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A little cheap sloganeering today

I am 'ignorant' and an 'ideological fanatic'

Apparently, according to one visitor to this site I am 'an ignorant' and an 'ideological fanatic'. Why? Because I referred to the 'Spanish Revolution' instead of the 'Spanish Civil War'.

I admit it, I'm ignorant and an ideological fanatic, just like the people who compiled the Wikipedia entry on the Spanish Revolution, I am an ignorant and an ideological fanatic just like Gaston Leval who wrote:

In Spain during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties (republicans, left and right Catalan separatists, socialists, Communists, Basque and Valencian regionalists, petty bourgeoisie, etc.), this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high salaried managers, or the authority of the state. 

Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity.... 

This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other.

and I'm proud to be ignorant and an ideological fanatic just like him. I'm ignorant and an ideological fanatic like Franklin Rosemont at the University of Pennsylvania, and like the authors of Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (Vernon Richards, 1972), The Spanish revolution: the left and the struggle for power during the Civil War (Burnett Bolloten, 1979), The Spanish Revolution (Stanley Payne, 1970), Women in the Spanish revolution (Liz Willis, 1975) - the list goes on and on.

If it is ignorant to subscribe to the established growing trend amongst historians and serious authors that the 1930s saw a revolutionary situation in Spain, then I'm ignorant. If it is ideologically fanatical to want to recover a period of forgotten and suppressed history, then I'm an ideological fanatic. And do you know what? I don't give a damn! Whatever. Guilty as charged.

Emma Goldman dances!

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it mean that, I did not want it. “I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.” Anarchism meant  that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world – prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal
         from Living My Life, vol.1 p.56

This is why I love this woman and honour her memory.

Perth: chipping away at a little freedom.

The Scottish city of Perth has many small passageways and thoroughfares called vennels. This is a Scots word, etymologically akin to the word ginnel in dialects of Northern English, which has the same meaning of a narrow alleyway between town streets. One of Perth’s vennels, Meal Vennel, will not exist much longer if vested interest had its way. It’s disappearance will erode and show general contempt for a particular freedom. Let me explain.

Meal Vennel still exists, though not as it once was – a not very salubrious passage between South Street and High Street, too narrow for a car, and where in places the buildings met above. Now one approaches it from South Street via a wide, rather dark, paved space about the size of a shop*. At the top of a ramp one can either branch right through the back door of HMV, a retailer of DVDs and CDs, or left through the River Island clothing store, the route which follows more directly the historical line of the vennel. Once through the men’s department of River Island, one emerges via their front door into St John’s Precinct, an indoor shopping ‘mall’. Dodging the seats and tables of BB’s café, one then carries on through the Precinct, and out through automatic doors into the High Street.

I walked this route yesterday on several errands. People’s passing along this route is tolerated because it may bring passing trade to the various retail premises – even I have occasionally bought a DVD from HMV, a milk shake from BBs, or a birthday card from Clintons.

St John’s Precinct replaced Meal Vennel and a 1960s development comparatively recently: “[the vennel] was destroyed courtesy of Perth Town Council. A property developer wished to flatten the area between High St and South St to build a shopping mall. Local people protested as Meal Vennel – a public road and right of way – was to be flattened and was to disappear. The wishes of the populace were ignored with the explanation that access on the line of Meal Vennel [would] still be available by progressing from High Street via the Mall's main entrance, and then via the front and rear doors of a certain gent's outfitter. The Mall was built! Local people still exercise their right to walk between High St and South St via the gent's outfitter - an ongoing protest.”**

According to a headline in yesterday’s local newspaper, now even the virtual existence of Meal Vennel as a thoroughfare is threatened. The paved space between the Post Office and the Royal Bank of Scotland is due to be filled with yet another retail unit, and one which will not share a back door with River Island. No doubt the Local Authority will approve this, and say that access between the High Street and South Street will still be possible via a dog-leg route between the High Street entrance of St John’s Precinct and an entrance further down South Street; any protest would made to appear petty.

However, the principle here is that corporate and commercial interest will have won, at the expense of a freedom which is not public, not individual, but communal. The right to pass unimpeded between two places is something we share, though it is protected by no law and by no legal ‘ownership’, it is a societal thing, it is something in which we are a community. It is a long time since any such concept was at the forefront of legal or political thinking – if it ever was!

Everything in Western, capitalist, statist society is owned. If it is not in private hands it is in public hands, and ‘public’ ownership is just another kind of private ownership. The ‘Occupy’ movement(s) found this out when they tried to exercise the right to peaceful assembly. Oh yes you are free to assemble, until the moment until you try to make decisions about things, then someone in authority will find a law which says you must be moved on.***

It is important that we realise the corrosive nature of things like the blotting out of Meal Vennel. It is only a small matter, but until we begin to recognize things which are of communal value we will allow our freedom, which is already severely curtailed, to dissolve in the acid of corporate and commercial power.****

I would like to be able to address the Planning Committee of Perth and Kinross Council (I have no legal right to do so – after all, I only work in Perth, I’m not a constituent), I’d like to be able to address a board meeting of the developers (impossible – all corporate and commercial decisions are made in private with no public right of access – freedom? Ha!). I’d like to ask if any of them go to church on Sundays, and if they have ever heard of the concept of having all things in common.***** I’d like to stand up, point my finger, and shout “Thief!”. You can bet if I tried to do any of this it wouldn’t be long before I was strongarmed out of their presence by security personnel or police.

I would like to believe that if you are reading this you are starting to think about these principles.

__________ 

* The paved space, by the way, does not even look as open as in the photo. It is currently full of boxed-off scaffolding as work of some nature is being done, though it is still possible to walk through the middle of the space.

