"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." T S Eliot

Tuesday 22 December 2009

I Can Almost Live (with the way I'm leavin' you)

Will you forgive me
If I look at your game, girl
And thru a lucid glimpse
Find nothing we could learn.

Tangled in caprice, these
Poems promise no return
- Are you surprised that now
I don’t believe the words

Don’t give me naïve,
Come on tell me, why so sad?
We both knew this love
Could turn a good man bad.
If easy whispers
Left us feelin’ hard done by
Know you can’t call me back
To hang on vacant sighs.

Thought I could love you once
Til I got sad inside
Now this delicate blues
Is the way I’m leavin’ you.

I’ve walked all over
Harvesting discarded dreams
Yet I struggle to fit
These hand-me-down fears

As time you’ll while by
Know you can’t love this feeling
And you’ll return to lay
Here under my wing

Search the soul that fell,
Tumbled from grace and favour
Tender is the rain
Though dischented now, 'cause
While the echoes, they tease
-From your eyes the tears -
The laugh in your footfall
Doesn’t ring so clear.

Thought I could love you once
Til I learned my own mind
With these derelict blues
I can almost live without you


Tramps N' Thieves (Beg Borrow & Steal)

Hey you mister, I wouldn't ask,
but can you spare a thought;
'cause looks to me like you got prayers to spare.
Every day finds me down-at-heel
the novelty's wearing thin;
it's hard to bite your tongue with my fair share.

Back to back my brother
never cut these ties that bind.
As tramps an' thieves;
we'll beg borrow and steal

You know that I've learnt how to laugh
at those dangerous dreams;
whisperin' love an' leave to rags and riches.
Left behind for a song an' dance;
wishing on a wing and prayer
now I find myself caught between love and sin.

Back to back, my brother
never cut these ties that bind
as tramps an thieves;
we'll beg borrow an steal
wall to wall no other
could take your place in these eyes
just tramps an thieves
we beg borrow an steal

Say they never did have me down
as just another man;
pushing life along, all the best he can.
I'm too far gone for second thoughts,
forgive me my graceless ways;
seems lately my friend, there's too much time to hand

Back to back my brother
never cut these ties that bind
we'll beg borrow an steal
as tramps an thieves.

Monday 21 December 2009

Heaven

This knife laid bare my veins to deceit and pride,
While my lips clamoured for the cocktail kiss
No-one held my reflection as a friend of mine.
After each retreat from the nerves and guilt,
Within my broken shell, let loose denial;
And I convinced myself good boys don't cry

When in heaven, it's cold after hours
Your noose solution ain't the answer -

As the cold seeps thru when you're goin' under,
A mystery beat tears you from the brink.
Your fingers still numb; regret the damage you done.
After a million wide-eyed moments,
You'd think the signs couldn't be much clearer
That's instinct beating; learn to trust it kid.

When in heaven, it's cold after hours
Your noose solution ain't the answer -

They wouldn't believe,
but with this laughter in my footfall
can't shake this belief
that in heaven, it's cold after hours
your noose solution ain't the answer
When in heaven, it's cold after hours.

Monday 9 November 2009

Government drugs agenda busted wide open


Home Secretary Alan Johnson last week sacked the Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Professor David Nutt was shown the door after giving a speech attacking the government’s decision to toughen up cannabis laws.

Alan Johnson told David Nutt that he no longer had confidence in him after Nutt accused ministers of “distorting and devaluing” evidence over cannabis when they overruled the ACMD’s advice and reclassified cannabis from class C to B.

This attack on the independence of the government’s scientific advisors demonstrates that the official drugs agenda will not be guided by reason or scientific advice. Instead the government is sending a firm message that its bodies of so-called ‘independent’ advisors are expected to facilitate government policy rather than providing critical scientific scrutiny.

The resignation of the two other members of the ACMD panel in the aftermath of Professor Nutt’s sacking reflects the horrified reaction of the scientific community, as well as the general public.

The drug policies of Labour and Tory governments have always been marked by irrational, knee-jerk reactions to the various moral panics which sweep the country every few months. The governments’ drug agendas have nearly always flown in the face of both common sense and scientific advice. This has resulted in a major drug industry which blights whole communities with murder, prostitution, and drug-related crimes.

The Tories are no better than Labour; Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling backed Alan Johnson, saying that it reflected the government’s lack of focus because they didn’t sack Dr Nutt earlier.

When the government couldn’t find any scientific evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, they simply got one of their advisors, Dr David Kelly, to make it up. When the lies were exposed, they used him as a scapegoat. The attacks on him by the same government ministers who had forced him to create the false dossier and the constant media hounding led to his committing suicide some time later.

Clearly the government burned its fingers with the David Kelly WMD affair, so now when someone contradicts their official line, they resort to the cowardly and bullying option of sacking them.

Unfortunately for Alan Johnson, this seems to have totally backfired. With the government unable to provide any reason for contradicting the ACMD’s advice, they have jeopardised the independence of scientific advice to the government.

Without this advice, everything from Nuclear weapons to Drugs policies would be free of scientific reasoning and instead directed by the government’s hypocritical agenda which is constantly reacting to the interests of its capitalist masters and their media.

Sunday 8 November 2009

A complete unmitigated clusterfuck

A week on from the disastrous anti-fascist mobilisation against the English Defence League  in Leeds, and it's  time to contribute my two pence (the first of many, no doubt) with a bit more objectivity than most of us could manage in the immediate aftermath of the demo.

Clearly it was a disaster - a lower turnout and even less militant UAF than in Manchester.

In the weeks prior to the demo, antifascists co-ordinated to build a militant contingent that aimed to no platform the EDL, and which would avoid repeating the Manchester debacle where several hundred EDL were allowed to demonstrate just metres away from the UAF rally.

However the leaders of the UAF including members of the Socialist Workers Party, called repeatedly on Leeds Council to ban the EDL demonstration. This action is not only cowardly but dangerous - by reinforcing illusions that the bourgeois state will smash fascism, it paves the way to the state banning assemblies by workers organisations. There would be no rallies in support of the postal workers, and Trade Unions would be crippled in times of spiralling unemployment and economic crisis.

Students at Leeds university held several meetings, and leafleted areas of Leeds with the aim of building a credible no platform contingent on the Hyde Park feeder march. The strategy of having 3 feeder marches from different areas was a good attempt to correct the failures of the Manchester demo, but all were very small.

Hyde Park was the biggest of the 3, but we did not have the numbers to prevent ourselves being penned in front of the art Gallery - despite the efforts of students and workers at the front to continue down the Headrow.

When all feeder marches and demonstrators had eventually gathered in front of the art gallery, there were pitfully few - much less than in Manchester and on previous anti-EDL marches. This in spite of the work that had been put into building for it by more militant sections of UAF and independent anti-fascists. Clearly this demonstrates that there is only a certain amount of people you can attract to a 'peaceful celebration of multiculturalism' passing off as a credible anti-fascism. People in Leeds looked at the lukewarm response of UAF in Manchester and thought -correctly- that it was fanciful to suppose that it had any intention of stopping the fascists assembling.

So while the anti-fascists milled around listening to pacifistic, delusional, and reactionary speeches from various shining lights of militant anti-fascism - including a Lib Dem councillor who is in the middle of leading a vicious attack on the refuse and Street Scene workers in Leeds who have been on indefinite strike for 6 weeks.When members of Revolution and other demonstrators started chanting 'support striking workers' while he spoke, a leading member of the SWP in Leeds rounded on us claiming 'you don't have to support the  strikes to be against fascism' - Perhaps you can have a real no platform anti-fascism by two groups locked in a bitter dispute; should class struggle cease for the purpose of opposing the fascists?

