In the wake of the English Revolution, 1649 saw rural eco-socialist communes created, at St George's Hill in Surrey and elsewhere, by Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers, aka the True Levellers [1] – centuries before 'ecology', 'socialism', and 'commune' were coined and became attractive radical beacons of hope for a better future for all. In 1871, the Parisian Communards created a city-wide urban commune [2], and English libertarian socialist William Morris moved in to Kelmscott Manor on the River Thames, where he'd be inspired to write his 1890 masterpiece: a post-revolution sci-fi novel called ‘News from Nowhere' [3] – of liberty, depopulated cities, love, agrarian commune villages, and happiness, all set in a moneyless, stateless, nationless, class-free, and ecologically harmonious global egalitarian community. In 2012, a Diggers Eco-Village commune was founded by the River Thames at Runnymede [4] – a 'Come & Try It' beacon of hope for the kind of low environmental impact future our species and our biosphere so urgently need to co-create. How large a part will it play in helping make a post-capitalist eco-socialist global community into a 21st century reality? And will YOU, dear reader, Come & Try It out for size and comfort, rest and happiness?

ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION — IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME COMING

“I was born by the river
In a little tent
And just like the river
I've been running ever since
It's been a long, long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will”
~ Sam Cooke, from ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ (1963)
» music video with lyrics, 3:13 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-X9JkM9Bgo  

On 15 June 2015, folk will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta – The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest – born by the river in a little tent, at Runnymede, Surrey, UK, and signed reluctantly by King John of England on 15 June 1215. Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the feudal barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and establish/protect their rights. For more info, see:
» Magna Carta 800th Anniversary website – http://magnacarta800th.com

So at Runnymede, there’s at least an 800ish-year-long heritage of the hoi polloi contending against the powers that be, and winning liberties for the common people through collective struggle. But what of Surrey as a county?

“Digger — any of a group of agrarian communists who flourished in England in 1649-50 and were led by Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard. In April 1649 about 20 poor men assembled at St. George's Hill, Surrey, and began to cultivate the common land. These Diggers held that the English Civil Wars had been fought against the King and the great landowners; now that Charles I had been executed [on 30 Jan 1649 – TDJ], land should be made available for the very poor to cultivate. (Food prices had reached record heights in the late 1640s.) The numbers of the Diggers more than doubled during 1649. Their activities alarmed the Commonwealth government and roused the hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to the common lands. The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob violence, and by the end of March 1650 their colony was dispersed. The Diggers themselves abjured the use of force. The Diggers also called themselves True Levellers, but their communism was denounced by the leaders of the Levellers.”
~ Encyclopaedia Britannica, quoted in ‘The English Diggers (1649-50)’
» lots more Diggers info – http://www.diggers.org/diggers/digg_eb.html 

Like me, you may have first heard of the Diggers of 1649 from the lyrics of the socialist anthem ‘World Turned Upside Down’, beautifully written by Leon Rosselson in 1974 by adapting the inspiring words of Gerrard Winstanley [1], and popularised as a single released by Billy Bragg in 1985. The song gives a richly detailed yet succinct lyrical summary of one one of the most radical factions to emerge from the 1640s English Revolution – and here’s a live festival rendition by Billy himself:
• Billy Bragg – "World Turned Upside Down"
— playing live at the Women Chainmakers Festival, Dudley, on 15 Sep 2007
» live music video, 3:24 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stmiyeLsErw
» lyrics – http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858584509/

So the county of Surrey can proudly claim, within its heritage, that 363 years ago it saw the foundation of the capitalist epoch’s very first rural eco-socialist commune, at St George's Hill. And what of the River Thames, whose meanderings have formed the Runnymede water-meadows?

The first great European exemplar of an urban commune was created by the Parisian working class in 1871 [2], and in that year the magnificent English libertarian socialist William Morris moved in to Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, several score miles upstream on the River Thames from Runnymede. While cognisant of the class war thrown up by the industrial revolution, Morris was inspired – by the potential for peace, rest, and happiness inherent in rural living – to write his masterpiece of a post-revolution, futurist, sci-fi novel: 'News from Nowhere' (1890) [3] – of liberty for all, depopulated cities, love, agrarian commune villages, and happiness, all set in a moneyless, stateless, nationless, class-free, and ecologically harmonious global egalitarian community.

