(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

Every time I try to scroll down in FF or Thunderbird the entire screen goes blue.

I'm too tired and depressed and busy to bother trying to work out why tonight. I shall switch the thing off and switch it on again tomorrow.

cflute links to an article (for reasons already given I can't copy the link) about the current riots, by one of those people I will never quite understand, who like my father are obviously good, decent and compassionate people and yet support the Tories. I've ploughed through it, blue screen by blue screen, and I disagree with just about all of it, but I feel bad about doing so. To me it is obvious; nothing else has changed in the past year and all of a sudden cities are burning. It may be "post hoc ergo propter hoc" but show me another hoc that doesn't trace back to "Thatcher's heirs are in power again."

And yes, I blame her. She took a party of amiable fuddy-duddies and turned it into a lean, mean, nation-killing machine that changed the shape of British politics to such an extent that social justice became a vote-loser, and it still is. I will always blame her whenever this clique, or its shadow in the other two parties, manages to get on top. She caused these riots, because thanks to her we have made no progress in three decades towards ending extreme poverty and particularly the racial division along which it operates. The Countess has watched BBC News and tells me the riot was sparked by police shooting a black man riding in a taxi because they thought he had a gun. If the BBC is saying that, then the truth can only be worse. And that police can still do that and expect to get away with it...is down to Thatcher and her like.

The appeal at the end of the article is very stirring, and I am duly guilted, but I'm not going to do any of those things because I would be crap at them, and I'm not going to shut up because this is what I am good at, and I'm about as sure that I'm right about this as I've ever been.

And the screen has gone blue, so I'm going to look for the post button and then shut down for the night.

Comments

[callibr8]

Thanks for the additional perspective... as someone who lives Over There, you have a much more in-depth sense of the "backstory" than is possible from this distance.

Alas, many parts of the world have gone "downhill" in the past three decades - and in this country, the decline has accelerated a lot in the most recent decade. Sometimes I wonder, where does it end?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

The version I heard was that they thought he had a gun and shot at them with it, in which case shooting back was entirely understandable. Later evidence suggests that they may have been mistaken, but only "may".

The riots, though, seem to have next to nothing to do with the original cause. This is "we can, so we will".

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Yes - I've wondered aloud how many of the latest "rioters" are even aware of the reason for the original (peaceful) protest.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes, precisely. She taught a generation that 'I'm all right Jack' was a philosophy for life, allowed the rich to get richer and to blame the poor for their poverty and lack of opportunities.