Man as Machine VIII

Man as Machine VIII
by TARQUIN O’FLAHERTY

In 18th Century England you could buy a commission in the army or a seat in Parliament.  George the Third, the King of England didn’t like the relative independence of his ministers and so set about restoring the balance.  He was, after all much richer than the average duke or earl and could buy his way back to the levels of power his predecessors had so carelessly frittered away.  Through various machinations he managed to turf out Lord Temple, a noted and influential aristo and William Pitt.  Temple was so incensed by this that he allowed his follower, John Wilkes to publish a broadside, a rebuke against this treatment in his periodical called the ‘North Briton’.  Well, old George the Third took astonishing umbrage at this.  Nearly fifty people were arrested and then soon released because the warrants were, for various reasons, illegal.  Wilkes was also arrested, incarcerated, then released again because his status as MP should have protected him against being banged up.  The whole thing was a mismanaged shambles and London was greatly amused (and sympathetic).  After all, Wilkes was a known and much admired rake, spendthrift, and an ex- member of the Hell Fire Club; he was the Errol Flynn of the 18th Century.

Parliament and the King then brought a more considered suit against Wilke’s ‘North Briton’ broadside, now referred to as ‘Number 45’.  Wilkes was challenged to a duel by one of the King’s sycophants and was wounded badly.  The House of Commons was ‘persuaded’ to condemn ‘No. 45’.  Shaken, wounded, and understandably intimidated Wilkes left England for Paris.  Whilst in the French capital recovering he was expelled from the House of Commons, and then declared a fugitive for not attending his trial.

The King’s power increased over the next few years and Wilkes found that a lot of his parliamentary support had evaporated.  He was, as far as Parliament was concerned, a forgotten man.  In 1768, an election year, Wilkes slipped quietly back from exile and promptly and brazenly offered himself as a candidate, first in the London election, then as a candidate for Middlesex.  Of about 3,000 votes cast, Wilkes picked up 1,292, easily trouncing the two other candidates.

Well, this kicked up a fine how d’you do, and no mistake.  The lower orders, deprived for years of their hero, went absolutely wild.  They needed a hero, they needed someone to rein in the King’s increasingly dictatorial ambition, and they had decided that Wilkes was their man.

Wilkes presented himself to justice and was immediately jailed, to await trial.  A huge gathering of people, at a place called St George’s Fields, demonstrated vociferously in favour of Wilkes.  The crowd was dispersed by the simple expedient of calling out the Army who shot dead at least six people, and wounded many others.  This was all much too murderous.  Considering the temper of the time this was also stupidly high-handed.  Sympathy began to gather amongst the influential.  The judge at Wilkes’ trial, instead of banging him up for life, threw out his outlawry and, ignoring the King’s need to crush Wilkes, fined him a thousand pounds and sentenced him to 22 months jail.

TO BE CONTINUED

Poetry Sunday 20 October 2013

Dulce Et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!– An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.–
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Our Poetry Editor, Ira Maine has this to saypastedGraphic_1.pdf

 

Man as Machine VII

man as machine bannerMan as Machine VII
by TARQUIN O’FLAHERTY

 

Should you be seized with the desire to abandon urban hedonism in favour of the bucolic form, I would  commend to you William Cobbett’s ‘Cottage Economy’.

In the late 18th century Cobbett, ‘perhaps the most powerful political pamphleteer in English history…’* made two forgivable miscalculations; in the first case, he wrote a pamphlet so inflammatory that warrants were issued for his arrest.  His second mistake was to choose France as a place of refuge from the fuzz.  Inconveniently, he discovered the French Revolution to be in progress.  Cobbett made a good leg, his excuses and a bee line for America.

The Napoleonic Wars created such a demand for wheat that by 1814, prices had doubled and tripled since the early seventeen-nineties.  During this period, in order to grow more wheat and make more money, enclosures accelerated at an astonishing rate.  When hostilities ended, though markets collapsed and unemployment jumped, prices tended to remain unrealistically high largely because the markets were reluctant to relinquish their wartime profit margins.  The resulting recession left the now landless peasantry destitute.

Cobbett hated London and what its industrialisation was doing to what had been a relatively self-sufficient peasantry.  Admittedly Cobbett, an 18th century man, had a rather retro and romantic idea of country life, one of cottagers and squires, of continuity and self-reliance, of life going along unchanged.  He was nevertheless absolutely focused on the injustices being heaped on the heads of a people who were beginning to be regarded less as human beings and more as simple machinery to be used until worn out, then simply slung on the scrap heap.  Depriving people of access to land deprives them of their independence, of their ability to provide themselves with food, and leaves them wholly at the mercy of exploitative employers.  Cobbett, like Arthur Young, wanted to ensure this didn’t happen.  He wanted, and saw it as a right, that every peasant family should have a house, and sufficient land to grow enough vegetables and meat so that they might never go hungry.  This would naturally involve diligence, thrift and hard work, but these were Christian virtues, good for the soul and would build up ‘Brownie’ points in Heaven.

