For Want of Words

On Conspiracy Part 2

Q. When is a conspiracy a conspiracy?

A. When the Establishment says it is.



'Conspiracy to commit (you name it) with persons unknown', has been the charge of preference by the Establishment when perceiving threats to the interests of the status quo because a) conspiracy does not require an actual crime - its a 'thought crime', b) hearsay evidence is admissible, c) the intimidatory nature of the unlimited penalty.

In 1972 there were a series of successful strikes across Britain. The miners won a national strike for increased wages for the first time in their history by using 'flying pickets'. The London dock workers successfully won the release from prison of 5 of their shop stewards with help from 250,000 non-dock workers coming out in support throughout Britain.

During the summer of 1972 building workers came out on a national strike for a 'builders charter'. The demands of the TGWU and UCATT unions included a minimum wage, a pension scheme and a 35hr week. In September 1972 the strikers demands for wage increases were met. In October 1973 two of the building workers responsible for organising flying pickets during the strike, Des Warren and Ricky Tomlinson were charged with conspiracy after the Tory Government was lobbied by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. The Shrewsbury Two were found guilty. Des Warren was sentenced to three years and Ricky Tomlinson to two years.

Also during the 1970's, the Provisional IRA and the British Establishment were at war. The Parachute Regiment killed 13 unarmed boys and men in Derry in 1972 and the Provos were conducting a bombing campaign in England.

In Birmingham on the 21st November 1974 two pubs were bombed, killing 21 and maiming many more. On the 22nd November 1974 six Irish people resident in Birmingham for many years were arrested - 5 while visiting Belfast. Hugh Callaghan, Paddy Joe Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power and Johnny Walker were charged with murder and "conspiracy to cause explosions" after 'confessions' were extracted from them under torture. They were convicted and sentenced to life in 1975. Following three appeals the Birmingham Six were finally released and exonerated in 1991. The prosecution had lied and concocted 'evidence'.

In Guildford on the 5th October 1974 two pubs were bombed, killing 5 and maiming many more. In Woolwich on the 7th November 1974 a pub was bombed, killing 2 and maiming many more. Four Irish people were arrested. Patrick Armstrong, Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson were charged with murder and "conspiracy" after 'confessions' were extracted from them under torture. They were convicted and sentenced to "not less than 30 years" in 1975. In 1989 the Guildford Four's sentences were quashed and they were exonerated. The prosecution had lied and concocted 'evidence'.

The Establishment will go to any lengths to secure convictions in trials, including perjury by police.

During 2002 and early 2003 the British Government concocted stories to support an illegal invasion and war against Iraq. By 2005 terrorist atrocities had a global reach.

In January 2003 police raid houses in London, Bournmouth and Manchester and announce the break up of a 'ricin plot'. 9 people are charged with "conspiracy to commit murder" and "conspiracy to commit a public nuisance" by poisoning people with ricin. Two trials are scheduled. At the first, started in September 2004, 4 defendants (Mouloud Sihali, David Aissa Khalef, Sidali Feddag, Mustapha Taleb) are acquitted by a jury of conspiracy charges - in April 2005. One, Kamal Bourgass was found guilty of 'conspiracy to commit a public nuisance' having been found guilty of murder at a previous trial 'in camera'. He stabbed to death DC Oake during the house raid in Manchester. The second trial of the 4 other defendants in the case (Samir Asli, Khalid Alwerfeli, Mouloud Bouhrama, Kamel Merzoug) was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service and the 4 defendants were cleared.

The following is from an article by Katherine Baldwin at Alertnet on 14th July 2005.

Britain's police chief Ian Blair told reporters on Thursday: "We are trying to shoehorn 21st century terrorism into 19th century legislation." He said police wanted a new law to convict people for acts that could lead to terrorism, saying experience showed courts did not like the current conspiracy law. (my emphasis)

On the 22nd July 2005 at Stockwell Underground Station, Jean Charles de Menezes was executed by police or special forces because they believed he was involved in a suicide bombing conspiracy.

In each of the cases above, all but one of the defendants were innocent and either framed, found not guilty or executed instead of arrested. The commonality between them is that they were working poor.

If the Establishment cannot find the people who are committing terrorist atrocities they will frame somebody, or execute someone then say sorry when the executed are innocent. All the while demanding more laws that degrade everybody's liberties but the affluent.

Conspiracy is only committed when it is by any group of people who are organising - no matter how openly, democratically and non-violently - against the Establishment and the status quo.

This was also the case during Stalin's show trials in the 1930's. Then, a party whose organisational principle was democratic centralism dominated politics in the Soviet Union. Any faction amongst the Bolshevik's was considered a 'conspiracy' against the revolution. Confessions extracted under torture were used to convict and execute or send to the Gulag, millions who questioned the new 'Establishment'.

Conspiracy is a tool of the paranoid State.

A Euphemism to Far

We are fond of our euphemisms. 'Shoot to kill' has been used in the media instead of execution or assassination throughout the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. It is being revived now.

