Being a genuine 'country lad' these marches piss me off. Hunting is enjoyed majoratively by the upper classes and townies wanting a 'taste of the country life'. The real problems of the countryside are...
Transport Emplyment Housing
Not frigging hunting, frigging farming subsidies or frigging foot and mouth.
The govt was under major harassment BY the farming lobby during foot and mouth AND the BSE crisis (different govt, but still). Farming may be hard, but a lot of the farmers are total c*nts.
Hunting lobby though... grrr, they really nark me.
If you're genuine country, surely you know that farming has the highest incidence of suicide of any profession (even higher than doctors), foot & mouth has destroyed the livelihoods of thousands, and the placards being carried seemed to indicate that the majority of people were indeed from rural areas. This isn't to say that the problems you raise aren't problems (they are, and a part of the countryside alliances raft of greivances - rural post office closures, low pay conditions, reduction of local bus services et al are all covered in their literature if you read it), but current govt. policies seem designed to exascerbate them, not solve. Sadly the media have given the impression that it was a 'pro-hunting' march when in actuality it was a whole lot more than that, if you'd been there.
I checked the website. The marchers themselves made it a pro hunting march, if you didn't agree with hunting you weren't welcome. These people don't represent me, my family or any of the previous generations of my family that have lived in the country. I've read it all, but I'm afraid all I see is the posh nobs tacking hunting and land-ownership issues onto everything else to elicit sympathy. Yes, a lot of people lost their businesses and livelihoods from foot and mouth, perhaps if the farming lobby hadn't been so anti vaccination and anti the measures that needed to be taken things would have been less of a problem.
Say what you like about Anti-capitalist marches, but at least most of the attendees have chins.
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timeasmymeasure
Grrr
Date: 2002-09-20 12:14 pm (UTC)Hunting is enjoyed majoratively by the upper classes and townies wanting a 'taste of the country life'.
The real problems of the countryside are...
Transport
Emplyment
Housing
Not frigging hunting, frigging farming subsidies or frigging foot and mouth.
The govt was under major harassment BY the farming lobby during foot and mouth AND the BSE crisis (different govt, but still).
Farming may be hard, but a lot of the farmers are total c*nts.
Hunting lobby though... grrr, they really nark me.
Re: Grrr
Date: 2002-09-23 10:33 am (UTC)Sadly the media have given the impression that it was a 'pro-hunting' march when in actuality it was a whole lot more than that, if you'd been there.
Re: Grrr
Date: 2002-09-23 11:01 am (UTC)The marchers themselves made it a pro hunting march, if you didn't agree with hunting you weren't welcome.
These people don't represent me, my family or any of the previous generations of my family that have lived in the country.
I've read it all, but I'm afraid all I see is the posh nobs tacking hunting and land-ownership issues onto everything else to elicit sympathy.
Yes, a lot of people lost their businesses and livelihoods from foot and mouth, perhaps if the farming lobby hadn't been so anti vaccination and anti the measures that needed to be taken things would have been less of a problem.
Say what you like about Anti-capitalist marches, but at least most of the attendees have chins.