"Go back again, now you have seen us, and your outward eyes have learned that in spite of all the infallible maxims of your day there is yet a time of rest in store for the world, when mastery has changed into fellowship — but not before. Go back again, then, and while you live you will see all round you people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives — men who hate life though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle. Go on living while you may, striving, with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness."
~ William Morris, from 'News from Nowhere', his post-capitalist future-glimpsing novel
» about – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_nowhere

The ‘fellowship, and rest, and happiness’ I enjoyed during my 2.5 day stay with the Diggers-2012 in their Runnymede Eco-Village have inspired me to spread the word of their bold 21st century re-igniting of that radical spark, which was first lit by Surrey’s Diggers-1649 – and to tell of the glimpse-of-our-future-happiness feelings provoked by visiting their eco-socialist commune (much the same as Morris’s protagonist William Guest did in 'News from Nowhere’, on his return to 19th century Britain, from his glimpse of a post-revolutionary new day of fellowship, and rest, and happiness).

• Diggers-2012 Runnymede Eco-Village
» website – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com


DECLARATION OF THE DIGGERS-2012
“We: peaceful people, declare our intention to go and cultivate the disused land of this island; to build dwellings and live together in common by the sweat of our brows.
We have one call:  every person in this country and the world should have the right to live on the disused land, to grow food and to build a shelter. This right should apply whether you have money or not. We say that no country can be considered free, until this right is available to all.
With our current system in crisis we need a radically different way of growing our communities. We call on the government and all landowners to let those who are willing, make good use of the disused land. Land that is currently held from us by force.  By our actions, we seek to show how we can live without destroying the planet or ourselves. Free from the yoke of debt and rent, our labors can be directed to the benefit of all.
Though we may be oppressed for our actions, we will strive to remain peaceful. But we are committed to our cause and will not cease from our efforts until we have achieved our goal.”
~ Diggers-2012, on their own website, 20 May 2012
» source – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com/about/

“Their aim is simple: to remove themselves from the corporate economy, to house themselves, grow food and build a community on abandoned land. Already the crops the settlers had planted had been destroyed once; the day after my visit they were destroyed again. But the repeated destruction, removals and arrests have not deterred them.
The young men and women camping at Runnymede are trying to revive a different tradition, largely forgotten in the new age of robber barons. They are seeking, in the words of the Diggers of 1649, to make “the Earth a common treasury for all … not one lording over another, but all looking upon each other as equals in the creation.” The tradition of resistance, the assertion of independence from the laws devised to protect the landlords’ ill-gotten property, long pre-date and long post-date the Magna Carta. But today they scarcely feature in national consciousness.”
~ George Monbiot, from ‘The Promised Land’, 16 Jul 2012
» article – http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/16/the-promised-land/
 

WHEN INJUSTICE BECOMES LAW, RESISTANCE BECOMES DUTY

Diggers-1649
“When these clay-bodies are in grave, and children stand in place.
This shews we stood for truth and peace and freedom in our days;
And true born sons we shall appear of England that's our mother,
No Priests nor Lawyers wiles t’embrace, their slavery we'll discover.

…yet my mind was not at rest, because nothing was acted, and thoughts ran in me, that words and writings were all nothing, and must die, for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.”
~ Gerrard Winstanley, from ‘A Watch-Word to the City of London and the Armie’, 1649
» many more wise words – http://www.rogerlovejoy.co.uk/philosophy/diggers/quotes.htm

Diggers-2012
“My cause is the right to live and to grow food on the land which is unused and without causing harm, harmoniously and sustainably. There is sufficient land in this country to live freely and low impact in this country. To be honest I do not feel I have broken any of my own concept of what is right and wrong. I accept that my actions may cause alarm to the large land owners of this country and in a way it is strange that Alarm has been criminalised.”
~ Simon Moore, resident of Runnymede Eco-Village, from the dock of Guildford Magistrates Court, 12 Jun 2012
» source – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396

• Double Eviction Attempts: FAIL
? being a multi-person story-telling of the failure of the High Court, police and security personnel to evict Runnymede Eco-Village on either Wed 11 or Thu 12 Jul 2012 (more video links are in the ‘Video Coverage’ section below)
» video, 7:36 – http://bambuser.com/v/2822559#t=58s