An antifascist movement cannot exist in an isolated bubble. Just as the fascist growth is not independent of the failings of capitalism, a working-class response cannot hope to smash fascism in collusion with the very bosses who are stating the importance of solidarity and unity within UAF while simultaneously trying to smash the CWU as well as attacking other workers across the country.

When it became clear that the UAF leadership was trying to wind up the rally in the early afternoon, Revolution started liaising with independant antifascists as well as younger members of the SWP from Leeds and Manchester with the intention of trying to lead part of the demo out of the pen to confront the EDL in city square.

At which point Weyman Bennett decided to let us know that we had demonstrated that the EDL weren't welcome on our streets by our mere presence several streets away. Laughable of course, but then he outrageously went on to claim that there were only '200' EDL in city square, and that only '400' had turned up in Manchester. These brazen lies are inexplicable even from a man well known for ensuring that the UAF does not commit itself to positively no platforming fascists.

Through updates coming through from observers down at the EDL demonstration, it seems nearer 900-1000 of them were demonstrating freely in city square and parading up and down the surrounding streets - with police passively observing or nowhere to be seen. In one incident EDL supporters were seen rocking cars with Asian families in as well as abusing Asians and gay people on the streets.

So clearly we didn't show the EDL that they were unwelcome in Leeds by any stretch of the imagination. Instead what happened is the EDL felt entirely comfortable bringing their racism to the city centre - so imagine how they will behave when they start appearing away from the cameras and police on the backstreets of our estates.

Despite the efforts of some to break sections of the crowd away to confront the EDL, the UAF stalled any progress and kept demonstrators formed up ready to march - all the while Weyman Bennett saying that we would be marching soon... Instead his filibustering gave the police enough time to bring up several rows of reinforcements so that there was no chance of breaking out on that side of the pen.

Efforts by members of Revolution to lead the demonstration out of a less well-guarded exit, met with some initial success but the refusal of the majority of the SWP to take party meant that the attempt failed. Indeed, Revolution members were accused of being 'ultraleft' by comrades in the SWP who had earlier worked with us to break away from the tame UAF rally.

We eventually left around 4pm as the demo had dwindled to around 100 people. We had not managed to even see the EDL scum all day. Quite how this was any kind of success is beyond me.

What Saturday demonstrated is that the crisis within UAF completely paralysed it on the day, and proves that UAF is not able to provide a working-class vehicle for driving the fascist scum off our streets wherever they appear.

Those within the SWP asking questions about the popular-frontist nature of the UAF tactic should be looking to form local antifascist formations that are prepared to organise to no platform any fascism emergence in their area.

We need the militant sections of the UAF to split along class lines and organise locally and nationally to combat the increasing threat of the BNP and EDL. We cannot afford to wait until the EDL are confident enough to start marching regularly, and wreaking havoc in black and Asian communities while creating a regime of fear in white working-class neighbourhoods.

The need for new anti-fascist formations is great. But it will only be achieved if the big socialist organisations and militant workers groups decide to commit to it in a sincere manner. Without this commitment we will have only the small, disparate groups of anti-fascists struggling to stem an increasingly militant and well-organised fascist revival.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

BBC Question Time Protest

Went down to Ldn a couple weeks ago with about a dozen SWP comrades from Leeds to demonstrate outside the BBC in west London.

The decision by the BBC to allow Nazi Nick to appear on Question Time elicited a reaction from everyone and his sister, and for most people the arguments were fairly simple: As a democratic and democratically elected party, the BNP must be allowed the same public platform as everyone else. The reasoning behind this being that every time the BNP turn up in public, they bring along more than enough rope to hang themselves with.

The second train of thought was that the BNP shouldn't be allowed any kind of platform, which oddly enough seemed to see Peter Hain in agreement with those on the left who engage in a consistent policy of no platform for fascists.

However there are two problems with the democracy argument.

Firstly, the BNP are not a legitimate political party (in the sense that any of the bosses parties have a claim to legitimacy). It exists to advocate and bring about an all-white Britain, dragging the country back to where we were before half a century of anti-racist activism.

Not only do they want to recreate some idyllic snowflake Albion, but we must be in no doubt that as a fascist organisation, they will smash workers' organisations without the least hesitation, and will attack all the rights that workers have won over the past decades.

Secondly, all the 'political commentators' seem to agree that Nick Griffin was a pasty-faced, shifty-eyed caricature on Question Time - an embarrassment to himself and his party. However, this perception has been true of every one of Nick's public appearances. Far from demolishing the BNP's credibility as the bourgeois media gleefully proposed in Friday's papers, Griffin's QT appearance merely reinforced the BNP's public position as the victimised, anti-establishment party standing up to a nefarious Lib/Lab/Con multicultural conspiracy to deport the ethnic British population to Magaluf.

The BBC's decision to rehabilitate the BNP into the national consciousness just a short time after they ran an undercover show exposing them as an amateur gang of Nazi hooligans, should not have come as a surprise. The appearance on the show will doubtless mean that the BNP will feature with some regularity on the public broadcaster - even though the homophobic, sexist and racist BNP disagrees with just about every one of the BBC's ethical guidelines.

The demonstration itself like most recent UAF stunts was something of a farce. Taking place in London you'd think that with an A-Z and a bit of forward planning, they would have found out all the entrances/exits to the complex and organised spotters to make sure that we could respond quickly and prevent Griffin from entering.

In a word: no.

Instead it was left to the initiative of a few activists to storm the vehicle entrance when it was loosely guarded, and run into the main lobby. Again the lack of preparation meant that we didn't have a clue where to go, and the rest of the demonstration hadn't followed us.

There were about 30 of us standing there for half an hour linking arms, chanting with dozens of staff looking on from the galleries. Eventually the pigs and BBC security dragged us away one by one kicking and screaming etc.

Happily they didn't arrest us, they merely chucked us back out into the crowd to join the several hundred demonstrators trying to force open the gate again.

We tried this for several hours, with a melee of police and protesters; eventually we forced out way to the front of the gate, forcing the remaining police to scramble over the sides. We tried to force the gate for several more hours, until they used CS gas on the first few rows of demonstrators, after which no-one was particularly keen to get upclose and personal.

Nothing of any particular interest happened to be honest, apart from Martin Smith of SWP fame managing to get himself arrested (again).

Griffin was smuggled in through a back entrance, and smuggled out of the front entrance after we went round the side to stop him coming out. Despite the lack of organisation, there were never enough protesters to make a serious attempt at stopping him from getting in.

We left around 8 or 9ish, and went to Chicken Cottage where I picked me up a fuckin lush burger and chips for £3.

Fuckin sweet.