** Perth History http://www.perthshire.thehighlands.co.uk/perth/perthhistry.htm

*** I am sure that the Occupy movement still exists and still functions in some way, but I forgot to mention another more subtle way of combating communal action – drop it from the headlines and from the nightly TV news.

**** Yes, I know we believe that we live in a free society, and indeed there is a remarkable amount of personal license granted. I deliberately say ‘granted’, because the people who hold the reins of political and commercial power are interested not in our freedom, beyond the exercise of choosing what to buy, but our acquiescence in their vision of ‘order’. Argue if you wish, you’ll find yourself on quicksand.

***** Acts 4:32 (King James Version). Look it up, it’s interesting, particularly if you are one of these people who thinks that Christianity and conservative politics are joined at the hip.

The Referendum on Scottish Independence

The BBC reported the following yesterday:

A panel of experts set up by Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems has come up with a question to be asked in the referendum on Scottish independence. The main pro-union parties have accused the SNP of selecting a biased form of words with its preferred question. The panel has suggested the words "Scotland should become an independent state", with voters being asked to "agree" or "disagree".

To my mind, the question asks whether I would prefer to have my throat cut with a sword or a knife. The operative word in the question is 'state'. Both a preserved Union and an independent Scotland would continue to be states - and therefore statist - and governed by an abrogatory system, a system whereby the citizenry are expected to sign away their democratic autonomy to the professional politicians every four years or so, by putting an X on a piece of paper, and the professional politicians then massage and blow in the ear of capitalism. Oh great.

The question asks no one how they want to be governed. Instead of independence, how about self-determination? I want to see self-determination for the Scottish people and, for that matter, for the English, Northern Irish, and Welsh people - indeed for all people. I want to see the grass roots at the heart of politics, at the heart of everyday democracy, not the professional political class.

Why won't that be on the referendum?

Vicente Aranda’s ‘Libertarias’ reviewed.

Libertarias (1996), directed by Vicente Aranda, produced by Andrés Vicente Gómez, starring Ariadna Gil, Ana Belén, Victoria Abril, and Blana Apilánez.

To celebrate International Women’s Day I watched Libertarias. Also known as Juegos de Guerra, though there are other films of that name, it is a difficult film to get hold of in the UK. That almost seems fitting, as the story of revolutionary Spain and the role of the anarchist movement in transforming eastern Iberia, in a tragically brief episode of history, into a place of ground-upwards, participatory democracy has been largely forgotten, conveniently displaced in the ‘communist v fascist’ mythos. The version that I watched was unencumbered by subtitles, which didn’t work too well for me as my knowledge of Spanish is limited, but on the other hand there was a kind of purity in the exercise.

The only film with which it can be compared is Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom (1995), which is loosely based on George Orwell’s book Homage to Catalonia. Loach’s film is in English and Spanish, and there are no subtitles to the Spanish dialogue either. The effect in both films is a more authentic experience for the watcher.

Libertarias is more filmic, slightly less realistic than Land and Freedom. It focuses on the role of women at the time of the Spanish Revolution. The central character that carries the film along is Maria (Ariadna Gil), whom we first meet as a young nun in a convent. When milicianos (members of a revolutionary militia) enter the convent she flees. Encountering other wandering bands of revolutionaries in the street, she panics and seeks shelter in an apartment. This turns out to be a brothel, and the first thing the Madame does is put her in bed with a Catholic Monsignor. Before anything can happen, however, the apartment is entered by three milcianas – women of the anarchist Mujeres Libres (Free Women) movement – who part encourage and part force the prostitutes to join them. Maria is taken under the wing of Pilar (Ana Belén), the most militant and committed miliciana, who has recognized her innocence and the Catholic mind-set which has been ingrained in her by her convent life, and who protects her throughout the film. Maria never completely loses her bewilderment, her innocence, and her religion, and although she becomes in a way totally committed to her new life she never picks up a gun. Thus she is able to be almost an observer throughout the film. At one point she mounts a step to peer over the sandbags towards the Fascist lines, and launches into a speech through a megaphone; more than one of her comrades recognizes that she is quoting from a revolutionary book she has read, and it is as though the habit of catechism cannot be broken in her. By whatever process of rationalization, Maria conflates the ideals of a Christian paradise with the earthly principles and goals of anarchism. Indeed one of her comrades, a woman with spiritualist leanings, declares to her that Jesus was history’s first recorded anarchist – not an unreasonable claim when one considers that the early Church in Jerusalem was arguably a commune with no private property.

An over-arching theme of the film is feminism, or more specifically the role of wholly-liberated women in a revolutionary movement. Here Pilar is the mouthpiece, rising in a meeting where a rostrum speaker from the Mujeres Libres is putting forward the view that women should work in factories while men go to the front, and saying that women can die just as well as men can. The speaker at the rostrum is never stated to be Federica Montseny (a leading anarchist in 1936 who swallowed her principles and took a ministerial post in the Republican Government) but there is a physical resemblance. Pilar represents the anarchist puritan, the revolutionary who is wholly prepared to put ideals into practice.

