The London IWW

Its the anniversary of World War One, so I like everyone else will be posting up bits of history relating to the war and the period. For a start here's a few pieces about the Industrial Workers of the World.

Here's a video of a lecture by Nick Heath about the first IWW organisation in London and its activities during the war.



And here's a chapter from Ken Weller that covers the same ground.

A chapter from Weller's excellent Don't be a Soldier! - the radical anti-war movement in north London 1914-1918. This was the only period in which the Wobblies had any significant presence among the UK radical workers' movement.

Note: the NLHL was the North London Herald League, a network of generally libertarian/anti-parliamentarist militants engaged in agitation around industrial and anti-war struggles.
With similar politics, the WSF was the Workers' Socialist Federation, which emerged from earlier East London womens' suffrage groups; Sylvia Pankhurst was a prominent member and it published the Workers' Dreadnought radical newspaper.

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12. The Industrial Workers of the World
The IWW was another part of the complex jigsaw of North London revolutionary politics. Many of the founders of the NLHL had been 'Wobblies' and a close relationship continued throughout the War. Up to about 1916 the North London Local of the IWW had met at the NLHL's premises, but it then moved to its own headquarters in unfurnished rooms in Theobalds Road, Bloomsbury.

With the introduction of conscription several local Wobblies went to prison, while others went on the run. Some of them even managed to leave the country, while at least one member, Frank Ginger (alias Grainger),(1) had joined the army, fought on the Somme, and then deserted and spent the rest of the War avoiding arrest. Nevertheless, some of the 'old guard' remained active; these included Albert Young, A. B. Elsbury and Jack Smith, who were joined by a new wave of members who included Harold Edwards(2) (later secretary-treasurer of the Local), Arthur Titley,(3) Dick Beech and Esther Archer.(4)

The Local had a wide range of activities; for example, several of its members worked at the Hispano Suiza factory in North London where Arthur Titley was a shop steward. The Local was also heavily involved in the Workers' Committee movement; one of' its members, Tommy Walsh,(5) a carpenter, was apparently secretary of the London Building Workers' Committee, while Vic Beacham was also active after his release from prison.

The Local maintained a regular speaking pitch at Finsbury Park. To raise cash it even printed its own money, designed and printed by Jack Smith. Members could purchase these notes, which were in 2s 6d, 5s, 10s, and £1 denominations, and could redeem them later if they needed the money. No examples of these notes (which were apparently rather beautiful) seem to have survived.
The Local printed many of its own leaflets and 'sticky-backs' and it seems that one of these leaflets led to a drama which could have ended in tragedy. The authorities, possibly with the aid of an informer, managed to track some of those responsible and in March 1918, five men associated with the Local were arrested. Three of them, including Arthur Titley, were sent to prison for up to six months, while two others (who seem to have been American seamen) were deported. The imprisoned men had a very bad time: Arthur Titley was beaten up on several occasions and lost three stone in weight.

Meanwhile, back in the Local, the hunt for the alleged informer was on. The fear of informers was not simple paranoia. The authorities did have networks of spies, and there was massive interception of letters and (for the first time) systematic telephone tapping. Earlier in the War, infamous agent provocateur Alex Gordon(6) had been active in the London area, and he later admitted that his visits to the German Communist Club in Charlotte Street, Tottenham Court Road and the IWW Hall in Whitechapel had been the prelude to police raids on them. Plainclothes police were familiar figures at meetings as they gathered material for prosecutions. The relationships between radicals and the Special Branch men who haunted their meetings were apparently quite complex. Edward Hennem in a letter to me describes them thus:

I knew of no police provocateurs in the Herald League. The blokes who came to our meetings were almost close to us — in fact, one was quite influenced by our philosophy and I think he excluded from his notes some of the stupid remarks of the idiots, such as drilling with broomsticks in Epping Forest. Off course there were some of the other type.

The spy fever within the North London Local of the IWW culminated in a 'trial' at which the man in the dock was A. B. Elsbury, who was ably defended by his brother Sam. It is the unanimous opinion of survivors that Elsbury was completely innocent; fortunately he was acquitted - if the verdict had gone the other way it is difficult to estimate what would have happened. The Local contained some tough customers who had cut their teeth in the turbulent workers' movements of Australia, Latin America and the American West; they had a short way with narks.(7)

There seem to have been a considerable number of firearms floating around the movement after the War, most of them originating with returning servicemen. The going rate for a Lee Enfield rifle was about £2 10s. One of the features of this murky underbelly of the revolutionary movement in the immediate post-War years was a quite considerable gun-running operation to the Irish republicans. Much of this material apparently left the country via Liverpool. There were even rumours of arms stockpiled for potential domestic consumption. Quite a few survivors recall that this trade had considerable North London ramifications, not only in the radical milieu but also among the large local Irish population.

