no longer a debate?
lennon’s REVOLUTIONS 50 years on

[This post originally went up at my PATREON: subscribers get to read posts and hear podcasts early — and help offset costs and time and help me do more of this kind of thing]

“The blues are beautiful because it’s simpler and because it’s real. It’s not perverted or thought about: It’s not a concept, it is a chair; not a design for a chair but the first chair. The chair is for sitting on, not for looking at or being appreciated. You sit on that music.” (John Lennon to Jann Wenner, 21 January 1971)

lennon fistWhen Jack Hutton quit Melody Maker in 1970, to set up what became Sounds, he told Richard Williams, who stayed behind, that it would be a “left-wing Melody Maker”. Hutton’s no longer with us, so I suppose if I get the chance I’ll have to ask Williams one day what exactly was meant by “left-wing” here. My guess — based on what Sounds actually turned out like — is that Hutton meant the new paper would be centred on rock. Even though both papers covered rock and pop and everything else, MM’s moral centre was arguably still jazz at that point. Even though the jazz fan-base always had a left-wing in the UK, with old-school communists solid among its supporters and chroniclers, it was a music (or so many seemed to feel) whose time was past. Rock was new and rock was now, the very voice of youth — but beyond this, rock had had, for a while by then, a tangled relationship with politics, radical left politics in particular. Continue reading “no longer a debate?
lennon’s REVOLUTIONS 50 years on”

resource list for refugees, migrants, asylum seekers and more

#NoBanNoWall #LetThemIn

This is a list of resources for migrants and refugees in the UK and Europe, and related organisations, originally crowd-sourced and storified on twitter by the redoubtable Daniel Trilling (@trillingual) and various excellent people in his timeline. It seems like a helpful moment to put the information into a user-friendly form. Some are charities, some are activist non-profits: quite apart from all the people who desperately need help, the official laws, techniques and institutions being developed to police borders and harm refugees and migrants will be quickly be exported to the rest of society, the poor and the vulnerable in particular, the establishment of border-patrol politics at all levels of daily life.

Order is alphabetic, in sections: UK-wide first, then UK local, then a scattering of Europe-wide orgs and some US ones too. Some are self-explanatory, some I’ve given a very brief description. It’s nowhere near exhaustive, obviously — just a start. I’ll probably give it a page of its own shortly — this is just my blog after all — but it seemed the common-sense place to start. If you can, donate or give your time and energy. And circulate this.

UK NATIONAL

Against Borders for Children, against border regimes within schools @Schools_ABC

Association of Visitors to Immigrant Detainees @AVIDdetention 

Asylum Aid, @AsylumAid

Asylum Support Appeals Project helps people appeal their cases, get housing, avoid destitution   

Bail for Immigration Detainees

Christian/Muslim refugee initiatives, local and national

City of Sanctuary network (UK & Ireland), encouraging communities to welcome refugees, branches nationwide (see below for a few of them) @cityofsanctuary

Counterpoints Arts, engaging with refugee and grant experiences @CounterArts

Detention Action supports people in UK immigration detention @DetentionAction

Doctors of the World: campaigning for refugees in UK to access healthcare, @DOTW_UK 

Help Refugees UK @HelpRefugeesUK 

Homes Not Borders @Homesnotborders

Homes for Syrians @homesforsyrians 

Hope for the Young (formerly OMID International) @hopefortheyoung

Hope not Hate @hopenothate

Housing Rights (not just migrants and refugees)

How to ask your MP to expand UK refugee resettlement 

Legal action for women 

Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants

Lobby your MP

Lorraine Ayensu Refugee Arts fund @LARAfund

Médecin Sans Frontières @MSF, @MSF_Sea, @MSF_uk 

Medical Justice: health rights for UK immigration detainees @MedicalJustice

Migrants’ Law Project offers strategic litigation against immigration detention @MigrantsLawProj

Migrant Voice, for migrant voices to be heard in the UK media @MigrantVoiceUK 

Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary @followMFJ 

Music in Detention @MIDdetention

PlatformaArts and Refugee Network @PlatformaArts 

Red Cross UK refugee support @britishredcross

Refugee Action @RefugeeAction

Refugees at Home, seeking hosts for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK @RefugeesAtHome,

Refugee Council @refugeecouncil 

Safe Passage works to bring vulnerable refugees in Europe to Britain @Safepassageuk

UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group @uklgig

We Are Chatterbox: language and cultural training service by refugees @wearechatterbox

Women for Refugee Women campaigns (Yarl’s Wood and elsewhere) @4refugeewomen

Yarl’s Wood Befrienders @YWBefrienders 

UK LOCAL

A useful map for local links @RefugeeWeek

London:

Croydon and NW London
Young Roots: supporting young refugees and asylum seekers @weareyoungroots

East London:
Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London @RAMFELcharity

Greenwich:
Greenwich Migrant Hub @GreenwichMH

Hackney:
Akwaaba social centre for asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants @akwaabahackney

Hackney Migrant Centre 

Haringey:
Haringey Migrant Support Centre haringeymsc.org

Islington:
Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants: English lessons, support, workshops, hot meals @IslingtonCentre

Lewisham:
Action for Refugees in Lewisham @Afril 

North East London:
North East London Migrant Action: people left destitute by local council policies @NELMAcampaigns

Walthamstow:
Walthamstow Migrants’ Action Group 

London-wide:
English for Action: English lessons in London @EFALondon

New North London Synagogue Drop-In Centre for Destitute Asylum Seekers

Praxis: advice, support, meeting place for migrants and refugees

Refugee Connection: helping refugees and Londoners get to know one another @RefConnection

SOAS detainee support

Support network for people stranded in London by the #MuslimBan

Bradford
Bradford City of Sanctuary @bradfordCoS

Brighton, Sussex and Surrey
Brighton Voices in Exile @brightonvoices

Brighton Migrant Solidarity @BriMigSol

Bristol
Bristol Refugee Rights @bristolrefugeer

Huddersfield:
Destitute Asylum Seekers Huddersfield 

Hull:
Hull Help for Refugees @hullforrefugees

Leeds
Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network @lassnleeds 

Leeds No Borders @leedsnoborders 

Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers @PAFRAS_Leeds 

Leicester
After 18, a resource for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers entering adulthood @after18uk

Liverpool and Merseyside
Asylum Link @asylumlink

Manchester:
Boaz Trust, serving destitute asylum seekers

Manchester Refugee Support Network 

Newcastle:
Action Foundation provides housing and language support @actionFdn

Notts:
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum @NNRF1

Oxford
Asylum Welcome @asylumwelcome

Reading
Reading Refugee Support Group

South Yorkshire:
South Yorkshire Migrants and Asylum Action Group @SYMAAG

Sheffield:
Assist Sheffield: challenging asylum destitution

Tyneside:
Newcastle Law Centre @NewcastleLC 
North of England Refugee Service @NERSRefugee
West End Refugee Service

York:
Refugee Action York @refactyork

NORTHERN IRELAND
Housing4All campaigns against destitution in Belfast @h4allni

Northern Ireland Community of Refugees & Asylum Seekers @NICRAScharity (refugee-led)

Horn of Africa People’s Aid Northern Ireland @HAPANI1 (refugee-led)

SCOTLAND:

Edinburgh
Edinburgh City of Sanctuary @edinCoS

Welcoming Edinburgh @WelcomingEdi

Refugee Action Scotland: delivering aid to migrants freezing in the Balkans: @re_act_scotland

Glasgow
Refuweegee: “we’re all fae somewhere”

Glasgow Unity Centre, which monitors and challenges deportations: @unitycentreglas

Positive Action: accommodation for destitute refugees @PositiveActionH

WALES:

Swansea:
Unity in Diversity: helping refugees and asylum seekers @uidswansea 

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:
Migrant Rights Centre Ireland @MigrantRightsIR

Contact your TD to ask them to oppose Trump’s ban 

EUROPE
European Council of Refugees and Exiles @ecre

Welcome 2 Europe: information and contact lists country by country

Advice on Individual Rights in Europe @AIRECentre 

Refugee Community Kitchen: food for migrants and the homeless in Dunkirk, Paris, Calais, London @RefugeeCkitchen

Refugee Rights Data Project @refugeedata

Red Cross EU @RedCrossEU

Caritas, “the helping hand of the Catholic Church” @iamcaritas

Food for migrants in the Balkans HERE and HERE

Connect Refugee: Phone credit for refugees in Europe, vital lifeline, sometimes literally
 

UNITED STATES

American Civil Liberties Union @ACLU

Southern Poverty Law Centre @splcenter

you can never go back back BAACK!

In which I take a break from organising a quasi-historical not-very-academic (but very exciting) conference (at Birkbeck, 15-16 May) and reflect on the ways your personal backpages as a hack begin to intersect with the public record etc etc.

