Monday 30 December 2013

Top Ten Tory Lies of 2013


There are lies, damn lies and then tory lies, the above list just the of the iceberg really,all their actions have done is fuel division, swelling social anger. The Tory's main purpose seems to be moving public  money into private pockets, shattering any remnants of hope and carving up the country, as people drift into poverty and our living standards plummet.Nobody voted for their austerity package,this  party that seems to toss accountability or transparancey, aside, that have been caught out trying to delete old speeches and promises from the internet.
Also 350,000 people are now regularly forced to access food banks, their is increased hospitalization  because malnutrition rates have nearly doubled under the tory's. Doctors have written to the BMJ (British Medical Journal) calling food poverty a national emergency. Causing harm is their devotion, causing pain is their game of sport, still lining the pockets of their rich friends, while attacking the marginalised and the poor. And next year the Conservative Party will daft proposed new laws to curb the impact of European human rights legislation in Britain. I can only imagine what other nastiness they have in store for us.
Still in it all together, I don't bloody think so, just another tory lie.....Happy new fear




Saturday 28 December 2013

History in Song: 2010-2012 - David Roviks




David Roviks is a singer/songwriter  and author who I greatly admire, who spends much of his life on tour. Spreading his messages and songs of social significance. Roviks  has made all of his recorded music freely available and endorses the free distribution of  his work by all non-profit means to promote his work and spread his political messages. A social activist who speaks out against websites or programmes like i tunes that charge money for downloading his songs. A supporter of the occupy movements, and many other causes clamouring for a better world. Enjoy.


Thursday 26 December 2013

1957 A Kid Explaining To An Old Man What An Anarchist Is And Why Government Equals Violence..



This clip is from the 1957 British comedy film A King in New York, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin in his last leading role, presents a satirical view of certain aspects if United States politics and society. The film was produced in Europe after Chaplin's exile from the US in 1952, It did not open in the United States until 1967,
The young boys name is Michael Chaplin, son of Charlie Chaplin.

Earlier post on Chaplin here,

Charlie Chaplin - Citizen of the World

https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/charlie-chaplin-b1641889-251277-citizen.html


Tuesday 24 December 2013

Happy Season of Compulsory Joy



It's that time of year again, when we sing about peace and good will,when our impulse is to give, share and support others, feelings of solidarity and mutual aid, find their form in the midwinter festival that in this part of the world, is now known as Christmas.
Today, as the tentacles of the capitalist market reach into every part of our lives, those feelings are commodified, we are encouraged to pay for the convenience of expressing our feelings for our fellow beings through gift giving. We fret about our purchases, are they good enough? Will the person like them?
But, as well as this, people across the world think of those who have less and donate food, clothes, toys and money.
It is worth remembering that these acts of solidarity are part of our nature, that the impulse towards mutual aid is not just a once in a year anomoly, that it was a deciding factor in our evolution and is something we need to nurture if the human race is to survive the coming centuries.
As Kropotkin wrote in Mutual Aid, a factor of evolution.
I will be quiet for next few days, as library closing until the new year, a  little post, on boxing day, perhaps, and then quite probably not  until the new year, so in the meantime...thanks to all who've supported the blog....
Best wishes.
solidarity
Another world is not impossible, it is inevitable,
heddwch/peace.




Oh and Father Christmas says Free Palestine







Saturday 21 December 2013

Metamorphosis ( a poem for the Winter Solstice)


                                 Christian Schole

Throw your dreams,
into space like a kite,
and you do not know ,
what it will bring back,
a new life,
a new friend,
a new love,
a new country'
- Anais Nin

Sunrise at Newgrange
Sunset at Stonehenge,
and  the veil is drawn 
gliding under  shifting skies,
following  earths trembling hum
the thunder of life's mutation
imagination awakens,, loses wings
impatient and a little crazy
lets words escape, beyond control,
into spaces unafraid of weight.

