-sensitized me
i dont know... im just, wierd i guess
i can't seperate myself from others
i feel connected to everybody.. . like they were distant family
i care?
i probably shouldn't have read sagan, feynman, and so many intellectual authors last summer...
(sigh)
we're human... and we're killing ourselves... and no-one seems to see that....
and it bothers me
apathy
apathy is far worse than the active participation
i prefer a painful truth over any blissful fantasy.
i think i've been traumatised too usch by reality, to care about consequences of shattering the fantasy
i'm not brave, im weak
like i've said before... im not so much scared of getting caughtt and facing the consequences at this point... as i am of being misunderstood, and never having the chance to live the life i wanted to...
well, it was forwarded to WL and god knows what happens now, hopefully worlwide discussion, debates and reforms... if not.. then we're doomed...as a species
i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens
the raction of the video gave me immense hope. CNN's iReport was overwhelmed... Twitter EXPLODED
people who saw, knew there was something wrong
i want people to see the truth
regardless ofwho they are
because without infomation
you cannot make onformed decisions as a public
if i knew then, what i knew now.... kind of thing...
or maybe im just young, naive and stupid
im hoping for the former
it cant be the latter
because if it is
... we're FUCKING SCREWED
well,
IT SHOULD BE BETTER
its sad
i mean what if i were someone more malicious
i could've sold to russia or china, and made bank
Why didn't you
Lamo asks.
because it's publc data, Bradley replied
i mean, the cables Lamo asks
it belongs in the public domain
infomation should be free
it belongs in the public domain
because another state would just take advantage
of the infomation.... try and get some edge
if its out in the open...
it should be a public good...
i'm just me
im crazy like that.
END OF EXTRACTS
Jack Omer - Song for Brasley Manning
The truth is out there another world is possiblee Bradley is a brave man, time to set him free.
Yesterday was the anniversary of Rosa Luxemberg being shot and murdered When her body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin. She has continued to inspire, a rousing figurehead to many.
Born in Russian controlled Poland, she was a Marxist theorist, philosopher and economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a nanturalised German citizen. She became a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDK Pil), and then the Social Democrat Party of Germany (SPD), and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and the Communist Party of ermany (KPD).
In 1915 after the SPD supported German involvement in Word War I, she and Karl Liebnecht co-founded the anti war Spartacist League which became the Communist Party of Germany.
The Spartakists attempted an uprising , and subsequently she and Liebnecht were singled out by the authorities and she and other supporters were captured and murdered.
Her faith was a socialist idea that combined the powerful passion of both mind and heart. She devoted herself to the cause of revolution,and its preparation. She lived and breathed its fire, with selflessness and devotion, in every waking moment she dedicated herself to its cause. Standing bravely up for freedom with a strong powerful intellect. An individualist, she formulated her own ideas, using her own words to energise and radicalise the people and bring about a socialist revolution. She argued that " The mass strike is the first natural, impulsive form of every great revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and the more highly developed the antagonism is between capital and labour, the more effective and decisive must mass strikes become. The chief form of bourgeois revolutions, the fight at the barricades, the open conflict with the armed poor of the state, is in the revolution today only the culminating point, only a moment on the process of the proletarian mass struggle."
She followed no leader, was no ones puppet and when she criticised Lenin, it was in relation to dictatorial aspects. She said " Terror has not crushed us. How can you put your trust in terror."
She quoted Leon Trotsky saying
"As Marxists we have never been idol worshippers of formal democracy." She went on
"All that really means is: We have always distinquished the social kernal of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden under the seet shell of formal equality and freedom - not in order to reject the latter but to spur the working class into being satisfied with the shell, but rather, by conquering political poer, to create a socialist democracy to replace bourgeois democracy - not to elininate democracy altogether....... but socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy are created, it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of poer by the Socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorshiip consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class - that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses, it must be under their direct influence, subjeected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the political training of the mass of the people."
Possibly her believe in democracy is what failed her philosophically, nevertheless the questions she posed still worth looking at today. She also wrote " the revolution is the sole form of war, and this is also its most vital law - in which the final victory can be prepared only by a sense of defeat.".
She had determination by the buckets and a steely willful commitment. A combatant who strove for peace, who did not hesitate in her beliefs, to speak and proclaim with her own independent reason her own opinion. For that alone I respect her. Her idellible mark has been left on the world, who combined ideals with action, so or long may Red Rosa be remembered.
Red Rosa
Epitaph by Bertolt Brecht is a short poem written by Bertolt Brecht in honour of Rosa Luxemburg.
Rosa Luxemburg: A reapraisal - Lelio Besco
Andre Deutsch, 1975.
Rosa Luxemburg: A life
- Elizvieta Ettinga , Beacon Press 1987.
"either capitalism will continue, with fresh wars and a rapid plunge intp chaos and anarchy, or else capitalist exploitation will be abolished." Rosa Luxemburg 14/12/18 Rote Fahne
"Revolutionary idealism .... can be maintained over any period of time only through the intensely active life of the masses themselves under conditions of unlimited freedom." Rosa Luxemburg
Surrealism is the business of poets who cannot benefit by surrealism. It
was the first appearance of the Logos that said, " The public be damned,"
by which he did not mean that they did not matter or he wanted to be
crucified by them, but that really he did not have a word to say to them.
This was surrealism
But even the business of ignoring the public is the business of the poet
and not the surrealism of the poet. The surrealism of the poet could not
write words.
To be lost in a crowd. Of images, of metaphors (whatever they were),
or words; this is a better surrender. Of the port who is lost in the crowd of
them. Finally.
16
it does not have to fit together. Like the pieces of a totally unfinished
jigsaw puzle my grandmother left in the bedroon when she died in the
living room. The pieces of the poetry or of this love.
Surrealism is a poem morethan this. The intention that things do not
fit together. As if my grandmother had chewed on her jigsaw puzzle
before she died.
Not as a gesture of contempt for the scattered nature of reality. Not
because the pieces would fit in time. But because this would be the
only way to cause an alliance between the dead and the living. To magic
the whole thing toward what they called God.
To mess around. To totally destroy the pieces. To build around them.
Rimbaud
They said he was nineteen; he had been kissed
So many times his face was frozen closed.
His eyes would watch the lovers walking past
His lips would sing and nothing else would move.
We grownups at the bar would watch him sing.
Christ, it was funny with that childish grace
He sang our blues forus; his frozen lips
Would lift and sing our blues out song for song.
Intemperance of heart and of the mind
Will block their progress to the last abyss
Unwinkingly; they listen to the wind
And find ceiling in the throat.
image by
R.H Quaytiman.
The collected |Books of Jack Spicer: Ed.Robin Blaser.Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1975