As an illustration of Cobbett’s no nonsense approach, here (gloriously) is what he has to say about the business of drinking tea;

“…I view the tea drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an engenderer of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth, and a maker of misery in old age…”(Cottage Economy.)

Beer is the stuff Cobbett’s cottagers obviously ought to be drinking and certainly not all this sugared, ‘sweet and saucered ceremonial’ that lifts so many little fingers in ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

Cobbett’s ‘back to the land’ approach differed greatly from that of the other great reformer, Robert Owen.

Robert Owen, at the age of twenty, was already owner of one of the most important cotton mills in Lancashire.  He had bought the New Lanark mill in 1800 and immediately set about demonstrating that excellent profits could still be made without working the staff to death.  It was generally held, amongst mill owners of the time that being at the bottom of the work chain was a law of nature and people occupying that position deserved all they got.  Owen provided better wages, schools, education, good housing, sanitation and reduced the working hours considerably.  He created villages with good roads, recreation areas and provided goods at cost price in the shops he built.  His ‘Model Factory’ became famous far outside England, and drew lots of curious international visitors.

Cobbett on the other hand wanted to go back to a pre-industrial Britain where stout yeomen feared God, worked hard, and knew their self-sufficient place.  He thought this infinitely preferable to the all consuming souless rapacity of the new industrialism.

Owen’s eyes were on the future, and he instinctively knew that industrialisation was unstoppable, and that factory production is not worth tuppence without a loyal and enthusiastic workforce.  He knew the value of labour and respected it.  He had no illusions whatever as to who or what was making him rich.

TO BE CONTINUED.

* “London; the Biography” by Peter Ackroyd

Passionate Mick

Passionate Mick
by Elizabeth Peter

Shortly after our holiday we moved to a new flat also on the first and second floor, this time over a shop, and we had access to a very small garden at the back.  It meant that for the first time Mick and Seamus could get out into the big wide world. There was a small tree in the yard which, as it was summer, was in full leaf.  However come Autumn it began to lose its leaves and Mick, not knowing about trees, would sit under the tree waiting for a leaf to come spinning down, whereupon he would pounce on it, kill it, and then triumphantly bring it up the stairs as a trophy to lay at our feet.  mick 4The first time it happened I praised him lavishly and pinned the leaf to the wallpaper.  This, as it turned out, was not a good idea.  He constantly brought leaves to us and would not budge until we had pinned them to the wall.  The wall was eventually covered in dead leaves, which was, we explained to visitors,  Micks’ leaf collection.  Unfortunately he sometimes got tired or lost interest or simply was diverted by something else and he would drop the leaves on the stairs.

Mick loved to play games on the bed, leaping and stalking as we ran our hands about under the doona.  Perhaps we should not have been so encouraging about joining us on the bed.  One Sunday morning, we were indulging in that wonderful Sunday morning pastime, which childless couples can do without fear of interruption. or so we thought.  Whilst under the doona and in the missionary position Niall began to suddenly flick has arm backwards.  When I asked him what the hell he was doing he just answered cryptically it’s the bloody cat.  I looked over his shoulder to see Mick perched on Nialls backside with his paws firmly gripping the doona.   Passion is not something easily put to one side and so we decided to ignore him and to carry on.  This proved to be impossible, for there is nothing more destructive to passion than laughter, and laugh I did, every time I saw Micks head bob up and down up down over Nialls’ shoulder.
mick 1

Mick thought it was the best game ever.

 

Mick, and Seamus

Mick, and Seamus
By Elizabeth Peter

When Mick was four years old Niall came home one day with a beautiful little kitten.   My immediate reaction was no way. We cannot have two cats in this flat.  It did not endear itself to me either when it climbed into my handbag and threw up inside it.

Mick also took exception to this mewling creature and kept looking at it and then at us as if to say what the hell is it.  We couldn’t return the kitten for several days, by which time of course I had become attached to it.  We decided to keep to the Irish theme and called him Seamus. Mick of course had his nose severely put out of joint and looked upon Seamus with great disdain.  This was unfortunate as Seamus clearly adored Mick, and wanted to be near to him as possible at all times.  After a few clouts from Mick he learnt to keep his distance.  This was especially so when Mick was eating the titbits I gave him when preparing a meal.  He growled so fiercely at Seamus that poor Seamus, for the rest of his life, would stay well clear of me and the kitchen whenever I was cooking.

