Monday 15 November 2010

N.E. England Gig - 15.11.2010

Poetry performance on Northern Lines event – 6.30 P.M. Monday 15.11.2010 at the Lit. & Phil., Newcastle upon Tyne (near train station).

P.S:  it wasn't just poetry readings at this event - one chap read a couple of 50 word (no more/no less) short stories!

Saturday 6 November 2010

N.E. England Gig - 06.11.2010

Theory Slam - like Poetry Slams except folks present a theory: 3.30 - 4.30 P.M. Saturday 06.11.2010 at the The Sage, Gateshead, NE England.  (P.S: this was my winning Theory Slam, as part of B.B.C. Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.)

CUT CAPITALISM

After introducing myself, David Franks, as a repat. born the day Alf Ramsay's English team won the World Cup of football; plus mentioning, born a couple of months later, David Cameron's approach to the fine economic mess over-the-border Blair and Brown, among others, got us into:

We can fix the budget deficit, and level our Goliath-like inequality, with one sling stone - taxation of the rich. And there'd be no brain-drain from our nation if and when the United Nations finally respects native land rights, and makes all economic immigration (which is synonymous with capitalist immigration) illegal from now on.

And, as for capitalism itself, what some get for their hours work compared with others is ridiculous and inhumane, so, if we like fair competition, we don't like the free market. The better way is to accept that we humans are competitive, and have strong regulations to make that competition as fair as possible - with humane safety-nets; and the best way to regulate large facilities is to nationalise them.

Or, if your prefer it in verse from my collection WalkaboutsVerse -

"GLOBAL REGULATIONISM

No income-scale would be unjust -
It’s a matter of degree;
And, to have less inequality,
Regulations are a must.

For, in Millennium’s status quo,
The pay-gaps for human work,
And what’s obtained simply as a perk,
Are wrong - inhumanely so."

Or, if you prefer it from Shakespeare in Measure for Measure - "Liberty as surfeit is the father of much fast."
Or, if you prefer it from Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath -
"Business is glorified theft."

Thus, the Statue of Liberty, in Paris and New York, should be renamed the "Statue of Regulationism," and the newly-formed Tea Party should be dissolved.

And speaking of tea, the People's Republic of China, which I enjoyed visiting in 1988, now needs a socialist revolution to get rid of what seems to be the "Chinese Capitalist Party," and the revolting inequality its producing - to the point where Chinese are now buying into our free-market club football, which should, rather be regulated back to how it was: mostly locals in MEANINGFUL competition.

To sum up, then, in our "pursuit of happiness" (the theme of the festival), we should cut capitalism, because fair-competition requires strong regulations NOT freedom; and, unlike Castro at the U.N.!, we only have 3 minutes, so thanks for listening.

(It, along with the other Slams in this Cafe Culture event, should be broadcast on Radio 3's Night Waves, early next year.)