The Banker is back!

Bill Nighy returns in the new Robin Hood Tax film. He brings with him Andrew Licoln, Clarence Poesy, Javier Camara and Heike Makatsch, with music provided by Django Django contributing the track 'Default'.
The year is 2024, Europe has had a Robin Hood Tax for ten years and have been using it to fund public services and the fight  against poverty and climate change.
Everyone is delighted  with what it's achieved. Everyone, of course, except .... The Banker.

Add your name to others getting behind the European Robin Hood Tax here.http://www.robinhoodpetition.org

After Atos

 

A companion piece to last weeks post,  Atos is a French multinational IT services and consulting corporation currently undertaken work capability tests on behalf of the government, in their role of managers of  the Department of Work and Pensions Work Capability Assessments scheme. Atos has become  a lightning rod for widespread public anger  over their health test, known as the work capability assessment. The test has been critisised  for being crude and inhumane, amid mounting evidence that  hundreds and thousands of vulnerable people  have been wrongly judged to be fit for work and inelligable for government support. Rottenness lays at it's core.
Please consider joining  the many demonstrations that are taking place against this country tomorrow.
I will be attending the following one in Carmarthen.

https://www.facebook.com/events/416212641845306/

Full list available here

http://www.atoskills.tk/

an old poem of mine updated.


AFTER ATOS

A medical assessment,
that in 30 minutes dismisses
what general practitioners for years believed,
for some of us no human touch,
our claims rejected by remote computers.

In the shadow of these proclamations,
uncertainty lingers,
for the depressed, alienated and the wounded,
cast out into a world of make believe
into a sort of existential deception.

These persistent doubts create teardrops,
shattering lifes, half mended,
out of sight no apologies,
under their judgement, miracles created,
in and out through a one way system,
designed to  make us fail.

We are people not statistics,
not here to serve profits cause,
in unvanquishable number,            *
our spirits and determination remain,
as we remember those lost and killed,
in conditions still dignified with rage.

This trial of illusion,
leads to ill-starred nights,
boxed in corners of despair,
the sustenance of welfare and understanding,
recieved and now stolen,
this malicousness  simply has to stop.

This company profits from immoral agendas,
on behalf of a government, victims paying now ,
for the crimes of the bankers, who have bled us dry,
we are the voiceless but we are not yet invisible,
this process simply not fit for purpose,
Atos's acronym perfect,because they do not give a toss.

* (Thanks to Shelley)

Some good people

http://calumslist.org/

http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/

http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/

From Cardigan to Palestine

Friendship bracelets made by local children have been delivered to Palestine, to show awareness and solidarity.
My local Amnesty International Group recently ran a stall at the Cardigan River and Food Festival to make friendship bracelets for Palestinian  children.
Our group has  been focussing its support  on the two villages of Humsa and Haddiya, where inhabitants are at a constant risk of being forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israeli army and forced out of the area. They are also subject  to daily restrictions on their movements, and are harrassed  by settlers.
Humsa and Hadidya are hamlets in the Jordan Valley in Area C which makes up 60% of the West Bank in the Occupied Palestinan Territories. According to  the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, 565 structures were demolished in Area C in 2013. More than 800 people  have lost their homes.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlements nearby Hadidya boast guest houses extensive agricultural land and red-roofed villas. with highly  developed, highly  profitable agrigultural, tourist and other businesses.  The Israeli army forces residents of Hadidya and Humsa to live in very difficult conditions. As well as being forbidden from building  permanent structures, they are not allowed to connect to electricity or water grids or dig new walls.
Palestinian residents are not even allowed to use the roads in the immediate area as these are exclusively for the Israeli settlers living in nearby sttlements such as Ro'i, Benqa'ot and Hemdat.
Under international law, the Israeli settlements in the Occupied  Palestinian   Territories are illegal and demolition  of Palestinian  property is prohibited unless absolutely necessary for military operations.
But in Haddidya and Humsa, the Israeli authorities are  determined to bulldoze through their homes, and international law.
The community in Haddiya is  paying exorbiant prices  for small quantities of water in mobile tankers brought in from several kilometres away for domestic use and for their livestock while Israeli settlers living nearby benefit from an abundant water supply.
At our local event in an act of solidarity more than 100 bracelets  made by children who attending the local food festival  were packed up  and given to an Eucemical Observer who was going to the Occupied  Territories.
According to an Amnesty spokesperson, the children were surpised and happy to be given bracelets that had been made for them by children here in West Wales.
Meanwhile Israel continues to bulldoze its way through International law. We should keep up the pressure  on Israel as long as it continues to violate the rights of Palestinian Communities like these.

