Soundtrack to a Strike

Very much a work in progress this. I was trying to think of stuff that should be on an OST for the day. This is what I ended up with:

The Workers - Let's Work Together
The Specials - Ghost Town (h/t Perrin124)
Rage Against the Machine - Maggie's Farm
Captain Ska - Liar Liar
Billy Bragg - There is Power in a Union
Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will be Next
Manic Street Preachers - Natwestbarclaysmidlandslloyds
The Enemy Within - Strike (cheers again to Perrin)
Luke Haines - Never Work
Radiohead - Electioneering
NxtGen - The Andrew Lansley Rap
Marxism 2008 Closing Rally - The Internationale

Any further suggestions welcome - we'll use it on the next one. Solidarity, comrades.

All in all, pretty good

Right then. First things first. The government's lines on this have simply got to look ridiculous to most people by now. If it doesn't, I may have to despair of my sunny, optimistic view of human nature. On the upside, the last poll I saw showed a majority of support for our action.

From the inside, it was good. I was on two picket lines today and no one crossed at either of them. The demo in the city centre was pretty good:

The general turnout seems to have been pretty good - 7,000 in Leicester, 20,000 in Bristol and Liverpool, for example and the strike action seems to have been fairly solid nationally.

From my personal experience there was a good level of general support from the public, too. Unfortunately no one particularly amusing was in opposition (unless you count the homeless bloke who shouted 'Get back to work you lazy bastards' at us. Which I don't, on account of its being genuinely baffling.)

The biggest problem was that there were a couple of thousand people and the only space that was available for speeches was in a marquee big enough to hold a couple of hundred. That, and the ice rink that was filling most of the space, leaving us wedged up against the Guild Hall. These are, as I'm sure you'll agree, pretty minor complaints.

Of course the big thing now is: what next. Personally, I think we should be planning for more action in January. What say you, interwebs?

In Praise of Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant is coming dangerously close to restoring my faith in elected representatives. Yesterday there was this, and today there was this!

Come the revolution, I for one will aim to miss. His criticisms are so reasoned and substantive that I feel a bit guilty about the following snark aimed at the periphery of his statements.

Here it is: Astonishing - first he works out that the PCC is a fig leaf, then he spots that Burley's 'a bit dim'.

Hmm, you know, reading that back, I feel that I've irrevocably lost any claim to the moral high ground ever.

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There is still going to be a Marxism post. Honest.

UPDATE: Of course, nobody's perfect

Might find this handy

I know I'll find a use for it...
I think it came from these guys - cheers!

AWOBMOLG: Perhaps not doomed, but probably pointless, liveblog 2

Since last week's liveblog worked OK, I'm going to give it another go tonight. I'm quite looking forward to a critique of the idea of an ecosystem, personally.

21:03 Interesting start - mainly for the wonderful archival footage Curtis always finds.

21:03 Will this lead on to a criticism of the ideas of neural networking?

21:05 Ecosystems are definitely not my area of expertise, but it is interesting to compare the idea of equilibrium to Darwin's understanding of a war for survival, constantly being waged and with huge, geometrical, losses for each species.

21:07 It seems that Forrester is attempting to capture the very dynamics that Curtis is concerned with illuminating.

21:07 Ah, except that he seems to be positing a universal law not just of systems but of the existence of systems. This seems on the face of it to be a bit of a stretch.

21:10 This is giving me the urge to re-read some of that Churchland stuff I was bored rigid by 10 years ago... (url added)

21:14 I like the way Curtis always assumes that his audience is capable of understanding science without explaining it in breathless Brian Cox-stuff.

21:16 Yay for Buckminster-Fuller! Will there be a mention of C60, I wonder?

21:18 He's right about 'spaceship Earth' in some fundamental respects of course.

21:19 Oh, is that what Clarke was on about in his godsawful Rama series? Rama linky added.

21:21 Hm, an old hippy friend told me that I was born too late and I should've been a student in the 60s. He may have been right, though since (cheers, hindsight!) it was doomed maybe it's better that I wasn't.

21:25 How awesome is this? Video windows, mice and everything! This reminds me of a TED talk - I'll see if I can find it...

21:30 I'll look for it later - distracted from doc now!

21:31 Just think about the maths required for that model - incredible. Humans are wonderful.

21:37 Initial thought on the ecosystem as natural Toryism - if you've not read Richard Seymour's The Liberal Defence of Murder, I recommend you get hold of it - imperialism is subsumed into ideas far more frequently than it often appears on the surface...

21:43 I remember at school being told that this was how nature worked - natural systems that balnce over time. David Attenborough's Life on Earth is a good antidote to this.

