tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post5469246733345659789..comments2023-08-16T12:07:22.995+00:00Comments on The Daily (Maybe): Political InfluencesJim Jeppshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-6321363526098040452008-10-17T23:18:00.000+00:002008-10-17T23:18:00.000+00:00Mmmm, that whole feeling of being in a place where...Mmmm, that whole feeling of being in a place where you actually discuss ideas - and they matter!Jim Jeppshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17410387006098326671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-3974000703759628062008-10-17T09:31:00.000+00:002008-10-17T09:31:00.000+00:00I wouldn't say as much "going to university", but ...I wouldn't say as much "going to university", but what I did at university. Many people can go to university, have a three/four year degree, and then go straight into the corporate world.<BR/><BR/>I got really involved in my <A HREF="http://www.chry.fm/" REL="nofollow">university radio station's news department</A> early in my 1st year. I remember coming in and talking with the news director, and then her leading me around to the on-air studio, and her chatting with the DJ finishing up the 10am to 12noon shift about a <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki" REL="nofollow">David Suzuki programme</A> on heroin prescriptions and Canadian medicare. And I'm thinking, it's like they're talking about the weather, I want to spend more time here.scott reddinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16201040172369428187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-21913588032520245342008-10-16T22:45:00.000+00:002008-10-16T22:45:00.000+00:00oh, and chumbawumba and the Levellers of course . ...oh, and chumbawumba and the Levellers of course . . .Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30598467.post-25824248680486900162008-10-16T22:43:00.000+00:002008-10-16T22:43:00.000+00:00Blimey, you are old! (She says, pretending she can...Blimey, you are old! (She says, pretending she can't remember any of these things). For me:<BR/><BR/>Animal rights and green stuff (learning about the ozone layer on Blue Peter etc) probably played a bigger role in my life than politics until my mid-twenties, though I did stand as the Green Party candidate in the mock election at 6th form college (and was beaten by everyone except the SWP, just like in most of the country!).<BR/><BR/>I didn't get involved in stuff at uni until my final year, and then it was drop the debt, Earth First and Animal Rights stuff, though I wasn't brave enough to do anything that risked getting arrested - I was friends with Hunt Sabs, but a bit too intimidated by the hunters to go sabbing. Then I went and taught English in Belarus for a year, which gave me plenty of time to ponder the downside of nuclear power. <BR/><BR/>I remember waking up in a youth hostel in Lithuania in 1997 (I was meant to be there) the day after the general election (for which I had spectacularly failed to get myself a proxy or postal vote sorted at the British Embassy in Minsk). I'd gone to bed late and hadn't met the other people in the dorm, but woke up to hear this British student who had a walkman relaying the news to everyone else - Michael Portillo has lost his seat - yes! That was fun, and I was quite hopeful for the future then, naive fool that I was.<BR/><BR/>Then somehow, when I returned to the UK, I got sucked into 'The Corporation' (aka Citigroup) when I moved to London, telling myself it was just for a year then I'd get a job on the Russian desk at Amnesty or something. <BR/><BR/>September 11, 2001 - I was sitting at my desk of the seventh floor of the Citigroup building in Canary Wharf. My US(oil analyst) boss was on a conference call to colleagues in NY which got abruptly cut off as they had to evacuate their building. Then we watched it on the Bloomberg screens. I'd never been to the US and didn't realise that the twin towers were iconic buildings etc, and it took a while for the significance of the day's events to sink in, and I felt v vulnerable in the glass tower we worked in.<BR/><BR/>Sometime not long after that, when we started bombing Afghanistan, I decided to change a few things in my life. I joined the Green Party and my local Oxfam Campaigns group and started planning my escape from my job. Ruthless capitalist that I am, I hung on until after my next bonus, then quit my job and did a TEFL course. I had great fun at my exit interview (Why are you leaving? Well, I don't like working for the second largest donor to George Bush's election campaign, I don't like the fact that we're funding deforestation projects, I don't like these crappy plastic cups . . . . and I went on for a while, to the astonishment of my poor boss). <BR/><BR/>So I guess my transformation into political animal was shortly after that, when I got involved in the 2002 local election campaign. Not much of a political pedigree before then, didn't even get registered to vote half the time. I always watched the news growing up, and had regularly debates over the dinner table with my Dad about politics, but neither of my parents were party politcal or firm supporters of a particular party and everything on the TV (the Falklands war etc) seemed rather distant and removed from my safe life in Worcester. <BR/><BR/>Wow, that feels strangely confessional. Good post btw, got me thinking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com