Will the flowers of Gaza break Israel's siege this Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day is almost upon us and for supermarkets and florists that means a massive  increase in the sale  of flowers. But how may romantic couples consider where the flowers we exchange are grown?
Farmers in Gaza have long been encouraged by Israeli export companies to focus their production  on high risk 'cash crops' such as flowers and strawberries, and the arrival  of carnations from Rafah to European markets for Christmas or Valentines' day is often cheered on by the Israeli Government  who uses it as a PR exercise to show how it 'facilitates' Palestinian exports.
Growing carnations for Valentine has long been a love's labor lost for Palestinian farmers in Gaza thanks to Israel's export restrictions. The blockade and restrictions have prevented Palestinian farmers from shipping their stock to Europe  forValentine's day in recent years, causing huge losses as exporters ended up either dumping truckloads of flower or feeding them to their sheep.
However, unsurprisingly , this is not the full story.

More here:-

http://palsolidarity.org/2014/02/will-the-flowers-of-gaza-break-israels-siege-this-valentines-day/

National demonstration against Atos

Next week on February 19, protestors will be gathering nationally  outside 144 Atos  centres to  peacefully protest against the inhumane and disgusting treatment of  people receiving emplyment support allowance, and its predecessors incapacity benefit and the severe disablement allowance.
The poor  treatment of  our countries most vulnerable citizens is well documented, so this protest will call for an apology from Ian Duncan Smith and Thiery Breton, Chairman and CEO of ATOS  to the growing number  of people who have sadly taken their own lives due to this government of millionaires  war of austerity on the poor, which has resulted  in changes to  the benefit system.

These include

Tim Salter 53 year old blind man suffering from agoraphobia

Lee Robinson 39, who was the first person in whose suicide could be attributed to the government changes.

Shaun Pilkington 58, who was sent a letter saying he was to lose his Employment and Support Allowance, which he got after a long-term illness.

Edward Jacques 47 who took a fatal overdose after his benefit payments were stopped.

Richard Sanderson 44 who stabbed himself in the heart.

Jacqueline Harris  53, oormer nurse, found dead at her home, after taking an overdose of medication after being  pronounced fit for work.

It seems targetting the vulnerable is now this Governments bloodsport of choice,  using an unfair target driven culture, it seems  also that the management of ATOS are pressuring assessors to fail many claimants and deny them the benefits that they depend on and entitled  to, in a heartles, incompassinate manner. Also it seems to me that the Government and Atos are being aided and abetted at the moment by the media, assisting them with a negative portrayal of the sick and disabled, distorting and misrepresenting us. Pitting the poor against one another, while  at the same time  slashing  taxes for banks, corporate giants and the richest people in Britain, the sale of their hypocricy is staggering.
In July 2013, ATOS whistleblower Dr Greg Wood lifted the lid on  the horrible culture that existed within the organisation - carrying out assessments that are simply not fit for purpose, I personally know of people who have not been assessed by humans, but by computer, and just waiting for a decision adds to an already very stressfuli existence, and contributes unessesssary burden.
The Government seems to carry on regardless and like ATOS simply don't give a toss, if ATOS were really doing  their job correctly they would have declared Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith unfit to do the job that he is supposed to be doing. I personally  have been assessed declared fit for work, appealed won,  moved into a support group where I have not seen anyone for over a year, and now have to undertake the whole gruelling process again. G.Ps medical reports are routinely ignored, simply the whole rotting procedure stinks. The scale of anxiety caused is immense.
ATOS's cruel insensitive tratment of vulnerable and ill people is utterly  reprhensible and should not be allowed to continue, the appeal process which many people are winning  is costly and unaffordable.
It is time this despicable company had its contract withdrawn and the Government started to put people before profit, that assesses people in a fair and dignified manner.

Please join me in one of the many demonstations that are taking place across the country and show some solidarity.

Details of where they are taking place can be found here :-

http://ukrebellion.com/atosdemo


https://www.facebook.com/ATOSNationalDemo

I am based in West Wales, and hope to head over to Carmarthen and attend the event there.

https://www.facebook.com/events/416212641845306/permalink/416212708511966/

Dennis Skinner on ATOS

William S. Burroughs ( 5/2/14 -2/8/97) - The Job

Continuing the celebrations to mark the centenary of William Burroughs birth, here is an extract from his 1969 book the Job. A book  built around  extensive interviews with William Burroughs  uindertaken  with Daniel Odier. Originally published by John Calder in France in 1969, it offers a brilliant and fascinating glimpse into Burroughs thoughts and ideas. Offering an insight to his political impuses.In which he  powerfully attacks our traditional values, with his sharp undiluted vision, provoking in a  a sincere, convincing way,  pointing towards another world. I present a series of extracts, the book essential reading for anyone interested in William Burroughs work. .

