Voices of the Wildly Left ( #1)

Excerpts from Links for the Wildly Left (LWL)
Radical thoughts for changing times | Edited by Sean Lenihan
A Facebook group founded by Diane Gee, and kept vibrant by a very dedicated band of radicals.

Moods  |  Frustration

Jstn Green
My good friend, Keith Farris wrote this awesome comment. I just had to share it (with permission, of course)…

“I am tired of the same old dusty book jacket. Of the time worn refrain of the needle stuck at 33 revolutions per minute. Of the hard copies and the soft copies and the floppies of the same old song and dance. I am tired of your dizzying array of stupefying choices and your sham offering of freedom. Of the vitriol of the cynical, and the self-serving indifference of the apathetic. I have been both at one time or another…sister and brother…and I am tired. I can no longer rest silently, content with the crumbs thrown down from the murderous elite. I have found that – after all – I do have a conscience, and I am nothing if I do not follow it. I choose to live free, without fear of judgement and without fear of retribution. I will strike first, don’t make me draw blood. I’m tired of your indiscriminate murders to fill your pork bellies and your fatbacks, tired of your indiscretionary funds stealing the retirement funds of common folk – or – as you might pejoratively put it the “salt of the earth.” I’m tired of your false idol worshiping and your American idol worshiping and of your carefully scripted “reality” television and what’s Kelly Osbournes bra size and Donald Trumps’ hairline and how many Kardashians are fucking going swimming. I tired of the whole damned sinking ship of fools and I for one will not paddle for you anymore…fuck you.”

Terry Tompkins wrote: “Damn fine thread! Kudos to you Keith for kicking it off with an honest, insightful rant…I echo your “fuck you”. Also to Chip and Joe for their observations regarding complicity and agency. Chip, I also read the Alternet piece on Chomsky. He is, to mind mind, correct in his assertion that we are all, to some extent, complicit. Where I see the difference between those here and those at Goldman Sachs et al, is that it pisses us off and we want to bring it to a halt. Whereas those at Goldman who make the vile decisions are positively orgasmic (without the lovely Judiths help) and want it to go on forever.”

Jenelle Green
Posted today by Chomsky.
Charters were brought up yesterday. Charters define rules for lawful activity. Noam is speaking of the earliest type of Charters that have been decimated.

The Charter of Liberties, is widely recognized to be the foundation of the fundamental rights.
The Charter of the Forest imposed limits to privatization….In the lead in confronting the crisis throughout the world are indigenous communities, those who have always upheld the Charter of the Forests. The strongest stand has been taken by the one country they govern, Bolivia, the poorest country in South America and for centuries a victim of western destruction of the rich resources of one of the most advanced of the developed societies in the hemisphere, pre-Columbus.

Paul Belanger
My heart aches for the victims and families of the tragic shooting in CO last night.

But I have to tell you, my heart aches even more for 123 Americans who die every single day just because they lack health insurance, for the 25% of children in our country who live in poverty, for the millions of families who are homeless due to the greed of our leaders, for the endless list of victims and displaced people due to war by us and others, and on and on.

So seeing Obama on TV this morning saying this is not a day for politics but a day for “prayer” for the victims in CO….I say everyday is not a day for politics.

Jenelle Green from my wall….

I’m completely disgusted by Obama’s speech regarding the Colorado movie theater shooting. He continues to spew “god bless you and god bless America” and says all that matters in the end is how we treat others. He reflected that his kids go to the movies and how sad this event is for America. Really? If he cared about how we treat others and if he really cared about his OWN kids future, he would stop the premeditated killing of others. He is no different than the movie theater killer. If he cared about his OWN kids future, he would make efforts to SAVE the Planet. Lastly, his spewing of the god rhetoric is beyond disgusting. As if faith makes all of this evil okay. When has praying EVER made a difference? ACTION makes a difference.