"I heard a lot of shouting, 'get down, get out'. I saw a chap run on to the train, an Asian guy. He was running so fast he sort of tripped. He was being pursued by three guys. They were plain-clothes policemen. One had a black handgun. As he went down, two dropped on to him to hold him down. The other one fired; I heard five shots. I can't tell where they shot him - he was surrounded - possibly to the head.........As the man got on the train I looked at his face. He looked from left to right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified."

(Words of Mark Whitby, eye-witness to the police execution of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Underground Station in The Independent 23.07.05)

Jean Charles de Menezes's family and friends must be horrified, find incomprehensible that which has befallen him while working in Britain. To them I offer my sincerest condolences. The Brazilian community living in London are now probably wondering about their safety. The vibrancy and colour they have brought and added to the polyphonic mix of London will now be subdued. Not for long I hope.

Jean Charles de Menezes's crime? Not having an Anglo-Saxon complexion and leaving housing where there were suspected 'terrorists'.

There were enough stories of assaults and people being robbed by gangs around Stockwell Underground Station to make anyone nervous when I was living in London. If he was aware of being followed, Jean Charles de Menezes had nowhere to turn for help. Despite the numbers of people, Stockwell and its Underground Station is mostly an anonymous space with few, if any regular faces and the area would have been cleared of uniformed police to allow the undercover officers freedom to operate. Being chased, "petrified", with adrenaline pumping and a 'gang' yelling at him, his confusion must have known no bounds. Finally stumbling when realising he was cornered on the train. An innocent man hunted down and executed by the British Police. There is nothing more horrifying to contemplate. The why and who of the fear he endured immediately prior to his death, Jean Charles de Menezes will never know.

It comes as no surprise to me that Jean Charles de Menezes looked "absolutely petrified", "........ like a cornered rabbit, like a cornered fox". Any innocent person seeing themselves followed and threatened by at least 8 people (in some radio reports) whom they didn't know, would be scared and try to run and escape.

In the previous post I wrote about an undercover police operation directed against me but didn't go into much detail of the tactics used to try and spook me, during a relapse of the MS, when I was just trying to go about my business. Undercover only from the general public, not the target. I won't go into detail now, but for a period there were at least 6 plain-clothes police working me at anyone time. Invading personal space; creating confrontations; bragging of killing as they walked passed; threats of being 'slapped'; glaring and spitting; pictures being taken by camera phone; tracked by CCTV etc.

These tactics by the police are designed to 'petrify' and cause the 'target' to run. Once running they can either follow to find out contacts (friends and family) or, thinking they have their suspicions confirmed by the act of running, intervene physically. In Jean Charles de Menezes case - execute.

It is not to far fetched to think the SO19 firearms unit are stupid enough to employ tactics similar to the ones I've described when tracking suicide bombers. If the police genuinely believed Jean Charles de Menezes was a suicide bomber they could have tried to spook him. Let him know they are there. Force him to respond fearfully, disrupt a pattern or plan and intervene physically, thinking no doubt to minimise any casualties. The problem with this is that a genuine suicide bomber will detonate on being spooked, killing no one knows how many, whilst the innocent will run.

The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes has exposed police execution squads operating on the streets of London, who define their enemy as anyone without an Anglo-Saxon complexion and who may live/work/play in the vicinity of suspect 'terrorists'. The response from the British Left and Trades Union Movement has to be one of solidarity with British Asian, Black British and other 'non-white' communities as never before in confronting this level of intimidation.

The Last 4 years. A Personal Assessment

I think I'm starting to annoy some bloggers by the tone of their postings. The in your face piss-taking for being a 'johnny-come-lately' behind on the times when commenting on conspiracy.

So I think I should explain what I've been doing for the last 4 years.

In March 2001 I went into debt to capitalise a sole-trader photography business. 2 months later I discovered that I had multiple sclerosis. I learnt this from an interview with JK Rowling in the Guardian during MS week. Her mothers symptoms fitted me to a tee. (It took 18 months to get a confirmation through the NHS). Not surprisingly, I had to find some income other than just from photography to stave off bankruptcy. The first job was as a courier van driver in London. I was doing this when the destruction of the Twin Towers convulsed the world.

The following day someone new turned up in the dispatch office. Everyone is obviously talking about the Twin Towers and the first words from the newcomer as he walked through the door were, "We should nuke em". He was passed off as a new salesman for the firm but was only around for a week. People there knew my political history so I think I can safely assume he was Special Branch, which would be par for the course.

I only stayed there for a few months following that, terminated them beginning of Dec 2001. The next four months were spent fighting off false claims for rent arrears, threats of eviction, depression and court proceedings to get the money that the courier firm owed me. But I did manage to write something about the use to which the Bush Mob was using the Twin Towers atrocity to further a reactionary, imperialist agenda. It was in response to seeing the first pictures of prisoners transported to Guantanamo. I was relapsing at the time so it was a bit disjointed and emotional, but here's a taste;

"When I saw the pictures from Guantanamo Bay I thought they had been taken from Cuban territory and assumed they had been released as anti-US propaganda. I was surprised to discover later that The Times carried the by-line 'US Navy' to the photographs. And it started me thinking. Why would the US military officially release such incontrovertible evidence of torture? In my naivete it took a few days for it to dawn on me that this could be US military Psy-ops in action. And its raison d'e-tre? To intimidate the worlds population into accepting the will of the US as a global policeman........"

