Solidarity Forever - Ralph Chaplin (1887-1961)

The  Labour Song ' Solidarity Forever' was  written by Industrial Workers of the World songwriter and their poet Laureatte Ralph Chaplin,wrote the song after a  big march by some 1,300  people against hunger and unemployment  which was led by IWW  organiser  Lucy Parsons in Chicago on  January17, 1915.,

He had begun writing the song back in 1914 during a miners strike in Huntington West Virginia, He wrote of the songs origins in Wobbly an IWW journal, ' I wanted the song to be full of revolutionary fervour and to have a chorus that was ringing and defiant.  It was sung to the tune of 'John Brown's Body'  and was inspired by 'the Battle Hymn of the Republic'. 

Ralph Chaplin was born in Ames, Kansas in 1887. The family moved to Chicago 1893, he did a variety of low-paid jobs before moving to Mexico  where he became a supporter of Emilliano Zapata He  joined the International Workers in 1913,but got distracted  after converting to Roman Catlolicism but  continued to back grass-roots activism and libertarian radicalism and to publish poetry. He died in Tacoma in 1961.
The following version of  his song was recorded in 1941 by Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers  and is contained on their album ' Talking Union'. It is still probably one of the most well known union anthems after the Internationale.
It is still being sung by people still at war against capitalism's tyranny, and by those who are convinced in nothing less than the solidarity of freedom. As austerity grips, its message resonates even more,as  the greedy still try to lay the blame at the doors of the ordinary man. The song still chimes today because it describes the realization that collective power of workers and unions is greater than those with armies or hoarded gold etc.
The wobblies and the IWW still going strong, standing as a dedicated force for social change, internationally across the globe. It is still a member led union, for all workers, (whatever your job, whether unemployed or not.) Their motto being 'an injury to one is an injury to all.
.

Solidarity Forever

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yest what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

CHORUS:

Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the Union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organise and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

Chorus

It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they  trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes  us strong.

Chorus

All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.

Chorus

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single whell can turn,
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

Chorus

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold,
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.

Click on following to enlarge:-

you can connect at following link:-

http://www.iww.org/

Gresford Colliery Disaster

The Gresford  disaster took place this morning on September 22, 1934, at Gresford colliery near Wrexham, Denbighshire, Wales,  owned by the Westminster and United Collieries Group. which employed 2,220 men., with 1850 working underground and 350 on the surface.Some 19th century working practices were still in evidence in the pit although some mechanisation had been introduced.

At the time, 500 men were working down the mine on a night shift.men which was unusually high because some men had worked double shifts that night in order to be able to attend a carnival and football match the following day.

The mine operated in two main sections, the Dennis and the Slant. The explosion occurred in the Dennis, one of the deepest pits in the North Wales coalfields.

At 2.08 am, a violent explosion  occurred through the Dennis Section of the Gresford Collier mine one of the deepest pits in the North Wales coalfields.The Dennis Main Deep was ruptured by the explosions, and many miners would have been flung across the pit roads, some of them dying instantly. Others were burnt alive, gassed, asphyxiated or crushed to death. There is no doubt that there were others trapped alive with no means of escape who were the victims of later explosions and the release of more gas, and who were dead before they were entombed forever by the sealing of the mine by their colleagues.

In total 266 men and boys were killed with only 6 men surviving, caused by poor safety standards combined with poor management.Only eleven bodies were recovered from the mine. Inquests recorded the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning.
After a few hours of the first explosion, more than 1,000 men had assembled around the pithead standing silently in the cold and pouring rain, waiting to help their comrades who were trapped down below.For two days brave men fought to reach their entrapped colleagues, until came the terrible inhuman decision to withdraw and seal the pit shaft, with men still trapped inside. The roads and shafts were burnt and collapsed forever entombing the bodies of the victims closed.
With this some 800 children lost their fathers and more than 200 women lost their husbands and loved ones. It was not to be the worst mining disaster in the  history of  British mining though, Senghennyd holds that dubious privilege,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/100th-anniversary-of-senghenydd-mine.html but still serves as a tragic reminder of how in a single day a community was to see and witness and feel the real price of coal, with every  member of the  community in Wrexham losing someone on this day. . 

Following the disaster there was a huge cover up,plus the wages of over 1,000 miners were docked by the owners adding further insult and injustice that would add much further pain and bringing muchf urther untold hardship to the area, with the result being that by the end of autumn, an estimated 1,100 Gresford men thrown on the dole. This combined with the fact that the management were never prosecuted,  because they  destroyed all records of this disaster was  an absolute betrayal of the men who perished. 
In its aftermath however following an inquiry numerous breaches of law were eventually exposed, The pit, it turned out, had a very erratic safety record and high levels of firedamp (methane gas) had been recorded and ignored. The enquiry that followed used the words, "neglect", "incompetence", "inadequate ventilation" and "lack of monthly reports". However, most of the blame centred on the management and colliery manager, William Bonsall, was branded the "villain", so deflecting the wrath originally directed at the owners, including Henry Dyke Dennis, who had not employed a mining engineer to check safety in the pit since 1932. Bonsall was fined £140, with costs of £350 and most of the other charges made against the colliery company were either withdrawn or dropped. Part of the problem had been that the miners themselves, the only really worthwhile witnesses, were reluctant to appear in court to give testimony against their bosses, fearing this would result in their instant dismissal and being thrown on the dole to add to an already swollen labour market. Furthermore, they would also have been blacklisted by all the other mine owners from ever working in the industry again.

However, the disaster became a symbol that, eventually, resulted in better and safer working conditions in the coal mining industry throughout the UK but it would be yet another twenty years before the lessons learned would bring fresh legislation in the form of the 1954 Mines and Quarries Act, but it all came too late for the Gresford dead

The colliery reopened after the disaster with coal production resuming in January 1936, but was to eventually be closed down for good for economic reasons in November 1973. Eventually in 1982 a memorial to the victims was erected nearby, constructed by using a wheel from the old pit-head winding gear. We should remember the desperate situation of those who were trapped, and their darkest hours just before dawn. An incident of national importance that should never be forgotten.As the late, great Ewan McColl put it, in his iconic song, The Gresford Disaster, it was "the terrible price that was paid" by your ancestors to keep the home fires burning. Cofiwch Gresffordd/ Remember Gresford.

Ewan Mac Coll - The Gresford Disaster

The Gresford Disaster

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The names of the 266 men who died in the mining disaster in Wrexham on 22 September 1934.

