Paul Robeson (9/4/1898 – 23/1/76) and the people of Wales

                            Paul Robeson at Welsh National Eisteddfod, Ebbw Vale, 1958

It's the week of the National Eisteddfod here in Wales, so I thought i'd mark the occasion with this post about an individual who has made a lasting positive contribution to our nation,and a contnuing source of inspiration and strength for me  Paul Robeson.
Robeson, son of a former slave, was born in Princeton in 1898, just two years after the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation. Robeson grew up during a period of overt racism, confronted by continual racist abuse,but always managed to rise above it and went on to achieve much success at every level of his life.Not only was he an exceptional athlete, cultural scholar, a polyglot who spoke over a dozen languages, actor and singer, he was also a man dedicated to the causes of freedom and social justice, as a fearless political activist he was hounded and persecuted in the U.S for his opinions. His name and historical contribution are still silenced in most textbooks in the U.S.A , where he was was caught up in the midst of the  McCarthy witchhunts.
Yet all around the world, especially here in Wales, his voice still carries much resonance, gives us some hope.His first contact  with Wales came in 1928, when he was performing in 'Showboat' in the West End. Whilst in his hotel he was attracted  by the sound of singing from outside. The singing was coming from unemployed  miners who had  marched to London to draw attention to the hardship and suffering endured by thousands of mining families in South Wales. He went outside to meet them, listened to their plight, recognised a shared suffering, and a mutual bond was born.Robeson said it was the “first time he felt human dignity” because of the lack of racial prejudice.He was once recorded as saying about Wales: “It was there I first understood the struggles of white and negro together – when I went down into the coal mine in the Rhondda Valley, lived amongst them.”
He joined them on hunger marches in 1927 and 1928, and  was to visit Wales many times,  performing at Neath, Swansea, Caernarfon and Cardiff in support of causes as varied as the victims of the 1934 disaster at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, to the Welsh casualties of the Spanish civil war.In 1938, he sang and addressed a massed audience in the Pavillion, Mountain Ash, at the International Brigade Memorial Service, organised to commemorate the 33 Welshmen who had been killed in the Spanish Civil War.He addressed the audience thus :- 'I am here because I know these brave fellows fought not only because I know these brave fellows fought not only for me but for the freedom of the people of the whole world, I feel itI is my duty to be here.'
 In 1940 he starred in the film Proud Valley, set in South Wales, that captured the harsh realities of Welsh coal miners' lives.He starred as a Black American coal miner and singer who gets a job there and joins a male voice choir.In 1950, he had his passport confiscated for eight years when US authorities attempted to stunt his influence at the height of McCarthyism, owing to his alleged un-American activities. Yet, amazingly, he still managed to perform to more than 20,000 Canadians watching from across the border as Robeson sang on US soil..In 1957 Robeson participated in the Miners’ Eisteddfod in Porthcawl by means of a transatlantic telephone link to a secret recording studio in New York, being unable to travel because his passport had been withdrawn by the US Government because of his outspoken left wing and anti-racist views which he used to speak out against injustices.The South Wales miners added their voice to an international petition that eventually forced the US Supreme Court to reinstate his passport in 1958. 
On 4th August 1958 this allowed him to attend the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Ebbw Vale,where he was presented with a Welsh hymn book to mark his visit,he sat alongside Aneurin Bevan a long term friend and delivered an address to the people of Wales.Significantly was the first man to be granted permission to speak English on the llwyfan (eisteddfod stage) He spoke of the importance of his Welsh links:"You have shaped my life - I have learned from you.I am part of the working class.Of all the films I have made the one I will preserve is Proud Valley"
He spent the last years of his performing life abroad, but returned to the US when ill-health led to his retirement in 1963 some say exasperated by the persecution he had experienced over the years.
He lived the final years of his life in seclusion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died there on January 23rd, 1976. He is fondly remembered because he not only stood up for the injustices that African-Americans faced, but also was able to empathize and connect with other people’s struggles, he funded Jews escaping Nazi Germany, spoke out against the fascists in Spanish Civil War, campaigned against colonialism in African countries and stood with laborers in the United States and proudly with the people of Wales, an internationalist who identified with the most important issues of freedom and social justice of his time, and practiced what he preached. Because of all this and his constant solidarity with the Welsh people he remains forever etched in the nations heart. A powerful rich courageous presence in our collective history.Here  is  his rich  voice singing a beautiful English Language version of the Welsh National anthem.

