Support the William Morris Gallery
Dear Friends,
I have just read and signed the online petition:
"Support the William Morris Gallery"
hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition
service, at:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/savewmg/
I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might
agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider
signing yourself.
Here is a link to the excellent William Morris Internet Archive
Labels: British Left, Culture, History, Protest
posted by greenman @ 7:10 pm
2 Comments:
Best wishes in this. I was reading some Morris recently actually. In his utopian fictional work 'News From Nowhere', Morris has one of the characters say this of capitalism/imperialism:
"As the World-Market grew with what it fed on: the countries within the ring of "civilization" (that is, organized misery) were glutted with the abortions of the market, and force and fraud were used unsparingly to "open up" countries outside that pale. This process of "opening up" is a strange one to those who have read the professions of the men of that period and do not understand their practice. . .
When the civilized World-Market coveted a country not yet in its clutches, some transparent pretext was found - the suppression of a slavery different from, and not so cruel as that of commerce; the pushing of a religion no longer believed in by its promoters; the "rescue" of some desperado or homicidal madman whose misdeeds had got him into trouble amongst the natives of the "barbarous" country - any stick, in short, which would beat the dog at all. Then some bold, unprincipled, ignorant adventurer was found (no difficult task in the days of competition), and he was bribed to "create a market" by breaking up whatever traditional society there might be in the doomed country, and by destroying whatever leisure or pleasure he found there. He forced wares on the natives which they did not want, and took their natural products in "exchange", as this form of robbery was called, and thereby he "created new wants", to supply which (that is, to be allowed to live by their new masters) the hapless, helpless people had to sell themselves into the slavery of hopeless toil so that they might have something werewith to purchase the nullities of "civilization"."
Cheers Greenman!
It is a splendid gallery as well as I used to live in Walthamstow. I remember they had odd opening times back then which was daft.
Everything is so corporate led and who gives a damn about art (other than charging people an enormous amount to view some art... it should be bloody free!). It really does sadden me that everything is so governed by the market.
Good luck with the campaign btw.
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