Sean Lenihan I totally share Jenelle’s disgust. It literally revolted me to watch this incredibly filthy and hypocritical politician scoring some points on this tragic photo op…regaling the nation with more empty rhetoric as if he cared. If he REALLY cared he would have fought for real healthcare reform not the bullshit he chose to endorse, and a million other things where he has shown time and again that he cares zero for the people. And he’s an unindicted war criminal, to boot, engaged up to his eyeballs in the plotting of even greater and more brutal wars.

Scum.

Floyd Hacker But..that’s what every shitwhistle president does..go on tv & give an absolute bullshit session on behalf of the so called “moralists” out here, it’s like a signal or switch that says it’s ok, capitalism, christianism, the NRA, white supremacy, the Confederacy movement, etc has been apologized to, so nothing more to see here, when in fact, those afore mentioned had an influence on a tragedy like this happening, they count on it, these tragedies don’t occur near enough as far as they are concerned..& it is a good bet, that if indeed this shooter is a white supremacist, or teabagger, then the incident & the shooter will be jumbled up into a pretzel so that no one will ever get the truth of the what’s, why’s, so on..& most Muricans in less than two weeks won’t even remember that it happened, corpo rat Murica will see to that..drown’em in propaganda, garbage, toxic crap, that’s how it’s done..

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Eroding Social Justice in Spain

By Stephen Lendman

Miners demonstrate in Madrid.

Along with Greece, Spain represents the epicenter of decaying Western societies. Multiple rounds of social spending cuts reflect Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s war on his own people.

Complicit parliamentarians go along. At issue is class warfare, transferring household wealth to bankers, other corporate predators, and privileged elites, eroding Spain’s middle class, and destroying a whole youth generation and perhaps others to come. More on this below.

Spaniards protest angrily against what no one should tolerate. They’re back after the latest announced austerity package.  On July 19, London’s Guardian headlined “Spanish take to streets in protest as MPs pass ($65 billion) austerity package,” saying:

They raged in 80 cities nationwide. They’re mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. The Guardian downplayed turnout. Possibly millions participated. Around 800,000 rallied in Madrid. Other major cities saw huge crowds.

Police attacked protesters violently. “Angry civil servants had blocked traffic in several main Madrid avenues earlier in the day, with protesters puncturing the tires of dozens of riot police vans, amid growing upset at austerity, recession and 24% unemployment.”

Youth unemployment is 50% and heading south. Spain is deteriorating in plain sight. Madrid marchers carried Spanish flags and banners saying “No to the cuts.” “You have ruined us.” “Hands up, this is a robbery.”

In Mieres near Oviedo, eight firemen disrobed. A wall above them displayed a banner saying “With so many cuts we have been left naked.”

On July 21, Russia Today said “rallies turn violent” as millions march for social justice. In Madrid, police charged protesters violently. They used batons, rubber bullets, and tear gas.  At least 15 arrests were made. Dozens were injured. In urban areas, trash cans were set ablaze. Barricades were erected to block police vehicles from entering. Clashes continued daily since the latest mid-July austerity cuts were announced. Each turnout ups the stakes and gets more violent.

One protester said:

“There’s nothing we can do but take to the street. We have lost between 10 and 15 per cent of our pay in the past four years.”  Another said:

“We have to make some noise, because they’re making fun of us and of all working people.”

Coal industry subsidy cuts threaten around 50,000 mining and related jobs. Since May, thousand of miners struck, blocked streets and railroads. They and others vowed to keep struggling for justice. Police attack them violently.

According to Spanish sociologist Carlos Delclos:

“If Mariano Rajoy had any sense of decency, or even a fragment of dignity that the miners and the protesters have, then he would resign, along with the rest of his government.”

“He’s broken every campaign promise that he’s made, some even at comical levels. His entire party was saying that raising sales tax was unthinkable and all that, and now we have a 21-per-cent sales tax.”

