25 things….

I should be writing about TUC Congress and the latest state racism from France which is utterly shameful!

First protest I photographed - Sept 2007 outside Burmese embassy

But at the moment can’t get my head around to write much… Anyway, Sam has tagged me to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. And well, because I have got a bit of blogger’s block at the moment this is a good distraction and well, I can also bore the readership about myself….

1. I joined the “Famous Five” fanclub when I was 8. I liked Blyton’s “Famous Five” and this was before I developed a political consciousness.

2. I was born on the 23rd December the due date was the 24th December.

3. Involved in the mental health user movement during most of the 1990s.

4. Been a vegetarian for around 28 years.

5. Spent much of my childhood in and out of B’ham Children’s Eye Hospital.

6. Don’t particularly like doctors (bad experiences in childhood).

7. Likes running (sprinting particularly represented school in that specific field… and won sometimes….)

8. Wanted to be an artist when at school specialising in painting.

9. My school art teacher exhibited some of my art work when I was around 14 to some dignitaries who were visiting school.

10. Brought up in the protestant faith. Though my mother was a devout catholic as a teenager yet decided to become a protestant in later years and brought me up in that faith. Don’t know why she rejected catholicism, she never explained.

11. Secular and an atheist from the age of 12

12. Went on the first anniversary protest at Wapping in early 1987. First time I ever personally witnessed police brutality and violence.

13. First demonstration I ever went on was at 15, anti-apartheid protest in B’ham.

14. Did my “O” Level History project on the General Strike in B’ham.

15. Joined the Labour Party at 15, along with YCND.

16. At that point in my life described myself as a Socialist feminist.

17. Prefer cats to dogs.

18. First union I ever joined was Nalgo

19. I once wrote a leaflet about mental distress, stigmatisation and the workplace (a kinda “what to do” for someone experiencing distress in the workplace). Later received a letter from someone who was feeling isolated and being bullied in the workplace due to their mental distress, they read my leaflet and it gave them the strength to find support/solidarity and to speak out. The letter was to thank me for helping them to overcome their isolation. I still kinda treasure that letter and reminded me why I am a Socialist and that I had an impact on someone’s experiences.

20. First experienced depression and anxiety when I was 8 years old (prescribed medication). Still experience mental distress.

21. My favourite women photographers are Nan Goldin and Jo Spence.

22. Read Communist Manifesto when I was 14.

23. Became a Trot at 16. Still call myself a Marxist. Still an activist and trade unionist.

24. Glad I took up photography (advice from a good GP)

25. Very pleased and flattered that one of my photos has achieved something positive.

There’s no need for cuts!

Proposed cuts to housing benefit will result in higher levels of poverty, debt, rent arrears and homelessness and should be delayed, national charity Citizens Advice says today.

The warning comes in evidence submitted to the Department of Work and Pensions’ Social Security Advisory Committee, whose consultation on the changes ends today (Friday 10 September). The committee is expected to publish its recommendations to government in the late autumn.

Cuts announced by government include a cap on housing benefit payments from April next year.*

Citizens Advice strongly opposes the cuts, but says that if they do go ahead, the government must take steps to cushion the impact and smooth the transition for those households affected. It calls for a delay in introducing the new cap until October 2011, or at the very least only applying it to new claims from April, in order to ensure that people locked into existing tenancy agreements do not find themselves suddenly trapped with an unaffordable rent, and to give them time to find somewhere else to live.

And this ideological onslaught on the public sector and welfare doesn’t need to happen. To repeat, there doesn’t need to be any cuts whatsoever!

George Osborne is putting beggars back on the street in the same way that his hero, Thatcher, did. What a brave new society to look forward to, a very nasty and destructive one. The message people should take is organise and resist or be destroyed. The Con/Dems could have found the money to fill the deficit hole by cutting the £70bn for Trident. And the £4bn a year for futile imperialist wars. Around £130bn is lost through tax avoidance and evasion, how about the Con/Dems tackling that immense problem? Millions could be saved by ditching privatisation and consultants….Even better, tax the rich!

But somehow, as with the previous NL administration, the wealthy and corporate capitalism are exempt from the butchery of this draconian budget. But then this is an ideological attack that means every one else is being sacrificed instead.

See as well –

TUC Spending cuts will make Britain more unequal

Welfare to work contractors have universally failed ‘by considerable margin’ so says Public Accounts Committee

Just a picture around the Southbank

The other 9/11

September 11th 1973 ….

Pinochet’s coup d’état against the democratically elected Allende government. Let’s not forget this September 11 that gets ‘lost’ in the fog of the selective remembrance.

The day where a democratically elected government was overthrown by a military dictatorship headed by the monstrous General Pinochet with the backing and support of the US government. Henry Kissinger believed that America had a duty to intervene when a country ‘went Marxist’…So the bloodshed, carnage, state terrorism, assassinations, murders, detention centres, repression, the ‘missing’, torture..this monumental shock warfare to the collective psyche was acceptable to Kissinger because it served those ‘irresponsible people’ right for voting for Allende!

