I was sad to read (at Stuart's blog) that both Johnny Otis and Etta James have passed away. Jimmy Castor, the less known cult legend, also died very recently. All three were "minor" artists in the sense used by Kafka in his note on "minor literature", and their passing has not been noted the way those of "great" or "major" artists. I knew several Johnny Otis songs, but I knew next to nothing about him. This Guardian obituary (h/t Jogo) captures something of how extraordinary he was. Born to Greek immigrants in Vallejo, northern California, he
one of the first white American musicians to cross the racial divide, aligning himself with the black community as a teenager and from then on regarding himself – and being treated as – a black man... His parents ran a grocery store in a black neighbourhood in Berkeley, and the teenage Otis chose to walk away from white culture. Black America, he wrote, possessed "soul", a quality he found lacking elsewhere. Having taken up the side drum in junior high school, he made his professional debut in 1939 with the West Oakland Houserockers before going on the road, playing in touring big bands
He backed Lester Young, gave Big Mama Thornton her break and thus helped invent rock 'n' roll (he produced and drummed on "Hound Dog", whose lyrics she wrote with Jewish kids Leiber and Stoller), was a politician and activist in the black community in LA, pioneered gangsta rap, and much more besides. His story says something about the way in which music always breaks out of ideas of culture as racial property.
He started Esther Phillips and Etta James, two of my favourite singers, in their careers. Here he is with Esther Phillips.
Here is Esther Phillips later, singing one of the most moving songs I know, "From a Whisper to a Scream", written by Gil Scott Heron, who of course also died this year. Phillips died aged 48; like Gil Scott Heron she was a heroin addict.
Here is Etta James, singing one of my all-time favourite songs, "I Would Rather Go Blind", a song which reminds me of the time of my life I spent more or less every Friday in the Marquis of Granby pub in New Cross, where it was on the juke box, and of the first flat I lived in with the woman I am now married to.
And another of my favourites, "Let's Burn down the cornfield".
Here is Johnny Otis with his son Shuggie, and the Scottish bluesman Roy Buchanan.
It does genuinely seem to me that things changed in 2011, in ways that have major consequences for radical politics. Marko Hoare’s “The year the worms turned” and Kenan Malik’s more downbeat “Chewing over the old year, spitting out the new” summarise this shift well. I am allowing myself a small measure of hopefulness that some of the morbid fixations that have afflicted the left in recent years might loosen their grip a little in light of these changes, and that a healthier radical politics might emerge.
For a decade, much of the left has been fixated on the Middle East in terms of the wretched of the earth in the position of victims of an all-powerful all-evil “imperialist” West. Any futile and destructive act of terrorism has been excuses as “resistance” to imperialism, and any bullying thug or theocratic clique that “stands up” to imperialism has been given support. Now, we are forced to confront the fact (long obvious to the less myopic) that the anti-imperialism of tyrants has simply been an alibi for power, that the people on the Arab street desire freedom and self-government more than they hate “imperialism”, and that boring bourgeois liberal rights like free assembly are actually worth fighting and even dying for.
At the same time, here in the global northwest, with the financial crisis, the impoverishment and precariousness of masses of “formerly middle class” people (as the New York Times put it), the squashing of aspirations and squeezing of social mobility, and the naked aggression of “centre-right” governments to any kind of social safety net, the debate has been reframed away from anti-war protests and identity politics towards the bread and butter of life under capitalism.
It is a real measure of the sickness of the left, however, just how little forward movement it has made in the last couple of years, when even the financial press talks about capitalism being in crisis and suggests Marx might have been right. In a post on Margaret Thatcher’s death, James Bloodworth suggests that “the left should instead examine with clear-sightedness where it has gone wrong, how it has behaved and how it can do better – and boy, can it do better. Considering the complete failure to make any political inroads since the 2008 banking crash, this should be clearer today than ever.” (The title puts it pithily: “Instead of celebrating when Thatcher dies, the left should reflect on what a pig's ear it’s made of the past 30 years”.)
I missed the BBC Radio 4 report about Iranian “soft power” in the UK, apparently focusing on the Iranian regime-controlled English-language broadcaster Press TV. Gene at HP gives a flavour, focusing on Tory grandee Norman Lamont’s whitewashing of the regime. (Talking of this, I’m not sure if I already linked to Rosie’s fisking of George Galloway’s anti-obit of Christopher Hitchens. This is the relevant bit: GG: Hitchens was “the Englishman in New York who discovered there were large bundles of right-wing dollars available for apostates like him. If they were prepared to betray their friends, their principles and sell the soul he didn't believe he had in the first place.” Rosie: “And I'm sure your work for Iran's Press TV is done for a small pittance, barely enough to keep you in cigars.”]
