After the Goldrush

I’m not a huge fan of Neil Young, but I do love his song After the Goldrush.

Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming
Sayin' something about a queen
There were peasants singin' and drummers drumming
And the archer split the tree
There was a fanfare blowin' to the sun
That was floating on the breeze
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies
Look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies

I was lyin' in a burned-out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin' for replacement
When the sun burst through the sky
There was a band playin' in my head
And I felt like getting high
I was thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie
Thinkin' about what a friend had said
I was hopin' it was a lie

Well, I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships lying
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flyin' mother nature's silver seed
To a new home

I’m not entirely sure what the song is about, but I think it’s warning against environmental catastrophe, worrying about what friends say to you, getting high, and sending the chosen few off to a new planet - presumably because they’ve messed up the one they were on.

I hope they all had their vaccine passes in order.

Chosen one, Sir?
Yes
Good, can I see your galactic health pass?
Erm, I didn’t get my 371st booster
Sorry, Sir, I can’t let you board

Personally, I tend to prefer the sonorous gravel of a Cohen to the whiny reediness of a Young. Sadly, Mr Cohen has said so long to Marianne and to all of us. Mr Young, however, is still whining away.

Recently, Young has threatened to prevent Spotify from accessing his musical whines unless they remove Joe Rogan from their platform. Joe, the affable host of the world’s largest podcast, has been a naughty boy, apparently. And Young is obviously worried about what Joe’s friends have been saying to him.

Some of Joe’s guests (you know which ones) have been questioning the narrative. As Greta Thunberg didn’t quite say:

You have stolen my narrative. How dare you!

If we accept the environmental narrative at face value then, for years, our greed and rapaciousness have resulted in severe damage that threatens our world. So, obviously, the best people to sort it all out are the very people - the governments, the multi-national corporations - who are largely responsible for the mess in the first place.

And in an entirely random aside, I’m pissed that I don’t seem to be able to buy any decent cling film (shrink wrap) these days. I assume it has been tinkered with to be “greener” and, as seems to so often be the way, more or less useless because of it. I also have to drink things much more quickly now - before my cardboard straw dissolves into some ghastly and useless mush.

But we’re saving the planet - so that’s good. Or at least we’re creating a bit of space so we can fill it with discarded masks and tests.

I have no doubt we are damaging the planet. The massive rise in energy consumption and production, transport and consumption of luxuries, unimaginable only a couple of centuries ago, must have had some impact. Whether it is leading to the catastrophe that the official narrative says it is, is another matter entirely. I don’t know enough about it to have any firm opinion just yet. But after 2 years of covid, I am far less inclined to trust the Experts™ any more.

The real issue is whether I will be allowed to express my doubt.

People like Mr Young want to remove all doubt for us. They want a society where only Approved™ and Safe™ narratives are allowed. Questioning the narrative is said to be dangerous. Being offensive is said to be harmful. Words, and even silence, have been equated with violence.

We must be kept Safe™ from all of these bad and “harmful” things, surely?

Now, in general, I am more naïve than Mr & Mrs Naïve on holiday on Naïve Island - but this trend towards silencing debate and free expression is not making us any safer at all. It’s making it all the more likely we can be exploited and manipulated by people who definitely do not have our best interests at heart.

They seem to care - it’s heart-warming to know that the candy I’m shovelling into my mouth is “made with natural fruit juice”. Thank God - for a moment there I thought I was putting something unhealthy into my body.

Free speech, free expression, must be a cornerstone of any truly free society. Freedom to only say the “right” thing, to only be “inoffensive” is not any kind of freedom at all. Freedom to access society only upon the presentation of some government-approved documentation is not any kind of freedom at all, either.

“Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative…..freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having…” (Lord Justice Sedley).

The battles against covid fanaticism and authoritarianism, against health discrimination, against the forcing of a medical procedure - these are all important battles. But if we don’t fight the most important battle of all - our right to express ourselves freely, to access information others might find “problematical”, to question and to challenge - we’re going to be facing the same problems again and again. It’s covid today. Tomorrow, there will be some other crisis we all “have to pull together” to combat.

We must not cede the tools and rights that allow us to be free - in mind, spirit and body. It’s a battle we cannot afford to lose.

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