Another theme is that of free love. Equality of the sexes in the matter of choosing sexual partners was a principle of the anarchist movement in the first half of the 20c. However, in the film there are only three memorable scenes where sexuality within the revolutionary context is expressed. The first is when one of the former prostitutes allows one of the milicianos to have intercourse with her. It is a loveless transaction, almost as cold-blooded as her erstwhile ‘business’. But in a way it is nonetheless ‘free’, being a matter of choice. The second is where Maria rejects the advances of a handsome revolutionary whom she knows to have been a former Catholic priest. His ‘advances’ amount only to the pressure of his hand on hers, but she pulls away. Maria, the carrier-along of the film, in fact remains a virgin until her brutal rape by Moroccan soldiers towards the end. The ex-priest plays a part in what is for me a pivotal moment in the film – similar to a pivotal moment in Land and Freedom – which happens during the brief period which I know as Els Fets de Maig, an ironic phrase in Catalan meaning May Day celebrations but referring to the suppression of the militias and the revolutionary movements by the communists. The ex-priest arrives in a lorry with what I take to be a member of the International Brigades, to demand that the militia unit submit to military discipline. They refuse – they are not soldiers but revolutionaries – one by one, even Maria who simply looks at the ex-priest and silently shakes her head. The moment is pivotal because it is when this young woman, whose life and thought has been rigidly guided up to then, appears to make a decision of her own volition. The third scene (by the way, these scenes are not in chronological order as I deal with them) with implications of sexuality and choice is less obvious. Pilar is about to go off with a young man but Maria makes her aware that she needs physical comfort and protection; Pilar puts Maria’s needs first.

One filmic device that struck me was the way that during the occasional appearances of Buenaventura Durruti, the real-life inspirational militia commander, he is either seen from behind or with his face in shadow. The rationale for this could well be that this is not his story. Durruti was charismatic and well-loved by the anarchists, so the angles and lighting remind us that the subjects of the film are the ordinary women of the movement, not the great figures of the era.

Another striking feature was the burning of religious artifacts early in the film. I was shocked at how uncomfortable it made me feel. Even though I am totally against idolatry and I know how much a part of the oppression the Catholic Church in Spain was, I could not shake from my mind a correlation with the Nazi burning of books. But these people I was watching would have been my own comrades, people most of whose ideals I would have shared and whose struggle I would have felt was my own! If that impression taught me anything it was that our own mind-sets are filters through which we see historical and contemporary issues.

However that does bring me to the subject of atrocities committed by these people whom I have just admitted would have been my comrades. We know it happened. What else could happen when an oppressed people – exploited workers and dirt-poor peasants – overturn a whole system, including its judicial process? Justice became summary, scores were settled. If you listen to the witnesses in Juan Gamero’s documentary Vivir la Utopia: anarchismo en España, you will hear them say how they had to be scrupulously virtuous, honest, doing everything out in the open. Thus nothing was hidden, and nothing should be hidden, least of all revolutionary justice and the course it took. In Libertarias Maria has to walk through streets where corpses lie on the pavements and in the gutters, though the corpses are mainly those of Nationalist soldiers or her own comrades who died in the fighting. Summary justice, on the other hand, is largely rushed over. There is a scene where Maria stumbles upon the execution of someone whom I assumed was the corpulent Catholic Monsignor with whom she had been put to bed; but the scene is there more as part of Maria’s ongoing trauma and her dissociation from the convent life. In Land and Freedom we see instant execution meted out to a priest who broke the Catholic ‘seal of the confessional’ and informed the Fascist soldiers where to find all of the anarchists in his village, which led to their murder. Each film is partisan, and we can grant the film-makers the liberty to be so.

I regret that Libertarias does not deal, as Land and Freedom does, with the subject of free, participatory democracy in action. Land and Freedom has a scene in which newly-liberated villagers thrash out the problem of collectivizing the land, Libertarias has no equivalent scene. It as though the structure of anarchism is totally ignored. There is only room for so much, however, and the film is over two hours long.

We all know how the Spanish Civil War turned out so Libertarias was never going to have a ‘happy ending’. In fact the ending is desperately unhappy. However there is something positive which glows in it, and that is the degree of Maria’s integrity that is left intact. She is ‘rescued’ from her rape at the hands of the Moroccan soldiers by a Fascist officer who hears her praying. But later, in the fascist-occupied town, she refuses to confess her ‘sins’ to a priest and is incarcerated with the other surviving revolutionaries. In her prison she tries to comfort the dying Pilar – a reversal of their roles – but is unable to do so.

As I wrote the preceding paragraph I realised that that made three significant rejections of the priesthood on Maria’s part. The first was the sexual rejection of the ex-priest (to whom, by the way, she had earlier knelt and begged for absolution when she first recognized his former office), the second was her declaration of political autonomy from the same ex-priest, and the third was her final rejection of institutional religion, though maybe not her inner faith.

At the end of the film the credits roll to the sound of the anthem A Las Barricadas. I admit that I got to my feet, made the clenched fist anti-Fascist salute, and tried to sing. I had tears in my eyes. I do not know whether the film-maker wanted to evoke such an emotional response in a partisan viewer – I suspect not. On the other hand good drama engages us, including our emotions, and on that basis I recommend the film. See it on International Women’s Day if you can.

All political parties...

... repeat the famous canard of V I Lenin - "There is a party!"

In effect they all say, "Trust us! Sign away your autonomy to us! Let us take all the decisions for you!"

Get this straight. There is no party. There is no party worth signing away your autonomy to. There is no party whose functionaries do not become remote from their constituents once elected. Rule by a party is the same as rule by any elite - an oligarchy. Even a temporary oligarchy elected by a 'representative' system is still an oligarchy, still an inherently corrupt system, no matter how well-intentioned the party workers might be. Every party wants state power, the most idealistic party with the most idealistic adherents still wants state power. The problem with Marxism was never its sane, humane principle of 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs', it was that once the Bolsheviks gained state power the state decided what each person's abilities and needs were and they ended up being the needs and abilities of the state.

Comrades, there is no party. There is you, there is me.

This blog slanders corporations...

... on a regular basis. Bring it on!

