Climate Camp

Two points that have been raised about Climate Camp, now taking place in our backyard here in Blackheath, UK, shouldn't go unchallenged. So, challenge them I will.

First, some on the Beeb and in less savoury media outlets have been suggesting that these young climate warriors are flouting the law with their direct action (taking over the heath!) and because they may well be trained in other direct actions while so encamped. But as lawyers on the television show I watched the other day made it clear much of what is encouraged isn't illegal at all. There is also the question of the greater good. And a jury has ruled on that one, has it not? Climate Change is a real threat to the planet! It is time for extraordinary action. Hello, Gordon, are you listening? If life were fair and the rules of engagement were actually just, then perhaps there might be an argument for all of us just staying home and emailing our Parliamentarians nice polite letters. Many of us do this too. But the sad reality is that the great polluters continue unscathed while those with access to the powerbrokers at the table in Copenhagen will be smiling gents in pinstripe suits supplied by the megacorps, who are killing the planet. It is the representatives of these polluters who have the ears of our wimpering little pols and they are the ones too who support the political parties the weakkneed politicians represent. Tell me now, who is it that is really breaking the rules on climate? Not the friendly, tired-out campers in Blackheath just now!

The other suggestion these days in the Guardian (Peter Beaumont, who does good stuff, mostly) and elsewhere is that Climate Camp has become more about Climate Camp than it is about Climate Change. Well, maybe. But perhaps we can understand a bit their insistence on making sure Climate Camp survives. Perhaps there is a bit of paranoia when dealing with a mostly rabid corporatist media and the nasty police with their gestapo-like tactics when it comes to dealing with anything with a hint of irreverent free speech or action. If Beaumont makes a point about it being more about Climate Camp than it is about Climate Change, I say, look at who actually made it so.

For now.

Blackheath Canuck

ps This newcomer to the UK is still discovering the best literature around. Just finished Paradise by A. L. Kennedy. Very powerful look into the heart and soul of an alcoholic. Must read. Ask your library.

Boxes

Isn't it time the British, Canadian, American and other so-called liberators left Afghanistan and stopped sacrificing our young, poor and barely educated for such dubious goals? Every soldier we send over is but another target and worse, additional inspiration for those who would kill in the name of religion, ideology or idiocy. The return ceremonies held in the UK for those who have fallen in battle in Afghanistan offer powerful moments of grief but are hijacked by those who would continue such shameless bloodshed. To what end?

It's time to look at other ways to persuade sister and brother citizens of the planet that we have great ideas and great ways. It's time to look at the colossal waste of human life and financial and planetary resources that mark this war (and all others). Educate, create jobs, tax banks and bankers, nurture our cultural lives. Stop the wars on people and planet.

Perhaps the poem says it better.

Boxes

The boys are coming home
In boxes red and blue

Finished all their killing
For God, me and you

Finished all their dying
For liberty, so true

Some of them are marching
Strutting the nation’s coup

Some of them just waiting
For the dole to see them through

We haven’t got a question
We haven’t got a clue

We see the gore of enemy
It lacks the royal hue

Stiff upper lip, soldier on
In search of glories new

The boys are coming home
In boxes red and blue

(22 June 2009, London)

What do you think?

For now.

Blackheath Canuck

Finding Home

27 August 2009

I love this barmy place, after all.

Despite the football wars, the knives on the streets, the weather, CCTVs watching your every move and shake, train disruptions and constant train announcements, I love this place. It has life and vitality, Olympic angst, political intrigue, Lord Mandelson and the true sport of watching the slow political death of Gordon Brown. London's every neighbourhood is another sparkling city in and of itself. Sure, there are some hell holes, but find yourself a bit of heaven, for every one of those - like Greenwich Park, the Blackheath Market on Sundays, the Blackheath Village Library, if you can figure out the erratic hours.

No saintly Stephen Harpers or Iggies from Harvard here. No sight of the NHL or the CFL or the bloody Calgary Stampede. No dour Mansbridge on the BBC, we have George A. and Michelle H. and a host of lovely men and women to read the news, sometimes foucusing on the continuing death of Michael Jackson to exclusion of all else, including half the world being ground deeper and deeper into poverty and submission. But they read ever so well.

And we have Climate Camp right in our very own backyard in Blackheath. Probably the best thing to hit Blackheath since the birthing of the Blackheath Poetry Society. We have been to Climate Camp and see it as one of the many tiny actions that just might save the planet. Camp on! And we have poetry in this country. Rhymes of it, if you will, all over the Beeb (Bless you, Auntie, on this at least) and that's why I'm finding it so civilised just now - and just may stay a while, linger even. We'll see.

Perhaps my search for a home is coming to an end.

For now,

Blackheath Canuck

ps Okay, so everybody is blogging these days and I thought I would join in. There may be brilliant days. I'm hoping. But it's just a chance for a Canadian living in London to get it all off his chest. Enjoy!