Uncertainty

Welcome friends
Nothing new here today,
The same old points of rememberance
The home environment still bathed in blue,
Clouds in slow motion dark and grey
Waiting for thunder to bellow,
Lightnings electrons to releases a spark
The unapproachable and unknowable,
The quantum uncertainty still at large,
Schrödinger’s cat inside Pandora’s box
The hard-drive clambering among confusion, 
Life currently debauched by profiteers
The drowning despair of capitalism,
The earth and lovers slowly dying
A future that remains unknown, 
Time now to turn up the music loud
Do a spiral dance, pause for reflection,
As the universe passes by in ambivalence.

Try to cling on to  threads of hope
Seek and clasp new forms of clarity,
From depths of moments indecision
Keep on looking for signs to rearrange,
Through the blur and scope of time
Different forms of distraction to keep engaged.
Allow mind like a compass to pass through the haze
As darkness falls, the day takes another shape,
Fresh currents emerge to engulf consciousness
To combat feelings and paths of uncertainty,
In glistening dawn,  distraction  dissolves,
Mindstreams of  exhaustion might be resolved.
.

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Rawabi - A city of hope

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

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

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

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

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


Please sign the following petition:-

Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline

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

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

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

Please sign the following petition:-

Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline

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

Save our Human Rights Act

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

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

The shame of Burkini ban.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gilli Smyth - Mother (1978)

Tracklisting :-

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

Another night in Gaza.

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

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

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

The Taff Vale Railway Strike

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

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

Captain Beefheart- Flower Pot

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butterfly Collector

(some free verse
for jane the flutterfurb)


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

James Keir Hardie (15/8/1856 - 26/9/15) Happy Birthday, Republican and Socialist

Born today 1856 in New House, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, in dire poverty in a single room cottage, this illegitimate son of a servant, Mary Keir, was to become a giant in the socialist movement, rising from coalminer to become the first Labour Party Leader, and to become one of the greatest evangelists for the ideas of socialism.
He would derive from his mum, many of his good qualities. She was a woman of marked individuality and strength of character, nothing could daunt her, or dampen her convictions. At the age of ten, he went to work in a local mine, where through self-education he would learn the lessons of solidarity and comradeship. This would help him as he used his voice to speak of a world where woman and man were born equal. Denouncing the rich, the politicians and the establishment, all exploiters, and would see him calling for the destruction of the capitalist system. He was one of the greatest agitators of his day. ( who reminds me of another bearded teetotaller, and advocate of passion currently spreading his message, one Jeremy Corbyn, who earlier this year spoke at the annual Keir Hardie Lecure put on by the Cynon Valley Labour Party in Aberdare.)
He  was to help found the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and was one of the first two Labour M.P's elected to the UK Parliament. He was to mark himself out as a radical both by his dress- he wore a tweed suit and cloth cap, whilst most other members of Parliament wore more formal dress- and the subjects that he advocated - the nationalisation of the coalmines, for the unemployed, womens rights, republicanism and free education. Stuff that still echoes strongly today.
His first constituency was in West Ham, London (1892) and later Merthyr Tydfil here in Wales.
In 1894 251 miners were killed after an explosion at a mine in Pontypridd and after his request for a message of condolence to be sent to the families of the berieved was refused by parliament and a message of congratulation to Buckingham Palace on the birth of the future Edward VIII agreed, Hardie delivered a vitriolic attack on the monarchy, which resulted in him losing his seat at the next election in 1895.
During this period Hardie travelled across the world to learn from other labour movements, and visited the South Wales coalfields on numerous occasions, especially during the 1898 strike. As a result he was invited to stand in the Merthyr Tydfil constituency and won the seat on 10 October 1898. With only two Members of Parliament, it was not easy for the Independent Labour Party in Westminster, but success came in the January 1906 elections as a result of an entente with the Liberals. The Independent Labour Party won 29 seats and Keir Hardie kept his seat in Merthyr Tydfil.
.Hardie spent the next five years laying the foundations of the future Labour Party and returned to parliament in 1900 as an MP for the Labour Representation Party, which in 1906 changed its name to the Labour Party, with Hardie becoming its first leader.For the rest of his life he was to devote himself to the causes that he believed in, publicly defending calls for general strikes, syndicalism and militancy. He was also one of the first to call for equality between the races in South Africa, and  because he was a lifelong committed pacifist and humanist, this led him to  believe that the interests of the working classes were inseperable from peace, and when the First Wold War broke out in 1914, he was  to oppose it, and was to address anti-war demonstrations  up and down  the country and to support conscientious objectors.
For  years he tirelessly addressed meeting after meeting, nearly every day and night, travelling long distances to be known for his powerful oratory, often negating meals and continuing to spread ideas with comrades long into the night. Never to forget his working class roots, these people who he completely understood, he realised their plight, never deserting them, with his untarnished devotion and faith in their cause.
Sadly his dreams of peace were not to be, and after a series of strokes he died in Glasgow on 21st September, 1915 at the tragically young age of 59.He is buried in Cunnock, Ayrshire.
Today I remember him,because he stood in  many respects unprecedented as a working class leader in our country. He was  the first man  from the midst of the working class who completely understood them, completely sympathised with them, completely realised their plight, and completely championed them. After entering Parliament he  never deserted them, never turned his back on a single principle, and retained his unbroken affection and respect for the working class, his untarnished loyalty to them, his championship of them, his enduring faith in their cause.We owe an awful lot to his example and the legacy which he left.

