Who tries to fool people with birth sex ratios in the Central African Republic? The British Journal Biology Letters and the British press, apparently.

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How sad is it that I’m this excited about a book of history – polisci essays? How additionally sad is it that I’m trembling in terror over my girlfriend’s reaction that I just spent $40 on a whim?

Regardless, I’m very excited about finding a copy of “Army and Politics in Niger” (“Armee et politique au Niger”, actually) which was just published in 2008 by Codesria, but is already distributed in Europe and North America. Finding careful writing about contemporary Niger is difficult, and I’m usually sent off to local papers, Jeune Afrique, or the reference section to indulge my habit. I’d been looking for Kimba Idrissa’s “Niger: Etat et démocratie” for some time (with little luck), so imagine my joy at discovering this edited volume.

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According to a recent research project reported in New Scientist, ” Wikipedians are ‘closed’ and ‘disagreeable’.” Those carrying out the study were “surprised that contributors scored low for agreeableness and openness to new ideas, given that contributing to the website is based on sharing knowledge”.

Sadly, I could’ve told you this. Most Wikipedia “editors” don’t actually write or research articles (except maybe those about TV shows), but spend their time enforcing “rules”, deleting things, making up new rules, and generally living out some kind of twisted fantasy that involves being a middle manager who scolds people. The fact that a project nominally devoted to creating an encyclopedia of all the world’s knowledge is viewed my so many as “social life” should have been the first clue.

• Wikipedians are ‘closed’ and ‘disagreeable’. New Scientist no. 2689. 31 December 2008.

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• Wikipedia is Full of Disagreeable Sourpusses Closed to New Ideas (themoderatevoice.com)
• Journalists Citing Wikipedia: Rarely an Option (loosewireblog.com)

Regardless of what you may think of me, my opinions, or the people I speak of below, Israel is destroying itself. Based on a proposition so tenuous that it must be built with care and compassion from below, the dream that some Zionists had after the holocaust of a “new” state cut from the desert is gone. Rather, Israel has chosen to a military occupation of the homes of others for the last 30 years, kept them quiet by force and crafted a definition of citizenship which excludes all but new settlers to the land. Back in the good old days (in the history of the United States, for instance) famine, disease and the occasional massacre would have solved this problem in many fewer years. Modern press, human rights, and people being actually held to ideals they profess has so far prevented this, and more importantly will prevent this from happening quietly.

And so, as in the United States destruction of native peoples, Israel has become a genocidal state. I use that term without hyperbole and with much sadness. The recent press controversy of IDF graduation classes printing t-shirts with targets superimposed on pregnant Palestinian women which read “one shot two kills” or lined up on silhouettes of children with “jokes” about birth control are not simply tasteless or cruel. That no one complained before now in this citizen army points to a culture which, not for the first time, is seen wishing to exterminate an entire people who oppose them. How far Israelis have come from those Capra photos of stalwart young camp survivors building a new nation with arms still tattooed with serial numbers. Mythology or not, one image of itself as a defender of right — conveniently ignoring their Arab neighbors — has been replaced with a self image for the Jewish state that sees the murder of children in the womb as a solution to their definitional problems.

That is genocide. It would be merely alarmingly distasteful, but for the reality: the “facts on the ground” that elements of the Israeli state have been creating for decades. A slow motion removal of Palestinians by whatever means necessary. On which would take as much valuable land of even the 1967 occupation zone in slow, measured, deliberate, and inexorable steps. Couple this with the terrorism demonstrated recently at Hebron, where the stated purpose was to punish whole communities so badly that they would flee. Add on to this the revelations from members of the Israeli armed forces themselves of a culture of deliberate targeting of civilians for murder and their homes for exemplary destruction in the attacks on a caged Gaza this year. What other conclusion can I draw? Only the willfully blind will not see it.

But no matter what I say, Israel seems in no mood to heed the warning of its own citizens who have urged it rethink this occupation which destroys them from the inside even as it forges a Palestinian nationalism that will go to any length to survive. In fact — with the help of the United States — the project of draining the Palestinian lakes until the only fish left die flopping in the mud: this project remains. I fear that even should the world turn on this Israel’s leaders now, even should the United States do so, we are too far gone. Israel has defined itself as a nation bent on the removal of the Palestinians from their land: they may live, but they cannot be Palestinians. This is a project of the removal of a nation, and that is genocide.