By April 2002 I was in remission with the MS and started work as a bus driver in London. This was a mistake and irresponsible to a certain extent but at the time I was desperate. If I had known then the effect of stress and heightened emotion on MS I wouldn't have taken on one of the worst jobs I have ever had.

The garage I worked out of was multi-national and multi-religious to say the least. Drivers from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica, Portugal, France; a veritable United Nations. The vociferousness with which I denounced the lies being used to justify the coming invasion of Iraq, was in general well received by my co-bus workers. And yes I did point out at the time that the decision had been taken to invade Iraq in April 2002, it being so obvious.

Following the diagnosis of the MS in Dec 2002, I informed the company of the disease. There was no question that I could continue working as long I was not relapsing. I was also attempting, with the support of the union to establish an international book library in the garage.

Then, after the invasion of Iraq, the company came after me. My bus was invaded and a confrontation was manufactured in an attempt to stress and induce a relapse. They succeeded, but that wasn't all they were after. They tried to ruin my name in the garage by setting me up on stalking charges. I went sick but ensured that I had some evidence, on tape, that my presence in the company of a very attractive but ultimately devious woman was not unwelcome.

For the last two years I have been subject to an undercover operation by, I now believe the British Transport Police. This wasn't just covert surveillance but right in my face. The setting up of confrontations in the street, threats of violence and the hacking of my computer and the burning of the in-built firewire ports. All of this stress kept me relapsed throughout this time but despite it I managed to complete an 80,000 word manuscript as a way of trying to understand what was happening. (No publisher would touch it and having looked at it recently, a year after completion, I can understand why. A friend whose judgment I trust has said that there may be half a dozen short stories in it. So I may go back to it at some point, see if I can tease something more useful than therapy from it.)

The tactic of putting fear into me and deliberately keeping me relapsed worked. But I couldn't understand why it was being done unless the inducing of fear is used by police to force a 'suspect' to repeat patterns or expose contacts. There were times that I thought I was going mad. Literally nuts. Mentioning what was happening to some of those around me would elicit the response that I was a conspiracy theorist or paranoid. Some did believe me and I am thankful to them for helping me retain my sanity.

The fact I have MS, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, can help those who would use such tactics by implying that I have psychological problems related to the disease and that anything I say about what has been happening is a mere fantasy. Excellent cover or so they think.

For a period during the last two years I thought that I was being done-over for my anti-war activities. The well known anti-communist Livingston, despite all his anti-war rhetoric, will fight tooth and claw alongside the bus companies to stop London's bus workers coming out on strike in opposition to the war. Maybe there is some truth to it, I don't know. I do not think I am that important in the scheme of things. I do believe that the only way Britain can be forced out of this war is, not by us being bombed, but by the trades union movement in the country leading the opposition and calling for strike action. They are the only force capable of achieving Britain's withdrawal.

A few months ago I was informed that someone known to some people I know had been gaoled for down-loading child pornography at about the same time that the bus company tried to set me up. I have never met or spoken to the person in my life. Since then everything has fallen into place and I can only assume that I was informed of this because the police operation had drawn a blank and that they were satisfied that I was not involved with child pornography. I could have told them that and saved them a fortune if they had bothered to ask. There have been no confrontations on the street, no camera phone harassment since being told.

Some people reading this will think I got what I deserved by working as a bus driver while having MS. To add to their glee I have something else to say that will, I hope also act as a warning to those on the left.

During the deepest, most depressing times in the last relapse I visited some porn sites fairly regularly on the web, which probably enhanced the police's intensity of operation. If there had been any inkling that I had visited child porn sites I would be in gaol by now not posting to this blog.

Yes I did know the arguments against porn, it's degradation of women, the gangsterism in trafficking of young women, the rape, the slavery. The Feral Scholar is doing a brilliant job in high-lighting porn and violence against women on his blog and their centrality in perpetuating a corrupted polity.

There are some points I feel I should say about this that I hope are not taken as excuse making. For those depressed and with low self-esteem wanking and coming to pornographic images can flood the brain with endorphins, lifting for a moment the fog of self-loathing. The feeling doesn't last long, at times just as fleeting as a blink before depression, laced with guilt returns. I've been told the rush from shooting heroin is similar, the same receptors brought into play, which makes sense if they are both addictions. If it is the case that using pornography is an addiction then strategies needed to fight it require more than denunciation, naming and shaming.

Am I free of it? Its not as long in the past as I would like, but I will get there eventually.

I'm presently in remission from the MS but the last relapse has left me much weaker and in need of a stick as an aid to walking. The next relapse, if as severe will probably put me in a wheel chair. Are there people I hate from this episode in my life? Put it this way. I will be the first to dance on their graves. Or to be more accurate. Wobble.

Its been three weeks since setting up this blog and I've already caused a stir. Not quite in the way I was hoping and there is one aspect I regret - the crass insensitivity I displayed in a previous blog. I may not have the vast lexicon of anti-Bush invective that others have, may not even have a writing style that anyone appreciates, but snide remarks are not going to stop me putting my t'uppence worth in the ring.

