Petes' Radical Poetry Site

"The Treason of the Intellectuals"

2012-01-31T13:28:00.000-08:00

"The Treason of the Intellectuals, and other political verse" by Sean Matgamna includes political verse previously published in Solidarity and its forerunners. All proceeds from sales of the book, above printing and dispatch costs, go to the AWL fund drive.

£9.99. Buy by clicking on the button below.

Verse against the odds

Author: Jill Mountford

This collection includes 60-odd pieces of political verse written over the last quarter-century, most of them originally published in Solidarity or in one of its forerunners.

To devote yourself to the cause of the self-emancipation of humanity, to revolutionary socialism, in an epoch of catastrophes for that project, is to expose the heart as well as the mind to the corrosions of repeated setback, disappointment and defeat. Some of the pieces in this collection celebrate working-class struggle and the great working-class victory in 1917. Many explore the experience of defeat and the aftermath.

They represent the work of “the heart” as well as of the mind in engaging with these corrosive forces — the loss and disgust, the anger and hatred, the love, the hope, the vulnerabilities of the point of view that sees all of humanity as its family.

In search for a standpoint that can contain that burden without breaking, you have to work on it, tend to it... to interrogate thought and feeling as they are fused and lived in the subsoil of politics. The disciplines of political verse can provide the space to do that.

Two pieces here, “Remember” and “In Assisi”, embody the keynote theme and motif that binds the collection together: the moment of youth in which the “moment of the future” is glimpsed and then looked back on, even when “youth-set Truth” becomes “afraid to brave despair”.

These pieces and others in this collection urge readers to arm themselves against fear and despair by reconquering the moments when “fear did not unnerve high hope” and “douse the blaze”.

There are many “Phoenix”-like images in the collection. In one of the longer pieces, “Sunday before war”, we see the bad Phoenix, a despair that takes flight and hovers above us. Helicopters will rise from fires fed by “oil-fields, cities, seas and babies”.

The war in question is the first war against Iraq in 1991. A cold winter morning in Whitechapel market sets the scene for anguish about the impending catastrophe of war to be, expresssed in verse. “Swirling blades” are rehearsing for the coming destruction above “mad ripper Jack’s wrecked lanes”. The verbal association links the individual butchery by the maniac serial killer to the serial butchery of an imperialist power. The maniac scattered the remains of women on Whitechapel’s pavements. Class society scatters the remains of the old, the sick, the “wholly dispossessed” on those same streets.

The piece entitled “I learn to tell the time” is a reflection on human time. Here a family are remembered sharing time and losing time. Class society in general and capitalism in particular are thieves of human time:

“Hard times: she has gone back again to serve

In the workhouse hospital for seven nights

A week; two kids, snatched sleep, too many fights.”

An exhausted mother, “her sleep is heavy all around us”. A father close to breakdown. “She can not last for long, nor can his nerve”; but time is found to “teach me to unlock, To ‘read’, the secret signs on our old clock”.

The desperate search for work will steal the father’s time with his family:

“For years we measured time after he went

By the ticking of the money wires he sent.”

Over the 140 pages of this collection, which includes a prose reflection on Catholicism in Ireland in the author’s childhood in the 1940s and early 50s, we have a sustained engagement with history and memory and time. Here is an honest record of fears, disgusts, delights and hopes; but, above all, it is a record of memory as a source of regeneration of political will. Memory as the source for the birth and rebirth of the revolutionary phoenix.

The writer “refuses to forget” why he entered into a long combat with the exploiters of the working class and the enemies of human self-emancipation everywhere. This collection is the record of that combat on the level of emotion, memory, promise, doubt and hope.

One of the pieces, “Collage in a bleak April”, incorporates the words of the American Trotskyist James Cannon:

Cannon knew:

The thing that inspires life,

That makes life worth the living

In face of all the dangers,

Uncertainties

Insecurities

Calamities

Disappointments,

Is to have committed one’s own self

To the effort to change it.

The long piece on James Connolly cites the words with which Connolly ended his letters: “Hope and Fight”.

Those words neatly sum up the politics of this collection, too. These days there is widespread prejudice against verse, and even more so against political verse. Fight it! Check out this collection.

Politics?

“Politics”? Talking out

Of both sides of your mouth,

Reining in, when you want

To shout and jeer and taunt;

Saying half, or less,

Meaning “No”, mouthing “Yes”:

There everything is tact,

Ideas artefact;

Obtuseness, muddle, fudge:

The greatest crime to judge

Or try to think things through,

To tell plain truths — say “Boo!”

Dare to! Diplomacy,

Is all that here is free!

Where everything is tact

You need a Clean Air Act.

Give me knives, guns, half-bricks,

But give me Lenin’s politics!

(After an evening spent negotiating with Labour Party Marxists gone native.)

This is Dystopia, lady!

2012-01-27T03:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2012/01/11/dsytopia-lady

The Trouble with Hitchens

2012-01-27T03:50:00.001-08:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/07/08/trouble-christopher-hitchens

A Seventh Man

2011-12-14T05:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/18/seventh-man-john-berger-review

Utopia

2011-07-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere

William Morris

2011-07-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/blogs/paulhampton/2008/03/12/1-william-morris-%E2%80%93-marxist-our-time

Art and the Russian Revolution

2011-07-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/12/29/art-and-russian-revolution

John Steinbeck

2011-07-08T06:23:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck

Great Journalism- Steinbecks' story of a road trip across America with his poodle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travels_with_Charley

John Berger : Art and Politics.