Shortly after Seamus came to live with us we decided, on the spur of the moment, to have a ten day holiday in Crete.  Friends agreed to care for the two cats whilst we were away. They collected Mick first and then came back for Seamus just as we were leaving.  We blithely set off on our holiday unaware of the trauma that was about to descend on our friends.  When they got back to their flat with Seamus they found Mick comfortably ensconced on the sofa.  When they let Seamus out of the cat basket Mick took one look and (according to them) gave an enormous screech, leaped off the sofa and disappeared into another part of the flat.  They did not find him until two days before our return.  In the eight days he was missing, they were frantic, knowing how much Mick meant to us both.  They knocked on every door in their street, they posted notices on lampposts and they turned their flat upside down, but no Mick.  They walked the streets day and night calling him but no Mick.  As for Seamus they could not understand why he refused to budge from their bathroom, lying down alongside the enclosed bathtub.  Then on the eighth day one of them was having a bath and heard a very faint mewling.  They had to pull apart the bath surround and then lever up floor boards under the bath but finally they had found Mick.   They said it was impossible for him to have got where he was, it still remains a mystery.  They also asked that we not apply to them ever again to look after the two cats.

They did however ask one day if they could borrow Mick for a couple of days as they had mice in their kitchen.  We were more than happy to agree but a day later they brought him back in disgust.  Apparently Mick was sitting in the middle of the kitchen when a mouse appeared and ran straight towards him.  Initially his attention was one of interest and then alarm as the tiny creature ran directly towards him.  When it was upon him he leaped in the air with all four feet and the mouse ran safely under him.  Back on the ground Mick watched it disappear and then turned to our friends and let out a loud miaow, as if to say, what on earth was that?

Mick

Mick
By Kitty d’Literatii

Mick, or to give him his full name, Michael Humble Derek Bumblecat, or his nickname Mickey-Pooh, came to live with us a year after we were married.  We had just moved into a second floor flat with no access to a garden.  There was however a balcony from which he could peer down into the gardens below.

From the very beginning Mick was an odd cat. But then, perhaps, it was because from a tiny kitten to maturity, he only spent time in the company of humans.  Humans who treated him, well, like another human.  As a kitten Niall would play with him, twirling him round and round on the shiny kitchen floor and then pushing him, sliding across the room.  Mick loved this game and time and again would run back for more, until eventually Niall would tire of the game.  He also loved Niall to flick a ball of silver paper at him, Mick would leap into the air and catch the ball between his two front paws, just like a goalkeeper.

From the very start he would not sleep by himself at night.  He would scratch at our bedroom door and cry piteously to be allowed to join us.  We allowed him in, for a few days until he settles in, we thought.  It became a lifelong arrangement.  At first he tried to climb under the doona to sleep but after firmly being placed on top he settled down.  He never slept on Nialls’ side of the bed but always curled up in the crook of my bent knees.  Whenever I wanted to change position he would make himself into a dead weight so that I had to make myself comfortable around him.

He disliked it if I slept in late in the morning and if I were sleeping on my back, would very carefully sit on my chest.  He would then very very gently touch one of my closed eyelids with his paw.  If that did not awaken me the next touch would be a little less gentle. One morning, lying awake with my eyes closed, I tested him out to see how far he would go.  By and by the taps stopped, he then kept his paw on my closed eyelid.  Gradually and infinitesimally he began to put pressure on the eyelid.  I eventually opened the other eyelid at which Mick gave forth a most indignant miaow, as if to say about time.

 

Weekly Wrap 14 October 2013

“I look for causes, and they wind up with me for a romp.”
Errol Flynn, from My Wicked, Wicked Ways. 1959

THIS PAST WEEK in Passive Complicity

grim reaperQuentin Cockburn and Paddy 0′Cearmada combined to bring us Ambush at Stringybark Creek.  They contend, after visiting the site that (a)ny connection to the desparate events that occurred quite possibly near the alleged site has been interpreted to such a degree that imagination is not required.  And truth is nowhere to be seen.

 

Our Prime Minister has felt it best that indigenous peoples be represented by appointment.  To that end he has appointed prominent indigenous people in Noel Pearson, Warren Mundine, and Marcia Langton to his “Indigenous Advisory Council”.  Three indigenous writers comment on these appointments in “A Lode of Real Action”  and Gary Foley writes of Warren Mundine “The White Sheep of the Family”, and Noel Pearson in a piece titled “The Contrarian, Liberation through Acquisition”

Soggy Bottom“Without fanfare the second annual general meeting of Cockburn and Poole was held at Soggy Bottom this last weekend.” Quentin Cockburn reports in full here.

