Contradictory Consciousness - or The Growing Respectability of Racism, part 3

This is not good news. On the face of it, wildcat strikes are generally something to be welcomed. However, the tone of the strikes that have broken out at oil refineries and construction sites around the country, is deeply concerning. The Unite union has been parroting Gordon Brown's phrase of 'British Jobs for British Workers', attempting to shift the blame onto foreign workers, rather than fighting for fair pay for all workers within the industry.

We should start by saying that the underlying fault lies squarely with this country's government and with the EU. It is an utter disgrace that there is not legislation in place that protects the rights and pay of workers from elsewhere in the EU. Furthermore, it is the pandering to the xenophobic rhetoric by the likes of Gordon Brown and Margaret Hodge that has pulled these sentiments into the mainstream, and helped to make racism respectable.

That's the backdrop that's brought us here. So how do we respond. The first thing to say is that Unite members should put pressure on their union to publicly dissasociate itself from the remark by their shop steward at Lindsey that "This is what it's about, it's about collective strength. I'm a victim, you are a victim, there are thousands in this country that are victims to this discrimination, this victimisation of the British worker." and other similar remarks.

Secondly, socialists need to continue to agitate around these picket lines. The argument needs to be made that workers from every country need to organise together to fight against pay cuts and job cuts. It is cheap agency and scab labour, and the easiness with which these can be brought in that needs to be fought against. Unite, GMB and the other unions involved need to recruit like mad amongst foreign workers and put up a serious fight over this. The only way any meaningful victory can be reached is if all workers are involved, and the fight is against the bosses, not between workers. These are lessons that need to be learned quickly. The statement released today by Socialist Worker should be read and distributed widely.

There is a history to this kind of thing of course. In the days of Jim Crow, unions in the southern USA had colour bars in place. This was used to reinforce segregation - black workers were not allowed to join the same unions as white workers, and consequently were used as scab labour during strikes. And the history in this country, while generally better, includes the dockers striking under the slogan 'Enoch was right'.

Things have not deteriorated to that extent yet, fortunately. However, if we take our eye off the ball, things can move in that direction. And the obvious beneficiaries of that could be the nazis, especially with European elections taking place in 3 months time.

Finally, this means we need to step up our anti-racist work masively. Setting up UAF groups in as many workplaces as possible, as we have done with the ANL in the past, can help to create a climate of anti-racism in which it is easier to speak out against the xenophobic statements that have been associated with this dispute. This is critical - the nazis are keen to take to the streets, and if these slogans continue to be popularised it will start to build their confidence to a point where they feel able to. If we push UAF as a central position of unions, it will be far harder for leaders like Derek Simpson to call for the kind of protectionist polices that give rise to racist ideas, whilst doing nothing to benfit workers. The alternative, if we don't fight for anti-racist ideas, if we don't fight for a class position that places the blame squarely on the bosses and the government, could be very nasty indeed.

Link: Lenin has a good article on this

Three chords and the truth... well, not really the truth, more a sort of cartoon

We were smokin' a lotta... whiskey, and uh, chicken. And uh, got some food and... I got some food and came home and got a call, uh... No wait, I got some calls then, uh, came home, then I got some food. Came home, got some food and then got some calls, uh... Couldn't find the fridge for a while and... Wait, first we couldn't...we got the food and then... No wait, first we had the fridge.

Lo and Behold...

Unto three, verily twas so... etc. After years of ramping up prison sentences, inventing new crimes and legal categories (such as the insidious ASBO), the prison population has spiralled (info here) to over 80,000. The system now runs at almost full capacity. Don't forget that, in most countries at most times, about as many people are heading into prison and about as many people are on parole as the incarerated population.

The equivalent of a county town now passes through the prison system every year in Britain. This is a slow-burning disaster in the making. It's almost made now:

The risk of violence and disturbances in jails in England and Wales is a "growing concern", the Chief Inspector of Prisons has warned.

In her annual report, Dame Anne Owers said the system was still under "sustained and chronic" pressure.

She said the tension was often caused by inmates on longer sentences who may feel they have "little to lose

An incredible statistic:

One in seven prisoners is on either a life or indeterminate sentence...

Also:

Surveys revealed alcohol abuse in some prisons had quadrupled, and prisons were responding "inadequately" to the problem, the report found.

Incredible, deadly problems are being stored up. It may be out of our way, but it won't stay like that unless action is taken to (1) drastically reduce the prison population and (2) change the regime inside from top to bottom.

For the headline only

Peer reveals 'cello scrotum' hoax... and I want no dirty jokes about why it's great going out with a cellist either.

Newswhizz

Here we go. Uh, this is a story that's been running for several years now... no not war in Palestine, Tory grandee manages to outflank Labour Government to the left. Chris Patten on the Palestinian conflict. Mostly sensible:

After the second intifada began in the autumn of 2000, Israel stopped the transfer of tax receipts owed to the Palestinian Authority. In the following summer the commission began payment of direct budgetary assistance to the authority. There were tough conditions, overseen by international financial institutions. The infrastructure built by European money on the West Bank and in Gaza was systematically trashed by the Israeli Defence Forces in 2002. They were responding to horrific suicide bombings in Israel. Anything that might be seen to provide the sinews of government was destroyed - including the land registry, courts and police stations. This did not obviously advance the prospect of a two-state solution.

Two state solution, huh? Thinking Cat is thinking. Meanwhile, David Attenborough has said he gets hate mail for refusing to credit god on TV:

Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."

You've got to admit he has a point (all things dull and ugly/all creatures short and squat/all things foul and poisonous/the lord god made the lot). Also, if there was an all-knowing, all-powerful being that created the universe would they really need their arse kissed by every last TV presenter?

Speaking of conversations with... Pretty much the last conversation I had with a zionist started off well enough. I must have said something because he exploded (and started walking away, mind you) in a shower of expletives and invited me to "burn in hell". Only a human being could condemn another to eternal suffering.

Boy, what a tangent. Some good news: Bolivia has a new consitution. It better be good, it took several years to write and ratify.