So ignore the words of people like me. But should I and others shut up, your project remains, and that project, which cannot succeed in this era, that project will destroy Israel. What will replace it? As Israel has decided that it will accept the view of others, we outsiders can only pray for a land of all peoples living in harmony. Stranger things been built in that land.

• Testimonies on IDF misconduct in Gaza keep rolling in http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072811.html
• Israeli troops describe vandalism, humiliation and unnecessary deaths in Gaza campaign http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/world/Israeli-troops-describe-vandalism-humiliation.5096586.jp
• IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers, note says http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072830.html
• Israeli warplanes carry sonic booms over Gaza http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/22/content_11052867.htm
• Israeli troops violated medical ethics-rights group http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSLN277646
• Under attack: how medics died trying to help Gaza’s casualties http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/gaza-war-crimes-medics
• Palestinian brothers: Israel used us as human shields in Gaza war http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/gaza-human-shields-claim
• Cut to pieces: the Palestinian family drinking tea in their courtyard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/gaza-war-crimes-drones
• Israeli war crimes allegations: what the law says http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/24/israel-war-crime-allegations-law
• Israeli soldiers used boy as shield, U.N. claims http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/23/1003922/report-israeli-soldiers-used-human-shields
• INTERVIEW-General links Israeli tactics to Gaza civilian toll http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLN608229
• UN accuses Israeli troops of Gaza human rights abuses http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5962905.ece
• The white flags of Gaza http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/jerusalem/2009/01/the-white-flags-of-gaza.html

Post script: While my point above was that the national self image of the Israeli “project” has become one which demands the destruction of the Palestinian people, and is thus doomed, other current events in Israeli politics are damning as well. The rise of the secular far right in Israel is as dangerous to Jews as non Jews: perhaps more so. While I don’t believe those involved in the large Zionist project, as oppressive as it is, are fascists in any real ideological sense, the far right in Israel is. Let’s be clear: the Libermann’s and other far right politicians in Israel are ideologically identical to the NDP in Germany or the FN in France. They are militarist, blood and soil nationalists who demand an ethnic cleansing of their state as a way to purify it, and integrate people together in a single body under a single direction which will put the interests of “nation” above those of the market, classes, internal communities, or the outside world. They are fascists. That this is allowed in Israel is a sad statement of how far they have sunk.

Two recent events encapsulate the future we will see with such people in government: A Palestinian cultural festival marking the Arab League’s designation of Jerusalem as the capital of Arab culture for 2009, was broken up by police, who barged into a children’s parade and ended a soccer tournament.

Israel bans Arab culture day in Jerusalem

Israel ‘breaks up’ Arab events

Nearby, Israeli troops shut down the press conference of parents of an American protester previously shot in the head at a peaceful protest on the West Bank

Meanwhile, an Israeli far right party which has previously called for the expulsion of all Arab citizens of Israel was allowed to march through an Arab community, protected by police.

Honestly, can even Zionists not see that this is has spun horribly out of control?

Today marks 52 years since the first sub-Saharan African nations claimed their independence from colonialism: It’s a national holiday in Ghana, the first of two “refusniks” who grabbed the option of immediate independence without looking back, Guinee being the other.  Both gained new governments this year. Ghana by elections and Guinee by coup.  Both were steps in the right direction (in my opinion), but the two make quite a contrast.  The Accra city centre is vibrant and modern, with leafy suburbs, while Conakry last year had power for only a few hours a day, with their traffic lights and street lamps off most nights.  Leaving aside the reasons why, they both deserve better from their former colonial powers, the international economic system, and their own ruling classes.

In the eyes of too many otherwise educated Westerners, Africa is still the “Dark Continent” of colonialism, filled with famine, war, and poverty. Horrible things happen in Africa like anywhere else, and Africans face an unfair share of many of today’s hardships, but the fly covered faces of the 1980s Ethiopian famine are the exception.  It’s sad to have to say this, but Africans live perfectly “normal” lives.  They watch TV soap operas, read the newspapers, go to work, take the bus, and can’t decide if those onions in the back of the pantry are still good.  Like you.  Sure, the likelihood they will live in rural farming communities is greater than most Westerners, and that makes the lives of those communities much different, but Africa is full of cities and cars and satellite dishes as well.

