Clicking in the Wind
Fuming after Brexit I was. Waste of time voting I reckon, if you're on the losing side. Therefore I started looking for an opportunity to do some REAL damage... Internet petitions.
It was all I could think of.
Now, I am self-employed and do not know how much money I will have left to spend on climbing books and small shoes at the end of each month. Therefore anything I do can't have a direct debit attached - got a political party that has a membership fee? Fuck off and speak to the workers.
BUT! we all live in the information world don't we? and what could be easier than clicking online petitions? Nothing...
First I had a trawl through a few famous political organisations and had a look at what I could do. Recently, a member of the climbing club died very unexpectedly, and his will specified no flowers just donations to Amnesty and Greenpeace.
Amnesty International? Protects the human rights of people against repressive regimes? Just the job. I was clicking away, quite happily, thinking to myself - I wonder if this makes a difference?
Now Amnesty have the answer to that: yes it does. Historically, they started out by writing letters to governments about specific prisoners, and pre-internet there used to be little clubs of people writing and sending letters to Nigeria about Fela Kuti, the Nigerian Reggae star or whoever. Amazingly, just writing polite letters letting fascists, dictators and Generals saved loads of live over the years. You must get really oversensitive about public opinion if you have to dictate what everyone thinks in the country you 'rule'.
Next stop, Greenpeace. Load of clicks. Then, oh happiness, an embedded climbing video! Politics AND climbing, yes fucking please. So protestors aid-climbing Nelson's column to put a respirator over Nelson's face. I like that, me. You get to critique and learn from the rope systems they're using, as well as just appreciating the audacity and the humour.
Its got a rich climbing heritage as well, Johnny Dawes, Joe Simpson, and also John Noakes, although he wasn't protesting about anything, it was just for Blue Peter.
Which reminds me- what was it that Dawes was protesting about? Inuit having jets flown over their hunting grounds I think.
Which leads me to Survival International. This is a group who completely refuse funding from governments - which I like anarchistically. Their reason for existing is to protect the rights of indigenous people around the world. Well, I like thinking about Hunter Gathering, I like Alice Roberts books about human history, I'm in. Click Click Click.
So here I go, feeling all virtuous, but with a nagging feeling - is this really making a difference? and will I get spammed off with more appeals for help.
The spam isn't too bad really, Amnesty tend to send quite a few things but its only slightly slower to click their petition than to delete the e-mail. Plus it nicely wastes time when I should be working.
Meanwhile: the world trundles on, and the next round of politicians start to cook up how they get to next abuse the country. I'm guessing a mix of high-handed ill thought out 'we know what's good for you' meets knee-jerk dog-whistle second guessing of what the lowest common denominator of the public want to hear.
We haven't fixed it yet, more work needed.
NEXT INSTALMENT I e-mail my MP.
