Another Royal wedding announced, lets not get too distracted :Welfare not fanfare

The nation woke up yesterday to the news that Prince Harry and the American actress Megan Markhle were engaged after a whirlwind romance. It is always  nice to hear of couples falling in love, but before we get carried away, lets not forget that the last Royal Wedding cost the taxpayer a whopping £20-39 million for security alone. This one i'm sure is going to be a truly extravagent opulent affair too  at at time when millions of peoples benefits are being frozen for another year,being pushed into poverty, cannot afford to eat and are forced to resort to using food banks in order to survive.
We are supposed to be living  in an age of austerity where the poorest among us have to make sacrifice after sacrifice,  yet Prince Harry and his relations  are still able live out their lives in royal palaces, surrounded by servants and all their vestiges of privilege.
Somehow in the 21st Century they are still celebrated as being somehow more superior than mere commoners, who  living through hard times have to struggle every day simply to make ends meet, and somehow express gratitude to the royals for lording it over them.
Harry's dad Charles, it has been reported is likely to pick up most of the bill for what is said to be a Spring 2018 wedding and reception, even if custom dictates otherwise, but where does he get his money from, mostly from the Duchy and Cornwall estate, where he does not have to pay corporation tax or capital gains tax, and  effectively this  royal tax dodger gets the rest of his money from the British taxpayer, so not really going to cost him a penny. 
Who knows it all might actually lead  to a shift in direction, good old harry boy might choose to give up his Royal privileges and entitlements and choose to live with his future wife as an ordinary person, now  if that happened, I would actually applaud and truly consider that to be a noble thing. In the meantime however please forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm for the royal wedding that has just been announced, I am not a complete killjoy, I hope even as a committed republican that their love lasts , and they  have a nice time together, but I simply don't think their  wedding should come to the cost of ordinary people across the land, while many are facing such hardship. The news  I would prefer to see is  how the Tories are going to address inequality and anger over austerity after seven years of austerity and cuts instead.
I really do believe that we  should all be paying more attention  to things like the diastrous roll out of universal credit, the poverty that is facing many at the present time, instead of focussing on what seems to me, call me a cynic, to be a classic distraction excercise, when the hardest hit are paying the price for the excesses of a few. So I say instead  welfare not fanfare and Tories out for Christmas, now that is something I truly would celebrate.
At end of day the British monarchy, despite its great wealth, and long traditions based on elitism, has little  real power now, there is a rise in people who have simply had enough, and want to seek to transform society for the better, and would actually like to see the end of the monarchy, this tired old institution once for all. Here is a link to  Republic, the anti-monarchy campaign group for an elected head of state, who at least had the tenacity to issue a one worded statement : "Congratulations."

https://www.republic.org.uk/

Travelling light

I trust never knowing
But  Love keeps floating,
Besides dreams ever flowing
Tideless waves of time growing,
Sparks of reality,that rekindle fire
Releasing the thirst of desire,
Not empty figments of imagination
Mind staying free, still burning bright,
Finding courage not despair
No good will be found there;
Clinging on am  still afloat
Travelling light, gaze remains fixed,
Carried by powerful forces
Flowing onwards, gaining momentum,
While nature awakens, freedom echoes
Waiting only for a new tomorrow.

I never spoke up

We must keep speaking out for all those currently under attack, we know that  disabled people face prejudice and hatred on a daily basis. In a recent survey, 4% of disabled people said they had been physically attacked and 16% of disabled people had had people act aggressively or in a hostile way towards them. We also know that hardly anyone ever reports such crimes to the police.
Meanwhile our Government  which we should all be ashamed off  are carrying on with policies and cuts that are taking away support to those that need it most . Insane immoral policies  that are pushing many to the brink, as the Government plunges to new depths. Lets not forget that over 10,000 sick and disabled people have already died as a direct result of the Governments welfare reforms. The tories will not  stop they are simply out of control, the suffering they continue to cause is immeasurable,  after the disabled and the unemployed  now they are coming for the doctors,the nurses, firefighters, domestic abuse workers,rape crisis centres, childrens centres etc etc
This is how it works they will take away peoples support, break peoples will for resistance, leave people broken without the means to fight back. So together we must stop them in their tracks.If we never speak out against  their cruelty and injustice , then we are all just as bad.