Throwing invective might seem revolutionary and be satisfying to the soul but it won't affect those who have committed the paramount crime of instigating invasion and war. They will just ignore it or lie their way through any exposure of their contempt for anyone not part of their clique. We are after all, just thought of as the dirt beneath their feet. Bush and Blair will not change. They will have to be removed from office and the only way of ensuring that is the building of mass opposition, striking and taking to the streets.

A few years ago, to many to want to remember, I read Michael Hamburger's 'The Truth of Poetry'. A phrase that has always stayed with me from that useful work is, "writing is a process of learning". I would like to think that that is what I do when attempting to put my limited vocabulary to use.

Now perhaps I can get on with writing, on conspiracy part 2.

On Conspiracy Part 1

Q. When is a conspiracy not a conspiracy?

A. When it is the Establishment.


Since before setting up this blog I've spent long hours trawling the net. Surfing is a misnomer. It is to fast a word. To surf, to skim the surface playing, you chance more likely than not to miss the richness, the diversity, complexity and the unbelievable weirdness that permeates the net, especially the blogosphere. Not that there's anything wrong with playing but I've needed to trawl, to haul and sift, in trying to find some intellectual stimulation and depth. At times its been tedious and occasionally downright depressing sitting here sieving through the dross to find a nugget that can lift the spirits.

Some sites I've found shine brilliant. Visually stimulating, exciting to the eye and over-flowing with good writing, full of wit, clear and precise. If they meet this criteria (I know it is demanding) and be broadly in sync with my world view - humanist and internationalist and not afraid to use the word class - then they are revisited regularly and linked to. It is not as many as I would like.

Clicking through the links randomly on a lot of sites, site after site, can be quite instructive. The sites I've visited this way and that have not intrigued me enough to revisit comprise 90%. There seems to be an addiction to clutter which affects the ability to navigate easily. The lack of white space is distressing to my eye and may hide good writing. I never stay to find out.

But there is another 9% which are deeply worrying. They comprise those whose comments links are full of conspiracy theory from some seriously disturbed people. In this time of global crisis they are right to be disturbed but searching for conspiracy as a means in trying to explain what is happening, is the intellectual handmaiden of defeatism. Its as if they are caught in an endless maze, trying to find the one final turning that could prove them right and show the way out proclaiming, "I have found the way". Many false dawns will arrive as the one final turning is thought found only to be disabused when another one final turning is found by a fellow conspiracy theorist and the maze still surrounds them. Frustration and disbar are the only outcomes when absorbed by conspiracy.

Another analogy is that they see themselves as prosecution lawyers searching for that crucial piece of evidence to present in a court of law that will prove their case against the war criminals Bush and Blair. The only court that they can possibly face is that of the disenfranchised and dispossessed. When that happens conspiracy will not appear on the charge sheet, just the crime of instigating a war of aggression.

Pessimism finds it's comfort blanket in conspiracy theory and it stifles the will.

We know the treasonous lies, propaganda and psy-ops of the Bush and Blair administrations were and are being used by them to try and justify their actions; to win, if not the active support, then the quiet acquiescence of their populations to immoral acts: to hide the real reasons for invading Iraq. The lies and vicious actions of the ruling elites in America and Britain, down the centuries, at home and abroad, have left enough of a footprint as to be unmissable by even the most perfunctory glance at history. The genocide committed against Native Americans - still going on - or the murderous terror campaign by Britain's SAS against the peoples of Burma and Oman, are examples from living memory.

Since the decision was taken to invade Iraq - probably in Crawford, Texas when Blair visited Bush in April 2002 - the battlespace has included the respective home fronts. The campaign to stampede the populations of these countries to support the war started then. It has taken on many forms. Including disinformation, exaggeration, distortion, omission and the deliberate disappearing of crucial information from the public sphere.

Of the bombings in London on 07.07.05, the bus bomb exploded in Tavistock Square. In a previous post to this blog I have written about the disappearing from the mainstream media of the significance of Tavistock Square as a site dedicated to peace and non-violence - Ghandi's statue and tributes to the victims of Hiroshima and prisoners of conscience are in the centre of the square - and the foregrounding (by the Guardian to its shame) of Szilard's theoretical realisation in 1933, 300 yards south of Tavistock Square, that, "It might be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction, liberate energy on an industrial scale, and construct atomic bombs." Is this a conspiracy. I think not. In the specific case of The Guardian it could just be shallow writing combined with lax commissioning and editing or it could be a psy-op plant. If it is the latter then that just shows the capitalist state is functioning as it should in a time of war and that is not conspiracy. The problem with that article though is that it does "As Neruda has said, before the hawks of Wall Street and Washington can hurl the atom bomb they must annihilate us morally. That is the mission of their poets - the Eliots and Pounds who degrade life and stultify the will to resist." Not that I consider the originator of the Guardian article a poet when he is but a shill.

