America, England, Hippies, and Impirialism

Posted on June 22, 2006

this was originally posted on my myspace blog but i’ve moved it here since i’m deleting that.

So Ive been back in England for a few days now at this giant hippy festival in Somerset and its a bit of a trip I literally cant go half an hour without hearing somebody talk shit about Americans not just the American government, but Americans in general. Its a bit strange for me, Im not exactly the most patriotic person around, I dont even generally consider myself an American come to think of it a Californian or a Scottish/irish-american, but never an un-hyphenated capital A American! and yet I cant help feeling offended by the way people over here talk. To listen to them youd think that the British empire had never existed, that imperialism was invented in Washington DC, and that the British military wasnt in Iraq right now alongside the American military. Tony Blair sold the war over here by saying Britain had to stick by their American Ally, and even leftists over here bought it hook line and sinker, which is pretty surprising all things considered. Id expect people who call themselves anarchists to realize that the reason the U.K. has troops in Iraq is the same as the reason the US has troops there OIL. Its not about alliances any more then its about W.M.D.s or any of the other bullshit politicians in both countries spouted before the war. And frankly if I can be blunt for a second here – its a bit absurd for English people to bitch about American imperialism as if it was the root of all evil when theyre at the center of the largest empire in world history. Maybe when England gets the fuck out of North Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Mann, & Gibraltar, & pays reparations to all of the hundreds of nations its colonized over the last 800 years theyll have room to talk. Seriously.

Not that the fact that the English government did it first makes it ok for the bastards in Washington to run around the world massacring people, two wrongs dont make a right and all that, but the fact is that Americans as a group havent exactly been consulted. We had the largest protests in our nations history just a few years ago against the invasion of Iraq and George Bush went ahead and sent in the troops anyway without even consulting Congress, let alone the general population. There are a lot of issues here and I dont think Im really in the right state of mind to break them all down right now, but a good place to start would be recognizing our current political system for what it is the merger of the Corporation and the State that Mussolini described as the ideal form of Fascism. The key difference of course is that the corporations in question are Transnational McDonalds doesnt give a flying fuck about America except as a place to get money and neither does MacDonnell Douglass. The people who really benefit are the transnational capitalist elites – the CEOs and execs of the TNCs that dominate the entire planets economy. European elites get free military protection, working-class Europeans get to enjoy free healthcare and social democracy, transnational capitalists get access to the largest military-industrial complex in human history, and working-class Americans get to pay the bills, do the dying, and take the blame. Excuse me if I dont leap in excitement at what a great deal were getting!

Im not asking anyone to pity America or Americans, that would be absurd; at some level this government like every government exists because the people it dominates have failed to overthrow it. The point is that English people hating Americans because they object to the Imperialist policies of the American government is (a) racist since the people of a Nation are not synonymous with the government (b) incredibly hypocritical since their government is doing all the same things they object to our government doing and has been doing them for a hell of a lot longer and (c) just plain fucking stupid.

So basically, this is not a rant against English people (becase I’ve met many, many extraordinarily col english people) or hippies (cuz there are lots of cool hippies too) or even English hippies; that would also be stupid. Its a rant about hypocritical assholes who find it easier to blame other people then to actually organize themselves in their own communities and deal with the issues at hand, and there are plenty of those on both sides of the Atlantic.

Having said all of that, we’ve had a pretty damn good time at this festival. We sold a bunch of cds, did 7 sets in 5 days, got the music out to a ton of people, and are currently totally exhausted but generally satisfied (a huge shout-out to the Triban collective for letting us crash with them and making sure we had plenty of stage time!). Its just easier to write about things that bother me then to write about how great and wonderful everything is.

Besides, if I started being all positive and shit people would think Id turned into a hippy or something.

Comments (copied over from myspace)

Geo-abuser!

Just to pick up on a few points, as you know im deffinatly Cornish and not English just to start with. And I’m tottaly for the war in Iraq, I think anyone who is for a country being opressed by there own gorvernment or own people should be sorted out… Correct the English do it quite alot but then a country should not be alloud to turn into a riot zone and as we created we it can’t leave it for ruins. I’m not saying that going into Iraq was right, infact i think we should of finsihed Saddam of teh first time, but saddam should not be alloud to run a country, the taliban in Afghanistan aswell or even mugabi in Zimbabwe. Margret Thatcher when The falklands were invaded by argentina had the guts and power to stand up to them and althought 200 brave soldiers lost there life in a 60day (around) war it is what she was remember for as it was a success and something the british and many people in the falklands beleveid was right and this can eb resembled in iraq today, if all is done correctly then it will be a success. Mayb it is about oil but im sure democracy will come together soon even if it is a lengthy perpose, “Maybe when England gets the fuck out of North Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Mann, & Gibraltar, & pays reparations to all of the hundreds of nations its colonized over the last 800 years theyll have room to talk. Seriously.” On this comment the British empire was one of the first to hand back many of it’s nations and in many cases helps its wrongs withing the commonwealth. and it’s isnt England in wales, scotland, northen island, the isle of mann and deffinatly not gibralter infact it is the British. And in many cases there is a common feeling that they want to be british, Gibralter i beleive even had a vote, correct it was between the spanish or british government but they were aloyd to choose, and a majority of teh population chose the british. Even tho he British are doing this we can’t say we arn’t happy with out lives, to be honest at present there treating us quite well lol. Well yeh thats my opinion even if it is a bit biased and non-informed but hey if we have opinions why not let them speak. Posted by Geo-abuser! on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 at 4:07 AM

