Will The GCHQ Operation In Tehran Close?

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia of the GCHQ site.

Image by Iqra Newspaper via Flickr

 As of going to press I am not yet aware that our embassy has been closed, although it has been raided by students. The Iranian government has apologised and it would appear that their security forces protected the staff inside.

 As published on this blog before it would appear that Iran is now the number one target of the west ( and  the Israeli government ) in the middle-east. I have no particular truck with the way the Iranians work, but to ordinary Iranians life seems to be better than in the days when the west supported their friend, the Shah of Persia, whose autocratic regime tolerated no opposition and whose intelligence forces co-operated with those in the west. We heard no outrages against human rights suppression, in those days in exactly the same way that there is none today against the Saudis who ruthlessly crush any opposition in their country, including officially sanctioned torture and murder. When their tanks crushed the Arab Spring protesters in Bahrain opposition to this was confined to a few human rights organisations in the west and similarly I have not seen any protests by the USA or the UK governments to the ruthless put down of opposition forces in the Yemen.

 These double standards make a mockery of the west's support for the Arab spring, where it only intervenes to replace one set of gangsters with another (Libya being the latest example). However attempts to influence what is going on in the middle east may yet rebound on them, big time, and it will be interesting to see what emerges in Egypt, where there are indications that those demonstrating against the military regime may not represent the views of the wider population.

 Anyway, dear reader, as ever I have meandered off of the subject. One of the reasons that the British may not close their embassy in Tehran is that some of the supposed diplomats will be staff from GCHQ monitoring the diplomatic and military communication of the Iranians. This will be providing valuable intelligence to the west as, where better to have a listening station than in the middle of Tehran. Any decision to close the embassy, by the British authorities, will have to way up the effect of what the loss of this intelligence will mean.

Love Me I'm a Liberal

 The incomparable Phil Ochs.

The Unions United Will Never Be Defeated

Image by Korean Resource Center 민족학교 via Flickr

Image by MuseumWales via Flickr of striking Welsh miners.

Image via Wikipedia of Jack London's Grave.

 The recent success of the British Airways staff in forcing the airline to climb down from their union bashing stance (you will see much of that from Cameron and Clegg in the next few days) and finally negotiate a package which was acceptable to all, should be an example to those who are NOT taking part in The Day of Action on 30 November. They need to learn the lesson that unity is strength.

 As I have said before on this blog those who opt not to strike are free to do so and should never be intimidated in any way except for allowing those member on the picket line to speak to them to express their grievances and explain why they are depriving themselves of part of their salary to take part in the action. Indeed, not only are they depriving themselves of part of their income, in these hard pressed financial times, but they themselves also run the gamut of intimidation and sanctions from their employers for having taken part in a strike. Add to this the opprobrium of the press and all of the other dirty tricks  that might be taken against them for withdrawing their labour (I once had a promotion taken away from me for striking over a matter of conscience)  and nobody, except for a minority of hotheads, takes any such decision lightly. I have never to this day however come across any non striking member of a workforce who has refused to accept the benefits gained, if any,  from strike actions by their colleagues.

 As for the Liberals role in all of this, if you look to their history, they have never supported the trade union movement so Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg follow in the dishonourable traditions of their party and a former member, Winston Churchill, who is, to this day, hated in the Welsh valleys for his role in suppressing the miners during the Tonypandy Riot. Nevertheless temperatures will run high in the next few days and much anti-union hysteria will be generated.

 For those who will not be striking I will restrict myself to the term filthy blacklegs. You will notice that I have not used the term, "scab" which I have always thought to be offensive and slightly over the top demotic language. It postdates "blackleg" and it's first use in this sense is allegedly attributed to Jack London, a writer I much admire, and who turned me into a socialist at a formative age when I read his description of the poverty that existed in London in, "People of the Abyss" when the British Empire was at it's zenith in the Victorian age. I say alleged because although the passage smacks of his fine descriptive writing it has never been truly attributed to his pen - it reads, "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and Angels weep in Heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out...."

