Borders are the gallows
Of our collective egos
Subjective, lines in sand
In the water, seperating everything
Fear is the cause of seperation
Backed with illicit conversations
Procured by constant condemnations
National blood painted persuasions
Here's my song for the free
No, it's not about praise and publicity
Coprotocracy, what a hypocricy
Aristocracy verses democracy
Fear is the cause of seperation
Backed with illicit conversations
Procured by constant condemnations
National blood-painted persuasions
The king is dead and now
We're dancing in the streets
As the waters rise
We're merely covering our feet
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
Fear is the cause of seperation
Backed with illicit condemnations
National blood-painted persuasions
Tear is the cause of seperation
Backed with illicit conversations
Procured by constant condemnations
National bloo-painted persuasions
The king is dead, and now we're dancing in the streets
As the waters rise, we're merely covering our feet
Your gods are dead and now we're dancing in the streets
As the waters rise we're merely covering in defeat
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
I never let you go
Never let you go
Never let you go
Never let you go
Never let you go
' the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirious of everything at the same time the one's wo never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars in the middle you see the bluecenter light pop and everything goes Awww!' - Jack Kerouac.
Today is the birthday of visionary, iconclastic writer and poet, Jack Kerouac. The shaman of the Beat Generation . Born 12/3/22 of a French-Canadian family in the factory town of Lowel, Mass, U.S.A.
Variously called the Beat Generations apostle, poet, hero, laureate, saint? Through his own life story he created a work of fiction .Soared so high, that in the end unfortunately found his own human skin, then found himself out of his depth in bottled delusion, where the burning ship had become his own.
In his life, he had been part of a culture and people , who burned like meteors. Jack Kerouac was the Beat Generations very own mythologiser, he and his band of brothers helped redeem a bit of America's soul. His legacy, like that of the Beat Culture, still alive, still relevant, still taking root.
Along with his friends, Corso, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Ferllinghetti etc, he paved a way for a whole host of dreamers searching for risk, some form of adventure. Colouring our worlds with their crazy visions, their minds in revolt, searching for future's possibilities. Hand in hand with rebellion, against the conventions of the times.
Jack Kerouac in his eighteen books and many others under Jack's influence were to me important epiphanies on my own path of self discovery. He taught me about "Spontaneous prose." - writing without revising....... He called this " a spontaneous bop prosody." which is a bit like a jazz musician taking an improvised solo, and taking it as far as he could go, no editing , no pause of breath. Sometimes what is left, has no meaning, a void, but often their is a glimmer, that spells hope, that can become endless, can run off the page, infinite but accessible.
On my bookshelf at home Keroucs influence groans on my bookcases, his own works, sharing spaces with others , that were touched by his inspiration.
Their is something about his tragic, magic life that still resonates, hums, their will always be new connections, outhouses where seeds will forever drift. New poets will emerge, try to experience, the whole wide world, and words will dance, impulsively between time, forever and forever. Some might go out to the garden and pick lunch. Enthusiasims will be shared, thougyhs will be exchanged, and for some the personal will always be political. Passion will ignite. Jack was not immortal, though for me his words are, he left this planet on October 21 1969, 47 years , his search for inner lamentation cut tragically short. Still yearning for his mother, but lost in a catholic guilt, that had always consumed him. Stuck in sad exile, his mystical breath had grown tired , what was once beautiful had begun to drift towards bitterness.
So happy birthday Jack.....your impact continues to be felt....satori breath ... om switchin on.... tomorrow's dawns chorus echoes, anethetizing the sky.... sentences littered with wild perception, language as a spell that leaves us forever hooked. In human existence our contradictions will abound, freeze framed, on the road to nowhere. Kicks joy darkness.
William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, 1953
Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Kerouac,
Greeenwich Village, 1957.
Jack Kerouac on the Steve Allen show 1958.
A freewheeling Kerouac
interviewed by Fernando Pirano
Kerouac: The movie (1985)
Their are numerous pages and books devoted to Kerouac and the Beats , if you look you will find what your looking for, the searching is part of the journey.Here's a wikilink, better than nothing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_kerouac andsome of his poetry
POOR SOTTISH KEROUAC
Poor sottish Kerouac with his thumb in his eye
Getting interested in literature again
Through a mote of dust just flew by
How should I know that the dead were born?
Does Master cry?