	Star Sailor Cat	I’m 1/4 Irish! LOL The rest of me is Cool Brit…dont you agree? LOL Black Sheep Rule! Posted by Star Sailor Cat on Thursday, July 06, 2006 at 2:41 PM

	emcee lynx	yeah for cool brits! woohoo! Posted by emcee lynx on Thursday, July 06, 2006 at 2:46 PM [Reply to this]

Insurrection

Well, people suprise you everywhere. Yeah, a proportion of Brits forget imperialistic pursuits of Britain’s history and present and omit that Britain has gone to Iraq not for anything noble as to ‘help’ in getting rid of evil dictator or to aleviate Iraqi suffering – after all it helped with supressing domestic insurrections that would have got rid of Saddam well before. I can’t believe that even here on your blog somebody is buying the line of it not being what it is – a pursuit of imperialistic greed and control over Middle East – who controls Iraq controls the rest – there’s no FUCKING other reason but that. With the End of the British empire, marching along the USA who consolidated it its role, its meddling in Iraq is its own ensurement of its slice of profit and the top dog position. Not a march of self-appointed world police comradely duo of nations. I’m not sure if to laugh or to cry when people don’t look back and realise that Taliban in Afganistan rose to power thanks to the Western Imperialistic support, be it monetary or military. They had a role in overthrowing its secular government in favour of Taliban, capitalistic wheels of profit run off military spend and why not have policies and support those that will make those wheels well oiled and the bourgeoisie well rich and empowered. I mean not long ago, I’ve read comments from trade unionist crying out against the Polish immigration ‘wave’…. – they’ve attacked the immigrants rather than the Capital and its hypocricy on feeding nationalism and hate of immigrants to keep the working class divided and at the same time sucking cheap labour from anywhere it could do so. Also in response to previous long comment (not by Lynx) – while Thatcher marched to Falklands to save 2000 British citizens from Argentinian invastion, not a thought spared for 2000 British citizens in Diego Marcia in the American invasion to secure a military base there, on top of it, British government arranged for the inhabitans’ expulsion, dispossession and forced exile in poverty in Mauritius. What’s the fucking difference? Both communities had British passport and thus supposed ‘protection’ by HM government. The community in Falklands was WHITE, while the Chagossians were not.

Wales

Posted on June 16, 2006

this was originally posted on my myspace blog but i’ve moved it here since i’m deleting that.

Wales is great. Seriously. The people here are way more friendly then Londoners, or at least everyone weve met so far has been, and the local anarchists hooked up a couple of paying gigs for us. In our 4 days in the Cardiff/Newport area we did three open-mics, two paid shows, sold a bunch of CDs, met a ton of extraordinarily cool folks, and just generally ended up in a much better frame of mind then when we got there. In particular I want to give shout outs to the Cardiff Anarchist Network (C.A.N.) that hooked up our gigs, Pondlife MCs & Japonica who we played with twice (they kick ass), and Kilnaboy the local celtic anarchist punk brigade which includes somewhere between 5 and 9 truly brilliant folks that make some uber-cool noises who were going to be sharing a stage with at the festival in Somerset England next week.