One of the most remarkable members of the Local was Dick Beech. Born about 1893 at Hull, Beech was a huge man some 6ft 3in tall. He had run away to sea with his brother Charlie and they had spent their early lives travelling the world, working in gold and copper mines in Australia, Mexico and Colorado. They presumably joined the IWW in Colorado. At the outbreak of War they were seamen on the Liverpool-USA run, which may have had something to do with the Local's ability to smuggle men from one side of the Atlantic to the other.(8) While serving at sea they were torpedoed twice, on one occasion only surviving by a miracle after spending some time in the water.(9)

In August, 1920, Dick Beech represented the IWW at the 2nd Congress of the Comintern in Russia, and it was during this period that he and his brother fought with the Red Army and apparently did illegal work in Finland behind the white lines.

By 1921 Dick Beech was back in Britain. By this time he was a member of the WSF and he represented it under its temporary name of the Communist Party-British Section of the Third International (CP-BSTI) at the Leeds Convention of' the Communist Party of Great Britain in January whence he was elected to the CP's Provisional Executive Committee.

The Beech Brothers were, perhaps significantly, in Ireland for some time in the early 1920s. One consequence of this was that Dick married Moira, the daughter of James Connolly. Dick was also extremely active in the early unemployed movement, where his size made him a favourite target for police batons during demonstrations; on at least one occasion he was badly beaten.

In the 20s, Dick Beech seems to have worked primarily for one of the Soviet trading agencies but he also apparently acted as a courier and maritime specialist for the Comintern. In the late 1920s, he was editor of a journal called the International Seafarer. Some time in the early 1930s, Dick Beech left the Communist Party with some bitterness, although the exact reasons are obscure, and joined the 1LP. He then became active in the Chemical Workers' Union and was for many years a lay member of its executive and editor of the Union's journal. In 1944-5 he became the union's president.
Dick Beech had many international links, many of them dating from the pre-War syndicalist movement. He knew Trotsky personally and was deeply influenced by his ideas, although he was never a member of a Trotskyist group. In his last years Beech was a member of the Labour Party. He died in Harrow in 1955.(10)

In the latter part of the War the British IWW had a period of substantial growth. It had its own hall in Whitechapel, and was very active in a number of industries in the East End of London. By January 1919 it was substantial enough to be one of the four national convening bodies of the Hands Off Russia Movement (the others were the BSP, ILP and the SLP).(11) Frank Grainger was a prominent speaker, representing the IWW at many Hands Off Russia meetings. The IWW with its strong international connections always had a contingent of workers from abroad within its ranks, especially a number of American seamen.

The most famous American Wobbly associated with the NLHL was George Swazey, who was the National Organizer of the British IWW. Hennem writes:

He came to England and linked up with the Herald League during the War. He could speak for five hours at a stretch on an open-air platform and could keep an audience convulsed. He was perhaps the most humorous speaker I have ever heard.(12)

With the formation of the Communist Party in 1920, the British IWW decided to dissolve itself and join, but many Wobblies didn't stay members for long. Some departed after the suppression of the Kronstadt Commune in 1921, while others quietly left in the ensuing years. The experience of Charlie Lahr perhaps illustrates this process. Lahr had joined the CP - after a short spell in the WSF - and was a member of its Central London branch, whose catchment area included Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell. While in Berlin in 1921, Lahr managed to obtain, and have translated, the text of the New Economic Policy of the Soviet Government. On returning to London, Lahr and Esther Archer found that two other members of the branch, Eden and Cedar Paul,(13) had quite independently translated the same document. The four of them were so opposed to the new policy that they closed down the branch and left the Party.(14)

Of the 16 members of the North London Local of the IWW about whom I have relevant information, at least 12 joined the CP. The amount of time they remained members varied widely, but only two became lifelong adherents. At first glance it might seem surprising that so many activists from the anarchist and syndicalist traditions joined the CP. However, many of these militants saw the revolutionary overthrow of the Tsar and the Kerensky regime, and the slogan 'All Power to the Soviets', as the embodiment of everything they had stood for, and while many of them soon became deeply disillusioned with Leninism and everything it represented, others stayed with the Communist Party for the rest of their lives.