Sunday 25 October 2009

Young again




So we're standing close together
'Cause I don't trust myself to whisper
Any louder



These words are fighting with my tongue
My mind is trying to forget me
Stalling for time, works like a charm
But I don't think these words can wait
Any longer



Always told myself, you know how it is
You see, I'm gonna wait
For better days



Don't ask me how, I don't know when
But someday, we'll be
Young Again
And someday we'll be
Young Again



You make up your face, you got to go
But we ain't growing younger,
So darling, go slow



As I follow in your footsteps
My heart is trying to forgive me
Dragging my heels through past regrets
'Cause your heart is pulling me places
That mine won't go



Now there's left no trace,
Of the promises I made
In better days



Don't ask me how, I don't know when
But someday, we'll be
Young Again

Friday 16 October 2009

A Lesson for all of us


Last Saturday, the fascist English Defence League brought their message of hatred and xenophobia to Piccadilly Gardens in central Manchester. At their previous attempts to demonstrate in Birmingham and Harrow, they were humiliated and driven off the streets by militant mobilisations of white, black and asian youth.

Sadly the counter-demonstration called in Manchester by Unite Against Fascism completely failed to smash the fascist rally. Skirmishes at the beginning of the day in the side streets around Piccadilly Gardens were hampered by a lack of communication and co-ordination.

This meant that around 300 fascists were allowed to march into the gardens and hold a rally complete with ‘No More Mosques’ placards, sieg heils, and racist chants. For several hours around 1500 anti-fascists confronted them, separated by 20 yards and several hundred police with horses and dogs.

There were isolated attempts by small groups of youth, including Revolution and younger members of UAF and the Socialist Workers Party to breach the police lines, and motivate the crowd to a genuine no platform of the fascists – by physically confronting them and driving them off the streets. However these attempts did not reflect the attitude of the leadership of the demonstration who persisted in holding a ‘rally’ with speakers while several hundred fascists stood just yards away.

The UAF demonstration was noticeable for its almost complete lack throughout the day of significant sections of black and asian youth who played such a vital role in Birmingham and Harrow. While this is partly due to a police campaign in collusion with community leaders to scare people away from the demonstration, UAF must also bear some responsibility for the poor turnout.

The final nail in the coffin for anti-fascists on Saturday was when an EDL feeder march was allowed to join the fascists in Piccadilly Gardens, without any interference from the UAF demonstration – despite having to march just feet away from us.

When UAF leaders ignored the second EDL march in Birmingham, the SWP called a counter-demonstration which was well attended by militant youth from all communities who were the first to confront the fascists and send them fleeing in disarray.

It can safely be said that the UAF leadership on Saturday failed to rise to its responsibilities, instead hiding behind a half-hearted celebration of multiculturalism that completely ignored the real nature of fascism and the threat it poses to our communities.

The success of the EDL in Manchester – we cannot pretend it is anything else – will certainly give them a massive boost in terms of profile and confidence for their upcoming demonstration in Leeds on Halloween.

This means that it is vital that all genuine anti-fascists organise not just to protest against their demonstration, but to stand in the spirit of Birmingham and Harrow by smashing their demonstration and driving them out of our town – by any means necessary.

Thursday 1 October 2009

The English Defence League & why they must be smashed

The English Defence League shot to prominence over the summer with marches in Birmingham, Harrow and Luton. Their core membership is a mix of football hooligans, racists and BNP and National Front members. They claim to have formed in response to disturbances in Luton around home-coming parades by soldiers returning from Afghanistan in May.

Their website and spokespersons repeatedly state that they are not anti-foreigner, but exist to peacefully protest against the spread of ‘Islamic extremism’ in the UK.

However, the true nature of the EDL has been exposed each of their demonstrations with many of their members making Nazi salutes and attacking Asian bystanders and businesses.

Much has been made of the relationship between the EDL and the BNP. While the EDL has made attempts to distance itself from the BNP and NF, and the BNP has publicly stated that ‘no member of the BNP can also be a member of the EDL’, this is a superficial disclaimer, as it is known that several prominent BNP activists are heavily involved in the EDL. With well-known BNP members seen on EDL demonstrations, and the fact that the EDL website is designed by a BNP member, we can presume that the BNP is providing a sizeable amount of financial and organisational support to the EDL.

BNP support would account for the EDL’s exceptionally fast rise and ability to transport members around the country to demonstrations. However, although the BNP is certainly keeping its fingers in the EDL pie, their efforts to disassociate themselves politically is a reflection of fundamental differences between the Nick Griffin’s aspirations to political legitimacy and the EDL’s core origins amongst fascists disillusioned with the BNP’s transition to an “respectable and electable” image – swapping boots for suits.

As a fascist street-fighting force the EDL are distinct from the BNP in several areas. Firstly, they do not aspire to political power. This means that the activities of their members are not restrained by the need to attract votes, or even a particularly favourable media profile. This makes them a much more violent and unpredictable force. Despite all their claims to the contrary, the actions of the EDL in fact represent the embryonic rebirth of the presence on our streets of the National Front skinheads who terrorised Black and Asian communities into the 1980s.

The EDL have mainly concentrated their demonstrations in peripheral towns such as Harrow and Luton - building up their media profile over the summer. Although they held marches in Birmingham, it is not a city which is well associated with the far-right. The demonstrations in Harrow and Luton can be seen as preparation for their move into Leeds and Manchester - areas where the BNP has a significant foothold.

So when this is the nature of the English Defence League, why have they been able to attract members, and keep growing?

With NATO forces losing the war in Afghanistan, the government is deploying an increasing nationalist sentiment in order to shore up public support for the occupation. The EDL are using this nationalism to appeal to people who might have voted for the BNP in local and European elections, and potentially mobilise them on EDL demonstrations.

Some people suggest that the EDL should be allowed to demonstrate, and that the right to assemble, protest, and express your views should be extended to everyone, regardless of however vile you might find those opinions to be.

However, the EDL is not a legitimate political tendency. As an organisation, their aim is to use terror and intimidation against anything they consider contrary to their twisted conception of Britishness, and to mobilise gangs of violent thugs to act as the foot-soldiers of fascism with the aim of ‘re-claiming the streets for ’British people’’.

A group that exists to sow fear and mistrust in our communities by violent attacks on ethnic minorities cannot be permitted to have a presence on our streets. While the EDL might still be the lunatic fringe of mainstream fascism, if left unopposed we can expect a return of the tactics adopted by the NF in the late 70s, where provocative marches through mainly black neighbourhoods, and systematic attacks on immigrants were the hallmarks of British fascism.

As an increasingly well-organised fascist organisation that can count on at least the tacit support of the BNP, the EDL must be given no opportunity to spread their disgusting lies and hatred from a public platform. Most importantly this means countering their demonstrations with massive anti-fascist mobilisations involving workers, youth, and oppressed sections of society like ethnic minorities and the LGBT community.

The importance of organised community and demonstration self-defence is a crucial one in our approach to anti-fascism. While the fascists will attempt to hold larger city-centre demonstrations as their confidence grows, they also aim to terrorise communities away from the glare of the media spotlight. From the experience of decades, we know that we cannot rely on the police to protect our demonstrations or communities from fascist attack. The police will always defend the fascists from people’s legitimate attempts to drive them out of our towns.

An effective anti-fascist response means forming local anti-fascist committees which draw in members of the community and which link up with workers organisations. We cannot rely on state bans to stop the rise of fascism – this simply reinforces their hysterical claims of victimisation. In Luton, the government has imposed a three month ban on all demonstrations. This is completely unacceptable. A state ban would prevent demonstrations by Trade Unions, Anti-war groups, and those fighting back against the privatisations, job losses and cutbacks sweeping the UK. If the lecturers at Tower Hamlets college could not demonstrate in support for their indefinite strike, it is possible they would not have been successful.

