Peace. Almost surely now impossible

I swear neither to forgive nor to forget.


With so many killed and injured.


And 60 years of occupation, aggression and humiliation.


But this is, of course, what Israel wants.

To justify the genocide.

Meanwhile Israel continues their PR campaign

Getty Images.

Al Shifah hospital Gaza.


Though their attempts to use Youtube prove problematic

"Trusting what we see" BBC News

And smile, still, as they invade Gaza

Getty Images

Tzipi Livni was smiling in Paris yesterday

Reuters.

But there is nothing to smile about

Photo Ashraf Amra AP

Nothing to smile about at all

AFP Getty image

Five Sisters

Mohammed Abed AFP

Jawaher, Dina, Samar, Ikram and Tahrir

Killed Monday December 29th by an Israeli air strike in the Jabalia
refugee camp

If you had contemplated the victim's face
And thought it through
You would have remembered your mother
In the gas chamber
You would have been freed from the reason for the rifle
And you would have changed your mind:
this is not the way to find one's identity again.

From: Under Siege

Mahmoud Darwish

Translated by Marjolin de Jager

I say: how is it my concern?
I am a spectator.
He says: no spectators at chasm's door
And no one is neutral here.
And you must choose your part in the end.
So I say: I'm missing the beginning, what's the beginning?

From: I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theatre

Mahmoud Darwish

Barcelona:

Divendres 2 de gener 2009 concentració a Pl. St. Jaume 19h.

Dissabte 10 de gener 2009 manifestació a Pl. Universitat 17h.

http://www.aturemlaguerra.org/

But dead children look the same

Abid Katib. Getty Images

Though the wars are different and years apart.



The fourth day and still they continue:

Operation Solid Lead they call it and from some saner Jewish
voices I learn it comes from a children's poem by Nachman Bialik:

Teacher bought a big top for me
Solid lead the finest known.
In whose honour, for whose glory?
For Hanukkha alone.

Hanukkha is the Jewish winter Festival of Light...

Have they no shame, no compassion?

TV news says the dead are now 360 with more than
1500 injured.

And 4 Israelis.


But what can you do against the fourth military power in the
world, aided and abetted by the first?

Stand in protest?

Barcelona Travessera de Gracia. 29.12.2008

Imagine, these hours, in Gaza now?

Barcelona Travessera de Gracia. 29.12.2008

Pray?

Barcelona, Travessera de Gracia. 29.12.2008.

Or raise bare hands to say: Stop

Barcelona, Travessera de Gracia. 29.12.2008
Outside the Spanish-Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

Palestinian Firefighters. Look different.

Hatem Omar. Associated Press.

With the wonderful video of Barcelona Firefighters from Friday,
I was planning to post a little about their role in rescue operations
during the air raids on Barcelona in the Civil War.

The present gets in the way.

"Firefighters at the site of a bombing of a Hamas security
compound" said the caption on the New York Times' report.

Where are the helmets, the masks, the protective uniforms?

A search for "Palestine Firefighters" on the net frustratingly,
ironically, gives you Palestine, Texas.

It seems the real Palestine hardly has a fire brigade at all, relying
on trained civil defence workers and a few Japanese donated
engines.

But then, under siege since long before yesterday's brutal,
unjustifiable attacks, Palestine hardly has anything at all.



Imagine life under these conditions:

...Having your free movement denied by enclosed population
centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints,
electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly
demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for
encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier
from settling its population on conquered land.

Having your right to essential services denied - to emergency health
care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water.
Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed,
and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress
in the occupier's courts under laws only protecting the occupier.

Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground
and from the air. Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed,
arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext,
including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your
own land in your own country for over six decades and counting.
Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed
Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion
genocide to destroy you.

So begins an article:

Israel's Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine

by Stephen Lendman.

There are other voices, if you bother to search.

And others.

As some news articles report: Israel has launched an intense
diplomatic and media PR campaign to blame Hamas and
justify the killings.


Truth and lies.

