Margaret Thatcher, her legacy, a personal view, a poem, and some tunes.

In light of the new film about the monster that is Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep, and the current revisionism and attempts to humanise her , thought I'd post this little piece.
I was 11 years old when she was first elected to power as prime minister on the 4th of may 1979 and aged 23 when her tenure as prime minister ended on she finally was beated and resigned on November 28th, 1990.
It was during her reign, I guess that my political leanings were formed. I saw her and her Conservative  government plunging Britain into deep recession, devastating our industries and social services, that to this day have not recovered entirely. Throughout her tenure I heard daily reports of mass unemployment, eventually trebling to well over 4 million, with job vacancies the lowest ever. I was told at school to study and work hard, but for what, because with her in power I saw no future.
It has been said that Margaret Thatcher was the only Prime Minister  who could claim to have destroyed more of Brtains industry than all of Hitlers bombs during the Second World War. I saw her attempts at destroying the welfare state, closing hospitals, operating a policy of divide and rule. Driven  by a right wing passion that bordered on the fanatical, that saw her pursue policies that denied people a right to a job on a living wage and to adequate housing, education and health care.
As a result of her obscene policy of spending £10,000 million on a new generation of Trident nuclear missiles I joined C.N.D ( the campaign for Nuclear Disarmarment) inspired by the brave women of Greenham Common and other peace campaigners. On top of this I saw her blatant war mongering and then she actually led us into war, which was the Falklands fiasco, with as many as 255 British men being killed in this futile war,  with many young men from here in Wales, being sent to die for her pathetic cause. In her attempt to raise patriotic fervour,and her drive for instant popolarism, I saw her for what she really was.

  It was because of her constant attacks on weaker members of society ( yes she was a bully) that I was drawn to movements that helped protect these people and the poor from a government deaf to reason and blind to compassion.
I noticed who her friends and allies were, her support for fascist like  repressive regimes ( South Africa, Chile) and the hidden hands of big business and corporate power backing her in the shadows.
I began to see what she and her party stood for as evil, plain and simple. I began to read writers and philosophers for inspiration, like Marx, and read Aneurin Bevan who said in 1938 " From Parliament itself nothing can be expected. It is  jaded and cynical. It can be stirred from outside and only from outside." I looked for others to join in opposition to her policies, and that was when I joined the Labour Party Young Socialists who I thought at the time would enable me to pursue this idea. Later however when new labour was elected I saw Thatchers breath stalking the Labour Parties policies, and I rejected that party as well.
At the time , I was daily incensed by her actions in particular with her devastating attack on the miners who dared to take her on. She chose to crush them and anybody else that stood in her way. I remember the bitter summer of 1984 when mining  communities were battered and beaten.  Where she utilised the police and the powers of the state in brutal fashion. Her attempts to turn our country into fortress Britain with her constant undermining of our civil liberties.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

 I remember too her introduction of the Poll tax designed again to attack the poor.

So we marched  and took to the streets determined to get rid of this horrible woman who proudly declared that she was not for turning, not prepared to listen. Today when I look at Cameron , I see her spectre, when the people get angry again and resist, they offer us riot squads, plastic bullets and water cannons, whilst robbing us of our benefits.  I see  Thatcher  when Cameron attempts to place  additional burdens on the low paid, cutting our public servces, imposing drastic cuts, with their policies of privatisation and support for profiteers, bankers and the evils of capitalism.
The people are screaming again, and it looks like history is repeating. But we carry on resisting.

When I see Cameron smile, Blair smile I see her smile. her sneer, her total lack of compassion.
Her legacy one of aggression and authoritarianism, that leaves me to this day contemptuos of all things tory, and when the demented creature that is Thatcher  finally crokes it, I and millions of others will remember her cruelty and what was done in her name and dance merrily on her grave, for every person that wears a black tie their will  bemany more wearing party hats.  This is what happens when monsters time is over.
Back in her day we had a right wing press that supported and colluded with her, but many diverse coalitions of resistance bought about the end of her time in power, today we have the internet and with it the rise of alternative forms of social media. We can beat the torys again, outside all is not lost, when they try to push us down , we must push back, and united we can again defeat them.

Here's and old poem I found, I wrote back in about 83/84 ,would have been my first attempts at poetry, so rather crude and basic i'm afraid, but was about 16,  but underlies the passion I had at that time, looked through some others, think I'll leave them at the bottom of the the drawer.

Thatcher the Milk Snatcher!

Darkness flows everytime I see her
Thatcher, the milk snatcher
her smile like something evil incarnate
a grocers daughter who steals our change.
With her stormtroopers and her jackboot heels
creates division and fear.

This witch is not for turning
with friends in even darker places
in fascist South Africa, Chile, El Salvador.
Her will is simple ; it is to crush .
She eats babies for breakfast
steals from the poor, sells anything of worth.

Her opinion, makes me reel, makes me spin
makes me scream,makes me extreme.
Everytime she walks, it's like a curse
in this land of fading hope and glory
but I rejoice when I hear the people shout,
Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out.

written 83/84 sometime.

I  will not be goin to see the film, I've been sick of her for far to long, my thoughts
still hold far too much derision.
Laters.

