Thursday, September 28, 2017

UK – For the Many not the Few

Jeremy Corbyn at Labour Party Conference
Mr Corbyn was met with a rapturous standing ovation in the Brighton Centre, for his first conference speech since the his party gained seats at the election and stripped Ms May of her Commons majority.

He slammed the Tories for still believing in “the same dogmatic mantra” which he summed up as “deregulate, privatise, cut taxes for the wealthy, weaken rights at work, delivering profits for a few, and debt for the many”

He added: “It’s as if we’re stuck in a political and economic time-warp.”

Mr Corbyn then went on to set out his vision of “socialism for the 21st century” – drawing in nationalised utilities, new fines for business and taxes for the wealthy.

He said: “Our economy no longer delivers secure housing secure well-paid jobs or rising living standards.

“There is a new common sense emerging about how the country should be run.

“That’s what we fought for in the election and that’s what’s needed to replace the broken model forged by Margaret Thatcher many years ago.”

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Dale Hansen Unplugged – US Anthem Protests


Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen is a fixture of the sports media scene, and his "Unplugged" segment on ABC affiliate WFAA has never shied away from the sometimes-insidious politics of the sports world.

On Monday, Hansen nailed it again, defending the #TakeAKnee protests that swept the NFL last weekend in a clip that's quickly becoming required viewing on Twitter.

Most notably, he refuted the notion that a protest during the national anthem is inherently disrespectful to veterans. (Hansen served in Vietnam.)

"My best friend in high school was killed in Vietnam," Hansen said. "Carroll Meir will be 18 years old forever. And he did not die so that you can decide who is a patriot and who loves America more."

Hansen also took several shots at Trump, including at the president's decision to call players who protest "sons of bitches" despite "[saying] nothing for days" about the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville.

"If you don't think white privilege is a fact, then you don't understand America," he said.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Lecture by Prof. Gyanendra Pandey 2015 – Politics of Indifference


What is the meaning of politics and democracy at any time?  I think that these are questions that need to be asked. It is not self evident but they are being treated today as though we already know what we are talking about ... a shift from the level of policies good bad, indifferent to the question of power and privilege in our societies. I suspect it would lead us very quickly to recognise a really quite new ethos that surrounds our political and governmental discourses in the late 20th and early 21st centuries ... a politics of indifference … I suggest first that there is a politics that you can see in the politics of callousness and you can see in  bureaucratic obstacles presented all of the time, procrastination, process that will take forever sometimes. An indifference that might be called apathy, disinterest, callousness … I suggest to you that much modern governmental and political practice is marked by that. We know this perfectly well its just something we ought to remind ourselves its something that we need to mark … My second concern is with indifference to difference to the very condition of plurality of different ways of being of different ways of thinking, of different views of different practices of life.


Tuesday, September 19, 2017

The Jute Mill Song


This song is probably one of the most famous & lovely folk songs ever out of Dundee (already represented here in some very beautiful & interesting versions on youtube !)  (as far as I know though, this particular version of the song has not been posted until now) I think this  rendition by Lowland Folk which I took off my precious vinyl record 'Coorse & Fine',is certainly one of the best recordings ever of this song and deserves to be accesible to the audience which youtube provides. Most people would know that the famous words were written by that remarkable Dundonian woman, Mary Brooksbank who had a complete knowledge of what she was talking about as she herself spent her earliest working days (from age 13) slaving in the mill. In putting together the visual images for this I couldn't help noticing how the photos  I found  bore witness to Mary's poignant lyrics about the social conditions in those days. For example, one of the explanatory captions on the photo of the two wee bairns on a Dundee street, mentioned that one of them already had  bow legs due to rickets...

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Horses Sing None of It – Peggy Seeger


Legendary feminist songwriter, folksinger, multi-instrumentalist & sister of Pete & Mike; 45 years of concerts, 20 solo & over 100 joint recordings

Smithsonian – Listening to the Earth Breathe


Thursday, September 14, 2017

Paul Robeson to Woolmet Colliery near Edinburgh 1949


Extract from Mining Review 2nd Year No. 11 (1949)

The highlight of this 1949 issue is the visit of American actor and singer Paul Robeson to Woolmet Colliery near Edinburgh. Robeson was also a renowned (and often persecuted) left-wing political activist and he made several visits to British mining communities. On this occasion he sings "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" for miners in the canteen, a song about an American trade unionist who was allegedly framed on a murder charge and executed in 1915. Robeson had long been something of a hero to the British mining community, ever since he starred in the film Proud Valley (d. Pen Tennyson, 1940) as an American sailor stranded in Cardiff who finds work in a Welsh colliery (the newsreel opens with a short clip from the film).

