CPBF Events This Week

Media for all? The challenge of convergence

Saturday 31 October

School of Pharmacy, 29 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, from 10.00am – 5.00pm.

(nearest tube Russell Square)

A major international conference on the future of media organised by the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

Keynote speakers:

John Nichols, journalist with The Nation and one of the founders of the US Free Press Media Reform movement.

Alexander Stille, author of The Sack of Rome, an analysis of Silvio Berlusconi’s role in Italian media and politics.

Other speakers include Andrew Currah, Ray Fitzwater, Bob Franklin, Alison Harcourt, Kathrine Sarikakis,

Booking information

Attendance costs: Not for profit organisations and trades unions £25; individuals £20; students, unwaged or retired people £10.

Book online at: http://www.cpbf.org.uk/index_conf.html or email: freepress@cpbf.org.uk by phone 0208 521 5932 or by post:

CPBF, 23 Orford Road, Walthamstow, London E17 9NL. Cheques payable to the CPBF.





Plus our pre-Conference meeting

The miners’ strike and politics today

Friday 30 October, 7.00pm

School of Pharmacy, 29 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX

Speakers:

Tony Benn, John Nichols, Marc Valle and Paul Lewis.



Showing Ken Loach Which Side Are You On?

Plus premier performance of Embedded with the bankers; the media and the financial crisis by Banner Theatre Group

Admission £5. Booking as detailed above or pay at the door.

Oxford Working Class Bookfair

Someone posted this in comments, (thanks) but it sounds an interesting enough event to publicise on the front page - so here you go -

1ST OXFORD WORKING CLASS BOOKFAIR
Saturday 20 June, 11 am - 6 pm
Ruskin College, Walton Street, Oxford
www.oxfordworkingclassbookfair.blogspot.com
oxfordworkingclassbookfair@googlemail.com

We cordially invite YOU to visit the 1st ever OXFORD WORKING CLASS BOOKFAIR! There will be books, talks, workshops, short films and more books and magazines . . .

We plan to recover/reclaim some of the hidden history of Oxford, with its gallery of rogues, rebels and revolutionaries, to touch upon some topics of contemporary relevance to the man & woman on the street today, provide quality entertainment, discuss the big issues past and present & hopefully have a real good time to boot! - All in a relaxed and warm atmosphere!

The range of local groups invited includes; political groups, Trade Unions, community groups, campaign groups, booksellers and history societies. If you would like to have a stall email us at the address above!

The event will include a commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the 1909 RUSKIN COLLEGE STUDENT STRIKE, a pioneering student uprising for independent working class education, that saw students breakaway to form a radical education and self-help networks based on an alternative progressive view of what education could be. They argued that it wasn't enough for the working class to have limited extended access to higer education, but rather that they needed a fundamentally different kind of education, curriculum & pedagogy to meet their needs and the needs of the class. They were involved in the PLEBS LEAGUE (a grassroots education iniative) and set up an anti-capitalist education network of CENTRAL LABOUR COLLEGES, many of the leaders of the student uprising were miners and trade unionists who went on to be authors of THE MINERS NEXT STEP, a classic text of rank & file trade unionism and syndicalism.

Along the way, we will learn the story of the RED SHIRTS, a group set up at Ruskin College to sabotage the attempts of Oswald Mosely's fascist BLACK SHIRTS to get a base in 1930s Oxford & consider how we fight against fascism & racism today. There will also be sessions on culture, trade union & labour history, feminism/women's liberation, ecology & climate, war & empire etc. More information about speakers, events and other happenings planned will appear on our page shortly - watch this space! Sponsors include the local I.W.W and trade unionists.

Weekly Links 07/04/2009

Another busy week and little time to post links, but nevertheless a few that might be interesting to some of my readers.

Green Politics
Monday was National Pensions Action Day and the Green Party in England and Wales announced its key election pledge for pensioners - a £165 a week non-means-tested citizens' pension for every pensioner in the UK.
Much of the green focus in the protests last week was on the climate camp in the city - a blog on this here. The Green Party also spoke out about the provocative policing on the G20 demos.

British Politics
Here is a You Tube video of the whole of the Put People First March passing on the 28th March in London.
Here is film of a Police attack on the Climate Camp later in the week - the mass media preferred to focus on a bit of minority window smashing at a city bank rather than police brutalisation of peaceful protesters.
I had a fine pint of Leveller ale from the Newark brewery this evening - a reminder of the Leveller legacy kept alive by the annual Levellers Day festival in Burford, Oxfordshire - more info on this years' event here. The theme this year being the energy crisis.
Speaking of British republicans, tickets for the annual conference of the main umbrella republican organisation, Republic, to be held on the 20th June in London, are now on sale.

Unions and Workers
More on the inspiring Visteon occupations here.

As people are probably aware, workers are currently occupying Visteon Car Plant in Enfield against redundancies. But in an exciting move, workers have also raised the idea of transfering from producing cars to more environmentally useful things. This is from the text of their leaflet:

'As well as proper redundancy payments, some are suggesting that the skills of the workers who can make anything in plastic, should be used to make increasingly needed parts for green products - bike and trailer parts, solar panels, turbines, etc. Government investment in this rather than throwing money at bankers could be profitable & save jobs in the long term.'

The example of the Lucas Aerospace Plan continues as an inspiration to new generations of workers.

Weekly Links 08/03/2009

British Politics
Mandelson "slimed"!
Interesting background information to the reasons this action was taken against Britain's least popular unelected Minister from Airportwatch site here.
Guardian report and more video here.

Meanwhile the Bank of England and the government went for "Quantative Easing" in response to the crisis, Larry Elliott's take on it here.

It was announced this week that prescription charges are to rise, prompting a welcome intervention from the BMA -

Our submission seeks to highlight the many problems within the current system, which consequently are inherent in the proposal to extend the exemption list to include those with LTCs. The BMA's position and the conclusion of this evidence is that the Department of Health should abolish prescription charges in England altogether, as has already happened in Wales and will happen shortly in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas this week had an article on the Gaza situation on the Guardian website.