And while the attempt to “report good news stories” usually activates my gag reflex, Westerners need to read a greater balance on the news from Africa.  A current blog project by two women from Nigeria, CelebrateAfrica.net, documents their travel across the continent documenting the day to day triumph and success of African societies.  While they are aiming their writing at other African readers, it gives us a good chance to look over their shoulders at a more realistic Africa.

So on Ghana Independece day, I thought I might quote from Oluchi Ogwuegbu’s blog.  Her reaction when a non African tourist scolds her for complaining about the mud huts offered as “Authentic” accommodations, at pretty steep prices, to foreign tourists in one part of rural Ghana.

“Heaven forbid, that I should complain about those lodgings because that would mean that I’m not truly African. To be truly African, I need to live in a mud-hut with a pit-latrine and if I choose properly planned sewer systems that give people a modicum of dignity – that would be inauthentic , almost …European… and we can’t have that happen.”

“I reject anything that makes it acceptable for anybody to live a helpless, filthy, poverty-stricken life all in the name of being authentic. Those same villagers who perform on demand have shea butter, cotton and pottery as a source of income. Why aren’t they being engaged in an equitable way to make money from these things and change their status?”

“To make an experience really African does not mean having to battle flies from the pit-latrine. I know many people who live in villages whose houses are very clean, not paid for by any aid agency. Are they not Africans?”  –  Celebrating Ghana

Designer M. S. Corley is redesigning the modern reading of children/adults in a more modernist vein. Not a fan of Harry Potter, but I would almost buy it if it looked like this. I also admire the gall of Corely. He must know that the multinationals involved think he’s a thief or vandal for doing this and are working on cease and desist orders as we speak.

Collect them all at www.mscorley.blogspot.com

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Adding to the “everything the press tells you is a lie” file, here a a couple of articles of the (literally) criminal attacks on civilians in Gaza. First, despite the byline, this article on the “siege on Gaza” was written by Sara Roy before the recent Israeli bombing campaign, and right dates the siege from November 5, when the government of Israel cut off the last remaining food going into the tiny Palestinian territory.  Note: if you put a wall around a city, destroy the little farmland on its outskirts, and ban all trade in and out for 30 years, people become rather dependent on food aid.

By the way, that image to the left is a World Food Program map of Food insecurity in the Gaza Strip (2004).  The wee yellow bit — showing relative food security — was where there had been an Israeli settlement.  Things look much worse today.

If you put people behind walls, cut off their access to the outside world and then cut off their food for two months, I can’t think of a word other than genocide to describe the situation.  Now I can see folks who are perhaps rightly attached to Israel as a haven in the face of 2000 years of oppression and genocide blowing a gasket.  But I just said what everyone will be saying in the history books.  It’s well past time you realize that you’re not doing the Jewish people any favors by supporting a government and military that murders civilians and steals their land.  (And no, appeals to G_d don’t count.  Otherwise I’d be paying rent to the Mohawks, and I’d start a religion which promised me Aruba.  That’s not how adults get along)

Lotsa good people in Tel Aviv understand this (see reports on the anti-war demos there this week) so why otherwise good people in Brooklyn have trouble with it is beyond me.

Further, the governments of Israel has maintained a two pronged policy since 1947: establish facts on the ground by occupying land and make sure there is no Palestinian opposition.

The first is done with settlements and walls and “Military zones” and “national parks” and “buffer zones” and the occasional, random killing of people (see Hebron last month).  The second is done by making sure there is no Palestinian leadership that anyone would want to share a cubical with.  First, the Israelis did this by deporting people.  Second, they used to say “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.  They’re Arabs making up a national identity because they hate Jews” I remember having government representatives tell me this with a straight face in the 1980s. They also used to say that “Arabs, because they are not as culturally advanced as Westerners, have no sense of national identity, but those in the Territories are being used as fodder by the King of Jordan to expand his territory.”  Why don’t they say this anymore? Because they got some new information and admitted an honest mistake? Or because the government and settlers don’t actually believe ANYTHING they tell the press or even the Israeli center left.  They KNOW this is a game of biding time, and they’d tell you Palestinians have gills and therefore are only occupying any dry land at all out of spite if they thought you would buy it.

