I Am The Owner Of Everything.

 

Labourers after dinner, artist JM Johnstone, 1895.

        Poetry is a wonderful way to speak the truth, to express emotion, to paint a picture, to say so much without filling pages and pages, it is that halfway place between conversation and music. On the same theme as a previous post, for those who don't read the comments, I believe this is worthy of repeating, thanks Loam.

I am the owner of everything

I am the owner of everything,
but I never got anything.
I make light and I make fire,
I push the wind and the water.

My hands to the wood
They make it do wonders.
I'm the one who tempers the steel
and who casts the seed.

I make the chair and the table
and I have no where to sit.
Finally, I dont even have
the right to get tired.

I do palaces, and my children
sleep in tin shacks.
I am hammer, ax and tong,
clip, spoon and hoe.

I am the owner of everything
but I never got anything.
The day I say enough!,
flares will burn!

                                                               - Horacio Guarany
____________________________

Original version:
Yo soy el dueño de todo

Yo soy el dueño de todo,
pero nunca tengo nada.
Yo hago la luz, hago el fuego,
hago el viento y hago el agua.

Mis manos a la madera
le hacen hacer maravillas.
Yo soy quien tiempla el acero
y quien echa la semilla.

Yo hago la silla y la mesa
y no tengo ’onde sentarme.
Total, si ya no me queda
ni el derecho de cansarme.

Yo hago el palacio, y mis hijos
duermen en ranchos de lata.
Soy martillo, hacha, tenaza,
pinza, cuchara y azada.

Yo soy el dueño de todo
pero nunca tengo nada.
¡El día que yo me canse,
van a arder las llamaradas!

                                                   - Horacio Guarany

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Dear Green Place??

 

      After reading the previous blog, my comrade Loam at arrezafe sent me this poem. It gives a snapshot of life under the outpourings of the Tennant's chemical works. Incidentally, it mentions the street where I was born, Charles Street. However, the story I have heard of Tennant was not one of his "radicalism" but that he built is chemical empire on a stolen formula for bleach, stolen from a friend. Though I have never had this verified.

Thanks Loam for the poem.

      The following poem, recited by Hugh Aitken Dow at a St Rollox school reunion in 1875 illustrates the change brought to a once peaceful scene by the chemical works – known by many locals as ‘Dante’s Inferno’!

 “A busy, noisy, clam’rous spot
where trees, nor flowers nor fields are seen
where men by day and night are wrought
and holy calm hath rarely been.

Where fragrant zephyrs never blow
but smutty is its atmosphere.
When rains fall dense and winds are low
It’s sulphrous elements appear.

When winds blow south, a cloud by day
it may at once be seen and felt
for smarting eyes then own its sway
through muffled noises then ‘tis smelt.

There fiery pillars, gleam at night
from hooded chimneys, tow’ring high
and cast their vivid, fork’d flames bright
up to the troubled murky sky.

Thus fiery cross like, shineth clear
the cupolas of Charles Street
answering to McAndrew’s near
while Hamilton’s the call repeat.

There Vulcan’s strokes would fail to match
the Glasgow ironworks polka blows
his lurid fires would pace and din
‘fore Tennants countless furnace glows.”

http://www.roystonroadproject.org/archive/history/garngad_royston.htm

 Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Cameraman's Oversight!!!

 

        While the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, has been over in France covering the football and the "supporters" kicking the shit out of each other, it seems amazing that with all their high-tec equipment and rapid access to getting anything of interest to their pulp making base here in the UK, they seem to have missed a few facts. One being that France, has been in turmoil for weeks with strikes, mass protests, and streets bathed with water cannons, and a haze of tear gas hanging in the air. Eager to show those nasty Russians kicking the shit out of those nice law abiding English, they failed to notice the French police in riot gear, kicking the shit out of the French citizens. You would be lead to believe that the only violence in France was those nasty Russians, everywhere else the population were sitting in cafés sipping cappuccinos.

       Here are a couple of "little incidents" that all those cameras and microphones seem to have missed. Probably a small oversight, or biased or censored reporting.

More Videos at arrezafe.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Flower That Never Dies.

 

       Spain 1936-39, a time of hope, of dreams being realised, a time to glimpse the future. They came from across the world, from all its continents, they came to protect a flower. Sadly the boot of fascism, with the assistance of the imperialist/capitalist nations trampled it, damaged it, but failed miserably to destroy it, it lives on.

      It is nice to know that those who came from this little corner of the world to glimpse that dream, to protect that flower, are still remembered. Another gem from Loam, of arrezafe.

          "To the memory of the Scottish members of the British Battalion, International Brigade, who fell at Jarama, 1937."

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

What The US Really Wants.

        I'm always looking for ways to sum up, simply and briefly, the way this modern world functions and the reasons for the poverty, inequality, barbarism and the perpetual war that we live under. You can try to explain it in economic terms, imperialism, power blocks, and/or corrupt liaisons of rich and powerful people/organisations/states, and you could fill a very large book. This video does a very good job in approximately 8 minutes. Well worth watching.

      Current US military space policy is primarily geared toward two countries, China and Russia.
      In May 2000 the Washington Post published an article called “For Pentagon, Asia Moving to Forefront.” The article stated that, “The Pentagon is looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition.” The article said the US would double its military presence in the region and essentially attempt to manage China.

By William Blum
March 08, 2014 "Information Clearing House -  When it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.
       The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or irony.
       And who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.) 

I received the video link from from Comrade Loam at arrezafe:

Published on July 28, 2015

CN: This video will discuss and contain some images you might find upsetting or disturbing - genocide, racism and extreme poverty...
        This analysis of US foreign policy is essentially a summary of the arguments made in Volume I of Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's Political Economy of Human Rights, 'The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism'. Although it's a harrowing read, it is very informative and provides a devastating account of US-backed atrocities across the globe, and I would highly recommend it.
         With regard to North Vietnam, in case people are wondering, I am not saying that the bloodbath during the land reform programme was acceptable or permissible - rather I included this point to highlight the hypocrisy of the US media which openly condemns bloodbaths such as this one but turns a blind eye to bloodbaths carried out by the United States and its allies.
           My own position is that action against these kinds of atrocities ought to be strategic. It is the responsibility of populations to criticise and take action against their own state rather than other states, as this is arguably the most effective means of preventing atrocities and protecting human rights.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk