In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Europe

  • The Flotsam of Frantic Dreams

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      We don’t know any more where our lives belong or even where to hide. The walls of home hold nothing up or out and the door hangs slack on the hinge.   Where have our lives gone ?   I consult the news and the world ended several days ago. Today it’s ending all…

  • BALLAD OF REFUGE by David Punter

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    I come in fear. The wheels, the stuttering engine, By road or wave; the endless killing payments. Bit by bit, my mind returns to rubble.   You come in fear. The hunched back, failed bravado, They make me squirm. You have no place here, brother; Get back, for you remind me of my weakness.  …

  • A Drawing of Conclusions

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    It is surely still natural to respect a conclusion that is reached through cogent argument. Each stage of the argument leads to the next stage, like a series of links in a chain. The conclusion is given its authority, its right to be heard and accepted, by the strength of the links that have led…

  • If the People is Sovereign, Lying to the People is High Treason

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    As 2016 comes to an end, I want to present an argument which I believe follows from the year’s events. Different elements of the argument have already been touched on here in recent posts. I must begin with language and those first words of St John’s Gospel. In the beginning was [and was always] the…

  • Naming the Beast of the Year

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      This beast has our country’s contours written all over it. It has leapt from out of the ruins of the city, those hollow squares, and from the great labrynth below ground where the thread got tangled, and from the wi-fi and the wires through which we do not speak but intone like digital toys…

  • The Dance of the Emperor who Wears no Clothes

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    The Brexit dance continues. And in London, a court case has just come to an end, in which lawyers have been debating whether or not Parliament should have influence over the Brexit process. We shall hear the result of that court case in the near future. But its implications are profoundly important and the discussion…

  • Can Liberal Democracy Survive our Tumult ?

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    Can liberal democracy survive our tumultuous, bewildering, frightening, dangerous times ? Can it surmount them ? Can it contain and even direct the flailing social forces at work towards positive solutions, a viable human future ? As things stand, it seems not to be coping at all. It is surely in great danger of allowing…

  • Post “Brexit” Blues and Bubbling Ferments

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    Here I have collated various addresses I have come across or been sent during the past few weeks. They link to various initiatives and/or reflections which I find interesting and helpful, following the referendum decision and the course – “Brexit means Brexit” – which appears to have been set for our unknown destination on the…