The weeds Ophelia wound with
and Chatterton measured in the moon
are the weeds of Goethe, Wang Wei,
and the Golden Courtesans
Imagining recommending a prefecture
for a man in the madhouse
rain
Sleep well, my angel
Make some eggs
The house in the moor
The house is a monument
In the moor of the grave
Whatever that means
The white dove descended in disguise?
WOMAN
A woman is beautiful
but
you have to swing
and swing and swing
and swing like
a hankerchief in the
wind
149th Chorus
I keep falling in love
with my mother
I dont want to hurt her
=Of all people to hurt
Every time I see her
she's grown older
But her uniform always
amazes me
For its Dutch simplicity
And the Doll she is.
The doll-like way
she stands
Bowlegged in my dreams,
Waiting to serve me
And I am only an Apache
Smoking Hashi
In old Cabashy
By the Lamp
2111th Chorus
The wheel of the quivering meat
conception
Turns in the Void expelling human beings,
Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, nits,
Mice, Lice, Lizards, rats, roan
Racinghorses, poxy bucolic pigtics,
Horrible unnameable lice of vultures
Murderous attacking dog-armies
Of Africa, Rhinos roaming in the jungle
Vast boars and huge gigantic bull
Elephants, rams, eagles, condors,
Pones and Porcupines and Pills-
All the endless conception of living
beings
Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness
Throughout the ten directions of space
Occupying all the quarters in and out,
From supermicroscopic no-bug
To huge Galaxy Lightyear Bowell
Illuminating the sky of one mind
AND THEN THEY GOT HIM
The Oil of the Olive
Bittersweet taffies
Bittersweet cabbage
Cabbage soup made right
A hunk a grass
In a big barrel
Stunk but Good
163rd Chorus
Left the Tombs to go
and look at the
Millions of cut glass-
-a guy clocking them,
as you look you sawllow,
you get so fat
you can't leave the building
-stand straight,
don't tip over, breathe
in such a way yr fatness
deflates, go back to
the Tombs,
ride the elevator-
he tips over again'
gazes on the Lights,
eats them, is clocked,
gets so fat
he can leave elevator,
has to stand straight
and breathe out the fat -
-hurry back to the Tombs
242nd Chorus
The sound in your mind
is the first sound
that you could sing
If you were singing
at a cash register
with nothing on yr mind-
But when that grim reper
comes to lay you
look out my lady
He will steal all you got
while you dingle with the dangle
and having robbed you
Vanish
Which will be your best reward,
T'were better to get rid o
John O'Twill, then sit a mortying
In this Half Eternity with nobody
To save the old man being hanged
In my closet for nothing
And everybody watches
When the act is done-
Stop the murder and the suicide!
All's well!
I am the Guard
Where man has not been to give them names objects on desert islands do not know what they are. Taking no chances they stand still and wait quietly excited for hundreds of thousands of years.
Alone
If you are mortar it is hard to feel well-disposed towards the two bricks you are squashed between or even a sense of community. Ivor Cutler's kitchen domain.
Poems reprinted from A Flat Man Trigram Press 1977.
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for - but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more drudge and idler - ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses.
The above poem written by James Mc Millan was written to celebrate the movement for women's rights and was first published in American Magazine in 1911, and is closely associated with the Lawrence Textile mill strike of 1911, where the above picture was taken. During this strike, which was in protest of a reduction in pay, under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World ( The Wobblies) and led primarily by the women workforce, the women mill workers carried signs that quoted the poem, reading 'we want bread and roses too.' It has since become an anthem for labor rights, and especially the rights of working women, across the globe.
' . . . life demands that the duality in men and women be freed to function, released from hate or guilt. All wars derive from lack of empathy: the incapacity of one to understand and accept the likeness or difference of another. Whether in nations or the encounters of race and sex, competition then replaces compassion; subjection excludes mutality. Only through this duality in each can a man and a woman have empathy for each other. The best lovers are men who can imagine and even feel the specific pleasures of women; women who know the passions and vulnerabilities of the penis - triumphant or tender - in themselves. Without empathy, men and women, husbands and wives, become tools of each other: competitors, rivals, master and slave, buyer and seller. In this war the aggressions of the wholly ' feminine' woman are just as destructive (mostly to the male) as the aggressions of the wholly 'masculine' man. For centuries the need to prove this image of masculanity has lain at the root of death: the killing of self and others in the wars of competition and conquest; the perversion of humanity itself. We need each other's qualities if we are to understand each other in love amnd life. The beautiful difference of our biological selves will not diminish through this mutual fusion. It should indeed flower, expand; blow the mind as well as the flesh. When women can cherish the vulnerability of men as much as men can exult in the strength of women, anew breed could lift a ruinous yoke from both. We could both breathe free.
