Friday, February 26, 2010
Dances with smurfs...
I know it's late but I've finally gone to see Avatar. It's a fairly good film. As with most James Cameron films the plot and character development are simple means to an end (I can only two named characters), however the action was good and the setting was wonderful.
It got me thinking. There is a minor Hollywood meme where white men go native. Avatar goes a slight stage further by having the lead character leave his body behind (in a cyber-coffin) and occupy a local. These types of films are always tricky, always a problem politically. Even in the best cases (such as Avatar or Dances With Wolves) though well meaning the film portrays local culture as flimsy and infantile (not to mention sybaritic).
Sometimes the genre can be downright reactionary. Example: the Last Samurai, where Tom Cruise plays and American soldier won to the Samurai's last ditch battle against the Meiji restoration. In pretty much all films the white man has to arrive and mesh with the society under threat before he leads them out for the denoument/confrontation/ghostdance.
One last thought: what's the appeal of going native? There are degrees and shades of alienation wrought by out society. One is where the city appears to be self-sufficient, a castle in the sky. This is taken to the Nth degree in a city such as London, dominated by a huge financial district.
A big appeal would be in reverting to a society not only peacefully dominated by nature but psychically and philosophically integrated into it (entirely forgetting the grim battle for survival waged by nomadic societies). Avatar goes further than most films of this genre in having the Na'vi literally psychically connected with a giant gaia entity.
Anyhoo, pretty soon we'll have gone to see The Crazies and Capitalism: a love story. I may write I may not. Either way we're postively cultured!
It got me thinking. There is a minor Hollywood meme where white men go native. Avatar goes a slight stage further by having the lead character leave his body behind (in a cyber-coffin) and occupy a local. These types of films are always tricky, always a problem politically. Even in the best cases (such as Avatar or Dances With Wolves) though well meaning the film portrays local culture as flimsy and infantile (not to mention sybaritic).
Sometimes the genre can be downright reactionary. Example: the Last Samurai, where Tom Cruise plays and American soldier won to the Samurai's last ditch battle against the Meiji restoration. In pretty much all films the white man has to arrive and mesh with the society under threat before he leads them out for the denoument/confrontation/ghostdance.
One last thought: what's the appeal of going native? There are degrees and shades of alienation wrought by out society. One is where the city appears to be self-sufficient, a castle in the sky. This is taken to the Nth degree in a city such as London, dominated by a huge financial district.
A big appeal would be in reverting to a society not only peacefully dominated by nature but psychically and philosophically integrated into it (entirely forgetting the grim battle for survival waged by nomadic societies). Avatar goes further than most films of this genre in having the Na'vi literally psychically connected with a giant gaia entity.
Anyhoo, pretty soon we'll have gone to see The Crazies and Capitalism: a love story. I may write I may not. Either way we're postively cultured!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Future Nonsense
At any other time I’d have been happy to watch the whole place burn to the ground. My uncle was a docker and me Dad he worked at the fish market. That area’s part of my heritage, you know what I mean? Having these fucking huge buildings, pricks in the sky, it was too much.
Dad he sold the house and we moved out to Dagenham. He died two years later from a heart attack then, wouldn’t you know it, Mum, she got a job as a cleaner working in the HSBC tower.
I’d been squatting with friends for a couple of years. I was political, I suppose. We were, we were non-ideological. We just wanted to live free. It was a risky business, even at the end, when there were loads of places free. You’d last about, I think, three months in a place.
We didn’t get involved in all the fighting, with all the politicals wanting to make their revolution. You know, it’s better to make the revolution where you are, get on with it now, get busy. They made so much about the bank going up. It was nothing.
We had a group. It was a horizontal network, spread across East London. It was supposed based on sound consensus politics but our branch (as the communards would have called it) was dominated by this guy called Gideon Makhno. He was a pretty dynamic guy, a natural organiser.
He often talked about getting into expropriation but never seemed to manage it (although I know a couple of squats were used as temporary safe houses). He did seem to have a lot of money, which he’d funnel our way, but most of that came from art exhibitions, gigs and the occasional teach-in.
We were living in a townhouse, wicked place it was, on Columbia Road… I didn’t hear a thing until we had a bunch of politicals come round demanding we give them people and sand to fight this fire that was going on. They said we had a communal obligation, something like that. They weren’t armed, so we told them to fuck off.
We got so much hassle from the local so-called communards a few of us decided we’d actually up and leave. First time ever! There was also a mind that we’d spread the social centre, give people a choice, you know, if they didn’t want to be part of the commune. We’d been scouting about for spots when, I remember, Gideon came home after a couple of days, with a bright idea. He’d been around the Isle of Dogs with some mates and they found Canary Wharf was pretty much abandoned.
It was a difficult enough place to get to but think about it, the main building alone used to hold 50,000 people. Not even the communards went there much, a plus point.
It turned out a few others spotted the potential too. There was that recovered print shop on the isle. Some guys were using the boats in the marina to go fishing. A couple of us thought we should get in on that but Gideon said now. We were looking for free space. There were all those luxury flats, mostly abandoned. But we went straight for the big one.
About 100 of us, people from around the network occupied the main building. It took, oh, it took nearly a fortnight, but we had electric, light, heat, good running water and beds all going on the first, second and third floors. There was a creative area on the fourth floor. The elevator was still running so we figured we’d barricade the stairs, for safety. It was only on the ground floor but, even so, bad idea.
So, yeah, we had a launch night for the new social centre, big party on the fourth floor with bands, DJs, a fucking huge bar and a chill out room. We pulled out the stops. I know people were talking and there was thoughts of one day turning the whole area into an autonomous zone.
We were going to coin it in that night. I reckon at least a thousand turned up, a thousand, maybe two. The trouble was nobody had any money. They were all communards, with their IOUs, not proper money, these promissory notes stamped by the local commune. We were trying to get away from that shit.
It was rammed, an absolutely banging night. I wasn’t getting high that night. I was dealing with the sound on the live stage. Even so, I was still, you know, getting off on this great vibe.
It must have been two-three in the morning when, BOOM, one, two, three huge explosions going on. It didn’t really register at first but… we were under attack. Thinking back I still don’t get it. We were supposed to have security on the door but these must have been fucking firebombs or something. There was no petrol on the premises, least not I knew of.
Of course, whoever it was cut off the elevator. There was fucking bedlam. I don’t know how many people got out. We didn’t check who was there. It was come one come all.
Some guys tried to hack through the barricade but it was bricks and that, debris, it was really locked down. I know we got out by climbing down. Gideon, he had a bit of quick thinking. He worked a rope system lashed together on the first floor. It took ages but I was one of the first out. By this stage you could stand back and see the sixth to ninth floors were on fire, huge tower of smoke, some debris falling… you had to watch that.
Then of course it got worse. The other buildings started going up. You know, the fact we were there, opening night might have been a coincidence. This was big stuff, long time in the planning. If we’d have done it we couldn’t have done it better.
Five minutes later a communal fire team arrived, along with some medics, but there was little they could do by then to put it out. It was just a rescue operation. Then a group of militia appeared, started asking questions. We didn’t get on with the militia. None of us stuck around.
I don’t think any of us saw Gideon after that.
---
I saw him, around London Fields. It was the end of April. We were assessing the place, taking soil samples to see if we could start a new allotment there.
I’d finished my A Levels that year. There was this meeting where we were all asked what we could do. My Mum remembered that I got good marks in Environmental Science. I got it because I did this experiment really well. I was always good at finding the best ways to get good marks and I remembered my teacher saying the soil texture experiment was easy to do. You get soil samples, put them in water and detergent and shake them all up to see how the layers form.
