Demic Kids

One in five children in England are diagnosed as having Special Educational Needs. Throughout the rest of the European Union the average is one in twenty five.
Most of these special needs children will be from working class families at working class schools. A high proportion of working class boys will have been damned as deficient from an early age.
Some years ago, when my own children were growing up, I was forced to admit to myself that the school authorities were trawling for trouble rather than teaching the young.
As a parent governor I had to listen to the head teacher's plans to have a quarter of the reception class seen by child psychologists. For some reason these four and five year olds were not fitting into the system. Obviously, in the eyes of the teaching profession, if a child got restless, due to the stultifying boredom and regimentation of the classroom, they were mentally ill.
When my children went to secondary school, I managed to get them into a school attended by children from managerial backgrounds. Nevertheless, the school needed to have a certain amount of demics for to tick the 'care' box. So, one day I received a letter concerning one of my children, a voracious reader, saying they wished to test her for dyslexia!
A friend of hers, who recently gained a first class honours degree at a good university, was diagnosed as dyspraxic, whatever that is, and allowed extra time in the exams!
Maybe all the modern kids are nutters, weirdoes and retards. Maybe they need the psychologists and drugs.
It can't be in the genes though! No, when foreigners settle here and bring their children or have their children here, their children become demic children too!
Maybe it's something in the air, or maybe it's all in the imagination of the overseer class, or maybe its something to do with the hierarchical imperative of power.      

The Centralization Of Memory

Once upon a time we used to think of the expropriation of power as being related mainly to land ownership or communal autonomy, but  these days we realize that the expropriation of power reaches into the deepest recesses of the individual, expropriating their personhood, laying claim to their very thoughts and emotions.
Within society there have always been claims on our mind, there have always been priests and shamans to direct our thoughts as best they can, but until the rise of the Roman Church, beliefs and  thoughts emerged from within autonomous societies.
Only with the rise of the Roman Church, with its adoration of patriarchal hierarchy, its alliance with the robber barons, was a systematic centralized thought system imposed on the ordinary people.
Once upon a time the myths of a society, and with it a society's religion, were handed down orally from generation to generation. Each generation would memorize its own story and embellish and adapt it with the telling. In such a way were the scriptures of the Hebrews, handed down orally, learned by memory, and passed on for hundreds of years. Likewise the stories of Homer and the Greek myths were passed on from mouth to mouth, as were the epics of the Norse and the Irish and the Welsh and the Germans.
Each individual, within the mental confines of each community created their own memory, bestowing each act, each event, with their own importance.
Then came reading.
Reading and writing was the magic power of the priests for hundreds of years. With the written word the memory was destroyed and knowledge put in the hands of 'experts'. But, with the printing press people began to take back that power.
Ever since, there has been a struggle to take away the press from the people by the vested interests of power, usually by means of censorship, murder and torture.
In the twentieth century the world was interpreted through state controlled newspapers, radio and television, or the media of powerful semi private interests. Shared memories, such as Cup Finals, the careers of pop musicians, the deaths of princesses and presidents, became as important as the major events of our own lives, as we could share them with the anonymous crowd, hollowing out the validity of own humble existences in an abject submission to hierarchy.
But, the age of the herd, the age of the totalitarian memory imposed from on high: is it at its apex, is it about to disintegrate, or is it a movie that's set to run and run?         

The Archbishop Of Vichy

I never liked the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, much to begin with. His sickly saccharine phoney grin makes me want to throw up. His association with the false gospel teachers of Alpha, and his elitist social background makes me deeply suspicious. There is something merciless in his eyes and hard around his mouth.
And indeed, his collaborationist instincts have not taken long to surface.
A couple of weeks ago he was addressing the Methodist conference, remarking on the economic inequalities in society. In others words he was throwing himself behind the bureaucratic vision of society, the vision of spite and envy, instead of preaching the Gospel Of Christ.
The Methodist Church concerns itself greatly with Israel these days. Ignoring the many wicked happenings in this world, the war crimes of our own government, its support for the murderers of Christians in Syria for example, the Methodist Church is increasingly hitching itself to the anti Semitic bandwagon. Not a word of criticism from the Archbishop.
Now Mr. Welby wants choir leaders, bell ringers, and church wardens to have Criminal Records Bureau checks. Not only is he collaborating in the destruction of civil society so that every action is monitored by the bureaucracy, but he is also promoting the enslavement of the church to the state.
How long before people will be banned from church for expressing opinions that the State disapproves of?
Why does the Church not condemn Islam, a religion without the concept of love and freedom, a barbaric religion that promotes murder, the beating of women and the mutilation of girls?
Where is the Church Militant proclaiming the love and freedom of Christ?
Who does Welby serve, Christ or Caesar?
Is he David Cameron in drag?
I think we know the answer. 

Ary Dos Santos - Canção Do Emigrante

The Song of the Emigrant was a declamation by Ary dos Santos, the great Portuguese 'declamador'. Here are his words, followed by a loose (and unrhyming)  translation into English.

Partiste e quanto levaste
era um pedaço de pão
um braço para um guindaste
a fome do teu irmão
e a tristeza que deixaste
nas raízes do teu chão.
Partiste e quando levaste
era apenas solidão.

E quando à estranja chegaste
chegou-te aquela opressão
de um fruto que não tem haste
de um braço que não tem mão
da noiva que tu deixaste
do teu quintal do teu cão
da vinha que tu plantaste
do gosto a broa do pão
do gado que tu guardaste
nos campos do coraçao.
Porém partindo lutaste
e soubeste dizer não.

Não ao grito que amordaça
a boca de quem tem fome
não aos ventos de desgraça
que varriam o teu nome
não ao patrão que ameaça
ao burguês que te consoma
aos lavradores de má raça
latifundiários da fome
não àquela solidão
de tal maneira explorada
que até que te negava o pão
na tua pátria exilada.

