Britain has been broken, splintered from every corner and they can’t quite put all the pieces back together again. This shot of a ‘gaffer tape union jack’ could not be a more appropriate visual metaphor, and all the other pictures this week symbolically represented the distorted,and subsequently divisive, perception of our national identity. Monday’s shot was an image that reflected the “great” days of the British Empire. Tuesday was a street art portrait of the Queen in her headscarf, looking like an ordinary elderly woman, the flag behind her, sprayed onto a shutter of a shop closed for business. Wednesday was a woman kneeling in front of the English flag, shadows closing in around her, seemingly defeated whilst a sign in the window states: ‘Take the risk, or lose the chance’. And then yesterday, a shot of a newspaper (yesterday) which cruelly echoed the famous headline that appeared after the first massive wave of European immigrants into this country: “Will the last person in Poland please switch off the lights?”
A lot of people freaked out when so many Eastern Europeans came over here but there is only one statistic that was ever relevant in relation in immigration: they put more in than they take out. So what was the problem exactly? A threat to our sovereignty? What even is that? Why are we defined by the country we were born in? We could have been born anywhere. Why do we need to take up everything it stands for, lock, stock and barrel? Everyone’s been banging on about sovereignty but all I know is you can’t pay your rent with it and you can’t eat it.
The attempt to preserve our national identity in the face of a globalised existence has brought this country to its knees but it doesn’t really exist. It is a concept. It is not real. In the highly enlightening book ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah he explains how societies are held together with ‘imagined belief systems’ which are ideas that everyone agrees to follow so that we can all get along and function. Religion, capitalism, national and cultural identity are all ‘imagined belief systems that people adhere to so that their society doesn’ fall apart at the seams. When people stop believing in the same thing, it all starts to fragment and divisions emerge and hostility between different belief systems takes hold. This is where we are at. In order for harmony to be reinstated we would need to create a new belief system. The question is, what could we all unite over? What do we now all believe? In a post-truth world of fake news where opinion carries more weight that fact, it will be hard to find anything we all agree on. Even the flat earth theory is back for fuck’s sake. Now that little nugget of truth arrived many moons ago so the fact it is now in question again shows how demented things have got. Devolution is officially in effect.
The only thing we could all agree on, if everyone was to accept the data and what they know deep down to be happening is that it is all a distraction from the climate emergency that is taking over this planet. This is thr common enemy that will affect everyone and could be the one thing that would finally unite us as a single tribe where we would see beyond identity, race, gender, religion, politics and just see a single species in desperate need of unification to defeat this threat to our survival…if only people could agree it existed. Acceptance will lead to a solution. And we do need a solution. Nothing else matters…not even Brexshit.
I went to my first ever Extinction Rebellion this week. It was very encouraging to meet people who are not just going to sit back and wait for nothing to happen. They are galvanising into a global organisation that will do anything it can to raise the issue so that they declare it the level of emergency that it truly is. They are organising a massive demonstration/shut down of London on April 15th but are planning things all over the world. There are groups springing up everywhere. If there isn’t one local to you, start one. Time to get on board cos they’re ain’t no other train leaving the station. We have to fight. We cannot go from denial to defeat and skip the solution bit. We inherited a working planet and an environment contusive to our species. We must do everything we can to pass that on to future generations. Join the resistance: https://rebellion.earth
I have featured old people in this week’s posts as they are the only generation alive that will not witness the debilitating effect climate change will have on this planet’s ability to make life habitable for humans. This is because they will be dead. Lucky them. When death becomes a good option you know you’re in trouble..
Too dramatic? Too depressing? Stay with me. Please. If you are already switching off because you can’t face reading this, please do everything you can to override your brain’s natural preference to turn away from calamitous news – its a defence mechanism which, ironically, will cause our destruction if left unchecked. We simply can’t ignore this anymore. So, just say to your brain..dear brain, (maybe you don’t need to be so formal) Yo brain! (if u iz bit street) don’t switch off! We need to know what’s going on here. Stop looking for dopamine hits and try to pay attention, just for a lil bit then if you’re a good boy I’ll show you a notification..
And so we’re back in the room, back on the doom. Please proceed ahead…
This is no longer about future generations, this will affect everyone alive today who isn’t old. And even if this was to happen to generations beyond the ones already here why don’t we give a shit about the humans on this Earth 100 years, 200 years from now? Are we that self-centric? They are the grandkids of today’s grandkids – why would we not be concerned for them as well?
All the scientific predictions, even the alarmist ones, are falling way short of what we are already witnessing, namely the increased acceleration of the warming of the climate as the domino effects starts to take effect. And still nothing is being done about it. Not in any significant way whatsoever by anyone. Nothing that will remotely prevent what is definitely ahead….
And not wishing to burst your bubble, but recycling your milk cartons and giving up on plastic straws or signing a petition is not going to do it. Doing our bit is no longer enough. Our bit has to be bigger. Much much bigger. So big you couldn’t even call it a bit. You would have to call it a ‘lot’ instead. We need drastic action now and yet there is no sign of it from anyone in power anywhere in the world. So now what?
