Adelaide Crapsey (9/9/1878- 8/10/14) - The Witch

When I was a girl by Nilus stream
   I watched the desert stars arise;
My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx,
   Learned all his dreaming from my eyes

I bore in Greece a burning name,
  And I have been in Italy
Madonna to a painter-lad,
  And mistress to a Medici.

And have you heard ( and I have heard)
  Of puzzled men with decorous mien,
Who judged - The wrench knows far too much-
  And hanged her on the Salem green?


Adellaide Crapsey , grew up in Rochester, New York. Educated at Vassar College. Spent her life teaching, studying and writing poems. Her poetry A study of English Metrics  was published in 1918, after her death in a sanatorium of tuberculosis.  
The Witch from 'Verse' by Adelaide Crapsey 1922.


Happy Samhein everyone
May it be good. xx

                                               
                                               

Attila the Stockbroker - Looters

Looters

Dazza is a looter
in trainers and a hood
He trashed his local corner shop
He'd learned that greed is good
The CCTV nailed him
The papers called him scum
Now Dazza's in the barry place
And crying for his mum...

CHORUS

There's no such thing as society
So steal and cheat and loot
Just one more thing to remember though-
Make sure you wear a suit!

Bazza is a looter
In pinstripes, brogues and tie
Short selling in the City
He made millions on the sly
He nicked our hard earned savings
Then turned round and said thanks
He walked off with the money-
And we bailed out the banks...

CHORUS

When greed's the creed that breeds
and breeds
What else can you expect?
The selfish scum get richer
And communities get wrecked
Some rob us with an iron bar
Some a computer screen
And when they say it's "legal"
It's even more obscene....

CHORUS

Dazza is a street kid
And what he did was wrong
But he probably wouldn't do it
If he felt he could belong
Bazza's rich and privileged
He doesn't give a shit
He takes us for a load of mugs
And gets away with it!

CHORUS

More from one of my favourite political songwriters below

http://attilathestockbroker.com/

and nice little post on him here, it mentions a little gig that I attended.

http://rocketremnants.blogspot.com/2010/08/stand-up-now-stand-up-now.html

IMAGINE

Can you imagine working for a company that only has a little more than 635 employees, but has the following employee statistics -

29 have been accused of spouse abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

9 have been accused of writing bad cheques

17 have directly or indirectly banrupted at least 3 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year and collectively, they have cost the British tax payer £92,003,748 in expenses!!!

Could you imagine whose organisation is this?

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons.

The same group that cranks out hundreds ofnew laws each year designeed to keep the rest of us in line. What a bunch of sweeties, no sorry, bunch of crooks, this is what is running our country. The figures say it all.... And just to to top all that they probably have the best 'corporate pension scheme in the country - whilst trying to ensure that everyone else in this terrible economic climate has the worst  time  possible!!!
It really seems crazy doesn't it? A really appalling state of affairs, somethings gotta change.Sooner than later.
Before the rot from the top starts infecting us all. The expenses row might have been forgotten, but it seems those in power are still playing their games.
One rule for them and another for the rest of us. Remember wrap up warm cost of heating is impossible at the moment, but don't forget to turn up the heat on those who should be looking after our interests. Thw wonders of democracy eh, think it's time Parliament was reclaimed.

99% of humans are civilised.

99% of capitalists want to maintain capitalism.
99% of misogynysts want to maintain patriarchy.
99% of fascists want to maintain the state.
99% of racists want to maintain racism.
99% of humans want to maintain domestication.
99% of the civilised want to maintain all the aformentioned, because without it they will die.

99% of humans are civilised
99% of us question why?

GLOBAL REVOLUTION! TO THE SOLDIERS AND THE PEOPLE OF THE  99%

Demand

the

impossible

International Brigade 75th Anniversary

Today , 22 October, is the 75th anniversary of the Spanish Republic issuing the decree to recognise the International Brigades which were forming to join the defence of Spain's Land and Freedom. In a short period of time some 32, 000 volunteers from more than 50 countries joined the Brigades. Made by Sanum Ghafoor, Philosophy Football's film of the Gala to celebrate the 75th Anniversary features Billy Bragg, Robert Elms, Jackie Kay, Tayo Aluko, Gracie Petrie, one of the last remaining International Brigaders, David Lomon, and many others. It is educative, entertaining and inspiring, a fitting way to mark the anniversary.

Plus! Philosophy Footballs Anniversary T-shirt design features the iconic solidarity poster designed by one of Catalonia's greatest artists. No Pasaran.

Get it here.

http://www.philosophyfootball.com/view_item.php?pid=738

Volunteers for Liberty - Luis Perez Infante

Your country does not matter.

You have forgotten the name
of the city that shielded your childhood.
But the songs of your cradle
remain to return the corn
now dark with the kiss of flaming suns.

The factories you left,
and the fields with their richness, the places
impelled into life
by your rough and vigorous hands.
Your home you have left and your bed
that daily called you to rest.

Your country does not matter.

Those words are forgotten
which whispered the names
of your loved ones, the tender caress
of the anquished mother.
Forgotten the tremulous word
that troubled the ear of the lover

Your language does not matter,
for free men speak one language alone.

That language alone now matters.

Here you have spoken
in thirty-eight different tongues,
but each vibrated with one impulse,
with one passionate voice,
clamourous and pure,
That is the voice of the blood that sings.