John McCullough - I'll dance on your grave Mrs Thtcher.

Pete Wylie - The day that Thatcher dies.

Hefner- the day that Thatcher dies.

Class Actions - M is for Maggie ( Anti -Iron Lady Rap)

Vasco Cabral (12/9/26 - 24/8/05) - Last adeus of a forest-fighter/ O ultimo adeus dum combatente

Vasco Cabra has been called the first Guinean intellectual. He was a poet and political prisoner, a leader  of the PAIGC ( African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde ) and a freedom fighter in the war for independence, an economic  minister and Vice- President of the new nation, and the founder of the National Union of Writers in Guinea-Bissau. He was a member of the Youth Unitary Movement in Portugal, which opposed the fascist dictatorship, and as a result of his involvement was arrested and imprisoned. Vasco Cabral's earliest poems, striking in their determination to end Portugese domination over Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde, date back to 1951, though all came to published in 1981. He became a man of letters and was a follower of the political leader Amilcar Cabral who he was jailed with. Amilcar Cabral was  dedicated to uniting different kingdoms ( and therefore different ethnic groups) , percieving that this would eliminate the ills of Guinean society - what he called the " Portugese economic infrastructure", which had its foundation in the exploitation, and division of dominated people. His ability to integrate with Guineans and Cape Verdeans in one single anti colonial movement and maintain unity was pretty impressive.
Vasco passed away in Bissau at the age of 79 in time to see that the anti-colonial endeavors he had followed, had become  part of the process where old empires kept falling and did not retain their power.

That afternoon I left and you remained,
we felt, us two, the  saudade's  sorrow.
I suffered the bloody truth of your tears.
You're not my only happiness, amor,
I left you there for love of Humankind
but, seeing your tears, my heart took upon the pain
you bore, and ached bitterly at your moans,
so yes,its why I left you and remained.

Believe I never left, that you gave me
the gift of yourself; then the pain and grief
will be no more than nightmares, quickly gone.
Believe I never will forget your love,
and, if I am the one your love burns for,
carry the hope that one day I'll return.

Naquela tarde em que eu paeri e tu ficaste
sentimos, fundo, os dois a magoa da saudade.
Por ver-te as lagrimas sangrarem de verdade
sofri na alma um amargor quando choraste.

Ao despedir-me eu trouxe a dor que tu levaste!
Nem so o teu amor me traz a felicidade.
Quando parti foi por amar a Humanidade
Sim! foi por isso que eu parti e tu ficaste!

Mas se pensares que eu nao parti e a mim te deste
sera a dor e a tristeza de perder-me
unicamente um pesadelo que tiveste.

Mas se jamais do teu amor posso esquecer-me
e se fui eu aquele a quem tu mais quiseste
que eu conserve em ti a esperanca de rever-me!

(1955)

Reprinted from
FOR VASCO
poems from Guinea-Bissau
The Heaventree  Press
2006

A further book is
Vasco Cabral - A luta e a minha primavera: poemas
( Oeiras: Africa Editora), 1981.

More on Amilcar Cabral here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%ADlcar_Cabral

Benjamin Zephaniah (b.15/08/58) - What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us

Yesterdays sentencing , gives us nothing to celebrate. In the words of Ms Lawrence " How can I celebrate when my son is buried? Had the police done their job properly I would have spent the last 18 years grieving for my son rather than fighting to get his killers in court.". If their had not been so much institutionalised racism, perhaps Stephens killers would have been jailed much earlier, but the police failed to arrest anyone at the time, back in 1993. Where's the justice too for Lakhvider " Ricky"  Reel , murdered 4 years after Stephen, and the many other victims of racist violence.
Two have know been convicted for Stephens brutal murder,( Gary Dobson and David Norris)  time for the rest of them Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt and Luke Knight to be sent down too.They should not be allowed to rest easy.
Their sentences should be long, despite the fact that they were juvenille at the time, they have shown no remorse, consistently lied and flaunted and paraded their arrogance. Shown themselves as the cowardly racists they are.
Sadly the ugly reality of racist hatred still lingers. It needs to be crushed and condemned at all times. Only then can we really move on. Perhaps the media can stop pandering to the venomous views of the historian David Starkey and others like him (  the odious newspaper 'the Daily Mail and its many rabid columnists is particularly alarming )  who contribute largely to perpetuating racist belief. Not all racists fit the stereotype of a skinhead in bovver boots anymore, they come in all shapes and sizes. For some rascist abuse is a daiy reality. We cannot tolerate it anymore, we should not let hatred consume us, and if that means banning the British National Party and other racist organisations, so be it.
I leave you with this , that the brilliant Dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah, wrote back in 1999, still pertinent, still raising questions.

What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us.

We know who the killers are,
We have watched them strut before us
As proud as sick Mussolinis',
We have watched them strut before us
Compassionate and arrogant,
They paraded before us,
Like angels of death
Protected by the law.

It is now an open secret
Black people do not have
Chips on their shoulders,
They just have injustice on their backs
And justice on their minds,
And now we know that the road to liberty
Is as long as the road from slavery.

The death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us how to love each other
And never to take the tedious task
Of waiting for a bus for granted.
Watching his parents watching the cover-up
Begs the question
What are the trading standards here?
Why are we paying for a police force
That will not work for us?

