Rose Tinted

Taken in New York in 1929 this photo shows some rather well healed (i.e. rich) people in an opium den, something that was relatively common at the time in many developed countries and in China itself throughout the 19th century where it was mainly the poor who suffered. 

I'm often amused when I hear the current crop of right wing talking heads in the USA banging on about how great America used to be (MAGA), rather similar to the idiot Brexit gammons in this country, both sets of which have a rose tinted view of our past that seems to be fixated on some idealised 1950s landscape when the trains ran on time, there was no crime and everyone had white faces! Of course such an idyllic era never existed, certainly not for the man in the street, there was always drug addiction (see above), religious/cultural conflict, a percentage of psychopaths, random violence and perhaps most fractious of all the gap between rich and poor has always generated greed and unfairness. In fact when you look at things in the round the current period is probably the most stable and peaceful that's ever been, barring a few blips in the last couple of years.

We're witnessing the effect of this delusional viewpoint right now, the storm that's been generated over the stabbings in Southport this week and the hysteria over Muslims and immigrants is a direct result of the fear generated in many communities by both a lack of any explanation for the events but also, critically, a crisis of confidence in our future. We shouldn't be surprised, it's just a Human reaction, in fact the riots should have been predicted and ideally headed off at the pass! Easier to say than to do I'm sure but never the less we can probably confidently predict that we've not seen the last of such violence. 

Perception is reality as they say so I think we need to get a better grip of a few things so that this perceived fear of the future is reduced. Firstly illegal immigration is out of control by anyone's lights, secondly we need to tackle the small number of people who live here parasitically and fight against our culture and our country, for example, the political Islamists. Lastly, our public services are, largely, on their knees at the moment. All these things should be able to be improved, even if it takes a while, what I believe people are looking for right now is demonstrable progress however I'm not yet convinced that our new Government has a good handle on any of these things? It's early days I suppose so, let's give them their 100 days and see where we stand after that if there's no progress on these things then I think we're in for a rough ride.