You Can't Vote No Borders - Only Direct Action can make it happen!

The British establishment has started employing its usual dirty tricks in an effort to prevent Scottish independence. Its latest wheeze is an astroturf campaign called Vote No Borders. It's the brainchild of a millionaire Tory-donor financier, Malcolm Offord, who describes the Union as the "best club in the world" and has given £5000 to start a "grassroots campaign". He is apparently oblivious to the fact that grassroots campaigns are not the result of bankers showering a little of their filthy lucre on to the peasants in order to get them to campaign to preserve the status quo that continues to reward him while ignoring them.
To really piss us off, the whole thing is being overseen by Acanchi, a PR Consultany which specializes in “Country Branding” and which is responsible for trying to whitewash the aprtheid state of Israel (see 'here').

This is a quote from Mr Offord; 

"I don't want to leave the union. It works for me. In fact, I rather quite like it. It's rather like a cup of hot chocolate and I'd like to keep it.' 

That would be a cup of hot chocolate with a 300 year history of slavery, imperialism, war, theft, exploitation, and promotion and exportation via the barrel of a gun of the the most virulent, aggressive and anti-human form of "free-market capitalism" presumably.

The really anoyying thing is, the real No Borders is a real grassroots campaign for solidarity with all migrants and has been in operation for years in Glasgow and elsewhere. Some of the people involved with No Borders in Glasgow are understandably pissed off at this astroturf campaign and have set up a new website called Can’t Vote No Borders. The URL is:

http://cantvotenoborders.tumblr.com/

The page will just share stop deportation stuff (like a site called No Borders should).

Wouldn’t it be good if everyone who put the phrase “vote no borders” into Google got the site above coming up ranked first rather than  one set up by the millionaire Tory banker?

Well this could happen. If you are a website admin or have your own website (a Tumblr site or a blog is fine) then you could add a link to the site above. Share the URL above around. You know it makes sense.

The Streetlamp team

 

Cattitude Adjustment - Riot Grrrl Berlin strikes again!

Yeah, we've not been too busy on the site recently. If you need a reason for this hiatus, I ask you just to have a look at the state of our country and the dicks in our government. Someone has to organise against this mob and that has meant that the Streetlamp blog has taken a back seat to the political activism around these parts. So, there have been a lot of important events distracting us all this last wee while, e.g. the bedroom tax, but we're glad to announce a very important musical release this week that we simply couldn't ignore.

So, what is this earth-shattering musical release, I hear you ask? It's only the latest free compilation release from those beautiful, wonderful people at Riot Grrrl Berlin! You will recall that we're huge fans of the Riot Grrrl Berlin ouptput (see 'here' and 'here') and we're pleased to say that this latest release is an absolute humdinger. Called 'Cats Against Catcalling!', the compilation features no less than 95 bands (yep, you read that right - 95!) and contains 5 hours of music ranging from folk to thrash and featuring most things in-between.
If you don't find at leat a dozen songs on it that you love then just lie down and pull a sheet over yourself because you are already dead! I'm going to embed a few of my favourite tracks below but, trust me, there are dozens I could have picked from this compilation and I just wish I could include more.

First up is Anna Bo with 'Plastic':



Here's Jesus and his Judgemental Father with 'Kings and Queens':



Next is Secondhand Underpants with 'Pizza Faced Brat':


Finally, here's The Anna Thompsons with 'Fuck You':


Great music, and there's tons more where that came from. But 'Cats Against Catcalling' isn't just about the music. The inspiration for the compilation came through the Hollaback tumblr page.

Hollaback is a movement to end street harassment powered by a network of local activists around the world. Hollaback activists work together to better understand street harassment, to ignite public conversations, and to develop innovative strategies to ensure equal access to public spaces. Street harassment is one of the most pervasive forms of gender-based violence and one of the least legislated against. Comments from “You’d look good on me” to groping, flashing and assault are a daily, global reality for women and LGBTQ individuals. But it is rarely reported, and it’s culturally accepted as ‘the price you pay’ for being a woman or for being gay. Hollaback and Riot Grrrl Berlin reject this and together they say that "It's time to break the silence about street harassment".

To help do this, Riot Grrrl Berlin asked Hollaback Berlin if they would cooperate with the 'Cats Against Catcalling' compilation and give some info and materials to include in the download. Hollaback Berlin have responded magnificently with a downloadable folder packed full of images, posters and documents to print and share. They've also included many cool memes you can use to spread the word against street harassment on the internet.

To the Streetlamp's delight the Hollaback memes and artwork feature images of our favourite animals - cats (see here for our own 'anarchist cat' images). Here are some of our favourites:










'Cats Against Catcalling' also has its own meme site 'here' where you can add your own images. Why not get creative and share your own designs? It would be really awesome if everyone who downloads this compilation prints some posters, posts some memes and spreads the word. This is what the d.i.y. ethos and direct action is all about. Don't wait for someone else to do something, become the agent of change yourself!

'Cats Against Catcalling' is a brilliant free download full of great music and anti-street harrassment material. Please, if you download it, share about it on your blog, post it on facebook, print some posters and paste your town.



Griff
xx

L'histoire de Raymond et Cécile

Still no new music for you right now as The Streetlamp team has its collective mind on weightier matters. However, we couldn't give you absolutely nothing so we've decided to combine all the strands of our Francophilia - les chansons, les film, les femmes, la politique, and bring you a short introduction to Juliette Gréco.


Juliette Gréco was born in Montpellier to a Corsican father and a mother who became active in the Résistance. Gréco also became involved in the Résistance, and was caught but not deported because of her young age.
After the war, Gréco spent the post liberation years frequenting the Saint Germain cafes, and became a figure associated with the political and philosophical Bohemian culture of La Rive Gauche. Philosophers, poets, authors and musicians filled the night clubs and brasseries that lined the boulevard Saint-Germain, and the area became the centre of the existentialism movement associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. As a regular figure at the many music and poetry venues, Greco was given songs to sing written by Sartre himself, and also became acquainted with Miles Davis and Jean Cocteau, even being given a role in Cocteau’s film Orphée in 1949.

Gréco can also be seen in Bonjour Tristesse, a 1958 film directed and produced by Otto Preminger and based on the novel of the same title by Françoise Sagan. The title is derived from a poem by Paul Éluard, "À peine défigurée" amd it means, of course, "Hello Sadness".

Here is  Gréco with the French language version of the song:



An MP3 of this can be freely downloaded 'here'.


Now here's Sur Les Quais Du Vieux Paris:


An MP3 of this can be freely downloaded 'here'.


Finally, here's Sous le ciel de Paris, the melody of which should be familiar to everybody.



An MP3 of this can be freely downloaded 'here'.


Hope you enjoyed those.If you're interested in French chansons then have a look at these 100 free downloads 'here'.

À bientôt

Griff
xx Click here

Life in the Faslane

Glasgow poet Eamonn Coyle speaks on truth and nuclear weapons in Scotland.