2011-07-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/06/29/john-berger-art-and-politics

Gil Scot Heron

2011-06-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/06/15/gil-scot-heron-man-many-pieces

“A Moment in the Sun”: An Extended Interview with Independent Filmmaker, Author John Sayles

2011-06-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

“A Moment in the Sun”: An Extended Interview with Independent Filmmaker, Author John Sayles

Depeche Mode - John The Revelator (HD)

2011-06-13T03:36:00.000-07:00

Blattered !!

2011-05-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

Author: Peter Burton

In 1996 Joao Havelange retired as President of FIFA. Serge Blatter, a Swiss Lawyer and Havelange's chosen successor defeated the reform candidate Lennart Johannsoon (a Swedish truck magnate). Johansoon had stood on a platform of transparency, accountability and greater recognition within FIFA for European pre-eminence. Blatter did the rounds in the heart of Johannson's support in Europe and Africa, blatantly electioneering under the guise of official business with Havelange at his side. He won 111-80 in the first round of voting and there was no need for a second round.

Havelenge's authoritarian and patrician-charm style was replaced by an extensive system of bureaucratic power. Blatter's staff were hand-picked at the Presidential office and an enlarged phalanx of kept support was sent on official business. Five-star hotels, business class flights, black Mercedes, $500-a-day expense accounts with no receipts required all became the norm. As if that wasn’t enough $50,000 "honorariums" were given to all Executive Committee members. This combined with a new level of opaqueness over all financial transactions. Blatter's salary, expenses, emoluments and accounts remained top secret in spite of numerous requests from the Press and UEFA. Massive debts owed to FIFA from Confederations and Football Associations were written off without any good reason given

Blatter's first three years from 1999 to 2001 coincided with an economic boom, the growth of digital television, inflated TV rights deals, the expansion of the Champions' League and a transfer market that visibly increased its prices for players. The bubble seemed to burst in 2001 when FIFA's main marketing partner, International Sports and Leisure (ISL), went bankrupt. Extraordinary financial transactions were revealed and included $60 million due to FIFA from the Brazilian TV company Globo for World Cup rights in secret bank accounts.

£200 million sponsorship money was simply missing. Under Blatter companies like Coca-Cola and McDonalds were prepared to pay FIFA millions in exchange for their brand name being sold to billions of people worldwide at the World Cups. Difficult markets to break into like China and Russia became accessible. And FIFA was prepared to take companies to court to guarantee exclusivity.

Blatter's solution to the burst bubble – a huge private securitization deal – a large loan at above market rates secured for the creditors against the income FIFA would receive for selling TV rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups in the future. Opposition within FIFA mounted to Blatters's methods.

The crises deepened with the collapse of European companies who had gambled on investments on television rights for subscription channels. The mighty German conglomerate Kirch Media took over these companies investments after ISL collapsed. Kirch already had the rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. They now took the rest of the tournament rights and sold them across the world. In April 2002 it collapsed too under a mountain of debt and unachievable income projections.

This was the final straw for the then FIFA General Secretary Michel-Zen Ruffnen who distributed a detailed report on all the financial mismanagement that had been going on to the FA Executive. Eleven of its members were so alarmed they took court action at the Swiss public prosecutor's office in Zurich..

Blatter's response was to indirectly call an extraordinary meeting of the Executive on the eve of the 2002 World Cup at the Seoul Hilton. A succession of FA Presidents close to Blatter were wheeled out to offer paeans of praise to Blatter. No one critical was allowed to contribute. Blatter's critics were themselves criticised incoherently by a succession of FA Presidents loyal to Blatter. Adam Crozier, the then head of the English FA, described it as "an absolute disgrace from start to finish. There was no attempt at transparency in two hours of manipulation".

When the votes rolled in the next day, Blatter had won an even bigger margin than in 1998 – 139 votes to 36. Leo Mugabe - nephew of Robert Mugabe and President of the Zimbabwean FA - commented "It is shocking...this is a travesty of democracy". When Adam Crozier and Mugabe's nephew are outraged you know it’s been a bad day for democracy.

The threat of intervention from seriously powerful organisations like the European Commission led Blatter to adopt the language of his enemies and he also set up a Committee of Investigation. He appointed Ricardo Teixeira and Jack Warner to this committee - the two most corrupt bureaucrats he could have picked.

In Spring 2006 it was revealed Jack Warner’s family travel agency was selling World Cup ticket packages straight out of the Football Associations allocation. Asked for an explanation by Blatter he said he and his wife had resigned from the board of the travel agency and so there was no conflict of interest, an explanation that was accepted. Since then the allies in corruption have fallen out, with Blatter raising the need for a corruption investigation into his rival for the Presidency Mr Bin Hamman (a Qatari billionaire) on the eve of the election for President.

Since the 2002 World Cup a global pandemic of corruption has grown with much match-fixing. The biggest clubs have grown much richer and more powerful at the expense of smaller clubs. A globalised international financial elite now controls football in which the winners are a few rich clubs, some star footballers and their agents and the owners and controllers of the game from a world of corporate finance. Many of them have little or no real interest in the game. The governing bodies like the FAs often have conflicting interests with FIFA and other regulators of the game and in any case are cash dependent on FIFA. Blatter's "Ethics Committee" has represented that corporate elite in stating that he has "no case to answer". The losers will continue to be the smaller clubs, the fans and the beautiful game itself.

