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"Last orders for the Local" - Inspired by the destruction of most of the best pubs in our locality and the increasing difficulty in finding a pub with a bearable atmosphere to enjoy a drink in, this pamphlet casts a critical eye over recent changes to pub environments and the emerging of theming as a marketing factor in various fields of leisure and consumption; and ponders how this connects to the balance of class forces and changes in the way we relate to history and memory. " A Destroyed Miner" - Memories of John Dennis - a remarkable miner from Kiveton Park Colliery, South Yorkshire who kicked the bucket on the 22nd of May,2002. Originally, this was a pamphlet handed out free in pubs (often stocked behind bars) and gigs mainly in the South Yorks area where there was a great demand for it. This has now been followed by a recent postscript - completed in August 2003 - based on some of JD's final, though often crazed rants which nonetheless are shot through with profound comments. "Jenny Dennis Tells Her Tale" - The best account yet of the Yorkshire mining community and of the 1984 strike from a woman at the very centre of this epic struggle. Along with other texts on the 1984 miners' strike, it has been published in a book by by L'Insomniac in Paris, Autumn 2004. "Energy & Extinction". A wide ranging discussion written in spring 2004 concerning the chaos inherent in all energy options today now that oil and gas reserves are becoming depleted. In reality: is there a future for energy? "Fuel Convoy" - On the Fuel protests by hauliers and small farmers in the Autumn of 2000 plus our leaflet handed out to the Convoy participants. "Whilst many of the less ideologically befuddled poor supported this movement, it was left to the professional middle-classes to denounce the blockaders (most of whom earned peanuts compared to these well paid professional liars) as 'greedy' and 'voracious'. "Hope, Faith, Charity, Lottery" -Since the defeats of the strikes and riots up to the mid-1980s, "which were in part against the gentrification of working class areas, the poor have been ever increasingly titillated by displays of what has been stolen from them, whether in the form of wealthy people living close to them or endless stories about millionaires, especially those who have won the Lottery". "Soaps" - Difficult to know if this is local or global, the text is a critique of Soap Operas written October 2001. "Soaps are the vicarious community of isolated individuals, the risk free fake family consumed by highly stressed real families everywhere". "Notes Towards the Economics & Aesthetics of the UK's Great Building Disaster" - On the great wages collapse and the moment where Antony Gormless's 'big art' and 'big engineering' overlap in the increasing aestheticisation of the environment and commodity relations. Plus a bit of a personal history... "Miner/Butterfly Destruction" - On the post miners' strike makeovers of the former colliery spoil heaps of South a& West Yorkshire. Or how best destroy a profound subversive historical memory and an abundance of wildlife with it, including the threatened Dingy Skipper butterfly. This presentation is in the form of numbered paragraphs and a basis for voiceovers for some digital films that are nearly complete and will shortly be streamed on a web. All the central committees of various eco organisations who know of this project are furious about what has been said here especially our emphasis on the con of green capitalism. The filmscript on the Frickley colliery makeover is the most pointed clearly explaining how installation art and Fluxus-inspired "Pestivals" etc are increasingly playing a significant part in this new world 'green' (dis)order...and one a fall-out from Reclaim the Streets has found to its liking. "Long lost wildcat strikes in the UK" - A request from Loren Goldner in May 2007 to list the ten or so most impressive wildcat strikes in the UK over the last few decades. Loren needed personal information plus more intimate knowledge initially for a talk he was giving to some South Korean workers in the city of Ulan but with the broader purpose of writing two books on the subject to be published in the Korean language. "Derives; Housing & Real Ecos" - The mid-1970s Lucas Aerospace Plan and community architecture. Jack Common and a Newcastle urban derive. Historicism and aestheticism. BedZed, the Stern Report and a Thames barge. Eco capitalism as the final saviour of markets and humanity. Written in the summer of 2007, the subtitles in themselves provide all the explanation although the general theses at the end really need to be remembered. "Scientists and Social Crap" - Summer 2007 and a critical discussion of four early 20th century scientists although the real meat is reserved for the ecologists of the end-of-the-world like Lovelock and followers like Lynas with their cushty lifestyle offerings. ...Plus the con inherent in nature conservation. GLOBAL "You Make Plans - We Make History" - Graffiti in Genoa Port, the Anti-Globalisation