He thinks he can get away with anything. “What we are seeing is the impunity of a government that has a lot of people that pertain to groups that had affinity with the Franco government, the Fascist government, 40 years ago, and have never had to sit before trial since then,” he added.

Multiple rounds of cuts assure more coming. Social Spain is being destroyed. New measures call for raising the VAT from 18 to 21% effective August 1. Over $800 million in domestic spending reductions is planned. Expect much more later.

At issue now is freezing public sector wages, cutting them for some state workers, slashing unemployment benefits, raising the retirement age from 65 – 67, and linking eroding pensions to life expectancy.

In addition, closures and/or privatizing state industries, ports, airports, and rail assets are planned. Town councillor numbers are being reduced by one-third. Regional and local government authority is eroding. Trade union and political party subsidies face 20% cuts.

Sentiment across the country reflects rage. Protests continue daily. On July 16, Madrid streets were blocked. Firefighters, off duty police, civil servants and miners marched on Spain’s parliament. Police confronted them violently.

Civil servants are especially hard hit. They took 5 – 15% previous cuts. They lost Christmas bonuses. They’re 7% of their reduced annual income. Sick pay is lower. Fewer days off and less rights overall became policy.

Firefighters lost up to 30% of their income. One protesting nurse said:

“There are hospitals with whole floors that are not being used because they are firing and cutting jobs. We have little hope, but staying at home would just make it easier for the government to keep on doing what it wants.”

Protesters include doctors, nurses, teachers, professors, students, cops, firemen, other civil servants of all stripes, unemployed and underemployed people in all age groups, and youths representing a lost generation being destroyed.

Since 2008 crisis conditions erupted, massive cuts in jobs, income, healthcare, education, pensions, and other social benefits were instituted. So-called reform involves dismantling public services entirely. It’s also about slashing wages and pensions to the bone.

Growing unemployment, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair for some, rage for many others, reflects current conditions growing numbers won’t tolerate.

Cutting Spain’s deficit from 8.9% of GDP to 2.8% by 2014 is cover for waging ruthless class warfare. It’s raging across Europe, America and Israel.

High-paying/full-time jobs are disappearing. Benefits are eroding en route to eliminating them altogether. Ruler/serf societies are planned.

People have two choices – rebel or starve. Fight back or face heart of darkness big brother conditions. Prioritizing monied interests over popular needs assures the worst of what Conrad and Orwell conceived.

“The horror! The horror!” reflects what at stake.

A Final Comment

On July 19, Germany’s Bundestag overwhelmingly approved bailout aid for Spanish banks. European Financial Security Facility (EFSF) funds will supply it.

Despite criticizing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handling of crisis conditions, Social Democrats and Greens largely supported her. Germany’s Left Party voted no.

Spain gets $123 billion. It’s coming in several tranches through yearend. It’s a down payment on what’s needed. Expect hundreds of billions more before crisis conditions end. Major Spanish banks are insolvent. They’re drowning in toxic debt. It’s impossible to repay.

Instead of being nationalized, shut down, or broken up, bailouts hand them taxpayer money. Eurozone countries contribute EFSF funds. Troika (EU/ECB/IMF) diktats control policy. Ordinary people have no say on how their money is misused and spent.

In June, Eurozone leaders agreed to allocate EFSF loans to Spain’s Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB).

Conditions involve deep social spending cuts and regressive reforms. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble defended the aid package. He said Spain’s financial sector faces stability issues. Other Eurozone countries are affected. Madrid is responsible for repayment. Taxpayers are stuck with the tab.

Parliamentary opposition was weak. Social Democrat leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier accused Merkel of not leveling with German voters and explaining the burden accurately.

German President Joachim Gauck said “(s)he now has the duty to explain in great detail what (her plan) means, also in fiscal terms.”

Thursday’s parliamentary vote came during its summer recess. It reconvened on Merkel’s request. On June 29, it adjourned.

Members left with Bundestag President Norbert Lammert instructions not to “swim to far out and make sure your carry-on baggage is within close reach.”