Anders, John Thomas; Repairer; 31

Anders, John; Beltman; 27

Anderson, George; Repairer; 67

Andrews, Alfred (Owen); Cutter; 43

Archibald, Joseph (John)*; Metal; 47

Archibald, Thomas; Cutter; 30

Baines, David; Haulage; 26

Bateman, Maldwyn; Haulage; 15

Bather, (Edward) Wynne; Collier; 36

Beddoe(w)s, Edward; Collier; 63

Bew(d)ley, Thomas Lloyd; Collier; 58

Bow, (Bew) Arthur; Cutter; 45

Bowen, Alf (F); Borer; 53

Boycott, Henry; Packer; 38

Brain, Herbert; Repairer; 31

Bramwell, George; Haulage; 30

Brannan, John; Collier; 32

Brown, George*; Rescuer; 53

Brown, William Arthur; Rider Haulage; 22

Bryan, John A.H.; Packer; 20

Buckley, A.; Haulage; 21

Burns, Fred; Collier; 41

Capper John A.; Packer; 35

Cartwright, Albert Edward; Packer; 24

Cartwright, Charles; Filler; 25

Chadwick, Stephen; Filler; 21

Chesters, Edwin*; Fireman; 67

Clutton, Arthur; Packer; 29

Clutton, George (Albert); Packer; 20

Clutton, John Thomas*; Rider Haulage; 35

Collins, John ( Jos.); Shot Firer; 62

Cornwall, Thomas R.; Haulage; 30

Crump, William; Cutter-man; 36

Darlington, Thomas; Ripper; 28

Davies, Arthur; Filler; 24

Davies, Edward; Packer; 53

Davies, George (William); Haulage; 26

Davies, Hugh T.; Borer; 26

Davies, James; Repairer; 31

Davies, James; Repairer; 37

Davies, James (Edward); Filler; 21

Davies, John; Collier; 64

Davies, John; Repairer; 45

Davies, John E.; Collier; 32

Davies, E. R. (John R.); Repairer; 69

Davies, Matthias; Filler; 24

Davies, D. (Peter); Repairer; 50

Davies, Peter; Filler; 25

Davies, Peter; Borer; 21

Davies, Robert Thomas; Collier; 34

Davies, Samuel; Filler; 35

Davies, Thomas; Repairer; 31

Davies, William; Repairer; 33

Dodd, Thomas; Ripper; 39

Duckett, Fred; Collier; 29

Edge, Joseph (John); Haulage; 28

Edge, S. (T. Samuel); Collier; 30

Edwards, Albert; Repairer; 62

Edwards, Ernest; Haulage; 16

Edwards, I. (E. Glyn); Haulage; 23

Edwards, Ernest Thomas; Ripper; 53

Edwards, Frank; Pipe-man; 23

Edwards, James Sam; Haulage; -

Edwards E. (John Edward); Collier; 39

Edwards, John C.; Packer; 30

Edwards E. T. (Thomas David); Ripper; 40

Edwards, William; Ripper; 32

Edwardson, John; Beltman; 41

Ellis, George (Edward); Collier; 43

Evans, Fred; Collier; 50

Evans, Jos. (John); Cutterman; 32

Evans, Norman; Doggie; 45

Evans, Ralph; Cutter; 37

Fisher, Len; Haulage; 30

Foulkes, H. (Irwin); Haulage; 21

Gabriel, Richard George; Collier; 61

Gittens, Joseph (John Henry); Repairer; 42

Goodwin, John; Packer; 51

Griffiths, Edward; Filler; 21

Griffiths, Ellis; Packer; 50

Griffiths, Emmanuel; Packer; 53

Griffiths (E.) C.; Repairer; 25

Griffiths, Frank (John Francis); Repairer; 57

Griffiths, Walter; Repairer; 50

Hall, Walter; Packer; 49

Hallam, Thomas W.; Packer; 32

Hamlington, Arthur; Repairer; 62

Hampson, Frank (A.); Repairer; 32

Harrison, Arthur; Collier; 21

Harrison, Charles Edward; Haulage; 15

Hewitt, P. (Phillip J.); Repairer; 56

Higgins, W. (William Henry); Haulage; 27

Holt, Alfred (F); Cutter; 31

Hold (Houlden) John Henry; Haulage; 21

Hughes, Cecil; Packer; 23

Hughes, Daniel; Rescuer; 56

Hughes, Francis O.; Repairer; 60

Hughes, G. (Harry); Cutter-man; 44

Hughes, John; Repairer; 58

Hughes, Peter Joseph; Collier; 27

Hughes, Robert John; Collier; 29

Hughes, Walter Ellis; Packer; 24

Hughes, William; Collier; 43

Hughes, William; Rescuer; 54

Humphries, Ben; Collier; 34

Humphreys, Joseph (John); Cutter-man; 30

Husbands, Thomas; Collier; 40

Jarvis, Ernest; Cutter-man; 41

Jenkins, William T.; Collier; 25

Johns, Percy; Packer; 27

Jones, Albert Edward; Borer; 31

Jones, Azariah; Header; 37

Jones, Cyril; Collier; 26

Jones, Daniel; Repairer; 33

Jones, David L.; Cutter-man; 36

Jones, Edward; Repairer; 64

Jones, Edward; Repairer; 56

Jones, Edward George*; Haulage; 23

Jones, Eric; Filler; 23

Jones, Ernest; Packer; 36

Jones, Evan Hugh; Repairer; 55

Jones, Francis O.; Haulage; 27

Jones, Fred; Packer; 30

Jones, Frederick H.C.; Borer; 31

Jones, George; Beltman; 47

Jones, J. (George Humphrey); Haulage; 22

Jones, Gwilym; Repairer; 52

Jones, Henry; Collier; 59

Jones, Idris; Haulage; 37

Jones, Iorwerth; Haulage; 52

Jones, Jabez (James); Haulage; 43

Jones, John Dan; Repairer; 42

Jones, John Richard; Repairer; 33

Jones, John Robert; Repairer; 55

Jones, Llewellyn; Haulage; 40

Jones, Llewellyn; Repairer; 49

Jones, Llewellyn; Collier; 38

Jones, Neville; Beltman; 30

Jones, Richard Henry; Haulage; 21

Jones, Richard James ; Repairer; 34

Jones, Robert; Packer; 49

Jones, Robert; Deputy Fireman; 57

Jones, Thomas; Packer; 55

Jones, Thomas E.; Collier; -

Jones, Thomas John; Haulage; 58

Jones, Thomas O.; Collier; 59

Jones, William; Filler; 21

Jones, William; Haulage; 51

Kelsall, John (Jack); Packer; 37

Kelsall, James; Haulage; 30

Lawrence, William*; Haulage; 40 (43

Lee, John Thomas; Repairer; 30

