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Home » 2002 » #494 » Cultural Dissent » Targets, London 1850

The dullest of records were
old Factory Reports bound, called “Blue
Books”. List of figures, translations of workers'
lives tossed about in debate
and later boredom. Members
of Parliament used these for target
practice (the force of their
firearm measured by the numbers
of pages pierced) or
took them home and for a “bob or two”
sold them.

The difference here never more clear.

Karl Marx prowling about cheap shops (as I do)
found them. Home at Dean St, Soho
worsening poverty, impossible noise in too
small a space, of family he helped to create.
For this, did he secretly blame
the woman Jenny
—shout ungraciously, slam
the door, seeking peace elsewhere?
Each day to forget the painful
boils and piles he sat on, his eyes
piercing the pages.
Seeing at last, the picture whole. Das Kapital
The book, the analysis
the weapon. Inside that great
hush, the British Museum Reading Room
Beyond its walls, the noisome
wretchedness
of poor and working folk; and the target
—ending it!

BY CONNIE FRAZER

From Green Left Weekly, May 29, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page. 

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