Learning from the lessons of the NF in the late 70s and 80s, we know that the tactic of blockading and breaking up their marches with well-organised counter-demonstrations is the best way to drive the EDL scum off our streets. After a series of anti-fascist mobilisations culminating in the Battle of Lewisham in 1979, the NF was decisively beaten as a street-force, and the high-visibility presence of fascism disappeared from Britain’s streets for the next 20 years.

We saw this lesson in practice in Harrow and twice in Birmingham at recent EDL marches. While some anti-fascist groups merely called a counter-demonstration or rally on the other side of the city, local youth were instrumental in physically confronting the fascists and humiliating them on the national stage. The Socialist Workers Party called a counter-demonstration before the second EDL march in Birmingham after it became clear that community leaders and other anti-fascist groups were not prepared to sanction physical no-platform. The fact that the EDL were completely unable to demonstrate proved that this was absolutely the right tactic and provides an example of what can be achieved.

As with most of our privileges and democratic rights, we cannot rely on the state to be an ally in the fight against fascism. The nature of fascism means that it can only be defeated through co-operation, co-ordination and self-defence between communities at a local and national level.

While organisations like the Anti-Nazi League its successor Unite Against Fascism are valuable in mobilising people and raising awareness at a national level, they have consistently proved unwilling to take the necessary steps towards physically confronting fascism on the streets. In the run-up to the EDL's march in Manchester on the 10th, they have called a peaceful rally to protest the EDL, while calling for the city council to ban the march.
what workers, youth and the oppressed in our society need is a Anti-fascist defence league democratically organised in our communities which can fight day-in, day-out wherever fascism appears in the workplaces, the towns, and across the country.

The youth and workers organised in such an organisation would also need a political formation to combat the BNP from a electoral perspective. A revolutionary workers party grounded in local action committees, which give people the democratic means necessary to unite and fight against fascism and the devastating consequences of the capitalist’s economic crisis. This party would be able to provide a revolutionary socialist answer for workers and youth, and prevent the BNP from posing as a legitimate political alternative.

Sunday 27 September 2009

Victory at Tower Hamlets

An attempt by management at Tower Hamlets College to force through 13 compulsory redundancies and slash 1000 places on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses has been smashed by an indefinite, all-out strike lasting four weeks.

Lecturers in the University and College Union voted to take action during enrolment in order to put maximum pressure on management. Principal Michael Farley took a tough stance but was forced to offer concessions as the start of teaching loomed closer on September 17th.

His offer to redeploy sacked workers and offer better redundancy packages for those unable to be redeployed was overwhelmingly rejected at a mass meeting, as the management wanted to retain the right to sack some workers. Just days later Michael Farley was forced to promise that there will be no compulsory redundancies.

Although only 200 of 1000 places on ESOL Courses were saved, the importance of this victory cannot be understated. Lecturers and supporters raising money at other colleges and schools reported an extremely positive reaction from staff and lecturers. The indefinite strike at Tower Hamlets will have far-reaching implications for the national resistance against the capitalists’ efforts to make workers pay for their crisis.

This crucial victory will provide the inspiration and encouragement to those resisting job losses and cutbacks that an indefinite strike is the surest, most effective way to win our demands. With the Street Cleansers in Leeds engaged in an indefinite strike over attempts to cut their pay by a third and the CWU union balloting for a national strike, the resounding victory at Tower Hamlets exposes the way forwards with burning clarity.

However, the strike could not have succeeded on its own. It was thanks to the solidarity of other teaching staff and the local community who rallied around the strikers, that victory was achieved. Mass meetings by the strikers meant that the strike remained solid throughout.

Solidarity committees provide the democratic ability to integrate resistance to cutbacks between various organisations – from raising money and support to co-ordinating days of action and demonstrations. By linking up the tentative formations that sprung up around Tower Hamlets and the more substantial Vestas Solidarity Committees, we can make sure that when isolated attacks become national, workers have the rank-and-file organisation to present a united resistance.

Monday 7 September 2009

Labour sweetens path to Academy sponsorship

After bankrupting the country with golden handshakes for the banks, news comes in that the government is to attract more backers for its controversial School Academies scheme – by dropping the requirement of a £2million up-front investment.

Previously, the government and private investors would split the cost of setting up a new academy or converting a ‘failing’ school. Now, instead of putting their money where their mouth is, prospective ‘sponsors’ merely have to show the ‘skills and leadership’ to run an Academy. Since Academies are not under the jurisdiction of Local Authorities, it is not clear who will decide what ‘skills and leadership’ specifically entails. Given Labour’s attitude to leadership, the outlook is anything but rosy.

The announcement coincides with the opening of the 200th Academy. Hackney City Academy has opened its doors in an area of London that has seen a surge in industrial action over cuts to education, notably at St. Paul’s and Haggerston Schools. The presence of a taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art state school, benefitting from Labour's privatisation fetish is a slap in the face for dozens of teachers in the borough who are fighting for their jobs, after serving the local community for decades.

The government milestone of 200 Academies comes a year ahead of target – highlighting the fact that increasing creeping privatisation, PFI schemes etc, is the government’s real priority. Meanwhile conventional state schools and other public services are left to scrabble amongst themselves for funds, resulting in the inevitable cuts to staff, courses and educational and extra-curricular activities.

This view is reinforced by sceptical teaching unions, who say that extra spending has a divisive impact on other local schools.

The National Union of Teachers General Secretary said “We don’t believe taking schools out of their local authorities and having them run by people who no experience of running schools... is a way of doing school improvement.” Exactly. Yet Hackney Academy is to be run by a former banker and will specialise in ‘business and finance’. This is a blatant indication of the capitalist class’s determination to wrest control of education out of the hands of teachers unions and parents and increasingly to entrench their free-market ideology within schools.

In the ‘50’s the government engaged in a massive program of building ‘technical schools’ where students could enrol for vocational training – training a highly-qualified workforce to work in industrial jobs. Nowadays, we are signing over our schools to the same cowboy capitalists and adventurers who brought the monolithic global economy to its knees overnight.

Surely it is a ludicrous idea to suggest that our schools – particularly taxpayer-funded and owned state schools should be run by these kinds of people, people who are not teachers, or even in the education industry?

Richard Powell, the Vice-President for Resources at Hackney Academy – after a previous career in the financial sector – said the academy model was “a way of innovating and applying professional structures to managing schools.”

Yes, the ‘innovation’ of privatising management of schools- unaccountable to the Local Authority or parents- while keeping the school coffers (and management’s inflated wages) greased with taxpayers money.

And the ‘professional structures’ that the private sector is so enamoured of: compulsory redundancies, rationalisation, the introduction of contracts, union-busting and slashing of extra services that bring no concrete financial benefit to the institution.
In stubbornly forging ahead with the discredited academies, the Labour government is playing the role of icebreaker, paving the rough way for the Conservative’s education plans after the 2010 general election.

The Tories are already discussing privatisation for state schools and rolling out the Academy programme across the country and extending it to primary schools!

They say, however, that Academies should have even more independence – accusing the government of ‘diluting their ability to innovate’.

Well we saw what happened when the government didn’t interfere with capitalism’s ‘ability to innovate’ in the financial sector...

The London School Students’ Union is implacably opposed to the Academies scheme and all other forms of direct or creeping privatisation of education.

Academies represent the intrusion of big business and unscrupulous interest groups into the most precious of publicly-owned and financed services- the education of children.