Lee, Thomas; Repairer; 16

Lewis, David; Repairer; 44

Lewis, David Thomas; Cutter-man; 46

Lewis, Jack (John); Rescuer; 48

Lilly, Joel; Repairer; 41

Lloyd, Thomas; Packer; 55

Lloyd, William; Collier; 59

Lloyd, William Sydney; Haulage; 17

Lucas, John; Collier; 59

McKean, Joseph (John); Repairer; 30

Maggs, Colin V.; Haulage; 17

Mannion, Albert; Filler; 29

Manuel, S.A. (Thomas A.); Repairer; 33

Martin, William Henry; Ripper; 37

Mathews, William V.; Haulage; 18

Mathias, Samuel; Fireman; 42

Meades, William; Packer; 39

Mitchell, George; Haulage; 23

Monks, Ernest; Haulage; 23

Morley, Edward; Repairer; 57

Morris, Alfred; Haulage; 20

Nichols, Harry; Repairer; 32

Nichols, John; Collier; 29

Nichols, William (Henry); Collier; 25

Owens, Evan Henry; Packer; 54

Palmer, Alexander*; Haulage; 20

Parry, I. S. (Isaac); Repairer; 40

Parry, Joseph; Repairer; 65

Parry, John E.; Haulage; 31

Parry, F. J. (John Richard.); Haulage; 21

Penny, Stephen; Filler; 23

Penny, William H.; Ambulanceman; 32

Perrin, Frank C.; Haulage; 23

Peters, Henry; Packer; 38

Phillips, George; Haulage; 22

Phillips, Herbert; Filler; 30

Phillips, John; Filler; 40

Pickering, John Frederick; Haulage; 22

Powell, Charles; Railman; 57

Price, (Prince) Ernest; Cutter-man; 27

Price, Samuel; Cutter-man; 37

Prydding, John; Haulage; 32

Prince, Mark; Repairer; 59

Prince, William; Repairer; 30

Pritchard, I. S. (Isiah); Repairer; 54

Pugh, Ernest; Doggie; 49

Pugh, Thomas; Collier; 54

Ralphs, John; Cutter-man; 53

Rance, Thomas R.; Haulage; 21

Rees, Albert; Pipeman; 56

Reid, Lloyd; Haulage; 20

Roberts, Arthur A.; Repairer; 63

Roberts, Edward; Collier; 35

Roberts, Edward C.; Collier; 42

Roberts, Ernest; Filler; 26

Roberts, Frank; Haulage; 26

Roberts, George W.*; Repairer Filler; 28

Roberts, Idris; Haulage; 16

Roberts, John David; Collier; 47

Roberts, H. (John); Packer; 33

Roberts, Olwyn; Filler; 24

Roberts, Percy; Haulage; 26

Roberts, Robert John; Filler; -

Roberts, Robert Thomas; Railman; 57

Roberts, Robert William; Packer; 38

Roberts, Robert; Repairer; 33

Roberts Thomas James; Filler; 19

Roberts, William; Packer; 45

Roberts, William H. (T.); Collier; 40

Robertson, William; Cutter-man; 41

Rogers, Edward Llew.; Haulage; 20

Rogers, Grenville; Repairer; 29

Ross, Harry; Collier; 34

Rowland, John David; Haulage; 17 

 

Rowlands, John. Cutter-man; 36

Salisbury, William; Fireman; 36

Shaw, George; Collier; 63

Shone, James (John); Packer; 34

Shone, Richard; Doggie; 49

Slawson, Arthur; Haulage; 22

Smith, Leonard; Haulage; 20

Stratford, Stanley; Packer; 39

Stevens, Richard T.; Haulage; 22

Strange, Albert; Collier; 35

Tarran, John; Repairer; 50

Taylor, William Henry; Cutter; 53

Thomas, Berwyn; Haulage; 26

Thomas, John Elias; Repairer; 29

Thomas, Robert; Haulage; 22

Thomas, Tec; Collier; 26

Thornton, John; Repairer; 24

Tittle, Edward; Repairer; 44

Trow(e), Ernest; Collier; 41

Valentine S. (Fred) A; Haulage; 24

Vaughan John Edward; Repairer; 28

White John; Beltman; 38

Williams, George; Collier; 31

Williams, Harold; Collier; 37

Williams, Hugh (L. l.); Collier; 43

Williams, John; Repairer; 62

Williams, John Thos.; Packer; 33

Williams, J. T. (John D.); Repairer; 29

Williams, John; Repairer; 44

Williams, John; Collier; 29

Williams, Joseph (James); Collier; 66

Williams, N (Morris); Electrician; 24

Williams, Reg; Electrician; 29

Williams, Thomas; Repairer; 57

Williams, William A.; Cutter-man; 29

Wilson, John Walter; Haulage; 32

Witter, Henry; Repairer; 56

Wynn, Edward; Repairer; 68

Winyard, William Walter; Collier; -

Wynneyard; Repairer; 47

Yemm, Morgan (J.); Repairer; 28

* Indicates body recovered. All others, apart from rescuers, were sealed in the pit. 

Dripping with Hope (a poem for the autumn equinox)

Sept. 21st is a special day. A time to celebrate the final harvest of the season and the abundance that the Earth always gifts us with. As well, join 200 countries and over 75 million people who will be celebrating Peace on this International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations.The following is an old  poem updated to mark the occasion.

Dripping with Hope

     As geese flock above
     beginning long journeys home,
     rumors of war do not recede
     the guilty hiding on all sides,
     while the sky turns from blue 
                                          to grey.
    
    What is essential
    is invisible to our eyes,
    underneath branches
    the sap of peace,
    dripping with hope
    nurturing the restless,
    fostering friendliness
    delivering sustenance.    
    
   There is no need for panic
   no need for alarm,
   above the clouds, harmony's 
                                    roar,
   pouring raindrops to soothe
                                   the earth;     
   smouldering heartbeats,
   splintering divisions sore.