The fact Britain and America (and lets not forget Israel nor for that matter Australia) are acting together in committing war crimes is not a conspiracy. It is just business for the capitalist class. Powers whose interests coincide with other Powers, strategically and/or tactically will act together. These alliances are not set in stone, are not omnipotent. Are not monolithic in their unity. There are tensions, contradictions and points of conflict between and amongst the constituent parts. The alliances may be short term or long term and that in many ways will depend on the nature and timing of any intervention by the democratic/left opposition among the populations of those powers. Hence the Patriot Act in America and the Anti-Terrorism Act in Britain which were pushed through to harass and criminalise legitimate dissent to their crime of aggression, under the guise of fighting terrorism. This is not conspiracy.

These are the desperate acts of a desperate class trying to defend their interests while facing a crisis unprecedented in human history. This is no 'ordinary' capitalist crisis. It is deeper than that. It could affect the very survival of our species. The conjunction of global warming and end of the age of oil require a response that capitalism is incapable of.

Tavistock Square and the Foregrounding of Nuclear Weapons

I bought The Guardian again this morning, as I have done for the last 30 years. It will probably be the last time. The lead article in G2 is what has made me come to this.

John Lanchester, a name I hope I never see in print again, has a two page spread about the road that runs from Hampstead High Street to The Strand. It's name changes along the route many times. There is a point where it becomes known as Tavistock Square. Of the bombs that exploded across London on 07.07.05, the only one above ground was on the bus in Tavistock Square.

Not once in the article is any mention made of the significance of Tavistock Square as a site dedicated to the ideals of non-violence and peace. There is a statue of Ghandi and tributes to the victims of Hiroshima and prisoners of conscience in the Square (see previous post). Since the outrage of the bombing the Guardian has only carried four lines, on it's letters page, of this crucial information. It's not as if this is top secret information.

It is inconceivable that Lanchester is not aware of Tavistock Square's peace credentials. He spent six years working in the BMA building on Tavistock Square for fucks sake. He knows the area well.

But this omission is as nothing compared to the content of the article.

What is emphasised in the article is a story about an Hungarian physicist and friend of Einstein, Leo Szilard, who had a moment of epiphany 300 yards south along the same road that also comprises Tavistock Square. That day, 12th September 1933, the newspapers had reported a talk by Ernest Rutherford on the splitting of the atom. While walking and thinking deeply Szilard came to a sudden realisation. If smashing a neutron into an atom could be made to release two neutrons from one of the atoms and these two neutrons were to do the same, they would release four neutrons. Each time this was repeated it would double the number of neutrons and, in the words of Szilard, "It might be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction, liberate energy on an industrial scale, and construct atomic bombs."

In one paragraph in the article Lanchester writes about the occultist and poet WB Yeats losing his virginity in Woburn Place close by Tavistock Square. This paragraph of puff has no import other than to link sex with atomic death.

Reading the article reminded me of the back-cover blurb on the Journeyman published book, 'Let The Rail Splitter Awake and other poems' by Pablo Neruda (now out of print unfortunately). I quote, 'As Neruda has said, before the hawks of Wall Street and Washington can hurl the atom bomb they must annihilate us morally. That is the mission of their poets - the Eliots and Pounds who degrade life and stultify the will to resist.' This can also be attributed to any writer not just poets.

The 'Nuke Em' brigade in the White House has made unprecedented advances since 11th September 2001. The continuous propaganda and Orwellian language that has been directed at the American people since then, has to a certain extent inured them to the immorality of using nuclear weapons. It is not as if a majority of Americans are demanding their use. It is just that after any nuclear attack by America it would be thought as having been inevitable anyway. An acceptance after the event and for which the psychological groundwork has been laid. This process is now being accelerated in Britain following the bombings of 07.07.05

The foregrounding of atomic death and sex and the disappearing of peace and non-violence in the story of Tavistock Square, in The Guardian of all papers, is one of the most profoundly irresponsible acts in journalism I have had the misfortune of witnessing.

There is a Statue of Ghandi in Tavistock Sq.

There is a statue of Ghandi in Tavistock Sq. The mute espouser of non-violent struggle was assaulted here today. A crimson tear made from bits of brain and shards of skull lays a stain upon its cheek. Tributes to the victims of Hiroshima and prisoners of conscience have been dedicated here and that bear witness to the universal cry for peace.

A bomb has ripped through a London bus. Many killed, maimed, scared. All caught up in this have had their lives changed irrevocably. Not by their own volition or accident, instead by people who did not see them as human but as 'other'. Not as complete human beings made important by the love of wives, mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, friends and lovers, but thought lesser than. Whose only worth was as the gore, the blood, the dismembered body parts splattering buildings or pedestrians. The macabre props in a 'propaganda of the deed'.

Tavistock Sq was chosen for its symbolism. Of that there can be no question.

But by whom? Who would benefit from defiling these noble ideals of non-violence and peace with the body parts of people?

By 19.45 the BBC had placed 'The Phantom', al Zarqawi in the frame, gleaning the information from a website. 'It has all the hallmarks of an al Qaeda attack', is in danger of becoming ubiquitous on the BBC since it was uttered by Straw - the Foreign Secretary.