In other words, giving criminal bankers taxpayer money is prioritized over parliamentarian fun in the sun and providing vital social services to German citizens who need them.

The name of today’s game is destroying decades of social progress. It’s about money power over popular needs. It’s about exploiting people, not serving them. It transforming Western societies into dystopian nightmares.

Only public rage can change things. Key is mobilizing it before it’s too late.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.  His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour   

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OpEds: Moshe Silman’s self-immolation is a national, not just a personal, tragedy

Silman’s act is a terrible reminder the social problems that prompted huge protests in Israel last year remain.

The social justice protests we saw exactly a year ago in Israel could not be more different than the renewed wave of rallies that have once again brought people out to the sweltering streets.

Last year, tens of thousands participated in the J14 weekly marches against the high cost of living in Israel and the deterioration of social services. The rallies grew week on week, culminating in nationwide demonstrations on September 3 that brought over 400,000 people to the streets. This was the largest – and most peaceful – protest against capitalism that summer across the globe, not only percentage-wise (6% of the population) but in absolute numbers as well.

There’s a different atmosphere on the streets this summer. Polls show there is still widespread support for J14 (named after the day the protest began, July 14), but fewer are participating. Saturday’s demonstration, the largest so far, managed to muster just 10,000 people. The ad hoc leadership of the movement has splintered into numerous factions, some calling for more co-operation with the political system, while others want a confrontational approach.

Both the citizens and the state are losing patience. Police are showing less restraint this time round and videos of protesters being beaten have quickly spread across the social networks. Police even brought in a high-tech military surveillance vehicle used in the occupied territories to monitor protesters. And even before the protests started up again, key activists were summoned for interrogation at police stations. On the protesters’ side, the confrontational approach took centre stage a few weeks ago when a bank was “occupied” and its windows smashed.

Yet all this changed on Saturday night. Moshe Silman, 57, a son of Holocaust survivors, took a bus from the northern city of Haifa to the protest in Tel Aviv, a bottle of petrol in his hand. Just as the demo was about to end, he doused himself and lit a match. At the time of writing he is in critical condition with third-degree burns covering 94% of his body.

Just before setting himself alight, Silman handed out a letter telling his story of how a small debt of around US$1,000 to the National Insurance Institute spiralled out of control. From a man who owned a small truck delivery business, Silman’s battle against Israeli authorities took him through bankruptcy, mental despair, and eventually severe deterioration in health. He suffered a stroke, could not work, and when he asked for minimum assistance in rent, he was turned down. It got so hard for him that friends recall him saying the only time he was at peace was in hospital, where he got three meals a day.

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, used an interesting choice of words, calling Silman’s self-immolation a “personal tragedy”, as if it had nothing to do with the social structure of the state and did not reflect a much larger disease in Israeli society.

A “personal tragedy”? The truth is, Silman is just one victim in a country that long ago lost any of its social-democratic values, and now some of its humanity. As Israel’s occupation of Palestine looks increasingly like apartheid, as basic democratic norms are being discarded one by one, Israeli governments over the past three decades have drastically cut back on social rights and services for its citizens inside the green line, as well. Housing, education, employment, welfare – all have been drained of their resources.

Recent data shows that Israel spends only 16% of its GDP on public services, compared to an average of 22% in the OECD, of which it is now a member. The health system is one of the hardest hit, as even Silman himself learned that Saturday, when he could not be admitted to the hospital burn unit because there were only eight beds, all taken.

Silman’s case clearly shows that the economic and social problems that brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets last year remain unresolved. The gaps between rich and poor are some of the highest in the west, with 60% of the wealth being held by only 10% of the public. Indeed, it is difficult to shake the feeling that the gap between the regime and its citizens is only widening.