   So as summer recedes
   try to keep on turning
   tearing through the skies,
   spreading peaceful intention  
   making love not war,
   breathing in air
   breathing out light.
                                          
                                                      

Bertrand Russell (18/5/1872 -2/2/1970) - In Praise of Idleness

In 1932 Bertrand Russell, the philosopher wrote the following interesting essay ' In Praise of Idleness.' In it, Russell eloquently explains the actual benefits of idleness and criticises the idea that work is inherently virtuous and an end in itself.
I do however personally believe in the benefits of mutual aid and solidarity and greatly admire too all those that have to endure a tough 9-5 existence, but forced employment has led to two nervous breakdowns and paths of despair that I would not recommend to anyone. Beyond procrastinating to much, idleness though can actually be beneficial to all, as long as you don't waste the day sitting around doing bugger all, it can be a way of celebrating life that is extremely wholesome. Idleness is not a force to despise but an energy that can be a force for good and change, if like all things it is used in the right way. A positive essence that can be used to write poetry, learn a language, cultivate a garden, express feelings and emotions etc etc.
At the end of the day indulging in life's passions can actually be quite consuming, writing this blog for instance and searching for new things to write about is no simple task, but I see it though as a way of celebrating existence, even though some of the subject matters that I am drawn to, might not reflect this inner impulse. 
The system that compels people to work just in order to increase once wealth has been proven to be wrong and increasingly to many seems absurd and immoral,  and I believe to be far from emancipating and is seen by some as a form of consensus brainwashing. Surely there are other ways that can be of benefit to mankind that can be nourishing also for mind, body and spirit.
As The Idler Academy reminds us, http://idler.co.uk/ ( a fine resource by the way) the ancient Greek word for leisure, skhole, later turned into our word for school. We must also remember that the opposition between work and life is not inevitable: is a painter who lives for her art working or playing?
There is room for letting some gaps into our lives out of which creativity can grow. This might look just like idleness to someone in thrall to the work ethic. But it is a different, mindful kind of idleness: not numbing the mind but stilling it to allow the imagination to flourish.
Anyway enough of my lazy preamble, one that I actually had to rewrite again, because in my idleness I pressed a key on computer and my original thoughts were completely erased, so had to start again, so will leave you in the hands of Bertrand who explains these ideas much better than I ever could. Will be quite next few days off idling and generally mooching about.

Bertrand Russell - In Praise of Idleness, 1932

"Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: ‘Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.’ Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. this traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

Before advancing my own arguments for laziness, I must dispose of one which I cannot accept. Whenever a person who already has enough to live on proposes to engage in some everyday kind of job, such as school-teaching or typing, he or she is told that such conduct takes the bread out of other people’s mouths, and is therefore wicked. If this argument were valid, it would only be necessary for us all to be idle in order that we should all have our mouths full of bread. What people who say such things forget is that what a man earns he usually spends, and in spending he gives employment. As long as a man spends his income, he puts just as much bread into people’s mouths in spending as he takes out of other people’s mouths in earning. The real villain, from this point of view, is the man who saves. If he merely puts his savings in a stocking, like the proverbial French peasant, it is obvious that they do not give employment. If he invests his savings, the matter is less obvious, and different cases arise.

One of the commonest things to do with savings is to lend them to some Government. In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers. The net result of the man’s economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it in drink or gambling.

But, I shall be told, the case is quite different when savings are invested in industrial enterprises. When such enterprises succeed, and produce something useful, this may be conceded. In these days, however, no one will deny that most enterprises fail. That means that a large amount of human labor, which might have been devoted to producing something that could be enjoyed, was expended on producing machines which, when produced, lay idle and did no good to anyone. The man who invests his savings in a concern that goes bankrupt is therefore injuring others as well as himself. If he spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface card in some place where surface cars turn out not to be wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person.

All this is only preliminary. I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two organized bodies of men; this is called politics. The skill required for this kind of work is not knowledge of the subjects as to which advice is given, but knowledge of the art of persuasive speaking and writing, i.e. of advertising.

Throughout Europe, though not in America, there is a third class of men, more respected than either of the classes of workers. There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.

From the beginning of civilization until the Industrial Revolution, a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard as he did, and his children added their labor as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by warriors and priests. In times of famine there was no surplus; the warriors and priests, however, still secured as much as at other times, with the result that many of the workers died of hunger. This system persisted in Russia until 1917 , and still persists in the East; in England, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, it remained in full force throughout the Napoleonic wars, and until a hundred years ago, when the new class of manufacturers acquired power. In America, the system came to an end with the Revolution, except in the South, where it persisted until the Civil War. A system which lasted so long and ended so recently has naturally left a profound impress upon men’s thoughts and opinions. Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system, and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world. Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

It is obvious that, in primitive communities, peasants, left to themselves, would not have parted with the slender surplus upon which the warriors and priests subsisted, but would have either produced less or consumed more. At first, sheer force compelled them to produce and part with the surplus. Gradually, however, it was found possible to induce many of them to accept an ethic according to which it was their duty to work hard, although part of their work went to support others in idleness. By this means the amount of compulsion required was lessened, and the expenses of government were diminished. To this day, 99 per cent of British wage-earners would be genuinely shocked if it were proposed that the King should not have a larger income than a working man. The conception of duty, speaking historically, has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than for their own. Of course the holders of power conceal this fact from themselves by managing to believe that their interests are identical with the larger interests of humanity. Sometimes this is true; Athenian slave-owners, for instance, employed part of their leisure in making a permanent contribution to civilization which would have been impossible under a just economic system. Leisure is essential to civilization, and in former times leisure for the few was only rendered possible by the labors of the many. But their labors were valuable, not because work is good, but because leisure is good. And with modern technique it would be possible to distribute leisure justly without injury to civilization.

Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone. This was made obvious during the war. At that time all the men in the armed forces, and all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or Government offices connected with the war, were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of well-being among unskilled wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance: borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of the week had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.

This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich. In England, in the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day’s work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: ‘What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.’ People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.

Let us, for a moment, consider the ethics of work frankly, without superstition. Every human being, of necessity, consumes, in the course of his life, a certain amount of the produce of human labor. Assuming, as we may, that labor is on the whole disagreeable, it is unjust that a man should consume more than he produces. Of course he may provide services rather than commodities, like a medical man, for example; but he should provide something in return for his board and lodging. to this extent, the duty of work must be admitted, but to this extent only.

I shall not dwell upon the fact that, in all modern societies outside the USSR, many people escape even this minimum amount of work, namely all those who inherit money and all those who marry money. I do not think the fact that these people are allowed to be idle is nearly so harmful as the fact that wage-earners are expected to overwork or starve.