Well spring is well and tuly in the air, time when certain senses awake, the season too of our 'mad march hares'..... boxing, prancing, dancing, having it large. The female of this species is superfecund at the moment, so the males get a bit frustrated, and tend to bounce around the female erratically, its the ritual of fertility, and of course desire is in the air, but for the lady, when she stands on her hind legs - no means no. To us humans they can seem to look crazy, demented. No madder than your average human being though.
Witnessed by those that walk the veil. Long have they been seen as mysterious and sacred to us, for some messengers of the underworld, they come and go as they please.And long have they been invested with mystical property, I for one find them enchanting.The hare in mythology crops up, time and again across the globe.
It is perceived to be solitude and remote.They're mostly silent. seen as the last light fades from the day. and enjoy the darkness.Active at night, a symbol of the intuitive, and fickleness of the moon, an unpredictable creature. It is seen as sacred to the White Goddess/mother earth.
The constellation Lepus was named for the latin word for hare. It's located below the constellation Orion,which was named for the hunter in Greek mythology.Orion has often been depicted pursuing Lepus with his hunting dogs Canis Minor and Canis Major.
The hare was originally linked to the ancient Germanic Goddess Oestara (oestrous cycle) or Eostore (Easter) who was said to rule over spring and the dawn. Oestara, who brought on spring late one year as she was nursing a dying bird back to life by changing it into a hare. Thereafter the hare was revered as a magical shapeshifter.
Celtic myths often told of shapeshifting hares. The great warrior, Oisin was said to have wounded a hare in the leg while out hunting ne day. The hare fled into the undergrowth and Oisin followed only to find a woman inside with a cut to her leg.
The hare was also regarded as the solitary keeper of ancient places .with ability to guide spiritual transmigration upon death. Wherever hares roam the Sidge are close by.
In Saxon times there was a cult of the hare and then christianity came along and suppressed this cult and the hare totemic values were replaced with the safer images of the easter bunny and the easter egg.
Hares that were seen to be acting oddly were also thought to be shape-shifting witches or 'were-hares.'
It was also said that if one crossed your path, it was seen as a warning of imminent danger. Sailors apparently , thought of them as unlucky, but for others a hare's foot was seen as a symbol of luck, but I wouldnt recommend hunting them for any purpose, long may we have them around.
Can dissapear quite quickly, here one minute, gone the next. Swift and nimble, at full speed can get up to 40 miles per hour.They tend to come out around dusk, graze and play all night, and go to bed about dawn. Because of their shyness, don't like to attract to much attention, but if you catch a glance a beautiful sight to behold. They live in a small depression in the ground called a 'form' above the earth, and will often be found in open fields.
Who knows could be at a tea party somewhere or if you look out this week, you might be lucky enough to see one or two , leaping over the moon.
' The common sort of people suppose that hares are one year male and one year female. . . . yet hunters object that there be some which are only females and no more, but no male that is not also a female, and so they make him an hermaphrodite.' -
- Edward Topsell , History of Four-footed Beasts 1607.
March of the Mad Hares represents the art of Professor Ralph Skelton, done in the printmaking process called, intagilo. His animal images represent the individual cages in which humans hide and the surreal landscapes that exist within each individual.
Imagine if London was controlled by the military and you had to go through specific checkpoints to go to school, go to work, visit your friends, or got to hospital.
This award winning seven minute video, brings the shocking reality of Palestinian life in the West Bank uncomfortably close to home.
Bit late with this one. Found out yesterday Mr Jones had passed away from a heart attack. He always struck me as forever young. With his good looks and British charm, this Manchester born singer/actor starred in the seminal series The Monkees. Between 1966 and 1970 the Monkees released 9 records. I've got a few on vinyl, very crackly , that's how often I've dug them out.
I used to watch their zany, knockabout antics a lot in their T.V show the monkees, when I was younger. They should put them back on the box. As for their head trip movie Head , wow...... well worth checking out. Far out.
For me Davey Jones was always the groovy one. Hey hey......always monkeying around...... Mr Jones R.I.P. I'm still a believer.
So after over 4 months protestors have been removed and evicted from outside St Pauls Cathedral.
The right wing press would like us to think, that this the end of the story, dissent has been overcome, the people will simply dissapear.