And, please give generously:

We control every aspect of your life

The Long Big Pun-ch Up

BBC staff protest over decision not to show Gaza aid appeal

In the finest traditions of our great, old, free, wonderful, open, tolerant, lovely, sherbertflavouredloveheart democracy:

BBC staff have said they have been told they face the sack if they speak out on the issue.

The ruling class response to this crisis has dwindled to "shut up or I'll shut you up".

Mor of Roobin's Feeries

Professional revolutionaries

People who live in Fear of a Red Planet like to make a big deal out of this concept. It’s really very simple. To ease us in I will start with Victor Serge’s definition of a ‘professional revolutionary’.

The great Russian Bolsheviks choose to describe themselves as “professional revolutionaries”. It is a description perfectly suited to all real agents of social transformation. It rules out dilettantism, amateurism, playing about and posturing; it locates the revolutionary within the world of labour...

For those who do this work, their job (or profession) fills the best part of their life. The job of a revolutionary requires a long apprenticeship… If, as often happens, a person is required to take another job – in order to live – it is the job of being a revolutionary which fills that person’s life, and the other job is only secondary.

That was a short aside in a modest little pamphlet, but isn’t it good? It captures the true meaning of the concept. A real agent of social change, focussed on their task and, above all, never off the job.

But let’s not beat about the bush. This concept is associated with VI Lenin and his pamphlet “What is to be Done?” There is one more (sub) concept, I think, which completes the full idea of a revolutionary. That is:

The tribune of the oppressed

This is how Lenin pictured the revolutionary, and it was his key innovation. In trying to picture what the coming Russian revolution would look like he managed to expand the revolutionary subject.

He was trying to not only understand but also communicate to his comrades what an all-Russian uprising would look like. Tsarist Russia was a huge, multi-national, multi-faith empire, dominated by a Great Russian monarchy and Russian Orthodox Church. It had a huge rural population, but rapidly growing industries, based in cities in the European Russia and the Urals.

The cities would decide the outcome of the revolution. Lenin raised the urban working class as the collective leader of the revolutionary Russia. Bringing them into activity would raise their consciousness; consciousness of their role, leading the whole of oppressed Russia against the monarchy.

This is not simply interesting history, and it’s not just a useful adjunct to the theory of permanent revolution. Modern capitalism has cultivated numerous collective identities, not to mention forms of oppression. Whether people are moved to fight sexism, racism or homophobia, climate change, state oppression or privatisation, they are fighting different aspects of the same problem.

It’s a question of hegemony. The job is to channel each individual struggle into a single movement.

Lets move on via quote from the man himself:

The socialist revolution may flare up not only through some big strike, street demonstration or hunger riot, a military insurrection or colonial revolt but also as a result of a political crisis such as the Dreyfus case or the Zabern incident.

The point is be prepared:

Seriously…?

Seriously. The above quote comes from a 1916 set of theses on the national question.

There is a nice intro to the theses, which I won’t burden you with, sketching the great crisis of his time, economic competition that had turned into imperial competition, which had spilled over into total war. In it Lenin teeters on the very edge of the April Theses. He describes how, through the war, the mobilisation of population and the organisation of the war economy, brought society formally closer to socialism than it ever had been. All that had to be done was make the leap, convert the world war into a civil war.

The war, the great crisis of his time, had demolished all the certainties of the long, stable years. Lenin devoted all energy to getting that across, to his comrades and followers in the Russian working class.

We don’t face the same kind of crisis today (nss!). One crucial difference is the lack of total mobilisation. In the West, in Britain especially, the majority of people are not used to working together in great masses for a common cause, voluntarily or through conscription.

The last great mobilisation coincided with the last great wave of radicalism in Britain. By the 1930s, old-style capitalism had been proven rank and corrupt. Huge potential had been unleashed by the WW2 war drive. It made sense to put it to building the Socialist Commonwealth.

What about today?



Today’s crisis is three-fold. Upfront is the economic crisis. Simply asserted, we have hit the brick wall built between rising Chinese and Indian industry and expanding American finance, the methods used to subdue and overcome the last recession at the turn of the century.

Despite the general economic stability of the last twenty years, growth was very fragile; roughly half what it was thirty years ago, and dependent on high levels of debt. Great companies have grown up, with huge capital assets but very small margins. We have seen how much wealth has to be sacrificed in order to keep the economy going just at the start of the downturn (the autumn bail-out by the British government was roughly to the annual education budget). We are pretty much guaranteed turbulent times.

The long economic stability helped create long political stability. The triumph of really existing capitalism over supposedly existing socialism also helped chase Socialist and Communist parties to accepting the system, to a degree they never had before. The mainstream political spectrum narrowed. A democratic deficit opened up. Political contest became a dance of the technocrats. If the response to the economic crisis has been woeful it’s because modern politicians are woeful, brainless hacks, lobby fodder.

The last dimension is the imperial crisis. We all know the story. The fall of the soviet bloc in 1989-91 left the USA an unrivalled superpower. In order to break the Russians in military competition, the Americans sacrificed a great deal of their economic base, roughly 25% of world output in 50 years.

During the 1990s a fraction of the ruling class tried to push the state into using America’s military superiority to alter global politics to further benefit American capital. The Bush presidency seemed the perfect agent, 9/11 seemed the ideal pretext. All was set.




But instead of endless, rolling triumph, the American ruling class found it could only hold the ground underneath its feet. Everywhere the United States has fought, either directly or by proxy, it has been stymied by popular armed uprising. Elsewhere in the world the political initiative has been seized and held by an irrepressible, energetic movement.

Though we are nowhere near the screaming pitch of total war, the three aspects of the crisis, economic, political and military are creating a positive feedback. We are reaching a crisis point, a modern 1914. As we speak, all the old certainties are being destroyed.

Yeah, and…?

It’d be dull to just say each aspect of the crisis feeds into the next. We know the different expressions of class struggle are actually united. This is what we argue at all times.



