Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party: A Manifesto of Courage

Seize the Time: 

Or the manifesto on how to oppose this racist, capitalist oppression (black) people and other peoples are subjected to.

The 1970 book telling it like it is
If I had to choose ten books which had undue influence on Belgo Geordie, the bairn, this would be one*. I cut my political teeth on this book and went bollocks to "Cider with Rosie" (good book but!) and used Seize the Time  for my 1971 English O level paper (were meant to be novel and so what!), it was still a story and a powerful narrative of what can happen when good men and women take a stand. Not sure why a weedy, white Geordie found this book so profound. But reading back on it, it remains relevant and a call to political action at the most fundamental of levels.  

Recently watching the animated version of the Chicago trial (Hoffman et al) I was reminded how much black America paid a huge price compared to most of the white revolutionaries of that era. Huey Newton stating " I'm standing on my constitutional rights. I'm going to stop you from brutalizing my people". But Huey and Bobby and others were targeted and brutalised. Why did the other defendants not take a stand when Bobby Seale was shackled and gagged during the Chicago trial? These were watershed moments where key white political activists did not stand up to be counted. Bobby Seale was jailed for four years at the end of this trail for contempt of court when all he was doing was asking his right to represent himself. And this schism of injustice still resonates through America and the world today. 

Polemics aside, look at what Bobby Seale was expressing in this book through his writing; Breakfasts for children, soup kitchens for the poor and needy and free education as a means of gaining literacy and freedom. Does that still not resonate? And the Black Panthers were better in the equality of women domain than the Hippy/Yuppies who treated women like shag machines under the guise of free love. 

It was easy to be sucked into the leather jackets, the black gloved raised fist, sunglasses and guns-then later the drug appetites and miss what this was about. Newton's principal to stand up for basic human rights. The right not to be harassed, the right to challenge being treated as unequal because of the colour of your skin, to stand against the principal be condemned by birth to have to struggle to access good education, a healthy diet, meaningful work and a life based on autonomy and respect. The pressure put on the Black Panthers would have crushed most of us as flat as a milk bottle top but most of these people stood up and although some cracked, don’t let it take away from the message. We all have a right to basic things in life. Reflect on that with our current love of consumerism produced by sweat labour, our shallow media of ten second sound bites, imagery out of context. We the majority in the developed world still get by on the dispossession of the many. This book written during 1960- 1970 is still relevant today. Seize the time Bobby Seale-you were a courageous and forthright man and I for one, honour you to this day. 

*Bugger! Allreet, Me Family an' Other Animals was another

Bust the budget march Sydney July 2014

"BUST THE BUDGET "                            
From Little things Big things grow*, the people's anger on the streets of Sydney       

It is the people of the land

SYDNEY 6 JULY 2014

On a beautiful, sunny Sydney Sunday, the police suggest about 6000 people turned up to the "Bust The Budget" rally in George Street. Hmmm...must have been before the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA-here to stay!) arrived...anyhow yon police with pencils and pads counting; keep your day jobs, it may not yet be your time to branch out into mathematics. Belgo Geordie, using fingers on two hands counted 15,323 marchers and fifteen dogs and one man in a grey/silver suit from ASIO.

Town Hall Square was a mass of colour, banners, all ages-representing that cross section of Australian society still driven by decency.

It is about what we leave her generation

Good on the combined unions sounding the battle charge. As ever, the speakers were mixed but mostly inspiring. The indigenous woman brought some fire and brimstone-rightly acknowledged because our indigenous communities will wear the brunt of all of these changes. A matter of fact analysis from the NSW Nurses and Midwives Union on the state of the health sector and the Coalition's impending slash and burn. It was good to hear the students were being activated. The plight of welfare and carers was a moving call to stand for the rights who cannot speak for themselves but will be marginalised by the impending changes. The last speaker fired up and reminded us of the combined power of the unions.

However, "Bust the Budget" must seem like a good rallying cry for some in the union hierarchy but there is a much darker heart to this matter; as was picked up by a number of speakers and expressed in banners, placards and the conversations of those attending.

   

This is a return to class war. A cruel and relentless attack on core values. It has touched a nerve in people about what makes a fair and just society. The budget is a symptom, but it is not the sum total of the disease currently attacking our society. This march was on a day when Morrison is still keeping stum about boats being "stopped" or worse handed back to Sri Lanka. Manus Island is still a prison. Refugees and migrants are still being demonised.

