A by-election has been called in Clacton-on-Sea, the seat of Nigel Farage, the leader and owner of Reform, a company posing as a political party.
The other mainstream parties Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Greens have all announced they will not be standing in the contest. Restore UK the leading competitor to Reform on the far right has also announced it won't be standing either.
This took the wind out of the sails of Farage's framing of his decision to launch a by-election as a "people versus the establishment" contest. Since, none of the establishment parties are turning up to fight.
Reform have been trying to pivot to accuse the opposition of running scared, Farage was after all expected to win easily as Clacton is the most Reform friendly seat in the UK as proved by his large majority in the 2024 General Election.
Unfortunately for Reform they've lost control of the narrative. The big parties may be out but Farage is facing some opposition. Count Bin Face has announced his decision to compete for the seat, and is the defacto anti-Farage candidate. The chance of Farage losing to a man with a Bin on his head has struck achord with both the internet net and legacy media, taking most of the oxygen out of Reform's messaging.
Some Context:
Nigel Farage who has been given a cushy ride by the media until recently is now facing allegations of corruption, originally over an undeclared £5million gift from Christopher Harborne the Thailand based Crypto millionaire, who has also repeatedly donated millions of pounds to Reform.
Once that story found traction more investigations started find financial irregularities and started asking probing questions. Farage faces several investigations by the House of Commons Standards Committee, and several other allegations have been referred to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Its been a tough few weeks for Farage and Reform who have also lost several other by-elections and are seeing their poll lead start to dip.
In response Farage has resigned as an MP triggering a by-election which he has stood for, rendering it largely pointless and expensive with estimated costs to the taxpayer is several hundred thousand pounds. This won't stop the investigations, but it would've given him some momentum and a line of attack.
However, none of the big parties are playing ball, even worse the first candidate declared to contest the election was Count Binface. Who stands in elections usually against Prime Ministers as a alien from another planet who has a Bin for a head. He's stood for election since 2019 usually getting a vote in the low hundreds, though he did get over 24,000 votes in the elections for London Mayor 2021 and 2024 beating Britain First, so he does have form slaying Far Right movements.
It looks like the election will be a two horse race and the leader of Reform will have to fight a Bin to win back his seat.
It's a PR disaster.
How likely is it that Count Bin Face can win?
Well lets start with some Pros and Cons
Pros:
Count Bin Face is scandal free.
Count Bin Face is more popular than Nigel Farage
Count Bin Face has an excellent online presence.
No-one to split the vote.
1. Scandals. Nigel Farage is a politician with many scandals in his time from racist bullying at school to the current financial questions. Count Binface on the other hand was involved in a copyright dispute with the owners of the film 1984 sci-fi film Gremloids, and that's it. The supporters of Farage are working very hard to dig up dirt and failing that are trying to create some. So, far they haven't had much luck. They managed to find out that Count Binface is a comedy writer for the BBC, which I don't think was ever hidden, it's been on his wiki page for years. And this is the same BBC that repeatedly brings Nigel Farage onto its flagship show Question Time. Time will tell if they can find anything actually useful.
2. Popularity. Polling and the reaction to the news that Clacton will be the site of a Farage vs Count Binface showdown have demonstrated the popularity of the latter over the former.
3. Online presence. Unfortunately we live in a world increasingly dominated by online activity, and politics is not only not an exception it's the worst example. From poorly made copy and paste memes on FaceBook to multi hour long podcasts and video essays and targeted slop ads, they're inescapable. That said, the Count's online output puts most smaller parties to shame. Over the years the Count has maintained a consistently active output of videos, clips and newsletters, as well as a podcast. Quietly building up a profile one election at a time. That hard work has paid off right now, his subscriber count has doubled in a week, and his output has made it easy for the national and international media to harvest clips to explain just who he is to their readers/viewers.
4. No vote splitting. The by-election will be run on First Past the Post, which normally means joke or protest candidates don't have a chance of winning the seat. However, since none of the main opposition parties are standing Count Binface is the defacto anti-Farage candidate, which means he should attract votes from all the local supporters of those parties. Meanwhile, a number of smaller fringe usually right-wing parties and candidates like Liam Fox and the British Democrats have announced that they will be standing, which providing that they can find 10 locals willing to sign endorsements will mean that they will nibble away at Reform's vote share.
Off course every silver lining has its cloud, despite the Tory's ducking out there are still some Cons.
Count Binface is a joke candidate.
Count Binface is competing locally not nationally.
Count Binface is internet famous not IRL famous.
1. Jokes. Count Binface is a joke candidate, the point of the Count is not to win elections but to force attention to serious issues. As an example while his manifestos include promises to nationalise Adele, they also include a promise to build at least one affordable house. The inference is pretty clear there.
2. Local Elections for Local people. This is I feel the biggest barrier to a Count victory in the election. In a national contest the Count would likely win every time, however elections take place in constituencies which vary in geographical size but contain the population equivalent to a town. This is a problem for personality based campaigns without a local party machine to support them. It's not a coincidence that the Count's best results were standing for London Mayor which is a vote taken by the whole of London. To make matters worse this constituency is in Clacton-on-Sea, the most Reform friendly area in the United Kingdom, which is precisely why Farage stood there in the first place.
3. Internet Fame. This compounds the second problem. Count Binface is mainly internet famous so if the people living in Clacton don't know him they won't be inclined to vote for him even if they support the 99p price cap on 99 flakes. I think the best illustration of this gap in net and street presence was a New Year's Eve party hosted by Ninja a very popular streamer. The party was a dud as no one in attendance knew who he was nor what any of his banter meant.
A good example of points 2 and 3 combining is in the last season of the animated show Aggretsuko. That season's arc is about an election in a ward in Tokyo. At first the elction is treated as a mere formality with the ruling party selecting a candidate who is expected to win easily. That candidate goes through the motions of a campaign and promises the status quo. Meanwhile a challenger appears who represents society's shunned and burnt out. Unemployed youth, low paid workers living payslip to payslip, people with multiple jobs to keep up with rent etc. The campaign takes off, and energises many who have been disenfranchised by society, it gets popular and forces the ruling party to start actually fighting for the seat they expected to just get.
On election day the challenger loses because many of his supporters do not in fact live in the ward and were unable to vote. This is a damning condemnation of typical liberal democracy, demographics matter more than popular will. In any normal contest this is the most likely scenario facing candidates like Count Binface.
