People in Abingdon displayed a banner “Bridges not Walls” on Abingdon Bridge as part of a national event taking part on bridges up and down the land.
The event was planned for the day of the inauguration of the new President of the United States of America. The second picture is the old workhouse wall near Boxhill Road. The new President has pledged to build a big wall between the USA and Mexico.
The Abingdon Bridge gathering was organised by a new group called ‘Abingdon More in Common’
#More
in
#
common.
I like old stone bridges, and this image is just great!
Looks nice and pleasantly warm. Happy weekend!
And it’s a protest about Donald Trump. They’d be better off spending their time protesting about something worthwhile and something that’s our business
Trying to influence American foreign or homeland policy from here would be a rather pointless excercise, laughable even but nevertheless it’s a free country so if people want to protest or show unity let them get on with it, live and let live etc. If you dig a bit deeper the group mentioned above are part of http://hopenothate.org.uk/more-in-common/
I agree with the last two comments.
Far better giving ‘ground roots agitation’ a stir to remind our own politicians that they are meant to be serving the electorate and not being ciphers of their masters, or helping developers loot the town … the rumours are circulating again.
I think demonstrating against Donald Trump in Abingdon (if that is the intention) is too safe a place to be be a right-on-rebel (Power To The People).
Yes Badger, they want to carry forward the ideas championed by the late Jo Cox – focusing on inclusion rather than exclusion/hate. That most certainly is our business…
brexit means brexit!
lol
The gathering today was a group of volunteers joining others in over 250 locations across 5 continents. Although we did not vote for Trump he will have a massive impact across Europe and on our world. For those of us who worry about that and want to do something about it, today was an opportunity to stand in unity for a better politics and a better world. The #moreincommon campaign is about working towards a more inclusive society that values and respects diversity- if you are interested please see our fb page to find out more. And see #bridgesnotwalls for more info about today.
Ever travelled from the US into Mexico? two countries, one rich one poor, you can certainly see why people would want to walk to the rich one and why people in the rich one would want them not to. Brexit will of course mean we have a border of our own to police between northern and southern Ireland, maybe even one with Scotland in the future, both could be easy immigration routes from Europe.
‘Southern Ireland’ — you mean The Republic of Ireland.
UK society is inclusive. Immigrants have the same entitlement to benefits, housing, health care and education as everyone else. The crux of the matter is resources. Oxfordshire Council is closing children’s centres Centres for the elderly and accommodation for the homeless. We are told that we have to have austerity measures as we cannot afford services. The population of villages in Romanian and other Easter European Countries have come to the UK to have access to our benefits, housing etc. Can we continue to support mass immigration? I think it is the scale of immigration that worries a lot of people. Also a lot of minorities do not want to integrate. Some Muslim faith schools preach against integration. It would be interesting if these organisations
UK society is inclusive. Immigrants have the same entitlement to benefits, housing, health care and education as everyone else. The crux of the matter is resources. Oxfordshire Council is closing children’s centres Centres for the elderly and accommodation for the homeless. We are told that we have to have austerity measures as we cannot afford services. The population of villages in Romanian and other Easter European Countries have come to the UK to have access to our benefits, housing etc. Can we continue to support mass immigration? I think it is the scale of immigration that worries a lot of people. Also a lot of minorities do not want to integrate. Some Muslim faith schools preach against integration. It would be interesting if these organisations visited these faith schools where the classes of boys and girls are segregated.
Spot on Janet !
Janet – I am sorry, but to say ” Immigrants have the same entitlement to benefits, housing, health care and education as everyone else” is simply not true – there are highly complex rules relating to eligibility for people from overseas, just check on the gov.uk website! Also, as I am sure you know, the situation for EA nationals is very different for that for people from other coutries.
As has frequently been discussed here, we all have the right to express our opinions, but I do think that alongside that right goes the responsibility not to make statements which appear to be factual but are actually incorrect. The tabloid press who do that have a lot to answer for in terms of the atmosphere of hate which many of us are so concerned about.
Well said Heater. Those who knowingly propagate lies, half truths and false news are a blight on our modern society.
It puzzles me why some people are so antagonistic about those who choose to protest and try to belittle or humiliate them. If, as they say, it’s a waste of time then surely it’s their time to waste? If they think it’s because they should be protesting about something else, then organise a protest and maybe they’ll join you? I rather think that it’s more about there own poisonous and bigoted views being questioned thus making it less comfortable for them to spout their propaganda and more likely an informed public will question their lies.
Apologies for my predictive text Hester.
And what you’ve just said Reductio is exactly why we voted for Brexit and why Donald Trump has taken up residency of the White House.
In this country we have free speech. There are those who wish to stop free speech. In some countries the press is prevented from publishing facts. We have a right to ask questions and try to find the right answers. The Government is very good at hiding facts and figures and we have to thank the press for exposing them. We have a right to ask questions
CK2, could you elaborate please? Which bit of what I said do you think is a good reason to leave the EU and put a dangerous, misogynistic and xenophobic child in the Whitehouse?
Janet, indeed in some countries the press is prevented from printing facts – while in others it chooses of its own accord and to its own agenda to ignore them and print lies and half truths which you for one seem only too happy to repeat either without checking their veracity or worse in the knowledge that they are falsehoods designed to incite mistrust and discord.
All freedoms are limited. Freedom of speech does not give licence to slander. Freedom of assembly does not include riot.