“…and there’ll be NO dancing” is the theme of Saturday’s MDFF.  “I remember old man Granites doing a very graceful dance with a spear in our lounge room at my birthday party. Emanating from our record player were the Rolling Stones. His mates were clicking boomerangs.”

This week saw the return of poet Mr Lionel Fogarty and his 1982 poem Tired of Writing.  With lightness he writes:
“Sometimes me write bad
just to be glad”

And, dear reader, please feel free to add comments about this and any of our postings.

Regards
Cecil Poole

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Poetry Sunday 13 October 2013

Today we return to the poetry of Mr Lionel Fogarty

Tired of Writing

A long time since I picked up a pen
Again.
And I had to pick ability in writing
Some call it poetry
I see it as putting something
from nothing, that’s my practice.
Carrying targets of beauty and living
first tongue, painless are my words.
We foresee sterile crippled shadows
healing are answers.
Midnight whitened muscles that
frosted a country’s autumn.
My mind in time
is what rhymes.
Now I’m of sometime
Long tomorrows will make summer sooner.
Sometimes me write bad
just to be glad.
Little we read
dead seeds may be reeds of lifefulness.
So I wrote.
But will you remote, note
Space took a pace
Rat race
Whata play, ace
Just in fine lines
Our true times
Are never true.
Sometimes I don’t think.
To write I have to use
a medium
that is not mine.
If I don’t succeed, bear with me.
I see words beyond any acceptable meaning
And this is how I express my dreaming…

July 1982

2nd Annual AGM!?

Second Annual General Meeting Passive Complicity
By Quentin CockburnImage 3

Without fanfare the second annual general meeting of Cockburn and Poole was held at Soggy Bottom this last weekend.  Amongst vital issues discussed none were more prescient than concerns related to our evolving readership and the interests expressed by contributors in relation to their audience.  MirabellaThe audience, represented by a stone and alabaster likeness of the former member for Indi was presented with numerous offerings in celebration of the commitment she has inadvertently made to stimulating the political conscience across regional Victoria.

Prior to the presentation of agenda items an excursion was made to ‘Powers Lookout’, the celebrated lookout of the bushranger Harry Power, variously known as pretender to ‘Captain Moonlight’, ‘Commander Dusk’, ‘Lieutenant Sunrise’ and ‘Corporal just between morning tea and lunch time’.  From this majestic outlook we observed the verdant pasturelands of the valleys, the serrated outline of distant mountains, the sunlit crags and defiles of rock smudged by whisps of smoke and brilliant skies, and wondered aloud as to what Powers may have seen, and why this remote spot was chosen.  Comparisons were made to the fictional accounts namely Bolderwoods ‘Robbery Under Arms’, and the reality that Powers spent most of his life behind bars.

Whilst cream was purchased by Cecil and Quantam, the other correspondents retired to the public Bar at the Whitfield Hotel.  It offered a fine selection of beers and local wines.  Above the bar the menu, indicated amongst the gustatory delights an array of smoked dishes, perhaps left over from a recent bush-fire.  The non smoke derived delights of the beer garden, the conveniences and the attentive staff served as a precursor to the engaging dinner enjoyed back at Soggy Bottom.

Dinner completed we settled on the the most important items for discussion, progress to date, our target audience, and comparisons, fair and objective to other blogs, their lifespan and audience. Image 1Among the several fine suggestions was that a donations box, whether in the form of a dog or perhaps a frog, should adorn the pages and readers be encouraged to make a donation as a gesture of support.  During the course of this debate it was agreed that the example set by the Scientologists though effective was not inducement enough for us to establish Passive Complicity as a religion.  The tax advantages are attractive and the unfinished text for a science fiction book would offer a good start, however an Australian version of the successful American financial model was duly deemed uncharitable.

After dinner general conversation related to religion, politics, and sexuality, reached its apogee and resumed the next day.  Contributions from all in attendance were remarkable, brief and straight to the point.  A morning excursion to the Kelly tree, (not the original tree) the shooting site, (not necessarily the original site) and the impressive utilisation of gratuitous detailing, interpretive signage, consultancies and an assumed corps of bureacrats, middle managers and sub consultants left us with the indelible impression that the telling of a standardised Australian history, shall prosper under the new government.

Lunch was finally (and finely) served in which the host Ira Main gave a spirited account of cider making, and the enthusiastic participation of locals in this pursuit.  Of even greater interest was his description of his annual local role presenting the interactive “Bash the Rat” event.  Ira enlivened this in the telling by describing the former member for Indi as arriving “dressed from a Fellini film”, though in the light of subsequent events we are not sure entirely which Fellini film he referred to.  Was it ‘La Dolce Vita’?  Perhaps, in reference to the swing against the celebrated member, the 1963 avant-garde autobiographical classic ‘8 1/2’ would be more apt.
Soggy Bottom