The key point is the ruling class is no longer in control, they don’t quite know what’s going on; they are not united, they do not have an agreed solution. If they don’t know exactly what the future holds there’s no reason to suppose we will either.

What we can say is the current crisis will be prolonged and painful. The pain, however, will not be local and chronic but multiple and sharp. In Britain things will likely continue as they have been recently, sometimes factory closures will be key, sometimes repossessions, sometimes public service cuts: in different places at different times. This would suggest a certain level of federalism and experimentation is called for.

We are also not so powerful that we can launch offensive actions. We can fight hard for strikes and occupations at the moment and not win them. This might a fact of life for some time to come. We also don’t have the option of a broad political front. We cannot conjure one at short notice: too bad about sorrows.

But, unless you’ve been washing your hair for a month you will have noticed a torrential mass movement against the slaughter in Gaza. This is where we can advance.



The movement has been energising, organising and radicalising everyone it touches. It has an important long-term aim of weakening the link between the British state and American imperialism (the handy side effects being giving heart to people living at the sharp end of the war drive as well as dissociating ordinary British people from the war drive).

It also has an even more long-term impact on our own society. The anti-war movement is an anti-racist movement. For the past eight years the evolving pro-war argument has kept a consistent theme of racism. The base-level argument that ‘something’ had ‘to be done’ about Hamas was always irrational, based on a hazy, emotional response generated by the media and encouraged by the government, that Hamas is irredeemably dark, intransigent and fanatical.

We must tell the truth about Hamas, in particular defend its right (1) to organise resistance against Israeli oppression and (2) to govern Palestine. We must never allow the ruling class to raise the caricature of the masked fanatic. Likewise, we must never abandon the young lions that have been claiming their right to protest in the face of the British state.

What the crisis shows…

(1) The day to day framework built on years of stability is torn up during periods of crisis.
(2) The years of stability still leave their mark, however, particularly on subaltern classes, such as the working class.
(3) If the revolutionary subject is much wider than the organised working class, anyone who takes radical, uncompromising action against an aspect of the system, a manifestation of the crisis, is an ally.
(4) Revolutionaries must be able to make use of all channels of resistance. Lenin’s professional revolutionary had to be as comfortable in a secret union meeting as in a peasant hut or a zemstvo gathering.

We are trying to unite a fragmented, atomised movement of people. We have to stand by pickets, rioting students, tenant activists, climate change demonstrators and so forth. We need professional revolutionaries.

Behind the Waa!

Zip It!

Hooray!

LSE occupation wins!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Students at the London School of Economics have ended their seven-day occupation of a lecture theatre after winning all of their demands.

Following negotiations between the students and the university, LSE Director and former head of the UK Financial Services Authority Howard Davies will now make a public statement about Israeli bombing of academic institutions.

The LSE had already agreed to waiver application fees and provide scholarships for application fees for students affected by the Israeli Occupation and to facilitate a charity collection for Medical Aid for Palestine.

The university did not agree to instruct its fund managers to divest from BAe but it did agree to seriously consider a paper presented by the Students' Union about a divestment-based ethical investment policy, something that the administration previously said would not be part of a future policy.

Over 350 students heard a public lecture in the occupied theatre by Tony Benn in support of the occupation on Friday. Other notable speakers included George Galloway, Lindsey German and Jews for Justice member Dan Judelson. Mira Hammad, one of the occupying students, spoke to a crowd of 10,000 at Trafalgar Square to urge other universities to take part.

The group occupied the Old Theatre at the London School of Economics on Thursday afternoon. Academic lectures were allowed to continue on the condition that the students were allowed to hold a two-minute presentation before the start of each lecture. Several external events were moved, despite the protestors' agreement to let them continue.

SOAS and LSE were the first universities to have started occupations. Other universities that have since followed with their own occupations include Essex, King's, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Oxford and Newcastle.


A spokesperson for the group said,

"Nothing we could have said or done would have been enough given the scale of the suffering inflicted on the people of Gaza by the Israeli military but we have achieved a huge victory for Palestinian students and for student activism. That we pressured LSE Director Howard Davies into issuing a public statement is a massive success but given the LSE's history it shouldn't have taken an occupation to achieve this. We look forward to meeting the new Palestinian students that our successes on application fees and scholarships will bring to the LSE.

We encourage students and workers everywhere to have the confidence to take similar actions."

And so do the grubby proles at TtSD.

Ha Ha!

You need the sound for the full effect.

Why we need Stop the War

I went to a Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting last night, having picked up a flyer at the Brixton Stop the War vigil last Friday that I'd helped organised (at which we'd got over 100 people at very short notice, with speakers from the local mosque, Labour Party, Green Party, SWP, Unison and UCU). Where last Friday's demo was excellent, it has to be said that last night's meeting was anything but.

By the time the two speakers (one an anarchist, the other from Jews for Justice) had finished and the meeting was opened up (almost 9.30pm by this time - 2 hours into the meeting), a number of people had already started to leave. I got my hand up early and made a contribution, raising Israel's role as the watchdog of American imperialism in the Middle East (up to this point America and Britain had not been mentioned in any way, shape or form). I was cut off half way through my contribution (before I had a chance to plug Saturday's demo )- the organisers of the meeting didn't seem to think America had any relevance in this discussion!

Another comrade got to speak, fortunately, and talked about the solidarity demonstrations in Egypt, and the strike wave taking place there that has rocked the Mubarak regime. He also plugged Saturday's demo, but no sooner had he done so than the organisers of the meeting contradicted him, stating that the demo clashed with the PSC agm, and that was far more important in terms of building a movement.

To be honest, I can't remember a time in recent history when I've been met with such hostility towards Stop the War and towards actually connecting up the political picture. This is even more baffling as PSC is one of the co-organisers of Saturday's demonstration.

