The whole series is on youtube at this playlist.

1932- Washington, in the grip of the depression under Hoover’s administration:-

The Bonus Army was the popular name of an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C., in the spring and summer of 1932 to demand immediate cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. Its organizers called it the Bonus Expeditionary Force to echo the name of World War I’s American Expeditionary Force, while the media called it the Bonus March. It was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant.

Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each service certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier’s promised payment plus compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.

Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time, visited their camp to back the effort and encourage them. On July 28, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the army to clear the veterans’ campsite [with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent, a 12 week old baby died from injuries caused]. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded the infantry and cavalry supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.

A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt Administration was defused with promises instead of military action. In 1936, Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s veto to pay the veterans their bonus years early.

2011- Oakland, in the grip of another depression under Obama’s administration:-

Scott Olsen, the protester shown with head injuries, apparently after being hit in the head by a police projectile, has a skull fracture and is in a “serious, but stable condition”, according to a fellow protester with him in hospital.

Adele Carpenter, who has known Olsen since July, said she was told by a doctor at Highland hospital, in Oakland, that Olsen “has a skull fracture”.

Carpenter arrived at Highland hospital in Oakland at 11pm last night, and has been allowed to visit Olsen – a former US marine, who did two tours of Iraq – this morning, she said.

“I’m just absolutely devastated that someone who did two tours of Iraq and came home safely is now lying in a US hospital because of the domestic police force,” Carpenter said.

She said Olsen moved to the Bay area in July. The former marine, 24, left the military in 2010. Olsen is originally from Wisconsin, Carpenter said, adding that his family have been informed about his condition. A “military buddy” is also on his way to visit Olsen in hospital.

As a youtube commenter say ‘To think this was ‘only’ a b-side.‘ A swirling, swooping maelstrom of exquisite beauty. On their site there is plenty of lovely free music too, looky here.

The occupation of St Paul’s/Stock Exchange is barely 24 hours old yet online that has been plenty of time for people to lend their opinion. Can we let them find their feet before we start criticising their footwear? Below is an interesting video of the different means that Occupy Wall Street employ to achieve the different ends they envisage (ht2 Jourik).

I think anyone who is saying they definitely know how to proceed or what will be the result is talking about their own need to be attached to an event and be regarded as an authoritative voice. I’ll leave my cystal ball of doctrinal assuredness in the cupboard on this.

We have embedded into the mainstream media narrative that austerity is the rational response to ‘the crisis’ as if the former is a natural and scientifically proven solution to the latter. Even as the occupations are reported they are reported as opposition to the austerity measure put in place by governments to deal with the crisis. So we have quite a ways to go before the media even report the terrain in which these actions are happening in anything like an accurate light. What is for sure is the elites are proceeding with malice aforethought to enact disaster capitalism, to use the crisis of their making to push through far right measures that normally no population would agree to. The response to ‘solve’ it with austerity is the political program using the crisis to futher entrench the power of the people and neoliberal ideology that caused and profited from the crisis. People are on the street in part because this is not even allowed to be talked about in the media they are encouraged to consume. But anyways, so much for the TeeVee news, was it ever thus? So no big surprise they may be reported on dodgily, the opposition by the ’1%’ and the Stockholm syndrome chumps who widen that cabal into a fair few more percent will remain steady and ruthless, they have in the past enabled many millions to be killed rather than give up a scintilla of their luxury. This coalition has no mandate and recognise no manifesto commitments, they need to be stopped before they damn generations to a Dickensian existence.

Update: This has just been posted online, sounds pretty good for a days work

 #OccupyLSX initial statement
Posted on October 16, 2011 by occupylsx
At today’s assembly on the steps of St Paul’s, #occupylsx agreed the initial statement below. Please note, it’s a draft statement at this stage and it will always be a work in progress.

1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.

2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.

4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

6 We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment and to stop wars and arms dealing.

7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!

The Scottish sketch show made it’s national UK debut last night with a best of and series 2 starts next week at 11.20 on BBC2. (and the director has an excellent blog). This is a slice of everyday life dealing with housing and unnameable things that through the aeons have accursed mankind.

Also a top notch soundcloud mix: Solitude – Ambient Dubstep Vol. 14 (ht2 @earwicga)

This is a fantastic BBC documentary from 2008 that details the struggle in the run up to the inauguration of the National Health Service on the 5th July 1948; the hatred and spite spewed by Tories and rich doctors, the suffering of everyone who could not afford to pay doctors (if they could find one). It’s a real old school big budget BBC doco, archive footage, interviews galore with actual players in the history, and even some re-enactments that aren’t totally irritating. An indispensable historical document with the utmost topicality. It is also a remarkable and stirring reminder of the fight by Nye Bevan to achieve what the massed forces of capital and conservatism and professional self-interests opposed. It’s also quite a sobering shock when you realise that the successive neoliberal administrations of various parties have slowly dismantled what a Labour party answering to the needs of the people once built. It makes you truly realise how narrow the political discourse is and the poverty of ambition of what calls itself Labour today, managerialism and timidity are no substitute for social democracy. Look what once was fucking achieved!