A snapshot of the anger now prevalent in British politics can be gained from the comments underneath a Guardian article by normally cynical/apolitical cultural commentator Charlie Brooker where he expresses his frustration at the uselessness of the British political system.

Blogging
Joseph Healy reported this week on the lobby held against the Government's Welfare Reform Bill.

Derek commented on the "Quantative Easing" strategy.

Dave Osler reflected on the anniversary of the start of the Miners' Strike of 1984-5.

Jim has been to see the film of the "classic graphic novel", Watchmen, and reviewed it on his blog.


Unions and Work
The Iraqi government has this week tried to sieze control of the Iraqi teachers' union. TUC statement here.

Former Miners' leader Arthur Scargill gave an article to the Guardian summarising his current views on the momentous strike of 25 years ago.

Television
This week saw the first airing of the first part of the dramatisation of man of the moment David Peace's Red Riding novels on Channel 4. Not only is the dramatisation on TV, but Peace's book on the short spell of management of Leeds United FC by Derby and Nottingham local hero Brian Clough in the 1970s is coming out as a film, (The Damned United) and his book on the Miners' Strike GB84 is surely topical with the current anniversary in the news.
Red Riding, centred on Police corruption in West Yorkshire, was brutal and stylish, and the TV adaptation did well to capture Peace's disconcerting style.

The Devil's Whore

The first episode of Peter Flannery's The Devil's Whore was aired on Channel 4 last night, and very good it was too. We were introduced to the fictional characters of the Fanshawes and historical characters such as Charles I, Rainsborough, Cromwell and John Lilburne and his wife. The style was lush and expensively costumed with the occasional surreal or supernatural element helping to distance us and lessen the effect of the artistic license and historical shorthand necessary to link all the characters and stories together. Excellent performances came from a brooding John Simm as Edward Sexby and Andrea Riseborough as the central fictional character of Angelica Fanshawe.
I look forward to the rest of the episodes.
Here are previews and reviews from :
The Telegraph

The Independent

and The Guardian

Weekly Links 17/11/2008

Television
The waiting is over! Two long awaited drama serials are set to start on terrestrial TV in Britain this week - the remake of Terry Nation's seminal apocalyptic series Survivors, which I have blogged on before, and the English Civil War story The Devil's Whore by the man who created the brilliant Our Friends In the North.
The BBC is due to air its first episode of Survivors on Sunday 23rd November.
Channel 4 air the first episode of The Devil's Whore on Wednesday 19th November.
Here is a topical (see later) piece by Ronan Bennett on The Devils Whore.

I am very excited by both of these series and will report back in due course, along with posting more links on both.


British Republicanism
Graham Smith, of Republic returns to the fray at the Guardian Comment is Free site this week after a Republican article by him last week got a massive response, pro and anti.

"You may have seen reports that prince Charles wishes to become an activist-King. Not content with meddling in political debates and haranguing ministers as heir to the throne, he craves power and influence at the highest level, but wants to be spared the inconvenience of an election. In the article I argue that a politically active King would be tantamount to winding the clocks back on centuries of gradual democratic reform. The only answer of course is the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of a democratic alternative."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/17/prince-charles-monarchy

Graham blogs here.

Workers and Unions
This is from Eric Lee at Labourstart -
I doubt if many of you regularly buy leather goods sold by Prada, Louis Vuitton, Mulberry and Nicole Farhi. These are luxury brands, priced too high for ordinary working people like us.

But the people who make those products are often low-paid, non-union workers. When those workers stand up and fight for their rights, it's our responsibility to stand with them.

Earlier this year, hundreds of workers at the Turkish leather manufacturer DESA -- which produces for all the luxury brands mentioned above -- joined a union. The reaction of the company was fierce: 44 union members were sacked, and 50 more compelled to quit the union.

Nevertheless, the workers have stood firm, holding daily protests outside the factory. Local police have been called in to arrest them, and bribes offered to union leaders to call off the demonstrations.
Families have been threatened.

Workers at DESA need a union urgently. They complain of poverty wages, long hours and terrible health and safety conditions.

Please take a moment to send off a message to DESA's customers -- the luxury fashion brands -- telling them that you support the DESA workers in their struggle:

http://www.labourstart.org/desa

Tell them that a union is right, not a luxury.

Thanks - and spread the word!

Eric Lee

Green Politics
The German Green Party, much reduced after its years of historic compromise has elected a new broom as co-leader.

This from the BBC -

The first ethnic Turkish head of a German political party has dismissed any comparisons between himself and US President-elect Barack Obama.

Cem Ozdemir, who was elected co-leader of the Green Party at the weekend, told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper such comparisons were "inappropriate".

Closer to home, the Green Party Trade Union Group's latest bulletin is now out.

Lefty Politics
For us lefty trainspotter types, there are some interesting, dare I say even slightly original (if still mainly plagiaristic)new boys on the block of lefty politics these days - for example the International Luxemburgist Network and in Britain The Commune, Group of International Communists who put a libertarian socialist motion to the recent Labour Representation Committee conference -

Social Ownership and Workers Self-Management

After years of being told 'There is No Alternative', the crisis of global capital has shown that the entire system can be brought into question. Furthermore the widespread state intervention to preserve finance capital has brought into question previously conceived ideas of nationalisation and "public ownership" traditionally accepted in the labour movement.

As part of developing a vision of a viable alternative to capitalism our movement needs to develop new ideas of social ownership and abandon statist conceptions which have proven to be an historical failure.

1. State ownership, no matter what pseudonym it goes under is not social ownership. They are in fact two counter-posed things: one cannot equate the state with society.

2. The state is not a neutral force concerned only with the welfare of society and possessing the ability and the means to take measures suited to this end. The state
is not a vehicle to achieve 'socialism' and cannot be relied upon to act as a protective shield against capital.

