Up to a Point Lord Co-oper

Aaaahhh!
The sound of a civil society; peace, harmony, and cooperation.
Yes Geoff, they are all jumping on the wagon with the non-hierarchical music collective on the back. Geoff Mulgan blogs in the Grauniad about the recent change in attitudes across the political spectrum towards social enterprise and the publication by the Carnegie UK Trust of a Report, Making Good Society, into the future of civil society. I'm sure I'll have some thoughts when I've read it but (that little word, three letters, and it gets me into so much trouble) I have some thoughts of my own.

It's good to see Dirty Dave and Fuzzy Osborne launching themselves at the back of the collective bandwagon. Welcome aboard. The Coop, that bastion of, well, the Coop, has opened the silos, a little, and there has been some movement. Not perhaps as much a we would like or with the self awareness that we would want, still mustn't grumble. According to my slightly bemused reading we are about to be overwhelmed by a Tsunami of Social Enterprise which will wipe away all ills and inequalities and heal our poor, broken, divided society. Er, perhaps not. I can see a lot of jobs for those aparatchicks, 'merchant bankers' and ere do wells who are thrown out on their ears in the not too distant socially enterprising future.

As a volunteer, I am often p'd off in some useless meeting. Notionally, it is meant to advance the causes near to my altruistic heart, making the world a better, more equal, and less violently hate filled place for me to live in. To fuel my inner devil I play count the cash. How much are people payed to attend this meeting for its duration, including travel, expenses, and organisation on costs. Oh give me the money Barney because I know a little mutual enterprise that creates jobs, gives people support in their endeavours to build their lives in the way that they want, provides homes that are affordable to rent and hangs on to community assets that would be given away to private enterprise at knockdown, fire sale, prices!

Naar, you don't want to do that, might make the world a better place for me to live in!

My Left Foot

Sad but inevitable.
Michael Foot was derided by many during his life and now
'he's dead, dead and never called me muver'
The bastards are saying he was the best thing since, consecrated, sliced bread!
Even Lady Dagenham had 'kind' words to say. I wonder who put them in her mouth?

When the wind blows the grass bends

Hang on to your hats this is going to be a wild ride.

Giordano Bruno, the man (no relation to G. Broon Esq.) his picture below, I am sorry about the cheap lighting effects.
He suffered a long drawn out trial and torture and death at the stake, which took place on 17 February 1600 in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome. (still no relation to G. Broon Esq.) Alas; it was for, amongst other things, believing that the earth rotates about the sun in a manner of speaking, relatively. (Enough wriggle room there to keep the old Inquisition off my trail!)

So we have left all that kind of torture and human rights abuses behind us? Wrong!

Blair, Broon, Straw and the lot of them can equivocate till the cows come home; and they will. They have been accused of complicity (or stupidity) in the use of torture by that well know group of hate filled pinkos, the judiciary.

The point of my tale, if you still have your hats on, is contained in this report from Open Democracy by Roberta Bacic, concerning the abuses in Chile in the not too distant past and the almost unbelievable courage of those who spoke out against it. The importance of speaking truth to power and using such things as arpilleras.

The first requirement to fight injustice is to report it; otherwise we are accomplices.

God, I don’t know what I would do if I was threatened with all sorts of stuff to recant, give away secrets or just conform. I do make a point of sitting down during the national anthem on the few occasions when it is played. Well it’s never going to be my national anthem!

Here’s to the brave buggers who did a wee bit more!

The Toffs ATM

So then Lord Cashcough!

Dave's mum said that you don't have a domicile.
It's sad really because you seem to have so much money, give so much of it away and yet you don't have a home of your own. Charity begins at home, so they say.

I'm sure the Turnip Taliban hereabouts would be able to find a house for you. Many of them have more than one of their own!