Like the Diggers-1649, our courageous Diggers-2012 are facing hostility and harassment from those who believe that they can and do own parts of our home world. In Europe and elsewhere, land ownership has for so long been a fundamental right  claimed through the use of violent force by the ruling classes of successive economic epochs (from Roman patricians, through feudal aristocracies, to capitalist corporate bodies) that most folk just take it for granted as a well-known “fact” that common people are permanently excluded from making a living for themselves on unused/disused land. But the Diggers-1649 and the Diggers-2012, through both their words AND more importantly their actions, do challenge and contend against such an institutional “fact” – since it is, after all, merely a story, told by a bunch of tyrants, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Nearly all of our human ancestors, and all of our universal human psychology, originate in a time when much more wise stories about our relationship to our home world were common currency; for example…  


NO MAN HAS ANY RIGHT TO BUY AND SELL THE EARTH FOR PRIVATE GAIN
Let’s lend an ear to wiser and older stories of humankind walking softly on the Earth, and also to the horror provoked in such wise story-tellers by the obnoxious violence with which the white European ruling class seized the land which had supported the story-tellers’ people for millennia. These tales happen to come from First Nations folk of North America, but indigenous hunter-gather peoples of all continents possess similar, parallel, analogous wisdom.

"One does not sell the land people walk on."
~ Crazy Horse

"My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.”
~ Black Hawk

“What is this you call property? It cannot be the earth, for the land is our mother, nourishing all her children, beasts, birds, fish and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one man say it belongs only to him?”
~ Massasoit

“They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land and they took it. It was not hard to see that the white people coveted every inch of land on which we lived. Greed. Humans wanted the last bit of ground which supported Indian feet. It was land – it has ever been land – for which the White man oppresses the Indian and to gain possession of which he commits any crime. Treaties that have been made are vain attempts to save a little of the fatherland, treaties holy to us by the smoke of the pipe – but nothing is holy to the White man. Little by little, with greed and cruelty unsurpassed by the animal, he has taken all. The loaf is gone and now the White man wants the crumbs.”
~ Luther Standing Bear
» native American quotes source – http://www.adl.org/education/curriculum_connections/NA_Quotes.asp

“We come to work the lands in common, and to make the waste grounds grow. This Earth divided we will make whole, so it will be a common treasury for all. The sin of property we do disdain – no man has any right to buy and sell the Earth for private gain. By theft and murder, they took the land; now everywhere the walls spring up at their command.”
~ Billy Bragg / Leon Rosselson / Gerrard Winstanley / Diggers-1649
» lyrical source – http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858584509/

In the vast geological time-span of modern human existence (c. 200,000 years), the relatively short-lived skim of class-riven societies (c. 7,000 years) – in which “owning” the huge majority of the productive land is the violence-enforced privilege of a ruling elite – can be seen as an unnatural, unjust and merely temporary aberration of our species’ long-term history. If we are to play our part in creating a future society fit for our evolved human psychology, and in which we consciously fit ourselves into our planet’s ecosphere, rather than vainly attempting to dominate and thereby destroying it, then we necessarily need to abolish the “sin of property” in land ownership by the ruling class.

“If we go to prison we'll just come back … I'm not saying that this is the only way. But at least we're creating an opportunity for young people to step out of the system.”
~ Gareth Newnham, Eco-Villager

However, no ruling class ever voluntarily gives up the “rights” it has won through violence. So it is always a task for we 99%ers – the common people – to challenge and to contend against the oft repeated “WE Own This Land!” story, as told by the 1% boss class, and reinforced by the organisational expressions of their violent class rule – the courts, bailiffs, police, and privatised “security” forces. Runnymede Eco-Village is a fine example of the common people doing just that – demonstrating by the propaganda of the deed that another story (eg: “This Earth divided we will make whole, so it will be a common treasury for all”) leads to a way better and far greater future for people and planet. That’s why some of us see this marvellous Eco-Village as such a grand beacon of hope for humankind’s future – and also as a wonderful place to be, in its own right.
 