A coordinated attempt to suppress a movement that has delivered a clear consise message, that the system t is corrupt, and the people were sick and tired of it . The occupy movement here in Britan and across the globe has raised public awareness of corporate greed and the need for economic accountability. The message of a need for social fairness and the redistribution of wealth has been clearly delivered, loud and clear.
This symbol of opposition to what is now seen by many as runaway capitalist greed has been shut down, for now at least, but evicting ideas is not exactly the best way to express the powers of a political democracy.
When people come together and question the system, authorities tremble at the solidarity shown..Especially at a time when the government suffers a surge in public unpopularity. Lets also not overlook the fact that RBS chief executive Stepen Hester's million pound bonus and it's eventual with it's eventual withdrawal, along with his predescessor, Mr Goodwins knighthood all played out against the background of occupy.| Especially at a time when the government suffers from a surge in public unpopularity.
Protests against corporate greed and social inequality will continue, the people of the occupy movement, like wild seeds will keep spreading. By springtime, these seeds will continue to grow, spreading like it did before, moving forwards, getting stronger and stronger.
However much they try, you simply can't kill or evict an idea, especially when the message happens to be a populist one.
Occupy London Eviction: Tents Being Removed From St Paul's Cathedral.
Charlie Chaplin in the news recently because M.I.5 failed to determine where the silent film star was born, does it really matter? He himself in his autobiography said 'he was born on 16th April 1889, at eight o'clock at night, in East Lane, Walworth, London but was also a self proclaimed 'citizen of the world' who did not pledge his allegiance to any specific Country or cause. The fact that nobody knows for certain where he was born certainly adds to his mystique.
He subsequently became the most well-known actor of the early 2oth century, becomming an iconic figure in his Little Tramp costume, which consisted of baggy pants, bamboo cane, bowler hat, and oversized shoes. His acting credits numbered 87 , starting of in 1914 in Making a Living and ending with Countess from Hong Kong in 1967. His many classic films include The tramp, (1915) The Kid (1916) A Days pleasure (1919) The Idle Class (1920) and The Gold Rush (1925).
It is known that had socialist ideas, informed by being bought up in extreme poverty, his younger days were spent living in workhouses, and he numbered many left wing friends as his friends and acquaintances. He generally held his tongue, but after the 1930' with the film CityLights (1931)
City Lights - intro monument
and Modern Times (1936) which was seen by many as an overt attack on the capitalist system, his films began carrying messages with explicit political statements, with the characters he played often taking sides with the downtrodden working class.
Chaplin's critique of Industrialization
first segmet in Modern Times.
Clip from Modern Times.
Chaplins father had died of drink by the time he was 10, and his mother unable to bear the poverty she endured, suffered from bouts of insanity, deep experiences that never left him. He himself was an voracious reader on economic theory and philosophical treatise.A strong humanitarian he was disturbed by the rise of nationalism and the social effects of the Depression, of unemployment and of automation, and hatred of the mechanisation of the world and even devised his own Economic Solution, based on a more equitable not just of wealth but of work.
His classic film The Great Dictator (1940) saw him taking on the nazis. Here he pitted his celebrity and humour against Hitlers own celebrity and evil. He played a dual role as a jewish barber who has lost his memory in a plane accident in the First World War, and spends time in hospital before being discharged into an anti-semitic country that he does not understand, and Hynkel (Hitler) the dictator leader of Ptomainia, whose armies are the forces of the Double Cross, and will do anything along the lines to increase his possibilitis for supreme power. It ends with Chaplin in his own words giving us a message full of humanitarianism, with a sense of great hope.
Chaplins final speach in the Great Dictator
However despite his pro-war effors, he uncritically supported the war effort, especially the Soviet Front, he was targetted by J Edgar Hoovers F.B.I who apparently saw him as a dangerous radical and subversive, and put it about that he was a communist.
His 1947 film Monsier Verdour saw him showing mass murder and the abuse of workers in an attempt to increase business profits. He was not afraid and for the times was quite daring. Though he atttended Communist Party meetings, he never actually admitted actual membership of the party. He was a principled man however because at the height of the McCarthy witchhunts he never betrayed any of his friends who he knew were, and continued to support and defend them, as they were forced to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committe ( HUAC), the tide of his popularity was turning against him mainly due to the propoganda aimed at him at the time.It is possible that his independent wealth saved him, being part owner of the United Artist Movie studio, and he himself never got an invitation to testify, the witchhunters possibly afraid of the damage a brilliant comedian like Chaplin could inflict.