But part of this process of ensuring that “there is no partner for peace” in more germane here.  The Israeli government funded (the then tiny, and even then evil) Hamas in the late 1970s and 1980s to really stick it to the PLO who were starting to look more acceptable when they stopped shooting athletes and hijacking airliners.  At the same time, the Israeli government had a policy of rounding up and expelling non-violent secular activists.  There was a whole Ghandian passive resistance group in the West Bank in the 1970s.  What happened to them?  Likud had them rounded up and deported, while releasing the founder of Hamas after serving one year of a life sentence for murder. Even Ehud Olmert was quoted in the Jerusalem Post last year saying: “Netanyahu established Hamas, gave it life, freed Sheikh Yassin and gave him the opportunity to blossom”.

So what is going on now is no “crisis” from the government of Israel’s point of view. Headlines in the US press like “Israel seeks to change rules of the game with Gaza assault” are profoundly ignorant.  This is standard operation procedure.  And until the US and the rest of the world tells Israel that their support is dependent upon the Israeli government immediately accepting the pre 1967 borders (no exceptions), this will go on and on and on and on.

• Reuters/Global Voices Blog roundup from Palestine: “In Gaza it’s 9/11 every hour, every minute, everywhere”
• If Gaza falls . . . Sara Roy (London Review of Books)
• “Hamas is a creation of Mossad (English translation)“   , L’Humanité (Summer 2002).; French original version: “Hamas, le produit du Mossad”, L’Humanité (December 14, 2001).
• The Tel Aviv Anti-War Demonstration.  Adam Keller,  The Other Israel, December-2008–January-2009 issue
• Not their war: Israeli media coverage of the Gaza onslaught has largely ignored the protests by peace activists.
  Chris Dalby. guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 31 December 2008
• Olmert, Netanyahu clash over Hamas and Golan Heights. SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL. Jerusalem Post, Feb 13, 2007
• Situation Map-Gaza Crisis. 31 Dec 2008. Source: UNOSAT

Pepe Kalle‘s musical tribute to “the greatest African footballer of the century”, Roger Milla, with the little needed  but very enjoyable video evidence. (more…)

The On the Greek Riots blog is a good source of news for this. A lot of people on the left are following these (now four) days of rioting in every major Greek city. And unlike the European political commentators of the center (who are equally obsessed with the events), the left are beginning to ask the question: Is this (still, just) rioting? Or is it a revolution of some sort.

The press talking heads, previously content with dramatic pictures and “those nutty Greeks” commentary, are now wringing their hands furiously over the spiraling violence. That the rioting is so widespread, and has gone on for so long, is clearly an indication — visible even to newspaper editors — that this is not merely a reaction by the community of this 15 year old Athens boy murdered by the police. This is “a revolt of a whole generation of young people”, and perhaps a revolution.

Maybe. But if a revolution, it’s probably not the one young Anarchist Alexandros Grigoropoulos would have wanted.

Greece’s conservative government, with a one vote majority in parliament, is what is teetering on the brink of collapse here, not capitalism. And the opposition, led by the nepotistic Social -Democratic PASOK, who ruled the nation for decades prior to the 2004 conservative victory, is itching to break the government. While the revolutionary left and the trade union movement would surely love to see the end of the current government, the re-introduction of the Papandreou clan back into power is likely not what they have in mind. But that may be one reason this violence continues. PASOK, while artfully condemning violence, has come out on the streets and is stoking the anger, with demonstrations, parliamentary maneuvering, and press hysteria, at this despicable (and all too common) police murder.

In reaction, the rest of the European press has been forced to admit that this is something large: almost 1968 large. There is in Greece today a generation of overeducated young people who reject the current authorities and have a lessened prospect of being lured back into mainstream culture by the promise of future career opportunities. But remember, 1968 failed. It failed, in part, because it never made the jump out of universities to regular working people. Student revolts can be suppressed, and students won’t be students forever. Maybe they won’t be integrated into the mainstream in the same numbers as previous generations, but their community is dismantled every four years and subsumed in the rest of us, who are hardly — even in Athens — on the brink of taking to the streets. Subcultures, like the Hippies in the sixties or the Back Bloc Anarchists so powerful in urban Greece today, can keep up that community consciousness. But if the rejection of capitalism never makes the jump from a subculture, this starts and ends in riots.

