Vivienne’s Diary: August

I and my friend Frank who lives in San Francisco communicate by letter. These are the stamps on the one he just sent: America the land of the free, God’s country! Tell that to Leonard Peltier, having spent coming up to 40 years in jail, framed and convicted in a travesty of courtroom justice for a crime he didn’t do, set up because he was a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) which was targeted by the US government in its offensive to wipe out the rights of Native Americans and continue the process of centuries of abuse.

It is a bitter irony that America is still able to get away with this propaganda, not only at home but abroad – at the same time as promoting the propaganda of an invincible empire that will not tolerate resistance.

In the 1980’s when the countries of Central America tried to rid themselves of American domination, America responded with slaughter and barbarism, creating societies “ affected by terror and panic….collective intimidation and generalized fear.” These people had “internalized acceptance” of a daily and frequent use of violent means” and “the frequent appearance of tortured bodies.) (Noam Chomsky: “Hegemony or Survival”)

America wanted them to see the tortured bodies. This is how the Roman Empire behaved, it wanted people to know it had no mercy and that its cruelty was inhuman; whereas willing subjugation brought the benefits of the Pax Romana.

America wants the world to know that its war machine is more than all other weapons put together. How dare you oppose it?  We’ll just take what we want and we will give you in exchange – the American Dream.

I was once at a corporate dinner in London where a young American diplomat gave an address extolling American philanthropy. Sensing we were unimpressed he broke down and cried, “Why does everybody hate America?”; in despair he ended “Great hamburgers? Coca Cola? Movies?”

N.B. Globalization = Club of America and it’s friends.

In his letter Frank says of my essay in the July diary

The Best Self is not only heart. Therein lies the danger. The world we live in is ruled by the heart alone. We also need light: that desire of the things of the mind for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing things as they are. Arnold sometimes refers to light as Right Reason. This is a check which controls the heart. The heart alone is without reason; it is without your reason – because you have not followed your light. And it is open to every kind of influence and manipulation. It is usually overly sentimental; it is prey to emotion which can turn to hate. Think of the tabloid newspapers, think of a lynch mob! The crusades were carried out officially for love of Christ but were really an excuse for thugs to go on the rampage – do what they wanted. 

Above all heart alone leads to smugness – because you’re passionate, you’re right.

I want to further qualify the above by saying to you, Frank, that I can’t for a moment see you lynching someone because, to use an expression, your heart’s in the right place – like most of us; you are a just and high principled fellow. But I do say that what you have written is too complacent. For you the heart’s the easy part. We all need to work hard on the mental side, press on in pursuit of our deep interest because this opens up the world for us, gives us a greater understanding of the world; the more you know, the more tolerant you are, the more you understand the implications of what people say, the more profound the conversations you can have and the more effective you are in word and in action.

So what have I been doing the whole of August?

– Fashion and helping prepare the content for the launch of the Climate Revolution website and how the site should look.

Fashion : Lots of our people are away and the factories in Italy are closed but Andreas and I have been going to work making sure everything is sorted out so that our next Gold Label collection can go straight ahead at the end of the month when everybody’s back to work. – We have edited the shoe collection, worked out how to do the embroidered garments, selected fabrics for the couture evening dresses. I have supervised the Red Carpet Collection and next season’s Red Label collection.

Launch of the Climate Revolution site: Since the launch of Climate Revolution at the Paralympics and until now I have been building awareness of it through the Diary and you should still use the Diary as a back up and especially as the Diary will give you a radical point of view. We’ll let you know when it’s up.

The reason we need the site is:-

• to provide an acute focus
• to build a clear structure with easy communication with the social media so that everyone can get involved
• to provide a forum for all NGO’s so that we can support each other and work together.

I wrote the new and final Climate Revolution Charter. I think it will be the final one because I’ve reduced it to its essential. I’m really pleased with it because it is also a working manual e.g. my son Ben wanted to write a piece for the site on the plight of elephants and of course we can’t pick things out of the newspapers unless they refer to the links we’re building. I said, you can talk about elephants if you explain how the danger they’re in is linked to the fact that everything is connected because “Everything is connected” is a basic tenet of Climate Revolution. That’s what he’s going to do.

I wrote some bullet points on how to use the site – they will help you to get really involved in the revolution- and I wrote an introduction – for Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” an exhortation on why you should read the book.

Yes, I’ve given myself a day or two holiday in between and the best thing was to read the book all in one go – it’s really best to read fiction like that. I have seen friends, and lingered in the glorious weather a little – I picked some blackberries from Battersea Park and stewed them with some still a little bit sour apples that fell off a tree on our roof at work.

