Category: Thoughts & Ideas

Campaigning in to the Future

Happy I am.

At long last we are all able to start moving on from Lockdown, with many individuals having had a second jab. Myself included.

With so such about to be fully opened again such as the essentials of an intellectual life – Libraries, Bookshops, music stores, and museums – It now feels like we can start to fully think again.

What Next for campaigning?

The big problem with a lot of campaigning is that it is reactive rather that proactive.

Do please keep this in mind as this year progresses, as there is a lot which needs to be focused upon right now.

Which issues Next ?

At this stage I could make a long list of actions which need to be done, but instead which I’ll just list the very few which are high priorities or which very few people are working on right now.

– Reversing the Brexit Disaster.

– Stopping the Nukiller Power Industry.

– Banning and dismantling all Nukiller Weapons.

– Pedestrianising our city Centres, while building a new tram and Canal system, as we campaign to block the use of all extreme energy person vehicles.

Sorting Out Our Organising Priorities.

Having spent the last year watching others talking about issues online, or just talking about issue to each other, can we realistically expect to pick up on our previous campaigns ?

That is a question which needs thinking about.

Practical Campaigning – Ethical Issues.

I’m Just so pleased that I was taught about ethics at school, even if I can only remember just some of the principals of it all.

Now what strikes me is that more people should of been taught them, as some of those principles apply to why we all need to have the vaccine.

The same kind of Ethical principals apply to the need to be Vegan.

It is all very well talking about personal choice, and the principal of Human Rights, but what about if these choices impact upon other people or life upon this planet?

I guess in many ways it is an aspect of just why we need to engage in joined-up-campaigning.

This is one of the aspects of life that I mentioned in my article A few thoughts about the One in Seven which has just been published within the latest issue of Information For Social Change [ ISC ].

Yet

One of the side effects of lockdown has been the chance to think about the kind of society it would be ideal to live in, even though most of us have had to deal with the practical issues which face us all.

It also has been many of us the chance to think What Next? & Where Do I Want To Go Next ?

Yet

The coming few months will be very busy with the end of lockdown.

The first thing is that Part two of Tranche One of the spycops public inquiry is taking place next month, and I am hoping to learn about the activities of the spycop[s] that I knew during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though the inquiry is redacting so much information that it is very hard going to get anything which is really useful out of it.

Then comes all of the active campaigning which needs picking up on again, and the chance to meet other activists in order to work out what we can do next.

Some things which need doing are very obvious, but we will need to build up an activist base once more. As and when these activities will be posted on the Close Capenhurst Campaign website.

Whatever Next ?

Here is how we now seem to start Every Day.

And Today’s Crisis is …

Just reading the newspapers or listening to the radio news it seems to be that way.

Brexitland

We have now moved from the Shambolic world of politics, to an everyday story of a dystopian folk, or life under the Rabid Right Wing Tory Government.

The list of what is going or has gone wrong within the last year would take just too many hours to list.

All I will say is that the whole Brexit disaster can be summed up as a totally predictable mess.

Planetary Disaster

Next we have the ongoing radioactive and planetary mess which needs to be cleaned up, but again this is just too long to list.

Nukiller New Build, Radioactive or Chemical Waste dumps, the failure to tackle global warming, create a safe sustainable transport, etc, etc.

The list goes on and on and on and on.

Yet there are still too few activists working to reverse this unfolding disaster.

While there is still a shocking lack of attention paid to recycling, or stopping to produce those items which are very difficult to recycle.

Eating and Riding Our Way to Disaster

If we are what we eat, then we also live in an environment which is the product of our eating and travel habits.

It always amazes me just how many can not see that being vegan and campaigning for pedestrian rights is so tied up with creating an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, or how it matches up within the concept of Joined-up-campaigning.

If

If all of the above seems to be the product of some highly depressing thinking about what we face right now, then you are right to do so.

Yet

Yet there is still a lot which we can all do right now, while planning for some major changes and mass demonstrations once the present pandemic is over.

May Day

May Day is an ideal time to stand up against the Rabid Right Wing Tory Government.

May the 9th is Europe Day.

That is an ideal day to engage up campaigning against the Brexitland Disaster.

In between Time

This is now an ideal moment to read up upon all those various issues which we do need to get back to active campaigning upon later on in the year.

While looking at all those lifestyle changes which we need to make.

The present dire situation we are in is one of the worst we have ever experienced.

Yet very soon the cry will start : –

Today’s Solution is ––

Changing The Way

Preamble

The last 6 months have been a time of many social and economic changes. These have presented us all with many new challenges and opportunities to make changes for the better.

Yet we are still have politicians and the like who do not see that. Thus they think about our ‘getting back to normal’, with no real concept of what has occurred or is happening right now. It’s not just a case of them not knowing, but one of them having no visionary ideas about what needs to be done.