Hazem Bader AFP/Getty Images

"Hamas must stop launching rockets into Israel. The United
States holds Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire...

We understand that Israel is reacting to the hundreds of
rockets that have been fired upon the innocent people of
Israel... (1 fatality yesterday - after the attack on Gaza).

We want the ceasefire restored but we also understand
(repeat message) that Israel is responding (at least 271
dead 700 injured) to Hamas's repeated rocket attacks on
the innocent (repeat message) people of Israel."

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council
from Texas where Bush is holidaying at his ranch.

And celebrating what he has done

to this world.


And Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asks us to understand.


I must be stupid.

Barcelona Firefighters. Punk Not Dead.

Soundtrack: Nirvana Stay Away

Have just seen on the news that fire fighters have been called out
360 times in the last few hours - Catalonia is in the middle of
violent snow and sea storms.

I remembered had been meaning to post this video...

For the last few months Barcelona Firemen have been fighting
for better work and pay conditions. According to their web Plataforma Bombers Barcelona
just before Christmas they reached a beginning of an agreement.

Hope so.

Wouldn't want any of our dear city councillors to drown or freeze to
death in their SUVs.

Love the Poster David

The other Hitler
David Irving


Do talk to your press people.


I think they mean this is the title of the conference David Irving
will be giving, or trying to, in Barcelona this evening.

Same Nazi bookshop.

Same hate and lies.

Prefer this one

Shepard Fairey's poster defending the right of
same-sex couples to marry.

From the campaign against California' Proposition 8.

Spain was the third country to legalize marriage between
homosexuals, in July 2005.

I believe in freedom, so I suppose David Irving should
be allowed to speak, if only to show himself for what he is.

But you remember the millions who died, and it's hard.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 homosexuals were exterminated
in Nazi concentration camps.

Postscript

Lia Nickson illustration
for Edwin Rolfe's book
First Love and Other Poems

"And we must remember cleanly why we fought,
clearly why we left these inadequate shores
and turned our eyes, our hearts, Spainward. We must never
lie to ourselves again, deceive ourselves with dreams
that make sleep sluggish. Our world
is new now, clean and clear; our eyes can see
the perfect bone and tissue now, remembering
the flesh cut open, the gangrened limbs, the rot
that almost, almost...but did not reach the heart.

And if we find all known things changed
now after two years amid fabulous truth;
if we find dulled the once sharp edges
of trivial loves; even if we find
our truest loves indifferent, even false -
we must remember cleanly why we went,
clearly why we fought; and returning see
with truth's unfilmed eye what remains constant,
the loyalties which endure, the loves that grow,
the certainties men need, live for, die to build,
the certainties that make all living tolerable."

"Postscript to a War"

Edwin Rolfe

for Michael Gordon

iNeed

London graffiti by Mantis


According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day
due to poverty.

Each day.

They "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth,
far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world.
Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even
more invisible in death.”

Oh yes we have a crisis.


Quotation taken from:

Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats, GlobalIssues.org,

1938. 1968. 2008.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, medal winners
John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave the raised fist salute during
the American national anthem as a sign of black power and protest
on behalf of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.


For this, they were barred from further Olympic activities.


"The raised fist which greets you in Salud is not just a gesture,
it means life and liberty being fought for and a greeting of
solidarity with the democratic peoples of the world."

Mary Rolfe.*

to Leo Hurwitz and Janey Dudley.

25 November 1938.

"Madrid 1937: Letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from
the Spanish Civil War."
Cary Nelson & Jefferson Hendricks.


Great expectations indeed.


* To read another letter from Mary Rolfe describing an
air raid in Barcelona, click here.

And for a little about her life: Cary Nelson's article in

The Volunteer
Journal of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Volume XXI, No.2. Spring 1999 p18-20

Volunteers of America

Salaria Kee (O' Reilly)

Why Didn't You Come Yesterday?

Salaria Kee (O' Reilly) was one of the few Afro-American women
who came to Spain with the International Brigades as a nurse for
the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy.

She had graduated from the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing
in New York in 1934. After hearing a speech by a Spanish doctor
at the University of New York about what was happening
in Spain she volunteered.

