"But it’s precisely because they don’t know about the dreadful stuff that ignorant people are able to be so confident."

"Not entirely sure whether it was for or against males and masculinity or not. Never quite broke the binary." 

"It scares me how everyone’s so cool about it, but I guess that’s the world we live in. Everyone’s so numb they can’t even take life seriously anymore —’"

"Like most people these days, I don’t overthink things. I’ll go along with whatever. No firm beliefs, no hang-ups. Just a lack of self-confidence tangled up in fatalistic resignation. Whatever the situation, nothing ever reaches me on an emotional level. Nothing’s important. Because I won’t let it be. I operate on mood alone. No regrets, no looking back."

"I can act all kinds of ways, but in the end it’s always an act."

"Eyes open to the night, they pondered time and the liberty of other living things"

"Once upon a time, we lived in peace. We may not have manufactured or consumed, but our existences were rich."

"I had absolutely no friends before this year. It was a serious problem – and not one that could be easily explained away by shyness or introversion. I did have an idea of why people didn’t like me, but I just wasn’t prepared to admit it. I consoled myself by deciding that I hated other people and had no desire to love anyone"

You know, lately,’ I begin, slowly, ‘I’m finding it hard to identify what happiness and pleasure are.’
He looks up.
‘Well … Does it matter? If something feels good, that’s pleasure.’ He gives a weak laugh. ‘Nothing more to it.’

Things gets easier once you acknowledge the situation.’
‘That’s right. Even if you don’t solve anything. It’s the same with my own illness, too.

"It's not a good habit, to want to solve everything."

"Reboots are about letting go, and accepting things."

"The difference between cold and cruel is that to be cruel, you need to have feelings but to be cold, you don’t, right?."

"Can’t you see it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with love for one’s country? If anything, it’s a form of territorial egotism." (On empire and nationalism)

"My home planet is no match for Earth in terms of scientific and technological development, but at least most people there consider how they want to live their lives. Our history is unfathomably long, and yet there have been only five wars recorded – including a couple of really small-scale ones. And the last of those wrapped up over two millennia ago."

"Everyone lives in a happy-go-lucky depression – they only take life half-seriously, you might say."

"Even in this day and age, we still revere truth. But at the same time, we devote ourselves to the task of erasing the distinction between truth and fiction."

"I find that reporters and writers that come here don't actually want to listen to me or hear my thoughts, except where I might validate what they already believe" .

"I had not known the extent of our subordination until I knew what it meant to be respected."

"When powerless, following world events only highlights your impotence"

 "I should have said it again, that her embroidery was more special than any desk job could be, that she was an artist, that western images of professional women don't have to apply to us, that concepts of respectability and modernity or manufactured".

"The ceaseless accumulation of injustice made me want to fight the world" 

"Can something expected still be surprising?" 

 "The belonging and acceptance I had found was an illusion." 

 "I colonised the colonisers' space of authority. I made myself free in chains and held that courtroom captive to my freedom." 

 "The state will always find a way to imprison those who are truly free. Who do not accept social, economic, or political chains." 

"You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope. They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it." - James Baldwin

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. "

"Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive."

"Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free."

"Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labryinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed."

"Grastrom set out to demonstrate that the most abstract achievements of science, the most advanced theories and victories of mathematics represented nothing more than a stumbling, one-or-two step progression from our rude, prehistoric, anthropomorphic understanding of the universe around us."

"We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. For us, such and such a planet is as arid as the Sahara, another as frozen as the North Pole, yet another as lush as the Amazon basin. We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are searching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, a civilization superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us - that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence - then we don't like it anymore."

"The human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time. We see what is taking place in front of us in the here and now, and cannot envisage simultaneously a succession of processes, no matter how integrated or complementary. Our faculties of perception are consequnetly limited even as regards fairly simple phenomena. The fate of a single man can be rich with significance, that of a few hundred less so, and the history of thousands and millions of men does not mean anything at all, in any adequate sense of the word."

"It was you who wanted this conversation not me. I haven't meddled in your affairs, and I'm not telling you what to do or what not to do. Even if I had te right, I would not. You come here of your own free will, and you dump it on me. You know why? TO take the weight off your own back. Well I've experienced that weight - don't try to shut me up - and I leave you free to find your own solution. But you want opposition. If I got in your way, you could fight me, something tangible, a man just like you, with the same flesh and blood. Fight me, and you could feel that you too were a man."

"Unlike some suspense thrillers, I never experienced that on-the-edge-of-my-seat moment with this story. But I don't necessarily think that distracts from the novel's effectiveness. The way details about a triple homicide are shared - from various perspectives the day of and then twenty-four years later - made for a slow yet effective reveal of the sad truth.

And that brings me to my overall assessment: this was a sad story of a dirt-poor family whose circumstances seemed forever stacked against them. What might be glimmers of hope in otherwise perpetually cloudy skies proved illusions, and the reader is left with an unsatisfactory catharsis: a resolution is presented and case solved, but the sadness, the unhappiness, and the sense of hopelessness lingers, whether purposefully or not.

While I wasn't always forced into the next chapter in search of immediate answers, I was interested in discovering the truth, which means I was invested in the characters and the outcome. I only wish I'd been able to experience an intense emotional response - tears, anger, joy - rather than being reminded that happiness and fulfillment elude some forever."

