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Sympathy for the Countryside Alliance?

Gary Jarvis | 23.09.2002 08:21

Despite my ragings at the CA, watching a news report on Channel 4, I have to say that I could identify with some of the issues that some people on the demo were talking about.

Despite my ragings at the CA, watching a news report on Channel 4, I have to say that I could identify with some of the issues that some people on the demo were talking about.

Individuals complained about the village post office closing and the lack of affordable housing with rich sods buying all the property. I can sympathize with that last one - priced out of the housing market as I currently am.

However my problem with them is that I think they're just anti-Labour and will vote Tory at the next election. I think if Blair and the left ignore this we, on the left, could be in real trouble.

The CA's populism will gain support, especially from the likes of the Daily Mail and Telegraph, who were on hand to give out free papers yesterday.

I berated a crowd near Waterloo, "Where were you lot during the miners strike and the poll tax" to which someone replied "in court".

We have similar grievancies.

As I battled through the crowds to get to Leics Sq I said "Watch out, socialist coming through" and asked the cops where were there cameras today. I later found out, from the Channel 4 news piece that the police cameras were out but at the front of the demo. The cameras weren't even aimed at the demo. So who were they aimed at? Anti-hunt activists?

What annoyed me most about the protest is that everyone looked quite well off. But as ever I want to find common ground but still I felt real opposition to their march. Perhaps it's just envy. 300,000 and up is some demo. But then again it's only an annual event. We on the left are out in all weathers all year round.

Gary Jarvis

Gary Jarvis
- e-mail: yesgaryjarvis@hotmail.com

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Game Plan for depopulation

23.09.2002 10:55

The N.W.O. wants a universal hunting ban and they are using the highly emotive fox-hunting issue to get public support for it, but aristocrats hunting foxes with hounds for sport is not the same as fishing or shooting for game, that you can eat, but it's all being lumped together.

This demo, with genuine grievances, (evident by it's numbers) was being manipulated by the government, the 'bio-diverse' pagan Prince Charles supported it and that opposition idiot was there, Ian Duncan Smith, who wants a war in Iraq, so it got plenty media coverage.

The globalists are going to kick us all off the land, coral us into cities and escalate fearmongering and "terror" threats, to take all our civil and human righs away.

BTW - earthquake - 4.8 on the Richter Scale in the UK this morning. Weird!

Gamekeeper


Issues

23.09.2002 11:18

I can certainly sympathise with many of the issues facing people in rural communities, but can't imagine that the super-rich aristocrats controlling the Countryside Alliance give a toss about 99% of them. Think about it - are they going to campaign against the house price rises that drive local people out of the housing market when it's rich wankers like them that cause the problem by buying second homes for themselves that stand empty for most of the year? All the interviews I've sen have them blathering on about liberty and livelihoods, but the only specific thing they mention is the hunting ban. A shame there's not an umbrella organisation that ignores the hunting issue and focuses on the real problems facing working class rural people (and that doesn't just mean farmers).

johnny_boy


Liberty and livelihood

23.09.2002 13:20

Ask yourself: whose liberty? whose livelihood?

Dan


Sadism and Subsidies more like.

23.09.2002 14:02

Blood makes the grass grow, kill, kill kill.

Mick2


class war

23.09.2002 14:27

the CA use real issues of poverty in the county side to build support for a cross class,ruling classes lead right wing body. We should try and split the CA in two bewteen the poor and rich. the farmer and the farm worker have as do the factory owner and the factory workers, different interests: Class. after all a bit like nationalism. the devision in socity is class not where you live be that bewteen countrys i.e. nationalism or town and country.

richy


Media potrayal is, as ever

23.09.2002 15:45

i kind of agree on a few points there that there were genuine grievances put forward by the CA , however the media made it into almost a solitary issue , one which coincided with the upper crusties agenda within the CA

Foxhunting

it is very similar to the coverage received by the left , by making it a secular issue, general society interprets this to mean 300,000 people turned out in support of fox hunting when this is clearly not the case , and that in truth probably less than 5% of that figure were there in defence of foxhunting.

Its the same as when the BBC and co say that Anti globalisation protestors are expected to gather in london today , (cue reference to mayday violence etc) their selective use of imagery and manipulation of words creates an image in the mind of the general population, that the movement is full of troublemakers and anarchists hellbent on chaos and destruction, we know this to be a fabrication, but the general joe public does not, because the issues being raised by the left are screened from the public information spectrum, and thus never up for debate through regulated media channels, general joe public is never made aware of why we are there in the first place,

i think it would be wise to set up groups to counter the CA agenda and catch the countryside fallout , ie , the poor ,

i believe that with a concentrated effort , there are groups within the movement who have a similar manifesto to the small farmer ,
feeding themselves and their communities , cutting out the supermarkets , local produce local people ,good old community values

we need to engage in dialogue and begin our own propoganda offensive against those running the CA and get the message out there to the small countryside farmer and general community that we, the left do care about the countryside, deeply care, and that as environmentalists and conservationists our agendas are not in fact all that misaligned and with a little fine tuning could be one and the same

I dont know how wise it is to go head to head at CA demo's and stuff because i feel that is playing into the hands of the state by turning us against each other ,we forget who the real bad guys are , we must not allow this to happen ,

the anti hunt movement should continue as is, with harrasment campaigns, sabateur action and stuff and maybe other individuals or groups concerned with the land, could go out leafleting houses in the countryside wherever these hunts meet, to try to build up some local support for our campaigns as well as provide an alternative avenue to allow the poorer folk in rural communities to be heard above the fanfare of the CA agenda.

just a thought !

Peace and Love

Nuggett!!

Nuggett


But what great thoughts Nuggett

23.09.2002 22:14

I for one would be up for building alliances with workers in the countryside. I live in the Barnet area and Hertfordshire is on my doorstep.

Cheers Gary Jarvis

Gary Jarvis
mail e-mail: yesgaryjarvis@hotmail.com


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