If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure. In America men often work long hours even when they are well off; such men, naturally, are indignant at the idea of leisure for wage-earners, except as the grim punishment of unemployment; in fact, they dislike leisure even for their sons. Oddly enough, while they wish their sons to work so hard as to have no time to be civilized, they do not mind their wives and daughters having no work at all. the snobbish admiration of uselessness, which, in an aristocratic society, extends to both sexes, is, under a plutocracy, confined to women; this, however, does not make it any more in agreement with common sense.

The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education. A man who has worked long hours all his life will become bored if he becomes suddenly idle. But without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things. There is no longer any reason why the bulk of the population should suffer this deprivation; only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.

In the new creed which controls the government of Russia, while there is much that is very different from the traditional teaching of the West, there are some things that are quite unchanged. The attitude of the governing classes, and especially of those who conduct educational propaganda, on the subject of the dignity of labor, is almost exactly that which the governing classes of the world have always preached to what were called the ‘honest poor’. Industry, sobriety, willingness to work long hours for distant advantages, even submissiveness to authority, all these reappear; moreover authority still represents the will of the Ruler of the Universe, Who, however, is now called by a new name, Dialectical Materialism.

The victory of the proletariat in Russia has some points in common with the victory of the feminists in some other countries. For ages, men had conceded the superior saintliness of women, and had consoled women for their inferiority by maintaining that saintliness is more desirable than power. At last the feminists decided that they would have both, since the pioneers among them believed all that the men had told them about the desirability of virtue, but not what they had told them about the worthlessness of political power. A similar thing has happened in Russia as regards manual work. For ages, the rich and their sycophants have written in praise of ‘honest toil’, have praised the simple life, have professed a religion which teaches that the poor are much more likely to go to heaven than the rich, and in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in space, just as men tried to make women believe that they derived some special nobility from their sexual enslavement. In Russia, all this teaching about the excellence of manual work has been taken seriously, with the result that the manual worker is more honored than anyone else. What are, in essence, revivalist appeals are made, but not for the old purposes: they are made to secure shock workers for special tasks. Manual work is the ideal which is held before the young, and is the basis of all ethical teaching.

For the present, possibly, this is all to the good. A large country, full of natural resources, awaits development, and has has to be developed with very little use of credit. In these circumstances, hard work is necessary, and is likely to bring a great reward. But what will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?

In the West, we have various ways of dealing with this problem. We have no attempt at economic justice, so that a large proportion of the total produce goes to a small minority of the population, many of whom do no work at all. Owing to the absence of any central control over production, we produce hosts of things that are not wanted. We keep a large percentage of the working population idle, because we can dispense with their labor by making the others overwork. When all these methods prove inadequate, we have a war: we cause a number of people to manufacture high explosives, and a number of others to explode them, as if we were children who had just discovered fireworks. By a combination of all these devices we manage, though with difficulty, to keep alive the notion that a great deal of severe manual work must be the lot of the average man.

In Russia, owing to more economic justice and central control over production, the problem will have to be differently solved. the rational solution would be, as soon as the necessaries and elementary comforts can be provided for all, to reduce the hours of labor gradually, allowing a popular vote to decide, at each stage, whether more leisure or more goods were to be preferred. But, having taught the supreme virtue of hard work, it is difficult to see how the authorities can aim at a paradise in which there will be much leisure and little work. It seems more likely that they will find continually fresh schemes, by which present leisure is to be sacrificed to future productivity. I read recently of an ingenious plan put forward by Russian engineers, for making the White Sea and the northern coasts of Siberia warm, by putting a dam across the Kara Sea. An admirable project, but liable to postpone proletarian comfort for a generation, while the nobility of toil is being displayed amid the ice-fields and snowstorms of the Arctic Ocean. This sort of thing, if it happens, will be the result of regarding the virtue of hard work as an end in itself, rather than as a means to a state of affairs in which it is no longer needed.

The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life. If it were, we should have to consider every navvy superior to Shakespeare. We have been misled in this matter by two causes. One is the necessity of keeping the poor contented, which has led the rich, for thousands of years, to preach the dignity of labor, while taking care themselves to remain undignified in this respect. The other is the new pleasure in mechanism, which makes us delight in the astonishingly clever changes that we can produce on the earth’s surface. Neither of these motives makes any great appeal to the actual worker. If you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say: ‘I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man’s noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet. It is true that my body demands periods of rest, which I have to fill in as best I may, but I am never so happy as when the morning comes and I can return to the toil from which my contentment springs.’ I have never heard working men say this sort of thing. They consider work, as it should be considered, a necessary means to a livelihood, and it is from their leisure that they derive whatever happiness they may enjoy.

It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. Serious-minded persons, for example, are continually condemning the habit of going to the cinema, and telling us that it leads the young into crime. But all the work that goes to producing a cinema is respectable, because it is work, and because it brings a money profit. The notion that the desirable activities are those that bring a profit has made everything topsy-turvy. The butcher who provides you with meat and the baker who provides you with bread are praiseworthy, because they are making money; but when you enjoy the food they have provided, you are merely frivolous, unless you eat only to get strength for your work. Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. The individual, in our society, works for profit; but the social purpose of his work lies in the consumption of what he produces. It is this divorce between the individual and the social purpose of production that makes it so difficult for men to think clearly in a world in which profit-making is the incentive to industry. We think too much of production, and too little of consumption. One result is that we attach too little importance to enjoyment and simple happiness, and that we do not judge production by the pleasure that it gives to the consumer.

When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours’ work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried further than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered ‘highbrow’. Peasant dances have died out except in remote rural areas, but the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges. These facts greatly diminished its excellence, but in spite of this drawback it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.

The method of a leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had to be taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. The class might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers. At present, the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a by-product. This is a great improvement, but it has certain drawbacks. University life is so different from life in the world at large that men who live in academic milieu tend to be unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women; moreover their ways of expressing themselves are usually such as to rob their opinions of the influence that they ought to have upon the general public. Another disadvantage is that in universities studies are organized, and the man who thinks of some original line of research is likely to be discouraged. Academic institutions, therefore, useful as they are, are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where everyone outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits.

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

Above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever."

Autumnal

 

 
My mind is restless today, one of my sisters celebrates her birthday today, the other one lies ill in bed, as summer ends and autumnal clouds drift overhead,tender our hearts full of sorrow, I pray to invisible gods to release healing to earth, to grant a better tomorrow, giddy is my futile hopes, in reality I curse and scream, but at least at moment a gentle hand touches mine, but the spectre of despair breathes as my words melt into the air....