• The artwork was impeccable. Not only in style (classic superhero), but in it's design; how it illustrated and foreshadowed the story. The 'blood' stained smiley face appeared in at least three different scenarios throughout the novels as a motif, and I liked the way the artwork would alternate between two different views/colour pallettes on a page so you get a holistic snapshot of what's going on, (for example a concersation between two cops and spliced between are panels enaacting the crime they're describing) it felt much more natural to read though it does mean you're bombarded with a lot of information at once.  Once you reach the end of the series you notice that there are clues in the artwork to the political mood and
  the pyramid company
  throughout on posters, plaques, advertisements and graffiti.
• I enjoyed the inclusion of scrapbook and novel excerpts at the end of each comic to complement the main graphic novel panels.
• The subject matter itself is important and interesting e.g., dystopia/utopia, relative morality and phenomenological existence, authority and power.

• Female characters a bit thin in the ground and not developed beyond their relationships (direct and indirect) to men and male violence.
• Personally, I didn't enjoy and question whether the black freighter 'story within a story' sub-plot was necessary. It was very obvious storytelling. I've seen other people say it was excellent, and maybe maybe necessary to complement the more subtle grey-area of the main storyline (e.g., part of you gets attached to these despicable people so maybe you'd miss the point). Either way it took me out of the story and I sighed when I saw those panels. 
• Justice for Bubastis.
  
  

"Our sense of awe [of super heroes] is no match for our selfishness and self-destructive tendencies. Especially when the watchmen are just as selfish and self-destructive as we are."

"Watchmen really explores the relativity of heroism. There isn’t a hero in this book. It’s both a love letter to the Golden Age of superheroes and a criticism of it. Nobody does the right thing, but most characters are sympathetic. Who you sympathize with most will probably say a lot about you, which is pretty cool.

To oversimplify the plot of Watchmen, it’s basically just the trolley problem: do you kill some people to save even more people and become mean, or just do nothing? It’s very interesting because heroism is usually predicated on actually doing something. But sometimes, doing nothing is the most heroic thing you can do.

It’s also very Camusian and Sartrean—the novel shows us how a bunch of characters deal with the lack of meaning within the world. Everything has already happened, but nothing is really real. Rorschach is nothing. Nite Owl is nothing. The word “nothing” is kinda crazy. It’s a compound word, really, but I’ve never thought about it that way. Regardless, everything the characters do is useless and futile, but they do it anyway. That’s pretty cool.

And in spite of this, we still try. We still try to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t make any difference at all. We still love other people despite our ending, or maybe because of it. So, I don’t think Watchmen is really about people doing anything. It’s about people trying. Trying to be good how they see it and trying to love other people. Maybe just trying to be a hero is the most heroic thing of all.,"

1. Binding Prometheus - explains the underpinning philosophy of half earth socialism's 'ecological humility', and why it is the better option as opposed to Prometheanism or Malthusianism or the current status quo of neoliberal capitalism. My favourite illustrative quote in favour of regulation being: "The market could sell both the poison and its antidote, but it cared little about the right ratio of the two"
2. A New Republic -  describes practical management of energy technologies to guide politics and action and minimise social change/unrest.
3. Planning Half Earth - describes methods of economic planning to support harlf earth socialism focusing on Neurath, Kantorovich, Stafford beer, and 'in natura' democracy.
4. News from 2047 - a modern take on William Blake's 'news from nowhere' illustrating the contents of Half Earth Socialism in a fictional experience.

• How to allocate resources to different sectors e.g., healthcare
• Culturally how do we manage disability, and those with the inability to work
• I found the food production proposal of localised food incongruous with the wider research saying that this is impossible (e.g., read Regenesis) however this limitation does seem to be recognised in the ESM, just not clearly stated in the book
• How will we achieve revolution in such a way to position ourselves to have control of the necessary resources and have world wide planning? The ESM suggests that we would need to achieve no borders, which presents cultural and practical questions. The ESM gives no indication of whether violence will be required or how to educate on a large scale. 
• My biggest question is around democracy. Half earth socialism is not clear on what democracy it expects/needs in order to work. The book gives examples of both representative (indirect) democracy and participatory (direct) democracy. If we keep a global model of representative (voting and coalition parliament) democracy, what safeguards do we need to ensure we do not encounter the same issues of power and corruption as we do today? 
• How do the arts factor in to this? People require the arts to fully thrive, not just survive.
• I'd like to see more intersectional feminist considerations. These are clearly noted in the ESM, but not called out in the book in detail e.g., indigenous land back, freely available contraception, end the military-industrial complex etc.
• What is the solution to Jevon's paradox of efficiency with respect to consumption?

1. Anionwu's life achievements are remarkable to read about, she really has lived a wonderfully full life, become confident in knowing who she is, and made a positive impact to so many people around the world. I am thankful for her service, education, and courage as it has demonstrably improved British people's lives.
2. I found this completed a missing piece in my understanding of the Mixed-Race Black British experience. Having read 'Mixed/Other' last year (Natalie Morris, 2021) who is similar age to me. Reading Anionwu's experience from the 'boomer' generation, born in 1947, filled in cultural historical gaps for what is was like growing up as a mixed working class girl/young woman during the 50s-70s. [I still can't believe she was friends with Walter Rodney. Walter Rodney!!!!]
3. I read this first as an audiobook. I simply enjoyed listening to her talk. It was a joy to hear her own emotions in telling her story. 

This is the personal history of one very inspiring lady's life but the reason she has been encouraged to share it with the world in this way is because there are elements that resound with many others for different reasons.

Whether you had experience of illegitimacy, racism, poverty, a difficult home life, finding your confidence in life or having to rail against the establishment to get ahead, you will find something in here touches a nerve.

Despite Elizabeth's conclusion that her success was driven by rage, that isn't the what draws you into this tale. There's not ranting or soap boxing. Instead it is her warmth, quiet humour and good spirit that shines through and keeps you turning the pages.