My Mum remembered this and, before I knew it, I was sent out to find good patches of ground to grow stuff. The people wanted loam or clay loam. So, that’s what I was doing. My friend, Anya, and me we went out with rucksacks, we had a trowel each and loads of these jars.
We were walking through London Fields. Like I said, it was only, like, April, but the grass was starting to get a bit long (not like it is now in some places). We had no problems though. We started walking up from old Broadway Market to the lido and the town hall, taking samples every twenty paces. It was quite quiet. You could see one or two other people.
It was late evening, nearly sunset. It’d been quite a hot day. Anya spotted this cat sitting on the roof of the swimming pool. It looked like an ordinary cat, but it was weird. It was like the perspective was all wrong… that or it was huge.
Anya didn’t want to, but I got a little closer, had a look. It was massive and had spots all over its body. This was the leopard. It was brilliant. The leopard was just sitting there, basking in the sun. I say the place was quiet, I don’t know, somebody must have seen it, surely? Nobody was panicking. Anyway, from where I was I could see it was panting a bit. Its chest was going up and down.
Then it saw us and stood up. I wasn’t afraid. It looked at us for a couple of seconds. I was about twenty, thirty metres away. I could see it sniffing the air, checking us out. Then it ran. I’ve never seen anything move so fast, so quiet too. It leapt off the roof and bolted across the ground. I dropped my bag and tried to follow but lost track of it behind the tennis court.
I thought it was brilliant but my Mum she freaked out when I told her, plus I had to go back and do all my samples again.
Dad he sold the house and we moved out to Dagenham. He died two years later from a heart attack then, wouldn’t you know it, Mum, she got a job as a cleaner working in the HSBC tower.
I’d been squatting with friends for a couple of years. I was political, I suppose. We were, we were non-ideological. We just wanted to live free. It was a risky business, even at the end, when there were loads of places free. You’d last about, I think, three months in a place.
We didn’t get involved in all the fighting, with all the politicals wanting to make their revolution. You know, it’s better to make the revolution where you are, get on with it now, get busy. They made so much about the bank going up. It was nothing.
We had a group. It was a horizontal network, spread across East London. It was supposed based on sound consensus politics but our branch (as the communards would have called it) was dominated by this guy called Gideon Makhno. He was a pretty dynamic guy, a natural organiser.
He often talked about getting into expropriation but never seemed to manage it (although I know a couple of squats were used as temporary safe houses). He did seem to have a lot of money, which he’d funnel our way, but most of that came from art exhibitions, gigs and the occasional teach-in.
We were living in a townhouse, wicked place it was, on Columbia Road… I didn’t hear a thing until we had a bunch of politicals come round demanding we give them people and sand to fight this fire that was going on. They said we had a communal obligation, something like that. They weren’t armed, so we told them to fuck off.
We got so much hassle from the local so-called communards a few of us decided we’d actually up and leave. First time ever! There was also a mind that we’d spread the social centre, give people a choice, you know, if they didn’t want to be part of the commune. We’d been scouting about for spots when, I remember, Gideon came home after a couple of days, with a bright idea. He’d been around the Isle of Dogs with some mates and they found Canary Wharf was pretty much abandoned.
It was a difficult enough place to get to but think about it, the main building alone used to hold 50,000 people. Not even the communards went there much, a plus point.
It turned out a few others spotted the potential too. There was that recovered print shop on the isle. Some guys were using the boats in the marina to go fishing. A couple of us thought we should get in on that but Gideon said now. We were looking for free space. There were all those luxury flats, mostly abandoned. But we went straight for the big one.
About 100 of us, people from around the network occupied the main building. It took, oh, it took nearly a fortnight, but we had electric, light, heat, good running water and beds all going on the first, second and third floors. There was a creative area on the fourth floor. The elevator was still running so we figured we’d barricade the stairs, for safety. It was only on the ground floor but, even so, bad idea.
So, yeah, we had a launch night for the new social centre, big party on the fourth floor with bands, DJs, a fucking huge bar and a chill out room. We pulled out the stops. I know people were talking and there was thoughts of one day turning the whole area into an autonomous zone.
We were going to coin it in that night. I reckon at least a thousand turned up, a thousand, maybe two. The trouble was nobody had any money. They were all communards, with their IOUs, not proper money, these promissory notes stamped by the local commune. We were trying to get away from that shit.
It was rammed, an absolutely banging night. I wasn’t getting high that night. I was dealing with the sound on the live stage. Even so, I was still, you know, getting off on this great vibe.
It must have been two-three in the morning when, BOOM, one, two, three huge explosions going on. It didn’t really register at first but… we were under attack. Thinking back I still don’t get it. We were supposed to have security on the door but these must have been fucking firebombs or something. There was no petrol on the premises, least not I knew of.
Of course, whoever it was cut off the elevator. There was fucking bedlam. I don’t know how many people got out. We didn’t check who was there. It was come one come all.
Some guys tried to hack through the barricade but it was bricks and that, debris, it was really locked down. I know we got out by climbing down. Gideon, he had a bit of quick thinking. He worked a rope system lashed together on the first floor. It took ages but I was one of the first out. By this stage you could stand back and see the sixth to ninth floors were on fire, huge tower of smoke, some debris falling… you had to watch that.
Then of course it got worse. The other buildings started going up. You know, the fact we were there, opening night might have been a coincidence. This was big stuff, long time in the planning. If we’d have done it we couldn’t have done it better.
Five minutes later a communal fire team arrived, along with some medics, but there was little they could do by then to put it out. It was just a rescue operation. Then a group of militia appeared, started asking questions. We didn’t get on with the militia. None of us stuck around.
I don’t think any of us saw Gideon after that.
---
I saw him, around London Fields. It was the end of April. We were assessing the place, taking soil samples to see if we could start a new allotment there.
I’d finished my A Levels that year. There was this meeting where we were all asked what we could do. My Mum remembered that I got good marks in Environmental Science. I got it because I did this experiment really well. I was always good at finding the best ways to get good marks and I remembered my teacher saying the soil texture experiment was easy to do. You get soil samples, put them in water and detergent and shake them all up to see how the layers form.
My Mum remembered this and, before I knew it, I was sent out to find good patches of ground to grow stuff. The people wanted loam or clay loam. So, that’s what I was doing. My friend, Anya, and me we went out with rucksacks, we had a trowel each and loads of these jars.
We were walking through London Fields. Like I said, it was only, like, April, but the grass was starting to get a bit long (not like it is now in some places). We had no problems though. We started walking up from old Broadway Market to the lido and the town hall, taking samples every twenty paces. It was quite quiet. You could see one or two other people.
It was late evening, nearly sunset. It’d been quite a hot day. Anya spotted this cat sitting on the roof of the swimming pool. It looked like an ordinary cat, but it was weird. It was like the perspective was all wrong… that or it was huge.
Anya didn’t want to, but I got a little closer, had a look. It was massive and had spots all over its body. This was the leopard. It was brilliant. The leopard was just sitting there, basking in the sun. I say the place was quiet, I don’t know, somebody must have seen it, surely? Nobody was panicking. Anyway, from where I was I could see it was panting a bit. Its chest was going up and down.
Then it saw us and stood up. I wasn’t afraid. It looked at us for a couple of seconds. I was about twenty, thirty metres away. I could see it sniffing the air, checking us out. Then it ran. I’ve never seen anything move so fast, so quiet too. It leapt off the roof and bolted across the ground. I dropped my bag and tried to follow but lost track of it behind the tennis court.
