GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 101) - ANOTHER NEW YELLOW BOX

SLIDE 0640

Despite what this slightly well-timed find of an image might suggest to you, I did manage to grow up and not become a fascist, or any other kind of extremist come to think of it. It always strikes me as very peculiar, by the way, that many people seem unable to recognise that extremism can take many forms, and that some green politics, or left-wing policies can be just as extremist as any on the far right or in the strange love of rabid capitalism in their own way, especially if you happen not to agree with their position.

We live our lives nothing but a heartbeat away from extremism, tyranny and dictatorship, but these things can come in many forms. That old saying about "scratching a liberal and finding a fascist" has never felt more relevant to me than it does at the moment.

It's also strange, really, that the Union flag, and indeed the English national flag, nowadays both seem to have become associated with extremism of a right-wing nature, or the kind of rampant patriotism that I do find rather distasteful. After all, your country's flag ought to feel as if it belongs to you, and flying it doesn't seem to invoke quite the same sense of guilt or moral outrage in other countries as it appears to have come to do here in recent times. It's as if certain associations have decided to embrace the flag as theirs and theirs alone, and the rest of us who disagree with some or all of their thinking who don't want to be linked with that kind of thinking can no longer claim our flag for ourselves.

I suspect that this particular picture has something to do with a later set of pictures of the Queen visiting Hyde than any other more disturbing resonances that may be suggested by this it, but I certainly have no memories of this incident at all, or of what peculiar form of indoctrination was going on that day.

Probably none.

So, anyway...

Politics.

I've been avoiding talking about politics in recent times because it basically only gets some people terribly worked up, and sometimes gets you into a whole heap of bother with people whom you otherwise might quite like. This is turning out to be quite a "difficult" year politically, and I have, from time-to-time, come to the conclusion that I ought to walk away from the whole wretched farrago lock myself outside the asylum, and leave you all to get on with whatever mess that's going to be made of it.

That said, I have a few thoughts on the matter currently vexing the nation, which, after stating them, I'm disinclined to discuss further because it will only make me sad and annoyed, and they are these:

I am one of those peculiar people who generally believes that people working together are far likely to achieve good or better things than people working in isolation. This is a position that I'm unlikely to be shifted from, so if that offends you, look away now.

I also believe that, purely from a historical standpoint, a united Europe is a far, far better thing than a divided Europe. If possible, I'd prefer that Germany was chatting nicely with France rather than overrunning its borders and firing shells into its soil if it fancies a bit of expansion.

I do get the impression that some people have got it into their heads that there is some kind of idealised "World Beating" version of Britain that used to exist in their memories whilst forgetting that things really weren't all that bloody great at all, especially if you were female, disabled, poor, unemployed, or from a non-English background. Heck, just being Irish, or Welsh, or Scottish, in the post-war version of England wasn't much fun back in the 1950s and 1960s you know, even if those Agatha Christie programmes suggest otherwise.

Politics is a bit of an evil beast no matter who's running the show, with blind personal ambition and behind-the-scenes deals basically greasing all of the wheels that make governing a shiftless bunch of uncaring oiks like we mostly are possible. That said, I do find that anything that might put me in agreement with one particular set of bastards, or make me side with certain groups of people (yes, Nigel, I am looking at you) is something that I'd rather not do.

And it is, of course, very easy in this "quick-to-be-outraged, quick-to-respond, thought-lite culture" to trigger knee-jerk reactions to words like "immigrant" or "tax-evasion" or "levy" without us taking a moment to pause and look at the bigger picture or the greater good, or to assume the worst of everyone who happens to come under one of the headings that we've personally taken offence to, sometimes courtesy of a point-of-view that is quite simply an outright lie that hasn't been found out or admitted to yet.

Finally, I do find myself asking the question, one which I always try to ask about anything really, and that's "Why?" Ultimately Why are a bunch of privileged wealthy-types like newspaper owners and big-businessmen, and landowners so eager to get this question asked? Why have that "Bunch of Bastards" who did their level best to undermine more than one government finally getting their way?

If it benefits a bunch of richoids, presumably it's simply because they know that they can make themselves into a bunch of even-richeroids...?

What, ultimately, do they get out of it?

Because you can bet your bottom Euro that if it benefits them, it sure as hell won't be of much benefit to the likes of me.

Instead of, like rational human beings, questioning everything, we seem to accept so much of what is fed to us at face value, or, conversely, distrust everything, whether it's good or bad. As ever with human interactions, things are usually far more simple, and yet far more complicated, than they do at first appear, but things always work better if we keep on talking to each other and finding out about each other.

My main concern remains that we all, might end up doing something very stupid because of a whole lot of general ignorance. I have, after all, met "people" and they seldom fail to disappoint me.

We live in a time when the politics of fear is trumping almost every other piece of rational political thought, and notions of exclusion and dislike for the unlike seem to be gaining popularity over notions of basic humanity, and, to me, that's the scariest kind of thinking that there is.

DISCLAIMER: Text written April 13th 2016 - Some of my opinions may since have changed.