Despite their support for J14, many Israelis consider the movement a failure. Some say that such huge numbers of protesters should have brought about more substantial change, and quicker. Others take issue with J14 demanding “social justice” – yet avoid the social justice that the Palestinian people long for and deserve. Yet, its greatest success is actually in the slow process that it has set in motion: since Israel’s independence, its political discourse has been completely dominated by military and security issues. Thanks to J14, this is changing. Politicians now spend huge amounts of time discussing it, conglomerates know they are being watched much closer by the public – and some have even been punished by consumers. For the first time in its history, Israelis may be able to say in the next elections: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Silman is not the Mohamed Bouazizi of Israel, however. The Netanyahu regime will not be brought down by crowds of people storming the Knesset. Yet, his act may make people who have lost faith in J14 come out to the streets again. Essentially, what Silman has shown most middle-class Israelis is that they didn’t know how bad it really is here. How rotten to the core the system has become. He has opened our eyes to the fact that his tragedy is not personal, as Netanyahu would want us to believe. It’s national.

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The self-immolation of Moshe Silman

By Chris Mardsen, WSWS.ORG


The self-immolation of Moshe Silman raises fundamental questions of political perspective before workers and youth in Israel and throughout the Middle East.

Silman’s was a desperate act, for which the Israeli ruling elite is entirely culpable. The appalling personal circumstances that drove him to douse himself with petrol, leaving him near death with burns to 90 percent of his body, are well known.  His suicide note is eloquent testimony to two things: how even a moderately successful small businessman can be plunged into abject poverty under the impact of the deepening crisis of Israeli and world capitalism, and, secondly, the casual indifference of the political class and the state authorities.

“The state of Israel stole from me and robbed me,” he wrote. “They left me with nothing.”

“I can’t afford medication or rent,” he added. “I blame the State of Israel, [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and [Finance Minister] Yuval Steinitz… They take from the poor and give to the rich.”

Though he fell further than many, Silman’s experience is shared by millions of Israelis suffering ever-greater hardship. Yet the media and politicians are insisting no broader conclusions can be drawn from his fate. For Netanyahu, Silman’s is an “individual tragedy,” while Labour Party leader Shelly Yechimovich insists that he “certainly must not be seen as a symbol of the social protest.”

The Jerusalem Post was particularly incensed by the comparisons being made with Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire in December 2010. His suicide played a catalytic role in the mass social movement that ended with the fall of the regime and then spread to Egypt and beyond.

The Jerusalem Post editorialised: “Are we to believe that Israel’s dynamic, free economy and relatively generous welfare state can conceivably be compared to the stifling nepotism, Byzantine bureaucracy and arbitrary restrictions under then-president of Tunisia Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s autocratic rule?”

The answer is clearly yes.

Silman set himself on fire on a July 15 demonstration marking the first anniversary of the mass social protests, known as the July 14 movement, which at their height brought close to half a million Israelis—out of a population of just 7.75 million—onto the streets.

Protests against the spiraling cost of housing won mass support. They targeted the oligarchy—the 20 families that control most of the economy in a country with one of the highest levels of poverty and inequality in the developed world, where 75 percent of workers earn $1,700 or less a month.

The protests punctured a myth that is essential to the Israeli bourgeoisie and which the Jerusalem Post again seeks to utilize—that Israel is different from the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, an oasis of democracy and economic prosperity. They proved that the social crisis in Israel is inseparably bound up with the social, economic and political developments taking place throughout the region, which, in turn, are shaped by the worsening crisis of the global capitalist system.

They above all demonstrated that the fundamental divide in the Middle East, as everywhere else, is not nationality, race or religion, but class. Jewish workers, like their Arab brothers and sisters, are facing ever more brutal attacks on their living standards. In Israel, as in the Arab countries, the enemy of the workers is not workers of other countries, but their own bourgeoisie and its imperialist backers in the US, Europe and around the world. The failure of the world capitalist system has created the objective conditions for the unification of the struggles of Israeli and Arab workers against imperialism, Zionism and the Arab bourgeoisie.