Two posts by Rokhl – whose blog has returned to life after a too long leave of absence – on Yiddish today 1 and 2.
South Africa/North Korea
A while ago, I posted about my youthful inoculation against the ANC, which was partly down to Paul Trewhela, who has recently written a hard-hitting piece “Kim Jong-il, blood purity, and the ANCYL”, which I read via PIIE, which I got to via Mick, whose post you should also read.
After I finished writing my first thoughts on the Stephen Lawrence verdict last night, I read two articles which gave me pause for thought. One, entitled "Stephen Lawrence and the politics of race", is by David Goodhart in Prospect; the other is "This isn’t justice – it’s politics" by Brendan O'Neill in Spiked. The two articles are very similar to each other, and have some similarities to my post, which is what gave me pause for thought, so in this post I intend to set out why I am not saying the same thing as them.
So, the jury has decided and the judge has sentenced and David Norris and Gary Dobson, two of Stephen Lawrence's five or six killers, will be serving time. The wait has been long: almost the same length as Stephen's short life. And the time they serve will be short: the pair have been sentenced today as juveniles. And of course at least three other men took part in the killing, and they have not been brought to justice.
Although I can't claim any ownership of this tragedy, I feel as if I have lived closely with Stephen's death this past eighteen years. I was close in age to Stephen Lawrence and to his killers. I moved to Southeast London in 1991, I think, just months after Rolan Adams was stabbed by a racist gang in Thamesmead, just months before Rohit Duggal was killed in Eltham, Ruhullah Aramesh in Thornton Heath and Sher Singh Sagoo in even closer to home Deptford. I went on marches, memorials and vigils in Eltham, Welling and Thamesmead, and was active against the BNP in other parts of South London too.
I live barely four miles from where Stephen was killed on Well Hall Road, and I drive past the site frequently. Eltham, along with Mottingham, New Eltham, Kidbrooke and Lee, marks the eastern edge of my part of southeast London. It's is tangibly different - whiter, leafier, quieter, less quirky, more suburban, more air to breathe, less pedestrian-friendly - than my manor.
I can't say I know Eltham well, though. In fact, I live much closer to Catford, which featured in the infamous secret video recording made of the young David Norris:
"I would, I would go down Catford and places like that, I am telling you now, with two sub-machine guns and I am telling you I would take one of them, skin the black cunt alive, mate, torture him, set him alight … I would blow their two arms and legs off and say, 'Go on you can swim home now.'"
In that rant, Catford symbolises inner London and its multicultural drift: the world that the killers' parents and their generation had fled in moving out the leafy white suburbs. Stephen Lawrence and Duwayne Brooks were attacked, and Stephen slain, because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time: black men in a landscape the racist killers saw as their territory.
2011 has been a strange year at BfB. Lots of guest posts, some of them inciting considerable controversy, and sometimes acrimony. The controversy made me think I was doing something right, but the acrimony made me think I was doing something very wrong, and there was a period in the middle of the year when I came close to shutting up shop. However, my most persistent irritants moved on after leaving a few stinkbombs, and things have returned to normal, with some of the more interesting regulars from the bobmunity returning quietly.
Greatest hits
So, these are my most read posts in 2011. Some of them were written before 2011, and I guess I should be pleased at their enduring appeal.
2. Triangulating Bobism 1: Harryism and indecency
24 Aug 2010, 96 comments, 2,064 Pageviews
I am pleased this older post has a high spot in the greatest hits, as it is one in which I set out something of the core agenda of the blog.
3. Uzbekistan porn
6 Oct 2005, 1,253 Pageviews
On the other hand, it is really irritating this has such a prominent position, as it is basically completely content-free, and its enduring popularity speaks of everything wrong with the worldwide web.
4. Jewish Hero or Israeli Criminal?
19 Apr 2011, 56 comments, 1,028 Pageviews
Another guest post, by HP regular Michael Ezra, on a fascinating post-Shoah story.
6. Influential left-wingers
18 Sep 2010, 25 comments, 948 Pageviews
Another semi-oldie I'm pleased to see here, with five good influences on the left, five bad influences, and five who ought to be more influential.
