July sees the annual gathering of socialists of various persuasions plus thousands of local folks from the surrounding area parading behind banners from their now defunct pit villages ... the Durham Miners' Gala, the Big Meeting, running on nostalgia and enthusiastic leftists from around the country ... attendance estimates vary between 100,000 and 200,000, which is a big variation, though even the lower figure is impressive enough ... the star of the show, Jeremy Corbyn, takes the tributes on the balcony of the County Hotel as the parade winds its way patiently through the streets, taking over 4 hours for the last banners to reach the racecourse and the speeches along with light rain ... plenty of tub thumping and rabble rousing from the platform, including a direct hit on the duplicity of J.C.'s disloyal deputy, TWatson, promoting the Big Lie drama of alleged anti-semitism, at the behest of its creators, Mossad, cleverly conflating anti-Zionism and anti-semitism in order to undermine Corbyn, a well known opponent of war crimes against Palestinians ... TWatson and others on the payroll as shown in the declared parliamentary records ... liberal sensitivities of public figures scared of being labelled anti-semitic harbour the plotters, prominent anti-Zionist Jews like Noam Chomsky are rarely heard in mainstream media or characterised as "self-hating Jews" ... and so the story runs on, along with the lie that Iran is destabilising the region, when some years ago the Pentagon plan to destabilise the Middle East was approved and has rolled out remorselessly ever since as the Benighted States and loyal allies, the Disunited Kingdom, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others have removed stable (not to say liberal or democratic) governments in Iraq, Libya and, maybe soon, Syria ... the economic war on Iran is well underway, along with gunboat diplomacy in the Gulf and threats of military intervention ...
Readers bemused by this diatribe need not fear that equanimity has been compromised by Saturday's day out with the comrades ... a cool head is still needed and old loyalties no longer hold ... polarised politics don't serve, Brexit is not the question, war is not the answer and neither is a centrally planned economy ... looking at the level of alcohol consumption and junk food at the Gala, despite the fine words, the vanguard of the revolution are in no condition to bring down capitalism any time soon ... still, capitalism is destroying itself through its inherent contradictions anyway ... all we need is a viable alternative which transcends the polarities ...
Proposals on a postcard please ...
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