Israeli commandos kill 20 peace activists

I'm sure you've probably heard of this appalling criminal action undertaken by Israel's security forces against Turkish solidarity activists as they were delivering aid to the blockaded territory of Gaza. Madam Miaow has a much more in depth anylisis of the events here complete video footage of the boarding. And Alex Snowdon as chair of the Tyneside Palestine Solidarity campaign has been organising protests for tomorrow here and you can see contact information for are new foreign secretary here.

As appalling as this attack is I honestly can't say I was surprised as taking a look back at the mounting pressure Israel was placing on previous aid convoys including the last one organised by George Galloway and Viva Palestina which culminated in Egyptian riot police impounding and assaulting activists . It was clear that the aid convoys are a continued humiliation to Tel-Aviv which has been trying to starve the Palestinians into admission in Gaza since 2006, by not only delivering vital supplies that ensure that the Palestinians can go on surviving a little longer, and by showing up the IDF the main pillar Israel and sacred cow of Zionism as impotent.

This looks set to continue as Turkey has stated that all other convoys to Gaza will enjoy the protection of the Turkish Navy no doubt further humiliating the Hawks of Tel-Aviv.

Edit: sorry about the lateness of this, but the death toll was 9, when I started writing this the details were quite sketchy and "around 20" kept coming up. However the cases of series injury by the commandos are at the 30 mark.

Marxism and pop-culture

Here is perhaps the very definition of pseudo-academia, that is using academic theories and philosophies and applying them to well mindless bits of entertainment. If your unfamiliar with Dragon Ball Z its a Japanese cartoon that was originally an homage to the ancient (well 16th century) Chinese tale Journey to the West but quickly became a rather silly story about super powered aliens were it often took them three whole episodes to get ready to do anything.

its good to own land.

Good news everyone I have recently become an owner of some land how do you like that Kropotkin! But in all seriousness I'm not selling out its actually to help people incidentally so is the mansion I'm planning to build on it as soon as I can smuggle enough Romanian brickeys to build it.

All joking aside this genuinely a good thing as its part of 38 degrees Trip up Trump campaign. The one too stop Billionaire corporate tyrant from building a vast country club golf course with luxury housing, Bastard! well actually he is a bastard because the plans need so much space that many local residents will be forced to evicted under the Compulsory Purchase Powers and the collusion of the local council.

There are several ways to you can help stop this either by say signing this petition or by becoming a co-owner of a plot of land right in the middle of the proposed site for free here . This is actually pretty ingenious as it will make it much more difficult to forcefully buy out the land when they have to consult and or gain consent from the large numbers of people all over the country. So please sign up you can help some innocent people and become a member of the landed gentry for free!

The Joke of Historical Fascism

Recently I was revising for an exam about the role of politics in warfare, so I naturally began reading up on the inter war years and the Fascistic regimes of Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. And well I sort of drifted off a bit from the original topic but anyway I found some very strange and funny things.

For starters the whole Aryan thing. We all know that the Third Reich's reason for existence was as they claimed to defend the Aryan races from well everything non-Aryan especially the Jews. But how many of you actually know what the term Aryan actually means? if you'd said something about Blonde hair and Blue eyes your very wrong, ditto if you think of anything revolving around the Scandinavians or the Germanic peoples.

The actual word Aryan is essentially a simplified form of Indo-European, or Indo-European-Iranian. In fact the word comes from the Latin Arianus meaning Iran. Now you might be thinking that like the Swastika they just decided to nick something already existing in order to justify there ideology, well yes and no. Official Nazi policy extended the designation of Aryan pretty much to every nation West of Poland and even a few to the East of it with slight(in comparison) variation too was most Aryan unsurprisingly it was Germany.

The Blonde hair and Blue eyes however was certainly a prominent feature in the Nazi's ideal new man for two main reasons, The first was the lack of said features in the "other races" thus pointing to it being a Aryan trait (though you do actually get this combinations in other ethnicities as well its just much less common, the most famous I can think of was Saddam's mistress) and two the German SS. To get into the SS you had to prove the purity of your ancestry for several generations (to about1750 for officers) and given the nature of the 18th century German states with there own migration and struggles with other groups mean that this was easier to prove the more Northern you were and the more Northern the more Nordic you were likely to be hence the over abundance of the Blondes and Blues.