Paul Robeson - Land Of My Fathers
 

Paul Robeson : Welsh Transatlantic Concert

End the punitive punishment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning

After years of inhumane treatment, and years of abuse having been held in conditions that the UN considers to be torture, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, the Guardian columnist and whistleblower who is currently in prison serving a 35-year sentence ( narrowly escaping the death penalty)  for exposing some of the U.S. government's worst abuses, attempted to take her own life on July 5th, 2016 in her cell at Fort Leavenworth military prison.
The fact that she is not scheduled for release until 2045 isn’t enough of a punishment, the ACLU announced last week that Chelsea  had been charged with a series of bizarre sounding petty and bizarre charges to threaten her with indefinite solitary confinement while possibly denying her any chance of receiving parole that could make the terms of her imprisonment even more punitive..

These new charges include:-

1) Resisting a group of prison guards called "the force cell move team" (Chelsea was unconscious when this team arrived, which makes this charge particularly absurd.)
2) Prohibited property (for the items she used to attempt to take her own life.)
3) Conduct which threatens (for somehow putting the prison at risk while attempting to take her own life, quietly, in her own cell.)

These latest examples of abuse and neglect are quite frankly obscene,but just what Chelsea has come to expect, as she has been systematically mistreated by the U.S. government ever since she was first taken into custody in 2010 which have repeatedly generated outrage among human rights advocates across the globe.Following a 14-month investigation into Manning’s treatment by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, the U.N. accused the U.S. government of holding Manning in conditions that constituted “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” particularly with regard to the extended use of pretrial solitary confinement considers to be  and which the UN considers to be a form of torture.
The harsh measures the military has employed during Manning’s detention have led to suspicions that the government is attempting to make an example of her over her whistleblowing activities for her role in releasing to Wikileaks key State Department Cables about the Afghanistan and Iraq war and the Collateral Murder video exposing U.S. war crimes, killing of civilians and lies to the public.It included images and transcripts that appeared to reveal human rights abuses being committed by US forces and their allies in the Iraq war – information she felt was in the public interest. Without her, the information would never have come to light .Unlike countless others who saw similar evidence but looked the other way, Manning took action with much bravery but Chelsea wasn’t hailed as a hero – instead, this whistleblowing cost her dearly and those atop the U.S. military machinery still find her actions unforgivable.Washington and the powers that be are determined to make an example of her, to warn and intimidate other would-be whistleblowers. From the president on down, the chain of command is functioning to wreck the life of Chelsea Manning. We should not let that happen.
Fight for the Future, a non-profit that advocates for civil liberties and free speech, has created a petition at FreeChelsea.com to pressure the Secretary of the Army to dismiss these absurd charges, the Army should be told that there is no excuse to further punish Chelsea or to prevent her from excercising her right to free speech.
If convicted of these bizarre "administrative offenses," that are effectively charging her for attempting to end her life, she is facing indefinite solitary confinement for the rest of her prison term (another 30 years), "maximum security" classification (in the same facility), and nearly a decade before she can ever be classified as a "minimum security" prisoner.
It is unnecessarily cruel to threaten Chelsea with additional punishment while in this very vulnerable state. They are trying to silence her important voice for good. In a statement released by Manning after her 2013 guilty plea on espionage charges, she asked for a pardon and said that she had been motivated by moral outrage over details of U.S. military killings and torture of civilians in Iraq. “In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture,” she said. “If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.”
It should be noted that Chelsea is a transgender woman being forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison, which is in itself dehumanizing and exhausting emotionally. She is currently being denied medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, which experts have stated is the only course of treatment through which she would no longer be suicidal and Manning has faced a constant battle to receive the most basic gender-affirming care in the face of repeated denials from the military.
This is not the first time the government has harassed Chelsea with outrageous charges while in prison. Last year, they threatened her with solitary confinement for minor "infractions" including possession of LGBTQ reading materials and an expired tube of toothpaste.The punitive tactics that have been employed against her include stripping her naked in her cell on a nightly basis, extended solitary confinement, and denial of medical necessities like eyeglasses.
RootsAction and Fight for the Future and other groups gathered more than 100,000 petition signatures in response, and the outcry generated managed to keep her out of solitary confinement. Now we need to do it again. Please, sign the following petition and spread the word to stop this inhumane, outrageous act of punishment. Chelsea is depending on us. We can’t let the US government get away with this shameful abuse of power.

