Great Socialist thinkers’ in Moscow, Russia

[Tony Gosling]

Socialism is a term in currency now for mass 
organisation of the whole of society to stop 
private hoarding, and for sharing of resources, 
ideas which were very much alive during the English Civil war.

Historically GERRARD WINSTANLEY and THE DIGGERS 
movement was, and is, one of the most important 
parts of the English ‘Revolution’ of 1649.
http://wigandiggersfestival.org/about/
This is recognized globally with GERRARD 
WINSTANLEY amongst those listed on a monument 
dedicated to ‘The great Socialist thinkers’ in Moscow, Russia.
We think Wigan should be proud to be the home of 
such an important historical figure, especially 
as he was the voice for so many ordinary people at the time.
“For freedom is the man that will turn the word upside down”
Here’s a clip from the 1975 film ‘Winstanley’ by 
Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo. Pity about the 
anything but Wigan, and pretty ‘posh’ Southern 
accent, as well as mispronunciation of the man’s 
name (which should be pronounced Winstan-ley not 
Win-stanley) by Winstanley actor Miles Halliwell.
Pithy clip at the centre of the film & story 
WInstanley - do please watch if you need to be 
convinced the Diggers would have been recognised as Socialists today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMSL7UsIu00

Tony


And from one of Steve Platt's 1999 articles, copied below
The ownership of land -- dating back in many 
cases to its distribution at the time of the 
Norman Conquest -- remains central to many 
important issues. For Diggers 350, these include rights of access to land for
low-cost housing, recreational and community 
uses, low-impact rural development, 
self-sufficient or self-managing communities, 
permaculture schemes, travellers sites, 
sustainable employment projects and much more.
Whether, within such a diversity of interests, 
there exists the potential to build a significant 
land rights movement in Britain remains to be 
seen. It is one thing to point out that just 1 
per cent of the population owns 75 per cent of 
the land; it is quite another matter to get the 
other 99 per cent to do anything about it.

If thou nit-pick, quibble, grasp at straws and 
fiddle and thou dost not act - thou dost nothing.


DIGGERS THEN AND NOW
STEVE PLATT for GUARDIAN SOCIETY (issue of 24.3.99)

The woman in the white gloves and blue corduroy, who I'd met at the tenth tee
as she walked her dog around the edge of the golf course, was concerned that I
should not divulge her identity. "They wouldn't like it," she cautioned me
distractedly, glancing around nervously as if someone might be spying on her
as we spoke.

"They" were the other residents of what likes to describe itself as one of the
most exclusive private estates in Britain. "It" was the fact that one of their
number was talking to me, an outsider, about the existence of a public
footpath in the very heart of their private domain.

Not even the local council likes to talk about the 20 metre-wide strip of land
in its ownership that runs in a short semi-circular sliver around the north-
eastern ramparts of the ancient hillfort at the summit of St George's Hill,
near Weybridge, Surrey. It's not marked on any maps, nor signposted on the
ground. Parts of it appear to have been appropriated in the gardens of the
adjoining properties. Yet if you look closely for the gap in the hedge where
Caesar's Cottage butts onto Camp End Road (the developers of the hill got
their history wrong; despite the names, this was an iron age fort, not
Caesar's camp), you can trace the beginning of the path as it wends its way
around the foot of the ramparts.

Given to Elmbridge Borough Council in 1952 by the then owners of the estate,
this anonymous strip of land is about as near as St George's Hill gets these
days to the notion of public or common land. Gates and private security guards
bar the main entrances to the estate, on which it is a modest dwelling indeed
that measures its price in less than millions and where the tightest of
planning controls prohibit the construction of any property with less than an
acre of land around it. Recent would-be visitors to the hillfort footpath
report being told that no such public land exists on the estate and being
turned away at its exclusive gates.

But it was not ever thus. Until the developer, W G Tarrant, bought the one and
a half square miles that make up the St George's Hill Estate in 1912, the hill
was a popular centre for walking and other country pursuits. Many of the
rights of way that were extinguished then had previously been in use for
generations. Earlier still, this had been common land, compulsorily enclosed
by Act of Parliament in 1804 by the Duke of York (of nursery rhyme fame). And
earlier again, it had been the setting for probably the most famous land
occupation in English history.

Back in the English revolution, shortly after the beheading of Charles I, the
waste and common land of St George's Hill was squatted by Gerard Winstanley's
Diggers. Billed as "pioneers of communism" in an exhibition now running at the
Elmbridge Museum in Weybridge, they arrived on the site of these modern
millionaires' mansions on 1st April 1649 with the intention "that we may . . .
lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich
and Poor". Three hundred and fifty years later, a rag, tag and bobtail army of
Winstanley's political and spiritual descendants is returning to the hill with
a similar message.

The original Diggers were, for the most part, landless peasants who had fought
in Cromwell's army against the king. Calling themselves "True Levellers" (as
distinct from John Lilburne's less radical Levellers) because of their
rejection of the notion of private property, they came to plough and sow the
earth in common, claiming the untended land they believed to be rightfully
theirs. "Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at
ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others,
that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve
all her children?" asked Winstanley in The New Law of Righteousness.
Winstanley's modern-day equivalents share a similar disdain for the
concentration of land ownership in the hands of the few, but a greater
difficulty in raising the land issue to a central position in modern political
discourse. Whereas, right through to the early years of this century, the
question of land ownership was recognised as being key to any programme of
democratic or economic reform, today it is seen rather as a fringe issue.

That will not stop the modern Diggers trying. As part of the 350th anniversary
commemorations, the loose-knit "Diggers 350" campaign group is staging a
"pageant" and march on the hill on the weekend of 3rd April. Provided that the
golf club gives its consent, campaigners intend to erect a Diggers Memorial
Stone on the site before moving on to a long-term land occupation somewhere
nearby. (Participants who feel so inclined are being invited to "come along to
the 3rd April march with sleeping bags, tents and things to plant and grow"
and to "make sure there's someone to feed your cat for a few days".)

Those involved include The Land Is Ours landrights campaign, which first came
to St George's Hill four years ago, when it organised a short-lived squat of
the disused Wisley airfield nearby. The Surrey Herald reported at the time
that residents were "baffled" by their appearance, although the owners of the
golf club declared themselves to be "delighted" by the planting of two trees
on their land. Since then, The Land Is Ours has sharpened its campaigning
teeth with further land actions, including the occupation three years ago of
Guinness's Gargoyle Wharf development site in south London. This spring, in
alliance with campaigners who have come in particular from anti-roads,
squatting and other protest groups, it is promising a week of action leading
up to long-term land occupations in various parts of the country.

The current debate over the "right to roam" and other aspects of countryside
policy has shown how the ownership of land -- dating back in many cases to its
distribution at the time of the Norman Conquest -- remains central to many
important issues. For Diggers 350, these include rights of access to land for
low-cost housing, recreational and community uses, low-impact rural
development, self-sufficient or self-managing communities, permaculture
schemes, travellers sites, sustainable employment projects and much more.