Stop the War has played a critical role in British politics over the past 7 years or more, in terms of bringing a sharp analysis of imperialism and using this to mobilise enormous numbers of people. It broke the back of the Blair government, and left the Labour Party massively weakened, and this prepared the ground for Respect to be launched. I have no interest in going over the ins and outs of why that project eventually collapsed, as that has been discussed to death. Crucially, Stop the War has survived, and has played a massive role in responding to the assault on Gaza, leading to protests in London of 70,000 and 100,000; and a number of huge regional protests over the past week. Had it not done so, the impetus over this issue could well have been seized by much more narrow-minded organisations, the likes of which I had the misfortune to meet last night.

This momentum has to be continued. Even the most apolitical of my friends have been sickened by Israel's actions, and this needs to be used to continue to mobilise against the wars and against our own government. The joke ceasefire changes nothing - Gaza remains under seige, there are no building materials available to rebuild the homes and infrastructure that have been destroyed, and the Israelis are trying to move thousands of refugees over the border into Egypt, from where they will not be able to return.

This makes this Saturday's demonstration vital. Marching from the BBC, who have acted as the propaganda arm of the IDF, past Downing Street, it will call for an end to media bias and an end to the blockade of Gaza. The momentum that has been built up has to continue.

Speaking of repression

Under the neo-liberal regime we we told there was no such thing as society. In order to generally jack up the rate of profit people were forced to work longer, harder and for less. Public services were to be cut back and/or privatised. In order to achieve that a whole number of institutions, such as unions or the welfare state, or customs, such as solidarity or community, has to be broken or tamed.

The point is less effort has been put into manufacturing consent. Force has to underpin society to a greater extent.

This is the rationale behind the de-democratisation of society, the flowering of high-handed officialdom. After reading a Graun piece listing instances of the new culture of executive bullying (which happens to mention an incident between the police and everyone's favourite real-life Hagrid). I found this, an article in a Portsmouth paper, called Are our civil liberties receding?. Here's a list of new powers:

>> Taking too many dogs on a certain area of land can leave you facing a fine of up to £1,000 under the Clean Neighbourhood Act 2005.
n Parents face a fine of up to £1,000 if their child is caught in a public place when they should be at school under the Educations and Inspections Act 2006.
>> Handing out leaflets can leave you with a £75 bill under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
>> Parking badly could cost you £100 under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
>> Leaving out your rubbish at the wrong time could result in a £100 fine under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
>> Part eight of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 gives local authorities powers to go into your home and cut down a hedge that is too high and then charge you for the work, or order you to cut it down yourself.
If you don't comply it is an offence.
>> A gathering of two or more people now counts as a public assembly [Roobin's note: under apartheid it was three people] under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003. This gives police power to disperse any group of two or more people and order anyone under the age of 16 back home.
Police in London during the Gaza demonstrations
>> Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 provides a constable in uniform with a new power to tell an individual aged 16 years or more to leave a certain area.
>> If police or police community support officers issue a fixed penalty notice, or fine, they can also take your photograph to stop you questioning it was you under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
>> Under section 115 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, police can stop and search anyone suspected of carrying a firework in a public place and seize any fireworks found.
>> Police can bug your phone or put cameras in your home under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
>> The Counter Terrorism Bill 2008 makes it an offence to pass on any information about members of the armed forces, for example writing a blog about the actions of a soldier friend. This could result in a jail term.
>> Under the Terrorism Act 2000 it is a crime to make a statement that might be understood as encouragement to commit terrorist offences. The person making the statement doesn't need to intend to encourage people to commit terrorism and no act of terrorism needs to take place for this to be an offence. It can include anything such as a letter to a friend or a throwaway comment.
>> If more than 20 people gather for a party on any land it now constitutes an illegal rave under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, and can be broken up by police. For a party to be called a rave it used to need 100 or more people and be held on open land.

Incredible, isn't it? We live by grace of a higher power, that power is the Brtish ruling class.

For those of you who find Leninism scary...

Here's a nice quote from Victor Serge:

The great Russian Bolsheviks choose to describe themselves as “professional revolutionaries”. It is a description perfectly suited to all real agents of social transformation. It rules out dilettantism, amateurism, playing about and posturing; it locates the revolutionary within the world of labour…

For those who do this work, their job (or profession) fills the best part of their life. The job of a revolutionary requires a long apprenticeship… If, as often happens, a person is required to take another job – in order to live – it is the job of being a revolutionary which fills that person’s life, and the other job is only secondary.

No so ominous or dictatorial now, is it? It's taken from a lovely, typically ramshackle pamphlet that has gone under a variety of names, on MIA it's listed as What everyone should know about repression.

Things you didn't know

But now cannot unlearn. Trevor Phillips, head of the CRE (if it's still called that), will absolve the police of institutional racism. Perhaps Ian Blair could be dunked in a barrel of whitewash in a special ceremony.

This is also a quick turn around, given last October the Metropolitan Black Police Association was boycotting BME recruitment. It also doesn't really chime with ordinary people's experience of the modern police force either.

Mind you, the way things are going nothing will be considered racist any more, racial epithets, discrimination, vilification of asylum seekers, collective punishment...

That's one way of solving the problem. Define it out of existence.

Obama to close Puntanamo Bay

With George Bush leaving office in a matter of days, Barack Obama has stated that closing down Puntanamo Bay will be one of his immediate priorities. During the Bush reign hundreds of puns were rounded up and incarcerated without due procedure.

