Does the Gleneagles G8 really matter?
Empty rhetoric
A brief flurry of soundbites
in six languages
Long before the fun began
Faceless phone-calls fixed the end.
Leaders meet with Bob
Mingle, drink coffee, improve
Their golf handicaps,
And make caring faces for
Photo opportunities.
Tony wants more aid,
Free trade, fair trade, end to CAP.
But will it happen?
Teargas, mist over heather
Drowning cries of protestors
Subsidy, tariff
Five hundred kinds of ripe cheese
The price? Africa
Read some economics, George
Open markets means you too
Object from afar
And maybe reach world leaders
(oh, and Jacques Chirac)
“Agribusiness and cheap fuel:
They don’t vote, but count double”
Strange demonstration
In support of our leaders:
White armbands for Brown!
A million protesters!
When’s the last time that happened?
Blair, Bush and their pals
Will get nothing done, but then
Neither will Geldof.
Billions gaze on and wonder
“Is this the best we can do?”
G8 seems only
An excuse for a pointless
Back-slapping wank-fest
People not government will
Make Poverty History.
A renga by Katie, Andrew, Phil E, Jim B, Jarndyce, Nosemonkey and Phil H. With thanks to Channel 4.
Katie adds:
When Channel 4 News asked the Sharpener to write something for their G8 summit “view from the blogs”, we were flummoxed. As a group blog which prides itself on the disparate nature of our opinions, it seemed impossible to stick to the 200-word limit.
The solution presented itself: Renga. A form of Japanese collaborative poetry that requires several writers to write a verse of 17 syllables (a Hakku, 5-7-5) and one of 14 (a Waki, 7-7) in turn. It fixed the length problem and got everyone involved who wanted to be. Of course, it’s kind of wistful in a bitter, zenlike way, but it works, after a fashion.
Great poetic renga-fest. But I reckon there is sufficient collective political nous amongst the G8 partners (!) to realise they actually need to agree a few positive outcomes; to be seen to assuage the Live8(in a good way)bandwaggon. Think about it. Otherwise all these benificent G8 leaders risk alienating voters in their own respective countries.
And that wouldn’t be a good thing, now would it.
Great blog by the way. Thanks.
We need a lot of rich self styled Supertzars
To Politicise the poor.
The Musicians play the music
The Politicians play the crowd
Old men with graying hair
Wave yer bangles in the air
Band aid, first aid, world trade
My enthusiasm has long begin to fade
Old men with graying hair
Wave yer bangles in the air .. ad nauseam
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Make Poetry History
I wanna make poverty history
but I wanna expose the hypocrisy
of the G8 wanting to give more aid
and lock it into unfair trade
No more debts to be repaid
but where’s the trade of being made?
I wanna make poverty history
erase it from the dictionary
its the word of a missionary
change barbarity to christianity
I wanna make poverty history
erase it from the dictionary
find a phrase that better says
that poverty is political
I wanna make injustice history
And I’ll break the law to do it
turn the legal system on its head
so people can see through it
expose Tony’s lies and Nike’s crimes
cos they think they’re so above it
stick a spanner in the system
and tell them all where to shove it
expose our dead democracy
re create it and renew it
I wanna make injustice history
and I’ll break the law to do it
I wanna make corporations history
because the we can do without them
I wanna make domination history
because the world’s not just rich white men
I wanna make ecological devastation history
desparation and dehumanisation history
I wanna make privatisation history, colonisation history
I wanna make genetic modification, animal experimentation,
and female genital mutilation history
I wanna make lying history, spying history
low cost flying, and plausible denying
I wanna make borders history, orders history
I wanna make HIV and SUVs history
and BP, MPs, MEPs and SAPs history,
I wanna make the WTO and the DTI history,
and M16s, AK47s and D9s history.
I wanna make ID, DDT, WMD and PMT history
NAFTA, CAFTA, BAT, FTAA,
the NRA, the CIA
I wanna make the state history
I wanna make the G8 history
I wanna make history, make history, make her-story, make history,
make history, make our-story, make history, with me
yeah make history, make history, make history, with me
come on make history, make history, make history, with me
Shout out against the G8 on the hills and in the glens
in the streets, in the cities and in the police pens,
from cape wrath to auchterader
from grangemouth to faslane
from dungavel to gleneagles
from stirling to dunblane
Join the road block, or the woad block
or the clandestine insurgent clowns
or the people’s golfing action
or the asylum seeker crowd
join the silver hill walkers
lighting beacons of dissent!
You’re part of the system
so take back your consent.
Because our story isn’t made by the rulers but the masses
by the ones who show up and get of their asses
by the ones that stand and act in solidarity
That’s the only way that any of us will make history.
http://www.re-clairethestreets.blogspot.com
Radical supergirly,
You seem to want to make everything history even if it actually works towards the goals that you want.
So you have people sitting around in a G8 summit going “we dont like these people but we would do what they want to get them off our backs – except we dont really know what they want….”
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