I went down to one of the Extinction Rebellion road blocks this week to join in and to see the effect it was having. I wanted to know if the public were supporting the cause. After contacting a few mobile numbers I eventually found a very small band of protestors lined up against the oncoming traffic at a major thoroughfare in West Kensington. Were they being cheered on and applauded for their actions? No. They were being met with was utter hostility and anger. From everyone that surrounded them.
Cars and lorries beeped their horns relentlessly at them, passersby shouted abuse at them. Onlookers loathed them for what they were doing and they weren’t even affected by it. And all they were doing was stopping traffic for 7 minutes at a time and being very polite in the process. The police were actually the most cordial to them out of everyone present but they have worked out that what the Rebels want is to be arrested so they are doing anything but that.
I listened to some of the people standing around…
One guy said: “There are much more important issues than this right now”.
Ironically, there aren’t. Not one. This is the only thing that matters now and it seems to be the only thing that no-one is bothering to do anything about. Everything else needs to be shelved until we deal with this. It is not for tomorrow. It is for now. This is urgent. We are rapidly running out of time. If you are focussing on your career, your kids, your digital love or even supporting other causes, it will all be moot if we render large chunks of this planet uninhabitable. Everything we are focusing on right now will be irrelevant.
Another woman said: “they’re just disrespecting people and pissing them off. Its not these drivers fault. They should get the government to sort this out. I know it will take longer but this ain’t the way forward”
Maybe not, but they are only doing this because all other avenues have failed and there are no other options. Marching doesn’t work. Lobbying doesn’t work, petitions, celebrity campaigns, documentaries, decades of corroborated scientific research and yes, even writing about it, doesn’t work. The Rebels think that civil disobedience is all that is left and they might be right, but based on the amount of animosity they received from everyone around them, it’s going to be a seriously uphill struggle to get the people on their side. This movement has received a lot of support and has already succeeded in raising the issue and galvanising action and is making traction through the treacle of public paralysis but you can see how resistant and unwilling a lot of folk are to face up to the realities of this threat and seem to resent anyone who shoves it in their face. (guilty your honour)
The funny thing is we are all technically part of The Extinction Rebellion because we are all against extinction right? Its a given isn’t it so why isn’t it worth fighting for? And we should be supporting anyone who has got off their arse to try and deal with this shitstorm that is looming ever closer? And how can you really be in favour of inaction over action? We need to realise it is down to us and no-one else. There is no knight in shining armour coming to save us, no magic wand that will fix everything. No future bit of carbon capture tech is going to be invented in time that will save us. And interplanetary travel is just fiction folks. We ain’t ever getting off this spinning rock. Sorry.
And leaving it to our government as the woman suggested is not only an utter dead end but they are actively worsening the situation with fracking and the building of a 3rd runway at Heathrow. And just so we are all clear this is what green policies the Tories have abandoned, axed or removed funding for since they have been in power…
support for onshore wind
green home schemes
solar subsidies
green investment bank
incentives to buy green cars
zero carbon homes
green tax targets
tidal power
So why do we think they are going to fix the situation when everything that might potentially help they have ditched, given up on or sold off? I was pretty depressed at the reaction of the public to this protest. It very well might not change anything but this is last chance at the saloon to wake people up to what’s ahead and has been born out of utter desperation following the exhaustion of all other avenues. I’m sure everyone present would be rather doing anything else than be relentlessly honked and shouted at but were there because we are now entering desperate times which require desperate measures.
The effects of climate change (fires/floods/droughts/desertification/pollution/mass species annihilation), which are already in full swing and already wrecking havoc and destruction are accelerating as domino effects of a warming climate come into play. This is not some apocalyptic sci-fi future we are talking about. This is right now. It is already here. And still we do nothing. What has to happen for us to wake up? How many need to die before we shake ourselves out of our slumber. Will it need to be millions? Billions? How many before we do something?
The only real way out of this mega shitstorm is to have strong governments in every country take the situation as seriously as is required and tell the public what needs to happen. Not dress it up so they don’t upset anyone. Just tell us what we can and cannot do anymore and we’ll just have to accept it. For example…
If they told us we couldn’t have petrol cars anymore, it would suck but we would get over it
If they told us we had to stop flying everywhere, it would suck but we would get over it
If they told us we couldn’t have meat 3 times a day anymore it would suck but surely we would get over it (being a smug 85% indoor vegan I am obvs ok with this one)
If they told us we couldn’t have avocados in march, it would suck but surely we would get over it
If they told us to give up all our tech, all our comforts, all our toys…it would suck but what the fuck else can we do?
basically everything that makes our lives better and easier and more fun would have to be drastically reduced or given up completely…they would all have to go until we get this shit under control…yes, it would totally fucking suck to high heaven but I’m pretty sure existence of any kind is better than no existence at all. Would you rather be alive and not eating a burger or dead and not eating anything? Hmmmm….
