3 Reader Responses

1. p Says:
   November 12th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

   they’d call us Gypsys, chimpanzees!
   We’d hear it from the people of the town…

2. John Gavin Says:
   November 13th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

   Is there no place for minority non conformist peoples in any society ? Under capitalism we have the rush to force travellers and Gypsies to settle in houses. The minimum concession of some traveller sites is just the first step to forcing Gypsies into houses. Look at the racist outcry whenever a site is proposed. The same people object to unauthorised sites so the real aim is to get Travellers and Gypsies off the road. Yet the same people go on about the fight for freedom from councils, goverrnment departments, in fact, any democratic authority they disagree with, The freedom they want is the freedom to oppress and discriminate. The extreme of their ideas lead to the death camps of nazi Germany. Look at the old state capitalist states of Eastern Europe and it is the same drive to conformity. The Gypsies were forced to carry identity cards, their horses slaughtered, forced into settling down and then………..racist apartheid with Gypsies in isolated villages, the slums of the cities and towns, their kids classified as sub-normal and forced into separate schools. no jobs and barred from living their traditional lives or even adapting them to modern circumstances. Only if we accept people have the right to non conformity and,yes,doing things we dont particularly like such as parking occasionally on a bit of grass or concrete near our homes, making a bit of noise, not registering for taxes

3. Tim Boucher Says:
   November 13th, 2007 at 4:40 pm

   Is there no place for minority non conformist peoples in any society ?

   On the contrary! Their place is and always has been: wherever they can find one, wherever they can eke one out.

   Under capitalism we have the rush to force travellers and Gypsies to settle in houses.

   You’re right! Not everybody needs to live like this. It’s to our benefit as a society to having people living in many different ways: polyculture is much healthier longterm than monoculture.

   making a bit of noise, not registering for taxes

   Those both sound like fun to me!