Marie's Festive Jukebox

1. Esquivel - Jingle Bells.

2. The Ramones - Merry Christmas, I Don't Want To Fight Tonight.

3. Thomanerchor Leipzig - Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen - attributed to Michael Praetorius.

4. Magpie Lane - The Boar's Head Carol.

5. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick.

6. Monty Python - Ho Ho Fucking Ho. Foul language from the very beginning. You have been warned.

7. Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra - 'Troika' from 'Lieutenant Kije' - Sergei Prokofiev.

8. Ballet Company of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg - 'Arabian Dance' from 'The Nutcracker' - Tchaikovsky. Not obviously Christmas music, but the ballet is traditionally performed at Christmas, and the action of Act 1 at the Stahlbaum's house takes place on Christmas Eve.

9. The Modern Jazz Quartet - England's Carol. Unfortunately YouTube has no clip of the original recording of this wonderful jazz treatment of 'God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' (it does have a recording with added orchestral accompaniment - DO NOT WATCH THIS as the music is dire, uncharacteristically for the MJQ). Listen instead to this recording of their 'Softly As In A Morning Sunrise'.

10. The Copper Family - Shepherds Arise. Traditional two-part harmony from rural Sussex.

Emma Goldman's 'What is Patriotism' speech, San Francisco, 1908

"Men and Women:

What is patriotism? Is it love of one's birthplace, the place of childhood's recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naiveté, we would watch the passing clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not float so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one "an eye should be," piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or is it the place where we would sit on Mother's knee, enraptured by tales of great deeds and conquests? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous and playful childhood?

If that were patriotism, few American men of today would be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deepening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. No longer can we hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears and grief.

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Samuel Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.

Indeed, conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition.

An army and navy represent the people's toys. To make them more attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of toys. That was the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the United States.

The city of San Francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one hundred thousand. Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks, theater parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and children through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price.

What could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum? But instead of bread and shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that it may remain, as one newspaper said, "a lasting memory for the child." A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of civilized slaughter. If the mind of the child is poisoned with such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood?

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.

Such is the logic of patriotism.

Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time. The centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world; a solidarity which represents a greater harmony of interests between the workingman of America and his brothers abroad than between the American miner and his exploiting compatriot; a solidarity which fears not foreign invasion, because it is bringing all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters, "Go and do your own killing. We have done it long enough for you."

The proletariat of Europe has realized the great force of that solidarity and has, as a result, inaugurated a war against patriotism and its bloody specter, militarism. Thousands of men fill the prisons of France, Germany, Russia and the Scandinavian countries because they dared to defy the ancient superstition.

America will have to follow suit. The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy.

The beginning has already been made in the schools. Children are trained in military tactics, the glory of military achievements extolled in the curriculum, and the youthful mind perverted to suit the government. Further, the youth of the country is appealed to in glaring posters to join the Army and the Navy. "A fine chance to see the world!" cries the governmental huckster. Thus innocent boys are morally shanghaied into patriotism, and the military Moloch strides conquering through the nation.

When we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for the great structure where all shall be united into a universal brotherhood -- a truly free society."

  __________  

With God on Our Side Bob Dylan

Marie'Jukebox, 10th/11th October 2011

All of the following should be accessible on iTunes or YouTube. Get in there and check them out.

1. Take Me Away (New Orleans Bounce Remix by B.Ford) ~ Keyshia Cole
2. Only Ashes ~ Something Corporate
3. Frappe dans tes Mains ~ Yvette Horner
4. My White Bicycle ~ Tomorrow
5. Theme from Robinson Crusoe ~ The Art of Noise
6. Snow [Hey Oh] ~ Red Hot Chilli Peppers
7. Kiss (Aon Mix) ~ The Art of Noise feat. Tom Jones
8. Brother Can You Spare A Dime ~ Al Jolson
9. Rolling in the Deep (New Orleans Bounce Mix) ~ Adele
10. Angels in the Snow ~ Sam Duckworth
11. Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair – The Arctic Monkeys
12. Katyusha ~ Red Army Choir
13. Love Minus Zero / No Limit ~ Bob Dylan
14. I Gotta See Jane ~ R Dean Taylor
15. Low Self Control (feat. Tender Forever) ~ Mirah
16. Can’t Buy Me Love ~ The King’s Singers
17. Gay Bar ~ Electric Six
18. Desdemona ~ John’s Children
19. Wondrous Place ~ Alice Gold
20. Darkness Within (acoustic track) ~ Machine Head
21. Cinema (Skrillex Remix) ~ Benny Benassi feat. Gary Go
22. I’m Getting Ready ~ Michael Kiwanuka
23. Now Or Never ~ UnterArt
24. Shake it Out (The Weeknd Remix) ~ Florence and the Machine
25. Coronation Scot ~ Sidney Torch and the Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra
26. Shut The Hell Up ~ Noisuf-X
27. Long Black Veil ~ Johnny Cash
28. Hoobaale ~ K’naan
29. Broken Promise Land ~ Linda Chorney
30. Once in a Lifetime ~ Wolfsheim
31. Beverley Hills Cop ~ Harold Faltermeyer
32. Dreadlock Holiday ~ 10cc
33. Part of Your World ~ Florence Welch

Voicemail of a glass-half-empty person

"Hello. You have reached the teepee of Marie Marshall and Consuela Sanchez. There's no one here right now, but please leave your number and comment after the beep."

BEEP

Oligarchy and freedom - a brief note

The American dictionary Merriam-Webster defines ‘oligarchy’ as: “1) government by the few; 2) a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes, also a group exercising such control; 3) an organization under oligarchic control.” As examples it gives: “Their nation is an oligarchy”, “An oligarchy rules their nation”, and “The corporation is ruled by oligarchy”.