COVER034-35A few weeks back, Marcello asked if I had any thoughts on this TPL post (about, among other things, Johnny Hates Jazz and The Wire as it was in 1986/87). Well, I did and I didn’t: I did because this era of my mentor Richard Cook’s project is very much the making of me, and I absorbed an enormous amount of his sensibility and thought a lot how to advance it best (whether or not I did is for others to judge; sadly he’s no longer with us for his perspective). But I didn’t (at least tactically, for now) because I have for most of this year been organising a conference on UK music-writing in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, trying to focus on how things had evolved from roughly 1968 (and the discussion of rock in the underground press) through to maybe 1985, when (in my judgment) Live Aid hit the inkies hard sideways, and changed their political ecology for good (Geldof’s revenge, you could call it). The serious social potential of pop began to be more and more of a topic for the tabloids and the broadsheets: the inkies began more and more to fold in into their own niche, exploring less and less. In this they were reflecting changes in the world, to be sure — but they were also amplifying and accepting these changes. Continue reading “you can never go back back BAACK!”

“They’re your dad”

There’s a reason Alex Harrowell’s name is bigger than Adorno’s in my tag-cloud. Here he is on UKIP’s current electoral make-up, following on from here: and noting that there’s a fuck-off HUGE split in the party between its new intake and its upper organisational structure (which is made up of posh-boy cranks, basically: “the sound of flapping white coats,” as John Major once said of Sir Richard Body).

“shtick fur-balls revisited” (= proposed titles in my head so far)

virtual space issue zeroIt was called Virtual Space and there was just one issue, “issue zero: place-kicks”. We made less than 20 copies, mostly by hunting round town for a photocopier with an A2 bed. It was an experiment, a mockup for a magazine, and it had no date appearing anywhere on its pages. (But it was early 1989, I’d just quit NME and wasn’t on-staff yet at The Wire.) We were serious: we went looking for funding. The other of the two being designer Paul Elliman, who’d just left The Wire. (Note to self: I haven’t seen Paul in an age and must call him up.) Continue reading ““shtick fur-balls revisited” (= proposed titles in my head so far)”

“fuck me”

gordon-ramsayRamsay’s
Neo-Leninist
Micro-Party Nightmares

As my friend
RT said:
would watch

how does platinum smell?

History don’t fail me now

[Sharpen the silliness, and the contradictions will sharpen themselves: this is the point I failed to make this morning as I hurried out of the house…]

arma virumque

So I was toying with what I suppose has turned into a kind of riddle, along the following lines:

i: you embrace it — and build yr worldview round the fact of the embrace — bcz you believe it will deliver us from bother
ii: But then the bother arrives anyway, and is itself primarily fashioned around this fact of yr embrace
iii: And if you ever think to reach for it, to dispel this bother, you well know you simply affirm the logic of your foes and redouble their will to bother you…
iv: … which is the very model of an enraging positive-feedback pickle.

When I began, “it” was something like the “right to carry” or “gun culture”, and I was niggling idly away at the sheer baffling venom of the discussion in the US [edit: baffling as seen from anywhere else]. Except gradually it struck me that plenty of other “its” somewhat fit this bill: for example, “critical theory” engenders similarly over-reactive defensiveness when fingered as a symptom, as indeed does “rationalism”. But I don’t think the wars that bubble up out of such self-arming and the reactions against it are — at least straightforwardly — proxies for class politics as we ordinarily understand it (or indeed for religious or “philosophical” conflicts as we’d loosely sketch them).

what they do is who they are

“It’s hard,” writes Thomas Harris somewhere of Starling and Lecter, “to accept that someone can understand you without wishing you well.” Life’s too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.

I wrote something in July about political grifters, left and right: an argument (over-compressed, over-allusive) that their adept way with words — their subtle deployment, and indeed understanding, of the elaborate shibboleths of the tribe — is by no means necessarily the conclusive tell for their motivation. The heart of a good con is that you’re hearing what you very much want to hear: the conman may or may not at some level also believe it himself (and please to note: they are by no means all men). The sentence “I love you” is not on its own proof that the speaker loves you (this powerful argument is Seth’s, by the way). Karl Rove and the Super-PAC American Crossroads; the people who built ORCA for Romney… what did these projects seem to say but “I love you” to those whose money they took, in such eye-wateringly large amounts?

This species of con is BY NO MEANS restricted to the moneyed right: though I think the equivalent on the left perhaps feeds more on moral-intellectual authority and celebrity and glamour than actual cash. (Though some of them do like cash.)

none dare call it skewed

Quick unedited notes the morning after (on just 4 hrs sleep)

1: the road-testing of the citizens united decision has not developed entirely to the 1%’s advantage
2: TRUMPBOT SMASH *trumpbot falls over on face in puddle of someone else’s vomit*
3: no one ever got rich betting against the continued stupidity of the US pundit class, but — and usually like emerson I am pro creative-transformative intuition and against the soulless bead-counting technocrat where’er he be — but Team Silver has surely helped ding the the current pundit-layer’s crappy jalopy, in a way that a mere unpredicted shock dem win would not have done
4: ratfuck report (relevant internal repug warfare): Continue reading “none dare call it skewed”