I thought it was brilliant but my Mum she freaked out when I told her, plus I had to go back and do all my samples again.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Mild Interest!
And more stuff culled from pop science. Oh boy! Here's something. Given what we know about the universe, how it started, how it progressed and how it will progress if it continues on the same lines, the first law of thermodynamics (bluntly, that matter and energy are aspects of each other and cannot be destroyed but converted from one form to the other) is very optimistic. The universe will have an infinite life.
When considered with the second law (the expression of entropy) it maps out a very bleak future for the universe. The universe is currently expanding at an accelerating rate. It will continue to expand and cool over time. The universe is, in fact, probably in its salad days right now, with a tremendous number of galaxies and live stars.
In 10 to the power of 1,500 years time the universe will have cooled and expanded to the point where atoms come apart and there is infinitely undifferentiated matter. If there was a point from which you could appreciate such a reality, time would seem very strange.
According to mathematic theory this should produce something very interesting. The metaphor given was a deck of cards arranged in order of suit and number; once shuffled by a dealer, the odds of that dealer every randomly shuffling that pack back into order are in his or her lifetime(to coin a phrase) astronomical. However, given a practically infinite amount of time this is guaranteed to happen.
This is what you would get in a universe of infinite randomness with infinite time you will eventually get complete order from complete chaos, i.e. another quantum singlularity, another big bang. You may call this a dialectical reversal.
It goes without saying, any inteligent life will perish long before this stage or find a way to reverse entropy or, most intriguingly, find a way to tap the possibility of a multiverse, and leave this one forever.
When considered with the second law (the expression of entropy) it maps out a very bleak future for the universe. The universe is currently expanding at an accelerating rate. It will continue to expand and cool over time. The universe is, in fact, probably in its salad days right now, with a tremendous number of galaxies and live stars.
In 10 to the power of 1,500 years time the universe will have cooled and expanded to the point where atoms come apart and there is infinitely undifferentiated matter. If there was a point from which you could appreciate such a reality, time would seem very strange.
According to mathematic theory this should produce something very interesting. The metaphor given was a deck of cards arranged in order of suit and number; once shuffled by a dealer, the odds of that dealer every randomly shuffling that pack back into order are in his or her lifetime(to coin a phrase) astronomical. However, given a practically infinite amount of time this is guaranteed to happen.
This is what you would get in a universe of infinite randomness with infinite time you will eventually get complete order from complete chaos, i.e. another quantum singlularity, another big bang. You may call this a dialectical reversal.
It goes without saying, any inteligent life will perish long before this stage or find a way to reverse entropy or, most intriguingly, find a way to tap the possibility of a multiverse, and leave this one forever.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Stupid, stupid, stupid...
There are several things you learn once you join the SWP. Firstly, you have to like a wide variety of music, from jazz to jazz-funk. Here are some of the names you're given to learn:
Trunks Du Bois
Knox Undershield
Vigo Stencil,
Holden McGroin,
Big Annie Banjo
Cedric Pantaloon
Beau Jangles
Bigface McGee
Waglin' Moobs Henderson
Howlin' Bobby Bigtoe
Pomegranate Pat
Peabo Van De Donk
Squinting Johnny Smash
Sterling Currency
Dr Orangeknees
Juan el Johnson-Johnstone
Who's not to be confused with
Juan Johnson el Johnstone
Branko Dudevic
Curling Tongs
Bob Sleigh
Crisps McCoy
Trunks Du Bois
Knox Undershield
Vigo Stencil,
Holden McGroin,
Big Annie Banjo
Cedric Pantaloon
Beau Jangles
Bigface McGee
Waglin' Moobs Henderson
Howlin' Bobby Bigtoe
Pomegranate Pat
Peabo Van De Donk
Squinting Johnny Smash
Sterling Currency
Dr Orangeknees
Juan el Johnson-Johnstone
Who's not to be confused with
Juan Johnson el Johnstone
Branko Dudevic
Curling Tongs
Bob Sleigh
Crisps McCoy
Reading Mike Davis
One of the most striking things brought out by Mike Davis in his writing is how America, the capitalist country, has queerly inverted politics. Only the right appropriates the language and method of revolution, demagoguery plus mass mobilisation.
For example, in City of Quartz, Angelino politics is dominated by a Jacobin alliance of bourgeois politicians and middle-class homeowners. A more modern example would be the Tea Party movement.
There is an historical reason for this. America was the land of the IWW and the Black Panthers, but no more. In the Prison Notebooks Gramsci pondered what happens to a society where the rising class is forcibly dispersed as a political entity. He predicted a period of deep scepticism, confusion and demoralisation. The post-war defeat of American working class organisation (at least) seems to be permanent.
Within this Mike Davis’s metaphor of the Archimedean Lever is important. The genius of the Regan administration was in blowing up the Democrats popular base (unionised manufacturing and public provision) safe in the knowledge the Democrats would do nothing about it. If one accepts the limits of constitutional politics (which the nominal left does) then instruments, such as California’s Proposition 13, limit the scope for public reform. So long as this remains so will the permanent right-wing bias.
American class war is one way, solely downward, and positively demented. Ostensibly mainstream commentators can toss out lunatic notions such as Obama’s socialism/Islamism/nazism, Haiti’s pact with the devil or immanent Mexican invasion. Who’s going to challenge them?
What ruling class can afford allow the public forum to degenerate to the level of voodoo? But then what ruling class would let its cities burn to the ground or fall into the sea without lifting a finger? Perhaps a class that faces no internal opposition. America will probably split geographically before it divides according to class.
For example, in City of Quartz, Angelino politics is dominated by a Jacobin alliance of bourgeois politicians and middle-class homeowners. A more modern example would be the Tea Party movement.
There is an historical reason for this. America was the land of the IWW and the Black Panthers, but no more. In the Prison Notebooks Gramsci pondered what happens to a society where the rising class is forcibly dispersed as a political entity. He predicted a period of deep scepticism, confusion and demoralisation. The post-war defeat of American working class organisation (at least) seems to be permanent.
Within this Mike Davis’s metaphor of the Archimedean Lever is important. The genius of the Regan administration was in blowing up the Democrats popular base (unionised manufacturing and public provision) safe in the knowledge the Democrats would do nothing about it. If one accepts the limits of constitutional politics (which the nominal left does) then instruments, such as California’s Proposition 13, limit the scope for public reform. So long as this remains so will the permanent right-wing bias.
American class war is one way, solely downward, and positively demented. Ostensibly mainstream commentators can toss out lunatic notions such as Obama’s socialism/Islamism/nazism, Haiti’s pact with the devil or immanent Mexican invasion. Who’s going to challenge them?
What ruling class can afford allow the public forum to degenerate to the level of voodoo? But then what ruling class would let its cities burn to the ground or fall into the sea without lifting a finger? Perhaps a class that faces no internal opposition. America will probably split geographically before it divides according to class.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Killing in the name of...?
Isn't this weird? A plot that seems to involve Mossad, Fatah and spies within Hamas...
And the British state perhaps?
Perhaps or perhaps not... This story is first about the dense and dangerous world of the secret state, one of the greatest threats to democracy alive. The war on terror has knitted international agencies close together, CIA, MI5, ISI and so on. The recent case of MI5 complicity in torture is an example.
Said agencies live and work on the borders of legality. A blond haired, blue eyed CIA agent can't simply wander into a terrorist cell. They have to recruit (so to speak) from the outside and maintain a suitably ambigious relationship (Roman Malinovsky-esque) to the organisation they are charged with stopping.
