Layer 548 . . . The Streets of London

The streets of London were busy on Saturday. Situation normal? Walking through the almost car-free, semi-pedestrianised streets of Soho and Covent Garden there were crowds of people of every age and ethnicity; hundreds of people - shopping, socialising, enjoying themselves. Prosperous-looking people, many of them laden with shopping bags - the majority of those bags bearing the names of up-market brands; none of them filled with ordinary groceries - none of your cheapo plastic bags from Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys or Lidl; or Primark, or Poundstretcher.

Recession? Falling incomes? Unemployment? Poverty? Not here, it seems. Maybe a metropolis is always different from its hinterlands. Over in Mayfair there were Bentleys and large black Mercedes on every street; huge Rolls Royces oozed silently like giant black slugs around their spiritual home - the streets between Berkeley Square, Grosvenor Square and Park Lane. It has to be said that nobody in Mayfair looked as though they'd been hit by austerity, or looked like they were 'in it' with the rest of us.

Meanwhile, that very afternoon, 100,000 people, many of whom had travelled to London from far away cities and towns, had marched in a huge demonstration against the government's failed austerity policies - setting off from the Victoria Embankment and wending their way via Westminster, Parliament, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall and Piccadilly to Hyde Park for a mass rally. This was an event organised by British Trade Unions, and the rally was addressed by many of their union leaders, and Ed Miliband.

100,000 may sound like a lot of people - but how come there weren't 1 million or more? Just how much social solidarity is there in this country? How many people, or how few people, are prepared to stand up and say, "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!"

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Incidentally - memo to Unison. Which complete prick within your organisation thought it was a good idea to buy shedloads of nasty plastic vuvuzelas and distribute them to the marchers? The cacophony made by these things was unbearable, and utterly alienating. A stupid, brain-damaging awful sound that stopped people talking, chanting and singing. A cretinous thing to do when half the point of a march is to hear human voices, to meet and talk with other people, and to raise consciousness - not dull it and blast it with ridiculous noise. All credit to Unison for getting thousands of its members out on the demonstration - but enough of the appalling racket already!

Contrast that with the brilliant sounds in other sections of the demo - brass bands, drummers, even bagpipes. Yes - even bagpipes sound better than bloody vuvuzelas.

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Will any of this make any difference anyway? Probably not, but it's worth making an effort to do SOMETHING.

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Was Brother Ed's speech any good? Not really, but at least he turned up and showed some solidarity and support. Which is a lot more than can be said for many of his so-called comrades.

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All photos (c) Oxzen Images

Layer 443 . . . People Power, Peaceful Protest, Civil Disobedience, Democratic Aspirations, Serving the Public, Learning Lessons, Big Banks, and The Big Society Bail-In

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The worldwide interest and indeed the fascination with the events in Egypt reminds me of the situation we had in 1968 when students and workers took to the streets in many countries to protest about human rights, the war in VietNam, inequality, low wages, apartheit, colonialism ,  neo-colonialism, etc.

After all these ensuing years we have learnt, if we didn't know it already, that the world's problems cannot be solved through religious movements, through Marxism, through the fall of communism, through globalisation, through the shock doctrine, through Chicago-school trickle-down economics, through American hegemony, etc.

Nobody in Egypt is talking about Marxist or Islamist solutions. Nobody expects the USA to sort out the impasse.

What we see in Egypt and Tunisia is peaceful, non-violent but assertive people power demanding 'common sense' solutions - human rights, democracy, fairness, social justice, an end to poverty, and so on.

This time around we also have the phenomenon of the Internet, which enables a world-wide dialogue to take place between peoples of all countries, all cultures, all shades of political opinion. It's a phenomenon that was originally developed by academia and the military but which has inadvertently enabled us to scrutinise leaked confidential documents that reveal some of the political, military and financial conspiracies through which the power elites maintain their power.

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Trade unions: the revolutionary social network at play in Egypt and Tunisia

The media have focused on Facebook and Twitter, but the pro-democracy movements have flourished thanks to unions

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/10/trade-unions-egypt-tunisia 

Perhaps the most overlooked factor in the demise of the authoritarian Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, and the weakening of Hosni Mubarak's grip on state power in Egypt, has been the trade unions in both countries.

While the media has reported on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as revolutionary methods of mobilisation, it was the old-fashioned working class that enabled the pro-democracy movements to flourish.