The much-vaunted ‘independence’ of these academies is in reality nothing more than the freedom for the ‘sponsor’ to foster their particular ethos and moral program on students – without having to answer to local democratic structures.

With both Labour and the Conservatives committed to the wholesale expansion of the scheme, resistance must be co-ordinated on a national scale, involving unions, parents and students themselves.

Resistance to education attacks must be rooted in local crisis committees, creating a democratic forum for students and workers alike to co-ordinate local struggles in the community with the same struggles that are happening across the country.

Friday 4 September 2009

All-out Strike at Tower Hamlets College

On Wednesday (2nd September), students from the London School Students Union (LSSU) visited the UCU picket line at the Arbour Square campus of Tower Hamlets College in east London. 300 teaching staff are taking indefinite strike action against management plans to force through 13 compulsory redundancies, as part of a £200k savings effort.

These redundancies would slash the number of places for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and have a devasting impact on one of London's poorest areas.

Strikers see the cuts as part of a wider attack on a militant union and the entire ethos and culture of the college.

These first ever compulsory redundancies at Tower Hamlets college are the symptom of the conflict between a business-oriented management and a staff committed to maintaining an invaluable service, integral to the local community.

While management quibble about the £200k savings, the college has £6million in funds. Strikers accept that savings, and cuts are always necessary in an economic crisis, but inist that it is unnacceptable that the management should try and raise the money through cuts to jobs and the quality of education.

They point to the fact that Tower Hamlets has one of the country's highest-paid principals - on £160k a year. One of the governers is sitting on a personal fortune of £150 million. If savings are absolutely necessary, then there is clearly enough money in the managements' excessive wages to fund a shortfall.

Strikers are confident and say that their resolve has stregthened over 2 weeks of action, in the face of managerial instransigence and hypocrisy, with around 50 more teachers joining the union. Thanks to decisive action in anticipation of cuts at the end of last term by the local branch, the strike has hit enrolment at the college this autumn. With admin staff refusing to do extra work while they go through the lengthy proces of ballotting for action, the management is running out of time as lessons begin in the next few days.

Strikers say support from the local community and students has been extremely positive, with money donated to the strike fund from local businesses, teaching unions and the firefighters.

In the recession it seems the government is determined to repeat the disastrous Tory educations cuts of the Thatcher years; which consigned an entire generation of unqualified young people to the vicious circle of long-term unemployment, with no hope of increasing their prospects through vocational or academic training.

However, the first indefinite strike in education for 12 years is an inspiration to dozens of schools across london, and thousands up and down the country which are facing crippling cuts by an unaccountable and profit-driven management.

The LSSU will be going to the picket lines again today, to demonstrate the solidarity of London students. The teachers' struggle against cuts at Tower Hamlets is our struggle too.

Saturday 22 August 2009

Skin

Though I mocked the barbs
of impov'rished pride
Vain was I to suppose
that I might, readily
disdain the overtures
of my plaintive Narcissus.
I was deaf
to his imprecations
that I might not suffer
my skin - to become
thus the master of me.

Belittled in rash tedium
I sought to dredge my soul, I resolved
-provoked in haste-
to quell a pervasive ennui;
anchored in roots
of listless stagnation, indifferently conceived
in the malignant placenta
of a transient mind,
nourished well
-courtesy
of my perverse affectations.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Parisian charades

St. Michel Blvd

inclines gently ’midst a gurgling Babel
Bateaux Mouches and quays
thronging a beleagured Seine.

you town-proud boulevard, tattooed with gum,
Marlboros; the odd
child’s shoe

uncherished now-scuffed sentinel abasing palatial façades.

Terraced boutiques ‘neath awnings sneer
at the indigent
hawking Sans-Logis.

Starched waiters bear thoughtless witness
To imperceptible disgust
dwelling in a twitching grimace
as tourists begrudge a sous ‘cross a proffered palm
- the Roma, sans-papiers and citizens
alike; equality here
mired in
a t o m i s e d iniquity.

half an hour from the Elysian fields:
a man with no arms
others with children-
beneath their furrowed brow

perhaps you’ll see your brother
catch your eye?
as I have seen
flaunted day
by day

Feuding with grass

We thought as we'd leave
the pliant grass
would remain impressed
in fidelity
our bodies traced
where we had lain

As well perhaps
for love's
tender pride
- that we did not look back.


to see the sun swiftly bid
that green phalanx-
spring to attention
with unfeeling haste
so to lure
anew, the aching whims
of anonymous lovers-who'd naively rest
cushioned
-as we were-
in verdant deceit
not fifteen minutes before.

To accuse you,
Grass
in your spite, of having spurned
my conceit
in yielding to others;
would invoke a rare sentience
peculiar to our ill-conceived feud.

and dismiss a less prosaic truth.
which lies in nature's
remorseless instinct:

that wilts
the daisychains of youth;
that rains,
heedless of your new french dress

Friday 10 July 2009

The NPA - a model for Britain

The Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) was formed in Febuary 2009 to unify the radical left and youth in France. The founding of the party was a response to the urgent need for unity in the face of vicious government attacks. President Sarkozy’s social program of privatisation and bank bailouts meant that the NPA quickly attracted 10,000 members. The NPA’s opposition to the neo-liberal policies of the government resonated with workers and youth in struggle across France, and across France’s borders.

The NPA is different from the various socialist unity projects of recent years in Britain. Instead of being a temporary coalition of self-interested factions, it has grown out of the experience of workers’ and youth struggles in 450 local and regional action committees.

These action committees were set up for people to fight back against the crisis. Before the founding of the NPA, these “committees for a new party” were involved in grassroots political activity: they spearheaded local campaigns and organised resistance to the waves of public sector cuts and job losses sweeping across the country.

As demonstrated by its loudspeaker logo, the NPA is a call to action for committed anti-capitalists in France. Its success in mobilising anti-racists, anti-fascists and socialists in the European elections ensured 5% of the popular vote for the new group.

No2EU blamed their terrible European election result on the fact that they were a ‘new electoral front’. Well the NPA was just four months old on polling day, and managed to achieve a higher percentage than all the British so-called radical left put together.

The abysmal performance of the rest of the left in Britain exposes the criminal ineffectiveness of their strategy. This ‘performance’ has spurred some groups to make tentative noises about ‘unity’ and the need to ‘fight fascism’. But their idea of unity is not the unity that drew 10,000 activists together to found a fighting, democratic organisation. Their slogan of fighting fascism is a cover for the abandonment of the principles of workers solidarity and internationalism.

The NPA has proven that a mass party does not have to surrender to nationalism to steal the limelight from the fascists. It shows that sticking to and promoting a principled stance will reap the rewards of electoral success.

Without exaggerating this success, the example of the NPA is a model for building a unified, fighting, anti-capitalist group in Britain: a group that will be able to emulate the success of the NPA in the French student movement, where dozens of universities have been crippled by months of strike action by staff and students. A group that will be committed to fighting for internationalism in the struggles of workers and youth against capitalist exploitation.

In this time of crisis, only a new party rooted in local action committees can claim any legitimacy. After the French example, we know that these committees and eventually the national party organisation are invaluable tools of resistance. The French youth were instrumental in their local and regional committees to the founding of the fledgling NPA. And the NPA in turn is playing a vital role in supporting the fight of the French students and youth against job losses, university closures, and the systematic oppression of young people by capitalism.

