GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG NO.730 FRIDAY 27TH FEBRUARY 2009 INCORORATING COPAM CONFERENCE OF PEACE AND MULTICULTURALISM barnsby@blueyonder.co.uk
RECALCITRANT COMPUTERS WITH MINDS OF THEIR OWN.
Blog 729 of yesterday was aborted. Today after a night’s rest my
computer seems to be behaving impeccably, but for how long? Whether it
flatters only to deceive, we shall see later , but the Viruses are still
about determined that we shall not call for the arrest of Gordon Brown as
No1 War criminal before he destroys the world with his Nuclear Madness.
Meanwhile, while we are still all here, let me get on with the proper
work of the BLOG and COPAM.
PALESTINIAN WOMEN’S DELEGATION SPEAKS IN WALSALL.
An email from Martin Lynch the ‘Respect’ delegate says after the Israeli
onslaught on Gaza we must step up solidarity with Palestine. The Walsall
contribution is a public meeting at 7pm on Thursday 5 March at Croft
St.School. Croft Street Walsall of visiting Palestinian women from Ramallah
and Salfeet, Zaheeda Farakhneh and Nagham Madi to talk about life under
Israeli occupation. Please spread the news of this very important meeting.
For further information Martin’s email address is
martin.lynch05@tiscali.co.uk and the meeting is part of the
British-Palestine Twinning Network and International Women’s Day Tour on
their website www.twinningwithpalestine.net
I have asked before why Wolverhampton cannot stage a similar meeting
and it would seem Wolverhampton is backward in these matters, but then
Wolverhampton staged an Holocaust Day meeting with a survivor of the Nazi
prison camps, so it seems W’ton can stage such events and some liaison
between the two is the only thing missing.
STOP THE ASSAULT ON CIVIL LIBERTIES.
This is an event sponsored by the Guardian newspaper and Charter 88
which
has become Unlocking Democracy. Stella Rimmington ex head of MI5 seems to
have set the matter off warning that Britain is becoming a police state and
from this has come a an informal opposition to New Labour that includes
Amnesty International, the Countryside Alliance, English PEN, HISTORY TODAY,
Private Eye, Human Rights Watch, Red Pepper and the TUC.
I have sent the Convention my best wishes and hope that they will
associate with COPAM.
SEAN CREIGHTON’S HISTORY AND SOCIAL ACTION.
Sean is a long term friend of mine both having the triple interests of
having been brought up in the same suburb of London, Battersea, being a
working class historian and of understanding as the greatest of black
scholars and activists WEB du Bois put it that the ‘color’ line was the
greatest issue of the 20th century as it is also of the 21st.
Sean at sean.creighton@btinternet.com has produced a ten page Bulletin
that can be downloaded with a very comprehensive coverage. Sean took part
last year in the 100th centenary celebrations of the Battersea Labour Party
which had the distinction of electing the first Black mayor in Britain ,
John Archer, as well as one of the first Communist MPs in Shapurji
Saklatvala and produced a DVD which I still do not possess although I think
I remember asking Sean to let me have one. People sometimes ask where my
militancy comes from and I usually say it must be a product of the militant
history of Battersea which has rubbed off on me!
Kennington Common and Radical History, Slavery and Abolition (Nesag
Newsletter); and the Co-op Bob Dylan and Folk America.
Events outside London include African connections and English Football
at Warwick University; the North East Slavery and Abolition Society whose
five editions can be downloaded, much else that I haven’t time for and a
splendid book review section. Please consult it. Sean has done a magnificent
job and we are all on his debt.
HISTORY AND THE FUTURE IS GOOGLE.
I have some cause to be upset and annoyed at the lack of respect much
of the Labour movement pays to the Living History that the Barnsby Blog has
created and the fact that I have almost certainly the best record of West
Midland History and certainly Communist Party history since the 1940s.
This niggle has arisen as a result of my being asked to advise people on
Communist history.which is the function of the GB Working Class Library and
Free Communist Bookshop, but particularly of the changed editorship of the
Dictionary of Labour Biography frrom David Howell to another editor iwho is
not
committed to printing my 50 or so studies of Black Country Chartists and
hasa not even had
the good grace to inform me and that also applies to Dr. Gildart of
Wolverhampton University who has been involved in the reconstruction of the
DLB.
As it happens it doesn’t matter very much because Google has published
it for me on the Web and it is clear that a revolution in historic research
has occurred whereby one must first consult Google, not to mention Wikipedia
and other search organs before you or your students even start researching.
Because Google will provide you with everything you have ever written, and
moreover it changes frequently so you must always be consulting it.
Let’s take the question of Chartist Studies. Type in Black Country
Chartists and Google produces two pages with ten darkened headlines the
first an account of the movement from 1839 and the Chartist Convention of
1839. This gives a complete account of my Chartism in the Black Country and
for good measure my booklet on Woemen’s Suffrage in the Black Country.
The next Feargus O’Connor and the middle classes. And so it goes on
until the last heading Labour History News Archive and this gives some of
my very latest writings on Racism in the Black Country.
Nor can it be said that archives of the of Labour bodies are equal or
superior to GOOGLE. They are not. Neither the Socialist History Society nor
the Labour History Review have archives as extensive as GOOGLE produces and
it will apply equally to local archives such as Carl Chinn and the
Blackcountryman. So all research must now begin with what GOOGLE thinks of
YOU and everyone must take it from there. Whether it is ethical or desirable
that GOGGLE knows more about you than you know yourself the fact remains
that a revolution in research has taken place equal to COPAM my electronic
Conference uniting everyone in the world who is opposed to the war in Iraq.
GOOGLE REIGNS SUPREME - HISTORY WILL
NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.
ARREST BROWN BEFORE HE
DESTROYS THE WORLD.
GIVE THE MONEY TO THE
WORKERS NOT THE BANKERS