It takes everyone to make a revolution, and unless “normal” folks get on board, this will go nowhere. MAYBE that jump is happening, as a wide swath of the left (not just urban young Anarchists, despite what their comrades here tell you) is taking to the streets. If young working people are enough taken with the liberation and power of these moments of struggle, maybe they can start a contagion in unions and neighborhoods. But that is a long process, and no one should assume that the burning barricades in Greek cities were put there by the families that live and work in those neighborhoods. When those are the people building barricades, then this is not only a revolution, then the revolution has already happened.

Meanwhile, Anarchists in New York and elsewhere play up the current violence and revolutionary nature of some of those taking it to the police in Greece. I think we on the left have to be awfully clear eyed as to who this really helps. If this is a revolutionary moment — and I think that in one sense it is — it is the moment of PASOK and the institutionalised trades Unions to jimmy their way back into government. It is a parliamentary revolution of one faction of the centrist governing class against another, more ideologically neo-liberal, faction. PASOK and its allies will likely get new elections out of this, and they will likely win them. At which point the violence will be suppressed and the patronage system of the Papandreous will return to previous programming.

In my opinion that is not something worth dying for.

The Socialist Party USA condemns the racially motivated attacks which have followed the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. People of color have been targeted throughout the country by small groups of racist whites. Acts have ranged from a cross burning, simulated lynchings and even violent attacks. Mainstream news sources report that hundreds of incidents have occurred.

The election of Barack Obama was undoubtedly an important historical event. Millions of Americans rejected the race and red baiting tactics of the McCain-Palin campaign and cast their vote without regard to race-status. The election therefore drew from the long-term progressive cultural impact of the civil rights movement. Viewed entirely from this perspective, the election of Obama represents a potentially progressive moment in American race relations.

Sadly, the Obama presidency will offer little of the “change” and “hope” it promised throughout the campaign. Early indications are that his administration will be directed by a free-market capitalist agenda and his policies will seek to enhance the profitability of corporations at the expense of working-class America. People can expect little in the way of fundamental change in healthcare, militarism or wealth redistribution. Winning these much needed changes will be the duty of broad social movements.

Poor and working class whites will therefore be challenged not to fall back into patterns of racial animus which debilitated the labor movement throughout the 20th century. As scholar W.E.B DuBois noted, white workers have often proved willing to forgo the struggle for material gains in favor of receiving the psychological wages of whiteness.

As the US heads toward a major economic recession, a racist discourse which targets people of color and immigrants is sure to emerge among a section of whites. Elite politicians will seek to mobilize these sentiments as a means to push forward a right-wing political agenda. However, class unity can be built through a critical recognition of the role of racism inside of capitalist society. Speaking out forcefully against racism and building democratic multi-racial coalitions will greatly assist in the construction of the mass social movements needed to move beyond the meager reforms offered by the Obama regime.

White supremacy is a primary enemy of working class solidarity. The recent racist attacks are purposeful attempts to divide working people against each other. The socialist left has learned the hard lessons of the 20th century and will oppose any racist attacks be they cultural or physical. A cultural approach which features exchange and engagement, instead of just tolerance, offers the brightest possibilities for unity among all working people. Public campaigns and policy proposals to dismantle the prison industrial complex, address issues of environmental racism and to challenge racial patterns of employment could demonstrate the effectiveness of anti-racist class politics.

We recognize that every human being regardless of their country of origin or skin pigmentation needs healthcare, a clean environment and a peaceful life. Socialists remain committed to challenging the fear, racism and oppression that typify capitalist society by building movements which demonstrate that solidarity, equality and compassion offer brighter possibilities for humanity. Thus, the Socialist Party USA says no to racist attacks! No to white supremacy! And, yes to working class solidarity in the service of human liberation!

November 2008

Socialist Party USA Statement on the Recent Racist Attacks

National Action Committee of the SP-USA http://www.sp-usa.org/

The latest news on the Tarnac arestees.  Four of the nine are released under the equivilent of bail, but still face possible charges.  They were held four four days of interogations, though the police still don’t seem to have any direct evidence against any of them.  Five (which the predictably frantic Le Figaro calls “The Hard Core” of situationalist students) remain in jail awaiting trial.  Le Monde has a surprisingly sensitive portrait of the ordeal of one of the four released, and identifies each of the arrestees.  The charges remain the same as those in the last post here.