Whether, within such a diversity of interests, there exists the potential to
build a significant land rights movement in Britain remains to be seen. It is
one thing to point out that just 1 per cent of the population owns 75 per cent
of the land; it is quite another matter to get the other 99 per cent to do
anything about it.

But there have been small straws in the land rights wind. Minor victories have
been won, for example, on the rural settlement front, where low-impact rural
developments such as the Tinker's Bubble community in Somerset have secured
(albeit so far only short-term) planning permission for their settlements. The
numbers involved may be small, but Gerard Winstanley's Diggers probably never
totalled more than a couple of hundred at St George's Hill, and Winstanley
himself was never in any doubt about the importance of symbolic actions, even
if a particular occupation of land ended in failure.

"And here I end, having put my Arm as far as my strength will go to advance
Righteousness," he wrote after the final eviction of the Digger communities in
1650. "I have Writ, I have Acted, I have Peace: and now I must wait to see the
Spirit do his own work in the hearts of others, and whether England shall be
the first Land, or some others, wherin Truth shall sit down in triumph."

He would, no doubt, be pleased to note that the Spirit is still doing his work
in some hearts -- and that, if nothing else, a public footpath in the middle
of one of the most exclusive estates in Britain, where once he sought to
plough and sow, is likely to be walked upon by a few more people than usual
next weekend.


The Diggers 350 commemorations include:
Thursday 1st April  Digger discussions and entertainment, 7pm, Weybridge
Library Hall, Church Street, Weybridge
Saturday 3rd April  March and pageant to St George's Hill and placing of
memorial stone, commencing 12.30pm, The Centre, Hepworth Way, Walton-on-
Thames.
Friday 9th - Saturday 10th April  'Hearts and Spades' Diggers conference with
Michael Foot, Weybridge and Walton (Details 01962 827289)
Until 10th April  Exhibition, The Diggers and St George's Hill, Elmbridge
Museum, Church Street, Weybridge



THE DIGGERS AND ST GEORGE'S HILL
STEVE PLATT column for TRIBUNE (issue of 26.3.99)

"To prove a legal title to land," as Lloyd George once said, "one must trace
it back to the man who stole it." One of the modern-day receivers of stolen
property, the Somerset estate holder, Ewen Cameron, was earlier this month
appointed to head the new Countryside Agency -- with responsibility, among
much else, for the introduction of the right to roam on open country.

Before Mr Cameron gets agitated about the fact that he is not among that
landed aristocracy that can trace its ancestry back to the original thieves,
and that he or his forefathers paid good money for his personal country pile,
let's remind ourselves that a stolen video is still a stolen video no matter
how many hands it passes through. And we are all the victims of the crimes
that put the ownership of our land in the hands of such a few. We have a right
to expect that these people repay their debt to society.

That is why, after the huge letdown of the appointment of a recent president
of the Country Landowners Association to oversee public access to mountain,
moor and heath, the news that this access will have some statutory basis came
as such a relief. We have had 50 years of legislation holding out the prospect
of voluntary access agreements, during which those who pinched the land from
the rest of us in the first place have kept their "Private" signs ever more
firmly in place.

If you don't have anything else planned this Easter weekend, you could do
worse than a spot of trespassing on some mountain or moorland that will soon
be open as of right. Alternatively, if you prefer to exercise your brain as
well as your legs on some of the wider issues of land use and ownership, both
today and in the past, you might like to join the motley band of modern-day
Levellers and Diggers who will be assembling at St George's Hill, near
Weybridge, Surrey, on Saturday 3rd April. There they will be marking the 350th
anniversary of the original Diggers' occupation of common land on the hill,
shortly after the beheading of Charles I, when Gerard Winstanley led a group
of mainly landless peasants to plough and sow the waste with the intention
"that we may . . . lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury
for All, both Rich and Poor".

"Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and
for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these
may beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve all her
children?" asked Winstanley in The New Law of Righteousness. Faced with a
furious and often violent response from the landed interests of their day, the
Digger settlements in Surrey and elsewhere lasted barely a year. But their
belief in common ownership lived on, to the extent that a sympathetic
exhibition now running in the nearby Elmbridge Museum bills the Diggers as the
founders of British socialism and St George's Hill as the "birthplace of
communism".

In one of those ironies that surely prove that fate is not merely capricious
but deliberately cruel, St George's Hill today is one of the most exclusive
private estates in the country. Previously common land, it was stolen from the
rural poor by the (Grand Old) Duke of York by forcible Act of Enclosure in
1804. Today, its 800 acres, complete with élite golf and tennis clubs,
comprise a gated and guarded enclave in which planning rules prohibit the
erection of dwellings that occupy less an acre but did not prevent the
developer in the earlier half of this century from largely destroying one of
the best-preserved iron age hillforts in south east England.

That hillfort, however, at the highest point of the hill, is the site for a
surviving sliver of public land. A 20 metre-wide, crescent-shaped strip, which
follows the line of fort's north-eastern ramparts, it has a footpath along its
400-metre length. No matter what the security guards may tell you at the
estate entrances (and some visitors report them as trying to bar entry to
those who they do not like the look of), this little piece of England belongs
not to the estate or any of its millionaires' mansions, but to the local
council, to which it was donated in 1952.

It is worth a visit, in part because the leafy lanes of St George's Hill,
well-wooded now, quiet and free from the through traffic that tears apart so
much of once-rural Surrey, are as fine a stretch of tarmac as ever you are
likely to see. More, though, it's pleasant to think that the communal spirit
of Winstanley still stalks this private realm. "I have Writ, I have Acted, I
have Peace," he wrote after the final eviction of the Digger communities in
1650. "And now I must wait to see the Spirit do his own work in the hearts of
others, and whether England shall be the first Land, or some others, wherin
Truth shall sit down in triumph."

**************************************************

Walk a while with the spirit of Winstanley at St George's Hill on Saturday 3rd
April. March, pageant and placing of memorial stone, meet 12.30, The Centre,
Hepworth Way, Walton-on-Thames (details 01865 722016). Also "Hearts and
Spades" Diggers conference with Michael Foot, 9th-10th April (details 01243
532717) and Elmbridge Museum exhibition, Church Street, Weybridge, until 10th
April (01932 843573).



DO YOU DIG IT?
STEVE PLATT for MIDWEEK (issue of 29.3.99)

The Grand Old Duke of York used to own St George's Hill, near Weybridge,
Surrey. But it's not known whether he ever marched his men to the top of it or
marched them down again.

He probably did so at some point, because he was the aristocrat who
compulsorily enclosed the common land here by a private Act of Parliament in
1804. In doing so, he extinguished all those ancient commoners' rights to dig
turf, collect firewood, graze pigs and so on, which would have upset the local
commoners no end and required the Duke to march his men up and down the hill
on more than one occasion to make sure that no one was sneaking under the
fences of what was now his private domain.