The bottom line being that most of these so called ‘decision makers’ are unable to make any realistic decisions, as they lack both imaginative, creative, or pragmatic ways of thinking.

Thus they look backwards to the past, while coming up with ‘solutions’ for the future. That’s even when many of those ideas have proven to be disastrously dangerous and totally unworkable.

Building Nukiller reactors, the Brexit disaster, and creating more space to be used by extreme energy personal vehicles being good examples of it all.

Difficult.

We are in the middle of an unprecedented crisis which is going to be difficult to solve.

Thus what we need now is some imaginatively pragmatic thinking.

We need to do the same.

What we also need to do is apply such creative and pragmatic thinking to the way we work towards creating positive social change.

Changing the way we protest.

One of the constant cries of the left and those we organise protests is ‘ Just one more push’ as they work towards having larger and larger marches or demonstrations.

What experience has taught us is that just does not work.

The Met and other police forces have become very good at isolation demonstrations, while the transport authorities re-routing buses away from them.

Then the press just ignore BiG Demonstrations as EVERYDAY events.

They just don’t impact upon public awareness in the way they used to do.

Protests that work with our strengths.

What many people perceive as being our greatest weakness is in fact our greatest strength.

These are our ability to organise very small pickets, protests, and leafleting sessions with a minimum of time or effort.

Many long term activists have been doing do for years now.

A stock of leaflets, a few flags, a couple of masks, two or three people, is all we need.

Best still with such small numbers we have the ability to chat with those works who are going in or out of the building we are picketing.

Using Our Strengths during the next few months.

What we can do and do well are: –

– Hold pickets which comprise of 4 or 5 people with 2 metre banners held between us.

That gives a lot of social distancing.

– Use the Smiling Sun and the other flags we have got.

That makes for a good visual impact even with so few a number.

&

– Then if you can get hold of them,

wear face masks which make political or campaigning points.

There are a lot of EU flag ones to be purchased, and which we can use in our campaigning to stop the Brexit Disaster.

We may just be small in number who can get together for to protest,

but that does not stop us from making a BIG IMPACT.

Crisis & Solution[s]

Old Thinking – New Thinking

I’ve been thinking a lot of late about the kind of dystopian solutions which various politicians have been coming up with, and about finding solutions to the current multiple messes we are all in.

Of course it’s very easy to see how fiscally and scientifically illiterate most of them are, but there is much more to it than that.

Most policy makers look at the world from within their own social class, or political party perspective.

Yet it goes way beyond that, as the majority of them are neither lateral thinkers or possessed of much imagination.

As a friend of mine said to me recently about both society and the economy is going: “ We are in to new territory”.

Thus a lot of new imaginative thinking needs to be delivered, and in a very short amount of time.

We have to do that thinking.

We have to be pragmatic.

We have to be the ones to sort out our global mess, as none of our lords and masters, or any of the policy makers are capable of doing so.

A Multi Faceted Crisis

Just the ecological crisis includes the housing, transport, energy, land use and farming, but that in turn impacts upon many different social and economic issues.

Yet we still think about solving them all in isolation, or as separate campaigns.

While many of the radical political groups or organisations view what can be done in terms separate solutions., such as dealing with unemployment first, rather than question just what kind of employment that might be.

As I keep on saying.

We need both Joined-up-thinking, and joined-up-campainging.

 

Proactive & Reactive Campaigning

There are two kinds of political action : proactive and reactive.

Much in the same way as many protests are reactive, they should not be mistaken as the only form of campaigning, which is long term long term in nature.

That’s why we always need to focus upon a wide number of immediate issues which are at a crucial stage or critical crisis point.

That’s why most of my attention is focused upon stopping the Nukiller power industry, pedestrianising our cities, reversing the brexit disaster, antimilitarism, and pushing for proper recycling schemes.

For many of these issues our time to solve them is very short indeed.

Long term or short term, it is consistent hard slog campaigning work that’s needed.

In Times Gone By And In Times Present

In Times Past

Much of the current social and political debate is about how society is changing for the worst, while others might argue how some things are much better now than in decades or centuries ago.

Yet nothing is said about how this really compares to the past.

Here are two examples how things have changed for the better over the last 100 to 150 years: –

The School leaving age

and

Life Expenctency

Henry Mayhew

I wonder just how many of the younger generation realise just what the reality of life was like in an earlier age as described by Henry Mayhew.

Or

How many of the younger generation would know about, of ever come upon a Tosher or Mud Lark did?

Now that might seem like ancient history many people, but some of the descriptions within the Road to Wigan Pier are still within the living memory of many of the older generation.

Housing

It’s not so long ago that a very high percentage of the population lived in bedsits or HMOs as they are now classed as being.

Remember the expression ‘A shilling for the gas’ ?

Or

How it was normal to sleep in the same room as a gas cooker before that become illegal.