(NB: I don’t actually know if avos need to be imported in march but you get the point, take any fruit or veg, find out when its hard to get and then imagine not having it during that period. Is it really that terrible?)
Whatever we would have to do without we would have to be ok with it, whatever is necessary, because the alternative is longer an option. The alternative to all this is to wait and watch as we make this environment impossible for us to survive in. It took the earth billions of years to get to this stage where life can exist as it does. Do we want to remove this capability in under 200 years?
Is that what we want on our species tombstone? “Here lies homo sapien. Fucked life forever in a really short space of time…”
SPOILER ALERT: Harsh facts and grim forecast only ahead…
Tough talk from the streets this week…feels like they’re trying to rile us up. As if we weren’t riled up enough..we maybe need a bit less rile in our lives or maybe we need more? These are a call to action. To shake us out of our apathy. It feels we are sleepwalking along the path to doom, incapable or unwilling to deal with anything that the future might hold. We are really on just getting on in the hope that it will all go away. It won’t, and with this total lack of urgency or action…not a chance in hell, which is kinda where we’re heading if we maintain this ‘can’t deal with it’ attitude…
In London this week The “Extinction Rebellion’ , a new eco movement group are mounting a series of protests trying to pressurise the energy dept of this country to start seriously implementing the policies that are essential to stop us from heading into climate meltdown. Will they listen? 500 or so protestors are willing to get arrested for their actions. Will they pay attention? Unlikely. But what if it was 5,000? 50,000? 50 million? What if the entire country went down there? Would they do anything then?
Even with mounting public pressure it seems unlikely because they are already fully aware of the facts, they’re not stupid but they are corrupt. This accounts for the lack of any credible initiatives as they are essentially in the pockets of the oil industry and energy firms who, by the way, will never get out of the way whilst they have power and money; two things they have spent the last few decades stockpiling in abundance.
Last week, over in America, a bill designed to initiate the first big wave of environmental policy and bring in serious carbon taxes for all polluters was destroyed by the Fossil Fuel Fucks who pumped millions into lobbying and advertising to sway the minds of those that continue to be bought. We need to find a way to eliminate their stronghold on societies and governments all over the world and The Extinction Rebellion is maybe just what we need right now to shake things up a bit although honestly am not very hopeful.
I don’t wish to sound defeatist to the efficacy of action as apathy is what has got us to this point in the first place but what we would need to do as a species is a gi-normous gargantuan and immediate unified effort. Every country across the entire globe would have to agree to radically change everything almost overnight and be 100% together in their commitment to removing all the activities that cause emissions. We would need total human harmony across the board. Which is clearly in abundance everywhere. Unfortunately as there doesn’t seem to be a country on the planet whose population can agree on anything right now, especially this one, and what actual chance is there of that? Answer: slim to none.
The only way would be to fire everyone in government and replace them with politicians strong enough to turn down their cash which would mean finding/ growing (accelerated cloning) morally impregnable human beings devoid of self-motive & greed. Once in place they could then ditch fossil fuels entirely. This is obviously utterly in the realms of fantasy and sci-fi and pretty pre-tay unlikely. The saddest thing is renewable energy sources could sustain us, all the know how is there and it would work. We might just have to go back to simpler living for a while, but that might not be such a terrible thing. But those who stand to lose from their implementation will not get out of the way. They would rather everyone lost everything. They would rather render this planet uninhabitable for humans than suffer a profit drop. That’s how fucked up it is.
It was never about saving the planet, it was about saving ourselves and we are doing a really shit job of that currently. I saw this doc on vimeo recently called “earth rise” which was about the photo taken of Earth from the Apollo 8 mission in ’68. They were told to photograph anything of interest on their journey but didn’t realise that the most mind-blowing shot would be of the planet they had just left.
As they looked back they saw it in all its beauty. Watching this film (link) made me realise as I’m sure it did those astronauts that Earth is actually paradise. This is it, its not elsewhere, not after this, paradise is here and now. This floating spinning blue marble is an oasis in a massive sea of nothingness. There is nothing else around for light years and there might not be any other life out there. The fact that life exists here is a miracle. In the film, Gravity, the opening tagline is “In space, life is impossible”. We cannot make life impossible here. It doesn’t matter if we don’t survive as a species as long as life is able to continue after us. Desertification is increasing at the rate of 130,000 sq kilometres a year which means at this rate we are going to turn this functioning eco system into another Mars. Maybe Mars was once like Earth and something similar happened. We cannot let that happen here.