  Please sign the Petition to the Secretary Army to drop these charges against Chelsea: FreeChelsea.com

The following is a link to the Chelsea Manning Support Network, where you can find more details about her case:-

https://www.chelseamanning.org/ 

Our dreams can change the world.

Dreams - exciting, frightening, bewildering!  That other world, from which neither rich nor poor, young nor old, are debarred. I am sorry for the people who never dream. They miss something - an exciting little jaunt down the mysterious byways which lead off the long, straight roads of existence in which we are frequently held back from simply participating in the changes for which we crave.
Dreams come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us quietly dream of one day giving up our jobs to pursue a passion we’ve long kept hidden. Others dream on a grand scale about all the ways they could change the world,the removal of injustice and oppression if only they had the chance. But how many people actually have the courage to go after their dreams, no matter how big or small? Instead, many of us sleepwalk through each day, simply going through the motions, when we could be seizing the opportunity that each new morning brings and living the life we’ve always wanted. 
For me, one of the strangest aspects of  dreaming is the way in which a whole series of exciting  events can be crammed into what  must barely have been a few seconds.But some of us dream while still awake. If people dreamed strongly enough another world could be possible. We would see people before profit, peace instead of war. The economic disparity and vast difference in the quality of living often makes me dream that there could be a more even distribution of wealth on the planet, that would give every single person a chance to break free from the barrier that is global capitalism.
We don’t necessarily need a big platform to make a difference; neither do we have to be a charismatic world leader to have a major influence on others. We can instigate meaningful changes within our small spheres of influence, in solidarity with others we can inspire the spirit of unity, hope and peace for a better world.
We must be willing to speak up and stand up for what we believe is right. If we remain silent because of our timidity, we will allow the consensus flow of reality to carry on ad-infinitum, we must continue to question and challenge absolutely everything — including, when it proves necessary, our own assumptions.
As much as we witness daily the unfairness and wrong-doing in the world, there are also lots of wonderful acts of kindness combined with resistance that are being demonstrated by both individuals and groups. It’s critical that we avoid getting hypnotized by the media, specifically the news channels, which tend to paint a grim picture of the current circumstances on our planet. That stop us from seeking out ways to be free.
But our dreams can change the world, a starting point can be the rejection of a world that we feel to be wrong, negation of a world we feel to be negative. This is what we must cling to. So dare release your dreams onto the streets, let them ring out loud, dream the impossible, and never settle for less than total translation of the impossible into reality. Free Free, Palestine, from the rivers to the sea, another world is not impossible, dare to make your dreams come alive, bring forth your deep yearnings of love, faith and hope with perseverance, guts and passion finding and developing solutions to consequences of injustices in our lives. At the end of the day our shared humanity and hopes are greater than the forces that divide us. All power to the imagination.

Vanishing Acts

After the fires of solstice have burned low
The constancy of summer returns,
Honey bees buzzing again
Zig-zagging foragers of time,
Freely dancing in communication
Round and round our gardens,
As the days warm and glow
They ravish flowers, suck on sweet nectar,
Release their tiny footprints onto leaves
Beautiful winged creatures of sanctity,
All of them endangered now
Because of chemicals and pesticides,
And the garden pest known as man
Releasing a barrage of poisons,
Intent now on making mischief
Hurrying this planet towards extinction.

Lowkey ft Mai khalil - Ahmed

The above is a  powerful video  by Lowkey ft. Mai Khalil  Kareem Dennis (born 23 May 1986), better known by his  stage name is an English rapper, and political activist of Iraqi descent known for his controversial lyrics on real life issues.In the song Lowkey delivers a conscious message in his lyrics, contains devastating truths about war, migration and the underlying systemic issues that surround them Here in this song he potrays what's been going on in the world today. Young lives are being taken away everyday. The song 'Ahmed’ is an emotive, moving dissection of the Syrian refugee crisis and the mass desensitization that we’ve seen in its aftermath.
Please Share this to anyone you know that's willing to listen..For all the  children and refugees experiencing the flames of wars in middle east. Listen now with your hearts and minds.

