Twitter, a recipe for conflict

Subject: Twitter, a recipe for conflict.

The rise of Twitter as a debating chamber has soured and debased the concept of a debate. A debate is the assembly of facts and figures to oppose a point of view. It is not a slanging match where the very mention of something propels someone else into vitriolic rage.
Our society has been damaged by the rise of extremism both left and right since either way, left and right the ideology takes over and the common ground of compromise is difficult if not impossible. One doesn't have to be a fence sitting centralist to have the view that the other viewpoint has merit. Our views on anything are but distortions of fact since emotions play such an important part in our thought process. The right and wrong relies on ones overall view of society and the people who make up your specific segment of society.
It's one of the strains in any society that people coming into a society usually bring their own views views founded on their own life experience. When the gap in the life experience is wide then the assumptions you usually make, the give and take you offer in conversation can sometimes be difficult. This usually doesn't happen on the street where we are all engrossed in more or less the same things. The cost of this, the lack of that, whether Arsenal are a better side than Spurs. It's only when the spokes-person of a  group who's life experience is different, puts forward an argument based on that experience do we become disengaged. We accept that their experience is different and we also sympathise if the result brings hardship but the very fact that we have little or no reference points and have encapsulated their condition as a group thing, then we have disassociated our self from many of the solutions.
Group think, be it 'white', 'black', 'fat', 'thin', 'functional', 'dysfunctional', the list goes on and there is a tendency for disharmony to grow if only because we don't relate to each other.
Twitter gives a voice to this pent up rage and people start to hurl insults back and forth. It reveals a cancer in the body politique of society which, having been dissuaded by Mrs Thatcher of the importance of what society means, we are left with literally no cohesion, only a set of conflicting interests.

To little to late

Subject: Too little, too late.

Our Achilles heel is our public school system. Time and again history has taught us that the stultified method of providing leaderships through a small gene pool of families who send their children to the same school or group of schools, expecting that in doing so promotion to power, a sort of nodding dog recognition that it's Charles turn next. Any chance of bringing in new blood is frowned upon since the determinate's  are class, not talent.

Reading historical accounts of events which greatly magnified the result one finds the people called upon to perform the duty are often woefully under equipped either in their ability to make decisions or in the knowledge of the underplaying plan, which too be fair seems to often be 'planning made up on the hoof'.

In business as in war we have trailed nations who have no barriers to power other than talent. One sees it time and again in the satire we project at the Establishment. 'Just Minister' was a classic self parody of incompetence guided by self serving bureaucratswith muddle and incompetence the end result. As a nation of cap doffing individuals who's admiration for the governing class allows them to flagellate at each general election by voting for people who clearly have no interest in them and would rather assume they were, to use that modern term, "collateral damage" in terms of the business of running the State.

And so Admiral  Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernie-Earle-Drax is sent to negotiate with the Comintern about a Soviet alliance with Poland. How weirdly quaint to imagine a man with such a moniker could have the historical nose to see which way the wind is blowing,

Our commitment to self harm is being played out at this moment in the Brexit negotiations with a conciliatory miss mash of of hope and bravado which makes up Mrs Mays Chequers proposal. It seems we will concede on many points, some of which were the veryreasons people voted to leave in the first place, particularly the rules and limitations imposed on EU member countries in terms of trade. The convoluted hoops we are expected to crawl through to gain access to their market make leaving a farce. Not only will we be tied to provisions set by the EU but we loose any opportunity to shape or modify the provisions. 

Our realisation that the EU is prepared to play hardball with us and treat us as if we had  swept in from the Outer Mongolia  rather than a nation 20 miles offshore a fully paid up contributory member of the club for over 40 years, a member who's history has been a valued part of Europe when the barbarity of some parts of Europe threatened its existence.

Plans for this and that are now hurriedly being drawn up as contingency for failure to secure a deal but too little, too late.

Perhaps this is the epitaph which should appear on our tomb stone "Too little too late".

Trump mania

Subject: Trump mania.

