Category

class

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• Saturday 2 May 2009

  may day protests

  This is France. The BBC has a slideshow of May Day protests around the world, mainly focused on the economic crisis. The police look the same everywhere…
  Diam’s offers a take on France here – one that’s multiracial and anti-Sarko. If you want a rough translation drop me a line. But your French may be better [...]

  posted by red at 1:58 am in capitalism, class, resistance | comment

• Friday 1 May 2009

  happy international workers’ day

  Strikers’ rally in Union Square, New York, on May Day, 1913. Check out the multi-lingual signs – two in Italian and a couple that I assume are in Yiddish. The one in English says:
  ALFRED BENJAMIN’S EMPLOYEES
  Our boss claims we are satisfied
  We are here to prove the contrary
  More info – and more historic 1 May pics [...]

  posted by red at 12:37 am in class, resistance | 2 comments

• Tuesday 21 April 2009

  who built the city?

  A comment on the Brecht poem in this post reminded me about thoughts that sometimes cross my mind when I’m wandering around London looking at the buildings. Like in the City, where there are many big old buildings and some impressive new ones too.
  They were built by slaves.
  I don’t mean that the people who put [...]

  posted by red at 12:43 am in capitalism, class, racism | 3 comments

• Sunday 19 April 2009

  questions from a worker who reads

  Who raised it up so many times?
  I have been walking around with a copy of this poem in my pocket for a while…
  Questions from a worker who reads
  by Bertolt Brecht
  Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
  In the books you will find the names of kings.
  Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
  And Babylon, many [...]

  posted by red at 2:00 am in class, culture, life | 3 comments

• Wednesday 15 April 2009

  don’t hold your breath

  It’s budget day next Wednesday. The budget is late this year. That’s because the government hasn’t got a clue what to do about the plunging economy, has lost count of its bailouts and now thinks a bank statement is a bit of paper that comes in the post once a month to show how many [...]

  posted by red at 11:47 pm in capitalism, class, government | 6 comments

• Monday 13 April 2009

  a pair of boots

  I hopped on the bus yesterday to see this at the Whitechapel Gallery. It is the tapestry version of Picasso’s Guernica, made by weaver Jacqueline de la Baume Dürrbach in 1955.
  I’ve never seen the 1937 original painting, which Picasso made in response to the devastating arial bombardment on the town of Guernica – by [...]

  posted by red at 11:54 pm in anti-war, capitalism, class, culture, resistance | 6 comments