[Diggers350] Corbyn has named John Lilburne as the historical figure he most admires

[Clive Menzies]

Thanks Zardoz
 
 Great article. You may find this interesting:
 http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1487-letter-to-jeremy http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1487-letter-to-jeremy
 
 Regards
 
 Clive
 


 Letter to Jeremy http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1487-letter-to-jeremy http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1487-letter-to-jeremy?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page= http://freecriticalthinking.org/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&template=beez_20&link=2daad7c9180dd14eb1b8049b7bb83ae8c8009c1a Published on Friday, 21 August 2015 01:08 Dear Jeremy (Corbyn)
 Much of what you have been saying resonates with many victims of the political economy. You articulate, coolly and rationally, compelling arguments against the abusive and destructive effects of the political economy and your stated ambitions for:
 a just economy where the vulnerable are looked after; disengagement from US led illegal wars; and a responsible approach to living in harmony with our environment, are laudable.
 However, as was explained by Guy Standing, author of the Precariat http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/637-unconditional-citizens-income, on the Max Keiser show recently, your ideas for solving the many problems are rooted in the 20th century when employment patterns and power dynamics were very different from today.
 
 Furthermore, power does not reside in Westminster but with a Structural Elite http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1246-the-time-for-critical-thinking-is-now, the core of which comprises eight banking dynasties. Privately owned central banks are the biggest obstacles to change http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1403-the-dark-art-of-money-the-biggest-obstacle-to-change. Although the Bank of England was nationalised in 1946, control remains with the banking dynasties; both the US Fed and the central banker's bank, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) are privately owned. Their power arises from interest on money which allows them to create money from thin air and charge everyone else, including governments, to use it. Interest on money is the wrecking machine at the heart of our economy.
 Interest redistributes rather than creates wealth http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/1024-interest-redistributes-rather-than-creates-wealth
The late Margrit Kennedy said, "interest is the invisible wrecking machine at the heart of the economic system."
 At the root of our flawed economic system is the private appropriation of the value of land, resources and other commons, those things which are either gifts from God (nature) or are created communally. Their value should be shared for the benefit of all, rather than appropriated by the privileged few,
 Why is Bond Street so expensive? http://freecriticalthinking.org/daily-pickings/919-why-is-bond-street-so-expensive
The value of Bond Street is not merely created by demand for the shops themselves but by the cumulative efforts, desires and resources of the community.
 The current political economy evolved to benefit those who achieved dominance as civilisations emerged as hierarchical structures. This institutionalised hierarchy underpins the flawed political economy. Our institutions are corrupted by the political economy, allowing the Structural Elite to control all the levers of power: money, politics, economics, the media-academic, military-security-industrial complex, think tanks and NGOs. Using these levers, they create division and distraction while wealth is extracted for their benefit and their power increases.
 But this political economy is not sustainable and will inevitably collapse http://freecriticalthinking.org/new-economy/499-economics-to-save-our-civilisation-2. It is, consequently, in everyone's interests to think differently http://freecriticalthinking.org/new-economy/1156-why-the-people-have-the-answer-to-the-financial-collapse about the way we organise ourselves, locally, regionally, nationally and globally. We have an unprecedented opportunity to create a freer and fairer world while avoiding collapse.
 Should you be elected UK Labour leader, there will be little you can do to challenge the status quo directly but you will be in a position to shift the political and economic debate away from partisan politics into a deep discussion of the future of our civilisation. That doesn't mean that fighting for immediate relief from injustice should cease but every issue needs to be framed in the context of the corrupt political economy.
 Already independent thinkers and researchers have prompted wider debate on land value tax, citizens income and usury; your putative role as leader puts you in an ideal position to widen and deepen the debate still further.
 


 On 21/08/15 18:47, Zardoz Greek zardos777 at yahoo.co.uk mailto:zardos777 at yahoo.co.uk [Diggers350] wrote:
 
 
 Jeremy Corbyn Comment is free
 The rebirth of the Levellers
 Edward Vallance
 
 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/levellers-corbynmania-jeremy-corbyn http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/20/levellers-corbynmania-jeremy-corbyn
 
 Far from representing a collective political death wish, Corbynmania shows that the spirit of 17th-century radicalism is once again in the air
 John Lilburne, a leader of the Levellers appeals to a crowd as he stands at a pillory. Corbyn has named Lilburne as the historical figure he most admires.
 John Lilburne, a leader of the Levellers, appeals to a crowd as he stands at a pillory. Corbyn has named Lilburne as the historical figure he most admires.
 
 
 Thursday 20 August 2015 
 Jeremy Corbyn, the surprise frontrunner for the Labour leadership, is regularly attacked by his opponents as a political throwback to the days of trade union militancy and the Bennite hard left.
 
 In fact, his ideals are of an even more venerable vintage than that: they are rooted in the radical thought of mid-17th-century England. Asked in an interview with the New Statesman to identify the historical figure he most admired, Corbyn named John Lilburne. Paradoxically, it is this that makes Corbyn so well attuned to the current political zeitgeist.
 
 Probably born in 1615 in Sunderland, Lilburne was apprenticed to a puritan clothier in London, which brought him into contact with leading opponents of King Charles I’s religious policies. His political career began when he was arrested for distributing illicit pamphlets highly critical of Charles’s bishops in 1637.
 