Animals have no emotions or feelings according to British Government!

                   
                                        Photo by wildlife photographer Richard Bowler    
   
Animals apparently have no feelings or emotions according to  Michael Gove and 312 Members of Parliament , who voted in favour of  rejecting a clause this week that would have enshrined into UK law the recognition that animals are sentient, an admission currently covered by EU law.

Green MP Caroline Lucas submitted the clause as part of the EU withdrawal bill. Some 80% of animal welfare legislation currently comes from the EU but after March 2019 European law will no longer apply in the UK.

The move has been criticised by animal rights activists, who say the vote undermines environment secretary Michael Gove’s pledge to prioritise animal rights during Brexit. One of the arguments put forward by the Government during the debate was that animal sentience is covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006.The RSPCA, however, said this is not the case; the term sentience or sentient being doesn’t appear once in that Act, and, the animal welfare charity said, doesn’t cover all animals.
The majority of animal welfare legislation comes from the EU. The UK Government is tasked with adopting EU laws directly after March 2019 but has now dismissed animal sentience.
Prominent wildlife photographer Richard Bowler  also disagrees, and in  a Facebook post, which has already been shared hundreds of times, Bowler says: “MP’s have voted and in their wisdom, animals can no longer feel pain or emotions.
“It really beggars belief that in this day and age, this shower of a government no longer recognises animals as sentient beings. None of them could have had a pet dog, greet them when they come home.“But it’s not just domestic animals that show love and affection.”
Bowler posted the above photo of a fox in a heartfelt plea to his Facebook audience:
"So MP's have voted and in their wisdom, animals can no longer feel pain or emotions. It really beggars belief that in this day and age, this shower of a government no longer recognises animals as sentient beings. None of them could have had a pet dog, greet them when they come home. But it's not just domestic animals that show love and affection. The photograph shows Rosie and how she greets me, every time I visit her. Are you telling me there's no emotion there, what you can...'t see is the wagging tail and the squeals of excitement as well. All three foxes I care for have built a bond with Maddy our terrier, she is greeted in exactly the same way. It's not hard to imagine that if bonds like this can be formed inter species, that the same bonds can be formed between a dog fox and a vixen and their cubs. In fact so called pest controllers use this to their advantage, after shooting the vixen they will often wait, knowing the dog fox will show up, to mourn if you like. Anyone who's seen elephant documentaries when families visit the bones of their dead can not fail to see that there are emotions going on there. Science is showing more and more animal intelligence and emotions and yet our government has yet again ignored it. There can only be one reason to deny animal sentient status, and that is to exploit them.Here's a link to an article about it
https://www.farminguk.com/…/MPs-vote-to-reject-inclusion-of… 
He continued:
“The photograph shows Rosie and how she greets me, every time I visit her. Are you telling me there’s no emotion there, what you can’t see is the wagging tale and the squeals of excitement as well.
“All three foxes I care for have built a bond with Maddy our terrier, she is greeted in exactly the same way. It’s not hard to imagine that if bonds like this can be formed inter species, that the same bonds can be formed between a dog fox and a vixen and their cubs.
“In fact so called pest controllers use this to their advantage, after shooting the vixen they will often wait, knowing the dog fox will show up, to mourn if you like. Anyone who’s seen elephant documentaries when families visit the bones of their dead can not fail to see that there are emotions going on there.
“Science is showing more and more animal intelligence and emotions and yet our government has yet again ignored it. There can only be one reason to deny animal sentient status, and that is to exploit them.”
Thousands have since signed a petition on campaigning website 38 degrees urging the Tories to reverse this decision.