As working men and women in Egypt became increasingly vulnerable to exploitation and a deteriorating quality of life, the only legal trade unions – the ones affiliated to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) – proved worthless. The result of all of this was an unprecedented wave of strikes across the public and private sectors that began in 2004 and has continued to the present day. During the first four years of the current strike wave, more than 1,900 strikes took place and an estimated 1.7 million workers were involved.

As one worker in a fertiliser company put it, the effect of going on strike was to convince the employer "that they had a company with human beings working in it. In the past, they dealt with us as if we were not human."

The strikes began in the clothing and textile sector, and moved on to building workers, transport workers, food processing workers, even the workers on the Cairo metro. The biggest and most important took place back in 2006 at Misr Spinning and Weaving, a company that employs some 25,000 workers.

The state-controlled ETUF opposed these strikes and supported the government's privatisation plans. A turning point was reached when municipal tax collectors not only went on strike, but staged a three-day, 10,000-strong sit-in in the streets of Cairo, opposite the prime minister's office.

This could not be ignored, and the government was forced to allow the formation last year of the first independent trade union in more than half a century.

Pro-labour NGOs played a critical role in providing support and guidance to these strikes and protests. As a result, they were targeted by the regime, their offices closed and leaders arrested. The best known of these groups is the Centre for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS), which has been around since 1990.

Groups such as the CTUWS in turn enlisted the support of trade unions in other countries, and that support was invaluable – particularly in persuading the government to ease up on repression.

Those links with the international trade union movement have proven critical in recent days as well. When the Mubarak regime tried to cut off Egypt from the internet, CTUWS activists were able to phone in their daily communiques to the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Centre in Washington. The messages were transcribed, translated from the Arabic, and passed on to the wider trade union world using websites such as LabourStart.

In sharp contrast to the last seven years of Egyptian labour unrest, the Tunisian trade unions played a kingmaker role during the end phase of the uprising.

After decades of lethargy, docility and state domination of the General Tunisian Workers' Union (UGTT), Tunisia's largest employee organisation –with roughly half a million members – helped not only eradicate Ben Ali's regime, but determined the shape of the post-Ben Ali government.

Working-class Tunisians were animated by the same goals as their Egyptian counterparts; namely, the desire to secure dignity and respect, bring about real political democracy, and improve their standard of living.

Cultivating democracy in Tunisia, and Egypt requires two pre-conditions. First, workers' organisations must remain independent of state control. Second, to blunt the Iranian model, Islamists must be barred from hijacking free trade unions.

This helps to explain the worries of Habib Jerjir, a labour leader from the Regional Workers' Union of Tunis: "That's the danger," he said. "I'm against political Islam. We must block their path."

Economic democracy played a decisive role in Tunisian society before the Jasmine revolution. Ben Ali swiftly suffocated free and democratic trade union activity during his 23-year domination over organised labour (1987-2011). But he could not extinguish democratic aspirations among workers.

There are no exact parallels, but much of this reminds us of what happened in Poland in 1979-80. There, as in Egypt and Tunisia, we saw a mixture of a repressive, single-party state with trade unions that functioned as an arm of the ruling party. But there was also a network of NGOs that quietly worked behind the scenes, in workplaces and communities.

The result was the 1980 strike at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, the formation of Solidarnosc, and the end not only of the Communist regime in Poland but of the entire Soviet empire.

Today's pro-democracy revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia are the culmination of that process, and where it will lead we cannot predict – though Poland does provide an appealing model.

The pressing point is that experts misjudged the tumult in Egypt and Tunisia largely because they ignored and overlooked the democratic aspirations of working-class Tunisians and Egyptians. To understand why so many authoritarian Arab regimes remain fragile, one need to only to look through the window on to the court of labour relations.

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The Big Society Bail-In brings protest to your local bank

Civil disobedience is back in Britain, and UK Uncut want to show that it's our society that is too big to fail – not our banking system

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/10/uk-uncut-big-society-bail-in

by Ruth Griffiths

Look through the newspapers this month and two points will become immediately clear. First, the government is cutting, privatising and changing the very nature of social security and public goods that were won through the 20th century. Every aspect of what was fought for by generations seems under threat – from selling off the forests, privatising health provision, closing the libraries and swimming pools, and scrapping rural bus routes.

Second, the banks are doing just fine. February is bankers' bonus month; Barclays announces their gifts to themselves on the 15th, with its chief executive, Bob Diamond, expecting £9m just for him. While RBS is due to transfer its £900m bonus pool into the pockets of high-earning bankers on the 25th. These bonuses should make the disgrace of the MPs' expenses scandal look like chicken feed and are another demonstration of just how much we really are not all in this together.