You still have to sneak under the fences to get onto St George's Hill if the
security guards manning the gates at the main entrances don't like the look of
you. Because the St George's Hill Estate is now one of the most exclusive
private estates in the country. The most modest of dwellings here will set you
back several millions. And if you're interested in the sort of properties that
Cliff Richard and the other celebrity residents call home, you'll be looking
at the sort of mortgage loan that not even Peter Mandelson could have got
together from his Cabinet minister mates.

Actually, people don't so much buy houses on St George's Hill as the right to
build on the land on which they stand. The kind of people who live here have
so much money to throw around that they don't just buy new curtains and
carpets when they move in; they call in the demolition contractors and rebuild
the entire place.

This accounts for the fact that there are more hard hats and builders' vans in
the drives of the properties around the hill than there are at the Millenium
Dome. It's only when you look closely that you realise that these are not the
usual men from the Murphia, and that the decals on the ubiquitous white vans
advertise a higher class of building contractor altogether. "Marble Ideas Ltd:
Your Ideas Turned To Stone" announces the sign on one white van. "Markham
Automatic Gates" declares another. "Great Big Pigging Expensive Statues That
You Couldn't Fit In Your Garden, Let Alone Afford To Buy" says a third.

As you slip into the estate via an unmarked gap in the railings just across
 >from the lawn tennis club (never mind the lawn; this place has got its own
lake), you pass a building site which promises a "brand new detached family
home". This stretches the boundaries of what constitutes a "family home" to
the limit. How many children do you need to justify 25 bedrooms? What sort of
granny annexe requires its own gym and swimming pool? But with local planning
regulations which stipulate that each property must be built in no less than
one acre of land, there's a lot of space, as well as money, to play around
with.

I'm not sure whether it's comforting or disturbing to discover that neither
money nor space is any guarantor of good taste. The "brand new detached family
home" is about as architecturally imaginative as an out-of-town Tesco's. A
little way up the road, a dwelling named "Atlantis" has two concrete eagles
perched on its gateposts -- rather fitting really, since the house itself
looks like a terrace of 1960s council flats. Nearby, in quick succession, you
can find Georgian thatch, Tuscan pastiche and Tudor parodies standing side by
side with properties whose owners think nothing of siting a satellite dish in
the middle of the lawn or using car number plate plastic lettering to as
nameplates for their multi-million pound mansions. Some of the names at least
show a sense of humour. ("Wit's End"? Well, I liked it anyway.) Most are as
unimaginative as the architecture: "High Trees", "Hilltop", "Hillside", "Hill
Cottage". As for "Camelot", would that be the Court of King Arthur or a sign
that the owners won the lottery?

There are slightly desperate indications of insecurity here too. As if it's
not sufficient to live on a gated, guarded, private estate, some of the
residents have felt the need to stick up additional signs to emphasise the
point to their neighbours: "Private Drive, No Parking", "Private Road:
Residents Only", "Private Post Box: Use Your Own". (Incidentally, even though
this is a private estate, there must be more public postboxes -- with four
collections a day, no less -- per head of population here than anywhere else
in Britain. I counted at least six shared by at most 400 properties.)

At "The Warreners",  a vast rambling plot of land, like virtually all the
properties here set back so far from the road you might not realise that
there's a house there at all, they have even put in one of those curses of
suburbia, a fast-growing Leylandii hedge, to keep prying binoculars (the naked
eye would not be enough) from homing in on the house beyond. And near the golf
club, whose membership roll adds new meaning to the word "exclusive", deep
within a rhodedendron thicket where none would dream to venture were it not to
see what is written on the sign within, there is a post, a tangle of barbed
wire and a red and white plastic notice. "Private" it warns -- for the
benefit, presumably, of any wild bird or rabbit rash enough to think of
entering.

Next weekend, however, on Saturday 3rd April, this exclusive, private realm
faces its peace being disturbed by a motley army of modern-day "Diggers", who
are coming here to erect a memorial stone to an earlier band of Diggers who
squatted St George's Hill during the English revolution. On 1st April 1649, a
couple of months after Charles I had been beheaded, Gerard Winstanley led a
group of mainly landless peasants who had fought in Cromwell's army to the
slopes of St George's Hill. They came to claim the waste and common land, to
plough and sow their beans and barley, and to "lay the Foundation of making
the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich and Poor".

The Elmbridge Museum in Weybridge, which is staging an exhibition to coincide
with the 350th anniversary of the Diggers arrival at St George's Hill,
describes them as "pioneers of communism". They called themselves "True
Levellers" (as opposed to the more moderate Levellers who had risen to
prominence in certain of Cromwell's regiments) because of their belief that
everyone should live in equality.

"Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and
for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these
may beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve all her
children?" asked Winstanley. He and his fellow Diggers liked neither the
wealthy landlords, who owned the land but would not allow the landless poor
access to it on which to grow their crops, nor the organised church, which
they saw as a perversion of God's creation. They made their feelings known
towards one of the local parsons at the time when, after being illegally
imprisoned at Walton church soon after moving onto St George's Hill, they
later blocked up his pulpit with thorns and briars.

The Diggers faced ferocious opposition from local landowners and dignitaries.
Even so, their colony survived for a year, first on St George's Hill and then
on other land nearby. Other Digger communities were also established in
different parts of the country. None could overcome the vested interests of
the rich and powerful, however, and eventually all that was left of their
movement was their writings and the power of their ideas. "Here I end, having
put my Arm as far as my strength will go to advance Righteousness," Winstanley
wrote after the final eviction of the Digger communities in 1650. "I have
Writ, I have Acted, I have Peace: and now I must wait to see the Spirit do his
own work in the hearts of others, and whether England shall be the first Land,
or some others, wherin Truth shall sit down in triumph."

St George's Hill slipped back into obscurity after that until, in 1912, it was
sold to a property developer, W G Tarrant, who decided to turn its 900 acres
of open heath, woods and hillside into a luxury estate for the rising
professional rich of London, 16 miles away. Tarrant had little regard for
either historical or environmental considerations. He dynamited thousands of
trees on the hill to make way for his golf course and houses. He eradicated
trackways and footpaths that probably dated back to before the Romans. And
when he grew tired of local archaeologists expressing concern over his
treatment of an iron hillfort on the site, he simply flattened large parts of
its ramparts so that they would have nothing left to express concern about.

He would not have had any time for either the original or the modern-day
Diggers, the latter of which are returning to the hill on 3rd April with the
intention of commemorating Gerard Winstanley in more than just spirit. Not all
of the things happening next weekend are on the publicised programme of
events, says one of the flyers calling the New Diggers to arms (or should that
be spades). "Come along to the 3rd April march with sleeping bags, tents,
spades and things to plant and grow," it urges. "And make sure there's someone
to feed your cat for a few days." It promises to be a lot of fun.