NUT Strike at Haggerston School

Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) today took strike action over threats of job losses at Haggerston School in Hackney, east London. The action followed a ballot last month that saw a 100% turnout. With 36 out of 37 ballots in favour of discontinuous strike action, the determination of the teachers is clear.

This militancy was demonstrated by a lively morning picket attended by teachers and parents at the school gates.

Eleven teachers have been told that they could be made redundant, including teachers who have dedicated over twenty years to the serving the school and its community. Unsurprisingly, three part-time posts are threatened - highlighting the fact that employees on temporary contracts are always the first to be targetted when jobs are on the line.

The proposed cuts stem from a management plan put in place to recover a budget deficit. These "restructuring measures" concocted by the governors and the senior management are part of an industry-wide assault intended to make teachers and support staff pay the price for managerial incompetence.

However, angry teachers say that there was £1.3m left over in the school budget in June last year. This is a colossal sum for any school to fritter away - let alone a school in the heart of one of the most deprived areas of London. Where has this money gone?

One teacher spoke of the outrage of staff and parents over the behaviour of management towards teachers involved in the dispute. As reported in the Hackney Gazette, some teachers were given their notice of dismissal by courier. In one example a taxi was hired (at a cost of £80) to deliver notice of redundancy to a teacher in front of colleagues and students as she supervised a school Sports' Day.

The anger of teachers at Haggerston is compounded by allegations of petty and vindictive behaviour towards staff by a management secure in their employment prospects.

The behaviour of the manangement and the governors in this dispute should be monitered closely by unions. A vote of no confidence by three unions recently forced the sacking of a headteacher at a flagship Academy in Cumbria. This tactic should be considered by all teachers fighting against profit-minded managements determined to run our schools for the benefit of private individuals rather than in the best interests of the students and staff.

Education is not a place for the government to turn when it needs to raise quick funds. Working people and the youth have no affinity with foreign wars, nuclear weapons or pan-handling bankers. If the government persists in keeping it's wretched free-market on life support, then it can find the money elsewhere.

This government must wake up to the fact that only a massive investment in education will secure an acceptable post-recession future for the youth of Britain. Gordon Brown may take tea with Thatcher, but he must learn from the mistakes of the '80's when an entire generation was condemned to long-term unemployment as a result of the pillaging of education during the recession.

For a massive program of investment in education and public works, to provide socially useful labour and employment.

For key industries to be under the control of those who work in and use them- clearly the capitalists will stop at nothing to satisfy their craven greed. In insisting on imposing their free market on our young people, they show us nothing but the depths of their contempt.

We must similarly demonstrate our contempt for their determination to run our entire educational system into the ground.

Tuesday 7 July 2009

My Radio

rhythms hiss within a brushed chrome
casing, feels more like a casket,
branded nearly departed.
it’s a fickle and contrary machine, the
circuit board is one big,
glorious design fault and
the aerial is
at best temperamental with
a reception that shrieks
a hormonal staccato,
A fiend resembling nothing so much
as a clockwork sibling, that emits
-Rat Pack Hits-
in rose-tinted glasses of course, Chanel I think
or Steve McQueen I fancy once charmed
with their vintage pedigree.
Now by means of an arcane tuning system
-no dial, why no dial-
My radio has connived with commercial
platforms, to wind me up by degrees, it
persists
in enlightening me:
Seems you can tune an ear, to a tasteless
bandwidth, eloquent in its irony – unashamed
it wallows, baiting your patience,
meandering through the tracklist;
Oh the mindless indulgence.
More music – less talk is very well and that,
and I don’t want to bring up quality quantity
that canard
but Roy Orbison lilts on and presently
I’m tired of DAB and digital and FM and
-what the fuck is going on-
decades since California dreamed, that
band plays on – unaware
that I’m still waiting for my favourite song.

Thursday 2 July 2009

Wendy Running Guns

Wendy put to sea and took to running guns with
a fiddler and a fugitive. They shared their passage in
care of illicit liqueur and a ransom in lace fringed with
a threadbare caress. At length the fugitive would tire
of his fantastic stories relayed in the reverie of
an accomplished liar. From dusk the seas would long to embrace
the heavens – the stars a candelabra on the watery canvas.
The fiddler was by turns tragic with romance, or flush with
dispassion; he’d play a dolorous address to the unfeeling tide.
The confines of their derelict coracle necessarily subdued
the devil in Wendy’s flounce, but the fugitive had affected –
around the 49th parallel – a trilby à la Dick Turpin in which he'd vainly
flaunt a tricolour cockade, though in truth he knew not from whence it came.

Wendy awoke dockside to her rendezvous – sporting a
caftan. Her careworn valise is tailored with a
nimble flourish, once intended, no doubt, to accessorize
a proud debutante; now marred by the casual
embrace of a weary world. The polished asphalt
echoed the tattoo of her impractical shoes. The rhythm is
offbeat and her stride is skewed. Habit slips her
innocuously into a speakeasy, frequented by dapper lapels
whiling away other men’s time at baccarat with
guileless smiles. Fancy that – a dandy with symmetry in
his cravat and sleight of hand deploys a glance that fidgets
Wendy’s nerves and unsettles her poise. His voice commands
a tequila sunrise swiftly delivered, in hushed undertone he said:

I’m Clyde. With a practised flourish he manoeuvred Wendy
through to a private parlour. The eyes are fatigued by the tasteless
décor and sallow walls which purvey a stale scent of foreign
cologne and cheap cigarettes. Wanted across the six counties, his
manner impassive. In a sibilant drawl –his back all the while to Wendy–
‘Well luscious lips, they’d said you were back in business’
Wendy considered, and offhand-feigned she countered: -Naturally,
this business is selfish, it leaves no room for altruism.-
-Verily- intoned the dandy -and yet you imagine this to be?- Bejeweled,
a hand motioned the crate of matériel. The gun-runner acknowledged
the white elephant with -It is not my place to justify expedience or means-

Presently, arrived the fugitive with the fiddler in tow
and for fear of pursuit, a hasty retreat was enjoined thro'
valleys estranged over years by the tramp of harried feet.
Inevitably the relentless dawn broke with false sympathy
- stifling the vain ambitions of their deceived optimism.
Nine miles shy of the border, the premature stir of hope was
stillborn on the cusp of our fugitives’ souls, as a clinical
ambush waylaid and triumphed over a swindled ideal.
To ease the gun-runner, the dying fiddler bathed her brow with
two drops of diamonds, along with: 'Maybe the change of scene
will furnish the relief you seek’ – he meant that candour
of thought delivered on a rifled wind, which presents
the void of redemption, tempered by a concealed fatigue.
They say at the departing of the soul, it was the contempt of belief
that prompted our lonesome romantic to insist:

–it must be better than Wyoming-

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Baby, Walk On

You show no mercy
When you say that we
That we ain't lovers;
Oh, what can you mean?

I'm a patient man,
Sittin' on impatient dreams,
But see where I stand;
Sheltered in my vanities.

I suffer with patience,
‘Til you come on by.
And tomorrows don’t matter-
No need to justify,
A knee jerk reaction;
This feeling’s not quite
Fickle winds of affection;
Since yesterday's alright.

I said easy, mister;
‘Cause I’ll tell it you true-
‘Bout when all your friends laugh;
And they call you a fool.