The confused attitude of the anti-parliamentarian wing of the revolutionary movement at this time towards Bolshevism was startlingly expressed in an article by George H. V. Rose's in The Communist, organ of the Communist League,(16) of May 1919.

Therefore we identify ourselves with the Third International, with the communism of Marx, and with that personification of the spirit of revolt, Bakunin,(17) of whom the Third International is but the natural and logical outcome.

Notes
1. Frank Ginger, alias Frank Grainger, went on to be a foundation member of the CP; he later left it and was prominent in the SPGB; still later he was a lecturer for the Economic League.
2. Harold Edwards was born in 1900 at Theobalds Road. He became an anarchist at a very early age. When he became liable for military service in 1918 he went on the run but remained politically active and was a strong supporter of the NLHL. While he was living 'underground' in Soho he came into close contact with the considerable colonies of Spanish and Italian anarchists living in that area; the most notable of these was Errico Malatesta, who once had an electrical engineering shop in Upper Street, Islington. Edwards was also a member of the Communistischer Arbeiter Bildungs Verein, the German Workers' Communist Club in Charlotte Street, founded in 1840, which included among its alumni both Marx and Engels. In 1920 Edwards became secretary of the club for its last six months of existence.
Harold Edwards dropped out of political activity in the 1920s and became an antiquarian bookseller. He and David Goodway have produced an unpublished manuscript, Harold Edwards, a Revolutionary Life, on which I have heavily depended for both these notes and the section on the IWW as a whole. I would also like to thank both the authors for the considerable individual help they have given me.
3. Arthur Titley was born near the Angel in Islington. After the War, unable to find work, he became a window cleaner. He was an early member of Islington CP, in which he apparently stayed until his death. This, I am told, was in an air raid in the Second World War.
4. Esther Archer, 1897-1969, born Esther Argeband. Her family lived in White-chapel. During the War she was a well known open-air speaker, noted for her flaming red hair. Her main associations seem to have been with the IWW and the WSF. Esther worked at the Rothman's cigarette factory in the East End, which she organised for the IWW. She first met Charlie Lahr while he was interned; after he was released in 1919 they joined up and lived together for the rest of their lives. They had two daughters.
5. Tommy Walsh was a carpenter; he had been a member of the North London Industrialist League (see note 3, page 23) since at least 1912. He was also an early member of the British IWW. After the War he was for a while secretary of the International Club — the successor of the German Workers' Club. Unable to find work at his trade, he seems afterwards to have made a living as a racing tipster.
6. Alex Gordon was the person responsible in March 1917 for the entrapment of Alice Wheeldon of Derby, and her daughter and son-in-law, who received 10, five, and seven years' imprisonment respectively for a 'plot' to assassinate Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson. Gordon, posing as a man on the run, had been sheltered by Mrs Wheeldon and had repaid her by setting her up and then informing the authorities. Mrs Wheeldon had a hard time in gaol and became seriously ill, after serving two years, she was released; fourteen months later died.
7. Harry Young remembers being in a pub with Dick Beech and Arthur Titley when a fight broke out in another part of the bar; Beech immediately produced a knife while Titley produced a revolver. Incidentally Titley was a very good boxer.
8. The British IWW was pretty strong in Liverpool; it also had substantial Locals in Glasgow and Hull.
9. Dick Beech wrote an account of this experience in Torpedoed, and other short stories, Progressive Publishing, Harrow 1943,62pp. One wonders if the brothers Beech and their comrades ever met Captain Tupper's 'torpedoed' seamen; it would have been an interesting encounter.
10. I would like to thank John Archer, Bob Edwards and Dick Beech (the nephew of Dick Beech senior) for providing me with much information about Dick and Charlie Beech.
11. There were a number of North London trade union branches, as well as the Herald Leagues of Battersea, Croydon, Fulham and Stepney, also represented at the founding meeting of the 'Hands Offs Russia' Movement.
12. Hennem, op cit.; Swazey later returned to the USA.
13. Eden (1865-1967) and Cedar Paul (died 1972) were leading Marxist intellectuals, responsible for translating many of Marx's writings into English, notably the Everyman edition of Capital. They also jointly wrote several books on birth control. Both rejoined the Communist Party later in the 20s.
14. Charlie Lahr (1885-1967) was a fascinating man whom I knew quite well. Born in Germany, he came to Britain in 1905. A life-long anarchist, Lahr joined the IWW before the First World War. Interned in both World Wars, Lahr ran bookshops at various sites from the early 20s until well into the 1960s; the most notable of these was at Red Lion Street, Bloomsbury, the shop becoming a centre of radical and advanced literary ideas. Lahr introduced many people, myself included, into the highways and byways of political and social thought. The best single source for Charlie's life is a memoir by David Goodway, 'Charles Lahr; Anarchist, Bookseller, Publisher', in the June–July 1977 issue of The London Magazine. I would also like to thank Charlie's daughters Oonagh and Sheila for their unstinting help.
15. G. H. V. Rose was living in Hammersmith at this time. He had left Islington in 1915. He had been active in the local ILP in the first decade of the century. About 1909 he became closely associated with Guy Aldred, a connection which lasted until the early 30s, when he rejoined the ILP. Rose was a hairdresser and played a leading part in the hairdressing section of the shopworkers' union; so did his two sons who were also active in the ILP in the 1930s and the 40s.
The Rose family connections are interesting as they illustrate the familial links which occur again and again in the socialist movement of the period: G. H. V. Rose's father, Frederick Rose, was secretary of the Mildmay Club (see note 3, pages 10 and 11) while his father-in-law was G. W. Patterson (1859-1939), who from the mid-1880s had been an activist in the socialist movement both locally and nationally. Patterson went on to become a prominent propagandist and played an important role in the formation of a number of trade unions. He was friendly with major figures in the movement, such as William Morris, Tom Mann and George Lansbury. Patterson had also been Assistant Organising Secretary of the National Daily Herald League.
16. The Communist League was a short lived organisation which had emerged in March 1919 from a conference called by the London District Council of the SLP; it rapidly attracted to itself a number of recruits from the anti-parliamentarian wing of the socialist movement, strongly laced with anarchists and syndicalists. At its peak the Communist League had well over 20 branches, mostly in London and Scotland but with a few elsewhere, notably in South Wales. The Communist League seems to have lasted about a year, after which it rapidly dissolved into the Communist Party.
17. Bakunin was a major anarchist figure and opponent of Marx in the First
International!