The capitalist system, whether in its private or state forms of appearance, does not and cannot work in the interest of the majority. It is an unjust system, an economic tyranny where the rulers at all levels make the crucial economic decisions that affect our lives, solely on the basis of what will increase their profits and promote their interests. The Labour Representation Committee considers that the people who should have the deciding voice on the economy and its problems are the people most directly connected with it, the workers who produce the goods and services.

As such the Labour Representation Committee sets as it goal a system of genuine social ownership, organised on the basis of workers' self-management, a system of participatory democracy based on the sovereignty of those who produce the goods and services in society.

Conference recognises that if we are to realise the slogan 'another world is possible' workers' self-management is a necessity in the creation of a new cooperative society based on common, social ownership. Workers' self-management is not something which can be proclaimed or enacted from above, nor is there a blueprint. It requires a process of social self-organisation and creativity from below.

The publication of Building a new common sense, Social Ownership in the 21st Century is a welcome initiative in helping rejuvenate discussion of these issues in the movement.

Conference agrees:

1. To hold a series of forums and conferences on the question of social ownership and workers' self-management, with LEAP and fraternal organisations.

2. To publish a series of pamphlets on making the case for social ownership and workers' self-management, drawing on historical, international and contemporary experiences of the working class.

3. To develop with affiliated trades unions the case for workers' self-management in specific industries.

4. From these discussions and debates to take forward a campaign for workers' selfmanagement and social ownership

International
Interesting blogging here on the situation in Iceland.

Some updates from my blog on Saturday re

Italy

and

The Paris Demo

Remembrance

This week sees the 90th anniversary of the Armistice at the end of the First World War. That brutal slaughter imposed on the young and workers by brutal clashing imperialisms still holds the power to shock in the awesome numbers slaughtered, even if we only count actual combatants killed often in the truly hell-like conditions such as existed in the trenches and no-mans land of the Western Front.

My own maternal grandfather joined up early and found himself in the early slaughter at Ypres. Shot in the chest (he carried the bullet to his dying day in the 1970s) he was shipped back to England, patched up and sent out again, just in time to join Churchill and Kitchener's Dardanelles adventure that led to mass casualties amongst the fresh faced ANZAC forces supported by various redeployed and newly recruited British troops. Wounded again (this time in a place that caused some ribaldry in later years, though not within his earshot!) he survived a hospital ship before returning to England. I owe my existence to the couple of centimetres that was the difference between that first bullet killing him and survival.

We should never forget what massacres our ruling classes will lead us into (and does anyone, looking at the unmissed Tony Blair and lame duck George Bush, pugilistic Putin or xenophobic demagogue Berlusconi really believe that all current leaders are less stupid, brutal and careless with the lives of others than their WW1 predecessors?) Our struggles to create a better world should go on with this in mind when tempted by the siren songs of the mainstream media that the leopard has changed its spots and that nationalism, militarism and fascism, big power rivalry and demagogic adventurers are all a thing of the past. They will only really be things of the past if we, the organised workers, youth and ordinary people of the world make them so.

Here is Chumbawamba's version of the subversively sarcastic graveyard humour song sung by the "poor bloody infantry" of that conflict - Hanging On the Old Barbed Wire.
( http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_K1BdDVvV9Q )

Peter Tatchell To Speak After John Osborne Play In London

A Patriot for Me – by John Osborne

Followed by

The State of the Queer Nation - with Peter Tatchell

The New Players Theatre
Thursday 30 October 2008


7.30pm: A Patriot for Me – by John Osborne

10.30pm: Peter Tatchell Q and A on the play and on the unfinished battle for LGBT human rights.

Ticket price includes admission to both events.

In the post-performance Q and A, gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell discusses the issues raised in John Osborne's acclaimed play,
A Patriot for Me. He offers a perspective on the cultural changes since the play was written, and the still unequal status of LGBT people in contemporary Britain.

This new version of A Patriot For Me by John Osborne is directed by David Harris. It is set in the 1900s. Alfred Redl is an exemplary Austro-Hungarian soldier, working up through the ranks to Colonel whilst battling with his homosexuality. His struggle takes him on a riveting journey, through turbulent relationships, drag balls and espionage.

First performed in 1965, this play met huge opposition from the chief censor, the Lord Chamberlain, who only allowed it to be performed to membership club audiences. It went on to win The Evening Standard Best Play of The Year and crossed new boundaries in the representation of gay lives and loves.

Peter Tatchell praises the huge gains in equal rights for LGBT people over the last decade, but identifies key areas of discrimination that remain to be rectified. He is the Green Party's parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, began campaigning for queer freedom in 1969, aged 17. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankurst, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, he adapted their direct action methods and invented a few of his own.

The New Players Theatre
The Arches

Villiers Street

London

WC2N 6NG
www.newplayerstheatre.com

Box Office: 020 7478 0135
Tickets: £20, £15 (concs) & £12.50 for 10+

Peter Tatchell's website is here.

The Bosses' Crisis And How To Fight Back - Lessons From The 1930s

I was recently reading the book The Industrial Workers Of The World - Its First 100 Years by Fred W Thompson and J Bekken and the following passages on how the famous union faced the threats and attacks of the 1930s after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 is particularly relevant to the unfolding global economic crisis. The way in which the IWW faced the implications of the Depression shows how working people can not only resist the inevitable attacks from the ruling elites and bosses eager to make workers pay the cost of the rulers' own greed and gambling, but how ordinary folks and their organisations can take advantage of the situation to build new solidarity and strength.