( Translated from the Spanish by Hans Kahle and Leslie Phillips
from the Penguin Book of Spanish Civil War Verse, Penguin , 1980)

International Brigades Anthem - Himmo de las Brigades Internationales 

Christy Moore - Viva Le Quinita Brigada

Link to earler post on the anniversary of the  beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2011/07/no-pasaran-75th-anniversery-of-spanish.html

I like a good scarf

I like a good scarf , and as winter approaches am always on the look out for one. Here  the wonderful actress Tilda Swinton, regally stands, looking quite dashing in my opinion, wearing a Palestine Scarf (designed by Bella Freud) in the pages of November's Vogue.
The proceeds of the sale of the scarfs go to the hoping foundation for which it was designed, so you not only get a nice scarf but you also support a nice cause. My God I can see myself in telesales, swinging  my scarf round my shoulder, adopt sarcastic tone to caller, doubt I would look as good as Tilda though. Nice idea , shame about the logic.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
Free Palestine.

Link to hoping Foundation
below.

http://www.hopingfoundation.org/#

The world includes Palestine. Wouldn't it be great if the kids could read about it.

Charles Bukowski (16/8/20 - 9/4/94) - No help for that

No help for that

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times

we will know it

we will know it
more than
ever

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

and

we will wait

in that
space.

'Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat' - Charles Bukowski.

More here.

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2009/12/charles-bukowski-captain-is-out-to.html

Support # Occupy LSX initial statement, a work in progress.

STATEMENT: A Work in

Progress.

http://occupylsx.org/?author=10

1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

2. We are of all etnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities, disabilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3.We refuse to pay for the bank's crisis.

4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We damand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

5. We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

6. We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health sevices, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

7.We want structural change towaeds authentic global equality. The world's resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

8. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

9. This is what democracy lokks like. Come and join us!

( Well that was yesterday it seems the momentum is gathering pace.

" Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step".
-Martin Luther King.

Capitalism's bubbles seems to be blown  this way and that at moment, even the printed press has started watching another world being developed. Some are pushing for restraint, some are building the barricades, but passionate insistence seems to be undertaking a revival, the  people don't look that apathetic now, some of them are angry. All methods that topple  the rotten bubbles welcomed here.But already making waves on amazon, T.Shirts for sale, selling revolution, some like sheep ,put in orders.

' The new groups /don't understand/what there is to be learnt/They got Burton suits/HUH/ They think it's funny/ tuyning rebellion into money.'
- Joe Strummer.


Capitalism must drown, it won't go silently however having insulated and wrapped itself around our foundations. But drown  it , we must.

The Future of Capitalism ?



Meanwhile:-

' They control our world. They've poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in their wars, die for their causes and sacrifice our freedoms to protect them. They've liquidated our savings, and used public money to bailout out unending greed. We are slaves to their corporations, zombies to their airwaves, servants to their decadence. They have stolen our elections, assasinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. They own our property, shipped away our jobs, foster division, make money a god? They've shredded our unions. Profited off disaster, destablized our currencies, raised our cost of living. They've monopolised our freedom, stipped away our education, but have not extinguished our flame. They spread lies and confusion..... we are hit.. we are bleeding.. but we ain't got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution! '

- anonymous

No Walls can silence our voices
human dignity knows no borders!
Occupy the World.....
justice knows no borders!

OCCUPY THE WORLD.

Revolution: a how to from anonymous to the citizens of the World. Enjoy

Click pic to enlarge. 

OCCUPY YOUR MIND

THE REVOLUTION BEGINS WITHIN

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really wan't

Don't go back to Sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doors

Where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open

Don't go back to sleep.

- Rumi.

                                     

THOSE WHO PROFESS TO FAVOR FREEDOM, AND YET DEPRECATE                          AGITATION, ARE MEN WHO WANT CROPS WITHOUT PLOWING UP THE GROUND. THEY WANT RAIN  WITHOUT  THUNDER AND LIGHTNING AND THEY WANT THE OCEAN WITHOUT THE  ROAR OF ITS MANY WATERS. THE STRUGGLE  MAY BE A MORAL ONE, OR IT MAY BE A PHYSICAL ONE, OR IT MAY BE BOTH. BUT IT MUST BE A STRUGGLE. POWER CONCEDES NOTHING WITHOUT A DEMAND;
IT NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL. 

- Frederick Douglas, 1857.

