Trumped up charges

Barr, the US attorney-general has authorised investigation of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud by Trump. He will also investigate Trump’s allegation that there are fairies at the bottom of his garden. 

 

 

Bye Trump

 People will celebrate the downfall of Trump and that is quite reasonable. They should also subject Joe Biden to the closest scrutiny. There was no working-class candidate in this duel of millionaires.

Whatever Trump has or has not done, he will go down in history for throwing his toys out of the pram. He will need that expensive team of lawyers now or his next job could be in prison. 

The wheel of fortune has turned against Trump but can all he has done be undone in four years? An independent intervention by the working class would make all the difference. 

Socialists do not give up.

Socialist Reviews

Dulce et Decorum Est

Remembrance Sunday

"Dulce et Decorum Est pro Patria Mori" was a phrase they taught public school boys. "It is sweet and fitting to die for your country." or better yet get your servants to go off and die on your behalf obviously.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. 

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . 

.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
--

http://derekmcmillan.com/

Fiction Books

Total fiction books = 12

The latest is "Brevity"

 I enjoy selling this on eBay because it is a bit more personal than selling on Amazon.  Amazon treat their employees appallingly. Moreover all the money for "Brev" comes to me so that's a plus.

Darkness in Durrington

5

 
 My fiction books are as follows:
 
 The Mirror of Eternity Series
 
  The Mirror of Eternity
 
  Salt Wars 
 
  The Miranda Revolution
 
  Defending the Sangreal
 
  Domain of Dreams
 

 

 

 

Space Dog Alfred Series

Space Dog Alfred

Planet of the Dogs

Durrington Detective Agency series

Durrington Detective Agency

Death in Durrington

And a collection of short stories

Pot Pourri

 
 

Fiendish

 I am always open to suggestions for fiendish murder plots. This is strictly for fiction purposes. Or so I tell people.

 

 Brev

The poppy – symbol of peace or war?

Those who survived the Great War, greeted the 11th of November as the end of the insanity and the beginning of peace. They would have been mystified to see generals and royals using it as an opportunity to celebrate war over a hundred years later.

Since the end of the Second World War, there has not been a single day of peace. In my lifetime there has been one imperial war of conquest after another.

The red poppy is an ambiguous symbol. On the one hand it represents remembering those who fell in war and the money is used to support those soldiers who suffered as a result of war. 

On the other hand it is used by generals and the royal family to glorify war. If anyone dares to criticise this disgusting militarism they are immediately accused of disrespecting the fallen and being too mean to help the military victims of warfare. This has been characterised as "Poppy Fascism".

The Anzac monument in Sydney is "for all the victims of war", friend or foe, military or civilian. Since the second world war and the advent of mass civilian bombing, wars have seen a massive increase in civilian casualties. We are just "collateral damage" as far as the Pentagon is concerned. 

Socialist internationalism is the only basis on which militarism can be opposed. The people of Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan are some of the poorest people in the world. What with the ruthless bombing campaigns of American Imperialism and the disgusting brutality of the Taliban and ISIL their sufferings have been made worse. 

"Blessed are the warmakers" is the creed of Boris Johnson. It is unacceptable and his hypocritical respect for "the fallen" is nothing but an old Etonian fabrication.

Day of the Dead (Also All Souls Day)

 

I have "lost" three of my sisters and two nieces. Today is a day to remember all the dead before we join them. Día de Muertos is not a sad occasion. It is a time to celebrate their lives and to remember that love never dies.

Masks are not obligatory.

Mistaken Bravado

 The government was adamant that there would be no lockdown and ridiculed Sir Keir Starmer when he suggested one. The government has now changed its tune, not for the first or last time.

The government is now adamant that schools and colleges are to remain open come hell or high water. This is mistaken bravado.

Office for National Statistics figures estimate that 1% of primary pupils and 2% of secondary pupils have the virus and that these levels have increased dramatically since wider opening in September.

Lives could be lost to save the face of the government. It is too high a price. 