 And whilst I'm at it bollocks to Keith Richard and Mick Jagger who have made fortunes presenting themselves as rebels when they are as false as Jordan's tits and hobnob with the Tory elite and collected their gongs from HM. Which brings me neatly to the fact that in the Civil Service anyone who takes strike action is never awarded a medal. Not to worry, says I, gongs are only given to fraudsters and lackey's.

 I believe that the trade union movement have however made a tactical mistake by concentrating the Day of Action on the pensions issue. Public sector jobs are being slashed by this Thatcherite like administration  (smoothly avoiding her confrontational language but, dressed in their sheep's clothing,  they are taking decisions of a much more extreme nature than she would have ever contemplated) their pay is being frozen and like many other people their allowances and children's benefits are being slashed.

 Social engineering on a scale rarely seen in this country is being undertaken with people having to work longer and earn less for their pensions. Unemployment is on the rise again, new housebuilding for first time buyers is at a standstill and all pensioners will suffer cuts in the future because of this government's decision to base pensions on the lower Consumer Price Index figures rather than the Retail Price Index. The number of university places are being slashed, the higher education grant for the low paid has been taken away and student fees are being increased. They used to complain about Gordon Brown's stealth taxes but there is no doubt that they are secretly setting about the privatisation of our schools and of the National Health Service. A 94 year old lady that I know has just received a letter telling her that the £400 Winter Fuel Allowance that she received last year is to be slashed by 25% to £300 this year. This is not just immoral, it is wicked.

 And finally I read this excellent article on John Snow's blog about many unoccupied flats in London's most expensive block being owned by tax avoiders who run their companies from British dependencies abroad. I can't help thinking that if the tax dodgers in this country, and there are probably millions of them, such as the self employed, who do jobs for cash, and businesses who use disingenuous accounting practices were to pay their dues then none of the cuts would be necessary. One thing however that you can be sure of however is that all of the Public Sector Workers who will be striking on Wednesday pay their taxes in full.

John Steinbeck and Phil Ochs

Image by ilvadel via Flickr. Poster

for the Phil Ochs Documentary:

There but for Fortune.

Image via Wikipedia

 Watching BBC4's programme ,  "John Steinbeck -The Voice of America"",  presented by Melvyn Bragg last night I was struck by what he and Phil Ochs had in common. They were both patriots, in that they passionately believed in the American ideals of democracy, truth, humanity and honesty but were both branded as being unpatriotic and communists. They were both also appalled by the exploitation of workers and, as a union activist in this country, I also suffered for my activities.


 Inside the cover of The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck insisted on having the words from the Battle Hymn of the Republic printed which include the words:-

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

These lyrics refer, in turn, to the biblical passage Revelation 14:19–20, an apocalyptic appeal to divine justice and deliverance from oppression in the final judgment.

 In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for literature he said:-

 " The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement. 

Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit--for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature."

                In his song  The Power and the Glory Phil Ochs wrote:-

Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land
Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains
Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain
 
  Here is a land full of power and glory
 
  Beauty that words cannot recall
        
  Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
      
  Her glory shall rest on us all

Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand.

 I somehow feel that Steinbeck would have approved of what Ochs was trying to say for they both, 

inherently, believed in that America.

 For a review of the new Phil Ochs documentary and links to the film site,  may I suggest that you, 

dear reader, read the excellent  review below by Michael Simmons of the Huffington Post:-

A recent study maintains that empathy has declined in young Americans over the last thirty years. My own unscientific observations tell me that us Americans as a whole don't seem to give a damn about our fellow citizens as much as we used to. Iraq and Afghanistan -- are those dumb wars still goin' on? Hurricane Katrina -- I can't afford a vacation to New Orleans anyway so who cares if it washes away? I ain't gettin' tortured at Gitmo or Bagram so why should I give a flying Blackwater? And in all fairness, it's asking a lot of humans with a foreclosed home and a family to feed to worry about wars and disasters in the backyards of others.