John Pilger - Civil disobedience is the only way now

Sleep easy war criminals - Michael Mansfield

Britain's insulting rules on arrest warrents will only encourage Israel's view of itself as above the law.
Israell  has violated innumerable UN resolutions and international laws over the past 50 years  without any sanction being incurred - whether legal, economic, political or military. Most blatant is its disregard for the overwhelming opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague, which in 2004 declared the erection of a wall through the occupied territories to be unlaful. If you add the illegal occupation pf Palestinian  tterritory, continued extension of illegal settlements, forced evictions and house demolitions, requisitions of water recources, Gaza blockade and illicit use of cloned passports to facilitate an assasination outside Israel, anyone might br think that this is a state that regards itself as above the law.
The creation of international crimes with universal jurisdiction was accomplished after years of negotiation and careful deliberatin for one purpose: to ensure there could be no hiding  place or safe haven for the perpetrators of the most heinious crimes against humanity. Examples of such cases are genocide, war crimes and torture.
The ICJ itself made clear in the wall case that the obligation to prosecute is the concern of all states. The problem is that no state has been willing to take on this task is-a-vis Israel other than on a very muted diplomatic level. Lawyers acting for individuals in Palestine have been forced to do so themselves.
In 2009 Westminster magistrates court issued an arrest warrent for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead , which caused an estimated death toll of 1,400 in Gaza. Britain's Labour government hierarchy fell over itself rushing to the Israeli authorities, not about the death but to apologise for the warrant.
A dramatic incident occurred as Livni was about to appear on Israeli television during the invasion. The interviewer Shlomi Eldar recognised a name that appeared on his mobile - Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian doctor who had given services equally to Israelis and Palestinians. "They sheeled my house. They killed my daughters. What have we done? Shlomi, I wanted to save them  but they are dead. They were hit in the head. They died on the spot. Allah, what have we done to them?" Three of his daughters and his niece had just been killed by Israeli forces. The call was broadcast and transmitted round the world. The whole story is told in his acclaimed book I shall not hate.
There could be no question  that this admired physician was associated with Hamas or terrorism, or even a hostile thought. Only two possibilities make sense: a deliberate attack, or an indiscriminate one that dod not afford proper protection for civilians. In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict found that the Israelis -and Hamas - had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
In September the British Government changed the ground rules by providing the director of public prosecutions with the power of veto over private applications for arrest warrants. It is an insult to the court to insinuate that they cannot be trusted  to assess the requisite threshold for issuing a warrant. In 10 years only two out of 10 such applications had been granted. We are dealing here with arrest, not charge.
It is therefore highly unlikely that any prosecutions of consequence will ensue either at the instigation of the government itself or of an individual - ax - Livni's meeting with William Hague in London last week demonstrated. Given the British Government's lacklustre performance in this field when it comes to nations or individuals who are seen to be unacceptable (eg Pinochet, where it took a Spanish magistate to act), those in positions of command and responsibility at times when war crimes are committed can now rest easily in their beds.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/07/israel-tzipi-livni

The concept of universal jurisdiction is that a national court . of one country , should be able to try cases in which grave crimes against humanity are suspected. The principle is that no country should be a safe haven for those thought to have committed crimes recognised as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The bill to approve the change in Britains Universal Jurisdiction Law was passed because of one decisive vote. Meanwhile the foreign Office has declared that Tzip Livni, former model now enjoys temporary  diplomatic immunity. Wth a what  the **** message to the world, Welcome to Great Britain , War Criminals gratefully recieved., our government is openly compliant!

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ON UNIVERSAL JURIDICTION.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/international-justice/issues/universal-jurisdiction

Counting the Mad - Donald Justice (12/8/25 -6/8/04)

Susan T. Adams
- They leak through me

Today October 10rh , is World Mental Health Day, the issue still seems a problem, but it's not the mentally ill who are the problem. It's attitudes and ignorance, everyone can be affected, but is not like a virus that people can scrutinise under microscopes. Effects eveyone regardless of their class, their race, their politics, but having certain governments in control will often aid the spread of declining mental health, especially among the poor, the dispossessed, the marginlised, the voiceless. Often people fall beneath the cracks in the pavement, where they are shunted and betrayed.
Sadly in this present time, still so many causes, so many labels,  often people  are misdiagnosed, mislabelled , put in boxes and forgotten about. The stigma of being  different, with a different perception can in the end be very painful, one of the last taboos,   labels need to be cast aside, we should be looking for equality, a world without fear, without exploitation, a rejection of a society that  offers us no hope.
For me the summer has ended but the fall now approaches, learnt different methods to ease me through the good days and the bad days, the highs and lows, without ignoring the dark impulses that sometimes reappear, like  heavy magnets thrown through time! Am lucky can still smoke funny cigarettes, they make me normal, well sometimes. Able to form new relations, acquaintances, I guess I'm lucky because I prescribed myself a while back, a formula called hope.
Today I have I suppose a good day, that's just me, I guess I'm a survivor but many others are caught up daily in a cycle of depression, anxiety and  unnessecary pain and suffering, life a constant battle, some wrongly prescribed, stuck in an endless loop of frustration, some get tired of fighting.
The tory government smiles and empathy is silenced, they do the worst for everyone, especially those ostracised  or who daily suffer. On this day Mental Health provisions and services are now being cut, the compassionate side of our government is not easy to see. . Today  I try to think of others, we should try and show understanding,  no judgement today......  I think that's how it should be..... think for yourself, but lend sometimes, someone a helping hand, small gestures can be amazingly  worthwhile, say hello to a stranger, spread love instead of hate,  but for future's health.... kick out the Tories. Formulate new ideas, spread understanding, through tolerance and yeah sometimes it takes a lot and lot of patience. Remember theirs more than one way. Having awareness is one thing, but theirs still a long road untill the mentally ill get acceptance. As the gap between the rich and poor mounts, and the governments extreme  austerity measures, sadly anxiety will only increase. We must resist this.
In our age there is no such thing as ' keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly , hatred and schizophrenia. Now what does that scenario remind me off.

Counting the Mad

This one was put in a jacket,
This one was sent home,
Rhis one was given bread and meat
But would eat none,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long

This one looked at the window
As though it were a wall,
This one saw hings that were not there,
This one things that were,
And this one cried No No No No
All day long

This one thought himself a bird,
This one a dog,
And this one thought himself a man,
An ordinary man,
And cried and cried No No No No
All day long

Judy Chicago (b 20/7/39) - Untitled Poem.