I've written to my MP. So can you. It is best to use your own words because MPs filter anything which appears to be from a lobbying group.

Interview with the author

 I was doing a spring clean of dropbox and came across this. I am not currently reading "Strangers and Brothers" but the rest is accurate.

1. What did you like reading as a child?

I really enjoyed Science Fiction and Arthurian stories.

However in truth I read everything on my old dad's bookshelf. So there was also

The Call of the Wild

Rubiyat of Omar Khyamm

alongside

Practical Mechanics

The Communist Manifesto

and Newsom Encyclopedia

The old man (45) died when I was seven and I felt closer to him when I was reading.

2. Who is your favourite author and why?

Jack London wrote such a variety of stories and he had such a wonderful vocabulary - the vocabulary of the self-taught. He reacted to people and ideas with undiminished wonder that he made them fresh on the page for me to read.

3. What are your recollections of English lessons at school?

On Friday afternoons Mr Owen got us all to sit quietly while he read The Hobbit to us. It gave me the idea that being a teacher was a wonderful job.

4. You can take one book onto a desert island with you – which one do you take and why?

I could cheat and say The Bible but Desert Island disks usually excludes that. For the possible length of my stay it would have to be The Lord of the Rings with all the appendices. Perhaps I will get to read them all

5. What are you reading at the moment?

Strangers and Brothers by CP Snow. The whole series is like a myth of the English middle classes in the twentieth century. He was a scientist and a politician and the books span both those worlds in addition to the legal profession. The story of George Passant "a child of his time" as he is called is an introduction to the attempt of the provincial middle class to break out of their backwater isolation into the mainstream of British society. It is a story told with humour and compassion.

 6. Which book do you wish you had written and why?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It has given so much pleasure to so many people. One day I want to do that!

Brevity on Facebook

 Brevity now has a page on Facebook

Click here

 

"Brevity" is our best-selling audiobook. Actually, it is our only audiobook but its success has been a pleasant surprise. People may not have CD players in the home but many cars and many laptops have CD players.

Not many writers have a printing press in the shed but producing an audiobook only takes a computer, a decent mike and a program such as "Audacity" which is free and open-source.

There are professional readers available for hire but I chose to read myself because I am very cheap :)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/…/audio-books-cd-flash-…/164361970913

"Brevity" on Audacity

 

Free resources for teachers - over 10000 downloads

 

 https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/helpline2  

 

Free resources. The TES calls me "h" but there is no "Line of Duty" connection. Yet.

In fact TES advise people to use pseudonyms because some Senior Management can react adversely to staff having opinions.

My pseudonym was "Helpline". In 2012 I was running a helpline for stressed teachers which was supported by West Sussex Teachers' Association. It was the best piece of union work I ever did. Another answer to the age-old question "What have the unions ever done for us?" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl1gdAheKDQ

 

 

Mysterious Facebook

Mysteriously Facebook keeps deleting this picture. That is not the same as proving that it isn't completely true.

I am not that interested in which Tories are sleeping with which other Tories. It is what they are doing to the majority of the population of this country which ought to concern us.

Tories originated the anti-semitism smear against Jeremy Corbyn. It was calculated to alienate people who would normally support the left. In the perverse world of Dom and chums it was a clever move. Immoral of course and dishonest but so so clever.

Jeremy Corbyn continues his lifelong commitment to anti-racism.
 

WTF

 

Robert Peston has nabbed the best possible title for a book on the present political situation. The book is full of facts, figures and argument to support his case for an essentially class-collaborationist approach to labour relations.

One thing which does shine out from his analysis is how much better off the workers in Sweden have been because of the widespread trade union membership. It is a good answer to the question, “What have the unions ever done for us?” Saved our bacon would be the short answer.

Fury at Donald Trump is one of the defining characteristics of this era. People with whom I have little or no political agreement will nevertheless concede that he is “a bit of an embarrassment” or “the devil incarnate” depending on the degree of their antipathy.

