Re-entering The Blogosphere
Apologies for the paucity of posts over recent days. I would like to be able to attribute this to busy schedule, but I'm not entirely sure what I've actually been doing. I suppose I have managed to get my christmas shopping started (!) and I've had some work to do and some events to organise, but mainly it seems to come down to the fact that I'm just too darn lazy.
The one thing I did do which filled up some time and might be of interest was my trip to the annual National Union of Students anti-fees march, this year held in Cardiff although it's previously been held in London. Unfortunately this was hardly the most exciting demonstration I've ever been on. There was a brief sit-down protest with NUS stewards doing all they could to move people one, clearly horrified at this expression of individual thought and deviation from the party-line. This didn't last long, however, and we were marching again within minutes, the structures of power no doubt shaken to their very core.
The march eventually wound its way to the heart of Cardiff University where we were addressed by various NUS, union and political figures who were kind enough to explain what we were marching for. This was very helpful as I obviously wouldn't have known otherwise. I was surprised to hear one or two speeches delivered in Welsh and in fact probably paid as much attention to those as I did to the speeches I could understand. I did pick up on several speakers who commented on the discrepancy between government claims that there is insufficient money to fund Higher Education and the huge sums invested in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Surprisingly no-one seemed to have read an article in the Independent which estimated the cost of the war at £5 billion.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole day was the journey home when we crashed on the motorway, but that's a whole other story... (In case anyone cares, everyone was fine.)
That's pretty much me done. I s'pose I'll see y'all again in a week! Until then make sure you check out Planetshift's compelling defence of the two-party solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict which says everything I'd want to and a few things I'm too stupid to have thought of. You should also go read Zeynep Toufe's thoughts on activism around the situation in Darfur which avoids shying away from the "real political thorny issues," which I fear has discouraged many within the anti-war movement from confronting the issue.
The one thing I did do which filled up some time and might be of interest was my trip to the annual National Union of Students anti-fees march, this year held in Cardiff although it's previously been held in London. Unfortunately this was hardly the most exciting demonstration I've ever been on. There was a brief sit-down protest with NUS stewards doing all they could to move people one, clearly horrified at this expression of individual thought and deviation from the party-line. This didn't last long, however, and we were marching again within minutes, the structures of power no doubt shaken to their very core.
The march eventually wound its way to the heart of Cardiff University where we were addressed by various NUS, union and political figures who were kind enough to explain what we were marching for. This was very helpful as I obviously wouldn't have known otherwise. I was surprised to hear one or two speeches delivered in Welsh and in fact probably paid as much attention to those as I did to the speeches I could understand. I did pick up on several speakers who commented on the discrepancy between government claims that there is insufficient money to fund Higher Education and the huge sums invested in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Surprisingly no-one seemed to have read an article in the Independent which estimated the cost of the war at £5 billion.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole day was the journey home when we crashed on the motorway, but that's a whole other story... (In case anyone cares, everyone was fine.)
That's pretty much me done. I s'pose I'll see y'all again in a week! Until then make sure you check out Planetshift's compelling defence of the two-party solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict which says everything I'd want to and a few things I'm too stupid to have thought of. You should also go read Zeynep Toufe's thoughts on activism around the situation in Darfur which avoids shying away from the "real political thorny issues," which I fear has discouraged many within the anti-war movement from confronting the issue.
Posted by Disillusioned kid at Tuesday, December 07, 2004
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