Rallying for freedom in "Madchester"

A belated photojournalism update from a protest in February

The demands of life, including a court hearing in Carlisle in early March, followed by a trip to the USA, meany I did not get around to posting photographs from a freedom rally I attended in Manchester in February. I realised afterwards that the “story” of this event is some of the peripheral goings on in “Madchester” (as it was tagged in the height of the 90s dance music mania). It feels like time to share these observations, as well as do my photojournalist task of capturing the fleeting events of our time of profound societal reconfiguration.

We are in this weird liminal space where the horror of what was inflicted upon us in 2020-21 is unresolved. I constantly hear of deaths and injuries around me — thankfully nothing has struck too close to home. I read of lungs full of microclots that make hearts overwork and fail, frontal lobes degenerating leaving the jabbed lobotomised, and ovaries too poisoned to make new babies. That’s before we touch on the graphene body networks, quantum nanotech, and synthetic biology parasites. No matter what the truth, these things are distressing.

These are ordinary people doing extraordinary work. Not some radical fringe political extremists. Just worried about the health of their loved ones, and elementary freedoms being taken away.

In the age of social media even a small protest can result in a large virtual audience. As this very article demonstrates (pun intended).

There was an allied protest at the end of the march route — I turn up to document, not necessarily endorse everything I see.

People might not love the National Health Service quite as much when they learn about what it has really been up to.

What really caught my eye was all the other concurrent protests.

Iran.

Sudan.

Ukraine.

All with a homeless tent city beside the civic headquarters.

And an anti-immigrant protest for later starting to assemble…

Meanwhile, the communists are the ones teaching the public about the Chartists… it’s a funny old world.

I hope you found this peek into a moment of modern British history interesting.

The icon of Trump makes America the focus of our times, but there is a lot going on here in Britain, too. I have come to appreciate the layers of psyops and hidden agendas. Crimes are wrong, but even good people sometimes have to commit them (e.g. to infiltrate the mafia) for a higher purpose. We don’t know who really represents what a lot of the time. Very little seems organic; society is mostly engineered.

It really will take a uniting even, such as the plight of the trafficked and butchered children, for humanity to come together and heal its divisions. It is possible to both believe weaponised migration is genocide, as well as love your neighbours of all hues. Seeing the masses of homeless on the city streets is disconcerting — there has been a change for the worse in recent times. It feels like all these people protesting fundamentally want the same thing — peace, prosperity, autonomy. They have common enemies, even the socialists, who orchestrate division and turmoil.

It has taken me nearly six months just to find the time to post these photos; I have half a dozen “poverty walks” from last summer still to do, too. It’s quite emotional at times looking at what has become of my own homeland. I now see more of the layers of deception, manipulation, and subversion that have infected our society. Yet that is the precondition for change — accepting what is, both pretty and ugly. Such is life!