Partiste e então construiste
punho a punho braço a braço
outro país que resiste
nos teus músculos de aço.

Quando travavas lá fora
uma luta desigual
estavas onde a alma mora
construias Portugal.

Voltaste e agora encontraste
a tua Pátria de Portugal
o país que tu sonhaste
já não é o teu redil
a tua casa é só tua
o teu trabalho é só teu
e se a luta continua
é porque o medo morreu.

Voltaste e quanto ganhaste
está ao serviço do povo
a luta que travaste
também faz Portugal novo.

Agora sim emigrante
O medo morreu de vez.
A partir do socialismo
és muito mais Português.



You left and what you took with you
Was a piece of bread and
a strong arm for some labouring,
Your brother's hunger
And your sadness left behind,
Rooted in the ground.
You left and you took with you
Only your loneliness.

And when you got to that foreign land
You were overcome by gloom;
Like a fruit that has no branch,
Like an arm that has no hand, thinking,
Of the girl you left behind,
Of your land and your dog,
Of the vines that you planted
Of the taste of fresh bread
Of the animals that you kept,
in the fields that you love.
But you kept on fighting
You refused to bow.

No to the cry that stifles
The mouths of the hungry,
No to the winds of misfortune
That swept over you.
No to the boss that threatens,
To the mangers who consume you
To the land owners of bad repute,
To the nobility of hunger
No to your lonely life
Exploited by the powerful,
Who even refused you bread in the land
From which you are exiled.

You departed and you built
Another home in another country,
Bit by bit with your muscles of steel
And your determination

When you unleashed out there
The unequal struggle
You were where your soul resides,
You were building Portugal!

You returned and you found,
In your country, your Portugal
the country that you dreamed of.
No longer a prison camp
Your house is your own,
Your work is your own,
And the struggle goes on
And the fear is dead!

You returned and what you won
Is at the service of the People
The struggle you unleashed
Has made Portugal new.

Walking On Water

'And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea,
And entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. and it was now dark, and Jesus was not come unto them.
And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.
So when they had rowed about five and twenty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship; and they were afraid.
But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid.
Then they willingly received him into the ship; and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.'

John Ball writes:
This is a favourite passage of mine from the gospels - Jesus walking on water, from John's Gospel, chapter 6.
Jesus can walk upon the waves, he does not sink to a watery grave, and with him, I too can walk upon the troubled waters of this life.
Jesus overcomes the laws of nature and overcomes the laws of sinful human nature.
To the amazement of the disciples Jesus walks towards them. They are not expecting him. His appearance does not depend on their faith. They are too busy dealing with the storm going on around them to think about Him.
No, the love of Jesus does not depend on my faith. His love is unconditional and eternal. Like the disciples, I am glad that He has decided to get in the boat with me.    

Kropotkin: Law And Authority

'In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad , people begin by demanding a law to alter it. If the road between two villages is impassable, the peasant says, "There should be a law about parish roads." If a park keeper takes advantage of the want of spirit in those who follow him with servile observance and insults one of them, the insulted man says, "There should be a law to enjoin more politeness upon park keepers." If there is stagnation in agriculture or commerce, the husbandman, cattle -breeder, or corn speculator argues, "it is protective legislation that we require." Down to the old clothesman there is not one who does not demand a law to protect his own little trade. If the employer lowers wages or increases the hours of labour, the politician in embryo exclaims, "We must have a law to put all that to rights." In short, a law everywhere and for everything! A law about fashions, a law about mad dogs, a law about virtue, a law to put a stop to all the vices and all the evils which result from human indolence and cowardice."

'We are so perverted by an education which from infancy seeks to kill in us the spirit of revolt, and to develop that of submission to authority.'

'Moral goodness and the law of the masters are fused into one'

'Servility before the law has become a virtue.'

'Finally they see the jailer..... lose all human feeling, the detective trained as blood-hound, the police spy despising himself, "informing", metamorphosed into a virtue: corruption erected into a system: all the vices, all the evil qualities of mankind countenanced and cultivated to ensure the triumph of law.'

'Law made its appearance under the sanction of the priest, and the warrior's club was placed at its service.'

'Like individual capital, which was born of fraud and violence, and developed under the auspices of authority, law has no title to the respect of men. Born of violence and superstition, ......it must be utterly destroyed on the day when the people desire to break their chains.'

'Finally, consider what corruption, what depravity of mind is kept up among men by the idea of obedience, the very essence of law; of chastisement; of authority having the right to punish, to judge irrespective of our conscience and the esteem of our friends; of the necessity for executioners, jailers and informers -- in a word, by all the attributes of law and authority. '

Assimilated Women, Isolated Women

Mary Malone writes:
Women in particular are heavily hit by being assimilated into the managerial class. Frequently, they move to a town far away from their family to further their career or, more usually, that of their husbands. When children are born a woman will often work part-time while the man continues to concentrate on work.
Although a woman may make friends amongst her own kind, very likely she will give up the support network of her mother and sisters, female cousins and aunts. At the birth of her children her mother will not be present, but her husband.
The husband not only has to work but also he is forced to provide a level of emotional and practical support which a man is not equipped to give.
Hence, isolation, despair, proscribed drugs, and an unhealthy reliance on bureaucratic structures that provide a shadow of what a woman once received from society.
By marrying and moving far away from her home she has lost the identity she once had, one that was based on family, people, religion and region. She can only relate to new 'friends' through the common attitudes of her class as handed down by the television and the Authority press 
Of course, she has been indoctrinated in right and wrong, and she is aware of her superiority over the peasant women, and the oppressed women of foreign countries, so why isn't she happy?