7. Triangulating Bobism 2: The Furedi cult
29 Sep 2010, 38 comments, 885 Pageviews
This is my long analysis of the former RCP/Living Marxism cult, now mainly known as Spiked.
Similar idea to the influential leftists above, but ideas not people. This post circulated fairly widely by my modest standards, provoking interesting debates in various Zionist and anti-Zionist circles, for example.
The other top ones are odd aggregation sites I'd rather not link to. Thanks, though, to all of you guys.
Search terms
The top search engine terms (linked to where they take you).
1. Bob from Brockley - a bit obvious I guess. Variations on this fill a few of the other top ten slots, so I've removed them.
2. Occupy Wall Street - actually, bizarrely, my re-posting of a Jewish Labor Committee statement on OWS gets more google juice than any of my own posts, but still.
3. Fuck Washington - hmmm. What on earth were they looking for?
4. uzbekistan porn - see above
5. leonardo dicaprio hairline - another demonstration of why the internet should be banned
6. conspiracy theories - actually links to a proper post
7. sarf london - am glad to be the go-to place for that.
Via Engage, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s “top ten anti-Israel/anti-Semitic slurs” [pdf]. I find some items on the list a little problematic. The no.1 “slur” is Mahmoud Abbas talking about Palestine as a Holy Land without mentioning Jews – a sleight, perhaps, but hardly a major league slur. Similarly, this at no.10 from (Obama’s mentor) Reverend Jeremiah Wright: “The state of Israel is an illegal, genocidal place… to equate Judaism with the state of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor Flav.” That’s excessive rhetoric, but it’s not antisemitic. It seems to me that the inclusion of these two examples at the bookends is pure politics and also dangerous self-defeating politics. On a related topic: Bill Weinberg on the apparently paradoxical normalization of anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism. A very interesting review by Daniel Johnson in the Weekly Standard of Gertrude Himmelfarb’s new history of British philosemitism, which looks to make an interesting companion to Anthony Julius’ book.
I visited Occupy LSX at the weekend. They had done a poll amongst occupiers about what their politics were. “Anti-capitalist” came to something like 20%, with the largest number being “anti-central bank”, and “anti-corruption” second. Which I think gives weight my earlier diagnosis of Occupy as populist rather than anti-capitalist. There was also quite a strong presence of the bizarre Twelve Tribes Christian cult (also known as the Stentwood Farm/Stoneybrook Farm/Morning Star Ranch/Yellow Deli. While I was there, I picked up the latest Occupied Times which had some worthwhile content, in particular a welcome attack on fake-leftist conspiracy theory re-printed from New Internationalist and an interesting text on the global anti-capitalist elite. From America, I haven’t yet read this on the Platypus view of the Occupy movement but will. Related reading, I liked Russell Arben Fox on why “the protestor” was the person of the year in 2011 (via New Appeal to Reason). And here’s Hakim Bey’s pronouncements on Occupy Wall Street.
anarchism – which, I believe, represents in its authentic form a highly individualistic outlook that fosters a radically unfettered lifestyle, often as a substitute for mass action – is far better suited to articulate a Proudhonian single-family peasant and craft world than a modern urban and industrial environment... the history of this “ideology” is peppered with idiosyncratic acts of defiance that verge on the eccentric, which not surprisingly have attracted many young people and aesthetes. In fact anarchism represents the most extreme formulation of liberalism’s ideology of unfettered autonomy, culminating in a celebration of heroic acts of defiance of the state.”
I have a long post half-drafted about the EDL and the British Freedom Party, but it’s not getting finished, so I’ll post a link to this useful article on the EDL at the IRR site.
I didn't know you had referred to me in your blog until a fellow member of Strawberry Thieves Choir said she had found a reference to me and Karl Dallas while searching for Karl's address.
I don't know if we have ever met, but I am surprised that you can write so much about someone without asking them if it is true. You know that you can contact me either through the Strawberry Thieves website or the Lewisham People Before Profit website.
So, you say I am an acolyte of Gilad Atzmon. I went to his concert in Bradford because I had read a review of him and preferred an evening of Jazz to the alternative concert on offer. I did not know anything of his background or his political views. I learned that evening that there had been attempts made by Jewish groups to have him out-vited.
Some of your commentators seem to be unable to read: the line in War Crimes [pdf] says quite clearly on your blog:
Is it a war crime, to kill 6 million Jews? Yes!
Not much doubt that I think it was a war crime, then!
