Andrew's livejournal

sakonna @ 2007-08-26T15:33:00

2007-08-26T14:26:30Z

"We have already seen how the proletariat was called into existence by the introduction of machinery. The rapid extension of manufacture demanded hands, wages rose, and troops of workmen migrated from the agricultural districts to the towns. Population multiplied enormously, and nearly all the increase took place in the proletariat. Further, Ireland had entered upon an orderly development only since the beginning of the eighteenth century. There, too, the population, more than decimated by English cruelty in earlier disturbances, now rapidly multiplied, especially after the advance in manufacture began to draw masses of Irishmen towards England. Thus arose the great manufacturing and commercial cities of the British Empire, in which at least three-fourths of the population belong to the working-class, while the lower middle-class consists only of small shop-keepers, and very very few handicraftsmen. For, though the rising manufacture first attained importance by transforming tools into machines, work-rooms into factories, and consequently, the toiling lower middle-class into the toiling proletariat, and the former large merchants into manufacturers, though the lower middle-class was thus early crushed out, and the population reduced to the two opposing elements, workers and capitalists, this happened outside of the domain of manufacture proper, in the province of handicraft and retail trade as well. In the place of the former masters and apprentices, came great capitalists and working-men who had no prospect of rising above their class. Hand-work was carried on after the fashion of factory work, the division of labour was strictly applied, and small employers who could not compete with great establishments were forced down into the proletariat. At the same time the destruction of the former organisation of hand-work, and the disappearance of the lower middle-class deprived the workingman of all possibility of rising into the middle-class himself. Hitherto he had always had the prospect of establishing himself somewhere as master artificer, perhaps employing journeymen and apprentices; but now, when master artificers were crowded out by manufacturers, when large capital had become necessary for carrying on work independently, the working-class became, for the first time, an integral, permanent class of the population, whereas it had formerly often been merely a transition leading to the bourgeoisie. Now, he who was born to toil had no other prospect than that of remaining a toiler all his life. Now, for the first time, therefore, the proletariat was in a position to undertake an independent movement."

sakonna @ 2007-07-07T14:20:00

2007-07-07T13:22:23Z

"New Jersey looks like a monumental Croydon - all flyovers, dystopian bridges and waste. 'Jersey is the No. 1 producer of chemicals in America,' says Marc, 'and it is also the diner capital of the world. Why are New Yorkers depressed all the time?' He adds. We shake our heads. 'Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.'"
Tanya Gold, The Spectator (30 June 2007)

sakonna @ 2007-07-07T13:52:00

2007-07-07T13:02:12Z

"Whether it was that arch-snob John Mortimer, drivelling on about the glory days of the old-guard Macmillan government and their alleged noblesse oblige, or Baroness Warnock being made 'physically sick' by a television documentary which showed Mrs Thatcher buying off the peg at M&S, or the Arena Jocko Homo boys whingeing on in perfect parodies of A. N. Wilson (who had just announced his intention to vote Labour for a more stable, less changeable society), Whyohwhynia about the 'orrendous break-up of community and all these Yuppies being ALLOWED to buy PROPERTIES in CITIES (an AMAZING liberty, no? - especially when the self-same hacks were sitting on nice little earners in Hampstead (Jah Spence) and Highbury (El Tone); what in the world makes it sound for journalists from outside London, like these two, to come in and buy properties from indigenous Londoners, but not for bankers? Answers on a pinhead, please!), what it added up to was a bad case of the revisionisms and a new world view which owed a lot more to Prince Charles - let's keep things as they are and admit that those Moslem chappies talk a good deal of sense about women - than to Prince Nelson - let's tear the roof off the sucker and see what comes down, what sparkling splintery shards the human spirit will shine into."
Julie Burchill, I Knew I Was Right: An Autobiography (1998)

