Suggestions
1. Be more offensive
2. Smoke more
3. Go on more demonstrations
4. Say 'No' more often, especially to your boss.
5. Spend less time at work and if you've been laid off ....
6. ...stop worrying about the economy and agitate for a totally different one.
7. Downsize, socialise and politicise
8. Smoke less (at least you'll keep one resolution).
9. Say "Hello" to a, hitherto unknown, neighbour - socialism starts from below.
10. Disconnect from the MSM and alternativise.
New Year is shit - hope you get through it all relatively ok and that things gradually improve from now on in. Try not drinking! For the first time ever, I intend to start the new year off hangoverless a small step to folowing resolution 7.......
oh yeh 11. Listen to more 'Burial'.
mercredi 31 décembre 2008
Remain calm
The response from the western powers to the murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza has been chilling. They appeal for calm, assert Israel's right to defend itself and blame Hamas for starting it all with their pinprick rockets, that every now and then hit something and sometimes even kill people, and expect everyone to fall in line and accept the meat grinding of Gazan civilians as if it were normal and proportionate. But we know Israel broke the truce on November 4th.
Israel plays a strategic role for western powers in the middle East and faces terrible internal economic and social problems. War is a way of releasing some of the tension that has built up, galvanising party support and unity and testing weaponry. This rancid action is no exception. It is nothing to do with anything as immaterial as religion so there is nothing anti-semitic about criticising what is happening. It is just any old state under pressure and lashing out at a prone target in the name of some far fetched idea of self protection. I read somewhere on Harry's Place (a putrid site) that the left has no right to protest against these actions because it failed to demonstrate when the Algerian government was conducting brutal operations in its civil war - some 180 000 people were killed in that conflict. It's a pathetically weak argument on so many fronts.
First, many on the left did protest, but where were the likes of Harry's Place viscious moles? Doubtless all out protesting in favour of the Algerian working class - no chance. They were openly laughing at the idea of muslims killing themselves in all probability. Secondly, even if it were the case that people didn't protest in any great earth changing ways, that in no way means that somehow, everyone has to stop demonstrating when anyone else, in this case Israel, starts inflicting this amount of carnage on women and children. And finally, this conflict is of a piece with the continuing war for domination that the US and its slave state are waging in the region. This conflict is the key conflict of the century. In an ideal world, we could and should be protesting about all sorts of other things in the world, things a lot smaller and less significant. However, thanks in no small part to the goons in America, their military off-shoots and their ideological warriors all over the media, we have to focus on the actions of a few Israelian politicians and their brutal IDF butcher hound. The most politically depressing thing about this is the evident pleasure the Israelis powers are getting out of this. The Israeli cabinet was charged with feeling yesterday on reports of the murderous raids.
Meanwhile, the rest of us - average and above average intelligent readers and interpreters bloggers and scribblers have to search further afeild for news about the slaughter. We filter out the gunge that comes through the MSM (like a report just on French news just now showing a hole in a school roof in Bethsada, the victim of a Hamas rocket) and treat the fodder they give us as further reason not to believe the whole official narrative.
And hope for a jolt in the whole smooth running of the killing operation. Something unexpected something from the streets something like a fightback. Soon - next year - we are gathering.
Remain calm - fuck that.
Israel plays a strategic role for western powers in the middle East and faces terrible internal economic and social problems. War is a way of releasing some of the tension that has built up, galvanising party support and unity and testing weaponry. This rancid action is no exception. It is nothing to do with anything as immaterial as religion so there is nothing anti-semitic about criticising what is happening. It is just any old state under pressure and lashing out at a prone target in the name of some far fetched idea of self protection. I read somewhere on Harry's Place (a putrid site) that the left has no right to protest against these actions because it failed to demonstrate when the Algerian government was conducting brutal operations in its civil war - some 180 000 people were killed in that conflict. It's a pathetically weak argument on so many fronts.