To say America, as a nation is becoming more polarised each day is to state the obvious. The identity of an American citizen is being manipulated by political pressure as never before as the ideological stress of believing in open, consultative, all embracing government is set against an evangelical patriarchy who's belief system is dead set against the progress which even the simplistic  minority needs are addressed.
The inroads which many minority sections within the society, the gay and lesbian, the right to an abortion and the feminist movement as a whole, the libertarian, the immigrant all these groups who have come to the fore in the last 20 or so years have been an anathema to the blue collar worker who has seen 'his America' change out of all recognition.
Change is difficult for everyone especially if felt to be imposed for ideological or economic reasons. The large swathes of people, not only in America but in this country and in Europe who have seen their lives and their sensibilities change through forces over which they have no control and who's  desperation lies in not only being unable to understand why, but in not being told or, if told, told  in a patronising fashion that these changes were all to their benefit "just wait you'll see". There was little discourse, little debate, it was all in the hands of their "betters" and they felt impotent as more and more groups emerged through the social substructure to gain a hearing, in a way the rust belt worker had never experienced.
It's a convolution of everything which had gone before. The Republican becoming the voice of the forgotten 'industrial' worker who had made America, truly Great.
It was the workers in the shipyards and the manufacturing industries which turned the tide of the war in 1943. They built the ships and the planes, the tanks and the guns which equipped the armies fighting the Germans. These were the people who built the domestic gadgets and equipment that flooded the world after the war was over, but these were also the people who were constrained to the scrap heap as the Web provided communication to build and manufacture anywhere in the world at a fraction of the cost.
As society reinvented itself the nuts and bolts brigade was replaced by lighter more feely industries such as fashion design and artistic pursuits which required a different mind set, more feminist, more light touch. As these people gained prominence their needs became mainstream and the Joe who felt proud to sweat in a foundry or work to the rhythm of a production line became like the coelacanth, a living fossil, and all of a sudden another Stone Age dinosaur arose out of the prehistoric sub-stream to demand a 'new -old' order. Trump mania had arrived.

Making us poorer as human beings.

Subject: Making us poorer as human beings.

Do countries that have encouraged "political correctness" share some sort of moral high ground or has it exposed the fact that certain countries have a propensity to be sucked into moralising over subjects rather than seeing the world as a place of realpolitik, a place of real actual bread and butter politics without the philosophical overturn in which people beat themselves up moralising how things "should" be.
As we settle into realising that Trump has won and that all our disdain for the man elected to the Supreme Court has meant nothing. Worse. That the Republican Right have been galvanised out of their dislike of Trump to rally against those who they see as the real enemy, the Democratic Party with their supposed wish washy ideas about the "rights" of individuals when set against the rights of the corporation.
The impassioned "we too" movement with its collegiate feminism has driven fear into the male cohort who's boyhood past is being used to accuse them by using standards of behaviour which were different when "they" were boys but which in today's ever so sexually definitive time are now judged heinous.
The imperative of fighting the good fight against the rights of individuals and especially the rights of women has raised the political temperature. The fundamentalist who's repugnance of unfettered abortion. The rust belt, out of work family who, as they see it, have suffered decades of Democratic indifference under Clinton and Obama, then the 'America First' policy of Mr Trump rings true and no matter that the Capitalists are given the tax breaks, they believe the caveat that these tax breaks will filter down in the form of investment and jobs is as real as the liberals promise.
Of course ideology, doctrine, creed, dogma are all descriptions of a mind set which ignores the reality that civilisation means more than just being pragmatic. As human beings we have come a long way from the cave dweller, we have developed what seem innate sensitivities, even sensitivity to ideas which we might not approve but which we approve for others.
Our fear of realpolitik is that it's practicality obscures the other important considerations and values which in the end make us poorer as human beings.

Showing the country two fingers

Subject: Showing the country "two fingers".

So what are we saying. Are we saying that irrespective that the plaintive seemed totally believable to virtually every viewer who watched the 'Senate Hearing' to confirm or deny the confirmation of Judge Kavenaugh, that we must put that behind us and follow the Senators political will and confirm a man who on the day lost all credibility.
As the so called leader of the free world with its magnificent constitution drawn up as a document to ensure that the rights of citizens should receive justice, should we throw all that away and settle for the blatant angry hypocrisy shown by the Republican Senators who were determined to have their man installed no matter what. It mattered to them since the loophole in the constitution is the power placed on the judiciary to influence basic human rights within the country. The prejudice and bias of a panel of judges overrules the political consequences of the people through the ballot box. The judges are beyond reach of the will of the people and in its wish to contrive a procedure which balances the wishes of the people with what might be called 'justice for the people' these men on the Supreme Court bench can slew the concept of justice in a way the people would not wish and therefore the whole process seem to be counter intuitive.
The anger and the hubris shown by the Republican Congressmen in Congress that day was truly awful. Like spoilt children they depicted the worst of people who are used to power and getting their own way. It showed the weakness in the democratic process when that process elects people from backgrounds of wealth and privilege, who's contact with real life in their respective States would be at best, third hand.
It seems as if the sop thrown to the plaintive, an FBI investigation, was so contrived by the White House and the Republican Party to be virtually worthless since not only the time scale, the very limited time to investigate, seven days, but worse the limit placed on  who the FBI could be investigated.
 It was a sham,  and to the shame of America it was a sham which was out in the open the Senators were in effect showing their country "two fingers".