But it's also full of shit like this: "It's a fact that the Protestant work ethic got invented because Martin Luther couldn't stand doing it to Mrs Luther any more. And look at who's embraced it! The Swedes and the Italians, probably the two most beautiful races on earth, don't work a minute longer than they have to, so they can have all that extra time off for fucking each other. The Japanese, probably the ugliest, work the hardest so they don't have to. And I bet you that at least nine out of ten so-called 'workaholics' are married. Like I was." Racism. :(

sakonna @ 2007-06-29T20:08:00

2007-06-29T19:23:16Z

"Cornford was killed in Spain just before I went to Balliol; he had become a martyr of mythic power. Coming from a grammar school in Yorkshire, I found the element of romantic savagery in such middle-class young communists distasteful. Their Byronic posturing seemed to spring more from the need to sublimate some purely personal or class neurosis, than from the harsh realities which confronted the rest of us. I particularly resented their affectation of the glottal stop, which they regarded as essential to the proletarian image. 'Ours is a Par'y of a new type', they would say."
Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (1989)

sakonna @ 2007-05-04T22:47:00

2007-05-04T21:48:33Z

The 2007 local government elections have seen the Conservatives make an incredible breakthrough in the North. We now control 20 councils in the North, and more councils in the North than Labour. Councils we’ve gained:

East Riding of Yorkshire for the first time ever, making 18 gains and taking the Lib Dem and Labour leaders’ seats.

South Ribble for the first time since 1995, gaining 24 seats.

Chester for the first time since 1986, gaining 7 seats.

Blackpool, gaining 13 seats – 12 from Labour, 1 from the Lib Dems. We last controlled Blackpool in 1987.
We have now made net gains of over 130 seats in the North. If people were to have voted in Bury and Bolton in a General Election as they did yesterday, we would have won the three Parliamentary seats needed to win a General Election (Bolton NE, Bury N and Bolton W - Ruth Kelly’s seat). We’d also have won Barrow, - John Hutton, the Pension Secretary’s seat. Not only this, but we would have taken seats way beyond our expectations, such as Sunderland Central and Wallasey, as well as Birmingham Selly Oak, Blackpool South and Birmingham Northfield.

Nationally, we are predicted to gain over 40 per cent of the vote.

We have now gained over 800 seats and now control 23 more councils.

We control 205 councils in England overall– more than three times Labour (46) and the Libs Dems (27) combined.

Labour have been wiped off the map – in 80 councils (and rising) they have no councillors at all.

The Lib Dems are heading for their worst loss of councillors for a decade.

Across the North, we have also made gains in 33 other councils: Allerdale, Alnwick, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackburn with Darwen, Bolton, Burnley, Bury, Castle Morpeth, Chester-le-Street, Chorley, Copeland, Crewe and Nantwich, Darlington, Eden, Ellesmere Port and Neston, Fylde, Hambleton, Lancaster, Macclesfield, Oldham, Pendle, Preston, Rotherham, Richmondshire, Salford, Stockton on Tees, Sunderland, Teesdale, Vale Royal, West Lancashire, Wigan, Wyre and York.

Responding to news that the Conservatives have now gained over 800 seats, giving us the largest number of councillors since 1978, Francis Maude, Conservative Chairman said:

“Now that most of the results are in, it’s clear that we’ve made a massive breakthrough. We now control over 200 councils across England – three times as many councils as Labour and the Lib Dems combined. What’s more, we’ve made a great breakthrough in the North of England with more councils than Labour in the North West and Yorkshire.

“We’re now the only party that represents the whole of England. This is a great base on which we can build victory at the next election, taking our message of change, hope and optimism to more communities across the country.”

sakonna @ 2007-03-22T18:20:00

2007-03-22T18:21:03Z

Football at Slack

Between plunging valleys, on a bareback of hill
Men in bunting colours
Bounced, and their blown ball bounced.

The blown ball jumped, and the merry-coloured men
Spouted like water to head it.
The ball blew away downwind -

The rubbery men bounched after it.
The ball jumped up and out and hung on the wind
Over a gulf of treetops.
Then they all shouted together, and the ball blew back.

Winds from fiery holes in heaven
Piled the hills darkening around them
To awe them. The glare light
Mixed its mad oils and threw glooms.
Then the rain lowered a steel press.

Hair plastered, they all just trod water
To puddle glitter. And their shouts bobbed up
Coming fine and thin, washed and happy

While the humped world sank foundering
And the valleys blued unthinkable
Under depth of Atlantic depression -

But the wingers leap, they bicycled in air
And the goalie flew horizontal

And once again a golden holocaust
Lifted the cloud's edge, to watch them.

Ted Hughes

Friends Only

2006-06-01T21:28:09Z

"Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul."
- Job 7:11