  
When a government tells working people they have to make sacrifices they do so by employing spin doctors to sell the message that "we" are living beyond our means. As mining companies, banks and businesses use creative accounting and offshore transfers to avoid paying tax; while shedding more jobs because the cost of labor in Australia is too expensive. Then they wring their poor rich hands and say they can't afford to pay tax, wages, carbon (or pollution) tax and if we the people don't like it-then they will take their business away! Greed is good, is it not?

I cannot begin to imagine life without Gina and Clive, can you? Then you have old men in suits in Canberra, who benefited and continue to benefit from a welfare state, tell our youth their future is one of excessive debt, limited access to quality education, health, housing, and more importantly; meaningful work. Abbott, so wedded to Mother England he wants a return to the class system of privilege and divine rule and divide and rule.

Come on kids know your place

In other words, the children of wealth will be all right because they (their parents) will be able to afford private education, university and have the old boys network to get them into jobs at the big end of town. All others can be thrown to compete on the scrap heap of casual labour. Practice tugging your forelock and if you are female, not being seen let alone heard.

And for those currently disadvantaged such as our indigenous people, those with disability, old, sick, homeless, heading towards us in a leaky boat dreaming of a better future; they have no place in Tony Abbott's vision for Australia. For the record Tone, what will you do with us. Reservations? Detention Centres?...

The message is clear. It is not just this budget. It is the ideology driving it. It is a small minority dictating terms under the pretence they achieved a mandate in the last election. Rather than the reality, they cashed in on the electorates disillusion with Labor and took advantage of Murdoch's  24/7 media hatchet job; presenting his poisoned view of the world as news!

People have woken up and in marches such as these will not be taken for the fools politicians think the electorate is. I am proud of the people who marched today, who spoke, who stood up for something more than just what they could get for themselves. They are the people Mr Abbott and you would do well to take note!

Justice now...

* With thanks to Mr Kev Carmody, you are the man...and if you have not heard Mr Carmody's music-check it out, he is one our great poet troubadours and speaks from the heart.

Art and politics and politics and art: the 19th Biennale Sydney 2014

The Belgo Geordie casts his shadow on Art.... 

Now I can be accused of talking shite from time to time, an' fair call an all. But given the discussion leading into the 2014 Sydney Biennale took on a whiff of politics, I sat up and took notice. Coming out of an election with a right wing landslide, the first people still not recognised and Clive Palmer driving to the Parliament in his Rolls Royce, you might think the role of politics was no longer under the tea-cosy but about to hit the ground running in places where the chip papers from Occupy once stained the concrete pavements of Sydney's streets.

Now young Belgo Geordie was a bit of a dab hand at art when he was a nipper. More pitman painter than yon John Constable. As an old Belgo Geordie I've walked the boards and disturbed the dust of many galleries and peered and squinted meself to a standstill. There's a bald patch on the side of me head from a fair bit of scratching'. So I think this gives me the right t' say me piece. But this pontification is only my opinion, subjective, influenced by those forces that shaped me. What you imagine you desire indeed. The religious sisters have a lot to answer for.  I understood this was about "space-theoretic typology involving spatial and perspectival features." I heard the installations were so many" theatres for the staging of arguments."  Belgo Geordie's meat and drink, the meaningless but heated misuse of words to make a point and bore people blind. I was prepared to go out and do my bit in the Great War of Art.

Stand back...there is nothing going on here

Love playin' wall shadow..me rabbit

This installation (on left) was bloody clever. Carriageworks is a place where trains were put together in those far off days when there was a thing called work. Hundreds of people laboured in-between these brick walls, countless trades, tools down, smokos and on pay days; crisp new notes and some coin, delivered in a small sealed envelope. So it was right canny to find it gutted and showing not a sign of labour having gone on here. Not even the lingering smell of oil and solder disturbed this big echoing silent vault; this shrine representing the stolen dreams of working men and women made redundant by the selling off and closing down of industry. Their pie and chip farts relegated, like the over brewed tea needing six sugars; to posterity or industrial theme parks like this...More banks anyone?