The two, of course, are linked. Because it was our broken banking system, with its greed and reckless gambling, that caused the crash. The National Audit Office has reported that at its peak, the amount of support provided to the banks reached nearly £1tn. In 2009 alone, £131bn of public money was spent keeping the banking industry afloat – and taxpayers continue to spend money supporting the banking system. But instead of asking the banks to pay for their crisis, it is the public who were asked to support the banks that are now being made to pay a further price.

The £2.5bn so-called "raid" on the banks is a levy of around 0.075% of their balance sheets. That's pathetic. Since 2007 and the Northern Rock crash, it's been abundantly obvious that the banking system is unjust to the core: from exorbitant bankers' bonuses to gambling on debt, from massive tax loopholes to holding the country to ransom with their threats of moving to Zurich. Before the crisis, after the crisis, it's as if we've learned nothing:

 the banks still serve themselves, not the public.

Over the past four months UK Uncut has grown from a meeting in a pub to hundreds of high-street acts of protest against tax avoiders, highlighting the £25bn dodged in taxes every single year by some of the most wealthy individuals and profitable corporations. Combine this clamping down on tax avoidance with truly tough action on the banks and you've got

a genuine alternative to the cuts agenda.

It is simply a lie to say that the only way to reduce the deficit is to sacrifice essential public services, which support some of the poorest in our society. There is an alternative, but the government doesn't want to talk about it because they have got the same agenda as the banks:

making the poor pay the way for the rich.

This is an outrage and it has to be stopped.

UK Uncut has launched the Big Society Bail-In.

On 19 February we will be targeting Barclays, and on 26 February we will turn to RBS.

Civil disobedience is back in Britain, and it is on your local high streets.

Just like with Vodafone and Topshop, anyone can get involved, because tax-avoiding corporations and banks have put their outlets and branches everywhere. Every time a library is closed, every time a hospital is privatised,

there's somewhere nearby where people can protest – your friendly local high street.

Together, we're going to change those high-street branches into schools, libraries, gyms and forests.

We're going to show that it's our society that is too big to fail, not our broken banking system.

It's going to be fun, but it's also going to be hard work, because this isn't just about Twitter – it never was. It's about on the street, grassroots, getting-in-the-way politics, the same politics that won women suffrage, defeated the poll tax and could stop the cuts.

It's about telling your friends, your co-workers, your children, your mum.

It's about knowing why our welfare state is being attacked and targeting the right people in response.

Everyone should do what they can do to make this happen.

Come on the UK Uncut protests this month, and also make sure you're taking to the streets on 26 March.

Let's make the banks pay for their crisis.

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Layer 407 . . . Citizens of Poverty, Washington DC, Chairman Cameron, Cuts, Reforming Zeal, Students, Trade Unions, Len McClusky, Unite, and Charlie Brooker

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Symbols of democracy, pinned up against the coast
Outhouse of bureaucracy, surrounded by a moat
Citizens of poverty are barely out of sight
Overlords escape in the evening with people of the night
Morning brings the tourists, peering eyes and rubber necks
To catch a glimpse of the cowboy making the world a nervous wreck
It’s a mass of irony for all the world to see
It’s the nation’s capital, it’s Washington D.C.

http://lyrics.wikia.com/Gil_Scott-Heron:Washington,_D.C.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgVZ4b9O34s

Gil Scott-Heron wrote this back in the days when Reagan was president. In those days it was inconceivable that a man or woman of colour could become president of the USA. So things have really changed in America, in Washington DC? Hell NO!

Listen to this excellent report on Radio 4, and ask why nothing changes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wnyjb

In fact things get worse. Working class people in the city are even less able to live there these days. America is governed  by the rich, (supported by the middle class), for the benefit of the rich, (and the middle class). Any notion of social justice and reduction of inequality is completely out the window.

And let's not get smug about it in Britain, in London. But at least we still have some social housing, some decent public healthcare, some decent public schools. It remains to be seen how quickly this government can bring about irreversible change. They've given themselves till 2015, and are cracking on at a hell of a rate. See below.

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Chairman Cameron's regime is not a million miles from Mao

Anywhere you look in Whitehall, there's a secretary of state unleashing upheaval with reforming zeal

by Andrew Rawnsley

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/19/andrew-rawnsley-cameron-similar-mao

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Can anyone actually DO anything to prevent the neo-conservatives and the government from succeeding in their schemes?

