Freedom of Speech!! (But we ban books!!)

Hypocrisy rules!!

Freedom of speech = blind obedience to a narrow doctrine!

Anyone who disagrees is WOKE!!

Books are banned. People persecuted, fired and threatened! But hate-speech is OK. Conspiracy, lies and misinformation are OK.

Freedom of speech now means narrow conformity to a system of greed and law-breaking, threats and hatred.

America has become a Dictatorship!

A letter from the Guardian:

 I feel as if I am now living in a parallel universe

(Trump calls Zelenskyy a dictator amid fears of irreconcilable rift, 19 February). Trump, who still asserts he won the 2020 election, who asserts that the courts cannot restrict what he does, who bans books he does not like, who tells the FBI and Department of Justice to go after his enemies, who effectively sacks anyone involved in investigating his past nefarious activities, who bans news outlets from White House briefings and who overrules Congress’s funding of aid, tells me Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator. He prefers Vladimir Putin, who, presumably, won his election fairly. It is well beyond satire or parody and should be called out by all British politicians who value democracy.
Ian Henderson
Nottingham

Poetry – Drabness

Drabness

They would stifle our lives,

Suffocate us

With their drabness,

Steal our joy,

Silence the notes

And create

Oppressive sadness.

Opher – 12.11.2019

I was minded to write this poem after watching the Ken Loach film Jimmy’s Hall. In that film the claustrophobic Catholic Church put a stop to dancing, teaching and music. They had the hall burnt down and Jimmy forcibly transported.

But it could have been any fundamentalist religion. It could have been the Taliban, ISIS or Boko Haram. They would have our women uneducated, locked up at home or behind veils, to ban music and to force everyone to pray.

Poetry – A Way of Life

A Way of Life

Minarets and loud speakers

Dispense the call to prayer.

Imams and korans

Instruct on what to wear.

Incorporated into culture

Becoming a way of life,

Force of habit,

Passed along amid the daily strife.

Headscarves and few laughs

Customs and practice,

Prostrations and genuflections,

Actors and actresses.

Opher – 20.3.2019

It was all too prescriptive for me. It looked like mass conformity and a loss of identity.

The emphasis is on getting to some future paradise.

Not for me.

I do not believe in any god that acts that way, any after-life. This life is good enough for me.

Religion is too stifling and reductive. I want more truth than that offers.