So what’s left? Keep your head down and your eyes on the screens in your hand and wait for the storm to hit? Umm, yep. That’s about the size of it. One of the main reasons that we are big on talk but lack the ability to engage in action is that we have been spoonfed our existence. We don’t know how to fight for anything anymore. Everything is given to us on a plate so maybe when the shit hits the fan we will return to survival and maybe that is exactly what we need. We currently live in a world ‘beyond survival’ and it has clearly made us all crazy trying to fill the void of not having to fend for our lives. What we have filled it with is really utter nonsense and so spending our days trying to hunt and not get eaten in the process could actually be the best solution for the human race.
I personally won’t be engaging in such activity. I ain’t killing anyone or anything for my dinner. I’m a peace baby. And an 85% indoor vegan. What the fuck do I know about fighting for food? And we’re definitely going to have to breed a generation tougher than the snowflakers…they’re hurt by words so fuck knows what sticks n stones are going to do to them..
So what do we do in the meantime? We could all join the Extinction Rebellion, more productive than watching netflix and at least we’d feel we were doing something…otherwise you have to choose between total denial and abject fear and neither are great options lets be honest…
Apologies (ish) for the negative take on current situation but realism and pessimism seem now sadly to be the same thing. Soz. I have been saying for a while that there was no point wasting a perfectly good present on a perfectly hideous future but the future has come to find us…and by our actions, or inaction. we will get to choose what it looks like.
This weeks photographs were taken at the recent celebration on All Saints Road to honour the Mangrove Restaurant. It was a hub for black activism led by Frank Critchlow from the late 60s. They were repeatedly raided by the police searching for drugs but nothing was ever found, so they eventually planted evidence. Critchlow was sent to prison, for which he was later exonerated and received compensation for false imprisonment and battery and secured an early release but by the time he came back the restaurant had all but folded and the movement had suffered from his absence. The police had systematically been trying to undermine the black community and they succeeded.
The Windrush generation were invited over to Britain to work as so much needed rebuilding after the war and they came over only to find that a lot of people didn’t want them there and they were, for the most part, treated terribly by British citizens, its establishments and the constabulary. They should have been welcomed but they weren’t. Instead they were harassed and abused and attacked and made to feel anything but welcome. These first wave immigrants were suitably confused by this mixed message from the heart of their Commonwealth. They were told they were needed but once they were here they were told they weren’t wanted.
The people of Britain should have been explained before they arrived by the leaders of the day that it was beneficial to this country to have them here and consequently we should be nice to them, they are our guest, give them hospitality not hostility. Sadly that speech was never given, the message never sent. And so without guidance from the Top, a fear of ‘the other’ emerged which then manifested into aggression. They should have been protected by the Government that brought them here but they were left alone to deal with the hostility driven by small island mentality. They were left out to dry but if our representatives had only instructed everyone that these new additions to our country should be treated with the same respect as everyone else it might have been a very different story.
It was Black History Month this October and even though this is the story of the black community in the U.K it is the same for all immigrants wherever they come from and wherever they go. And, as you can see by the way other immigrant communities are being treated here and all over the world it is still happening. We need to pay attention to the past and to stop repeating the same mistakes so that communities that come over can integrate better and the public need to be informed so there is less animosity towards the new residents but that clearly still isn’t happening. Although there has been massive improvements over the decades you can tell by the rise in hate crimes towards minorities and the blacklivesmatter movement in the U.S that we still have a long way to go.
In Dr Who’s recent episode about Rosa Parks it actually does a great job of showing how much progress there has been as a young black man from modern Britain has to deal with abuse and contempt in 60s Alabama but it has taken two full generations to reach a point where they are just treated normally rather than as 2nd class citizens and still it is not a level playing field for so many. And modern America, under Trump, now seems to be regressing, not evolving in its racial tolerance. And that is because the message from the top down is fuelling this irrational hatred and driving division amongst the races. He has single handedly exacerbated racial tension in his country and you are now starting to see the ramifications with the Pittsburg shooting and the re-emergence of white supremacists.
In this country, racism has also been given a green light by Brexit as people are being led by its message of ‘we don’t want you here’ and they are running with it and using it to stoke their resentment at what they think is the problem in their country. Why do they think immigrants are the problem? Because right wing tabloids such as the Daily Mail are constantly telling them they are the problem.
And now we are witnessing the return of the far right across the whole globe. We have just seen Brazil reaching for the facist hand to pull them out of their quagmire which is beyond depressing and utterly scary. In Europe we have seen it happen in France, Hungary, Austria, even Scandinavia as Islamaphobia takes grip in all of these societies. And now Germany, a country that knows only too well how this all ends is also visibly lurching to the righ, directly because of Merkel’s open invitation to the Syrian refugees. Many of the indigenous German population felt these foreigners were thrust upon them and they were not given a choice and so now want them gone.
A large demographic in all of these countries, including here, want a return to racial puritanism but truth is, they can want it all they like because unless they can get hold of a time machine they aint ever gonna see it. Single race countries are a thing of the past. Despite a desire to return to our tribalist nature, we have come too far to go back. Those that want to turn around don’t realise that path is no longer available. The past is the past, we must look to the future and to not allow things to go backwards within our societies. You really have two options..get on the hate train or the love boat. Your choice. Its pretty fucking obvious which is the way forward for this species but we clearly haven’t learnt a thing. We are still just dumb scared animals.
