2020 Priorities

Reading hashtags like #NewYearChallenge & #challenge2020 on Twitter and posts here from individuals seeking greater fame/love/weight-loss etc in 2020 and wondering how any can put 'self' ahead of life on this planet? I don't want to be depressing when others rejoice but ffs... it's the planet that needs the attention - urgently.

Fireworks in blazing Australia feel like such a final straw for me and I suppose I just despair for how little is done, how little will be done and how dark the future will be because of this. It has been lovely to spend time with family and extended family over xmas and get lost for a tiny bit in the other way of living - but I feel desperately useless in this state of 'just being' and not acting to stop the lunacy of the fossil fuel industry and shite, corrupted governments. Like a passenger in a car headed for the cliff edge discussing which radio station to put on.

And while fires burn out of control in Australia - corporate interests continue to set the Amazon ablaze - what a fucked-up world we live in. Death toll of humans in Australia increased to 12 since this article went out just 17 hours ago - loss of koalas, kangaroos, birds and other beautiful creatures far far worse:

IS THIS NORMAL FOR AUSTRALIA?
[The NSW Rural Fire Service says the scale of what has burned in that state is unprecedented at this point of the fire season. By Monday, 3.41 million hectares had burned. “To put it in perspective, in the past few years we have had a total area burned for the whole season of about 280,000 hectares,” RFS spokeswoman Angela Burford said.

The fires have already killed at least 10 people, torched more than 11.3 million acres, and destroyed more than 900 homes since September. The blazes made breathing the air in Sydney as bad as smoking 37 cigarettes and have killed 480 million animals, environmental officials said, including nearly one-third of the koalas in one of Australia’s most populated koala habitats in an area 240 miles north of Sydney.

Australia’s national government has been slower to respond to the risks posed by extreme heat, bush fires, and climate change. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison apologized this month for taking a vacation to Hawaii during the recent heatwave and bushfires. However, he brushed off calls to curb Australia’s reliance on coal.

“I am not going to write off the jobs of thousands of Australians by walking away from traditional industries,” he told Australia’s Channel Seven.]












 

So... Happy New Year - sorry this is not a post to bring joy... I just don't feel like there's much time left for it :(

...

*Planning, plotting and preparing to get on with fighting back... mood will improve xxx

ps... Lewis (in the image) died.

Too honourable?

We're worn down, drained and fed up of politics that is so polarised and aggressive. Watching the election results was like being drained of hope one seat at a time - the fear rising for the climate, for the vulnerable, for unity and for the future of pretty much everything here. Reading many shocked responses and it feels a bit like it did when we had the referendum result... only worse
Being honourable even if it does mean cutting off our nose to spite our faces?

There is a thread of this outcome though that I do understand and that's the way this election seemed to rest strongly on 'honouring' the referendum result. And that's what Boris Johnson and the Conservatives tapped into. It was like this was a choice between one LEAVE party or any one of the 5 or so others that were either Remain or unclear. Dividing Remain or undecided voters into many pieces but keeping the Leave vote solidly in the Conservative camp. And in a voting system like we have (First Past the Post) - the outcome is only ever a binary choice and the two-horses in this race were Conservatives & everyone else.

The referendum didn't just split us into remain or leave, it split us over this 3 years into - 'honour or don't honour' the result too. It's never sat right I suppose that we ignore, disregard or re-run a vote - rather than 'honouring' it... even though we see the lies we were sold and all that has been exposed about #Brexit - it will always feel wrong to go against a promise of democratic outcome being honoured and I think that was key for many even in the remain camp.

There were lots of other factors too of course - much manipulated by the old media that stoked division and hatred and made this about the personalities rather than the policies. The media also set the tone of aggression throughout and this has been an ugly and bitter election where 'debate' was really just shouting matches interspersed with interuption by angry hosts and angry candidates.
We wake today deeply divided still and the road ahead is not only unclear, it's clearly littered with trips,mines and hurdles to overcome. We'll be leaving Europe and instead be 'one nation' led by Conservatives... some rejoice but very very many see this as the worst of all worst case scenarios.
So even more divided and polarised than ever. It's all extremes and no sense of middle-ground.
The climate looks most vulnerable in this outcome and along with the NHS (and many species) is not only on the 'at-risk' list - but due to the urgency of their plight, in need of immediate attention I fear they just won't get.

