Last Week in London

Live8 in Hyde Park. The Olympics. The Terrorist Bombings.

I feel very angry and disappointed about two of those. And one gives me a sense of hope. Green Olympics. Maybe.

Ann wrote about the litter in Philadelphia after Live8. That was my immediate reaction before the gates even opened in London. We were walking on trash everywhere, including half-eaten pieces of chickens. Make Poverty History. But don't you worry about changing anything about the way you are; no: only the eight men in Gleneagles can do anything about it...

Yes, loads of people came together under a MPH banner. It raised awareness: to an extent. Ecopsychology tells us that we all knew all this already. There are just many sources of psychological and sociological and societal repression.

And it seemed so easy, so simple: debt, aid, trade. As if it's a good thing for products to travel thousands of miles around the world, and people aren't able to grow their own food. As if the 'environment issue' isn't related to the poverty issue. (Fly to Edinburgh! Drive to Edinburgh!)

But before the poverty issue, climate change was on the G8 agenda on Thursday. We needed action and instead got rhetoric. I don't care how the progressive newspapers in Britain paint it: the G8 failed on climate change.

It's like we're racing down the road in a car, headed for a cliff. Bush is driving. Everyone cheers when the back seat drivers (Blair, Chirac, etc.) get Bush to admit that they're heading for a cliff. Yippeee! He agrees!

And everyone celebrates. No brakes were put on, there was no stopping, nor even a reversal. In fact, the only thing mentioned is that Bush wants to create technology to make the car fly. Meanwhile, we're zipping along, full speed ahead. Will Bush save the day with new technology before the car hits the edge? Stay tuned.

But, of course, before this great news was announced, we had 7/7. The new 3/11 which was the new 9/11.

The country didn't stopped at all. Everyone and everything appeared to be 'as normal'. The stock market never stopped. The planes kept flying.

This 'going on as normal' was said with some amount of pride. Well, a great deal amount of pride. But I don't think being 'resilient' under these circumstances is anything to be proud of.

If your loved one died yesterday, would people really praise you for continuing to work through the day, for going to work the next day, for dancing at a concert that night?

Where is our solidarity with the grieving? Things should STOP. I was ever so proud of us New Yorkers for stopping for so long.

Did anyone watch ITV or Channel Four, or Five on 7/7? Were commercials still being shown? In NY, commercials weren't shown on commercial television for several days. and that was so good.

No, this wasn't another 9/11. So 50+ people don't mean as much as 3,000 people and two very tall buildings. ?? Tt just all feels so bizarre. I feel really ambivalent about all this. "The economy must keep going." Give people a chance to not repress their feelings. Give people a chance to have a break from our commercialized society and see what it's like. It was really good in NYC.

Comments

[heather witham]

Just an addendum:

It made me really happy to see Londoners STOP for two minutes yesterday at noon. We stood outside in Bristol, but the cars did keep going. But in London: wow. Cars stopped. "Business as usual" stopped and it was incredibly moving.