END FORWARD


At 15:08 30/07/2012, Brendan Boal wrote:


>The original Diggers were not socialist or 
>'eco'. Neither term, nor the philosophies behind 
>them had been dreamt of in 1649. Gerrard 
>Winstanleys's writings make much of the 'theft 
>and murder' of the landed class, and the need to 
>aportion resources far more equitably, but this 
>does not imply socialism any more than it does 
>any other subsequent political philosophy. You 
>could just as easily call them Anarchist or libertarian or err, Levellers.
>
>
>From: "mark at tlio.org.uk" <mark at tlio.org.uk>
>To: diggers350 at yahoogroups.com; TheLandisOurs at yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Monday, 30 July 2012, 6:42
>Subject: [TheLandIsOurs] Eco-Village @ Runnymede = Eco-Socialism In Action
>
>written by Tim Dalinian Jones, 24.07.2012
>Ref: 
><http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/07/498201.html>http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/07/498201.html
>
>In the wake of the English Revolution, 1649 saw rural eco-socialist
>communes created, at St George's Hill in Surrey and elsewhere, by
>Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers, aka the True Levellers [1] –
>centuries before 'ecology', 'socialism', and 'commune' were coined and
>became attractive radical beacons of hope for a better future for all.
>In 1871, the Parisian Communards created a city-wide urban commune
>[2], and English libertarian socialist William Morris moved in to
>Kelmscott Manor on the River Thames, where he'd be inspired to write
>his 1890 masterpiece: a post-revolution sci-fi novel called ‘News from
>Nowhere' [3] – of liberty, depopulated cities, love, agrarian commune
> >villages, and happiness, all set in a moneyless, stateless,
>nationless, class-free, and ecologically harmonious global egalitarian
>community. In 2012, a Diggers Eco-Village commune was founded by the
>River Thames at Runnymede [4] – a 'Come & Try It' beacon of hope for
>thee kind of low environmental impact future our species and our
>biosphere so urgently need to co-create. How large a part will it play
>in helping make a post-capitalist eco-socialist global community into
>a 21st century reality? And will YOU, dear reader, Come & Try It out
>for size and comfort, rest and happiness?
>
>ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION — IT''S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME COMING
>
>“I was born by the river
>In a little tent
>And just like the river
>I've been running ever since
>It's been a long, long time coming
>But I know a change gonna come
>Oh, yes it will”
>~ Sam Cooke, from ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ (1963)
>» music video with lyrics, 3:13 –
><httpp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-X9JkM9Bgo>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-X9JkM9Bgo
>
>On 15 June 2015, folk will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of
>Magna Carta – The Great Charrter of the Liberties of England, and of
>the Liberties of the Forest – born by the river in a little tent, at
>Runnymede, Surrey, UK, and signed reluctantly by King John of England
>on 15 June 1215. Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an
>English King by a group of his subjects (the feudal barons) in an
>attempt to limit his powers by law and establish/protect their rights.
>For more info, see:
>» Magna Carta 800th Anniversary website – 
><http://magnacarta800th.com/>http://magnacarta800th.com
>
>So at Runnymede, there’s at least an 800ish-year-long heritage of the
>hoi polloi contending against the powers that be, and winning
>liberties for the common people through collective struggle. But what
>of Surrey as a county?
>
>“Digger — aany of a group of agrarian communists who flourished in
>England in 1649-50 and were led by Gerrard Winstanley and William
>Everard. In April 1649 about 20 poor men assembled at St. George's
>Hill, Surrey, and began to cultivate the common land. These Diggers
>held that the English Civil Wars had been fought against the King and
>the great landowners; now that Charles I had been executed [on 30 Jan
>1649 – TDJ], land shouuld be made available for the very poor to
>cultivate. (Food prices had reached record heights in the late 1640s.)
>The numbers of the Diggers more than doubled during 1649. Their
>activities alarmed the Commonwealth government and roused the
>hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to the common
>lands. The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob violence,
>and by the end of March 1650 their colony was dispersed. The Diggers
>themselves abjured the use of force. The Diggers also called
>themselves True Levellers, but their communism was denounced by the
>leaders of the Levellers.”
>~ Encyclopaedia Britannica, quoted in ‘The English Diggers (1649-50)’
>» lots more Diggers info – 
><http://www.diggers.org/diggers/digg_eb.html>http://www.diggers.org/diggers/digg_eb.html
>
>Like me, you may have first heard of the Diggers of 1649 from the
>lyrics of the socialist anthem ‘World Turned Upside Down’, beautifully
>written by Leon Rosselson in 1974 by adapting the inspiring words of
>Gerrard Winstanley [1], and popularised as a single released by Billy
>Bragg in 1985. The song gives a richly detailed yet succinct lyrical
>summary of one one of the most radical factions to emerge from the
>1640s English Revolution – and here’s a live festival rendition by
>Billy himself:
>• Billy Bragg – "World Turned Upside Down"
>— playing live at the Womenmen Chainmakers Festival, Dudley, on 15 Sep
>2007
>» live music video, 3:24 – 
><http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stmiyeLsErw>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stmiyeLsErw
>» lyrics – 
><http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/35300822107858584509/>http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858584509/
>
>So the county of Surrey can proudly claim, within its heritage, that
>363 years ago it saw the foundation of the capitalist epoch’s very
>first rural eco-socialist commune, at St George's Hill. And what of
>the River Thames, whose meanderings have formed the Runnymede
>water-meadows?
>
>The first great European exemplar of an urban commune was created by
>the Parisian working class in 1871 [2], and in that year the
>magnificent English libertarian socialist William Morris moved in to
>Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, several score miles upstream on the
>River Thames from Runnymede. While cognisant of the class war thrown
>up by the industrial revolution, Morris was inspired – by the
>potential for peace, rest, and happinness inherent in rural living – to
>write his masterpiece of a poost-revolution, futurist, sci-fi novel:
>'News from Nowhere' (1890) [3] – of liberty for all, depopulated
>cities, love, agrarian communne villages, and happiness, all set in a
>moneyless, stateless, nationless, class-free, and ecologically
>harmonious global egalitarian community.
>
>"Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have
>learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there
>is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed
>into fellowship — but not before. Go back again, then, and while you
>live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live
>lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for
>their own real lives — men who hate life though they fear death. Go
>bacck and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little
>hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with
>whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little
>the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness."
>~ William Morris, from 'News from Nowhere', his post-capitalist
>future-glimpsing novel
>» about – 
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_nowhere>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_nowhere
>
>The ‘fellowship, and rest, and happiness’ I enjoyed during my 2.5 day
>stay with the Diggers-2012 in their Runnymede Eco-Village have
>inspired me to spread the word of their bold 21st century re-igniting
>of that radical spark, which was first lit by Surrey’s Diggers-1649 –
>and to tell of the glimpse-of-our-future-happiness ffeelings provoked
>by visiting their eco-socialist commune (much the same as Morris’s
>protagonist William Guest did in 'News from Nowhere’, on his return to
>19th century Britain, from his glimpse of a post-revolutionary new day
>of fellowship, and rest, and happiness).
>
>• Diggers-2012 Runnymede Eco-Village
>» website  “ 
><http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/>http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
>
>
>DECLARATION OF THE DIGGERS-2012
>“We: peaceful people, declare our intention to go and cultivate the
>disused land of this island; to build dwellings and live together in
>common by the sweat of our brows.
>We have one call:  every person in this country and the world should
>have the right to live on the disused land, to grow food and to build
>a shelter. This right should apply whether you have money or not. We
>say that no country can be considered free, until this right is
>available to all.
>With our current system in crisis we need a radically different way of
>growing our communities. We call on the government and all landowners
>to let those who are willing, make good use of the disused land. Land
>that is currently held from us by force.  By our actions, we seek to
>show how we can live without destroying the planet or ourselves. Free
>from the yoke of debt and rent, our labors can be directed to the
>benefit of all.
>Though we may be oppressed for our actions, we will strive to remain
>peaceful. But we are committed to our cause and will not cease from
>our efforts until we have achieved our goal.”
>~ Diggers-2012, on their own website, 20 May 2012
>» source – 
><http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/about/>http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/about/
>
>“Their aim is simple: to remove themselves from the corporate economy,
>to house themselves, grow food and build a community on abandoned
>land. Already the crops the settlers had planted had been destroyed
>once; the day after my visit they were destroyed again. But the
>repeated destruction, removals and arrests have not deterred them.
>The young men and women camping at Runnymede are trying to revive a
>different tradition, largely forgotten in the new age of robber
>barons. They are seeking, in the words of the Diggers of 1649, to make
>“the Earth a common treasury for all 
 not one lording over another,
>but all looking upon each other as equals in the creation.” The
>tradition of resistance, the assertion of independence from the laws
>devised to protect the landlords’ ill-gotten property, long pre-date
>and long post-date the Magna Carta. But today they scarcely feature in
>national consciousness.”
>~ George Monbiot, from ‘The Promised Land’, 16 Jul 2012
>» article – 
><http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/16/the-promised-land/>http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/16/the-promised-land/
>
>
>WHEN INJUSTICE BECOMES LAW, RESISTANCE BECOMES DUTY