Dylan at 70: his 1960s "Protest Songs" revisited

2011-05-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/05/15/dylan-70-his-1960s-protest-songs-revisited

Bob Dylan`s Like a Rolling Stone-Sung By Judy Collins

2011-05-05T04:33:00.000-07:00

Rimbaud Collection

2011-04-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

The Smiths Please please please let me get what I want

2011-04-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

That's Entertainment -- The Jam

2011-04-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

White Man (In Hammersmith Palais) - The Clash

2011-04-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Manning Marable Interviewed on Democracy Now! About His Research on Malc...

2011-04-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ken Loach / Which Side Are You On? (1984) 5/5

2011-04-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Joan Baez sings for Bob Dylan

2011-04-02T04:19:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan And Donovan

2011-04-02T04:04:00.000-07:00

Toots Thielemans plays Imagine (by John Lennon) with voice

2011-04-02T03:59:00.000-07:00

Steppenwolf - Magic Carpet Ride

2011-04-02T03:48:00.000-07:00

Includes the lyrics

Bob Dylan Plays "F**king Loud"!

2011-03-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

JUDAS !!!

FBI destroys Black Panther Party

2011-03-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Bobby Seale: The Black Panther Party's Ten Point Program

2011-03-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Marlon Brando speaks about Civil Rights

2011-03-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

Marlon Brando Interview 1973 (2/6)

2011-03-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

Marlon Brando Interview 1973 (Pt 1 of 6)

2011-03-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

BRIGITTE BARDOT, SERGE GAINSBOURG - JE T'AIME

2011-03-22T14:21:00.000-07:00

When We Were Kings: Ali vs Foreman

2011-03-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Norman Mailer wrote a very readable Novel called "The Fight" about
the Ali-Foreman fight.

Antisystem Works of Fiction

2011-03-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

The Michael Bloomfield Story - part 6

2011-03-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

Bloomfield-Monterrey-Hendrix

The Michael Bloomfield Story - part 5

2011-03-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

The Michael Bloomfield Story - part 4

2011-03-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

The Michael Bloomfield Story - part 3

2011-03-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

The Michael Bloomfield Story - part 2

2011-03-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

The Michael Bloomfield Story - part 1

2011-03-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

MIKE BLOOMFIELD (Paul Butterfield Blues Band) - born in chicago

2011-03-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Dorchester Stop The Cuts

2011-03-11T02:06:00.000-08:00

The Life & Time of Simone De Beauvoir Part 2

2011-03-10T05:42:00.000-08:00

The Life & Time of Simone de Beauvoir Part 1

2011-03-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

: WAYS OF SEEING (final episode - advertising) 4/4

2011-03-09T03:55:00.002-08:00

Workers' Film and Video: WAYS OF SEEING (final episode - advertising) 4/4

WAYS OF SEEING (episode three - oil painting) 3/4

2011-03-09T03:55:00.001-08:00

Workers' Film and Video: WAYS OF SEEING (episode three - oil painting) 3/4

WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 2/4

2011-03-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

Workers' Film and Video: WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 2/4

: WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 1/4

2011-03-09T03:54:00.000-08:00

Workers' Film and Video: WAYS OF SEEING (first episode) 1/4

Walter Benjamin Impact

2011-03-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

Esther Leslie on Benjamin

http://archive.workersliberty.org/wlmags/wl66/esther.htm

We need a critical appreciation of Benjamin- reply to Esther Leslie by John Cunningham

http://www.workersliberty.org/node/4501

Walter Benjamin And His Times - Pecha Kucha

2011-03-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

William Blake: Mind Forg'd Mannacles

2011-03-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

2011-03-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

William Blake, Singing for England 5/5

2011-03-06T16:17:00.001-08:00

William Blake, Singing for England 4/5

2011-03-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

William Blake, Singing for England 3/5

2011-03-06T16:16:00.000-08:00

William Blake, Singing for England, 2/5

2011-03-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

William Blake, Singing for England, 1/5

2011-03-06T16:14:00.000-08:00

William Blake

2011-03-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

Interview - Jonah Raskin - The Radical Jack London: Writings on War and ...

2011-03-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

1/10 Ernest Mandel: A Revolutionary Life

2011-03-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

More on Mandel

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/11/22/ernest-mandel-and-post-trotskyism

Aye Write Festival-Glasgow.

2011-03-04T05:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.ayewrite.com/Pages/default.aspx

Howl

2011-03-04T05:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.sodapictures.com/howl/

33 Revolutions Per Minute

2011-03-04T05:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.co.uk/33-Revolutions-Minute-Dorian-Lynskey/dp/0571241344/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299246133&sr=1-1

Robert Johnson

2011-02-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

Robert Johnson Exposed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK4p432u8Ls&feature=related

Robert Johnson Movie RARE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLmlz34BUlk&NR=1

Eric Clapton on Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETELORdwmJA&feature=related

The Search for Robert Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHiyQbdABDQ&feature=related

keith richards blues acoustic plays Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5ANjb-yAVE&feature=related

Workers Film and Video Site

2011-01-18T05:43:00.000-08:00

http://workersfilm.blogspot.com

Phil Ochs - The Ringing of Revolution

2011-01-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rni9Cwoe6g

Animation: White Rabbit

2011-01-03T12:25:00.001-08:00

Remember ......What the doormouse said ! Feed your head . Feed your head !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsrdLwtf6dY&feature=grec_index

WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS!