Judy Chicago
-Through the flower.

                                                                                                                              
                                                         Judy Chicago

American

Feminist artist.

Untitled Poem

And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earths abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life's creatures
And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again

Judy Chicago
-Caroline Hershell Test Plate, China paint on Porcelein, 1978.

        Untitled Poem
from ' The Dinner Party'
            1979
Doubleday & Company, Inc.

CERTAIN THINGS ARE MADE FOR SHARING.

Qui Jin (8/11/1875 -15/7/07 ) - China's Revolutionary Poet.

Qui Jin was a radical Chinese women's rights leader and revolutionary. Born in Xiamen. Fujian Province. She was one of the first women of China who attempted to educate and mobilise and emancipate Chinese Women. She loudly said no to womens degradation, advocating for their rights in open defiance of the imperial empire. She refused to be silenced or subjegated by the power of patriarchal rule. She stood up against foot binding , it is easy to forget that  for a long time, this barbaric practice had been acceptable behaviour, she also oppossed other repressive orders. Spending time in Japan where she developed some of her ideas.
She helped found and write,a radical women's magazine called the 'Chinese Womens Journal' based in Shanghai. One of the first women who attempted to educate, mobilise and emancipate Chinese Women. Encouraging other women to resist oppression.
Standing against womens degradation, her cause was one of emancipation and freedom. She also became a martial arts expert , wouldn't you want to defend yourself, and together she joined forces with other revolutionaries to try to overthrow the corrupt Manchu Government and make war against authority. However she was betrayed and on July 12th 1907 she was arrested. Subsequently though she refused to admit any involvement or implicate and betray anyone else. 
She was beheaded on the 15th July 1907, she was only 32,  but had  become one of Chinas first revolutionary martyrs and is remembered to today for the sacrifice she made for her people.
The dynasty that she revolted against fell in 1912, with the declaration of a republic. Her legacy lives on, since after all, she introduced the idea of womens independance to China,  and beyond her actions, her memory lives on in her words.
Below  I share with you some of her poems. Full of a beguiling tranquility and mythological  elements, but it is she who has become legend. That today we must recall.

On Request for a Poem

Do not tell me women
are not the stuff of heroes,
I alone rode over the East Sea's
winds for ten thousand leagues.
My poetic thoughts ever expand,
like a sail between ocean and heaven.
I dreamed of your three islands,
all gems, all dazzling with moonlight.
I grieve to think of the bronze camels,
guardians of China, lost in thorns.
Ashamed, I have done nothing
not one victory to my name.
I simply make my war horse sweat.

Grieving over my native land
hurts my heart. So tell me:
how can I spend these days here?
A guest enjoying your spring winds?

Crimson Flooding into the River

just a short stay at the Capital
But it is already the mid autumn festival
Chrysanthemums infect the landscape
Fall is making its mark
The internal isolation has become unbearable here
All eight years of it make me long for my home
It is the bitter guile of them forcing us women into femininity
We cannot win!
Despite our ability, men hold the highest rank
But while our hearts are pure, those of men are rank
My insides are afire in anger at such an outrage
How could vile men claim to know who I am?
Heroism is borne out of this kind of torment
To think that so putrid a society can provide no camaraderie
Brings me to tears!

Untitled

Riding a white dragon up to the sky,
Striding deep in the moutain on a fierce tiger.

I am born in a roaring storm with a violent dancing spirit
I shall be holy on the earth.

How could I ever be satisfied with settling down!
Without witnessing Commander Xiang win his great battles,
Or hearing Liu Xiu rumbling war drums

They were only twenty years old but could make their contries floursh.
Don't blame them for bloodshed but admire them for bravery.

Shame and failure!
I am already twenty-seven

Yet have no glory to my name
I only worry for my country and do not know how to expel these invaders.

I am glad my great ambitions will not rot and waste away,
Not when I hear the roar of war drums.

Deep inside I am outraged
I cannot get help from my own people

I feel so helpless, so weak.
It is for that reason alone that I am going
to Japan: to rally up aid to look for assistance.

Here is a link to a trailer to a film about her :-

Autumn Gem

Wiki entry below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiu_Jin

NEWTOWN NEUROTICS - KICK OUT THE TORIES

THE TORIES ARE EVIL, AS SIMPLE AS THAT.......
SAME  AS THEY EVER WERE.

This is Real Democracy - Kutiman

WORK THIS OUT

Children's Art from Palestine--Censored!

R.S. Thomas (29/03/13 - 25/09/00) - Welsh History.

                                             image above courtesy of Mr Howard Barlow   
                                             http://howardbarlow.com 
                                             http://howardbarlow.photoselter.com/gallery/Writers/G0000yFg97xtMWk/                              

We were a people taut for war; the hills
Were no harder, the thin grass
Clothed them more warmly than the coarse
Shirts our small bones.
We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaring verse
To the sharp prompting  of the harp.

Our king died. or they were slain
By the old treachery at the ford.
Our bards perished, driven from the halls
Of nobles by the thorn and bramble.

We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.
The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.

We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim.
With men for whom we felt no hatred.

We were a people, and are so yet.
When we have finished quarelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise,
Armed, but not in the old way.