>
>Diggers-1649
>“When these clay-bodies are in grave, and children stand in place.
>This shews we stood for truth and peace and freedom in our days;
>And true born sons we shall appear of England that's our mother,
>No Priests nor Lawyers wiles t’embrace, their slavery we'll discover.
>
>
yet my mind was not at rest, because nothing was acted, and thoughts
>ran in me, that words and writings were all nothing, and must die, for
>action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost
>nothing.”
>~ Gerrard Winstanley, from ‘A Watch-Word to the City of London and the
>Armie’, 1649
>» many more wise words –
><http:///www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/quotes.htm>http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/quotes.htm
>
>Diggers-2012
>“My cause is the right to live and to grow food on the land which is
>unused and without causing harm, harmoniously and sustainably. There
>is sufficient land in this country to live freely and low impact in
>this country. To be honest I do not feel I have broken any of my own
>concept of what is right and wrong. I accept that my actions may cause
>alarm to the large land owners of this country and in a way it is
>strange that Alarm has been criminalised.”
>~ Simon Moore, resident of Runnymede Eco-Village, from the dock of
>Guildford Magistrates Court, 12 Jun 2012
>» source – 
><http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396
>
>• Double Eviction Attempts: FAIL
>? being a multi-person story-telling of the failure of the High Court,
>police and security personnel to evict Runnymede Eco-Village on either
>Wed 11 or Thu 12 Jul 2012 (more video links are in the ‘Video
>Coverage’ section below)
>» video, 7:36 – 
><http://bambuser.com/v/2822559#t=558s>http://bambuser.com/v/2822559#t=58s
>
>Like the Diggers-1649, our courageous Diggers-2012 are facing
>hostility and harassment from those who believe that they can and do
>own parts of our home world. In Europe and elsewhere, land ownership
>has for so long been a fundamental right  claimed through the use of
>violent force by the ruling classes of successive economic epochs
>(from Roman patricians, through feudal aristocracies, to capitalist
>corporate bodies) that most folk just take it for granted as a
>well-known “fact” that common people are permanently excluded from
>making a living for themselves on unused/disused land. But the
>Diggers-1649 and the Diggers-2012, through both their words AND more
>importantly their actions, do challenge and contend against such an
>institutional “fact” – since it is, after all, merely a story, told by
>a bunch of tyrants, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Nearly
>all of our human ancestors, and all of our universal human psychology,
>originate in a time when much more wise stories about our relationship
>to our home world were common currency; for example…
>
>
>NO MAN HAS ANY RIGHT TO BUY AND SELL THE EARTH FOR PRIVATE GAIN
>Let’s lend an ear to wiser and older stories of humankind walking
>softly on the Earth, and also to the horror provoked in such wise
>story-tellers by the obnoxious violence with which the white European
>ruling class seized the land which had supported the story-tellers’
>people for millennia. These tales happen to come from First Nations
>folk of North America, but indigenous hunter-gather peoples of all
>continents possess similar, parallel, analogous wisdom.
>
>"One does not sell the land people walk on."
>~ Crazy Horse
>
>"My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave
>it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate
>it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things
>as can be carried away.”
>~ Black Hawk
>
>“What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land
>is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and
>all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody
>and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to
>him?”
>~ Massasoit
>
>“They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never
>kept but one: they promised to take our land and they took it. It was
>not hard to see that the white people coveted every inch of land on
>which we lived. Greed. Humans wanted the last bit of ground which
>supported Indian feet. It was land – it has ever been land – for which
>the White man oppresses tthe Indian and to gain possession of which he
>commits any crime. Treaties that have been made are vain attempts to
>save a little of the fatherland, treaties holy to us by the smoke of
>the pipe – but nothingg is holy to the White man. Little by little,
>with greed and cruelty unsurpassed by the animal, he has taken all.
>The loaf is gone and now the White man wants the crumbs.”
>~ Luther Standing Bear
>» native American quotes source –
><http://www.adl.org/education/curriculum_cconnections/NA_Quotes.asp>http://www.adl.org/education/curriculum_connections/NA_Quotes.asp
>
>“We come to work the lands in common, and to make the waste grounds
>grow. This Earth divided we will make whole, so it will be a common
>treasury for all. The sin of property we do disdain – no man has any
>right to buy and selll the Earth for private gain. By theft and murder,
>they took the land; now everywhere the walls spring up at their
>command.”
>~ Billy Bragg / Leon Rosselson / Gerrard Winstanley / Diggers-1649
>» lyrical source –
><http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/33530822107858584509/>http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858584509/
>
>In the vast geological time-span of modern human existence (c. 200,000
>years), the relatively short-lived skim of class-riven societies (c.
>7,000 years) – in which “owning” the huge majority of the prroductive
>land is the violence-enforced privilege of a ruling elite – can be
>seen as an unnatural, unjust and merely temporary aberration of our
>species’ long-term history. If we are to play our part in creating a
>future society fit for our evolved human psychology, and in which we
>consciously fit ourselves into our planet’s ecosphere, rather than
>vainly attempting to dominate and thereby destroying it, then we
>necessarily need to abolish the “sin of property” in land ownership by
>the ruling class.
>
>“If we go to prison we'll just come back 
 I'm 
>not saying that this is the only way. But at 
>least we're creating an opportunity for young
>people to step out of the system.”
>~ Gareth Newnham, Eco-Villager
>
>However, no ruling class ever voluntarily gives up the “rights” it has
>won through violence. So it is always a task for we 99%ers – the
>common people – to challengenge and to contend against the oft repeated
>“WE Own This Land!” story, as told by the 1% boss class, and
>reinforced by the organisational expressions of their violent class
>rule – the courts,, bailiffs, police, and privatised “security” forces.
>Runnymede Eco-Village is a fine example of the common people doing
>just that – demonstrating by the propaganda of the deed that another
> >story (eg: “This Earth divided we will make whole, so it will be a
>common treasury for all”) leads to a way better and far greater future
>for people and planet. That’s why some of us see this marvellous
>Eco-Village as such a grand beacon of hope for humankind’s future –
>and also as a wonderful place to be, in its owwn right.
>
>
>A NEW DAY OF FELLOWSHIP, AND REST, AND HAPPINESS
>
>“Coopers Hill Woods – A natural haven
> >With carpets of flowers in the spring, sunny glades in the summer, and
>fabulous fungi in the autumn, the wooded slopes of Coopers Hill are
>wonderful to visit in any season. Leave the woods at the top of
>Coopers Hill for magnificent views across the river and meadows
>below.”
>~ from the National Trust’s Runnymede website
>» the countryside –
><http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/tthings-to-see-and-do/page-2/>http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/things-to-see-and-do/page-2/
>
>By accident of birth, I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the
>Cheshire countryside, and (in my teenage years) to have the freedom to
>give free rein to my exploratory curiosity – by roaming freely,
>inflatable boat in ruucksack, over the wooded sandstone hills of
>Frodsham and Helsby, and the woodland tributary valleys of the River
>Weaver. So I discovered experientially, and early on in life, what I
>later found to be true for our species as a whole: one of the reasons
>we find so much beauty, majesty, and happiness in woodland-near-water
>is that this habitat formed a major part of our evolutionary adaptive
>environment, particularly in the east African rift valley, and
>elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Our sense of belonging in highly
>biodiverse riverine woodland is a direct consequence of countless
>generations of our ancestors actually belonging to this kind of
>habitat, and making a living there by their own self-sufficient
>labour, as part of a hunter-gatherer tribe.
>
>As you may detect from the photos above, I found it soooo easy to fall
>in love with the deciduous temperate forest ecosystem that covers the
>River-Thames-facing side of Coopers Hill. Through the interweaving of
>our species-memory (of our belonging as woodland creatures), and happy
>childhood memories (of tree-covered Cheshire hillsides), I experienced
>an unequalled sense of habitat-connected bliss while wandering through
>Coopers Hill Woods. And that’s as nothing compared to the uplifting
>feelings of belonging and connectedness that arose during my stay at
>the Runnymede Eco-Village.
>
>A common feature of Eco-Village Open Days is an open-ended and
>egalitarian discussion concerning land rights. On Sat 07 Jul 2012, our
>discussion took place in the open air, at the Magna Carta Monument,
>just 400m down the hill from the Eco-Village. I did my best to record
>what was said with a view to publishing that audio track here, but
>despite the recording software appearing to have captured 1.5 hours
>worth of sound, on retuning home the recording was significant by its
>absence, and even an undelete utility app failed to find it – so my
>apologies to all for this technical mishap.
>
>During our land rights discussion, I highlighted how open,
>free-ranging, radical discussion circles are a common feature of grass
>roots revolutionary change throughout the capitalist epoch, from the
>Levellers choosing which issues to raise during the Putney Debates in
>the English Revolution [5], via the English Chartists, Parisian
>Communards, and Russian Soviets, to the global Occupy movement of 2011
>? 2012 ? on-going. Afterwards, while sitting together around the
>village longhouse fire, not only did the Eco-Villagers suggest to me
>that formal meetings within the Eco-Village were kinda unnecessary,
>because open, free-ranging, radical discussion was happening all the
>time – but that’s what I discovered to be very much a lliving truth of
>village life. The majority of my stay was taken up by sitting in a
>circle of Eco-Villagers around the fire in the communal longhouse, the
>constituent members of which varied over time, chatting and discussing
>about everything under the sun, including but not limited to