Why do we consistently and persistently refer to ‘Russian oligarchs’ but Western ‘CEOs’?

Any structure or system in which power devolves upwards is an oligarchy by the definition above. Even our ‘democracies’ in countries like the USA and Great Britain, even with American ‘checks and balances’, even with British ‘supremacy of parliament’, even with the presence on our active political stage of maverick representatives who try to keep alive in their minds that they are there to serve the people who voted for them, even with the consensual act of the electorate’s placing an ‘X’ on a piece of paper, even with the prospect of governments coming and going every few years, power nevertheless devolves upwards into the hands of fewer and fewer people – a ‘political class’, a handful of political oligarchs.

I know the above is arguable at best, but what I submit is not arguable is my assertion that capitalist corporations are oligarchies. I have said before that corporations are the least accountable structures since medieval feudalism (the notion that they are somehow ‘accountable’ to consumers is laughably disingenuous). So why not call a spade a spade. Rupert Murdoch, just to give an example, is an oligarch.

Our laws keep these oligarchies in place. Our political constitutions support the upward devolution of political power. Our civil and criminal laws though having a social component are broadly oriented towards the defence of whatever is proprietary. If we desire freedom, if we desire liberty, especially if we want to wrest those words back from people who champion political or economic oligarchy then – will we, nill we – we are going to bark our shins on these laws.

The following linked video is forty-eight minutes of lucid wisdom from the late Murray Bookchin on the subject ‘forms of freedom’, in which he expounds succinctly the democratic structures and movements, mostly suppressed from our history/ies, from which we can learn and from which we can draw inspiration in our drive to achieve real freedom. The lecture was given in 1985.

Diary of a Chief Replicator Technician. (No Smurf porn, just Star Trek)

“Pass me the number seven molecular wrench, honey,” I said without looking up from my work. I needed to keep an eye on what I was doing because I had three micro-clamps and a positron patch in place, and the neutron flow was temporarily in reverse across two junctions in the common matter circuit. Tricky stuff.

Consuela (my Tejana subordinate) rummaged in the tool kit and handed me the wrench. Then the sat back against the bulkhead with her long, Latina legs stuck out across the corridor and blew through her lips.

“I’m bored, Skip,” she announced.

I made a tiny adjustment with the molecular wrench, returned the neutron flow to its proper direction – there, that should hold for now – and relaxed.

“I know, I know. It is boring sitting there while someone else does the work, but shipboard regulations state that each job on the replicator system has to be attended by at least two specialists, even if one of them has to stand around and scratch her bahookie while the other one grafts.”

“Hey!” Consuela objected, and I laughed.

“Anyhow,” I went on. “I just have a couple more tweaks to make and this wee fella will be replicating anything from the Works of Shakespeare to a planet!”

I could make a replicator sing the Marseillaise, and Consuela knew it!

I was just removing the last mirco-clamp and was about to pull my head out of the hatch and secure the cover, when there were footsteps along the narrow corridor.

“You there! Technicians! You’re in the way,” snapped a young voice. Consuela and I stood up to look at whomever it was in whose way we were. I rolled up the sleeves of my overalls just enough to reveal the skull tattoo with the words “Freedom or Death” in Romulan. We were, it appeared, in the way of four Starfleet Academy types. To us they seemed to be little more than teenagers. Two young men, two young women.

“Is this what they teach at the academy these days?” I said. “How to disrupt the most vital work on the ship? How to throw your insignificant weight around?”

The tallest of the group stepped forward, his face reddening.

“Is that how you address superior officers? Stand to attention! You’ll be on a charge for this!”

Consuela began to come to attention.

“As you were, Leading Replicator Technician Sanchez,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. Then I turned back to the young Academy type. “Superior officers? Three Ensigns and a Third Lieutentant in a uniform so new it hasn’t even developed a sweat-wrinkle yet. Four new-aboards who probably don’t know what part of the ship they’re in. Four pips who have yet to squeak. How long have you been on the USS Enterprise – a week? Two?”

“That’s beside the point. You’re insubordinate…”

“And you’re presumptuous. Check regulations, check the chain of command in this ship, check who is answerable to whom. You’ll find that Senior Technical Ranks in the Main Systems Groups are not answerable to Ensigns and Third Louies in Bridge Relief. In fact if anyone has to get out of the way, it’s you.”

The three Ensigns looked confused, but the Third Louie was still black-affronted and stood there with his hands on his skinny hips. I sighed.

“Okay,” I said “Let’s not make this any bigger than it needs to be. You’re new on board and you don’t know how things work. You’re full of Starfleet Academy and probably the applause of graduation is still ringing in your ears. Hey, that’s not a problem, everyone has to start somewhere. I can remember when I was an apprentice technician who had never left earth gravity and didn’t know one end of a gravitational torque meter from the other. We’ve all been there. But the more time you spend here on the Enterprise or any of the other Starships the more you will realise that ‘chain of command’ isn’t quite what you think it is. Okay, tell me – what do you think the most vital functional collectives in this ship are.”

“That’s easy,” said the tall one. “Bridge Command, Astro-Navigation, Main Engineering, and Weapons.”

I shook my head. “Straight out of Year One text book. And totally wrong. Anyone else care to hazard a guess?”

One of the ensigns, a young Vulcan with knitted brows, took a breath and said, “With all due respect to the Third Lieutenant, logic demands that the Scientific Division headed by the Science Officer should be in the first quartile, although strictly speaking it is a sub-division of Bridge Command. Similarly Warp Drive Division, although theoretically a sub-division of Main Engineering. If you insist that the rest of the Third Lieutenant’s selections are wrong - and I have to say the logic of that escapes me, then the Security and Away-Team sub-divisions seem the only remaining candidates of any relevance.”