We’ve got no need to talk;
Why talk round the answer.
So farewell baby, walk on;
'Cause tomorrow don’t matter

Sunday 28 June 2009

2 Kinds of Fool

Seems each Tuesday we meet
With shrapnel in our jeans
At the same storefront
With no better place to be
Than idling on a dream
Disappointed that we
Weren’t so hard done by
Yet evermore ill-at-ease
Why does a man like me
Have to be convinced
That I’m not the man
You promised I’d be
- If I could meet myself
I’d tell him the truth
There are two kinds of fool;
Me and You.

Chance would be a fine thing
But I don’t have the means
To harness my soul
On a desire to succeed
Granted, I’ve quietly
Nurtured this guilt to breed
A crisis of faith
To crush a wayward esteem
Why does a man like me
Have no sympathy
For another man
Though brothers we’d seem
- If I could see myself
I would recognise
There are two kinds of fool;
You and Me.

Saturday 27 June 2009

All Quiet On Easy Street

I've worn down my nails; I’ve been playing real tame,
To support your talk of a middle way;
Out in some foreign field, but I’ve been thinking,
Get your head out the sand, ‘cause honestly.
As I write the debris is swept from sight
Mister, I can’t swallow your crooked smiles.

In sound-bites that roll off your tongue
For what it’s worth, in hollow words
You tell me that this war is won
Well one time I saw your winners

And it was all quiet on easy street

Treasure a lie close to your chest
‘Til the winds of change blow you free
And lay your head in shelter, ‘til
It’s all quiet on easy street

While you kick your heels in acclimatised breeze
Have yourself the trappings of rank, and please
Don't trouble your conscience with the human tab
'Cause fortune's wheel runs on spokes of broken backs
Watch it in Technicolor vision
And you’ll find belief behind the reason

From reel-to-reel of glut and greed
No-one shy to the warning signs
As lament brought me to my knees
I watched them with their winning smiles

And it was all quiet on easy street

Give each promise an escape clause
Spin by sin, start sowing the seeds
And soon you’ll find there’s no more talk
It’s all quiet on easy street

Friday 26 June 2009

Whatever happened to Ian Tomlinson?

Remember this?

Ian Tomlinson died from internal injuries after he was assaulted by police officers during the G20 protests in London, in April this year.

The police originally stated that he had had no contact with police officers before his collapse. Sadly for the Met, footage obtained by the Guardian emerged a few days later, showed Ian Tomlinson being hit with a baton and thrown to the ground by a masked officer from the Territorial Support Group.

Footage also emerged putting the lie to the police claim that medics were attacked by protestors as they went to his assistance.

Further damaging revelations emerged in the following days, including the fact that police routinely concealed their numbers and insignia on their shoulders. More footage came to light showing further violence meted out by baton-happy pigs at the expense of protestors' exposed limbs and heads.

The details of the cover-up into Ian Tomlinson's death are now well known, including the deliberate misinformation (read: lies) fed by the Met's media laison in the immediate aftermath of his death, and the bent pathologist they used to conclude that he had died of a heart attack.

A second inquiry ordered by the IPCC in the face of a public outcry concluded that he had, in fact, died of internal bleeding. The balaclava-clad cop shown in the unprovoked assault on Tomlinson 'gave himself up' after he realised it was not going to just blow over, and was questioned under caution on suspicion of manslaughter.

Crucially the Daily Telegraph then came to the timely defence of the beleagured Met with their publication of the sordid details of our honourable MP's expenses.

And the rest, or so the Met must be hoping, is history.

What we have here is a display of the power of the media to direct the public's consciousness according to the whims of the media kingpins. It is in the nature of the mass media to search out ever greater scandals - doubtless in their drive to sate the public's desire for a free press that keeps a balanced scrutiny of the government - but it is inexcusable, though not surprising that stories like the death of Ian Tomlinson are ditched without compunction, in order to cash in on the latest drama courtesy of our ruling class.

So what happened to the Ian Tomlinson story?

Well, in the Guardian - the paper that broke the video of Tomlinson's death, though he has been mentioned in passing several times in articles related to police repression, the last full piece devoted to him appears to have been on May 15th - the announcement that the IPCC was to investigate whether the police deliberately misled the media.

The situation is the same at the BBC, with their coverage of the IPCC's statement here.

The sad truth is that, like Blair Peach, the full story of what happened to Ian Tomlinson will be buried by the police, and, just two months after the event, abandoned by the media.

The extent of the public's rapidly diminishing interest in the issue of police repression raised by the G20 protests was highlighted at a protest organised by the United Campaign Against Police Violence at Scotland Yard on 23rd May.

The intention being for the protestors to "kettle" Scotland Yard - forming a human chain around it. The abysmal level of public interest was revealed by the fact that there were only just enough people to complete the chain.

With the obstinacy of the police, the government and the IPCC when it comes to the hundreds of police-related deaths and especially the experience of the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube Station, it is clear that all those with a stake in fighting the encroaching militarisation of the police and the increasing state-sponsered surveillance and repression must form the vanguard of the fight for justice for Tomlinson, Peach and the less-celebrated, though no less deserving others.

The tragic death of Ian Tomlinson was a setback for the Met's much-vaunted methods of crowd-control. But as we have seen, the increasing and disproportionate level of police repression towards demonstrations is part of a trend, since the anti-Bush demonstration in Parliament Sq in June 2008.

The pressure of the public response to the bungled shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes forced - if only after several years - the government and the police to reveal the extent of incompetence, lies, misinformation and cover-ups enacted by a police force intent on acting as a law unto itself.

Truth is gonna come, but it is up to us whether we deliver justice now, when it matters, or in 3 decades time at the conveniance of a new generation of honourable MP's.

Prostitute

A virgin canvas: Sullied
Now through transaction -
Of market forces: compelled
To curtail Passion
- And surrender your sympathies

By right of culture: Lauded
And yet, dilemma -
By way of ambition: Led
To acknowledge favour
- And Prostitute your sympathies

Thursday 25 June 2009

And the internet rumour mill goes into overdrive...

MJ taken to hospital after cardiac arrest. He was treated with CPR by paramedics, and thus Tinseltown powers up the grapevine's generators:

I've heard he's dead, in a coma, in the pub, addicted to peanut butter sandwiches...

Listening to the news now, a hysterical American women is imploring us to all "light a candle" and assuring us that it "will be worse than when Elvis died."

According to city law enforcement officials Los Angeles times has just reported that MJ died at 3:15pm at the UCLA hospital at the age of 50.

Demonstrate in support of the Iranian people

Join the rally in London to show solidiarity with the Iranian people oppressed by the brutal Islamic republic.

Friday 26th June
Assemble @ 12:30-1:30pm outside Iranian embassy

Saturday 27th June
Assemble @ 2pm at High Street Kensington Station

Proceed @ 2:30pm towards Iranian embassy.

Days of protest against President Ahmedinejad's regime are being brutally repressed by security services, including paramilitary militias and Revolutionary Guards. The disputed election result has led to popular demonstrations that have far outstripped simply being support for 'Reformist' candidate Mousavi.

Thoughts on Abercrombie & Fitch's attitude to disability

Naff US clothing chain Abercrombie & Fitch is under scrutiny after a former employee tells a tribunal about the discrimination she faced due to her prosthetic arm.

Law student Riam Dean, is seeking compensation from the retailer for her experiences under A&F's "oppressive regime".

Dean was born without a left forearm, and has worn a prosthetic limb since she was a baby.