John Pilger - Palestine Is Still The Issue (2002)

Still relevent, don't really do heroes, but John Pilger comes close,
according to some disputed stories Palestine was a desert that Israel made bloom, land without a people for a people without a land....
lies and distortions have  often been made in some peoples conflicted view .
It aint necessary so.


" FACTS DO NOT  CEASE TO EXIST BECAUSE THEY ARE IGNORED"
- Aldous Huxley.

For me , Palestine still matters.

Statement by the PSC on Palestine independence and the UN

 

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is firmly based on the principle of self-determination of the Palestinian people - including Palestinians living inside Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the Palestinian diaspora - those refugees who live outside historic Palestine. The PSC supports the right of Palestinians to independence, freedom and a state of their own and their right to campaign for these rights. PSC supports the rights of the Palestinians to determine their own future, and supports the implementation of the reconciliation agreement between Palestinian parties.

The full  implementation of international law, including the end of Israel's illegal occupation, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees, are essential for a just solution.

The United Nations, since 1974, has recognised the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of all the Palestinian people, in their struggle to achieve their rights.

PSC supports actions in the UN that re-inforce these legal principles, and which uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

The PSC calls on the British and EU Governments to act positively to assist the Palestinians in achieving their legitimate aim of creating an independant state.

The PSC will campaign and lobby in support of these principles in the discussions leading up to any debate in the UN on the question of Palestinaian independance, and calls on all its members, supporters and affiliated organisations to do so.

MORE INFO HERE.

www.palestinecampaign.org/

In personal capacity teifidancer is a member and supporter of the PSC  and supports the above statement wishes the Palestinian good luck today in their endeavor for U.N state recognition.
It never fails me that the enormous injustices and sufferings experienced by the people of  Palestine does not dominate the moral and political imagination of the world. With this bid the world is watching. Many nations are supporting the bid, the only vocal countries against are predictably the U.S.A and Israel.
I really hope the bid succeeds, recognising the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as the captal just a start, their is so much more room for negotiation.
The recognition of group identity is a basic  and universal need, such recognition will establish a foundation for future relationships built on understanding and mutual respect. Becomming the 194th U.N member state  would become another fork on their long  route to freedom, justice and dignity. It certainly has been a long way coming.
Let us also remember that since the events of the Arab Spring, Israel has shown  no capacity to act in support of its real interests in the region, look at their failed relationships with Turkey and Egypt. A seperation wall has already been built already to be found in violation of international law, that already isolates Gaza from their brothers and sisters.
It will be  a victory to common sense if the U.N  finally recognises Palestine.
Oh and lets not forget the teifidancer maxim, in an ideal world, no borders would be necessary.

In The land of the free, they have a word for Justice, I call it Bullshit.

Yesterday Troy Davis  was killed by lethal injection  by the American Georgia State, for allegedly  ( with so many shadows of doubt ) killing an off-duty Georgian policeman - a crime he and many many others insist he never committed. Just before this state execution Troy Davis lifted his head and declared one last time ' I am innocent' to the family of the victim he categorically said ' I did not personally kill your son, father, brother'  he asked them  to ' look deeper into this case, so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight'.
For 22 years he has continually expressed his innocence. Across the world people have rallied and united to try and avert his death. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions on his behalf.... we are now left feeling numb, but we will not be silenced. There is no justice in this senseless killing, most people who have looked a bit into the case know there was too much doubt to execute him. An eye for an eye some people say, but generally this does not achieve zilch, murders in the U.S.A still occur evey day, state sponsored execution does not act as a deterrant. It is legalised  murder under a different name. Many other innocent people are still scheduled to be legally murdered, it simply does not make sense.
At least his death has raised questions, the gaze of the World is now on America, looking on it with shame. Killing in the name of justice does not stop other people killing, does not valididate, just become a spectacle of obscenity and hate. I believe the death penalty  anywhere fails humanity, it is cruel, barbaric, fact. An act of barbarity that should not be tolerated.
Some people say signing petitions, raising your voices, achieves nothing, because the people in charge do not listen, I disagree, because whatever the outcomes , people still have the power to change things, to do nothing,  would be a shame, would be a waste, humanities breath can be validated  if we work together, standing together, that is my hope.
Today I AM TROY DAVIS, NO NOT REALLY BECAUSE TODAY I AM FREE.
I am not as strong.........
Other Nations that have held executions in 2011 are Bangladesh, China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, U.A.E ,  the good old U.S of A. What century are we living, one shared side by side with objectionable humanity.
Meanwhile 139 others have been wrongfully convicted in the U.S.A. . This should not continue. This is not justice, this is bullshit.

More info on death penalty.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

Troy Davis the fight goes on,
response from Amnesty International
below

http://pthblog.amnesty.org.uk/troydavisthefightgoeson/

Wood Green Madrigal.

Anonymous
asks for spare change
Enemy: power
closes ranks
keeps secrets locked
Jesus laptop in hand
shares his thoughts under false name.
Poets get lost in poundshop
local mujahadin sell their wears
in top shop.
Down the street
boarded up windows
offer glimpse  of youths impulsiveness
the games kids play when pushed.
Strange things often happen
when we're simply not looking.
Got the late train back
into the station
looking now for a
souvenir shop
that sells freedom
where the electricity
costs nothing.
On the pavements outside
all that glitters is illusion
plastic smiles and forgotten prayers
hope rains down from passing windows.
Moralty is firm,
 lets us sit still  for a moment
Underneath the cracks of division
melt away and dissapear
dreams buried deep underneath
battered streets
laminate and reappear.
The purpose of all journeys
is one of discovery
please don't turn out the lights.