The dance of transformation
hooks and catches, follows whirling path,
flowing in winds sowing filter
navigates uncharted space,
without borders restrictive figuration
turns nothing into edges everlasting pulse,
remember loved ones, those gone far to soon.
do not forget to engage, deeply with your own soul

And in the blessed  morning
as time comes round again,
opens up its brilliant rays
reconstructs our roots,
supplements our need
releases again the delicate
                  seeds of dream,
slipping chrysalis's of survival
deep into futures hungry realm,
on the shortest day of the year
 toast the sun king's return.


Happy Winter Solstice
heddwch/peace

Thursday 19 December 2013

Gaza in Crisis: Please Help

 

As I type, over 5,000 people have been evacuated from flood-damagesd homes in northen Gaza, in what today the United Nations is calling a 'disaster area.'
Large swathes of Gaza are now delugeed under water, as far as the eyes can see, Under occupation, the severe weather conditions have left its Palestinian citizens almost paralyzed. Their will is strong, but the people still need  our support  Because of the illegal occupaton by Israel, their basic infrastructure, has been seriously effected for years,  that have curbed it's citizens  to basic goods, fuel and building supplies.
After one of the longest blockades in human history, the people of Gaza, desperately need our help. Take a moment and reflect, following floods and freezing temperatures, the situation in Gaza is now catasthropic.
Please join me in calling for David Cameron to end this unsupportable and immoral blockade of 
Gaza. Israels's blockade on Gaza must be ended permanently, thus ending the uneecessary  of it's people.
As UNWRA state:-

" Any normal community would struggle to recover from this disaster. But a community that has been subjected to one of the longest  blockades in human history, whose public health system has been destroyed and where the risk of disease was already rife, must be freed from these man made constraints to deal with the impact of a natural calamity such as this. And of course it the most vulnerable, the women and children, the elderly who will
pay the highest   price  of failure to end the blockade."

http://act.palestinecampaign.org/petition/17

 

Tuesday 17 December 2013

Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning- Free her Now!

 

Supporters of international whistleblower Chelsea (formerly) Bradley Manning, have been gathering in London to celebrate her 26th birthday and to demand her immediate release. The U.S soldier  was sentenced to 35 years for leaking thousands of documents to Wikileaks exposing US and other governments' war crimes and corruption.International protests are also being held to demand her release.
Thank's to Chelsea's whistleblowing the public now know  about the collateral murder of a U.S helicopter killing innocent Iraqi civilians, the covers up of rape in Iraq and Afghanistan, the extent of drone strikes, U.S dirty tricks across the globe, the thousand of civilian casualties that were not acknowledged publicly, the fact that most Guatanamo detainees were innocent, their spying on us all, etc etc..
People are invited to support a petiton by Amnesty International demanding her immediate release https://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/chelseamanning  and another petition by the Private Manning Support Network demanding President Obama's pardon http://www.privatemanning.org/pardonpetition Her sentence  is harsher than that of convicted murderers, and rapists, because she wanted to speak some truth, and now  the U.S want to make a scapegoat of her, to discourage other whistleblowers, of taking the brave descion yo expose crimes, and surveillance of us all. It is urgent  that we increase the pressure in our calls for her immediate release. Sharing the truth should not be a crime.
On her fourth birthday behind bars, I do hope the world remembers her, because her brave actions have set an example to us all.

' There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.' 

-Howard Zinn

Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning

Free  Her now



Meanwhile.a date for the diary, an event of solidarity, in the place where Chelsea was raised, who also has Irish roots as well, where these two communities will not forget Chelsea Mannings's courage and integrity.

 
 

Sunday 15 December 2013

Emma Goldman (27/6/1869 -14/5/40) - If I can't dance, it's not my revolution! (the real quote)


'If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution'.

The above quote was widely attributed to Emma Goldman, but was the invention of anarchist printer Jack Frager for a small batch of Goldman T.shirts he printed in 1973. However in her memoirs,from the early 1950;s. 'Living My Life Goldman remembers being censured for dancing and states:-

"At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he was about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the cause.
I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant, that I did not want it.
'I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.' Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world - prisons, persecutio
ns, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal."