A NEW DAY OF FELLOWSHIP, AND REST, AND HAPPINESS

“Coopers Hill Woods – A natural haven
With carpets of flowers in the spring, sunny glades in the summer, and fabulous fungi in the autumn, the wooded slopes of Coopers Hill are wonderful to visit in any season. Leave the woods at the top of Coopers Hill for magnificent views across the river and meadows below.”
~ from the National Trust’s Runnymede website
» the countryside – http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/things-to-see-and-do/page-2/

By accident of birth, I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the Cheshire countryside, and (in my teenage years) to have the freedom to give free rein to my exploratory curiosity – by roaming freely, inflatable boat in rucksack, over the wooded sandstone hills of Frodsham and Helsby, and the woodland tributary valleys of the River Weaver. So I discovered experientially, and early on in life, what I later found to be true for our species as a whole: one of the reasons we find so much beauty, majesty, and happiness in woodland-near-water is that this habitat formed a major part of our evolutionary adaptive environment, particularly in the east African rift valley, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Our sense of belonging in highly biodiverse riverine woodland is a direct consequence of countless generations of our ancestors actually belonging to this kind of habitat, and making a living there by their own self-sufficient labour, as part of a hunter-gatherer tribe.

As you may detect from the photos above, I found it soooo easy to fall in love with the deciduous temperate forest ecosystem that covers the River-Thames-facing side of Coopers Hill. Through the interweaving of our species-memory (of our belonging as woodland creatures), and happy childhood memories (of tree-covered Cheshire hillsides), I experienced an unequalled sense of habitat-connected bliss while wandering through Coopers Hill Woods. And that’s as nothing compared to the uplifting feelings of belonging and connectedness that arose during my stay at the Runnymede Eco-Village.
 
A common feature of Eco-Village Open Days is an open-ended and egalitarian discussion concerning land rights. On Sat 07 Jul 2012, our discussion took place in the open air, at the Magna Carta Monument, just 400m down the hill from the Eco-Village. I did my best to record what was said with a view to publishing that audio track here, but despite the recording software appearing to have captured 1.5 hours worth of sound, on retuning home the recording was significant by its absence, and even an undelete utility app failed to find it – so my apologies to all for this technical mishap.

During our land rights discussion, I highlighted how open, free-ranging, radical discussion circles are a common feature of grass roots revolutionary change throughout the capitalist epoch, from the Levellers choosing which issues to raise during the Putney Debates in the English Revolution [5], via the English Chartists, Parisian Communards, and Russian Soviets, to the global Occupy movement of 2011 ? 2012 ? on-going. Afterwards, while sitting together around the village longhouse fire, not only did the Eco-Villagers suggest to me that formal meetings within the Eco-Village were kinda unnecessary, because open, free-ranging, radical discussion was happening all the time – but that’s what I discovered to be very much a living truth of village life. The majority of my stay was taken up by sitting in a circle of Eco-Villagers around the fire in the communal longhouse, the constituent members of which varied over time, chatting and discussing about everything under the sun, including but not limited to…
• practical and operational camp experiences, including group process
• forest stewardship – the National Trust forest stewards are both pleased and impressed by the Eco-Village’s intentionally low environmental impact, and by the villagers’ care for the forest ecosystem in which they have chosen to embed themselves
• land ownership and land rights
• inclusivity, and how to increase it, especially around women’s participation
• science as a collective progressive process cf. “personal science”
• liberation struggles, and particularly mad pride (personal interest: I have bipolar disorder)
• spirituality, religion, agnosticism, and militant atheism
• quantum mechanics, and especially the Higgs mechanism (following the Higgs boson success reported by two of CERN’s LHC detector teams)  
• Eco-Village history, including police relations
• a whole bunch of other stuff my old brain cannot recall in the moment

Inspired by the outcome of one villager asking another one afternoon, “Who are you?”, on a clear and dark Sunday evening, I facilitated a go-round based discussion where each person asked the person to their left that simplest of questions, “Who are you?”  Only in very rare circumstances indeed have I ever encountered a group of people so willing to share of themselves so deeply, with such clarity, honesty, and vulnerability, while including in their circle of trust a newcomer who is actually facilitating their sharing. An obvious conclusion is that village life had already forged immense bonds of trust, solidarity, and community among the Eco-Villagers, to an extent I’ve previously encountered only in groups who’ve been together much, much longer. But their openness to not only welcoming in a newcomer (albeit one demonstrating useful prior experience in camp life, group process, and radical history-&-politics), but also allowing such a newcomer to facilitate an egalitarian, deep-&-meaningful, group discussion on personal identity was uniquely wonderful to behold.

