I’m writing today in response to this: http://www.musicradar.com/news/5-reasons-why-your-protest-song-is-making-things-worse
Mind you, it’s well worth reading as the guy evidently has a point – five, actually – as well as a sense of humour.
And he’s not the only one who’s sick and tired of bedraggled lefties who go on and on about “the scourge of neoliberalism”, and by sanctimonious organic know-alls who insist that the apocalypse is nigh and that we must all repent, otherwise all, except those who can afford to move to Mars, will suffer a hideous, worse-than-death demise.
Most people are pissed by self-righteous, better-than- you, priggish, self-disciplined and more often than not neurotic, self-denying would-be saints who refuse to go window-shopping, refuse to splurge, refuse to eat T-bone steaks, and whose faces are perpetually warped by disapproval.
In short, by people like me.
“Look out the window,” people like me say, as though we were the only ones who ever notice what goes on in the world. “Now Saudi Arabia has even kidnapped Lebanon’s PM, with the blessing, of course, of Emperor Trump”. And since most people haven’t noticed that Lebanon’s PM has been missing for 13 days, and since they really don’t see that this concerns them, our making such a fuss about the matter annoys them. Understandably.
In short, most of the general public, if not the general public as a whole, is annoyed. The “green” people disapprove of how we live. The lefties disapprove of just about everything. And the rest of the population disapproves of both the green people and the lefties and the immigrants. What a lark!
So, what to do? Should people like me just pack up and go tend our gardens?
I know, yes, I really recognise, that by labelling anti-immigrationists “racist”, we are making things worse. I must confess that when I read that “Police estimated 60,000 people took part in Saturday’s event, in what experts say was one of the biggest gathering of far-right activists in Europe in recent years” (source: the Guardian) my first thought was to demand that Poland be kicked out of the EU. But what good would that do? The EU is disintegrating in any event, and the best we can hope for is that it will survive a few more years. In the mean time, calling people “racist” is not a wise move.
Twenty years ago, and even five years ago, I would never have thought I should hear myself wish the EU well. Now I have come to understand that war is not something Europe has grown out of. People are, it seems, still mere primates in spite of their highly developed brains. War may come to Europe again sooner rather than later.
No, I shall not pack up and go tend my garden! I intend to continue weaving my own way through media outlets, trying to understand what is happening and why. I shall continue to try to understand why most of us act as we do, and why we allow “Democracy” to be so terribly abused. From time to time, I shall continue to express, on this site, my understanding, the understanding of a cetacea paellicius, no more, no less. In short I admit the writer of the article referenced above has a point, or five, but I also insist that defeatism is not a solution, just an option.
It is not my option.