Peston sees the vote against the EU as a revolt of the lowest paid and least regarded members of the electorate and he has chapter and verse to back up this analysis.

There are two issues with this book.

Firstly the tired assertion that the EU has brought peace is a Eurocentic one. On a world scale there has not been one day of peace since the end of the second world war.

Secondly it never was the function of capitalism to provide rising living standards and social mobility. There is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between the one percent and the ninety nine percent and many of the facts in this book bear this out. Rises in living standards and social mobility are the result of trade union power and the political intervention of the working class.

It is an excellent book written in a lively and engaging style. You will have to excuse Socialists for drawing different conclusions from the political editor of ITV News.

Wear Red Day

 

Five ways to stand together against racism on Wear Red Day 16 October.

1. Wear red and share to #WRD2020
2. Film keepie uppies: post to #keepupchallenge
3. Wear red in your education/workplace.
4. Wear red from home on a virtual call.
5. Donate

I may not be much good at (2) but the rest are ok 😀

Amazon Reviews

Amazon Reviews 

Click here to read more 

Apparently, Amazon does not differentiate between book and other reviews, so you will find a review of my shoes here too!

Anti-Capitalist books

 The Tories are on a hiding to nothing trying to ban anti-capitalist ideas from schools. It is impossible to ban ideas. The only result will be to make anti-capitalism more interesting and attractive.

Shakespeare frequently asserted that love is more important than money and if that isn't anti-capitalism I don't know what is. And don't get me started on that Jesus fella - it's as hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle indeed!

The Conservatives should concentrate on convincing the poor, the unemployed and those who need medical help that the rich are more important than they are.

Good luck with that.

Five Stories from 101 words

 Here are five stories from the 101 word website.

Guess how many words in each?

Click here

 

 

 

"Not Donald Trump" is not enough

The childish display of pique in the debate between Trump and Biden showed up the nature of Donald Trump for anybody who was prepared to see it. His dismissal of Covid-19 has now met the irony of the president getting the virus himself.

The Daily Star is a paper I don't read but they collected a number of Trumpisms for their front page.

However, the Biden campaign"strategy" of being the candidate who is "Not Donald Trump" can never be enough. Voters need to see a difference between the candidates. It is unfortunate that Bernie Sanders did not want to split the anti-Trump vote because if he stood against the two capitalist candidates he would provide a rallying point for those who reject the Donald and all his works.

Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer who has been calm under questioning from the BBC appears to have a strategy of being the candidate who is "Not Boris Johnson". The electorate deserve a genuine anti-capitalist alternative so I welcome the fact that the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition will be offering such an alternative.

Banning Anti-Capitalist books in schools

 

The government aims to ban "anti-capitalist" books from schools. Is this different in principle to burning books which they disagree with?

Can we expect to see "Animal Farm", "Hard Times" and "Grapes of Wrath" thrown on the bonfire?

Will the Tories dress up for the occasion?

 

 

Sonnet 91 is blatantly anti-capitalist:

SONNET 91

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill;
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be;
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
   Wretched in this alone, that thou may'st take
   All this away, and me most wretched make. 

 

So Shakespeare could find himself upon the bonfire if Dominic Cummings gets his way. 

 

Brevity

 

Trump Tax and the Monarchy

 

The New York Times leads on the story of a president whose businesses show continual losses which justify the non-payment of tax.

It is a little odd that Trump claimed when debating Hilary Clinton that his tax dodging just showed that he was "smarter".

"Smarter" than the millions of tax-paying Americans? Much the same claim could be made by a car thief. "I steal cars because I'm smarter than the people who don't. They only criticise me because they are jealous."

Many Trump supporters applauded. They pay tax (many of them) but they are quite happy with a president who thinks they are dumb to do so.

I hope nobody in the UK feels smug about this. The Queen paid no tax for 40 years (1952 to 1992) and then gracefully agreed to do so. As if she were doing us a favour.

No wonder she's smiling. Does she take us for fools too?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-McMillan/e/B009FUXHWY