Accidental Anarchist film report

Twenty-seven people attended the screening at Firstsite on Sat 30 June of Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government. (See previous blogpost for details.)  It was free and there was a collection, which raised £75.

world population peak about ten billion

In this brilliantly clear video Swedish statistician Hans Rosling uses boxes to explain why the world total human population will never reach 11 billion.

Accidental Anarchist film

Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government is a rare instance of TV putting anarchism in a favourable light. You can see the trailer at www.accidentalanarchist.net. Produced by BBC Scotland and shown on BBC4 Storyville on Sunday 23 July 2017 at 21:50, the one-hour film tells how:

Carne Ross was a career diplomat who believed western democracy could save us all. But after the Iraq war he became disillusioned and resigned. This film traces Carne's worldwide quest to find a better way of doing things - from a farming collective in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street to Rojava in war-torn Syria - as he makes the epic journey from government insider to anarchist.

TEFL Colchester

• Fresh Beginnings (Migrant and Refugee Support Centre in Colchester) provides practical help to refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers around Essex including free English classes for refugees - six a week: Mon, Tue, Thu, 10.30-12 and 12.30-2 at the Bunting Rooms off Head Street.. 
• Local Quakers are also involved in helping provide free English classes.
• Refugee Action Colchester - on Facebook -  provides one on Wed 10am-1pm. 
• Volunteering with Refugees is an online course to help volunteers understand how they can best support the linguistic and social needs of refugees at www.futurelearn.com.

anti-Israel is not anti-Jewish

I'm outraged by Israel's treatment of the people of Gaza and the other Palestinian territories it occupies. I'm almost as vexed by the special status given to Israel by the West, which results from its position as the USA's outpost in western Asia, from which the USA can try to control the region's oil resources for its realpolitik ends.

World War Two: a just war?

See www.newleftproject.org blog of 19 February 2014 by Ian Sinclair, which notes how World War Two in the Pacific and Middle East was an imperialist venture and how Churchill and Stalin carved up South East Europe in 1944.

COP21 climate change agreement

Was any binding legal agreement reached at the COP21 climate change summit in Paris?  

Anti-Austerity Alliance in Ireland

Ireland elected six new socialist TDs (the Irish Dail's equivalent of MPs) at the February 2016 election. The vote reflected continuing resistance to austerity and in particular the powerful campaign against water charges, as reported in socialistworker.co.uk.

Petition for 2nd EU Referendum

A petition to Parliament is circulating in the "wake" of Brexit:

Conversation in a cable car

"Conversation in a cable car" by Ernest Hall, published in May 2016 Southern East Anglia Area Quaker Meeting Newsletter

Brussels Bombings - Frank Barat responds

One of the best reports/comments I've heard so far re Brussels Bombings - Frank Barat in Belgium: More War is Not the Answer to Brussels Bombings

#ThisIsACoup - Angela, suck our balls

In 4 bite-sized chunks (15 mins each approx) comes #ThisIsACoup, a four-part documentary series telling the story of how the European Union destroyed the first radical left government in modern history.

Malaya: UK tried to exterminate communists in 1950s

Malaya - Web of Deceit Chapter 16

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Brown University professor Mark Blyth, 2015 -

The needless destruction of Dresden on 13-14 February 1945

With the Second World War effectively won, an estimated 135,000 German people were killed for no military purpose on the orders of Winston Churchill and Bomber Harris. There is a statue of Churchill in Parliament Square and one of Bomber Harris on the Strand in central London. 

No Glory: The Real History of the First World War

Historian Neil Faulkner looks at the real reasons for the outbreak of the First World War. This pamphlet is part of No Glory in War, a national campaign of political, cultural, and educational activities that opposes ‘nationalist’ interpretations of the First World War, and aims to promote international solidarity and peace.

I am Malala

I read this over Easter* and broadly agree with this Guardian review. I hadn’t realised Malala was already an international star long before her attempted assassination: she’d already won a national peace prize and written a blog for the BBC that was meant to be anonymous but didn’t really remain so for long.

 

The Taliban shooting must be one of the most back-firing attacks in history. The Taliban catapulted Malala to international superstardom. Violence can sometimes be the most counter-productive thing a terrorist can do. To give another example relevant to this story, it’s like the CIA funding and backing Al-Qaeda (after the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) which back-fired in that it helped create both the Taliban and the suicide bombers who were able to bomb the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. 

Since WW2 USA has bombed 21+ countries: New Internationalist

Since the Second World War
THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
has bombed 21 countries

Charlie Hebdo and Serb Radio

On 23 April 1999 NATO bombed the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters in what was one of the largest incidents of civilian deaths, and certainly the largest in Belgrade, of the Kosovo war. Sixteen RTS civilian technicians and workers were killed and sixteen were wounded.

Noam Chomsky views the NATO bombing as an act of terrorism. Comparing it with the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Wednesday 7 January 2015, he criticises the hypocrisy shown by media and politicians in the West, which in general viewed the 1999 bombing as legitimate, noting that, "There were no demonstrations or cries of outrage, no chants of 'We are RTS'”

See also Noam Chomsky (2015) "The Charlie Hebdo Attack and Hypocrisy" on YouTube

Pope Francis calls for action on climate change and capitalism

Go to www.democracynow.org/2014/12/31/pope_francis_calls_for_action_on to hear how Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change, which will urge 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide to take action.