Sunday, February 19, 2012
BOOK REVIEW - Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere – the new global revolutions by Paul Mason
reviewed by Alan Woodward
This book – the author’s third – is a volume of two distinct parts. The first part follows the pattern of his first publication in that it looks at the experience in different countries while the second part offers some miscellaneous thoughts, comparisons and explanations on what is happening now in the Arab Spring , and Europe too . This are of quite different approach – and quality - and while sometimes separated neatly into chapters, are also put in sequence with factual reporting. Hence the overall effect is something of a mish mash. The book , or reportage as the author would have it, is certainly timely, with occasionally insights , and in places quite significant politically.
For A’ That
Burns Night – as seen 56 years ago.
Gastronomic Immortality?
All over the world, at this time, elaborate preparations are being made to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of “Scotland’s National Bard” and to “honour” the ploughman poet who has found for himself a place, if not in the hearts, at least in the stomachs, of a wide variety of people in many countries and climes.
So now would seem as good a time as any for me to confess that I have never attended a Burns’ Supper. Not that I have any rooted objection to supping, or to Robert Burns – although he wrote almost as much bad verse as he wrote good – but rather because I cannot reconcile in my own mind two such separate appetites as one for food and one for poetry; and I feel that by trying to combine the two I would only succeed in confusing both. For me, there is no common link between a palate for whisky and haggis and an aesthetic appreciation of lyrics.
Gastronomic Immortality?
All over the world, at this time, elaborate preparations are being made to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of “Scotland’s National Bard” and to “honour” the ploughman poet who has found for himself a place, if not in the hearts, at least in the stomachs, of a wide variety of people in many countries and climes.
So now would seem as good a time as any for me to confess that I have never attended a Burns’ Supper. Not that I have any rooted objection to supping, or to Robert Burns – although he wrote almost as much bad verse as he wrote good – but rather because I cannot reconcile in my own mind two such separate appetites as one for food and one for poetry; and I feel that by trying to combine the two I would only succeed in confusing both. For me, there is no common link between a palate for whisky and haggis and an aesthetic appreciation of lyrics.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
MEETING - LUDDITES REMEMBERED
proudly LUDDITE – OCCUPY now
SPEAKER FROM LUDDITE 200 INVITED
8 pm on 14 December, Wood Green Social Club, Stuart Crescent, N22 (normally in room 1)
(Just opposite the Civic Centre on the High Road, at the start of White Hart Lane, 50 yards from the main road. A 100 yard walk from the bus stop at Wood Green tube station, past the Wood Green bus depot)
We are celebrating that it is exactly 200 years since the clothing workers in northern counties who had tried talking to employers and politicians, were finally forced disguise themselves, take large hammers [Enochs – there is a picture of one on the blog] and start breaking up the new machines that had destroyed hundreds of jobs. They were not opposed to technology as such just machines that were crushing their livelihoods. After a brave revolt, that scared the ruling class, they failed and we know today that destruction does not work. Now we have to consider other methods for the widespread introduction of technology that threatens millions of jobs. Dockers, printers, and others have seen jobs eaten by new inventions and millions of others less publicised, are under threat. Today many think in terms of occupation of premises, property and equipment, to control their use and ensure production is for social need, not just profit.
SPEAKER FROM LUDDITE 200 INVITED
8 pm on 14 December, Wood Green Social Club, Stuart Crescent, N22 (normally in room 1)
(Just opposite the Civic Centre on the High Road, at the start of White Hart Lane, 50 yards from the main road. A 100 yard walk from the bus stop at Wood Green tube station, past the Wood Green bus depot)
We are celebrating that it is exactly 200 years since the clothing workers in northern counties who had tried talking to employers and politicians, were finally forced disguise themselves, take large hammers [Enochs – there is a picture of one on the blog] and start breaking up the new machines that had destroyed hundreds of jobs. They were not opposed to technology as such just machines that were crushing their livelihoods. After a brave revolt, that scared the ruling class, they failed and we know today that destruction does not work. Now we have to consider other methods for the widespread introduction of technology that threatens millions of jobs. Dockers, printers, and others have seen jobs eaten by new inventions and millions of others less publicised, are under threat. Today many think in terms of occupation of premises, property and equipment, to control their use and ensure production is for social need, not just profit.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
BOOK REVIEW - Joe Jacobs biography
Review: Alan Woodward, After Cable Street – Joe Jacobs 1940 to 1977. 84pp. London, Socialist Libertarians, September 2011.
(Available from Housmans bookshop and at meetings).
Alan Woodward has done another service to radical history in producing this well-researched booklet, continuing the narrative of a varied and active political life begun in its subject’s posthumously published autobiography (Joe Jacobs, Out of the Ghetto, 1978). Using Joe’s letters and other papers, backed up with reference to a range of background sources, he places the life in the context of its times, showing how Joe’s political ideas developed after his days as a Communist Party activist in the 1930s. Those ideas were repeatedly applied in support of working-class struggle; and against those who Joe believed would take over or sell out that struggle for their own ends.
The core chapters are: Joe and the war; Shop stewards, workplaces, unions and the occupation; Joe and the international dimension; Strike reporting; Politics and organisations. Key events – confrontation with military authority, industrial strife and organising, political debates and clashes – and Joe’s role in them are recounted along with their effects on his thinking, with frequent quotes from his own writing, some of it still unpublished notes. Relevant theories and their more notable advocates are discussed in detail, displaying Alan’s impressive knowledge of the history of leftist ideas in the 20th century. The helpful lists of dates, sources for each section, and index are further added value.
(Available from Housmans bookshop and at meetings).
Alan Woodward has done another service to radical history in producing this well-researched booklet, continuing the narrative of a varied and active political life begun in its subject’s posthumously published autobiography (Joe Jacobs, Out of the Ghetto, 1978). Using Joe’s letters and other papers, backed up with reference to a range of background sources, he places the life in the context of its times, showing how Joe’s political ideas developed after his days as a Communist Party activist in the 1930s. Those ideas were repeatedly applied in support of working-class struggle; and against those who Joe believed would take over or sell out that struggle for their own ends.
The core chapters are: Joe and the war; Shop stewards, workplaces, unions and the occupation; Joe and the international dimension; Strike reporting; Politics and organisations. Key events – confrontation with military authority, industrial strife and organising, political debates and clashes – and Joe’s role in them are recounted along with their effects on his thinking, with frequent quotes from his own writing, some of it still unpublished notes. Relevant theories and their more notable advocates are discussed in detail, displaying Alan’s impressive knowledge of the history of leftist ideas in the 20th century. The helpful lists of dates, sources for each section, and index are further added value.
More on Invergordon: Reporting the Mutiny.
 |
| The Strike Signal |
The Daily Herald newspaper, the only national daily that supported the Labour Party, went to town on the story of what were seen as sensational developments. On Wednesday 16th September, when the sailors’ action was under way and its outcome unpredictable, most of the front page was devoted to different aspects of the situation, with multiple headlines. The following day almost as much space was occupied by the follow up and the announcement of the mutiny’s end result, successfully blocking the imposition of massive pay cuts. Excerpts are reproduced below.
Two of the most prominent among the mutineers refer to the Daily Herald in their memoirs of Invergordon:. Fred Copeman, later of Spanish Civil War fame, says that he was a reader of the paper, which was viewed as ‘red’ in the Navy, the Communist Daily Worker being seldom seen at all by sailors (Reason in Revolt. London, Blandford Press, 1948). Len Wincott, asserting the lack of any left-wing political culture on the lower deck, noted that ‘Even the Daily
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