Funny that you don't print the whole of verse 4, which is about Palestine, only selecting a few lines.
Verse 4:
War Crime! Sixty year War Crime! Is it a
War Crime to murder, bomb and maim?
Yes! They've seized the land of Palestine,
Behave like gangsters all the time.
Abducting civilians, bulldozing homes,
Shooting children for throwing stones.
Diverting water, ruining crops,
Will these war crimes ever stop?
Yes! But not while Israel exists as a state made for the chosen few
Where lives of Palestinian folk are worth much less than lives of Jews.
Peaceful co-existence is not possible with a country governed by war criminals.
Encouraged and financed by the United States, we need to pin the blame on all who perpetrate
War Crimes there will be war crimes
Unless we take a stand and put these criminals on trial.
Do you agree with these words, Bob?
Do you agree that those who divert water, bulldoze homes in occupied territories, shoot children and impose collective punishment are war criminals? The Geneva conventions does define these acts as war crimes.
Do you agree that there can be no peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine while such criminals are protected and are even in leading positions in the state apparatus?
Do you use the label "anti-semite" for everyone who criticises the state of Israel, such as Richard Goldstone who investigated war crimes in Gaza for the UN?
You say elsewhere in your blog that I have been a member of various maoist groups and name one. You are wrong.
You say that you support the political activities I have been involved in over the past 10 years in Lewisham, such as the New School Campaign, the Save Ladywell Pool Campaign and the campaigns to prevent privatisation of Lewisham's libraries. What kind of support have you given? Have you been down at the town hall at 8am? Have you performed street theatre in Lewisham town centre? Have you leafletted street after street to inform people of what is happening to their facilities? Or have you sat at your cosy computer allowing people to call me an arsehole, a cunt, a tankie, someone who should be "taken out" without exercising your option to moderate comment on your site.
Your source Mike (I support democratic cuts) Harris misled you when he claimed I shouted "Gaza" at a rabbi, demanding that he apologise. I did say (not shout) "..and Gaza" because I think it is important that Jews should not ignore the massacres being carried out by Israel. The rabbi agreed with me and repeated my words. Let us not forget that Cllr Mike Harris is a political opponent of much that you and I stand for.
I am not going to get involved in a debate via your website but I would appreciate you checking your facts in future before referring to me. I look forward to your answer by email via the choir website.
Even in death he stands tall and apart from the parochial, bien-peasant, trilling, beard-stroking mediocrities – face-timers and time-servers of the writing life, men and women who have never written a good line of prose or provided a single insight into our universe or touched a human heart. Fuck them. – Max Dunbar
Francis Sedgemore comments on the throwaway nature of many of the obits, and in a highly recommended short post shows how journalism has changed for the worst since Hitchens entered the trade. Francis is right, and most of the ones I’ve read have irritated me more than anything else.
Some of the Hitchens posts are worth checking simply because they are illustrated with some wonderful photos of the man I’d not seen before, such as this one by Tigerloaf, which also has a great quotation. I especially like the photo that illustrate Max Dunbar’s fine post, with curl of cigarette smoke. More harrowing, of course, are some of the final pictures of him raging against the dying of the light, such as that by Michael Stravato which illustrates Hitchens’ last (and especially wonderful) Vanity Fair piece, which is about death. Some are illustrated with the wonderful Jamie James Medina portrait, with poppy and rumpled hat, that I particularly love. But only a few have anything interesting to say.
I drafted this late last week. However, I read through lots of obituaries since then and before tidying it up. It now seems a little pointless to post, when so much has been written by much better writers with much more to say than me, but having written it it seems silly to leave it un-published.
I was thinking of Christopher Hitchens on Thursday morning as I passed through Oxford train station. Coachloads of soldiers in desert colours were being deposited at the station, having arrived back in the damp wintery greyness of Bryce Norton for Christmas, on leave from service in Afghanistan. Big men made bigger by the bulk of the kit they were carrying, they were quiet and looked tired and disoriented, but at the same time walked with a certain upright bearing that further amplified their incongruous presence among the students, tourists and Christmas shoppers. It made me think about courage and morality and manliness, and the ethics of this particular conflict our soldiers have been caught in for nearly a decade, now no longer so often in the news. And, that, of course, made me think of Hitchens. He is thought of by his detractors as a cheerleader for war, but that’s a grossly unfair reputation; still, the question of war, and of soldiers, has been one he has returned to again and again in his writing, a question he has worried away at from several angles, in a serious and often profound manner, most importantly in his moving essay on Mark Daily, a young American soldier killed in Mosul, but also in one of his final pieces of writing, an extraordinary essay on Armistice Day.