Belgo Geordie
looking at a wall
while some bugger's left their TV on

An hour later. none the wiser

Little house in the car park

In a darkened room, I met someone who knew summat about struggle. Sure he had seriously deranged eyes and a disturbing ability to melt into shades of black and grey! He was a four sided quest for self analysis and paralysed by something outside of his control.

We both agreed having an endless loop of Tom Cruise running towards you was a bridge too far for fragile, budding artistic (of the installation kind) sensibilities. I tipped my hat to him as I left my pardner to carry on his lonely discourse on spatial and visual angst, summit about never finding your tail no matter how hard you chased.


Then there was a work that from a distance looked like the big top without tent and not much of a circus. But it was interesting in a post-consumerist and 'who pulled the plug, and is anyone left to care' kind of way. Of course it might have been a promo for the Football World Cup. A massive, brilliant protest at the wadge of cash that could have been spent on meaningless infrastructure like schools, hospitals, public transport and the like. Phish! Bloody artists eh!

What impressed itself on me is the number of installations requiring a telephone directory sized manual to explain the artist's...well whatever it was that moved 'em to do what they did based on a history of previous installations and other concepts of modern society going down the nettie in a hand cart...or not. Now I can read a book and I have been known from time to time to say summit clever. But even with reading glasses and turning my head sideways and looking intellectually puzzled, I was left all too often thinking "is that so". Like I was a product leaving Woolies just haven' me bar code read and my cultural bank savings emptied of a wad of hard earned cultural knowledge. Was I fed? Was I bugger!

Cheeseburger in paradise installation

I found a collective of cinemas. One showing something about New York. The Great Gatsby without content. In another I went in mid film; it were about two guys living and working around Chernobyl. It was slow train wreck sort of stuff. They knew the radiation was high, it might be killing them, but being young alpha males they were shrugging it off with an ample supply of spirits and living the good life (as they saw it) preferring the eerie abandoned, quarantined areas where life and ghosts hang together. But when do docos become art and art become nothing much? Some of the other features shown were exercises in the ability to sit still and not fidget that Belgo Geordie hasn't done since little 'uns school.

Aye I dragged myself back up to the surface and the lights of Redfern where it occurred to me Carriageworks had been almost spookily empty. Art 1 the People 0.

And the people's choice, the winner is....The first piece that made an impression on me was this installation outside Redfern Railway Station. So I set up me deck chair, loosened me laces and braces, lit me pipe and had a good think about what the artist was trying to say. From their self portrait I noted they had joost the one finger and eye brows in need of a meeting with some clippers.
It was the first overt political statement, the sluggish blood thickened in my tired veins. Like treacle in a bucket. Across town to the Art Gallery of New South Wales,  or NSWAG where another part of the Biennale was hiding out amongst the other exhibitions. Such as "The Treasures From Paul Keatings Pockets".

Other chaps on the way to Biennale

Best use of drinkin' straws Form 3 exhibit

Finding the Biennale stuff was a bit of a challenge, somewhere down where the toilets are and had I looked up....but like the man in the photograph, I was too busy admiring the layout of the flooring, which is why 

I wandered my way into another exhibition and needed an aspirin, a sit down and some dark glasses.

                                       

It was near lunch time and being a vegetarian I found Rosa's kitchen...

Then thought mabe not...Then a whole row of people had taken their kit off and indulged in a bit of body art. There was a representation of Geordie Man:

At the Gallowgate end an' joist gone three up against Sunderland

But Deborah Kelly's work "No Human Being Is illegal" was collaborative and multi-cultural. Politics through the participatory process. Life sized photographs of a range of bodies with and without collage made for interesting viewing. Likewise the audio/visual room at MCA was both soothing and engaging.

So was it worth it? Did politics make an appearance. I would say not. Sure there were canny installations and moments where it were a pleasure to partake. But not enough. And although I went to three different venues at different times, there were bugger all folk there taking it in. The most political action I encountered at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) was early on a Saturday morning when staff with nothing better to do than be petty demonstrated rules are to be obeyed without question. One skate-boarding across a vast empty gallery to tell me I had to either carry my back-pack in my hand or strap it to my front. The back pack was small and almost empty. I looked at the few middle class women with their four wheel drive pushchairs and shoulder bags the size of small wardrobes and thought Why? And how this reflect on the spirit of the Biennale? Galleries, places where you behave in a certain way? The cultural churches where we all know and are reminded of our place in the scheme of things. I missed Cockatoo Island and the refugee art project but I also missed the spirit of activism in what I saw.