HUAC in action
Humanitarian, Yes . Communist??
After this he was effectively hounded out of the U.S.A, by political persecution and paranoia, being accused of 'moral depravity', he was known for his fondness of women, and had numerous affairs. His imprints were removed from the Hollywood walk of fame, such were the authorities disdain for him and were subsequently lost to the mists of time. Because of being pilloried by the right-wing press and reactionary institutions like the American legion and all the subsequent propoganda unleashed against him he began to lose favour with the American public. Ironically in 1952 saw the release of Limelight , which could be seen as a semi-autobiographical story concerning a story about a once famous comedian who has lost his ability to command his audience, basing his performance on Frank Tinney (1877-1940) an American Black film comedian and the Spanish clown Marceline (1873 - 1927) for me personally a film of great pathos.
Charlie Chaplin in Limelight
In 1952, the United States Attorney General told him that his re-entry to the U.S would be challenged on charges of turpitude and political unreliabilty. He had never actually attained American citizenship, in the first place, he'd actually refused it, so he destoyed all his American possesions and escaped to Europe.
In 1957 he starred in The king of New York where he was the first film-maker to dare to expose, through satire and ridicule, the paranoia and political intolerance which overtook the United States in the Cold War period. It would be another 16 years until it was actually screened in America, such was its daring. He starred as the deposed king of Estovia who flees to America where he is tormented by a McCarthy style investigation.
Exiled, he settled at the Manir de Bar in Corsier Svr Vevey, Switzerland where he was to spend the rest of his days. He did return once more to the U.S.A in 1972. As well as acting, and being a father to many children his versatility extended to writing, composing music and sports. He was also a self-taught violinist and celloist which he played left handed.He died in his sleep on Christmas day 1977, in his home in Switzerland.
His legacy lives on, as much for his great intellectual vision, but as a brilliant comic who has bought me much laughter over the years with the combination of his acrobatic agility and his ability to express through the medium of film, great depths of emotion and feeling. A little man, but big in my eyes.
" Like everyone else I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of ancestral promptings and urgings; a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, all of which I am the sum total." - Charlie Chaplin
Protest does work, whether by demonstrating, letter writing or sending e.mails. Power can be achieved by sitting in an armchair and by the click of the mouse , through social media perhaps, or by taking to the streets, participating in community action, resisting, direct action or by any means at ones disposal.
This week we have seen Tesco shift their policy in relation to workfare, which now means that those working 25 hours a week at one of its stores will earn around £175 compared with £55 if they had stayed on benefits. This reversal was only achieved because people shouted out their opposition. If people had stayed silenced we would not now be in a position of seriously undermining this Tory led Coalitions job scheme. Superdrug electronic retailer Maplins & Mind (Mental Health Charity) have all announced that they have pulled out of the scheme completely, after Waterstones and Sainsbury's also quit. Small victories can be achievable when people work together.
When people stand together in solidarity, change can occur, if people keep pushing decisions can be overturned. But there is never a time for complaceny, especially when we live in a time of much urgency. Where decisions sometimes need to be overturned in a matter of immediacy.
The N.H.S bill is still being attempted to be pushed through by the Tory's even though it is clearly in dissaray. But the government's Higher Education White Paper has now been shelved. If the people had not got angry would Mr Stephen Hester have an extra £1 million in his pocket, would Mr Fred Godwin still be called a Sir. Would Murdoch's scurrious activies gone unfestered.
Meanwhile people are standing in solidarity with their neighbours, the Greeks offer us a glimpse of a society that will not be silenced. The Occupy Movement also has been a wonderful breath of fresh air, clamouring too for political change. Seeds of new ideas are flowering everywhere like flames. People connecting, saying no to austerity everywhere , in these tumultuous times people are standing up.
Anything is possible.... I guess, the air is alive and crackling, people globally looking for and demanding new explanations, answers. Subsequently we have seen oppressive leaders toppled, regime change, millions saying no to war, a rising tide against the old orders.Outside the box of corporate realms and governmental consensus, people are finding their voice, their strength, finding their power.