SABRA & SHATILA MASSACRE 9/16 Remembered

Almost 20 years before 9/11, an event took place that was just as barbaric, but does not seem to have  become rooted in our collective consiousness, a truth which is rarely mentioned in the September of our lives.
For 3 days in September 1982, Israeli forces in collusion with the Lebanese Militias, slaughtered, raped and massacred thousands of unarmed civilians, inside the sealed Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, while Israeli forces surounded the camp.
To this day , amidst many attempts to seek justice, no one has been held accountable for this genocidal act.
The slaughter occured just days after the P.L.O had withdrew its fighters from Beirut after receiving guarantees from U.S led Multi National Forces that Palestinian civiliansin the camps would be safe.
The incident is considered perhaps the worst of the entire Middle Eastern conflict.
Hopefully justice will one day come, and may it not happen again, to anyone , anywhere.

Sabra and Shatila Massacre - A film by Robert Fisk

The following is a poem by the Morrocan poet  Tahar Ben Jelloun on the incident

Fatima Abou Mayyala - Tahar Ben Jelloun

They came in through the roof
They closed the doors and windows
They stuffed a fistful of sand into her mouth and  nostrils, Fatima
Their hands ripped her stomach
blood pooled
they urinated on her face
Fatima took the statue's hand
                                                     and walked lightly between the trees and the
                                                     sleeping children.
                                                     She reached the sea
                                                     her body rised above death.

                                         
      Poem reprinted from :-
      ' Rising of the Ashes - Tahar Ben Jelloun (2010)
      Translated by Cullen Goldblett                                                   
                                                                                                              

What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war? Narrated by Tony Benn. Music by Brian Eno...

Don't Execute Troy Davis.

Hi there, have you got 5 minutes to try and stop a death row execution? If so cheers , regards and all that .
Troy Davis has been on death row for 17 years for a murder he maintains he did not commit.
He was convicted in 1991 for the murder of 27 year old Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, white, who was shot and killed in the car park of a Burger King restaurant in Savannah , Georgia, in the early hours of August 19th 1989...
Amnesty International has been opposing Troy Davis's execution unconditionally regardless of questions of guilt or innocence for a while, as it does all use of the death penalty.
A judge has ordered Troy's execution to take place on Wednesday 21 September 2011 at 7 p.m, US time.
On Monday 19th September, 2 days before he is scheduled  to be executed, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles will hold a clemency hearing to decide whether Troy Davis's sentence should be commuted, or whether the execution should be carried out as scheduled. This is Troy's last chance to avoid execution.

Video below examining Troy's case.

It is vital that you take action as soon as possible,
his execution is not inevitable.

PLEASE USE THE LINK BELOW TO EMAIL THE GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES TO EMAIL THE GEORGIA STATE BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLES ASKING FOR CLEMENCY FOR TROY.

.http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=11962&utm_source=aiuk&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=deathpenalty&utm_content=troy_page_to_action

11'9"01 September 11 - Ken Loach

THE OTHER SEPTEMBER 11th

SELF EVIDENT....... some musical reflections on anniversary of 9/11

                                          Ani Di Franco - Self Evident

                                       

Billy Bragg - The price of Oil

Wolfgang Gartner - illmerica

Pete Seeger - Last Night I had the strangest Dream

and perhaps
between the silent spaces
and  winding paths
objectives will  one day
be shared
Action  is louder than words
future shadows will not forget
time alone........
lasts forever.

R.I.P

to the 2,976 Americans who lost their lives on 9/11and the 48,644 Afghans and 1,690,903 Iraqis and over 30,000 Pakistanis who died for a crime they did not commit.

SAVE DALE FARM

This post is a bit late,soon the weekend will be upon us. But tomorrow wherever you are spare a thought for all the people at Dale Farm in Essex, at this moment waiting  for the Baliffs to arrive to commit one of the greatest acts of state endorsed violence against an ethnic group ever seen in the U.K.
The proposed eviction planned has already been roundly condemned by Amnesty International. Dale Farm is home to 90 familes, which could mean up to 400 people being left homeless, and actions to evict them might actually break international law. Is their not room for negotiations. In a time of recession , is it right that about £9.5 million  should be wasted kicking people out of their homes. Let us remember that the Irish Travellers who live  at Dale Farm actually own this land, they are not squatting this patch of earth belongs to them, for 10 years a strong and vital community has belonged here but time after time have been denied repeated requests to build on the land because of bueracratic measures.
So  soon Basildon council and the Coalition Government will have to explain why they have made 100 children homeless, which will result in them being removed from their schools...
If this eviction goes ahead , the world will see our government as a bully who refuses to listen, draconian, punitive and oppressive.

More info below

http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/ 

Petition to Support the U.N call to delay the eviction
at Dale Farm
here
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dalefarm

Emily Dickinson ( 10/12/1830 - 15/5/1880) - To dissapear enhances.