From Chapter 12 - (p149, Red Sun Press, Boston, Mass. 2006 edition)The Stimulus Of Depression (1930-1940) (My links added for clarification)

The Stock Market crashed in October 1929, as accurately predicted by the Industrial Worker. Constriction of business activity, layoffs, wage cuts and the Big Depression followed, just as the IWW had right along been saying was the certain consequence of the increasing exploitation of labor. The IWW had no doubt what labor should do: resist all wage cuts to make them expensive; organize the jobless so that they would no longer menace those who still had jobs, while these fought to cut the workday and raise real hourly rates; back all demands with the determination that if employers did not employ, the working class could dispense with their disservices and establish planned abundance.

The IWW made a tremendous propaganda effort. Its effects cannot be measured, but the outstanding fact of the thirties remains this: for the first time a labor movement, instead of shrinking in a depression, grew as never before. This turn from abjectness preceded Roosevelt and the Blue Eagle. AFL propaganda of the early thirties was craft union echoing of the assurance that business was sound. The various radical propagandas focused on political issues. The healthy change in labor attitudes can thus largely be attributed to the millions of peices of IWW literature, straight to the point, issued at factories or where the unemployed gathered, and to the IWW soapboxers who held meetings daily at factory gates and at street corners in the evening, establishing regular schedules in even out-of-the-way places that they had to reach by boxcars or hitchhiking.

The propaganda effort was constructive, educational, and put out by flat-broke members of a flat-broke union. The IWW had never recovered from the 1924 split. It lost its building and printing plant into which it had sunk all its resources. To economize, in 1929 it replaced its various industrial union offices with a Clearing House run by its general secretary. Even so, the general secretary taking office in November 1932 found $29.00 cash all told with which to pay back wages, run the office, and pay accumulated printing bills and the industrial union funds that had been loaned to General Office. Within a year it was all in the black again, but with less than a thousand dollars to run on.......

(p150-151)
In February 1931 the IWW stirred up its own members and sympathizers to greater activity with a leaflet "Bread Lines or Picket Lines" very widely distributed. This urged that the unemployed organize either in the IWW or out of it, so that they could assure those still working that they would not scab; and then, by demonstrations outside plants that cut pay or worked longer than normal days, promote action to abate the depression. In execution the programme became much modified: the unemployed helped picket lines in strikes called independently of this programme; it was approximated among job-seekers at out-of-town construction jobs, for example Cle Ellum, and the Portland Unemployed Union did assure success to a small loggers' strike. These Unemployed Unions were formed to provide housing and food for footloose jobless members while they carried on IWW agitation. The UU at 2005 W. Harrison, Chicago, held meetings outdoors nightly throughout the city, sold over a thousand IWW papers a week and many pamphlets, solicited their own food in the large markets, and defrayed rent etc. from proceeds of social affairs. A similar venture in New York made publicity even out of its move from E. 10th Street to larger quarters at 133 W. 14th, and accommodated personnel for an organization drive in eastern industrial centers that did much educational work though it secured few members. In Seattle the less spectacular 6 Hour Committee did its most effective work through influence in other unions to demand shorter workdays. The Portland UU beside housing soapboxers and leaflet peddlers, managed to provide the food for the unorganized lumber workers at Biex Logging when they struck and won them a 25 percent pay boost. The chief result of this agitation everywhere was that the morale of the unemployed became such that workers dared to strike.

All this now has particular relevance in Britain where Government Ministers like Purnell, undeterred by the worsening economic situation, are itching to lay into the growing numbers of unemployed with a round of vicious "welfare reforms" that do not go far enough for the likely successors to the Brown government. Meanwhile even in the relatively extensively organized public sector in Britain the largely Labourite-led and sectional unions have for the most part demonstrated their inability to work in a coordinated fashion to fight pay cuts also known as below-inflation "rises" - divided they fall. Truly, time for the strategy and tactics of One Big Union.

Pensioners Step Up Campaign In Centenary Year

2008 is the Centenary of the state pension in Britain, introduced after a successful campaign by unions, social reformers and elderly people in 1908. I attended a rally in Nottingham at the weekend to celebrate this milestone social advance and gather support for the campaign for a decent state pension. The renewed campaign by pensioners is very timely given the rocketing prices of essentials and the economic crash and its likely effect on those on fixed incomes and those who make good use of public services. I have to say I am always impressed by senior citizens campaigners - younger activists and trades unionists have a lot to learn from the persistence, good organisation, radical motivation, mobilising strength and energy of the older generation. The good point was made that we must all be united in the struggle for social justice and this means solidarity with those fighting both pensioner poverty and child poverty.

A lobby of Parliament is planned for Wednesday 22nd October with a rally at Westminster Central Hall at 12 noon. It is good that many national unions are backing this day of action, let us hope they can deliver supporters on the day.
Support for the 4th October Keep The Promise event on Child Poverty was also raised at the Nottingham meeting.

I am adding the National Pensioners Convention to my campaigning organisation links list.

National Pensioners Convention Declaration
DECLARATION
This Convention declares that every pensioner has the right to choice, dignity, independence and security as an integral and valued member of society. These rights require an adequate state pension linked to average earnings, comprehensive free health care and concessionary travel on public transport

There is also a Pensioners' Charter-

PENSIONERS' CHARTER

Every man and woman on reaching state pensionable age will have the right to:

*a basic state pension set above the official poverty level and linked to average male earnings.
*a warm and comfortable home.
*free health care treatment based on clinical need and an annual comprehensive health check.
*free community care and services to assist living at home.
*free long-term care.
*free nationwide travel on all public and local transport.
*free education, access to and participation in leisure and cultural activities.
*goods, services and benefits without age discrimination.
*active engagement and consultation on national and local issues affecting older citizens.
*advocacy, dignity, respect and fair treatment in all aspects of their lives.

As a first step towards establishing these rights we call on the government to implement the Pensioners’ Manifesto.

