No country believes in this religion or that religion; it is an individual choice of the members of that country as to what religion they should believe in (or not).
The lunatic fringe of the far right want to push the notion that the UK (and the USA) is a christian country because they want to use that as an excuse to punish anyone who isn’t. Oh, it’ll start with Muslims and Hindus and end with anyone who doesn’t follow their brand of Christianity.
As of 2021, the UK was 46.5% Christian; that’s the single largest religious group. But it isn’t the majority; there’s plenty of other religious groups and the non-religious. Of course the christofascists will point out that in the past, the UK was nearly 100% Christian, glossing over the fact that this was forced on us – either explicitly or more subtly.
The past is the past – whilst we may have a christian tradition we also have a pre-christian tradition (or a pagan tradition). Christianity is a foreign religion – it’s an immigrant from the middle-east.
Just recently my Twitter feed has seen any number of photographs of the past pretending to show how much better things were in the past.
It is all very well, but the past sucked. You can take historical photos that show how grand things were but like today we didn’t take photos of the bad things; and even if we did, we wouldn’t show them today. At least not in the posts claiming how great the past was.
For example. Bill Brandt amongst other things made images of really grim Durham miners slums – houses with no windows and built so shodily that they were horrendously damp. The great public housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s wasn’t just about repairing the damage of war but also making decent homes for the working class replacing swathes of slums.
And things we take for granted today – central heating, running water, inside lavatories and bathrooms, all of which were rare or non-existent not so long ago. And some places shared outside lavs.
We take health for granted these days. From the visit to the doctor or the visit to A&E which cost nothing, to vaccinations which prevent many of childhood’s terrorists – Polio, Measle, Rubella, Smallpox, Whooping Cough, … the number of folk who remember such an era where school friends would disappear dragged to an early grave by one of those lurgies is getting smaller.
And you don’t see a man coughing his lungs out in those smiling photos of the past; yet they were present. Coal miners with black lung, builders with asbestosis, those who worked with radium and phosphorus losing their jaws. Or crippled by dangerous machinery.
And so on.
You can’t have the good bits of the past without the bad bits. And there were plenty of those – this just touches the surface.
One of the most annoying things about heat waves are the petty minded slack-wits who whine every time about heat wave health warnings. “We survived 1976” they go on about.
Well 1976 was a heatwave all right, but as for survival, there were plenty of folk who didn’t – it is estimated that 3,500 folk died during the height of the 1976 heatwave. Given the existence of heatwaves, the increasing severity of them, and the number of folk who do need warning about effects in their health, heatwave warnings are fully justified.
And whinging about them just shows those complainers up as ignorant selfish fuckers. Who should be taken down a peg or two.
Last week as the residents of Southport were holding a vigil in memory of the three little girls who were killed and of those kids who are still in hospital, Southport was invaded by racist thugs who tried attacking the vigil and also tried attacking the mosque.
There was no indication that the murderer was a muslim; the instigators just assumed that.
There was no indication that the murdered was an asylum seeker; the instigators just assumed that.
The false name of the murdered was invented to make it sound muslim; it’s rumoured that it actually translates as “My Apartment”. The instigators didn’t care about that.
The Instigators
It’s all very well blaming the “useful idiots” who were rioting in Southport last night – and they certainly deserve to be locked up. But who instigated their visit?
There are plenty of possible candidates who posted vile assumptions about the murderer on 𝕏 clearly trying to sway the narrative in the direction of inciting hatred for immigrants and asylum seekers. I won’t name them here except to say they are easily recognisable as frothing at the mouth loons of the far-right.
Yes, far-right.
They may attempt to deny it, and the “useful idiots” at the riot may well claim they’re ordinary British working-class (they’re not), but the instigators are definitely far-right.
The EDL
Some of the reports name the EDL as being behind the riots yet some will instantly point out that the EDL no longer exists as an organisation.
Well, perhaps.
But the easiest way to keep an organisation from being banned is to “disband” it; an organisation doesn’t need a public face, a web site, or a corporate identity. Particularly if it is intent on pursuing illegal activities – such as rioting.
Russian Involvement?
This is pure speculation, but it is interesting to see that Europe (and the USA) has a problem with far-right thugs justwhen it would be helpful to distract us from what the Russians are doing to Ukraine. And we know that the Russians like interfering in the West.
If any of those instigators are taking money from the Russians (and to be fair, I don’t know that they are), then they’re not just guilty of incitement to riot, but also guilty of treason.
But there is alleged links between the “News” channel that first published the disinformation on the murderer : here, here, and probably other places too.
Conclusion
Unless we want thugs fueled up on cheap lager touring the country rioting in random places, we need to take action. And not just locking up the thugs – whilst their actions are inexcusable, they are still just “useful idiots”.
No, we need to go after those who incited the violence by spreading disinformation … and no, an apology isn’t enough. They should be charged with “incitement to riot” and for certain of those in parliament, also “mafeasance in office”.
And we need a far more in depth investigation of just what the Russian intelligence services are up to in our country.
If you turn on Youtube, you could easily be swamped by videos poking fun at dumb Americans. But why?
Well it is certainly true that there are dumb Americans – the existence of a political party that has been hijacked by a conman who previously won the presidential election pretty much conclusively demonstrates there is plenty of stupidity in America.
But many of the examples are not stupidity (or “dumb”) but ignorance. And ignorance about Europe, Asia, or Africa – not their home continent. Such ignorance is perhaps unfortunate but reasonable.
There are plenty of folk from all over the world that are dumb – both ignorant and stupid. The average person isn’t too bright and half of us are dumber than that. No, dumb Americans are simply more noticeable simply because they’re speaking English.
English is by far the widest spoken (and read) second language to make it the most widely understood language in the world – even exceeding Mandarin (which is by far the largest first language).
And yes that means the dumb British also stand out, but not to quite to the same extent – Americans simply outnumber us.
Having said that, all those Trump voters do kind of undermine the notion that Americans aren’t really dumber than anyone else in the world.
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