Thirty-seven years on and Henry Kissinger is still a fucking war criminal, no wonder he checks the extradition laws everytime he leaves the USA.

“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen”

“Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen” – “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, also burn people.”
(Heinrich Heine – 1821)

It seems that Pastor Terry Jones’s plan to burn 200 copies of the Qur’an has been cancelled though there seems to be confusion about whether it has been cancelled or just put on hold. When I first heard about the plan to burn the Qur’an it certainly sent shivers down my spine, fanning the flames of hate. Jones is a vile bigot and racist.

Why burning, though, rather than some other kind of destruction? The symbolism of flames is plain. For Andrew Motion, former poet laureate and chair of this year’s Man Booker prize, “books are little encapsulations of human effort and wisdom and, I suppose, of our sense of history. So to burn one of any kind, and certainly one that is a representation of a culture and set of beliefs, is to appear to consign it to the flames of eternal damnation.” Book-burning, he says, is first and foremost a monumental “manifestation of intolerance. It’s the conflation of what ought to be nuanced views into one, hate-filled act.

And on the eve of September 11th where chaos, carnage, devastation and destruction happening in New York. And we know the rest in how the West dealt with the situation….”War on Terror”..more destruction and carnage in the name of “liberation”.

Christianity is not the opposite of Islam. They are variants of the monotheist belief system. Neo-conservatism is not the opposite of the intolerant fundamentalism that prevails in Saudi Arabia incubates reactionary religion based ideologies in the rest of the world. They are part of the mindset that says religion is a way of identifying your enemies whom you can destroy.

Both are the violent flailing around of reactionaries who have run out of political answers.

The opposite of the terrorism of that day would be the building of a mosque in the WTC area with the support of the wider community. It would be an expression that all are united and stand together at the end of the day whatever religious or other traditions that different groups or individuals identify with.

Results from poll about who I should 1st preference for Labour leader….

The poll has now closed….The votes have been cast, lots of counting, scrutinising and rechecking…..and the results are now final.

I asked:

Who should I 1st preference for Labour Leader?!

And the answer that topped the poll:

“Who cares… don’t have illusions in any of ‘em as they lack principles, sustainability and will cave in to pressure”..

You cynical lot

Protest – Bliar hosting an event tomorrow at Tate Modern

The Bliar has cancelled his book signing event at Waterstones. But …. never fear the Bliar will be hosting some event at Tate Modern…

Stop the War has called a protest at Tate Modern gallery at 5.30pm on Wednesday September when Blair is hosting a book launch party, which will no doubt also be attended by Alistair Campbell, Jack Straw, Peter Mandelson and other war criminals.

Protest when Blair hosts book launch party Wednesday 8 September 5.30pm
Tate Modern Gallery, Park Street, Bankside, London SE1 9TG Tube: Mansion House

Q: Who said: “You’ve got to put in prison those who deserve to be there”? A. Tony Blair, 6 September 2010

Why I gave Diane Abbott my 1st preference

I received my ballot papers today, from the GMB and the Labour Party. Firstly, I was unbelievably narked seeing Mister Ed on the front of the envelope and also receiving a phone message on my answer machine from that bureaucrat Paul Kenny urging me to vote for Mister Ed…. You can imagine what my response was.

I remember scrawling “No to Warmongers” on my ballot papers for Labour Deputy Leadership contest in 2007. It was easier as I have never had any illusions in the soft left’s golden boy, Jon Cruddas, still am amazed how comrades were seemingly distracted by his left rhetoric while not taking notice of his right-wing voting record (Iraq, 42 days, against Iraq Inquiry, welfare reform and so on….). It was bleeding obvious he would back Brown’s coronation and his continued right-wing trajectory which still shocks many lefties who still have illusions in this man. Two words. David. Miliband.

But this election, for me, isn’t that straightforward….After much deliberation, soul searching and debating with myself, I voted for Diane Abbott. I was still tempted to scrawl, “Ralph4Leader” on both of the papers and may regret I didn’t. Instead I voted for her. I still have problems with her as she is more of a media personality than a back bench activist MP. She wasn’t my ideal choice for the Left candidate by any stretch of the imagination. But on balance, she has voted against the NL machine. She doesn’t have blood on her hands, nor did she capitulate time and time and time again to NL like the other contenders.

And that neatly brings me to Mister Ed…. I can’t and won’t second preference him. I have been accused recently (well, today as it happens) of being “purist” over “pragmatism” (here we go again…….). In response to that I refuse to identify with the politics of Ed Miliband, there is no evidence that he is amenable to pressure from the Left. I may be wrong but we are being duped by the bureaucracy. The problem of going down that “pragmatic road” is that you start breeding illusions in people who are bound to bitterly disappoint us and demoralise us even more as well…..

Birds in flight….

Some birds just hanging around…..

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