A weekend of relative calm before my planned trip to Commie Island. Prof Guerilla moved in last week, so it’s been good to have her about the house and about the area. My nights out have been quiet and the only real busyness was for the union. I have been casting about somewhat for a writing project while away. It may be that I will simply continue writing my journal and perhaps an article, and it may be that I will mostly want to relax, but I like the idea of a bigger project. Perhaps I should investigate the Union of Work and Pleasure.

This afternoon I was at a reading group with Power Fist, Prof Guerilla and others. The room was cold but the atmosphere was warm. We read about the growth of the Island’s maritime empire, alas driven by one of the Parliament of Failed Radicalism. Maritime power was driven by war, forced labour and mass dehumanisation of African people. These are realities that are not taught in schools, that would be inconvenient for the benign view of Empire that the elite like to propagate.

But critique is easy to do. The violent colonialist elite radically changed the planet. To change it in another direction is hard. We can look to pirates and rebels for signs of hope, but their own hopes were so often truncated. The resistance still struggles with changing the planet as radically as the colonialists. Perhaps they always will, unless they are prepared to be as brutal. But then, the more brutal attempts at resistance have rarely ended well. There are days when I wonder whether we must live our utopias now, within the frame we have been given, and whether perhaps that is what we shall always do.