Father Miguel hidalgo y Costilla (8/5/1753 -30/7/1811) - Folk hero and Father of the Mexican Revolution

Father Miguel hidalgo y Costilla  Mexican  insurgent Catholic priest  who became known as the "father of Mexican independence," was born on May 8, 1753, at his father's hacienda near Guanajuato, Mexico of pure Spanih blood making him a criolla. Under the strict Spanish caste system of the day, Hidlgo's rights a  criolla were far less than those of a person born in Spain known as peninsulars, but slightly better than those of an Indio or a person born of mixed Spanish and Indio blood known as mestizo. Hidalgo grew shocked and outraged by the impoverished and oppressed condition of the people there.  His dissatisfaction with Spanish rule would grow and lead him to form an army of more than ninety thousand poor farmers and others who shared his sentiments to fight for independence from Spain.
A Roman Catholic, Hidalgo’s father made sure his sons were well-educated.  Miguel Hidalgo studied with the Jesuits and later in Mexico City where he learned Latin but also various indigenous languages.  Hidalgo was ordained as a priest in 1799.  He taught and eventually became Dean of the Colegio de San Nicholas in Michoacan. His espousal of Enlightened ideas imported from Europe eventually led to his removal from this college and transfer to the Dolores parish.  Hidalgo’s ideas about the priesthood were certainly revolutionary for the times; he did not support the ideal of clerical celibacy openly living with a mistress and fathered several children in his life.  He was forced to appear before the Inquisition for his beliefs but was not found guilty.  While in Dolores, Hidalgo often disregarded Spain’s class system and frequently socialized with Creoles, Mestizos, and Indigenous people.

Despite his traditional education for the priesthood , Hidalgo rejected or questioned many of Catholicism's  most fundamental tenets, including the Virgin birth, clerical celibacy  and the existence of hell. Until 1809 he pursued his priestly functions and exerted himself to introduce various forms of industry among his parishioners at Dolores. After Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808, the colonies, unwilling to accept a French ruler, loudly proclaimed Ferdinand VII as king. The societies they formed professed loyalty to Spain, but authorities suspected they were designed to prepare for independence.

The local parish priest was one of the most influential in the community and Father hidalgo often served as the host for social gatherings in his home where he would speak to a elect group of friends and potential conspirators about whether it was the duty of the people to obe y an unjust tyrant or overthrow him. The unjust tyrant he was referring to was Charles IV, the present king of Spain.

Not only did Father Hidalgo observe injustice and cruelty in his daily work with the poor, he also strongly opposed many of the king's policies. For example, rather than encouraging the growth of the colony as his father,  had done, Charles1V exploited the country's wealth with schemes like his plan to use the charitable funds of the church to help pay for his European wars. 
Hidalgo and several of his friends engaged in preparations which the authorities considered treasonable. Warned by the arrest of a friend, Hidalgo gathered several hundred of his parishioners, and on  September 16, 1810,  Father Hidalgo rang the church bell to announce revolution against the Spanish. Reaching out to the crowd from the pulpit in what has become known as the "Gritto de Dolores", (the Cry of Dolores) calling upon the people to  revolt against the European-born Spaniards who had overthrown the Spanish Viceroy and  announced his intention to declare independence from Spain and exhorted the crowd to join him. The people responded by shouting 'death to the Gauchupines" A name given to the Peninsulares.

Many flocked to join him, and he soon had an army of 600 men, the uprising pitted the poor indigeneous indians and and mixed mestizo groups against the privileged classes and pushed them into a violent and bloody battle for freedom from Spain.

 Hilgado's declaration  launched a decade long struggle that ended 300 years of colonial rule, established a independent Mexico anf gelped cultivaye a unique Mexican identity.  The anniversary of Hidalgo's  call is celebrated as  the country's birthday. 