Refugees Welcome

Today across Britain in towns and cities thousands of ordinary people from diverse backgrounds and many different faiths have been marching to show their solidarity with refugees. With over 60 million people now currently displaced worldwide and nearly 20 million refugees we are still in the midst of the largest refugee crisis the world has faced since WW11.Last year alone nearly 90,000 lone children sought safety in Europe.
We must continue to provide a vibrant welcome to refugees among us, and to encourage our country to respond to the world's crisis by offering hospitality to vulnerable refugees now more than ever.
Women, men and children around the world are fleeing war, persecution and torture.They have been forced into the hands of smugglers and onto dangerous journeys across the sea in rickety old boats and dinghies. Many have lost their lives. Those who have made it often find themselves stranded in makeshift camps in train stations, ports or by the roadside. And still, politicians across Europe fail to provide safe and legal routes for people to seek asylum.
Meanwhile though ordinary people have responded with extraordinary displays of humanity and generosity. They've been moved to act after seeing thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean, the continuing misery of camps in places like Calais, and images of the brutal conflicts across the world.People however are still dying in  numbers in the Mediterranean, on the way to Europe and its borders. In Calais the population of the slum is over 10,000 people in more and more appalling living conditions, thousands trapped in Greece without running water or baby formula. Here as elsewhere in Europe, the situation gets worse day by day for migrants, showing the ineffectiveness and the murderous character of current policies combined  with.the continuing the injustices and inefficiencies of Britain's own asylum system.
After today we need to keep telling the Prime Mister Theresa May  that the UK government must do more - let's call on them to: Lead  the way towards a more human global response to the millions fleeing conflict.Offer safe passage to the UK for more people who have been forced to flee their homes. and do more to help refugees in the UK rebuild their lives.The UK should be leading the way and working with other states to give refugees safe, legal routes to asylum, ending the trade in people smuggling.Putting up fences in Calais or Greece is not a solution.
Since the referendum campaign and vote, divisive rhetoric has been ever more prevalent from a small but vocal minority.A racist offensive against refugees, migrants and Muslims is still being pushed by some politicians and press. It is crucial we respond to this by standing in solidarity against attempts to divide our communities. The appalling treatment of refugees across Europe and the staggering rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes must be challenged. Let’s send a message that drives back the tide of racism, fascism, Islamophobia, and the scapegoating of migrants and refugees  and continue to loudly say refugees are welcome here and yes to diversity.
This September, world leaders will meet to discuss the refugee crisis at two crucial summits. This is the biggest opportunity of 2016 to show our government and the world that Britain is ready to welcome more refugees. We must keep up the pressure.
 Here is full  list of organisations  that  supported todays events, which also acts as a link to the website Solidarity with Refugees.

http://swruk.org/refugees-welcome-here-2016/#supporting-orgs

Remembering Sabra and Shatila

We have recently remembered the victims of 9/11. But this week also marks the 34th anniversary of the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, so a moments silence please.
This massacre took place between 16 to 18 September 1982. It is now considered  to be the bloodiest single atrocity committed against the Palestinian people in living history. Similar in magnitude to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US,which left close to 3000 innocent Palestinian/Lebanese people dead according to the International Committee of the Red Cross,men, women and children massacred in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut, by Christian Lebanese Phalangists while the city was occupied by the Israeli army. The real number is hard to determine because bodies were buried quickly in mass graves or never found, and many men were marched out of the camp and simply disappeared. It is recognised as one of Israels most infamous crimes.
 Palestinians had settled in Lebanon in the aftermath of the creation of the State of Israel. During the summer of 1948, some 110,000 Palestinians were driven out of Galilee and crossed the border into Lebanon. Most of them became refugees. During the seventies, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) set up its headquarters in Lebanon after its leaders and activists had been expelled from Jordan. The PLO was responsible for some 340,000 Palestinians. It provided social services and basic infrastructures and built institutions in various domains (economic, cultural, social and political).
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF)  invaded Lebanon in June 1982 with the goal of pushing out the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). After newly-elected President Bashir Gemayel was assassinated on September 14th, the IDF invaded West Beirut, which included the Sabra neighborhood and the Shatila refugee camp, which predominately housed Muslim refugees. The IDF ordered their allies in Lebanon, the Kataeb Party (also called the Phalange), a right-wing Maronite Christian party, to clear the area of PLO militants to facilitate the IDF advance.On the 18th of September, after about forty hours of killing, the first images of the massacre showing civilian victims appeared on TV. They provoked worldwide indignation and compassion. Foreign journalists and diplomats entered the camps in the aftermath of the massacre after the IDF had withdrawn from the entrances. Their reports and photographs all expressed despair and brutality. Loren Jenkins, from the Washington Post, wrote on September the 23th: “The scene at the Shatila camp when foreign observers entered Saturday morning was like a nightmare. Women wailed over the deaths of loved ones, bodies began to swell under the hot sun, and the streets were littered with thousand of spent cartridges. Houses had been dynamited and bulldozed into rubble, many with the inhabitants still inside. Groups of bodies lay before bullet-pocked walls where they appeared to have been executed. Others were strewn in alleys and streets, apparently shot as they tried to escape”.
Israel for a while denied it had conspired in the massacre, yet as a result of international condemnation it launched an inquiry in 1983, known as the Kahan Commission  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/kahan.html this found  that the Israeli military were completely aware of the massacre taking place, but had done nothing to stop it. The Commission subsequently regarded Israel of being part of the 'indirect responsibility' for the massacre. and Ariel Sharon, then Israel's highest military leader, later the country's Prime minister of bearing personal responsibility for the massacre because he did not prevent the Lebanese Phalangist militia from entering the camps.
One of the reasons why people still talk about Sabra & Shatila, is that no one has actually ever apologised for this crime against humanity, which this incident surely was. Also no one has ever stood trial or been  held account for this crime. A massacre so awful that the people of the world should not be allowed to forget it, as we should not forget any crime against humanity, all are of equal importance. It is unfortunately part of us all, a  history and legacy that is  both shameful and bitter.On all accounts this was not an isolated incident, and to this day Israels oppressive policies towards the Palestinians continue. We still see the ongoing blockade of Gaza, which has made the Gaza strip one of the biggest prisons in the world.
Every September since then hundreds of Palestinians and friends from around the world gather now in Shatila at the Martyr's Square  to remember  and mourn, and mark the events that had previously occurred.
Even contemplating this dark anniversary, I never give up feeling that there is still much hope in the future for the Palestinian people. I recognise their ongoing plight and make sure that they are not forgotten.This week, we commemorate the thousands who died at Sabra and Shatila and think of all Palestinians who continue to suffer from human rights abuses.

