John Pilger Quoting Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy" Calls for Direct Action
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Thursday November 04, 2010 08:04
by Ciaron
The "Party Game Is Over. Stand And Fight" by John Pilger
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew.
Which in sleep has fallen on you.
Ye are many – they are few.
November 03, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy may seem unattainable. I don’t think so. Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a government spread sheet.
Born of the “never again” spirit of 1945, social democracy in Britain has surrendered to an extreme political cult of money worship. This reached its apogee when £1 trillion of public money was handed unconditionally to corrupt banks by a Labour government whose leader, Gordon Brown, had previously described “financiers” as the nation’s “great example” and his personal “inspiration”.
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4AUDIO - John Pilger's Talk at London Anarchist Bookfair 2010
Presentation 30 minutes
http://london.indymedia.org/articles/5792
Though it does not appear to be very well know at the present time, Percy Bysshe Shelley (and some of his English aristocratic associates) had a "soft spot" for the Irish.
"Priced at two shillings, it was sold for the benefit of the imprisoned Irish journalist Peter Finnerty. As the editors point out, Shelley was an active supporter of Finnerty, and he had used 'A Gentleman of the University of Oxford' on the title page of St. Irvyne."
The Peter Finnerty referred to in the excerpt above was from Loughrea in County Galway; and, the street in Loughrea now named "Barrack Street" used to be named "Finnerty Street" in his memory.
Related link: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Complete+Poetry+of+Pe...39387
"Shelley was a professed admirer of the United Irishmen, and the events and personalities of the 1798 rebellion were crucial to his political and intellectual development. His abiding hatred for Castlereagh (who played an important role in crushing the Irish uprising of 1798) was venomously expressed in the Mask of Anarchy:
I met murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him."
Related link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jul/14/poetry.comment
Byron also wrote about Castlereagh, perhaps a little less lyrical. But certainly to the point.
'Posterity will ne'er survey,
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss.
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