The death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us
That we cannot let the illusion of freedom
Endow us with a false sense of security as we walk the streets,
The whole world can now watch
The academics and the super cops
Struggling to define institutionalised racism
As we continue to die in custody
As we continue emtying our pockets on the pavements,
And we continue to ask ourselves
Why is it so official
That black people are so often killed
Without killers?

We are not talking about war or revenge
We are not talking about hypothetics or possibilities,
We are talking about where we are now
We are talking about how we live now
In dis state
Under dis flag, ( God Save the Queen),
And God save all those black children who want to grow up
And God save all the brothers and sisters
Who like raving,
Because the death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us that racism is easy when
You have friends in high places
And friends in high places
Have no use whatsoever
When they are not your friends.

Dear Mr Condon,
Pop out of Teletubby land,
And visit reality,
Come to an honest place
And get some advice from your neighbours,
Be enlightened by our community,
Neglect your well-paid ignorance
Because
We know who the killers are.

Reprinted from Too Black , Too Strong
Bloodaxe 2001.

For more Benjamin Zephaniah go here
http://www.benjaminzephaniah.com/content/index.php

'' Jazz is our religion '' documentary ( 1971 )

U.K, 1971.
Directed by John Jeremy, documentary focuses on the photography of Valerie Wilmer, while various voices, Rashid Ali, Bill Evans, Marion Brown, Dewey Redman and others comment, with jazz poems by Langston Hughes and Ted Joans.
For some their is a mystical faith in their devotion and service to music. Take a look at  the work of John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra and a multitude of others.
Does it have to have soul to make it real? Probably, but in jazz in particular there is a diverse devoted breed. There are many false prophets,and some refuse to follow any leader, many wrong turns and blandness that follow the order of money and corporate marketing machines that I refuse to worship.
I follow unities notes and chords, and all those who push the boundaries a bit. The tone  of endless freedom , to me is a love supreme.

Jack Kerouac ( 12/3/22 -21/10/69) on Slim Gaillard - ' There You Go-Orooni'

Jack Kerouac
(playing with consiousness )

Slim Gaillard was the perennial MC and hipster about town, whose impact and influence in the bop n beat generation of the 1940s ant the 50s is hard to exagerrate. Born in Detroit in 1916, he was a singer, songwriter, pianist , saxophonist and guitarist, noted for his immaculate appearance . As well as speaking eight languages, Arabic, Syrian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Armenian, Portugese and fluent Greek he had time to invent a new one, 'Vout' a hipster slang generated by adding -'oroonie' to every significant word,  he became known for his use of alliteration and his dazzling wordplay, with his hip nonsensical but inventive patois leading things.He was not however just a mere novely act, his playing was good enough for him to contend and play with many of the all time jazz greats. A true polymath, in periods away from music he worked as a cook, an airline pilot and a merchant seaman.
At the time of Americas witchhunts by the so called moral majority, Gaillard became a target. Among one of his songs to be singled out as being a prime cause in the decline of morals amongst the country's youth were the ultra-suggestive Drei Six Cents (actually Yiddish for thirty cents) and even the more sinister Cement Mixer with its onomatopoeic 'putti, putti.  In other songs he alluded to all manner of dubious activities. Subversive stuff to some , eh. His song 'Yep Roc Heresay''is considered one of the first Jazz songs in Arabic. He carried on doin what he did, recording with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie among many. Carried on regardless with his outrageous humour which manifest throughout his work , energetic, exciting. Gregarious and overflowing with tales, and wild vernacular eruptions.
In later life he settled in London , where he turned on a new generation of British players.
Often when life gets to serious when I need a little distractions from dark reality I play his records for a bit of a lift, listen to some cool , unexpected sounds. A nice cocktail for the senses when engaging in  lifes balancing acts. Improvised scatterings, interplay arrives at  a truly international language.  A joy to listen to a truly original voice. Hip idiosyncracy with a dash of versatility, I'll forgive him 'Absolute Beginners' brilliant book turned into shoddy film,oh and 'Charlies Angels'!! we all make mistakes, he simply walked his own way.
He died in London  on February 26th 1991.
I will leave you with  some words from todays sponsor Mr Jack Kerouac.

                                                         Slim Gaillard

'But one night we suddenly went mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco night-club. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who's always saying, 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bouta little
bourbon-orooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar, and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his shirt and undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He'll sing 'Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti'  and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he'll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can't hear it any more and sounds of traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, 'Great-orooni... fine-ouvati... hello-orooni. . . bourbon-oroonie. . . all-orooni. . . orooni. . . how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni. . . . orooni. . . vauti. . . orooirooni. . . ' He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can't hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience.
Dean stands in the back, saying, 'God! Yes! and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. 'Sal, Slim hnows time, he knows time.' Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two Cs, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing 'C-Jam Blues' and he slugs in his big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins and everybodystarts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever, and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and yells crazy things in Spanish,in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect, in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable languages. Finally the set is over; each set takes two hours. Slim Gaillard goes and stands againsy a post, looking sadly over everybody's head as people come to talk to him. A bourbon is slipped into his hand. 'Bourbon-orooni- thank -you-ouvati. . . ' Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with a group of coloured men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing eyes of a mother to him. Slim daid, 'There you go-orooni.' Now Dean approached him , he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. 'Right-orooni,' says Slim; he'll join anybody but he won't guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, 'Orooni,' Dean said, 'Yes!' I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard thewhole world was just one big orooni.'