I shook my head again. “No cigar, Logic-Boy. Anyone else?”

“Communications?” That was a small, slender girl with dark hair.

“Life support? Transporter?” That was her mousy friend.

“Miles away. Light years even. Okay, allow me to give you a lesson, if the Leff-tenant has no objection.” The young man in question turned bright red. Since Standard American had become the lngua franca of Starfleet some greenhorns tended to object to British pronunciation of their ranks. I ignored him and continued.

“As you all know, the working collectives on board a Starship are divided into what used to be called ‘Departments’ but what are now called ‘Divisions’, with an Officer of Commander level at its head. These may contain ‘sub-Divisions’, and both Divisions and sub-Divisions contain ‘Units’ with responsibility for specific duties. These duties are divided into ‘task areas’ and each task area is the responsibility of a ‘Team’. An individual operatives responsibility, whether command, executive, or active, is contained in a ‘Seat’ - one talks about ‘Navigation Seat’ and ‘Helm Seat’ on the Bridge, ‘Energiser Seat’ in Transport, and so on. All fairly basic...

Now, the four most important working collectives on a Starship are as follows, in reverse order. Number four - the Jeffries Tube Maintenance Team, headed by the Senior Jeffries Tube Technician. The Jeffries Tubes is vitally important to any Starship because it gives access...”

“Excuse me,” interrupted the knitted-brow Vulcan, his brows now at ‘purl one, take two together, cast off’. “You just said the ‘Jeffries Tubes is’. Didn’t you mean ‘the Jeffries Tubes are’?”

I shook my head.

“A common misconception,” I said. “The Jeffries Tubes, although grammatically a plural, is always referred to on board a Starship in the singular. It’s tradition, a bit like referring to the ship as ‘she’. Also, when you think...”

“I’ve never got that either,” broke in one of the other ensigns. “Even the USS Richard Millhouse Nixon is referred to as ‘she’.”

“... of it, the Jeffries Tubes is a single system throughout the whole ship. It is a single tubes. One tubes. A discrete tubes. Each segment has a different designation - Port Upper Decks Transfer, Lower Engineering Third Junction, Accommodation Straight-through, Aft Fluke, Gunnery Deck Archangel Moroni Passway...”

“Pardon me?”

“... Don’t ask. Anyhow, as well as giving access to all vital systems and carrying all the major functional trunking, cable, and busbars, the Jeffries Tubes is invaluable when the ship is boarded by unfriendly aliens. They may occupy the whole ship and lock the Bridge Command in Sick Bay, but they never think of the Jeffries Tubes, and the Bridge Command always manage to out-flank them by going through the Jeffries Tubes. Voila!

Okay, at number three we have the Inertia Damping System Maintenance Unit. Now the Inertia Damping System are the...”

“Er... “ interrupted the young Vulcan. “... nothing. Please carry on.”

I heaved a melodramatic sigh and continued.

“The Inertia Damping System are the most important element of a Starship’s mechanical function. Without it even the most sophisticated Starship would have to take several weeks to accelerate even to quarter impulse power if its crew was to survive. It would have to function as nothing more than an un-manned probe.”

It’s truly remarkable how the words ‘un-manned probe’ always cause laughter amongst young Academy types. I allowed the sniggering to die down and continued.

“Number two - the Heisenberg Compensator Maintenance Team. If the circuits on which compensating for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle relied were so much as a thou out of whack, then the whole transporter system would have to be shut down and everything would have to be transported by shuttle. The HC is the thing that stops a transporter beaming your molecules randomly across all points in the Universe simultaneously. That compensation is, of course, impossible, so the HC is incredibly complex and incredibly important. Without it all Away Team work, prime freight transference, etcetera etcetera would be slow, expensive, unviable.”

“I must ask you this, as you’re a technical... person... officer... um...” The Third Lieutenant was now much less sure of himself than he previously had been. “How does the Heisenberg Compensator actually work?”

“It actually works very well, thank you,” I said and went on without a pause. “Top of the list and undeniably the most important working collective on this and any other Starship is the Replicator Maintenance Unit. On this ship that means me – I’m the head of the Replicator Maintenance Unit on the USS Enterprise and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking she would say that. Well yeah, of course I would. But also it happens to be true. Just look around at everything that isn’t welded down in this ship, and a good many things which are. Where did you draw that tricorder from, Third Leff-tenant?”

“Stores… er… Ma’am.”

“Uh-huh. Logic Boy, your communicator, where did you get that?”

“Stores, Chief Technician Marshall,” he answered, reading the designation on my overalls.

“Okay. All of you, the shipboard uniforms with the Enterprise’s own cuff-flash, where did those come from?”

“Direct from the Quartermaster, Chief,” said the mousy young woman.

“And where did you all eat last?”

“Mess Deck,” they chorused.

“Right. In that case everything you have used or consumed in all those activities has been made possible by the efficient functioning of the Replicator System,” I said. I paused and looked at them.

The Third Lieutenant thought for a few moments.

“So… the Replicator System is… are… er… is…” he faltered. I didn’t help him out. He settled on ‘is’. “The Replicator System is the most important… thingie in the ship, right?”

“Exactly,” I said. “Keep up this standard, Third Leff-tenant, and you’ll go far! Now then ladies and gentlemen. Would any of you like to hazard a guess at the basic principles of replication?”