On the future Edward V111

' From his childhood onward this boy will be surrounded by sychophants and flatterers by the score - and will be taught to believe himself as a superior creation. A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morgantic alliance will follow - and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill.'

- House of Commons speech (1894)

New age.?

The heat is on, we are all effected
as the days speed hungrily on by,
aggression increases, fear grows in all
connecting the proverbial dots
can feel very tragic and make us feel small,
unravelling a trajectory of violence
that is rooted in foreign intervention, 
instead of peace, spreads contamination
with frustrated, alienated, misguided men,
sowing seeds of hate and destruction.
As the days begin to weigh us down
time now to seek out the gaze of love,
the most powerful drug known to man,
build a brighter future, a new age of clarity
to help us escape this world of insanity,
before the count of zero we all explode
with a soaring, kicking, pain implode,
remember hope is always there to seize
all you really have to do is to believe.

Labour Party wins appeal against voting rules thus treating its members with contempt.

Despite 130,000 members being told in black and white that they were eligible to vote in upcoming leadership elections upon registration, they have now been officially cast aside by their own party in an attempt to skew a result that is already a foregone conclusion.The biggest kick in the teeth, however, is that the permission to do so was granted by a former key lawyer of Tony Blair’s Labour government one Sir Philip Sales QC.This is shocking but in a way not surprising as the right wing of the labour party represent the establishment.It is abundantly clear now just how committed the establishment and the state are to trying to remove Jeremy Corbyn and to bring control of the Labour Party back towards those who represent their interests. Still angry though and lots of other people will be too.By pursuing this case to the Appeal Court the Labour right-wing have shown how ruthless they are prepared to be to defend the interests of their establishment backers, scared of an empowered membership that is not prepared anymore to put up with an elitist political system. The rule-or-ruin approach in this battle gives a glimpse of the type of undemocratic regime that would continue to operate in the Labour Party if Owen Smith were to win. If this is how they treat their own members, with contempt, God knows how they would treat the rest of us. It all seems a bloody mess,as shadow chancellor John McDonnell said in reaction on BBC 5 news "I think this is a grubby manoeuvre and people who have been involved in it should be ashamed of themselves," democracy eh,  ha ha ******* ha.
I must say I nearly rejoined the Labour Party too, was a member once before it drifted away from its socialist heart, but was encouraged by the new direction it seemed to be taking, ordinary people energised by Jeremy Corbyn's authentic radical agenda. But sadly right wing elements within the party like the Blairites and those that align themselves to Progress continue to treat people with contempt, in this case after using stolen money to fund their appeal, robbing the poor to halt democracy and exclude the poorest and most disadvantaged people in society from having a vote - a shame and stain on Labour. It is no surprise that the 50,000 people who got rejected to vote after paying £25 were all Jeremy Corbyn supporters. This is where any notion of democracy ends and an elitist oligarchy in the Labour Party begins. What these disenfranchisers is doing serves the Tories more than it does Labour. I hope that all the new members who joined and have been excluded from voting and are currently feeling dissapointment carry on taking on the establishment, keep making a stand against austerity, keep fighting for a better society and  confronting some of the most powerful aspects of British society and keep on embracing a progressive straight talking form of politics,whether they stay inside the Labour Party or not that represents the 99%. Power to the people. 

