You know the more I read of Blather the more I enjoy it. There is a great bit on the Mayday protest, and half-arsed riot that the TV peoople’s were gagging for, and in this article a lot of sense is made. I’m not saying I agree with everything that is said, but a lot of it:
“That’s not to say I don’t agree with some of hardcore types, in principle, on how national, international and global issues are handled. I agree with the need for direction action. But I disagree with the form language and action they use. It’s the language of people who believe they are already beaten, and need to rise up against their ‘oppressors’. I think they’re mostly a bunch of whiners, foundering in dead metaphors. They don’t know real defeat, or oppression. They’ve created it for themselves, out of some sort of middle-class guilt.
But the problems – the so-called war in Iraq, immigration, and so on – it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Things are far worse than they think… but these matters are also less black and white than they think. These protesters are locked in a fantasy of good guys and bad guys, good and evil, right and wrong. It’s never so simple.
I don’t need to ‘reclaim the streets’, because I think that while I’m not necessarily happy with how, e.g. the city is run, I’m fool enough to believe that the city already belongs to the citizens ( though I can see how this might be viewed differently in the City of London). I’d prefer to leave the running of the country to a corrupt democracy than to anarchy – either utopian or dystopian.
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