Category: Uncategorized
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The likeable chaps who destroy worlds
This area I’ve been trying to think about – the whole sweep of countries that Israel seems to have a license to bomb – it’s been going under the name of ‘The Middle East’, normally pronounced in news reports with the prefix ‘Troubleinthe’: here in the UK, the BBC brought me up to be very…
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Debate is unpleasant?
Well, it can certainly be challenging. Ever since FB started religiously removing anything telling that I tried to contribute to the worldwide effort to stop a genocide, I’ve been wondering what exactly these community standards are that I apparently keep going against. I read everything I could find and nowhere did I see anything that…
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A wonderful opportunity
There are so many reasons to be interested in Marilyn Garson’s writing. She has worked in Afghanistan and Palestine, and has written a book about her experiences in Gaza during the 2014 bombardment. She describes the mission she gave herself as aiming to ‘rehumanize’ the people of Gaza. I love that focus. It brings strong…
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Knowing is believing
People need their hope back. Here it is… The reasons why it’s so hard for ‘the left’ to re-group and push back into party politics are many but the main one is that getting back into party politics may not be what we need. The real tragedy is that many who have lost faith in…
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When the war is lost and won
An ode to Hampden Park The spuggies were singing at Hampden Park this morning. They were called sparrows when I was a kid, and they were everywhere. Every bush and tree went cheep! cheep! Every sudden movement by humans was answered by the whir of a hundred sparrows taking flight. A generation ago But my…
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Congratulations sisters!
[The header pic is a screenshot from a 2018 article in the National Scot, published during the #NoDebate years] This week, Woman’s Place UK closed up shop, and the women who founded it are now resting on their laurels amidst cheers and tears from women all over the country. Well if I know them, they’re…
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Thinking about faces I didn’t see at Conway Hall
I was musing with a friend about the variety of things each of us had seen and done at Conway Hall over the years – from TU campaign meetings through poetry society gatherings to arts and academic lectures. It was at Conway Hall that I first met John McDonnell, and got myself sufficiently embroiled in…
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Message from the margins
I read ‘Apology’ from Another Angry Voice’ today, because I have a desktop covered in blogs I started writing in the last few weeks and lost faith in along the way, and it set me wondering — whatever the personal circumstances around it — just how many lefty bloggers must be embroiled in doubts and…
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This where your Zionism gets you, Sir Keir
I don’t know about you, but the parallels here really turned my stomach. There is fear and confusion in the Jewish Professor’s face, but also honour and pride, as he says to the uniforms in the street… I don’t understand why you’re arresting me Then he’s led away between two uniforms, whilst a line of…
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Re-open, re-read, re-treasure
Once upon a time, I became a published author. – guest post by S P Moss The year was 2012 and it was all courtesy of Kay Green and her brainchild, Earlyworks Press. Or, more correctly, twin brainchildren as my first novel was published by Circaidy Gregory. [Earlyworks Press was for competition anthologies, club and…
Kay Green 