A collection of angry messages featured this week, except for the above which I will come back to in a mo…
There is a lot of rage and resentment in U.K at moment, driven by a lot of fear and anxiety about our unknown future which is making people lose their shit. Both sides unwilling to see the other as anything other than wrong and the longer it goes on the greater the chasm and the hostility between them gets. Add in rising costs, wage stagnation, a rise in crime and the general overall feeling that those in charge haven’t got a fucking scooby what they are doing and are only, and have always been, just concerned with how it affects them. They very clearly don’t give a shit about anyone or anything else and as we all watch this nation go down the toilet, it is generating a lot of acrimony.
And so this atmosphere of continued animosity which is being stoked up left, right and centre (although if there was a centre that might actually help but there isn’t) is affecting people’s lives across the board and fuelling a lot of pent up aggression. You feel it on the streets as it pervades our day to day interactions as we all brace ourselves for a future that will contain even more conflict and chaos.
And then just yesterday, I stumbled upon this bit of graffiti calling for us to listen to each other and to try to understand the opposition viewpoint, not just to hate them and/or mock them as that is precisely what got us into this mess in the first place. And not only that, it is a quote from Spinoza, who is apparently a dutch philosopher from the 1600s (thanks wiki)
I mean, much as I am delighted to see anyone suggesting that communication and understanding are the way forward, I am genuinely curious as to what kind of person quotes 17th century thinkers in a street scrawl? I mean, its commendable, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not something you see everyday. One of the most prolific graffiti taggers in this area just sprays the word ‘boner’ everywhere so that’s basically the level you’re up against.
And so, I guess, all I gotta say is, I’m with Spinoza…and the fact that the only words of wisdom coming out of this country right now is from a European who’s been dead around 400 years kind of says it all because we Brits left logic behind in this whole shitstorm a long time ago…
This was scrawled on the front of an as yet unfinished block of luxury flats and yet I can’t help but feel the statement is a reference to the education system which has clearly failed this graffittier (not sure that’s a word but I think ‘graffiti artist’ would be pushing it as a term for the creator of this street scrawl. Shame doors don’t have spell check.
The LED sign stood quietly on the corner, hoping that someone would notice it. As the shadow of night fell around it, and the hope that sunshine brings disappeared, it prayed that its message would not be too late. Not that the LED sign was religious in anyway, it didn’t believe in a Supreme Sign or anything, it just felt that it needed all the help it could get. It had been heartened by the massive attendance of 700,000 plus people at the People’s Vote March on Saturday in London but had been gutted it had been unable to attend. This was mainly on account of it being stuck to a massive building and all. Hopefully now the MPs would now listen and action would be finally initiated to prevent the slow train crash this little island had been watching for what seemed like forever, from actually destroying the train and everyone on it.
More than anything it just wanted to wake up from what it really hoped was just a really bad dream. It wanted to be Bobby Ewing, emerging from the shower to see Pamela was still alive and realising that the entire last series of Dallas was a dream. Or was it the other way round? Was it Pamela coming out of the shower to realise that Bobby was still alive? It couldn’t really remember and it didn’t really matter. What mattered was the dream bit and hoping that this current reality where this nation was not being torn apart by something that should never have happened in the first place was in fact not a reality at all.
The LED sign took a moment from producing its illuminated pixels to think of what John Lennon had once said:
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
And in that moment there was a flicker, a glitch in the time space continuum and suddenly everything was back to the way it was and they all lived happily ever after. Well, except for the LED sign, who, having succeeded in its mission to stop the insanity went back to advertising shit that people didn’t really need.
Doom ahead..please do not read if you want your Friday sunny side up…
All the photos this week were taken during the heatwave. I chose not to write about climate change during the endless sunshine as it seemed such a downer to mention whilst we were having such a glorious summer and I enjoyed it just like everyone else. After reading the Great Disruption by Paul Gilding (which laid out exactly how the environment was going to collapse) I was initially very depressed but ultimately came to the conclusion that there is no point wasting a perfectly good present for a perfectly hideous future. And yet, the days of being able to enjoy unusually warm weather without knowing that it actually signfies something very very bad as oppose to something good are over. A hot sunny day is no longer something positive.
At least global warming is at least now being mentioned in news items about the weather. Its omission has been eerily absent until this year when it just could no longer be ignored. Each subsequent month and year becomes the hottest on record and yet it has taken decades of ignoring the cries of climate scientists for the mainstream media to confirm the reasons for these alarming trends in extreme weather. We have had a massive increase in fires, floods, hurricanes and heatwaves but it is only very recently has it finally become acknowledged that it is a result of man made activity and an increase in co2 in the atmosphere. Well not if you’re Trump, obvs, but who really gives a fuck what he thinks..
