Robert Anton Wilson (18/01/32 - 11/01/07) -Maybe Logic: The Lives & Ideas of

essayist, novelist, absurdist philosopher, futurist... maverick genius, political activist, visionary, prophet, discordian, existentalist prober of imagination, anto-fundamentalist.... profoundity leaps in his works, just when I think i'm getting what he's told me, he leads me on to another thread.
Born in Brooklyn , Wilson was many things, his books  ended up in many a hipsters library, the counterculture embraced him, some however could not seperate fact or fiction.
His 'Illuminatis'  trilogy - Eye of the Pyramid, Golden Apple, and Leviathon  incorporated elments from the cult literature of the time: borrowing elements of Colin Wilson, Philip K Dick, Flann O' Brien, Carlos Castenada, Timothy Leary and Kurt Vonnegut in a mix that bordered on the academic to the downright hilarious, like some philosopher writing on some heavy duty drugs.
He did prodigiously consume and was an advocate  for the taking of all sort of drugs, and became a strong opponent of what he called " the war on some drugs." Initially  though had started  using cannabis as a way to alleviate the  misfortunes of Post-polio syndrome. He worked with  psychedelic guru Timothy Leary on two books Neuropolitics ( 1978) and The Game of Life (1979) and began to  become a serious practitioner of stoned sensations. Writing under the influence , he said  he wrote the first draft of each book "straight, the second stoned, then straight, then stoned, and so on , until i'm absolutely delighted with every sentence, Or until irate editors start reminding me about deadlines, whichever comes first."
A prodigious talent, he went on to write numerous books, and became linked with the Church of the Sub-Genius, the Association for Consciousness Exploration and E.Prime. He taught me to never trust anything that I read, but along with Burroughs I keep returning. Even though in life and in his books the sentiment is one of anti-religion, their is to me a semi mythical,mysticism to his work, but then drugs are known for taken us to the furthest reaches of human consciousness, and a lot of us who take these sacrements , have a rebellious nature already, and even before taking anything illicit we were questioning, reason and all forms of authority.  But Robert Anton Wilson pushed all possibities, becoming a master crafter of disinfomation, conspiracy theories and twinkling pages full of suspect devices.
Other works were the Schroedinger's Cat  trilogy (80-81) Prometheus Rising (1983) and William Reich in Hell (1987)
By the time he departed this planet, he had found himself many devotees and with his grey hair and long white goatee had taken on the air of a taoist sage, prophet or sorceror. He had also manged to upset a considerable amount of people, he'd stopped paying his taxes and was in considerable debt, a strong advocate of freedom in its many forms, his political and social credos were ones of questioning, EVERYTHING, so their were quite a few enemies out there. Some say the C.I.A killed him , others that he is very much alive, theories grow. What he definitely did teach was that " the universe contains a maybe." So he might be hovering around somehere, illuminating an argument with some cunning laughter.
The following fim Maybe Logic  is a fascinating , hilarious and mind-bending journey in his mult-dimensional life, spanning 35 years and the best of 100 hours of footage, thorughly tweaked, tansmuted and regenerated. It feature Tom Robbins, R U Sirius, Ivan Stang, Paul Krassner, Valerie Corral and Douglas Rushkoff.
The soundtrack includes music by the Boards of canada, Animals on Wheels, Tarentel, Funki Porcini, Amon Tobin and the Cinematic Orchestra and others.
However all the above I may have just simply made up, who knows for definite.

"There  are periods of history when the visions of mad men and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common sense interpretaton of data available to the so called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already."

" There is no governer anywhere, you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of death, even. All existing Society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses, Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists."

- Robert Anton Wilson

MAYBE LOGIC:
The Lives & Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson

Rachel Corrie ( 10/4/79 - 16/3/03) - The Courage to Resist.

Rachel Corrie was killed 9 years ago today in the Gaza Strip in Palestine on March 16th 2003, trying to prevent the demolition of the home of a Palestinian family.
She was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer whilst undertaking nonviolent direct action. Her name has not been forgotten and carries on being an inspiration to solidarity activists around the globe. Today we remember her.

http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/

http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

Billy Bragg - The lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSNJ4RDGtUE

David Roviks - A song for Rachel Corrie

Serj Tankian - Borders Are

Borders Are

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

                           - Serj Tankien

Happy 90th Birthday Jack Kerouac.

' 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
and some  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

Ivor Cutler (15/01/23 - 31/03/06) - What? / Alone.

What?

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.

And those who were dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music - Nietzche

If You Repeat A Lie Often Enough, It Becomes Politics.

