Another night in Gaza.

Last night suddenly the media went off duty. The Israelis (and by extension the US) would rather you didn't know, the Israeli army fired missiles into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia on Sunday afternoon and evening, injuring several Palestinians, including a 17-year-old boy, when Israel attacked the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday night, after a rocket fired from Gaza fell inside the southern Israeli city of Sderot, with no injuries or damage reported by the Israeli army.The heavy artillery bombardment was followed by systematic mocking raids on the area.
Israel was supposed to have ended its permanent military presence in the Gaza Strip in 2005 in what it called the "Gaza disengagement". However, the area remains effectively occupied as Israel retains control of its airspace, seafront and all vehicle access, blocking trade and free movement for the territory's two million residents.Palestinians in Gaza have been living under siege and blockade for ten years, with Israel tightly restricting what can come in and out.The latest attacks coming two years after the summer of 2014 when Israeli forces killed more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 500 children.Key parts of Gaza's infrastructure were damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes,including apartment buildings, sports fields, kindergartens , electricity substations, schools and hospitals.
Israeli forces maintained their land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, imposing collective punishment on the territory’s 1.8 million inhabitants. Israeli controls on the movement of people and goods into and from Gaza,particularly on essential construction materials, combined with Egypt’s closure of the Rafah border crossing and destruction of cross-border tunnels, severely hindered post-conflict reconstruction and essential services and exacerbated poverty..
Palestine’s youth have grown up in a war zone, in which violence, loss, and hatred have marred any semblance of normal life. In recent months, approximately 373,000 children requiring “direct and specialized psychological support have found themselves unable to return to school, in a community where unemployment stands at a staggering 43 percent. Growing feelings of abandonment and hopelessness have fed a recent spike in youth suicide rates,.Because of these conditions it has fostered even more resentment among the Palestinian people toward their Israeli occupiers.
So when a rocket is fired in anger and frustration and falls on an open area and is then  faced with 30 missiles in less than 15 minutes, the balance of powershould be recognised and the occupying forces reponse considered to becompletely disproportionate. The Gaza Strip is not responsible for the one who fired the rock. Even the one who fired it didn't know where it was to fall.However, the Israeli defence army know exactly where their bombs, shells, rickets are falling. Falling near populated areas at the middle of the night. Children asleep. Parents helpless.Electricity off. No place to hide.Living in fear. Facing collective punishment, reinforcing the hardships already imposed on the civilians of the Gaza strip.Another long night in Gaza.
It should be noted that international law forbids punishing individuals for acts that they did not personally commit. It also forbids targeting civilians.Under international law, all states are obligated to actively facilitate the passage of humanitarian supplies to civilians.Blatantly disregarded time and time again with Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and the actions that took place last night, all clearly intended to make the lives of Palestinian civilians as miserable as possible, severely affecting every man, woman and child.

The following link to a Guardian article  chooses to ignore many of the above context.It does not even inform readers that Gaza is under siege by Israel.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/22/israel-launches-up-to-50-strikes-on-gaza-after-rocket-attack

The Taff Vale Railway Strike

Between 1893-98 coal mining strikes in South Wales brought suffering to railway workers and miners with the suspension of the guaranteed sixty hour week and lay offs. The Taff Vale railway workers moved a quarter of the eighteen million tons of coal dug out by South Wales miners. The Boer war increased the demand for South Wales coal and the miners won pay increases but rail workers did not even though the cost of living increased. Grievances running high  about wages and conditions, but also about a specific charge of victimisation against a signalman by the name of John Ewinfton,  General Manager of the Taff Vale Railway's  refusal to meet with their representatives the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (thw workers union),certainly did not help, so at  midnight of August 19th 1900  1,327 workers of the Taff Railway Company went on  strike. Richard Bell, ASRS general secretary, travelled to Cardiff to organise the picketing against scab labour. In the course of the struggle, tracks were greased, trucks uncoupled and locomotive engines put out of action.The picketing that took place is said to be the best organised in any railway strike in Britain with no coal trains running on the first day.At the height of the strike, a mass demonstration of around 12,000 took place at Cathays Park in Cardiff, organised by the Cardiff Trades Council, in support of the railway workers. The company drummed up strike breakers, known as blacklegs or scabs, through the National Free Labour Association and ordered strikers and their families to vacate rented company cottages.Finally furious employers plotted with the strikebreaking National Free Labour Association and the Employers Parliamentary Council to smash the strike with an injunction, which was duly granted. Although the strike was settled by mediation after only eleven days, the employers carried their legal case for compensation to the Lords and successfully sued for damages against the union to the tune of £23,000, with additional costs of £27,000 – a formidable sum at the time.

