by Billy Bragg Fri Oct 21, 2011 18:07

Latest TWEET from Billy Bragg:
http://tinyurl.com/6hrpjsl

Latest TWEET from Billy Bragg: #OccupyDameStreet March + Billy Bragg secret solidarity gig

by sabotage times Fri Oct 21, 2011 18:23

Singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg speaks about his new tour, Glastonbury and most importantly why music has to get political again...

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/music/billy-bragg-intervie...gain/

Billy Bragg has always had a presence as an activist as much as he has as a singer-songwriter in his career. Although he has written a lot of love songs he has often had a political message to put across as well. Now he’s back with another message – and he’s fighting.

On Kanye West at the Occupy Wall Street protest and the protests in London…

How fucking great is that? I’m very pleased about him being there. You know who needs to be there in London? I’ll tell you who needs to get his arse down there – a 20-year-old Billy Bragg. And he should come with two messages “This is what’s happening” and “Fuck off old man back to Dorset”. That’s what they need at that protest – they don’t need me now coming down and telling them the way it is. I’ve written some stuff about Occupy on my website, having been involved in that I feel I’ve got something to contribute but they don’t need me on the barricade with them – they’re making the world a new. I hope they’re listening to some of my music if it inspires them then great – No Power Without Accountability – it’s the same agenda that I’ve been writing about but for me to rush down there isn’t needed. Someone like Ed Sheeran needs to go down there, he needs to say, “This is my generation – this is my fight”, Frank Turner – he needs to go down there. Not me. I’m not saying I won’t go – but they don’t need me down there.

A final word on politics and music…

You can’t make political music in a vacuum but that excuse died with the student riots – we’re not in a vacuum any more. Your generation is not in a vacuum. You are in danger of becoming the first generation since the war to grow up worse off than your parents so now it’s back to fighting time and we need to hear some fighting songs.

by Billy Bragg free secret solidarity gig at Occupy Dame Street Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:10

for vids and info of the free gig, see main article at http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100658&comment_limit=0&...85176

by T Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:03

A recent article on the WSWS website suggests that Billy Bragg has simply been a cover for the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy in Britain for several decades and is part of a 'rightward lurch'.

The main criticism is the lack of demands and how this leaves the movement: 'leaves them at the mercy of the capitalist parties and in danger of ultimate failure.'

Here are some quotes from the article:

Bragg claims that there is a reaction against this financial juggernaut within the official parties. The best he can come up with in regard to the Labour Party, however, is to draw attention to party leader Ed Miliband’s one-line attack on “predator” companies. He also cites US President Barack Obama’s “lukewarm nod of recognition” to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and even Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement that “the government was going to take responsibility for getting loans to small businesses.”

And it goes on to say:

Bragg here identifies the most significant shift in political consciousness among broad masses, only to dismiss it as somehow lacking. What he opposes is the development of politically conscious opposition to capitalism. He wants popular sentiment to be dominated by the single-issue protest politics of the middle class.

Bragg insists the problem is not capitalism, but a “crisis in demand”—a classic statement of Keynesian-style, national economic regulation that he dresses up as the “need to put our economy on a different trajectory.”

In subsequent pargraphs this is further expanded and it is hard to know whether the writers are touchy about criticisms of Marxism or whether Bragg really is attemtpting to lead this movement off in the wrong direction.

He wants the Occupy movement to be channeled behind a nationalist programme to defend British capitalism against its rivals. That is why Bragg describes the movement as being opposed to the “globalisation project”, as though the latter were a policy choice and not the fundamental fact of modern economic life. In fact, the international character of the anti-Wall Street protests reflects, if only in an initial fashion, the striving of workers and young people to unite their struggle against world capitalism.

Bragg is hostile to such a development, which drives him to make an explicit attack on Marxism, the only force capable of providing these objective spontaneous strivings with a consciously worked-out revolutionary programme. He does so by making a defamatory comparison between Marxists and the Tea Party reactionaries in the US.

.....

Bragg denounces anyone who advocates “an instantly formulated set of goals”, claiming this “reflects a desperate need for right wing news outlets to have evidence that allows them to condemn those gathered in opposition to the status quo.” In doing so, he infers that any attempt to set out a clear socialist programme borders on the work of agent provocateurs.

Perhaps it’s time to remind Mr. Bragg that 18 months ago he was encouraging workers and youth to vote Liberal Democrat. Within a week of the election, the Liberal Democrats ditched every promise they had made the electorate in order to join a grubby coalition with the Tories and impose the most severe austerity measures since the 1930s. The Socialist Equality Party, in contrast, fought to politically warn the working class about what the ruling class was planning.

Full article can be found at the link below

by Thank you Billy Bragg Sun Oct 30, 2011 20:21

FAIR PLAY to u Billy Bragg for visiting and playing in all the 4 #OCCUPY camps in ireland, BIG lift.

#OccupyDameStreet (Dublin)
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100658

#OccupyCork
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100751

#OccupyGalway
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100770

#OccupyBelfast
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100808

Vids of Billy @ OccupyIreland:

Belfast: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150377917838180
Cork: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFqT1TwEYdY
Dublin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQzfmwJw-fQ

The Internationale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale

Stand up, all victims of oppression,
For the tyrants fear your might!
Don't cling so hard to your possessions,
For you have nothing if you have no rights!
Let racist ignorance be ended,
For respect makes the empires fall!
Freedom is merely privilege extended,
Unless enjoyed by one and all.
  So come brothers and sisters,
  For the struggle carries on.
  The Internationale,
  Unites the world in song.
  So comrades, come rally,
  For this is the time and place!
  The international ideal,
  Unites the human race.

Let no one build walls to divide us,
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone.
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us,
We'll live together or we'll die alone.
In our world poisoned by exploitation,
Those who have taken, now they must give!
And end the vanity of nations,
We've but one Earth on which to live.
  So come brothers and sisters,
  For the struggle carries on.
  The Internationale,
  Unites the world in song.
  So comrades, come rally,
  For this is the time and place!
  The international ideal,
  Unites the human race.

And so begins the final drama,
In the streets and in the fields.
We stand unbowed before their armour,
We defy their guns and shields!
When we fight, provoked by their aggression,
Let us be inspired by life and love.
For though they offer us concessions,
Change will not come from above!
  So come brothers and sisters,
  For the struggle carries on.
  The Internationale,
  Unites the world in song.
  So comrades, come rally,
  For this is the time and place!
  The Internationale,
  Unites the human race.

Billy Bragg sings in the fancy Cork tent at #occupycork

Billy Bragg with the gang at #occupycork

Billy Bragg with the gang at #OccupyBelfast (hurl in hand)

Billy Bragg sings 'The Internationale' at the memorial to the International Brigades at Occupy Belfast

Caption: Video Id: XQzfmwJw-fQ Type: Youtube Video
Billy Bragg singing at Occupy Dame Street

Caption: Video Id: ZFqT1TwEYdY Type: Youtube Video
Billy Bragg singing at Occupy Cork