PDF Version here

When Block Meets Block

The last of the Mr Block comics I have, both about World War One and its effects on working people. I paired these up since I find the combination to be really melancholic.

The rest of the strips
The archive including extra's

The Untold History of Independence Day

The Real News network did an interview with author Peter Linebaugh about what's often left out of mainstream retelling and celebration of the 4th of July.  It raises some very interesting points some of which were elaborated here.

The book the Many Headed Hydra also goes into more detail and can be found here. There is also an article by the same authors by the same name with a different subheading which can be found here.

Over all I think the most interesting point relates to the reasons for independence, I don't think its much of a secret that the British Empire at the time of the Revolution at least had a generally positive relationship with the neighbouring indigenous tribes. Because of this and the stated intent of the Revolutionaries to expand further inland led to a number of those tribes siding with the British, though they made for erratic allies, they did sometimes mistakenly attack Loyalists and the Revolutionaries heavily exploited the imagery of coloured savages rampaging through white Christian villages.

Mr Block: He insults members of the I.W.W.

The first of quite a few World War One strips. The ones that made Mr Block most notorious outside the readership of Solidarity and other Wobbly Newspapers.

You know this is almost certainly the smartest get rich scheme Mr Block ever came up with. Unfortunately that's because it relies on the Blockish attitudes present in far too many of us.

The Marx and Engels Show episode 1

Found this first episode of what promises to be an amazing series.If you don't get the joke its a reference to the rivalry between Marx and Proudhon. Proudhon wrote a book called the Philosophy of Poverty. Marx soon after published a book called the Poverty of Philosophy which criticised Proudhon's ideas.

North Korea becoming more like (a stereotypical) South Carolina

Ah Rodman, are last best hope for peace. Sadly that isn't a joke.

With everything that's been going on in the world this is admittedly a minor point but it struck me as interesting. Among my many obscure hobbies I include Ostalgia and North Korea watching. Now North Korea watching is a bit like hunting for Bigfoot there's a lot of reports but most of them are exaggerated or an outright hoax. The only real difference is that here Bigfoot does his share of the exaggerating and lying.