Catching shadows

I don't plagiarise
but admit to borrowing things,
caught amidst afternoon tears
find soliloquies to release,
in the company of clouds
lines of survival  return,
beyond controlling forces
contours of freedoms echo,
from corners of memory
fragmented corners luminate,
beyond the darkness light returns
even when my hands tremble,
carrying thoughts of love and hope
beyond the prison of inner doubt,
floating free, allow thoughts  to wander
before the rippled tears fall again,
and  the ache in my heart
impels me to cry again.

Chelsea Manning ends hunger strike

Since Monday's post have heard that Chelsea Manning , the brave whistleblower has decided to end her hunger strike, as from yesterday September 13th. The army has finally agreed to treatment for her gender dysphoria.
"This is all that I wanted – for them to let me be me,” said Chelsea Manning.
“But it is hard not to wonder why it has taken so long and why such drastic measures were needed in order to get this help that was recommended.”
Chelsea was shown a memo  stating she will receive gender-reassignment surgery under the DoD’s new policy affecting transgender service members.If this actually occurs, she will be the first trans prisoner in the US to receive such treatment, setting a precedent that could benefit thousands of transgender inmates.
“This medical care is absolutely vital for Chelsea.It was the government's refusal to provide her with this necessary care that led to her suicide attempt earlier this year.
It is still outrageous though that she was forced into this situation in the first place, at then of the day she should be free from any confinement, and a pardon should be given  to allow her the freedoms that we all take for granted. She still ridiculously faces charges for her suicide attempt earlier this year.
Read more here and sign petition to drop all absurd charges against her here:-

https://www.chelseamanning.org/featured/ellsberg-stipe-videos-for-chelsea

William Seward Burroughs (5/2/14- 2/8/97) - Call me Burroughs,

Was going to write about David Cameron today, but decided against it, goodbye and good riddance to the dodgy ***** to  say he wont be missed is an understatement. I have spent a dreary wet afternoon in West Wales instead immersed  in Call Me Burroughs  a spoken word album by the author William S. Burroughs, that was originally released in June 1965 by The English Bookshop in Paris and later by ESP-Disk' in New York. Call Me Burroughs marks not only the recorded debut of William Burroughs, but also for many the first encounter with his inimitable incredible voice.
Drug addict, gun enthusiast, cat lover, convict, conjurer, queer iconclast, long have I been a huge admirer, I've carried Uncle Bill's writings and the knowledge of his struggles, failings and accomplishments with me for the entirety of my adult life,who I first discovered in my teenage years, this consumnate flouter of  norms and consensus reality who became one of the most enduring icons of the counterculture and our times. He has had an enormous influence on others too,from the Beats to punk rock,  and even hip hop, no other figure today is so widely considered the epitome of cool.
His book Naked Lunch" stands with Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" and Allen Ginsburg's "Howl" as the seminal texts of the Beat Generation. With its harrowing scenes of junkie depravity, its view of postwar America was the most extreme of all the Beats. 
Burroughs wrote all of his books under the influence of drugs,principally heroin, alcohol, marijuana and methadone, despite this, his genius for surreal black comedy tempered with hard, practical thought never deserted him. Though he chronicled all its horrors and tried various treatment programs, Burroughs in some real sense chose addiction; it was his entree to the street slang and chronic desperation of the noir lifers who occupied his fiction from “Junkie” (1953) on. When he died at 83 in 1997, his friends reportedly tucked some heroin and marijuana along with his .38 into his coffin.
Call Me Burroughs features the author reading from Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine and Nova Express, three of his best-known works that utilize the cut-up method developed by Burroughs and his artist cohort Brion Gysin. An eerie,haunting, powerful deadpan drawl guides the listener through sci-fi innerscapes, narcotic nightmares, reports from the edge of the apocalypse. Phantasmagoric passages echo real experiences roaming the streets of Mexico, the West Village, Tangiers.
The excerpts which, read as short stories, are independent and do not require listener to be familiar with the novels and follows the exploits of junkies, prostitutes, doctors, and others as they move through grisly underworlds without concern for the borders between reality and hallucination. By turns, they are blackly funny and deeply sinister, often within the same piece.
Burroughs believed that language and image were viral and that the mass-dissemination of information was part of an arch-conspiracy that restricted the full potential of the human mind..With cut-ups, Burroughs found a means of escape; an antidote to the sickness of ‘control’ messages that mutated their original content. If mass media already functioned as an enormous barrage of cut-up material, the cut-up method was a way for the artist to fight back using its same tactics.
Call Me Burroughs came to fruition modestly, reportedly the idea of Gaît Frogé, owner of The English Bookshop in Paris, with Ian Sommerville engineering the readings on a tape machine belonging to  Brion Gysin. Frogé enlisted poet-artists Jean-Jacques Lebel and Emmett Williams for liner notes and in April of ‘65 1,000 copies were pressed.Recorded in his instantly recognizable, craggy and clipped mid-western drawl at the English Bookshop, Paris, France in 1965. 
It's reach was initially limited, though  it fell into famous hands, and it certainly made quite an impression that year. The album would go on to have a wide influence, particularly in England. Barry Miles, in his liner notes for the 1995 Rhino re-release, says, "The Beatles may have been the soundtrack to 1965 for the beautiful people of swinging London, but to the cognoscenti there was something even cooler to listen to." :
"It's in all the best homes, my dear," said Brion Gysin, and he was right. At the height of the '60s, Call Me Burroughs was an essential record. The Beatles all had copies and subsequently Paul McCartney included Burroughs on the sleeve of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Art dealer Robert Fraser bought ten copies to give to friends such as Brian Jones and Mick Jagger. Marianne Faithful and Keith Richards' dealer had copies, as did numerous painters and writers.It remains a personal favourite of mine. If you manage to get yourself an actual copy the CD booklet contains a wealth of information about Burroughs, the manner in which these recordings were made, and about the Beat community in Paris in the 50's and 60's, as well as including the liner notes of original 1965 edition of the album.
For the rest of his life,Burroughs recorded a number of solo projects, in addition to collaborating with everyone from John Cale, Laurie Anderson , Tom Waits, Material, Disposable Hero's of hypocrisy , REM and Kurt Cobain.He remained a spoken-word performer and visual artist until his death in 1997.Call Me Burroughs is also the title of a authoritative new biography from Barry Miles, essential reading if you want a more detailed look at William Burroughs work, I am pleased to say that my own bookcases are already full  with books by and about him, plus his literary friends and acquaintances.
Anyway I include a link to a recording of the LP at the bottom, hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Track listing:

