.
It's a bit of an effort to keep up with what's happening in the world these days.
Good things have been happening in Spain. The people are stirring. Crowds have been gathering in towns and cities and demanding an end to the political and economic bullshit that's being inflicted on them, just like it is everywhere else. The start of the European Summer?
Obama
Of course he's driven by a spirit that neither he, nor anyone else, can control. He's smart enough to know how fast he can move with the things he wants to do in a hideously conservative country like America. Some things you don't even try - rather than rush forward and suffer a heavy defeat. He's learnt the lessons of history.
........................................................
Gil Scott-Heron: leader of a revolution you could dance to
He fought the powers that be and paid the price. But he also taught us that politics plus soul equals movement
by Suzanne Moore
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/may/31/gil-scott-heron-revolution?&CMP=EMCMUSEML4515
When Gil Scott-Heron asked in the mid-70s: "Sister/woman have you heard from Johannesburg?" I hadn't actually. I was too young. Too uninformed, maybe, to know really what was going on. He also told us the news was unreliable. And that the situation of black people in America was not far from that of those who would end up rioting two years later in Soweto.
That was important. But what was important to me at the time was that I liked the songs. This was joyous music: politics with soul. And soul meant movement. It meant a revolution you could dance to.
I cant remember where I first saw him, in the early-80s. For some reason I always associate seeing him with seeing Fela Kuti for the first time. "Music is the weapon of the future," said Fela, another kind of prophet.
By then we all knew because of Gil that the revolution would not be televised. We knew about Detroit. We knew this ain't really life, this ain't nothing but a movie. A B-movie. We knew about Ronald Reagan ("mandate my ass"). We knew and were changed by what he knew. He changed our world. And we danced to those changes. We could not stand still. We had to move. We knew that voice, pitched low but light. Revolution was irresistible once you heard that. It was anger as seduction, and in between songs he would talk and talk in a way that you could listen to forever.
And we did.
And we will.
...................................................................
Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage
The pay gap at the top should change the terms of political trade. But the squeezed middle must first learn to look up
by Peter Wilby
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/18/super-rich-middle-class-rage
Why aren't we more angry? Why isn't blood running, metaphorically at least, in the streets? Evidence of how the rich prosper while everyone else struggles with inflation, public spending cuts and static wages arrives almost daily. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that last year incomes among the top 1% grew at the fastest rate in a decade. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, the top 1,000 are £60.2bn better off this year than in 2010, bringing their collective wealth close to the record pre-recession levels.
Now comes a report this week from the High Pay Commission, set up by the Labour pressure group Compass. It reveals that FTSE 100 chief executives are on average paid £4.2m annually, or 145 times the median wage – and on current trends will be paid £8m, or 214 times the median, by 2020. In the financial sector, even the CEO can seem modestly rewarded: this year, the top-paid banker at Barclays will get £14m, nearly four times the chief executive's earnings and 1,128 times more than the lowest-paid employee receives.
Meanwhile, once inflation is taken into account, most people's incomes are set to fall, after 15 years of virtual stagnation.
.......................................................
Nakba day: we waited 63 years for this
The remarkable bravery of refugees on Nakba day was the first act of a Palestinian summer
by Karma Nabulsi
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/19/nakba-day-palestinian-summer
It was the moment for which we had all been holding our breath for decades – for 63 years to be precise. Palestinians everywhere watched the unfolding scene transfixed and awed. The camera followed the movements of a small group of people advancing from the mass of protesters. They were carefully making their way down a hill towards the high fence that closed off the mined field separating Syria from its own occupied territory of the Golan that borders historic Palestine, now Israel.
.........................................................
The 'localist' assault on social housing
The localism bill sets the conditions for US-style mass private landlordism and a revolving door of housing need and insecurity
by Glyn Robbins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/18/localism-bill-social-housing
The localism bill, the legislative framework for the "big society", gets its third reading in parliament this week. Amid the furore over NHS privatisation, potentially far-reaching changes to planning, public services and particularly housing have had less attention. The Con-Dems are using the easy rhetoric of the golf club – cutting waste and bureaucracy, promoting individual freedom – as camouflage for an attack on the welfare state and the poor.
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Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Monday, June 6, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Layer 443 . . . People Power, Peaceful Protest, Civil Disobedience, Democratic Aspirations, Serving the Public, Learning Lessons, Big Banks, and The Big Society Bail-In
.
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.
.............................................
..............................................
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.
.
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.
.............................................
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.
..............................................
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.
.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
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'.
..........................................................................
Moving to Malmesbury
As readers will have noticed on the label, Oxzen is concerned with "Enquiries into philosophy . . . "
.................................................
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.
...........................................
Meanwhile, here in Dumb Britain, we stumble on in states of ignorance, fear, greed, cupidity and stupidity.
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'.
..........................................................................
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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