Another villager reported welling up with tears of joy on realising just how much of communal life he’d been deprived of for so long, in comparison to the rich sense of authentic human community he’d experienced as an Eco-Villager. And I too was overcome by tears of joy when it came time to leave, because it only took a couple of days of being there to realise that the Runnymede commune is re-discovering the hugely significant benefits – emotional, psychological, and (dare I say it) spiritual – of communal, self-sustaining, collective life in a temperate forest habitat. On that basis alone, I highly commend to you, dear reader, a multi-day stay at Runnymede Eco-Village – or even better, why not take up residence there and grow the village, even as it helps you to grow?

“We invite everybody to join us, especially those who have become dispossessed due to the unequal and cruel nature of our system of crises.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404

If you want to avoid the nauseatingly awful, weeks-long, corporate culture domination festival that masquerades as ‘London 2012 Olympics’, what better way than an extended stay with the authentically grassroots Diggers-2012 at their Runnymede Eco-Village?


CONTACTING RUNNYMEDE ECO-VILLAGE
For example: about your impending visit, stay, intention to become a resident villager – or owt else, really (support, donations, you name it):

• Phone – 07963 475 195 or 07905 283 114 – mobile phone / text message
• Email – diggers2012 at yahoo dot co dot uk
» Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012
» Twitter – http://twitter.com/freetheland/

“Please bring camping equipment – tent, sleeping bag, cup, supplies etc. – if you wish to join the camp. Whilst scouting around the area we have discovered ample disused land on which to grow food and communities.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404


FINDING YOUR WAY TO RUNNYMEDE ECO-VILLAGE
Please see these 13 images above for maps, aerial photography, terrain views, etc., &c. to help you find your way to Runnymede Eco-Village. The six short links in these captions will take you to the relevant cloud-based mapping resources for the related images. You can click on the images above for a full-resolution edition, which you could then print out or copy to a tablet or phablet, in order to show a taxi driver or a bus driver where you’re after going.

02. Eco-Village Location – Up Close – http://goo.gl/maps/hlXQ
03. Eco-Village Location – Far Out – http://goo.gl/maps/fGrZ
04. Eco-Village Location – Map – http://goo.gl/maps/BkIf
05. Eco-Village Location – Over Coopers Hill
06. Eco-Village Location – Up Coopers Hill
07. Eco-Village Location – Landscape and Lanes – http://binged.it/N1MYOB
08. Eco-Village Location – Street Map – http://binged.it/OaUIbd
09. Eco-Village Location – OS map – http://binged.it/N1MIPn
10. Eco-Village by Rail – London Waterloo for Egham Station – a Well Connected Terminus Station
11. Eco-Village by Rail – Egham Station, only 37 minutes from London Waterloo
A1. Cycle parking under the spreading cedar tree
A2. Runnymede Air Forces Memorial
A3. Magna Carta Monument

“The nearest train station is Egham, about 25 mins walk.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404

Egham overground rail station is only 37 minutes down the track from London Waterloo overground rail terminus station, which connects directly with:
• Waterloo East overground rail station
• Waterloo underground station:
— Bakerloo line        
— Northern line        
— Jubilee line        
— Waterloo & City line

Here are three cloud-based journey planner apps which can help you plan your visit to Runnymede Eco-Village:

• Transport for London – Journey Planner
» automated journey planning – http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk

• National Rail Enquires – Journey Planner
» automated journey planning – http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/planjourney/search

• Transport Direct – Route Planner
» automated route planning – http://www.transportdirect.info  

“If you want to get nearer the camp by public transport you can get on the Slough bus from Egham town and get off at the stop before the top of Priest Hill, Englefield Green. That saves you a walk up a steep hill and is ten mins from the camp.”
~ Runnymede Eco-Villagers » http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404