Unions, get set for battle

We must join students in a broad strike movement to combat attempts to strangle the welfare state

by Len McCluskey

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/19/unions-students-strike-fight-cuts

Britain's students have certainly put the trade union movement on the spot. Their mass protests against the tuition fees increase have refreshed the political parts a hundred debates, conferences and resolutions could not reach.

We know the vast rise in tuition fees is only the down payment on the Con-Dem package of cuts, charges and job losses to make us pay for the bankers' crisis. The magnificent students' movement urgently needs to find a wider echo if the government is to be stopped.

The response of trade unions will now be critical. While it is easy to dismiss "general strike now" rhetoric from the usual quarters, we have to be preparing for battle. It is our responsibility not just to our members but to the wider society that we defend our welfare state and our industrial future against this unprecedented assault.

Early in the new year the TUC will be holding a special meeting to discuss co-ordinated industrial action and to analyse the possibilities and opportunities for a broad strike movement.

The bigger issue is winning working people to the conviction that the cuts can be stopped. It is vital to rebuild working-class confidence.

Unless people are convinced . . . that there is a coherent alternative to the Cameron-Clegg class war austerity, then getting millions into action will remain a pipedream. That alternative needs to be one the whole movement can unite around. A key part must be a rejection of the need for cuts. "What do we want? Fewer cuts later on", is not a slogan to set the blood coursing.

I would argue there is no case for cuts at all: the austerity frenzy has been whipped up for explicitly ideological reasons – to provide the excuse for what the Tories would have loved to do anyway, completing Thatcherism's unfinished business by strangling the welfare state. If the deficit is seen as a problem – it is not high by either historical or contemporary standards – a positive growth and tax-justice programme should be the main means of addressing it.

Kettling, batoning and mounted charges against teenagers have no place in our society.

And we should work closely with our communities bearing the brunt of the onslaught. That is why Unite has agreed to support the broad Coalition of Resistance established last month, which brings together unions and local anti-cuts campaigns from across the country.

The TUC's demonstration on 26 March will be a critical landmark in developing our resistance, giving trade union members the confidence to take strike action in defence of jobs and services. These are Con-Dem cuts, and this is a capitalist crisis. An attempt to blame Labour local authorities for the problem is a shortcut to splitting our movement and letting the government off the hook.

That doesn't mean Labour councils should get off free. There are, alas, Labour councillors embarking on union-bashing under cover of cuts, something we won't tolerate. Labour needs to understand that any social alternative to the present misery needs strong trade unions. And this is the moment when we have to prove ourselves.

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Unions warn of massive wave of strikes

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey vows to work with students to fight government's austerity agenda

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/19/unions-warn-massive-wave-strikes

The UK faces the prospect of widespread and co-ordinated industrial action in the new year, with the leader of the largest trade union today warning that it is "preparing for battle" with the government over its "unprecedented assault" on the welfare state.

The Unite leader's intervention comes as the prime minister is preparing for a key meeting with union leaders today. David Cameron has invited leaders of the biggest unions in the country as well as the TUC for Downing Street talks, although a spokesman for No 10 would not confirm this last night.

McCluskey is believed to be among those invited, but in a hard-hitting intervention in today's Guardian that puts Unite and its members at the forefront of the anti-cuts campaign he:

• Praised Ed Miliband for drawing a line under the party's Blairite past but called for a clearer alternative to the coalition's "austerity frenzy".

• Said student protesters have been treated as the "enemy within" in a similar way to trade union activists on picket lines in the 1970s and 1980s.

• Criticised police tactics of "kettling, batoning and mounted charges" on recent demonstrations.

• Said the trade union movement must not be paralysed by "anti-union laws" introduced in the 1980s.

• Called for a rebuilding of confidence in working-class communities that are likely to be the hardest hit by the government's plans.

• Accused the Tories of whipping up "austerity frenzy" in an attempt to complete "Thatcherism's unfinished business".

McCluskey's comments come amid a growing anti-cuts movement in the UK and across Europe, with strikes taking place in France, Spain and Greece.

In the UK this weekend protesters against corporate tax avoidance staged demonstrations in more than 50 towns and cities – under the banner of online campaign group UKuncut – arguing a government clampdown could bring in an extra £25bn in tax, greatly reducing the need for spending cuts.

Student leaders, who have organised four national demonstrations and scores of sit-ins to protest about the rise in tuition fees and the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, are already preparing a fresh wave of protests and demonstrations in the new year.

