The Point
Last updated: 27 June 2022.

...red sky thinking for an open and diverse left

Visit our Facebook page

Follow us on Twitter

 

Recent Articles

In Praise of Beethoven

Arthur C Clarke - A Very Modern Odyssey

Tackling Private Landlords

Investigating the Value Form

The Eternal Dark Heart of Empire

If You Build Them, They Will Come

For the Children of 1917 and 2017...

 

 

For 1917 and 2017: A few lines of defiance and hope - from a bedroom in Scotland to the World

                       

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      Ten million voices know what is wrong

                                      Ten million solutions for putting it right

                                      And a billion eyes see encroaching night

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      Young woman in Dresden with sullied hijab

                                      Teacher in Mosul, burnt, tortured, and stabbed

                                      Are the bombs that fall here

                                      Better than the bombs that fall there?

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      Blue sky, new sky, no longer our true sky

                                      Green Plains turn,

                                      Dry, dry, dry...

                                      Choking dust deserts, drowning floods rise

                                      We might have done something

                                      But it’s no surprise, no surprise…

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      Time, again, and now: children cry in their sleep

                                      Mares of the darkness to make a cyborg weep

                                      All they have known turned to wind-blown ash

                                      In the final, brilliant, plutonium flash

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      The peasants

                                      Still queue at the gargoyled gate

                                      Poor and white in Bristol,

                                      Poor and black in Washington State

                                      And who shall they rage at?  

                                      And who shall they hate?

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      Five decades since promises of jet packs and space

                                      Forwards! Backwards! Forwards!

                                      With this cantankerous human race

                                      No simple solutions, no rest, or easy grace

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      Gallus folk fight that their nation be reborn

                                      To free their eagles, their kelpies, their strange unicorn

                                      A defeat doesn’t leave a dream

                                      Shattered, ended or torn…

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

                                      The Lass fae Niddrie, the boy from Benin,

                                      Bullied New Yorker, Old man in Beijing

                                      At wit’s end, longing

                                      For all manner of things

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy

 

                                      Who owns the trains? Who owns the planes?

                                      Who owns the screens where we play our games?

                                      Who owns the banks? Who owns the tanks?

                                      The hollow places for submissive thanks?

 

                                      Nobody ever said it would be easy…

                                     

                                      So...

                                      For you and I, and yours and ours,

                                      And those who raise the shield

                                      The future’s no’ yet ower

                                      Don’t dare you bow or cower

                                      Before the weapons that they wield

 

                                      Gather up your armour,

                                      Once more take the bloodied field

                                      With wearied heart, and aching limb

                                      Deny, defy, expose the lie

                                      That only they create the real.

 

                                      You are not a single mind

                                      The days to come are not yet sealed

                                      Fight on, fight on, and you will find

                                      A million hearts will with you strive

                                      For the right of all

                                      To be true…and alive!

 

                                      Remake this Earth for all humankind!

                                      Rebuild it as a Common Weal!

                                      You must not yield

                                      You will not yield

                                      To the Lords of Capital

                                      Or any Man of Steel!

 

                                     But nobody ever said it would be easy…

 

Steve Arnott

 

 

Other articles by Steve Arnott in The Point include:

Arthur C Clarke: A Very Modern Odyssey

A Tribute to Neil Armstrong... or 'Where's that f*****g space elevator?

The European stem cell research ban – why and how we should fight it

Enriching Scotland’s Common Weal through Scottish Inventions and Innovations

(science and ideas)

 

The Conspiracy of Doves I – Darwin, Marx and The Conspiracy of Doves

The Conspiracy of Doves II - Socialism and the selfish gene: A tale of quiz shows, game theory and natural selection

The Conspiracy of Doves III - The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, part one

Postcapitalism: An Overview – Part One

(Darwinist-Marxism, evolution/revolution, post-capitalism)

 

In Praise of Beethoven

Teaching Tom…and Dick and Harry and Jane: A Personal Reply to Tom Hunter on Scottish Education

The Culture: Iain Banks’ Greatest Creation

(culture, education, The Culture)

 

Reversing privatisation and PFI using a ‘windfall’ financing model

2013, A Year to Go: Independence and Raising the Game in Phase 2

Achieving gender balance in an Independent Scottish Parliament (co-authored with Liz Walker)

Taking back what’s ours: Why we need a Public Commission on Public Ownership

Max the YES: Tactical Voting for Holyrood 2016, Yes or No.

(independence, socialism, progressive policy ideas)

On seeing Orcas in Burra Sound

(poetry, verse, fiction)

 

Steve’s novel, Pilot of the Storm, First of ‘The Star King’s Proxy’ trilogy, is also available to buy or rent at…

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pilot-Storm-Book-StarKings-Proxy-ebook/dp/B00JGF0P6Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1483670725&sr=1-1&keywords=Stevie+Arnott+-+Pilot+of+The+Storm

External links:

Bella Caledonia

Bright Green

George Monbiot

Green Left

Greenpeace

The Jimmy Reid Foundation

Richard Dawkins

Scottish Left Review

Viridis Lumen