Google says Palestine was never on Google Maps after claims it had been 'airbrushed' away.

There was outrage online recently after Google appeared to delete Palestine from its Maps service after a glitch caused the West Bank and Gaza to briefly disappear,but the internet giant was forced  to explain that the country "has never been" on the service. 
Palestine, although recognised as a country by the United Nations, has never been on Google Maps. Instead of being demarcated with a solid line that denotes a country border, Google instead defines the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with a dashed border - the mark it uses to outline disputed territories.
Google was forced to explain that it doesn't define Palestine as a country separate from Israel on Maps after a petition signed by 250,000 people described the company's "airbrushing" of Palestine as "deeply offensive" and called for the internet giant to put Palestine on its map.
If you search for Palestine on Google maps, you might be surprised to find that it is not marked on the widely-used mapping tool, Palestine has not been removed because it was never there in the first place. Due to its ongoing conflict with Israel, Palestine was not shown on Google Maps five months ago, when the petition – which has only picked up serious momentum recently – was created.
Despite their misplaced anger, tens of thousands of people have flocked to sign the petition to add Palestine to Google Maps. The petition states that, in failing to recognise Palestine, ‘Google is making itself complicit in the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine’ But if you search “Palestine” in Google Maps today, you’ll get the same result you would have gotten five months ago, when a guy named Zak Martin began the petition on the subject: The map view defaults to a demarcated, but unlabeled, region stretching from Hebron in the south to Jenin in the north, and from Jerusalem to the Jordanian border. if you click on any of the cities in this region, Google does label them as Palestinian, and the Wikipedia-sourced Knowledge Box that pops up describes Palestine as a “de jure sovereign state.” That language has been in effect since 2013, when Google — following the lead of the United Nations —  changed its designation to “Palestine” from “Palestinian territories.”

 Still, even if the current outrage is misplaced — and people are outraged, check out #palestineishere — it does raise some interesting questions about the power of mapping technologies like Google’s. In their attempts to dispassionately document the physical world online, tech companies often end up shaping our understanding of it, too.

The Palestinian Journalists Forum (PJF), in a statement released on Friday in the Middle East Monitor, condemned Google’s decision to remove Palestine from its maps, saying it “is part of the Israeli scheme to establish its name as a legitimate state for generations to come and abolish Palestine once and for all.”
The group says the removal of Palestine’s name from the Google Maps was a blatant attempt to undermine Palestinian statehood forever and claims the move is just another attempt to distort history and geography.
“The move is also designed to falsify history, geography as well as the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland, and a failed attempt to tamper with the memory of Palestinians and Arabs as well as the world,” the statement added.
In addition, the group demanded that Google reverse the name changes made on July 25, noting that the move was “contrary to all international norms and conventions.”
In 1947, after millions of Jewish people were killed and displaced by the Nazis during the Holocaust, the United Nations' member states overwhelmingly voted to create a Jewish state in what was then Palestine. Palestinians resisted the move, but by December 1947, the first clearing' operations were conducted against Palestinian villages by Jewish forces. A bloody and deeply contentious fight over the land between Jews and Arabs has ensued to this day.
While Palestine has been recognised by the UN as its own state since 2012, it is now largely regarded as territories occupied by Israel.Most of the areas claimed by the State of Palestine have been occupied by Israel since 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. Its independence was declared on November 15, 1988, by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Algiers as a government-in-exile.As of September 2015, 136 (70.5%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations and two non-member states have recognized the State of Palestine. Many of the countries that do not recognize a State of Palestine nevertheless recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.The omission of Palestine remains a grievous insult to the people of Palestine and undermines the efforts of the millions of people who are involved in the campaign to secure Palestinian independence and freedom from Israeli occupation and oppression.