Still a long way to go, and so much more to achieve, but it is together we will achieve real change ( not in the 'we are in it together' of Mr Cameron's lies and old school ties, because clearly we are not, but their is a definite realisation that the future is one where the concentrated measures of wealth are not in the hands of an elite few. I believe together, as individuals or in groups we can bring about real change, whether it be for human rights, economic and social justice , working for a culture of peace , equality and freedom, in the words of John Lennon ' some people call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.' Reality sandwiches, taste bitter sometimes, but one things for certain, the People have the power and by acting together in movements of solidarity , this power will grow.
Patti Smith - People have the Power.
I was dreaming in my dreaming
of an aspect bright and fair
and my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognised
and my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
that the people have the power
to redeem the work of fools
upon the meek the graces shower
it's decreed the people rule
The people have the power
The People have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power
Vengeful aspects become suspect
and bending low as if to hear
and the armies ceased advancing
because the people had their ear
and the shepherds and the soldiers
lay beneath the stars
exchanging visions
and laying arms
to waste in the dust
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognised
and my senses newly opened
exchanging visions
and laying arms
to waste in the dust
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognised
and mysenses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
Refrain
Where there were deserts
I saw fountains
like the cream the waters rise
and we strolled there together
with none to laugh or criticise
and the leopard and the lamb
lay together truly bound
I was hoping in my hoping
to recall what I had found
I was dreaming in my dreaming
god knows a pure view
as I surrender to my sleeping
I commit my dream to you
Refrain
The power to dream to rule
to wrestle the world from fools
it's decreed the people rule
its decreed the people rule
LISTEN
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass through our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth's revolution
we have the power.
People have the power . . .
This week is Israeli Apartheid week
Calling the Israeli regime as one of apartheid is not rhetoric, nor is it an exaggeration or a propaganda tool. This is the reality in modern day Palestine, where the Israeli regime is based on discrimination, through laws,practices and most aspects of life. This apartheid regime is not only imposed on the people in Palestine, but also on millions of Palestinian refugees denied their right to return home because they are the wrong religion.
As awareness across the world continues to increase regarding the Israeli Apartheid regime in Palestine, each effort in this aspect would help accelerate the conclusion of this shameful page in history. And as this awareness rises, campaigns to boycott, divest and sanction this regime provide a very effective and natural response. The world witnessed a similar response transpire and bear fruit in the case of South Africa, and there are very good reasons to believe that it will do the same in the case of Palestine.
Palestinians are also being regularly and illegally barred from reaching the Dead Sea Beaches in the occupied |West Bank according to a Supreme Court Petiton filed by Israel's leading civil rights organisation, The Association of Civil Rights (ACRA) The Israel military is using the Ha'avera checkpoint on Route 90, the only open access route in the occupied West Bank for travel to the Dead Sea, to turn back Palestinians, mostly on weekends and on Jewish holidays. Also Israeli policies on Palestinian residency have also arbitrarily denied thousands of Palestinians the ability to live in and travel to and from the West Bank and Gaza, and according to Sarah Leah Whitsun the director at Human Rights Watch " Israel has never put forth any concrete security rationale for blanket policies that have made life a nightmare for Palestinians whom it considers unlawful residents in their own homes. The current policies leave families divided and people trapped on the wrong side of the border in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel should revise these policies, and allow requests for families to re-unite, so that Palestinian can live with their families where they want.http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/05/israel-end-restrictions-palestinian-residency
Israel Apartheid Week, ( this year will be its eighth) is an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across across the globe. It hopes to educate people about the nature of Israel. They demand full equality for Arab citizens of Israel ( who already have it), an end to what is known as the occupation and the dismantling of the apartheid wall, with the protection of Palestinians, and their right to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N resolution 194. Also the Russell Tribunal on Palestine held in Cape Town 2011 which used International Law as its basis found Israel guilty of the crime of apartheid and the persecution of the Palestinians, http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/.
The Wall is but one element of the wider system of severe restrictions on the freedom of movement imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian residents of the West Bank. There are over 600 closure obstacles blocking Palestinian movement within the West Bank. In addition, the system of roads is segregated: travel on hundreds of kilometres in the West Bank is restricted or prohibited outright for Palestinians, whereby Israelis are able to travel about freely. About one third of the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is completely prohibited to Palestinians without a special permit issued by the Israeli military.
These severe restrictions violate not only the right to freedom of movement. They also effectively prevent Palestinian residents from excercising a wide reange of other human rights, including their right to work, to health, to education and to an adequate standard of living. Farmers are stopped from assessing their fields and thus from exersising their right to sustain their livelihood. Many Palestinians are also prevented from seeking work outside their locality. Children are prevented from accessing schools and students face restrictions in choosing their university of choice. Patiients are prevented from assessing hospitals, blocking them from exercising their right to the highest sustainablr standard of health , and so on.
