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View Full Version : Phillip Pullman on Cuts in UK



Iraultzaile Ezkerreko
30th January 2011, 20:13
http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/save-oxfordshire-libraries-speech-philip-pullman

And it always results in victory for one side and defeat for the other. Its set up to do that. Its imported the worst excesses of market fundamentalism into the one arena that used to be safe from them, the one part of our public and social life that used to be free of the commercial pressure to win or to lose, to survive or to die, which is the very essence of the religion of the market. Like all fundamentalists who get their clammy hands on the levers of political power, the market fanatics are going to kill off every humane, life-enhancing, generous, imaginative and decent corner of our public life. I think that little by little were waking up to the truth about the market fanatics and their creed. Were coming to see that old Karl Marx had his finger on the heart of the matter when he pointed out that the market in the end will destroy everything we know, everything we thought was safe and solid. It is the most powerful solvent known to history. Everything solid melts into air, he said. All that is holy is profaned.

This is a speech Phillip Pullman gave in opposition to cuts in Oxfordshire which will close almost half of all public libraries. A well written and heart-felt attack on the system of profit and it's position of supreme arbiter in the governments of the world during the crisis.

blake 3:17
30th January 2011, 23:01
Thank you for posting this. In our orbity, public libraries are one of the few public spaces and realms of thought not totally cramped by neo-liberal ideology. They need to be defended and extended.

Iraultzaile Ezkerreko
31st January 2011, 02:14
I noticed it on Facebook and thought it was a subject that was getting suprisingly little play from activists and the media.