McCluskey said the meeting in January had been organised by the TUC and would be attended by leaders of the UK's main unions. He said one of the first tasks was to "reach out" to the student protesters.

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For something a little lighter, try today's Charlie Brooker column:

How to cut tuition fees

We should teach only the useful stuff: scavenging, strangling and how to operate a water cannon

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/20/charlie-brooker-how-cut-tuition-fees

And if this doesn't start a proper debate about what education is actually FOR, then I don't know what will.

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Layer 391 . . . Hislop, Do-Gooders, Radicals, Utopians, Reformers, Education and Schools

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This week saw the beginning of a new TV series made by the ever-lovable and naughty-but-nice Ian Hislop.

This excellent review tells it like it is:

Ian Hislop’s Age of Do-Gooders Review: Have I Got Do-Gooders For You!

http://channelhopping.onthebox.com/2010/11/29/ian-hislops-age-of-do-gooders-review-have-i-got-do-gooders-for-you/

Ian Hislop unpeels from his well-grooved seat on Have I Got News for You this week to deliver the first of an eye opening series about the moral supermen (and women) whose social influence on modern Britain has been too often overlooked. These historic ‘Do-Gooders’ are not the notable politicians or army generals we already know about (or should know), but the restlessly forward thinkers and social campaigners that have brought moral substance to British society as we now see it.

With boyish enthusiasm, Hislop takes us on a ride into class-split Victorian life starting with Wilberforce, the great campaigner who fought against slavery; to Robert Owen, who turned a mill factory from a bone crushing sweatshop into something a bit less like a sweatshop; Thomas Wakley, who exposed the downright idiocy of contemporary medical practice; moral crusader George Dawson, who made Brummies take responsibility; right up to pioneering social worker Octavia Hill, the true life Mary Poppins who reinvented social work by managing hundreds of homes for poor families.

Documenting the progression of thought is hard to pull off well, especially when the achievements are not always tangible. Hislop charts these quiet revolutionaries with vigour, drawing light parallels to issues of corruption and neglected responsibility we face today . . . This is actually pretty important stuff, when you think about it.

Watching the programme I was most struck by the work and ideals of Robert Owen, and his New Lanark mill, institute and schools.

Here's a man who was considered by his contemporaries to be too radical and 'utopian', but whose spiritual intelligence made him original, creative, humane, decent and empathetic. As Hislop pointed out, he recognised that "the market" is not an incredibly benign force. He therefore created decent accommodation for his employees, and also built schools for their children.

And not just any old schools either. He insisted on the curriculum being based on the development of all of the intelligences, as we might now say. He wanted children to learn how to get along with one another, how to share things, how to show kindness, and so on. All the things we'd now call personal, emotional, social and spiritual intelligence. In Owen's schools the arts, including music and dancing, had a central place.

Clearly these are things that other Victorian industrialists like Cadbury tried to do. The nearest we get to it these days is when employers decide to be a bit less stingy and pay people like cleaners and clerical assistants a 'living wage', instead of just a 'minimum wage'.

More info on Robert Owen here:

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-owen.htm

Robert Owen's educational venture at New Lanark helped to pioneer infant schools and was an early example of what we now recognize as community schooling. Yet education  was only a single facet of a more powerful social gospel which already preached community building on the New Lanark model as a solution to contemporary evils in the wider world.

Robert Owen (1771-1858), social and educational reformer, remains a controversial and enigmatic figure. Having profited enormously from enterprise in the early Industrial Revolution he set about trying to remedy its excesses through environmental, educational, factory and poor law reform. Synthesizing reformist ideas from the Age of Enlightenment and drawing on his own experience as an industrialist he constructed A New View of Society (1816), a rallying call for widespread social change, with education at its core. New Lanark, the test-bed for his ideas, became internationally famous.

Robert Owen continued his . . . campaign by promoting labour exchanges, consumer co-operatives, trade unions and other Owenite organisations. By the 1830s the man had become a movement headed by Owen as Social Father. Always education, for what Robert Owen was by then calling the New Moral World, was central to his thinking.

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Wikipedia says this about Owen:

Robert Owen (14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of socialism and the cooperative movement.

Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:

    * First, no one was responsible for his will and his own actions because his whole character is formed independently of himself; people are products of their environment, hence his support for education and labour reform, rendering him a pioneer in human capital investment.
    * Second, all religions are based on the same ridiculous imagination, that make man a weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite; (though in his later years he embraced Spiritualism).
    * Third, support for the putting-out system instead of the factory system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen

Very strange - that suggestion that by embracing "Spiritualism" Owen was somehow veering back towards religiosity, whereas he was clearly trying to develop ideas about the nature of the human spirit and spiritual intelligence, without any need to believe in God or super-human deities.

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http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRowen.htm

With the financial support of several businessmen from Manchester, Owen purchased Dale's four textile factories in New Lanark for £60,000. Under Owen's control, the Chorton Twist Company expanded rapidly. However, Robert Owen was not only concerned with making money, he was also interested in creating a new type of community at New Lanark. Owen believed that a person's character is formed by the effects of their environment. Owen was convinced that if he created the right environment, he could produce rational, good and humane people. Owen argued that people were naturally good but they were corrupted by the harsh way they were treated. For example, Owen was a strong opponent of physical punishment in schools and factories and immediately banned its use in New Lanark.

David Dale had originally built a large number of houses close to his factories in New Lanark. By the time Owen arrived, over 2,000 people lived in New Lanark village. One of the first decisions took when he became owner of New Lanark was to order the building of a school. Owen was convinced that education was crucially important in developing the type of person he wanted.

When Owen arrived at New Lanark children from as young as five were working for thirteen hours a day in the textile mills. He stopped employing children under ten and reduced their labour to ten hours a day. The young children went to the nursery and infant schools that Owen had built. Older children worked in the factory but also had to attend his secondary school for part of the day.

Owen's partners were concerned that these reforms would reduce profits. Unable to convince them of the wisdom of these reforms, Owen decided to borrow money from Archibald Campbell, a local banker, in order to buy their share of the business. Later, Owen sold shares in the business to men who agreed with the way he ran his factory.

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http://www.robert-owen.com/

Robert Owen was a man ahead of his time. During his lifetime, he endeavoured to improve the health, education, well-being and rights of the working class. This driving ambition to create a better society for all took him around the world, from a small mill village in Lanarkshire in Scotland to New Harmony, Indiana in America with varied success. Although, he encountered much criticism and opposition in his lifetime, he influenced reformers who came after him and many of his views are as relevant and resonate today in their modernity and progressive nature.

A Model Community

Under Robert Owen’s management from 1800 to 1825, the cotton mills and village of New Lanark became a model community, in which the drive towards progress and prosperity through new technology of the Industrial Revolution was tempered by a caring and humane regime. This gained New Lanark an international reputation for the social and educational reforms Owen implemented.

New Lanark had the first Infant School in the world, a creche for working mothers, free medical care, and a comprehensive education system for children, including evening classes for adults. Children under 10 were not allowed to work in the Mill.

Leisure and recreation were not forgotten; there were concerts, dancing, music-making and pleasant landscaped areas for the benefit of the community.

When Owen opened the Institute for the Formation of Character, which was effectively a community education centre for his workers, he outlined his visionary plans for an astonishingly progressive and enlightened system of education which he believed was the key to a happier society, and universal harmony.

"What ideas individuals may attach to the term "Millennium" I know not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.”

- Extract from Robert Owen’s "Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark"
New Year’s Day, 1816

Nearly 200 years further on, and have we yet achieved a society without crime, without poverty, without misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold? I think not. Ignorance still rules, OK?
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Layer 363 . . . Creativity, Workshops, Philosophy, Malmesbury, Enlightenment, Meditation, Spiritual Intelligence, Shock and Awe Finances

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Workshops and Beyond

I was looking in this guy's workshop the other day. He had a lot of stuff in there. Workbenches, tools galore; wood, saws, metal sheets, lathes, screws, nails, brackets, wire, socket sets, paints, brushes, electric drills, tins and bottles of chemicals, reference books - the whole of the kit any working man or practical man would use for making, mending, repairing and generally creating.

In certain communities and families it's just a given that a man needs a workshop or a shed in order to do his man things - a place and a space where he can lose himself in peace, organise his stuff to suit himself, and have his thoughts to himself.

I sometimes wonder whether I did my son a big disservice by never having a proper workshop. It turns out he's a practical guy, and potentially a creative guy - someone who enjoys using his hands as well as his imagination. By not offering him an 'apprenticeship' of time messing about in a workshop he never got into the habit of being creative with various tools and materials. He can apply himself to it if he has to, but it's not like a habit or a way of living.