This is an important issue, as Google Maps are now regarded as definitive by people around the world, including journalists, students and others carrying out research into the Israel-Palestine situation.While the fact that Google never defined Palestine on Google Maps certainly doesn’t make the situation any better, it is interesting to see how quickly social media can mobilise people towards a cause – even when they aren’t presented with exactly all the facts.Whether intentionally or otherwise, Google is still making itself complicit in the Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The internet's indignation is not delegitimized by the misperception that this is a recent change, given the source of it comes from Palestine's exclusion. For these reasons Google Maps decision to never include Palestine in the first place should continually be questioned since as one of the world's top go-to GPS navigations, it holds accountability as to how the world interprets states, nations, and our overall worldview. Google can try to can remove Palestine from the maps but it will never remove it from our hearts.

Further to this post being written I now have much more accurate information  from Zac Martin dated  31/5/19  which you can access here it is well worth reading. Apologies for the inaccuracies contained in above post,

 https://www.facebook.com/notes/google-put-palestine-on-your-map/googles-response/2348385032103825/

Kenneth Patchen (13/12/11 -8/1/72) - The Artists Duty

 So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problem
To ignore solutions
To listen to no one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all

To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhibit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience

To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open

To admire only the absurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit

To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss

To HAPPEN

It is the artist’s duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupations

To blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous inpulse
To commit his company to all enchantments.

(Reprinted from one of my favourite books:-
The Journal of Albion Moonlight - Kenneth Patchen
New Directions Press, 1961.

No more Hiroshimas, No more Nagasakis: Ban nuclear weapons!

On August 6, 1945 the US dropped an atomic bomb ("Little Boy") on Hiroshima in Japan. Three days later a second atomic bomb ("Fat Man") was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. These were the only times nuclear weapons have been used in war. Combined it resulted  in the deaths of over 400,000 people. This is exactly what these horrific weapons are designed to do-indiscriminately kill vast amounts of people.
There are more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the worlds arsenal now, ready to destroy the world. In the coming months, governments will decide if negotiations of a treaty banning nuclear weapons should start or not. I hope that the majority of the states in the world are ready to support a resolution at the UN General Assembly to start negotiations of a new treaty banning nuclear weapons. The holdouts for supporting the ban treaty are the nuclear weapons states, as well as those countries that are part of the U.S. nuclear alliance around the world including NATO states, and in the Pacific, Australia, South Korea, and Japan.We should keep pressuring our Governments to urge them that nuclear weapons should not be used against any nation under any circumstances.The following video has been produced by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Let us remember. Let us learn. Let us make sure this never happens again.It should be unthinkable today that the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should ever be repeated.

Memorial events are planned across the UK for Hiroshima Day. See tinyurl.com/HiroshimaDay