It also proved to be a landmark decision, as it shattered the belief that unions could not be held responsible for damages as a result of the actions of their members, this prosecution followed a decade of attacks on trade union rights and the verdict practically eliminated the strike as a weapon of organised labor. The newly formed unions for the unskilled workers had suffered loss of membership due to unemployment. Employers recruited the unemployed, including criminal gangs to break strikes, and a whole series of court decisions deprived the unions of the right to a closed shop and to refuse to deal with non-union firms.The Tory press launched a tirade against the unions, calling them 'our national mafia' and called upon the state to protect the public from 'working class tyranny'.
The Taff Vale case had an immediate impact it would help foster the growth of the recently formed  formed Labour Representation Committee. It was essential for the unions that legislation be put through Parliament to reverse this judgement and guarantee unions immunity during an industrial dispute. The lack of trade union support for the LRC changed. In 1900 it had less than half the trade union movement affiliated. Key unions like the Miners Federation saw the implications of Taff Vale for themselves and switched to Labour from supporting the Liberals. Within two years the affiliated membership of the LRC had doubled from 455,450 to 861,200.
The Taff Vale judgement helped make minds up in favour of a Labour Party in parliament which by now had been formed, however at the 1906 general election three corner contests were avoided through agreements between the LRC and Liberal Party. It was a Liberal landslide including 29 LRC MPs. These 29 MPs were though able to exercise enough pressure upon the Liberal Government to pass the Trades Disputes Act of 1906. Legalizing peaceful picketing and restoring union immunity against actions for damages caused by strikes.The behaviour of one employer had been sufficient to cement the links between the trade unions and the Labour Party. The ruling class now had to face a labour movement which was going from strength to strength and able to exercise influence in Parliament as well as on the industrial front. The years of the Liberal Government saw increasing industrial militancy with disputes in all the major industries such as mining, the docks and the railways. A triple alliance was forged between the unions of the three main industries. Amalgamation Committees were set up and the number of trade unionists increased. The Labor Party though in parliament seemed to be irrelevent to union militants who turned to direct action and were being pulled towards revolutionary ideas such as syndicalism and workers control . The Taff Vale Railway Strike must  be remembered as a landmark in the history of industrial relations in Britain, that should not to be forgotten today as Tory anti-trade union legislation continues to set back trade union rights back over one hundred years.

Captain Beefheart- Flower Pot

'Take this magic flower from my flowerpot
Tell your little girl it can help you a lot
Wear it in your hair
Wear it on your heart
With the magic power of this flower
We shall never be apart
We shall never be apart
Jungle free city hot
Can’t fool me or my flowerpot
Magic petals magic stem magic mountains and magic men.'

- These are the original unused lyrics by Herb Bermann for the unreleased track Flower Pot, recorded as an instrumental only at the end of 1967.

http://www.beefheart.com/i-was-a-scribe-for-captain-beefhe…/

http://www.beefheart.com/herb-bermann-speaks-part-2/

Respect to Scottish Football fans as they show solidarity for the Palestinian people.

Fans at a football match between Glasgow Celtic and Israeli side Hapoel Beer Sheva turned whole sections of the stadium into a sea of Palestinian flags in an amazing show of unity, strength and solidarity on Wednesday night protesting against the Israeli occupation on night, ignoring an official ban on political demonstrations, despite Scottish police urging fans to not bring Palestinian flags, threatening them with arrest. However many Celtic fans have long identified with left-wing causes, among them the Palestinian struggle. The flag of Palestine is seen flying at games the club plays, and the match with Hapoel Be'er Sheva will be no exception.When hundreds of Palestinians were on hunger strike in Israeli jails in 2012, the group unfurled a banner reading "Dignity is more precious than food.".Also  through extensive fundraising work the supporters have helped bring Palestinian youth to the UK to take part in football tournaments and cultural tours.Numerous members have also visited the occupied West Bank.
Celtic could now  face penalties from UEFA, Europe’s football governing body, for allowing the protests to go ahead, but some fans said they were prepared to pay any fine themselves to show their opposition to Israel's participation in the competition.This has got Celtic into hot water with the football authorities previously. The club was fined 16,000 pounds ($20,750) by the Union of European Football Associations ( UEFA) after fans flew Palestine flags during a game against the Icelandic side KR Reykjavik. The game took place at the same time as the Israeli army's "Protective Edge Operation in Gaza", which left more than 2,200 Palestinians and at least 73 Israelis dead.
More than 800 people joined a Facebook group titled “Fly the flag for Palestine, for Celtic, for Justice.The group’s creators called on Celtic fans to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, saying that people should express their “democratic rights to display our opposition to Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and countless massacres of the Palestinian people”.The Facebook group also said that UEFA should not support Israel and its policies. “When someone is representing Israeli state institutions it is sadly never merely a game; football, UEFA, and Celtic FC are being used to whitewash Israel’s true nature and give this rogue state an air of normality and acceptance it should not and cannot enjoy until its impunity ends and it is answerable to international law and faces sanctions for the countless UN resolutions it had breached,” it read.The Palestinian flag is more than a national symbol; it has taken on the mantle of a symbol of defiance in the face of colonial oppression and apartheid, it should not be a crime to wave it.
Celtic won the match 5-2 and now appear likely to qualify for the lucrative group stages of the UEFA Champions League, in which Europe's top clubs compete for the game's most sought after trophy.Much respect to the Celtic fans, thanks from the bottom of my heart for showing humanity at its best.Sending a clear message to the Palestinians that their struggle is not forgotten. Free Palestine..