This has been a hobby of mine on and off for years, I've watched every documentary on North Korea I know of, read several books and on rare occasion give the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) a curious look through. If you're not familiar with that network the KCNA is the official English language news service -with a small Spanish version- of the North Korean government, which is strangely hosted in Japan. It has many problems and you'll quickly realise what they are when reading through them.

For the most part it doesn't actually give you any relevant information, most of the articles are acknowledgements that the North Korean government "greeted" or more accurately sent a letter to a head of state somewhere congratulating them and saying how nice it would be if the two nations worked together. The rest was really dull lists of things the leader did and attended. As a result I go months without even glancing at it, as a result I missed what is possibly the closest the KCNA has come to reporting and indeed making news in a long time.

I'm sure you're familiar with the UN's Human Rights Council's investigation on North Korea, the one that's sparked fresh allegations of torture, prison camps and mass systemic brutalisation of a large number of North Korea's population. The one were those sketches came from.

 

Well predictably the North Korean regime didn't take that well, and it reacted just like every other political group does when under criticism, deflect attention by claiming the source of the criticism is acting in ill faith. They did so by going in a strange direction however, the official line accuses the USA of being behind it shocking no one, but in addition to that they attacked one of the Councils Commissioners Michael Kirby. Since his from Australia a close ally of the USA that's not really surprising either, but instead of cracking jokes about Crocodile Dundee and ending with "G'day mate" the KCNA decided to attack his sex life.

Kirby is homosexual and currently Australia's been having one blazing row after another over the Gay marriage thing. The KCNA singled out Kirby's homosexuality and mocked this facet of Australian domestic politics. Here's the article in full emphasis is my own.

KCNA Commentary Slams Artifice by Political Swindlers

Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Michael Kirby, chairman of the "Commission of Inquiry (CI)" on human rights situation in the DPRK, called a press conference at the UN headquarters on April 17.

He told reporters of different countries, skeptical about the truth of CI's "human rights report", that it was based on "testimonies" by "defectors". With such awkward excuse, he asserted it is high time that a UNSC was called to discuss the DPRK's "human rights issue" and bring it to the International Criminal Court.

His rash act is a last-ditch effort intended to lend credence to the "report" peppered with fabrications and create an atmosphere of international pressure on the DPRK in this regard. Lurking behind it is a dishonest and political purpose of the U.S. and its followers seeking to undermine the ideology and social system of the DPRK.

Now, the forces hostile toward the DPRK regard the "human rights issue" as a main lever for stifling it since they had no way out over the "nuclear issue". After all, such political swindlers as Kirby were mobilized so as to internationalize the nonexistent "human rights issue" of the DPRK. As for Kirby who took the lead in cooking the "report", he is a disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality. He is now over seventy, but he is still anxious to get married to his homosexual partner.

This practice can never be found in the DPRK boasting of the sound mentality and good morals, and homosexuality has become a target of public criticism even in Western countries, too. In fact, it is ridiculous for such gay to sponsor dealing with others' human rights issue. As been already known, what was put up by Kirby and his group as data is all testimonies made by those "defectors", who are runaways or terrorists as they betrayed their country and nation after committing indelible crimes.

However, the Kirby group styling itself a judge accepted such unconfirmed data to cook up the "report". This makes one question if the group has an elementary legal sense. After all, they changed their position as judges with money paid by the U.S. and its followers. At present, many countries and even Western media and personages are astonished at the Kirby group's "report" presented to a sacred UN body, terming it a replica of Nazi-style arbitrariness.

It is so pitiable for the U.S. and its followers to attempt to frighten the DPRK by letting such dirty swindlers, ready to do anything for money, invent an anti-DPRK false document. The army and people of the DPRK reject the fabricated document as a foul crime unprecedented in the world history of human rights and will surely force them to pay dearly for it.

So in one brief article the KCNA and by extension the North Korean government has managed to cover an impressive number of homophobic slurs, we've got references to promiscuity, describing gay marriage as absurd and denying homosexuality exists in North Korea. The last one reminds me of when North Korea claimed disability not caused by an accident didn't exist in North Korea either.