The weirdest thing for me is that the news went from not mentioning it at all to going straight to discussing how we will have to cope with a much hotter planet with volatile conditions. What happened to the solution stage? We seem to have skipped it. The planet seems to have gone from denial to defeatism in one fell swoop. Why are the leaders of this planet not putting everything aside to deal with this when it is has been accepted its happening? Why are we wasting time with bullshit like Brexit and all the other bollocks people are banging on about when there is something looming that threatens to destablize everything on Earth? Why are countries not even attempting to reach the modest targets from the Paris Climate Summit which are not even close to being enough in the first place? George Monbiot wrote in his book ‘Heat’ in his book 2006 that we needed to reduce emissions by 90% to have a hope in hell and he was calling for immediate action and that was over a decade ago. Why can’t we get our heads around the fact that this is not something that possibly might happen but something that is very real and happening right now?
The problem with human brains is we cannot look ahead and we are hardwired to ignore really bad news. We cannot get our heads around it and it doesn’t matter how much information we are given we choose to block it out because we cannot compute it. As does everyone around us including all those who have the power and the ability to do something about it.
I often wonder what future generations will think of us as they deal with the shitstorm we allowed to happen? They will cry: what the fuck were you doing? why didn’t you do anything? And so to future generations I would like to say…
Umm, well, firstly, sorry. I know conditions might no longer be very pleasant but would like you to know that we did try to stop it. We protested a bit but no-one really listened, we recycled our waste but not enough so it would really make a difference..umm, we would have done more but they invented the internet and smartphones and we all got kind of busy with that, we did sign some petitions, and stopped using plastic straws, sometimes, and plastic bags, but our governments didn’t really do anything because it was a topic no-one wanted to hear about and the fossil fuel companies got in the way of progress and we couldn’t do anything to stop them and so we, umm, kinda gave up a bit cos nothing was happening and so just to say soz really, we, umm, did everything we could, sort of. I mean, not really but we were really really unhappy about it, that’s for sure but then Netflix came along, and there were just so much good telly to watch, and we just couldn’t face it, and so we got wasted a lot, and that helped, but not really and then Trump came along and we all got distracted with that circus..and well, a lot of people were saying it wasn’t really happening so umm, we thought maybe it wasn’t but turns out it was so hopefully its not too too bad for you and hopefully, eventually, evolution will step in and make the species on Earth more resilient to the new climate, and well, just, good luck, I guess…and yeah, sorry again…
The Daily Mail yesterday described the attendees of the Anti-trump March on Friday in London as a ‘rag tag band of left wingers’. This was predictably fake news. For a start I don’t actually think you can actually use the term ‘rag tag band’ to correctly describe 100,000 people. Everyone there would agree that there was not just one type of person present. It wasn’t just left wingers, it was representatives of every single different group you can possibly think of from all over the entire world. And if there is one thing you could draw from the event is that it isn’t just one demographic that hates Trump. Its all of them. And not little niche factions of society. Entire continents and genders have been maligned by his rhetoric and his policies. He has literally managed to piss off everyone and they were all there to inform of this fact. Here are a few of the ‘rag tag band’ nominees in no particular order…
Latin Americans
Believers in Human Rights
The Palestinian Movement
The whole Muslim world
All Parents
The entire female gender
Dog lovers (woof)
Workers of the world.
The LGBTQ+ community
The much persecuted Gingers of this world
He even managed to alienate some of his own kind
…and basically most of Britain who clearly don’t like him.
And every group and protester expressed their dislike of the man in different ways. Some went straight up insult.
Is it a coincidence that Trump basically rhymes with ‘Cunt’? Hmm, I’m not so sure…
Some went for the jugular..
And some went for the surreal approach…
Umm?
Okay..and sorry, how is that going to help?
Am a massive fan of Jarvis but don’t quite see the connection between him and Trump. Anyone?
I don’t get this but sure someone will..
Or this one for that matter…although the person next to me thought it was hysterical so there you go…
Stansted gag..clearly
And my personal favourite…
“Yesterday Trump flew over my allotment and look what happened to my courgettes!” Exactly!
The march was very good natured. A wonderfully positive spirit despite the crowd having joined together in hatred of one man. I have been on a lot of marches before but never against a single individual. It is astounding how much animosity he has generated. Someone had even brought a Trump shaped punch bag that you could take swings at. And many did…
Even Trump himself had a go..clearly hating himself as much as everyone else did
The irony is that this gi-normous crowd had joined together in hatred of a man who stands for hate.
As the quote goes: “There is always a lot of hate at anti-hate rallies” and this was no exception. You need to be able to see the oxymoron present…(Not the moron, he was golfing in Scotland – drum roll put-leeeease!) …even if you hate the haters you are still a hater. Trump has become the ultimate bogeyman, the focal point for all the anger for everything that is wrong with the world. Is he responsible for all of it? No, of course not but he has managed to be so divisive and destructive he has galvanised his opposition. So in some ways, if you ascribe to the butterfly effect, he is so bad that he has actually got people off their arse and sprung them out of their apathy and into action. He has succeeded in bringing energy to movements and ideals that have become complacent so you could actually argue he has become an (inadvertent) positive force in the world.