First, many on the left did protest, but where were the likes of Harry's Place viscious moles? Doubtless all out protesting in favour of the Algerian working class - no chance. They were openly laughing at the idea of muslims killing themselves in all probability. Secondly, even if it were the case that people didn't protest in any great earth changing ways, that in no way means that somehow, everyone has to stop demonstrating when anyone else, in this case Israel, starts inflicting this amount of carnage on women and children. And finally, this conflict is of a piece with the continuing war for domination that the US and its slave state are waging in the region. This conflict is the key conflict of the century. In an ideal world, we could and should be protesting about all sorts of other things in the world, things a lot smaller and less significant. However, thanks in no small part to the goons in America, their military off-shoots and their ideological warriors all over the media, we have to focus on the actions of a few Israelian politicians and their brutal IDF butcher hound. The most politically depressing thing about this is the evident pleasure the Israelis powers are getting out of this. The Israeli cabinet was charged with feeling yesterday on reports of the murderous raids.
Meanwhile, the rest of us - average and above average intelligent readers and interpreters bloggers and scribblers have to search further afeild for news about the slaughter. We filter out the gunge that comes through the MSM (like a report just on French news just now showing a hole in a school roof in Bethsada, the victim of a Hamas rocket) and treat the fodder they give us as further reason not to believe the whole official narrative.
And hope for a jolt in the whole smooth running of the killing operation. Something unexpected something from the streets something like a fightback. Soon - next year - we are gathering.
Remain calm - fuck that.
lundi 22 décembre 2008
Shoe thrower torture apology
Here at REL, we didn't even bother to 'predict' that the so called apology from the shoe thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi would be exposed as yet another American fraud. It was that obvious. You can only write so many 'I told you so's' before you start to get bored of showing that the MSM churns out lie after lie. I'm sure you knew that and also, along with us, wish the famed shoe thrower a hearty return to health and slightly better timed throwing next occasion a NATO leader is in town......
Israel attacks
It's conceivable that Israel, after its appalling blockade and starvation of Gaza, is going to launch a full scale military offensive. Here's hoping not - but if they do all decent minded people should hope for another humiliating Israeli defeat. Rot in hell you IDF dogs.
Iraq
The real reason for the Iraq war may never be known. Perhaps there wasn't one. Sure, the oil must have had something to do with it. But perhaps a clearer reason is that the elites in America knew where the economic trends were going and thought that they'd better give their troops some training in urban warfare against pissed off civilians. The way things are going, the GI's are going to need all the experience they have gleaned in dealing with irate Iraqis in quelling the coming insurrections in the US. Have you seen Athens recently?
dimanche 21 décembre 2008
samedi 20 décembre 2008
Be afraid?
"All the trends described above are already at work. Their combination and the public becoming aware of the consequences they could entail, will result in the great collective psychological trauma of Spring 2009, when everyone will realize that we are all trapped into a crisis worse than in the 1930s and that there is no possible way out in the short-term. The impact on the world’s collective mentalities of people and policy-makers will be decisive and modify significantly the course of the crisis in its next stage. Based on greater disillusion and fewer beliefs, social and political instability will settle down worldwide."
These GEAB people were 80% correct in their predictions of the current crisis. In fact, let' start just calling it the crisis. The 'current' hints at the idea of a certain temporality. Read this report and forget that type of optimism (even if it were a slight frail type of optimism). The report says the slump will only start to disapte sometime round the end of 2010, but by then, the world will have been racked by social and political turmoil. Breathe in and feel good, then, while you can - and get organising your local revolutionary cells!
These GEAB people were 80% correct in their predictions of the current crisis. In fact, let' start just calling it the crisis. The 'current' hints at the idea of a certain temporality. Read this report and forget that type of optimism (even if it were a slight frail type of optimism). The report says the slump will only start to disapte sometime round the end of 2010, but by then, the world will have been racked by social and political turmoil. Breathe in and feel good, then, while you can - and get organising your local revolutionary cells!
Inscription à :
Comment Feed (RSS)