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.
The brutal suppression by the forces of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the un-elected junta that rules Egypt, of the pro-democracy forces in Tahrir Square has taken a severe turn for the worse this weekend, to the relative lack of interest from the so-called international community and the mainstream media of liberal democracies. Michael Collins Dunn of the Middle East Institute has been reporting on it. The video he posted on Saturday is almost unwatchable for the vicousness of the military police beating civilian protestors. Those of you who pray, pray for Egypt now.
This is the first in a short series on the music played by political blogs. I think there'll be three instalments with three blogs in each. In this one, I'll focus on three of the grand old fellas of the genre.
Inveresk Street Ingrate
People, people just, people want to dream
Just look at their graves and you’ll see what I mean
Let’s leave them to dream
Going by Bob's selection I'm guessing that he is a bit of a muso. Has been known to subscribe to Record Collector magazine, and has index carded his record collection. Back in the day he was more of a Charlie Gillett groupie than a John Peel groupie. Been known to not only buy CDs that have been reviewed in the New Internationalist, but he's also been known to listen said CDs voluntarily.
So, delving into the small area of overlap, here's a song that I'm posting because I couldn't find a youTube of "Kingdom".
Ultramarine: Instant Kitten (by Robert Wyatt)
I note I'm filed under the "People Just Want to Dream" section of the blogroll, named for a Microdisney song (listen here). Microdisney were a New Cross band, I think (yes, they are, just checked), and I'm in not bad company, along with Socialist Unity and Shiraz Socialist, but I think he's making a dig at non-SPGB socialists. Here's what he said, back in 2008:
Being the lazy type, I've fallen back on Andy Newman's Top 101 Left Blogs post from last September, to reintroduce the blogroll. Those were the halcyon days of British Left blogging when the Shiraz Socialist bods were still on speaking terms with Socialist Unity blog, and the SWP's rank and file had yet to truly fall out of love with Gorgeous George. Who'd have thought back then that those times qualified as the good old days?
Socialist Unity Blog - Andy Newman and friends. Yeah, I know, you're supposed to be dismissive about the blog. Andy Newman is a supposed megalomaniac . . . the blog did a flip on Gorgeous George . . . it's soft (or hard?) on China's imperial adventure in Tibet . . . yada yada yada. What can I say, it's a readable blog that is regularly updated and for every four posts that aren't my cup of tea there's one that's of interest. And you have to have a sneaking admiration for anyone who's able to put a rocket under the collective arses of the SWP's Central Committee. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of political chancers.
Andy Newman's Grand Ol' Opry
Dear Uncle Sam I know you're a busy man, And tonight I write to you through tears with a trembling hand. My darling answered when he got that call from you; You said you really need him but you don't need him like I do.
Don't misunderstand I know he's fighting for our land. I really love my country but I also love my man. He proudly wears the colors of the old red white and blue, While I wear a heartache since he left me for you
Dear Uncle Sam I just got your telegram. And I can't believe that this is me shaking like I am
For it said 'I'm sorry to inform you'
So, here we are. Although I have increasing doubts about the politics of the Socialist Unity blog (obsessed with Gorgeous George, soft on Chinese imperialism, yada yada yada) but its main blogger, Andy Newman, has great taste in music. He posts fantastic country and western, with the emphasis on twanging honkytonk Nashville mainstream of country, sometimes straying into high camp rhinestone territory, and other times edging towards grittier Americana. He recently noted that "Even when it’s bad, country music is brilliant, especially when redneck bad" (exemplified by Gretchen Wilson, singing "I'm a redneck woman, ain't no high-class fraud"). I love the fact that he rubs this in the face of the viciously anti-American middle class British left, but he also does make a strong case for a radical tradition in country. Here's some of his tracks:
Speaking King's English in quotation / As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust water froze / In the generation / Clear as winter ice / This is your paradise
The lovely Jams O'Donnell mixes more photography than either pop or politics into the mix these days. And his musical taste has large areas of non-overlap with mine, but it was him (I think) that introduced me to the extraordinary Sephardic music of Mor Karbasi. So, here's her, then our mutually favourite Clash song, then some beautiful Iranian rebel music.