Paul Robeson (9/4/1898 – 23/1/76) and the people of Wales

                            Paul Robeson at Welsh National Eisteddfod, Ebbw Vale, 1958

It's the week of the National Eisteddfod here in Wales, so I thought i'd mark the occasion with this post about an individual who has made a lasting positive contribution to our nation,and a contnuing source of inspiration and strength for me  Paul Robeson.
Robeson, son of a former slave, was born in Princeton in 1898, just two years after the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation. Robeson grew up during a period of overt racism, confronted by continual racist abuse,but always managed to rise above it and went on to achieve much success at every level of his life.Not only was he an exceptional athlete, cultural scholar, a polyglot who spoke over a dozen languages, actor and singer, he was also a man dedicated to the causes of freedom and social justice, as a fearless political activist he was hounded and persecuted in the U.S for his opinions. His name and historical contribution are still silenced in most textbooks in the U.S.A , where he was was caught up in the midst of the  McCarthy witchhunts.
Yet all around the world, especially here in Wales, his voice still carries much resonance, gives us some hope.His first contact  with Wales came in 1928, when he was performing in 'Showboat' in the West End. Whilst in his hotel he was attracted  by the sound of singing from outside. The singing was coming from unemployed  miners who had  marched to London to draw attention to the hardship and suffering endured by thousands of mining families in South Wales. He went outside to meet them, listened to their plight, recognised a shared suffering, and a mutual bond was born.Robeson said it was the “first time he felt human dignity” because of the lack of racial prejudice.He was once recorded as saying about Wales: “It was there I first understood the struggles of white and negro together – when I went down into the coal mine in the Rhondda Valley, lived amongst them.”
He joined them on hunger marches in 1927 and 1928, and  was to visit Wales many times,  performing at Neath, Swansea, Caernarfon and Cardiff in support of causes as varied as the victims of the 1934 disaster at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, to the Welsh casualties of the Spanish civil war.In 1938, he sang and addressed a massed audience in the Pavillion, Mountain Ash, at the International Brigade Memorial Service, organised to commemorate the 33 Welshmen who had been killed in the Spanish Civil War.He addressed the audience thus :- 'I am here because I know these brave fellows fought not only because I know these brave fellows fought not only for me but for the freedom of the people of the whole world, I feel itI is my duty to be here.'
 In 1940 he starred in the film Proud Valley, set in South Wales, that captured the harsh realities of Welsh coal miners' lives.He starred as a Black American coal miner and singer who gets a job there and joins a male voice choir.In 1950, he had his passport confiscated for eight years when US authorities attempted to stunt his influence at the height of McCarthyism, owing to his alleged un-American activities. Yet, amazingly, he still managed to perform to more than 20,000 Canadians watching from across the border as Robeson sang on US soil..In 1957 Robeson participated in the Miners’ Eisteddfod in Porthcawl by means of a transatlantic telephone link to a secret recording studio in New York, being unable to travel because his passport had been withdrawn by the US Government because of his outspoken left wing and anti-racist views which he used to speak out against injustices.The South Wales miners added their voice to an international petition that eventually forced the US Supreme Court to reinstate his passport in 1958. 
On 4th August 1958 this allowed him to attend the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Ebbw Vale,where he was presented with a Welsh hymn book to mark his visit,he sat alongside Aneurin Bevan a long term friend and delivered an address to the people of Wales.Significantly was the first man to be granted permission to speak English on the llwyfan (eisteddfod stage) He spoke of the importance of his Welsh links:"You have shaped my life - I have learned from you.I am part of the working class.Of all the films I have made the one I will preserve is Proud Valley"
He spent the last years of his performing life abroad, but returned to the US when ill-health led to his retirement in 1963 some say exasperated by the persecution he had experienced over the years.
He lived the final years of his life in seclusion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died there on January 23rd, 1976. He is fondly remembered because he not only stood up for the injustices that African-Americans faced, but also was able to empathize and connect with other people’s struggles, he funded Jews escaping Nazi Germany, spoke out against the fascists in Spanish Civil War, campaigned against colonialism in African countries and stood with laborers in the United States and proudly with the people of Wales, an internationalist who identified with the most important issues of freedom and social justice of his time, and practiced what he preached. Because of all this and his constant solidarity with the Welsh people he remains forever etched in the nations heart. A powerful rich courageous presence in our collective history.Here  is  his rich  voice singing a beautiful English Language version of the Welsh National anthem.

Paul Robeson - Land Of My Fathers
 

Paul Robeson : Welsh Transatlantic Concert

End the punitive punishment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning

After years of inhumane treatment, and years of abuse having been held in conditions that the UN considers to be torture, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, the Guardian columnist and whistleblower who is currently in prison serving a 35-year sentence ( narrowly escaping the death penalty)  for exposing some of the U.S. government's worst abuses, attempted to take her own life on July 5th, 2016 in her cell at Fort Leavenworth military prison.
The fact that she is not scheduled for release until 2045 isn’t enough of a punishment, the ACLU announced last week that Chelsea  had been charged with a series of bizarre sounding petty and bizarre charges to threaten her with indefinite solitary confinement while possibly denying her any chance of receiving parole that could make the terms of her imprisonment even more punitive..

