esceulus reblogged
Resolutions
Here’s to your resolutions Your diets and your gym, I’ll meet you in the pub When your vices win.
Winter gardening
In the depths of winter, When most plants are asleep; With secateurs and saw, Into the garden creep.
Photo source: Lily-the-cat Text source: Active Distro
Margaret Thatcher Night [Mag Thatch Night] 8th April
Thatcher died on the 8th of April, 2013. It's time to remember. Every year, on the 5th of November, millions of people in the UK gather around a pile of wood and watch as an effigy of Guy Fawkes/Pope is dragged up the pyre and set on fire. After this, people crane their necks skywards and watch as money explodes in the sky. But, it's cold in November... and it's dark far too early. So, for April 8th, 2014 - I'll be holding a vegan barbecue at whatever space I call my home. And, you should organise your own one in your own community! [or come to mine :-)] Rather than spending money on exploding fireworks, I'd like you to instead acquire (do not buy) a copy of the Daily Mail - we can use it as kindling, or, if it's rainy, make those newspaper logs to heat our homes in winter (fuel prices for consumers are still rising way above market prices... good old privatisation!). I've got In Memoriam (Chumbawamba's tribute), a song by Frank Turner and a number of other tracks ready for the night, but you're welcome to suggest others. Perhaps we can have a book swap, do a bit of gardening and generally do things to make the world better and build links that will promote community strength and resilience. Notes: 1. Guy Fawkes wanted to blow up one king and a room full of politicians and replace them with a king who was in favour of a man in a big white hat that lived in Rome. 2. The celebration of his death - and of the failure of the attempted regicide - is a tradition that nearly all people that reside in the UK will have attended at some point in their lives. 3. If you think that marking Thatcher's death is disrespectful - never ever attend a bonfire night. Don't celebrate Columbus Day. Don't glorify the armed forces. And, also - don't ever say how tasty your bacon sandwich was; because something died there too. 4. If you'd like to host your own Mag Thatch night, naturally, I've patented this idea because that's what the free-market has told me to do. You'll have to pay me a lot of £ to let you use the name, because £ is what this society has told me is important. Ohh, crap... there's no such thing as society... right?
Thatcher's Bonfire [#2 of Thatching]
Remember, remember! April the 8th, The death of a neo-liberal spot; I know of no reason Why the Thatcherite treason Should ever be forgot! Thatcher and her companions Did the scheme contrive, To sell off industries, and society No longer alive. Millions out of work, from below, Attempted to start an overthrow. But, by Money's guidance, she ordered them beat, With a truncheon smack, the miner's defeat! A stick and a stake For Scargill's sake! Lend me some kindling, Can wood be found?, Throw coal on the pyre, And gather around. A rope, a rope, to hang the Thatch, A pound of coal to choke her, A pint of soy-milk to wash it down, And a jolly good fire to burn her. Ding-dong, folks! Thatcher's dead! But the neo-cons are winning! Ding-dong, folks! Thatcher's dead! But the newspapers are spinning! A call to arms; we must rise up, And show we aren't defeated. Society is back alive, A battle uncompleted . . .
Thatcher's bonifre [#1 of Thatching]
Remember, remember! The time of the Thatcher Who brought misery, despair and the rot I know of know reason Why the Thatcherite leison Should ever be forgot. Maggie Thatch and her backers Did a scheme contrive, To sell everything off To privatise! Gas, electric, telecoms All things for sale To friends of the Cons' A national betrayal.
Her spawn now continue Her dastardly scheme, With large corporations Behind the scenes. On April the 8th, Thatcher did die It's time to build a pyre We have a new Guy! So bring out your pallets, Steal Daily Mails, We'll set her up high And share a good tale. We know that society does still exist Let's join together With spirits; resist.
Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life - educated men who live in the East End - coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.
Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing . . . As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy, and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid. I can quite understand a man accepting laws that permit private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.
Oscar Wilde, 1891 The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Written after Wilde's encounter with the anarchist writings of Peter Kropotkin, The Soul of Man Under Socialism imagines the aesthetic and individualist benefits of socialist politics.
For some people, however, excellence is equated with authoritarianism; in order for a child to excel, s/he must be forced to practise, whether it be the multiplication tables or the piano scales. These people have lost sight of the child as a concrete end in itself; rather, they see the child as a means too an abstract end: excellence.
L. Susan Brown - The Politics of Individualism, 2nd edition, 2003, p 177, Black Rose Books
Women will not (and, as history shows, did not) "purify" politics, as some suffragists claim; indeed they will find that politics and power are as corrupting to them as they are to men.
L. Susan Brown, The Politics of Individualism, p. 138 (Black Rose Books, 2003)
I fail to understand how parents hope that their children will ever grow up into independent, self-reliant spirits, when they strain every effort to abridge and curtail the various activities of their children, the plus in quality and character, which differentiates their offspring from themselves, and by the virtue of which they are eminently equipped carriers of new, invigorating ideas.
A young delicate tree that is being clipped and cut by the gardener in order to give it an artificial firm will never reach the majestic height and the beauty it would if allowed to grow in nature and freedom.
Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks, p. 136
A comment pic on the way alcohol (or any substance) is used within alternative scenes. Drink and drugs distract you. They are there to keep you away from confronting reality. They make it easier to cope with the system. They debilitate, damage and destroy communities. So many spaces fail because of substance use. Substance use isn't a personal thing, if you drink, you impact on others. We recognise how smoking harms the people around you, drinking has a far greater potential to harm. Violence, sexual assaults, intimidation... are all behaviours that will manifest more readily through alcohol use.
So why are they so prevalent in an alternative scene? Why do so many people, who boycott supermarkets, corporations and government taxes, still go out and buy cans of stella thinking that getting drunk on cans is an alternative activity? Canned alcohol doesn't exist outside of the system...
Brew nothing but trouble. (influenced by Anarchy & Alcohol, CrimethInc) Sticker (slightly adulterated) now available through Active Distro.
The woman who never drinks coffee does not require it in the morning when she awakens: her body produces energy and focus on its own, as thousands of generations of evolution have prepared it to do. If she drinks coffee regularly, soon her body lets the coffee take over that role, and she becomes dependent upon it.
Thus does alcohol artificially provide for temporary moments of relaxation and release while impoverishing life of all that is genuinely restful and liberating.
Anarchy & Alcohol (Wasted Indeed), CrimethInc
Some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love.
What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent.
Marriage and Love, Emma Goldman.(published by Mother Earth Publishing Association in 1914) Full text available at http://anarchyarchives.org
The dreams and aspirations of women have, for too long, been constructed within the framework of male fantasy.
Growing marrows
Of all the plants I've ever tried to grow, marrows are the most fun. They wander like tentacles, reacting to touch. The tendrils coil around anything they can grip, clinging to twigs, blades of grass, a bike, fences, a spade... they even climb trees! One of the marrows is now meandering upright through the canopy of a 7m cherry tree. It's an awesome site.
The leaves are like pads in a pond, dark green and spread. When rain falls it pools and runs down the stem, directed towards the root system. The flowers are large, vibrant and open from dawn, closing as the midday sun drifts away. Yellow and orange blooms (which are delicious watery additions to any salad) attract pollinators, including inquisitive cats who follow the buzzing bees into the radiant depths as they search for nectar. Lawns in autumn are pointless. They become too damp for picnicking, and they should be planted with a few marrows. Let their octopus like nature take over the green depths of the lawn. Let the open space be useful and productive. It saves on the mowing too.
On the closing of Pogo [1]
They asked for your help, the group that was They emailed, talked and posted But you did nothing. Now the place is dead, up pops your head And you complain about it going.