I realise that (although I'm not as old as Jams), it's about a quarter of a century since I first heard this song, and it has been intriguing me ever since. What is it about? I thought it's about imperialism, and the Vietnam war, and Graham Greene, and migration, and racism. So, inspired by writing this, I found that crowd-sourcing, via wikipedia and yahoo answered my queries perfectly, and the mystery is over. (Incidentally, if you don't know the song but there's something familiar, it is brilliantly sampled by MIA in "Paper Planes", which is also about migration, and which is in turn used to great effect in Slumdog Millionaire, mixed by the awesome AR Rahman.)
An Bйal Bocht (The Poor Mouth, 1941) was the only book which Brian O'Nolan, alias Flann O'Brien, alias Myles na gCopaleen, wrote in his native language. Why only one, and this in particular? The answer may lie in the identity of the persona to whom the narrative was entrusted, Myles na gCopaleen... On his first day at school, Bonaparte O'Coonassa is asked to repeat his name for the roll-call. The litany which follows is a long-winded tribute to ten generations of noble aspiration, which have resulted in a total erosion of Gaelic identity:
Bonapairt Michaelangelo Pheadair Eoghain Shorcha Thomбis Mhбire Sheбn Shйamais Dhiarmada.. (Bonaparte, son of Michelangelo, son of Peter, son of Owen, son of Thomas's Sarah, grand-daughter of John's Mary, grand-daughter of James, son of Dermot...). [7]
At this point, the hopeful litany is cruelly interrupted by a blow from the English-speaking master and the terse announcement in a foreign language that "Yer name is Jams O'Donnell", a sentence which is uttered to every single child in Corcha Dorcha on arrival at school.
Mixing pop with politics
In case you didn't already know (although I'm sure you did), the title of this post comes, via Darren, from Billy Bragg, and the song "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward".
I think the lyrics sum up my own blog pretty well:
In the Cheese Pavilion and the only noise I hear
Is the sound of people stacking chairs
And mopping up spilt beer
And someone asking questions and basking in the light
Of the fifteen fame filled minutes of the fanzine writer
Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use is
I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses
While looking down the corridor
Out to where the van is waiting
I'm looking for the Great Leap Forwards
Jumble sales are organized and pamphlets have been posted
Even after closing time there's still parties to be hosted
You can be active with the activists
Or sleep in with the sleepers
While you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Dave’s Part pursues a vigorous public debate, and very readable posts, on key political issues for the Left. Socialist Unity , while going adrift on Iran – part of its tenderness for the pious Islamist bourgeoisie, and publicising pantomime dame, George Galloway – produces useful contributions to trade union and anti-cuts politics. Harry’s Place bores the arse off everyone with its obsession about Israel, and reheated indignation about leftist totalitarians. But it publishes worthwhile criticism of muddle-headed thinking on Islamism and the far-right and shows concern for social issues.
Rosie Bell shows continued fineness of spirit. Delicateness is not always a feature of Shiraz Socialist but it produces informed insights into the movement, particularly the inner workings of UNITE union, and much on international issues that others ignore. Organised Rage equally brings news to our attention that we’d miss otherwise, particularly obituaries of left figures. Harpy Marx is a significant Blog that underlines the importance of welfare issues and poverty. The Spanish Prisoner has become a must-read for its film reviews – up there with Philip French and Mark Kermode, to exaggerate only slightly. Obliged to Offend is a heartening read, as is Representing the Mambo.[...]
Entdinglichung is one of the most valuable, multilingual, left resources around. Poumista also covers many countries, bringing to our attention the often forgotten heroes and heroines of the independent left.
Bob From Brockley is the clear front-runner in the UK. Bob writes acute commentary, principally on British politics, and offers a stunning range of material and Blogging links.
