The-Greenman.net

May Day is in a few weeks time. Last year, we celebrated the victory of the forces of conformity over the voices of dissent. It was a bit of a funeral. The end of the old May day. It was a bit of a joke when we thought it up, but it seems to have turned out to be true - this year there is nothing planned. Well, that was, until the Space Hijackers decided to get busy.

The anarchist May day died because it became a war ground. A day when the crowds on the street conformed to the expectations of those watching from the windows, and no message other than fear and hate crossed the great divide. This year, we're our to kick-start a new May day. Well, actually, we just want to remind people that the first day of May is something far older.

Take a look at a map of central London. Find the parks. What would the city be without those parks ? Just how valuable are the houses about its edge? Parks are important.

If there is nothing but park, well, then you have the countryside. It is also important, but the economy is slower. (Again, not a bad thing, but I am trying to make some kind of statement here, so bear with me.) I live in the city because I enjoy the energy, I seek the new and the changing. Yet, if a city is full of nothing but work, then there is nothing new and it never really changes. Which is why good cities need open spaces, need areas set aside for play. Parks keep a city alive, keep its people healthy, allow it to grow and be a successful economic entity.

I discovered "The Day Today" while sitting in a dodgy, illegal(ish) student bar, called The Abelarde Sanction, in Brixton, Johannesburg. The cultural blackout had meant that we never got to see any BBC television programmes on TV, although I doubt that The Day Today would have gone down well with the powers that be anyway. I was blown away. I promptly ordered my own copies of the tapes and proceeded to hold regular screenings at home.

While on the away week of everything we did a little bit of YouTube wandering, and found we could relive The Day Today in little fragments - which reminded us just how good the series was. One of the little gems is the interview with Peter O'Hanrahanrahan about Germany's response to an economic policy agreement. Go watch it , and then I'll try to get to the point.

Sometimes we go forwards by going all the way back. Tonight Joseph Davies-Coates from UnitedDiversity made his first presentation on his commons creation project. The project has been brewing for a while, and it's good to see things begin.

The idea: find a group of people with a common interest, gather a small amount of money from each of them each month, and place it in a bank account. Make this big pot available for the benefit of its members. Sound familiar ?

Mutual societies and group savings accounts are nothing new. We just seemed to forget about them over the last few decades when nothing mattered more than pure financial gain. Now, as attitudes start to change, as people start to seek value in areas other than pure profit, they start to matter.