The reasons are threefold:
The solutions are simple:
It can be done if there’s a way. On this blog I’ve got friends all over the world. We may argue, we may disagree but we are all basically friendly, caring human beings with the same empathy and compassion.
Build a positive zeitgeist – Change the World!
Back in the early 1960s the Civil Rights Movement was picking up momentum. Martin Luther King was organising marches, sit-ins, boycotts and protests. There was a move towards gaining equality for people regardless of creed, race or religion. Segregation was rife and needed to be utterly destroyed.
The Folk Movement had come out of the Left Wing protests of the 1950s with its social messages from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Weavers. It stood for freedom, equality and fairness. It supported the unions, fair pay and social justice.
The songs that came out of the early sixties were termed protest songs. They were songs for human rights and justice.
Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton were at the forefront singing songs that helped rouse the conscience of the world. The white liberals and radicals joined with the blacks to fight for equality.
With songs like ‘Blowing in the Wind’, ‘To Ramona’, ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’, ‘The Ballad of Medgar Evans’, ‘Links on the Chain’, Power and the Glory’, ‘Only a Pawn in their Game’, ‘Chimes of Freedom’, ‘We Shall Overcome’, ‘Here to the State of Mississippi’ and hundreds more, the singer/songwriters took a stance, sang their truth, and opposed the Jim Crow laws. They put their bodies on the line. They supported the freedom riders and went on the marches.
Bob Dylan and Joan Baez performed at the great march on Washington that drew a million people in to hear Martin Luther King speak.
Their voice told the black protestors that they were not alone. White supporters went down South to support the protests and were killed by the rabid racist Klu Klux Klan along with the blacks they were supporting.
As short a time ago as the 1960s segregation held sway in the United States. Whites were considered superior and supremacist groups, such as the Klu Klux Klan, were widely supported. They might have been forced to do away with slavery through losing the Civil War but the notion still prevailed – They viewed the Black Race as inferior and were determined to keep them down. The idea of equality was repugnant. It is a Racist ideology that persists to this day and results in the situations that are occurring in US cities where black lives are considered cheap and blacks are being shot by police.
We’ve still got a way to go.
In the 1960s segregation was apartheid. Blacks had different buses, water taps, cinemas, music, housing and even concerts were segregated. To be black was to be second class. They were actively prevented from voting.
Martin Luther King was a Baptist Minister and Humanitarian. Born in 1929 he lead the Civil Rights Movement (SCLC) and fought for equal rights and the vote. He fought for desegregation – the rights for schools, jobs, transport and utilities to be shared by all. He inspired mass protest and based his tactics on those of Mahatma Ghandi.
There were sit-ins, marches, bus boycotts and protest. Protestors were beaten up, murdered, harassed, threatened, abused and arrested. They remained non-violent and defiant.
In 1963 Martin Luther King called for a march on Washington. A million white and black people, side by side, marched on the Capital and were roused by the incredible oratory of Martin’s as he delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
He was an incredibly brave man. The FBI and CIA did their best to discredit him. He received death threats. On the march between Selma and Montgomery in 1964 he was expecting a bullet with every step. He marched regardless.
He was condemned by black radicals such as Malcolm X of ‘The Nation of Islam’ and members of the Black Panthers for being non-violent. They believed the only way to get equality was to fight for it and demand it. They were wrong.
Martin Luther King diversified his protest to fight for an end to poverty and to oppose the Vietnam War. He saw it all part of the same struggle.
In 1968 he was assassinated. A cowardly sniper shot him on his balcony at the motel he was staying in in Memphis.
I visited that balcony, stood on that spot and was grateful that we had people as brave, fearless, intelligent and outspoken. Without such people we would be oppressed and still in the Dark Ages. They gave us light and hope for a world of real equality.
Where are our leaders now?
I don’t want smaller divisions of countries, nations and blocs! I want bigger units.
I don’t want an independent Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I don’t want the United States or Russia to break up. I do not want Europe to break up.
I don’t care who makes the rules as long as the rules are fair.
I want bigger, not smaller! I want global policies.
The way we humans are running this planet is insane.
One third of the world starves while one third is obese. We have a world population explosion that is so out of control that it is threatening all the natural world and our own future. We have countries spending fortunes on better ways of frying other humans while the big issues are not being addressed and most of the world lives in poverty. We have pollution, logging, habitat destruction and the combustion of fossil fuels threatening the future of the planet and altering our climate. We have religious fanatics creating barbarous mayhem and claiming that God will solve it. We have wild animals being butchered for food and superstitious medical nonsense. We have inequality creating trillionaires while babies wither for lack of basic food and water.