Joined by Ignacio Allende as their military commander, and with Father Hidalgo at their head, the army of the people marched for San Miguel, gathering strength as it marched. The revolutionaries surprising the authorities with their intensity took San Miguel with little trouble and the local militia men joined them. The rebellion snowballed with astonishing rapidity. Looting and pillaging Spanish residences and public buildings, armed with machetes, slings, and farming implements, the crowd had become an impassioned mob of thousands.
Around noon on September 28, the ragtag army reached the provincial capital of Guanajuato, where they had their first sustained encounter with the Spanish military. Overrunning the town by sheer force of numbers, the crowd slaughtered some 500 Spaniards, burning, pillaging, looting the granary, and wreaking widespread havoc. Over the next month, the army continued on its rampage, taking the provincial capitals of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, and Valladolid before heading toward Mexico City, the heart of Spanish power in the Americas. On October 30, 1810, at Monte de las Cruces on the outskirts of Mexico City, Hidalgo’s 80,000 to 100,000-strong army defeated a much smaller but formidable Spanish force sent to stop them. At this point, Hidalgo made what many consider his most momentous and enigmatic decision.
Instead of following the advice of his lieutenants and sentiments of the crowd and descending into the colony’s capital city, he opted to retreat. Scholars continue to debate his reasons, though most consider that he found intolerable the prospect of the mass slaughter that would surely follow.
From this point the movement rapidly lost momentum, as his makeshift army divided and desertions mounted. Hidalgo lost heart and retreated. His forces were decisively defeated at Aculo on November 7, 1810, and at the bridge of Calderón on Río Santiago on January 17, 1811.Father Hidalgo and Allende were forced to flee north, but once in Texas they were betrayed by local insurrrection leader Ignacio Elizonda and turned over to the Spanish authorities. The Spanish sent them to Chihuahua to stand trial where they were found guilty and sentenced to death. Allende was executed by firing squad on June 26, 1811, shot in the back as a sign of dishonor, but Father Hidalgo, as a priest, had to undergo a civil trial and answer to the inquisition as well. He was eventually stripped of his priesthood and executed  as a rebel on July 30th. The heads of both Hidalgo and Allende were preserved and hung on the walls of the granary at Guanahuato as a warning to those foolish or brave enough to follow in their footsteps.
Even though the  revolution had failed, it opened the people eyes to the possibility of freedom and the priests martyrdom allowed others to pick up his mantle. The struggle for independence continued for several years until a group of liberals forced the king to make changes that frightened the conservatives in Mexico City. The conservatives finally joined forces with the followers of Father Hidalgo to defeat the Spanish, and on August 24, 1821, a treaty was signed granting Mexico independence from Spain. Mexicans celebrate national independence on September 15–16, in commemoration of Hidalgo’s Grito de Dolores, even though actual independence did not come until 11 years after the revered priest’s fateful cry. Every year at midnight on September 15 Mexicans led by their President, shout the Grito, honouring the crucial and impulsive action that was the catalyst for the country;s bloody struggle for independence. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla is today remembered and revered as the father of his country and is seen as the great hero of Mexico's' long struggle for Independence and champion of the downtrodden and oppressed. His insurgency lit the fire for revolution, he remains an icon of liberation. His remains lie in Mexico City in a monument known as 'the angel of Independence along with other revolutionary heroes  and though he never lived to see an independent Mexico ,he is regarded as the 'father ; of the nation ad is t focus of the annual celebration on 15/16,

Hidalgo is immortalised by the works of Diego Rivera) and art associated with the Mexican muralist movement and memorial statues that have become tourist attractions.  Many travellers to Guanajuato make a point to visit the legendary place where Hidalgo first made his cry for independence.

Tony Benn - 10 min History Lesson for Neoliberals

Tony Benn as one of the leading light in Britain's Labour Party  opposed the conservatism of Tony Blair's New Labour, and was a strong voice for socialism and a prominent supporter of the struggles for justice,  In the 1980s, when Benn seemed to have a realistic chance of aspiring to the Labour leadership, he was constantlyattacked and vilified by the right-wing press in the same way that Jeremy Corbyn is today.Truth, fairness and common sense stamped upon in pursuit of wealth and power. He was a not your typical politician but Benn who died a few years ago leaves a powerful legacy and principles that live on.
The following speech is ten minutes of  his wisdom.
 
Tony Benn - 10 min History Lesson for Neoliberals

See more Tony Benn videos and other great speeches at http://www.counterfire.org     

Gerdo Taro (1/6/10 -26/7/37) - Pioneering Photojournalist of the Spanish Civil War

Today I pause to remember an exceptional photographer, who blazed new paths for women in photography, who contributed a unique and unusual body of work, who died  far too young.