Extract from
'On the Road'- Jack Kerouac
Andre  Deutsch 1958.

Vout Oroonie Folks!
VoutOroonie!
 
Dreix Six Cents- Slim Gaillard

Cement Mixer - Slim Gaillard

Yep Roc Heresay -Slim Gaillard Quartette.

Jazz Juke Box

George Melly interview with Slim

Arena 1983.

George Melly shows somes hort films made in 1940's ,sublime .

Slim Gaillard  live 1947.

LET FREEDOM RING

Bob Black: The Abolition Of Work.

I guess work is done by most out of necessity, not by choice. When I have worked however I did not define myself through my work or my pay packet. Some people are lucky, today I spend time doing things I find useful and simply enjoying it, but   without money perhaps we'd all be rich.
Anyway had my letter from the benefit agency, like many up and down the country, must say there timing is impeccable, so soon it looks that I might be conscripted.
All this is work where there is nothing.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words,
watch your words, for they become actions,
watch your actions, for they become habits,
watch your habits, for they become character,
watch your character, for it becomes destiny.

" The most wasted day of all is that during which we have not laughed."
- Sebastion D.N.Chamfort.

Willam Empson (27/09/06 - 15/4/84 ) - Let it go.

It is this deep blackness is the real thing strange
  The more things happen to you the more you can't
   Tell or remember even what they were.

The contradictions cover such a range.
   The talk would talk and go far aslant
       You don't want madhouse and the whole thing
        there.

1949

Simon Munnery's Cluub Zarathustra 1996.

Back again
Bored of the festive  T.V offerings ,so  here's a clip that was piloted for Channel 4 but was never actually shown.So here's some surreal experimental comic caberet from yesterday, featuring the talents of Simon Munnery, Kevin Eldon and Stewart Lee.
I find it rather enjoyable.
Hope you enjoy it too.

Cluub Zarathustra Pilot Part 1

Club Zarathustra Part 2

Follow earth's whimper.

Pentre Ifan - Pembrokeshire

David Cameron says
the U.K is a Christian Society
"and we should not be afraid to say so"
during a speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible.

Be grateful
depends from which basket
one has borrowed
this same country
that has abolished universal jurisdiction
that elects a government that preaches
an eye for an eye
moral collapse mirrored in politicians lies.

On this shortest day
celebrate love
the sun's rebirth
as spirits of fire,
twinkle in sky,
dance with old silver moon,
grant secret wishing prayer.
Man speaks of faith
trapped in ideological indulgence,
outside
time is stilled,
slips backwards
towards journeys end.

Quarks
act irresponsibly,
a puzzle of perception
within or without.
Take away our parachutes
and love is the key
that does not oppress
justice shared among neighbours,
and hope that convinces even the bleakest of nights
nature too has a soul, a voice.

I follow earths whimper
shining through humanities glimpses
her beauty for all to share
fix me up a murmour
and long echoes that search for peace
nature's spirit does not discriminate
and the great world rolls on  interminably
in the still of the night  follows diversity
uniting us together to lifes real necessities
it is possible for our minds to reel in wonder
reasons whirl along the changing seasons .

Happy Winter Solstice

" Who , out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body
understands by subtle analogies all other theories."

- Walt Witman.

A Festive Phone Call

As part of a  National Month of Festive action against Atos , there is now taking place a mass telephone complaint to Atos. Starting on Monday 12th December, this campaign is running up until Christmas, benefit claimants, disabled people and their supporters will be ringing both local and national Atos Offices to complain about theor obscene treatment of sick and disabled people.

Sometimes talking to someone at this time of the year can make a difference,  it's that seasonal radiance that makes some of us shout, some of us scream.
for more infomation  about this talkback  go here.

http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/a-rolling-festive-phone-in

Mr Cameron and his allies like a bit of division, heaping more and more burden on those in society that cannot defend themselves. In times of hardship, the conservatives historically look out for scapegoats, at a time when our elected leaders (M.Ps ) have the audacity to demand thousands more pounds in expenses.
Matbe greedy politicians should look inwards before targetting the more marginalised in society.
There is much hypocricy.
If your feeling strong, how about some solidarity with some people who are at moment in time are being pilloried and stigmatised.
Seasons greetings.

Thomas Evan Nicholas ( Niclas y Glais) (6/10/1879 -19/4/71) - To a Sparrow

                                                                    
                                                                   TO A SPARROW
                 
                                                               ( Swansea Prison 1940)

                                                Look, here's another bread-crumb for your piping,
                                               And a piece of apple as a sweetener.
                                               It gladdens me to hear your steady pecking;
                                               It's good to see your cloak of grey once more.
                                               You've travelled here, perhaps, from Pembroke's reaches,
                                               From the gorse and heather on Y Frenni's height,
                                               And mabe on grey wing you've trilled your measures
                                               Above  fair Ceredigion at dawn's first light.
                                               Accept the bread: had I a drop of wine
                                               Pressed from  a distant country's sweet grape-cluster,
                                               We could take, amid war's turbulence,
                                               Communion, though the cell lacks cross and altar.
                                               The bread's as holy as it needs to be,
                                                Offering of a heart not under lock and key.