Prediction:
I'm going to chicken out and resist picking the winner. My ego can't take getting it wrong. I will say though that the odds seem to be tilting in Count Binface's favour. While the Count is not a local celebrity the lack of other candidates mean he's been given unprecedented attention from the legacy media, he's been interviewed on Telly and radio and has been featured in several newspapers, giving him a boost in online attention and pushing him out of his politico online bubble. The pro Reform right have also helped out here too, their attempts to present the Count as an existential threat now mean that right wing types know who the Count is and it makes their posturing look as daft as its always been. I have seen street level interviews in Clacton where they ask about Count Binface and most of the residents now know the name at least.
But ultimately there's a more important question here, what exactly does winning mean for each candidate?
For Nigel Farage he not only has to win but win by a heavy margin and then after all that survive the multiple investigations and a probable second by-election and then counter the mounting pressure from the bad publicity to somehow get Reform back on track while its two best rhetorical tricks Kier Starmer and migration have been taken from their playbook. That's a tall order, especially when you factor in the lower average turn out for by-elections, and that the revelatikns in the press keep coming.
Count Binface meanwhile just has to keep on doing what he's been doing for years, and clearly enjoys, show up, make Farage look ridiculous and get some votes. Any number of votes will be taken as a moral victory, but if he gets a good showing or even runs a close campaign then that will be a great victory for Count Binface. To be honest, Count Binface has largely already won, he's already derailed the Reform electoral and propaganda strategy and now Farage will have to waste time and resources competing with a bin. Its a catch 22, ignore Count Binface, and he risks losing ground and looking rediculous on election night. Take him seriously and they just come across as stupid and scared that a Bin could be a genuine rival. Genius.
Appendix: Popular revolt against establishment rhetoric
Nigel Farage really wants to cast this contest as a man of the people ordinary Britain versus the global liberal elite. That a man who went to one of the most expensive and exclusive private schools, then became a banker and now runs a political party which receives no strings attached gifts in the millions of pounds from a collection of millionaires and whose seats in the Commons contain many former Shadow Ministers and Cabinet Ministers could get away with this posturing for so long is testament to the collaboration from the media in the UK for so long. Even during these fresh scandals most interviewers I've watched let him frame the situation in ways beneficial to him without comment.
So, thanks to Count Binface for shattering this illusion once and for all.
Something unprecedented has happened, my old town has made it to the local news and even bagged the top spot, and without a drop of blood. The town of Immingham was featured on ITV's regional news program Calendar. Unfortunately it's not good news, it's pretty grim in fact.
After serious mismanagement by its owners, the Lindsey Oil Refinery (LOR) is shutting down risking thousands of jobs, and the closure will open a big black hole in the economy of the southern bank of the Humber river. This story is very similar to Scunthorpe's Steel works, which was facing a physical as well as financial collapse and forced the government to step in to keep it open. Scunthorpe is just 20 miles away as the crow flies, these two developments show that the entire region and its heavy industries are in a crisis.
Before the news broke yesterday (22nd of June) I was already made aware of how bad things were going there. I used to work on LORs satellite sites in the neighbouring docklands and have friends and family who work on the refinery in various grades and roles and know many more who have since retired. The refineries cast a big shadow, and I mean that literally as well as figuratively. In addition to being a major source of employment for the towns and villages dotted around them, the chimney stacks can be seen at nearly every part of the town.
The mood is bleak here, I've been told today (23rd) there will be a march up to the refinery and will try and get details. In the meantime, here are some facts not covered in the ITV Calendar report.
LOR is one of two refineries built in-between the port town of Immingham (Im-Ing-Um) and south Killingholme. It employs around 400 permanent staff but also employs many more as contractors and temporary workers. Shutdowns and periodic maintenance can see the number of workers active on the site balloon into the thousands. It produces various kinds of petroleum, including aviation fuel, which means a knock-on effect beyond the local area is likely.
Already LORs tanker drivers, around 200 people have been made redundant, they were informed of this via Microsoft Teams call. The rest of the staff are in limbo, with discussions ongoing. My friends still working there are updating CVs and looking for other work while they await updates.
The owners of Prax the company that has brought LOR to the point of collapse have gone to Dubai. Funny they have enough money for that. And are generally unresponsive to request for comments or information.
I was working on Immingham docks when Prax took over LOR and I remember there was some disquiet and alarm back then due to the company having no background in refining, several LOR inspectors I knew were convinced the refinery was done at that point, it looks like those fears were correct it just took a little longer to become apparent.
LOR's neighbouring refinery Conoco Phillips (pronounced as Ko-No-Ko by the locals, but is pronounced Kon-O-Ko by the owners) is owned by the US based Phillips 66 and is interested in LORs storage tanks and industrial rail links but produces different grades of fuel so probably will not be interested in the refining systems of LOR. It's doubtful that the entire infrastructure will go, it seems likely that it will be stripped and broken up by other firms, how much will remain and how many jobs will be saved by this asset redistribution remains to be seen.
I was informed that LOR has enough crude to last until the 28th with several vessels standing by in the Humber and the North Sea with fuel oil for LOR that could extend the operational time further, but its up in the air as to if that'll happen.
I have also heard that two other refineries in the UK (out of 6 total) that are looking at a similar winding down but have no details at yet.
You may remember that back in 2009 LOR and Conoco were the epicentre of a wave of wildcat strikes throughout the industry that spread throughout the UK. At the time I was in Hull studying, but my stepdad was involved with the Scaffolders, he's since retired but still hears things from his mates still there. He told me about the planned march and was one of the people interviewed in the Calendar report. Though they cut out most of his commentary on strategic economic interests and big global firms that can asset strip and then relocate.
Based on his and others comments, I don't think a repeat of 09 militancy is likely due to demoralisation of the workforce. Though, despair can turn to anger very quickly, especially if the feelings of abandonment and being ripped off continue. I'll monitor the situation.
24th of July
UNITE held a protest rally outside Grimsby town hall, I do not know if the planned march on the refinery took place, a friend who works at the refinery was too depressed to meet me on Wednesday (23rd). I believe this protest was replacement or the people telling me about the march were mistaken. If I hear anything definitive, I'll update. I was in Grimsby working that day, not too far away from the protest, but it ended and dispersed before I could clock off.
