Transcribing the Past

   A leaflet about Stonehenge by The Pleasure Tendency a Situationist inspired Anarchist group based in Yorkshire, published 1986.  CONSERVATION OF THE MONUMENT The Pleasure Tendency Something very important is happening at Stonehenge. It is not at all surprising that the Government should stamp on ancient rights for its own ends, but what these ends are is as yet unknown. It may be they are connected with as yet undisclosed military activities. Or, more interestingly, with the persecution of a dissident element which stands in the way of the New Britain, that is, one in which Consumer Society extends into every area of life. On the last night of 1900, two stones fell of their own accord, perhaps an omen; in the next year, tolls were established for the first time for entry to the site. In a post-industrial commodity economy, intangibles will increasingly have to become objects of consumption, and be degraded because of it; Stonehenge is only one example. The `damage` cau...

 I debated whether to include this transcript here, I consider this blog an archive for work related loosely to working class history and this doesn't quite fit under that umbrella. Still, I think it deserves to be preserved.  Content Warning Discussion of physical and sexual abuse of children, including graphic details. I'm including a tran s cript of segment from the RTE program Questions and Answers (similar in format to the UK's Question Time) from May 2009. The transcript concerns the response from audience member Michael O'Brien to the panel concerning their response or lack of response to the systematic abuse of vulnerable Irish women and children by the Catholic Church. This has been an open wound in Ireland for some time, and I'm sorry to say that it reached and affected members of my family. Even now there are ad campaigns encouraging victims to come forward, the scale of the abuse and the cover-ups are hard to imagine.    I came across O'Brien's a...

 July 3, 1945 A PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan. We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power for a number of years. Until recently we have had to reckon with the possibility that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today with this danger averted we feel impelled to say what follows The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and the destruction of Japanese cities by means of atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of w...