All composition by William S. Burroughs

"Bradley the Buyer" – 6:24
"Meeting of International Conference of Technological Psychiatry" – 4:56
"The Fish Poison Con" – 6:59
"Thing Police Keep All Board Room Reports" – 1:25
"Mr. Bradley Mr. Martin Hear Us Through the Hole in Thin Air" – 4:16
"Where You Belong" – 6:38
"Inflexible Authority" – 10:45
"Uranian Willy" – 1:59
Tracks 1 and 2 from Naked Lunch; 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 from Nova Express; track 6 from The Soft Machine.


William Seward Burroughs - Call me Burroughs

Some earlier posts of mine on the great man  :-

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/william-s-burroughs-5214-2897-happy.html

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/william-s-burroughs-thanksgiving-prayer_20.html

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/william-s-burroughs-5214-2857-job.html

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/destroy-all-rational-thought.html

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/burroughs-in-tangier-by-paul-bowles.html

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/happy-birthdaywilliam-burroughs-5214.html

Stand with Chelsea Manning

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning, currently serving a 35-year prison term for passing classified files to WikiLeaks, said on Friday that she would refuse to eat until given help for her gender dysphoria and "treated with dignity, respect and humanity" by the government.
The 28-year-old Army private, who was born male but revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a woman, tried to commit suicide in July over what her representatives said was the government's denial of appropriate treatment for those gender issues.
The Army announced later that month that it would investigate Manning for misconduct in connection with the attempt to take her own life, a probe that could lead to indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum security or additional prison time.
Some prison experts believe that Manning's recent  suicide attempt could result in a long stretch in solitary confinement, a punishment viewed as torture in international human rights conventions. Manning has already spent nine months in solitary as a form of dishonorable, illegal, shameful retaliation by the US military. She spent two months in a cage in a tent in Kuwait, and seven months at Quantico, where she was forced to sit still, on her bed, staring directly ahead of her, for hours on end .She is currently serving a grossly unfair 35 year prison sentence for simply exposing lies and injustices,a brave courageous individual who now needs our support more than ever.In January 2010, Manning sent hundreds of thousands of documents to Wikileaks about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, revealing a dramatically higher number of civilian casualties than the Pentagon publicly acknowledged. The documents also included a video of an Apache helicopter attack  that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff.
After years of requesting the care she needs Chelsea has released a statement about the start of her hunger strike,saying she would not willingly consume any food or drink, except water and prescribed medications.Manning also refused to “voluntarily cut or shorten her hair in any way.” Army officials repeatedly force Manning to cut her hair to “military standards” – an appearance that she says does not reflect her gender identity.
Human rights advocates have repeatedly raised concerns about Manning’s treatment in prison. After her arrest in 2010, she was subjected to solitary confinement for extended periods and repeatedly stripped naked in her cell. Her treatment was so bad that a State Department spokesperson spoke out against the Pentagon and described it as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”Since her conviction, Manning has been repeatedly threatened  with indefinite solitary confinement, for charges as frivolous as keeping an expired tube of toothpaste in her cell.
She is demanding written assurances from the Army that she will receive all of the medically prescribed recommendations for her gender dysphoria and that the “high tech bullying” will stop. “High tech bullying,” is what Chelsea describes as “the constant, deliberate and overzealous administrative scrutiny by prison and military officials.”
Manning's condition is dangerous and cruel, and presents a significant suicide risk for Manning.

Here is Chelsea Manning's impassioned statement which she released on Friday :

“I need help. I am not getting any. I have asked for help time and time again for six years and through five separate confinement locations. My request has only been ignored, delayed, mocked, given trinkets and lip service by the prison, the military, and this administration.”
“I need help. I needed help earlier this year. I was driven to suicide by the lack of care for my gender dysphoria that I have been desperate for. I didn’t get any. I still haven’t gotten any.”
“I needed help. Yet, instead I am now being punished for surviving my attempt. When I was a child, my father would beat me repeatedly for simply not being masculine enough. I was told to stop crying—to “suck it up.” But, I couldn’t stop crying. The pain just got worse and worse. Until finally, I just couldn’t take the pain anymore.”
“I needed help, but no one came then. No one is coming now.”
“Today, I have decided that I am no longer going to be bullied by this prison—or by anyone within the U.S. government. I have asked for nothing but the dignity and respect—that I once actually believed would be provided for—afforded to any living human being.”
“I do not believe that this should be dependent on any arbitrary factors—whether you are cisgender or transgender; service member or civilian, citizen or non-citizen. In response to virtually every request, I have been granted limited, if any, dignity and respect—just more pain and anguish.”
“I am no longer asking. Now, I am demanding. As of 12:01 am Central Daylight Time on September 9, 2016, and until I am given minimum standards of dignity, respect, and humanity, I shall—refuse to voluntarily cut or shorten my hair in any way; consume any food or drink voluntarily, except for water and currently prescribed medications; and comply with all rules, regulations, laws, and orders that are not related to the two things I have mentioned.”
“This is a peaceful act. I intend to keep it as peaceful and non-violent, on my end, as possible. Any physical harm that should come to me at the hands of military or civilian staff will be unnecessary and vindictive. I will not physically resist or in any way harm another person. I have also submitted a “do not resuscitate” letter that is effective immediately. This shall include any attempts to forcibly cut or shorten my hair or to forcibly feed me by any medical or pseudo-medical means.”
“Until I am shown dignity and respect as a human again, I shall endure this pain before me. I am prepared for this mentally and emotionally. I expect that this ordeal will last for a long time. Quite possibly until my permanent incapacitation or death. I am ready for this.”
“I need help. Please, give me help.”

 
Fight for the Future has launched a petition supporting Chelsea in her hunger strike.Which you can sign here, please stand with her :-

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stand-with-chelsea-manning-on-hunger-strike


An earlier post of mine about Chelsea can be found here:-

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/lets-not-forget-chelsea-manning.html