.. .............SWIPE

........... ..................................AROUND........

Where are we heading?

Twilight-Zone clip

UPSIDE - DOWN

More on 'THE BEATS'

HASTINGS - 21.11.12

(swipe for 2nd shot - both as taken, untweaked)

 

The term UPSIDE DOWN, nicked from satirist Eduardo Galeano (it's the title for one of his books), is becoming increasingly apt these days. In fact, the expression is so universally applicable now that I'm surprised not to see it popping-up in every non-establishment publication or posting that touches on politics, culture, the arts ... or anything that significantly affects the lives of ordinary people almost anywhere on the planet:

See how anti-war protester David Lawley-Wakelin is being treated after interrupting Blair as he was giving evidence at the Leveson Inquiry, shouting: "Excuse me, this man should be arrested for war crimes.". Levesen apologised to Blair while Wakelin was escorted away by police - he's in the dock tomorrow (Friday 16th Nov) charged with threatening behaviour.

See details at Stopwar  

Then there's those VAST sums of money billionaire creditors have swindled from us in recent years.... I'm talking about the money now being extorted from tax-payers all across Europe and the US as governments attempt to pay these creditor-thieves off after bailing them out too for their 'bad' gambling/investments in banks - money that was never destroyed, but merely passed between gamblers (ie, other investors/creditors) . And, yet other BIG outfits - with friends in government that maintain tax-law loopholes - pay little or no tax anyway.... so it's the same 'City' investors/creditors who gain from this. In other words, the entire system of Government (or more precisely, Corporate Elite), with their City/Wall-St colleagues and stooges, political and otherwise, are out to bring down by several pegs the living standards in the whole Western slave-market.

To the elite, presumably, it's some kind of Game, an exercise in power. Perhaps they see it as a last-chance to re-assert themselves, to re-affirm and consolidate their position, and to stave-off us masses, to delay the inevitable repercussions of universal self-education that will crash down on their diabolic schemes?

There's no doubt their position is at risk - like the Czars in the early 20th C. The scale and power of mass-protest is threatening their grip, which nevertheless remains solid. Why else the huge universal propaganda exercise and unyielding enforcement of austerity? Why else the political hubris in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recent interference in Libya, Syria and Iran?

The CIA, with its army of agents, are everywhere, now reputedly even attempting to undermine Rafael Correa (President of Ecuador) after he offered asylum to Julian Assange, whose 'crimes' are to inform us public of the depraved activities and swindles our 'elected' and appointed elites (and their flunkies) are engaged in.

All this is merely to brush the surface of what's truly going on. Imagine a board-game like Monopoly but which includes wars and taking-over the world.... I'm sure there's one out there like that. But the maniacs at the top of this fiasco that's responsible for so much poverty, misery, horror and death around the world resemble the French/Russian aristocracy prior to revolution, because they too seem to regard themselves as a breed apart, like some kind of supra-human race, and the rest of us a sub-species to be exploited and trodden down. That's how they behave, at any rate. No longer are these barbaric tyrants tied to any particular country or culture. Their GAME is their culture. It's them against the world they aim to possess.

The most damning aspect of all this is that most of us have been duped, bribed or threatened into playing on their side, assisting their schemes. Even when this dawns on us, we can only strike and protest.... unless, maybe, if you're an ordinary City worker, minor politician, corporate mid-manager, or one of the naive helpers and minions down the ladder who reluctantly or otherwise support these crucial individuals... because like a lowly plumber or electrician, those in mid- and low-ranking positions have the power to bring the entire structure to a halt.

The elites reside at the top only through support from a pyramid of obedient, conforming idiot-assistants whose status reduces as they approach the pyramid-base. For the first 4-decades of my life I resided at that base, never for an instant above it. When I recognised my situation I scarpered, and apart from a brief minor incursion have remained detached from the pyramid ever since.

We all know what happens if the base of a structure begins to crumble.... so the solution is to make adjustments higher up. That way, every part of the system that's crucial to civilised everyday living is maintained while a 'silent' revolution takes place above. The first move has to be to freeze assets and re-inform (or replace if they fail to co-operate) local managers of every essential supply and service industry: food, transport, health - with legal protection where necessary (that would be the pivotal and most difficult part).

The only alternative is to simply topple the billionaire creditor elites by first ceasing to fund them - that is refuse to repay debts. What can austerity-protests throughout Europe achieve in the short term? Even if protestors keep it up day after day, the elites are not going to buckle easily or by much, if at all. As ever, only the weak/poor will suffer. And if this happens, will Greece, for instance, go the same way as Germany in the 1920s? And if so what then... because even that was supported/promoted wholeheartedly by the corporate elite in both Europe and the US - and we all know what it led to?