There's no absolute need for either the British or Israeli governments to have organised this murder. However, the Israeli spokesman seemed pretty confident there won't be any comeback from the British government. I suppose it helped when the same Miliband spoke out against the 'harassment' of Israeli ministers wanted for war crimes.
The Israeli ambassador was at the Foreign Office this morning for a brief meeting to "share information" about the assassins' use of identities stolen from six British citizens living in Israel, as part of the meticulously orchestrated assassination of Mabhouh...
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, insisted he was determined to "get to the bottom of" how fake British passports were involved in the killing. He said he "hoped and expected" that Tel Aviv would cooperate fully with the investigation into the "outrage".
And the British state perhaps?
[Avigdor] Lieberman said he believed relations with Britain would not be damaged. "I think Britain recognises that Israel is a responsible country and that our security activity is conducted according to very clear, cautious and responsible rules of the game. Therefore we have no cause for concern," he said.
Perhaps or perhaps not... This story is first about the dense and dangerous world of the secret state, one of the greatest threats to democracy alive. The war on terror has knitted international agencies close together, CIA, MI5, ISI and so on. The recent case of MI5 complicity in torture is an example.
Said agencies live and work on the borders of legality. A blond haired, blue eyed CIA agent can't simply wander into a terrorist cell. They have to recruit (so to speak) from the outside and maintain a suitably ambigious relationship (Roman Malinovsky-esque) to the organisation they are charged with stopping.
There's no absolute need for either the British or Israeli governments to have organised this murder. However, the Israeli spokesman seemed pretty confident there won't be any comeback from the British government. I suppose it helped when the same Miliband spoke out against the 'harassment' of Israeli ministers wanted for war crimes.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
ShortThoughts
The united front tactic was unveiled at the third congress of the communist international in 1921. It was an offer of co-ordination between the communist and socialist parties, to present a united front of the working class in the face of the contemporary employer onslaught.
One of the illustrations used by Leon Trotsky to explain and justify was that a soviet was a developed form of united front. The trouble with this is the soviets were councils of workers, soldiers and peasants. In other words they appear to be a cross-class collaboration. This is, formally at least, the hallmark of the popular front. It's very difficult to explain (what should be a very simple concept) if you immediately contrast the united front to the popular front.
Most of what we call united fronts today, the bulk of our activity, are not strictly speaking united fronts. They do not present a literally united front of the working class to capitalism. If we need to be clear about what we do perhaps we need another name for it.
A subaltern class is naturally fragmented. Said class achieving political unity is part of the process of coming to power, revolution. The united front, as it is today, is in some sense an extended vanguard. It is a gathering of scattered forces that multiplies the working classes ability to fight (and eventually overcome) the effects of capitalism.
One of the illustrations used by Leon Trotsky to explain and justify was that a soviet was a developed form of united front. The trouble with this is the soviets were councils of workers, soldiers and peasants. In other words they appear to be a cross-class collaboration. This is, formally at least, the hallmark of the popular front. It's very difficult to explain (what should be a very simple concept) if you immediately contrast the united front to the popular front.
Most of what we call united fronts today, the bulk of our activity, are not strictly speaking united fronts. They do not present a literally united front of the working class to capitalism. If we need to be clear about what we do perhaps we need another name for it.
A subaltern class is naturally fragmented. Said class achieving political unity is part of the process of coming to power, revolution. The united front, as it is today, is in some sense an extended vanguard. It is a gathering of scattered forces that multiplies the working classes ability to fight (and eventually overcome) the effects of capitalism.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Further Ambient
Radiohead: Treefingers (Roobin's note, Kid A is formally ten years old, but I know for a fact it was recorded in the future and sent back in time as a warning to humanity):
Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music: because you're worth it!
Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music: because you're worth it!
This week's mild interest
Just as the US scales back its cosmic ambition plucky little Bolivia has launched its own space programme. You might say 'own' in the broadest possible sense. The Tupac Katari satellite will probably piggy back on a Chinese launch.
Also of note, we know that China has been placing larger and larger investments abroad, some of which are mentioned in the link above. Africa has also imported a fair amount of capital recently. This of course pales against the Sino-American trade deficit and US government debt held by China. The Chinese government responded to the global crisis by another round of public spending. There is very likely huge overcapacity in the Chinese economy, which probably means it won't bring down the world's largest consumer market just yet... Even so you can see why the Chinese ruling class might want a contingency plan.
The global capitalist class is effectively playing pass the debt parcel. This week Greece has been holding the parcel. On a global scale the amount needed to clear Greece's debt is nothing, which is why, in the short term, an aid package would make sense (although, today, even that's been put in doubt). It doesn't solve the problem, if the PIGS aren't allowed to fail then pressure will fall elsewhere. Of course, ultimately this is not a question of which country but which class is going to pay. The Greek working class is right to resist.
Also of note, we know that China has been placing larger and larger investments abroad, some of which are mentioned in the link above. Africa has also imported a fair amount of capital recently. This of course pales against the Sino-American trade deficit and US government debt held by China. The Chinese government responded to the global crisis by another round of public spending. There is very likely huge overcapacity in the Chinese economy, which probably means it won't bring down the world's largest consumer market just yet... Even so you can see why the Chinese ruling class might want a contingency plan.
The global capitalist class is effectively playing pass the debt parcel. This week Greece has been holding the parcel. On a global scale the amount needed to clear Greece's debt is nothing, which is why, in the short term, an aid package would make sense (although, today, even that's been put in doubt). It doesn't solve the problem, if the PIGS aren't allowed to fail then pressure will fall elsewhere. Of course, ultimately this is not a question of which country but which class is going to pay. The Greek working class is right to resist.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Further Legend
I’d say we didn’t know what we were doing, if I’m completely honest… which I hope I am, eh? We didn’t know who we were fighting, really… what they had or what was motivating them. Don’t get me wrong, you could make an educated guess but, you didn’t know.
Our plan, such as it was, was to mass overwhelming numbers (the one advantage we definitely had) at what we assumed were their fortifications. There were tanks and the odd armoured vehicle on our side now but these were very unreliable, not to mention there were very few who could really drive them. The idea was to lay to the parliament building, we’d arrive, take the closest position we could hold, then creep in, reinforcing as we went. . Tightening the noose it was called.
We’d use any armoured vehicles we had as cover… Oh, there were some reinforced buses. The front and sides were decorated in sheet metal with supposedly bulletproof glass lifted from bank branches. I thought that was pretty neat. All of this was pulled together in 24 hours. Incredible when you think about it.
The southern communards were to take Whitehall and Westminster Bridge. We on the other hand would seal of the rest of Parliament Square, Milbank, Victoria Road and so on. We’d each have to make progress from places like Hammersmith, Shepherds Bush, Queens Park, crossing what we thought was dangerous territory. From Hammersmith to Westminster direct took us through Chelsea and Brompton.
I wasn’t properly in the militia, so all I got was a pistol with six (count them) six shots, a pair of homemade grenades that might have just been… lumps of metal with a pin and a wobbly spear made from sharpened railings. I’d been trained in first aid from my time working in the sorting office, so I was made the lead medic of my team and given this really heavy kit to carry.
The collective in Hammersmith got wind of the trouble through the Free Radio. It was after this I remember people tuning in to this Government Network. I was one of a group, the local Root and Branch party you might say, who pushed for a quick response.
Even before we heard other collectives were calling for a showdown our communes had gone into permanent session to decide what to do. We had commissions flying out here there and everywhere… for everything (you couldn’t do the actual organising in public, so to speak). I was part of the commission to collect arms, which was why I eventually got drafted, so to speak. The permanent session was held in the old town hall. It had to be adjourned and reconvened in a safer spot, which turned out to be the old Apollo, after loyalist soldiers were spotted moving through Shepherd’s Bush.
