The War on the Poor

I was listening to some tunezzz today and I came across this quote by the lead singer of the great band Fugazi:

"I want to talk to you about the war, I want to talk to you about the war, not the war in the middle east. The war in the middle city, the inner city, the war against the poor... Washington DC over 700 people were killed last year. This is a war worth fighting."

The war in the middle east was not the current Iraq war or proxy wars in Gaza or Iran. This was spoken in 1990 and the war was the first gulf war under the first Bu$h. But as time passes, sadly little changes: the more unequal society is, the more the poor suffer, the more all suffer. (Out of interest there is a book on this 'The Spirit Level' who's authors are up for a prize in Bristol, there are some other good books in the list, but this is best IMHO.)

Here's the video too:

Reading Room - Killing Rage

I've just finished reading Killing Rage by Eamon Collins.

This book is the personal account of Eamon Collins – an IRA man during the worst of the troubles, then turned state's witness, who is now dead, assassinated as he walked his dogs. Early on in the book a key formative event occurs that send Collins from by-stander to terrorist. A sniffer dog get excited during a search of their farm mistaking the small of creosote for explosives. The army (some of whom Collins claims had been drinking) then moved to arrest him, his dad and also his brother in a violent and protracted assault. Here is a sample of the account:

“They told me to lie on the floor [of the jeep] as three soldiers got in on either side of me. They began to hit me with their rifle buts on my legs arms, back and buttocks. I could hear my mother screaming hysterically. One of my guards shouted, 'fuck off you old whore!' as the jeeps drove off.”

During the journey and back at he army base, the torture and humiliation – akin to what we've seen in Guantanamo – continues until the army finally realise they've make a mistake and arrested 3 innocent men and release them...

“Other times I would feel a surge of rage whose power would unbalance me: I would sit alone in my room and think with pleasure of blowing the heads of those para[chute regiment] scum.”

A threat he would later make real as he proceeds to join the IRA and run intelligence operations targeting soldiers and cops. Other points he makes that are vial to understanding how a terror group operates are that without the support of committed and sizable groups of civilians to hide, provide intelligence and recruits, to finance and assist the IRA, they would simply not exist. Put simply while some of the ordinary people felt that the army and police were not there to protect them but to oppress them, they will support groups like the IRA. Here's that writ large in a reported discussion between Collins and a British intelligence officer, after he had turned against the IRA:

“One of his most interesting questions was: 'If I had unlimited resources to fight the IRA, how would you advise me to use them?' I had a simple answer: Support, encourage and make possible at every turn the development of Sinn Fein...once the Republican movement got sucked into the constitutional political system they would eventually be waving goodbye to the armed struggle.”

Which is exactly what happened. This is why the west should be taking to Hamas and the Taliban. There is simply no other choice and this book lay out why this is the case from an 'insider' point of view. Collins is also blunt about the damage the armed struggle does to the communities that support it, on how it forces the most aggressive and militant to the fore and how all involved- from the IRA to the British army – becomes locked in a military struggle of ever-descending depths.

This book should be read by all those making policy for the failing War of Terror. It gives the tactical - never mind moral – importance of why our human rights matter – more so during a time of war than in peace.

The Road - The film and the book...

I went to the the post-apocalyptic film 'The Road' on the weekend. I'd read the book when it came out and while it is one of the bleakest things I've ever read, the power and the beauty of the writing keeps you going. The film is the same - powerful yet bleak. When the book came out, George Monbiot was haunted by it and wrote about it's importance:

Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road considers what would happen if the world lost its biosphere, and the only living creatures were humans, hunting for food among the dead wood and soot. Some years before the action begins, the protagonist hears the last birds passing over, "their half-muted crankings miles above where they circled the earth as senselessly as insects trooping the rim of a bowl." McCarthy makes no claim that this is likely to occur, but merely speculates about the consequences.

All pre-existing social codes soon collapse and are replaced with organised butchery, then chaotic, blundering horror. What else are the survivors to do?: the only remaining resource is human. It is hard to see how this could happen during humanity’s time on earth, even by means of the nuclear winter McCarthy proposes. But his thought experiment exposes the one terrible fact to which our technological hubris blinds us: our dependence on biological production remains absolute. Civilisation is just a russeting on the skin of the biosphere, never immune from being rubbed against the sleeve of environmental change.

This is the book's power - when the sun is blotted out and the plants stop growing, everything begins to die. The film carries that same bleak vision - other than the few remaining people, you only see two other living things in the film. There is also small, but hugely significant scene where the father (Viggo Mortensen) is looking thought the tiny collection of bits and bobs his son carries with him - among them is a stone-age arrow head. A premonition of where our hubris may lead us. The rapid decent of humanity to utter barbarity also have echoes of John Gray's writings on politics - that human rights are not cumulative and must ever be defended. But the biggest message seared into your brain by the film is of a world where the environment is shattered utterly. Totally. The old man they encounter is a lost prophet, "I know this was coming. The signs were there." He declares, "But most people thought it was a hoax." The warning signs are there...