Hopefully for us, self-education from the net, from people like Assange and independent reporting as on some of the sites on the links page of this site, can provide real opportunities for a 'silent' revolution that's so overdue....

But the initiative (and courage to use it) has to begin somewhere well up the pyramid.... and if that doesn't transpire then the situation looks bleak: like violent, because there's a limit that's being crossed which the elite of former times (except a complacent French/Russian aristocracy) were careful to avoid. Though what do the contemporary elite care about that? They're obviously not intellectuals, so are probably unaware of the history.

UPSIDE DOWN as ever: re-possessions of accommodation, as in the US, now harshly enforced across Europe (apart from some concessions in Spain), leaving the hapless poor homeless while properties are made empty.... Essential (health/social) services and products being cut while millions thrown out of work... the number of millionaires fast increasing and their assets growing too like never before - while the poor in their millions are forced to fund this, to cough-up increasingly extortionate rents, fuel-charges, food-prices, etc., and from reducing slave-wages too. I reckon that's all about as UPSIDE DOWN as you can get.

* * * * *

Relevant extracts from a Schnews item (15.11.12)

 

EATING LIKE PIIGS


Protesters gatecrashed the Lord Mayor's Banquet on Monday(12th)…

…This was while… the new Lord Mayor, Alderman Roger Gifford
wined and dined the world's finest degenerates in the form of bankers,
politicians and business leaders…

This action was a starter course leading up to the European wide day of action and strikes that occurred Wednesday(14th) across Europe, including Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, France and the UK.

Sam Fairbairn from the coalition of resistance voiced the opinion of many in the 99% saying: "Two years of Tory-led government has made it clear - austerity isn't working. Across Europe policies of austerity are driving millions of people into poverty while it's business as usual for the people who caused the crisis. The governments tell us there is no alternative. They say that we are 'all in it together'. The Mayor hosts his annual banquet at which he will entertain bankers who caused the crisis and the politicians who are making ordinary people pay for it. While they are being wined and dined with expensive champagne and Michelin class food, millions of ordinary people struggle to feed
their families. The gap between rich and poor increases every day. We are not 'all in it together'".

The alternative feast had a few gatecrashers of its own in the form of some drunk bankers who in antithesis to the protesters shouted their support for their glorious European leaders, especially David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

Police arrested seven protesters (but no bankers) with breaching Section 14 of the Public Order Act and detained them overnight.


http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/EATING-LIKE-PIIGS

 

Am still working out some kind of subconscious appraisal of the film 'ON THE ROAD' which was probably about as good as anyone could create in film of Kerouac's masterpiece. Creations of this kind take time to sink in before the most seminal qualities bounce onto the surface of consciousness. A fine objective 3000-word review by Mick Brown appeared in the Telegraph last month. Here's a key paragraph:

In 1951, after completing the first draft of On the Road, he wrote in his journal, 'I’m lost, but my work is found.’ He had discovered his voice as a writer – personal, spontaneous, uncensored. But his life was already beginning its descent into chaos. Drink, and the Benzedrine he took to fuel his writing, had begun to exact their toll. In the six years between completing On the Road and its publication in 1957, he wrote a further eight autobiographical novels, none of them finding a publisher, which left him depleted and despairing of ever achieving recognition.

So the capsules they were breaking open in the film were Benzedrine after all. But reading of Kerouac's (uncharacteristic?) yearning for recognition, explains in part why he went off the rails: six whole years, a further eight novels, and none finding a publisher. I recall reading how Ginsberg (for one) had told him this new work of his, the new style of it, was outstanding.... yet still it failed to get published. 

When, many years ago, I read for the first time those opening lines of 'ON THE ROAD' I was gripped. Now, having recently bought a copy of the original manuscript - with no chapters or paragraphs, just continual spontaneous prose for almost 400-pages.... I find it even more gripping.... Why did publishers reject it? Were they already too wealthy? Were they just monumentally stupid/bigoted/narrow-minded, only interested in what most youth then or now would regard as banal, trite or pap... only interested, that is, in what was ultra-safe? Maybe Kerouac should have sent his expletive-laden manuscript to Henry Miller's French publishers (of 'The Tropic of Cancer' 17-years earlier - if they still existed after WW2), or one like them? Ironically, Kerouac himself was of French ancestry.

