“OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Former Black Panthers are hoping the phrase “Burn Baby Burn” will help their non-profit organization market a new product – hot sauce.

The Huey P. Newton Foundation, named for the co-founder of the 1960s militant group, is seeking to trademark the phrase that for many brings to mind the racially charged 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles that left more than 30 people dead, at least 1,000 wounded and hundreds of buildings in ashes.”

Hot Sauce Blog » Burn Baby Burn

Made me chuckle.

OK it’s a far cry from stuff like this, this, and this, but fair play – the legacy of the Panthers does need to be preserved, both from historians and from people who reckon they are carrying on the tradition but are actually reactionary black nationalists (as was the case recently with a group trying to start in London).

Judge throws out Hatfield charges

A judge at the Old Bailey today threw out manslaughter charges against five rail executives accused of killing the four people who died in the Hatfield train crash.
Corporate manslaughter charges against the engineering firm Balfour Beatty were also dismissed. […]

He said he could not give reasons for his decision.

“I must ask you to accept my ruling, which does not affect one way or the other the important decisions you will have to make when considering verdicts on the health and safety counts.”

Some kind soul has scanned in all of the Spectacular Times booklets which were produced by the late Larry Law in the 80s. These, and things like Vague which reproduced them were probably many people’s introductions to situationist theory during that period. Certainly they seemed to be directed at the burgeoning anarchist movement rather than “the left”, although I have no idea what Debord would have made of them, especially the “Animals” one. (Indeed I seem to recall that one the piece in Vague critising the ALF started yet another feud, this time between Tom Vague and Larry Law.)

So whilst some of it is dated in that precise 80s way which appeals to people my age, there is still a lot of valuable stuff in there as well.

For example maybe things are less black and white now, but the sacred nature of work time is ever present – as outlined by Martin in his excellent Back to work, scum! piece.

We are increasingly being forced to work outside our contracted hours, being expected to take work home, or when ill, or when traumatised by a terrorist attack… Tescos has recently clamped down severely on workers’ taking sick leave by reducing what is the “acceptable” days one can be unwell in a year and by axeing sick pay.

And all of this actually makes people unwell:

There are millions more workers who don’t struggle openly. They remain silent, collapse in on themselves, become depressed or neurotic, or they turn to religion or drugs or alcohol, they burn out and become nervous wrecks, go mad or become ill to the point they are no longer able to work efficiently or work at all.

In the U.K., one of the industrialised developed centres and certainly not a “third world” country, on any given work day there is an average of 6 million workers and people of working age who are officially too sick to work, that’s if you total up the long-term sick and unable to work with the short term sick and those phoning in sick.

In 1980 in the U.K. there was 0.5 million of working age on long-term sickness benefit or incapacity benefit. Today the figure is well over 2 million.

Against capitalist work and production, for many workers who do not have the strength to struggle openly, the weapon of default is growing ILLNESS. I am myself an unemployed temp worker getting older and tired and ill.

excerpt from Lots of Awkward Questions

Maybe one day we’ll get sick of all this illness…