For now I will withhold a pointed finger.

I drove a London bus, from Kings Cross to Crystal Palace and back for a while. Not the route that was bombed. I had worked out during that time, that 1% of London bus passengers were arseholes and 10% the sort that made the day worthwhile with a please, a thank you and a smile. The rest were decent, quiet people trying to get to work, or shops, hospitals, cinemas and clubs, relatives, school, and all with the least hassle. The 89% who help humanity rub along. Bus travel is cheap and it is London's working poor who make up the bulk of the passengers. The cleaners, the cooks, the hospital porters - and the bus drivers - and as in most European cities, they are usually people of colour. I hope my former colleague has survived.

It was not even 24hrs into London celebrating winning the 2012 Olympics and the previous weekend hundreds of thousands had marched and sang to make poverty history. It is now forgotten and the G8 has been let off the hook.

What has happened in London today is the daily horror that is Iraq. Not 37 dead (as I write) but forty, fifty, sixty and more every day. Killed by car bomb, IED, sniper and death squad. Thousands and thousands maimed and blinded. Raped. Tortured. The product of Blair's mendacity.

Finger pointing now at those I ultimately hold accountable - the buck stops with the war criminal Blair and his government, the malignant sarcoma on Britain's body politic that has, for the last 28 months committed this country to an illegal war.

Some Good Music Despite Live8

Tuesday 06.07.05, and I have had a double aural and emotional treat. I bought two new CD's.

The first I had heard of Lizz Wright was on BBC Radio3 last Saturday afternoon (02.07.05). She was being interviewed in between the playing of some tracks from her new CD 'dreaming wide awake'. Now I'm not usually a listener to BBC Radio3, except Late Junction for its eclectic mix of world music, but this was the day of concerts for ending African poverty and the only station broadcasting any musicians from Africa was Radio3. It's World Routes program was coming from the Eden Project in Cornwall where Peter Gabriel was hosting a hastily organised concert as an adjunct to the Live8 weekend.

More of this later as Lizz Wright wasn't appearing at the Eden Project but was on the following Radio3 program, Jazz Line-up. I would usually have switched it off not being a jazz aficionado but was to lazy to get up from the laptop. I'm glad I didn't.

After I had rolled the regulation medicinal joint, I put on the CD, 'dreaming wide awake' and settled back to listen to what I thought would be an enjoyable 50 minutes or so listening to some good music. It was more than enjoyable, it was one of those great aural treats. From the first guitar notes of the opening track - A Taste of Honey - I knew I was listening to something special, but then her voice started its interpretation and I was blown away. And the music built from there. Following tracks just seemed to get better , lifting me higher, wrapping and cradling me in a warm liquid quilt of sound. At one point I thought this can't be real, sound waves made by the human voice can't be having this effect - making time stretch - it must be the medicinal dope. The dope wasn't skunk or anything special, just the usual second-rate Moroccan that I've been smoking for a while. It could only be the music. For the next three hours all I did was indulge myself replaying the CD and have endorphins flood my brain. Listening to this woman could become addictive.

Lizz Wright has surrounded herself with brilliant musicians; Chris Bruce, David Piltch, Earl Harvin and Glenn Patscha and an exceptional producer in Craig Street, but this album is her voice. An album of love songs where even the sad love songs are life enhancing has signaled the appearance of a great new voice for my future listening.


What a start to Tuesday and I still had a new CD waiting for me, which I didn't dare put it on for a few hours for fear I would be disappointed. Which was a bit stupid of me really when it was Ali Farka Toure, one of the World's great guitarists and I adore a guitar played well. He's teamed up with the supreme kora player and fellow Malian, Toumani Diabate to record 'In The Heart Of The Moon', a CD of improvised duets. It is the greatest piece of sustained improvisation that I have ever heard and probably the greatest I will ever hear. And it's the first time they have played together. No practice, straight into it. On some tracks Toure lays down a delicious blues and then Diabate, and I have no idea how, finds a cascade of bright soaring notes, all individually plucked by flashing fingers from the 21 string kora which lifts the music - and ones heart - to previously untouched heights. Or Toure is laying down some startling riffs and Diabate plucks occassional notes of emphasis that create subtle changes in the phrasing of Toure's guitar. Throughout it all there is not one note of vain or envious competition between either musician. Stunning, soul-expanding musicianship. I could wear out this CD very quickly.

A brilliant day for music but also a day to question the antics of the organisers of Live8

Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate appeared together at the Barbican in London on the same Saturday (02.07.05) as the Hyde Park concert and which unfortunately I couldn't get to. One of the Make Poverty History concerts is going on a few miles to the west in Hyde Park on the very same day and they are not invited to play? In fact the dearth of African stars at any of the concerts around the world was so noticable and the vocal denunciations so fierce, the organisers of Live8 had to hastily concede another venue for African musicians. For some this compounded the offence and left the organisers open to accusations of 'musical apartheid' , a quote attributed to Andy Kershaw.

