Martyn Lowe

When, or if, someone gets around to writing my obituary, then I hope they get to include the following words:-

Difficult & Controversial.

That is because the kind of world I want to live in will upset those who see nothing wrong with the dystopian, militaristic, or ecologically unsound world we all live in at present.

I know it will be said how my views upset many people, but upsetting militarists, or those who want to keep the status quo, is inevitable if one campaigns to create a better world.

The Suburban Nightmare.

Increasingly what I have been saying is that the suburban dream is really an ecological nightmare, and we need to shrink the size of the suburbs.

If this view upsets people so be it, but we can’t keep living this way.

Look at the facts.

These opinions are based upon both reading a very wide range of highly depressing reports, and a lot of observations.

They are not the result of any kind of emotional outpouring, but come via looking at cold blooded facts.

These reports and statistical reports are available for everyone to study.

Now read on – – –

I never wanted to be an ‘Expert’ or ‘Specialist’.

Perhaps that’s why I spend most of my life doing library and information work, for to do so effectively one need to know something about everything. Though the main skill is to know just where to find that information.

Now I am retired most of my time is spent in campaigning work.

Though in order to do so I have to read a lot of specialist reports, daily newspapers, periodicals, and websites.

Now that I am retired most of my current campaigning centres around those issues where there are very few activists to share the work with, or which are so very time consuming that it would be impossible to follow these issues while in full time employment.

While I was still working much of my activist time was spent using my information organising skills. That starts with organising filing systems, scanning for information, and so forth. I’m still doing the same.

Lifestyle and Campaigning.

There was a popular saying much used in the 1960s & early 1970s: –

Think Global Act Local.

Though to that I would add that it is impossible to do effective campaigning without looking at how one structures ones own life.

Thus the importance of recycling, having a vegan diet, walking or taking public transport, cutting down on ones energy usage, and using sustainable materials rather than plastics.

Though none of this is easy to achieve unless more people are doing the same, while constantly reading the ingredients or contents of everything one buys.

The greater problem is getting more recycling facilities where we are all live.

Urban allotments, solar panels and vertical wind turbines to power our homes and street lighting, inner city orchards, more foot paths and tram routes, are what we should also be campaigning for.

While one of our greatest needs is to shrink the suburbs, so that all the space used on roads would become forests. Many people think that this might result in overcrowding in our inner cities, but the concreted over suburban sprawl does result in more flooding. While if the concrete covered roads and squares were covered in plants and trees, then it would give us more flexible housing space. In the same way we need to cut the various out of town shopping centres, and large out of town factories. Then we can have more specialist shops and work shops, and repair centres where we all live.

There is also another aspect of shrinking the suburban mess which needs to be considered. It would help combat the social isolation which is such a depressing feature of many peoples lives. This is especially so in areas where there are very few social contact points such shops or libraries, and where public transport is so abysmal.

None of this is a utopian vision.

All of these aims can be achieved via joined-up-campaigning.

It can be done !

I sign several petitions each week.

Of late I have come to realise that voting is very much like signing petitions.

Both are indicative, and both rely upon large numbers of people to take part in this most basic form of protest.

A traditional Anarchist Viewpoint.

I’ve always taken the traditional Anarchist line, None of the Above, as the only choice is between a party of crooks and a party of bandits.

In any case, I take it as Highly Irresponsible to Negate our Individual Responsibilities, by handing decision making over to a bunch of self serving politicians.

To quote the quote: – Guy Fawkes: The only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.

On the other hand I’ve spent most of my life as a campaigner, or what these days is refereed to as engaging in activism.

Yet things change.

For the first time in my life I have registered to vote.

This is in order to do so in the forthcoming EU election.

It is because I feel so incensed by the whole Brexit disaster, that I want to do everything possible to stop it from happening.

Though it’s the push to stopping Brexit by a referendum which really needs doing.

I’ll still be out leafleting and taking part on other forms of protest, but will engage in one other form of protest against Brexit – voting.

So here we are: –

Another day of the Mrs May and Her dysfunctional Tory MPs show coming up to distract all our attentions.

Yet there are many activists trying to get other issues noted, such as that of climate change.

The joke being that if any historian looks back to the newspapers of this period, then most of what they find to read about will be about Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, and the decline of the airline industry & UK retail outlets.

Meanwhile there are many other issues which we really should be focusing our minds upon.

Such as: –

The long term problem of what to do with nukiller waste, the abolition of NATO, how to build a sustainable transport system which includes both local electric delivery vehicles and trams, and how we can convert the countryside to one where farmers can make a living by growing crops as opposed to killing animals.

This is not just a period during which the bad news is being buried, but one during which there are thousands of bureaucratic JCBs scooping it all up in order to bury these problems in land-file.

Future generations are not going to be impressed when then they eventually get to read all of these files.

A Dystopian Novel ?

Let us start with a well known slogan: –

Crisis?  What Crisis?

That’s the cry from all the dysfunctional politicians who ruin all they touch in the most shambolic manner, and who have either no idea about or concern about a major set of crisis which face us all.

As a member of the METs Diplomatic Protection Squad once told me:- ‘Politicians are only able to see as far ahead as the next election’.

Only being concerned that way means none of them can think about or do any long term planning.

That would be OK,  if we just didn’t have to face up to so many immediate problems which will impact upon us many centuries in to the future.

Well we all know the issues: – Climate Change, Economic Decline, Toxic Waste Dumps to clear up, High Level Nukiller Waste, etc, etc.

While both falling standards of education, a growing number of people living in poverty, and too much party party time, deflects the ability of the many to focus of much more than the very immediate future.

The growing number of rough sleepers on our streets many not be noted by much of the mass media, while just what is shown on television produces pages and pages and pages of print each day.

Meanwhile all the politicians want to deal with is Brexit Brexit Brexit.

Yes the word is depressing, but there is nothing new about it all.

If I sound totally pessimistic about this, then I’m not, as there are the solutions which we can and must put in to place.

What we need is more people to take control of how we live our lives.

Just a few more activists would make a big BIG difference to what we might be able to achieve.

From time to time it is well worth reminding myself and others of how I view the world.

Take the overview, but keep an eye on the details.

In practice this means I will put my political energy in to those projects which very few people have the time or energy to engage upon.

Or

In to those projects which take a lot of time to learn about.

I also believe that we can not indulge in thinking in terms of campaigning seasons, as the kind of crisis which we face need hours by days by weeks by months by years by decades of solid campaigning and social action.

The real problem is just how do we maintain such long term activities, while receiving very little or no support ?

This is very much a practical question which needs to be asked by anyone who is engaged in long term campaigning.