I get my news from Cynthia, she downloads important articles for me and of course one or two come from the conventional newspapers, ( we always read Pilger, Monbiot and Glen Greenwald but mostly they come from: – Global Research, Tomgram, ICH (International Clearing House).  In addition to John Pilger and George Monbiot  , there is also Bill McKibben . And various blogs in the Huffington Post.

One article written by Bill McKibben for Tomdispatch, “A Movement for a New Planet” impressed me greatly.Read it – it’s mind-boggling.  Like me, you possibly won’t be able to absorb it all.  I already told you when I met Bill in New York that I sat open mouthed as he showed me on his laptop the extent of his contacts and what happened with the climate campaign he founded, 350.org. Here in this article he sets it out.

Instead of trying to draw everyone into a central place – the Mall in Washington D.C. – for a protest, we staged 24 hours of rallies around the planet: 5200 demonstrations in 181 countries, what CNN called “the most wide spread day of political action in the planet’s history.” And we’ve gone on to do more of the same – about 20,000 demonstrations in every country but North Korea.

The whole article is called “Movements Without leaders” and its subject is that whereas in the past, movements for change had great leaders e.g. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, todays movements are happening all over and probably achieve more lasting results. An example of great success would be the campaign for gay marriage.

Bill says “In the battle where I’ve spent most of my life: the fight to slow climate change and hence give the planet some margin for survival, the movement has never been stronger.”

In the last few years, it has blocked the construction of dozens of coal-fired power plants, fought the oil industry to a draw on the Keystone pipeline, convinced a wide swathe of American institutions to divest themselves of their fossil fuel stocks, and challenged practices like mountaintop-removal coal mining and fracking for natural gas. It may not be winning the way gay marriage has won, but the movement itself continues to grow quickly, and it’s starting to claim some victories.

That not despite it’s lack of identifiable leaders, I think. It’s because of it.

Climate Revolution will take a big tip from 350.org: when we wish to demonstrate or protest (e.g. against fracking) we will try to arrange simultaneous demonstrations. That is why all NGOs working together for a common cause is going to have a big impact.

NB. Our NGO friends have sent in contributions for the launch of Climate Revolution.  It’s terribly exciting:  Greenpeace with it’s super cred?  RSPB with its enormous membership and data-base?  Trillion Fund with its practical financial solution? Check the Climate Revolution site – we’re going to get there, we’re going to win!

Tuesday,13^th August: I went to meet the young poets who were taking part in YOUYOU Mentoring, a London-based not-for-profit scheme that creates bespoke projects which aim to give young people aged 17-21 the opportunity to work with high-profile/successful mentors in their chosen field.  In today’s difficult job market, and with so many falling into the NEET category (Not in Education, Employment or Training), these opportunities are proving to be invaluable experiences for young people developing their craft and needing that ‘something extra’ on their CV, to make them stand out from the crowd. Brenda asked me for a quote she could use to publicize the project. I said “I am pleased to be patron because the world needs poets.”

I talked to them about the importance of culture in the Climate Revolution –  saying of course that if we had true culture we would have different values and therefore we would not have Climate Change. I told them Gore Vidal said, “The Nobel prize should be given to readers not writers; everybody’s writing a book but nobody is reading.” By that he meant that the fit reader is someone who reads the best writers throughout time, those who tell the universal truths and that is why I hardly read fiction from the last few decades, it’s so cheap and ephemeral. I said that today art education is generally a negative experience and represses the fact that inspiration comes from the past and absorption in its ideas and preaches the nonsense that it all starts from here  i.e. you/the tabula rasa. “Ignore the past, express yourself!” Therefore people don’t communicate – if it makes sense to them its good enough – or, their ideas are too banal for anyone to be interested. I explained to these kids, “You have to supply the stepping stones so we can both get across the stream, they have to be there even though they might be hard to find.”

Now let me introduce Greta Bellamacina the poet who has chaperoned the project. I like her, she is a serious person. Here is one of her poems.

In the second verse it’s true that a painter is a master of deception – a painting is not real – it’a an Imitation – a mirror image of the world, abstracted from the world and concentrated down.
The poet seems to be saying that the painter let the colour take over and the work assumed it’s own life. Then, we are drawn into the painting and the poem – “iris” is the rainbow and a smell, a blush of rose is a smell too. I picked a poem that had some sense for me though generally the poems are too unstable – the images don’t emerge because they’re trapped in words that are wrong on purpose and these are overtaken line by line by other trapped images. I will ask Greta to explain when I see her next.
The poem comes from her first book, “Kaleidescope” What do you think?

Next, I called into the office of Trillion fund and talked to them about Prime Minister Cameron’s article in The Telegraph pushing for fracking – silly to me because so obviously partisan in caring only about making profit for the fossil fuel companies – and we hear his government are mates of this particular company, Cuadrillo. Anyway Trillion Fund has published a good criticism of the article.