Like I said, this all happened in 24 hours, if that.
Next morning, 6am, we had at least two thousand of us setting off from Hammersmith. It was a totally unwieldy number, noisy and slow. We not only had armoured cars and cycle couriers but were expected to peel off in units of five to investigate and secure side roads and dangerous looking buildings. How five lightly armed individuals were supposed to deal with an ambush or sniper or booby trap or… I don’t know? But there you have it.
We were nervous. Every slight noise or… flash of light, every uncertainty would stop the convoy while a gang of geeks would be sent off to investigate. It never came to anything. In fact it was very quiet…a little too quiet, as they used to say.
In fact it was amazing. I was sent with a team to comb the area around Emperors Gate. It struck me. Every house empty but every house was standing, and these weren’t houses, they were… well they were huge. Mansions, whole families would live in these… mansions. In the old days I remember me, my husband, our baby we lived in a flat, a three-room flat above a bookshop.
Anyway, we searched a few buildings and… empty. All the homes were abandoned. You’d find would be fittings, bookshelves, broken fridges and so on, all that couldn’t be carried. We found one woman, this poor Swedish girl, Ylva; she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Her English wasn’t great. She’d been an au pair, looking after these six kids; the parents were lawyers (from what I could make out). They upped and left for the country home and hadn’t come back.
We found her hiding in this conservatory; I think that’s what it was. She’d been living off cold tinned food and sleeping under a rug. I more or less offered to take her in… right there.
After it was all over, I brought this up at the council meeting. There were so many people without homes. My husband died of the flu about six months before. He was one of the first. Then my little girl… I fell ill… I don’t know why it was me who pulled through.
Empty house: I ended up looking after people, friends from work, my Mum, they came to stay. I took in my Niece, Donna, her parents both died. The point was it was like this for a lot of people, no permanent home to go to, and yet there were all these plush homes empty. No one else had made the connection, apparently. So the commune started rehousing people in these upscale areas.
Our plan, such as it was, was to mass overwhelming numbers (the one advantage we definitely had) at what we assumed were their fortifications. There were tanks and the odd armoured vehicle on our side now but these were very unreliable, not to mention there were very few who could really drive them. The idea was to lay to the parliament building, we’d arrive, take the closest position we could hold, then creep in, reinforcing as we went. . Tightening the noose it was called.
We’d use any armoured vehicles we had as cover… Oh, there were some reinforced buses. The front and sides were decorated in sheet metal with supposedly bulletproof glass lifted from bank branches. I thought that was pretty neat. All of this was pulled together in 24 hours. Incredible when you think about it.
The southern communards were to take Whitehall and Westminster Bridge. We on the other hand would seal of the rest of Parliament Square, Milbank, Victoria Road and so on. We’d each have to make progress from places like Hammersmith, Shepherds Bush, Queens Park, crossing what we thought was dangerous territory. From Hammersmith to Westminster direct took us through Chelsea and Brompton.
I wasn’t properly in the militia, so all I got was a pistol with six (count them) six shots, a pair of homemade grenades that might have just been… lumps of metal with a pin and a wobbly spear made from sharpened railings. I’d been trained in first aid from my time working in the sorting office, so I was made the lead medic of my team and given this really heavy kit to carry.
The collective in Hammersmith got wind of the trouble through the Free Radio. It was after this I remember people tuning in to this Government Network. I was one of a group, the local Root and Branch party you might say, who pushed for a quick response.
Even before we heard other collectives were calling for a showdown our communes had gone into permanent session to decide what to do. We had commissions flying out here there and everywhere… for everything (you couldn’t do the actual organising in public, so to speak). I was part of the commission to collect arms, which was why I eventually got drafted, so to speak. The permanent session was held in the old town hall. It had to be adjourned and reconvened in a safer spot, which turned out to be the old Apollo, after loyalist soldiers were spotted moving through Shepherd’s Bush.
Like I said, this all happened in 24 hours, if that.
Next morning, 6am, we had at least two thousand of us setting off from Hammersmith. It was a totally unwieldy number, noisy and slow. We not only had armoured cars and cycle couriers but were expected to peel off in units of five to investigate and secure side roads and dangerous looking buildings. How five lightly armed individuals were supposed to deal with an ambush or sniper or booby trap or… I don’t know? But there you have it.
We were nervous. Every slight noise or… flash of light, every uncertainty would stop the convoy while a gang of geeks would be sent off to investigate. It never came to anything. In fact it was very quiet…a little too quiet, as they used to say.
In fact it was amazing. I was sent with a team to comb the area around Emperors Gate. It struck me. Every house empty but every house was standing, and these weren’t houses, they were… well they were huge. Mansions, whole families would live in these… mansions. In the old days I remember me, my husband, our baby we lived in a flat, a three-room flat above a bookshop.
Anyway, we searched a few buildings and… empty. All the homes were abandoned. You’d find would be fittings, bookshelves, broken fridges and so on, all that couldn’t be carried. We found one woman, this poor Swedish girl, Ylva; she couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Her English wasn’t great. She’d been an au pair, looking after these six kids; the parents were lawyers (from what I could make out). They upped and left for the country home and hadn’t come back.
We found her hiding in this conservatory; I think that’s what it was. She’d been living off cold tinned food and sleeping under a rug. I more or less offered to take her in… right there.
After it was all over, I brought this up at the council meeting. There were so many people without homes. My husband died of the flu about six months before. He was one of the first. Then my little girl… I fell ill… I don’t know why it was me who pulled through.
Empty house: I ended up looking after people, friends from work, my Mum, they came to stay. I took in my Niece, Donna, her parents both died. The point was it was like this for a lot of people, no permanent home to go to, and yet there were all these plush homes empty. No one else had made the connection, apparently. So the commune started rehousing people in these upscale areas.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Old Themes
Back onto the socialism or barbarism dilemma: it ocurred to me the other day, the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto hints how this is resolved. To reiterate, by society facing a choice of socialism or barbarism we mean a choice between a higher civilisation or no civilisation. On this level it is a false opposition.
The manifesto points out capitalism is in a sense a revolutionary system... All that is solid... This was obvious in 1848 but perhaps is less so now. We are revolutionaries trying to overthrow a revolutionary system.
We can add this to the observations of Lenin on the state, Gramsci on passive revolution (and Americanism and Fordism) or Tony Cliff on bureaucratic state capitalism (these are just examples). Capitalism can both supress its opposite and absorb its methods at the same time. Stalinist Russia brutally repressed workers power (not to mention living standards) but also suppressed the internal market. In order for Russian capitalism to compete with the west it partially negated its own dynamic.
Today there could easily be a mass movement which puts the domination of the city banks over British politics into doubt. A call to nationalise the banks would be very popular. But nationalisation could be equally capitalist as anti-capitalist. Given the generally restricted levels of credit, the advantage Chinese capitalism has at the moment may prove tempting. A right-wing populist movement, perhaps CBI led, could equally take up this issue.
Like with most things, its a matter of hegemonic struggle.
The manifesto points out capitalism is in a sense a revolutionary system... All that is solid... This was obvious in 1848 but perhaps is less so now. We are revolutionaries trying to overthrow a revolutionary system.