Butterfly Collector

(some free verse
for jane the flutterfurb)


I'm a collector of many things
music and books, friends who bring kindness
butterflies that roam among the flowers and grass
who often call fluttering down gently
whispering softly above my head
dancing and teaching me ways to be free
allowing my mind to drift past sadness
filling my heart with joy and gladness
under the sky and influence of love
reminding me of other things to cherish 
that continue to enrapture and capture the heart.
.

James Keir Hardie (15/8/1856 - 26/9/15) Happy Birthday, Republican and Socialist

Born today 1856 in New House, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, in dire poverty in a single room cottage, this illegitimate son of a servant, Mary Keir, was to become a giant in the socialist movement, rising from coalminer to become the first Labour Party Leader, and to become one of the greatest evangelists for the ideas of socialism.
He would derive from his mum, many of his good qualities. She was a woman of marked individuality and strength of character, nothing could daunt her, or dampen her convictions. At the age of ten, he went to work in a local mine, where through self-education he would learn the lessons of solidarity and comradeship. This would help him as he used his voice to speak of a world where woman and man were born equal. Denouncing the rich, the politicians and the establishment, all exploiters, and would see him calling for the destruction of the capitalist system. He was one of the greatest agitators of his day. ( who reminds me of another bearded teetotaller, and advocate of passion currently spreading his message, one Jeremy Corbyn, who earlier this year spoke at the annual Keir Hardie Lecure put on by the Cynon Valley Labour Party in Aberdare.)
He  was to help found the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and was one of the first two Labour M.P's elected to the UK Parliament. He was to mark himself out as a radical both by his dress- he wore a tweed suit and cloth cap, whilst most other members of Parliament wore more formal dress- and the subjects that he advocated - the nationalisation of the coalmines, for the unemployed, womens rights, republicanism and free education. Stuff that still echoes strongly today.
His first constituency was in West Ham, London (1892) and later Merthyr Tydfil here in Wales.
In 1894 251 miners were killed after an explosion at a mine in Pontypridd and after his request for a message of condolence to be sent to the families of the berieved was refused by parliament and a message of congratulation to Buckingham Palace on the birth of the future Edward VIII agreed, Hardie delivered a vitriolic attack on the monarchy, which resulted in him losing his seat at the next election in 1895.
During this period Hardie travelled across the world to learn from other labour movements, and visited the South Wales coalfields on numerous occasions, especially during the 1898 strike. As a result he was invited to stand in the Merthyr Tydfil constituency and won the seat on 10 October 1898. With only two Members of Parliament, it was not easy for the Independent Labour Party in Westminster, but success came in the January 1906 elections as a result of an entente with the Liberals. The Independent Labour Party won 29 seats and Keir Hardie kept his seat in Merthyr Tydfil.
.Hardie spent the next five years laying the foundations of the future Labour Party and returned to parliament in 1900 as an MP for the Labour Representation Party, which in 1906 changed its name to the Labour Party, with Hardie becoming its first leader.For the rest of his life he was to devote himself to the causes that he believed in, publicly defending calls for general strikes, syndicalism and militancy. He was also one of the first to call for equality between the races in South Africa, and  because he was a lifelong committed pacifist and humanist, this led him to  believe that the interests of the working classes were inseperable from peace, and when the First Wold War broke out in 1914, he was  to oppose it, and was to address anti-war demonstrations  up and down  the country and to support conscientious objectors.
For  years he tirelessly addressed meeting after meeting, nearly every day and night, travelling long distances to be known for his powerful oratory, often negating meals and continuing to spread ideas with comrades long into the night. Never to forget his working class roots, these people who he completely understood, he realised their plight, never deserting them, with his untarnished devotion and faith in their cause.
Sadly his dreams of peace were not to be, and after a series of strokes he died in Glasgow on 21st September, 1915 at the tragically young age of 59.He is buried in Cunnock, Ayrshire.
Today I remember him,because he stood in  many respects unprecedented as a working class leader in our country. He was  the first man  from the midst of the working class who completely understood them, completely sympathised with them, completely realised their plight, and completely championed them. After entering Parliament he  never deserted them, never turned his back on a single principle, and retained his unbroken affection and respect for the working class, his untarnished loyalty to them, his championship of them, his enduring faith in their cause.We owe an awful lot to his example and the legacy which he left.

On the future Edward V111

' From his childhood onward this boy will be surrounded by sychophants and flatterers by the score - and will be taught to believe himself as a superior creation. A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morgantic alliance will follow - and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill.'

- House of Commons speech (1894)

New age.?

The heat is on, we are all effected
as the days speed hungrily on by,
aggression increases, fear grows in all
connecting the proverbial dots
can feel very tragic and make us feel small,
unravelling a trajectory of violence
that is rooted in foreign intervention, 
instead of peace, spreads contamination
with frustrated, alienated, misguided men,
sowing seeds of hate and destruction.
As the days begin to weigh us down
time now to seek out the gaze of love,
the most powerful drug known to man,
build a brighter future, a new age of clarity
to help us escape this world of insanity,
before the count of zero we all explode
with a soaring, kicking, pain implode,
remember hope is always there to seize
all you really have to do is to believe.