'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days,
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays,
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
...
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
~ Omar Khayyam trans. Edward FitzGerald (1859)
Friday, June 29, 2007
It's been some time, but, my dear, there's something you should know
The last post was January. It's now the end of June, which is some six months since I last scrawled a rant to unleash upon the world and my readership of about one.
High time I made a new one.
First things first, there is a bomb scare in London at the moment, started by a large carbomb (nails and propane gas) which failed to go off outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket; just down the road from the Trocadero. My mates and I used to frequent the Troc, and one of my friends happened to be in the area some hours before the thing didn't go off. Anyway, it spooked me because it was so close to where I've spent a lot of time, and I am extremely glad that whoever put it together was a bungler. I must say that these Islamo-terrorists aren't a patch on the Active Service Units of the IRA, or even the cack-handed lefties of the Angry Brigade.
I mean, sure, one spectacular that kills 52 people? Pfft, big deal, the IRA had long-term violence down pat and the lefties at least targeted property not people. Mind you, the big daddy of all Euro-terrorists has to be the OAS. Look them up sometime. They've an interesting story.
At any rate, that's all I have to say about the bomb(s) in London for now. Doubtless they will be used as a cause de guerre by the new Brown government and our Interior Ministry, who will almost certainly leap on it and demand new, tighter security. Bastards.
Now, onto the real meat of this post...
...politics.
I'm an anarchist, always have been, always will be. I dislike bosses, hate authority, and really would rather just pootle about in a society based on the mutual co-operation of free individuals.
And yet, and yet.
The more I read about the very early Fascists - and the proto-Fascists - such as Marinetti's Futurists, or D'Annunzio's Fiume pirate republicans, and the romantic nationalists of the FE de los JONS, the more I find myself in agreement with a lot of what they have to say.
This isn't too much of a surprise, all of these people were heavily influenced by the anarchists, the Dadaists, and the like. The Red/Black/Red of the Falangist flag is a direct theft from the CNT-FAI.
I suppose what's happening is that I'm becoming what I am tentatively describing as an anarcho-nationalist; I support independence for tiny nations on the grounds of "why the fuck not" - which should underline how well thought out all this is. In essence, then, I envisage small nations - such as Cornwall, for example - being seen as distinct entities, used to create localised anarchist federations which then interact with other federations in a position of equality. I hasten to stress that this is not a racist position, more a geographical one. I'm half-Scots and half-English, roughly, with bits of Welsh, Irish, and Viking knocking around in my genes too in all probability. I live in England, I consider myself English; I speak English and I think English. Much to my Mother's sorrow, I think. Anyway, my - extremely roundabout - point is this; that national identity is chosen, not forced. I have met black Englishmen and asian Scotswomen; I have seen white Egyptians and so on and so forth. Your national identity is picked from where you feel most at home, and thus I call for nationalism based on geography and location, not ethnicity and/or religion.
Fuzzy, isn't it? Like I said, it's not well thought out and at the moment I really am just fumbling around.
I'm still an anarchist, I'm still a loony lefty, it's just that I've been having patriotic stirrings lately and - among other things - I don't see why people can't just have national-self determination. Why can't the Basques and Kurds have a country? Why isn't Kashmir independent? Why must China occupy Tibet? Why is it that we must grasp and claw and demand more land for 'our' nations? I am not a Cornishman, let the Cornish have Cornwall. I applauded the SNP victory, and hope that in the near future England, too, will have its own parliament.
More to come on this as I think more and read more. I could end up throwing the whole thing out of the window, but one thing's for sure: anarchism and fascism are heady ideologies, and a powerful mix.
"Tierra Y Libertad!" ~ Anarchist slogan (Land and Freedom!)
"Espana! Una, Grande, Y Libre!" ~ Spanish Fascist slogan (Spain! One, Great, and Free!)
High time I made a new one.
First things first, there is a bomb scare in London at the moment, started by a large carbomb (nails and propane gas) which failed to go off outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket; just down the road from the Trocadero. My mates and I used to frequent the Troc, and one of my friends happened to be in the area some hours before the thing didn't go off. Anyway, it spooked me because it was so close to where I've spent a lot of time, and I am extremely glad that whoever put it together was a bungler. I must say that these Islamo-terrorists aren't a patch on the Active Service Units of the IRA, or even the cack-handed lefties of the Angry Brigade.
I mean, sure, one spectacular that kills 52 people? Pfft, big deal, the IRA had long-term violence down pat and the lefties at least targeted property not people. Mind you, the big daddy of all Euro-terrorists has to be the OAS. Look them up sometime. They've an interesting story.
At any rate, that's all I have to say about the bomb(s) in London for now. Doubtless they will be used as a cause de guerre by the new Brown government and our Interior Ministry, who will almost certainly leap on it and demand new, tighter security. Bastards.
Now, onto the real meat of this post...
...politics.
I'm an anarchist, always have been, always will be. I dislike bosses, hate authority, and really would rather just pootle about in a society based on the mutual co-operation of free individuals.
And yet, and yet.
The more I read about the very early Fascists - and the proto-Fascists - such as Marinetti's Futurists, or D'Annunzio's Fiume pirate republicans, and the romantic nationalists of the FE de los JONS, the more I find myself in agreement with a lot of what they have to say.
This isn't too much of a surprise, all of these people were heavily influenced by the anarchists, the Dadaists, and the like. The Red/Black/Red of the Falangist flag is a direct theft from the CNT-FAI.
I suppose what's happening is that I'm becoming what I am tentatively describing as an anarcho-nationalist; I support independence for tiny nations on the grounds of "why the fuck not" - which should underline how well thought out all this is. In essence, then, I envisage small nations - such as Cornwall, for example - being seen as distinct entities, used to create localised anarchist federations which then interact with other federations in a position of equality. I hasten to stress that this is not a racist position, more a geographical one. I'm half-Scots and half-English, roughly, with bits of Welsh, Irish, and Viking knocking around in my genes too in all probability. I live in England, I consider myself English; I speak English and I think English. Much to my Mother's sorrow, I think. Anyway, my - extremely roundabout - point is this; that national identity is chosen, not forced. I have met black Englishmen and asian Scotswomen; I have seen white Egyptians and so on and so forth. Your national identity is picked from where you feel most at home, and thus I call for nationalism based on geography and location, not ethnicity and/or religion.
Fuzzy, isn't it? Like I said, it's not well thought out and at the moment I really am just fumbling around.
I'm still an anarchist, I'm still a loony lefty, it's just that I've been having patriotic stirrings lately and - among other things - I don't see why people can't just have national-self determination. Why can't the Basques and Kurds have a country? Why isn't Kashmir independent? Why must China occupy Tibet? Why is it that we must grasp and claw and demand more land for 'our' nations? I am not a Cornishman, let the Cornish have Cornwall. I applauded the SNP victory, and hope that in the near future England, too, will have its own parliament.
More to come on this as I think more and read more. I could end up throwing the whole thing out of the window, but one thing's for sure: anarchism and fascism are heady ideologies, and a powerful mix.
"Tierra Y Libertad!" ~ Anarchist slogan (Land and Freedom!)
"Espana! Una, Grande, Y Libre!" ~ Spanish Fascist slogan (Spain! One, Great, and Free!)
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