Yesterday amazingly it was announced that the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy would dispatch 'envoys' around the world in an attempt to undermine plans for Israeli Apartheid week and in effect legitimise Israel's actions, as they have done time and time again.
However Former Attorney General of Israel Avi Zer-Aviv http://www.shalomlife.com/news/5170/israeli-apartheid-fact-or-fiction/ says "Despite its best intentions, Israel has created a system of seperation in the West Bank which fits the textbook definition of apartheid. According to Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel throughout the nineties, "in effect, we established an apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day." He is not alone in asserting this perspective. Many notable Israelis like Meron Benvenisti, Akiva Elder, and Shulamit Aloni, to mention a few, agree that Israeli style apartheid is a reality."
At this moment in time, around the world a new internationalism is being formed. People are standing in solidarity with each other in struggle. Standing together for democracy, equality, human rights and economic justice. After 63 years of struggle, is it not the Palestinians time, as they resolve to continue their struggle against Colonisation, occupation and apartheid, an inspiration to movements struggling for freedom , justice and equality around the world.
Palestine I hope, too will soon be free.
Israeli Apartheid Week in Europe is February 20 -March 10 http://apartheidweek.org/about
No one is free until everyone is free! TEAR DOWN THIS WALL NOW
Every little helps Tesco say Every little labour without pay
Helps Tesco profits grow
when the wages are Zero
Every little bit of free labour
Means they can get bigger and BIGGER Every little bit means they get richer
whils't the poorest people just get poorer
Every little bit helps Tesco grow
Until they're everywhere you go
Tesco extra and Tesco metro
Tesco gaming and Tesco Petrol
Tesco optician and Tesco phone
Tesco bank and Tesco at home
Tesco direct and Tesco online
Tesco clothing and Tesco wine
Tesco finance and Tesco optician
Tesco sports and Tesco television Tesco can even create a place for you to defecate in harmony and contemplation If you sign up for Tesco finest Bathroom design consultation
I step out to the left and every little corner shop's gone
And in its place another Tesco Metro Tesco.con I step out to the right and the post office is no longer there
But Tesco is - offering cheap mobile phones and half price beer
Tesco value range - value for who
Certainly not for me or you
Value for Tesco means engaging in slave labour
They're snatching your friend and they're snatching your neighbour
Work for free and they won't promise you a job
The name of their game is to make a few bob They're open all night
And they're doing all right
Making billions of pounds of profit each year
Thanks to their friends in government and to workfare One thousand four hundred people worked without pay
Whilst only three hundred got to stay
This is enslavement of the unemployed
But they can't understand why we're annoyed
Every little Teco Work Fare
Should be replaced with work that's fair
With a living wage for every employee
Not a scheme of exploitation and slavery Every little help that Tesco helps itself to for free
Is a crime against freedom and humanity Every little Tesco metro
needs to go
until people not profit are put first
As the Tesco bubble's about to burst
Zita Holbourne is a performance poet, spoken word artist, visual artist and a Community & Trade Union Activist
As unemployment continues to blight the lives of millions, Britains biggest private sector employer is taking on staff for free.Tesco's claim that 1,400 people have worked their in past 4 months without pay. Only 300 got a job. This is outrageous, but this kind of thing happens it seems under tory led governments. In reality, workfare is part of the governments welfare to work 'experience' programme in which they force the unfortunate who happen to be claiming JSA to work to work full-time stacking shelves at profiteering superstores. They do however get a bus fare thrown in. No wage, doing the same work as someone else who gets paid. It's the start of a dangerous slippery slope. NAWRA ( National Association of Welfare Rights Advisors)http://www.nawra.org.uk/ says" This proposal
is very worrying. They are completely inadequate legal and medical safeguards - bearing in mind that these are people witl long-term health problems and disabilitis, often serious ones. Compulsary, unpaid work may worsen some people's health, with the consequences of the DWP's savings being passed on to the NHS at greater cost. If jobs are there to be done, people should get the rate for the job, instead of being part of a growing, publicly funded, unpaid workforce which, apart from being immoral, actually destroys paid jobs."
As Owen Jones on Question Time last night brilliantly stated this is not on. Tesco's however are not the only ones, engaged in this dubious practice, there are a lot of other high street stores that have actively got involved -Asda, Holland & Barrett, Primark, H.M.V, TK Maxx and Top Shop and others. If the uproar and contoversy surrounding this continues, many will withdraw from it.