Those facing the heaviest charges, and still detained are:

• Julien Coupat (34) accused ringleader
• Yldune L., 25, Archeolology Student
• Benjamin R., 30 , Poly Sci grad from the University of Rennes and former student of Development and environmental Sociology at the University of Edinburgh.
• Elsa H., 23  English Grad student arrested in Rouen,
• Bertrand D., 22 Sociology Grad student, also arrested in Rouen.

The four released but possibly facing lesser though serious charges are:

• Gabrielle H., 29 , a student nurse,
• Manon G., 25, a prize winning classically trained clarinetist,
• Aria T., 26, a Swiss actress known for her role in the sitcom Les Pique-Meurons.
• Mathieu B., 27, a former sociology student from the Parisien Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS).

While we await the trial, the SNCF workers rallied in Paris against rail priviatisation plans, staged a work stoppage, and forced the SNCF to back off of some of its more objectionable proposals. 

Le Figaro, who have been the most energetic in convicting these nine students without trial, was also caught out today Liberation, for photoshoping a picture of law-and-order Justice Minister Rachida Dati to remove the huge diamond encrusted ring from her iron hands: a ring reportedly worth a cool 15,600 Euros!

Written interviews from the 1960s with the WWI German army doctor who saved Hitler’s life, reveal he really did lose a ball at the Somme, due to a wound.  The doctor, Johan Jambor,  recalled ” They called him the ‘Screamer’. He was very noisy. Hitler was screaming ‘help, help’.”

The Telegraph (blech) goes on to remind us of the 1940s ditty: “Hitler has only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall.”, and it’s common — now conclusively incorrect — variant:

“Göring has only got one ball, Hitler’s [are] so very small, Himmler’s so very similar, And Goebbels has no balls at all.”

From the Brilliant LOLGRIFFIN blog: “Nick Griffin has lost his membership list. Let us LOL at him.” Yes. Yes we will.

The neo-fascist British National Party was thrown into panic in the last 24 hours as someone posted their entire membership database to a blogspot account. The detailed members list includes personal details, jobs, contact numbers, emails, even hobbies! Speculation is that splitters within the group posted the list, but no one knows for certain. This is especially bad news for British public employees, as many are legally barred from membership in what is an avowedly racist organization. The list of ten thousand names includes teachers, doctors, company directors cops, and a BBC radio DJ. A quick count reveals 33 members with US addresses, seven of which are in New York (five in NYC).

The original post to http://bnpmemberslist.blogspot.com/ was dumped by the webhost, but not before it was mirrored across the web.

Laughs are to be had by the barrelful at “nationalist” websites and blogs, as members panic at the prospect of being outed as nazis!

Check out Lancaster Unity (UK) antifascists blog for news updates:

* Lancaster Unity Blog

and the mainstream media at:

*http://www.dailymail.co.uk

and read the comments at the nazi:

* http://northwestnationalists.blogspot.com/2008/11/bnp-membership-list-2008-goes-online.html

The list is currently mirrored at:

* http://www.bnpmemberslist.co.uk/

* http://wikileaks.org.uk/leak/bnp-membership-list.txt

? UPDATE: Vice Magazine has a hilarious “Best of list”, with notes such as “Has two suits of medieval 14th & 15th century armour and can joust for rallies.”

?Rumours abound about Premiership footballers (Scots and/or English) being on the list, but I’ve not managed to match up the Rangers teamsheet to any names. Working….

? What to get up to speed on the internal drama of the BNP? http://antiracistnetwork.wordpress.com/ is a good place to start. For the doings of the North American nazi idiots, www.onepeoplesproject.com is the best source of news.

French Anarchist Arrest Wave:
Monday Update (2008-11-17)

Friday the first legal actions were taken against those arrested. The number detained has dropped to nine, with one person released Friday — alleged to have been the mother of one of the defendants who happened to be in an apartment being raided at the time.

Per the French legal system (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system ) a Paris based special terrorism court investigating magistrate (juge d’instruction antiterroriste ), Thierry Fragnoli, examined the cases on five detainees on Friday, two more over the weekend, and will formally examine two more on Tuesday (18th). The investigating magistrate works like a Grand Jury, determining if there is evidence and formally charging the defendants, then passing their cases to a court (usually with multiple judges, a prosecutor and defense).

