Rupert's Read

[I'm pleased to have the opportunity to post this piece by BBC freelance journalist Jonathan Kent; I realy like it.]   Growing up, did you ever play Monopoly or Risk?   Did you ever get to a point where you simply picked up the board, chucked the pieces in the air and told everyone 'this is a stupid game'? I did and I feel I've reached the same point now with the much bigger game that we've been suckered into; mindless materialism. Suckered because it's a game that creates 99 losers for every winner and for 150 years the traditional left has been playing along, simply trying to ensure that more people win.   The time has come to stop playing an unwinnable game and play a different one entirely. Looking back 150 years to an age when working people had been driven off the land and into the cities, when live expectancy was short, when malnutrition and slum housing were rife, when education was accessible only the a minority, when social se...

I can't believe it! This is not a man, somehow, who I had thought would die. :-( An important thinker, a big big influence on me as on so many others, and someone who (each time I had the privilege to interact with him directly) was unfailingly thoughtful and decent. http://www.feasta.org/2011/11/15/in-memorium-richard-douthwaite READ his brilliant book, ‘THE GROWTH ILLUSION’.

  For the first time ever, an NHS hospital is going to be taken over by a private company, it has been announced this morning: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72899cf2-0b2c-11e1-ae56-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1dHwr4IS2  . The hospital in question is Hinchingbrooke, in Cambridgeshire here in the Eastern Region of England. In my capacity as Co-ordinator of the Eastern Region Green Party, I want to say plainly this morning that it's just plain wrong to allow a private company to make profits out of people's ill-health. This is a new stage in the privatisation of the NHS; we are losing Britain's most-loved institution, before our very eyes. I have been to Hinchingbrooke and have stood with the workers and local people who have been campaigning for years to stop this NHS hospital from falling into private hands. Successive governments - first the so-called 'Labour' Party, and now the Conservative-LibDem Coalition - have done nothing to secure the future of Hinchingbr...

I am proud to be giving the 'Address' at this event. Do join us!:   THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, NORWICH   SERVICE TO COMMEMORATE   WORLD DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR ROAD TRAFFIC VICTIMS   Sunday 20 th November 2011 at 3.30pm     The United Nations' Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020   From Global Remembrance to   Global Action across the Decade

O ccupy Norwich are to have a discussion on reform of our monetary system on Wednesday 9th November at 6.15pm at their camp on The Haymarket. (All are welcome, and everyone, whether they regard themselves as Left, Right or neither, will get a chance to have their voice heard.) The discussion will be led by me. I'll talk about how the creation of 97 % of our money by the banks leads to  overments, individuals and businesses becoming more and more indebted. When the debts can no longer be repaid the banks demand a bailout from the taxpayers, and cuts have to be made in pensions, benefits and public services, as happened when the world economy nearly collapsed three years ago. Occupy Norwich are inviting everyone to come along and debate the solutions. The bailout of the banks three years ago did not result in reform of the banking system, which is due to collapse again, as the recent problems in the Euro-zone have clearly demonstrated. We need reform urgently, before the ...

Growth is finished. Greece is going to default within 4 months; the Euro will tumble and disintegrate. Financial interests will give up trying to seek profits in the real economy, and move still further into trying to profit from a bear market, leading to yet more financial and economic disaster. It is pointless - counterproductive - in this context, to keep seeking the hopeless capitalist outofdate 'remedy' of growth. For my critique of Compass's Plan B then, on Bright Green, goto: http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2011/10/plan-b-vs-plan-c/

In a brave and important move that has been as yet barely acknowledged in the press in this country, the Libyan Transitional National Council last week shut the Syrian embassy in Tripoli down, and recognised the Syrian National Council (which has recently unified virtually all the non-violent anti-Assad Syrian Opposition behind its banner) as the government-in-waiting of Syria.* This is an exciting development, an intelligent move. It ought to be copied by Britain. For one of the things that the Syrian protesters now most want (they mostly DON'T want foreign military intervention) is precisely this: serious diplomatic sanctions against Syria, to delegitimise the Assad regime in the eyes of the world. We should support the Syrian democracy-protesters; we can easily give them what they want. Let's close the Syrian embassy in Britain (unless it is prepared to declare independence from its capital, as some Libyan embassies did during the uprising there), and ...