The Promised Land...really?
I am a child of Thatcher. I say this with no pride, just that I lived through her administration and my parents benefited from some of her policies, enough to enable us to move from the working class to the middle class, of course to the detriment of other working class families. I am a young adult of the Blair era, when – putting aside illegal wars – the social contract was renewed in many ways.
I am a by product of the post WW2 liberal progressive democracy of the West. And while as nation states we still have much to apologise for, for empire, for imperial aggression, for nationhood exceptionalism, we were raised to understand that democracy is good, fascism is bad. Racism is bad, inclusion is good. Reading and learning is how you make your way in the world. Learn the facts. Don’t be ignorant. The world can be what you make of it as long as you don’t build your house on sand. That was the promise. That was the deal.
And yet here we are:
Climate change is bollocks as the world burns
The big lie
The culture wars
The rise of the far-right undermining democracy everywhere
Brexit reality and its attack on democracy
The GOP
The Tories
The Anti-vaxxers
The Anti-maskers
The actual fucking fascists that sit in both our legal chambers
I could go on but you understand the intent of my narrative.
We were promised the Promised Land if we played by the rules and stood on the side of the righteous. Now? We live in the land of the uncertain. How quickly things can fall into chaos. It is exhausting and disappointing and so very scary.
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