Silman resorted to his own personal destruction not only to register a terrible protest, but in the hope of re-galvanizing the movement in which he had been an activist from the earliest days. He clearly drew inspiration not only from Bouazizi, but also from Greek pensioner Dimitris Christoulas, who killed himself with a handgun on April 4 in Syntagma Square and called for young people to rise up against the government. In video clips of Silman, he declares the need for a “revolution.”

Silman’s immolation has led to protests involving several thousands against Netanyahu and the government. But it is not a matter of simply reviving the July 14 movement.

The perspective on which that movement was built is politically responsible for Silman and a number of other individuals who have tried to emulate him being left in such an apparently hopeless position.

Though winning the support of broad layers of workers and youth, its leadership articulated the political and social interests of a narrow layer of the petty-bourgeoisie. As with innumerable similar formations, such as Occupy Wall Street and the “Angry Ones” in Spain and Greece, an insistence on “no politics” was meant only to ensure that no fundamental challenge was made to an economic order within which the leading elements of the protest were seeking their own social advancement.

Their real argument with the oligarchy was that it was not sharing the spoils with the upper-middle layers as it had in the past.

They wanted to change the status quo only insofar as they wanted a position for themselves closer to its apex.

All these movements have suffered a collapse, in large measure because many leading figures have been afforded the niche they sought—leaving the more genuine elements increasingly isolated.

The two main instigators of July 14, Daphni Leef and Stav Shaffir, now run a non-profit organization whose stated aim is “to change the order of priorities, to recreate social mobility.” In Shaffir’s words: “We all miss last summer. It was amazing. But it is time to mature and move on.”

Others have followed suit, entering the world of official politics or starting businesses.

Haaretz reported July 1: “The leaders of last summer’s cost-of-living protest have joined forces with members of the business community and academia to put together a social justice covenant.” Their call for “gradual increases in the state budget… to get the wheels of development moving” is backed by Histadrut trade union federation leader Ofer Eini and various professors.

“We figured we’d enlist as many groups in the economy as possible, such as protesters, members of the political system, and, first and foremost, players in civil society,” states Uri Matoki.

The 2011 protests were only the initial expression of a broad and a still inchoate radicalization of workers and youth that unfolded as part of the mass movements throughout the Middle East and Europe against ever deepening social misery and the tyranny of the banks.

One year on, bitter political experience in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere has demonstrated that such spontaneous outbursts of social anger, even when assuming insurrectionary forms, do not obviate the requirement for a socialist and internationalist programme and a leadership that articulates the independent interests of the working class. What is required is a unified struggle throughout the region, led by the International Committee of the Fourth International, to abolish the profit system and establish the United Socialist States of the Middle East as part of a world socialist federation.

Chris Marsden is a senior political writer with WSWS.ORG

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The Promised Land

This is the fate of young people today: excluded, but forbidden to opt out.

By George Monbiot, monbiot.com
published in the Guardian 17th July 2012

Hounded by police and bailiffs, evicted wherever they stopped, they did not mean to settle here. They had walked out of London to occupy disused farmland on the Queen’s estates surrounding Windsor Castle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that didn’t work out very well. But after several days of pursuit, they landed two fields away from the place where modern democracy is commonly supposed to have been born.

At first this group of mostly young, dispossessed people, who (after the 17th century revolutionaries) call themselves Diggers 2012(1), camped on the old rugby pitch of Brunel University’s Runnymede campus. It’s a weed-choked complex of grand old buildings and modern halls of residence, whose mildewed curtains flap in the wind behind open windows, all mysteriously abandoned as if struck by a plague or a neutron bomb. The diggers were evicted again, and moved down the hill into the woods behind the campus: pressed, as if by the ineluctable force of history, ever closer to the symbolic spot. From the meeting house they have built and their cluster of tents, you can see across the meadows to where the Magna Carta was sealed almost 800 years ago.