2010-12-03T03:45:00.000-08:00

Author: Unknown
[A song of the Industrial Workers of the World]

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers' dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool.
Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in full!

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you.
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in!

We have fed you all for a thousand years-
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago.
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives,
And we're told it's your legal share,
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth,
Good God! We bought it fair!

[Note: This song, patterned by an unnknown writer
after verses by Rudyard Kipling — about the British
Navy — was printed at the beginning of the last
centuary in both the Bulletin of the IWW,
and in the Chicago-based journal,
The International Socialist Review]

"The small minority of students who ruined it for the rest"

2010-11-13T05:40:00.000-08:00

I.D.S - " Let them eat cake "

Dylan in America.

2010-09-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/sep/12/bob-dylan-in-america-biography

The most political of the biographies- from the influence
of Aaron Copland and Brecht in the first chapter through
Ginsberg and the Beats to the making of Blonde and Blonde-
written by the historian in residence at Dylan's offical site
- bobdylan.com

Unputdownable - is that a word ?

Pete

John McGrath

2010-09-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McGrath_%28playwright%29

The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cheviot,_the_Stag,_and_the_Black_Black_Oil

Banner Theatre

2010-08-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.bannertheatre.co.uk/

Strike Songs of the Depression.

2010-07-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IikoNxkIHooC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Timothy+P+Lynch:+Strike+Songs+

Working for the Taxman

2010-06-25T03:58:00.000-07:00

All you good men and women
come and listen to ma song

It doesn’t matter where you live
or where you work or roam

Cos this Coalitions got it in for us
they’re gonna tax us from our homes

They’re gonna tax the workers and their pay
their clothes and homemade brew

They’re gonna tax all women’s’ undergarments
knickers and suspenders too

They’ll tax all meat and poultry
they’ll even tax the beef

And if you offer up resistance
they‘re gonna crack you on the heid

They’re gonna tax all single men
as heavy as they can

They’ even tax the women
for being over 41

They’ll tax the hospitals
and tax all wooden legs

Tax the coffee, bread and butter
beer and wine and ham and eggs

They’ll tax old ladies by the river
when they try to paint

And tax all girls who go with boys
cos we’re all meant to be saints

Now thank you men and women
for listening to ma song

And remember there’s a reason why
we all know right from wrong.

Merry Clayton-Gimme Shelter-1970

2010-06-05T14:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCyTqnizcvI

Some Key Images of the 60's

Commando Raid

2010-06-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

My hands grip tighter around your throat
As your power and life flicker out

Your eyes bulge as they stare into mine
Face redder, Veins greener , life fading

I seek relief, peace, freedom
Yet i too sense my own
reddening face ,green vains, bulging eyes

Amidst panic , fear, anguish

A thought hits me -This is not what i wanted.

Slowly i loosen my strong grip
Our faces change colour, our vains shrink

You gasp for air clutching your throat
I mumble I'm sorry as i stagger away
alone, remembering, ashamed.

Peter Burton

Meetings , Laptops and Mobile Phones

2010-06-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Meetings, Laptops and Mobile phones
Meetings, Laptops and Mobile phones

POLICING your workers
on behalf of the FAT CATS

Through Meetings, Laptops and Mobile Phones

Peter Burton June 2010

Control in Copland

2010-05-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

To all those fighting injustice in America against the odds.

A Plague of Blue Locusts

Extreme Windy Weathermen irritates THE MAN

Slowdowns,
Industrial sabotage
Wildcats
Fragging

ATTICA!!
ATTICA!!
ATTICA!!

Frenzied brutal lock up Reaganite binge
restoring THE MAN
Southern warm Weather gulags
Electronic torture fades memories of
Caryl Chessman, Elridge Cleaver
Black Panther
Anti-rape militias, Men against Sexism Campaigns
George Jackson Brigade fade out

Class war political booty
Man giving a little to keep a lot
dissipates as cops , guards , enforce a new
terrorisation of the poor philosophy

Pentagon Whiz-bang high-tech tentacles reach out
in state of the Art real-time Gotham-

Policing the Narcotics Trojan horse.

Federal largesse facilitates paramilitary pile-ons,
Warrant Fugitive Sweeps,
POP Team extra-mural Televised Nixon -Goldwater kiddie sweeps

THE LEXICON OF FEAR;
ODELE NARCO Praetorian Guard acts on Calgang Database
centrally referenced gang- labelled information

Crime=Urban
Urban=Black

SWAT Team fishing expeditions adorn
combat boots, green camouflaged battle dress uniforms,
body armour, hooded masks, goggles staging
dramatic Commando raids on poor communities

Shock lock Shotguns
Flash bang grenades
Double shot buckshot
introduce
Dead Buck paraded victims

It’s a counter-cultural fingers in the decline dyke
Good ol’ boys network offensive

Preventative detention, special grand juries ,no knock warrants
cement unfolding acute contradictions,
victimised racialised class other,
demonised crime baiting,
racially coded language protecting
a besieged middle class from predatory immigrant workers
as Watergate becomes distant.

Squeegee wars
Operation Losing Proposition
D-Day instructions
Times Square reconquest
Heritage industry gentrification cultural accumulation

Old cop forbearance, discretion, fairness skills
dissolve in a bathtub cocktail of military /technophile
army surplus hardware upwardly mobile elite unit status rewards

Amadio Diallo 41 shots street crimes unit Jim Crow stench
It’s a wrecked downsized homelessness of the brave,
a spectacle of ritualised terrors ,bifurcated social control
for an expanding surplus population

State of the art computerised surveillance systems
pump blood in an electronic dragnet where
deviants internalize the police gaze at the
panoptican of virtual outlaws.