When the liberal intellectual thinks of himself, he thinks chiefly of his own good will and prefers not to know that the good will generates its own problems, that the love of humanity has its vices and the love of truth its own insensibilities.- Lionel Trilling
And over at the anti-Zionist JsF blog, Gabriel spends an inordinate number of words de-bunking one tiny passage from Atzmon’s book. It’s hard to justify the energy on demonstrating the incoherence of a thinker as obviously incoherent as Atzmon, but Gabriel deserves some thanks, and if you have an interest in Jacques Lacan or the Coen Brothers (I have no interest in lacan, but am a fan of the Coens) you’ll get something out of it. I liked this bit:
In what way does Israel function as a ghetto? It does function as such as a simile. There is one aspect of Israel that is like the Jewish ghetto/shtetl of yesteryear. Both are geographically bounded areas in which Jews live among Jews (in Israel, to the extent that Palestinians are segregated). Thus, the simile “Israel is like a ghetto” can be useful if one makes an illuminating argument on the basis of that aspect, but the simile does not exhaust its terms. In other key aspects Israel is not like a ghetto. It is a sovereign state possessing an army and nuclear arms, something the Jewish ghetto usually lacked. It is much larger, much more internally differentiated by class and race, much wealthier in the aggregate, etc. Why is the similar aspect determinant while the differences are not? Ultimately, Israel is like a ghetto in the same way that a gun is like a penis. The simile may illuminate why some men worship guns. But you cannot deduce from knowing that one needs a license to own a gun that owning a penis requires a license as well. What gives Atzmon’s false inference the appearance of solidity is, again, the sliding through the signifier ‘Jewish.’
Occupy
On Occupy, I’ve been posting both positive assessments, negative assessments, and especially ambivalent ones. TNC’s guest post at Roland’s place falls squarely in the negative category. He makes some interesting points about scourge of “consensus decision-making” and the fact that the anarchist movement up to the Spanish Civil War coped perfectly well with democracy rather than consensus. I tend to agree on this.
He also makes the commonly made point that Occupy lacks a positive vision or programme, rather than just a complaint. He points out that classical anarchists always had a clear vision of what they were for as well as what they were against. I disagree with this criticism: I think we need a platform for making a complaint about the world we live in, and like the fact that agnosticism about a programme enables very different sorts of people to come together in the big tent.
He also contrasts the positive coverage of the movement in the mainstream media to the latter’s denigration of the tea party movement. He is correct to point out the imbalance (although leftists won’t recognise that it’s there). However, I think he is overly generous to the tea party movement, which was linked to plenty of acts of violence (such as the attempted murder of a congresswoman), and whose non-kooky mainstream conservative figureheads, such as Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, have a very loose grip on reality.
James B has a post on what British fascism would look like. It’s completely implausible in some respects, but in others actually describes the present rather than an imaginary future (which I guess is part of the point). This bit I liked especially:
“Initial nationalisations see elements of the far-Left align themselves with the new Government in the manner of previous alliances with ‘anti-imperialist’ movements abroad. A former member of the Respect party is perhaps the most prominent Left-spokesperson for the new regime, playing up the Government’s anti-American credentials while ignoring Government suppression of minority rights.”
Global trade union solidarity and anti-Zionism
An interesting article in Solidarity by the great Eric Lee of LabourStart. It shows how corrosive anti-Zionism has been in the labour movement, but also that Middle Eastern trade unionists are smarter than Western ones, and that solidarity can sometimes trump the divisive shibboleths of the Western left.
The autumn of the Arab spring?
I'm not sure if I've already linked to Marko's great peice on Libya, but you should read it anyway. Among other things, he says "Those of us who backed intervention in Libya did not do so in the belief that, if the revolution there were to succeed, Libya would turn overnight into Denmark or Holland." This phrase jumped back into my mind when I read Anshell Pfeffer's interesting piece on the democratic ideal on the Arab street, where he says:
If it seems strange at first that Arab demonstrators are using the hated Zionist entity as their democratic ideal, rather than say Sweden or Holland, it is only because they have no experience of living in a society where freedom of expression is guaranteed and members of the government are accountable to parliament and the law courts. Israel is constantly on the news agenda of Al Jazeera and the other Arab news channels, and while most of what they broadcast is soldiers shooting at Palestinians, over the last few years they have also seen the Katsav and Olmert trials, generals and ministers being hauled in front of civilian commissions of inquiry following military failures, and the wave of social protest on Rothschild Boulevard last summer.
In Egypt you get the feeling that the upper class has completely ignored the social roots of the January uprising, and at the same time backed a return to similar kinds of politics of patronage, where parties and movements try to buy the poor with handouts and cheap meat at Eid. People don't want to be given charity, they want to be given social rights. This too is political — it's not about economic mismanagement. It's not about an uprising of the poor. It's about the political vision for a social economy.
Whether it's about police brutality, social change or politics, my feeling is that Egyptians want to feel like they've actually had a revolution. Whoever gives them that feeling might win the people in Tahrir over.
Antisemitism
"The Suicidal Passion": a very well-written and thought-provoking article by Ruth Wisse on antisemitism and especially what it does to the Arab world. More on antisemitism from Gotz Aly.
