Current Events

[inulro]

I wake up to the Today Show, Radio 4's flagship news programme.

This morning, in light of the pieces on the vote to refuse to settle unaccompanied child refugees[1] and the smears being told about the junior doctors' strike, I was crafting a post about how I increasingly feel like I live in a corrupt banana republic and that the government and media are just taunting us all about it now.

Then the news came in with the Hillsborough verdict.

I've only watched two major news events unfold live on television - Waco and Hillsborough. I'd been in the UK for maybe 6 months at the time - straight off the boat, really. I didn't mean to watch a football match, but my then boyfriend and I were making lunch in the kitchen/lounge area of his flat & one of his flatmates was watching it & we all ended up glued to the TV for the afternoon, switching between BBC and ITV (I can't recall if they were both showing the match or if one of them switched to live news coverage). It was horrific.

And right away, the victim blaming started. I kind of fell for it at first - football hooliganism was still A Thing (foreign students were warned not go to to matches for fear of violence) and I naively thought that there must be basic safety standards & enforcement in place so the only possible explanation must be the one we were given. I was straight off the boat, remember. I learned. Fast. After all, I continued to live in the north for another 7 years after that.

So while it's great news that the verdict of unlawful killing was delivered, it sucks beyond suckage that it has taken so long. Add to that two major high street shops going into administration because they've been raided by asset strippers, continuing cost of living crises, etc and it's obvious that we really are governed by hate-filled sacks of shit.

What's even more depressing is that people keep voting for them.

I'm sure I started this out with a point other than "today is depressing and people are stupid", but I've lost it.

[1] Not only was my other Prime Minister[2] there to personally welcome a plane load of refugees, in Canada I could join with a group of like-minded individuals to sponsor a refugee family.

Comments

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

I cannot abide our current government. I used to think they meant well but had a fundamentally different idea about how to make things better than I did; now I think they're just plain nasty.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I cannot see any way out. They're being quite blatant now, but the vast majority either believe, or just don't care.