Wasa Wasa...

-
Wasa Wasa - Edgar Broughton Band


Fifty years ago in our youth,  we voiced our worries that the world was being despoiled by capitalists and our ecosystem destroyed in pursuit of profit. Greed. Short-termism. Self-interest. We were concerned then and made it plain but not many people believed there was even a problem and fewer listened. Money, oil, transporting goods across vast distances to suit the 'needs' of the developed world's populations; cheaper and cheaper food and commodities: simply moving the problems of the first world across into the developing world or to the ex-colonies, former empires and already ruined countries and environments. Think about the asbestos mountains dumped in India. The contaminated hulks of decommissioned ships towed out there to be hacked apart almost by hand in dry docks. The oil spillages from broken-backed supertankers. And so on.

Half a century on, the world's population is generally now far more aware of the problems we face environmentally and most right thinking people are cognisent of the need to do something about it now. Before it's too damned late. True, there is a large part of the world's populous that will just continue to consume, soma-like, while the planet slowly shuts up shop until we are extinct; but to be perfectly honest, without the will on the part of governments and politicians to get it sorted and very, very soon we're staring down the barrel of an ecological cannon at a disaster coming at us at very high speed.

I was just going to post a nice picture tonight with some commentary on how pleasant the weather has been post-Atlantic-storms today. Unfortunately, today's New York Times piece about the US oil industry planning to flood African countries with plastics to bolster up their failing business in cahoots with governments desperate to do deals with Trump's America has put the mockers on it. These people are so far beyond anything that could rationally be called 'thinking' it truly beggars belief - I'm rendered speechless and inconsolate in the wake of such monumental, crass stupidity - faith in humankind is severely being stretched graphene-thin. How many more reasoned arguments and scientific facts can these idiots be fed before they actually wake up and smell the proverbial?

Fifty years - most of my life - and we're still stuck in the same self-destructive idiot-capitalist rut that we ever were. Unreal.

'Mama, mama; what's that red ball in the sky...?'

Comments

  1. Phil.31 August 2020 at 21:12

    Very interesting post Kel, which as is usual, I find myself agreeing with.

    It goes without saying that the accompanying photo takes me back over 50 years - to Jeff's front room at Chiswell Road. I must admit that I don't remember the lyric, and I don't remember the track. I do however remember clearly the track Apache Dropout; which after Googling, I see came from their second Album - Sing Brother Sing.

    50 years then - what was that all about?

    Trust AOK and all well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sideways31 August 2020 at 21:36

      I first heard the album at Kyte's house in Northfield: it was his brother's record. I saw the band at Hyde Park in 1970 with Pink Floyd: Kytey, Spencer and I think Jones were there, but I don't remember who else - did you go? I also saw EBB at the Arts Centre, Cannon Hill in the amphitheatre - can't remember the year, though...I think I've got Out Demons Out! on single somewhere!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more