I reflected on Art and politics and recent events such as the Afghani woman artist in Khandahar, Malina Suliman. Her art work carries a death sentence from those patrons of the art the Taliban but she keeps taking out her spray cans and continues to promote the plight of women, girls and anyone who is not Taliban in Afghanistan. See Patrick Aboud's 3 minute plus documentary "Tagging the Taliban". http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/07/03/feed-tagging-taliban recently there was the bill posting by Peter Drew in Adelaide (June 2014) of drawings and art works made by refugees in the limbo of bridging visas. This brings the discussion to passer's by. And as I walk around Sydney's Inner West, I continue to see a rich diversity of graffiti and slogans that show politics and art are instant, breathing and more evident than the Biennale was able to show.

Just to call something political and provide discourse on ideas on why this is so, does not make it so. Needs fire in the belly and to be aimed at something needing to be exposed/changed-such as the Intervention, such as the Lucky Country for some, our Australia Day mentality which is often another form of colonisation and White Australia for Anglo immigrants like myself. As such it would have been good to see more activism and guerrilla art take possession of this event and God knows there is enough raw material in Australia to create a powerful and effective cultural exchange of ideas, images and dialogue. 

Belgo Geordie does not work for, consult or own shares or receive funding from any multinational, political party or organisation that owns him.

In Fading Light filum review - them clever folk at Amber

The death of fishing in North Shields; 

A modern morality tale 

In Fading Light (1989)

A film by Amber Collective and starring Dave Hill, Sammy Johnson, Joana Ripley, Joe Caffrey, a fishing boat and of course, North Shields

Now Amber collective is something to admire. Film-makers/writers/photographers documenting communities across the north east of England and in doing so capturing poignant moments of a region's decline. "In Fading Light" is a story set in the twilight of the great North Sea fishing industry. It was a time where many local North Shields families lived off the fish bought in and unloaded on the quayside. My family, the younger males remember being hit up by the bawdy and deeply funny herring girls. Others had at some time packed kippers or cleaned fish. One uncle had a business making the wooden packing boxes. And men in the family, if they didn't do some time in the mines (for their bond money or because of their age) went out on boats before joining the navy (Royal and Merchant). It is in our blood.

This film, which you can order from Amber on DVD, is an unsung hero of British film. Tom Hadaway's script is in parts deeply funny, prejudiced (fishing boats were male domains and in this story it is a woman who sneaks aboard) and tragic in its outcome. It is broad with Geordie and the better for it. It is also a testimony to a way of film making which is rare. Small crew, dedicated actors and a fishing boat that appears to have sailed its own course more often than not. Most of the action is set on an anchor trawler fishing the North Sea; home port of North Shields. At core is the relationship between daughter and her estranged father (Dave Hill as trawler skipper). But holding equal position is or was the working life of the North Shields quayside and the disintegrating British/local fishing industry. 

The actors learned to sail the trawler and to fish supported by the local fishermen. In doing so, meaningful relationships were formed. It is a film and story that is rewarding and heart breaking.  And then there is the long commitment by the film-makers and collective to the community. It is reflected in the genuine open hearted way of engaging with the community in making this film and the response of local people enjoying being bit actors for this, my cousin one. And Dave Hill is a joy to watch as were the majority of the cast. More than wussy method acting, these boys and girl (and film crew) went out and filmed in a full throated North Sea gale/storm. There is humour in the recollections of the actors who as they went out to film to get storm footage, the hardened fishermen and boats were heading into the quayside at a fast clip seeking shelter and sit out the storm. Bloody actors eh? 

My DVD copy has a great documentary on the making of this film and shows how another north eastern industry was lost. Seeing the fishermen in the doco saying there are no fish left to harvest in the North Sea was sobering. Their admission it was as much from their own greed than all due to market forces. But they also note it was the dredging with huge nets which came and sucked the life out of the sea, the sea-bed has barely recovered from this pillage.

