Musa Okwonga
Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Last Friday I went along to The Garage in Highbury, where UK rapper Lowkey was celebrating the launch of his new album. “Soundtrack to the Struggle”, released without major label support, has seen phenomenal success: on the day of its release it surged into the top 10 of the UK iTunes charts, and made similar waves in a host of other countries, including the US, Canada and Australia. “Too Much”, which has emerged as something of a lead single from this album, has also been played by Greg James and Zane Lowe of BBC Radio 1.

Click here to continue reading “A rapper no longer low key” by Musa Okwonga.

via Avedon Carol

Click on the photos to enlarge and to get more details.

One protester injured. Rubber bullet to the head.
From the comments:
opdheadshot about 5 hours ago
“Just to clarify: I was shot in the head w/ a tear gas canister. Stitches and love. We will prevail.”

Joseph Dana: Photo from #OWS Oakland. These are not rubber bullets based on my experience in Israel/Palestine

via Greg Mitchell

Updated @1537 26/10/11:
People should stop referring to bean bags, tear gas cannisters and rubber bullets as “less-lethal”. Used in exactly this manner they are a deadly force. Oops, what a surprise, didn’t mean to kill you. Not so much.

Monday 24 October 10:06 am

Wobblies Down Under
The Swedish-American radical socialist, songster and poet Joe Hill, became a martyr for the working classes world-wide when he was executed in 1915 for a murder he almost certainly did not commit. His ashes were distributed around the world including New Zealand but no trace of them has ever been found here. Researcher Jared Davidson set out to track them down but in the process uncovered the story of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, known as the ‘Wobblies’) and their repression in New Zealand during the early 1900s and World War 1. (47′06″)

Download: Ogg Vorbis  MP3 | Embed

Produced by Jack Perkins.
Links
The Wobblies on Papers Past – Evening Post, 26 July 1933

Joe Hill

BBC Interview

The governments in Syria, Russia and China should be “nervous” about the message sent by the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, a former Republican presidential candidate has told BBC’s Newsnight programme.

“It is the Spring, not just the Arab Spring”, Senator John McCain told Gavin Esler.

View the film

Regarding Libya’s “spring”, the great scholar McCain said, “We assisted them”. At what point does a revolution of the people unequivocally become a foreign takeover? Had the BBC bothered to ask the question the interview might have moved beyond ridiculous to borderline interesting.