Bear in mind this is all second hand, but I have attended these types of protests before in the same location with some of the same organisers. This seems to have been a "going through the motions" affair. The speakers were local politicians including the Conservative MP Martin Vickers and Greater Lincolnshire's first Mayor, the Reform party's Andrea Jenkyns (pictured). This worries me as coupled with the demoralisation I have noticed that much of the criticism is aimed at the owners of Prax being foreigners, and the UK selling its strategic assets to large foreign corporations. There is room for Reform and the right wing of the Conservatives to co-opt these sentiments and build up support within economically depressed areas and threatened sections of the labour force. I'm also surprised that the respectable TUC unions are already collaborating with Reform, especially given that the Mayor isn't a relevant official. I was under no illusions that the appeal model of industrial bargaining that the TUC endorses would mean they would attempt to curry favour with far-right officials but I thought it'd take a bit longer.
Personally speaking, the collapse of LOR and Scunthorpe steel works were the result of general economic trends and a culture that weakened regulations and reformed business administration in a manner that gave the owners the freedom to maximise profit in ways that wrecked the overall firms. The image that comes to my mind is a mining company demanding a shaft be sunk so deep that it eventually collapses the entire coal field. The Miners are trapped below the earth, their families are panicking on the surface, and the owners have flown away to a mansion on some tropical island. I don't think the passports of the boss matter nearly as much as the fact that there is a boss and that they are able to stay wealthy and get wealthier out of the impoverishment of others.
Going back to the Tories/Reform/other reactionaries, not only is a deep concern that they seem to be capable of exploiting misery to spread their ideology and build up support, these disasters are the fruits of the economic policies they promote and the Labour government maintains. None of these political factions are offering an alternative solution, they're using this to score points. They are all in favour of capitalism, and they are all in favour of the specific version of capitalism that enables the stripping of assets and embezzlement that can sink nationally important industries. Reform, especially promote and support letting businesses have a free hand in everything. People are pissed off with Labour's reaction to what's happening here, however I do not beleive the situation would be improved by replacing them with the Conservative Party or Reform or any of the others.
For a couple years the regions of North/North East Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire have seen growing support for nationalisation of industries, infrastructure and utilities. I don't know if its met majority support yet but it is now a common point of view. The situation on LOR has been strengthening that sympathy. I think its an understandable sentiment if you live here, we're part of the British equivalent to Rust Belt in the United States, but I'm old enough to remember that nationalised companies can also experience crisis and collapse, at best its a stop gap measure, one that could (but not guaranteed) prevent the egregious examples of what's happened here and in Scunthorpe but I wish more people round here would dream deeper.
In other news, the Government has confirmed keeping LOR open for three more weeks to attract a buyer. I haven't seen much detail, but I assume that means some crude vessels were allowed to dock, as a refinery cannot run without oil to refine. Or they could've decided to shut the refinery down in stages. The government has also said it is funding a "comprehensive Training Guarantee", I don't know what that means, and I don't think anyone else does either. This has not brought relief to anyone nor calmed the situation at all.
Many people are angry with the government's response, or more accurately the lack of response, three weeks isn't much time to conclude a deal nor provide much security for the employees. There have been claims that the government isn't more supportive due to Net Zero commitments. With Tories and Reform especially banging that drum. I don't know Ed Miliband the Energy Secretary, but that doesn't make much sense to me since the Net Zero framework was drawn up by the previous Conservative governments and LOR produces fuel oil for cars and planes, it has a pipeline directly connecting it to Heathrow.
Electric cars are becoming a common site and I know prototype electric planes exist now, but I don't think the government is planning to switchover to 100% electric automobiles and electric aviation industry by Autumn this year. That seems too ambitious and radical for the current PM's tastes.
I suspect that the actual reason for the government's actions are that they do not want to spend the considerable sum of money taking the refinery over and running. They seem to be set on wishing that a private sector buyer will show up and save the day.
31st of July
Wellit looks like its all over. Spoke to my cousin whose an LOR firefighter, they've been told they can either work till the closure or leave without notice if other work is available. If they stay until the deadline they'll recieve a bonus but will be competing with everyone else for a few vacancies. And that's just for the full time direct employees who were the cream of the crop in the workforce. Employees at the refinery numbered a little over 400, contractors can swell that figure to over a thousand. They're treatment will depend on the contracting company. The ones I worked for would give you nothing not legally mandated and even then they'd drag their feet on complying.
Still haven't heard any details about this "Training Guarantee" the government have been repeating their appeals to Prax's owners to "do the right thing by their workers" it seems to me if they were the sought to "do the right thing" they wouldn'tve draind the funds, hidden it and then scarpered abroad. We'll see if they face any consequence when the investigation winds down.
Appendix:
This isn't related to LORs troubles but does concern the reporting of it. The Calendar news segment is in my opinion a good case study in how the news media can manipulate a narrative into existence. The core of the reporting reflects what I've been told, but several people I know were upset with how Immingham was portrayed.
During the report it stated that Immingham was already expressing depression and showed two shots, one a very tight focus on an empty shop unit and a boarded up street.
Now Immingham is not a boom town but quite a few people thought this was manipulative, and I agree with them. Regarding the first shot, the town's civic centre does have some unoccupied units but the reason that shot was so tight because the units next to it are occupied which would conflict with the narrative.
The second shot concerns a street I used to ride my bike down to get to work on the docks. That street is indeed boarded up, but that is because Associated British Ports (ABP), the region's other giant Industrial concern, bought out the houses and businesses on that street as part of a major expansion plan that will take many years to complete. Before the buyout, that street was full of active businesses.
Of course, this manipulation is practically benign and seems to have
been done to reinforce the facts on the ground and not conjure up a
narrative. Anyone who lives in the area knows you don't have to work to give Immingham a bad reputation, it's been tarred and feathered for years by the county snobs. I just feel it's important to keep a critical mindset even
when presented with a narrative you sympathise with.