Peter Gabriel, one of the driving forces behind WOMAD, hosted the Africa Calling concert at the Eden Project. He thinks that Geldof made a mistake by not scheduling African musicians for the Hyde Park concert. "I mentioned it to Chairman Bob and he was of the opinion that with billions of eyes watching the TV, unfamiliar artists from whichever country would probably switch people off. I don't agree.", was his response when being questioned. Besides the right-on sarcasm of 'Chairman', I don't think Gabriel goes far enough with his criticism.

(One African musician did make the stage at Hyde Park, Youssou N'Dour. Along with Dido he did the superhuman and appeared at the Eden Project, Hyde Park and Paris on the same day. How one African musician can represent the musical diversity that is Africa is beyond me.)

The mindset that excludes African musicians from the main stages and relegates them to a backwater, even if that backwater is the stupendous Eden Project in Cornwall, smacks of racism.

500 hundred years of white exceptionalism - racism - has been used by those in power to divide the poor and 'legitimise' the slave trade and its modern equivalent - debt bondage - that is driving Africa further into poverty. The super-profits from the slave trade, besides making the then already rich aristocracy in Britain obscenely wealthy, was also invested in the research and development necessary for the industrial revolution to take off. Advanced industrial capitalism was built on slavery and racism and the white overseer's whip. Racism is integral to capitalism and racist ideology has become so embedded in the psyche of the white west that even well meaning people will blame the situation that Africa faces on the African.

The most recent announcements by Blair or Bush on debt relief do nothing to ease the burden but in fact make it more onerous. Debt cancellation, for whom it has been agreed is being tied to privatising their services and resources so that multinational corporations based in the rich countries can expropriate African services and resources more easily. Even aid to Africa is tied to buying products at inflated prices from the 'donor' nations. Hypocrisy or what?

It is not possible to work through the G8 when the G8's policies are designed to make the poor poorer. The struggle has to be against the G8, to de-legitimise and destablise their authority. The whole strategy adopted by Geldof et al has been one of co-opting the genuinely felt disgust by millions of young people at the actions of the rich nations in their subjugation of Africa, to an agenda determined by the very same rich nations responsible for the poverty that wracks the people of that continent. It diverts any serious confrontation with the G8 into a feel good moment for the participants which will be soon dissipated in disillusion at their inability to change the policies of the G8. How often have we heard, 'we tried but it didn't change anything'. Exactly the outcome wanted by the criminals gathering for the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

The picture of Geldof nestling his head in the shoulder of the war criminal Blair speaks volumes. Never trust anyone who accepts a gong from the British establishment.

Going by the pictures in the press and on the internet (I don't have a TV), very few Black British seemed to be in attendance at the concerts or marches over the last weekend. I wonder why?

What am I doing?!

The third post and I haven't really thought what 'Outside the Gates' is all about except some vague idea of taking on the establishment in some sort of etheral way. Typical. I get an idea - 'I want a blog' - rush into it and set one up, make a couple of posts before thinking, 'What I am doing'? What is it I want to say? Who am I blogging for? Will anyone be interested?

My approach and practice when working with a camera was based on spontaneity and intuition which I assumed applied to most photojournalists. Get the picture, think only about the nature of your intervention when viewing the results and only then be embarrassed or pleased with what you have done. This approach certainly seemed to suit my personality. Action then thought. A blunt and abrasive bull in a china shop thrashing around for answers. It worked. Sometimes.

Preparing for photo projects around a theme can provide some approximation to what you're after, but being there brings one's visions up against real human interaction. Blueprints crumble from granite to sand and all forethought dwindles to nothing. What remains are your own sensitivities to the innate dignities that inhabit your human subjects and the imperative to get the picture.

This is why celebrity fascists like Reisenthal are mere propagandists. They make select people super-human - a race apart and better than - by bringing to their practice the exceptionalism of a narcissistic aesthetic where everybody else are made 'other'. This aesthetic is replicated today in the American and British corporate media's depiction of the 'heroic' soldier civilising and democratising the barbaric Arab. A cynical exploitation of fascist iconography in the service of an illegal war and occupation and which is designed to hide from a home audience the brutal realities of the gore, bits of brain and the shards of Iraqi children's skulls that litter the streets of Baghdad, Falluja, Ramada.

Compare these to the images of Rodger, Salgado, Modotti, Cartier-Bresson, Bown, Capa, McCullin, Jones Griffiths. Humanists, artists all, who don't abuse the relationship between the camera and the subject because they have an empathy with our common humanity and help us see ourselves in the 'others'. Photographers who try to emulate them are being assassinated on the streets of Iraq today by snipers and death squads.

For a photographer the only useful aspect of preparing for an assignment is the logistics in getting there. OK. It may also be useful knowing your way around a camera and have some semblance of understanding for composition, tone and colour, but these are best learnt by comparison and practice. As with all tools the best way to learn is by making mistakes. You soon learn how to hammer in a nail without whacking a thumb. The hard bit - as ever - is convincing other people of your intent in showing them in a positive light.

So, I will obviously be posting my pictures then, old and new, and probably making mistakes along the way.



But that's not all. Writing. Having a say through poetry and prose. Bringing another sensibility to the blogosphere, as I tried to do in worker writer groups prior to a rather lengthy period of revolutionary political activity, is also part of what I want this blog to do.