Julien Coupat, whom the press have dubbed the head of the “cellule invisible” (a play on the Invisible Committee which penned the book he is accused of writing) was formally charged with “Directing a terrorist organisation” (” dirigé une structure à vocation terroriste”). Coupat and four others we charged with “concerted Destruction while taking part in a terrorist enterprise” (“destructions en réunion en relation avec une entreprise terroriste”) and “Refusing to submit to a DNA test” (“refus de se soumettre à un prélèvement ADN”).

The remaining four are (or will be) charged with “Taking part in a criminal association as part of a terrorist enterprise” (“association de malfaiteurs en relation avec une entreprise terroriste”). On Friday it was reported that two of the nine would be released without charge, but it now appears that at least five will be imprisoned awaiting trial, with four possibly being placed under house arrest awaiting trial. The greatest charge, aimed at Coupat, could result in a 20 year sentence.

• http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/sabotages-sncf-des-delits-terroristes_704150.html
• http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/11/15/sncf-neuf-jeunes-autonomes-presentes-au-juge-antiterroriste_1119080_3224.html

Minister of Interior Michèle Alliot-Marie (or MAM) has been on a crusade for at least a year against what she’s dubbed the “l’ultra-gauche” Movement (or the “Anarcho-Autonomous Movement”) has continued to trumpet the arrests as a blow against terrorism, and claims that there are “Around 300″ members of such groups in France. She has studiously refused to link them to what the French call “l’extrême-gauche” (Communists, Trotskyists, Revolutionary Syndicalists, etc), who are helping Rail unions organise work stoppages against a possible plan to privatise the railways. It seems a transparent attempt to criminalise elements of the left and create a bogeyman to split left groups.

• http://www.france-info.com/spip.php?article213342&theme=9&sous_theme=44
• http://www.france-info.com/spip.php?article212767&theme=9&sous_theme=11

A after the initial hysterical press coverage (Le Figaro was a primo example of headless chicken red-baiting hyperbole), some press is starting to ask tougher questions. DANIEL SCHNEIDERMANN at Liberation calls these arrest “a How to on building strawmen” ( http://www.liberation.fr/medias/0101266655-fabrication-d-epouvantails-mode-d-emploi ), while la Nouvelle Republique asks the obvious question, if there were 27,000 incedents of little noted property destruction on SNCF rail lines last year, how is this suddenly “terrorism”? ( http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/dossiers/journal/index.php?dep=IG&num=1004447 )

L’Express collects an number of such editorials under the title “The Invisible Cell: ‘Anti-Terrorist Paranoia’” ( http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/cellule-invisible-paranoia-anti-terroriste_704299.html )
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The Training Shoe

The Face magazine, Vol 2 no.26, in November 1990

by Peter Hooton.

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This year marked the tenth anniversary of THE FACE, but whereas parties have been thrown to commemorate this occasion, nobody has bothered to hold a ‘do’ for the tenth anniversary of the training shoe. It could be a unique occasion (possibly hilarious) and a fitting bash to celebrate a decade that has seen trainer wear break out on a massive scale. Training shoe espionage is now big business, and sportswear conventions where new designs are revealed have stricter security and secrecy than any Tory Party Conference: it seems that bootleggers know their stuff and can rip off a design before you can tie your laces!

I’m sure Adi Dassler and his brother Rudolf didn’t know what they were starting when they began making sports shoes in Germany in the Twenties. After the war, the brothers had a row and split (good soap opera plot, this) and Adi formed Adidas and their kid formed Puma. The companies have been arch rivals ever since and it’s only fitting now that the two main rivals in the so-called ‘old school trainers’ wars are Adidas and Puma.

Much has been written about training shoes over the last couple of years, as the style magazines and the newspapers have tried to come to terms with the massive increase in the popularity of the trainer. Empires have been built and fortunes acquired during the Eighties, and most ‘lazy’ journalists have looked to the States to explain the phenomenon. Unfortunately, most of what has been written has been complete nonsense, so far from the truth that it’s not even funny. If the truth be known, the obsession with training shoes for the youth of this country began in the late Seventies and not in the late Eighties, as some would have us believe. It came from the football terraces and the council estates of the big cities, and who gives a George Best who started it – it happened and that’s a fact.