There is little to reassure us in a world where the future is going to be so unlike the past – indeed, we are now entering a new geological era, in which the major chemical cycles of carbon, water and nitrogen have all been altered immeasurably by human activity. How far will we have to push these planetary stresses for cracks to appear in our modern civilisation, and for the evil within us all to tear once more across the land? ... If we ever do push the planet so far that the majority of the human race is left without food or water in uninhabitable areas, what will it feel like to be one of the starving millions? Initially we might all come together in adversity, in a kind of global blitz spirit. McCarthy admits this possibility: at first, others had "come to help" the survivors. But "within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. The screams of the murdered. By day, the dead impaled on spikes along the road." We won't stay united for long.

How can anyone prepare for this kind of outcome? Over the years, [Mark Lynas, author on global warming, has] received many emails from people asking where they might need to set up home if runaway global warming begins. New Zealand, perhaps? Norway? I'm sure all the questioners share the same survivalist fantasy, the one where they take their family into the hills and survive on a small farmstead, stockpiling rice and baked beans and keeping a loaded rifle by the well-guarded front door. The Road exposes even this limited comfort as being futile: sooner or later the ammunition will run out, the pounding on the door will begin to splinter away the hinges, and the ravening, faceless horde will pour in. If the worst happens the truth is that there is nowhere to hide, and the road itself will offer no comforts. Of that we can be certain.

The only thing the film missed was the narration of the last paragraph of the book - it's not a plot twist at all, but a hunting lament who's meaning is left to the reader to interpret...

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

Reading Room: The Eliminationists - How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right

So what is Eliminationism? It is the view that your political opponents are so far beyond the pale that they need to be eliminated (politically growing into physically...) for the health of the body politic as a whole. The book starts with the true and chilling story of a guy going into a church and going postal - shooting people at random - until the congregation there wrestled him to the ground. The shooters justification? The church was full of liberals and liberals are trying to destroy America. It's a powerful opening and the author traces the ideas that motivated the shooter back though right-wing talk radio to far-right groups and conspiracy theorists - where they were born. What he argues is that the far-right has become enmeshed into the Republican Party to such a degree that crazy wacky ideas - the the global warming conspiracy or the 'reconquista' theory (where immigration is part of the plot to take back Texas from the US) - are now not fringe, but mainstream. In effect he is arguing that the kooks are running the asylum. It's a convincing argument and other that a slight diversion into the history of US slavery in the middle (less about Eliminationism and more about white-supremacy) is a well evidenced argument. What the book also lays out is how these crazy-ass ideas become the fertilizer for what the author calls proto-fascism - witness looney anti-Jewish ideas being the glue of the Nazis's rise to power. So what can we do about it? The author argues that we need to be robust is defending our ideas, to not back down. Yes we need to respect the average political opponent, but not in a craven way - and when the talk conspira-loon ideas (from left or right) call them out on it. It is also important to not allow ourselves to be type-cast, as that allows them to place us in a box. I enjoyed the book and it is good on the problems of US media (and to an extend the UK too) but there is not enough on solutions...

Reading Room: No Retreat

Next book - is one I read a while ago - No Retreat by Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey. I get suggested lots of books with political content and often they are worthy in the sense the topic being covered is worthwhile but often a bit depressing and/or argue a case that you agree with. When I first got this book, I was worried about that; I was wrong - it's a great book - even people who don't like political books will enjoy it - the two authors' stories within are fast moving accounts with lots of action that means the reader really enjoys the ride.

This book is about the need for, and accounts of, street fighting against the far-right from the late 60s to the early 90s in the UK. It is in two parts, one by each of the two authors; Dave Hann (who sadly died last year of cancer) and Steve Tilzey. There has been speculation and counter speculation about the authors and what they might have or might not have done. I'm going to suggest that you read their own words; they are clear about what they are doing and why....and they make a strong case.

This is a great read - not only is it a fast-paced and gripping action story, but also carries political weight both in the people the take on and the in-fighting within groups they were part of. Highly recommended.

(PS. There is some audio of one of the authors speaking online here.)

Reading Room: The Carhullan Army

I love reading. I read a lot. This year will be no exception (I hope!). But I also thought I'd like to share my reading list with others and hope that people share their back with me (either by emailing me - please put 'reading room' in the title so I can spot it in the spam, comments or blogging your own reads..) both fiction and non-fiction.

So to kick things off - I've read The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall. It's a sort of post-apocalyptic novel set in the UK after the collapse of today's civilisation to the twin forces of climate change and peak oil. Out of the collapse, a far-right fascist feudal state controls most of the UK's population centers. Outside their control are the 'badlands' of the countryside. The novel is the narration of a woman who lives in one of these population centers who runs away to join a group of rebel women who live in a refuge established before the fall. The refuge, Carhullan, has evolved into a self-sufficient world of it's own. The novel follows her journey to Carhullan and struggles with the two paths open to the women - to fight the feudal state or sit it out and wait and see.

It is a short, but powerful novel with has echoes of the Handmaiden's Tale. It is well written in the sense the use of language is both evocative but well paced so the story is not buried in prose. The characters and the world they inhabit are believable and well-rounded. It is also powerful stuff - taking on the issue of violence and what it means on a personal level and on a larger stage. The ending (which I won't spoil) is very powerful. In short - a good read.