The First Volume of the Autobiography of Dave Douglass

Dave Douglass is something of a celebrity, even a legend, for some union radicals, anarchists, socialists and working class activists in Britain. For others he is a somewhat controversial and ideologically eclectic figure, a view tending to be confirmed in such minds by the forthright views on the Climate Camp and environmental movement that he expressed recently, and also the way he expressed them. I first met Dave 25 odd years ago when he was a leading NUM figure at Hatfield Main Colliery near Doncaster and I was a student with anarcho-syndicalist views, doing my bit for the Miners' cause in the ill-fated strike. ( A period interestingly - though controversially and painfully - novelised in David Peace's book GB84)

Dave D's History of the National Union Of Mineworkers is on their website here.

Whatever else might be said about Dave he is usually brutally honest in a way that both Geordies and Yorkshire folk are renowned for. He has also had a very interesting life - when I moved in his circles in the 80s and early 90s he already had a history of mixing and adapting his own versions of Bolshevism and Buddhism, syndicalism and hedonism, anarchism and vegetarianism, heavy theory and a wicked sense of humour. He latterly became a bit of a TV celeb after one of those programmes where opposites are brought together - in Dave's case a class warrior spending some time living with a family of landed gentry. Dave remains a fighter for his class and his beliefs as a fellow worker in the IWW, now returned to his native North East.

So I look forward to reading the first volume of Dave's projected autobiographical Trilogy, Geordies - Wa Mental which is just coming out. I have just received the following anonymous review and publication details -

Geordies — Wa Mental
David John Douglass
ChristieBooks


A great American author once advised anyone wanting to become a real writer to tell the truth until it hurts, and then to go on telling it. I don't know if David Douglass has ever come across this advice, but his autobiography is far and away the most honest piece of writing I have read for many a long year. And whether or not it hurt him to write it, it certainly hurts to read it but only in the sense that page after page is so hilarious that the reader laughs aloud. Personally, I laughed till I gasped for breath and I'm not even a Geordie, but the sort of hard to impress Yorkshireman who will gloomily say of a comedian:
'Aye, he's all right, I suppose, if you like laughing.'
Not that Douglass sets out to be a comedian. Far from it.
His book has a serious purpose. He dips his pen in vitriol as he describes his childhood in a damp pit cottage and the dismally barren schooling that turned him into a rebel at an early age.
And what else could a highly intelligent boy become, relegated to the despised 'C' stream and told by cane wielding teachers that he was 'cocky' because. pursuing his interests, he read books borrowed from the adult library. Soon the young rebel became a revolutionary, trying for size a succession of movements that sought, with varying degrees of realism, to overthrow the system. As a teenager he seems to have taken part in every sort of street battle that the 1960s offered him and those of like mind, culminating in the great 1968 Battle of Grosvenor Square. He gives the best available description from inside of the 'love' movement of the 1960s,that 'raggyarsed working class hippyism'.
But some of the most effective writing in the book tells graphically of his demanding stint 'in the cauldron of hell', down pits in Durham and Yorkshire. David Douglass was, and remains, a working-class fighter, fiercely proud of his north eastern roots, fiercely loyal to his friends and his class. He is also a born story teller, whose characters come urgently to life on the page.
Without doubt, his brave and gripping account of his early life is destined to become a classic.

New from ChristieBooks
Published September 29, 2008
ISBN: 1-873976-34-8
Pages 352
Size: 129mm x 196mm
Publisher: ChristieBooks
Published: 29 Sep, 2008
Binding: Paperback
Price: £9.95
Market: Memoir
Distribution:CentralBooksLtd
99WallisRoad,LondonE95LN

Tel:08454589911
Fax:08454589912

email:orders@centralbooks.comwww.centralbooks.com

ChristieBooks
POBox 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 1ZS
Tel: 07818416851
email: christie@btclick.com

David John Douglass
Geordies — Wa Mental

Geordies — Wa Mental, is the first volume in the
autobiographical trilogy (Stardust and Coaldust) of David John Douglass, a coalminer for 40 years. It tells the fascinating story of the radicalisation of a working-class Geordie ‘baby-boomer’ during the first twenty years of his life and provides a unique and valuable insight into the political and cultural movements of the 1960s.

Latest from Peter Tatchell

Two recent pieces from Green Party left campaigner and human rights activist Peter Tatchell have come to my attention. In the first he looks at the attacks of the Ahmadinejad regime on trade unions in Iran -

Iran's war on trade unions

President Ahmadinejad is intensifying the repression of labour activists. We should support them in their fight for basic rights.

By Peter Tatchell

The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 18 August 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/18/iran.middleeast

There is a petition on this subject on the Labourstart website that Peter links in his article.

Secondly this week Peter commented on the passing of the former Labour MP Leo Abse who spearheaded changes to the law on homosexuality in Britain in the 1960s -

Leo Abse – Appreciation and disappointment

London – 20 August 2008

"Leo Abse will be remembered by the gay community with a mixture of appreciation and disappointment," said gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

He was commenting on the death of the former MP, Leo Abse, who helped secure the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in 1967.

"Although gay people felt huge relief following the passage of his
1967 gay law reform, we were also angry because his bill perpetuated the criminalisation of many aspects of gay life. It was not the liberation that many of us had wanted and expected," added Mr Tatchell.

"His homosexual law reform bill decriminalised sex between men, but only in narrow circumstances. It retained many discriminatory
provisions, such as the unequal age of consent of 21. These
inequalities were not finally repealed until 2003.

"The Homosexual Law Reform Society was often exasperated by Leo's expectation that it should lobby MPs to win support for his bill, while he ignored their concerns that his limited reform proposals maintained homophobic discrimination.

"Mr Abse could be quite arrogant and patronising towards gay people.
He had a sometimes dismissive, disapproving attitude towards the gay human rights movement; believing that law reform should be left to politicians like him and that gay organisations should play, at best, a marginal, backroom role," said Mr Tatchell.

Chris Moncrieff's Press Association obituary for Leo Abse on the Guardian website is here.