The history of this place is truly incredible, unlike Scotland where English Colonialism at least pretended to have some basis in law, the conquest and colonization of Wales was just straight up balls-out no-holds-barred mass murder. The Norman kings in England couldnt ever really conquer it themselves, so instead they privatized the conquest and their Nobles were allowed to claim as much land as they could conquer and hold in the name of the crown. The result was that only a very few families ended up owning virtually everything and their descendants still own virtually everything to this day, over 800 years later! In the areas under English control, as elsewhere in Britain, the local Celtic language and religion was made illegal and right up until the early 20^th century Welsh schoolchildren who dared to speak Welsh in school were beaten by their teachers. The only reason Welsh survives as a language at all is that the geography was so mountainous that until the invention of modern transportation (trains, cars, planes, etc) it was more trouble then it was worth for the English government to really penetrate into the western part of the country. Nowadays its making a comeback in schools and whatnot and apparently most of the elite private schools in Cardiff and eastern Wales are Welsh-only, which is ironic since thats the part of the country where the language is used in everyday conversation the least. Im not sure what that means in the long-term and neither was anyone I asked, but its still interesting. Unlike Scotland, where the consensus seemed to be that the creation of a semi-independent Scottish Parliament was a stepping stone towards full independence, radicals here see devolution (as the decentralization is called) as a ploy to encourage people to spend their time and energy on cultural autonomy instead of pushing for independence. The danger, of course, is that more and more English people are moving into Wales because its relatively cheaper to live there and if they dont get independence soon theyll be outvoted in their own country by English immigrants (who of course do not consider themselves immigrants at all since they see Wales as part of the UK). not all english folks living in wales oppose independance – in the radical scene most seem to support it actually – and of course many welsh people think it’s a bad idea since as an independant country wales would go from being an underserved and impovrished area of a wealthy relatively large country to an impovrished tiny nation with water as its only large-scale export. Definitely a complicated situation with no easy answers.

No journal entry about Wales would be complete without taking about the Coal mines, nowadays the mines are mostly closed but the scars from two centuries of the most incredible exploitation you can possibly imagine are still livid. At one time the Welsh miners were among the most militant union workers in the world in the 1930s 1 in every 4 union miners went to Spain to fight with the Anarchists against Franco if that gives yall some idea of what they were like, but in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher (the Uks equivalent of Ronald Reagan) privatized the power supply and shut down most of the coal mines, leaving hundreds of thousands of people jobless and breaking the unions once and for all. Im not sure how I feel about it, on the one hand coal is an incredibly dirty source of power and no one should ever have to work in a coal mine (we spent about an hour on a guided tour through some of the bigger and better ventilated tunnels of one of the old mines and that was more then enough time for me), so shutting the mines down was probably a good thing all said and done, but after two centuries of powering England on Welsh (and Scottish and Cornish) coal and forcing the miners into absolutely absurd poverty in the process the government and the industry owed them a bit more then a fuck you we dont need you any more. Yet another reason to hate capitalism I suppose

Guess thats it for me, Ill write more once I get back from this festival thing.

Comments (copied over from myspace)

Geo-abuser!

You should see what closing the mines down in Cornwall has done. From being a massive industrial area, check the size of cornwall on the mappa munda, thats how important, it’s bigger than england to being one of the poorest “counties” (I say counties loosly) in the UK and in the bottom 10% in europe. And with tourism on an increase more and more english are moving down here, and as they see cornwall as part of england, cornish nationalist of those that want a cornish assemberly are moving into english political parties, mainly teh liberal democrats from Sendeth Kernow to get there point across, (I mean which english person is going to vote to a cornish nationalist party? – especially when they are un informed to start of with). And as these english push house prises up in the area buy buying them as holiday homes and letting them out to holiday makers the cornish can’t afford to live in there own homeland. Cornwall has some of teh mose exspensive hosue prices in the UK yet has the lowest wage average, proberly around just under £6 around $12 i think don’t count me on the number tho. BUt yet there is a feeling of being cornish around and the cornish language seein a much needed revivial http://www.lhi.org.uk/applications/console/console_description.rm?mediacategory=1375 Check it out, it’s a local festival near me…. Come to cornwall, you’ll love it but don’t buy a home hear lol Stux Posted by Geo-abuser! on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 at 6:49 AM

emcee lynx

definately going to come to cornwall on the next trip. thanks for keeping me posted on what’s going on out there, i’m glad the language and culture are still visible and moore importantly making a comeback, here’s hoping it can last in the face of large-sclae immigration. who knows, the basque country had massive immigration of non-basques under franco and now many people who’s parents came from outside euzkadi have learned the language and speak it on a regular basis, so maybe there’s hope. i hope so at least. Posted by emcee lynx on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 at 7:15 AM

Randomosity

Posted on June 11, 2006

this was originally posted on my myspace blog but i’ve moved it here since i’m deleting that.

hey folks,

so here i am in london, it’s 1:16am local time and i can’t sleep yet, thinking about the last ten days since laura and i first arrived in dublin.

i think the craziest thing so far for me was walking through a protastant / loyalist neighborhood in belfast last week and seeing a giant de-facto trash dump that’d sprung up in what used to be a park, surrounded by murals supporting the UVF (a loyalist paramilitary). this is a neighborhood that looked a lot worse then most of the ghettos i’ve seen in the US – it made east oakland look like beverly hills – and yet these folks are willing to kill and die to support the status-quo, now that’s a mindfuck.