This is the predatory economy David Cameron is creating where the poor become throw away fodder for the richest in their greedy pursuit of more.
This is wrong and if you agree with me there is a government e-petition that you can sign here which is gaining much momentum as I write.
Oh and another thing:-
Britain 1834 Poor Law
1. No able bodied person to recieve money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse.
2. Conditions in workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to recieve help.
Britain in the near futre
1. No able-bodied person to recieve money or other help from the authorities except in slave/voluntary labor
2. Conditions in voluntary/slave labour to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to recieve help.
Welcome to Tory Britain, slipping back in time.
Article 4, human rights:-
coerced or forced labour is a crime against a persons human rights.
A short and impressive film drawing on Naoni Klein's book 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, director of 'Children of Men'.
Capitalism, it sure does not look as if it's working to me.
Mamos is the pen name of a revolutionary, christian, activist, teacher , poet, living in the middle of the spiritual desert that is the U.S . His words offer us a powerful, resonant, fierce immediacy. His poetry for me connects, and he seems to use words like bullets or as seeds for change. Political poetry has a long standing tradition in America and world history. Poetry used as paths of liberation, and as messages of hope. Daily we hear tales of economic misery, of economic injustice, but voicesof opposition are getting louder. I guess we live in an age where there is no time for complacency. Voices like Mamos's provide us with visions of our anger and frustration, and our demand for real change.
We won't be revolutionairies,
we'll be the revolution.
We are the fault lines
the divine sign
and when it comes time
we'll be feelin fine
'Cause we'll take your profits
break them
the things we need
we'll make them
we'll put you in the cemetery
if you try to take them.
Because change
is somewhere between destruction and creation.
It's the pent up creativity after centuries of alienation.
It's the bread riot 'cause we need to eat
It's the love dance we start in the street
'cause we can't wait to find a place to meet
ad besides,
we just abolished the whole concept of temptation.
So why are you still here bragging about your nation?
Fuck your orders and your bombs and all your plantations
We are the global upheaval
Nat Turner's sequel
Marx's equal
and heaven's prequel.
And yeah, we're stormin' it-
fuck what's realistic, we're steadily ignoring it
'cause what's on our plate
is way more drastic than 1968
and even back then our graffiti was explorin it
"Demand the Impossible"
not the same old boring shit
Because communism
is somewhere between "where the people are at"
and utopia
between the crowd's spontaneous upsurge
and heaven's door opening
between democratic workers' councils
and the end of work as we've known it
We won't be communists
we will be communism
just like when we wer workers
we breathed capitalism,
ate, drank, and pissed everyone of its divisions
and each day reproduced that horrible condition
when shit pops off we'll be breathing liberation
drinking freedom
and eating emancipation
reproducing prophets
who speak in conversation
not so much laboring
as being our creation
not so much working for it
more like generation
of everything between us
that concieves revelation
Palestinians in the East Jerusalem town of Silwan are living in fear of imminent eviction. Last week Israeli authorities posted demolition orders on several houses in Silwan's al- Bustan neighbourhood, which they plan to develop into a theme park. With 1,000 people set to lose their homes, this would be the largest single mass demolition since 1967. Three days before the orders were issued, Israel shut down a local football club and a kindergarten.
Please take urgent action to help the Palestinians of Silwan save their homes
Silwan lies just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. Since the early 1990s the town has been targeted for Israeli settlement, largely coordinated by a charity called Elad (the city of David Foundation). For the al- Bustan neighbourhood Elad's plans are to build the "King's Gardens", a theme park for tourists to walk in the footsteps of the biblical King Soloman. But this means sending in bulldozers to knock down the homes of families who have lived there for generations.
Even the British government has criticised the plans. On 30 December, minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt said, " I condemn the decision by the Jerusalem Local Planning and Building Committee to build additional structures in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan... This is another provocative and deeply counter-productive step, the latest in a series by the Israeli authoritis." Yet Burt and the British government have done nothing to back up the comment, and continuesto offer Israel preferential treatment. This sends a message to the Israeli government that it can ignore the criticisms.
Please ask your MP to demand that the government takes concrete action to stop the bulldozers.
At present many children from Silwan take their toys to school every day, not wanting toleave behind in case their homes are knocked down. Your action will help end this climate of fear