The fact that my own dad didn't have a proper workshop until after I'd left home probably meant that I didn't have a grounding in using tools in a creative way either. And there was no way that this was ever going to happen at school. Though we did have token woodwork and metalwork 'lessons', it was always a question of following specific instructions given by the teacher - never an opportunity to work in any creative or self-directed way. It was only in the 5th form that we could develop our own projects, which in my case resulted in very fine backrest for my Modded-up Lambretta.

Considering didatic teaching methods in subjects like metalwork and woodwork might help to understand the effects of didactic teaching right across the curriculum. How does anyone get into the habit of thinking and doing things creatively unless we have daily practice of thinking and working creatively? Is it any wonder that so few of us habitually think creatively, or live life creatively? Is it any wonder so few acquire the habit of lifelong learning and a love of learning for its own sake?

Maybe it used to be different for girls, assuming they had a mother, at least, who was able to teach various sorts of creative skills with fabrics and wools, needles, scissors and pins. In a sense, too, kitchens have always been creative workshops for families who cook with basic ingredients, and approach food and eating with imagination and enjoyment. Unfortunately this didn't happen for me and my sister - family meals were matters of meat and two veg, simply and unimaginatively boiled, roasted and fried. Not that my mum was to blame for that - having grown up in a household where food was limited in availability in the shops, and the family was too big for the kitchen to function as a creative workshop.

What we should really be doing with our kids is letting them loose with piles of wood, metals, paper, paints, vegetables and meats and allowing them to experiment and invent to their hearts' content. Apart from being somewhat messier, wouldn't that be better than letting them fill their time with TV and computer games? These things have their place in modern life, but the place ought to be a lot smaller.

In some ways my favourite creative machine when I was a kid was my bike. My parents clearly trusted me to ride it safely because they did me the enormous favour of allowing me the freedom to roam far and wide, in town and country. What better way to investigate the wider world beyond your own backyard, street, estate and town? Cycling used to be, and it still is, the best way to discover new places and to experience them to the full.

In terms of home workshops, there are so few people who still work creatively with their hands that it's not surprising that they're ceasing to exist - at least as a separate basement, loft, attic, outbuilding or shed. These days people would rather invest in a so-called summerhouse or a basic storage shed than build a workshop. The nearest we tend to get at home to spending time in a workshop or a studio is to surround ourselves with computers, creative software, routers, webcams, printers, hard drives, amplifiers, speakers, books, paper, post-its, newspapers, magazines, notebooks, pinboards, file boxes, scissors, paper cutters, pens and pencils.

Careful though - if you don't have the space for a separate 'office' you could easily create quite a lot of mess and untidyness, and find yourself living in a workshop or studio rather than a 'home'.

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Moving to Malmesbury

As readers will have noticed on the label, Oxzen is concerned with "Enquiries into philosophy . . . "

Malmesbury bids to become UK's first 'philosophy town'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/18/malmesbury-philosophy-town

The quiet Wiltshire market town of Malmesbury is hoping to capitalise on an increasing interest in thinking and become known as the UK's first "philosophy town".

Planned "philosophy town" events include a festival of history, ideas and philosophy and an all-night examination of enlightenment.

Philosopher Angie Hobbs believes the time is right for a "philosophy" town.

"I think people are hungry for this stuff," she said. "We've got ourselves in such as mess in the world – the environment, the banking crisis, the whole issue of fairness.

"Philosophy may be able to help a bit. We don't have all the answers but we can help the debate."

"It's OK to dabble. Don't be scared. There are a lot of people thinking we really need this because we've got into such a mess not using human reason to its full potential."

Michael Cuthbert, head of the philosophy town project, believes that radio programmes such as Radio 4's In Our Time and Moral Maze, and the rise in popularity of the work of thinkers such as Alain de Botton, showed the time was ripe for a philosophy destination.

"People are more loose in their loyalties and more questioning. They want to grapple with big ideas," he said.

He enthuses about initiatives such as the walking route – professional philosophers will walk alongside participants or meet them in the pub for a debate at the end of the day.

"There's a link between philosophy and walking – from the professor pacing up and down to the great pilgrimages."

Finn Spicer, a Malmesbury resident and part of Bristol University's philosophy department, agreed there was a growing hunger for philosophy.

"And why shouldn't Malmesbury be a centre for that?" he said. Spicer believes it is a thoughtful kind of town where people care about ideas.

"In cafes you do overhear conversations about serious matters and want to chip in."

Fortifying himself with a pint of Pigswill ale in the Whole Hog pub before heading off for a Hobbes lecture was business consultant Jon Gundry.