"On March 27, 1937 she sailed from New York with the second
American Medical Unit to Republican Spain. A party of twelve
nurses and physicians. Salaria was the only Negro in this group.
Hundreds of Negro boys had preceded her. They had gone as
soldiers, physicians, and ambulance drivers. She was the first
Negro woman to go.

It was April third when the party reached Port Bou, Spain. A
huge delegation of Spanish men, women and children came
down to welcome them. A small boy left the crowd and came over
to Salaria. Taking her hand he complained softly,

"Why didn't you come yesterday?"

"Why yesterday?" Salaria asked him.

"Because yesterday the fascists came in their planes and dropped
bombs. My mother and my father and my small brothers died..."


Stationed first at the hospital installed in Villa Paz, former
summer residence of the abdicated King of Spain Alfonso XIII,
she later moved to a field hospital unit near Teruel. She was
captured by German troops but managed to escape.

In October 1937 she married John O' Reilly, one of the first Irish
volunteers to go to Spain.

Information (mainly) and quotation from the excellent web:

Ireland and the Spanish Civil War

http://www.geocities.com/IrelandSCW/index.htm

where you can read more.


And if you have the chance watch Julia Newman's
documentary:

Into the Fire. American Women in the Spanish Civil War

Afro-American members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

"why I, a Negro, who have fought through these

years for the rights of my people, am here in Spain
today? Because if we crush Fascism here, [we] will
build us a new society - a society of peace and plenty.
There will be no color line, no jim-crow trains, no
lynchings. That is why, my dear, I am here in Spain."

Canute Frankson.
(to my dear friend).
Albacete, Spain, July 6, 1937.



And a song:

From Jefferson Airplane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SboRijhWFDU

some 30 years later.

for a day, like today.

Manuel Muñoz and Barcelona Air Raid Shelters

From the cover of Defiendete del Peligro Aero-Quimico
Mariano Barrasa, Juliàn Castresana. Toledo 1935.

Manuel Muñoz' report of what the municipal authorities
had achieved by the time the Generalitat, the autonomous
Government of Catalonia, created the Junta de Defensa
Passiva and took over ARP in the summer of 1937 will
perhaps help to show that Ramon Perera neither invented
the air raid shelters nor was solely responsible for their
construction. The report dates from August 1937.*

The Junta had been created the previous June and after
some insistence by the council and the CNT Manuel
Muñoz was accepted as a member in representation of the
council. Surprisingly, given the persecution not to say
elimination of the anarchists after the Barcelona May days,
he maintained this position until the end of the war.

Manuel had joined the city council in October 1936 when
the anarchists began to participate in formal government.
In November he was named as liaison with the Generalitat's
Department of Defense for questions of air raid protection
and very soon the construction of shelters was under his
supervision.

Initially it was thought that basements, with a little
preparation, could provide sufficient protection during
the raids. So his department of Urban Planning and Public
Works organized the inspection of 17,000 buildings.
Only 700 were considered suitable and of these the
Generalitat quickly decreed a prohibition of the use of
some (below banks) as shelters.

Stronghold evidently having a variety of meanings.

Underground "mine" tunnels were also considered
suitable for shelters so, besides preparation of the existing
metropolitan tube stations he overseered the construction
of 24 new tunnels of 100 metres each (for posterior use as
sewage tunnels) 14 of which had been completed by August
1937.

For the 600 or so shelters that were being built independently
by the people of Barcelona, Manuel's department offered
technical advice and subsidised the cost of labour and building
materials and most especially published the excellent manual
"Air Raid Shelters" with instructions on how to build them.
Many of the calculations on the destructive capacity of the
bombs and the type of construction necessary to resist them
are based on information provided by Swiss and French ARP
organizations. The Spanish military had also published
recommendations prior to the war.

After the first raids had shown the real effects of the bombs,
the council began the construction of a number of larger,
more resistent collective shelters below city squares in
the different districts of Barcelona. 11 were in construction
in the summer of '37. But by this time the increasing scarcity
of materials and reduction of available labour force because
of conscription were already seriously affecting progress in all
the shelters.