These new charges include:-

1) Resisting a group of prison guards called "the force cell move team" (Chelsea was unconscious when this team arrived, which makes this charge particularly absurd.)
2) Prohibited property (for the items she used to attempt to take her own life.)
3) Conduct which threatens (for somehow putting the prison at risk while attempting to take her own life, quietly, in her own cell.)

These latest examples of abuse and neglect are quite frankly obscene,but just what Chelsea has come to expect, as she has been systematically mistreated by the U.S. government ever since she was first taken into custody in 2010 which have repeatedly generated outrage among human rights advocates across the globe.Following a 14-month investigation into Manning’s treatment by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, the U.N. accused the U.S. government of holding Manning in conditions that constituted “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” particularly with regard to the extended use of pretrial solitary confinement considers to be  and which the UN considers to be a form of torture.
The harsh measures the military has employed during Manning’s detention have led to suspicions that the government is attempting to make an example of her over her whistleblowing activities for her role in releasing to Wikileaks key State Department Cables about the Afghanistan and Iraq war and the Collateral Murder video exposing U.S. war crimes, killing of civilians and lies to the public.It included images and transcripts that appeared to reveal human rights abuses being committed by US forces and their allies in the Iraq war – information she felt was in the public interest. Without her, the information would never have come to light .Unlike countless others who saw similar evidence but looked the other way, Manning took action with much bravery but Chelsea wasn’t hailed as a hero – instead, this whistleblowing cost her dearly and those atop the U.S. military machinery still find her actions unforgivable.Washington and the powers that be are determined to make an example of her, to warn and intimidate other would-be whistleblowers. From the president on down, the chain of command is functioning to wreck the life of Chelsea Manning. We should not let that happen.
Fight for the Future, a non-profit that advocates for civil liberties and free speech, has created a petition at FreeChelsea.com to pressure the Secretary of the Army to dismiss these absurd charges, the Army should be told that there is no excuse to further punish Chelsea or to prevent her from excercising her right to free speech.
If convicted of these bizarre "administrative offenses," that are effectively charging her for attempting to end her life, she is facing indefinite solitary confinement for the rest of her prison term (another 30 years), "maximum security" classification (in the same facility), and nearly a decade before she can ever be classified as a "minimum security" prisoner.
It is unnecessarily cruel to threaten Chelsea with additional punishment while in this very vulnerable state. They are trying to silence her important voice for good. In a statement released by Manning after her 2013 guilty plea on espionage charges, she asked for a pardon and said that she had been motivated by moral outrage over details of U.S. military killings and torture of civilians in Iraq. “In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture,” she said. “If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.”
It should be noted that Chelsea is a transgender woman being forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison, which is in itself dehumanizing and exhausting emotionally. She is currently being denied medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, which experts have stated is the only course of treatment through which she would no longer be suicidal and Manning has faced a constant battle to receive the most basic gender-affirming care in the face of repeated denials from the military.
This is not the first time the government has harassed Chelsea with outrageous charges while in prison. Last year, they threatened her with solitary confinement for minor "infractions" including possession of LGBTQ reading materials and an expired tube of toothpaste.The punitive tactics that have been employed against her include stripping her naked in her cell on a nightly basis, extended solitary confinement, and denial of medical necessities like eyeglasses.
RootsAction and Fight for the Future and other groups gathered more than 100,000 petition signatures in response, and the outcry generated managed to keep her out of solitary confinement. Now we need to do it again. Please, sign the following petition and spread the word to stop this inhumane, outrageous act of punishment. Chelsea is depending on us. We can’t let the US government get away with this shameful abuse of power.

  Please sign the Petition to the Secretary Army to drop these charges against Chelsea: FreeChelsea.com

The following is a link to the Chelsea Manning Support Network, where you can find more details about her case:-

https://www.chelseamanning.org/