But this was a mostly positive I do have to commend a lot of the banner makers for maximum effort, humour and inventiveness…
Incredible likeness wouldn’t you say…
Tell it how it is
For some they made it about themselves. Give yourself a pat on the back…
well done. we really appreciate your sacrifice…sure Donald would to.
well done also. Really proud of you.
And good to have the Scandinavians on board…obvs.
This one perplexed me as it seems like she is actually for it, which I’m not sure was the intention…
And just in case anyone was in any doubt what she was referring to, here is the flip side…
Some were very confusing/confused
Umm, he is a lot of things but I’m pretty sure he is a man
I’m pretty sure you get Brexit but there you go…
I can only think the one on the right sounded better in their heads but they might want to look at their faecal obsession..
And I don’t know why but this one just really made me laugh.
And there was only one banner that actually annoyed me and it was The Guardian’s attempt to get in on the action…
Could you say anything less wishy washy if you tried? Why even bother? Love what someone scrawled on it. Think they must be referring to the removal of the process that created the copyrighters who came up with that bullshit slogan.
And so the marchers marched. And songs were sung. And protest was made. Did it help? Who knows? It did succeed in making him feel unwelcome and it made him skip London as a destination on his visit so guess that’s job done. Will our government take note and listen to the voice of these people? We are, as a country, poised between America and Europe and he is trying to force us to decide. Is he really the way we want to go? A man who clearly cares about nothing other than himself, his donors and his own administration? We surely needed to be guided not by trade repercussions but by our moral compass. We need to use it, above all else, to navigate through the next stage in this country’s history and to follow the path that leads to a society for all, regardless.
There are two ways the human race has survived and evolved. Competition and conflict which Mr Trump clearly ascribes to. Or alternatively cooperation. The greatest achievements of our species has come from cooperation, our greatest divisions from competition and our greatest tragedies from conflict. Which sounds like the best way to go in your opinion? Do you want to get on the Love Train or the Hate train? All aboard?
And, finally I will leave you with a cute picture of a dog to keep this piece on the fight against facism light and fluffy. Snookums (name changed to protect her identity) here clearly felt very strongly against Trump’s visit. Although I do think that is slightly disrespectful to pigs and I will be mounting a campaign to ensure this canine does not spread hate and division in the animal world… #pigsagainstdogswhothinkpigsareliketrump
Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
What do all the people in my photographs have in common this week? Absolutely nothing.
We seem to be obsessed at the moment with trying to bulk people together and make assumptions based on the groupings we put them in…women do this, men do that, muslims do this, jews do that, blacks do this, whites do that..etc yawn etc. Why are we convinced that people’s characters and motives can be explained by bunching together with a gi-normous amount of people who maybe share the same skin colour or gender or whatever? We would never diminish ourselves by this process or to those closest to us so why do we think its going to be an accurate analysis of anyone else when all we consider is their cultural or sexual identity?
I’m not saying there isn’t evil shit being done by certain groups of people but what those groups have in common is not their race or their religion but the fact that their members all have a bloodlust and think their ‘justified’ violence is a solution to unjustified violence done to them. And they think that is the correct solution without being able to see any sense of irony to that. It pains me to read that Britain is now a more racist place than it was before Brexit. Hate crime is up. And based on what? Faulty categorisation that’s what. To judge someone solely by race alone is just a pathetic use of available data. We obviously share some traits with certain demographics we belong to but they are a tiny part of the whole story.
Every single one of us has a universe inside of us and we are all a mass of contradictions. We are riddled with ideas that conflict with one another. We are the product of a multitude of different influences. There isn’t a person on the planet who’s defining characterstic is their nationality. It is only ever a part of who we are and it is also a part that we were born into. It was thrust upon us. We did not choose it.
I was born into a race, a religion and a nationality but they do not define me. Far from it. If anything I reject the notion of cultural identity. It is an illusion. And a prison. If you are human beings who happen to live near one another or have similar ancestors you might share a tinsy bit more dna than people on the other side of the planet but that is it and as the entire human race is 99.9% identical, flagging up the 0.01% as being a driving force in our behaviour is a pretty ridiculous thing to cling on to when you think about it.
People from different creeds and colours might actually stop fighting each other if they just chose to classify themselves in bigger groups. If you are a member of the human race (which I am assuming you are) you’re ‘out’ group would be aliens. Which have yet to be discovered so currently there is no-one to fight. See? Suddenly no enemies. No-one to hate, And all you had to do was identify as a member of a wider classification. World peace. Job done. Wasn’t that hard. Now where’s my mofo nobel prize?
Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
The photograph above says it all. A homeless man sleeps outside the showroom of a luxury block of flats in Camden. It feels like the last defiant gesture of someone who has had everything else stripped away.