To dissapear enhances
The Man that runs away
Is tinctured for an instant
With immortality

But yesterday a vagrant
Today in Memory lain
With supersticious value
We tamper with "Again"

But "Never far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn

Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us
Securest gathered then

The Fruit peverse to plucking
But leaning to the Sight
With the ecstatic limit
Of  unobtained Delight,

Fadhil Al-Azzawi ( b.1940) - In my spare time

During  my long, boring hours of spare time
I sit to play with the earth's sphere.
I establish countries without police or parties
and I scrap others that no longer attract consumers.
I run roaring rivers through barren deserts
and I create continents and oceans
that I save for the future just in case.
I draw a new coloured map of the nations:
I roll Germany to the Pacific ocean teeming with whales
and I let the poor refugees
sail pirate's ships to her coasts
in the fog
dreaming of the promised garden in Bavaria.
I switch England with Afghanistan
so that its youth can smoke hashish for free
provided courtesy of Her Majesty's government.
I smuggle Kuwait from its fenced and mined borders
to Comoro, the islands
of the moon in its eclipse,
keeping the oil fields intact, of course.
At the same time I transport Baghdad
in the midst of loud drumming
to the islands of Tahiti.
I let Saudi Arabia crouch in its eternal desert
to preserve the purity of her thouroughbred camels.
This is before I surrender America
back to the Indians
just to give history
the justice it has long lacked.
I know that changing the world is not easy
but it remains necessary nonetheless.

Fadhil al -Azzawi is an Iraqi writer who is highly respected in the Arab world having emerged and participated in Iraqi's 90s avant garde generation.
Outspoken, he has spent many  hours in prison and time spent in exile because of his refusal to conform to certain corridors of power. Born in Kirkuk in 1940.
The above poem speaks for itself...... speaking of empires, inhumanity, offering glimpses of another ideal world, a future not based on injustice, but on shared  values, giving  lands back to the people from which they were once robbed.
Given us history the justice it has long lacked, knowing, too , that changing the world is easy. The role poetry has to play in the world is to pull of the masks of peddlers of untruths, becomming a universal pointer, offering words without borders and unlocking the chains of illusion ... that can be steps in setting us free.

Fadhil Al-Azzahi, Miracle Maker ( selected Poems 1960 -2002)  Editions, 2003

Ralph Nader - 10 painful lessons of 9/11

The commemorative ceremonies that are planned for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 massacre are those of pathos for the victims abd their families, of praise for both the pursuit of the supporters of the attackers and the performance of first responders and our soldiers abroad.
Flag and martial music will punctuate the combined atmosphere of sorrow and aggressive defiance to those terrorists who would threaten us. These events will be moments of respectful silence and some expressions of rage and ferocity.
But many Americans might also want to pause to recognise - or  unlearn- those reactions and overreactions tp 9/11 that have harmed our country. How, in this forward-looking manner,
can we respect the day of 9/11?

Here are some suggestions

1. Do not exaggerate our adveraries' strength in order to produce a climate of hysteria that results in repression of civil liberties, wmbodied in the overwrought USA patriot Actn, and immense long-term damage to our economy. Consider the massive diversion of trillions of dollars from domestic civilian needs because of the huge expansion and misspending in military and security budgets.

2. Do not allow our leaders to lie and exaggerate as when they told us there were funded, suicidal and hateful al-Qaeda cells all over our contry. They were never here. Actually, the wholesale invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan became recruiting grounds for more al-Qaeda  branches there and in other countries - a fact acknowledged by both then Army Chief of Staff George Casey and then CIA director Porter Goss.

3. Do not create a climate of fear or monpolize a partisan definition of patriotism in order to silence dissent from other political parties, the citizenry or the unfairly arrested or harassed.

4. Do not tolerate Presidents who violate our Constitution and start wars without congressional deliberationand a declaration of war ( article 1, section 8, clause 11). Do not let them disobey federal statutes and international treaties in pusuing unlawful, misdirected quicksand wars, as in Iraq, that produce deaths, destruction and debts that ndermine our country's national interests.

5. Do not have Congress write a blanh check, outside the normal Appropriations Committee hearing process, for the huge budgetry demandsfrom the executive branch for funding of the Iraq, Afghan-Pakistan and other undeclared wars.

6. Do not allow the executive branch to engage in unconstitutional and illegal recurrent practices such as wiretrapping and other methods of surveillance of Americans without judicial approval, in addition to arrests without charges, indefininite imprisonment, torture and denial of habeas corpus and other due process rights established by our Founding Fathers. Congress has passec no reforms to check the continuing exercise of unchecked dictatorial presidential power.

7. Do not let the government hide the horrors of war from the people by prohibiting photographs of U.S casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is to much intimidation of returning soldiers - so many harmed for life - and think about these wars and their heavy outsourcing to profiteeering corporations.

8. Do not allow leaders to violate American principles withtorture or other war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Nor should top military brass or members of the executive branch be above our laws and escape accountability.

9. Do not allow your Congress to abdicate or transfer its own constitutional authorities to the president. We the people have not exercised our civic duties enough to make our representatives in Congress fulfill their obligations under the Constitution to decide whether we go to war and act as a watchdog of the president's conduct. The Libyan war was decided and funded by President Obama without congressional approval.

10. Call out those in the news media who become a mouthpiece of the president and his departments involved in these hostilities. What more is the military really doing in Libya, Somalia and Yemen as compared with the official line? Under what legal authority?

In addition, demand that news media outlets seek the inconvenient facts, whatever they might lead, unlike the pre-Iraq invasion period.

The celebrated American theologician-philosopher Reinhold Nierbuhr aptly wrote decades ago that " to the end of history, social orders will probably destroy themselves in the effort to prove that they are indestructible."

