On the fourth anniversary of her death, lets remember Hazel Jane Dickens, bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Singer of pro-union and feminist songs, a clarion vocal advocate for coal miners, working people and the downtrodden. Below she sings Joe Hill's outstanding song about Elizabeth Gurly Flynn, the original rebel girl, feminist, wobbly (Industrial Workers of the World) and activist. Hazel Jane Dickens was born June 1st 1935, in Montcalm, West Virginia, U.S.A. One of 11 children, she grew up in a family whose survival depended on the coal industry. Her father was a Baptist preacher and a forceful singer, who hauled timber to feed the household. Her brothers were miners and one of her sisters cleaned the house for a supervisor at the mines. A reluctant feminist role model, Hazel said she was originally scared to write about issues like sexism and the oppression of women. Her music was characterised by a high lonesome, singing style. If you like old time, country and bluegrass music, and a dose of left wing politics, you will probably like Hazel Dicken's work. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that " Dickens didn't just sing the anthems of labour, she lived them and her place on many a picket line,staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her to the cause." Hazel Dickens - Rebel Girll
Hazel Dickens - Fire in the Soul
Hazel Dickens - Old and in the way
Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard - Working Girl Blues
The earth at play again, whispers monologues of devotion, among paths of nature, freedoms creation, strong in faith, firm in love. Vapour trials, in the sky above, create residues of escape, swallows sweep through time , descend across the landscape. The smouldering garden slumbers, waking slowly, to be re-moulded, re-cast, as the day turns soft and still, mind wanders, rests in observation, watching wildflowers colour, weaving through the grass. Plants offer protection, to bright insects, dancing in the cool shade, bluebells shimmering, bursting with life, as afternoon, again is made. Ceridwen's breathe calls again, swirling and whirling, among healing herbs, scenting the air with magic, while the cauldron stirs, releasing seeds of enchantment, vibrant pulsations, to catch the heart and soul
This week we have seen the tragic loss of 400 peoples lives , dying in an attempt to reach Italy from Libya, after boat capsized. The boat was carrying about 500 people in total, according to some of the 150 survivors who were rescued. Italian coastguards intercepted 42 boats on April 12 and 13, carrying 6,500 people attempting to make the crossing to Europe.
Human beings seeking a new way of life, many driven by desperation, fleeing persecution, violence, the torture, or the threat of, fleeing from regions where human rights abuses are rife, inncents simply seeking a future. As many as 700 people have now been lost at sea this year alone. Human beings with dreams and fears in pursuit of some happiness.
Europes response has been shameful, inadequate, inhumane, and quite simply pathetic.We are after all talking about what is an injustice.
The European Union and its member states, under the guise of its Fortress Europe policies has been complicit in these tragedies to occur, again and again, leading to innocent people needlesly and shamefully dying on Europe's doorstep. A result of inhuman policies still in place today that deny access to the asylum system for refugees.
These deaths are not isolated incidents but the direct consequence of tightening our immigration policies and controls. In the face of civil war, conflict, global politics and social unrest, Europes response has been at the end of the day disgusting, with the use of practices and policies that turn a blind eye to the root causes of migration.
I do not feel we will find answers in building the walls of fortress Europe higher, what is needed is the provision of more safe and legal channels for people to access protection. For human beings to be treated with respect and dignity. The decision to close doors and build fences, means that men, women and children are forced to risk their lives and take a desperate journey across the sea. The boats will not simply stop. Ignoring the situation, will not make it go away. This is Fortress Europes daily shame.
McDonalds has come under fire after metal 'anti-homeless spikes' were installed outside one of its Leeds branches. Simply inhumane and shows a complete disregard for homeless people who struggle every day.
Homelessness is one of the worst injustices within our society, having a place to live should be a right not a privilege. These spikes show a complete disregard and lack of respect for homeless people.
McDonalds claim they were there to tackle anti-social behaviour, not target the homeless, saying they welcome all customers through their doors.
Well they have since been hit by a 70,000 strong petition still growing. By the way I would not reccommened you eating their food, it is definitely not good for your health. As disgusting to taste too, like their actions.
Sadly another truthsayer has gone, Eduardo Galeona, poet laureatte of the anti-globalisation movement, a Uruguayan writer, poet, anti-capitalist, radical author and journalist of much depth. A committed socialist, whose historical works condemned European and US colonialist exploitation of Latin America over 5 centuries, which made him a revered figure among leftists. He died aged 74 after a battle with lung cancer.
Weaving tapestries of society obscured by historians, his books ( he was a productive writer of over 30 books) presented alternative histories that gave equal weight to the suffering of the downtrodden, as to the grand achievements of better known historical figures.
Born in 1940, he turned his writing , and indeed his life, into a powerful manifesto against injustice and exploitation. As he himself put it, Galeano wrote for “the hungry, the sleepless, the rebels, the wretched of this earth.”
Nowhere is this commitment more clear than in his masterpiece, “Open Veins of Latin America.” Ever since it was published in 1971, the book has never stopped selling — and has indeed been immortalized as a Latin American monument.
Even today, it’s a required text in many social science courses around the world, including in universities. Written furiously in just 12 weeks, while military dictatorships took control of Brazil, Chile and Argentina ,“Open Veins in Latin America” denounces the systemic exploitation Latin America has historically been subject to.
