70 Marks 51

I was never one of those people who is a party person, as I get more joy from Visiting Museums, Art Galleries, and Self education. In any case my thinking goes that it is more important to engage in active campaigning right now, Thus I’m ignoring the advice I’ve had to party this weekend.

Tomorrow  [ November 3rd ]  I will be 70.

It will also be 51 years since I became an activists. That was on a sit down demonstration against the Vietnam war.

Though if any of you want to mark this day and bring a smile to my face, then you can do so by making a donation to the Close Capenhurst Campaign

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Having A Pop.

I never understood just why many people keep having a pop at the BBC, but not the so called ‘independent broadcasters’, which keep churning out Kapitalist propaganda in order to persuade us to purchase all sorts of ideologically and ecologically unsound items.

That is why I only ever listen to BBC Radio 4.

Yet that said –

It is very perturbing that the BBC does broadcast such programmes as On Your Farm & The Kitchen Cabinet, both of which describe the farming, slaughtering, cooking, and eating of our fellow creatures.

Now a few protests to stop these programmes being produced would be very welcome indeed.

Campaigning For Failure.

A Few Observations

Aim for revolution and you will achieve some reforms.

Aim for reforms and nothing will fundamentally change,

Engage in a tactical non-violence, as opposed to a Principled Nonviolence, and we will not achieve a total Nonviolent Social Revolution.

What Needs Doing.

In order to achieve any fundamental social change, or ecological improvements, we must: –

Make sure all our actions are consistent as Ends and means.

&

Engage in joined-up-Campaigning.

I hate to Say this.

Extinction Rebellion are not engaged upon campaigning against Nukiller Power, or actively promoting Veganism.

This failure to do so will mean that their aim of stopping climate change will not be achieved.

If Extinction Rebellion does not change this policy of blocking such important issues, then all radically realistic environmentalists will need to create a new campaigning body which will do so.

A Few Thoughts About This Coming Month

What might happen if —

– Boris, the unelected british prime monster, was to ask for an extension to Article 50, but it will only be agreed to by our fellow Europeans on the condition that there is another referendum ?

– The Brexit disaster happens, and there is a highly popular demand for the uk to reapply to become a part of the EU once more ?

– It is discovered that the police view the rabid right wing to be so dangerous, that they have embedded spycops in the Tory, UKIP, and Brexit political parties ?

Now  – Think on — — — —

Practical Examples of Joined-Up-Campaigning – Health, Land, Waste, & Sea Ecology.

Much of good campaigning is like joined-up thinking, or rather playing a game of consequences in advance.

As I keep say:-  Take the overview, but keep an eye on the details.

A Healthcare ban which has resulted in dire consequences.

The change in the UK law which bans smoking indoors has been universally welcomed, but it has and is causing an environmental crisis.

This is because smoking is now done outdoors in the street, where instead of cigarettes stubbed out in ashtrays, they are thrown out on the ground. At which point they are blown along the street, landing up in the drains, road sides, rivers, and the sea.

Cigarette stubs contain a lot of toxic chemicals, and are Not biodegradable.

While children see many more people smoking outdoors or on the streets, which in turn normalises how they view this activity.

At the same time there are many more individuals vapping , that is using E cigarettes, which results in a growth in the number of people suffering from popcorn lung disease.

What is also forgotten is that these e cigarettes are not easy to recycle, and there are no facilities in most places to do so.

Thus we have a number of inter-related health and environmental problems which effect us all.

What might be done about these problems?

The obvious answer to me is much more health education, and measures to prevent people smoking, but it goes way beyond that.

What we should be doing is promoting health campaigns which show the environmental damage which smoking results in.

It is very much a case of health care workers and environmental activists together to solve these problems.

While on a local level this must mean Local Heath Trusts working in co-operation with the local waste authorities.

Yet all these problems will not be solved unless there is much more help extended to another group in society – Rough Sleepers.

From Motto To Joined-Up-Campaigning.

