Condolences to Tony Benn’s family and friends.
Image by wheelzwheeler via Flickr
democracynow on Mar 14, 2014
democracynow.org – Tony Benn, the former British Cabinet minister, longtime Parliament member and antiwar activist, has died at the age of 88. He was the longest-serving member of Parliament in the history of Britain’s Labour Party, serving more than half a century. He left Parliament in 2001, saying he planned to “spend more time on politics.” In 2009 he appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about the war in Afghanistan and Britain’s fight for a nationalized healthcare system. “You’ve got to judge a country by whether its needs are met and not just by whether some people make a profit,” Benn said. “I’ve never met Mr. Dow Jones, and I’m sure he works very, very hard with his averages. We get them every hour. But I don’t think the happiness of a nation is decided by the share values in Wall Street.”
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Tony Benn – Never be afraid of getting old
StoptheWarCoalition on Mar 14, 2014
In February 2013, speaking in London at the age of 87, Tony Benn told his audience never to be afraid of getting old. The much loved and admired fighter for justice and peace, who died on 14 March 2013, was president of the Stop the War Coalition. http://stopwar.org.uk
from the archives:
Tony Benn: Democracy (must-see)
Tony Benn Condemns Escalation of War in Afghanistan & Defends Britain’s Socialized Healthcare System
Dandelion Salad 
Today’s world certainly could use more people like him. [edited]
The only way forward is for everyone to turn the other cheek. Nonviolent activism. Violence only begets more violence. I edited your comment because I don’t allow any mentions of violence here on Dandelion Salad.
If you’re an underdog, the Left might be the only way, until you become topdog, then you may feel privileged enough to “be” quite all Right…
Of course this belies the fact, that what we’re actually talking about is how to effectively saw a tree trunk. The point is sometimes missed, that you need both “dogs” to co-operate, and moreover that the important thing is the saw, as without it, the task is made much harder.
I’d take the analogy even further, to include our Green Party that here in the UK was also sensibly known as the Ecology Party. It may take a pair of dogs to saw a tree, but it only takes a pair of hands to plant another.
Tony (Anthony Wedgwood) Benn was a beacon of integrity to anyone with wit enough to benefit from his shining example; I’d like to think that both his exceptionally principled ethos and also his mortal remains will nourish a vigorous and flourishing forest of opportunity, that will endure long into our inter-generational future.
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Often you get to know more about a person when they die, did not know what he was about, although I knew his name, having died at the age he died, would have experienced the WW2, as he said people have needs and the stock exchange, is a poor vision of what man finds as a solution to well being let alone happiness.