“This is a show about publishing and printing. It is about trying to effect change through a modest means, through a system that is open to criticism and an alternative to capitalism." Artist Ben Kinmont’s new show in Paris:

https://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/project/ben-kinmont-at-air-de-paris-28088

#contemporaryart #publishing #diggers

Today in labor history April 26, 1649: The English authorities sentenced Robert Lockier to be shot for leading a mutiny. Cromwell’s New Model Army had just defeated Charles I in the English Civil War. However, the Army failed to negotiate a settlement with the King. And when Charles I double-crossed them, they executed him. A conflict arose between the monarchists, who wanted another king, and Cromwell, who wanted a plutocratic Parliament. Then there were the Levellers, who wanted a democracy in which every male head of household had a vote, regardless of whether he owned property. And the Diggers (AKA the True Levellers), who wanted universal suffrage AND common ownership of the land. Lockier was a Leveller and a member the New Model Army. On April 24, he and some other soldiers barricaded themselves in a Leveller meeting place in London. They demanded to paid their overdue wages. Cromwell ended the mutiny after a few days and arrested Lockier as the ringleader.

The Diggers originally called themselves the True Levellers, to distinguish themselves from the more moderate Levellers. However, in April, 1649, they began pulling down enclosures (common lands usurped by the landlords) on St. George’s Hill. And when they started planting the land in common, for the benefit of all peasants, people started calling them Diggers. Needless to say, the local landlords were peeved. They asked the New Model Army to come in and remove the Diggers. However, their commander told the landlords to use the courts. So, the landlords organized gangs to beat and burn out the Diggers. Ultimately, the court ruled that the Army could evict the Diggers if they did not leave. So, they left. But they started new commons in neighboring regions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn31l2idKTA

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #diggers #Cromwell #levellors #CivilWar #england #NewModelArmy #BillyBragg

Other historical mass trespasses include the 17th century Diggers who attempted to reclaim common land in Surrey, Kent, Northamptonshire, and Buckinghamshire (and they claimed in at least six further counties), where they were met with murderous violence from land-lords and the state. Their presence was erased so thoroughly that historians are unable to trace exactly where Diggers lived. Today St George's Hill is a 4 square km (965 acre) private gated community with some of the most expensive housing in the UK - in 2014 at least 72 properties, £282+ million of assets, were registered offshore in tax havens.

Before the Diggers squatted St George's Hill it was probably "Crown land" acquired by the monarchy through invasion, conquest, confiscation, English "clearances", the Harrying of the North, and evictions from newly enclosed "Crown land" such as "royal hunting forests". Which brings us back around to the 1932 Kinder Scout mass trespass on land kept exclusively by the ruling classes for hunting and intensive farming of birds for shooting. /end thread

In 1649, to St. George's Hill,
A ragged band they called the Diggers came to show the people's will.
They defied the landlords. They defied the laws.
They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs.
"We come in peace," they said, "to dig and sow.
We come to work the land in common, and to make the waste land grow.
This Earth divided we will make whole so it will be a common treasury for all."

Nancy Kerr sings The World Turned Upside Down, by Leon Rosselson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJlWymJFY7k

#FolkMusic #FolkSong #Folk #music #rambling #hiking #RightToRoam #trespass #UK #England #Surrey #WorkingClassHistory #EnglishHistory #diggers #commons #TaxAvoidance #TaxEvasion #TaxTheRich #AbolishTheMonarchy #NotMyKing

Today in Labor History April 1, 1649: Diggers occupied St. George's Hill, in Surrey, England, seizing land to hold in common and to grow food. Other Digger communities followed in Little Heath, Wellingborough, Buckinghamshire and other regions. The Diggers are sometimes seen as forerunners of modern anarchism. In 1966, members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe formed a Diggers group, handing out free food to hippies in Golden Gate Park. The original Diggers influenced the anti-roads and squatting movements in England and elsewhere. They inspired the Leon Rosselsen song, “The World Turned Upside Down,” seen in the Youtube video, above, performed by Billy Bragg.

https://youtu.be/LK2ldle1kAk

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #Diggers #BillyBragg #anarchism #MimeTroupe

#Diggers #EnglishRevolution #RadicalChristianity

it’s less that religion and politics were confused in the seventeenth century than that they happened to be the same thing.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/08/remembering-the-diggers

#Diggers #EnglishRevolution

owning property was brought into creation by your ancestors by the sword; which first did murder their fellow creatures … and plunder or steal way their land, and left this land successively to you … though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/08/remembering-the-diggers

Bin immer noch #documentafifteen-bewegt …
#BillyBragg #AmandaPalmer #Commons #Diggers #Levellers #lumbung

https://youtu.be/RN2c_V0uySg

Cinghiali contro l'ancien regime

#Diggers #Levellers