In recent days there has been talk of backtracking, as legal difficulties mount over what will actually happen to these puns. Some say it may take up to a year to release them all. We must keep the pressure up. Remember the puns still locked away:

Happiness is a Worn Pun
Punbelievable
Pat Sharpe's Punhouse
Pun-t and Dennis
Pun For Your Life
Time Is Punning Out
The Pun Boy Three
Puns on the Run
Annie Get Your Pun
The Deer Punter
Good Will Punting
Logan's Pun
Pun with the Wind
Punarama
Puntera
Pun Amnesty
Punfight at the OK Corall
It seems like pun, until someone pokes their eye out
Camden Punderworld
The Punning Man
The Punt for Red October
Born to Pun
Days of Punder
PJ and Puncan
Puns of Navarrone
People of the Pun
Punny Delight
Punder the Sea
Punderland
Pun in the Sun
Pun grenades
Royal Punbridge Wells
Hot cross puns
Bugs Punny
London Punderground
What is to be Pun?
Bloody Punday
Don't Look Back into the Pun
Cannonball Pun
House of the Rising Pun
Puns of Brixton
Puns n' Roses
The LA Puns
Punblane
Pundee
Crocodile Pundee
Pundee Cake
Crocodile Pundee 2
Attilla the Pun
Crocodile Pundee in Los Angeles
Pun-kin Donuts
Pungle, Zippy and George
Pundercats
Two Thousand and Pun - a Space Odyssey
Cheese and Punion
It's a Punderful Life
Alice in Punderland
Change comes from the barrel of a pun
The Great North Pun
Marzipun
Peter Pun
Frying Pun
Pun-Africanism
Punderwoman
Pun's Labyrinth
Punkist
Pun-Am
Punderpants
Pun solution - revolution
Puntaloons
Going Punderground
Punstroke
Punburn
Pungus the Bogeyman
Punfermline
You are the Punshine of my Life
Pungaven
Punumployment
Kings Cross St Puncras
Punder Milk Wood
Punderwall
Punder the weather
Punder the Bridge
Pun crime, the police and racism
Punnilingus
The Punny Monster
Cruel and punusual punishment
Puncreatic cancer
Pun in the oven
Puns of steel
Pungry like the Wolf
Puntyliners
Puntoon
Puns and needles
Punner beans
Punforgettable
Pun for all and all for pun
Down Punder
Newcastle-punder-Lyme
Welcome to the House of Pun
Pun-ch and Judy
Punkey Wrench
Punkey Nuts
Punkey Puzzle
Pundon Calling
Punbridge
Lumpun Proletariat
Pun-net of strawberries
Bank Holiday Punday
You could hear a pun drop
Pun in a million
All Bar Pun
Un Lun Pun
Punnymoon
The Indepundent
How the West was Pun
Puntecorvo
Puncan Hallas
Currant puns
Iced puns
Chelsea puns
Chelsea Punsioners
Pundraising
Channel Punnel
Puntucky Fried Chicken
Pundergraduate
Punderfoot
Born punder a wandrin' star
Punderfunded
Punderpaid
Dude, Where's my Puntry?
Puntryfile
King and Puntry
Puntryside
Friends, romans, puntrymen
Punguins
Pungu the penguin
The Impunding Catastrophe and How to Avoid it
Puntryside Alliance
Punter S. Thompson
Weapuns of mass destruction
Marks and Spuncer
Spuncer Tracey
Transpunnine Express
Arctic Punkeys
Punkey Dust
Pundon Bridge
London Pungeon
Punions on your feet
Punge
Punopoly
Blade Punner
In the Pungle
Welcome to the Pungle
Star Trek 6: The Pundiscovered Country

Also, remember:

Dan D Lion
Ian Uendo
Ian Lieu
Ian Cest
Ian Doors
Ian Des Trucktible
Ian Terpenitrationofopposites
Ian Tercity 125
Lee and Pam Flett
Kat A Walling
Des Pott and Jay Had
Jenny Tulls
Jen O'Cide
Mike O'Wave
Lilly Padd and Lilly Putt
Sam Handwich
Stella Tape
Walter Wall
Tim Buktu
Hans Up
Olaf Oil
Elle Ectricity
Elle Ection
Ray Dar
Hans Down
Ray Bees
Ian Eligible
Ian Comprensible
Sue Dan
Reggie Mental
Reggie Stir
Barry Stir
Sue Doku
Sir Loin of Lamb
General Hospital
Major Holdups
Major Role
Major Catastrophe
Major Ette
Colonel Ingus
Private Parts
Ian Continent
Ru Bish
Dai O'Rhea
Maxwell House
Harry Spider
Tim Burr
Dennis Elbow
Ann Dese
Annette Ball
Al Nino
Matt Adore
Phil Ing
Phil Harmonic
Phillipa Bucket
Phil Anthropy
Phil Ossifer
Phil E Buster
Terry Dactyl
Tom Bowler
Tom Foolery
Pete Bog
Jim Nasium
Gerry Mandering
Chris P. Bacon
Tim O'Tay
Bobby O'Door
Billy O'Shun
Dave O'Marsh
Terry O'Fonics

Interview

More Grauniad. The comic actor Paul Kaye has been interviewed in today's Guardian. He is semi-famous, his opinions sort-of count.

He has Israeli roots through marriage. Though his mother-in-law was killed by a rocket from Gaza he, very bravely and generously, is able to generalise from his grief:

Our pain and his rage opened a window up for me on to what is happening in Gaza. There are thousands and thousands of young men who have experienced - or are experiencing - that rage in Gaza and the West Bank, and their fathers and grandfathers have no doubt experienced it too. When I heard in the days that followed Shuli's [his mother-in-law] death that they handed out sweets in Gaza to celebrate the fact that the rocket had hit a target, I was appalled. Now with all I have seen over the last two weeks in Gaza, part of me feels: why wouldn't they celebrate?

If your heart doesn't break over that you have no heart. He also makes one other interesting point, which I agree with.

Most Israelis I know think Hamas wants to annihilate Israel. A lot of Jews over here think that too.

I have had many encounters with zionists over the years, four conversations since the current conflict began. Even the best discussions (usually with Israelis) have stumbled on this point. Israeli politicians keep plumbing a deep well of fear in order to motivate people for more war.

But one person, let alone a whole society, cannot live on edge like that. The state of permanent mobilisation will drive Israelis mad (not to mention, manifest itself in ugly symptoms, such as tourists travelling to the border to cheer the current bombardment), or else they will come to the conclusion that permanent war is not the answer.

There is more to this equation than Israeli public opinion. As was said many times from the platform of the last demo, the immediate solution to Palestinian suffering is to open the Rafah border. To do this almost certainly means toppling Hosni Mubarak. A popular democracy in Egypt, with civil rights for all citizens, will start to transform the Middle East.