Once we give freedom an absolute and irreducible value, we allow the possibility of abuse of freedom. My freedom is not an excuse to enslave somebody else. Much of our thinking on these issues got suckered by a naive version of existentialism: “If it’s right for me, it’s right”. Not necessarily.
If I lie about somebody (my freedom), does my victim have no recourse on the grounds that is was freedom of expression?
You bet your life they do; and quite right, too.
Reductio ad absurdum is right. We need to think about the truth of what we say before we push the ‘submit’ button.
While it may comfort the conscience to be a pacifist, in reality being one does nothing for the good of man kind. How would a nation of pacifists have delt with the third riecht? Wait a mo mr hitler while we form a queue for your ovens? Was king Richard wrong to lead the crusades and defend Christianity itself ? And what of Martin Luther King? Was he so wrong to dream of a free society or should he have rolled over too? Ditto Mandela, should he have been a pacifist too? If so how would apartheid been surprised? Where there is wrong in the world it needs to be righted and you can read into that whatever you wish,
“We shall fight them on the beaches” etc or should we have rolled over in the name of appeasing your conscience only to witness the end of our civilisation? Was it Roosevelt who said the only way to avoid war was to prepare for it?
No, It was not Roosevelt. It is a paraphrase of a statement found in Book 3 of Latin author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus’s tract De Re Militari (4th or 5th century).
My father was a pacifist, his brother fought in WW2 – both out of Christian conviction. They remained good friends throughout their lives and each deeply respected the other’s position.
By the way, Martin Luther was a pacifist – as was Ghandi. They bought freedom at the price of their own lives without taking the lives of others.
Do not from any of the above try to guess my position.
I’m at a loss to understand your point CK2. Are you proposing direct and violent action to end Trump’s presidency? – Are you getting this all down GCHQ?
Brexit…Trump….it was good for some before. It was bad for some before. It’ll still be good for some and bad for some now. Or…was everything actually perfect up until a few months ago?
Anyway, i think this has all got confused.
No Walls – means ‘no more housing’, for Abingdon’
Build Bridges – please can we start with the much needed one south of the Town that Abits was supposed bring?
It seems that some have forgotten Rule 101 of democracy which is when all the votes are counted the one with the most is the democratic winner.
I’m willing to concede that some ‘democratic systems’ like US Electoral Colleges and the large differential sizes/geographical make-up of UK constituencies introduce unnecessary biases to the democratic vote, but, until the electorate get really angry with this we’re stuck with it.
I favour PR and I suppose the Brexit vote was the nearest thing to personal democratic equivalence since the last referendum.
The cabaret since that referendum has been the losers throwing their toys out of their prams in annoyance that everyone doesn’t think like them … hummm … bit authoritarian of them don’tcha think? But people who claim the moral high ground are usually a tad blind.
The Remainers accused the Brexiteers of not having ‘A Plan’ without ever mentioning what their plan was …
… was it more of the same … The Plan which had failed at the ballot box;
… was it the Dastardy Deal negotiated by Dim-Wit Dave with his pals in Brussels?
In honesty, I’d had no idea of the contempt in which Cameron held the electorate until he came back from Brussels saying he’d got a great deal … he was too thick to realise that the electorate knew he’d had his trousers taken down.
In a world of his own.
As my friends know I could compete at Olympic level in this vein, but the message for those who cant hear is that you voted for the wrong side.
It’s Brexit, and Trump is in. Your sides lost and it’s time you had a reality check and started reflecting the wishes of the voters, or you’ll never win their hearts.
Jeremy Corbin … I grew up in the coalfields of the North-East and the guy is clueless. I despair that the Liberal party has picked another dud in Tim Farron and Theresa May, by default, is the best of this sad bunch
I’ve got no political party axe to grind. I’d go for any political party which looked remotely competent.
It would even be nice to have some local politicians in whom one could have faith and trust.
So Newcomer, if someone with power, money and a political agenda runs a campaign that UP is in fact DOWN and a number of people are persuaded of this and vote in a referendum that they agree that the direction the sky is in is DOWN are you saying that all the people who voted against this need to get over it and move on? Even if the government now says that everyone has to walk on their hands, just like the UP campaign had been saying all along and despite the fact that half the people who voted DOWN now say they would have voted differently if they thought for a minute that DOWN would win and they’d have to do handstands? Is that your definition of democracy?
Reductio, you might like to reduce everything to the absurd and produce a pastiche of Lewis Carroll juvenalia to cloud the argument, but if you don’t understand that democracy is about public choice then you don’t have a case at all.
I think you’d rather like to be a dictator … an authoritarian of the Left … consistent with your Alice In Wonderland Logic … ‘Off with Their Heads … a man in command of his Fantasy World where the only way is His Way. This could scan a tad facist.
Best of luck with that.
I don’t remember an awful lot being said that up was down, and down was up or indeed that down was down and up was up for that matter.
We don’t want no walls
We don’t need no bridges
What do we want ?
A monorail !
When do we want it ?
Now !
Or maybe in 2020…
When the developers have banked their cash, done a runner, and the local tax payers are forced to pay for it.
And the council has reorganised itself, and can safely blame the ‘old’ organisation for the inept planning choices, whilst actually still being the same actual old incompetents, working out their days till they collect their gold plated pensions, to enjoy miles from the mess they made…
BAU then..