With the Coalition bill that brings the destruction and privatisation of the NHS a profound move forward (a perilous position that is only possible because of New Labour’s creeping marketisation of the service) this is essential viewing. Yes the Tories have always viscerally hated the NHS and what is represents and are close to ending government obligation towards healthcare, but who is fighting the NHS’s corner? Labour offering to help bring in GP commissioning in exchange to drop the bill? The film makes one realise what a disaster GP commissioning would be, before the NHS doctors went where the money was, 1 GP for 18,000 in the East End slums as compared to 1 GP for 250 in affluent suburbs. Bringing back the link between a GP’s wealth and how they practice, which is what commissioning does, introduces a market to the patient doctor relationship that will be lethal once again. Before the NHS a doctor tells how women lived with prolapsed uteruses, diphtheria and measles stalked the young, people worked themselves to death unable to afford a doctor or the time off to find one to help with an easily treatable condition.

The film is 78 minutes long, I urge you to watch it and be reminded of when we had the fight and moral courage to make government work for the people. You know, after we survived the Blitz, fucking defeated the Nazis, liberated concentration camps and with massive debt said- fuck that, we won a victory and the right to a country by and for the people, voted in the Attlee government in a landslide and built the welfare state and the NHS.

Watch it.

Now!

After another landline breakdown, the engineers have been and as it now stands 5 separate lengths of the cable run between here and the exchange have now been replaced over the last 3 months, plus the connector at the pole which was green with furry growth. I now have the lowest downstream attenuation in ages (34db) and a download speed around 6,000-7,000 Kbps. However it is calm right now, the real test of the repairs will be the next windy/stormy period, so we shall see.

The Atos/DWP fake medical passed aided by the good ship diazepam, it lasted 20 mins and the doctor (because he was one, I checked his GMC reg) seemed ok, even apologetic and supportive by the end. However the Lima software creates the report which goes to a bureaucrat so they can make it mean whatever they want in order to achieve their targets. Woohoo ain’t the methods of private ‘healthcare’ being used to destroy welfare and the NHS great?

Occupy Wall street goes on in magnificent fashion and North Wales Against Cuts Bangor are organising to support and enhance the general strike in the UK on November 30th (and good luck to those blocking the bridge tomorrow). What’s interesting about Liam Fox’s troubles are not his probably closeted relationship but he was the UK vanguard (Atlantic Bridge indeed) of ALEC, already a neocon and general scumbag (hey cool, yeah why don’t I help you exterminate Tamils my rich racist Sri Lankan government friends) he was to be the conduit for the corporate dictatorship agenda of this shadowy US conspiracy to destroy democracy. And to be fair it is also of interest he trained and practiced as a doctor, thus showing the Shipman and Mengele’s there is competition for the biggest evilest medical hack title. Speaking of scumbag medicos, Baroness Murphy, a magnificent study in arrogance and elitism, I’m sure even -fictional- fellow psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter would be pretty impressed with her level of superiority and disdain for those who don’t have second homes in Italy where they farm olives. I await her self help book to be entitled -Have you tried being rich and ignorant like me? That makes you happy you scrounging fuckbags.

Meanwhile to the precipice of the ongoing crisis in the ruling class’s plans to take all our money, make us debt slaves and convince us that turkeys voting for christmas is political maturity that recognises There Is No Alternative, is suffering some minor setbacks. But all going well we should see a depression alleviated by more wars leading to record profits for the 1%, you may be required to suffer/die/kill to enable this. But is this really such a great price to pay to ensure that seventh mansion gets the much needed platinum plated solar panels so the billionaire owner thinks they are a caring person? Honestly it’s like oligarchs occasionally driving a Prius isn’t enough for some people.

So fingers crossed we drop the Human Rights Act for humans or cats (because policy is so dreary when it can’t victimise, threaten and kill you pesky unrich humans) and please do try not to be shocked that arms dealers might occasionally be the teensy weensiest liar-y Apache maker takes £32m grant to protect jobs – then lays off 375. That governments are more at home with war criminals than their own starving citizens. And whatever you do, don’t buy herbal viagra or credit card agreements off a passing drone (unless it’s killing you for democracy, in which case take the fake Rolex option, Bringing Prosperity To Afghanistan ™).