"The Battle for America."*
The video only lasts 3:44 minutes yet it is one of the most inspirational collaborations between literature and video that the opposition to war in America has produced to date.
The stunning writing, poetic with its passion for the dignity and history of the everyday American, has been combined with brilliant film making. Talking heads have never had such diversity in accents or character, nor has the English tongue been so dazzlingly edited to maintain rhythm or change tone in an overtly political video.
The genuine commitment, enthusiasm and sheer spirit of the participants engages and trips emotional as well as intellectual triggers in the viewer. This is authentic America speaking and the war machine will lose.
Download it. Open anti-war meetings with it. The battle for America - has begun.
I found the video on the net while escaping to a friend's for a few weeks. Events were closing in again and I was being spooked. The video came at a good time. I seem to have been lucky like that throughout my life, feeling down then lifted; road blocks disappearing and opportunities arising; the timing of mistakes made and lessons learnt; knowledge, understanding and information coming when needed. Lucky to have grown to adulthood, gaining experience during a period in human existence when scientific knowledge has led to historically unprecedented life expectancies. Lucky to be born male and white and raised in an affluent, secular society that had great optimism for the future during a time of relative peace. There seemed to be a serendipity to my life's coincidences. The last five years have been slightly different.
A virus had weakened me and caused the immune system to become active, something I cannot afford, so I went to recuperate after the antibiotics. The Pole's place. The visit coincided with the 1st anniversary of his partner, the Aristo's death. (They got their nicknames from some Communist Party members and friends – one's a Polish pole, the other rich – and the names stuck.) Quite a large and friendly community has grown up around him so he didn't really need me around for support.
As I have written previously about a visit there, 'it was not a morbid time'. The Aristo had died as she had lived, trying to make a difference and the living have the same responsibility, whether they succeed or not. Morbidity has no place at this juncture in world political events or my flailing attempts at understanding them at the same time as dealing with the multiple sclerosis. So lets take a serious look at the MS and its person specific manifestation. Everybody's is different and I named mine Maggie in homage to Dennis Potter who named his cancer Rupert.
When I first realised I had relapsing/remitting MS, nearly five years ago, I started to do some research and remembering of my medical history. Maggie didn't just appear out of nowhere.
Was it my genes or the environment that gave rise to the Maggie in me? Like everybody else who has studied, or try to study MS, I do not have a definitive answer. It could be either or both. What I have identified though are two 'triggers' for my relapses, my dances with Maggie. One is physiological the other emotional.
Most of the autumns of my life have been visited by a viral or bacterial infection. Bronchitis, cold sores, flu, boils have accompanied me throughout. During my teens and twenties the following spring or summer would see a heightening of emotion. My behaviour would occasionally spill into violence, but more generally I would swing between high and low – not the extremes of bipolar, that would come later – just a slight raising of the emotions that could lead to snapping at friends or an over generosity in expressions of affection as recompense. Physical signs presented themselves and like the emotional/behavioural disappeared with remission during this period of my life. They would only hold significance when I knew what Maggie was, except a period in my mid thirties. Then people thought I was a nut case and my emotional state was due to a working class lad not having the mental strength for political leadership.
In my puberty it seems a rogue molecule found a compliant receptor. It's arrival could have come unnoticed during a time of quite startling changes, even if it came with a jolt. Whether the molecule was expressed by a faulty vitamin D receptor gene or the ingress of an endocrine disrupting chemical, is anybodies guess at this stage in MS research. The corruption of my immune system began then.
Every time the immune system became active the rogue would enter stage right and it would replicate. The time lag between viral infection and MS symptoms has consistently shortened whilst increasing in intensity, until the symptoms became so noticeable that even I could see there was a problem. Slow initial acceleration, starting over 35 years ago has finally made for a momentum that seems to have initiated the secondary progressive stage of the disease. Relapsing/Remitting can overlap with Secondary Progressive - the continual stripping away of the laminated myelin sheath that protects the nerve fibres. (Think electric cable and its plastic coating). In the early stages of the disease the body has the ability to 'remyelate', but this ability decreases over time.One good thing, yes - good thing, about this stage is the alleviation of the problems being driven by heightened emotions, once again letting my optimistic personality come to the fore.
