Mass mobilisations are forcing governments to seriously consider imposing sanctions and severing ties — even in places like Australia and the Netherlands — despite continued arms shipments to Israel’s war machine, writes RAMZY BAROUD
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Holst: the socialist composer and his (accidental) patriotic smash hit
MAT COWARD unearths Gustav Holst’s radical roots, from meetings at William Morris’s house to pamphlet-printing and agitation with the Red Vicar of Thaxted — and laments that he is remembered today for the entirely wrong reason
MILITARIST ANTHEM:
I Vow to Thee, My Country is performed at the commissioning ceremony for the Royal Navy warship HMS Queen Elizabeth
What we are learning today is that fascism can come to power even when the working class of almost every capitalist nation is very far from achieving revolution, argues DAVID LETHBRIDGE
TONY BURKE explains how an internationally significant breakthrough for workers’ organisation and recognition against two notoriously anti-union global mega corporations has been finally achieved in Canada
The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD
A Dutch investigation found seven internationally renowned Holocaust and genocide experts, including Israelis, concluded Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, despite a campaign of denial and disinformation from the US state, writes TERRY HANSEN
The horrors in the Congo have much in common with Gaza’s genocide, most notably the financial and military support of the US, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
LEADER of the Can’t Sing Choir, pioneer of musical education for women, close collaborator with the notorious Red Vicar of Thaxted, involuntary composer of I Vow to Thee, My Country, and composer of Britain’s most recorded piece of music ever, Gustavus von Holst was born in Cheltenham on September 21, into a family of musicians and music teachers.
In his teens, he was employed as an organist and choirmaster. Physical frailties forced him to abandon the piano and take up the trombone instead. Earnings from that financed his studies in composition.
Except for one or two brief sabbaticals, paid for by wealthy patrons, Holst never worked as a full-time composer. To the very end of his life, he taught music at private schools, and for much of it, he was variously a trombonist in orchestras and theatres, college lecturer, church organist and choir leader.
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