Gerda Taro was born as Gerta Pohorylle  on 1 August, 1910 to a middle class Jewish family who had migrated from Poland to Stuttgart, Germany, she attended the Königin-Charlotte Realschule in Stuttgart, the Internat Villa Florissant in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Höhere Handelsschule (Business College) in Stuttgart, and the Gaudig Schul in Leipzig.
As oppression of Jews and other groups became a matter of national policy, Gerta Pohorylle became more political. One night on her way to a dance she stopped to help some activists distribute anti-Nazi pamphlets. She was subsequently arrested and spent the night in jail, where she drew attention for being the only inmate dressed in evening wear. In 1933, after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor,and made life for many Jews inhospitable  and risky, so her family decided to leave Germany. Her parents left for Palestine, her brothers for England. Pohorylle decided to flee to Paris.Here she was first employed as a secretary to the psychoanalyst René Spitz. She would find work as a picture editor for Alliance Photo, an international picture agency. She met another displaced Jew, a young Hungarian man, his name was André Friedmann. Pohorylle and Friedmann became romantically involved and moved in together. In the spring of 1936, they reinvented themselves as Robert Capa and Gerda Taro.Capa taught Taro how to photograph, she made him presentable for employers and created his “brand”.
In 1936 civil war erupted in Spain. Fascist/Nationalist forces, backed by Nazi Germany, attempted a coup against the elected government of the Republic, comprised of socialist and liberal parties. As steadfast socialists, Capa and Taro left Paris and headed for Spain to cover the war.From August 1936 on, her brief career consisted almost exclusively of dramatic photographs from the front lines of the Spanish Civil War. Taro worked alongside Capa, and the two collaborated closely.They both captured arresting images of the devastation hitting the country; torturous conditions in hospitals, militiawomen training for combat, children playing on barricades, morgues and munitions factories in Madrid, but most shocking were the photos taken from the frontline. These images were then sent to leftist publications back in France, however the photo credit was always simply ‘Capa’.

                                 Gerda Taro and soldier, Córdoba front, 1936. By Robert Capa   

Taro's work over time got overshadowed by that of  Capra, and their lives since have come to represent a romantic vision of the stateless person involving themselves in terrible battles: the social battles, the political battles of the time. However she had a different aesthetic than Capa, her pictures are much more posed, using strong camera angles. Capa was much more into movement.As she chronicled the Spanish Civil War, she spotlighted the small and intimate moments that humanized the conflict: Among the memorable pictures that survive by her are ones of defiant farmers, fists clenched, photographed from audacious angles, photographs of strong Republican militia women training on the beach outside Barcelona in 1936,

A photograph  of a solitary soldier playing bugle against a backdrop of sky;

 a young boy standing near a trench, wearing the cap of the FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation) looking ready to join the fight.

 
Perhaps most famous is her silhouette of a woman with a pistol, down on one knee and concentrating furiously on her shot… yet wearing impeccable high heels. Like many of Taro's wartime images, it's an incredibly memorable shot.

 When viewing her photographs you don’t feel like a spectator; on the contrary, you feel like a participant involved with the action. Taro believed photographs were a powerful medium which could influence public opinion.
On 5 September, 1936. Taro and Capa accompanied some Loyalist volunteers on field manoeuvres near Cordoba. The manoeuvre were unexpectedly interrupted when they were ambushed by Nationalist troops. Taro had already used up all her film; Capa, however, shot the photograph that made him famous the photo that has been called the greatest war photograph of all time. It shows a Loyalist soldier a split second after he has been shot.

 
When she returned from the front, Taro traded in her bulky Rolleiflex medium format camera for a small Leica. She abandoned the use of more posed photographs that could be viewed as excercises in propoganda and began to shoot in a journalistic style. She and Capa believed the only way to document the realities of war was to be as close to it as possible. "That is really the only way in which to be able to understand the fighting," Taro told a colleague. Capa’s comment on that approach is more widely quoted: "If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough." Taro lived that approach. With or without Capa, Taro was everywhere in Spain, and started to put herself in increasingly dangerous situations, always seeking the action. She covered the failed Loyalist offensive of the Navacerrada Pass, which was later the subject of Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. She accompanied a team of dinamiteros, bomb-makers, on a mission in Madrid. She always sought out the locations where something was happening or about to happen.She is believed to be the first woman photographer to accompany troops into combat.The republican fighters had great respect for her.

 

Gerda Taro spent the last day of her life in the trenches of Brunete, west of Madrid, holed up with Republican fighters.It was a critical moment in the Spanish Civil War - Gen Franco's forces had just retaken the town, inflicting heavy losses on the Republicans' best troops, who were now under fire as they retreated.As bombs fell and planes strafed the ground with machine-gun fire, Taro kept taking photographs.
She was due to return to France the next day and only left the trenches when she ran out of film, making her way to a nearby town.She jumped onto the running boards of a car transporting wounded soldiers, but it collided with an out-of-control tank and she was crushed. She tragically died in hospital from her injuries early the following morning.The war that made Taro's career also took her life. She was just 26 years old.She became the first female war photographer to die on assignement.Her photographs from that day, 25 July 1937, were never found. 