The world is run on greed, selfishness, power and wealth.
The planet is finite.
If we let it continue like this we will destroy everything. The only hope is a world government who can tackle all these global issues and solve the problems.
I want bigger not smaller! I want the end of nations! I want a sensible way of running things with fairness, common sense and equality as its mandate.
I want us to mature and create a positive zeitgeist!
You can admire someone who spent his life fighting for equality and freedom. Someone who was unfairly imprisoned in terrible conditions for standing up for what he believed and yet emerged in old age without rancour. He did not seek revenge. He sought harmony, peace and a better society.
Intelligence, wisdom and idealism in equal measure!!
Nelson’s prison cell
The Rock Pile in the Quarry
The Quarry
The toilet cave where Nelson taught writing
The yard with hard labour
It takes courage to stand up against tyranny, oppression and threats but that’s what this young girl did. She refused to be bullied.
As a twelve year-old Malala campaigned for the right for girls to be educated. That is a basic human right and one that in the 21st century one would imagine would not be contentious. In Pakistan it was contentious enough to warrant death threats, threats of rape and threats to her family.
The Taliban had already blown up over a hundred girls’ schools.
Malala was not cowed by these threats and continued to campaign.
She was shot at point blank range in the head. One bullet hit her in the forehead. She was flown to England for treatment and made a full recovery.
The Taliban called for all Muslims to take up arms and kill her and her father. Asking for female education warrants a death sentence.
Malala is made of stern stuff and brushed off the death threats and continued to campaign. Her cause was taken up by Gordon Brown who, on her behalf, put forward a UN petition to the effect that all people in the world had the right to be educated. It led to Pakistan producing an ‘education for all’ law.
Malala was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
We need more like Malala who are prepared to stand up to inequality and bullying.
Help build a better world with a positive Zeitgeist.
Well done Malala – we are all with you!
With the death of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz the new King Salman has the opportunity to bring in greater equality, tolerance and freedom.
This is the chance to allow women to drive.
To improve the terrible human rights record.
To allow freedom of religion.
To allow freedom of speech.
It’s not much to ask is it? This is the 21st century!
Suffrage is the right to vote. The use of the term suffragette was introduced to be derogatory to women supporters of the right for females to vote and be equal to men.
A novel idea only a hundred years ago.
Many women wanted to have the vote. And they fought for it.
If anyone is in any doubt as to the strength, resolve, intelligence, bravery and resilience of women they only have to look at the history and actions of the British suffragettes. They were no dainty feminine flowers to be pushed around. They stood their ground and fought for their rights with all the fierceness and strength of mountain lions. There was no way they were going to back down or lose. Strangely the suffragettes were largely from the middle-classes and upper classes. The grinding poverty of the working classes was probably a factor in deterring them from becoming involved in the struggle. But the suffragettes knew how to organise.
They wanted the vote and they got it.
The tactics were active and sometimes violent. They used hunger strikes, chaining themselves to railings, arson and destroying mailboxes. Whatever it took to raise awareness. Emily Davidson threw herself under the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby and was killed.
Women were arrested and force-fed.
Emmeline Pankhurst was responsible for developing these militant tactics and refused to back down.
The supposed case against giving women the vote was that they were too emotional. Prime Minister Asquith changed his mind about supporting the vote for women because he thought they might vote against him. The establishment did not want democracy. It threatened their wealth and power.
The First World War intervened and the involvement of women on the home-front doing the work of their absent men forced the issue. In 1918 men over the age of twenty one were given the vote and women over the age of thirty (with caveats about owning property).
It was not until as late as 1928 that women over the age of twenty one were given the vote.
Every concession has been hard fought for and equality was a long time coming – it hasn’t even arrived yet!
Every word has a precise meaning but different people understand words differently. To comprehend what a person means you have to know where they are coming from.
When an American says Fanny they are referring to the back. When a Briton says Fanny they are referring to the front.
The Tories also have a different meaning for many words. I have tried to define certain words in common usage from the point of view of the Tory lexicon.
We’re You
All The common people
In are up to your necks in
This The mess we have created for you
Together And you alone will be made to pay!
Hence tax cuts for the rich. Inheritance tax cuts for the rich. 20% pay rises for the bosses. 11% pay rises for the MPs. Slashed pensions for the public servants. Worse conditions for the public servants. Four years of pay freeze and austerity for the poor!
It is easy to understand once you have mastered the definition of the words used!
It is not that politicians are lying bastards just that they define words differently.