Weekly Links - 18/08/2008

Environmental Campaigns
Friends of The Earth in Britain have updated their anti-incineration web pages which now include a link to an interactive map showing 150 locations nominated as possible sites for the proposed 80 new incinerators around the UK, and a draft protest letter - all here
As FOE say, the incinerators will waste valuable resources and contribute to emissions. What is more, many will be energy inefficient by not making use of the heat energy in CHP arrangements.

Unions and work
The TUC's handbook for union green workplace representatives is now available online here - http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/gogreenatwork.pdf

The TUC is also supporting a World Day for Decent Work that is taking place on Tuesday 7th October.

The Institute of Employment Rights is running a conference to update activists and union lawyers on changes in employment law on 15th October in London - more here.

Blogs
The Inveresk Street Ingrate blog has some William Morris resources including a downloadable talk given in 1982 by Steve Coleman. All this here.

James at La Lutte Continue blog reported on one of the examples of over zealous policing at the climate camp last week.

Socialist Unity Blog has pics and details of the anti-fascist mobilisation in Derbyshire at the weekend, and an article by Louise on the latest from the DWP.

A Very Public Sociologist blog also has a report from the Derbyshire demo.

On his blog Nation of Duncan, Duncan Money discusses a recent IWCA document on Economics and Immigration.

The GPTU blog has a post on the actions being taken against the Mugabe regime by South African union COSATU and others.

Blue Green Earth/ESEI blog has an interesting post on Sci Fi utopias.

Dave Osler commented that the "Left doesn't have to take sides" on the Georgia/Russia conflict on his blog Daves Part and sparked a debate in his comments section.

Lenin's Tomb blog has some interesting stats on social and economic conditions in the USA.

Jim has launched another "Best Green Blogs" thing on his Daily (Maybe) blog.


The Left
The programme is now availble for The Convention of The Left, running alongside the stage managed Labour Party private-lobbying-festival, sorry, "conference", in Manchester in September. Manchester Green Party are running a session on Transport at the Convention of the Left. All the sessions are discussions so the named contributors won't be giving a talk but will be expected to lead the discussion.

Advance Notice - 1888 Bryant and May Strike Commemoration

Later this year a meeting is being held by trade unionists in London to remember a very important strike that took place in 1888. More info on what became known as the London Match Girls strike here.

The London matchgirls strike of 1888 was a strike of the women and teenage girls working at the Bryant and May Factory in Bow, London. The strike was prompted by the poor working conditions in the match factory, including fourteen-hour work days, poor pay, excessive fines, and the severe health complications of working with yellow (or white) phosphorus, such as phossy jaw.[1]

Led by Socialist activist Annie Besant, with the support of Herbert Burrows, the strike began in June 1888. Three weeks later, the factory owners agreed to rehire the strikers and end the fine system

Meeting details

Dear Comrades,

GLATUC has organised a Celebration of the 1888 Bryant & May Matchgirls
Stike on Saturday 18th October 1.30 for 2.00pm at TUC, Congress House, Gt
Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS (nearest tube Tottenham Court Road)
supported by Unite London & Eastern Region, CWU London Region & SERTUC

All Welcome

Speakers:

Louise Raw - active trade unionist and researcher of the Strike

Professor Mary Davis - Professor of Labour History, London Metro
University - active trade unionist, member of the TUC Women's Committee
and founder and initiator of the Charter for Women Campaign

Teresa Mackay - active trade unionist and Regional Organiser for Women Race and Equalities for Unite the Union/T&G Section in Region 1

Christine Coates - active trade unionist and Librarian of the TUC Library Collections at the London Metro University which has created a website with original records from the Strike.

Come along and learn the lessons from this Strike which are still relevant
today

Bonekickers - Expensively Recycled Garbage

Good grief! BBC1's new Tueday night drama serial Bonekickers seemed like proof that if you get one TV success story under your belt you can pitch just about any old tripe and get funding. Bonekickers was like a cack handed lashing together of the archaelogical team of Time Team with the ludicrous plotline of the Da Vinci Code and the breathless running around and "shorthand TV" of adventure series like Primeval, Torchwood and Spooks. It managed to be less than the sum of its parts - appallingly cheesy dialogue, a plot that was easily predictable to anyone who has read Dan Brown's book or watched any of the above serials and a cringeworthy attempt to appear relevant in the first episode that involved anti-muslim christian fundamentalist bigotry.
We perhaps should have suspected this would have been the case after the disappointment that was Ashes to Ashes, the follow up to Life on Mars - the programme that made a name for Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah.

Where Life on Mars was original and witty, Ashes To Ashes was derivative and predictable. Where Philip Glenister's character DCI Hunt was a funny portrayal of a stock character from the 1970s in Life On Mars - with views that allowed viewers to have a laugh both at Neanderthal 70's males and the "PC" 21st Century views of John Simm's time travelling cop, situating themselves somewhere in between - in Ashes to Ashes the affectionate response people had had to Hunt was taken as carte blanche to present him and his views as a positive role model and the series came out with some appallingly reactionary crap, stereotypes and messages.

But Bonekickers managed to be even worse, you had to keep reminding yourself that this was expensive "quality" BBC TV you were watching and not some cheap lowest common denominator ITV pap. Hugh Bonneville had some lines that were supposed to be funny, but most of them fell flat, and the rest of the dialogue was painful. The far-right Christian character was so caricatured as to be unbelievable, but was given "topical themes" which may have meant that his oft repeated speeches actually got a sympathetic response from some of the audience, whilst allowing themselves to distance themselves from the ludicrous portrayal. If the message was liberal (as suggested by the "peace and love" portrayal of a Muslim community leader that one of the "soldiers of God" beheaded) then it was put forward in such a stupid way as to negate itself - likewise the treatment of the religious subject, all "woo-woo it's a miracle!" one minute showing the atheists in the team in a bad light, and then throwing the miracle into a more explicable light later to keep most of the audience on board regardless of faith. This just came across as tacky compromise - nothing wrong with being enigmatic and not offering solutions, but the way it was done here was just silly and obvious.
Sorry Life on Mars guys, we now know that the Emperor has no clothes!