Dunking the newsbiscuit into the Guardian's milkytea

I hate milky tea and I'm not too taken with the Guardian. I still read it, mind you. The Guardian is the only national newspaper that doesn't really like its readers and it's readers don't really like it. The writers and editors are much to the right of the readers.

Still, in the absence of a a genuine left daily (I don't count the Morning Star, it's a national paper with local standards, if you know what I mean) the Graun has to do. It has to pitch articles that would interest the likes of me.

From today's crop:

Bush administration: 'We tortured Qahtani'. This is a problem for them, as the guy in question is supposed to be the 9/11 mastermind. Qahtani may not go to trial, none of the supposed "bad men" may have their day. In fact no-one involved in Guantanamo Bay may go to trial, not even the guards or the senior officers, as Bush is expected to doll out pardons like candy in his last 5 days.

'War on terror' was a mistake, says Miliband. Say wha?

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, today argues that the use of the "war on terror" as a western rallying cry since the September 11 attacks has been a mistake that may have caused "more harm than good".

In an article in today's Guardian, five days before the Bush administration leaves the White House, Miliband delivers a comprehensive critique of its defining mission, saying the war on terror was misconceived and that the west cannot "kill its way" out of the threats it faces.

Not quite mea culpa. "The west cannot 'kill its way' out of the threats it faces". So, this is a conclusion Dave Milliband and his associates have come to quite recently?

Meanwhile, in CiF, Terry Jones makes the modest proposal, let's get out of the recession and into arms dealing.

Thanks to Dutch explorer Abel Tasman...

We're getting New Zealand-y on yo' ass! Time for some whacky videos. First, Randy Campbell jumps an angry monkey:



Frodo, Don't Wear The Ring:



Paris Is Burning. Say wha?



Oh, yes, Ladyhawke

Defend Yunus Bakhsh

Yunus Bakhsh has been in one form or another, suspended from work since September 2006. He was and still is a brilliant, effective trade unionist and anti-fascist campaigner, which is why he was victimised by his employers and the Unison union bureaucracy.

We now know, through the wonders of t'internet, that one of his key accusers, a woman called Kerry Cafferty, has links with open nazis and, judging by her Facebook profile, is a none-too-lovely character herself.

Her decision to join some of the groups certainly alarmed some of her other friends.

One admonished her after she joined the group “NO MORE! Asylum seekers in Britain”, saying, “And by the way I hope you are never in danger of being raped or murdered and seek asylum in another country and they tell you to F*** O**. Sleep tight meeny!!!!!”

What's more disturbing is that the far-right seemed to know the details of Yunus's case before he did. Why? It's especially disturbing as:

Peter Cafferty... [Kerry Cafferty's husband] is the chair of health for Unison Northern Region and the union’s chair of staff side at Northumberland Tyne and Wear trust.

Are senior members of Unison passing on members details to fascists?

Ask this question then pass it on!

Stop the War - Gaza Demo

I've posted this in various comments boxes elsewhere, and have been asked to repost here:

I was the second-last person away from the Israeli embassy last night, some time after 9.30pm, so here’s my take on the police.

I’d say it was hard to say who started the initial confrontation, some time after 5pm, in which a few sticks and other missiles were thrown and starbucks got its new air-conditioning; but it was very obvious that the police wanted to take advantage of it by halting the demo. The stewards and our comrades did very well in trying to get the demo continuing to move past the embassy and on to the rally, and we got the bulk of people through, but the police moved very quickly to split us into three groups, and acted in a deliberately provocative way in charging us a few times from different directions. Again the stewards and our comrades who remained in that block did very well in calming people down, making sure no one was carrying a stick or anything else that the police could claim as an excuse for attacking us or arresting anyone.

Our block, which was probably 1,000 people at tha time, was eventually allowed to start leaving, 10 people at a time. All the men in our section, when they eventually got to leave, were photographed, had names, addresses and dates of birth taken, and were searched under Section 6. It took well over three hours from this point for everyone to be allowed to leave - and large numbers of police had their truncheons drawn and were clearly itching for a fight. About half an hour before the last of us got to leave, the police forced all the remaining stewards (about 20 or so) to line up, be searched and leave, which meant those of us remaining were without that protection for the last period - which was pretty concerning, as we felt they might try something at that time.

I would point out that this meant hundreds of people were stuck in below zero conditions for a number of hours - this included children and elderly women. It’s pretty clear this was intended to provoke a response, and all credit to everyone held there for staying calm and not giving the old bill an excuse.

On balance I’d say the day was a victory - the demo was huge and very peaceful, we saw off the police over those hours without them being able to provoke anything or start nicking people, and the media has had to cover it widely. Probably the best stop the war demo I’ve been on since the big bush demo.

Video courtesy of Ady Cousins (more videos should follow):

Muggles

Sometimes I feel like Arthur Weasley. Ordinary people are fascinating, they appear like muggles. You've got to love them, but to do that you've got to see all their faults as well (if successful this kind of reflection should lead you back to your own flaws).

Victor Serge is a blogger on strike. (S)he's is part of the York University action over pay and conditions. (S)he seems to be bearing up through a tough time so, if you haven't already, go over there and at least lend a word of support.

The most interesting part of the strike updates has been the reaction of the public. No example of myopia and stupidity has been spared, no cliche left undusted, no rhetorical stone left unhurled (including the classic example of the cocky young man who pulls up in a car, yells some abuse and speeds off). Maybe people around York University are generally like that. I hope not.

I will probably chew more of this fat later. I want to consider the reaction of people to an action (in this case movement) that either doesn't see complete success or none at all, despite mobilisation.

If the SWP is known it's known as the driving force of the British anti-war movement. Radicals inside and outside the SWP known for mobilising people against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have faced something like this question:

What can we do, we marched against the war and nothing changed?

I won't go into the specifics of how to argue/discuss that point. For one thing, I am currently framing the terms of the argument. Behind this question is, usually, one of two worldviews.