All empires eventually eat way at their own and devour themselves.

http:nader.org/


Well thanks Ralph, think I'm in agreement there, had been getting bored with the U.S.A for a long time, just been given some more sober excuses. I dont see their President changing direction somehow. But hey, look who we've got leading us, the same duplicitiousness, just a different flag!

The Essence of Welsh Poetry - Saunders Lewis ( 15/10/1893 - 1/9/85)

During the wars of Napoleon there was a country squire of the name of Lloyd living in the old house of Cwmgloyn, inland a little from Trefdraeth ( or Newport in the English maps) on the north coast of Pembrokeshire.  He was a justice of the peace. His father had been much concerned with the sea, and squire Lloyd had ships built for him at Trefdraeth and at Aberystwyth. One of these, the Hawk, was a fifty ton schooner made from his own woods at Trefdraeth, partly for trade, partly for his pleasure voyages. It was later sunk by the French. At its launching a local poet one Ioan Siencyn, wrote a poem to greet it and its captain, and its squire-owner. After a finely imaged description of the Hawk breasting the sea, the poet visualises squire Lloyd on board, travelling to England and Ireland, but especially visitiing his friends in North and South Wales. There the gentry and local poets come to meet him and one verse describes their welcome to him:

  Around their tables, laden with steaming dishes,
  He shall hear histories of those good men, our anscestors,
  And  cywydd and  englyn  and odes of Taliesin
  And he shall drink his fill of golden barley beer.

That poem was written close to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It speaks simply and naturally of odes of Taliesin and cywydd  and   englyn as part of the pertinent welcome to squire Lloyd of Cwmgloyn. Taliesin was a poet of the sixth century .*  Cywydd  and  englyn  were metrical forms of the Welsh Middle Ages. But for Ioan Siencyn at the very end of the eighteenth century they were all necessary for the proper entertainment of the Welsh squire in any Welsh country house. Poetry was part of the tradition of hospitality.
Now will you imagine with me that a poet of the fifteenth century, some great figure such as Tudor Aled, had been released to revisit Pembrokeshire at the launching of the Hawk, and had listened to the reading  of Ioan Siencyn's verses to squire Lloyd? What would our fifteenth century master have thought or said? He would note with warm approval the occasion of the poem. Just such an event, the completion of a new house or a new ship, had in his time also been  the appropriate moment for a complimentary poem to the head of a family. And Tudor Aled would have relished Ioan Siencyn's development of the image of the Hawk as it was launched on the water:

  Spread now your wings, forget the green woodlands,
  Learn to live mid the mouthing of seas.

When Siencyn calls on Neptune and Triton  to protect the schooner, Tudur Aled would remember that he, in the early sixteenth century was beginning to learn the use of the Greek gods from his fiends in the circle of Cardinal Wolsey; and that when the poet returns to his bird-schooner and describes the Hawk:

 Your wings playing high as the clouds,
 Your breasts cleaving the salt billows,
 Let your beak pierce the waves, your belly furrows them,
 Your rudder scatter them in spray-suds...

the fifteenth-century poet would have recognise it as just the serious playing with image that was part of the technique of poems inspired by  manual craft in his own day. And as the poem grew to the final eulogy of squire Lloyd and his society, to the reference to Taliesin and talk of the deeds of his forefathers storied over the yellow beer on the laden dining table., Tudor Aled might exclaim: " My art still survives in this last decade of the eighteenth century and the great technique and the old mastery are not all forgotten. This country poet., this Ioan Siencyn, is truly an heir of our ancient discipline; he also sings the immemmorial ideals and the pattern of behaviour of the leaders of the Welsh people, and I recognise him as a poet of the long line that began with Taliesin in the North."
There, I think, we capture something essential in the progress of Welsh poesy. We call it the literary tradition of Wales. It means you cannot pluck a flower of song off a headland of Dyfed in the late eighteenth century without stirring a great Northern star of the sixth century. And all the intermediaries are involved. The fourteenth century gave the technique of  dyfalu  or image-making, the sixteenth century brought in the Virgilian echoes, the seventeenth gave the measure. The whole body of Welsh poetry from the sixth century onward has contributed directly yo Ioan Siencyn's verses. And, mark you, the poem I am discussing is an obscure piece of work by a little known poet whose name is in no history of Welsh literature nor in any anthology. It was last published in a forgotten volume at Aberystwyth in 1842. Why do I use it as a peg for this talk? Because it reveals the nature and continuity of the Welsh poetic tradition and because it reveals its quality and creative virtue: for the virtue of that tradition is that it may enable a quite minor poet to write a major poem  . . .

Reprinted from
A BOOK OF WALES`
Collins
London and Glasgow
1953

 * Taliesin see

 teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2010/10/taliesin-yw-fi.html

Effect of the butterfly- Anastaysia Markovich ( b. 23/10/79)

 

poem inspired by above painting

by this wonderful Ukrainian painter.

.

.......

....................

balancing acts

degrees of opposition

infinite future

connects

stellar observations

Re-calibrate

abolish greed

slow down

make room

for transition

sacred geometry

dances

with

new tradition

Today the

landscape

sends up wings

the curve of life

ignites

moves along

ancient tracks

we walk here

one by one

two by two

it is nearly time.

We wear our shadows

on our sleeves

history wears its silence

like identity witout a face

the sun persists through blistered sky. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasiya_Markovich