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.

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’ ?

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 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.

Spycops – A Set of Continuing Emotional & Other Issues

Living in the past.

There is something I’ve observed many a time, and which I engage upon once in a while.

The old comrades getting together, and talking about our previous campaigns:

– What went wrong with them

– What went right with them

– Who was involved in them

and

– All the funny things which happened while they were going on.

These discussions can be very enjoyable to participant in, but only once in a while.

There are just too many new projects / new campaigns which I want to spend my life engaged upon.

& yet

An exercise in secrecy.

As many of you will know I am a Core Participant [ CP ] in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. At the end of January the following piece about the Undercover Policing Inquiry was published on the Campaign Against Police Surveillance website.

UCPI FAQ: The Spycops Public Inquiry

What really gets me is that so much information is being withheld on what the spycops did to me and many other activists.

The inquiry is withholding as much information about the various spycops as it can get away with.

At the same time the inquiry has put a legal restriction order on revealing both the cover and real names of most of these spycops.

Then eventually when we will get our individual SDS files, a very high percentage of what is in them will be redacted.

Many more years.

A lot of my old friends & comrades are now dead.

Thus it is going to be very difficult to know the extent they were spied upon.

Then there are all those individuals who I worked with in various groups or organisations over the years, and which I’ve now lost contact with.

That’s something which happens to us all.

While I am still in regular contact with others who live a long way from me,

but am unable to see on a regular basis.

Shock.

Discovering about the activities of the SDS goes way beyond shocking.

This is no surprise when you consider the feelings of surprise, anger, betrayal, and emotional distress which comes with the discovery of becoming a spycop victim.

Thus in many ways the whole process leaves me feeling very isolated,

and with little energy spare for more high stress activities.

Come the year 2026

I’ll be around 76 by the time the inquiry report is published.

Is it any wonder the whole thing leaves me with a great feeling of sadness?

Though I also feel it to be a process of mourning without mourning.

Other Complications.

There is another aspect to this which also complicates this for me.

Working to stop the nukiller power issue does take a lot of my time,

and involves a lot of effort.

If I were to disengage from this work for a while it might give me a rest,

but with so few activists, and so much which needs to be done, this is not the time to ease off for a while.

Thus I am going to keep working on this issue.

What ever else, most of the inquiry hearings dealing with the aspects of the time frame which concerns me the most will be completed by some time next year,

and I should of received the redacted SDS files about my activities.

Until that is over I’m going to be very over-stretched indeed.

Living in the past.

I knew Bob Robinson as a supposed friend and comrade in the mid 1980s.

This summer it will be nine years since I learnt he was a spycop with the real name of Dr Robert Lambert.

That is why I am a CP in the spycops public inquiry.

I Don’t want to spend my twilight years trying to discover just what political and emotional damage Bob and the rest of the SDS did while undercover.

& Yet

It is important to know just what the various spycops got up to. Not knowing is emotionally distressing to everyone who is a spycop victim.

For me it is very important to state all of the above, and keep working away on these various issues.

& Yet

It does come with a high emotional cost.

Recruit And Rough Sleeper.

A week just like any other week.

Monday –

Today the army was out recruiting on Church Street in Liverpool. They had a table in front of a van, with various small arms on display.

This was under a gazebo which read Royal Irish Regiment and ‘Relish your inner warrior‘.

On the other side of the pedestrian street was a rough sleeper with his begging bowl, and a cardboard sign which read Ex Solider followed by his service number.

One does not need to comment upon this.

Just observe.

Thursday –

Both the same display and rough sleeper were to be seen again today.

Nothing changes.

Friday –

The Army recruiters have gone, but the Rough Sleeping Ex Solder is still there.

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 — — — —

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.