movement, Reclaim the Streets, science and ecological collapse, plus post-9/11 comments. & Media""Balkan War & Media""Balkan War & Media" - Although as regards proper filing this should be in the archive section, it's relevance to the present epoch of war demands it be placed here. Some of the text handed out as an anti-war leaflet at meetings. "The essential function of the media is to present the choices coming from different arguments within the ruling class as the only possible choices". "Afghanistan" "Afghan Crises" "The Borg" "Pakistan" - The following articles were written by Melancholic Troglodytes during 2001 in response to the war situation in the region and were distributed as leaflets at meetings and demonstration.Kamikaze Kapitalism" -A critique and evaluation of the forces behind the unleashing of the Iraqi war of 2003 plus, plus "War and Peace" - Thoughts on the Looming War - written February 22nd 2003 n Uprising 2001" -"Algerian Uprising 2001" - The radical youth uprising that received little mention in the UK or America and was equally a fight against mindless and brutal Islam as well as a secular brutal state."Hydro-Jihad" - On "Water Imperialism" in the Middle East as part of the 2003 Iraqi war. "Interview With An Iraqi Revolutionary" - in the context of the 2003 war on Iraq. These two texts from Melancholic Troglodytes form part of a 3 part text. We didn't like the first part which was written in the form of a parody of F. Herbert's "Dune" which we haven't read, because it was totally obscure. All 3 texts are available from meltrogs1@hotmail.com "Godfathers of Levant" - May 2005. Syrian-Lebanese dispute and its implications for class struggle."....the Levant is faced with a number of immediate obstacles: the current low level of class struggle in the region: the prevalence of nationalistic and religious bigotry......" This is perhaps the best account so far of what has happened/happening in these countries highlighting a lot of telling details. "Culture In Danger -if only!" - The movement of casualised culture industry workers, France 2003. " The State doesn't want culture to disappear - on the contrary, the worse things get, the more culture is essential for the maintenance of this mad society." Includes more general reflections on culture and its history. "Tentative Impressionistic Notes on the Movements in France, June 2003" - The ruling class here, (France) as elsewhere, are super-confident, and the movement, generally speaking, is super-unconfident, though people waver from pessimism to optimism and back again...... "Reflections On Culture". Excellent short piece updating the essential critique of culture; a critique which is now almost utterly lost. "Yet Moore Banalities" - Clued-in diatribe against Michael Moore - America's cinema idol - and a populist reply to the 'new' imperialism. "Intro to book on Captain White" - A genuine social revolutionary, Captain White has been all but airbrushed out of 20th century Irish history. Most likely White's contribution would have been colossal if some of his most important reminisces and analyses especially his involvement with the Spanish "incontraldos" - the uncontrollables - the most radical part of the Spanish Anarchist movement during the uprising of 1936/7 - hadn't been destroyed when White died. "Wanderings & Meanderings. Digressions & Detours. Freewheeling Reflections on Latin America in Relation to the UK (2006)" - A relatively cursory attempt to look at what is happening today throughout the continent - sometimes in relation to the UK - emphasising in particular cultural - or rather anti-cultural aspects - plus questioning a few popularly held beliefs related to Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil. "Wildcat Spain Encounters Democracy" - This scanned in book from the 1970s should really be read in conjunction with the latter text on Latin America as it still provides the most penetrating and imformative account of incontrolados assembly experiences ever written. Certainly nothing comparable has yet come from Latin America. "Strange Defeat" A piece written by the pro-situationist groupuscule Point Blank in California in the early 1970s on the coup which overthrew President Allende in Chile in 1973. Despite a certain ideological tub-thumping tone it's certainly withstood the test of time. "O Jornal Combate" - This is a very interesting and all too brief account written by Phil Meyler of the activities of the Portuguese ultra leftist group Combate during the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-76. It is placed in this section simply because so many young Latin Americans today refer back to this event. Especially interested in the practical collaborations between insurgent soldiers and insurgent workers they wonder if such an example has any contemporary relevance. "Marianela" - So farewell Marianela, the unhappiest person I've ever met. I shall never forget you - you the Latin American misfit turned new oligarch in the context of today's property-mad, money-mad London with your heart and past in the Dominican Republic..... |