I phoned Michael next day and said, “Look, Trillion Fund is a member of Climate Revolution. Why don’t you turn your criticism into the energy plan of the new government? (see Charter). By acting as the government we will become the government. Our new democratic government has to start somewhere, people have to organize and co-ordinate it. The Climate Revolution site will launch an energy policy proposed by Trillion Fund.

Thursday,15 August: Andreas went for a long weekend to see our friends Rosita and Paula who produce for us in Italy. They have a little holiday flat in the great old city,  Viareggio near Carrara – famous for Michelangelo. Andreas is in his element on the beach and you know the Italians – how different enterprises own each strip of the beach down to the sea and they provide everything, showers, towels, robes, sunbeds, beach restaurants and service.

I didn’t want to go: “Fly less, stay longer”. It’s too short a visit to bother hanging around in airports and fly. I prefer to stay with myself home and read. However, my son Joe had asked me to go to Balcombe.

Friday, 16 August: On the train with Ben, Joe, Tomoka and friends, Joe showed me an article in the Financial Times where energy companies had issued a threat to the government amounting to: we can’t make profit from renewable energy (unlimited). We can make profit from fossil fuels (limited). Unless governments support fossil fuels we will have to close plants and investment will plummet. Such an admission! Joe said he’d never read anything like it. He was so excoriating on fracking, I said, “ Oh Joe, I wish I was a ventriloquist and you could talk to the press.” When we arrived the press were asking me how long I was staying and what I felt about civil disobedience. I hadn’t realised that today was the start of the drilling and that the protesters intended to stop it. And as it happened Cuadrillo laid off because the police had said they couldn’t protect them. I was really pleased to hold the sign,”Lock the Gate”.

I went to Balcombe because I’m anti-fracking and because Lush who are super committed to anti-fracking, affiliates to Climate Revolution. They were down there and we go on each other’s demonstrations and protests. And I wanted to support the village protesters and the climate camps. I think these young people are so great and if you really want to know what’s going on talk to them and the village protesters. You learn more than you get from the press. I was really shocked to discover that Cuadrillo had obtained contracts to drill in 60% of England. Also Cuadrillo’s plan is to make quick profit by selling on the contracts. Compare this with Cameron’s Telegraph statement, “We are issuing very firm guidance: firms looking to frack should make people aware of their plans well before they apply for a permit. We want people to get behind fracking and a transparent planning process is an important ingredient.”

One of the protest groups camping in a field donated by a local farmer is “Reclaim the Power”. I talked to Cara (a stunning beauty with her freckles and blond rasta hairdo). I said,”I’m all for ‘Claim the Power’ but as for ‘Reclaim’ I don’t think people ever had the power, people have always been manipulated or made stupid by every form of government and the present plutocracy has been the most successful.” I thought next day: this is it. Climate Revolution starts in Balcombe. Climate Revolution has to join in. We will establish the revolution by fighting fracking in this country. We will take our model from 350.org.

Saturday, 17 August: Yoga and reading.

Sunday, 18 August: To work from 10am to 10pm. Knitwear – I finally cracked it. I had worked out a scheme which depended on samples from Italy – I needed to check weights and degree of firmness and colours. Having just received samples, I had loads because every time they had never been quite right – they kept changing from what I had asked for. I started from scratch – but just keeping my scheme in mind – pinning this wonderful mix of knitted squares on the stand. I got what I wanted – the possibility of combining different textures and colours and looking like it had been thrown together – which it had.

Wednesday, 21^st August: The date of the Bradley Manning sentence. We went to the American Embassy to meet up with support groups: 35 years, speculation of parole after 12 years and there’s an appeal.

Then a bunch of us including Andreas went to the pub. I did enjoy talking to all my friends.

Now the guess is Chelsea Manning might get parole in 7 years. What a strong character Chelsea has – true to herself! And I think she will become even more popular now. Public opinion is so important I think her popularity will help Edward Snowden.

Saturday, 24 August: Andreas went to Corsica for a week. Once again I preferred to stay at home. This previous week we had worked hard and I needed to keep in touch with myself so this bank holiday weekend I began by writing up the diary and it took most of the weekend though I did pop out on Saturday to have dinner with my friend, Giselle.

Tuesday, 27 August: Now I’m off to work to make sure the last important information is relayed to our manufacturers in Italy now that they are back at work. The other things I have to do are – sort outfits for this season’s Red Label presentation for British Fashion Week and check the content and look for the launch of the Climate Revolution site. I should have time for myself as well. I’m taking it easy anyway.

End of the month:  Met Shami and son at the Royal Academy Exhibition of Mexico’s Revolution 1910. Photos and paintings. Very intense and the photographs left an indelible impression, so skillfull was the composition.  But the greatest thing was the this tiny self-portrait by Frida Kahlo.