the situation is particularly hard for me because most of my ancestors were protastants from Scotland who settled in north ireland to escape english colinization and genocide in scotland before moving on to america and doing the exact same thing to native americans that the english had done to them. when my ancestors left, of course, most Ulster Scots suported Irish independance and many actively supported the early Republican movement. Andrew Jackson (america’s first scotch-irish president) was an active member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a secret society aimed at overthrowing brittish rule in ireland by force of arms. The fact that Jackson – the original american “populist” politican – was also the genocidal butcher responsible for the Trail of Tears says something profound about the ability of people who have been oppressed beyond words to oppress others. on an intelectual level i *knew* that this shit happened, after all it’s happenning again in Israel right now as zionists use the nazi hollocaust against them to justify their hollocaust against the pallestinians, but there’s something truly horrific about seeing it first-hand and knowing that its *your* history and identity being used to justify the slaughter. When i left belfast i felt physically ill. i’ll probably end up writing a research paper based on what i saw, but i’ll save it for now.

scotland, on the other hand, was absolutely beautiful. the country is absolutely incredible. it reminds me in a lot of ways of the pacific northwest, very dense cities surrounded by huge open areas. there’s a lot of very ugly history tied up in how it got that way of course – most of it having to do with colonization – but it was still beautiful. what was more amazing was finding out that hikers are allowed to go pretty much any where they want and camp almost anywhere – including on “private” estates – as long as they don’t camp right next to someones house or invade their privacy. apparently backpackers and hikers there are an oganized and active political lobby with clout on a par with hunting enthusiasts in the US… truly amazing and very cool. nothing is perfect of course, i noticed quite a lot of clearcutting going on (laura and i did a 3-day, 45-mile hike from fort williams to fort augustus at the foot of loch ness and had a lot of time to look at scenery, heh), and there are plenty of other issues, but i’m not going to bore ya’ll with the details. basically scotland is incredible, i love it, i want to move there, and i know there will be plenty of campaigns to get involved in when i do.

we arrived in england yesterday morning and have spent the last 2 days wandering around london. so far i really like some things – the fact that so few of the radio stations here are playing american pop usic is a welcome change for one thing and the incredible diversity of east london where we’re staying is another – but at the same time this city is very definately the capital of an empire, and unapolagetically so. there’s also something fundamentally hostile about the way most people approach you here, which is only heightened by the fact that just days ago in scotland i was surrounded by people who were almost universally friendly. come to think of it, almost every single person we’ve encountered since arriving in london that’s been friendly has been a recent immigrant from someplace else, mostly africans. i don’t know whether that’s because of my american accent or just sort of general unfocussed hostility. I think it might be a bit of both though.

we’ve got one more day here – we planned to be here till tuesday because we were suppossed to do a radio show – but that fell through so we’re stuck here in the mean time since we can’t change our bus tickets. on the 13th we’ll be getting on a bus for wales to do a couple more shows and i’ll be glad to move on. there are some beautiful people here (big ups to the Art Not Oil folks and the rampARTs community center!), but this city is just a bit too big and a bit too hostile for me.

guess that’s all for now, i’ll write more later.
lynx

***addendum june 13, 12:08 am***

we’ve had one last day in london since i wrote this post and it was a lot better then the first two, we found an incredibly cool open mic near leichster square at a place called ‘the spice of life’ and virtually everyone that got up was great, plus they were very friendly and i got a great response from the 2 songs i did, so i’m feeling a bit better about london and londoners then i was yesterday. i’m still looking forward to leaving for wales tomorrow but at least i won’t be leaving with a bad vibe. i’ll post again in a day or two once i’ve had a chance to explore Wales a bit. Big ups in particular to Toff (aka Trouble Over Tokyo), a super-talented indie musician who i met and traded CD’s with. ya’ll should google him or check out his myspace page.

Comments (copied over from myspace)

Hilde

Thanks for that rundown, lynx! It is amazing to read your experiences and be shocked through you. How cool that you have falled in love with Scotland! I’ve never been there, I’ll have to visit you when you move there. I lived in London for two years and thought it was a cool, but exhausting city because of the same chilliness you describe. There were too many people there!! You had to line up for everything, and people would bump into you on the streets. Once, a young girl deliberately screamed into my ear and laughed hautily to her little entourage of guys. I wanted to smack her, but didn’t, of course. But, the art scene is amazing in London, and the theater there is the best I’ve ever seen. Try to catch some independent theater while you guys are there! Keep posting your observations, I love reading it!

Posted by Hilde on Sunday, June 11, 2006 at 7:24 PM