2nd Appendix:
I've seen some comments echoing the Tory/Reform line about the collapse of LOR being a good thing due to climte change. I think that's both incorrect and extremely superficial thinking. LOR is not shutting down due to competition by Green power sources, its closing due to either gross incompetence or active raiding by its owners. The demand for the petroleum that LOR supplied is still there, and it will move eventually to another supplier. So, either the environmental impact of LOR going will be zero or potentially worse depending on how its market share is divvied up. Its not just production process of fossil fuels that can be environmentally damaging, shipping of refined fuel potentially over great distances will add to the impact, will the other refinery need to expand or cut corners to make up for the increased demand? We saw this in the UK during the Miners strike of 84-5 and the aftermath of the collapse of Britain's domestic Coal industry. Demand for coal remained high during the strike so the government imported large quantities from a number nations including Apartheid South Africa and the Communist dictatorship in Poland.
Importation of vast quantities of coal continued for many years. Immingham docks was one of the main transit points, it was covered in giant black mountains of coal dust up to 2014-16. The biggest ones were doused 24 hours with water by sprinkler systems because they spontaneously combusted all the time. They got rid of imported coal by substituting imported biomass (wood pulp) and the debate over whether that counts as a green alternative rages to this day.
Will the short and medium term disruption brought about by the closing of LOR provoke a backlash against attempts to decrabonise technology and the economy? Reform and the Tories are currently working very hard to see that such a backlash happens. Reform in particular are increasingly sucessful in growing beyond a protest vote, they're sinking roots in new soil and are seeing results in their efforts to radicalise sections of the public.
This isn't a win for ecosocialism nor is it even a win for green capitalism. Its just an example of capitalism and governance. We won't know the full environmental impact until the dust settles and the reports are published but if there is a slither of good news for the environment here it'll be entirely coincidental.
It's not often that I get to comment on recent news from a position beyond armchair commentator. Several weeks ago, my small corner of the world became global news for a time. Two great big cargo ships collided in the North Sea at an anchorage for vessels waiting clearance to enter the River Humber. One was the carrier of aviation fuel, the Stena Immaculate, and the second a container ship Solong. The captain of Solong is a Russian national, that fact coupled with the news that he's being investigated for criminal conduct has encouraged speculation that this was a deliberate act carried out as part of the Russian Federation's hybrid warfare doctrine.
The investigation is ongoing, and I won't speculate on whether I think the charges have merit or not. What I will say is that if it comes to light that the cause of the collision which killed one of the crew of the Solong and injured dozens of sailors on both vessels was negligence or equipment failure, well I wouldn't be entirely surprised.
There's a fortune tied up in international freight and massive pressure to avoid delays at all costs. Cutting corners and meeting windows for berthing, discharging cargo and taking on new cargo are stressful times with many bottlenecks, that area of the North Sea is effectively a floating car park for vessel to wait their turns, clearance and the boarding of pilots. Miss that window and the ship is at the back of the line, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
I know this because I have friends and family who worked in the shipping agencies, and I worked on the same dock that ships including the Stena Immaculate regularly berthed and met their crews and captains. It's a small part of the world. I've had the pleasure of being shouted at in 02:30 am because a ship hasn't sailed for Norway due to its bridge crew not returning from shore leave, I've also had to draw maps of the docks for crew members who were just dumped outside the gates for their shore leave, and I've had to stand in the pouring rain with a radio awaiting the arrival of the port medical team so I could show them a dead body that washed up.
But enough flavour text, the reason I'm bringing this up is to demonstrate why a vessel barrelling at 16 Knouts in low visibility in an area well known for being a busy anchorage doesn't shock me despite being an obviously bad idea. This attitude of rush, rush, rush, get it done quickly is endemic to the shipping economy, and it breeds a culture of apathy and resentment towards the regulations that are designed to prevent incidents and accidents like what happened here.
Russian owned/captained vessels were especially notorious for obeying the letter of the law and ticking all the boxes, while expending the least amount of effort possible. I remember two examples, one was when a sailor had collapsed, and I was talking to the medical team, they repeatedly asked me to confirm the ship was not Russian, because the last time they had attended a Russian vessel the captain wanted to leave the crew member on the jetty and depart without answering any questions. Another time I was working over water and needed a life jacket, UK regulations state you must wear one when working over water, the penalties for violating that one are quite steep. When we ran short, we just radioed the vessels and used some of their spares. The Russian vessel gave use life jackets that were empty, either someone had stolen the bouncy material or they never had any. I thought that was a one-off, but a guy who'd been there for longer than me said it happened all the time.
I must stress the point of this is not that the Russians are uniquely corrupt and lazy. Corners were cut across the industry, and there were many times Russian vessels arrived without incident or noticeable deficiency. Common issues are Flags of convenience where a ship is registered to a company in a nation with lower safety and employment standards, I saw that all the time, it was blatant, crew lists and manifests gave it away, a ship that sails between Le Havre and Grangemouth, is operated by a company in France and is crewed by Indians and Filipinos and has a Greek captain is registered as belonging to Liberia or one of the smaller Caribbean island nations. Often finding out who actually owns a ship is an impossible task. The news reported that the Solong had Portuguese owners and the Stena Immaculate is owned by the USA, but the Stena was an exception as it served US military aviation, I met a Department of Defence rep once who turned up to inspect the ship. He had a baseball cap and a denim jacket, called everyone buddy.
So, in conclusion, I'll wait and see what the results of the investigation are. I am interested in their findings but the two most likely options will not be surprising to me.
It happened again, a few days ago the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin (though at least one other officer just stood there and watched it happen) in Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota appalled many. This is not a rare occurrence, immediately after the news became well known the families of many other victims of police murder -the majority of them African Americans- in the recent past came forward to share their accounts too.
This time however, the people of the Twin Cities had had enough and massive street demonstrations erupted which the police met with even more violence. Only this time the police over estimated their ability to beat and intimidate the population, they quickly lost control and by nightfall they had lost a precinct which burned into the night.
Solidarity protests have broken out across the United States, many of which are also being met with military style violence from the police and in some cases elements of the national guard and far right paramilitary groups.
At the time of writing this I know very little about the life of George Floyd apart from how it ended, so I have no idea if he was in fact an "angel" to use the measurement the American mass media likes to use when determining whether or not someone deserves to be killed by someone with a badge and a blue shirt. But I don't need to, because I don't support the ability of the police or any institutional force in society to take the life of anyone. And to seal the matter I have seen 48 seconds of George Floyd's life. In that 48 seconds officer Derek Chauvin has his knee pinning George Floyd to the floor, but this is not enough for him, he has to taunt, lecture and berate the man he has at his mercy, all the while ignoring George Floyd's pleas for air. Its pretty disgusting to watch, but it's important to see.