>• practical and operational camp experiences, incincluding group process
>• forest stewardship – the Nationalnal Trust forest stewards are both
>pleased and impressed by the Eco-Village’s intentionally low
>environmental impact, and by the villagers’ care for the forest
>ecosystem in which they have chosen to embed themselves
>• land ownership and land rights
>• in inclusivity, and how to increase it, especially around women’s
>participation
>• science as a collective progressive process cf. “personal science”
>• liberation struggles, and pparticularly mad pride (personal interest:
>I have bipolar disorder)
>• spirituality, religion, agnosticism, and militant atheism
>â• quantum mechanics, and especially the Higgs mechanism (following the
>Higgs boson success reported by two of CERN’s LHC detector teams)
>• Eco-Village history, including police relations
>• a wholee bunch of other stuff my old brain cannot recall in the
>moment
>
>Inspired by the outcome of one villager asking another one afternoon,
>“Who are you?”, on a clear and dark Sunday evening, I facilitated a
>go-round based discussion where each person asked the person to their
>left that simplest of questions, “Who are you?”  Only in very rare
>circumstances indeed have I ever encountered a group of people so
>willing to share of themselves so deeply, with such clarity, honesty,
>and vulnerability, while including in their circle of trust a newcomer
>who is actually facilitating their sharing. An obvious conclusion is
>that village life had already forged immense bonds of trust,
>solidarity, and community among the Eco-Villagers, to an extent I’ve
>previously encountered only in groups who’ve been together much, much
>longer. But their openness to not only welcoming in a newcomer (albeit
>one demonstrating useful prior experience in camp life, group process,
>and radical history-&-politics), but also allowing such a newcomer to
>facilitate an egalitarian, deep-&-meaningful, group discussion on
>personal identity was uniquely wonderful to behold.
>
>Another villager reported welling up with tears of joy on realising
>just how much of communal life he’d been deprived of for so long, in
>comparison to the rich sense of authentic human community he’d
>experienced as an Eco-Villager. And I too was overcome by tears of joy
>when it came time to leave, because it only took a couple of days of
>being there to realise that the Runnymede commune is re-discovering
>the hugely significant benefits – emotional, psychological, and (dare
>I say it) spiritual â– of communal, self-sustaining, collective life in
>a temperate forest habitat. On that basis alone, I highly commend to
>you, dear reader, a multi-day stay at Runnymede Eco-Village – or even
>better, why not take up residdence there and grow the village, even as
>it helps you to grow?
>
>“We invite everybody to join us, especially those who have become
>dispossessed due to the unequal and cruel nature of our system of
>crises.”
>~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » 
><http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
>
>If you want to avoid the nauseatingly awful, weeks-long, corporate
>culture domination festival that masquerades as ‘London 2012
>Olympics’, what better way than an extended stay with the
>authentically grassroots Diggers-2012 at their Runnymede Eco-Village?
>
>
>CONTACTING RUNNYMEDE ECO-VILLAGE
>For example: about your impending visit, stay, intention to become a
>resident villager – or owt else, really (support, donations, you name
>it):
>
>• Phone – 07907963 475 195 or 07905 283 114 – mobile phone / text message
> ¢ Email – diggers2012 at yahoo dot co dot uk
>» Facebook – <http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012>http://goo.gl/maps/BkIf
>05. Eco-Village Location – Over Coopers Hill
>06. Eco-Village Location – Up Cooperpers Hill
>07. Eco-Village Location – Landscape and Lanes –
><http://binged.it/N1MYOB>http:///binged.it/N1MYOB
>08. Eco-Village Location – Street Map â– 
><http://binged.it/OaUIbd>http://binged.it/OaUIbd
>09. Eco-Village Location – OS map – http://binged.it/N1MIPn
>10. Eco-Village by Rail – London Waterloo for Egham Station â– a Well
>Connected Terminus Station
>11. Eco-Village by Rail – Egham Station, only 37 minutes from London
>Waterloo
>A1. Cycle parking under the spreading cedar tree
>A2. Runnymede Air Forces Memorial
>A3. Magna Carta Monument
>
>“The nearest train station is Egham, about 25 mins walk.”
>~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » 
><http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
>
>Egham overground rail station is only 37 minutes down the track from
>London Waterloo overground rail terminus station, which connects
>directly with:
>• Wateerloo East overground rail station
>• Waterloo underground stationn:
>— Bakerloo line
>— Northern line
>— Jubileubilee line
>— Waterloo & City line
>
>Here are three cloud-baased journey planner apps which can help you
>plan your visit to Runnymede Eco-Village:
>
>• Transport for London – Journey Planlanner
>» automated journey planning – 
><http://journeeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/>http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk
>
>• National Rail Enquires – Journey Planner
>Âr>» automated journey planning –
><http://ojp.nationallrail.co.uk/service/planjourney/search>http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/planjourney/search
>
>• Transport Direcct – Route Planner
>» automated route planning – 
><http://www.transportdirect.info/>http://www.transportdirect.info
>
>“If you want to get nearer the camp by public transport you can get on
>the Slough bus from Egham town and get off at the stop before the top
>of Priest Hill, Englefield Green. That saves you a walk up a steep
>hill and is ten mins from the camp.”
>~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » 
><http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
>
>
>YOU DON’T ONLY HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
>How about these 1075 words of George Monbiot, climate activist,
>writer, public intellectual, and all round good egg? George visited
>Runnymede Eco-Village in the week of the double-eviction FAIL in
>mid-July 2012, and published this piece via the Guardian’s Comment Is
>Free section:
>• ‘After 800 yeaars, the barons are back in control of Britain’, by
>George Monbiot, Comment Is Free at The Guardian, Mon 16 Jul 2012
>— “œThe Magna Carta forced King John to give away powers. But big
>business now exerts a chilling grip on the workforce.”
>» article –
><http://www.guardian.coo.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain>http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain
>
>And there are many more reliable reports of Runnymede Eco-Village too.
>For instance