Ella May – Martyr For an Organised South


As the events of the Gastonia strike unfolded, Wiggins recorded them in song. The strike, the union, and the men and women in jail all became the subjects of her ballads. After the murder of the police chief, Wiggins sang to the strikers: "Come all of you good people, And listen to what I tell; The story of Chief Aderholt, The Man you all knew well." Drawing from traditional mountain ballads, Wiggins put new words to old tunes while carefully observing the conventions of the unfamiliar songs. Her lyrics,

"Toiling on life's pilgrim pathway—Wheresoever you may be, It will help you fellow workers—If you will join the ILD,"

This became a popular strike song. Wiggins, or Ella May, as she was always called, sang before large groups of workers in fervent tones, with great seriousness. As folklorist Margaret Larkin wrote in 1929, Wiggins's songs were "better than a hundred speeches." This quiet young woman's untaught alto voice rang out simple, monotonous tunes that captivated those who listened. Her six-versed ballad entitled "The Mill Mother's Lament" documented her personal struggle to support her children:

We leave our homes in the morning,
We kiss our children good bye,
While we slave for the bosses,
Our children scream and cry.

But understand, all workers,
Our union they do fear,
Let's stand together, workers,
And have a union here.

This ballad, as each of Wiggins's songs, expressed her faith in the union, the only organized force she had encountered that promised her a better life.

Ella May was to sing her ballads and speak to the strikers at the NTWU protest rally on 14 Sept. 1929. Early that morning the Manville-Jenckes forces mobilized hundreds of men, including many newly sworn-in deputies and vigilantes, to disperse those attending the rally; they set up roadblocks in all directions.

A short time before the rally was to begin, a group of twenty-two unarmed union members, strikers, and sympathizers, Ella May Wiggins among them, traveled in a truck from Bessemer City to the rally site south of Gastonia. Wiggins had insisted that none of the strikers carry weapons. The truck was halted at one of the roadblocks where armed men ordered the workers to return to Bessemer City "on pain of death."

The strikers turned their truck around and headed away from the meeting, as ordered, only to be pursued by several carloads of armed men. After a short distance, one of the cars passed the truck and stopped in its path. The truck driver, unable to brake quickly enough, ran into the car, and workers riding in the back of the truck tumbled out.

For a moment, while the others scrambled back into the truck, Ella May Wiggins stood in the bright sunlight, leaning against the side rail. Then, the mob opened fire and she fell into the truck bed gasping, "Oh, my God, they've shot me." Wiggins died in the arms of Charley Shope, who had stood near her in the truck. The other strikers, two of whom were wounded, fled into a nearby field as the mob continued to fire their guns.

Bob Dylan – The Cuckoo is a pretty bird


Thursday, September 07, 2017

A PIRATICAL SEIZURE – Cyprus Brig


Critic (Hobart)  Sat 16 Mar 1912  p. 4.




Old-Time Reminiscences.
A PIRATICAL SEIZURE.

[ By Dion.]

Seventeen prisoners went voluntarily off in the Cyprus boats besides Brown—one of the sailors whom they handcuffed, and forced to go with them. All the rest of the prisoners were forced on shore, the pirates not knowing there was such a large quantity of provisions on board as there actually was. When they took an inventory of their plunder some days afterwards, there were provisions sufficient to keep 400 men going for several months.

As soon as matters were got on an even keel on shipboard, there was some dispute as to who should assume command, and ultimately Walker, who possessed a fair nautical knowledge--or imagined he did—was appointed captain, and Ferguson, who dressed himself in Lieutenant Carew’s uniform,  assumed to himself the title of lieutenaut, and Jones was rated mate. They proposed to make regulations  as to the future navigation of the ship when they got to sea, and it was arranged that the crew should be  uniformed in canvas clothing.

An endeavor was made to induce Morgan and Knight—two of the brig’s sailors  who had been pressed into the service of the mutineers, to stand by the ship, but they refused to have  anything to do with the business, and after being treated to a night’s jollification on the ship’s rum  (of which there was a large supply on board), they were on the next morning put on shore to keep the  others company.

The first evening on board of the brig was devoted to mirth and revelry, towards which the Government rum contributed in no small degree. During the next two or three days the prisoners on board enjoyed themselves to the top of their bent, and Pennell, Jones and Watts indulged to such an extent that the liqour had to be taken away from them. Three of prisoners signified their willingness to give Morgan and Knight—the two sailors who were landed—the jolly boat, but they were overruled by the majority, who held that if this concession were granted it might enable Lieutenant Carew to send an express to Hobart, and cause the vessel to be retaken.

At half past 5 o’clock on the Saturday morning following, the captain of the brig and the castaways on shore saw the last of her. A fair wind sprang up all sails were hoisted smartly, the crew gave three cheers, and she was out of sight in a couple of hours, and as it subsequently turned out, they brought South America, where they afterwards found out they did fare as well as they imagined.

One must now return to the castaways, who were making the best of things on the scrub-fringed shores of Recherche Bay, which at that time had not a vestige of habitation nearer to it than the prison station at “Birch’s Bay.” An attempt was made by Lieutenant Carew, who bad charge of the party, to try and get through in the direction of the Huon, but having no guide they walked round and round, and like the doomed in the Grecian Tartans, never arrived, with all their labor, nearer the attainment of their object. They returned to the camp almost dead with fatigue and with very small hopes of deliverance from their perilous situation.

