This Diggers’ Song video was posted during the summer Climate Camp in England -
With that song, these Climate Campers have affiliated themselves with previous attempts to share and maintain “a common treasury for all” — which some simply would describe as a “commons.”
Like the Diggers, the Climate Campers rally around common environments — protected or claimed through civil disobedience, and other activism. At a very basic level, their goals and tactics are similar.
But the Climate Camps and the Diggers have approached these common environments from different angles. While the Climate Campers have been more inclined to approach fields as meeting places, and as launching-off points for nearby protests, the Diggers attempted to claim lands that could be farmed in common. They mainly were after agricultural lands which they might have used to sustain farming collectives. Food concerns have not been central at Climate Camps, but food issues are not completely off the ‘map’ at Climate Camps either — as this Climate Camp TV video about fruit smoothies indicates. Yet, as Climate Campers have focused on greenhouse gases, and on other fossil fuel pollution released into our common atmosphere, it seems that they haven’t devoted much attention to emissions from industrial agriculture, and other mainstream food systems. (Here is a post that addresses interconnections between food systems and greenhouse gas emissions — approached through generalized statistical estimates.)
I’m raising those points about distinct focuses and limitations to compare the two approaches to common environments.
John Bennett (in this blog post) -
“How can simply placing our hands on the steering wheel impair our judgement, turn us against our fellow citizens and cause us to engage in risky behavior that we know will yield only small, fleeting rewards (if any).”
I’m going to start to explore those issues here –
without focusing so much on car equipment (such as steering wheels).
“It’s almost as if there’s something about being inside a vehicle of any kind, removed from the normal pace and experience of walking — the only thing we were actually born to do, after all — that evokes its own special behaviors, its own convulsive social physics, and problems — traffic fatalities, it should be noted, were ranked as the leading cause of fatalities in London in the early 18th century.”
The live version is more fitting for this post. Live music is somewhat like photos of celebrities who aren’t wearing make-up — that is, celebrities who aren’t made up to look greater.
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Here are a few British monuments to figures who often have been presented as great people -
There are many forms of localization (toward community autonomy) and de-localization (toward subordination under distant structures and powers, including agribusiness), and these different types of localization and de-localization are all interrelated. Without large-scale shipping and trade, mass consumption (of t-shirts, CDs, and other products) wouldn’t be possible; this consumerism also couldn’t muffle and take the place of local creativity. Conversely, if people didn’t flock to those mass products there would be less support for de-localization.
“Local music: relocalisation for the soul”
… “Just as it’s necessary to encourage local production of healthy food, we also have to encourage local production of good music and art!”
(Update - I prefer the word “heart” to “soul,” as the word “soul” suggests detachment from the worldy settings that we all live in–settings that include our natural environments. Surely the person who wrote the post that I’ve linked to didn’t intend to draw people away from planet earth in that way; nevertheless, the disembodied qualities of the word “soul” still stand. The word “heart” isn’t an ideal replacement, but it’s an improvement, I think.)
Update - December 30, 2007 -
The best thing about this song and video, in my view, is the way that the creators present their messages through them. I haven’t posted and re-posted these links because I agree with everything that is said in the song and video. I’m not one to uncritically celebrate Cuba, for instance. Although I disagree with some of the statements made here, there are several that I do support. More importantly, the song and the video are fun, and they could help to bridge constructive social movements and the hip hop culture of ‘blacks’ in the U.S. underclasses. Other groups are tied to hip hop as well, but I mention these U.S. underclasses because they could have such a huge impact—domestically and abroad—if they would intervene more in the direction of the U.S. Hip hop usually co-opts these potential challenges to the status quo, yet “Ride the Fence” is different.