>
>• ‘Windsorsor Eco-Occupation (regularly updated)’ by rikki, Indymedia
>London, 10 Jun 2012
>» video-led reports – 
><http://londoon.indymedia.org/articles/12379>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12379
>
>• ‘Olympic ASBO arrest @ Windssor Eco village’ by Dean, Indymedia
>London, 11 Jun 2012
>» photo-led report – 
><http://london.indymedia.org/articcles/12392>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12392
>
>• ‘Update! Olympic ASBO arrest Released!!!’™ by Dean, Indymedia London,
>11 Jun 2012
>» photo-led report – 
><http://lonndon.indymedia.org/articles/12396>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396
>
>• ‘Latest From the Diggers -- Join Us!’ by Lucca, Indymedia London, 13
>Jun 2012
>» photo-led report – 
><http://london.indymedia.org/articles/122404>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404
>
>Video Coverage
>» Live Broadcasts – 
><http://bambbuser.com/channel/Diggers2012>http://bambuser.com/channel/Diggers2012
>
>» YouTube Channel – 
><http:///www.youtube.com/diggers2012>http://www.youtube.com/diggers2012
>
>» Interviews – [to follow, once editing is ccomplete – TDJ]
>
>
>And What Is More

>If you come me across other info sources and articles about Runnymede
>Eco-Village, please do add links to them in a comment below this
>feature.
>
>And of course there is also plenty of info from the Eco-Villagers
>themselves via their own web presence:
>
>• Diggers-2012 Runnymede Eco-Village» website – 
><http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/>http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
>» Facebook – 
><http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012>http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012
>» Twitter – http://twitter.com/freetheland/
>
>
>VISITING RUNNYMEDE
>While the Runnymede Eco-Village is undoubtedly by far the most
>engaging occurrence in the Runnymede area, nevertheless if you’re
>planning to visit, stay, or become a resident, then there are other
>attractions you may desire to check out.
>
>Natural Beauty
>• ‘Langham Pond – R“ Runnymede’ by Alan Bostock
>— pictures of the site of speccial scientific interest
>» photo gallery webpage –
><http://www.runnymede2015.com/langhamponds.htm>http://www.runnymede2015.com/langhamponds.htm
>
>• Runnymedee Visitor Information – National Trust
>» website – <“ 
><http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/>http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/
>
>
>History Lynx
>• Magna Carta
>The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of
>the Forest – granted (under considerable dureess) by King John at
>Runnymede on 15 June 1215
>» full text – 
><http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html>http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
>» Magna Carta 800th Anniversary website – 
><http://magnacarrta800th.com/>http://magnacarta800th.com
>
>• Runnymede Air Forces Memorial
>“The Air Forces Memorial, or Runnymede Memorial, in Englefield Green,
>near Egham, Surrey, England is a memorial dedicated to some 20,456 men
>and women from the British Empire who were lost in operations from
>World War II. All of those recorded have no known grave anywhere in
>the world, and many were lost without trace. The name of each of these
>airmen and airwomen is engraved into the stone walls of the memorial,
>according to country and squadron. It is a Grade II* listed building
>and was completed in 1953.”
>~ Wikipedians, from ‘Air Forces Memorial’
>» illustrated article –
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Forces__Memorial>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Forces_Memorial
>
>
>Poetry Corner
>• “The Reeds of Runnymedee”, by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
>— A poem commemoratingg the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede,
>Surrey, on 15 June 1215
>» poem – 
><http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_runnymede..htm>http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_runnymede.htm
>
>
>MISSING IN INACTION
>As ‘regular readers’ of mine may have realised, this is my first piece
>of photovideojournalistic activism since