Motto

The motto used to be: – Another Day – Another Crisis.

That is how it used to be – Singular.

Now we keep having to deal with a lot more crisis issues on a daily basis.

So the new motto should be :- Another Day – Another Set of Crisis.

CRISIS

Anyone who is both very well informed and politically involved will know that there are so many immediate / need to sort out / must be dealt with now /crisis to deal with, that it would take a long while to list them all.

So what we can, or should do, is just concentrate upon those few issues were our efforts will make a big difference, while also doing what we can to support other campaigns.

To do anything else will just result in us all suffering from burnout.

That’s why I’m much more inclined to attend small scale protests which very few people will attend, as opposed to joining in any large scale marches or protests. Though I do occasionally participate in them.

Joined-Up-Campaigning

One of the books which has been most influential in the development my political thinking and world view is Ends and Means by Aldus Huxley.

This is a quote from the work: –

“Good ends, as I have frequently to point out, can be achieved only by the employment of appropriate means. The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.”

To which I will add that we should not view in isolation, but look and work upon it in terms of what else needs doing.

This is what I refer to as Joined-Up-Campaigning.

I will be writing more on this over the coming months.

Appeasement – The Militarist Plot

On September 3rd it will be 80 years since the British government declared war against Germany, in what became the Second World War.

No doubt there will be a lot of media attention about this anniversary.

As ever many militarist will repeat the lie that it was pacifists which promoted appeasement.

What is forgotten is that it was a UK government policy which was put it in place – so that the country could rearm.

In point of fact the British Foreign Office promoted this as they believed the country could not simultaneously fight a war in both Europe & Asia.

Though they would also of seen this as being: ‘ For the defence of the Empire.’

There were other reasons for appeasement too.

– Such as how the Rabid Right Wing viewed Fascism as a protection against Communism.

Keep all of these facts in mind come September.

My New Dystopian Novel

I’ve just started to pen a dystopian novel.

It starts like this: –

After a series of increasingly right wing governments, there was a Rabid Right Wing political coup, which placed in power a group of rich, delusional, incompetent, authoritarian, militaristic, socially and fiscally illiterate individuals.

Seventy five percent of these individuals had received a public school education.

A very high percentage of them were multi millionaires whose political agenda was to abolish all the taxes they paid, and hand over all government agencies to private companies.

At the same time they ignored the environmental crisis which was threatening to destroy the world, as they could see no personal profit to be made in fixing it.

Er – wait a second – this is no novel – but more a description of the Britain state, and state of affairs right now.

Not Just A One In 7 Problem

What I keep going back to is one factual piece of information.
 
One in Seven of the adult UK population are to a greater or lesser extent functionally illiterate.
 
This impacts upon jobs, poverty levels, adult education, affordable social housing, a lack of skilled workers, which, in turn, moves on to the issue of immigration quotas, and thus makes for an ill informed population which relies upon mass media to form their political opinions.
 
Though that’s not the end of the problem.
For while many people moan about university education loans, we still find there is zilch money available for adult literacy classes.
 
Very clearly we are in a social mess.
It can not be solved until we no longer have 14.2 % of the population unable to write or read.

Landing Homes For The Future

Yesterday [ july 15th 2019 ] there was a feature in the Financial Times about the current state of Britain’s care homes.

There are now just 8% of them left in public ownership.  Thank you Mrs Thatcher !

While 4 of the largest ones are up for sale.

The problem is financial.

The FT stated: ‘ Care homes run up debts of £40,000 a bed’.

Is it any wonder that care homes are priced out of reach for most people.

Meanwhile the push to build new environmentally unaffordable homes in the suburbs grows, There are however a lot of cheap student flats being built.

Yet the real need to build affordable mixed age housing is the cities is just being ignored.

Ditto – The need to use waste land in the inner cities to grow small fruit orchards, create lots of small allotments, or build community greenhouses is just not on most peoples agendas.

It will all need to be worked on very soon, or else we really will be in a lot of trouble.