The video and other versions with more or less footage and obstructive watermarks aren't hard to find online. Since I am extremely remote from the United States, never mind the state of Minnesota, there's not much I can do beyond token gestures of support and sympathy. So I did what I have experience in and made another version of the video with a transcript for added clarity. I don't think there's any danger of this video being pulled from the web, especially now the state and federal government are scrambling to contain the fallout and doing a very poor job, but I hope it may find some use somewhere.
CONTENT WARNING Video of the Arrest of George Floyd in Minneapolis [Transcription added]
So far the podcast can be found on Itunes, Stitcher and Google play. In addition to uploading Audible Anarchist readings, the feed may upload other Anarchist audio recordings in the future.
Some good news, the victim of a far right extremist in Seattle has recovered enough to give an interview on what happened and what he intends to do now.
The KEXP 90.3 radio program Mind over Matters
has recorded a roughly 30-minute interview with Fellow Worker Hex, the
IWW and GDC member who was shot on January 20th outside of the Milo
Yiannopoulos event on the campus of University of Washington, Seattle.
The Seattle General Defense Committee has a new web page and is hosting this interview there as well; go check it out.
In this first interview with the press since the shooting, Hex talks
about the experience of being shot, the importance of having a network
that supports you when you are attacked, the responsibilities of firearm
ownership and use, and the problems with the punitive model of justice.
We in the Twin Cities GDC salute our fellow defender and friend,
continue to wish him speedy recovery, and call upon all those who oppose
fascism in the Pacific Northwest to make your support of antifascist
efforts known to your community. Make sure that our people are supported
and defended, so that they can continue to help support and defend our
communities.
How do we respond? We are building an expanded anti-authoritarian,
anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-fascist presence in
Seattle, and this person was spearheading that effort. Are others
willing step up and replace his effort while he heals? Our response will
help determine that.
There is a limited amount of time for us to make clear to the world
what is clear to us: we are under armed attack. The fascist right knows
where to find us – protests such as anti-Donald Trump events, or actions
against police brutality. In
the Twin Cities, the trial has just begun of Allen Scarsella, one of
the white supremacists who came to the Fourth Precinct in Minneapolis in
November, 2015 and opened fire, shooting multiple people.
We don’t have confirmation that the person who shot our comrade was a
counter-protester angry at those protesting Milo’s hateful white
nationalist misogyny. We do know that he turned himself into the police
several hours later, claiming ‘self-defense.’ This, of course, is
exactly what Scarsella did as well.
Our friend will have enormous hospital bills and undoubtedly some
legal costs as well. There will be a significant loss of income. Let’s
raise him so much that he won’t have to worry about that angle of
things. Please give. All money will be controlled directly by them and
their partner; none will go to any other cause, excepting any fees
associated with the fundraising service used.
Click here to go to the official IWW General Defense Committee fundraiser for this fellow worker.
Please don’t just give; please tell your friends and families and
organizations to give. That may sound daunting, but here’s why they
should:
This isn’t just about one guy. Your friends and families know
that the situation has changed dramatically. They know that things are
changing fast, and have heard the word fascism a lot since Trump was
elected. They may even suspect that the breakneck pace of media
revelations and executive decisions is intended to distract them and
make them feel helpless.
This is about protecting those who have already been putting
themselves on the line protecting us. Who have been organizing for us
and got there even before Donald Trump was elected. This is about
protecting them. This is about emboldening OUR side to organized to
protect ourselves, rather than simply beg for protection from fascists
and racists. Some of whom are now in political power.
We need to ensure widespread support for them, and we need to do
it in the name of organized anti-fascism. We must demonstrate that no
matter our own political analysis or identity – progressive, liberal,
leftist, radical, etc. – we support anti-fascism, and we support
antifascists. We will not leave our own behind. We will support
antifascist efforts, most of all because they are needed more than ever,
and not supporting them at this crucial point would be a disaster.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end. It’s hard to hear that a
comrade has been shot. We may not have expressed everything in the most
organized or best way above, and if that is the case, please accept our
apologies.
We hope you will consider making a contribution, and perhaps writing
letters or calling to the President of the University of Washington and
expressing support for the victim of the shooting and the protesters,
and criticism of the UW administration for permitting an event they knew
was going to promote violence against minority groups. Now they’ve
gotten what they should have known was coming. Call or write the County
Attorney and demand aggressive prosecution. Call Seattle City Councilors
and ask them to issue a public statement of condemnation of violent
attacks on anti-racist and antifascist protesters, and support of our
Fellow Worker.
Tell your neighbors the truth. Change the narrative that they will try to spin on the media.
Well it looks like that glass ceiling will remain intact for awhile at least. Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the USA. I'm not happy, but honestly I wouldn't be happy if Hillary Clinton had it in the bag.
I'd like to say I'm not surprised and pretend to cleverer than thousands of career politicians but there were a few times like Donald Trump's insulting of the grieving family of a dead serviceman or his "grab em by the pussy" line and his generally very sketchy behaviour regarding women and the allegations of sexual harassment would tank him. The religious right is a big part of the modern Republican party and I couldn't see them supporting such an open womaniser. These are the same folks who made married couples on TV shows sleep in separate beds, for fear that such racy imagery as a couple tucked up in a kingsize duvet would plunge the nation into Godless hedonism, and then finally Communism. And to be fair a few of them didn't support him.
In the months since Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed him, Donald Trump has been inexorably associated with Liberty University. We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history. Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him.A majority of Liberty students, faculty, and staff feel as we do. Donald Trump received a pitiful 90 votes from Liberty students in Virginia’s primary election, a colossal rejection of his campaign. Nevertheless, President Falwell eagerly uses his national platform to advocate for Donald Trump. While he occasionally clarifies that supporting Trump is not the official position of Liberty University, he knows it is his title of president of the largest Christian university in the world that gives him political credentials. Associating any politician with Christianity is damaging to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But Donald Trump is not just any politician. He has made his name by maligning others and bragging about his sins. Not only is Donald Trump a bad candidate for president, he is actively promoting the very things that we as Christians ought to oppose
But by and large that vote block seems to have remained strong. I guess the lesson here is that moral guardian movements are more interested in power than purity.