Celebrate England's Glorious Tradition (Of Rebellion!)

Today, April 23rd, is England's National Day - though sometimes you wouldn't know it and I am typing this before going to work - the refusal of the British establishment to grant a holiday on this day perhaps qualifying as a minor example of what the old English rebels used to call the "Norman Yoke". Appropriately for a country of many inflowing races, religious and secular currents and cultures the Saint celebrated was a foreigner and is shared with such places as Georgia, Russia, Portugal, Greece and Catalonia. (Incidentally, the Catalans, I believe, have the delightful tradition of giving their loved one a book and a rose on this day) The day is also the alleged birthday/death day? of England's most famous playwright William Shakespeare, though what can be said about this elusive figure with confidence is a matter of historical controversy.

It seems to me that the National Day of England offers an opportunity to celebrate some of the better political examples of English history and some of the heroes and fighters that offer lessons for today. Ironically many of these are what the current establishment would term rebels and malcontents, even "traitors" - but as a Republican and a seeker of freedom and equality claims of treachery to most of the gangsters and tyrants that have sat on the English and then British throne should probably be seen as a plus point, and at least understandable.

So, from the legendary Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to feed the poor, to John Ball, Jack Straw, and Wat Tyler and the revolting peasants who rose against the first Poll Tax, right through to the Poll Tax rebels of more recent history, there is an honourable history and romantic legends of revolt, rebellion and resistance.
Let us today remember the known and unrecorded fighters who strove for an England that was fairer, more just and more free. Let us remember:

The Peasants' Revolt

John Lilburne and the Levellers

Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers

The Western Rising

Tom Paine


William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft

Shelley

The Corresponding Societies

Jeremiah Brandreth and the Pentrich Rebels

The Chartists

The Co-operators

William Morris

The Suffragettes, particularly Sylvia Pankhurst

The Syndicalists

The squatters after the Second World War

The Miners' Strike

The Poll Tax Revolt

I'll be celebrating 'em all with a pint of English Ale or Porter and perhaps watching a multinational Mancunian team play a multinational Catalonian one!

Bhopal Marchers Have Reached Delhi

I blogged back in February about the struggle of the survivors, relatives and supporters of victims of the Bhopal Disaster (December 1984) and their renewed march on Delhi after the Indian government failed to live up to previous pledges. The marchers have now reached Delhi. Here is the press release issued at the end of the arduous protest march:

Bhopal Survivors Arrive on Foot to Remind PM of Unkept Promises

28 MARCH, 2008. NEW DELHI – Marking two years since their last padayatra from Bhopal to Delhi, 50 people, including survivors of the 1984 gas tragedy, their children, people exposed to contaminated drinking water and their suupporters, today concluded their second 800 km march by walking from Nizamuddin park to Jantar Mantar. "We were forced to undertake this grueling walk because the PM failed to keep his word. This time, we are not going back until we get a public declaration from him that he will deliver on his promise," said Hazra Bee, a survivor and one of the padayatris.

The PMO has rejected a request for an appointment with the PM, and two further requests have not elicited a reply. However,international support for the survivors is pouring in. More than 1300 faxes from 18 countries have already reached the PMO, prompting officials there to threaten survivors with legal action. Yesterday, members of the Scottish parliament marched to the Indian embassy in Edinburgh, even as other Bhopal supporters in London went to the Indian embassy there to submit a memorandum urging the Prime Minister to meet the Bhopalis' demands.

On April 16, 2006, the Prime Minister ended a 21 day strike, including a 6-day hunger strike by the Bhopalis, by promising to meet the demands of the survivors. The survivors had demanded an empowered Commission to implement social, medical and economic rehabilitation schemes for survivors and their children, in addition to cleaning up Union Carbide's toxic wastes, providing clean water to water-affected communities, and taking legal action against Dow Chemical and Union Carbide. However, the PM suggested a Coordinating Committee to oversee implementation of rehabilitation schemes and environmental remediation.

Over the last two years, the Coordination Committee has had three meetings and accomplished nothing. More than 25,000 people continue to consume poison-tainted groundwater in the absence of reliable and good quality water supply. More than 5000 tons of toxic wastes remain buried and spread in and around the factory site, and no efforts have been taken to contain them or export them to the US for final disposal. No rehabilitation schemes have been implemented.

Government inaction on rehabilitation and environmental remediation has placed Bhopalis at the receiving end of two disasters – the 1984 gas leak and the ongoing water contamination -- both with pronounced effects on children and future generations. Despite a 1991 Supreme Court order directing the Government to extend insurance benefits to 100,000 gas-affected children, not one child has been covered, leading to a spurt in destitution among families with sick children. In contamination-affected communities, congenital deformities among newborns is a rising trend.

The future generations are in danger. That, say Bhopal survivors, is why any Commission that is set up has to execute its schemes over at least 30 years. The Bhopalis estimate that the Government needs to invest in a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore to provide an annual budget of Rs. 100 crores for the Commission throughout its term.

In contrast to the inaction on Bhopal, the Government has, in the last two years, openly advanced the cause of Dow Chemical and Union Carbide. Information unearthed from the PMO through RTI indicates that ambassador Ronen Sen, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Ratan Tata, P. Chidambaram and Kamalnath have all written letters supporting Dow Chemical. In response, the Cabinet Secretary has suggested exonerating Dow Chemical keeping in mind the scope of investments by Dow and other US companies in India.

In less than a decade, Dow Chemical has chalked up an impressive list of violations of law and due process. In February 2007, Dow caught for paying more than Rs. 80 lakhs in bribes to Indian agriculture ministry officials to register three toxic pesticides. In 2005, Indian Oil revoked a technology deal with Dow after it found out that Dow was trying to sell Union Carbide's technology by lying that it was its own. Recently, Dow has managed to convince Government of India to approve the sale of Union Carbide's technology to Reliance Industries despite the fact that a 1992 court order directs the Government to confiscate all Union Carbide's assets in India.