We can add this to the observations of Lenin on the state, Gramsci on passive revolution (and Americanism and Fordism) or Tony Cliff on bureaucratic state capitalism (these are just examples). Capitalism can both supress its opposite and absorb its methods at the same time. Stalinist Russia brutally repressed workers power (not to mention living standards) but also suppressed the internal market. In order for Russian capitalism to compete with the west it partially negated its own dynamic.
Today there could easily be a mass movement which puts the domination of the city banks over British politics into doubt. A call to nationalise the banks would be very popular. But nationalisation could be equally capitalist as anti-capitalist. Given the generally restricted levels of credit, the advantage Chinese capitalism has at the moment may prove tempting. A right-wing populist movement, perhaps CBI led, could equally take up this issue.
Like with most things, its a matter of hegemonic struggle.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Dude, where's my hegemony 2: revenge of the killer hegemon!
Ideology for some is all but a swearword. Ideology is something like a crazy purple knockout gas that hangs in the air makes people do bad things.
The people who claim to be non-ideological are in fact highly ideological. People live in ideology like fish live in water. The supposedly non-ideological simply live in the prevailing political medium. They maintain the prevailing ideas of their society and are shocked and confused when they find someone else who doesn’t (just as if a fish could talk to a bird the fish would be shocked to find you can swim through the air).
(If they are ever successful) when the non-ideological successfully criticise the openly ideological it is because the set of ideas presented round a distinct point of view turn out to be utopian. The point of view around which ideas may be grouped may not exist. For example, the ideas of Robert Owen were very well fleshed out. He knew how an egalitarian, classless society might be built, but he didn’t know who was going to build it.
A collection of ideas might be built around an existing point of view but may be in contradiction to that point of view. Paul Blackledge summed up anarchism as a failed attempt to marry liberalism’s idea of individual agency with (revolutionary) socialism’s notion of workers’ collective power.
The measure of any collection of ideas has to be on whom are they based and how well do they fit the particular group. This means the foundations of our society must be understood, we must understand economics (and not the voodoo that’s taught as economics in universities). Perhaps it’s only and irony but the one thing the non-ideological all deny is economics (i.e. class) as a foundation of understanding. This is why their political understanding is flimsy and useless.
I’d like to flag up set of ideas attributed to Antonio Gramsci. We know that Gramsci suffers greatly at the hands of mainstream academics and commentators. We cannot help this. Not only did his mature work concentrate on (as he put it) the moment of consent rather than the moment of force, his written legacy rich in ideas. This is sweet nectar to swarming intellectuals.
We can tease out the actually existing Gramsci from the one beloved by IR lecturers by reading his texts and relating them to his life. For example, we note the fact that a great bulk of his prison notebooks refers to the Red Years, climaxing in the factory and land occupations of 1920. Gramsci primarily deals with what went wrong but also what went right, chiefly the relationship between the L’Ordine Nuovo group, which he led, and the Turinese workers.
It’s less difficult to extract the revolutionary Gramsci from the Stalinist version. Both the post-war practice of the PCI and later Euro communism were based on interpretations of the Prison Notebooks.
Yet it’s clear from reading Gramsci that he never rejected the moment of force as crucial. How could he? He was writing from prison, where he was groping toward an answer to what happens to society when a progressive force striving for hegemony is physically blocked from doing so.
It’s also clear that when he criticises Trotsky for advocating war of manoeuvre as opposed to war of position as contemporary communist practice, Gramsci probably shouldn’t be taken at face value. Contemporary communist practice was attempted frontal assault on capitalism, called the Third Period outlook. We know Gramsci in prison was critical of third period policy.
We can also assume, as a leading member of the Communist International, Gramsci knew and understood the debates over the united front tactic, and knew that Trotsky advocated said tactic. In arguing for war of position over manoeuvre he was in effect arguing for Trotsky against Stalin.
What we cannot do is suggest Gramsci was a secret Trotskyite. We cannot reasonably divine Gramsci’s definite intent from the Prison Notebooks, part of the idea, as he had to evade prison censorship. There is also no example of Gramsci putting his mature ideas into practice.
We can discuss, apply and, if needs be, evolve his ideas ourselves. One thing I have been musing on is the implication in identifying the united front with war of position: how naturally long term is a united front?
Friday, February 05, 2010
Future Legend
I’d never been outside of London before. I never thought about it… Oh, there was once, a school trip to this load of ruins, like, these ancient stones. Anyway, my next time was with a group going to St Albans.
This must have been a month later at least. I was part of the militia by then. There were networks of communes linking up with country people. We had good supplies of water, clean water, mostly, some wood, some paper and some electric stuff, radios, batteries, light bulbs, cables and that. So we’d go and trade.
Obviously there was swapping going on between different groups in the city. I remember when these printers restarted a plant down in Millwall, everyone descended on the area, looking for favours. Oh, then the one out in Dagenham happened… anyway…
Word got round there was a group of survivors living in old St Albans. Big whoop, you might say. But, apparently, they had several hundred Friesian cows gathered from the surrounding area, and a battery farm of hens still pumping out eggs. Some groups were planning to send ambassadors to meet them. Before they could head out we had delegations of people coming down asking for help.
I remember they came round our area with milk and eggs and even a bit of honey. Everyone was very happy with that. But they were asking for the militia. They had been given a deadline. The old Bishop was sizing them up. They had three days to give over to him or he’d send a group of his to kill ‘em all and take what they had anyway. So, we knew what we had to do.
Most of the militia were, like, friendly but separate. There were a few cases of bandits trying to take stuff. We had a group try it on my estate. They, uh, they looked like students, posh white kids. They made a lot of noise but they weren’t up it and we saw them off. But that was the exception.
There was already the second big fight, uprising, but the mission to St Albans brought us together. That’s what I think, anyway. People from all over the city, places I’d never even been to. I reckon there was about a thousand militia gathered in twenty-four hours. It was down at, where was it…? Oh, yeah, it was round Archway, by the tower.
Early morning. We all went up in groups of one hundred, some went up in lorries, and some of us left on this wild-west horse and carriage get up. I was on one of those. It was weird, man. There was ten of us, sitting on the back of this wagon. We all had new uniforms by then. I had a rife for the first time (I kept my old pistol, but it had run out of ammo, no more clips).
There was no time to lose. Well, when we got there it was already too late. A group of the Bishop’s men, a couple of hundred had camped in the middle of town and were rounding people up. It was nearly a day of travelling. Our wagon got there and there was already fighting. I don’t know why but for the first time I was shitting myself.
We won, but we used way too many bullets. Too many of those fuckers got away as well. We spent the night in this local church, which the locals were using for a meeting place. I ended up spending there the next six weeks in the town. We patrolled. We got in with the milking. Some did repairs. I was sent with two regular soldiers to train up some of the locals. I didn't know nothing about fighting, really. I think they wanted a bit of balance.
The three of us, me and the soldiers, ex-soldiers, Gordon and Joe, we ended up living with this old white couple, Mrs and Mrs Roiser, in this huge house. I thought it was a mansion at the time. They cooked for us, you know? Second night, I had my first hot meal in months.
------
I used to work in the Victoria and Albert museum as an archivist. It was a good job, quite a trek though, every morning; Bus to Holloway, then the tube to Kensington through the centre of town. Not a journey you wanted to make (if you could).
Besides there was just so much going on, finding food, stocktaking and rationing, fixing an electric supply. Once the water pressure went I was part of a team building a well. Then there was the big borough meeting about the windmill on the marsh. Stuff like that just… kept coming.
A group of us, we were on a, a kind of sortie around Hackney looking for decent piping (we were trying to build a pump) when I bumped into an old work colleague. This was when the violence had died down, after the great fire of Westminster.