Wu Tang Chan

Ernest Sagon aka “The Rabbit”

Kaleidoscopic Cop LAPD Visions of chaos -
Military training Nam counter –insurgency lessons learned
as the Rich riot in a cold bath Volcker /Reagan scorched earth
industrial apocalypse

Periphalising the Urban social wreckage-
the sand in the machine-
controlling the industrial social dynamite.

Victim blaming ethos blast off
Drug bust bonanzas
Narcotics teams used as WW 2 U-Boats
Military technology buying sprees
Gun –nut panegyric magazine porn
Paramilitary police/ beat cop osmosis

Get your Kicks on Route 95 unless you’re black !!

Election season anti-crack rhetoric roads to power
Urban American alpha cops pushing
zero tolerance Quality of life pre-emptive
take back strikes on the underground

Secured playground urban bedroom
salaried professional post -punk scenes
In the Theme park Urban centre

Cache cops sweeping up stats at early morning
computer aided wall -map paramilitary Comstat meetings -
“mending broken windows”.

Giuliani, Bratton hot seats send angry waves of blue
out to get results

Schools act as pre-prison vetting centres -
Socialising the police gaze in a post-Fordist Copland

Profit hungry real estate developers subterfuge to flicker out
strip joint porno land lights- Periphalising the homeless, the Negros, the poor

Police brass Gotham pilgrimage
zero tolerance apostles proselytise a post-modern Jim Crow
New burghers occupy hyper -anesthetised play zones ;
convention centre Theme park replacements for a post-industrial workforce

Urban professional pleasure seeking vehicles-
Corporate American massification of bohemian aesthetics
Private security/Urban malls signal a centre /periphery Racial/class matrix,
Private security policing interior spaces
interior cop control undesirables get displaced
in a vain city by the Bay

It’s an urban control retake boys !

Move on teams
Shopping cart nomads
Aged inebriates
Thrown away youth
Criminalised poor Periphelisation

Gentrification real estate speculator eviction
Copper destroyed housing block pre-emptive
squatter preventative retakes

TOMPSKINS SQUARE PARK !!

Naked class war on the lower East Side
Crime concentration in urban wastelands at the end of the train line

Pole Perched Forests of McDonalds , Best Western,
Model 6 signs light up paramilitary police operations
in dying rail yards as elite navy seal armed soldier cops
fan out under choppers beating the air in the badlands of Frontier Fresno

“IT’S A WAR” !!

Pounding CHP chopper rotas
accompany incessant Alsatian dog barking , bull horn
instructions to infrared detected house occupants
instantly displayed on Crown Victoria 11 inch mobile screens

Come out with your hands on your heads and lay on the ground !!!
Lay down your weapons !!!

Probation weekend warriors exit into a beam of Chopper Klieg lights
as all white SWAT teams roll out in a law and order bonanza-

Armoured vehicles, submachine guns, automatic rifle s, attack dogs
police unemployment , nihilism, guns, rage, crack cocaine
coalescing in a lethal cocktail of gang propelled auto-extinction

Scorched earth campaigns, rolling billboard SWAT bus wolf packs-
the past lurching forward to collide against a high- tech future
as VCSU fleets of crown victorias race towards Code 3 officer down instructions
semiotic physical police dog corner presence-

Robocop’s the new slave-catcher militias .

Operation Goldstar

Crime baiting racially coded demonology incites middle class scapegoating,
inbuilt ritualised displays of terror spectacles, gang labelled sentencing enhancements,
false equivalence racist anti-poor victim blaming demonology

Chosts on the Fence

White border patrols prowl the barrios
stopping searching, asking, suspecting
over -killing the migrant poor

INS Jailhouse substitution roll outs criminalise the immigrant poor
as poverty proves inadequate ;
compliant undocumented immigrant workers the preferred drug of choice
for American Capitalist corporate bosses

Black Hawk Chopper lights move forward, backwards swiftly searching for
ghost like aliens on the border fence, radios crackle, headlights pinpoint
a short one winner chase

robocop night vision goggle cops,
Infrared TV cameras
Handcuffs, humiliation, bull whips, sweat boxes , electronic torture –

Mobile Klieg stadium lights clunk on
to light up political theatre for the riches’ enforcers

Cui Bono ?

Politicians – easy scapegoats
Bosses-cheap docile labour
The MAN – a bulwark against Viva Zapata!

Pastures of Poverty, Public highway black guy humiliations,
INS Sprawling detention archipelago hellholes ,Californian fields, Iowan abattoirs,
Big Apple seduction of illegals in a modern day great escape North

Bosses self-report cementing
immigrant deportation fear

MASS ARRESTS
NUMBERED FOREARMS
CATTLE CARS

Evil the incremental process

Life in The BIG HOUSE

CORCORAN- “Let the guns rule the Yard”
Politician concocted anti-crime nostrums
Prison abattoirs bring on brutal forced lockups
DEATH ROW

Landlocked slave ship prisons terrorise the poor,
while warehousing social dynamite

Prison number increase divide and rule correlations
semi-autonomous mutually reinforcing
bureaucratic empire layers unravel in a replicated
sexist male purgatory

Sex slave female substitutes diffuse political trouble
in rape factories, lecherous predators dole out
essentials in ladies’ lockdowns as perks

Vertically commanded gang structures
promulgate fear- self oppressive systems
of racialised ethnic gangs aiding The Man

No Spartacus possible here !!

