Thursday, May 04, 2006

Return Ticket To Euston

Would it be possible to be categorised as a Euston fellow-traveller? After all I was active in the socialist Campaign Group for 17 years while being semi-detached from the main activists on Northern Ireland, the EU and, eventually, Iraq.

I can't sign up to the full Euston Manifesto because I have reservations on two important matters. First, it could do with recognising that when America steps over the mark, this is more serious than when other western nations make blunders. C Wright Mills's "Power Elite" is still relevant 50 years on.

Second, the manifesto must seek to find a democratic and humanitarian formula to determine which acts of military intervention are acceptable when seeking to liberate people from mass acts of internal oppression. In the meantime, interventions can be argued for only case by case, and should be accepted only in the most exceptional circumstances.

If my concerns had been met, I would have signed up - but then fellow-travellers are much more reliable than signatories. They don't resign; they only fade away.

2 comments:

Harry Barnes said...

Hi Michael (Dugsie) Chewter,

It is 20 February 2007 and I have just seen your comment. I can access your profile, but not your blog. Perhaps you are not operating it.
I doubt whether you will get this message, but contact me if you do.
There is always a mixture of news at our age. Karl Hedderwick died just over a couple of years ago. He lived in the next street.
On the happier side, I addressed the Ruskin Fellowship last year and John and Vi Hughes came to hear me! It is on a blog item posted 26 September "Joseph, just who is more civilised?"

donnie barnes said...

Mr. Barnes are you still available to blog? I am Donnie Barnes I live in the U.S.The Barnes family here, We own and operate a enviromental clean up buisness for 25 years now. I guess I am tring to find our European relatives my e-mail is donniebarnes02@comcast.net