Their aim is simple: to remove themselves from the corporate economy, to house themselves, grow food and build a community on abandoned land. Implementation is less simple. Soon after I arrived, on a sodden day last week, an enforcer working for the company which now owns the land came slithering through the mud in his suit and patent leather shoes with a posse of police, to serve papers.

Already the crops the settlers had planted had been destroyed once; the day after my visit they were destroyed again. But the repeated destruction, removals and arrests have not deterred them. As one of their number, Gareth Newnham, told me, “if we go to prison we’ll just come back … I’m not saying that this is the only way. But at least we’re creating an opportunity for young people to step out of the system.”

To be young in the post-industrial nations today is to be excluded. Excluded from the comforts enjoyed by preceding generations; excluded from jobs; excluded from hopes of a better world; excluded from self-ownership.

Those with degrees are owned by the banks before they leave college. Housing benefit is being choked off. Landlords now demand rents so high that only those with the better jobs can pay. Work has been sliced up and outsourced into a series of mindless repetitive tasks, whose practitioners are interchangeable. Through globalisation and standardisation, through unemployment and the erosion of collective bargaining and employment laws, big business now asserts a control over its workforce almost unprecedented in the age of universal suffrage.

The promise the old hold out to the young is a lifetime of rent, debt and insecurity. A rentier class holds the nation’s children to ransom. Faced with these conditions, who can blame people for seeking an alternative?

But the alternatives have also been shut down: you are excluded yet you cannot opt out. The land – even disused land – is guarded as fiercely as the rest of the economy. Its ownership is scarcely less concentrated than it was when the Magna Carta was written. But today there is no Charter of the Forest (the document appended to the Magna Carta in 1217, granting the common people rights to use the royal estates)(2). As Simon Moore, an articulate, well-read 27-year old, explained, “those who control the land have enjoyed massive economic and political privileges. The relationship between land and democracy is a strong one, which is not widely understood.”

As we sat in the wooden house the diggers have built, listening to the rain dripping from the eaves, the latest attempt to reform the House of Lords was collapsing in parliament(3). Almost 800 years after the Magna Carta was approved, unrepresentative power of the kind familiar to King John and his barons still holds sway. Even in the House of Commons, most seats are pocket boroughs, controlled by those who fund the major parties and establish the limits of political action.

Through such ancient powers, our illegitimate rulers sustain a system of ancient injustices, which curtail alternatives and lock the poor into rent and debt. This spring, the government dropped a clause into an unrelated bill so late that it could not be properly scrutinised by the House of Commons, criminalising the squatting of abandoned residential buildings(4,5).

The House of Lords, among whom the landowning class is still well-represented, approved the measure. Thousands of people who have solved their own housing crises will now be evicted, just as housing benefit payments are being cut. I remember a political postcard from the early 1990s titled “Britain in 2020”, which depicted the police rounding up some scruffy-looking people with the words, “you’re under arrest for not owning or renting property”. It was funny then; it is less funny today.

The young men and women camping at Runnymede are trying to revive a different tradition, largely forgotten in the new age of robber barons. They are seeking, in the words of the Diggers of 1649, to make “the Earth a common treasury for all … not one lording over another, but all looking upon each other as equals in the creation.”(6) The tradition of resistance, the assertion of independence from the laws devised to protect the landlords’ ill-gotten property, long pre-date and long post-date the Magna Carta. But today they scarcely feature in national consciousness.

I set off in lashing rain to catch a train home from Egham, on the other side of the hill. As I walked into the town, I found the pavements packed with people. The rain bounced off their umbrellas, forming a silver mist. The front passed and the sun came out, and a few minutes later everyone began to cheer and wave their flags as the Olympic torch was carried down the road. The sense of common purpose was tangible, the readiness for sacrifice (in the form of a thorough soaking) just as evident. Half of what we need is here already. Now how do we recruit it to the fight for democracy?

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6. Gerrard Winstanley, 1649. The True Levellers Standard Advanced: Or, The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men.

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