The late Phil Ochs, one of the greatest singer/songwriters of the 1960s on a rarified perch with Dylan, Joni and Cohen, wasn't a household name but he was big enough to have affected a lot of people. Director/writer Kenneth Bowser's powerful documentary of his life is called Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune and it'll tweak your empathy gland while breaking your heart. Hopefully it'll also wire and inspire the viewer to go out and demand that America live up to its self-image as a nation of people who care about others. Among the many onscreen friends and troublemakers who tout Phil's complicated genius are Sean Penn, Paul Krassner, Ed Sanders, Van Dyke Parks, Abbie Hoffman, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, and Tom Hayden. Brother Michael Ochs (who also produced), sister Sonny, and daughter and activist Meegan Ochs provide the most personal insights.

Born in Texas, raised in Ohio, Phil fused JFK-inspired New Frontier idealism with his natural musical ability and it led him to the guitar and New York City 1962 where folk music and left-wing politics created an army of singing rebels. Phil had a fluid, Irish tenor with a perfect vibrato and wrote prodigiously. The songs were ripped from the headlines, as they say, addressing the civil rights struggle ("Here's To The State Of Mississippi"), Vietnam ("White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land") and U.S. imperialism ("Cops Of The World"). Two of his classics -- "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and "The War Is Over" -- became anthems of the anti-war movement. He also had a razor sharp sense of black humor as heard in "Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends," his faux-upbeat examination of apathy's victims.

If there was a cause and an event, Phil was there in a heartbeat. "Phil would turn down a commercial job for a benefit because the benefit would reach more people," says brother Michael. We see scene after scene of the handsome, upbeat, stiff-spined troubadour singing truth to power and joyously quipping in period interviews. A charter member of the '60s counterculture (though not uncritical of its excesses), he co-founded the Yippies with friends Hoffman, Krassner and Sanders, Jerry Rubin and Stew Albert. The Yippies' plan for a Festival Of Life to contrast the festival of death at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago resulted in blowback by the powers that be and while the whole world watched, Windy City coppers ran amok, beating heads in, spilling buckets of blood and mocking dissent in the greatest democracy in the world. Like many, Phil was devastated. "I guess everybody goes through a certain stage of disillusionment and decides the world is not the sweet and fair place I always assumed and that justice would out," reflected a bitter Phil after Chicago '68. "I always thought justice would out, I no longer think that by any stretch. I don't think fairness wins anymore."

The festival of blood along with the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were a turning point. In addition, manic depression ran in his family and can be triggered by external events. Phil's music had already begun to turn more inward and he left orthodox folk music behind in favor of more complex melodic, harmonic and lyrical composition and production. While he lost some fans at the time, in hindsight there are those (like me) who maintain that his later music equaled - even surpassed - his more well-known "protest" music. I hope one of the collateral rewards of this film is that Phil's extraordinary baroque, contrapuntal latter recordings are unearthed and enjoyed.

By the dawn of the '70s Ochs was drinking heavily, thrashing about while still trying to Pied Piper a movement that had grown in size but was losing its cohesion. (Perhaps, ironically, because it had grown.) He appeared at Carnegie Hall dressed in a gold lame suit, maintaining that the alchemy for an authentic American revolution would mix elements of Elvis and Che. (A certain subset of predictable folkie squares didn't get it.) He sang '50s rock 'n' roll and country music and criticized the counterculture for shoving its freak flag in Middle America's face. He theorized that in order for the left to succeed, it needed to find common ground with its more conservative fellow citizens. This insight shows immense wisdom as well as perhaps a bit of delusional folly, but at least he was asking the right questions. (Within a few years Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings would indeed bridge this cultural, if not political, gap.)

The coup de grace -- pun acknowledged -- was the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende's democratically elected socialist government by the Chilean military in collusion with the Nixon Administration and the CIA. Phil's friend -- Chilean folksinger Victor Jara -- was brutally tortured in a soccer stadium and then murdered with countless other dissenters. While Ochs had enough spirit left in him to organize a benefit for Chilean refugees that featured Dylan and others, it appears that the one-two punch of Chicago '68 and Chile '73 revealed the enormity and savagery of The Beast -- the ruling class -- and drained him of hope. Empathy without hope is a dark road. Despite the victories of Nixon's ousting in '74 and removal of U.S. troops from Vietnam a year later, Phil was ravaged by booze and bipolar illness and hung himself on April 9th, 1976.

