We have such traditions, yes. The riots have a great deal to with poverty,
police harassment etc; and the editorialising is the province of the
newspapers, not the people who might riot. That doesn't explain everything
though.
How one assesses a right or left wing swing, I don't know. People are so
volatile and easily manipulable that in some ways it is a meaningless
exercise. Generally, public opinion follows policy.
(In some quarters this is recognised - hence, I believe, the frequent
assertion that Thatcher's administrations were a tyranny, as if she hadn't
been elected in a flawed but fairly uncorrupted electoral system - so that
believing what one was told amounted to be tyrannised)
However, something has changed in the mood, the atmosphere, the working
memory... Whatever we call it...
You can turn much of almost any large group of people into racists or
anti-racists by what you tell them, as long as it's simplistic; and the
potential for racism is in all of us. That potential has just been given
permission to continue.
It's so much easier to think that everything is caused by an imbalance in
some inferred or implicit natural order, than to deal with the kind of
meaninglessness that actually obtains us; they - those who want simple
answers - should speak to the afghans who have been wondering why nutters in
aircraft are bombing them
The Conservative Party were moving to the right under Wm Hague; so that what
we are seeing here may not be a response to Sep 11. In fact, I think very
little either side of the Atlantic is a response to Sep 11. It was just a
wonderful excuse. The govt is demonstrating that it is strong in many ways.
Usually, it is saving us from benefit cheats. Dangerous wogs are far safer.
They talk in boilerplated cliches to encourage the others - we had _American
resolve_ on here the other day
We are being swung to the right
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 09 December 2001 00:50
Subject: Re: opinion
| What "swing," Dave? Has Britain no history of race riots, no tradition of
| editorializing about "mogs," "wogs," and so forth?
|