Now I’ve been crying lately
Thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating?
Why can’t we live in bliss?
– Cat Stevens, Peace Train, 1971 Continue reading “Trump Train”
Trump Train
Watching Bernie: The Voice in the Wilderness
From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again… Continue reading “Watching Bernie: The Voice in the Wilderness”
Lessons from Spain: The Future of the Left
If you want to know what the future of democracy looks like, look to Spain. If you want to know what the decline of the old left will look like, look also to Spain. Continue reading “Lessons from Spain: The Future of the Left”
The Barcelona PAH, ¡Sí Se Puede!
In February 2009, after the Spanish government had shown itself incapable of enforcing Article 47 of the Spanish Constitution – declaring that “all Spaniards have the right to enjoy decent and adequate housing” – a citizens’ assembly was held in Barcelona to establish the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages Continue reading “The Barcelona PAH, ¡Sí Se Puede!”
The Revolt of the Ladders: Movistar-Telefonica Strikers’ Occupation, Barcelona (24/05/15)
Over one hundred years ago the International Workingman’s Association, the First International, gave voice to the hundreds of millions of impoverished workers of the world when in 1866 it declared that all workers should enjoy the right to eight hours work, eight hours rest and eight hours play. Continue reading “The Revolt of the Ladders: Movistar-Telefonica Strikers’ Occupation, Barcelona (24/05/15)”
Movie Review: Land and Freedom (1995), Ken Loach
Of the very few English language films on the Spanish Civil War that there are, Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom is one of the better ones for the portrait if paints of the spirit of those long lost times. For new-comers to the subject of the Civil War, the film is a great introductory dramatisation of the both the war itself and the war within the war, that is, the ideological, political and, ultimately, military conflict between the various factions, parties, militias, armies and governments of the Republican resistance. Continue reading “Movie Review: Land and Freedom (1995), Ken Loach”
Movie Review: Z (1969), Costa Gravas
It was 1968 and the world was exploding– millions of students and workers were on the march in every square of every city the world over – and one piece of shrapnel that rocketed out of those times was Costa Gavras’ Z, and his brilliant political thriller is just as searing hot today as it was then. Continue reading “Movie Review: Z (1969), Costa Gravas”
Russell and The Revolution
When I was a kid I always thought that the times I was living through were the ‘boring’ times of human history. I felt that feeling of those times that history had really ‘ended’, just as Fukuyama had declared a year after my birth. When I flicked through an illustrated history book that my grandmother gave me and my brother, I figured that all the world had already been explored, all the world’s ancient cultures had already been dug up, all the big wars already fought, all the depressions wrought.
The Spanish Civil War: 78 years after the coup
So much of the twentieth century’s blood, spilt across all longitudes and latitudes of the world, flowed through Spain’s sprawling boulevards and plazas before bubbling on to all corners of Europe and the world. The years of 1936-1939 were truly tragic for Spain, the cause truly heroic, the consequences catastrophic. Continue reading “The Spanish Civil War: 78 years after the coup”