It states: “Animals have long held the status of being sentient beings in the UK, through legislation created in the EU.
“This means they are recognised as being capable of feeling emotions such as joy and compassion, but also fear, suffering and terror.
“The vote in parliament, narrowly won by the government, removes this status from all animals in the UK, and is a massive blow for the welfare of wildlife, pets and livestock alike.”
One signatory said: “Anyone who has had a pet or worked with livestock clearly understand that these animals are sentient and deserve the best standards of welfare.”
Another commented: “It is inconceivable to deny animals recognition of their completely obvious sentience. This must be repealed.”
However it does not really come as to much a surprise though, because  it is a well known fact that  the Tories themselves that have proven time and time again to be devoid of any compassion to humans let alone animals. But serves to remind us  of how short sighted and heartless they all bloody are.
These by the way are MPs who voted down legislation on animals feeilning pain and emotion as part of Brexit Bill . https://www.indy100.com/article/animal-rights-vote-mps-list-eu-brexit-voted-animals-not-feel-no-emotions-313-conservative-party-tory-8068691

If you've bought any of these 11 things, you've helped fund the Tories

Here are eleven  well-known brands and products where shareholders of the company - or the company itself - has donated to the Tories, the party of the few, the rich and the privileged in this country.
They aren't the biggest donors by any means , fat cat donors, bankers , business tycoons are also pumping loads of cash into the Tory Party war chest. As the tories continue to court wealthy donors and businesses meanwhile ordinary people everyday are finding life increasingly more difficult to manage, facing challenging times.. Buying the following 11 things means you have sent money to the Conservatives. If you don't support the Tories and have inadvertantly bought any of the following, please reconsider your habits, stop helping the Tories out, their certainly not helping us out.

1. Melton Mowbray Pork Pies and Ginster Pies

The popular pies are owned by Samworth Brothers Ltd.
Director Mark Samworth has donated £585,000 to the Tories since 2010. Additionally, Samworth Brothers Ltd, the company itself, donated £32,000 to the party in 2002 and 2003.
Life President of the company, David Samworth, has donated just over £26,000.
In total, Samworth and those involved in the company have donated nearly £650,000 to the Tories.
Think about that next time you sit down alone and microwave yourself a depressingly limp cornish pasty.

2. Next clothing and accessories

Next CEO lord Wolfson has donated more than £400,000 to the tories since 2006. He was made a Conservative party peer by David Cameron in 2010.
Next made record £695m profits last year and is facing a trade union campaign by the GMB trade union to pay a living wage to staff.

3. Autotrader magazine

Autotrader is owned by Apax the private equity firm run by Tory Donor Adrian Beercroft, after it was bought from the owners of the Guardian newspaper through a controversial offshore deal in the Cayman Islands.
Beecroft, who has donated £593,000 to the Tories, wrote a notorious report for Downing Street recommending that a string of workers rights be scrapped so bosses can sack workers at will.

4. The Wombles

Mike Batt wrote six Wombles albums between 1973 and 1978. Batt has donated £112,500 to the Tories since 2001. If you've bought any Womble music (who hasn't) or listened to "Remember You're a Womble" in order to remind yourself that you're a Womble, you have inadvertently given money to the tories.

5. Woking football club

Owned by Surrey businessman Chris Ingram. He's donated nearly £175,000 to the tories since 2008. So if you support Woking you also support the Tories

6. Warbutons

This well-known bakery gave the Tories a £25,000 donation in the run up to the 2010 election, after David Cameron held a press conference at the firm's Bolton HQ and was pictured in front of a wall of Warburtons loaves.

7.Crombie coats

Owned by former Tory vice-chairman Alan Lewis, who has donated £246,000 to the Conservative Party. Part of Crombie's parent company Hartley Investment Trust is owned offshore on the Isle of Man. Most people I see wearing a Crombie I avoid anyway because I have suspicions their probably Tories.

8. Soreen Meat Loaf

Soreen is also owned by Samworth Brothers who donated £650,000 to the Conservatives. The search continues for a non-politically aligned malt-loaf.

9. Lycamobile

lycamobile is a virtual phone network set up in 2006. They sell international Sim cards to consumers who want to make international phone calls /

The company donated a massive £827,562 to the Tory party between 2011 and December 2015..

10. Bet Fair

Bet Fair founder and shareholder Edward Wray has donated just under £210,000 to the tories since 2010. If you've ever gambled using Betfair and lost, your loss has been the Tories gain.

11.Karl Liegerfield clothes

If you've ever bought any Karl Lagerfeld clothes  you have inadvertently donated to the Tories. The label is also owned by Apax, who have donated £593,000 to the Tories.Not the 81 year old fashion designer, but the fashion label itself.

---

This data was found by the Mirror, who drew their data from the Electoral Commission and Searchthemoney

Voltaraine de Cleyre (17/11/ 1866 - 20/6/1912) - Poet of Freedom

Voltaraine de Cleyre  was an American  anarchist-feminist , atheist, poet and free thinker who  was born on 17 November 1866 in Leslie, Michigan, a small town south of Lansing. Her parents, who were impoverished tailors, 

They left Leslie when Voltairine was about one year old, following the accidental drowning death of another daughter, Marion, at the age of five. The family moved to St. Johns, Michigan, a town on the north side of Lansing .Despite the objections of Voltairine's mother, her father, an atheist and admirer of Voltaire, created her distinctive given name to commemorate his own beliefs. 
She was placed as a teenager into a Catholic convent in Sarnia, Ontario by her father, because he thought it would give her a better education. Of her time in the convent, she said, "it had been like the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and there are white scars on my soul, where ignorance and superstition burnt me with their hell fire in those stifling days" 

She attempted to run away by swimming to Port Huron, Michigan, and hiking 17 miles but was returned by her father after being found by family friends. This in combination with family ties to the Abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad, as well as her namesake (the philosopher Voltaire), contributed to the radical rhetoric she developed.
She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the State, marriage, and the domination of the Church in sexuality and women's lives. de Cleyre at first subscribed to the individualist school of anarchism, but later called herself only an Anarchist, shunning doctrinal fractiousness. She was a colleague of Emma Goldman's. Goldman called her " the most gifted and brilliant woman anarchist America has ever produced," She differentiated herself from Emma Goldman, however stating, "Miss Goldman is a communist; I am an individualist. She wishes to destroy the right of property, I wish to assert it. I make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated. She believes that co-operation would entirely supplant competition; I hold that competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should."
During her time in the freethought movement in the mid and late 1880s, de Cleyre was especially influenced by Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Clarence Darrow. Other influences were Henry David Thoreau, Big Bill Haywood, and Eugene Debs. After the execution of four innocent anarchists in 1887 for the Haymarket bombing was the turning point of Voltairine's life and  she became an anarchist. "Till then I believed in the essential justice of the American law of trial by jury," she wrote in an autobiographical essay, "After that I never could".
In 1888, she threw herself into the anarchist movement, dedicating herself passionately and unceasingly to the cause of liberty for the rest of her life. She was known as an excellent speaker and writer , in the opinion of biographer Paul Avrich, she was "a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist" who was “A brief comet in the anarchist firmament, blazing out quickly and soon forgotten by all but a small circle of comrades whose love and devotion persisted long after her death.” But “her memory,” continues Avrich, “possesses the glow of legend.” and as a tireless advocate for the anarchist cause, whose "religious zeal," according to Goldman, "stamped everything she did."
Voltairine wrote and lectured on such subjects as "Sex Slavery", "Love in Freedom", "Those Who Marry Do Ill", and "The Case of Women vs. Orthodoxy". 

As well as advocating for workers' control of production, she attacked female beauty ideals, gender roles for children and marriage laws which allowed men to rape their wives ,  while she advocated for economic independence for women, birth control, sex education, and the right of women to maintain autonomy in relationships , including maintaining a room of one's own so as to keep one's independence. All this is something that she did throughout her life, despite poverty. Anarchist women like de Cleyre and Emma Goldman challenged patriarchal power in society and in the anarchist movement.
She was also a prolific writer of poetry of much depth.Throughout her life though she was plagued by illness and depression, attempting suicide on at least two occasions and surviving an assassination attempt on December 19, 1902. Her assailant, Herman Helcher, was a former pupil who had earlier been rendered insane by a fever, and whom she immediately forgave. She wrote, "It would be an outrage against civilization if he were sent to jail for an act which was the product of a diseased brain". The attack left her with chronic ear pain and a throat infection that often adversely affected her ability to speak or concentrate but still managed to get  back on the lecture circuit 3 months later.
Voltairine de Cleyre died prematurely at the age of 45 on June 20, 1912, at St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago, Illinois from septic meningitis. remaining as she had lived: “a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.". She was buried near Emma Goldman, the Haymarket defendants, and other social activists at the Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery), in Forest Park, a suburb west of Chicago. around 2,000 people attended her funeral.