YOU DON’T ONLY HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
How about these 1075 words of George Monbiot, climate activist, writer, public intellectual, and all round good egg? George visited Runnymede Eco-Village in the week of the double-eviction FAIL in mid-July 2012, and published this piece via the Guardian’s Comment Is Free section: 
• ‘After 800 years, the barons are back in control of Britain’, by George Monbiot, Comment Is Free at The Guardian, Mon 16 Jul 2012
— “The Magna Carta forced King John to give away powers. But big business now exerts a chilling grip on the workforce.”
» article – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain

And there are many more reliable reports of Runnymede Eco-Village too. For instance…

• ‘Windsor Eco-Occupation (regularly updated)’ by rikki, Indymedia London, 10 Jun 2012
» video-led reports – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12379

• ‘Olympic ASBO arrest @ Windsor Eco village’ by Dean, Indymedia London, 11 Jun 2012
» photo-led report – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12392

• ‘Update! Olympic ASBO arrest Released!!!’ by Dean, Indymedia London, 11 Jun 2012
» photo-led report – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12396

• ‘Latest From the Diggers - Join Us!’ by Lucca, Indymedia London, 13 Jun 2012
» photo-led report – http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12404

Video Coverage
» Live Broadcasts – http://bambuser.com/channel/Diggers2012

» YouTube Channel – http://www.youtube.com/diggers2012

» Interviews – [to follow, once editing is complete – TDJ]


And What Is More…
If you come across other info sources and articles about Runnymede Eco-Village, please do add links to them in a comment below this feature.

And of course there is also plenty of info from the Eco-Villagers themselves via their own web presence:
 
• Diggers-2012 Runnymede Eco-Village
» website – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com
» Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012
» Twitter – http://twitter.com/freetheland/


VISITING RUNNYMEDE
While the Runnymede Eco-Village is undoubtedly by far the most engaging occurrence in the Runnymede area, nevertheless if you’re planning to visit, stay, or become a resident, then there are other attractions you may desire to check out.

Natural Beauty
• ‘Langham Pond – Runnymede’ by Alan Bostock
— pictures of the site of special scientific interest
» photo gallery webpage – http://www.runnymede2015.com/langhamponds.htm

• Runnymede Visitor Information – National Trust
» website – http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/


History Lynx
• Magna Carta
The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and of the Liberties of the Forest – granted (under considerable duress) by King John at Runnymede on 15 June 1215
» full text – http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
» Magna Carta 800th Anniversary website – http://magnacarta800th.com

• Runnymede Air Forces Memorial
“The Air Forces Memorial, or Runnymede Memorial, in Englefield Green, near Egham, Surrey, England is a memorial dedicated to some 20,456 men and women from the British Empire who were lost in operations from World War II. All of those recorded have no known grave anywhere in the world, and many were lost without trace. The name of each of these airmen and airwomen is engraved into the stone walls of the memorial, according to country and squadron. It is a Grade II* listed building and was completed in 1953.”
~ Wikipedians, from ‘Air Forces Memorial’
» illustrated article – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Forces_Memorial


Poetry Corner
• “The Reeds of Runnymede”, by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
— A poem commemorating the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede, Surrey, on 15 June 1215
» poem – http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_runnymede.htm


MISSING IN INACTION
As ‘regular readers’ of mine may have realised, this is my first piece of photovideojournalistic activism since…
• State Deploys ‘Divide & Conquer’ Tactics on 09 Nov [2011]
» photo-red action report – https://london.indymedia.org/articles/10950

I’ve been ‘missing in inaction’ due to a major episode of severe bipolar depression, brought on my the British state’s attempts to screw over sick and disabled people by attacking our rights to benefits – to try to help lower our ‘burden’ on the profits of the UK capitalist class. Any road up, I’ve successfully negotiated the privatised assault on my living standards by ATOS, and emerged victorious, to renew my championing of a way better and far greater future for people and planet than the permanent crises by which decadent and decomposing global capitalism are jeopardising our survival.

This feature took waaay longer to create than I anticipated, so I thank my Eco-Village comrades for their forbearance (no doubt many stopped wondering ‘Whatever happened to that Indymedia piece we were promised by Tim?’ some time ago) – I’m finding slow-&-high-quality to be the radical antithesis of the time-is-money quick-&-dirty approach, and far better suited to keeping me sane. I can but hope that you agree that it was well worth the wait.