In his 17-page report Manuel Muñoz gives credit to all of the
many different people and organizations involved to date in
the building of shelters and civil defence.

He, at least, knew that without the collective effort of every
one of them Barcelona's extraordinary achievement of over
1000 shelters would never have been possible.

*For those interested in consulting the report, the reference is:
Arxiu Administratiu Caixa 21411 Carpeta 1.5

Ramon Perera.

Strange.

If you google search "Ramon Perera" my previous post no
longer appears.

It did for a couple of days. Right on the first page.

Sixth down I think it was.

And first place if you searched

"Ramon Perera. The Making of a Myth"

I think someone has been meddling.

Ramon Perera. The making of a myth.

As I have said before, unfortunately I do not have a photo
of Manuel Muñoz Diez, chief councillor in charge of the
Department of Urban Planning and Public Works during the
Civil War in Barcelona.

So here is his signature.

He was an anarchist, a member of the CNT, which is probably why
as many people as possible chose to forget his role in the building of
Barcelona air raid shelters, a role, shared with many others, which is
now being solely attributed to Ramon Perera thanks to a documentary
made by two journalists from Catalan national TV3.

The documentary is based on solid research and would be excellent
except for the surprising presentation of Ramon Perera as the man
who single-handedly invented the air raid shelters and saved the
entire population of Barcelona from the bombs and then
unfortunately was unable to save the entire population of Great
Britain from the Blitz because the British Government did not listen
to him.

One fact: Ramon Perera did not take charge of the section of
plans and public works of the Junta de Defensa Passiva
(organization responsible for coordinating civil defence and
created in 1937 after the Barcelona May Days) until 26 February
1938 by which time most of the shelters were already in progress.

When I started the research I had no idea who was responsible
for civil defence in Barcelona during the war. The authorities of the
time seemed to suffer from the same problem. Very little had been
done in preparation to protect civilians from aerial bombardment
in spite of the increasing fears since WWI that this would be an
accepted means to the end in future conflicts. But by the autumn of
1936 the building of shelters was under the auspices of Barcelona
City Council and chief councillor Manuel Muñoz.

And mainly in the hands of thousands of normal citizens who went
out into the streets and built their own.

In August 1937 Manuel Muñoz, little suspecting an attempt 70 years
in the future to rewrite history, left a 17-page report about what had
been achieved to date in connection with the city shelters. Perhaps he
was concerned after the Barcelona May days that the Communists
would try to take the credit...

I will write more about the contents of his report in the next post but
felt obliged to take time to beg to differ with Montse Armengou and
Ricard Belis and express disapproval at their attempt to falsify the
past because now we have:

The book of the film.

Presented last week by the authors.

Credibility assured by the presence of Paul Preston.

As I remember when I approached Mr Preston 12 years ago to
ask for his support in the campaign to save Air Raid Shelter 307
and for any relevant information he had come across in military
archives (to which I had no access) he replied that they hadn't let
him in either and he had seen little about civil defence measures
taken in Barcelona. He was favourably inclined to saving the shelter
and am sure gave his verbal support in the right places but I would
ask him to check his facts before helping to create a myth, he is a
prestigious historian after all.

Ramon Perera was one of many who worked tirelessly to defend the
most vulnerable during the war.

A collective effort.

His story and his work, carefully preserved through documentation
donated on his death to the Abbey of Montserrat, is most valuable.
It is also very sad - forced as he was into exile as a refugee in
England for the rest of his life.

So far from his beloved Catalonia.

But I'm sure he would not have been happy with this attempt to
single him out from his colleagues as "the man who saved Barcelona."


Because I think he was an honest man and this simply isn't true.

To my father. Who taught me not to drive.

Anarchist worker-collective tram. Plaça Espanya 1936
Arxiu Fotogràfic AHC

Today is la Merced, a holiday in Barcelona in honour of the
city's patron saint. The week-long celebrations culminate tonight
with a giant firework display over the fountains of Montjuïc, just
next to Plaça Espanya.

