Friday 13 April 2018

Gone with the wind..and the Rivers of Blood.....Friday musings.......


Odd you know? Macron haunted by the ghosts of 68 as he battles with the French Trade Unions...Trump haunted by the ghosts of Watergate....May desperate to distract from Brexit and Corbyn ....all turn to mitary adventure abroad.

They whip up the poison of patriotism ...anti Russian fears . Guess what? don't mention the Russian oligarchs who maintain both Putin and fund the Tory Party.. this is an illusion it serves them all. The nationalistic and patriotic distractions serve them all well....
The 59th anniversary of the Rivers of Blood speech..stirs up the hatreds. Powell as a Classicist would know about the hread and circuses used by the Roman Oligarchs is now being used extensively and powerfully. It's odd you know that no one is remembering how the blessed Nigel Farage praised Putin and said how he admired him. Odd that the remnants of UKIP are so silent. Odd how the right-wing trolls redoubled their efforts yesterday as the fog of war billows across the Middle East. Odd indeed how the stupidity of the bluekippers discourse spreads mias


 And so distracting us all from the arms trade the dear Theresa helps Donald distract in turn from domestic problems here and on the states. The old approach military adventure oversees.. beware only 20% of the population support you Theresa.. .you play with fire. Whether the children of Yemen die from British made bombs or the children of Syria die by chemical weapons ...tgere is no difference or moral superiority. Have you watched Dr Strangelove recently?


It's been 50 years since Enoch Powell's rivers of blood speech.  Fifty years ago i was a ten year old at an English prep school in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. then Ashby was a narrow island of prosperity in the Midlands. Powels speech was welcomed by the teachers at my school. The one child of  s different ethnic origin was bullied and mocked openly. My father who had done national service in kenya loathed prejudice and racism explained to me at the time what it was really all about. I understood then as I understand now. I know stoke on trent I know it was the Brexit capital/

The prejudices  Isaw then were the oxgen of the Powellites. It became the same for the Kippers. I saw them emege on social media again  yesterday. They all have the Union Jack on their timelines.  They maon about economic migrants  without understanding the terms or the experiences.

the system has done it . it keeps people divided and afraid. To challenge the view is described as boring by them. The real role of the left is to empower by education, by information it is not going aling with the Sun,  the Star, and the Daily Mail.


Powell laid the foundation for a hard right white supremacist model of politics. Powell was a Classical scholar of some note and yet his prejudice; his narrowness and his League of Empire Loyalist approach is not reflected in the reality of Roman society. He might well froth at the mouth and see the River Tiber turning blood red...yer he was wrong.

Modern scholarship reveals that Rome was multicultural, multiracial and multifaith There were black Centurions on Hadrian's Wall and Celtic legionary troops in Palestine. Mary Beardzs research has shown the lack of Powell's knowlexge.. Powell knew of the Roman elite yet he never pointed out that it was the plutocrats like Crasus and the populists like Caesar who brought down the Republic . The elite families of Rome fought it out and kept the masses quiet with bread and circuses. How apt for Powell's use of the race card and the patronage of the corporation's of that time. There were black Emperors brown Emperors and numerous races and ethnicities appeared in the Senate and as administrators.. Yes, there were slaves but one wonders if parallels can be drawn with the low paid low skilled slavery of the call centre and the pound shops. Powell was one of the elite he gloried in the British Empire but failed to see how close he resembled the demagogues of the Athenian polis and of the Roman tribunes. For Powell Classics was a study of the elite. He failed to explain that without the concept of .an Empire wide citizenship St Paul would have been unable to carry out his missionary journeys. For the bluekippers of today who do not understand that the freedom granted to St Paul enabled them to create what they would call in code " Christian Civilization " ironically it was Theodosius a Christian Emperor of Byzantium who brought in religious intolerstion and limited the rights to travel for citizens.

The thoughts of Enoch Powell have cursed our society. It has laid the foundations of the hard right. And for the pound shop Powell's of today it has provided the oxygen of hate and fear.. Powell's history is partial. He served as s Unionist MP in Northern Ireland after leaving his Wolverhampton sezt. He served as a representative of a narrow theocratic party. His scholarship of Ancient Rome was brilliant yet partial and it offers nothing to the new popular peopleshistory of today. He could manipulate but could never understand. His toxic legacy divides us rather than links us. The blood in the River comes from the millions slain by the military industrial complex of the European states, the blood comes from the victims of the far right and of the alt right. Powell begat them all and cast division amongst us all. He stirred up fear and it is our blood that he risked staining not only the River red but staining our souls and our thoughts.. It has have been fifty years of separation, isolation and prejudice..look into the mirror and see the faces of Farage and Trump looking back.

Forty years ago he was speaking to a Monday Club meeting in the centre of Swansea. I remember picketing that meeting and I am so glad I did. Powell left us s toxic legacy.. lets remove the stain and drain our blood from the numerous rivers he polluted. I was at an English Prep school in the Midlands in 1968. The tea hers at the school lived Powell. The racism and prejudice there was that of Powell.. I have loathed his ilk ever since.

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