Up the Revolution,

Tim Dalinian Jones


Acquiring These Photos
The pix above are auto-downsized versions for onscreen webpage display. If you would like the free, edited, full-sized versions (up to 3072x2304px, 7.1Mpx, typically c. 3 MB) just click on an image: bingo! You can also right-click on an image and choose ‘Open Link in New Tab' (or similar) to open a full-sized version alongside the report webpage. If you'd like to take a copy of the full-sized image version, right-click on it and choose ‘Save Image As...' (or similar). Share and Enjoy!

All these photos are 'CopyLeft'
This means you are free to copy and distribute any of my photos you find here, under the following license:
• Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
» Human-readable summary - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
» Attribution: tim.dalinian.jones@gmail.com

Footnotes-&-Lynx
[1] Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers, aka the True Levellers
» about Gerard Winstanley – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_Winstanley
» about the Diggers – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers
» the Digger Archives – http://www.diggers.org/top_entry.htm

[2] In 1871, the Parisian Communards created a city-wide urban commune
» about the Paris Commune – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune
» about the Parisian Communards – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communards
» History of the Paris Commune – http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/

[3] English libertarian socialist William Morris, and his 1890 masterpiece post-revolution sci-fi novel 'News from Nowhere'
» about William Morris – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morris
» about 'News from Nowhere' – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere
• ‘News from Nowhere’ eBook at Project Gutenberg – “Offers 40,000 free eBooks to download”
» free access, free to download – http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3261
• ‘News from Nowhere’ at LibriVox – “Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books”
» free audiobook download – http://librivox.org/news-from-nowhere-by-william-morris/

[4] The Diggers-2012 Eco-Village commune by the River Thames at Runnymede
» website – http://diggers2012.wordpress.com

[5] The Putney Debates in the English Revolution – a series of discussions from March to November 1647, between members of the New Model Army, a number of the participants being Levellers, concerning the makeup of a new constitution for England.
» about – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates
And as the giant in ‘Twin Peaks’ was wont to say, “It is happening again…”

Subject: [Campaignforrealdemocracy] Urgent Ideas Request - October Levellers' Event
From: Mark Barrett via lists.aktivix.org [marknbarrett at googlemail dot com]
Date: 14 July 2012 [Bastille Day! – TDJ]

Dear Friends and Occupiers :)
 
Levellers Event - Urgent Request for Ideas

Following GA endorsement for the concept back in December, you may have heard some of us (from the Occupy London Economics, Real Democracy Working Groups, and Commons Grouping) are attempting to facilitate a 21st Century Putney Debates* / Levellers' Event this coming October.

As part of the preparation, I'm casting around for everyone's ideas on what this event should be about. For the first stage, everyone who wishes the event to be a success is invited to say, in three sentences what they would like to happen, and what they want from the Levellers' event.

This request for input in three sentences is stage one in a three stage planning process being developed by Sean B of EWG, using Agile.

So, if you are inspired by the idea of holding an event inspired by this  please get in touch with your ideas on what it should be about, and what you would like to get out of it. In case you're wondering the request for three separate bullet point-like sentences is important for the collaborative Agile process which Sean and John B both know all about.

Anyway, this is getting kind of urgent as we are nearly in August. Also I will be away for Ramadan, so please help us get the show on the road in good time by sending something back by latest Wednesday evening so then I can process the responses and send them all in one batch to Sean for stage two to go forward with all your wonderful ideas in the mix!

More info on the history of the Putney Debates* is set out below.

Love and Solidarity

Mark

[*The original Putney Debates, groundbreaking in their time started at St Mary's Church (Giles Fraser's old parish) on October 28th 1647. They ran until November 11th, considering the future of the English Constitution after the removal of the King from the old political order. And of course the Levellers, who sought a democratic constitution based on an 'Agreement of the People,' were famously excluded from the final political settlement.  You can read more about them here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putney_Debates ]
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[6] Eco-villager quotes – published in:
• ‘After 800 years, the barons are back in control of Britain’, by George Monbiot, Comment Is Free at The Guardian, Mon 16 Jul 2012
» article – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/barons-in-control-of-britain