Her funeral in Paris (on Aug. 1, 1937, which would have been her 27th birthday) drew thousands who hailed her as a martyr to anti-Fascism. The French writer Louis Aragon and the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda were among those in attendance. Alberto Giacometti, the sculptor, designed her memorial.A few years later this celebrated photographer had sunk into obscurity, her negatives lost and few remembering her work, overshadowed by Capa's monumental reputation within twentieth century  photography.However a recent discovery of a vast collection of Capa and Taro's photographs,known as the Mexican Suitcase and  recently exhibited in the US, France and Spain, has served to highlight her well.Taro helped expose the bloody price the fascist forces imposed on the Spanish people.

Taro’s photographs – taken in Valencia in 1937 a few weeks after the infamous Guernica raid as painted by Picasso – are so close to you that you could almost touch the bodies and smell the blood! They are truly shocking, honest and direct accounts of the price of fascism. 

 

Regardless of personal risk, she became a tireless witness to the Spanish civilian atrocities and terror. Ssentially, her fight against fascism was existential, based on her immediate experiences.Found decades later, her photos have now been exhibited, demonstrating the depth she achieved in a short career. Capa was devastated by the loss of his soul mate, feeling guilty that he didn’t protect her, although he couldn’t have. He decided to travel to China in 1938 and then to New York in 1939, photographing World War II, the landing of American troops on Omaha beach on D-Day—which are the source of his most well known photographs, the liberation of Paris, and the Battle of the Bulge as a European correspondent.Hi  relationship with Ms. Taro was “a very painful private matter,”he never quite recovered from the loss of his great love and never married, he also never attempted to officially commemorate her except in his book “Death in the Making,” about the Spanish Civil War.
We are fortunate many years later to understand now the scope and scale of Gerdo Taro's work and the incredible bravery she must have shown on the battleground that was Spain. Taro is part of a small pantheon of women photographers who saw photography as an extension of their political commitment and of their role as new women. Let us forever remember her work and pioneering life, as her name is again in public consciousness, lets not lose her memory to history, or forget others like her who put themselves in incredibly dangerous situations for the sake of their art.Perhaps we can all surely aspire, to some degree, to the tight fit between conviction and existence that Taro, in her brief tragic life, achieved.

                           
                                                  Gerdo Taro Sleeping by Robert Capo

Daylight Robbery

The term "daylight robbery" isn't actually used to describe actual robberies - whatever time of day they might take place. It is a figurative phrase that associates an instance of unfair trading with actual robbery. Not just any old robbery, but one so unashamed and obvious that it is committed in broad daylight.It is thought to have originated from the window tax as it was described by some as a "tax on light". 
The Window Tax was introduced in 1696, during the reign of William III, when Britain was burdened with expenses from The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the costs of re-coinage necessitated by the "miserable state" of existing coins, which had been reduced by clipping small portions of the high grade silver coins. It was levied at two shilling on properties with up to ten windows, rising to four shillings for houses with between ten and twenty windows. It was extremely unpopular and to avoid paying the tax some houses from the period can be seen to have windows bricked-up.