First, there are people who responded to the anti-war sincerely, enjoyed being part of the movement and felt a tingle of emancipation during it. What they're asking is "what can I do now?" It's a reflection of (a) the positive anger in our society waiting to be harnessed and (b) the fact that it's waiting... it is passive anger.

The second, less common, worldview is the slightly more jaundiced left-liberal (especially people who consciously call themselves "left-liberal"), who is usually political driftwood, swept by the tides, caught up in the pre-war movement. They mistrust radicals and resent having been carried so far, not to mention having their illusions firmly shattered on reality. They want to share their deflation with everyone else in order that things never get out of hand again.

Gaza Demos

Last Saturday I was driving SWP van (a solemn and sacred job, up there with guarding the bee). Despite being all round the demo I did not catch one glimpse of the march. By all accounts (except the BBC and the police) it was large and probably larger than the demo Saturday before last.

One occasional contributor to this blog was in the final group of demonstrators, boxed off by the police. I will ask him to stick up his impressions of the argy-bargy at the end and the police operation in general. I also think it's important to have a debate about where-do-we-go-from-here. More demos should be on the cards, but there is also the energy and politics now for a refreshed boycott Israel campaign.

One thing people haven't mentioned, at least on t'internet, is, thanks to the ongoing demonstrations and pickets, the good people of Kensington and Chelsea (basically the London seat of the ruling class) have been getting a tiny taste of life in Gaza.

Residents near the Israeli embassy have called for the protests to be moved following recent violence.

The local residents' association in Kensington, west London, said life had become a "nightmare" since demonstrations began two weeks ago.

One particularly ironic quote:

John Cookson, chairman of the Old Court House Residents' Association, said: "We are sealed in our homes every night as our street is closed.

No comparison to be made there, of course. He adds:

"Businesses like shops and restaurants - already on their knees - are laying off staff.

"All this is going ahead with police permission..."

Like he gives a shit about redundancies. This is of course the police that has been blocking, baton charging, using horses, arresting, insulting and generally making life difficult for the demonstrators.

Folks, the ruling class would gladly slit our throats if they could. In fact, they consider it an insult that they can't do so at will right now. It's political correctness gone mad!

SW coverage of the demo and police riot.

UN speaking loud and clear on Gaza ceasefire, says David Miliband

Unfortunately, what the UN actually is saying amounts to uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The issue is not simply ceasefire or no (not forgetting the Palestinians and Israelis have managed to arrange ceasefires in the past). The issue is the occupation and blockade maintained on the Gazans.

The government may want to distance itself as much from the Israeli assault (the last Israeli atrocity in Lebanon was what finally broke Tony Blair), but it also wants to do as little as practically possible to help the Palestinian people.

Welcome...

JOY!

Words are one of the most brilliant human inventions. It's a tremendous series of leaps, from abstract sounds to represent real phenomena onto abtract symbols to represent abstract sounds that represent real phenomena, and further to abstract symbols to represent abstract sounds which, added together, represent real phenomena.

The last leap forward was carried out, as far as we can tell, by the Egyptians, when, for example, they changed the symbol for Ra the god into the symbol for Ra the sound. This was a tremendous economy in written language, a revolution that took culture a long way to where it is today.

Language is, of course, fractured. It is not a science but an art. Meaning slips both across space and time, and between different lanuages 9more of which in a moment).

Whilst perusing one of my favourite websites kissthisguy.com, I was provoked to see what grr ol' Wikipedia had to say about mondegreens. I stumbled across Soramimi Kashi:

Soramimi kashi (空耳歌詞; lit. "misheard lyrics") is a word used in the Japanese subculture language to describe lyrics of a song that sound like the original in one language, but produce a different meaning when interpreted in another language.

I won't spoil it by posting some of the mistranslations. Enjoy them, but not too much, y'understand, y'dig?

Roobin's other stonking Japanese fact: there's an underwater tunnel (not literally, I think it's probably underground too) between Honshū and Hokkaidō... wow!

Flobservations

I am reading too many books at the moment. Fictionwise I have Bill Burroughs Exterminator! on a high heat, Ulysses (re-read) on a lower heat and I'm waiting to start Guy De Maupassant's Afloat. I've also got Being and Nothingness waiting for me to start my existentialist journey for real and I'm currently taking a stroll through Capital pt 3 (interesting stuff).

My deepest political reading at the moment is Vijay Prashad's Darker Nations: a people's history of the 3rd world. Here wot I fink:

(1) Prashad's basic point is that the third world was not just a place but a form of politics.
(2) That politics was firmly connected with the cold war world. Its defeat came with the end-game of the cold war, and the beginning of global rule by IMF.
(3) The part of the humanity that was consciously "third world" was the people and governments of Africa and Asia, and to a lesser extent South America.
(4) World War Two fatally weakened Europe's empires. A process of revolution and imperial retreat liberated 2/3 of the world from the direct control of the other 1/3.
(5) The Yalta agreement of 1943 sought to carve the world up between America, Britain and Stalinist Russia. With Britain gently eased out of the picture, the Russians and Americans established post-war informal empires. The two superpowers tried to force all other nations to choose sides. Third worldism (to quote a fictional junky) is the politics of those who chose not to choose.
(6) Third world politics was on the face of it the politics of national liberation. Typical organisations: The Vietnamese Liberation Front or the Algerian National Liberation Front.
(7) 20th century third world nationalism was different from 19th century European nationalism in that (a) it was highly internationalist as not only was the weakness of individual nations clear in the face of empire but, also, the new nations carved out were in many cases multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-national, (b) the movement (in and out of government) was inclined toward socialism in word and often in deed.
(8) This is in part reflective of the national make-up of the movements. They contained both a young bourgeoisie and a young proletariat, behind them both a large and impoverished peasantry. The need to mobilise the lower classes required socialist slogans and policies to attract them. The new ruling classes, whilst wary of the Russian empire, admired its political economy and the potential for their own economic development.
(9) The poverty of the country added to the divergent needs and desires of the classes contained within the national alliance frequently led to one-party states with command economies. The initiative of the masses had to be contained, or else it would spill over into socialism from below (permanent revolution) and sunder the national alliance. The general poverty of imperialism led to a specific poverty in post-imperial politics. There would usually be no other viable party, other than the national alliance, adding to the momentum creating a one-party state.
(10) The third world no longer exists. The closest modern-day concept is the Global South.