21:48 Looking at the Twitter feed, what a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that Curtis likes to present a thesis. He may not be correct in all his assertions, but he is doing what no other mainstream documentarists are doing at the moment - presenting an intellectual argument as an intellectual argument and forcing you to engage with his ideas. His continual insistence on exposing the narratives elites and other influential groups tell themselves and the world rather than showing his own views or asserting a truth (other than that the universe is stranger than you expect) is what makes him remarkable.

21:52 *cough* NED *cough*

21:53 Also, vets often put holes into ruminants' stomachs - when you've got 4 stomachs there's lots of stuff to go wrong. Not as weird as it looks.

21:55 Curtis talked about this problem with communes in his Graun interview the other week.

21:59 Did I miss the thing about part 3? I thought this was a 3 parter!

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UPDATE: Here's that TED talk, Sixth Sense Tech...

AWOBMOLG Doomed Liveblog Attempt

9:07 Adam Curtis is now highlighting for all the Bioshock players who didn't get it exactly what the game was satirising. For other good summaries of Her Bonkersness, see Action Philosophers (sample here - http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/744775.html )

9:08 Randians against Burke, eh? Ooh a bit of Clint Mansell - good one Adam!

9:10 This reminds me a bit of some work on folk-psychology I did once. Boiled version: just because everyone agrees that the same thing is happening, doesn't mean that it actually is. If you pay attention only to the agreed-upon phenomena you can ignore the deeper structure that pre-determines the options for action.

9:12 Interestingly this (sickly marrying of neoliberalism with 'freedom') is exactly the kind of bullshit the Graun's tech weekly podcast often slavishly repeats.

9:15 Hoo - Atlas Shrugged! Any Sadlynauts will be familiar with the US right's response to the financial crisis a couple of years ago - threatening to 'go Galt'. Strangely they never did. Wonder why?

9:19 Bit disingenuous to say they were asking for a 'totally free society' since a central tenet of Objectivism was contempt for the majority of people. I know this isn't an original point, but it's probably worth repeating.

9:22 I was never convinced that those who professed belief in the 'new economy' guff weren't being somewhat disingenuous to be honest. I always kind of assumed that those who pushed it were the same ones who push every boom - the ones who are convinced they'll come out ahead.

9:28 Ooh it's the bit off the trailer.

9:31 From Rand to Monica Lewinsky - bit of a stretch?

9:35 The problem I'm having is that this is a very familiar story. I'm sure it's an essential par, but I've known this since I were a teenager...

9:37 She's* right, of course. Luckily, since no one ever reads this blog I'm in the privileged position of creating a commodity no one wants to buy.

9:40 The face on that IMF negotiatior...urgh...

9:42 IMF riots ... that takes me back...

9:45 Interesting that this time round the bankers don't seem to be even pretending that they have a solution. They've learned not to trade in optimism, at least.

9:51 Whod've thought that Objectivism was thinly-disguised, vainglorious hubris, eh?

9:54 Nice tying in to Power of Nightmares and Century of the Self.

9:56 I don't know, Adam. How many people really believed their own hype about permanent boom? It would require an astonishing level of naivety on the part of financial elites...

10:00 Well, I'm fully satisfied. Lovely bit of Curtis, was that. What is the theme over the end credits?**

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UPDATE
*Just to be clear, 'she' in this case refers to Carmen Hermosillo, not Ayn Rand.

** It's Stereo Total - Aua

*** Title fixt

**** Intriguingly, Virgin catch up lists AWOBMOLG under 'Drama and Soaps', rather than documentaries. How odd.

The day is starting well.

Have you noticed that people start their Christmas shopping earlier every year? Who did Mr Justice Mann get this for, I wonder? If it's for me, he shouldn't have. All I got him was one of those Terry's Chocolate Orange bars last year. Now I'm going to have to get him something nice. Tickets to Les Mis, perhaps?

Exciting new bloggertunity

The brilliant, acerbic and rather lovely Siobhan Schwartzberg has started a new blog. I reckon it'll be well worth keeping your peepers on.

That is all.

Although it is on wordpress, so expect much FYWP in coming months...

Much Belated Vestas Post

Should've done this last week, but didn't seem to have a minute. And the weekend... well, least said soonest mended there.

So anyways, the Vestas occupation has had a fair bit of media coverage so you're probably aware that some workers from the UK's only sizeable wind turbine plant have occupied the factory in an attempt to save their jobs, amongst other things.

It's an issue that seems to resonate with a lot of people. The lunacy of exporting a wind turbine plant to the US just at the point when people have finally begun to be persuaded of the urgency of the climate problem seems so incredibly stark; the thuggish behaviour of the management (trying to starve out the workers); the unbelievable callousness of the way they tried to fire the workers in the first place:

We were given a piece of pizza, an apple and a can of drink tonight but then noticed there were letters there as well telling us we were being dismissed.