The Window tax was abolished in England and Wales on this day 24th July 1851. But "daylight robbery continued . The capitalism of the 18th and 19th century was built on the piracy and slavery of the 16th and 17th. Millions of pounds of gold, silver and spices plundered from the "New World" financed the basis of the banking and trade system. One of the first commodities to be traded was human beings. Slavery played a vital in the early years of capitalism. Many English titled families of today owe their knighthoods and dukedoms to this sordid trade.
And some will argue that  the current day-to-day running of the system is daylight robbery. A worker's wages only represent a fraction of the value of his/her labour. The rest flows into the boss's pocket. This was what Proudhon meant by the oft quoted "property is theft", and the system continues to be run to ensure that we slave our lives away so that the rich can get richer in what amounts to daily robbery. Then there is the case of Sir Phillip Green  who shamelessly indulged in all forms of perfectly legal daylight robbery, Phillip Green bought BHS for £200m in 2000. When he bought it, the BHS pension fund had a surplus of £5m, rising to £12m in 2001. Now the same pension fund is suffering a black hole of £571m, and BHS as a whole owes debts of £1.3billion.
Green used its initial success to finance his takeover of the Arcadia group (which includes Top Shop) in 2002. He then proceeded to essentially rob it of a fortune, using BHS assets to back loans for other businesses in his Arcadia empire; handing out £422m in dividends (mostly to himself) over two years; above all, dodging Corporation Tax by gifting his Monaco-based wife, Tina, a mind-boggling £1.2billion in 2005. All this helped Philip and Tina amass a personal fortune currently standing at £3.22billion.
Having used and abused it for his own bounty hunt, Green then dumped the ailing BHS (and its pension fund) on a three-times bankrupt, Dominic Chappell, whose Retail Acquisitions Ltd had barely been heard of previously - for a derisory £1, in March 2015. 11,000 workers were left abandoned facing an uncertain future , facing the job centre but for their former boss Green just another day in paradise. From the lofty sundeck on his latest plaything, Sir Philip, dubbed Philip Greed,  can be found surveying the new £100million jewel in his fleet of three superyachts.
He flew into Malta the other day by private jet to join his tax exile wife Lady Tina on board.

I guess we should continue to stand guard against daylight Robbery that takes place before our eyes, the wrecking ball of capitalism that is effecting peoples lives..
But the problem is that we live in a society where capitalism itself has become rampantly feral. Feral politicians who cheat on their expenses, feral bankers who plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge fund operators and private equity geniuses who loot the world of wealth, telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on everyone’s bills, shopkeepers who price gouge, and, at the drop of a hat swindlers and scam artists who get to practice three-card monte right up into the highest echelons of the corporate and political world.
A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day. I strongly recommend Naomi Klein's book The shock doctrine : The rise of disaster capitalism which explores the complexities of capitalism and the effects of it's daylight robbery much better than I ever could. On that note, after seriously depressing myelf, I'm off  for a smoke, and to catch the evening light. Good evening.

Marvin Gaye's seminal masterpiece - What's Going On

Last week I heard that What’s Going On, one of the most enduring albums of all time, would be getting a documentary made about it,https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/13/marvin-gaye-family-approve-whats-going-on-documentary  The album What’s Going On remains one of my all time favourites, have a copy on vinyl and cd, a tightly woven masterpiece of message and music, mixing and matching many styles; soul, funk, doo-wop, jazz, spiritual, and classical; often within the same song. Somehow, Marvin Gaye transformed what could have been a heavy-handed rant against the state of the world into a cry for compassion, with songs of faith and hope, captured in beautiful, complex rhythms and music.
Released on May 21, 1971, the album is an introspective, politically charged nine-piece song cycle in it Gaye addresses the ravages of the Vietnam War, drug addiction, poverty, civil unrest, police brutality, injustice and even environmental issues.

Gaye was singing to his generation in an effort to wake people up to the struggles no one was willing to discuss at that time. But these songs are universal; they've transcended their time and place. Listen carefully and you'll notice how much they still resonate. In days like these full of agitation and confusion it still has the capacity to soothe and question at the same time.
 Marvin Gaye's title track was message music with a difference. It was an overture and an anthem. From its warm greetings between black men to the steady slap and patter of the congas; and with Gaye's vocals, which glided from sorrow into soaring at the bridge ;"What's Going On" was and still is a poetic plea for justice and contemplation within black communities. (The whole world could stand to tune in, as well.) Forty-four years ago, Gaye found a way to offer up a prayer in the form of a powerful question with an equally ringing affirmation.
The record as a whole remain astonishing, have had it on playing over and over, this afternoon whilst I've been writing this post. What's Going On was I guess the first soul album to finally catch up with the musical and counter-cultural movement that developed in the late sixties. Against the wishes of Motown and it's leader, Berry Gordy, Marvin Gaye moved forward with an album that was finally able to encompass the conciousness of his generation.
The album remains in my ears incredible. There's no other way to describe it. Marvin Gaye set his sights high and completely succeeded. It's gotta be one of the most definite albums to have emerged from the soul genre.It still remains an album about the people, for the people. From track to track it flows so well, full of beauty and atmosphere and valid social critique. It really is essential listening. Music for now. Still highly relevant and relatable. Marvin Gaye's message from the point of a dismayed man who believes love – not more hatred and violence – is the answer still hits the spot for me everytime. Have a listen, delve in deep, enjoy, heddwch/peace.