"This is a repeat of the betrayal of 1989 where the Government colluded with Union Carbide to shortchange the people of Bhopal on the compensation settlement," said Satinath Sarangi, another padayatri and a long-time Bhopal activist from Bhopal Group for Information and Action. "23,000 people have died, and the collusion still continues. We're determined to break this corporate-Government nexus that plays havoc with people's lives."

A daily account of the 2008 march can be found here.

"Homo Consumens"

"Homo Consumens is the man whose main goal is not primarily to own things, but to consume more and more, and thus to compensate for his inner vacuity, passivity, loneliness and anxiety. In a society characterized by giant enterprises and giant industrial, governmental and labor bureaucracies, the individual, who has no control over his circumstances of work, feels impotent, lonely, bored, and anxious. At the same time, the need for profit of the big consumer industries, through the medium of advertising, transforms him into a voracious man, an eternal suckling who wants to consume more and more and for whom everything becomes an article of consumption - cigarettes, liquor, sex, movies, television, travel and even education, books and lectures. New artificial needs are created and man's tastes are manipulated. (The character of homo consumens in its more extreme forms is a well known psycho-pathological phenomenon. It is to be found in many cases of depressed or anxious persons who escape into overeating, overbuying, or alcoholism to compensate for the hidden depression and anxiety.) The greed for consumption, an extreme form of what Freud called the "oral-receptive character," is becoming the dominant psychic force in present-day industrialized society. Homo consumens is under the illusion of happiness, while unconsciously he suffers from his boredom and passivity. The more power he has over machines, the more powerless he becomes as a human being; the more he consumes, the more he becomes a slave to the ever increasing needs which the industrial system creates and manipulates. He mistakes thrill and excitement for joy and happiness and material comfort for aliveness; satisfied greed becomes the meaning of life, striving for it a new religion. The freedom to consume becomes the essence of human freedom."

Erich Fromm, "The Application of Humanist Psychoanalysis to Marx's Theory" in Socialist Humanism:An International Symposium (New York: Doubleday, 1965) Pre-dating the latest works of Oliver James by 40 odd years!

Fromm on Nationalisation

So Northern Rock is to be nationalised, the first major nationalisation in Britain since the 1970s. No doubt a lot of nonsense will now be spouted, indeed is being spouted by the Tories already. But then Tories are well known for spouting nonsense, as are the spin merchants of New Labour. Some on the left should know better though. Perhaps heed should be taken of wise old Erich Fromm, writing back in 1960:

The misinterpretation of socialism as a purely economic movement, and of the nationalization of the means of production as its principal aim, occurred in the right wing and in the left wing of the socialist movement. The reformist leaders of the socialist movement in Europe considered it their primary aim to elevate the economic status of the worker within the capitalist system, and they considered as their most radical measures the nationalization of certain big industries. Only recently have many realized that the nationalization of an enterprise is in itself not the realization of socialism, that to be managed by a publicly appointed bureaucracy is not basically different for the worker than being managed by a privately appointed bureaucracy.

Erich Fromm, Let Man Prevail, New York, 1960.

8 February 1886 : "Black Monday"

Today is the anniversary of the events that became known as "Black Monday" - a riotous episode in London following the calling of a meeting of the unemployed in Trafalgar Square by the Tory-subsidized "Fair Trade Association". The Social Democratic Federation, one of the main left parties of the day, turned up intending to take the meeting over. William Morris and the Socialist League felt this was likely to be a "faction fight" and so did not attend in a formal way, though many Socialist League members were there to observe. An hour before the FTA meeting was to commence the socialists took over the square and the massed crowds of unemployed workers, largely from the East End, were addressed by the SDF leadership from the balustrade of the National Gallery. They then headed off with a crowd of around 10,000 towards Hyde Park. This took them past various clubs and aristocratic hang-outs - when they passed the Liberal Reform Club, some of the servants pelted them with shoes and nail brushes. The crowd threw stones in return. The unemployed were hooted by Tories at the Carlton Club and jeered in return. As the mass progressed up St James St they discovered metal bars and loose paving stones and many of the Club windows were shattered. In Picadilly people started looting shops.
When the SDF leaders and entourage arrived at Hyde Park another inflammatory round of speeches was given and the groups of rioters turned their attention Eastwards up North Audley St and Oxford Street, breaking windows and looting as they went.
The riot led to a public panic rather like the hysteria that followed some of the Mayday events of the 1990s, or the 1980s inner city riots. Whole areas of London saw shops putting up their shutters, rumours flew of a vast "East End Army" moving across the City towards the prosperous West.

The above shows us how there is nothing new under the sun...

An interesting viewpoint is the response of William Morris, reported in the excellent biography William Morris by Fiona MacCarthy. Morris wrote his view of the events to the Rev. John Glasse of Edinburgh, and his opinions tend to contradict the impression of fluffy green liberalism sometimes ascribed to him by latter day admirers.

As to Monday's riot, of course I look at it as a mistake to go in for a policy of riot, all the more as I feel pretty certain that the Socialists will one day have to fight seriously. Because though it is quite true, that if labour could organize itself properly the enemy could not even dream of resisting, yet that organization could not possibly keep pace with the spread of discontent which will accompany the break up of the old system, so we shall be forced to fight......
Yet I do not agree with you that Monday's affair will hurt the movement. I think it will be of service: any opposition to law and order in the streets is of use to us, if the price is not too high ......For the rest an English mob is always brutal at any rate until it rises to heroism. Altogether taken I think we must look upon this affair as an incident of the the Revolution, and so far encouraging: the shop wrecking was partly a grotesque practical joke (quite in the English manner)at the expense of the upper classes.
(p534, Faber and Faber, Paperback edition 1995)