Then there's the longevity of the sit-in, over 2 weeks now, and the scale of demands of the workers - like nationalisation. There's even the -whisper it- feeling that it's possible to get some kind of victory out of this one*.

I did a paper sale/petition/come to a meeting thing in Northumberland St on Thursday with some comrades and we got a lot of support: lots of papers, lots of names on petition sheets. We had a meeting about it the next night and we were addressed by a couple of speakers, one a party comrade who has been helping the occupation directly. I know it's possible to get carried away in situations like this, but if you can't get excited when workers seize control of the means of production and start to scare the bosses like this, then what are you doing on the left? Eh? Eh? It's literally the least you can do.**

P.S. Check out this statement from the workers (teaser trailer below).

Now I’m not sure about you but we think it’s about time that if the government can spends billions bailing out the banks – and even nationalise them – then surely they can do the same at Vestas.

The people of Vestas matter, and the people of the island matter, but equally importantly the people of this planet matter. We will not be brushed under the carpet by a government which is claiming to help us.

We have occupied our factory and call on the government to step in and nationalise it. We and many others believe it is essential that we continue to keep our factory open for our families and livelihoods, but also for the future of the planet.

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*Please note, chances of winning may go down as well as up.

**And believe me, I am an expert on the absolute least you can do. Or rather I can do. Not on purpose, just through lack of organisation, sci-fi addiction and also some degree of laziness.

Best. Philosophy Video. Evar.

I've been compiling some resources for A Level Philosophy students this week, and I can't believe this is the first time I've seen this. It's stark raving genius, though I fear it may do for philosophy what Trapped in the Closet did for R&B.

Anyway, enjoy this take on Plato's allegory of the cave. I know I did.

Galaxy Rise

Just how unbelievably cool is this?

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

From here, h/t Graun.

How Brilliant is Roy Chaderton Matos?

I was just catching up with Jews Sans Frontieres and found this link to an article by the Venezuelan ambassador to the Organisation of American States.

Sample:

None shall ever be permitted to use the recurrent crimes against humanity committed by the mediocre and murderous militarist elite of the State of Israel as justification for twisting the just rebellion of the Palestinians and solidarity with them nto anti-Semitic aberrations.

No leftist has the right to forget that the Jews -- historically persecuted, not by the Muslims who for centuries opened their doors for them, but by first the Christian crusaders, then the inquisitors, and finally the Nazis -- have a historical tradition of pioneering solidarity with social rebellions and progressive thought. Never forget such illustrious Jews as Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Bob Dylan. Never forget the participation of Jews, even at the cost of their lives, in civil, labor, social, and anti-war struggles in the United States or struggles against the ultra-Catholic military dictatorships in the Southern Cone. Never overlook the fact that, in the United States, against the organized anti-Chavista campaign supported by the "Israel lobby" in that country, American Jewish intellectuals have spoken up: the most famous intellectual in the world, Noam Chomsky, so often cited by President Chávez, and Joseph Stiglitz, a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, who has supported us in our struggles against the dictatorship of neoliberalism.

Read the whole thing, it's great.

The Chavista government. I think I love them a bit more every day, if that's possible.

You see, in response to Freedman again, I don't think it's the left part of his equation that's the problem here.

South African Solidarity with Gaza

This story has been doing the rounds for a couple of days now, but it's still cool so I include below some info what i done got sent*:

FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL!

COSATU and PSC (South Africa) launch Week of Action for Palestine supported by YCL and other progressive organisations Media Conference, COSATU House, 3 February 2009, 11am

In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel.

The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across
the globe. Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU’s General Secretary Randall Howard, the union’s members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods.

SATAWU’s action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to offload South African goods.

South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions. Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.

This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.

COSATU, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Young Communist League and a range of other organisations salute the principled position taken by these workers. We also take this opportunity to salute the millions of workers all over the world who have openly condemned and taken decisive steps to isolate apartheid Israel, a step that should send shockwaves to its arrogant patrons in the United States who foot the bill for Israel’s killing machine. We call on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.

We also welcome statements by various South African Jews of conscience who have dissociated themselves from the genocide in Gaza. We call on all South Africans to ensure that none of our family members are allowed to join the Israeli Occupation Forces’ killing machine.

In celebration of the actions of SATAWU members with regard to the ship from Israel, and in pursuance of the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and our call on the South African government to sever diplomatic and trade relations with Israel, this coalition of organisations has declared a week of action beginning on Friday, 6 February 2009.

*Although, I don't think that the situation in Gaza amounts to genocide, in the same way that Apartheid didn't.