Be There

The police are trying to stop the demonstration. Be there on Saturday!

National Demonstration: Saturday 10 January
Stop the Massacre : Israel Out of Gaza

Assemble 12.30pm Speakers Corner, Hyde Park
March to Israeli Embassy, High St Kensington, London

List of buses coming from outside London.

OK, it's been done before on other blogs...

Here, and here, but it's worth illustrating as well. Hamas's committment to the recent 6 month ceasefire:



From the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, no less. The end of year spike comes after November 4th, when Israel broke the ceasefire. Until that point, as Lenin quotes:

The few [rockets] that were launched, none of them causing any casualties, were claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, by Islamic Jihad, by "the Badr Forces," or by nobody. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called repeatedly for a cessation of rocket fire, and denounced those factions who broke the truce. A Hamas spokesman criticized Fatah for allowing the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is affiliated with Fatah, to fire rockets. Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces' murders and settler pogroms continued unabated on the West Bank. They included an attempt by a settler to fire a homemade rocket toward the Palestinian village of Burin, which nearly killed another settler. During the lull, then, Israeli settlers fired more rockets (i.e., one) than did Hamas.

Speaking of the British Nixon

How is the old swiveleyed fanatic, Bliar? Ah, I see he's won an award:

Tony Blair is to receive the United States's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from his friend George Bush next Tuesday, at a White House ceremony during the latter's last week in office.

Although among its previous 400 recipients there are American figures such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye and Arnold Palmer, it has also been presented to every post-war president and to senior politicians and military men.

Not just any old award... another award, because:

Blair was previously also awarded the US's other highest civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal, in 2003, for his support of the US invasion of Iraq... though he has never collected it.

He's been so busy, not solving climate change, diddling about with Swiss banks, taking holidays in the middle of a pitched war. Still, he's in good company:

He will receive next week's award alongside John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, and Álvaro Uribe, the president of Colombia. A White House spokeswoman said the three were being honoured by the president "for their efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad".

Does that make Gordon Brown Britain's Gerald Ford?

Roobin's extra note: Here's Seamas Milne on Blair's grubby role prepping for the current war:

In reality, far from being any kind of peacemaker, Tony Blair is effectively one of the architects of Israel's war in the Gaza Strip. For months, he has been telling anyone who would listen that Hamas had to be seriously weakened before there could be any progress in the region. Last month, before the Israeli onslaught began, he made clear in an interview with the Israeli Ha'aretz, he believed the western-backed blockade wasn't working and that Hamas would have to be dealt with, probably by force.

As the one-time high priest of the "third way" put it on the radio this week, it was obvious in advance that a war in the overcrowded Gaza Strip would lead to a "humanitarian catastrophe". After the stunning success of such policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tony Blair has now got what he wanted in Gaza.

Tony Blair is...

On holiday... Which is fine because, according to my three second memory, he doesn't have any practical role to play in the Middle East.

Thank you James Jepplin.

Meanwhile...

Back in the world of the recession:

A significant number of young people are depressed or struggling to cope and the situation is likely to worsen as recession takes hold, according to a report by the Prince's Trust. One in 10 16- to 25-year-olds polled by the charity for its Youth Index study said they felt that life was meaningless, and more than a quarter (27%) said they were always or often down or depressed. Almost half of all those surveyed (47%) said they were regularly stressed.

Worst of all, by that measure I don't really qualify as young any more. The fact is we are beginning to reap a generational crisis. Take Thatcher/Major babies, strip away orienting politics, get rid of a job for life (my Dad, like most men of his age, literally walked from school into his lifelong vocation), add longer hours, greater debt, increased work pressure with less representation, deplete the welfare state and you're living in a harsh realm.

Some 37% of those outside paid employment or education admitted to being frequently down or depressed, while 27% said their lives had no purpose. With young people expected to bear the brunt of job losses over the coming year, the findings are likely to raise concerns among policymakers.

The baby-boom generation may have lived the best life in human history, at our cost.

Unite to change the world

Two articles in today's Guardian. First Tariq Ramadan, about the promise:

Muslims around the world are facing three distinctive phenomena. First, in the Muslim-majority countries or in the west, they see they can expect no reaction from governments, especially from the Arab states. Theirs is the guilty silence of the accomplice, the hypocrisy, the contempt for Palestinian lives. Second, western media coverage is alarming, with the majority buying the Israeli story: two equally powerful belligerents, with the victim of aggression (Israel) acting in self-defence. What a distortion! Yet the third phenomenon is interesting: while 73% of Europeans were backing Israel in 1967, more than 67% are supporting the Palestinians today. With time, understanding and sensitivity have moved: populations are not blindly following the games and hypocritical stands of their political elites.

The obstacles to overcome:

Obama's comments in Sderot echoed what he said in a speech to the powerful pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, in March 2007. He recalled an earlier visit to the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the border with Lebanon which he said reminded him of an American suburb. There, he could imagine the sounds of Israeli children at "joyful play just like my own daughters". He saw a home the Israelis told him was damaged by a Hizbullah rocket (no one had been hurt in the incident).

Obama has identified his daughters repeatedly with Israeli children, while never having uttered a word about the thousands – thousands – of Palestinian and Lebanese children killed and permanently maimed by Israeli attacks just since 2006...

The problem is much wider than Obama: American liberals in general see no contradiction in espousing positions supporting Israel that they would deem extremist and racist in any other context. The cream of America's allegedly "progressive" Democratic party vanguard – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman, New York Senator Charles Schumer, among others – have all offered unequivocal support for Israel's massacres in Gaza, describing them as "self-defence".

By a guy called Ali Abunimah. Tomorrow is the first test of 2009. People will give support, they will come to the demo (whichever demo you happen to be on). Let's talk, together, about taking the movement further this time.