The Man organises gladiatorial fights
organic decentralised self-fuelling social control
within and without these walls

Preston Tate

Golden state integrated Yard Policy
Gladiatorial fights as sadistic diversion-
political demagogic fuelled middle class
fantasy land prison as Right wing country clubs –
conjugal unit middle class rage

A PIRA wrecking ball gets thrown
Suit filing legalistic attrition wars
get waged against bureaucratic secretive adversaries

THE MAN AS BEHEMOTH !

Prison Law library shutdowns
TV psychic meat grinder tentacles squash Higher education programmes-
redundant pumping iron weight rooms !

Adrian Lomax

Booty Bandits, Trusty shooters
Newly made punks choosing a Daddy
Punk Queen straight world submissive roles
Rape as power controller ,Sexual terror as prison Management,
Sex chattel guard connivance
Correction Officer shit lists

AIDS Rape Russian roulette wheel terror weapon
“Welcome to Shirley . Toughen up , punk“ just deserts

DENY ! DENY! DENY !

Eddie Dillard

Sex human body coin of the realm
reproduction of outside in an all male purgatory

Paired
Traded
Pimped
Sold
PUNKS

“You’ll get the Blondest new fish in the new shipment”

Prison aggression diverted
Spartacus destroyed
Informers garnered

Herman “ Hoots “ Wallace

Washington DC City Jail for Women
sex carnival ritual abuse
put out for the guards or else
Segregated racial Balkans in a box
Gang members putting in the racial work
whatever their belief system

Its Segregated boys- right down to the weights !!

White Fence,
Maravilla,
Bulldogs
18th Street,
F-Troop
Santa Ana

Gang rhetoric, gang iconography
Vertically organised gang structures

Mexican Mafia soldier bust retaliations
a thousand home boys in Elysian Park-
post RODNEY KING Soldado truce

GGF Afro American life gang of choice
68- Bluebird San Quentin
AB Evolution racial war fades out
To BUSINESS

AB assassination hits for EME shot callers-
Las Nuestra FAMILIA

Arizona AB sell-out label for
AB criminal pragmatists

Racial no-fly zone yard domination
Corcoran social control arranged fights

Fuelling the boredom fear, anger, despair-
raw material ingredients in the dungeon race war,
hate factory discharge on to streets
local law-abiders running into the arms of The MAN

Security Housing unit Snitch factory
Loony bin meat grinder

Cell extractions, high tech SUV hell

George Jackson –‘Blood in my Eye’

Steven Castillo

Debrief or die snitch murders
bureaucratic economic interest
bountiful race war nexus on wedge- shaped
yards of Corcoran SHU
bring Manna from Sacramento

It’s a super max Pelican Bay lockup
a catwalk model of sensory deprivation and isolation
for the world eyes of the colonial master

Small town, big prison carcarel arcadias
incremental gulag state lockdown economy
South bay trailer pack prison cannon fodder
Prison guard Union, Politician carve up

Wackenhut transnational private prison EMPIRE,
gulag economy non -replacement for military
Industrial complex

Private jailers as cheats, liars .

The well-connected good ol’ boys network
corrections corps robust lobbying operations

Juice laden dens of far-right political muckety mucks
issue orders from high- tech yachts ,castle like mansions
in the Sunshine state

Private prison tentacles projects feeding
at the Behemoth margins for the Connected Ones,
Chaotic gladiatorial pits of training in Youngstown,
Power tripping screw rampages

A Self –amplifying culture of control
A Treacherous gangland of correctional
bureaucratic avoidance by Big Business

CCPOA political astro -turf
Big House Third World within-
Private Prison labour sideshow

Bad lazy evil racially “otherised” convicts
bust ass under the gunfight gaze of good ol’ boy guards-
a conservative dreamland private prison revenge fantasy for the rich
Private Prison labour-Ideological cult of work as Panacea

UNICOR

Invented scapegoats
Black Latino criminals
Immigrant Labour
The welfare Cheat
Crack heads
Super-predators

Re-Disciplining labour in a surplus value distribution
Zero sum game policing the surplus population

1950’s Hollywood Reaganite smokem’ out
ideologically driven world views
9/11 politician /cop imagined battlefields

Pit the Employed against the Unemployed
Immigrant/Indigenous, White against Black, Women /Men
Gay against Straight Christian/Muslim via endless wars on terror ,drugs
crime, immigrants ,the poor as profits flow up and The MAN keeps control.

Political Activism is the only Road out!!

Peter Burton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tompkins_Square_Park_Riot_(1988)

"LockDown America " by Christian Parenti.

http://www.christianparenti.com/books.html

Terrifying, informative and gripping.
—New York Press
Exhaustively documented...deserves a full hearing
from anyone serious about ending the often horrific
realities of the criminal justice system.
—Washington Post Book World

In the best tradition of investigative journalism,
paced like a fine novel, it carries the authority of
meticulous academic research.
—The Independant

Lockdown America is a fast read, angry and compelling.
—Philadelphia City Paper

Parenti's are flames of light not heat. He makes
complete sense.
—San Diego Union Tribune

buy
Amazon Barnes and Noble

Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama

2010-04-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

Was Bertolt Brecht a Fraudster ?

http://www.amazon.com/Brecht-Company-Politics-Making-Modern/dp/0802115292

Bertold Brecht is well known for his plays, poems, short stories
and contributions to theatre theory and practice .His influence is extensive in theatre and in the films of Lars Von Trier, Werner Fassbinder,Nagisa, Oshima, Ritwik, Ghatak and Jean Luc Godard. Yet since the publication of John Fuegi’s biography of Brecht in 1994’ Brecht and Company’ a debate has raged about whether Brecht was not more than a bit of a fraud with as perhaps as much as 80 % of the writing being the work of others-most notably three women-Elisabeth Hauptmann, Greta Steffen and Ruth Berlau.