>• State Deploys ‘Divide & Conqueruer’ Tactics on 09 Nov [2011]
>» photo-red action report –
><https://london.indymedia.org/articles/10950>https://london.indymedia.org/articles/10950
>
>I’ve been ‘missing in inaction’ due to a major episode of severe
>bipolar depression, brought on my the British state’s attempts to
>screw over sick and disabled people by attacking our rights to
>benefits – to try to help lower our ‘burden’ on thee profits of the UK
>capitalist class. Any road up, I’ve successfully negotiated the
>privatised assault on my living standards by ATOS, and emerged
>victorious, to renew my championing of a way better and far greater
>future for people and planet than the permanent crises by which
>decadent and decomposing global capitalism are jeopardising our
>survival.
>
>This feature took waaay longer to create than I anticipated, so I
>thank my Eco-Village comrades for their forbearance (no doubt many
>stopped wondering ‘Whatever happened to that Indymedia piece we were
>promised by Tim?’ some time ago) – I’m findingg slow-&-high-quality to
>be the radical antithesis of the time-is-money quick-&-dirty approach,
>and far better suited to keeping me sane. I can but hope that you
>agree that it was well worth the wait.
>
>
>Up the Revolution,
>
>Tim Dalinian Jones
>
>
>Acquiring These Photos
>The pix above are auto-downsized versions for onscreen webpage
>display. If you would like the free, edited, full-sized versions (up
>to 3072x2304px, 7.1Mpx, typically c. 3 MB) just click on an image:
>bingo! You can also right-click on an image and choose ‘Open Link in
>New Tab' (or similar) to open a full-sized version alongside the
>report webpage. If you'd like to take a copy of the full-sized image
>version, right-click on it and choose ‘Save Image As...' (or similar).
>Share and Enjoy!
>
>All these photos are 'CopyLeft'
>This means you are free to copy and distribute any of my photos you
>find here, under the following license:
>• Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
>License
>» Human-readable summary -
><http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
>» Attribution: 
><mailto:tim.dalinian.jones at gmail.com>tim.dalinian.jones at gmail.com
>
>Footnotes-&-Lynx
>[1] Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers, aka the True Levellers
>» about Gerard Winstanley –
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_WWinstanley>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_Winstanley
>» about the Diggers – 
><http://en.wikipedia..org/wiki/Diggers>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers
>» the Digger Archives – 
><http://www.diggers.orgg/top_entry.htm>http://www.diggers.org/top_entry.htm
>
>[2] In 1871, the Parisian Communards created a city-wide urban commune
>» about the Paris Commune – 
><http://en.wikipeddia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
>» about the Parisian Communards –
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communards
>» History of the Paris Commune –
><http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commuune/>http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/
>
>[3] English libertarian socialist William Morris, and his 1890
>masterpiece post-revolution sci-fi novel 'News from Nowhere'
>» about William Morris – 
><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamm_Morris>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris
>» about 'News from Nowhere' –
><http://en.wikiipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere
>• ‘News from Nowhere ™ eBook at Project Gutenberg – “Offers 40,000 free
>eBBooks to download”
>» free access, free to download –“ 
><http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3261>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3261
>• ‘News from Nowheree’ at LibriVox – “Our 
>goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books”
>» free audiobook download –
><http://librivox.org/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris/>http://librivox.org/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris/
>
>[4] The Diggers-2012 Eco-Village commune by the River Thames at
>Runnymede
>» website – 
><http://diggers2012.wordpresss.com/>http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
>
>[5] The Putney Debates in the English Revolution – a series of
>discusssions from March to November 1647, between members of the New
>Model Army, a number of the participants being Levellers, concerning
>the makeup of a new constitution for England.
>» about – 
><htttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates
>And as the giant in ‘Twin Peaks’ was wont to say, “It is happening
>again
â”
>
>Subject: [Campaignforrealdemocracy] Urgent Ideas Request - October
>Levellers' Event
>From: Mark Barrett via lists.aktivix.org [marknbarrett at googlemail
>dot com]
>Date: 14 July 2012 [Bastille Day! – TDJ]
>
>Dear Friends and Occupiers :)
>Levellers Event - Urgent Request for Ideas
>
>Following GA endorsement for the concept back in December, you may
>have heard some of us (from the Occupy London Economics, Real
>Democracy Working Groups, and Commons Grouping) are attempting to
>facilitate a 21st Century Putney Debates* / Levellers' Event this
>coming October.
>
>As part of the preparation, I'm casting around for everyone's ideas on
>what this event should be about. For the first stage, everyone who
>wishes the event to be a success is invited to say, in three sentences
>what they would like to happen, and what they want from the Levellers'
>event.
>
>This request for input in three sentences is stage one in a three
>stage planning process being developed by Sean B of EWG, using Agile.
>
>So, if you are inspired by the idea of holding an event inspired by
>this  please get in touch with your ideas on what it should be about,
>and what you would like to get out of it. In case you're wondering the
>request for three separate bullet point-like sentences is important
>for the collaborative Agile process which Sean and John B both know
>all about.
>
>Anyway, this is getting kind of urgent as we are nearly in August.
>Also I will be away for Ramadan, so please help us get the show on the
>road in good time by sending something back by latest Wednesday
>evening so then I can process the responses and send them all in one
>batch to Sean for stage two to go forward with all your wonderful
>ideas in the mix!
>
>More info on the history of the Putney Debates* is set out below.
>
>Love and Solidarity
>
>Mark
>
>[*The original Putney Debates, groundbreaking in their time started at
>St Mary's Church (Giles Fraser's old parish) on October 28th 1647.
>They ran until November 11th, considering the future of the English
>Constitution after the removal of the King from the old political
>order. And of course the Levellers, who sought a democratic
>constitution based on an 'Agreement of the People,' were famously
>excluded from the final political settlement.  You can read more about
>them here: 
><http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates>http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates 
>]
>_______________________________________________
>Campaignforrealdemocracy mailing list
>
>[6] Eco-villager quotes – published in:
>• ‘After 800 years, the barbarons are back in control of Britain’, by
>George Monbiot, Comment Is Free at The Guardian, Mon 16 Jul 2012
>» article –
><<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain>http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain
>
>
>
><mailto:tim.dalinian.jones at gmail.com>tim.dalinian.jones at gmail.com 
>(Tim Dalinian Jones)
>- Original article on IMC London:
><http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12578>http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12578
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
><http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLandIsOurs/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLandIsOurs/
>
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>     (Yahoo! ID required)
>
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>
> 
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>
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>
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>
>
>
>

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"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic 
poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
<https://217.72.179.7/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/>https://217.72.179.7/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/

Fear not therefore: for there is nothing covered 
that shall not be revealed; and nothing hid that 
shall not be made known. What I tell you in 
darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye 
hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27

Die Pride and Envie; Flesh, take the poor's advice.
Covetousnesse be gon: Come, Truth and Love arise.
Patience take the Crown; throw Anger out of dores:
Cast out Hypocrisie and Lust, which follows whores:
Then England sit in rest; Thy sorrows will have end;
Thy Sons will live in peace, and each will be a friend.
http://tinyurl.com/6ct7zh6  
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