Manhattan Bound

What with my ongoing bloggers block indifference, I haven't really been mentioning the SPL much since it started up again a few weeks back but August 31st means this place and, who knows, maybe come 1pm my time I'll actually be back in the flow of blogging again.

Aye, and I also predict that Derek Riordan will bag a hat trick today.

I'm not going to venture a prediction on the score today, but I do hope Celtic, as the home team, can at least buck the trend of yesterday's SPL results:

A megaupload of H E. Hardy Edgar Hardcastle articles

Hot on the heels of Graham's Ragged Trousered Philanthropist blog comes an updating of Edgar Hardcastle's page over at the Marxist Internet Archive.

Edgar Hardcastle? Click on this link (or this one) for more info on who Hardcastle was. Passing SPGBers - or that even rarer breed, regular readers of this blog - will know who I'm wittering on about.

Same deal as with post about RTP: here's the newly added articles that caught my eye, but be sure to click on the link to discover your own favourites:

From the August 1937 Socialist Standard G.B. Shaw as a Guide to Socialism

From the April 1938 Socialist Standard Trotsky-Stalin Feud. An American View

From the August 1936 Socialist Standard Socialists Do Stand for Equality

From the April 1939 Socialist Standard The Last Hour in Madrid

A lecture from October 1978 The Materialist Conception of History

From the November 1936 Socialist Standard What to Do About Fascism?

Kudos to Adam in London and Mike in Tokyo for the work done in updating Hardcastle's page. Hopefully, there'll be more to follow.

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (Metropolitan Books 2001)

Guilt, you may be thinking, warily. Isn't that what we're supposed to feel? But guilt doesn't go anywhere near far enough; the appropriate emotion is shame - shame at our own dependency, in this case, at the underpaid labor of others. When someone works for less pay than she can live on - when she, for example, goes hungry so you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor", as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else. As Gail, one of my restaurant co-workers put it, "you give and you give and you give."

Someday of course - and I will venture no predictions as to when - they are bound to tire of giving so little in return, and demand to be paid what they're worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will all be better off for it in the end.

"Anarchy's dead now, Maxine"

A rapid share of old socialist articles

The 'Isn't It About Time We Had Socialism?' blog is no more.

Not sure what happened but it appears that Graham - the Gillingham supporting death metalist SPGBer living in Denmark - (who's not to be confused with Rob, the vegan death metalist SPGBer living in Norway) decided that the blog couldn't hang around any longer for the revolution bus* to fill up.

However, not being a comrade to rest on his blogging laurels, Graham has kick-started the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist blog to take its place.

A first glance it looks like death to death metal as this blog is geared more towards reprints of old articles and pamphlets from the SPGB *cough* canon. I'm pretty sure that the majority of the articles are appearing on the web for the first time, and that it's Graham who has done most of the transcribing. So, kudos to him for performing the public service:

Of course, you should check out the blog for yourself but these are the articles that caught my eye:

From the July 1970 Socialist Standard A write up of a debate between the SPGB and the International Socialists

From the April 1969 Socialist Standard Marx and Engels and the 'Collapse' of Capitalism

5 part article from the Socialist Standard in early 1979 How Capitalism Works

From the June 1928 Socialist Standard A vintage debate between the SPGB (Jack Fitzgerald) and the ILP (James Maxton)

The SPGB 1978 introductory pamphlet, Questions of the Day

From the January 1969 Socialist Standard Rosa Luxemburg and the Collapse of Capitalism

From the October 1923 Socialist Standard Jingo Communists

There's a lot more to check out on his blog, so feel free to click on the link.

A lonely footnote

*If you can find that Peter Rigg's cartoon online, you're a better googler than me.

The Warriors (1979)

"I can't breathe . . . I can't breathe"

Via Bust magazine's email blast:

I was just thinking the other day that I'd love to know how to make a nice Red Leicester.

A mini mixing pop with politics whilst my tea cools down

The internet does like to throw up the most surprising facts sometimes:

Bear admits to shitting in the woods.

That sound you can hear in the far distance is an undiscovered Indian tribe in the Amazonian basin agreeing that it must be a slow news day for Yahoo News.

Up The Funny Roundabout

I know: the picture on the left could be the East Village 2008, but it is in fact St Albans circa 1975.

The members of Wire at this point in time were still mixing their paints at Watford Art College . . . The Undertones weren't to play the Hemel Hempstead Pavillion for another eight years so, for one brief moment, power pop/new wave/proto punk (delete as appropriate) in Hertfordshire had its moment in the sun in St Albans. Squeeze supporting Curved Air. (Wasn't that Stewart Copeland's first band?)

Is it that obvious that I've been listening to the Frank Cottrell-Boyce's One Chord Wonders radio plays?

The pic comes via the excellent Packet Of Three website, which is dedicated to all things Squeeze-like, and which I have duly added to the 'Fill Your Head With Culture' sidebar. That's all. Just saw the pic and wanted to bring it to blogging light.

"A future morning at 4:50 the F Train took her rather nifty . . . ". I never can remember the rest of the lyrics.

Quack quack - two little ducks

Via Normski, and just to piss Kara off.

No doubt I'm letting the side down with the alumni bit.