Golf Tango Foxtrot

 In the news today the European Commission is taking the "UK" to court because it discriminates against other EU nationals when it comes to receiving benefits.  In fact the "UK" places additional conditions on nationals of other EU countries before they can receive welfare benefits. So much for "Benefit Tourism". For some reason, I haven't heard anything from the feeble minded whingers who post crap on social media about "immigrants" getting more than indigenous people. The people who write for the "Daily Heil" know they are simply writing lies because that is what they are paid to do.  Only the feeble-minded believe it.  There seems to be growing numbers of the feeble-minded out there,  judging from the fact that the "English Defence League" managed to walk through London 1,000 strong last weekend. So I wonder how many of these fine fellows will mention this amazing fact that if you are an "immigrant" you ...

Thinking about the murder (it IS murder) of the young soldier in Woolwich the other day makes me think about the entirely paradoxical nature of it.  If the deed was politically inspired it is surely the act of the powerless.  If there were any popular support for the act, there would be no need to carry it out. Needless to say the far-right are making hay. They seem to be the only ones who stand to gain from it.  The British National Party and English Defence League are trumpeting their filth to anyone who will listen and find willing allies in the press and on social media. The paradox is that an act of powerless individuals representing no-one but themselves is recast by neo-Nazis and their state collaborators as the fiendish plan of some powerful conspiracy residing in the heart of every Muslim. This is simply untrue.  Like so many other lies and falsehoods peddled by those who should know better but silence their conscience for money. It is not true that...

Just back from two days in Amsterdam.  And a fine trip it was. Visited lots of my old haunts and discovered some of them were still there.  Chief among those was the "Fort Van Sjakoo".  A radical bookshop which has been on Jodenbreestraat since 1977. To be fair I only ever dealt with them since the first time I went to Amsterdam in 1981. From a radical political point of view, things appear to be very different.  In 1981, with the squatters movement in particular and all sorts of other campaigns and struggles there was more of a feeling of ferment and striving for a new world than seems to be evident these days. Nowhere was I reminded of this more than when I sat on a bench in the sunshine in Museumplein and recalled that one day I had been there with a million other people protesting against nuclear weapons.  That was a phenomenal demonstration. I don't think I have ever been part of a larger gathering.  Perhaps the demonstration in Glasgow agains...

The older I get, the more receptive to Anarchist ideas I become and less and less enamoured of any notion of the Leninist vanguard party.  This was one of the shibboleths of my youth.  A sacred cow that turned into a white elephant. Aside from the fact that the "vanguard parties" of the left seem to consist of two men (rarely are women involved) and their dog, there are other similarities.  Common to them all is an absolute disregard of doing anything that actually defends the working class or promotes its interests. The job of the vanguardists seems to be to build the party.  Sod the interests of the working class.  Let's build the party. Typically this consists of selling the paper and infiltrating the Trades Union movement.  Even the most far out of Trots seem to have given up on infiltrating or entering the Labour Party. The "Scottish" Labour Party must be the most undemocratic institution in the world.  At one time every single person I k...

This morning my Facebook and Twitter is vexed with the question of George Galloway's blog denouncing Scottish Nationalism and all its works. That's a rhetorical flourish there, George didn't actually use these words but I digress. As someone who usually finds himself on the same side of every argument as George Galloway it always intrigues me that the only thing that separates us is his unionism.  I nearly said "strident" unionism there but that would have been just another rhetorical flourish. In his blog http://redmolucca.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/scotland-farage-and-me/  George raises the spectre of an independent Scotland turning on immigrants and minorities.  If I believed this I would vote NO.   Where George and I will have to differ is that I believe it is the "UK" which turns on immigrants and minorities.  It is the "UK" which is a threat to social harmony and justice for all. George raises the question of sectarianism.  His ol...

Yesterday saw the UKIP leader Nigel Farage run out of Edinburgh by an angry mob.  I was delighted to see him on the receiving end of some mob rule. Even more so did I enjoy the petulant interview he had with BBC Scotland which culminated in him hanging up the phone in high dudgeon. As the saying goes, you don't stop being a racist just because you put on a suit. So farewell Nigel and don't trouble yourself to come back.  A party with only two policies; opposition to immigration and rejecting the European Union has little to offer Scotland.  Simply put; Farage is a would-be populist appealing to the basest instincts that the Daily Mail can whip up. Scotland needs immigrants, even from England (and I'm sure we'll get  many refugees from there when we declare independence).  We're getting older and need more working folk to pay for our pensions and care homes. Why is Farage and his shower of numpties so popular doon south?  They took more than one in fo...

Looking forward to going to Amsterdam for a couple of days next week.  I shall need to decide what I want to do.  In  no particular order I want to visit the Stedelijk, the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh Museum. A trip to a Surinamse Restaurant is in order and perhaps a Rijstaffel.  A visit to Piet de Gruyter and my old haunts in the Stadsliedenbuurt will fill in most of the time I have at my disposal. The Surinamse restaurant I have in mind is the first one I ever visited.  Spraang Makandra is the name.  When I first visited in 1981 it was a real greasy spoon eatery.  It reminded me of the old Khushi's in Edinburgh's Drummond Street. I can recall my first meal there.  Moksie Mettie.  Literally translated as Mixed Meat. A linguistic reminder that Surninam used to be an English colony until the Dutch swapped it for New York.  It was a super meal. Surinam food must be the original fusion cooking.  The South American country re...