After a full sunny morning of trawling
through archive records at Salford Local History Library I thought I would treat myself to a visit to
the Working Class Movement Library. The weather was turning and the wind was
starting to blow a gale as I sat in the grounds of the University. I crossed Chapel street and rang the bell and
received a warm welcome at the library. What I wanted to see was the pamphlet
“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine. I had read a little about the corset maker
revolutionary and wanted to read for myself the words that sparked such controversy.
The library assistant showed me into the reading room and then produced the archive box containing the book and some other reading material around the pamphlet. The book that contained the piece was hand bound and incredibly old, I presume it was published on or around the 1870’s , each page was punched through with the original letter press giving each page a textured feel not seen in today's printing. You could feel the mark of the maker and it was akin to reading a handwritten letter. The only problem was that the typeset was unusual in that the capital S looked like a lowercase f. Now this gave the whole reading a twist as many words I had to read twice as I was reading them with a lisp! For example “support” read as “fupport” and “sentiment” as “fentiment” after the first few hundred words or so I got used to it and enjoyed the first half very much.
Thomas Paine is very clever in setting up his audience with an argument that you can all agree on , he then like all great philosophers uses this same premise to de-bunk other taken truths and succeeds in changing your viewpoint as you read. I can see how such a pamphlet stirred minds and created action. In hindsight though I think it would have been great if he had cast his rhetoric to the viewpoint of the Native Americans who at the time were experiencing a ruthless and programmed horrific genocide.
The library assistant showed me into the reading room and then produced the archive box containing the book and some other reading material around the pamphlet. The book that contained the piece was hand bound and incredibly old, I presume it was published on or around the 1870’s , each page was punched through with the original letter press giving each page a textured feel not seen in today's printing. You could feel the mark of the maker and it was akin to reading a handwritten letter. The only problem was that the typeset was unusual in that the capital S looked like a lowercase f. Now this gave the whole reading a twist as many words I had to read twice as I was reading them with a lisp! For example “support” read as “fupport” and “sentiment” as “fentiment” after the first few hundred words or so I got used to it and enjoyed the first half very much.
Thomas Paine is very clever in setting up his audience with an argument that you can all agree on , he then like all great philosophers uses this same premise to de-bunk other taken truths and succeeds in changing your viewpoint as you read. I can see how such a pamphlet stirred minds and created action. In hindsight though I think it would have been great if he had cast his rhetoric to the viewpoint of the Native Americans who at the time were experiencing a ruthless and programmed horrific genocide.
The more I read the more I begin to feel
demoralised about the state of the word and the fact that history does repeat
itself. The other great book Ive been reading at the moment is “The Silk Roads”
by Peter Frankopan a history of the world from the viewpoint of the East. From
this it is apparent that the collection of taxes and share capital has always
been the great motivator of war and greed of Mankind and that history has been
a repeat of conquer and be conquered throughout all of history, from great
nations and civilisations, to hordes of Vandals and Mongols, Fascists and
Empiricist's, all at the expense of the common man and woman. Many of the earliest writings are mere ledger books about trade and who owes who.
Out of all this came a glimmer of hope as Lynette passed me a leaflet for an up a upcoming convention.
Conscience and Conscription: Resistance to war, Friday 14th and Saturday 15th October 2016. There are a series of talks organised by the abolish war campaign , Cyril Pearce is talking and a whole host of other talks. I followed the trail to the abolish war campaign and found a link to a brilliant talk by a lecturer from Bradford called Professor Paul Rogers : "Future Wars and How to Prevent Them". This talk is in two versions the long one is the most comprehensive and I found it to be totally uplifting and hopeful that people are studying this and looking into how we can effect change. More on this in future musings.
more info on abolish war here : http://www.abolishwar.org.uk/
The you tube Paul Rodgers talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDg4F769ciw&t=715s