I have no idea where to put my thoughts today and it all feels flat and hopeless with deeper depths of despair coming up.

We all tried to get what we thought was best and needed from our personal and individual perspectives... but in a world where our 'perspectives' are manipulated and where the most money can buy the most manipulation, our 'perspectives' are skewed. Add to this the voting system stuck in a past that just doesn't reflect the diversity we are today - and here we are.

I'm trying to think of a "BUT... " followed by something hopeful or warm or kind or soothing... but I can't.

Instead I go with the hope that we rein in our anger at this and not allow it to keep flooding through our relationships and interactions. We will need to organise and will need to heal divisions if we're to have light at the end of any tunnels.

Now is indeed (for very many) the winter of our discontent.

2 days till #GE2019

Just 2 days to go and still so many wondering who the hell to vote for. Transparency, clarity and certainty are out the window as the news offers nothing but an unending deluge of incompetence, lies, manipulation and BS served up in slanging matches that just add to the ugliness of it all.

The greatest fear for many - is another 5 years of dangerous government under the Conservatives (makes me shudder). The country and the planet are taking a battering and have been throughout their term in office - if it's broken, the Conservatives either broke or neglected it - so all their promises to make it better just sound like the lies they clearly are. Look at just about every aspect of our lives - and it's plain and obvious the government has failed and that government for the past 10 years has been Conservative.

BUT this doesn't mean that our votes HAVE to be for the only other party with a chance of coming 1st! It sounds like it should be true but it bloody well isn't. We're hounded and herded by those in the two parties supporting the 2-party system, into thinking "MUST VOTE RED to stop blue!" But that's only true in in marginal seats (so few) - the rest of us will not be able to change the current Party representing us because of the way our voting system (First Past the Post) operates.

[A general election is a nationwide ballot, but in reality the UK’s first-past-the post system means the outcome is decided in a few dozen swing seats which change hands.]

TACTICAL voting WILL REALLY MATTER hugely - but only in a small number of places:
Here are the top target seats for the main parties in 2019:

Conservatives:
Perth and North Perthshire (SNP, majority of 21 in 2017)
Kensington (Labour, 30)
Dudley North (Labour, 22)
Newcastle-under-Lyme (Labour, 30)
Crewe and Nantwich (Labour, 48).

Labour:
Southampton Itchen (Con, 31)
Glasgow South West (SNP, 60)
Glasgow East (SNP, 75)
Arfon (Plaid Cymru, 92)
Airdrie and Shotts (SNP, 195).

Scottish National Party:
Stirling (Con, 148)
Glasgow North East (Lab, 242)
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lab, 259)
Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Lab, 265)
Midlothian (Lab 885)

Liberal Democrats:
Fife North East (SNP, 2)
Richmond Park (Con, 45)
Ceredigion (Plaid Cymru, 104)
St Ives (Con, 312)
Sheffield Hallam (Lab, 2,125)

*Do check if your area is a marginal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_target_seats_in_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

For the rest of us - vote to change things by changing how you vote! Instead of voting between just 2 parties - venture out, it won't change the outcome but IT WILL CHANGE the value of your vote... (hopefully) you will deny the Conservatives your vote and increase the support for another party and this WILL WEAKEN those safe seats that have us locked into an undemocratic process.

Your vote away from the 2-party system will also weaken the 2-party stranglehold on truly representative parliament. If you agree that a 2-party system just doesn't fit a nation as diverse as ours, then *don't vote for the 2-parties that refuse to change it (*unless you're marginal then that's a different set of criteria).

Also, if the result is that neither red nor blue have an overall majority - they will have to co-operate with smaller parties to get things done and the more support those parties are seen to have, the more power (and ideas) shift.

