Don't Follow The Crowd This Jubilee Weekend

“The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime.” 
Emma Goldman

I'm off tomorrow morning to Switzerland to stay with friends for the duration of the Diamond Jubilee nonsense, escaping from the relentless pressure to pay homage to a monarch who has basically done little but spend the last 60 years waving back at the crowds. The number of consumer products that companies are slapping a Union flag onto is getting ridiculous but it's all part of a carefully manufactured nationalist distraction exercise designed to make us spend more money and forget the country is in deep trouble, thanks to the bankers and their pliable political allies.

Whilst I'm away, I can only hope that some of my many troublemaking friends find a way to refuse to follow the flag-waving, bunting-crazed crowd (and manage to avoid pre-emptive arrest like the Starbucks Zombies experienced before the royal wedding last year - I hope the current court case against the Metropolitan police is a success). With this in mind, I offer as inspiration this famous photograph of August Landmesser, a German shipyard worker who dissented when everyone else made the Nazi salute. Now that's what I call stubbornness.

Blogging will resume next week. Have a great republican weekend.