The old lecher himself

Now I doubt this really surprises anyone North Korea is many things but San Francisco it isn't. And if as many have suspected for a long time that the North Korean regime is capable of treating its own people in just a handful of the atrocities alleged over the years then a like of social progressivism is trivial by comparison.Though given that the new line appears to be that North Korea treats homosexuality as a form of decadence and taking into account how their system treats people for lesser deviations that doesn't really bode well North Korean gays.

The KCNA article did however surprise me, since I can remember a time when North Korea was bragging about how irrational the West was in regard to homosexuality. Several years ago I went onto Korea-dpr.com "the official web page of the DPR of Korea" but in reality its run by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) a small international gathering of mostly alienated Stalinists. However since the KFA is sponsored by the North Korean government and organises a lot of those group travel packages to North Korea, it is an unofficial arm of North Korean foreign policy. Anyway they had an FAQ section which I browsed, though interestingly I can no longer find it on there website and had to use a webarchive. The FAQ seemed pretty shifty though I was amused by the answer to a question about working in North Korea being answered with "No", whereas all the other questions got a paragraph at least.

Question twenty was

20. What is North Korea's stance on homosexuality?

Due to tradition in Korean culture, it is not customary for individuals of any sexual orientation to engage in public displays of affection(1). As a country that has embraced science and rationalism, the DPRK recognizes that many individuals are born with homosexuality as a genetic trait and treats them with due respect.

Homosexuals in the DPRK have never been subject to repression, as in many capitalist regimes around the world. However, North Koreans also place a lot of emphasis on social harmony and morals(2). Therefore, the DPRK rejects
many characteristics of the popular gay culture in the West(3), which many perceive to embrace consumerism, classism and promiscuity(4).

1: What has this got to do with homosexuality?
2: What exactly does this mean? to me it sounds like they "voluntarily" conform to societal pressures, but I don't know because they don't elaborate.
3: A false implication that there is such a thing as monolithic gay culture.
4: Ok, so what do they do instead?

Looking for official laws on the subject or statements didn't clear it up, as far as I can tell there have been no official statements by the North Korean government or the three legal political parties in North Korea about homosexuality. Though North Korea did vote against the UN declaration in support of LGBT rights, and also voted in favour of a resolution that supported sexual orientation as grounds for execution.

So over all not really great but there is definitely a regression and contradiction between this and the much more recent article by the KCNA. So could this be a sign of a drift into even more extreme social conservatism by the new Dear Leader? Maybe its worth keeping an eye on so long as its part of the overall framework of critique and observation of North Korea. Personally speaking if Kim Jong Un decided to embrace the Gays and use them to make his regime look more palatable and reformed internationally, whilst maintaining the oppressive system as a whole like his fathers administration sort of did in 2009 then I won't be cheering. This is just another example of the poor relationship between sex and sexuality and authoritarian politics.

Now before we wrap up you may be thinking this is evidence is a bit slim, and I agree assuming you are thinking that. The reason why I'm using just these two sources for my main argument is because those are the only two sources I am absolutely sure accurately reflect the views of the North Korean government regarding homosexuality at the time they were published. The said thing is that most stories about North Korea even those appearing on fairly reliable news sources can be false or exaggerated. I did however find other sources on the status and treatment of Gay North Koreans and will give a few interesting extracts. But I can't really vouch for there accuracy so keep that in mind if you wish to read on.

North Korean news has a pretty interesting article on the subject that talks to several defectors, KFA and KORYO tour operators and other North Korea watchers.

“You have flourishing same-sex relationships before marriage – it’s not conceived of as sex, it’s just physical affection,” Smith told NK News, and she said it is highly likely that same-sex relationships take place, just as in the West, in gender-segregated places such as the army.

Overall I find NK News to be fairly reliable, they have access to KFA and North Korean sources but are willing to criticise and examine North Korea too. They also have a KCNA watch section which despite just posting KCNA news verbatim manages to improve KCNA coverage. For starters they have a search bar meaning its possible to actually search for specific news items, to do that on the KCNA website you have to go to the calendar and check day by day. It also includes photo's KCNA does have photo's but to see them you have to go onto there Korean language photo service. It also a graphing tool so you can see how many KCNA news pieces are about or mention something in particular.

Echoing the NK News story I've found this piece by Koryo tours, the company that handles most of the group visits to North Korea, they supply the guides and pass and assign the travel plans. This is what it had to say.