I normally go if I am here.

To stand below the falling coloured sky... such a strange and magical
sensation.

But not this year.

Today is also my father's birthday.

But there will be no celebrations as he died in January this year.

A good man. A gentle man. He once went to war to fight fascism.

Because they did not listen to the warning voices from Spain.


He taught me a love of books and animals.

And fireworks.

Though my sister and I only got the sparklers while he played with all the rest.

He taught me to laugh.

And he taught me not to drive.

Never instilled that unquestioned belief in the need for a car.

Belief which has had so many consequences.

And he was right.

I miss him.



The choice of graphic was indirectly inspired by Jon who
visits this blog and who works for a bus company in California.

Turning Worlds Upside Down

The song is in fact by the folk singer and writer Leon Rosselson
but I prefer Billy's version.

Even if he does now live in a very large house with a view.

(Not, at least, over the private golf course which now occupies the
site of the Diggers' long-lost, but not forgotten, dream. Neighbouring
houses on St George's Hill are currently valued at around 3 million
pounds; sometime neighbours the likes of Elton John and Cliff Richard).


What on earth do they do with all the rooms?

Exemplary Moments in English History. 1649

Signed for and in behalf of all the poor oppressed
people of England, and the whole world.

Gerrard Winstanley (and 44 others)

"That the earth was not made purposely for you, to be Lords of it,
and we to be your Slaves, Servants, and Beggers; but it was made
to be a common Livelihood to all, without respect of persons: And
that your buying and selling of Land, and the Fruits of it, one to
another, is The cursed thing, and was brought in by War; which
hath, and still does establish murder, and theft, In the hands of
some branches of Mankinde over others, which is the greatest
outward burden, and unrighteous power, that the Creation groans
under..."

Gerrard Winstanley, a creationist one must admit (though in his
writing God and Reason seem to be interchangeable) was a
founding member and guiding theoretician of the English Diggers.

They believed that land was a "common treasury" which belonged
collectively to the people. Especially poor people.

Great believers in direct action, in the spring of 1649, they proceeded
to cultivate a stretch of common land on George's Hill Surrey.

Needless to say this utopian experiment in agrarian communism
lasted less than a year. Not for nothing are the ill-gotten gains of
private property generally connected with the "power of the
murdering and theeving sword."

But it's hard to keep a good idea down and it keeps popping up:

The anarchist agrarian collectives of the Spanish Civil War,

The San Francisco Diggers in the 60's.

Indirectly innumerable projects to give access to land to the poor
in Latin America.

All share something of Winstanley's vision.

Even the Queen, 11th in the Forbes richest monarch ranking
and worth a mere $600 million, is not immune.

Winstanley was a great promoter of the "Common-wealth."

Unfortunately I don't think Lizzie quite got the message right.


And even more unfortunately that old sword is still alive and
wielding.

Money? Let's just print our own.

Luis Romero Exposito Collection

Most local Councils did during the Spanish Civil War as metal coins
disappeared.

From the graphics it seems they held the eccentric belief
that wealth is somehow connected to labour and the means
of production.

As opposed to the infinite greed of Stock Market thieves
and speculators.


For a little insight into who is responsible for the current financial
chaos listen to or read the transcript of "The Giant Pool of Money."
from This American Life radio.

The reverse of the note:

"The price of our heroic sacrifice will be the freedom and
well-being of the world."

Better still

Eliminate (oh utopia) the money altogether.

CNT FAI (Light/Strength) coupon valid for a pair of shoes.

Black.

Size 39

Wall Street Weeps

###
Iraq War Cost




click here to learn more


So do I.

Victor Jara

They try to conceal the infamy
they have inherited from past centuries,
but the mark of murderers
cannot be wiped from their faces.

From "Vientos del Pueblo"

Victor Jara, much-loved poet, singer and political activist was
supposed to sing at the Technical University that 11th of September
1973 in Santiago, Chile.