Despite being one of the most gifted and versatile writers in the American anarchist movement, Voltairine de Cleyre sadly is little known today,. 

This is partly due to the difficulty of accessing primary source materials (as documentation is divided among archives in various libraries on two continents), but also to her radical positions, which went side by side with what has been defined as a “sectarian temperament” and an uncompromising, almost “fanatical code of behavior” (Avrich, 1978 11, 90). 

The discrimination against women still prevailing even within the nineteenth-century anarchist movement, regardless of their contribution to the debate on the so called “Woman question,” may have been another factor.

Finally, the branding of anarchism as un-American and embedded in violence has made de Cleyre’s work and literary talent hard to appreciate. Her writing moves across languages and genres with rare agility, making it arduous for scholars from either side of the Atlantic to keep track of her endeavors.

However Voltairine de Cleyre remains an important figure in  history whose ideas are of interest today, particularly as we still suffer from the patriarchy, capitalism and statism she opposed. Her freethought poetry and  her passionate, uncompromising essays are still timely, and provocative to this day.

The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader

http://libcom.org/library/voltairine-de-cleyre-reader

Why I am an Anarchist - Voltaraine de Clere

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voltairine-de-cleyre-why-i-am-an-anarchist?fbclid=IwAR1CBgswbqLYhYwe3EbCNYdeuR-cypnj-HMS0CtTgbf1FOW9i0OSHEVoWf0

Love's Ghost  - Voltaraine de Cleyre

Among the leaves and the rolls of moonlight,
The moon, which weaves lace on the road-white
Among the winds, and among the flowers,
Our blithe feet wander --life is ours!

Life is ours, and life is loving;
All our powers are locked in loving;
Hearts, and eyeys, and lips are moving
With the ecstasy of loving.

Ah! the roses! they are blooming;
And the June air, throbbing, tuning,
Sings of Love's eternal summer--
Chants of Joy, life's only Comer;
And we clsp our hands together,
Singing in the war, sweet weather;
Kissing, thrilling with caressing,
All the sweet from Love's rose pressing.

Ah, so easy!--Earth is Heaven,--
Darkness, shadows, do not live;
Like the rose our hearts are given,
Like the rose whos blom is given,
To the sun-gold, and the heaven.
Not because it wills or wishes,
But because 'tis life to give.                         

I am - Voltaraine de Cleyre

I am! The ages on the ages roll:
And what I am, I was, and I shall be:
by slow growth filling higher Destiny,
And Widening, ever, to the widening Goal.
I am the Stone that slept; down deep in me
That old, old sleep has left its centurine trace;
I am the plant that dreamed; and lo! still see
That dream-life dwelling on the Human Face.
I slept, I dreamed, I wakened: I am Man!
The hut grows Palaces; the depths breed light;
Still on! Forms pass; but Form yields kinglier
Might!
The singer, dying where his song began,
In Me yet lives; and yet again shall he
Unseal the lips of greater songs To Be;
For mine the thousand tongues of Immortality.

The Toast to Despair - Voltaraine de Cleyre

We have cried, – and the Gods are silent;

We have trusted, – and been betrayed;

We have loved, – and the fruit was ashes;

We have given, – the gift was weighed.

We know that the heavens are empty,

That friendship and love are names;

That truth is an ashen cinder,

The end of life’s burnt-out flames.

Vainly and long we have waited,

Through the night of the human roar,

For a single song on the harp of Hope,

Or a ray from a day-lit shore.

Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet,

And bow-dyed flashes gleam;

But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet

Run after a marsh-light beam.

In the hour of our need the song departs,

And the sea-moans of sorrow swell;

The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh

That is drowned in teh deep death-knell.

The light we chased with our stumbling feet

As the goal of happier years,

Swings high and low and vanishes, –

The bow-dyes were of our tears.

God is a lie, and Faith is a lie,

And a tenfold lie is Love;

Life is a problem without a why,

And never a thing to prove.

It adds, and subtracts, and multiplies,

And divides without aim or end;

Its answers all false, though false-named true, –

Wife, husband, lover, friend.

We know it now, and we care no more;

What matters life or death?

We tiny insects emerge from earth,

Suffer, and yield our breath.

Like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill,

Dreaming of ‘mighty things’, –

Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean’s wrath,

In the rush of Time’s awful wings.

The sun smiles gold, and the plants white,

And a billion stars smile, still;

Yet fierce as we, each wheels toward death,

And cannot stay his will.

The build, ye fools, your might things,

That Time shall set at naught;

Grow warm with the song the sweet Lie sings,

And the false bow your tears have wrought.

For us, a truce to Gods, loves, and hopes,

And a pledge to fire and wave;

A swifter whirl to the dance of death,

And a loud huzza for the Grave!

Written-In-Red (to Our Living Dead In Mexico's Struggle )  -  Voltaraine de Cleyre    

Written in red their protest stands,
For the gods of the World to see;
On the dooming wall their bodiless hands
have blazoned 'Upharsin,' and flaring brands
Illumine the message: 'Seize the lands!
Open the prisons and make men free!'
Flame out the living words of the dead
Written--in--red.

Gods of the World! Their mouths are dumb!
Your guns have spoken and they are dust.
But the shrouded Living, whose hearts were numb,
have felt the beat of a wakening drum
Within them sounding-the Dead men's tongue--
Calling: 'Smite off the ancient rust!'
Have beheld 'Resurrexit,' the word of the Dead,
Written--in--red.

Bear it aloft, O roaring, flame!
Skyward aloft, where all may see.
Slaves of the World! Our caose is the same;
One is the immemorial shame;
One is the struggle, and in One name--
Manhood--we battle to set men free.
'Uncurse us the Land!' burn the words of the
Dead,
Written--in--red. 

Life or Death -  Voltaraine de Cleyre

 A Soul, half through the Gate, said unto Life:
'What dos thou offer me?' And Life replied:
'Sorrow, unceasing struggle, disappointment;
after these
Darkness and silence.' The Soul said unto Death:
'What dos thou offer me?' And Death replied:
'In the beginning what Life gives at last.'
Turning to Life: 'And if I live and struggle?'
'Others shall live and struggle after thee
Counting it easier where thou hast passed.'
'And by their struggles?' 'Easier place shall be
For others, still to rise to keener pain
Of conquering Agony!' 'and what have I
To do with all these others? Who are they?'
'Yourself!' 'And all who went before?' 'Yourself.'
'The darkness and the silence, too, have end?'
'They end in light and sound; peace ends in pain,
Death ends in Me, and thou must glide from
Self
To Self, as light to shade and shade to light again.
Choose!' The Soul, sighing, answered: 'I will live.'                                              

DWP hang your heads in shame

For those unable to read images, it says:

‘I’m a doctor. This is a real conversation I had with the Job Centre:

“Hi, I don’t think Miss X is well enough to come to your appointment…”

“It’s a term of her benefits that she has to come.”

“I know, but I don’t think she’s well enough. Can you rearrange it?”

“So she came to your appointment?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then she can come to ours.”

“But she’s not well and I’m her doctor.”

“And she wants benefits and so she has to come here.”

“So you’re saying that she has to either jeopardise her health by coming to your meeting, or not receive any money.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty you’re speaking to the wrong person.”‘

Just to add perspective to this dialogue, it might be useful to remember that a woman was afraid to leave a DWP meeting while she was having a heart attack because she thought she would be sanctioned off-benefit.