I bumped into her on Mare Street. Old woman, her name was Candy. She used to be one of the admin staff, which used to organise fundraising and sponsorship. I didn’t really know her but, apparently, she knew me. She explained that was looking all over for old staff (usually PCS members) to recover the V&A. Recover was becoming a big word then. The operation had apparently expanded to take in the Natural History and Science museums.
Getting across town was still quite difficult, never mind all the… broken down areas, there were still roadblocks, barricades up. The plan was to all go at once.
Sure enough, a week later we met up in Euston at the Friends House (nice central point) and all went down to Kensington with our freshly minted passes. There were about 30 of us, ex-museum staff: quite a group. We even had our own armed guard, which I thought was odd. The area was a bit of an unknown quantity, you couldn’t be too careful. So Candy contacted the militia in South Camden, who seemed glad to offer their help.
Once there we split up. Candy and a few from the other museums had drawn up extensive inventories of what we should find.
But there was nothing. The ground floor V&A had been boarded up seemingly from the outside. Our team had crowbars and axes, so that wasn’t such a problem. Inside, the whole place had been stripped bare. Not just looted (what looters carefully seal the building they’ve just robbed?), it had been carefully picked clean.
There was an ex-janitor with us, Ignacio, who had a set of skeleton keys, so we tried the safes. Nothing. We tried all the offices. Paperwork: nada… all gone. All the alarms were triggered but had just run down to… nothing. The security tapes were also missing.
The story was pretty much the same in the other museums. It was bizarre. Short of dusting for prints we couldn’t done much more. The museum district was empty. Of course we didn’t know, we didn’t appreciate just how empty.
This must have been a month later at least. I was part of the militia by then. There were networks of communes linking up with country people. We had good supplies of water, clean water, mostly, some wood, some paper and some electric stuff, radios, batteries, light bulbs, cables and that. So we’d go and trade.
Obviously there was swapping going on between different groups in the city. I remember when these printers restarted a plant down in Millwall, everyone descended on the area, looking for favours. Oh, then the one out in Dagenham happened… anyway…
Word got round there was a group of survivors living in old St Albans. Big whoop, you might say. But, apparently, they had several hundred Friesian cows gathered from the surrounding area, and a battery farm of hens still pumping out eggs. Some groups were planning to send ambassadors to meet them. Before they could head out we had delegations of people coming down asking for help.
I remember they came round our area with milk and eggs and even a bit of honey. Everyone was very happy with that. But they were asking for the militia. They had been given a deadline. The old Bishop was sizing them up. They had three days to give over to him or he’d send a group of his to kill ‘em all and take what they had anyway. So, we knew what we had to do.
Most of the militia were, like, friendly but separate. There were a few cases of bandits trying to take stuff. We had a group try it on my estate. They, uh, they looked like students, posh white kids. They made a lot of noise but they weren’t up it and we saw them off. But that was the exception.
There was already the second big fight, uprising, but the mission to St Albans brought us together. That’s what I think, anyway. People from all over the city, places I’d never even been to. I reckon there was about a thousand militia gathered in twenty-four hours. It was down at, where was it…? Oh, yeah, it was round Archway, by the tower.
Early morning. We all went up in groups of one hundred, some went up in lorries, and some of us left on this wild-west horse and carriage get up. I was on one of those. It was weird, man. There was ten of us, sitting on the back of this wagon. We all had new uniforms by then. I had a rife for the first time (I kept my old pistol, but it had run out of ammo, no more clips).
There was no time to lose. Well, when we got there it was already too late. A group of the Bishop’s men, a couple of hundred had camped in the middle of town and were rounding people up. It was nearly a day of travelling. Our wagon got there and there was already fighting. I don’t know why but for the first time I was shitting myself.
We won, but we used way too many bullets. Too many of those fuckers got away as well. We spent the night in this local church, which the locals were using for a meeting place. I ended up spending there the next six weeks in the town. We patrolled. We got in with the milking. Some did repairs. I was sent with two regular soldiers to train up some of the locals. I didn't know nothing about fighting, really. I think they wanted a bit of balance.
The three of us, me and the soldiers, ex-soldiers, Gordon and Joe, we ended up living with this old white couple, Mrs and Mrs Roiser, in this huge house. I thought it was a mansion at the time. They cooked for us, you know? Second night, I had my first hot meal in months.
------
I used to work in the Victoria and Albert museum as an archivist. It was a good job, quite a trek though, every morning; Bus to Holloway, then the tube to Kensington through the centre of town. Not a journey you wanted to make (if you could).
Besides there was just so much going on, finding food, stocktaking and rationing, fixing an electric supply. Once the water pressure went I was part of a team building a well. Then there was the big borough meeting about the windmill on the marsh. Stuff like that just… kept coming.
A group of us, we were on a, a kind of sortie around Hackney looking for decent piping (we were trying to build a pump) when I bumped into an old work colleague. This was when the violence had died down, after the great fire of Westminster.
I bumped into her on Mare Street. Old woman, her name was Candy. She used to be one of the admin staff, which used to organise fundraising and sponsorship. I didn’t really know her but, apparently, she knew me. She explained that was looking all over for old staff (usually PCS members) to recover the V&A. Recover was becoming a big word then. The operation had apparently expanded to take in the Natural History and Science museums.
Getting across town was still quite difficult, never mind all the… broken down areas, there were still roadblocks, barricades up. The plan was to all go at once.
Sure enough, a week later we met up in Euston at the Friends House (nice central point) and all went down to Kensington with our freshly minted passes. There were about 30 of us, ex-museum staff: quite a group. We even had our own armed guard, which I thought was odd. The area was a bit of an unknown quantity, you couldn’t be too careful. So Candy contacted the militia in South Camden, who seemed glad to offer their help.
Once there we split up. Candy and a few from the other museums had drawn up extensive inventories of what we should find.
But there was nothing. The ground floor V&A had been boarded up seemingly from the outside. Our team had crowbars and axes, so that wasn’t such a problem. Inside, the whole place had been stripped bare. Not just looted (what looters carefully seal the building they’ve just robbed?), it had been carefully picked clean.
There was an ex-janitor with us, Ignacio, who had a set of skeleton keys, so we tried the safes. Nothing. We tried all the offices. Paperwork: nada… all gone. All the alarms were triggered but had just run down to… nothing. The security tapes were also missing.
The story was pretty much the same in the other museums. It was bizarre. Short of dusting for prints we couldn’t done much more. The museum district was empty. Of course we didn’t know, we didn’t appreciate just how empty.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Hard hitting stuff...
Yes, it seems the decline and fall of civilisation means less not more actually existing news. Here's some thin gruel to survive on:
Men at Work stole Down Under riff from Girl Guides... Yup, and Rod Stewart stole Do Ya Think I'm Sexy from a samba band. Is there no beginning to their talents?
Publisher Kisses Morrisey's Arse, actually the headline is "Faber editor bids to woo Morrissey to 'the House of Eliot'", either way it's not very nice.
Quantitative Easing Policy Halted, presumably in anticipation of a dose of economic immodium.
Toyota has fixed the breaks on its new cars... yeah, that's a good idea.
By way of some andfinalies, Voyager has encountered some unaccountably magentised interstellar fluff. Also, the Cassini mission has been extented to 2017, yay! The craft is due to make its closest pass with Titan later this year.
Oh, here's another shot of Enceladus (with vapour jets):
Men at Work stole Down Under riff from Girl Guides... Yup, and Rod Stewart stole Do Ya Think I'm Sexy from a samba band. Is there no beginning to their talents?
