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A few thoughts on the last 48 hrs, a bit of a thread. My beliefs are based on my morality, as frayed as it is sometimes, experience, & observations, & most importantly of all self-education. I’m saddened by some of the attitudes I’ve seen grow over the past 12 months. 1/19
We are regressing, we are becoming brutalised. Demanding that we stop helping those overseas, because ‘help beings at home’ yet when we are expected to step up people actually argue AGAINST providing succour. 2/19 https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/11/examining-impacts-uk-foreign-aid-budget-cut
The very same people who have crowed on about helping our own are often the first to object to providing care. Many don’t think it beyond the Pale to damn the child for the perceived sins of the parent, without questioning why it happens. 3/19 https://www.ohchr.org/documents/issues/poverty/eom_gb_16nov2018.pdf
Sadly this has included former friends & colleagues who have served with me in West Africa, Asia & the Balkans. Places were poverty is opaque. One lad in particular who did a rat pack collection for children 4/19
20 years later argued that we shouldn’t feed children whose parent have a smartphone & a flat-screen TV. That’s a conversation for another time, but shows how far we’ve fallen. 5/19 https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8585/
When challenged these same people come up with non-arguments & seek to belittle those who care, Left & Right, with lazy terms like Woke & Marxists. They do so without realising that by using one term they damn themselves as the opposite & having nothing than a 6/19
cut & past knowledge of the other thus compounding their ignorance, lack of empathy & basic human decency. The same people, who would turn back or kill the fearful because they landed on our shores seeking safety, 7/19
& laughed at the deaths of those who have failed to reach safety, are the same who support & applaud the real-time collapse of a country I love in the name of faux patriotism & unexplained anger. 8/19
I was brought up by my parents who's will to do good by their fellows remains a beacon of decency in my life. I’m not one to peg my flag to any particular ship, why limit yourself? Yes my beliefs are Socialist in nature, 9/19
but they are not of the podium thumping, calling everyone Comrade, clichéd type. They are, for me, the living type, the type that is overlooked as perhaps being woolly, based on the Ten Socialist Commandments of William Morris 10/19
but also based on the faiths I have been exposed to in my life; Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu Christian, Muslim, & Sikh. I’m more comfortable with my lot & if I’m expected to change my morals & ethics to join a political club then I’m happy not belonging to that particular club. 11/19
Indeed, no matter what others claim, I’ve yet to find a party that speaks for or understands me as a disabled man, a wounded veteran, a man who lives & works in the countryside & is immersed in all its ways, a man who has worked on the land, a family man & a spiritual man. 12/19
I’m afraid that collective of ideas simply doesn’t exist. To say it does would be a downright lie & let’s face it nearly every party has some uncomfortable ideas hidden at the back of the policy cupboard. 13/19
To expect & demand perfection in others is a flaw in one’s own character. No one is perfect, all we can seek to be, in the words of Bill and Ted is ‘Excellent’ & be excellent to one another. 14/19
Yet, even now, in the 21st Century, grown men & women, whose only service to this country had been bile & selfishness see fit to berate those who wish to serve. Ridiculing long lines of tradition, shaming themselves with their ignorance, masquerading it as taking offence. 15/19
They demand change, but never that which is beneficial & reflective of our times. They demand the fealty of others yet will not admit or accept to take responsibility for their own hubris and folly. 16/19 https://www.ukhaulier.co.uk/news/road-transport/brexit/whitehall-meeting-was-a-washout-says-rha/
I remain proud to be anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-anarchist, anti-corruption, anti cronyism, and anti turbo & crony capitalist. I’m proud to be pro-environment, pro full employment, pro free education, pro building and 17/19
developing communities at home & abroad, pro caring for the sick and lonely, pro ethical medicine and science, pro-security and safety, pro-law, pro responsible capitalism, 18/19 https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2020/07/27/capitalism-in-crisis-video-by-patreon/
pro defending those unable to defend themselves & pro decency. Times are hard right now, but if we forget our common humanity these times will be with us for longer than we want or expect. 19/19
Remember, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. Right, I’m off for a cuppa & will return later to see what bile this post attracts. Stay safe good folk where ever you are.