They were opening an exhibition on the horrors of fascism and
civil war. President Salvador Allende was also expected to attend.

Early that morning it became evident that the feared fascist military
coup had started.

Victor still went to the University, where he was also a teacher, and
he did sing: to the 600 students and teachers trapped on the campus
that night by the curfew - the university buildings surrounded by tanks
and troops.

The tanks and heavy artillery attacked next morning. Victor was one
of the many taken prisoner and force marched to the Chile Stadium.

He was repeatedly vilified, tortured and beaten, his ribs and wrists
broken.

On Sunday 16th September his machine-gunned body, dumped near
the Metropolitan Cemetery with five others, was recognized by local
people just before an unidentified van appeared and picked up the bodies.

He wrote one more poem during those four last days in the Stadium,
unfinished as he was finally dragged away.

How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel
Will give birth to the moment...


Victor's wife, Joan, was English.

Today on the web:

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/jaraunfinsong.html

I found three chapters of her book Victor: An Unfinished Song.

Worth reading, especially for the translation of one of his songs:
Cuando voy al trabajo, written when a young militant worker he
knew was shot dead during a peaceful demonstration. It's a love
song.


Victor believed in love.

Great Expectations

Plan of the British slave ship Brooks. 1788

When I started researching the civil defence measures taken
in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War I remember being
confused by press references to arrested fascists being sent to
Uruguay at the beginning of war.

In fact they were talking about the prison ship "SS Uruguay"
anchored in the port of Barcelona.

Dickensian I thought.

One learns humility.

As a "temporary measure to ease prison overcrowding" Britain
reverted to this shameful system with the prison ship, HMP Weare.
Between 1997 and 2005 four hundred prisoners floated in cramped
and often airless conditions off Her Majesty's Coast in Portland
Harbour. It was finally closed as "entirely unsuitable for its function."

But at least it was no secret.

On Monday The Guardian published an article on the covert prison
ships allegedly being used by the US to keep detainees, abducted in
their "war on terror," away from the public eye and in the attempt to
conceal their exact number and whereabouts.



I don't know how much will change if Barack Obama wins the next
presidential elections, there are ubiquitous and very powerful
interests involved in keeping war and fear and hunger as driving
forces in this world.

But...


Something about justice, retribution or one for Martin Luther King:
Please click on the graphic illustrating this post. It was drawn and
used by the British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade to
lobby for change.

Waltzing Matilda

Lance Corporal Adrian Jones.

By Michael Fay, official US Marine war artist.


Australia, one of the first countries to support the
US war on Iraq five years ago, ends combat operations
there and begins troop withdrawal this week.

With a deployment of only 500 soldiers (and in fact
300 will remain on logistical and surveillance duties) little
will change while the US and Britain remain.

But....

Bringing the boys back home

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive
In a mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
But around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me.

For YouTube version by the best of Irish bands, click here:

The Pogues.

Concha Pérez. A Woman of '36

I went over to see Concha last week.

She's always an inspiration, 92 years old, her mind still
sharp and clear. She's one of the founding, anarchist, members
of Les Dones del 36, the group of 8 women formed in
1997 to tell the story of the women who fought, in one way
or another, to defend the Republican government from the
fascist uprising.

I first met her in the summer of 1995 when I was looking
for information about civil defence. Somebody at the Salvador
Segui Foundation suggested I should go to talk to a group of
libertarian survivors of the war who met every week in a social
centre near the old university.

Note: Will have to finish this later as it's late and the graphic is
provisional till I can scan the photo I prefer. Though the breaking
chains in Catholic Spain in the 30s is very apt.

Bicicletes Castells

Concha's new council flat is near the beautiful old power station
where I used to give classes and where two students first provided
valuable information about air raid shelters.

When I went to take photos of Pere Falque's building for this blog
last year I took a long walk home, and a lot more photos. This one
of an old bicycle shop just near the Arc de Trionf, the nearest tube
station to Concha and my old class.

I'm glad I did.

Because it's gone.

When I came out of the station last week there was just a walled-up
lot.

A jagged space.