               'in a world which really is topsy-turvey, - the true is moment of the false.'
               
               - Guy Debord

International Women's Day - Bread & Roses remake by Queen Cee

Bread and Roses - James Oppenheim.

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. 

Marya Mannes (14/11/04 - 13/09/90) - (extract from) Out of My Time.

American writer and lecturer

' . . .  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.

Reprinted from ' Out of my Time'

Victor Gollanz Ltd and David J. Blow.

Happy International Women's Day.

March of the Mad Hares .

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.

Leaping Hare - Ian MacCulloch
http://www.hayrackgallery.co.uk/catalogue/default.php?product_Artist_ID=26

' 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.

Link to Hare Preservtion Trust.
http://www.hare-preservation-trust.co.uk/

Protect threatened Hares Petition.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/protect-threatened-hares-in-the-uk/

No Way Through

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.

.

Davey Jones (30/12/45 - 29/02/12) R.I.P

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.

As reported in the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/29/davy-jones-monkees-dies-66?newsfeed=true

The Monkees - Last Train to Clarkesville.

The Monkees - I'm a believer

The Monkees - Steppin Stone

The Monkees - Porpoise Song ( from HEAD)

You Can't Evict an idea.

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 ( b16/4/1889 - 25/12/77) - Citizen of the World

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.

By 1914 when war is declared Charlie Chaplin is a global film star but  is ridiculed in the UK for failing to enlist. The smear campaign directed at shaming Chaplin for his failure to enlist was spearheaded by British press mogul Lord Northcliffe, the founder of the Daily Mail. Northcliffe reprimanded the actor numerous times in his publications, often demanding his immediate return to Britain.

His films  however,, treated no less than a miraculous medication, were regularly shown to the injured soldiers of the First World War.  The projectors were fitted in such a way as to project their images onto the ceilings of the hospitals, allowing bedridden soldiers to enjoy Chaplin’s films without having to sit up. The soldiers used to forget their emotional and physical trauma once they started watching the Tramp and his gags.  Laughing helped reduce the sufferings of the war-wounded soldiers. As Chaplin puts it, “Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.” 

Chaplin’s universal medicine of laughter entertained and cured a worldwide audience since it transcended the barriers of language. Eventually he does don khaki - in  his anti-war comedyShoulder Arms released in 1918, after the Armistice., the film presented a sarcastic but funny overview of the war. It featured the Tramp in an army camp as an awkward rooky who has to face several challenges in order to survive the deadly trenches.

He is seen battling the dirty mud, the flooding, the persistent fear, and the grossly bad food. The Tramp eventually captures the Kaiser after he disguises himself as a tree trunk and crosses no man’s land in his hilarious camouflage. 

His many other  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 City Lights (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.

 Chaplin’s anti-war sentiments only increased with time as his political clout strengthened later in his career. “Though he might make comedy from it,” Robinson writes, “the folly and tragedy and waste of war were always to bewilder and torment Chaplin.”
On 15 October 1940 Charlie Chaplin's  classic film The Great Dictator debuted in New York and saw him taking on the nazis.  In his first all-talking picture, he plays both a Jewish barber and his double, Adenoid Hynkel, the absolute ruler of Tomainia. As Hynkel and his henchmen Herring and Garbitsch engineer the persecution of Jews and the invasion of neighboring Osterlich.

In  the film 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.Throughout the anti-fascist film Chaplin powerfully exploits the deflating power of parody, while in the finale he abandons both character and comedy to deliver one of the most inspirational speeches in recorded history with an impassioned plea to the audience for human tolerance, encouraging us in opposing all forms of oppression,Many years later, the  world still needs to stand still and listen and stand against the forces of fascism.https://

Charlie Chaplin's inspirational final speech  in  "The Great Dictator "

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible- jewish, Gentile, black men, white…

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery ,we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.”

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate!

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite.

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!

Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

A Message to  humanity

However  despite his anti-war efforts, Chaplin 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. In the early 1950s, the United States was suffering from a chronic condition known as Communist-phobia, also referred to as McCarthyism, named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led a vicious campaign against numerous prominent Hollywood stars, academics, scientists, writers, activists, and others.

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.Charlie Chaplin didn't get any Oscar Awards as he was labelled a communist. He was, at last, given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Oscar Academy. He was allowed to talk only for five minutes. He didn't talk a single word but was applauded for 12 minutes with standing ovation from the spectators. 

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 and remind  me of  what truly matters. 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

“I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.”- Charlie Chaplin

People have the power.

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 . . .