Fuegi’s central argument is that Brecht had neither the talent nor the will
power to write or finish much of the most famous works that he is credited for –works such as “The Threepenny Opera” , “Mother Courage and her Children” and “Galileo”. The book claims there is documented evidence that these works were written by these three women. The famous ‘Threepenny opera’ is 100% the work of Elisabeth Hauptman Fuegi contends.

The 700 page biography researched over 25 years represents Brecht as an arch- manipulator of people and a misogynist who engaged in “sex for text” deals. Brecht had extraordinary charisma and charm that seduced figures such as Kurt Weill, Auden, Isherwood, and Charles and Laughton as well as the three lovers and creative collaborators Hauptmann, Steffen and Berlau.

Brecht, according to Fuegi, was a product of a middle class upbringing
in Augsburg Germany- an environment and culture that saw “the denigration of women” as “wholly natural”. Plays with strong female characters such as “Saint Joan of the Stockyards”, “The Good Woman of Setzuan”, “Mother Courage and Her children” and “The Caucasian Chalk circle” could only have been written by these politically committed communist women, argues Fuegi.

Fuegi goes on to accuse Brecht of being a plagiarist, stealing works from French symbolist poets Verlaine and Rimbaud something most clearly visible in the 1927 play “Jungle of the Cities”. Manuscripts in Elisabeth Hauptmann’s handwriting or her strike pattern on typewritten texts prove beyond doubt that “The Threepenny opera” was written by Hauptmann without either credit or royalties going to her. To the reply that it was possible Brecht might be dictating ,Fuegi insists times and dates of when they were together don’t back this up. Brecht's own contribution was the song “Mack the Knife and few “nips and tucks” to the look of the script.

Fuegi goes on to state that Brechts influential theory of theatre “The Epic theatre” was motivated by a financial backer who thought it would make more money.
“Invent a theory, my dear Brecht! When one presents Germans with a theory, they are willing to swallow anything” .

Brecht’s relationship with women followed a pattern- use them to the point
where they break with him, at that point – focus exclusively on the one who has broken away to get her back into the fold then, go back to the same maltreatment
that went on before. Fuegi’s explanation as to why the women stuck around or continued to help Brecht as they did long after relationships were over , was the hope that one day eventually each of them would have Brecht to themselves.

But by far the most controversial part of the biography is Fuegi lumping
Brecht in with Hitler and Stalin.

“ To understand this century, it is essential to recognise the wholly irrational power these figures- whether Hitler, Stalin, or Brecht-exerted when they were encountered in person. Brecht is very much a part of this century of the charismatic,irrational yet effective Pied Piper powers that could, in the case of both Hitler and Stalin, lure hundreds of millions of supposedly intelligent beings to embrace their butchers.

Hauptman, Steffen and Berlau were intriguing women and Fuegi does a service in relating their stories and showing that they were both talented and more politically committed and ethical than Brecht. When Brecht went into exile in 1933 , Hauptman risked her life by remaining in Berlin in order to gather together and secure all of Brecht’s papers and manuscripts and get them out of Germany. Hauptmann, according to Fuegi was the author of most of the Short Stories. Margaret Stefan

contributed significantly to “Mother Courage and her Children” and “The Good Woman of Setzuan”. She continued to help Brecht while suffering from TB, dying painfully at the age of 33 from the disease. Her death in 1941, argues Fuegi, meant the virtual death of Brecht as a playwright .Berlau contributed to "Brecht" plays such as The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Simone Machard, & The Good Person of Sezuan. She loved Brecht in her words “not wisely, but too well." and was not credited by him for her contribution.

In 1997 Sabine Kebir replied to Fuegis' work in “I didn’t ask for my share: Elisabeth Hauptmann’s Work with Bertold Brecht”. Kebir examined the Hauptmann archives at Berlin's Akademie der Kunste and referred to previously unknown notes and letters as well as Hauptmann’s 1926 journal. Kebir suggest that as members of the CP in the mid- twenties, there were drawn to the collective of artists, writers and intellectuals around Brecht precisely because it was a collective collaboration that promised to shorten the road to Women’s’ Liberation and Socialism.

The women were openly interested in sex, sexual experimentation and autonomy in relationships free of ownership claims, including claims to mental property and sexual partners. Open marriages, triangular and bisexual relationships were part of the social utopia they pursued. These sometimes collided with more traditional needs and expectations resulting in great personal pain- but this was a very different complex contradictory reality from the passive women as victims story that Fuegi represented.

