wpjf blog

I was following indymedia reports of the No Borders camp near Gatwick Airport and I came across this one of some leafleting which had taken place in Crawley town centre. No Borders activists had taken the trouble to produce a news-sheet with information about their campaign.  Mainstream media can never be relied on to get accurate news to the public, so this sort of action is really important, and the report was illustrated with lovely photos of people accepting and reading the news-sheet.  More about about the No Borders Campaign here. No-one is illegal.

Reading the comments below the report, I was dismayed to see one which criticised the use of the word ‘action’ for leafleting.  The poster said: "Could we please keep the word ‘action’ for referring to actions rather than demos and leafleting?" and I was inspired to write this reply, which started out as a straight comment and ended up as a poem:

(Have added a couple of extra lines now - see comment below)

doing something

Action is doing
Action can be covert or overt
fluffy or spiky
engaging or confrontational
educating and demystifying
challenging
subverting
publicising
making music and theatre
art and poetry
writing, speaking, clicking, filming
recording and reporting
cooking, cleaning, mending
feeding people
healing people
building places to sit and talk
and sit and shit
waiting at the nick
legal help
court support
just being there
with a smile and a hug
and a listening ear
All these are Actions
We need them all
and together
We are Activists

in action

I spotted these -

 

on cartoonist Latuff’s Tales of Iraq War blog.

I can’t think of anything to say about Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq that hasn’t already been said, some of it by Republicans too!  Let’s just hope he goes quickly now.
 
Les thought that Pete Seeger’s anti-war song from the Vietnam era would be an appropriate comment.  So, here is Waist Deep in The Big Muddy. 

There’s also Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation by Tom Paxton.  Just replace Lyndon Johnson with Bush, 50,000 with 20,000 troops and Vietnam with Iraq and we’re off "to save Iraq from the Iraq-is".

A while ago I was contacted by someone who was putting together a set of stills to go with American Muslim country singer Kareem Salama’s anti-war song "Baby, I’m a Soldier".  They wanted to use one of my photos: of US soldiers setting off flares behind barbed wire at Fairford - one of my favourites.  The result is now up on YouTube.  Take a look.

Picture: Parliament Square, October 2006

The words of the wise echo ever more hollow
Through the halls of a house under corporate control
You walk down their road and you think I will follow
But the last inch of freedom is here in my soul
Now and forever.

Our votes have been counted and filed and forgotten
We dine on a diet of half-truths and lies
And a global economy’s scraps and leftovers
But the last inch of freedom…..there’s no compromise
We are together.

You can’t hear our voices for the thunder of money
The roar of the rivers that roll over borders
We’ll fight evermore for the last inch of freedom
We won’t keep their laws and we won’t take their orders;
Not now or ever.

In the last inch of freedom, we’ve sown revolutions
We’ve cut down the weeds and we’ve watered the flowers;
And we tend that small garden, for we are the people,
And the last inch of freedom will always be ours,
Now and forever.

by Les Barker. Recorded by Pete Morton on Les’s CD Twilight of the Dogs, 2006.