Not necessarily espouse a political theory or line, nor re-post other peoples work, but to write and write well about anything that interests me and through which my appreciation of 'everyday' people will be evident. Hopefully it will be celebratory of peoples ability to change their predicament for the better. The occasional rant wont go amiss, though I don't think I'll be competing with Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque for supreme anti-Bush invective or Stan Goff at Feral Scholar for profligacy.

Having said, 'not necessarily espouse a political theory or line', the next few paragraphs are about a political perspective. Bear with it, I need to get this piece of writing out early in the lifetime of the blog.

Some may think that working for the CPGB was not revolutionary and in some ways it was not. The monotony of everyday organisation; fund raising, organising and winning support, the attention to detail and living below the poverty line can sap the will of the most committed and sand-paper the romanticism from anybodies eyes.

The class enemy knew and still know that their most dangerous opponents are those political parties that combine theory and action; which are engaged in praxis and don't hang around sitting on their asses waiting for a 4 yearly, three week sprint to the elections; that organise, agitate and struggle everyday across all terrain and whose remit covers every aspect of the human condition; that builds alliances between intellectuals and activists and that can reflect the diversity and complexity of its membership in its leadership and actions; which can mobilise mass support.

Not that this was the reality of the CPGB during its dog days. Any deeper look at that will have to wait for a future blog, except to say that anyone who wishes to characterise the CPGB as a Stalinist party that fell because the Soviet Union imploded, does a disservice to those members who successfully waged the struggle against Stalinism in the CPGB. Unfortunately the victory came to late. The forces of history caught up with and exposed the fragile Leninist foundation of democratic centralism that the CP was built on and washed it out. Being weighed down by its own history, an ageing leadership and no mass base, the CP was not nibble enough to find firm ground during the crisis' of the eighties and nineties and sunk with a whimper and the faintest of ripples. Ten years after its demise the remaining moneys were swallowed up by a timorous and wholly inactive Trades Union Congress, where it probably pays some bureaucrat's wages who, to use a blunt Americanism, 'kisses up and kicks down.'

There are a few Communist and Trotskyist parties still clinging desperately to the flotsam of democratic centralism, hanging on to their belief in the hope of getting washed up on some future shore, with The Party smaller but intact and pure, ready for its vanguard role in leading the masses to the bright future of a new 'real existing socialism'. They remind me of the more zealot devotees of cults who know something is wrong but cannot quite comprehend what it is so abandon any worries they may have under pressure from the camaraderie of their fellow cult members and the false security of group think, and all the while accompanied by the mind numbing drone of 'uummm'.

There is no doubt that a new political formation which can prosecute the class struggle with and for the disenfranchised and dispossessed is sorely needed. A political formation that fights for and against power, as Lenin was wont to say. But democratic centralism is not capable of meeting its organisational requirements. The complexity and diversity that is the situation of people in the modern world has to have a political formation that can respond to their disparate needs, that is itself complex and diverse. Whether it exists in embryo or even if its time is right are mute questions requiring other posts.

I seem to be generating a lot of future work which could interfere with the quite life needed by this cripple, which brings me to another reason for wanting to set up this blog.

Four years ago I discovered that I had relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis. I finally received a diagnoses 18 months later, and then duly went into a severe relapse with the help of some enemies and the injudicious use of some drugs by my own volition.

A little bit of study made me realise that I could trace symptoms of the disease back 30 years. It had been slowly building, the occasional wobble in the morning which lasted a few moments at first but gradually lengthened over the years, and that I put down to one to many joints, or pints the night before; a disturbance in my eye that appeared once, lasted a few minutes then disappeared not to be seen again for 2 or 3 years - what I now know as optical neuritis was put down to a migraine or a joint or a beer to many the night before once again; the flashes of anger that frightened friends and comrades and which I thought was the childish temper that I couldn't quite get a handle on.

Over the years this has left me, to some extent isolated. Hence the blog which I hope will help in developing new networks.

The Politics of Letter Page Editors

The following is a letter submitted to The Guardian on June 30th 2005.

'So the British Cattle Movement Service and the Cattle Tracing Service both provide large, yellow ear-ID tags for the millions of cattle in the country. Under PFI could they win a contract to extend the scheme to the people of Britain and provide a fashion accessory for everybody, similar to a young scallywag's court ordered tagging? Prodding, Herding and Slaughtering seem apt metaphors for this Government's attitude towards the people of the world.'

This is what The Guardian actually carried on July 1st;

'So the British Cattle Movement Service and the Cattle Tracing Service both provide large, yellow ear-ID tags for millions of cattle (Letters, June 30). Maybe under PFI could they win a contract to extend the scheme to the people of Britain. Prodding and herding seem apt metaphots for this government's attitude to people.'

I don't mind the editing of the 'witty' (at least I thought so) part of the letter about fashion accessories and the tagging of scallywags, except that it no longer scans very well. But I find the removal of the words 'slaughtering' and 'world' inappropriate, in that it sanitises what this government is doing in our name around the globe. But that's The Guardian for you.