this post was titled "*no apologies", until i heard a London commuter interviewed on TV just say this. priceless. killed? life? I want to write about other things. but i can't. "Music has a role to play in spreading the word of peace. I think it is a case of using music to articulate something that you don't find articulated in the mainstream media. The most important thing it does is create a community of dissent. You realise you are not the only person who feels completely opposed to the war. Or, there are a lot of people out there who feel ambiguous about it, and hopefully coming along to a march or hearing the songs might help them to make a conscious decision to oppose the war. That is the experience that I have had." jim predictably quotes a lefty singer (b.bragg). and wonders what songs we'll hear in glasgow. how overtly B&S will be influenced by events. there. almost non-war content. I've been doing lots of thinking about attitudes to the US and UK, and as i think i've suggested before, about how just as it is ridiculously fundamentalist to hate the US or UK, it is similarly simplistic to be 'proud' of the same. The US media/?public/corporate pressure against stars such as Martin Sheen and the Dixie Chicks etc etc speaking out scares me a little. How nobody was *allowed* to say anything at the one award ceremony by TV station bosses. I know its the corporate end of things, but one of the many issues that rankles is freeing the iraqi people to have human rights when things smell less free than they could be in the US. Clearly rights are enshrined in constitution etc, but how far are we from mccarthyism? (i'll save you the links re these but can provide). I'm proud B&S speak their views, and are able to. It felt good to be walking around Hackney (London) today seeing so many badges, posters in windows in people's homes, shops etc, knowing how many people have been bothered to express opposition to war. A greek colleague was speaking about London's merits including its liberal atmosphere. I have mixed feelings about my dirty inner city borough, but am looking to part-buy a house in it which is remarkably grown up. and expensive. Back in 2001 Liz Daplyn eloquently typed "Vandalised bus shelters are, conversely, not reminiscent of comforting blankets at all. They can be startlingly beautiful, though, what with scattered cubes of safety glass scattered around ('Hackney diamonds', I read somewhere) or crazed mandala patterns radiating from the focal points of not-quite-hard-enough blows and looking like imitations of gorgeous spiderwebs laid down by secret crafty hands. But it might just be me that likes them." This 'Hackney Diamond' thing sticks in your head. I walk passed said gems i think every day i go to work. that phrase has unusually limpet like properties. I mentioned it to my cousin who has since reproduced (also quite a grown up thing, and entirely irrelevant) and he spontaneously volunteered it's a ditty he can't help but be reminded of when he sees them. My plan is to eventually produce the next volume (booklet) of patients' poetry (i work in mental health) and use this as a bit of a concept for the work (hard, sharp, broken, precious etc etc you get the picture) maybe the title. So a very delayed thanks to Liz for the inspiration for that one. There aren't many good things about this whole thing. The awareness that my dear leader seems to have forced in the 'kids' [that skipped school and demonstrated around the country yesterday] may encourage a generation to take a greater interest in democracy. On cheerier notes, given the peace to enjoy it (or lack thereof and a need to resort to it) we live in a remarkably world, with some gorgeous music (+people & gestures.) I'm looking forward to a trip to Glasgee to see B&S folk and of course the gig. As well as hopefully the non-ATP-gathering: wonderful as i'll be getting corner-of-the-camber-sands-queen-vic-pub withdrawal symptoms round about then. I believe protesting now is as important as ever. looking at the bigger picture [and how think how remarkably quickly much of this will be forgotten for a majority] making as much noise and opposition makes it harder to resort to final measures such as military action in the future. I don't necessarily agree with the idea that you do things because you have to do *something* (though can relate to that) and like the fact people are considering the value of their actions. I've been tear gassed and risked riot police beatings at a demo overseas because it seemed the right thing to do, but in retrospect it achieved little beyond being a story to tell and was possibly foolish. Saturday in London (and throughout the UK i assume), will be peaceful and very important. I can only speak for myself in stating i feel i have a moral responsibility to be out on the street to represent my view. simple as that. and i like the fact that through sinister i know others that will do the same worldwide. as long as people like Mark have thought about their view (which he clearly has) then i think that's great. I haven't actually been able to find anyone that supports the war, so i was intrigued to read a non-print pro-war view. For me Robin Cook's rather skilful speech resignation speech summed it up. It's linked below in my original knee jerk rant. I didn't realise why road traffic was so bad as i noticed it, walking, the end of this afternoon. It's likely it was shoolkids blocking junctions, which allowing for a bit of majority influence/peer pressure/fashionable thing to do, means some young folk caring about what happens in the world. I'm usually more likely to be scared by hard kids. Makes a very nice change. Suggestions are it won't be as big on saturday as the 1 or 2 million, but i'm looking forward to seeing fellow B&S peaceniks on the march on saturday in London, get in touch to join us. So feel free to ignore the below bit (he naively hoped folk got this far!), which i wrote when i woke up at 5am. With a bit of the above content, it felt a bit *too* ranty on its own, but not irrelevant. It made me post to sinister, this here world event. What fascinating times we live in. i suppose i don't know where else i'd be (indulgently?) expressing myself. I can agree with Mark that Blair is doing what he thinks is right. But the trouble for me is, the wrong thing for the right reasons, that doesn't feel much better than Bush's wrong thing for not quite so honourable reasons. (again see rumsfeldy link below). It would be a marginally more hard argument to win if we (?Bush) hadn't set ourselves arbitrarily early deadlines and given Blix time. Hello sinister. music, i know. music and life though. x - - - - - - *see prior explanations/justifications/blah blah. Phew. I'm sleeping better in my bed tonight knowing that Saddam is less of a threat to my life than he was 4 hours ago. Except i'm not. I'm awake. I woke up to a looped shot of one cruise missile being fired in the dark. Did somebody say media orgy? And i'm consuming. http://www.indymedia.org/ provides some interesting alternative dishes, such as the link to PENTAGON THREATENS TO KILL INDEPENDENT REPORTERS IN IRAQ http://homepage.eircom.net/~gulufuture/news/kate_adie030310.htm. Thinking of alternative sources of information. The B&S fan in baghdad has his own blog http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/ OK i'm predictably lying (about the B&S fandom i assume), but he is a human being, and one who previously gave the best argument i've come across re: human shields... i did share the link with ian. the link never works for me (why?!), but googling + reading caches such as this does: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=cache:4D9u9ReRWt0C:dear_raed.blogspot.com/+ raed&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Oh hang on 5.14 am, official statement "this is not the start of war". Oh they're admitting it never stopped? No: Just an assassination attempt. Which is handy seeing as it seems the British military command didn't seem to know it was going to happen till it did. Robin Cook's Resignation speech Remember as a senior-ish cabinet member he had access to all those 'intelligence reports' that never existed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2859431.stm re: motive The agenda that was aired up of course back in '98. Say no more.The Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz horse's mouth is contained herein. www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/022003Leopold/022003leopold.html ~ p e a c e & love ~ jim LOW "you can't trust violence" +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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