Maybe the publisher(s?) Kerouac approached were versions of an arrogant Steve Allen (ie, see youtube) and were offended by Kerouac's confidence and his unconventional presentation of the manuscript: typed on a big roll of teletype paper so that nothing would interrupt the spontaneous flow of words as he poured them out over three solid weeks, he threw this scroll in one great joyful unrolling flourish across the publisher's office. Without bothering even to glance at the manuscript, 'Go home and type it properly.' (or words to that effect) was the publisher's impassive response... as if the pricipal responsibility was not to read submissions, but to tame or punish what was regarded as unruly juvenile behaviour. (Lucky for that publisher it wasn't another Lermontov in his office!)

But probably, many publishers then belonged to the same ilk as the respondents in the recent Telegraph film review reader-replies. The Telegraph is renowned for its literary quality as much as for its right-wing political slant - which means most of its readers will lack the background/ability to recognise or appreciate authentic innovative prose from an outstanding artist like Kerouac (or, I guess, Ginsberg for 'HOWL').

Here's a couple of examples:

1) ...as Western civilization rots from within, more cultural pollution such as this film doesn't help. Bad enough the pre-boomer and boomer generations were led astray by adolescent bohemian romances like Kerouac's, but it's simply unpardonable for them to promote this rubbish to the current generation. Unlike Kerouac, Cassady et al. and the legions who imitated them, real men and women find true freedom in commitment and the acceptance of responsibility.

2) I used to like the idea of the 'beats' when I was younger, but the reality never lived up to the idea.
And now it just seems to me a load of adolescent navel gazing. 

These respondents represent the tired, worn-out disillusioned conformist types who instead of blaming the stuffy, straight-laced Establishment propaganda they fell for (and is the true source of their angst), they unload their gripes onto the targets of their greatest envy: the intrepid escapees (and subsequent disciples and followers) who used their outstanding intellect to grasp the maximum from this short life and record their experiences as a lesson for us all - and without exploiting anyone in the process. Only the two most prominent - Cassady and Kerouac - failed to enjoy a mostly rich and fulfilling longevity.

But the phrase 'true freedom [is found] in commitment and the acceptance of responsibility' is a classic oxymoron that's akin to the counter-logic of the old Nazi propaganda slogan: 'Work sets you free.' (How anyone can believe such tosh is a complete mystery to me - which I suppose explains why I'd never work in advertising or the creation of other propaganda). Obviously, it's the very absence of responsibility/work (if one could achieve that) which sets us free.

Another possibile reason for the delay of publication is that even when censored and castrated to the hilt 'On The Road' was still just too anti-establishment: too creative, too innovative, too adventurous, too spontaneous, broke too many taboos, shattered too many boundaries, was too free, too anarchic, too joyful, too accessible, TOO REAL.... when beside it the rest of the population (ie, Edward Bernays' propaganda-controlled slave-nation) had their lives mapped-out for them on the treadmill of 'enterprise', of commerce, of factories/offices/shops and other slave-holes... in mind-numbing 'careers'... as ordained by the corporate elite. By the time a publisher was eventually found, Elvis Presley and Bill Hayley were going strong, Kinsey's famous report had been published and 'The Twilight Zone' was high on TV viewing charts, and even then they insisted on a heavily censored script with its most powerful/telling sections edited or removed.

The film retains the atmosphere of the book as much as a film can. Still, as often happens, the book is better. From what I've read of the original so far - which is essentially the one the film follows - it is a distinct improvement on the old censored version, which. hopefully will fall out of favour and cease to be printed/published - since strictly it should never have existed in the first place... it's not what its author intended. And I wonder how much better: more spontaneous, more fluid and flowing, more sensational, more vibrant and musical even, his other books would have been had Kerouac not suffered the constant threat of that insane censorious 'sword-of-Damocles' the publishers held over him all those years, of removing the tone, the spirit, the essence, the REALITY from his groundbreaking prose?

I guess the corporate Establishment these days realises that even if many young people are persuaded or 'converted' by the wisdom of it, only an insignificant few are likely to attempt to emulate Kerouac's jaunts. And they know too that any attempts to suppress or censor are likely to create a backlash - so no overt efforts against Kerouac's original manuscript or the film... except, according to what I'm told, reviews have been mostly negative. So the regressive, reactionary fuddy-duddy brigade remain a force to be reckoned with. But how often one reads book-or-film reviews that vary precisely according to the publication they're in... that is, however good, say, a politically 'left' book/film, it will probably receive negative reviews in the right-wing press, especially (though unlike The Telegraph) in mass-market rags like The Mail.