Translated  from the Welsh by Joseph P.Clancy
reprinted from  Twentieth Century Welsh Poems, ( Gomer,1982)

Born at Llanfyrnach. T.E Nicholas  was a congregational minister and a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and was a political journalist as well as a poet. He was twice imprisoned,  not the first or last Welshman to be imprioned by spurious charges.'To a Sparrow ' was a poem he wrote whilst incarcenated.
Main themes of his poetry were of injustice that stemmed from his  strong socialist faith.The Spanish Civil War gave rise to his verse denouncing fascism.  In later life  translated the internationale into Welsh.
It was whilst in prison though that he wrote some one hundred and fifty sonnets. The smallest incident would provide inspiration. Denied writing paper , he wrote on the slate in his cell, and on toilet paper. Main themse were  of injustice and the power of capital. 'Cana'r Carchar'  Prison Songs and 'Llygad y Drws' (referring to the eye hole of the prison door) were both collections that were written  whilst he was in prison.
He continued writing into his old age, his support for left wing causes undimmed.
Ke died in Aberystwyth in 1971 aged 91.

Solidarity with Bradley Manning

It was back in March that I first wrote about the case of Bradley Manning. Back then I called the post Bradley Manning - the forgotten Man, well since then things have not improved for Bradley Mannings lot, but at least the whole world is watching now.
Bradley Manning is being detained on suspicion of blowing the whistle on the Empire's dubious activities, by allegedly disclosing embarrasing U.S State Deparment cables.
He is due for a pre-trial hearing later today. Tomorrow, but especially here in Wales ( for we consider him one of us) there will many autonomous solidarity actions for Bradley across the globe.
Tomorrow will be Bradley' 24th birthday - a day that his supporrters will gather, many will gather outside Ft Meade and U.S embassies wordwide.
Not sure however if he will get anything resembling justice and freedom soon. Barak Obama has already come out saying that he is guilty, even before a trial. To many though, he is a hero.
He spent almost 4 years at Tasker Millward Comprhensive School in Havefordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, his mother Susan still lives in Pembrokeshire. If he was ever freed and returned to Wales I am sure he would get a warm welcome.
Since his imprisonment he has been subject to punishment that has amounted to torture during his 18 month detention, which has included solitary confinement and denial of sleep and exercise, undermining his mental condition. It does not look that in the U.S.A he will get a impartial trial, the government seem to have already assumed his guilt.
Guilty or not, he is in prison for anyone who has ever protested against U.S wars of aggression and British ( and other countries ) complicity in these wars.
Whatever the outcome we will not forget him. Surely exposing war crimes cannot be a crime, his alleged leaks have subsequently  acted as a jump start  to freedom movements springing up worlwide. The world needs whisleblowers, because then we really will have a world without fear. You cannot hide the truth.

New song by Graham Nash
about Bradley Manning

Collatteral Murder - leaked Video clip.

earlier post

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2011/03/bradley-manning-forgotten-man_11.html

good links

for further infomation

http://wiseupforbradleymanning.wordpress.com/

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Possibility!

                                Omar Vega

Parlophone EP 8765 - Logue and Kinsey - Red Bird (side two)

Christopher Logue (23/11/26 -02/12/11) - Some Poetry and some Jazz (R.IP)

Very late with this post, was round my mates ken's last night where we shared a few smokes and a beer, we like to talk about poetry and jazz, he was there back in the day, mid 60s on the edge of Ladbroke Grove, we talked about old black and white  memories, improvised imaginings.
We listened, shared.... talked about powerful writers, we agreed that Christopher Logue had been good, a poet who succesfully merged jazz and poetry together, he had copy of red bird on tape, it was on it's last legs but still inspired. Mr Logue he had a fine voice clear, like an actor.Quite posh
His poetry like himself beyond categoriation, resolute with strong moral anger. My mate Ken said he'd written for Ken Russell another old rogue gone, acted too. His words public and dramatic, focused and confrontational,seriously mocking,above all darkly humourous, we liked that...
Also a pacifist, he too had walked on aldermaston , became a war poet but remained a man of conviction. A pornographer who saw no contadiction.
Remembered by some as 'spaghetti eating fanatic' in the film jaberwocky.
Another original gone. Silent or spoken - verse performs.
R.I.P

The song of the Outsider

This city and its citizens are green.
Quickly, those  who come from far off
and enter the city, turn green.
Many have rushed here suffering dangers unnumbered,
just to be green. And othe, with contacts,
with money, with skills that are wanted,
And have brought their children, dogs and servants,
so that all they possess shall be green.
Only one dweller herein,
only one, has not become green.
How much he would give to be green!
If he could be green, why nothing would matter.
He suffers from this. He may well go Pop!
As night, beneath the huge green stars,
he goes about crushing young greenies
to ease his hatred and fears.
It is bad to do this. He knows it is bad.
And thinking of his evil deeds he sheds
deeply felt tears 'If only I was green,' he says,
'life would  be like a children's game.'