But even in the moments where I thought for certain Trump was a chump I never got the bizarre sense of self assurance of the Democrats. I saw polls and talking heads saying there would be landslide, and that Hillary would take Florida and crack the deep south by taking a few states and coming close to the others, and the Senate and House were up for grabs. Yesterday (in the UK time zone) the radio news headline program was repeating every hour a brief chat with a Clinton campaign aide saying she was going to win, the only question was by how much, either she'd have a landslide or it'd come down to one state and one county. Those were the only possible results he predicted.
If I were a gambler I would of put money on the Democrats remaining in the White House but by a pretty slim margin. So never take betting tips from me is what I'm trying to say here I guess. But at least I wasn't off the mark by a country mile.
Given how toxic Donald Trump is and how quick he was to alienate, and then insult and anger large demographics of the US population we can forgive the Democrats for a little optimism. But spending a few minutes on American left of centre websites and forums and you'd think they had nominated some sort of clone hybrid of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, when in reality it was the worst candidate they could've picked There candidate has been a target for hate and fear since 1992 at the latest. 24 years of constant negative associations is quite a handicap even if your a saint, and no one with a snowballs chance in hell of becoming President of the United States is spotless. And while much of the allegations and smears trumpeted by the `lock her up` crowd were grossly exaggerated if not completely made up, Hillary Clinton was more than a bit mucky.
Her allies in the Democratic party hierarchy like disgraced former DNC Chairwoman Schultz were undermining her Primary opponent Bernie Sanders and had cultivated extensive covert links with members of the American media and given favours to wealthy donors. Its a bit hard to write off accusations of vote rigging, media bias and corruption -your opponents main points of attack- when people close to you have been caught out doing just that. And in a way that was to your benefits you to boot.
I can also only assume that many American democrats lived in bubbles, because they completely misread the mood of the country. This is a period where belief in the American system and its institutions is at an all time low,
that is why Donald Trump did so well against the Republican also rans and ultimately why he won today. He ran as an outsider on a populist anti-establishment platform and against this the Democratic party in its wisdom put up the person most closely linked to the political establishment, and ran largely on that connection. Thus reinforcing the arguments levelled against her. Indeed she had a lot of trouble beating Bernie Sanders to the nomination, her own establishment credentials and record alienated a very large segment of her own party. The internal opposition was so large that I remember some Democrats were worried that the nomination fight would jeopardise the election campaign.
Multiple Democrats talked at length at how Trump had no experience while Clinton had decades of it. The problem here is that's a double edged sword, lack of political experience is strange as it may seem is a positive with many people, it makes a candidate look more down to earth and in touch with the people. Now admittedly its strange how a millionaire who inherited his wealth, has managed to come across as a champion of the common man, but I suspect his campaign team(s) advised him on how to tap into it*.
Though once again the Democrats seem to have helped him out here, by picking someone even more associated and tied with the established and discredited order than him.
For many Hillary with her decades in DC and exclusive talks with wealthy business interests and foreign capital for very high fees just makes her seem aloof and corrupt. And they didn't even try to lessen the damage with a "radical" new policy platform. Honestly I'd prefer to live in a country with her platform over Trump's but there isn't much in the way of a break with the status quo that could counter the criticism or energise their voters. Though in retrospect I think the Democrats were relying on the fear of a Trump Presidency to motivated the masses instead.
So what can we learn from today? Apart from the obvious don't put a person already hated for over 20 years as your candidate for a popularity contest. Well I think this election is a very good example of how fragile and useful voting as a mechanism for social change really is. We had a man championed by racist militia's and open Fascists, and the best opposition that could be put up against him thanks to vested interests and the party system was the very embodiment of what he was mobilising against and was already hated and feared since 1992**.
And with Congress under the control of the Republicans, and some Supreme Court judges nearing retirement it looks like his first term will have no effective official opposition. For Americans the choice is now just hang on, take your lumps and wait four years to try again, or build alternative support networks and structures for resistance. Its sink or swim time, America's vaunted checks and balances no longer apply the country is under the control of open reactionaries. Violence against minority groups is only going to continue and I honestly doubt Trump will make good on any of his vague promises to ease the burden on the working class.
But on the other hand this would have been the case if Hillary's cheerleaders had been correct too. And also if the US government remained split, however in that case electoralists would have an easy scapegoat in the party their sad loathes the most.
Governments that won election have been defeated by protests and strike action, in some cases they've even brought the government down. Casting ballots is not a substitute for political or economic activism, even if your Trump supporter and pleased as punch for today's result its only a matter of time before another political gang gets in and starts undoing your hard work.
Basically what I'm trying to say is don't mourn organise, but by organise I don't mean canvass for the democrats in the mid terms.
*Though now that I think about it many populist leaders claiming to be concerned with the plight of the down trodden have come from upper income brackets, like Napoleon who was from one of the wealthiest families in Corsica, or FDR.
** Yes I keep saying this, because it deserves to be repeated, the Democratic party was so out of touch it didn't see a problem with choosing a woman who'd been a figure of hate on a national level since 1992 if not a bit earlier.
Burgerville workers marching on April 26. (WNV / Shane Burley), from Waging Non Violence.
An interesting thing has happened across the pond, an American Presidential candidate has supported an organising campaign by the Industrial Workers of the World. Something that hasn't happened since the 1910's and the days of Eugene Debs when the Socialist Party split from the American section of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Portland, OR – In a historic move, workers at Portland-area fast food chain Burgerville announced at a rally in the Clinton Street Theater on April 26th that they were forming a union, the Burgerville Workers Union,
in affiliation with the Portland branch of the IWW. They marched from
the theater to the Burgerville location at Southeast 26th and Clinton to
present their demands:
an immediate $5 an hour raise
affordable, quality healthcare
a safe and healthy workplace
fair and consistent scheduling with ample notice
a supportive, sustainable workplace including paid maternity/paternity leave
free childcare and transportation stipends
A typical Burgerville worker makes only $9.60 an hour, and is
typically scheduled just 26 hours a week, just under the 30 hours a week
which would make them eligible to receive benefits. That equals out to
about $990 a month before taxes. To put that into perspective, the
average apartment rent in Portland is $1,275 a month for a one bedroom
apartment, and most apartment complexes require prospective tenants
income to exceed 3 times the amount of the rent.
