Harry Benson Photography Exhibition-Glasgow

http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/venue/showExhibition.cfm?venueid=4&itemid=196

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

For the background and controversy over Pastor Martin Niemöllers' famous Poem see :

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


Original

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.


Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.


Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.


Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.


Translation

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.


When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.


When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.


When they came for me,there was no one left to speak out.

MAY 68

http://www.marxist.com/french-revolution-may-1968-part-one.htm


http://www.marxist.com/french-revolution-may-1968-part-two.htm

Special 40th Anniversary Supplement on May 68 plus article on Miners' Strike

http://www.workersliberty.org/system/files/WL3%3A19.pdf

May 68 at GFT

http://www.gft.org.uk/content/default.asp?page=s4_1&filmid=4417&weekid=2&date=5/17/2008

A woman’s touch

Writer and broadcaster Mark Cousins salutes the British documentary movement’s unsung female voice, Stirling’s Ruby Grierson.

http://www.sundayherald.com/arts/arts/display.var.2228443.0.a_womans_touch.php

Santa Cruz- Great Labour Video Film Festival

http://www.reelwork.org

New Film on Pete Seeger " The Power of Song"



http://www.reelwork.org/films.htm#peteseeger

Orwell, ‘Politics and the English Language’

Its over 60 years since Orwell wrote the essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ -yet its warnings are as relevant now as they were then.Orwell argued that the decline of the English language as a useful tool reflected the political conditions of his time. But far from being an inexorable process he thought the abuse could be stopped and believed journalists had a particular responsibility amongst writers to show their dissatisfaction.

The power of the written word was being under-minded by an adoption of Politician Speak. He gave five examples of bad language accusing the authors of ‘Ugliness’’ ‘Staleness of Imagery’, and ‘Lack of Precision’. Political writing was the most guilty of having those characteristics.

Prose construction was avoided by the use of lazy “ metaphors”,
“Verbal false limbs”, “pretentious diction” and “meaningless words”-
Important precise concepts like Fascism and Democracy had become distorted and were being used in a consciously deceptive way.

Modern writing shunned originality and was the product of lazy uncritical methods of work. His anecdote: Writers should ask -

1 What am I trying to say ?

2 What words will express it ?

3 Could I put it more shortly ?

4 Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly ?

He argued there was causal link between clichéd phrases and the defence of the political status quo, euphemisms numbing the public as words got sanitised by colourless concepts such as ‘pacification’ to describe Genocide.

Orwell’s’ goal was not to straightjacket writers . His key was to let the “meaning choose the word” . It’s almost twenty years since the fall of the Berlin wall . WMD’s and “45 minutes” are only the most infamous of many examples that could be given that show Orwells’ essay is, sadly , as relevant as ever.

Peter Burton