The emotional has been the most difficult to recognise and write about. Emotions are not supposed to be a male strong point. Heightened emotion more so I suppose. Expectancy, trepidation, anger, hate, love, fear, relief, joy - you name it and I have experienced the exquisite agony or euphoric ecstasy of it at some point in the progression of the disease. Not one to take to the flat, regulation greyness of a 9 – 5 lifestyle, instead opting for the instability of poverty, political activity and the emotional roller-coaster that my life was, heightened emotions gained the ability to trigger a relapse. These emotions can be akin to stress and stress as all who have MS know, brings on relapses.
For me especially so when falling in love. Which I did many times and from which no relationship lasted. In the colloquial of male parlance, 'I got around a bit'. When younger a friend once told me that other men were jealous of me. If they have read anything I have written here I think their view may have changed.
Some relationships failed due to a relapse caused by a cocktail of emotions and stress associated with love and sex of that I am certain. The failures could also have been due to a sexual behaviour characterised as Satyriasis - the male equivalent to Nymphomania and which may or may not be associated with the Maggie, (Maggie as nympho – well she did fuck us over a bit!). I never did enter a sexual relationship without wanting to find love and give the better of me, even when at my most obnoxious. At least I tried. If you have not noticed, people with MS like to talk a lot about sex – probably the closest to sex us singles can get.
I am no Freudian. I do not believe the conclusion that Freud reaches about human nature, that primitive sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep in our minds, if not controlled by those who know better – an elite - would lead individuals and societies to chaos and destruction. Sound familiar? These 'primitive sexual forces' are not primitive at all, but the product of our modern social relations - the alienation from self and other. I believe that acknowledging and openly discussing sex and aggression is what is needed; that the intellect we have, with involvement from the wider society can comprehend, mediate and change any morbid, 'primitive sexual' forces, feelings or desires that we may unconsciously harbour.
Suppression of these 'primitive forces' and the demand to conform has also suppressed the creative and intellectual forces we all possess and that are, collectively, capable of challenging the status quo. It is no accident that Freud's insights into our unconscious emotions, desires and feelings have been used like this. The advertising and public relations industries are his children and they just exploit our unconscious feelings. You can't exploit when people know. See the
Adam Curtis documentaries on Freud's legacy available at Information Clearing House for an excellent analysis of what I've probably failed to explain with my writing.
This lack of knowledge about sex, desire, emotion and other of our unconscious feelings with their suppression, has left populations susceptible to sex scares. Hysteria about sexual offences has been ruthlessly used by reaction.
'Pariah' has written an exceptional piece on this at Counterpunch. Sex education has to start in schools.
Two coincidencies:
1.April 2002 Bush and blair take the decision to invade Iraq while blair is in Crawford, Texas. May 2002, with a list of names of alleged child pornography users supplied by American Intelligence, British Police launch 'Operation Ore'.
2.July 20th 2005, Duncan Campbell writes article for
PC Pro exposing extremely serious short-comings with the 'evidence' provided by the Americans for 'Operation Ore'. July 21st 2005, dummy bombings on London underground and a bus.
Previously I've written about some activities of the police/intelligence services in my vicinity and with their presence has come deliberately engineered fear - from all angles and at speed. It has been the most common emotion over the last four years and it has been extreme at times. My response to this has been varied, but since starting this blog it has mostly been in writing. Some postings may have been injudicious in exposing weakness, frailty and failings - Bea, will you ever speak to me again? But then, better out than in if it is going to be used against you. Some of my ramblings may even have damaged others and not just myself. Sorry.