In the post-punk revolution of ’78/79, Adidas Samba ruled the terraces of Anfield and Goodison, quickly followed by Stan Smith’s, before Puma struck back with its Argentina (blue leather, white stripe) and the much sought after Puma Menotti (red leather, white stripe). Trainer wars were well underway, and European away matches were the perfect opportunity to acquire those obscure training shoes available in Germany, but not in Liverpool. Most of the training shoe addicts would never dream of getting a pair you could buy in the city centre in Liverpool. This was real fashion, and the competition was intense. A revolution was going on that had absolutely nothing to do with the streets of Brooklyn or the Bronx. In all the years that The End magazine was printed in Liverpool, we never received a single letter about ‘trainers’ in America, but we did get hundreds about the training shoes the different football crews were wearing. A football crew’s reputation could be severely damaged by giving it toes (getting chased) at Fulham Broadway, Finsbury Park or the Euston Road, but more serious damage could be done if a fatty was seen wearing a bad pair of trainers by the opposing teams’ fashion spotters.

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Thursday November 20th – 7:00 pm – Book Discussion:
“Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism” w/
author Jeffrey Perry – A. J. Muste Institute, 339
Lafayette Street, Buzzer #11, (6 train to Bleecker
Street)
www.sp-usa.org/
www.blackpast.org/

Saturday Dec. 6th – 3:00 pm
- NYC Local Open House –
Find out more about your local Socialists – A. J.
Muste Institute, 339 Lafayette Street, Buzzer #11, (6
train to Bleecker Street)
www.spnyc.org

Sunday Dec. 14th – 3:00 pm
– Liberation Film Series – “Heavens Above!” -
A. J. Muste Institute, 339
Lafayette Street, Buzzer #11, (6 train to Bleecker
Street)
www.going.com/heavensabove

Coalition/Endorsed Events

Thursday Nov. 13th – 4:00 pm
– Rally for National Single-Payer Healthcare –
–Rally begins at 4pm, at
42nd St. and 7th Ave., with speakers & music –At 5pm,
march to GHI Insurance at 34th St. and 9th Ave. –
Bring Signs and Friends! – contact Jean Fox at
212-865-6027
http://phimg.org
www.healthcare-now.org/
http://saveourhealthcare.blogspot.com/

Sunday Dec. 14th – 7:00 pm –Activist Poets Roundtable
– A. J. Muste Institute, 339 Lafayette Street, Buzzer
#11, (6 train to Bleecker Street)
For further information send an email to:
stblm@optonline.net.

Questions? Contact a Socialist! (718) 869-2279 or
socialistpartynyc(–at–)gmail–dot–com

Useful Links
http://socialistwebzine.blogspot.com/
http://www.warresisters.org/
http://www.responsiblelending.org/
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

DIRECTIONS to the A.J. Muste Institute:
Take #6 train to Bleecker Street or B, D, F, V train to
Broadway/Lafayette or R, W to Prince. (B, V, W are
weekday-only.) BUSES: M21 Avenue C/Houston St. bus or
Centre St. or Broadway bus; NYC suggests BIKING:
Broadway, Lafayette, Houston, East River path, Hudson
Greenway.

Interested in activist events in NYC? Check out Todd
Eaton’s List…
Please ask friends to try nyprotest
two-message-per-week calendar, also online at
http://snipurl.com/nyprotest

Stokley the cat in his Staten Island home, c. 2004. And yes, that is who I named him after, and it was supposed to be respectful, though it is hard when I have to get him off the kitchen counter. Apart from that I remain as big a fan of the late Kwame Toure as a pasty white man could be.

My Pathetic Homepage was first created in mid 1995 so I could hotlink Glasgow Celtic photos, post scans of people shooting nautical flares at one another, tell people what to think about politics, convince them to buy my fanzine, and get dates. The first two succeeded wonderfully, the third got dull real quick, and the last two never came off at all. Ah the dreams of the springtime of my life!

Between then and now there have been several iterations of this thing. Most have been shortlived (the boredom thing). Most have been green in color. Most have featured a picture of Peter Hooton‘s rare original 1970s Stan Smith all green colorway I ripped out of a copy of The Face sometime in the mid 1980s.

One thing has remained the same: a self-important, if jokey, response to “company name” on my pirated copy of Photoshop 3: The Tomathon.

Slouching into steady employment,

Tommy