"You don't have to be a full-time philosopher to like hearing ideas and experiencing argument," he said.

Catherine Doody, the Malmesbury councillor who holds the tourism brief, said: "It would be amazing if we could become another St Ives or Stratford. This is a vibrant community interested in what happening here and elsewhere."

Did she have any personal philosophical thoughts? "You live the best way you can and look after others and enjoy life."

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The Philosopher's Walk in Kyoto is the name given to a 2km-long path through north-eastern Kyoto which covers five significant temples and two shrines.

http://www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/travel/kyoto_philosophers_walk.htm

http://www.cyclekyoto.com/philosophers-walk

"Walking Meditation" is a traditional method of calming the mind and bringing stillness to its ceaseless and often non-productive thinking. We all experience this when we walk alone or with a silent companion, especially in peaceful and beautiful places where we can re-connect with nature.

Meditation is concerned with the personal, the spiritual and the metaphysical. Philosophy, on the other hand, is concerned with ideas, the intellect, politics, government, ethics, morality and so on.

Meditation is concerned with the transcendental and the spiritual. Philosophy addresses practical issues of how we live as individuals and as societies.

The European Enlightenment was a movement which embraced science and rational thought as a means building a better world. Reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority, instead of blind faith or obedience to the church, the monarchy, the Pope, God, custom & tradition, etc.

To Buddhists and Hindus, however, 'enlightenment' refers to a unique and personal experience which wholly transforms the individual. It is a spiritual state in which the individual transcends desire and suffering and attains Satori or Nirvana. Bodhi is achieved through individual meditation by ridding oneself of false beliefs and the hindrance of passions.

What we need is for every town and community to transform itself into both a place of philosophy and of enlightenment. I'll happily live in the first place that achieves this.

See Layers 223, 39, 178, etc.

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Meanwhile, here in Dumb Britain, we stumble on in states of ignorance, fear, greed, cupidity and stupidity.

Shock and awe finances

No public service cuts are needed. Our plan to deal with the deficit is all about jobs, revenue and growth

by Mark Serwotka

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/17/finances-cuts-public-services-welfare

When George Osborne  sits down in the Commons on Wednesday after announcing the comprehensive spending review, he will have set out a package of cuts that will fundamentally undermine the welfare state. Yet there does not need to be a single penny cut from public services – or a single job lost.

These cuts are unavoidable, we are constantly told. Our economy is in a mess. Public spending has been running out of control. The country has "record debts". In what amounts to the political equivalent of shock and awe, the government has drilled this narrative into us so we simply accept our fate. But none of this is true. Our situation has nothing to do with public spending. The collapse in the finance sector, due to greed, caused a sharp recession and higher unemployment, tax revenues shrank dramatically, and the welfare bill increased.

In making cuts, the government is making a political choice, not responding to "record" debt. Research by my union shows that, between 1918 and 1961, the debt was more than 100% of GDP. Osborne's budget papers put the current debt at 53%. Between 1918 and 1961 different choices were made. We established the NHS and welfare services, built council houses, developed state education and pensions, and invested in industry.

Instead, Osborne is choosing to realise a long-held ambition to rid the rich and powerful of the burden of the welfare state. The way we pay benefits to those in need, how we get people back to work, our ability to collect the tax that funds healthcare, education and other vital services for millions of people – no corner of government will be spared the axe.

The cuts threaten to reintroduce Victorian levels of poverty and inequality. The coalition has used the notion of "fairness" as cover for a new division of people into the deserving and undeserving poor, and a demonisation of those receiving welfare.

Our pamphlet, There Is an Alternative: The Case Against Cuts in Public Spending, sets out what could be done instead. We outline a strategy to deal with the deficit by investing to create jobs, raise revenues and generate economic growth. We can also tackle the £120bn a year in tax that is evaded, avoided or not collected, and use the £850bn we hold in nationalised banking assets to work in our interests.

The government is attempting to make us choose who should suffer the most as it tries to generate a sense of inevitability about its draconian cuts. We must not allow ourselves to be divided: the public from the private sector; those in work from those out of work; British nationals from migrants. Unity can be built if we grasp that there does not need to be a single cut in anyone's public services, jobs or benefits.

Trade unions have often worked alone to defend their members from cuts. Now we are building new alliances – nationally and locally – with other unions, pensioners, charities and others to defend jobs and the services our members take pride in delivering. We are planning the most widespread popular movement for many years.

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