In a style that was at the same time polemical irascible and accessible, Galeano exposed the hidden brutalities of colonialism and corporate globalization,– as well as the unsung beauties of the humble, the vernacular, the quotidian across Latin America.
“No computer could count the crimes that the pop culture business commits each day against the human rainbow and the human right to identity. But its devastating progress is mind-boggling. Time is emptied of history, and space no longer acknowledges the astonishing diversity of its parts. Through the mass media the owners of the world inform us all of our obligation to look at ourselves in a single mirror. "
“Whoever doesn’t have, isn’t. He who has no car or doesn’t wear designer shoes or imported perfume is only pretending to exist. Importer economy, impostor culture: we are all obliged to take the consumer’s cruise across the swirling waters of the market. Most of the passengers are swept overboard, but thanks to foreign debt the fares of those who make it are billed to us all. Loans allow the consuming minority to load themselves up with useless new things, and before everyone’s eyes the media transform into genuine needs the artificial demands the North of the world ceaselessly invents and successfully projects onto the South.”
Galeano was one of earliest writers to popularize an understanding of the structural relation between great affluence and accumulation in some parts of the globe and amongst a small stratum of society within every country, and the suffering and deprivation suffered in the vast “backyard” of this narrow but tremendous privilege: “
To turn infamies into feats, the memory of the North is divorced from the memory of the South, accumulation is detached from despoliation, opulence has nothing to do with plunder. Broken memory leads us to believe that wealth is innocent of poverty.”
He was forced to flee from Uruguay to neighboring Argentina in 1973, after he was briefly imprisoned by the recently installed military dictatorship, which banned his book Open Veins. He was blacklisted by death squads in Argentina following a military coup and tried to kill him but he fled to Spain.and survived.
Persecuted for his journalistic provocations, Galeano spoke truth to power and inspired readers to stand up to the fascist terror and militarism that had gripped so many Latin American countries for decades. An indefatigable risk-taker and provocateur, Galeano served as editor of important journals like Crisis, which he had co-founded and which focused much of its substantial intellectual energy on critiquing abuses of power in Uruguay and elsewhere in Latin America.
"We have a memory cut in pieces" he once told Democracy Now. "And I write trying to recover our real memory, the memory of humankind, what I call the human rainbow, which is much more colourful and beautiful than the other one, the other rainbow. But the human rainbow has been mutilated by machismo, racism, militarism, and a lot of other isms,who have been terribly killing our greatness, our possible greatness, our possible beauty."
The following is one of his fine poems. R.I.P
The right to dream of a better world ( El derecha a sonar)
The right to dream is a poem written and read by Eduardo Galeona.
In 1948, and again in 1976, the United Nations proclaimed long lists of human rights, but most of the worlds people still enjoy only the rights to see, hear and remain silent.
Suppose we excercise the never proclaimed right to dream? Lets set our sights above the abominations of today, to divine another possible world
I follow the start of the rising tide, sit and wait for shifting frontiers, to reset empty agenda, to seek change, as people decide for whom to vote, if they take part in the process at all. The politicians' luck is running out, on a point of flickering departure, hopefully smiles will be seen again, on every turn of the corner, if hollow policies, can be exposed, we can all be left to our own devices. We have learnt how to stand still, how to run, how to leap, though we are closely watched, we have strength in numbers, to change the status quo, but beware of paths of complacency, the jackals are outside the door, waiting patiently still to devour us all.
On Saturday 11th April 1981, Brixton was set ablaze as hundreds of local youth fought with the Metropolitan Police. The country was in recession, unemployment amongst African Caribbean members of the community was high, and the quality of housing was poor. In the week preceding the Brixton Riots, Operation Swamp 81, saw over 1,000 people ( mainly from the young black community) being stopped and searched adding to the increased frustration of the local people. Tensions were high. What happened next was to become one of the most significant outbreaks of civil disorder in 20th Century London. Police continued operating their hated 'sus' laws, where in order to stop someone, police only needed suspicion. At the time the police were exempt from the Race Relations Act, and many people targeted were from the ethnic community, which led to accusations of racial prejudice. After arrests were made tensions rose again, igniting violence which spread across the streets. The streets of Brixton became a battle zone. After police arrived in full riot gear, people started gathering to throw makeshift petrol bombs and set light to police cars. By the time hostilities had ended, over 360 ppeople had been injured, 28 premises burned and another 177 damaged and looted. The police arrested 82 people. After the riots a police enquiry was held under Lord Scarman that held that policing in a civil society can only succeed with the consent of the community. But 4 years later the Police shot Mrs Cherry Grove, , causing again disturbances in the area. There have been many many miscarriages of justice since. 34 years later there are many lessons to be learned. Police racism continues, as does unemployment and poverty. Capitalist society still suffers from a sickness that breeds ,the big criminals of the land get rich and fat, get rewarded for their crimes (ie the bankers) whilst the poorer members of our communities are stigmatised, getting poorer, punished because of the greedy. Sadly conditions in Brixton are not vastly better than over 30 years ago. Unrest can easily be fermented, when conditions on the streets are ignored. Riots that have happened since, like those seen in Brixton do not happen without a reason.
Guns of Brixton -the Clash, with collage of Brixton riots.
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