Publisher Kisses Morrisey's Arse, actually the headline is "Faber editor bids to woo Morrissey to 'the House of Eliot'", either way it's not very nice.
Quantitative Easing Policy Halted, presumably in anticipation of a dose of economic immodium.
Toyota has fixed the breaks on its new cars... yeah, that's a good idea.
By way of some andfinalies, Voyager has encountered some unaccountably magentised interstellar fluff. Also, the Cassini mission has been extented to 2017, yay! The craft is due to make its closest pass with Titan later this year.
Oh, here's another shot of Enceladus (with vapour jets):
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
No we can't
The Obama administration is cutting planned manned expeditions to the Moon and Mars. This is a great shame.
The return to the Moon was scheduled to happen before 2020. It was part of the most plausible strategy for reaching and eventually colonising Mars. The likely long-term depressed state of the world's economy, perhaps a terminal depression, and the social dislocation resulting (let alone the looming deadline set by climate change) means there won't be many more chances to launch missions like these.
The practical reason why humans should aim for Mars ties in with the wider existential question. We know Mars contains all the pre-biotic conditions for life, except surface water, which it once had. If we find that Mars once held simple life (it couldn't have been more than that) then the odds of colonising the planet shoot up dramatically, not to mention humankind makes an exceptional scientific breakthrough.
The trouble is Mars rovers are a very inefficient way of searching, never mind the fact they also tend to breakdown. Once on Mars, a human expedition would be able to head much more directly and easily to search places of interest.
The wider point is whether or not humanity should venture out into space at all. I would argue we should. There is no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life, let alone intelligent extraterrestrial life. If there is a meaning to life then human beings are its makers and protectors. The future of life in the universe depends on us taking it from planet to planet.
Finally, of course there is enough wealth to do this and feed the world. Sure, at the moment space exploration is a pork-barrel, state-capitalist project. There was only enough viable private capital to launch a few low-orbit satellites during the good times. But that only means during a recession-teetering-on-depression we're lowering our sights even further.
It's a well-worn adage but I'll use it again, there's trillions for banks and the arms race, trillions for wars. Barack Obama has cancelled the Ares rocket, a Bush-era project. Lots of other projects, such as Guantanamo Bay still remain open.
If space exploration is worthwhile but the US government can no longer fund it then the answer is to pool resources, as democratically as possible and go global. Missions should be international from now on.
The return to the Moon was scheduled to happen before 2020. It was part of the most plausible strategy for reaching and eventually colonising Mars. The likely long-term depressed state of the world's economy, perhaps a terminal depression, and the social dislocation resulting (let alone the looming deadline set by climate change) means there won't be many more chances to launch missions like these.
The practical reason why humans should aim for Mars ties in with the wider existential question. We know Mars contains all the pre-biotic conditions for life, except surface water, which it once had. If we find that Mars once held simple life (it couldn't have been more than that) then the odds of colonising the planet shoot up dramatically, not to mention humankind makes an exceptional scientific breakthrough.
The trouble is Mars rovers are a very inefficient way of searching, never mind the fact they also tend to breakdown. Once on Mars, a human expedition would be able to head much more directly and easily to search places of interest.
The wider point is whether or not humanity should venture out into space at all. I would argue we should. There is no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life, let alone intelligent extraterrestrial life. If there is a meaning to life then human beings are its makers and protectors. The future of life in the universe depends on us taking it from planet to planet.
Finally, of course there is enough wealth to do this and feed the world. Sure, at the moment space exploration is a pork-barrel, state-capitalist project. There was only enough viable private capital to launch a few low-orbit satellites during the good times. But that only means during a recession-teetering-on-depression we're lowering our sights even further.
It's a well-worn adage but I'll use it again, there's trillions for banks and the arms race, trillions for wars. Barack Obama has cancelled the Ares rocket, a Bush-era project. Lots of other projects, such as Guantanamo Bay still remain open.
If space exploration is worthwhile but the US government can no longer fund it then the answer is to pool resources, as democratically as possible and go global. Missions should be international from now on.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Parade to distract joyless citizenry
The Winter Olympics are back. Hoorah and huzzah! I have a little more affection for the Winter Olympics than the Summer version. This is mostly because we avoid the agonising and/or gloating over the number and colour of medals won by British athletes.
For me the interest mostly lies in the minority sports, stuff off the beaten track of football, rugby and cricket. It doesn’t quite redeem the nationalism, the silly ceremonies (many invented by Hitler) and the fact that Olympic games leave blight on the host cities, the accelerated spread of gross gentrification.
Most sport came from communal, festive occasions. For example, football began as a pub game. Hundreds of people would career through the streets (or countryside) kicking an inflated bladder. The aim would be to get the ball through the doors of a particular pub. There are villages in England that still get together to play this game.
The formalisation of sport coincided with the closure of public space. The result was a curious parallel with industry. Popular participation was discouraged, sport became a spectator activity and was on its way to becoming a commodity. So today with have multi-million pound sports industry.
If sport did not come from festive celebrations it generally came from the military. Football (old style) was often banned, as it was a distraction from archery (not to mention close to a drunken riot). The Modern Pentathlon was invented for the revived games. It was based on the five skills a French officer needed to successfully wield: running, swimming, horse-riding, swimming and shooting.
The last interesting aspect of sport is the constant play between diversification and specialisation. The tendency to refine sports down to highly specialised activity combined with the general (combined with competitive nationalism) is the worm at the heart of sporting life. There is nothing healthy or progressive about an athlete training eight hours a day at the high jump, pommel horse or springboard diving. This aspect will surely be reformed with any great social transformation.
So, what can we look out for in these games? I think its safe to say the skiing will be exciting, the snowboarding fun, ice hockey will be politically charged, skating will be crooked and the bobsleigh will be decided by slim margins. The most testing winter sport is probably the biathlon, a game of cross-country skiing and shooting invented for the Norwegian army.
Above all, whoever wins the sun will still rise in the east.
For me the interest mostly lies in the minority sports, stuff off the beaten track of football, rugby and cricket. It doesn’t quite redeem the nationalism, the silly ceremonies (many invented by Hitler) and the fact that Olympic games leave blight on the host cities, the accelerated spread of gross gentrification.
Most sport came from communal, festive occasions. For example, football began as a pub game. Hundreds of people would career through the streets (or countryside) kicking an inflated bladder. The aim would be to get the ball through the doors of a particular pub. There are villages in England that still get together to play this game.
The formalisation of sport coincided with the closure of public space. The result was a curious parallel with industry. Popular participation was discouraged, sport became a spectator activity and was on its way to becoming a commodity. So today with have multi-million pound sports industry.
If sport did not come from festive celebrations it generally came from the military. Football (old style) was often banned, as it was a distraction from archery (not to mention close to a drunken riot). The Modern Pentathlon was invented for the revived games. It was based on the five skills a French officer needed to successfully wield: running, swimming, horse-riding, swimming and shooting.
The last interesting aspect of sport is the constant play between diversification and specialisation. The tendency to refine sports down to highly specialised activity combined with the general (combined with competitive nationalism) is the worm at the heart of sporting life. There is nothing healthy or progressive about an athlete training eight hours a day at the high jump, pommel horse or springboard diving. This aspect will surely be reformed with any great social transformation.
So, what can we look out for in these games? I think its safe to say the skiing will be exciting, the snowboarding fun, ice hockey will be politically charged, skating will be crooked and the bobsleigh will be decided by slim margins. The most testing winter sport is probably the biathlon, a game of cross-country skiing and shooting invented for the Norwegian army.
Above all, whoever wins the sun will still rise in the east.
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