Phil Ochs, Victor Jara and the Shame of the USA

The seal of the U.S. National Security Agency. The first use was in September 1966, replacing an older seal which was used briefly. For more information, see here and here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 I have many American friends, mainly in the spying business from their National Security Agency. They are decent, humane and kind human beings. And yet their nation is responsible for more innocent deaths than any country in history. From Japan to Vietnam, to Cuba and onto Iraq  and Afghanistan and the list goes on and on and on.
 The country has always been controlled by right wing extremists.and those who have been brave enough to speak out are considered un-American, or communists and have been consistently victimised for their views. One such noble fellow was Phil Ochs and a documentary called, "There But For Fortune" has recently been released in the States but unfortunately, despite my best efforts, seems unable to get a showing on television in the United Kingdom. However extracts are starting to appear on You Tube and the following records his association and support for the Chilean singer Victor Jara:-

Bradley Wiggins, Sue Barker and The BBC

Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The BBC sink lower and lower in my estimation. They are dumbing down the programme content where no serious issues are tackled anymore, or indeed decent drama or programmes on popular culture. Arena where are you now - and why are they not showing the Phil Ochs documentary, "There But For Fortune"? They have become the platform of the middle classes where the announcers and interviewers only have posh accents and no searching questions are asked for fear of offending the miscreant in the lens. The current executives would do well to read the "Wires and Lights" speech of Ed Murrow in which he decried the television channels for not tackling serious issues but devoting their time to providing the audience with chewing gum for the mind.

 They have just come out of their orgy on the Queens Jubilee and Wimbledon (isn't Murray an SNP supporter who wants nothing to do with England?) and are about to do the same over the Olympics (drugs bribes and all). Meanwhile one of the greatest endurance tests in the world, The Tour De France, is all but being ignored, and commentary is confined to a remote DAB channel that I can't even receive. I would love to see the plummy voiced Barker interviewing the current race leader Bradley Wiggins who in response to a question in a post-stage press conference when asked what he thought about people who point fingers at Team Sky and hinted that he is doping replied:-

“I say they’re just fecking wankers. I cannot be doing with people like that. 

It justifies their own bone-idleness because they can’t ever imagine applying themselves to do anything in their lives. 

It’s easy for them to sit under a pseudonym on Twitter and write that sort of shit, rather than get off their arses in their own lives and apply themselves and work hard at something and achieve something. And that’s ultimately it. fannys.”

The Second Coming is Overdue.

Clement Attlee, British Prime Minister 1945-51 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 I am approaching the evening of my life and I can never recall a period where there has been such a political, moral and cultural vacuum as exists at this moment.  As a young man in the sixties for a fleeting moment our generation was foolish enough to think that we were going to put an end to the evils of  poverty, war  and social division. And yet starvation and disease are rampant across much of the world and governments, who tell their citizens that there are no alternatives to austerity, continue to spend billions of pounds on arms and allow the rich to get richer whilst the poor get poorer.

 Nor is there any solace  to be found in the religions of the world where the conservatives in charge strive to maintain their grip on power and, in so doing, allow the zealots and extremists their head. However I refuse to be downcast and one of the lessons of history is always to expect the unexpected.

 In late 1922 an election candidate, who had risen to the rank of major in the First World War and suffered injury and terrible dysentery from the trenches, wrote in his first election address, "Like many of you I took part in the Great War in the hope of securing lasting peace and a better life for all. We were promised that wars should end, that ... the men who fought in the War would be cared for, and that unemployment, slums and poverty would be abolished. I stand for life against wealth.  I claim the right of every man, woman and child in the land to have the best life that can be provided. Instead of the exploitation of the mass of the people in the interests of a small rich class, I demand the organisation of the country in the interests of all.." He narrowly defeated the popular sitting MP, who although a Liberal, stood for Limehouse with the official support of the Conservative Party.

 In late November of 1922 he said in his first speech in the House of Commons, "Why was it in the war that we were able to find employment for everyone? It was simply that the Government controlled the purchasing power of the nation. They said what things should be produced; they said, 'We must have munitions of war'. They took by means of taxation and by methods of loan, control of the purchasing power into those things that were necessary for winning the war.
  That is what we are demanding shall be done in time of peace. As the nation was organised for war and death, so it can be organised for peace and life if we have the will for it".

 The man was Clement Attlee, later to become Prime Minister of the greatest reforming government in Great Britain in the twentieth century. Despite continued and repeated efforts to ameliorate what he did in the years between 1945 and 1951, by repeated Conservative governments his National Health Service (still the envy of the world and something that The United States of America despite its massive wealth, to is shame, has never contemplated) and much of his Welfare State remain in existence to this day.

 Indeed had he won further elections he intended to introduce even more radical measures in which land and capital was to be owned by the nation and used for the benefit of the community. He believed mankind was at its best when people were selfless and co-operated together to build a better world. The nation state, in his mind, was an anachronism and he believed passionately in World Government and a United Nations which, alone, would have an army and the teeth to settle the world's disputes, as a last resort, if necessary.

 He was both radical and reforming and would have been ashamed of Ed Milliband and New Labour with their war mongering and tame neo liberal policies, allowing the financial deregulation that allowed the crooks in The City to bring about the current economic crisis and massively force up the cost of housing for working people.

 So I am effectively disenfranchised, having shed tears as a boy when Mr Attlee was defeated, because his government had allowed me to have free bottle of cod liver oil and a orange juice as well as a doctor to tend to me when I was ill. I suspect that I am not alone in the world and that there are tens of millions of us who yearn for a New World Order. I may never see it in my lifetime but my children and grandchildren may hopefully one day pause and remember that I was one of those that pointed the way and that all is not lost. Great men have emerged before and, one day, the lions of social justice will roar into life once more.