"Not everyone has the constitution to follow his dream," said a friend of mine about Ochs. Trying to save the world while juggling the ups and downs of manic depression is a daunting gig, one that Phil couldn't handle. But Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune most prominently succeeds here in 2011 -- in what thus far has been The Little Century Of Horrors - because it reminds us of the urgency and nobility of empathy. It's a remarkable chronicle of one man's pursuit of justice through music in the 20th Century while serving as a lesson for the 21st.

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune opens at the IFC Center in New York City on Wednesday, January 5th and will be followed around North America thereafter. For a schedule, go here and for film clips go here.

Thought For The Day - Books.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a little trick brought to you by a lover of simplicity: did you know that you can look at any political group or entity in power…then look at how they treat books. Do they value or destroy them? This will allow you to figure out who the good guys are! Pretty simple, huh? Decent entities do not fear sunlight or the free exchange of ideas. It’s a certain truth. Folks who burn books or tear down libraries are never who you want in charge. But they always seem to find their way there, don’t they? - Kathleen Peine

The Forthcoming War With IRAN

Image via Wikipedia It is clear from recent press reports that the west, or its proxy Israel, is preparing for an imminent  attack on Iran. Indeed I have little doubt that the recurrence in the past few days of the virus attacks on Iran and the blowing up of a missile storage site are precursors to this action. It is also a well known fact that Israel is being supported by British and American intelligence and military entities in these activities and that such support will continue to be provided.

 The excuse for this will be that Iran, in recent years, has consistently failed to provide the International Atomic Energy Authority access to it's nuclear development facilities. Whilst Iran states that these facilities are being developed for peaceful purposes to provide nuclear energy the IAEA, in recent years, backed by the west are claiming that it is attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

 One of the many ironies in this situation is that whilst Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Israel is not (together with India, Pakistan and North-Korea) and is believed to have between 75 to 400 nuclear warheads deliverable by long- range missile, aircraft and submarines. Iran meanwhile concerned about fears over Israel's nuclear weapons programme first proposed to the United Nations in 1974 that the middle east should be declared a nuclear weapons free zone. These proposals were repeated in 2006 and 2008 but, needless to say, they were thrown out.

 Another irony is that, "The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program.^[1] The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran" (source Wiki).


 Just as in Iraq, the country that allegedly possessed "weapons of mass destruction" crucial to the debate was a recent report by the IAEA.  I say recent because previously Hans Blix (yes him again) had declared that there was no evidence of the development of nuclear weapons by IRAN but in 2005 the Agency (in a very rare non-consensus decision) first raised serious concerns about the issue. Despite this Israel accused its then Director General, the Egyptian Nobel Laureate Mohammed El-Baradei of being, "pro Iranian".


  Now the plot begins to thicken. The recent report from the new Director General of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano (more on him later) has whipped the hawkish voices, and the press, in Israel, France, the U.K. and the U.S.A. into an anti-Iran frenzy with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, "ruling nothing out". Now, dear reader, doesn't this all sound familiar? It is almost an exact pre-run of the talk that took place before the invasion of Iraq.


 Now for Director General Yukiya Amano and, enter left Wikileaks. Remember them?  Julian Assange is holed up on dubious charges in Sweden whist the much vaunted Free Market (courtesy of the U.S.A) has bankrupted the organisation by refusing to let the general public make donations to it through Visa, MasterCard or Paypal. It appears that in a 2009 diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, the U.S. secured the Support of Amano in its campaign against the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme as a quid-pro-quo for their support of his candidacy for Director General of the IAEA following El-Baradei's resignation. In other words he was their place-man in the IAEA.


 The telegram makes astonishing reading and here is a brief extract, "In a meeting with (the US) Ambassador on the eve of the two week Board of Governors and General Conference marathon IAEA Director General- designate Yukiya Amano thanked the U.S. for having supported his candidacy and took pains to emphasise his support for U.S. strategic objectives for the Agency. Amano reminded Ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77, which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision,  from high- level personnel appointments  to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program."


 There are going to be dark days ahead for us all.

On Remembrance Sunday - Blessed Are The Peacemakers

On the dawn of yet another bloody century why do we never learn from history?