Having re-read some of the earlier postings I can come across a bit apocalyptic in what could be awaiting us while Bush has his finger on the button - well it is frightening! Some of the apocalyptic is due to an interpretation of world politics while writing fearful and not waiting to post before the fear had abated and an edit could be done – wanting to get it all out because my time is short. This doesn't mean that I no longer believe that the neocons are not going to nuke Iran, that they are going to leave Iraq any time soon without being forced or that climate change is not upon us. (I will be writing more extensively on this in a future blog and it will not be so self-obsessed!).
Five days after arriving at the Pole's, a major news story broke about six men who had life threatening adverse effects during a
drug trial in Britain. It went wrong big time! The story made the international news. The six have seemingly made a recovery which is good news. It reminded me of a drug trial I participated in from Aug 2003 to March 2005.
At the time I wanted to help, and hoped to find a way, to kill Maggie despite there being no cure for the MS. The trial was in two parts. The initial part of the trial went well, the drug seemed to shorten relapses and there was no notable side effects. It was the extention of the trial where I encountered problems. The neurologist cut the trial short for me, for which I am eternally grateful, when I presented some painful and serious adverse side-effects at an unscheduled consultation I requested. The trial ended over a year ago.
The side-effects included; finger and toe nails cracking with brittleness; severe sciatica from compressed disc L5-S1; gross swelling of my lower left leg and foot; a 'crusty' hole in the nose. All bar the nose have gone. But other symptoms that developed during the trial have not eased and could be attributed to the disease not the drug; the ache and heaviness throughout my limbs; the difficulty in walking up a slope; walking on the flat at a snails pace; becoming physically fatigued very easily. Having to use a walking stick is now permanent if I am to maintain balance and not wobble excessively. This is when I moved from Relapsing/Remitting to Secondary Progressive.
At a clinic just before ending the trial the neurologist mentioned to some of us there that a new drug, natalizumab (trade name Tysabri) with exceptional qualities for MS patients according to trial results, had recently been withdrawn - 4 months after licensing - by the American Food and Drug Administration. There is a very small risk associated with progressive multifocal leukoencepthalopathy - a risk most MS patients would willing take if they were to be asked!
I'd read an article about the developments concerning Tysabri posted on 3rd March at the
Multiple Sclerosis Society website, just before leaving for the Pole's. The article was quite optimistic about the time scale for the drug becoming available. This year in America, 2007 in Europe and Britain. Like I said, 'serendipity to my life's coincidences'.
On
24th March the FDA issued a press release updating the situation, not as optimistic as the MS Society article but still hopeful. Not for me though now I've moved from Relapsing/Remitting to Secondary Progressive.
I obviously checked the protocol I signed with the neurologist for the Wyeth Research UK CC1-799 trial when I got back. It is as remembered and I was fully cognisant of the possible side effects. All my thoughts about intellectual property rights and access to the information were fully discussed and where principled, respected. I had already come to the conclusion that the neurologist's ethical standards, moral stance, thought and care for patients were of a high standard. Not debased like those medical professionals – physicians and psychiatrists – aiding torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
It is now legal in Britain for the police to gain access to someone's medical records if they are under investigation, and illegal for the medical profession to inform their patients. I want to make it very clear that the neurologist at no time volunteered any information to me that I was being investigated or under surveillance. I am not disassociated from the social environment around me and I could see what was going on - the surveillance and spooking since my public announcement that I have the Maggie. The spooking intensified as the extension of the trial started.
Doctors may not even know that their patients are being investigated or under surveillance. The legal departments of NHS Trust's or pharmaceutical companies might be instructed not to inform them of requests for copies of medical files.
The position that the medical profession has been put in with this law is intolerable. The releasing of information is no longer the patient's prerogative and medical professionals can be placed in a quandary when they need to be decisive on diagnosis and treatment – on what is best for their patients. The Hippocratic Oath must seem very quaint to the framers of this law.
The results from the trial may never be published now that natalizumab is back in the arena. Wyeth Research UK is an arm of an American pharmaceutical with a global reach and levering access to what is my body parts like blood or the MRI scans and X-Rays, would be prohibitively expensive and hence impossible given the state of my pockets. I have found no relationship between the company responsible for natalizumab and Wyeth.
