Jan your detective work on Joe Bogan was very helpful and also thank Max for knowing who Joe Rogan is. I will be glad if this helpfulness on his part can be followed up by our being friends again..
I put some links here which might go towards explaining why I would like to know whether Peter Robb still supports Lula (having written a brilliant book on him and on Brazil generally) and what he thinks of Bolsonaro.
I have tried to contact Peter Robb for many years, having known both him and Marcia Langton in the Communist League. Marcia Langton became my enemy when I made the mistake of trying to persuade both the CL leader John McCarthy and Peter Robb himself not to take the CL into fusion with the Socialist Workers’ Party, which I predicted accurately would be its death knell. I had this discussion with the two white men and did not say a word about it to Marcia Langton, and so earned her contempt.
Peter Robb visited me in my home in Melbourne and there was an embarrassing incident where I spilled our lunch on the floor. I also knew his sister Heather Robb and it only occurred to me a day or two ago that I might try to contact her and that would be a way of asking Peter Robb the question I want to ask him. It is important because Lula is a serious obstacle to the success of BRICS. I googled Heather Robb a day or two ago.There is a famous American Heather Robb who is a singer but I also saw something from a Heather Robb in Australia which is an e-mail to a group that is involved with spiritual contemplation . I think it must be her. She says she lives in the Victorian countryside but it is an old post. She herself, like you and me, is old, and she may have departed this life. Anyway, I have asked Catherine, a Greek-Australian friend of mine here in Athens who often goes to India for spiritual purposes to see if she can investigate the situation with Heather Robb.
I cc Catherine and Nikos my invaluable collaborator in Ioannina, northern Greece on this and thanks Jan for investigating Joe Bogan.
Filia as we say here in Greece.
Wayne
https://halva.proboards.com/thread/1164/bolsonaro-lula
https://halva.proboards.com/thread/1166/superstition
https://halva.proboards.com/thread/1168/bob-dylans-conversion?page=1&scrollTo=3380
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/death-in-brazil-9780747573166/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzQ3afCVxmQ&t=59s
AI Overview
Peter Robb and Marcia Langton are close, decades-long friends and prominent Australian intellectuals who first met as political activists in a Trotskyist group during the 1970s. [1, 2]
History and Relationship
- Political roots: In the 1970s, both were involved in the Communist League (CL) in Australia alongside co-founder John McCarthy. Langton served on the CL committee, while Robb helped produce its newspaper, Militant. They later joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in late 1976.
- Decades of friendship: Marcia Langton and Peter Robb have remained close friends for nearly 40 years, maintaining a dynamic that Robb described as mutual intellectual respect and fierce sparring. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- MORE FROM ENOURANOIS
- p.s. Admittedly I had no viable alternative proposal to make to Peter Robb and John McCarthy. What I recommended and did myself was to approach another Trotskyist group, the Socialist Labour League of Gerry Healey and Vanessa Redgrave, who were more working class but also what in 18th century England would have been called “enthusiasts”.
This is my slightly altered version of a poem of that time:
I’m an entrist, a centrist, a Pabloite revisionist
A real-life Trotskyist
Sweet Fourth International sweet Fourth International
And never been kissed
I’ve got a mass red base and that’s why I’d rather sit on the floor
If you want to be a vanguard better join Securicor
My poppa my poppa was opportunistic
My mother was mystified
I want to be I want to be I want to be a movement
But there’s no-one on my side.
To the memory of Adrian Mitchell
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2008/12/mitc-d24.html
AI discussion
AI revealed that the line “If you want to be a Vanguard better join Securicor” is part of a song by the punk group Crass.
I told AI that the line was taken from a British poet of the seventies
AI responded: You are entirely correct. The line was originally written by the acclaimed British socialist and pacifist poet Adrian Mitchell. [1]
In the early 1970s, Mitchell penned a brief, biting satirical verse that read: [1]
“If you want to be a Vanguard, better join Securicor.
My daddy was opportunistic. My mama was mystified.
I want to be a movement. But there’s no-one on my side.
NO REVOLUTION WITHOUT COMPASSION.” [1]
The Context Behind the Line
· The Target of the Satire: Mitchell was taking aim at the self-proclaimed “vanguard” parties of the British far-left in the 1970s (such as Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyist factions). He was wryly suggesting that if you want a top-down, authoritarian hierarchy that strictly polices people, you might as well join a literal private security firm like Securicor. [1]
· Crass’s Intellectual Continuity: Crass co-founder Penny Rimbaud was deeply embedded in the 1960s and 70s avant-garde performance art and poetry scenes. Crass frequently lifted, repurposed, or responded to radical literature and anti-war poetry. By turning Mitchell’s verse into a raging punk track, Crass expanded on his critique to trash both corporate capitalism and dogmatic left-wing political groups. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Comment by enouranois: A member of Securicor is also a vanguard because he/she guards vans.