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glenatronI never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I don't know about anyone else, but from every possible angle today has been an absolute heap of crap. Completely rubbish. It would have been rubbish even without our country being attacked for the first time in years, but that gave it a massive extra depth of shiteyness. For some reason we always think about the number of deaths in these attacks and discount the number of serious injuries- the number of people who are likely to be permenantly disbled and whose lives (and their families lives) will be utterly smashed by it. It occasionally strikes me that they are the forgotten losers in any catastrophe like this. The only thing hate and destruction create is more hate and destruction so I suppose today must have been good news for people who like hate and destruction.
Now it seems likely that more innocent people will be hurt in revenge attacks by misguided halfwits because xenophobic stupidity can happen anywhere and the government will take the opportunity to seize more power to itself (I expect the ID card bill to be rushed through as quickly as possible) like the US administration did with the PATRIOT act. That sounds very cynical, which is probably in part because it has been such a shitty day, but there is another element to it. I have always tended to think that our government is broadly good and generally interested in trying to do things for the best but the account of Craig Murray, our former ambassador to Uzbekistan I heard on the radio a day or two back has shaken that image severely. I recommend listening to it (probably it will stay there til Tuesday) if you have not already done so and you don't want to keep any cosy illusions about our international policy or the good intentions of our government. I have a lot of faith in the british people but I am losing what little faith I had in the administration we have chosen for ourselves, although I am very clear that of two evils we were offered it was by far the lesser. I increasingly understand why people choose not to vote- if you went to a restaurant whose menu consisted only of plates of excrement in different stages of decay I don't think you would go back.
I don't know about anyone else, but from every possible angle today has been an absolute heap of crap. Completely rubbish. It would have been rubbish even without our country being attacked for the first time in years, but that gave it a massive extra depth of shiteyness. For some reason we always think about the number of deaths in these attacks and discount the number of serious injuries- the number of people who are likely to be permenantly disbled and whose lives (and their families lives) will be utterly smashed by it. It occasionally strikes me that they are the forgotten losers in any catastrophe like this. The only thing hate and destruction create is more hate and destruction so I suppose today must have been good news for people who like hate and destruction.
Now it seems likely that more innocent people will be hurt in revenge attacks by misguided halfwits because xenophobic stupidity can happen anywhere and the government will take the opportunity to seize more power to itself (I expect the ID card bill to be rushed through as quickly as possible) like the US administration did with the PATRIOT act. That sounds very cynical, which is probably in part because it has been such a shitty day, but there is another element to it. I have always tended to think that our government is broadly good and generally interested in trying to do things for the best but the account of Craig Murray, our former ambassador to Uzbekistan I heard on the radio a day or two back has shaken that image severely. I recommend listening to it (probably it will stay there til Tuesday) if you have not already done so and you don't want to keep any cosy illusions about our international policy or the good intentions of our government. I have a lot of faith in the british people but I am losing what little faith I had in the administration we have chosen for ourselves, although I am very clear that of two evils we were offered it was by far the lesser. I increasingly understand why people choose not to vote- if you went to a restaurant whose menu consisted only of plates of excrement in different stages of decay I don't think you would go back.