good morning! good morning!
it is the day of the gig. horsemouth has already had a little practice. as the afternoon shades into evening he will go to play.
it is also the anniversary of horsemouth's impersonating george lansbury the leader of the poplar rates rebellion (or at least the publication of the photos of him doing this in costume)..
when horsemouth was a child (in the valleys of south wales) the local estate was called lansbury park and even the local school was named after him. horsemouth was several times told the tale of the rates rebellion, of how brave and honest people united and stood up against the government scheme to further impoverish the poor.
this was an example of good solidarity and unity argues horsemouth.
'I live shut up in my house, yet I know everything, and that is cause for some happiness in our adversity.' - anonymous priest, report on the state of the pestilence in naples in the year 1656, report dated 20th june 1656.
the argument made is that the spanish authorities deliberately let the plague spread through naples to break the unity and solidarity of the peoples. the kind of unity that had led to the near successful rebellion by masaniello in 1647. (horsemouth's source on all this is gustaw herling account of it written in january 1990)
the argument made more recently by the anti-vaxers is that the plague (covid) wasn't real (or that it wasn't as dangerous as people said) and that it was being exaggerated to break the unity and solidarity of the people and to deliberately impose controls on the people's movement.
there is a lot of unity and solidarity slooshing around in the uk at the moment (post brexit). but it is probably bad unity and solidarity. horsemouth was interested to watch the panoroma documentary on resistance in oxford to the 15 minute city/ traffic control measures.
interestingly hackney (one of the seaside towns) has several of the earliest examples of such measures round the de beauvoir estate. these now pass unnoticed. of course on one level these (ULEZes etc.) are just local taxation schemes, on another level they are a sensible response to the levels of pollutants in the air in cities as a result of our over-reliance on the car (that has come to dominate city streets).
finally there is the notion that to mitigate the effects of global warming (a separate issue from air pollution) we are all going to have to travel less (which broadly horsemouth supports). of course really and truthfully the best way to deal with global warming is to get rid of the rich and capitalism and to instigate the transition to full communism (but this is just horsemouth's opinion and he sees little chance of it actually happening).
to reiterate this, once again the notion that ULEZes and 15 minute cities are a deliberate attempt to break the unity and solidarity of the people horsemouth doubts. this is because he doesn't see the unity and solidarity of the people being expressed in a good way he just sees cars and reaction.
how will horsemouth get to the gig this evening?
he may get a train. he may get a bus. he may even walk over (this would take him just a bit over an hour).
No comments:
Post a Comment