Founded in 1928 by Josep Castells, the shop, now run by his great
grandson Pau Foguet, was a meeting point for cyclists, the place to
buy a new model, to repair the old, had even been the base of a
cycling team, the France-Espagne.

For four generations the family have been promoting passion for
sport and this gentle, environmentally friendly means of transport.

But a few years ago urban planners decided this was an ideal place
for a hotel.

Such a wonderful view down one of Barcelona's most beautiful
avenues, Passeig Lluis Companys, to the park.

For the tourists.

Ildefons Cerdà's original and visionary plan for the extension of
Barcelona in the 19th century included gardens in the interior of
every new city block.

Such a waste of space.

This part of the plan was largely ignored.

In recent years, the city council has been recuperating some of the
spaces for public gardens. Admirable, even if they are a little
heavy-handed with the concrete. They decided to recuperate the
one behind the projected hotel.

The entrance to the garden would be through the bicycle shop.

The old bar next door went first but the Castells family had no
intention of leaving. They fought the forced acquisition in court
and, surprisingly, won the case.

Bring in the heavy artillery.

The Generalitat, the autonomous government of Catalonia, plans to
refurbish and extend the tube and train stations below. Apart from
a special reinforcement necessary to support the weight of the new
hotel, improved accessibility to the station requires a lift.

Guess where.

The ideal place is, of course, the middle of the bicycle shop.

This time the family had to admit defeat and have moved to new
premises. They received compensation.

But for some, it is not a question of money.

Maybe not so evident from the photos but the building is
only one storey high.

Such a terrible waste of space.

Not to mention potential income.

At €4746 per square metre, property in Barcelona, though currently
affected by the economic slowdown, has more than doubled in the
last 6 years.

Hardly surprising that there are 1,000,000 new apartments they
can't sell in Spain.

I would like to think that the real estate empires are finally cracking,
that they will stop the destruction of the small scale things, the
working class things, in this beautiful old city.

But I am sure they are just lying in wait.

In their greed.

In their ignorance.


For those who do value history, Bicicletes Castells have started
a blog.

Click on the name for some wonderful old photos.


Barcelona City Council have recently discovered the joys of Bicing,
the new (though some, of course, have been promoting this for the
last 80 years) sustainable form of public transport. Since last year
they have installed 400 stations with 6000 bicycles for use, after
registration and payment of a small fee, to travel short distances
around the city.

Admirable.

Except for one thing. They service is subcontracted to Clear
Channel, an American multinational based in Texas.

They promoted the war in Irak, helped finance George Bush 's 2004
election campaign and continue to support Republican candidacy for
the White House.

Bicycle to Baghdad, anybody?

12th May 1938

The old Municipal Dispensary. Carrer Roser, Poble Sec.

The afternoon raid of 12th May 1938 hit the docks and
Poble Sec.

Without radar, invented during World War II, detection of
approaching enemy planes relied on a network of observation
posts.

They listened and watched.

There was often very little time for Information and Liaison
to activate the air raid warning systems and that afternoon a
power cut meant their siren was out of action.

Even less time for people to reach the shelters.


Five planes are sighted at 15´53.

The raid starts 3 minutes later.

At 16'08 the Municipal Dispensary in Roser Street
communicates that they're dealing with a lot of injured
as the bombs have fallen near the power station on the
main road Francesc Layret (now Paral.lel).

At 16'09 a dispensary in the docks communicates they also
have a lot of victims.

By 17'30 there are 35 known dead and about 100 injured.


Poble Sec now has a wonderful new Medical Centre, right
next to Air Raid Shelter 307 in fact. The National Health
Service here really is excellent, in spite of all the complaints.
But in the 30s...primary public health care was limited to the
municipal dispensaries, totally inadequate to deal with the
increasing number of air raid victims and the terrible injuries
involved.

I'm surprised the Roser Street Dispensary was able to cope at
all - it had been bombed during the March raids two months
previously and services had stopped just when they were
most needed.


The District Council still uses the premises for different
community things.

Peaceful things.