Now this were the joke comes in. Aryan-ness is ultimately a cultural phenomena resting on certain Linguistic properties that are present in Many Indian languages, Farsi, every nation or place that has a Stan in the name (Stan is Aryan for place, land or home) Russia the Western hemisphere thanks to colonialism and much of Europe barring Turkey and three other exceptions, Hungary, Estonia and Finland, guess whose side those three were on in WW2 thats right Hitlers. So you have a regime embarking on a genocidal crusade to rid the world of non Aryans killing millions of there fellow Aryans in alliance with non-Aryans, it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so horrible.

The other joke I noticed was under Mussolini. Would anyone like to guess which minority suffered the most uder Italian Fascism back when Italy was still independent though closely allied to Germany? it was the Southern Tyroleans, do you no which ethnic group they were? Germans, Thats right Germans, and suffered severely under Mussolini, the German language was banned in public they had to adopt Italic names and take part in Italian cultural projects etc, and when they didn't they were beaten and imprisoned all without Hitler lifting a finger or even tutt tutting. Thats right the self advocated defender of Germans all over the globe didn't give a damn about what was perhaps the most discriminated against group of brother Germans in Europe.

What the Hell is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism?

A while ago I stumbled upon a very informative summary of what exactly Marxism-Leninism the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its allies during the Cold War.

So continuing in this vein heres a series of videos explaining the key tenants of Maoism, that is the first official ideology of the Peoples Republic of China when it was first formed under Mao Zedong (sometimes written Mao Tse Tung) as Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949.

Maos analysis of the Chinese peasantry


This ones important as the role of the agrarian peaseantry was much more important for Mao then Lenin. This probably had somthing to do with the fact that while the Pre-Revolutionary Industrial Proletariat (manufacturing workers) were few in Russia they were practically non-existent in China.



This one will be controversial.



Hmm different Left wingers being civil and maintaining Unity against common foes, very ambitious.



For balance here is some of the criticisms of the Cultural Revolution.

Oil, the scourge of another Gulf

Well with the election madness the ongoing ecological disaster almost slipped me by. Almost, inferior safety measures at the Haliburton built TransOcean owned BP run drilling platform not only led to an explosion that killed 11 workers and injuring several others, but is quickly developing into the worst ecological disaster the region has ever seen.

As if criminal negligence wasn't bad enough the three companies decided to play the blame game rather then help out with the rescue and clean up efforts. BP has even gone so far as to try overrule the rights of the surviving staff many of which had to suffer through an almost literal hell fire.




It also appears that BP in the ever increasingly desperate attempt to shirk responsibility may actually be hindering efforts to estimate and deal with the spill.



By the way estimates of the Oil reserves in the Gulf if accurate would probably only account for 2% of US oil intake.

Maoist news

If you've been reading this blog for a little while you won't be surprised that the lack of Left based journalism and news is source on constant frustration to me, and in case you haven't then feel free to click the links in the words below.

Here We Go.

But anyway thats why was surprised in a good way to stumble upon this chaps youtube channel second one is here. For one man a webcam and a couple of Soviet flags he does a very good job of pointing out big business corruption and governmental and journalistic hypocrisy, heres a few highlights.







Heres hoping he continues to fight the free market hegemony.

Obama a prophet of peace?

Its another Doha debate for you, and this one is about the role of the US in middle East and is Obama powerful enough to change for the better.

Now of course for the debate to be relevant we have to assume that US interests in Middle East are truly benign in intent at least if not in practice.... and well the juries still out on that one.

But anyway lets accept for arguments sake that the US does have an interest in peace for the middle east and that for that to happen the President will have to bring about a number of policy shifts, can he do it and how can he do it?