The last time I was in Shields in 2011 (visiting from Australia)-the quay was almost empty of fishing boats. Now North Shields has 'apartments' and lifestyle industry and there is no longer the unloading of boxes of fish, the shriek of gulls, the stink of fish and guts, the rattling of chains, nor the sight of nets drying along the jetties. This film and "North Shields Stories" remain records of a life which has now passed on and by. I feel poorer for its loss.

All photographs used on this page are from the Amber Films Collective.

MARCH IN MAY SYDNEY 18 MAY 2014...From those who still dare to dream

Come on you lot, work harder, longer and
for a lot less

"Joe!"
"Yes Tony?"
"I have a grand vision for Australia. One where the people we represent can piss from a great height on our indigenous population, disabled, the elderly, students, kids who can't get work, unionists, refugees, migrants, women, artists and families. Have I left anyone out?"
"Public servants?"
"Are they people?"
"Then there are teachers, health care workers, the whole voluntary sector, oh and the state premiers who are all from our mob, but seem to have taken offence. But we can buy them off; once they sort out a big fat state tax such as an increase to their GST."

Its our flag people, our issue...

Welcome to March in May; a people's protest in response to the first budget of the 2013 national liberal coalition government (or as Mr Albanese rightly describes them Tories). There is an old socialist joke about a group of anarchists sitting around the table debating how best to go about destroying the country when one suggests "Vote Tory". And this people seems to be what is in process, although Mr Abbot on our television screens tonight seemed to be implying  we should all be jumping for joy to be able to do something to show we are proud little Aussies one and all. After all, it won't bite in any real way for three years...bullshit of the runniest kind and with the shadow of the audit hanging over it, this budget is a nasty piece of social engineering.

In what appears to be an underestimation of the population remaining stuck in being mesmerised by Hockey and co smoke and mirrors approach to communication, the budget has initiated more political discussion across the community than did the election. So, in Sydney, on a bright sunny day more suited to early than late autumn, approximately 20,000 people turned out. The media so far (Sunday-18 May) have put numbers at "thousands" ABC, about ten thousand-but there was many more.  Having marched on the 5000 strong International Workers May Day a few weeks back, this was a bigger and more varied representation of the electorate. More youth, which has got to be better. More interesting slogans and banners and for all of the factions present, a coming together, which if it remains cohesive will present a formidable opposition to rule by entitlement.

It was good to be reminded that the brunt of the cuts will savage our indigenous communities and I hope we have the heart to take on their call to join them and stand with them, as in 1972, when students, the unions and the indigenous community stood shoulder to shoulder.

Great to see the great whites swimming
in from Western Oz -no to culls

In Belmore Park, youth were in abundance, as were the liberal middle classes who probably marched in 1972 or in protest of the Vietnam War. It is the kind of unity we again need for the fight ahead. So what made people that mad they came out in their thousands on an autumnal Sunday and have prepared costume, banners and slogans? As Sally McManus from the Australian Services Union NSW & ACT said about our prime minister "You are a liar, a wrecker and divider." Watching Mr Abbott in the media this week (post this march) telling everyone the petrol levy is not a tax because the structure was already in place-all he did was activate it, and besides it will all go into roading infrastructure. Yeah right!

Then a bunch of rich men (and a few token women) in suits who received free education, or certainly highly subsidised, are smoking cigars and telling today's students they have to pay much, much more for their education, of course with increased competition, as we know, prices will drop and private providers will be paying students to take their courses. Yeah Right! The vision is a whole generation will be up to their knuckles in debt and may never be able to afford to buy a house in their lifetime. And the elephant in the room? What jobs? What levels of pay, what working conditions? What kind of vision is this? My question for those who voted for Tony Abbott is "Is this what you wished for?" Does this budget and the ideology driving it set a foundation for a fair or just Australia. As the Indigenous speakers at this rally said, their communities fight for justice and fairness has been a long and bitter battle, that with this government, has become much worse. Read about the politics in the Northern Territory intervention and the role of the mining companies playing divide and rule with already marginalised indigenous communities. For a lot of other people in our society following this budget it is also going to get worse.