" Navigare necesse es. Vivare no es necesse."

" It is necessary to travel . It is not necessary to live."

These words inspired early navigators when the vast frontier of unknown seas opened to their sails in the fifteenth century. Space is the new frontier. To trvel  in space you must learn to exist with no religion no country no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence. Anyone who prays in space is not there.
The last frontier is being closed to youth. However there are many roads to space. To achieve complete freedom from past conditioning is to be in space. Techniques exist for achieving such freedom. These techniques are being concealed and withheld. In the Job I consider techniques of discovery.

London 1969

Language is a Virus from Outer Space

Your books since the Ticket that Exploded especially, are no longer "novels; a breaking up of a novelistic form is noticeable in Naked Lunch. Toward what end or goal is this break up heading?

That's very difficult to say. I think that the novelistic form is probably outmoded and that we may look forward perhaps to a future in which people do not read at all or read only illustrated books and magazines or some abbreviated form of reading matter. To compete with television and photo magazines writers will have to develop more precise techniques producing the same effect on the reader as a lurid action photo.

You wrote: " Writing is fifty years befind painting." How can the gap be closed?

I did not write that . Mr Brion Gysin , who is a painter and writer  wrote " writing is fifty years behind panting." Why this gap? Because the painter can touch and handle his medium and the writer cannot. The writer does not yet know what words are. He deals only with absractions from the source points of words. The painters ability to touch and handle  his medium led to  montage techniques sixty years ago. It is hoped  that the extension of  cut-up techniques will lead to more precise verbal experiments closing this gap  and giving a new dimension in writing. These techniques can show wthe writerwhat words are and put him in tactile communication with his medium. This in turn could lead to a precise science of words and show how certain word combinations produce certain effects on the human nervous system.

What is the important thing  in music, when you use music?

Music is extremely important. The whole Moslem world is practically  controlled by music. Certain music is played at certain times and the association of  music is one of the most powerrful. John Cage and Earl Brown have carried the cut-up method much further in music than I have in writing.

Do free men exist in your books?

Free men don't exist in anyone's books, because they are the author's creations. I would say that free men don't exist on this planet at this time, because they don't exist in human bodies, by the mere fact of being in a human body you're controlled by all sorts of biologic and environmental necessities.n this planet.

Is there a political path to the liberation of the world? Would a complete ideological change, the replacement of the capitalist world by a socialist world, for example, offer a solution?

It would seem to me most emphatically no, Because these are just battling around the same old formulas. What happens; for example, when the government takes over the so-called means of production? Nothing. Our factories in the West are practically state-owned now.

The anarchist is perhaps one of the few who offers a possible solution for the future. Do you believe  in the solution in which he proposes?

I don't really know what they are, although I would say this, that I don't believe in any solution that proposes halfway measures. Unless we can abolish the whole concept of the nation, and the whole concept of the family, we aren't going to get anywhere at all.

Do Good and Evil really exist?

Not in the absolute sense. Something is good or evil according to your needs and the nature of your organism. What opposses or tries to anhiliate any person or species is seen by that person or species as being evil. I think it's naive to predicate any absolutes there; it only has reference to the conditions of life of a given organism or species or society.

Is the destruction of the police machine still possible?

Possibly, yes. The machine is certainly on the defensive at the present time, and with enough resistance, worldwide, it is still possible. Of course the police machine isn't going to be smashed until we destroy with it the whole concept of a nation. I see a future where guerilla armies of liberation have arisen in South and Central America and Africa. "We will march on the police machine. Everywhere, we will destroy it. We will destroy the machine and all its records, and we will destroy the house organ of police machine which goes under the name of conservative press."

" Nothing is True - Everything is Permitted," Hassan I Sabbah says. Is this the principle of freedom?

Yes, I would say that. If nothing were true, everything is permitted. That is, if we realise that everything is illusion, then any illusion is permitted. As soon as we say that something is true, real, then immediately things are not permitted.

You speak of the necessity of breaking down the whole formula of seperate countries and nations. How can this be brought about?

At the present time we are all confined in concentration camps called nations. We are forced to obey laws to which we have not consented, and to pay exorbiant taxes to maintain the prisons in which we are confined. The pretext that there is any measure of consent involved or benefits recieved is wearing very thin indeed. The American people did not even  know that the atom bomb existed. Still less were they consulted as to whether or not it should be used. Thusone of the most disastrous decisions in human history, was made by incompetent, ill-informed, and ill-intentioned men.