You don’t need to read the stats to know homelessness has increased, you can see it with your own eyes. And when you do read the stats you wonder quite how it could have got so much worse so quickly. Its up 657% in the borough of Camden alone where this picture was taken and up over 169% across the country since 2010. So much of it is to with the appalling mismanagement of universal credit and the change in housing benefit payments which use to go to the landlord and now go to the claimant, both of which have caused people to fall into arrears and be consequently evicted where they wouldn’t have been before. Add in austerity cuts to welfare and mental health services and there are now tons more people on the street that previously would have had accommodation.
This rise in street sleepers across the country has been documented in the media at the same time when they have just revealed that half of the luxury flats built in last ten years are vacant and will most likely remain so. That is in addition to the 75,000 odd buildings in London that are already empty. They changed the law to remove squatters rights but maybe its time to reinstate them because this situation is beyond broken and we need to create immediate solutions as well as long term ones.
We are now really starting to see the cost of the draconian cuts that have been implemented by the tories for a decade plus and they have all resulted in creating crisis in all the services that have been stripped bare. The tragic thing is that none of these cuts has resulted in any significant drop in the deficit and the money that will be now be spent dealing with the fall out will undoubtedly be far greater than anything they saved by underfunding it in the first place.
It is painful to see in a city that has so much wealth and such a disparity of it. And its friggin freezing out there at the moment. The worst thing is you are getting asked for money at every turn in london it is so difficult to work out who really needs and who doesn’t. Even when you do give them a pound or whatever you can you wonder how on earth can that help them? A bit of coinage will not solve this problem. It requires a government who is serious about tackling the causes that got them on the street in the first place, namely their own policies. Until they own up to that and abandon them or at least acknowledge the pitfalls and find ways to stop people falling through the cracks there is no forward.
I have not really photographed anyone living on the streets for a few years as came to the conclusion there possibly an element of ‘poverty porn’ associated with street photography which focussed on the homeless. You might be wanting to highlight their plight but if you do nothing with those photographs other than post them you are in some ways draining the emotional content of your subject’s lives for the benefit of your feed. If it doesn’t change anything why continue to do it? How does it help? And yet, the problem does need highlighting and cannot be ignored so am not digging at anyone who is trying. There is however a balance between observation, exploitation and voyeurism that it is often an impossible tight rope to tread. As a documentarian there is no guidebook, you must just follow your own instincts and try to walk the thin line as best you can. It is for this reason I personally have chosen to keep the people predominantly absent from these pictures. And also to highlight how they are often invisible to so many who pass them…
Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
Everyone seems angry about something these days, some injustice, some cause, some attempt to rectify some evil. I think the slight problem is everyone seems to be fighting a different fight. This is because there are so many aspects of living at the moment that seem wrong or illicit our anger & attention and no-one can seem to agree on what is most important. What order should we be dealing with all these problems? What deserves our anger and our time the most? What should be top of the shit list? Every five minutes you see something in your feed demanding outrage and subsequent action. Sign this, support this, get riled up…you can become instantly paralysed trying to work out the most worthy cause.
So much of what we choose to rally against is to with what we feel is a direct violation against us. Or Identity Politics as its currently known. What you are, where you’re from, what you or those you know might be suffering with will inevitably dictate what ‘war’ you sign up for. Every marginalised group seems to be fighting for their own corner but, regardless of the justification & necessity of your chosen battle you are essentially just looking out for yourself and your ‘in’ group. This isn’t a dig, this is just an observation as to how it is difficult for humans to see far beyond ourselves and our immediate world. We are hardwired to look out for number one and the communities we are apart of. That is how we survive.
But in relation to the above graffitied statement, what if our focus as individuals rather than as a group collective is what is really holding us back from progress? Maybe the ants have it right. And by the way I not entirely sure what the above statement on the wall actually means. Doesn’t really make a whole lotta sense to me but someone must have felt it very strongly to graffiti it in giant letters under a bridge in Willesden Green. The individual is the product of power? What power? I think it is maybe implying that there is power in being an individual and if that means not accepting everything you are told at face value and working things out for yourself rather than just being a mindless automaton who just does and says what they are told then I would agree, there is power being an individual but ultimately there is greater power in the collective.
If we were less concerned with how we as individuals were doing in our society rather than how well that society is doing as a whole then we would then at least all be working to the same goal and not be so fragmented, fighting our own corners, tugging in different directions.We know all too well from recent experience in this country how this approach and attitude pulls populations apart rather then bring them together. Welcome to The Ununited Kingdom. Nuff said.
Maybe what the human race really needs is, as they say, a common enemy. So the solution is for aliens to come and invade us, more now than ever. Only that could possibly bring everyone together and make us understand we are all part of the same ‘in’ group. Yes, we will have to massacre lots of little green men from outer space but you can’t make an omelette without breaking some aliens, everyone knows that.