It's shit that this is the way it is but as I'm not in a marginal - the choice is easier and with it, I'll at least know I voted with my personal truth. x

PNR: 5 Jan 2017 ~ 4 Dec 2019

"Everyone wanted to go but no-one wanted to leave"

..someone said this at the end of today's final event at Preston New Road Rolling Roadside Protest and it was so true and for me, unexpectedly emotional. We were standing like guests reluctant to let the night be over, hoping for one more dance or to at least not be the first to break the spell that would take us to a different place – in so many ways.

I hadn't considered at all how today would feel - it's the 121st time we've gathered to Call for Calm on a Wednesday and I think I just got on with it in the same way I always do, not considering the huge significance.

Then there were sad goodbyes and the realisation that like when you leave school, there'd be no going back, no reliving or experiencing life in the same way ever again - even if we maintain our connections... there will only ever be one 'PNR: 5th Jan 2017 - 4th Dec 2019'.

I suppose because the 'Nanas' have been together since 2014 and had spent nearly 3 years campaigning in all sorts of places across the country - I hadn’t known the utter wrench it would be to go from somewhere you’ve been located in for so long; that having spent 3 full years in one place, with and as one community... becoming almost literally (certainly for me) one family. This was very different site & camp closure.

Barton Moss, Balcombe, Upton, Horse Hill and all the rest - have their places and people and memories too but I think it's that PNR demanded so much for so very long and has been so very pivotal to the story of fracking in the UK - that made it matter so deep down. Nothing was without impact - every day unpredictable and so much sent to challenge us. But then there was the response...

So many who came to lift our moods, raise our spirits and help us sustain this long campaign. Moral has been everything and Morris Dancing, one-man-bands, dance teachers, choirs, Tibetan Monks, priests and vicars, authors, academics, entertainers, bands, singers, poets drummers, percussionists, harpists even just groups and individuals that spared what time they could to make visits. We’ve been a core group of ‘regular faces’ supported by frequent visitors, regular guests and mass gatherings when we called them and we only called them with care – to get 1000 people up that hill was a stunning thing or to party 24 hours at the gates – were surges that shot energy through our veins for months to come.

So back to the beginning - "Everyone wanted to go but no-one wanted to leave"

Of course we’ll never dance this way again but I will wear us always in the fabric of me that was enhanced by all who shared the space and time that has been PNR. I leave richer and find the positive in the way I can’t wait to tackle the world as the enhanced ‘me’ that is made up of all of us – every moment that re-sculpted my edges, shaped me better and made me feel – so very real.

It’s been a heck of a thing.

Love really did win

Elect your Greens!

About this upcoming election and all the tactics and aims being touted as a way of ensuring one outcome or another - in my view, NO party is getting a majority in this election.

The people who will vote in #GE2019 are not as united as politics would like and certainly not along 'usual' party lines; we're fractured by so many issues from Brexit/Remain/Revoke to hatred/ambivelance/adoration of Boris/Corbyn and from what I see - a hung-parliament looks the most likely outcome.

In that scenario, MPs from smaller parties have more power because they can add or withdraw support that means the difference to which party leads and which policies get through. Personally - I believe a hung-parliament is a good start to breaking the predictable and ugly continuation of the 2-party system that leads to the usual rounds of promises that don't get acted on.

In THIS election - because it's now - during the most important time in the life of our species and any other on this planet, powered by nature... it truly matters that we MAKE OUR VOTES MATTER!

Of course getting the worst party for the planet (Conservatives - see graph) out of power is hugely important but so is getting decent MPs into Parliament and strengthening the Green Party of England and Wales because it actually gives a damn, has the answers and has a clean, clear focus on the environment - unlike ANY other party - it's what the Green Party was formed to do.

Can we afford Green policies they ask? What on earth do 'they' think matters more - breathing or spending? Besides - Green policies are quite exquisite in that they cost an awful lot but in return, gift plentiful jobs, cost savings for all of us, a cleaner, healthier environment that makes us feel better and eases demand on healthcare.. other parties think keeping a tidy balance sheet gets them the big tick of a 'well done' - Greens think no child should have 'pollution' on a certificate as the cause of death.