GP consultation for free not fee

Before the march a number of people spoke or performed. The Iranian poet Kaveh Akbari was inspired and I stole his line above "those who still dare to dream." Other speakers raised Australia's recent shameful approach to refugees and off-shore processing. Where else in our society would we accept a man's death in custody does not warrant a full and transparent inquiry.  Is it ok to ignore Reza Berati's death on Manus Island because he was a boat person and as some of this government appear to believe, therefore undeserving of basic human rights-such as not to be murdered when under Australian care? People were in agreement on how the ideology that shapes our treatment of refugees is repugnant. The point was made Labor too should hang its head in shame on this issue. Labor needs to re-find its soul, who it represents and who it can speak for and quickly if it wants to show leadership. And as with the May Day International Workers march, where were the politicians?

This guy said something about first
they came for the people and I sat
around with me tongue
Hanging out...then they stole my
biscuits and told me to tighten
me leash...what the!

The Greenpeace CEO reminded people of threats to the environment. Many speakers called for us not to be isolated in our collective will for democracy. The MC was impassioned about the list of those potentially affected by this budget. Its a shopping list of the most vulnerable, those without a voice and again to quote Kaveh "We will not go with a silent scream". Our voices will and should be heard. The MC also noted it was the first representation at a demo she knew of by the IT community-surely not, not the internet warriors that I know who are out there in a galaxy far from our lap tops fighting the good fight on the dark side of cyberspace.

Dartboard Tony

The Lone Ranger forced out of retirement
and back to work

I also liked the reminder that our arts community has also taken a hit. And the role our benefit system has played in helping Australia shape its culture by allowing a range of creative people to survive while forging their creative work. Our Cate at Centerlink? But think of the music, writing, dance, daubs etc we would not have today if there was not at least a limited safety net for our artists. The new vision is a return to the old free market "Only the few deserve to succeed at make squillions while the rest of you who think you have some creativity can go back and starve quietly in your garret, if you can afford the rent!" And dangle the mirage of the much vaunted corporate sponsorship-mostly focussed on sponsoring winners that reflect the values of the mission statement and vision of our bright, shiny global future.

Tone's undies and some liberal donations
Does ICAC know?

9,980 marchers on a Sunday afternoon...
what layabouts

But it is the people, the people! The people! That made this afternoon and its energy. Oh and for Monday morning Telegraph readers. I am happy for your writers that they could find the few ferals to discredit the 9,980 and other marchers they counted (although I think there was double the number).

And get indigestion...

We have a fair, just and balanced media, do we not? Has the concept of civil disobedience escaped your notice-sitting down in George Street is hardly worthy of screaming, frothing headlines. As for Annabelle Crabbe (morning of 25 May 2014) accusing us of marching like it was 1972 (or artillery out of the Soviet era-oh please!) "How, then, can it possibly be that student protests have not changed even one little bit over that time? And how can it be, as even our phones gets smarter, that protesters are somehow getting dumber?"  Of course silly me! Stoopid students! Today is a far more sophisticated world, we could have held a simulated march with holograms form our lounges, kitchens, cafes using lap tops, phones, twitter etc. Come on girl! If you were there you would have experienced people coming together to protest a cause in common and there was more creativity in costume and placard than the whole of the Biennale! It was sweaty and comradely and involved people marching together talking together. But relax, the cell phones were out taking selfies etc.

Are you seriously suggesting there is something wrong with a few politicians getting jostled on campuses? As for busting the ABC programme! Shame on any of you there who got your knickers in a knot because people dared to interrupt your buzz. And I had to sit down with horror when I read all the students protesting are part of that terrible "Socialist Alternative" gang who so vilely ransack their mum's cupboards for the third rate manchester to daub sad slogans on. Ms Crabbe, you obviously missed the anarchists in their black drain pipes, endlessly burning fags, red and black flags and enough attitude to make your eye liner blister. Can't imagine what you would have written about that hard arsed, hard bitten mob, probably how with the availability of such cheap clothing from our free economic zones, they could afford to dress better when out in public. Come on, the point was this was a march when many people came together without the driving forces of any vested interest. They were angry, wanted to do something and more importantly for Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey et al, to make a point. Democracy can be such an inconvenience don't you know!

I leave you with photographs of the day. Thank you one and all....and particularly the oldie who could barely walk the length of Benmore Park but just wanted to be there. Good man!

A bit of oom-pah for the masses

                   

The smoking ceremony...I give thanks to the people of the land who reminded us of those whose struggle was paid for in lifeblood. In unity...