To a friend in Search of Rural Seclusion

When all else fails,
    Try Wales.

 Rat, O Rat...

never in all my life have I seen
as hadsome a rat as you
Thank you for noticing my potatoes.

O Rat, I am not rich.
I left you a note concerning my potatoes,
but I see that I placed it too high
and you could not read it.

O Rat, consider my neighbour:
he has eight children (all of them older
and more intelligent than mine)
and if you lived in his house, Rat,

ten good Chritians
(if we include his wife)
would sing your praises nightly,
wheras in my house there are only five.

Air for the Witness of a Departure

A high wind blows
over the long white lea
lover
O lover
over the white lea.
Knows
who knows where my love is riding?

Thrush in the maybloom
high winds blow
O
over the long white lea.
Knows
who knows where my love is riding?-
riding
riding over the long white lea.

'Woke  up this morning '

Woke up this morning
In the middle of winter
Salt in my coffee
Swat in my hair.
The letter said: She's dead,
We know you will miss her.
Woke up this morning
In winter in winter.

Started my answer
But failed to remember
The sound of her voice
Or the shape of her head.
Wrote I was sorry
Will be there on Thursday
found myself busy
Sent flowers instead.

Several years later
I met her while dreaming.
Fingernails bitten
Her hands in her hair,
Lovely as ever:
I have to get started!
She shouted: Get started!
And parted the air.

Woke up this morning
In the middle of winter
Salt in my coffee
Sweat in my hair
All I could think of
Was sleeping beside her
And how she wore nothing
In winter in winter.

Reprinted from

Seleced Poems - Christopher Logue
faber and faber, 1996

Parlaphone L.P  Christopher Logue and Tony Kinsey ( side 1)

Guardian Obituary
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/03/christopher-logue?newsfeed=true.

Mumia Abu-Jamal - Another Nameless Prostitute Says The Man is Innocent.

Today is the 30th anniversary of Mumia Abu -Jamals incarcenation and is also the eve of International Human Rights day. Across the world anti-death penalty activists, lovers of justice and freedom and people of good conscience  will protest  at the violation of Pennylvania  inmate Mumia's constitutional rights.
This date marks the anniversery of the night that Jamal was shot, arrested, beaten up and framed for the murder of a Philadelphia Police Officer  called Daniel faulkner. 30 years later this political prisoner , critically acclaimed journalist ( before his imprisonment  he was the President of the Philadeplhia Association of Black Journalists) and became one of the world's most recognised death row inmates awaits a decision by Federal District Court Judge William H.John Jr, on his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Hopefully he will  finally get some justice and a full hearing by the federal court.
Mumia was born in 1954  in Philadelphia and was given the slave name Wesley Cook. At 14  he joined the Black Panther Party and was already showing signs of his strong articulateness and passion. Becoming known for his outspokenness and  his work as a radical journalist, mostly on radio as the 'voice of the voiceless', bringing him unwanted attention from the F.B.I and the local police.
He  moved on from the black Panthers and became a supporter and spokesperson for the Move Organisation  founded by an African American named John Africa a black back to nature group  with an anarcho primitist outlook that rejected  the system. It's members and supporters faced a daily onslaught against them for a number of years, being systematically tageted for their beliefs and on numerous occasions faced violent retribution from the state.
His support of this organisation and his reporting of unpopular causes  which included exposing the violence of the state as it manifests in entrenched poverty, endemic racism, police brutality and celebrating a peoples unending quest for freedom led him to lose his job as a radio journalist,   so he took up taxi driving in order to provide for his family. So one could imagine that  he already  was a marked man.
On  Dec 9th 1981 he had just dropped a client off  when he heard gunshot and saw people running. One of whom was his brother a Billy Cook who ran towards him, he then he saw a police officer aiming a gun at him, he was shot and beaten, and later was charged with the murder of Officer Faulkner who had died from gunshot wounds only a feet away from where Mumia himself had fallen. Mumia himself remained in critical condition for a period of time, but his case was rushed to trial  within 6 months .A trial that Amnesty International condemned as failing to meet even the most minimal standards of fairness, and that is an understatement.The trial was a farce with witnesses constantly changing statements, vital evidence being buried,  proceedings markedby racism, inept prepresentation andto cap it all a bigoted  and prejudiced judge. There was no way that Mumia was going to get the justice he deserved, and he was found guilty and sentence to death.
One of the key prosecution witness was a prostitute with a long history of arrests and her testimony contadicted previous statements and that of other witnesses. A man was with dreadlocks was seen running fron thescene, Mumia has dreadlocks, there are so many doubts. Several prosecution witnesses from his trial have since recanted their testimony , furthermore another individual Arnold Beverly has since subsequently confessed to killing Faulkner. Mumia has always maintained his innocence.
One reason for them finding Mumia guilty was like others he stood up against repression, for civil liberties and the government and the police  simply wanted to silence an activist long known for exposing corruption.. With their attempts to silence him we can see double standards , because this is not the message they dare preach to the rest of the world. But their 30 year conspiracy of silence has not worked