Emma Goldman 1911, from p56 of her autobiography,
Living My life

 The story has since been passed around and condensed in the folk process as simply the slogan 'If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution'. And although, one the one hand, a fake quote, it''s since had  a lot of positive results–it’s been a rallying cry for feminists, a rallying cry for anarchists, an inspiration to many. me included, and I don't feel undermines Emma Goldman's rich legacy or her charisma, and actually makes more people aware of  her actions and deeds.
Remembered as a  passionate political activist.writer and thinker during the beginning of the 20th century and  known for her free-thinking and rebellious anarchist and communist beliefs. Her writings include discussions on free love, marriage, free speech, atheism, prisons, homosexuality, and capitalism, among other topics.
Goldman continues to command respect for her outstanding contribution to the history of radical working class struggle. As she once declared, “Everyone is an anarchist who loves liberty and hates oppression;” men to that.
 

Earlier post here

ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR:-

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/emma-goldman-2761869-14540-anarchism.html

Friday 13 December 2013

Lucia Sanchez Saornil (13/12/1895 - 2/6/70) - The Song of Mujeres Libres


Lucia Sanchez Saornil  was a Spanish poet, painter, anarchist and feminist icon. Her early highly erotic paens to female beauty, were written under the male pseudonym of Luciano de San-Saor, at a time when  homosexuality was criminalised . She fought against the fascists  in  the Spanish Civil War. She is know best remembered  for being one of the founders of Mujeres Libres, a group of working class politically active women who struggled against patriarchy. They tried to create an autonomous female community to empower women to realize their individual potential within the larger anarcho-syndicalist movement.
She was also a leading light   in the avant garde literary movent of this era.
She was also active in the CNT in Madrid ( The National Confederation of Labour).
Though openly lesbian,  after the failure of the Spanish Revolution, she spent her later life in a rather clandenstine existence, exiling herself to France,but would return secretly to Spain on occasions, to Madrid and to Valencia.
She died of cancer in Valencia in 1970.

The Song of Mujeres Libres

Fists upraised. women of Iberia
towards horizons filled with light
paths afire
feet on the ground
face to the blue sky.
Affirming the promises of life
we defy tradition
Let us mold the warm clay
pf a new world born of suffering.
Let the past crumble into oblivion!
What is yesterday worth to us!
We want to write anew
the word WOMAN
Fists upraised, women of the world
towards horizons filled with light
on paths afire
onward, onward
toward the light.


Thursday 12 December 2013

Ambrosio Vilhalva ( 1960 - 2013) Lies, Theft and Murder, the sickness of civilization


'While I'm still alive, I'm not going to to shy away from anyone, I'm going to demand action.'

' This is what I most hope for: land and justice... we will live  on our ancestral land, we will not give up.'

- Ambrosio Vilhalva

Guarani leader and film star Ambrosio Vilhalva was found dead  in his hut on December the first, at the entrance to his community, known as Guyra Roka, in Brazils Gross o Do Sul State,he was reportedly stabbed multiple times. For years he campaigned for his tribes right to live on their ancestral land, travelling  extensively internationally to speak about his tribe's plight, and to the Brazilian government to live up to its legal obligations and protecting Guarani land.He fought hard afainst the suger growers in the region, and consequently had had a number of death threats, because he was seen as one of the main leaders of the Guarani peoples  campaigns. According to the Brazil-based indigeneous rights group CIMI, 319 Guarani-Kaiowa Indians were slain from 2003 -2012. More than half of all 558 Indians killed in the entire country during the same period, mostly killed in disputes over land with farmers and ranchers encroaching on their land . Lies, theft and murder,continue sadly to be  part of  the sickness of civilisation that the world's  media ignores. Another senseless death, please help carry forward Ambrosio's struggle and message.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/emails/guarani-stopmurders

Ambrosio Vilhalva  1960 -2013

(following clip includes scenes from the film 'Birdwatchers' by Marco Bachis)