They're trying to take my history away from me

The allotment is about twenty minutes away on foot, through field and woods. On my way back I stopped at Kite’s Nest hill and looked out over the Blackmore Vale. First I saw a muntjac, which I’d never seen before. Then I saw two cows madly chasing after a fox. Cows can run really, really fast.

There's a lot of rolling farmland and a few scattered houses, most of which ugly. I imagined what the land would have looked like with less human interaction. The human race is very arrogant. It made me think of a lyric in a Levellers song “Got to move these mountains because they’re standing in the way. It’s in the name of progress, son, we can make it pay.” We’ve lost our place in our world and we’re playing at God. What is all this “progress” for?

Here is the song.

Some other lyrics that strike a cord with me are:

Is this just some small price that we have learned to pay for your social insecurity,

They're trying to take my history away from me.

I feel that way often, that these politicians are trying to take away our history, to rip apart the story of my life and force me to conform to something totally separate from the land and my origins. There is another Levellers song that relates to this; Sell Out.

Do I belong to some ancient race?
I like to walk in ancient places,
These are things that I can understand.
I don't believe in your modern way,
Don't care about the things you say,
Your policies have failed the test of time,
'Cause you sold them down the river.

I’ve been reading about John Lilburne. If you don’t know who he is, you really ought to. Maybe schools don't teach kids about him because he saw a problem with the government and democracy as it stood at the time and he violently stood against it. At the time the printing laws were very strict. Lilburne printed his views on freeborn rights and was imprisoned, flogged and nearly executed for it, several times. He and his fellow agitators would not be intimidated. They fought for what they believed in and they broke the law to do so. If he and his Agitators hadn't fought so hard for our rights then maybe it would still only be rich male landowners who could vote, we'd not have religious freedom nor freedom of speech.

A lot of stuff has changed since then. A lot of stuff has stayed the same. Interesting.