The facts of the case are seemingly simple: Dean alleges that she told her employer about her disability, whereupon they agreed she could wear a cardigan to cover the connection between her prostehtic forearm and upper arm.

However, she was soon told that, because of the cardigan, she was in breach of the companies' "look policy".

Dean contends that the A&F head office suggested she stay in the stockroom "until the winter uniform arrives".

While there has been some dispute over elements of her claim, including allegations that her claim that A&F management had repeatedly asked her to remove her prosthetic arm was false, the central issue of discrimination over her aesthetic incompatibility with the firm's near fascistic obsession with manifestations of physical perfection remains.

A&F's "look policy" states that employees "represent Abercrombie & Fitch with natural, classic American style consistent with the company's brand" and "look great while exhibiting individuality".

Clearly the individuality envisaged by the A&F head office does not extend to the possibility that not everyone - be it staff or consumer - will conform to the sculptured, wholesome, aryan-master-race package that Abercrombie & Fitch purveys to the an image-conscious US and latterly, British teenage market.

I can assure you that this writer is not kept awake at night, flicking through A&F back catalogues, conjuring conspiracies out of the marvellous similiarities between said catalogues and the Hitler Youth's propaganda. However, despite the other complex issued dragged out in the tribunal, the fact remains that A&F's valorisation of aesthetic perfection sets the bar for moral bankruptcy, in the pursuit of corporate profit, and defence of commercial image.

After all, they probably couldn't conceive that a sales assistant with a prosthetic arm would not in fact imperil the management's christmas bonuses. Their social conditioning and orientation towards such a shallow, commercialised market meant that those concerned with profit-strategies couldn't comprehend the fact that in an ordinary world, people are born with disabilities, and it is not acceptable to shun them, or to display callous disrespect for disability-discrimination acts, by employing someone and then taking pains to ensure your customers don't know that, shock, horror, up-market A&F employs somebody with a prosthetic arm.

To be sure, Abercrombie & Fitch aren't the only ones at fault in a fashion industry whose disdain for reality, and creation of an aesthetic dystopia, is documented in daily accounts of rising eating-disorders, objectification of physical appearance etc.

However, if the tribunal takes a firm line against A&F in this case, then that would send a message out to retailers that, no matter the social status of their clientele, no fasion label is above the right to work in a discrimination-free atmosphere, without the physical and psychological detriments of disability being compounded and exploited by image-conscious head-office bureaucrats.

In fact, though the fashion industry could do itself a huge PR boost by changing its attitudes to the disabled workforce, any such attempts would for the foreseeable future be seen as the PR stunt it would inevitably be, rather than a longed-for sea change in attitudes.

In the event of student protest

In the wake of a fresh occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies over a raid by immigration officials and the deportation of several cleaners, I thought I'd share this from Indymedia. It's a copy of emails sent between SOAS admin and a legal firm, detailing the legal recourse available to institutions facing 'trespass' by protesters.
There seem to be 3 principal ways of evicting protestors from private property:
  1. Under Common Law, the owner can physically remove the trespassers, using no more force than is reasonably required.
  2. A Possession order may be aquired though an emergency High Court injunction whereby the administration must show that they have a greater right to the land than those occupying it.
  3. Police can order trespassers to leave a property (and arrest those who do not comply) if:
  • at least two people are trespassing on the campus with a common purpose of residing there for any purpose
  • the institution has taken reasonable steps to ask them to leave; and
  • any one of them has damaged property, or used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards a member of staff.

Pertinently, the advice picks up on the fact that after occupations, negotiations or concessions granted by the administration with the purpose of ending the occupation are not pursued with the same level of efficiency, and tempo as during the occupation:

"In some cases, it appears that the original organisational energy is not sustained post occupation and the follow up actions are not pursued as rigorously by the students."

While some occupations gained notable concessions, and many universities have initiated processes for disinvesting from arms companies, granting scholarships to Palestinian students etc, the failure of many occupations to consolidate the demands of their occupation - even where successful - was an important feature of workshops during the National Student Co-ordination conference in April.

The email shows that the university administrations were legally well prepared for the January Gaza solidarity occupations, even if the initial occupations at SOAS, Kings, and LSE may have come as a surprise.

Over the next 3 months, occupations spread to over 30 universities from Sussex to Strathclyde and while technology allowed the occupations to maintain contact and disseminate tactics and ideas, it did the same for the university vice-chancellors.

Many would no doubt have been aware that conceeding to '"negotiations" after putting up a show of token resistance, would have been the policy best suited to dispersing the anger, and hoping that the students would not apply the same dedication to protracted rounds of "talks about talks" as they did in the initial demands stage of the occupations.

In many cases they have been proved right.

With a wave of actions, including occupations, sit-ins, demonstrations, speaking tours etc, planned for the autumn term, it is vital that students utilise all the resources at their disposal to organise effectively on campus, form cross-campus links, and fight to consolidate the smallest of victories.

This email proves that the administration was preparing for protest during the depths of nearly two decades of dormant student activisim.

We must likewise prepare for the coming struggle in autumn.

Wednesday 24 June 2009

No Mean City

Here's one from the vaults, 2005 or thereabouts.

From Paris to Texas, you'll walk the line,
Never to your tune, though least you're still alive.
When you bite the bullet, you swallow it tough;
Another shot sunk, don't look into the sun.

This is my hometown;
It's no mean city
Hey you strangers, welcome to the city,
Clicking your heels, at ease with sitting pretty.
All you strangers, I'm just a sinner;
Trying to sell a story.

She ain't from my town, but she's walking the streets,
Like she was born in the cracks, and she's keeping the beat.
All you strangers, all you deadbeats,
Buy into my story.

Hey now strangers, there's dust in the air,
There's something on the streets,
but I can't say where;
And all you strangers, you can't play fair,
So she sells you my story

If you came out of the town, another piece of meat,
With a hellhound on your tail, you're nothing on the street.
All you strangers, and you deadbeats
Buy into this story

This is my hometown
It's no mean city

Awrite now mister, in the Emperor's clothes;
You've made it rags to riches, but here's the end of the road.
All you strangers, like you don’t know
Who’s swinging from the willow

Hey now strangers, there's dust in the air,
There's something on the streets,
but I can't say where;
And all you takers, you can't play fair,
So she sells you my story

We’re livin’, livin’, livin’
In no mean city
This is my hometown
It's no mean city

Come down strangers, get your blood-on-blood.
The poet in the streets, said it ain't so tough,
And all you strangers, there whipping it up.
I say it's no mean city.

We’re livin’, livin’, livin’
In no mean city
This is my hometown,
It's no mean city

#29

Alienation follows interpretation of questions
through a prejudiced lens
but you can't placate your conscience
and instil selfish concessions
that serve your enemies' ends.
No barriers sprung from hatred's shallow foundations
can endure
A determination to deliver ourselves,
our brothers, our sisters -
beyond cancers of colour and tongue.
so you might still blame Thatcher,
and you might easily blame your neighbour
but as our stricken leaders clamour
choleric, and clamber from our pockets
-choose carefully your loyalty
Parasites' chorus in hysterics
in suited ranks of Sirens, chastised
cannot temper Brutus's reflex;
Many hands at the tumbril,
many more to the blade.
Cast in tint of victory now-
resolve to interpret the world, for what it is,
and better still, for what it could be;
- Awaiting 'cross the barricade.