Man’s power of adaptation to circumstances is a benign provision, and perhaps its most striking feature of misfortune of the marooned ones was the brave way in which Mrs Carew, the only woman of the party, kept up. Her conduct has been described as most courageous.

She had a little infant with her, and barely sufficient clothes to cover both of them, This display from a woman made the men keep a stiff upper lip, and they cast about them to devise some means to get out of their seeming hopeless predicament. Two of the most active members of the party were a couple of prisoners named Popjoy and Meakins, who, rather than join the piratical crew, jumped off the brig and swam to the shore. These two men volunteered to carry a despatch through to Hobart, and they were sent away on their journey with a day’s rations, and wished God speed; on their errand.

These two plucky fellows got through the Huon River, and while trying to swim with their clothes on their heads, they were surprised by a party of blacks, who did their level bet to spear them. Popjoy and his mate succeeded in eluding the spears by diving, and in following out these manoeuvres they lost their clothes, and were compelled to return to the camp in a state of nudity, after being two days in the bush without a bite to eat.

According to the tale related by them on their return, the blacks pursued them for several miles, and they ran blindly and wildly like men with bloodhounds on their tracks, stumbling over rocks and logs, torn now and then by the scrub, and battling up hill with straining lungs and trembling limbs until they dropped down thoroughly beaten and stupified in a dense tea tree scrub, where the natives left them. They stayed in the scrub for several hours, and then they put to themselves two very plain questions—“ Where are we; and how are we going to get back to the camp? ”

Sunday, September 03, 2017

E.P.Thompson – Blake's London ... Something to Say


Lecture by E P Thompson on William Blake's poem 'London'. 
Directed by Trevor Griffiths broadcast on BBC1 25 June 1970

                                London
                         
                                BY WILLIAM BLAKE (1793)

                                I wander thro' each charter'd street, 
                                Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 
                                And mark in every face I meet 
                                Marks of weakness, marks of woe. 

                                In every cry of every Man, 
                                In every Infants cry of fear, 
                                In every voice: in every ban, 
                                The mind-forg'd manacles I hear 

                                How the Chimney-sweepers cry 
                                Every blackning Church appalls, 
                                And the hapless Soldiers sigh 
                                Runs in blood down Palace walls 

                                But most thro' midnight streets I hear 
                                How the youthful Harlots curse 
                                Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
                                And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse 

Saturday, September 02, 2017

Australia and Timor-Leste have resolved long-running dispute over maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea


Australia and Timor-Leste have resolved long-running dispute over maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea, in what is being described as a "landmark day" in the relationship between the two nations.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague today announced the parties reached an agreement on Wednesday over the disputed territory, which contains large oil and gas deposits worth an estimated $40 billion.

Timor-Leste  initiated the compulsory conciliation process last year in a bid to force Australia to negotiate a permanent maritime boundary.

A history of treaties in the Timor Sea

In 1989 Australia and Indonesia signed the Timor Gap Treaty when East Timor was still under Indonesian occupation.

East Timor was left with no permanent maritime border and Indonesia and Australia got to share the wealth in what was known as the Timor Gap.

In 2002 East Timor gained independence and the Timor Sea Treaty was signed, but no permanent maritime border was negotiated.

East Timor has long argued the border should sit halfway between it and Australia, placing most of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field in their territory.

In 2004 East Timor started negotiating with Australia again about the border.

In 2006 the CMATS treaty was signed, but no permanent border was set, and instead it ruled that revenue from the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field would be split evenly between the two countries.

Former Timor Leste president Xanana Gusmao said the "long and at times difficult" process had helped the country achieve its dream of "full sovereignty and to finally settle our maritime boundaries with Australia".

"This is an historic agreement and marks the beginning of a new era in Timor-Leste's friendship with Australia," he said.

While the details remain confidential, the court said the agreement "addresses the legal status of the Greater Sunrise gas field…and the sharing of the resulting revenue".

In January, Timor-Leste terminated its 2006 treaty with Australia, which split revenue from the Greater Sunrise field 50/50 and delayed negotiations over a permanent maritime boundary for 50 years.

The country claimed the treaty was invalid because of allegations that Australia spied on cabinet ministers during negotiations to divide the oil and gas fields.

Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong welcomed the breakthrough, saying the court's ruling brings to an end "more than 40 years of uncertainty over this maritime border".

"The maritime boundary dispute with Timor-Leste has strained our bilateral relations and has gone on too long," she said.

The deal will be finalised in October. Until then, the details will remain confidential.

Lonesome Valley – Mississippi John Hurt with Hedy West and Pete Seeger



                    An excerpt from Pete Seeger's television program called "Rainbow Quest." 
                            It was recorded in 1965 or 66 at WNJU-TV (Channel 47), 
                     a New York City-based UHF station with studios in Newark, New Jersey.