Fuegi’s book makes a strong case for Brecht being an overly controlling, self- centred miser who repeatedly used people and took credit for others work. Perhaps he was a mysoginist also (one example-in his will he asked to be buried with a stilletto heal through his heart) Fuegi also makes a an undeniable case for these women being better known than they are and the book is worth reading for their stories alone. However Brecht was not a talentless, Svengali figure whose abuse of power was akin to a Hitler or a Stalin. Work like ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of the Petty Bourgeoisie’ and ‘Days of the Commune’ and poems like ‘The Song of the Class enemy’ and ‘Questions from a Worker who reads’ are the work of a very gifted writer who contributed enormously to theatre theory and practice.

The Ball is Round by David Goldblatt

2010-03-18T13:33:00.001-07:00

Excellent history of world football that
concentrates on the political side of football.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/dec/16/featuresreviews.guardianreview9

Capitalism:a love story.

2010-03-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_A_Love_Story

http://www.capitalismalovestory.com?bcpid=36912576001&bctid=34800298001

Elegy On The Year 1788

2010-01-25T06:41:00.001-08:00

For lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die-for that they're born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec'!
A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space,
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!

The Spanish empire's tint a head,
And my auld teethless, Bawtie's dead:
The tulyie's teugh 'tween Pitt and Fox,
And 'tween our Maggie's twa wee cocks;
The tane is game, a bluidy devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither's something dour o' treadin,
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a middin.

Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,
An' cry till ye be hearse an' roupit,
For Eighty-eight, he wished you weel,
An' gied ye a' baith gear an' meal;
E'en monc a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!

Ye bonie lasses, dight your e'en,
For some o' you hae tint a frien';
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was taen,
What ye'll ne'er hae to gie again.

Observe the very nowt an' sheep,
How dowff an' daviely they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel' does cry,
For E'nburgh wells are grutten dry.

O Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn,
An' no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,
Thou now hast got thy Daddy's chair;
Nae handcuff'd, mizl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent,
But, like himsel, a full free agent,
Be sure ye follow out the plan
Nae waur than he did, honest man!
As muckle better as you can.

January, 1, 1789.

2010-01-25T06:32:00.001-08:00

Organise!

2010-01-25T06:21:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Reed

2009-12-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.jeremyreed.co.uk/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heartbreak-Hotel-Jeremy-Reed/dp/0752851594

John Cooper Clarke site

2009-12-01T09:26:00.000-08:00

euro communist/gucci socialist
http://www.johncooperclarke.com/Pages/euro.htm

http://www.johncooperclarke.com/Pages/poemlist.htm

Good books with reviews

2009-12-01T09:09:00.001-08:00

http://www.mikemarqusee.com/?page_id=322

Brecht Poem

2009-10-19T14:42:00.001-07:00

The Playwright's Audience

The other day I met my audience
In a dusty street
He gripped a pneumatic drill in his fists.
For a second he looked up. Rapidly I set up my theatre
Between the houses. He
Looked expectant.

In the pub

I met him again. He was standing at the bar.
Grimy with sweat, he was drinking. In his fist
A thick sandwich. Rapidly I set up my theatre. He
Looked astonished.

Today

I brought it off again. Outside the station
With brass bands and rifle butts I saw him
Being herded off to war.
In the midst of the crowd
I set up my theatre. Over his shoulder
He looked back
And nodded.

From The Messingkauf Dialogues by Bertolt Brecht.

100 Poets against the War

2009-10-19T14:34:00.001-07:00

http://www.nthposition.com/100poets0.pdf

WH Auden

2009-10-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden

Radical Essays

2009-10-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.radicalessays.com/

Radical Responses to the Great Depression

2009-10-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Radical Novel

http://www.lib.umich.edu/radical-responses-great-depression/topic_index_radicalnovels.html

Workers Climate Action

2009-10-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

http://workersclimateaction.wordpress.com/

Feminist Fightback Photos

2009-10-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31564022@N02/

Some Classic Songs

2009-10-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan
Idiot Wind Live-1976

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZvP7T3B30

VAN MORRISON - Sweet Thing - Live at the Hollywood Bowl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BYvoH2_XuA

Van Morrison - Cyprus Avenue, Live at Fillmore East 1970

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W--EJJ8304Y&feature=channel

Joan Baez - It Ain't Me, Babe (Live 1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cmNRVL1drA

ODETTA SINGS BOB DYLAN (Blowin' in the wind)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9pHR7-_sRI

The Faber Book of Utopias

2009-10-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_and_dystopian_fiction

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&source=hp&q=faber+book+of+utopias&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=ByDTSq7-CKqNjAf2iZT8Aw&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=image&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQzAMwAw

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

2009-10-12T05:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Jacobins-Toussaint-LOuverture-Revolution/dp/0140299815/ref=sr_1_5/026-8815493-9662854?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194439496&sr=1-5

In 1789 the West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. The entire structure of what was arguably the most profitable colony in the world rested on the labour of half a million slaves. In 1791 the waves of unrest inspired by the French Revolution reached across the Atlantic dividing the loyalties of the white population of the island. The brutally treated slaves of Saint Domingo seized at this confusion and rose up in rebellion against masters. In this classic work, CLR James chronicles the only successful slave revolt in history and provides a critical portrait of their leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture, 'one of the most remarkable men of a period rich in remarkable men'.

Good Anthology of Major Film Theorists

2009-09-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.amazon.com/Major-Film-Theories-Introduction-ebook/dp/B000QJMBSE/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Tom Paine

2009-09-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.johnkeane.net/books/paine/paine.htm

Radical Poetry

2009-09-23T03:41:00.001-07:00

http://www.radicalpoetry.com/