 
 Who should I vote for in the Labour leadership election?
 Read more
 Tried by the Star Chamber, he was sentenced in February 1638 to be whipped from the Fleet prison to New Palace Yard, then put in the pillory. There, Lilburne used his punishment as an opportunity to further the puritan cause, denouncing the court and the episcopate so vehemently that he had to be gagged to prevent further outbursts. Though silenced, he continued to frustrate the authorities, distributing pamphlets and later authoring accounts of his sufferings when returned to jail.
 
 Freed from prison in 1640 through the intervention of Oliver Cromwell, Lilburne would forge a career as one of the most prominent radical figures of the period. Along with the works of other writers, notably Richard Overton, William Walwyn and John Wildman, Lilburne’s ideas formed the intellectual basis for what came to be known as the Leveller movement.
 
 The Levellers’ ideals were crystallised in the movement’s “manifesto”, An Agreement of the People, first published in 1647 and discussed at the famous Putney debates of the same year.
 
 The agreement envisaged a dramatic transformation of England’s ancient constitution: the House of Commons would be replaced with a new representative body, elected through a reformed voting system (at Putney, interpreted to mean male suffrage) with new elections every two years.
 
 The interest in the radicalism of the English revolution is indicative of the current crisis in British political life
 The new elected body would be the sovereign authority in the land, but the Levellers were committed to the idea that all power ultimately resided with the people. Hence the agreement outlined certain rights, including freedom of conscience and equality under the law, which neither legislative nor executive power could infringe.
 
 It might be tempting to see Corbyn’s fondness for Lilburne as as much about personality as politics. Just as Corbyn has been depicted as a perpetual rebel, persistently defying the party whips over his 22 years in parliament, so Lilburne developed a reputation as an inveterate troublemaker. According to Lilburne’s contemporary, the MP Henry Marten: “If the world was emptied of all but John Lilburne, Lilburne would quarrel with John and John with Lilburne.”
 
 Corbyn, an acolyte of Tony Benn, who was a great populariser of the Levellers’ ideas, is exactly the sort of leftwinger you would expect to celebrate these English radicals. It was certainly no shock to see him speaking this year at an event commemorating the 400th anniversary of Lilburne’s birth.
 
 But Corbyn is not alone among modern politicians in his admiration for the Levellers. In 2012 the Labour MP Tristram Hunt described the then Tory and now Ukip MP Douglas Carswell as a modern-day Lilburne. The comparison was doubtless meant in jest, alluding to the degree to which Carswell was a persistent thorn in the side of David Cameron. However, Carswell had already written glowingly about the Levellers two years earlier on his blog, seeing them as proto-Conservatives who favoured small government, low taxes and free trade.
 
 Carswell’s presentation of the Levellers was just as anachronistic as leftwing depictions of them as “Britain’s first socialists”. Yet the interest in the radicalism of the English revolution from figures across the political spectrum (the MEP Daniel Hannan is another Tory Lilburne fan) is significant and indicative of the current crisis in British political life.
 
 The British parliamentary system is typically presented as the product of centuries of gradual constitutional change. Dramatic ruptures, such as the civil wars, are normally glossed over. But as this system – like the Palace of Westminster itself – falls apart, the English revolution, the last time when radical alternatives to our ancient constitution were seriously discussed, suddenly appears relevant again.
 
 The current thirst for more direct forms of democracy – e-petitions, referendums, the right to recall – resonates with ideas and strategies first deployed by the Levellers, from the plebiscites that would confirm public acceptance of the Levellers’ agreement, to the idea of MPs as no more than the “agents” (delegates) of their “principals” (the people).
 
 The radicalism that flourished in the mid-17th century, often marginalised in national public memory, is once more in vogue. Even Corbyn’s centrist opponents are desperate to claim the radical label.
 
 Corbyn is certainly not Lilburne reborn. But “Corbynmania” represents something more than a bizarre personality cult or a collective political death wish. Corbyn’s goal of reinvigorating Labour as a social movement has a powerful appeal.
 
 In Corbyn, who is an activist as much as a parliamentarian, the public has identified a figure who can bridge the gap between the old politics and the new. Much of the “new” politics, however, has its origins in the 17th century and the solutions and tactics first advocated by “freeborn John”.
 
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 Visceralrealist
 3h ago
 
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 "Acolyte" of Tony Benn? Is Caqmeron an "acolyte" of Thatcher?
 Lilburne "fan." Is Osborne a "fan" of Churchill?
 "Radicalism"........"once more in vogue?" Neoliberalism "in vogue" is it?
 "Corbyn's fondness for Lilburn?" Osborne's "fondness" for Adam Smith?"
 You sneering, transparent oaf Vallance.
 
 Reply Report
 
 vernier7
 5h ago
 
 2
 3
 Corbyn attracts support partly, because he isn't the other candidates.
 Because he is anti Tony Blair.
 Because he wasn't part of a Labour government.
 He doesn't do politi-speak. Meaningless, neutral statements.
 He's a real bloke.
 He isn't threatening or clever.
 And, like Cromwell, he just might bring down the "House of Labour"
 and replace it with a 100% new political animal.
 In that event he should be heartily congratulated.
 
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 -- 
Clive Menzies
Political Economist
+44 (0) 7836 601378 
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