“Most people can’t even afford to have an apartment. In Portland,
everyone knows that the cost of living is insane. It basically took me a
second job to be able to have a place of my own. I couldn’t afford it
with what Burgerville pays me,” said Greg, Burgerville worker and union
member.
Other workers cited problems with management’s uncaring attitude
toward their employees: “I need to be able to take a sick day without
fear of retaliation,” stated Robert, a Burgerville worker at the Powell
location.
The workers forming the Burgerville Workers Union
represent a cross-section of the community – young people, seniors,
mothers, fathers, students, and grandparents. They put passion into
their work, and want to improve their workplaces for themselves, their
co-workers, and the community.
“We’re trying to make Burgerville a better place – I just want to be
able to do my job and be paid a living wage. This is going to make
Burgerville better, by having happy employees that work hard and are
proud of their jobs” said Debbie, Burgerville Worker Union member.
The Burgerville Workers Union is supported by the Portland IWW and
endorsed by a coalition of local unions and community groups, including
ILWU Local 5, IATSE Local 28, SEIU Local 49, Portland Association of
Teachers, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, Portland Solidarity Network
(PDXSol), Portland Jobs with Justice, Blue Heron Collective (Reed
College), Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, Alberta
Cooperative Grocery Collective Management, Hella 503 Collective, Marilyn
Buck Abolitionist Collective and People’s Food Co-op.
And here's a short video put out by some of the Union members about work conditions and the need for the campaign.
As previously stated this campaign has been singled out by one of the candidates in this seemingly never ending race to the Oval Office.
The candidate is of course Bernie Sanders, here's what the next Commander in Chief (maybe, possibly, well there's a chance at least) has to say on the matter:
FRANKFORT, Ky. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday released the
following statement praising the union organizing efforts of the workers
at Burgerville, a restaurant chain in Oregon and southern Washington.
“I applaud the workers of Burgerville in Oregon for forming a union.
What these workers are calling for is not radical. In the richest
country in the history of the world, no one who works 40 hours a week
should be living in poverty. $9.60 an hour is a starvation wage. The
workers at Burgerville deserve a living wage of $15 an hour. They have a
right to flexible work schedules, affordable health care, and healthier
working conditions. They deserve to be treated with dignity and
respect.
“Over the last thirty years, we’ve seen unprecedented growth in
income inequality in this country. We have a rigged economy held in
place by a corrupt system of campaign finance. That’s why workers, like
those at Burgerville, must be able to form a union and collectively
bargain for higher wages and stronger benefits.
“The Burgerville Workers Union is a perfect example of the type of
political revolution that we need: people coming together and demanding
real change to improve the lives of working people. As I’ve said on this
campaign, this election is not about me, it’s about people from all
walks of life coming together. And I am confident that when this
happens, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”
In addition the Young Turks who've become an unofficial arm of the Sanders Campaign also talked to the Burgerville Workers and gave them a kinda endorsement.
I think the Sanders statement and the Young Turks video are interesting as they seem to have not quite understood what the Burgerville Workers were talking about in the way they were meant. They certainly don't know anything of the IWW. Both the statement and the video talk about campaign finance and political corruption. Whereas in Union video above and the brief interview segment the Workers were talking about the economic relationships of workers and the company within a community. The two don't really gel.
To elaborate, the Burgerville Workers aren't actually fighting for a new law increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour. They're just pushing for a wage increase of $15 per hour, this struggle is between the workers of Burgerville and the owners of Burgerville, politicians corrupt or otherwise don't really factor into this dispute. But what about the bigger picture? Well the Union is saying something very different on that as well.
In many ways it’s not the fault of Burgerville or its owners. They
operate within a low wage economy that accepts paying workers near
minimum wage as the norm to squeeze everyone for maximum profit. This is
an economy where over the last 40 years productivity has increased over 70% while wages have increased by under 10%,
and where following the Great Recession the strongest job growth has
been low wage work. The reason for this is clear: This is capitalism, a
structure that prioritizes growth and profit over human need and
development. We, Burgerville workers, are not merely facing Burgerville,
we’re facing a whole structure that’s bent on pushing us to the edge of
what we can bare.
We understand this larger structure. But we also
realize that it is produced by people, no matter how large or
unchangeable it seems. Burgerville produces it by choosing to go along
with the rest of their peers and paying us meager wages; even workers
produce it ourselves when we accept the boss’ authority over our work
and accept wages far lower than the value of what we produce. We all
produce this structure and we all face a choice: Do we allow it to continue or do we fight to end it?
They talk about minimum wage but aside from a comment about it currently being the lowest accepted point the context is completely different to what Bernie Sanders and Cenk Uygur use. The Union is talking about the role of wage labour in capitalism, the lower the wage paid the greater the economic exploitation. And the solution put forward by the Union isn't campaign financing reforms or political leadership its workers coming together the fight the system as a whole.
More and more workers are choosing to fight. We are inspired by
garment workers in Cambodia, factory workers in China, and our fellow
fast food workers across the United States. Workers across the world are
standing up and demanding better lives and winning respect.
I think the workers in the Young Turks video were doing a pretty good
job of stirring their interview in this direction. Its a shame that it
was cut short so the trio in the studio could plug their own pressure group the Wolf PAC. What's happened here is that American Liberals have seen an intiative by American workers and read their own narrative into it. And by offering their support they've ended up trying to usurp the original meaning of the campaign. I'm sure its unintentional but its still a problem. I believe the Young Turks videos main effect is to show the gulf between Liberal reformers and Revolutionary Workers.
And of course I should stress that a wage increase is only one of the demands of the Burgerville Unions current campaign.
affordable, quality healthcare
a safe and healthy workplace
fair and consistent scheduling with ample notice
a supportive, sustainable workplace including paid maternity/paternity leave
free childcare and transportation stipends
I think its important to keep these other issues in mind here and in all similar cases as I've noticed a tendency for the monetary issues to dominate the discussions around strikes and labour campaigns. Usually feeding into a warped narrative about greedy workers getting ideas above their station. I think that narrative is bunk, though rather telling about the position of the working class in this society.
So here's my full and unconditional statement of support for the workers at Burgerville. I make this statement in the full knowledge of what the Burgerville Union is, and what it is aiming to achieve. IF you feel the same way then head over to their support page.