Kenan Malik
Although a former member (possibly still is) of the RCP cult, Kenan Malik is one of my favourite current writers and thinkers. I've been reading his very interesting material on "the myths of a Christian Europe" and "myths of assimilationism and multiculturalism". Malik fishes in his archives here, in preparation for his submission to the Orwell prize, and you could do welll to sup on some of his catch. But weirdly, he has a local connection to me, as these photos are taken in one of my favourite Lewisham parks, Blythe Hill. (Here's his photoblog.)
1. No damp squib. Unsurprising but incredibly irritating how devious David Cameron and his henchmen are. On Monday the news headlines were that the government said that agreement was near in negotiations and so the unions were being irresponsible in disrupting the process by striking, but then it emerged (but not in the headlines) that the government has not sat at a negotiating table for weeks. And on the day of the strike, they span the story that the strike was a damp squib, even though the numbers out seem to have been exactly as the unions anticipated: some two or three million off work, including half a million health workers, half of London ambulance workers, and just 16% of England’s state schools open. There were literally hundreds of actions and events across the UK, involving tens of thousands of people. The UCU reported thousands of new members on the day, and other unions have reported record numbers joining. So: no damp squib.
And the mood at the main central London demonstration had a quality I’ve not felt for some time, I can’t quite put into words. People were angry. There was almost an exultant feel. I had a sense, from a few conversation I had or overheard, that lots of people were striking for the first time or marching for the first time.
Not surprising that people are motivated to get active. Daily reality for public sector workers in Britain in 2011 is grim. It’s your department manager being told to find 20% cuts in the next budget; it’s weighing up whether voluntary redundancy now might be the better option than compulsory next year; it’s a significant proportion of your friends being made redundant; it’s wondering if your own job will be there in a year. It’s being that bit more tired when you do your ward rounds because everyone has to work harder; it’s knowing that there are not enough text books this year to go around the whole class; it’s having to tell woman who survived a cancer scare that she has to wait six weeks to find out if her mammogram results are good news or bad news.
But the feeling on the march yesterday was not bitter at all. It was almost exultant, as marchers experienced their own workplace tribulations as something bigger. Knowing that there are two million of you taking action, refusing a day’s work, is a powerful feeling, an empowering feeling. There’s a simple joy in pushing back a bit, and having the collective strength to do so.
2. We are the 99%. Spending too much time on the internet, as I do, you come across a lots of kooks and cranks on the left. If you are used to the images of demonstrations on ZombieTime and PJMedia and even Harry’s Place, you come to expect a lot of moonbattery on marches. These folks have had a field day with Occupy, particularly its New York and California incarnations, which have attracted flocks of damaged souls and cultic weirdos. So it was something of a comfort to be marching yesterday surrounded by the most ordinary of people, people who seemed like a statistical cross-section of a standard High Street crowd. There were off course the parasites touting Trotskyist papers around the edges, and a smattering of V for Vendetta masks, but the dominant feel was, well, very ordinary. (Look at Louise's photos from Bristol, for example.)
A quick post in solidarity with tomorrow's public sector strike. The explicit issue is public sector pensions, but of course the strikes also represent the anger and bitterness of stupid and pointless spending cuts which put public service workers into unemployment or precarious employment and extra work, as well as drastically affect services to the most vulnerable members of our communities.
It seems the strike is popular with the public, despite efforts from the government and mainstream media to create panic and blame. As I wrote the other day:
Private sector workers have no solidarity with public sector workers, who they see as tax-eating parasites with cushy pensions. Working people have no solidarity with the benefit claimants who are falling into deeper and deeper poverty because of austerity measures, because they resent them not working. The low-paid have no solidarity for the “squeezed middle”, who they see as privileged whiners. The settled have no solidarity with immigrants, who are among the most vulnerable in the crisis, because they see them as jumping the queue and taking what others are entitled to.... This challenge, the reconstruction of solidarity, is the most important task we face today.*
While I'm here, a story from South London that caught my eye: the South London Solidarity Federation intervened in a pay dispute at a Bermondsey pub, and got a result. Big society from below. See also Josh Hall's report. He concludes:
November 30 will be an important day in recent labour history – but it will be but the faintest taster of what is coming in 2012. As the crisis deepens, as job losses increase, as youth unemployment continues to spiral, and as employment rights are decimated, we should be prepared to organise – inside the union infrastructure when it is convenient, and outside it when it is insufficient.