As Greens have shown - you drive parliament by pushing the policies that really matter. Even without true power - the Greens have forced environment onto the agenda and every elected Green has made an impact in Councils that went on to declare climate emergencies and with the sole Green MP being such an obvious influencer in Westminster.

Elect you Greens - they're good for you!

#ElectYourGreens

Hope evicted

This morning New Hope Resistance Camp was evicted from land no-one wanted or really cared about... by a gang of bailiffs, Pete Marquis demolitions, 50+ Lancashire Police and sundry others for various levels of police force UK.

The action was brutal, inhumane and ludicrousy executed.

The main Preston New Road A583 was closed at various times with little reason and only cops in the road causing any disruption - although one of the residents of New Hope did stand momentarily to face the forces and demand he be allowed to have his books returned.

The most pleasure that could be had today was had by Pete Marquis - the glint in his eye, quiver of his lips and clenching of his sweaty hands marking the height of his delight as the diggers chewed at the entry gates of New Hope. As the digger turned its attention to the beautiful trees behind the gate and tore them from the ground - he had a look of ecstasy about him.

Today, Miranda had arranged tree-planting in Kirkham and many of us had planned on going - Tracey's delicious tree-planting soup though and hot drinks came instead to the site of eviction and any other plans abandoned as we stood with our fellow residents to witness the remnants of their lives together at New Hope, piled on the pavement.

Like a fireman's thing where they pass a bucket... belongings were ferried to nearby Maple Farm community hub where they'd be out of the weather. Cat boxes started turning up and each of the beautiful but terrified felines was safely gathered up... except one. At one point there was a little tower of cats... before they too were sorted to temporary placements.

The residents of New Hope who have lived pretty much off-grid with renewables and lovely cats (plus Maple the dog - nearly forgot!) for nearly 3 years... they are not visitors or outsiders, they are residents of the Fylde community.

The local police have recently been imploring campaigners and protectors of Preston New Road to meet and chat about the future... the chasm between police and community has widened and I think they know there is irrepairable damage been done since 5th Jan 2017 when Preston New Road Rolling Roadside Protest started. They're right. Today as the local police were again used to facilitate a cruel act against campaigners, the lack of humanity was the death-knell. The lies too... claims the landowner wanted New Hope cleared (believe he was not that bothered as disused land - perhaps 'encuraged'?) - assurance a vet was onsite and Fylde Council representative (nope) and the fact that 50+ cops in 18+ vehicles made such a drama out of an absolute crisis of their own making.

The beautiful part?

The cat boxes, the soup, the community, the offer of beds, the planning for meals, the appearance of cat food and the easy solidarity of all who have been side by side throughout this long campaign that has taken such a toll on all our lives.

*Photo Drill Or Drop? article
**NONE of the trees you can see is alive anymore... all wrenched by their roots from the ground by jaws of Pete Marquis digger

Election priorities #GE2019

Election ahead and politicians waffling on how the budgets can work etc. feels quite mad under the circumstances. Whatever you choose - it's worth ensuring the priorities of the party are in the right order... breathing, growing food, accessing clean, safe water etc. top my list because without them - there's nothing else.

You don't budget for a future we won't have... if we do 'budget' for it!

Throw the lot at getting it right - ease the pressure, create the new industries and jobsthat a different direction takes us in and unleash a future we can believe in. Those tut-tutting the spending needed, should consider just what's at stake if we don't!

We bailed out the banks because they were 'too big to fail' - I think our entire living world is too big to fail!

If any of us was going to lose our life unless we took out a loan for the treatment needed to fix it... well would you be worrying about whether you can pay your bills in a future you won't have?? Fight for the best outcome.

It's literally 'only money' - the stuff we make, trade and set value on - we can do this like we do in wars and times of emergency - there IS an emergency right now!

#ClimateElection