Years it appears that once again I'm late to the party, the month long struggle against American imperialism party, I assume my invitation was lost in the post. The gala was once again graciuolsy hosted for the thirtieth time in Pyongyang by the Kim family. Still fortunately we have the Real News to give us some highlights, with a new guest commentator Brian Becker.
I'm a supporter of the Real News, but I have some criticisms, they seem internet illiterate, they don't really know how to use youtube, they frequently have a series of interviews and reports but no easy way to find individual parts. And they're over reliant on academics, and frequently don't have much to say to follow up or counter what these academics say even if its factually disputed or even contradictory. This interview with Becker is an excellent example of the latter problem.
Note: For some daft reason, the Real News has decided to disable video embedding on its youtube channel, effectively limiting its ability to reach a wider audience. Hence my uploading via blogger, to see the original video click here.
Minor note: The host and most people talking about inter Korean relations mentions that the Korean war `ended` with a temporary ceasefire. The ceasefire has lasted over fifty years now can it really still be said to be temporary?
Well that was certainly something. I'll give Becker credit for downplaying the significance of that naval dispute and for pointing out that sporadic outbreaks of tension and brief fire fights between Northern and Southern forces happen fairly often. Every other media outlet not focussed on the Korean Peninsula either ignores them or acts like World War III has just been declared. As happened recently in the last days of August. But it all goes downhill from there.
Becker shows his bias immediately by singling out the US for criticism even when he's acknowledged that other nations were culpable in the things he condemns. For starters its a myth that the US split Korea alone. The partition of Korea was decided at Potsdam between the US, UK and USSR, Becker admits this but apparently struggles to follow through. This means that Korea was split by three nation states not just mean old Uncle Sam. Just days after partition was agreed the Soviet Union had troops in the Korean peninsula having smashed the Japanese army in Manchuria. So really they ample opportunity to continue south but didn't because Uncle Joe favoured good relations with the Western powers. And of course Britain wouldn't lose sleep over arbitrary drawing of lines all over oriental lands. They were more occupied trying to keep control of the bits of the world map they coloured in.
Soviet and American military personnel meet in Seoul in 1945
So really the blame should be shared between the three. But that's just a starter, the main course starts at 05:03 when the host brings up the North Korea is a Dictatorship, allowing Becker to respond in a way that's all too familiar.
Well to be fair again he starts off well, bringing up the surprisingly obscure fact that South Korea was Dictatorship (and quite a brutal one at that) until the 1980's when the regime collapsed. But here's the problem though the regime did collapse despite heavy US backing, and the US had to accept it. That's not really a strong case for continued occupation, at least not after the collapse of the dictatorship in the 80's. Yes there are a large number of US military and intelligence officials in South Korea (approximately 30,000 plus troops in neighbouring nations like Japan) but that's true of many nations around the world including the UK. And yet we don't often see claims that Western Europe is occupied by America, except perhaps from the extreme fringe of the Anti-Nato crowd. The presence of foreign troops on national soil in peace time is not an indication of an occupation regardless of size. To occupy something means to maintain control of it via force, and is the United States currently doing this in South Korea? The answer is no, could the US start doing this? Yes it could, but that's speculation not fact.
Speaking of facts, yes the South Korean dictatorship was very reliant on the United States when it was founded, but the same was true of the North Korean dictatorship and its patron the Soviet Union. And yes the United States (with the backing of the UN including combat troops from many nations in large numbers) bombed and invaded North Korea... after North Korea bombed and invaded South Korea. Why is one ok and not the other?
Then he blathers on about North Korea being a "socialist government" which is odd since that's impossible. Socialism is the working class controlling the means of production, how does that apply to governance? He doesn't explain but then he goes on about one party rule which is just hilarious, since A) That has no bearing on Socialism or the lack of socialism, B) Isn't officially true the Korean Workers Party works with two other parties the Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist chongdu party a religious group. They also have representatives from the Korean residences in Japan. So he's going off message here.
But apparently that doesn't matter because North Korea has free education, free housing, free health care, guaranteed employment and no income taxes! wait what? Actually to be fair the Becker this is technically true North Korea officially abolished income taxes in 1974. Unfortunately its not actually true in the sense that taxes were genuinely abolished. All that changed was the method of collection. Here's an account of how taxation works in North Korea (made be pay walled) by a former North Korean. Basically they replaced income deductions with an obligation for free labour and payment in kind. Now to really stick the needle in Becker, this is the point where even a sympathetic listener should wake up and ignore him. Not only is what he said not true, it doesn't even tally with what he just said microseconds before. If North Korea genuinely has no taxation system in any shape or form then how on earth does it pay for that free housing? how do the schools and hospitals run? Even if the staff work for free they'll still use resources which need replenishing. And how can the State guarantee employment when it apparently has no financial reserves?
How does it pay for the Japanese website that hosts the Korean Central News Agency? Does the association of Korean residents of Japan foot the bill? And what about those embassies in other countries?
Property in London isn't cheap you know
There are really only two options here, either the North Korean government was using semantics to make itself more popular and impressive looking, what we call spin and PR in the west, and does have a taxation system of some sort, and as an alleged expert on North Korea Becker should be aware of this.
Or North Korea has made the transition from a capitalist economy into one based on needs, and everyone works to fulfil collective needs in the knowledge that the rest of the community will reciprocate with their own strengths and skills. But that can't be the case since North Korea has a currency system and a powerful state that employs everyone and is in charge of allocating resources for the benefit of the nation state, with little or no autonomy or decision making power available to the local populations. Oh and it allows private business to work and operate within its borders.
He then goes onto to bring up Saudi Arabia and Israel and other nations that the US quite likes that are quite horrible, to drum up the old charge of hypocrisy. But here's the problem is it not equally valid to call Becker a hypocrite too, since he also condemns some nations with terrible records but supports others? One thing I noticed was that he never really refuted the question about North Korea's darkside, he just shifted the conversation onto other topics, the US, South Korea, the US again, and only returned to the North so he could sing the praises of the regime.
This chat encapsulates an endemic problem with alternative media, the dependence on talking heads who can be very shady. Just because someone offers an opposing view to the mainstream narrative does not automatically give them credibility. What annoys me is that Becker had some valid points (about 40 seconds) but this was either buried in his ode to the leader, or undermined by his rhetorical tricks.
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