This sad state of affairs currently happening in a supposed civilised country, and completely legal too, we need a change in government as soon as possible to put and end this shameful policy. It is simply outrageous that some people are actually punished simply for being ill.

Image Black triangle campign

Lest we forget

repost from last year

Millions of Britons will observe  two minutes of silence this weekend as the nation marks Armistice  Day and Rememberance Sunday and pay respect to those killed in war.
The Peace Pledge Union  though wants to promote the idea that there are better ways to resolve conflict than through war and violence. They also want to curb the attitude towards commemoration of war, which painrs the picture that war is noble and worth celebrating. They promote the idea of wearing a white poppy around the same time you would wear the red poppy, for Armistice Day and Rememberance Sundayaround November 11 each year with a committment to peace and a refusal to celebrate or glamourise war itself:
http://www.ppu.org.uk/.
Remembrance Day was originally intended to remind us of the futility of war. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month which marked the time the Armistice was signed at the end of WWI, or, as it was known at the time, The Great War, the war to end all wars. Such was  the scale of death and suffering between 1914-18 it was believed to be inconceivable that nations would again engage in such wasteful and destructive confrontation. In fact, The Great War instead turned out to be  the opening chapter of the most destructive and murderous century in the history of the human race. War became mechanized, industrial, and all consuming. No longer did armies simply face each other across a battlefield in ordered rows to slog it out until one side was victorious, entire cities and nations would be left in ruins and generation after generation of young men would be wiped out of existence. 
 Let is all remember what we do not seem to learn, that it is Politicians that send men and women to die, to go to war, so  that they can try and win unwinnable battles for them. We should remember never to be intimidated by the media which sees the wearing of a red poppy as a definition of loyalty. Let us acknowledge all those people looking for alternative ways of marking and remembering the  dead, working for peace, day by day.
Let us remind ourselves how the wearing or not wearing of the poppy has been used to shame people who make the conscious decision not to wear one, or how to criticise, is to be bandied a traitor, as we are told  told time and again  that soldiers died for our freedoms. Lets not forget  either the families of the wounded or dead who are left abandoned, and the many ex servicemen who are left homeless to fend for themselves.
It's time to expose the hypocrites who sanction wars, arms sales and state repression while wearing a red poppy and uttering platitudes on this Day.
Let us fall silent to mourn the loss of ordinary men  and women who have died when they need not have. Let us fall silent  in  the hope that remembering  will prevent the tragedies of war and  and loss and work towards a time when it does not happen again. Let us fall silent to recognise and commemorate the victims of all wars, such as civilians killed in the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, Baghdad, Kabul, etc.
Let us reclaim the poppy as a symbol of peace not as a symbol of war.This is why I choose to wear a white poppy only, for peace and try to remember the dead of all sides, both military and civilian.The white poppy pays tributes to victims of all wars, including those which are still ongoing.War is mass murder, and we should remember  the  politicians of all sides that  should be held responsible and tried for murder. Lest we forget. Heddwch/Peace.

Also

" Peace cannot be kept  by force, it can only be achieved by understanding. You cannot subjegate a nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man, woman and child. Unless you wish to use drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes without resort to arms."

- Albert Einstein ( from Militant Pacifist, 1931)


Futility - Wilfred Owen 

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Lowkey – The Redistribution of Power (Live in London, 2017)

Love this, absolutely awesone, Lowkey performs an acapella of ' The Redistrution of Power.' at his headline show at the Coronet in London. We need a massive radical redistribution of powerthat could help societies current disenchantment. We have nothing to lose and all to gain.

Looking for answers

I've been listing my A to Zeds
from Alpha to Zion,
sometimes it all adds up
life gets better, start understanding,
but often things will arrive that confuse
as I try to remember to resurge, rejoice,.
the sound of  blues arrives in my head
I escape the chorus, and return to bed,
darkness envelopes, the sky gets a little lost
makes the near seem so very far away,
still seek familiar faces, swimming with light
resist a world full of cruel injustice,
remember all those still struggling
as world spins, political corruption exposed,
somehow some hope floods within
answers seeking, keep on arriving.