While North Koreans will deny that homosexuality exists in the DPRK it is more a case of not existing culturally than anything else. It isn’t an inherently anti-gay country, just somewhere that this is never mentioned, and people grow up generally completely ignorant of the existence of alternative sexuality as well as gender issues, not to mention the mechanics of any kind of non-vanilla sex.

Now I personally don't like Koryo tours as a source of accurate information on North Korea in most areas because they are simply very dishonest. In that same article they deny that Koryo tours is part of the North Korean government, even though they admit to being set up by the KITC which is the national travel company and owned by the state. In this particular case they claim that "there are many differences between the State, state-ownership, and the Government" that simply is a lie. The government runs the state so it is also in charge of the states institutions like KITC. In Britain state owned businesses while run like any other company were ultimately under the control of the relevant Minister, Energy, Transport, Housing etc.

But in this case I don't really see what they'd gain by lying and what they say is backed up elsewhere so I guess its reliable.

Glenn Beck invokes the Elders of Zion

I was browsing youtube videos like I usually do when taking a break online, one of the channels I'm subscribed to is Right Wing Watch a channel that catalogues the American right wing fringe. A usual suspect its former Fox news host Glenn Beck, now Glenn likes to pretend he's an historian and often comes out with bits of trivia that he just made up but this video was a special example.

Apparently some guy called McDaniel lost an election, which upset Glenn. In fact Glenn is so upset that he's going to do something really stupid, especially when you remember some of the incidents that got him kicked off of Fox News. Glenn is going to bring up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the most famous pre internet world wide hoaxes, and a major cause of anti-semitic thought and deeds in many corners of the globe.



Before I start pointing out how stupid the above video was I will say something positive, Beck does acknowledge in an obtuse way that the protocols are a hoax. Now that's out of the way lets get started, first we have the classic attach sinister sounding labels to bad things to make both appear worse trick that's become quite common amongst American right wing pundits. Second and far more importantly its an out and out lie, the Protocols were published in 1903, and widely circulated throughout Russia and then translated into many other languages, the Nazi's spread it in Germany and the English language translation was heavily promoted by Henry Ford.

Behold the first edition

In 1903 the Russian government was still under the control of the Romanov dynasty more commonly known as Tsarism. Its "author" was Pyotr Rachovsky the chief of the Okhrana the Tsar's brutal secret police. Though the title of author is disputed because he plagiarised from German and French novels to compile the text. So really the author credit should be split between Pyotr Rachovsky, Hermann Goedsche and Maurice Joly, who plagiarized in turn from Eugène Sue.

Proof of its forgery dates back to at least 1921, despite this the toxic legacy of the Protocols continue to find purchase. Why would the Russian Empire published such a book? Well because the Russian Empire was the most anti-semitic state in existence before the Nazi's. Pogroms or indiscriminate and brutal raids against Jewish settlements and districts (ghettos by another name) were common and well known and unpunished. Also at the time the Russian Empire was attempting to strengthen itself by promoting anti-semitism to distract from the worsening social conditions in the Empire. The Protocols depict Revolutionary groups as tools of a Jewish plot to gain control of nations, so an uprising against the Tsar would be seen (the Okhrana hoped) as Jewish conspiracy and resisted by the none Jewish peoples of the Empire.

Now onto the "Marxism Communism" bit. The Bolsheviks had only just split from the Mensheviks in that very same year the Protocols were published, and was a heavily suppressed, small and clandestine party. Even if we didn't know that the Russian government was behind the Protocols it is simply impossible for Lenin and his crew could have published and so widely distributed the book. And why would they wish to do so given that a number of their senior members like Leon Trotsky were Jewish, and that the Bolshevik party was just the sort of secretive underground group that the Protocols describe as tools of the Jews.

Moving on from the Bolsheviks, many Anarchist, Communist and Socialist groups throughout the world had prominent Jewish members, Rosa Luxembourg, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Karl Marx etc. In fact Jews were so prominent in the Labour movement that it lead to birth of another popular and related anti-semitic slur "Communism/Socialism/Anarchism is run by Jews".  In part this slur was cemented by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Hitler wanted to united the Western world in a crusade against the evils of Bolshevism which he claimed was a Jewish conspiracy, and plenty of other right wing groups have used this Jewish connection as proof of conspiracy.

So again why on earth would Communists publish a book attacking their own members and just make it even harder for them to organise and recruit given how common anti-semitic believes were in 1903?