The mousy one put up her hand, as though she was still in school. “Please Ma’am, it responds to a verbal, visual, or electronic command by searching a database in which is stored the precise, sub-atomic template for several trillion objects and substances and constructing the object or substance specified in the command.”

I nodded and she beamed.

“Yep,” I said. “Straight out of ‘Starship 101’! But can you tell me what it constructs the ‘object or substance’ out of? Anyone?”

They looked around at each other as though reluctant to speak, as though they had an answer but were reluctant to give it, knowing that it would only reveal their ignorance when my follow-up question came. Then the dark-haired young woman piped up.

“Common Matter, Ma’am.”

“Yes, Ensign,” I said. “Full marks. Good old Common Matter. Anyone know what that is? No? Well it’s a kind of soup made from cosmic particles gathered at the forward nacelle scoops and the main saucer scoop.”

They looked relieved that they hadn’t been required to answer, and interested even.

“Look,” I said. “No it bloody well isn’t. I only said that to see if you would be daft enough to swallow it. What ‘forward nacelle scoops’? What ‘main saucer scoop’? Look, here’s a schematic of the Enterprise on this bulkhead – point them out to me. Go ahead. Okay you can’t, because there aren’t any such things, and you ought to know that! But I wasn’t kidding about Common Matter, it exists. Which of you bright sparks is going to tell me where we get it from?”

I looked at them. They were not so much bright sparks any more as they were four pieces of damp kindling. If you have ever back-packed on the planet Monsoonia and tried to light a camp fire you’ll understand the metaphor.

“Oh-kaaaayyy,” I sighed. “Common Matter is the product of every redundant and wasted item that the ship might produce. Anything we don’t need, anything we discard, is converted to its basic sub-atomic nature, compressed, and stored in the Common Matter Tank… right here… see the schematic? It’s maintained by a specialist team, full title the Replicator Maintenance Unit Common Matter Tank Maintenance Team – ‘the Tankers’ for short. They’re headed by a Senior Replicator Technician who reports direct to me. The USS Enterprise is a green ship, it recycles everything it wastes. Even the urine and fecal matter you flush away in the heads…”

There was a silence in the corridor that you could have driven a screw into as what I had said sunk in. The young Vulcan spoke first.

“But that means…”

“Uh huh. You have been eating your own poop since the day you stepped on board.”

I never realised before that people really did turn green with nausea. Of course the Vulcan didn’t, being already green – it’s the copper in Vulcan blood – but his companions now had the same skin tone exactly.

“Er… may we be excused, Ma’am?” said the Third Lieutenant.

“Dismissed.” I said, and they legged it down the corridor. I could hear retching as they fled into the nearest turbo-lift. I hoped they could hold it.

“You’re bloody evil, Marie,” said Consuela.

“What? Why? It’s perfectly true that sewage from the heads goes into Common Matter.”

“Yeah, I know that. It’s more that you’ll now have three Ensigns and a Third Louie saluting all the Technicians in the ship, talking about the Archangel Moroni, and sounding like idiots when they mix up their grammar.”

“By the time they realise they’ve been had, they’ll have grown up enough to see it was all part of their learning curve” I said. “Anyhow, I’ve got news for you – you’ll like this – I booked the Warrant Officers’ Forward Conference Room for oh eight hundred…”

“So what?”

“Well, I also hacked into the electronic diaries for Yeoman Janice Rand and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura and scheduled a meeting for them in the same room for the same time.”

“I just know there’s more to this,” said Consuela.

“Damn right. Here’s the good bit,” I said, not able to suppress a grin. “I also tweaked their personal replicator out-ports so that when they ask for a spray of their favourite ‘Hyper-kitteh’ perfume it comes laced with a powerful Sapphrodisiac.”

Consuela thought for a minute, then said, “I’ll fight you for Uhura.”

“Hold that thought,” I replied.

We picked up the tool kit and jack-and-jilled it down the corridor. Consuela shook her head as she walked.

“Totally, utterly evil…”

The Top Ten

I have been playing around with my site stats, and I thought you might like to know what my most popular pages have been. There are some surprises.

1.  Survival, psychopathy, and Smurf porn was the page which first reminded me that there was a stats facility which would give me details of how many hits a page had had and where they came from. In this case the very words 'Smurf porn' had ensured that this post featured on the first page of Google if you mentioned those words. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I hope the Googlers weren't too disappointed with the almost total lack of Smurf porn in the post!

2.  Smurf porn! Smurf porn! Smurf porn! Well, it worked once...

3.  The 10 best mass protests was actually reproduced directly from an article by Ed Vulliamy, published originally in The Observer.

4.  Свобода або Смерть (3) was the last of three articles I wrote about Ukrainian anarchist leader Nestor Makhno. It attracted a number of long and interesting comments.

5.  The Five Champions was my attempt at writing a 'mumming play', plus further observations about the blackening the face in English traditional ritual. One of the most difficult aspects of this topic has been persuading American readers to separate it from stage 'blackface' entertainment. The post includes clips to some interesting examples of traditional British sword dancing.

6.  Smurf porn: 'Legally Lesbian Smurfs' ... well... okay I had another go, this time satirising mainstream porno. I'm actually surprised this doesn't sit at No.3!

7.  Of Anarchism, Lies, and Sports bras. It does exactly what it says on the tin!

8.  Brain-teasers. I asked three questions, two of which were (slightly) trick questions and the other was a plea for information on a simply matter of physics.

9.  More of Keats and Chapman - one of many!

10.  Brain-teasers and guns, where you will find the answers to the brain-teasers in No.8 and a history of gun control in the UK.

Any of these might be worth revisiting, don't you think? :-)

... stops here!