Unsurprisingly the main issue of this debate on regional peace revolves around the question of Palestine. You might be thinking why focus exclusively on that particular issue over well every other possible problem. Well you see the Israel/Palestine problem permeates much of the region,

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 for example was because the PLO were based their after being expelled by the Army of Jordan, and that effectively led to the continued instability of that nation and allowed Hezbollah (you remember them right? they were the reason Israel invaded Lebanon again in 2006) to develop and grow to the point were it now holds power in the nations south.

But lets look a little further afield, Iraq, Saddam Hussein try justify his occupation of Kuwait by making it out to be a sort of "wake up call" to the West to sort out the Israeli problem, He was also clearly hoping to build support with his Arab neighbours, this is the reason why many Palestinians in Kuwait supported the occupation and were subsequently expelled.

Lets go further still, Iran, if you've ever seen Press TV will know that much of Iran's animosity to the Zionist state is at the very least based on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, they even have the anniversary of the Nakba as an official holiday.

So focusing on this does make sense from a regional standpoint.

Oh dear,

Well can't really say that I'm surprised what with Cleggy publicly throwing his cards on the table as soon as the count was declared,a bit of a tactical blunder as being the only viable partner possible they could have gained more by holding out a little longer.

It looks like the Conservatives have offered up AV and some lucrative cabinet posts which isn't a lot for a party that always billed it self as far as I can remember anyway as the party of Principle but oh well*.

Phil outlines a few of challenges that await the new CONservative-liberal DEMocrats(CONDEM) coalition, particularly for the DEMs.

Oh well at least we can go back to railing against the Bourgeois Fascists like in the good old days.

Edit: *looks like the Liberals were able to claw a bit more then that.

The Dust begins to settle

Well May 6th was interesting. Not really sure what happens now, guess its just wait and see for the back room boys to hammer out a deal. While I'm not happy Labour are in second place and parties like Respect failed to make headway, I can't be totally depressed as the Conservatives despite getting the most seats can only regard this as a failure. I mean considering what assets they had,they had 90% of the National press, (The Guardian, and the Independent back the Liberals) the Only papers that still backed Labour were the Mirror and the Morning Star, They also had Lord Ashcroft with a free hand to spend as much money as he wanted thanks to that bizarre Court ruling, and of course they were campaigning against a government that had been in power for over ten years. With that 2010 should have been Labours 1997 moment and been completely obliterated.

But well they weren't, in fact some particularly the Left Labour Mp's actually increased their share of the votes and most of the "big name" scalps that were taken were the rightwingers, the corrupt or the chronic back stabbers , so again a mixed bag.

Also while were on the subject of coalitions, 38 Degrees is currently running two campaigns that will be off interest to some of you. There currently trying to put pressure on Lib Dems to hold true to there commitments on electoral reform, and to halt cuts to the BBC a prospect that seems increasingly likely since Cameron made a Faustian deal with News International (though is their really any other kind with Murdoch?).

Still it looks like we'll have to wait and see, what develops in the coming weeks.

1975 For best year of May day?

Here is footage of the Vietnamese Peoples Army (North Vietnam) entering Saigon now Ho Chi Minh City. VPA tanks broke through the gates of the Presidential palace at 11:30 am April 30 and shortly after President Duong Van Minh surrender (after just two days in power) and the city official fell in time for the May Day celebrations.

May Day 1975 effectively ended over 116 years of conflict with colonial occupiers including Britain, Japan, China and of course France and the USA.The ending of the Vietnam war also mark a period of decline in US power in South East Asia and the world. This decline is perhaps best illustrated in the case of Cambodia were instead of intervening to suppress Pol Pot as the Domino effect theory the rational for intervention in Vietnam would seem to dictate, they instead took a much more neutral tone leaving the newly unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam to halt the genocidal tendancies of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

And yes that is the Vietnamese version of the Internationale, I find it much more catchy then the English version.

Happy International Labour day!

Sadly my deadlines are pretty damn close so I wasn't able to attend a demonstration though I did manage to squeeze in time to watch this reminder of why Trade Unions and the Labour movement are important.








Its funny how corruption and the interests of the rich seem to run contrary to the interests of the people and the nation as a whole.They also seem to be based on the smashing of the grass roots opposition all under a veneer of "legality" but then I guess it really is a funny old world we live in.

Batay Ouvriye website here