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 )

Weekly Links 19/10/08

Green Politics
The Campaign For Better Transport is running a campaign to get UK MPs to support a Transport Bill amendment to make it greener.
Michael Palin is a leading light of the Campaign for Better Transport and is speaking at a CFBT fundraiser at the Southbank Centre on 13th November.
Michael is like me, Sheffield born, so local CFBT campaigns around the Woodhead Tunnel and the Peak District will have a special interest for him.

Workers and Unions
I reported on Friday about the PCS strike ballot. On Tuesday of this week the Union is holding a meeting at Westminster to discuss the so-called welfare "reforms" proposed in the government's Green Paper.

There was a general strike in Italy this week - good to know that resistance to the Berlusconi regime continues.

From the USA, Daniel Gross has an article on the Counterpunch website about the case of Alexandra Svoboda, an IWW activist subject to Police brutality during a peaceful march last year -

A peaceful union march is brutally attacked by police. A union activist’s leg is horribly disfigured and nearly amputated. Maimed possibly for life, she is charged with multiple felony offenses.

The battleground is not the coalfields of Harlan County in the 1930s or 1970s; it's not an example of anti-union violence in Colombia or the Philippines. Our setting is present day Providence, Rhode Island.

Palestine
An exhibition of Art for Palestine, by artists from Palestine, the Arab World, China and the UK - Occupied Space 2008 is to be on show in London for the first two weeks in November. The exhibition is organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

And Finally ...A Bit of Music
Finally this week, a bit of music. The US election campaign has unleashed further waves of distortion and propaganda from the established media. Meanwhile in Britain we have had the unedifying spectacle of a New Labour Minister (incidentally a much unloved National Union Of Students leader in my days of study) playing to the reactionary media gallery on the topic of immigration. One of the best agit-prop songs on media distortion of the last few decades was Billy Bragg's "It Says Here" - a song that he tends to adapt to changing circumstances for live appearances. Here is a youthful angry version from You Tube. Speaking of adapting songs to changing circumstances - have a listen to one of Bragg's later versions of "Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards" here.
One of Bragg's popular radical songs is The World Turned Upside Down about the Diggers of the English Revolution - explained here and sung by songwriter Leon Rosselson, a legend of rebel protest music in Britain whose songs have been recorded by a variety of artists.

Poverty Blogging

Today is a global day of blogging on the subject of poverty.
In my humble contribution I am going to link to some historic musical contributions on this subject, some with a good left-wing political perspective.

There are various versions of a traditional weavers song -including a popular recent one from Chumbawamba - Poverty Knock

Chumbawamba's version is here -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nfwJ387cs00&feature=related

When people are poor, it does not mean that they should lie down and be patronised, or be prey to snake oil merchants no matter how "charitable". Some of the great songs popular in the hard times of the 1920s and 1930s in the USA not only poked fun at the religious organisations that sought to exploit misery to gain recruits alongside their charity, they showed a confidence in the power of poor, working and unemployed people to take control of their situation and make a better world. Maybe we need more of that spirit today and less grandstanding from popstars and politicians...

Here are Harry McClintock's Hallelujah, I'm a Bum and Big Rock Candy Mountain -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yC0s3SiY8yc&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CS6UmLhSK9U&feature=related

Beyond this gentle mockery, the singers associated with the Wobblies, the Industrial union spread by boxcar riders and itinerant workers across the States in the years before, during and after World War One (and still existing today) showed the strength that could be gained to fight poverty through fighting in unity for better wages and working conditions, with an eye on the final prize.

Solidarity Forever -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kYiKdJoSsb8

Power In The Union
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KW58m7H2HK4&NR=1

Of course, as an ecosocialist blogger I cannot avoid mentioning the importance of environmental limits and climate change when discussing the question of poverty. It will be the poor who will pay the highest price for the inability of governments and corporations to tackle these problems. It is a good sign that alongside the long term social campaigning of the Green Party in England and Wales, groups such as Friends of The Earth are now trying to tackle issues from the point of view of "environmental justice" - a case in point being their recent challenge to the UK government over fuel poverty.

Review - Steve Tilston, Ziggurat

Last night I was privileged to attend a gig by a stalwart of the British folk scene, Steve Tilston. Folk (and occasional Blues) singer-songwriter Tilston has new album out called Ziggurat, and he played a variety of tracks from it last night, along with some old favourites like Slip Jigs and Reels (a version of which has been recorded by Fairport Convention).

The songs on Ziggurat are a combination of reflective compositions inspired by incidents in his life, traditional songs, and political songs.

I particularly enjoyed Steve's political songs - his reflection on English identity and an alternative pantheon of radical English heroes and heroines ( including Tom Paine, John Ball, mass trespassers, striking match girls, Levellers and Tolpuddle Martyrs) in Speaking in Tongues and his very timely observations on City greed and the financial manipulation of the "new Coiners" in A Pretty Penny.

And behind their hedge,
They don't plant wheat,
They don't cut corn,
they don't pick tea,
They don't dig coal,
They don't forge steel.
They just push numbers about. They push too far, we bail 'em out,
Keep their fingers firm on fortune's wheel.

There is also an anti-war song, The Spoils of War and reflecting on destruction in Iraq and the threat of war with Iran gave him the title of the collection, Ziggurat.

These are supplemented by some lovely ballads like After Summer Rain and a traditional song taken from the wonderfully titled "Holroyd's Yorkshire Ballads" - The Fisher Lad of Whitby.

Well worth a listen.

Utah Phillips

Sad news that the great IWW activist and songwriter Utah Phillips has died. More from David Rovics Songwriter's Notebook Blog here.



Here is the official family obituary posted on the IWW website.