C.N.T A.I.T
NATIONAL HEALTH CONGRESS
20 March 1937

Land and Freedom

LIFE
Weekly publication of the Regional Federation of Farmers of Levante.

It's always the same old story: those who have
and those who have not.

In the 1930s in Spain 70% of the people still lived on the
land 67% of which was owned by a very privileged few.
Abject poverty was rife and many, with a situation little
better than serfs, were close to starvation.

Redistribution of land was to be one of the major revindications
in the years leading to and during the Civil War.


World hunger has been in the news a lot recently.

The privileged few are still around.

Mainly around Wall Street

Country people. Tortosa.
Estampa. 18 July 1933

In Catalonia the situation wasn't so bad with its milder climate,
and more equal distribution of (largely fertile) land. Conditions
were probably worse for the factory workers and the unemployed
in Barcelona.


When news of the Nargis cyclone broke I was going over some
Spanish Civil War documents, specifically the daily log of the
Information and Liaison section of the organization in charge
of civil defence: La Junta de Defensa Passiva de Catalunya.

The minute by minute reports of the raids, from the detection
of approaching enemy planes to the final count of the victims, are
hard reading.

The chaos, the fear and the tragedy get closer.

I was looking at the log of March 1938 and wondering why Amposta
and Tortosa, small towns in the delta where the river Ebro comes
down to the sea, were getting bombed so frequently.

The Delta de l'Ebre is a now a wetlands sanctuary for over 300
species of birds.

But they also grow rice and have done for hundreds of years.

That log entry from 15th March '38: the destruction of a rice
factory in Amposta the previous day with five dead. Of course,
they were trying to destroy supply lines to the front, further up
the river.


Rice fields and war - inevitable images of Vietnam and Cambodia.

Weary, angry that so little changes.


As if natural disasters were not enough.

Do you have a flag?

It's Sunday and for so very many who share this planet the Horror is near.

So much impotence.


Humour can help to lighten the load and is sometimes a powerful
weapon against those who would be king.

This version of British comedian Eddie Izzard's sketch was apparently
made by a fifteen-year-old in the USA.

Queridos Cómicos indeed.

(Click on Eddie's name to see the original.)

The Road from Mandalay

Over 100 years of British Colonial interference and rule in
Burma ended in 1948. For most of its 60 years' independence
the country has been dominated by the military. It's probably
not a coincidence. The present is inextricably linked to what
has gone before.

George Orwell, author of Homage to Catalonia, served the
British Raj as a police officer in Burma.

He resigned.

A convinced anti-imperialist, he came to Spain in 1936 to
fight for the Republican government against fascism.

And the Generals.

It's probably not a coincidence.

The Generals (again)

An ear of rice and stars.

Beautiful symbols on the Myanmar/Burmese flag.

Though I doubt that survivors of the cyclone have much
time to contemplate or get philosophical about starry skies.
They are probably more concerned about the rice.

And the dead.

International offers of aid pour in but the current General and
his Junta are being difficult.

Military dictators always have so many things to hide.

General Than Shwe would like the aid but isn't so enthusiastic
about the aid workers. He may be right, first you get the aid
but then you find you got the CIA or some other intelligence
agency as well.

And Blackwater gets the monopoly on the contracts.

MAYDAY

In Manila, a woman cooks food scavenged from
restauarant garbage.

Photo Reuters April 25 2008

"A lot of scavengers sell recycled food that they segregate
from other waste. It's common practice around here."

Three out of ten Filipinos in a population of 88.57 million
live below a poverty line of $149 a month for a family of five.

Meanwhile...

The Fidelity Millionaire Outlook, a 2008 survey of 1000 people
with at least $1 million in assets to invest, reports that they, too,
are feeling the economic squeeze. 19% do not even consider
themselves wealthy.

Those with more than $10 million being the most pessimistic.

They're not sure where to invest their money to get the best returns.


Garbage bags, perhaps.

CNT FAI AIT Food Sector Union


DISTRIBUTE
FOOD
EQUALLY
DENOUNCE HOARDERS