Are the effects of  drugs worse than alcohol?

Alcohol sedates the front brain relieving anxiety and discontent and is certainly a factor in preserving the status quo in Western countries. Of all drugs in common use, alcohol has the worst statistic as regards damage physical mental and moral to the individual and to society. How many crimes are committed every day by people under the influence of alcohol, criomes directly traceable to alcohol, crimes that would not have been committed had the person been sober? Drunken fights, drunken murders, drunken car accidents. How much objectionable stupid boring behaviour is due to alcohol? How many people are degraded by its use? How much money and time is spent on alcohol? How much innefficiancy is caused by its use or by the after-effects of its use? And how many illnesses can be directly attributed to alcohol? Cirrhosis of the liver, kidney disease. alcoholism, Korsokov's psychosis, stomach ulcers. How anyone can oppose legislation of cannabis without at the same time being an ardent prohibitionist is beyond my understanding?

Addiction is a prison. Is domination by drugs comparable to domination by the images and myths created by our civilisation? Is it worse?

It is verry dangerous to use the word "addiction" loosely, as addiction to images, myths, ets, thought this can occur. Addiction means something that causes acute physical mental discomfort if it is withdrawn. Perhaps the closes parallel is what I might  call an addiction  to rightness, to being in the right; such an addict - and their name is legion - experiences acute discomfort if his rightness is withdrawn. Without  it he is nothing, and he cannot adjust  to normal metabolism- that is, the realization that rightness and wrongness are relative concepts that have meaning only relative to position and purpose. I recall a French fascist who said : " Je ne comprends pas ces degeneres de la drogue comme William Burroughs." - (I wasn't on drugs at the time.) - " Moi, j'ai une seule drogue. C'est l'indignation." C'est la pire.. it's the worst drug of all.

You speak of the necessity of breaking down the whole formula of seperate countries and nations. How can this  be brought about?

At the present time we are all confined in concentration camps called natons. We are forced to obey laws we have not consented, and to pay exorbiant taxes top maintain the prisons in which we a are confined. The pretext that there is any measure of consent involved or benefits recieved is wearing vet thin indeed. The American people did not even know the atom bomb existed. Still less were they consulted or not it should be used. Thus, one of the most disatrous decisions in human huistoty was made  by incompetent, ill-informed, and ill-intentioned men.

Space is dream. Space is illusion. To travel in space tou must learn  to leave the old verbal garbage behind. God talk, priest talk, mother talk, family talk, love talk, party talk, and country talk. You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to see what is in front of you with no preconceptions.


William  Burroughs, London, 1969.

image from my 1984 Calder edition
of the Job. 

,,,

Israeli fear boycott if peace talks fail

An international campaign to boycott Israel is gaining momentum in Europe. Eight years ago Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it started complying with International law and Palestinian rights. A truly global movement against Israeli-Apartheid  rapidly emerged in response to this call.The impact  has so far been minimal, but if US-led peace talks fail, some Israelis fear the movement will accelerate . especially with growing pressure from the European Union, a major trading partner. In the above video Al Jazeera's Atia Abawi reports from the Jordan valley.
The main reason  the boycott seems to be working is that it is grounded in the well documented fact of Israeli policies. The daily institutional discriminatiom faced by Palestinian citizens. From the discriminatory control and distribution  of water resources as reported by Amnest International,. Illegal settlements are still being used to colonise the West Bank, the Palestinians in Gaza are effectively sealed in an open prison. These are some of the reasons why I support this campaign. Whilst Israel continues to ignore International law  and continues its systematic human rights abuses.Growing numbers  from the world of academia, the arts world and faith communities  are now routinely working together to try and achieve some form of justice. Drawing on parallels of  the anti-apartheid struggle  in South Africa. These non-violent  forms of resistance using economic sanctions are proving to be effective. The world has tried constructive dialogue but Israel does not appear to be listening, so we have to keep up the pressure, in acts of international solidarity in the name of justice and frredom.
Once derided as the scheming of crackpots, the campaign is turning mainstream, as illustrated in todays Economist. Link here:-

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21595948-israels-politicians-sound-rattled-campaign-isolate-their-country.


The heart and core of the BDS movement is a need  for compassion , that is not seen  as bulldozers rumble through the streets of East Jerusalem, tearing down more Palestinian homes, the existence of apartheid walls, and the denial of basic human freedoms, such as movement and assembly, these are the principle reasons that motivate me.

More information here :-

.http://www.bdsmovement.net/

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