Trials and tribulations

Subject: Trials and tribulations.

I know of a father and son who live under the same roof but who the world and its meaning are so totally different that they might as well inhabit two different planets.
The father has strong opinions but feels at a loss to understand his son a teacher. The teacher has few if any interests outside teaching, he seems to fear the world and draws his substance from technical books, books which push out the frontiers of esoteric learning, not the novels which deal in the exploration of the human condition in all its profundity.  He is painfully shy and withdrawn and one wonders how on Earth he communicates to the children or his colleagues. Of course if his learning can be seen to bare fruit in the class then he must get pleasure out of that but the seed sown in the classroom to young children is so rudimentary and needs so much tendering that the disappointment must seem, 'par for the course'.
His father on the other hand had the ill fate to suffer a domineering father and a hair brained mother who's crazy arguments with her husband must have taken their toll on my friend. Lacking self esteem but he still passed his 'eleven plus' and went to grammar school where children normally flourish and became successful. My friend lacked that confidence that his education should have awakened in him and having left school embarked on a series of jobs which slowly declined his opportunities and shaded his judgement when it came to marriage. Looking for love and understanding he received in return quite a lot of spite and misuse.
Life has a habit of repeating itself unless the temperament of the child and the young adult is able to reassess the world around them and not judge events as being part of a cycle. We are all unique and although the glow diminishes with age the story we leave behind is special because no one wrote the script other than yourself. To be comfortable in your own skin is to see life as an exercise in what ifs. There is no fundamental format for life although many people fall into the trap of feeling there is and plough  a furrow which is what they think will please someone else.
Society in its craving for continuity try's to corral people into the straight jacket of appearing to be part of what society projects as the norm but then we all know, there is no such thing as the norm and one has to be stupidly pig headed to twist yourself into a character which is not you.

Trumps American Dream

Subject: Trumps American Dream.

Is the non diplomatic, hard nose politico/economic leveraged stance of Donald Trump paying off, at least for the Americans.
Is the billionaire, take it or leave it posture of a president who leads the most wealthy and creative country in the world not for the first time asking questions which should have been asked in the past.
One of the nagging worries many people have over in this country is that 'welfare' has become institutionalised. Go back a 100 or more years and the fear of the workhouse ran deep through the poor in this country. The shame in being placed in an institution which registered you as being unable to support yourself ran deep. People who were undoubtedly poor had in their minds eye a symbol of themselves of being poor but independent. As a class of people they held each other in respect, they talked the same language and had the same aspirations. There was a code of conduct which people struggled to uphold but their self respect was tied up in that sense of self respect amongst their neighbours and workmates which signified their humanity. The strictures which governed behaviour was not part of any imposed rule book but it meant so much to be respected by your peers for upholding financial discipline as well as managing, despite the frugal nature of your life, a clean house, a disciplined house, and behaviour that brought at least muted praise.
The world has changed in so many ways and in so far as working class society, part was due to the codification of what society and government thought at the time was the basic minimum in a civilised society and it heralded in the advent of the welfare state. Secure in the knowledge that a baseline was in place, society was for the first time free from the clinging fear of the consequences of being sick or temporally out of work.
The under pinning of a base line below people should not be allowed to fall was one of the most humanitarian moves this country has ever made but the society it sort to protect changed over the years and as assumption of 'rights' took over certain people made it their life's work (an oxymoron if ever there was one) to get as much from the benefit system for as little effort as they could get away with, even with the caveat that, except in unusual circumstances, the proceeds from a life on welfare was pretty meagre.
The Americans never bought into the system of a government safety net, except for the means tested very poor, and it was accepted to be the responsibility of the individual them-self to dig themselves out of the hole they were in.
On an international scale and for reasons of self interest they did become the quartermaster of the world after the Second World War. It's this role that Trump feels his country no longer should sustain  countries who are no longer destitute and that the costs of political institutions brought into being to save the world from falling into conflict again such as the UN and NATO, the myriad bodies who provide aid and support to nations who themselves have become rich, that this is crazy and that countries like China, Germany, as well as the Oil States should pay their fair share.
He is an unusual President in this way. No diplomat and not a believer in the status quo he has shook the world to its core by asking questions about what were clearly economic anomalies and in some cases down right theft of American benevolence.
The balance of feeding the global economy and at the same time to pump Prime it with American debt was until Trump appeared set to continue but the outrageous success of the Chinese economy based on low wages, central planning and factory conditions which were out of the question in the West was a question that needed addressing.
His belligerent "America First" was a cry which his predecessors seemed afraid to address but not for the first time Donald Trump with all his lack of grace seems to have provoked a resumption of American self confidence.
We could do with a little of that snake oil in this country since we seem out of ideas to remedy our own plight.