Is this site a spoof? No. I am who I say I am, despite it reading like I've stepped out from a John le Carré novel or two and living my life through fantasy. I moved from Southwark to Salcombe in Aug 2004 three months after the extension of the trial and just at the end of the holiday season because of the spooks. Salcombe I found is a south Devon coastal town that reeks of the opening sentence in 'A Perfect Spy'. The town is pastel pretty by local bye-law, full of affluent second-home owners and has the feel of a retirement centre for pensioned spooks. Quintessential upper-middle class, gentile and established England. I was spooked in Salcombe too.
In January I had a viral infection – a series of cold sores and which were very noticable – and by February I was being spooked again but this time in Totnes, where I moved to just before starting this blog.
But why? A bad coincidence. I started working for a London bus company in April 2002, at the same time that Bush and blair decided to invade Iraq. Bad, bad coincidence.
I've been in the American's 'records' since 1974 after being arrested by their Military Police while working as a civilian kitchen helper on a base in Germany. Possession of some dope. After joining the Communist Party and over ten years later, while Eastern District Secretary of the CPGB, I had to travel to meet a comrade in Mildenhall. On the way I pulled off the main road onto a track to have a piss. As I was walking back to the car two A10's – Warthog tank-busters – flew very low over my head. Didn't think to much of it, I had seen a decayed brick shed that looked a good opportunity for a photo about texture as well as a chance to use up the last few frames on the roll. As I'm trying to take a picture they come back and of course I take a shot. I was a snapper for fuck sake. I put the used roll in the car door compartment and it's missing the next day. What do you think the Americans thought? What do you think? Suspicious?
The plane was not a secret. I only recognised it because it featured a lot in papers/magazines and TV propaganda pieces about American might. Not an easily forgetable looking plane. Warthog is an apt description. I did mention this event to some people at the time but there has been so many people pass through my life since that I cannot remember who. The Americans have obviously got my role of film and I want it back. Its my copyright as author of the work!
They thought I was a spy or a 'terrorist' even. This information was obviously contained in intelligence passed on to the British in April 2002, the month Bush and blair decided to illegally invade Iraq. By allowing American Intelligence to operate in Britain against British citizens, blair has I believe, committed treason.
Am I stupid? Well, in fear from the last spooking and wanting to shed the Americans, I think I may have compromised what little was left of my political integrity with the British, and there ain't no good guys there. How stupid is that, but what the hell I never was a spy nor agent. An adventurer and revolutionary maybe and which has probably made for a more dangerous life anyway.
Knowing that those who dislike the political good – equality, solidarity and humanism - I attempted to achieve throughout my adulthood but failed, who saw my attempts as evil, who have access to my medical records and probably know more about the disease than I could ever learn and have used that knowledge to worsen my condition - what now? I suppose their psychologists will want to keep applying a plan – using the same modus operandi – if I keep opening my mouth about the state of the world, climate change and the neocons strategy to maintain dominance, and how to change with non-violent mass participatory civil disobedience and direct action. I assume there will be more attempts to stop me writing, have me rubbished (not hard) and try to make my life, my history as naught but fantasy.
In the words of John le Carré, as is the title of this piece, 'The most comfortable thing you can do is assume they're with you all the time.' He's probably right seeing his novels contain more truth than the corporate press and the deceitful utterings of Bush and blair. It's now the only way to be while trying to work towards the vision of toy shops without guns in the ever shortening time I have left. The only peace that nuclear war on Iran will bring is the peace of our species extinction.
The disease has gained ground – since starting this piece the same sensations as in my limbs have moved to my jaw and jowls and which, at some point, will affect my ability to swallow. Maggie not only destroys mobility and strength, but she will also try to starve you to death.
In the closing words from 'The Battle for America',
"........So cry a few tears. Bang against the walls. Scream into the wind. Then collect yourself and get back to work. Its time to punch the clock. The battle for America – has begun."
Photo: Caroline Coles