Yes things have improved a lot over the years.

Yet they have not.

– We now have a lot more rough sleepers than in many decades.

– Adult education in terms of evening classes is now almost a thing of the past.

– While one in seven of UK adults are functionally illiterate to a greater or lesser extent.

In Times Now

Margaret Thatcher said that:- “there is no such thing as society”.

While many of her supporters said “Greed is Good!”.

To which there was a response which went:-

The family is dead! Long live the family !

All of which are totally wrong, but they are attitudes which still prevail to this day.

In times to come

Social Change or Social Revolution ?

If history and all the recent events have taught us anything, then we must care for both society and the individual.

That’s something which compliments the concept of: –

Think Global Act Local.

What Ever Next ?

Observation

There are three aspects about lockdown which have become a constant for us all.

They are: –

– Constant Speculation.

– Constantly having to get news updates,

&

– Constantly finding that events outstrip any of the speculative opinions about what next might happen next.

All that can really be said for sure is that we are starting to experience less pollution right now, and this gives us a vision of what might be achieved if we all set our minds to it.

Thus

I seem to of been reading less in print about what has been happening of late, as it is way out of date by the time it is published.

A good example of this being the company reports in the Investors Chronicle.

Though I am keeping a close eye upon a lot of current statistical data.

On the good side.

Energy use and air pollution are reduced.

Most of the rough sleepers are now being sheltered.

There is a lot more community initiatives to help the vulnerable, or should I say mutual aid.

&

There is a lot of people saying we can not / must not go back to how things used to be.

So What Next to do ?

If the present crisis results in just one lesson, then it must be that we make a lot of social changes.

What Comes Next ?

Introduction From 85 Years Ago

This is the introduction to the H.G.Wells book.

What Are We to Do with Our Lives?

Published: Watts & Co    1935

‘ The world is undertaking immense changes. Never before have the conditions of life changed so swiftly and enormously as they have changed for mankind in the last fifty year.’

Though in environmental terms it is more like the last 15 month to 5 years.

While in many ways we are now going through a major set of changes which will impact upon us all over the next 50 day and thus in to the future.

What next ?

Over the last 15 days it has been the case of us all asking: –

What Next?

In many ways we have all been very surprised upon how things are changing.

Yet for all the observations we make about just what is happening to us all right now, many of the pundits predictions upon economic, political, social, and ecological issues, are still based upon what has happened in the past.

Never the less there are a number of key indicators which worth looking at:-

– Changes in Housing provision,

– The stock Market and Wider Economy

– Changes in Food Production and Provision.

– An ending to the use of Nukiller Power and Extreme Energy,

– Public and Private Transport.

&

– How we all socialise from now onwards.

Extracts From The Book – Poverty and Ecological Disaster. A Post Brexit Study

The following book extracts are taken from the most renowned academic study of the UK during the first half of the 21stnd century.

Poverty and ecological disaster.

A study of life in Britain during the post Brexit years .

Published by the CLO University press.

The Peak district School.

2052.

Chapter 1

The Brexit disaster.

‘ As predicted the state of the UK rapidly declined with the introduction of Brexit.

The dysfunctional desires of the rabid right wing Tory government were no more than a delusional set of nightmare policies.

After Brexit the UK continued its rapid economic decline.

In the poorest areas of the country begging for food on the street increased at an alarming rate. This was not helped by the fact that most of the population no longer had the income to be able to donate to all the food banks which had rapidly increased by the 2nd decade of the century.

The social and economic effects of the withdrawal of all the EU regional funding to some of the poorest areas of Europe was increasingly noticeable as the years went by.’

Chapter 16

Eduction and Illiteracy.

‘Unlike the rest the rest of Europe, British government public spending on education plummeted.

Thus by 2038 the official school leaving age dropped to 14. That was the same as it had been a century before.

The rate of public library closures continued.

Most alarming of all the rate of functional illiteracy in the country rose from 1 in 7, to 90 in 100 of the population.

Thus the rate of unemployment rose, as fewer and fewer of the population became qualified or skilled workers.’

‘The effects upon higher education became profound. This was especially so after the universities of Cambridge, London, and Oxford were forced to merge and become the CLO university.’

Chapter 22

The Toxic Legacy.

‘ One of the most alarming aspects of the period was that all the nukiller plants became engulfed by rising tides, as did many of the radioactive and toxic waste dumps. The government stated that dealing with this was a priority, but there was no money left in the exchequer to solve it.

Thus the UK government had to declare a national emergency, but it was just too late to solve all these problems.

Thousands died of starvation and exposure to all the radioactive and toxic waste.’

‘ Finally, in 2042 the country became such an ecological disaster area, that the UK government begged the EU to become a European dependency, as it was totally incapable of becoming a full EU member state.’

– – –

Postscript.

December 2019

All of the above could happen: –

If we don’t take Action Now !