President Harry S Truman looked around the Oval Office. His eye took in the rich, red drapes, the deep carpet in the same shade, the mahogany of the furniture. He glanced over each shoulder – right, left – to take in the Stars-and-Stripes and his own Presidential Standard, and reflected that the room was still very much to the taste of Roosevelt his predecessor. How could it not be? FDR was such a dominating personality. He asked himself whether he had the courage (or the energy, or the time…) to redecorate.

Perhaps at this moment he doubted himself a little, but Truman was indeed a man of character. He looked down at his desk. Yes, here was the new Truman Presidency, ordered, workmanlike, symmetrical – that’s how he would be. A place for his pen, a place for his presidential blotter, a place for everything, yes everything was in order, so why was he frowning?

“What is missing?” he thought.

His frown deepened when he caught sight of something he had been trying to avoid looking at. A tarpaulin had been laid on the carpet, and on that was the carcass of a freshly-killed white-tailed deer, a fine male with a single bullet hole in its forehead. It was a gift from an eager, young White House aide who had heard that the President liked hunting. In that the aide had miscalculated – Truman shot grouse, not deer.

The President got up and walked round to the front of his desk. The carcass would not go away of its own accord, it had to be dealt with, a decision had to be made and it was the Commander-in-Chief who had to make it. No one else would make it for him.

“What the hell use would there be in a President who knew how to skin a damn deer?” he asked aloud. The walls of the Oval Office echoed his rhetorical question. He looked down at the white-tailed buck, then to the empty space on his desk. His frown melted. An idea formed in his mind and he made a decision. He lifted the Presidential phone and spoke to his secretary Matthew Connelly.

“Matt,” he said. “Get me the Presidential Butcher. And while you’re at it, get me the Presidential Carpenter and the Presidential Signwriter too…”

John Pilger on the recent riots

I am grateful to blogger Ian Bone for drawing our attention to John Pilger's article in the New Statesman 18th August 2011. John Pilger is a left-wing journalist whose writings are always worth attention even if you find yourself in disagreement with him. In the light of that, if you do follow the link above and read the article don't forget to check out readers' comments too. I was glad to see the comment I reproduce below, because I have noticed that the main thing to emerge from analyses of the riots is the strengthening of the various analysts' prejudices.

"Turns out these riots really are a blank canvas for one's own views to be liberally painted on. On the left? Its the rise of the proleteriat. On the right? Its the breakdown of social order through years of lefty government. Are you a racist? Turns out these riots were the result of them coloured types. Interested in employment issues? Turns out the riots are all about youth unemployment. It's boring and it adds no new insight whatsoever. Can all writers and leaders on all sides of the fence at least make an effort to understand these riots instead of simply using them to legitimise their own ideologies? Is that really too much to ask?"

Diary of a glass-half-empty person 32: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

There was a knock at the flap of the tepee this morning. Consuela (my Tejana maid) being busy in the scullery, scullering, I answered the knock myself. Pulling back the flap I was surprised to see what appeared to be a UPS delivery man, or something very like one. Let me enumerate the differences for you.

Difference the first:- being the scarlet of his uniform, as opposed to the brown of UPS.

Difference the second:- being the rococo, crowned escutcheon bearing an upright cross upon a small Calvary flanked by a wild olive branch and a rapier  embroidered on the left breast of said uniform in place of the UPS logo.

Difference the third:- being the red beanie on his head, somewhat in the likeness of a yarmulke, in place of the UPS cap.

Difference the fourth:- being a heavy silver crucifix on a chain of the same around his neck, this being totally lacking in a UPS uniform.

“Spanish Inquisition,” he announced, holding out one of those hand-held gizmos and a plastic stylus. “Sign here please.”

I choked back the obvious reply to his announcement but did not take the proffered gizmo and stylus. He continued to hold it out, meanwhile looking quizzically at me and shifting his balance from one foot to the other.

“Spanish Inquisition?” I queried.

“Yes. Spanish Inquisition. You are Muzz Marshall, yes?”

“I am.”

“Muzz Marie Marshall, The Teepee, The Sidlaws, by Dundee?”

“Yes indeed, I am she, but I know nothing of any ‘Spanish Inquisition’.”

He retracted and reversed his gizmo and looked at it with some puzzlement. “Yep, that’s what it says here – ‘Muzz Marie Marshall, The Teepee, The Sidlaws, by Dundee; one all-in discount package Spanish Inquisition, including auto-da-fé and execution in effigie’.”

“Well, I’m a little surprised,” I said.

At that he brightened up and held out the gizmo and stylus. “Ah, well, you see, ‘surprise’ is one of the diverse elements amongst our weaponry.”

“Yes I heard that. I also heard that ‘ruthless efficiency’ was another one, but I’m afraid that you’ve rather let the side down in that respect. No Inquisition, Spanish or otherwise, has been ordered at this address.”

His face fell and he looked around.

“Is there another Marshall household in the area?” he asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” I said.

“Another ‘teepee’ perhaps?”

I gestured, and he looked around again at the bare, uninhabited hillside, and at the surrounding and equally bare hills.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You appear to have had a wasted journey.”

“Okay, Madam. Sorry to have troubled you,” he said and walked off back down the faint sentier that winds from the tepee to the nearest track that will accommodate vehicles. He was staring at his gizmo and talking into his Blackberry. A few words drifted back on the nagging, Sidlaw wind.

“Chief? Cardinal Ginger here… yep… yep… nope, you gave me the wrong name and address… I mean, it’s not bloody rocket science, is it...”

I shut the flap of the tepee and settled down on my chaise longue to watch TV again. I hugged my secret, dark, dangerous heresy to my bosom and smiled a smug smile.