The sea is full of bombs, submarines with nuclear missiles, warships, aircraft carriers. Bulk carriers transporting metal ores and chemicals which will be turned into machine guns and phosphorus grenades. Containers full of parts which can be assembled into mortars and guns for firing live ammunition at peaceful protests. Around $3 trillion was spent onContinue reading “Military-Industrial Complex”
Author Archives: DannyB
The Internet of Things
The internet of things has already connected satellites, ships, containers, lorries and commodities. An live map of satellites is available here – http://www.stuffin.space/ The container ship Cosco Pisces en route from Wilhemshaven to Piraeus. General cargo ship Noordvliet arriving at Dover Western Docks from Istanbul.
Marx and Engels Arrive in Dover
A prelude to Revolution. ‘On November 27 [1847], Marx, Engels, Georg Weerth and Victor Tedesco met in Belgium’s North Sea port city of Ostend and caught a steamship for Dover the next day’. Love and Capital, Mary Gabriel – p111 Engels was in Paris in November 1847 and wrote to Marx in Brussels: ‘Saturday evening,Continue reading “Marx and Engels Arrive in Dover”
Sheerness
London Medway includes the ports of Sheerness and Chatham. They are owned by Peel Ports Group. The chair is the billionaire John Whittaker who maintains a 75 percent majority stake in the group. An Aldi distribution centre between Sittingbourne and Sheerness. It represents £50m of investment and employs 500 people. Aldi is in sharp competitionContinue reading “Sheerness”
Northfleet
I really went to look at ships. And took a copy of James Bird’s ‘The Geography of the Port of London’ with me. It’s an interesting book, particularly as it was published in 1957. I can’t remember where it was bought. But it’s lovely, it was once part of Norwich library until it was sold,Continue reading “Northfleet”
Tilbury Docks
A vast industrial area continues to accumulate capital along both banks of the Thames. However, dock work and ship work have changed from being labour intensive to capital intensive. This process produces yet more competitive pressure on capital to accumulate yet further capital. While I was standing in a piece of waste ground taking photographs,Continue reading “Tilbury Docks”
Drivers
An afternoon on the beach reading Robinson Crusoe and watching ships. Context reading is good fun. Reading art books in art galleries, books about trains while traveling on trains, cookery books in restaurants, history of Germany in a bar in Berlin, books about ships on cross channel ferries.
Adventures in capitalism, April 22
Or, more signals from the Society of the Spectacle. I’ve been reading ‘Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution’ by Richard Stites. This lead me once again to Boris Kagarlitsky’s The Thinking Reed. I thought I’d lost the book. There are fond memories of the time and place in which itContinue reading “Adventures in capitalism, April 22”
Bremenhaven to New York City
The Sealand Illinois, container ship, Bremenhaven to New York City. Or rather, to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal. The main port for containers arriving and leaving the New York metropolitan area. It handles around 20 percent of all goods imported from Germany into the United States. It will take the Sealand Illinois eight days to crossContinue reading “Bremenhaven to New York City”
Infrastructure
These were taken a few days ago during a day of fine weather. The sea always suggests travel and adventure.
Commodity Fetishism 