I believe he was a victim of a miscarriage of justice and had been systematically targetted by the police and the authorities in order to beget his silence. He has not been silenced despite the U.S Governments best efforts, Mumia is still writing, still speaking out, opening up the eyes of the people to the injustices of the system that imprisons him, still a powerful voice of the voiceless, a champion of the oppressed. Becomming a potent iconic figurehead for many.  Writing numerous publications with his  revolutionary spirit intact  and releasing a series of broadcasts  live from his  prison cell, through the Prison Radio Network. Link at bottom. You can imprison somebody but you cannot kill their spirit.
In December 2001 his death sentence was oveturned but not his conviction, so still he is not free.
An online petition for President Barck Obama 'Mumia Abu- Jamal and the Global Abolition of the Death Penalty'  was signed by over 20,000 people from around the world. Tomorrow let us also remember that internationally political opponents to nation states continue to face wrongful imprsonment too.

Today in Britain between 5.00 - 7.00 pm campaigners will assemble at Speakers Corner and make their way via Marble Arch and Oxford Street tothe US Embassy in London and will demand the unconditional and immediate release of Mumia Abu- Jamul. Many similar actions will take place across the globe,joining an international chorus who are actively calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

' Another Nameless Prostitute Says The man is Innocent'
                              For Mumia Abu -Jamal
By Martin Espada

The board-blinded windows knew what happened;
   the pavement sleepers of Philadelphia, groaning
in their ghost-infested sleep, knew what happened;
                    every black man blessed
        with the gashed eyebrow of nightsticks
                     knew what happened;
      even Walt Whitman knew what happened
             poet a century dead, keeping vigil
    from the tomb on the other side of the bridge

                  More than fifteen years ago,
        the cataract stare of the cruiser's headlights
                the impossible angle of the bullet,
                the tributaries and lakes of blood,
Officer faulkner dead,suspect Mumia shot in the chest,
       the nameless witnesses who saw a gunman
       running away, his heart and feet thudding.

               The nameless prostitute know,
       hunched at the curb, their bare legs chilled.
           Their faces squinted to see that night
     rouged with fading bruises. Now the faces fade
Perhaps an eyewitness putrifies eyes open in a bed of soil,
       or floats in the warm gulf stream of her addiction,
         or hides from the faged whispers of the police
                   in  the tomb of Walt Whitman         
                  where the granite door is open
                  and fugitive slaves may rest.

         Mumia: the Panther beret, the thinking dreadlocks,
dissident words that swarmed the microphone like a hive,
            sharing meals with people named Africa,
singing out their names even after the police bombardment
                    that charred their black bodies
         so the governer has signed the death warrant.
       The executioner's needle would flush the poison
                   down into Mumia's writing hand
              so the fingers curl like a burned spider;
        his calm questioning mouth would grow numb,
and everywhere radios sputter to silence, inhis memory.

                   The veiled prostitutes are gone,
             gone to the segregated balcony of whores
But the newspaper reportsthat another nameless prostitute
says the man is innocen, that she will testify at the next hearing.
   Beyond the courthouse,a multitude of witnesses chants,
 pray, shouts for his prison to collapse, a shack in a hurricane.
                   Mumia, if the last nameless prostitute
                 becomes an unravelling turban of steam,
                if the judges' robes become clouds of ink
                      swirling like octupus deception,
                if the shroud becomes yourAmish quilt
            if your dreadlocks are snipped during autopsy,
                 then drift above the ruined RCA factory
                             that once birthed radios
                         to the tomb of Walt Whitman
                         where the granite door is open
                           and fugitive slaves may rest.

Philadelphi, PA/Camden, NJ, april 1997

Mumia Abu -Jamal Radio Broadcasts

http://www.prisonradio.org/mumia.htm

Other Links

http://www.freemumia.com/

http://www.millions4mumia.org/

http://www.mumialegal.org/

Home page of John Africa's  MoveOrganisation
http://www.onamove.com/

Link to excellent film on the case
by acclaimed director Marc Evans here

http://www.inprisonmywholelife.com/intro


" This message comes toyou from the depths of America's dungeons, from the cages in Babylon's bowelsthat are in a sense, America's own 'Taten Trakle', Wings of death where men await execution by electrocution.
As radical journalists we have another tale to tell - it is a tale not of plenty but of loss, of torture and injustice. In short it is a tale of the oppressed, but it's also a tale of brighter tomorrows, of seas aflood with life, of air sweet to the lung, of forests green, of health, of hope, of freedom and peace, for all the worlds people.
We can create islands of liberated consciousness,afloat with truth of peoples sentiments for dignity and freedom, free from the systems slur of terrorism. We can produce you progressive portraits of the possible so that a better tomorrow may dawn."

- Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Further Reading :-

Mumia Abu-Jamal , Death Blossoms: Reflections of a Prisoner of Conscience, Plough Publishing House 1997

David Lindroff - Killing Time: An investigation into the Death  Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Amnesty International - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal , Seven Stories Press.

Expect Us! - Bill Allyn

Heretic Productions brings you an extraordinary piece of Poetry by Bill Allyn

Expect us

Once we were weak, but now we stand tall.
Millions of citizens, heeding the call.
Demanding our freedom, the birthright of all.
The Arab Spring turns to the American Fall.

We're the 99, and we'll never forgive.
Well never forget how you've made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The reign of the moneyed and privileged now ends.

Once we were few, now we grow by the hour.
The lamb sheds its mask - the emperor cowers.
The wolf bares her teeth, the hunger devours.
The gleaming skyscrapers, the ivory towers.

We're the 99. and we'll mever forgive
We'll never forget, how you've made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The world of the moneyed and  privileged now ends.

There's no "job creators" a "trickle-down" bust.
And time's running out for your greed and your lust.
You've earned no respect, and squandered our trust.
From this day forward, you must expect us!

We're the 99, and we'll never forgive.
Well never forget how you made us live.
Expect us at your door, prepare to defend!
The reign of the moneyed and privilged now ends.

Ted Hughes (17/8/30 -28/10/98) - The God

You were like a religious fanatic
Without a god- unable to pray.
You wanted to be a writer.
Wanted to write? What was it within you
Had to tell its tale?
The story that has to be told
Is the writer's God, who calls
Out of sleep, inaudibly: 'Write'.
Write what?
Your heart, mid-Sahara, raged
In its emptiness.
Your dreams were empty.
You bowed at your desk and you wept
Over the story that refused to exist,
As over a prayer
That could not be prayed
To a non-existent God. A dead God
With a terrible voice
You were like those desert ascetics
Who fascinated you,
Parching in such a torturing
Vacuum of God
It sucked goblins out of their finger-ends,
Out of the soft motes of the sun-shafts,
Out of the blank rock face.
The gagged prayer of their sterility
Was a God
So was your panic of emptiness - a God.

You offered him verses. First
Little phials of the emptiness
Into which your panic dropped its tears
That dried and left crystalline spectra.
Crystals of salt from your sleep.
Like the dewy sweat
On some desert stones, after dawn.
Oblations to an abscence.
Little sacrifices. Soon

Your silent howl through the night
Had madeitself a moon, a fiery idol
Of your God
Your crying carried its moon
Like a woman a dead child. Like a woman
Nursing a dead child. bending to cool
Its lips with tear drops on her finger-tip.
So I nursed you, who nursed a moon
That was human but dead, withered and
Burned you like a lump of phosphorus.

Till the child stireed. It's mouth-hole stirred.
Blood oozed at your nipple,
A drip feed of blood. Our happy moment!

The little God flew up into the Elm Tree.
In your sleep, glassy eyed,
You heard its instructions. When you woke
Your hands moved. You watched them in dismay
As they made a new sacrifice .
Two handfuls of blood, your own blood,
And in that blood gobbets of me,
Wrapped in a tissue ofstory that had somehow
Slipped from you. An embryo story.
You could not explain it or who
Ate at your hands.
The little god roared at night in the orchard,
His roar half a laugh.

You fed him by day, under your hair-tent,
Over your desk, in your secret
Sirit-house, you whispered,
You drummed on your thumb with your fingers,
Shook Winthrop shells for their sea voices,
And gave me an effigy - a Salvia
Pressedin a Lutheran Bible.
Youcould not explain it. Sleep had opened.
Darkness poured from it, like perfume.
Your dreams had burst their coffin.
Blinded I struck a light.

And woke upside down in your spirit-house
Moving limbs that were not my limbs,
And telling, in a voice not my voice,
A story of which I knew nothing
Giddy
With the smoke of the fire you tended
Flames I had lit unwitting
That whitened in the oxygen jet
Of your incantaory whisper.

You fed the flames with the myrrh of you mother,
The Frankincense of your father
And your own amber and the tongues
Of fire told their tale. And suddenly
Everybody knew everything.
Your God snuffed up the fatty reek.
His roar was like a basement furnace
In your ears, thunder in the foundations.

Then you wrote in a fury, weeping,
Your joy a trance-dancer
In the smoke in the flames
'God is speaking through me,' you told me
'Don't say that,' I cried. 'Don't say that.
That is horribly unlucky!'
As I sat there with blistering eyes
Watching everything go up
In the flames of your sacrifice
That finally caught you too and you
Vanished exploding
Into the flames
Of thestory of your God
Who embraced yo
And your mummy and your daddy,
Your Aztec, Black Forest
God of the euphenism grief.

Reprinted from

New and Selected Poems 1957-94

Manchester walkabout.

What a lovely thing a movement is
when the currents of unity smell
and voices speak with optimistic roar
side by side, the young and old
shooting out branches to oppose
tory dereliction.
The hiss of collective breath
with hungry eyes
communities dreaming together
swarming with warmth
and much hospitality.
Lover bought an accordian
needs must, we lugged it through the streets
a little indulgence perhaps,
but we are not yet broken.
People grow fierce
learn how to paint the sky
committed though in debt,
we are as strong as tempered steel.
As spirits rised, canal crossed
popped into music stores
to overload senses
already worked overtime.
But long shadows are growing
tory spite charges at Winter's cold blast
disconnected themselves from the people.
They will not kill our spirit
they will not banish our care. 

Idris Davies "Do you remember 1926" Poem animation

lest we forget.

Earlier post on Idris Davies here.

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/02/idris-davies-poet-of-people.html