Men of courage, with
strong bodies and quick brains, men who have come of a strong race, have taken
up what they had thought to be the banner of life and carried it forward.
Growing weary they have stopped in a road that climbs a long hill and have
leaned the banner against a tree. Tight brains have loosened a little. Strong
convictions have become weak. Old gods are dying.
Sherwood Anderson - Windy McPherson's Son (1916)
As ever it pays to be realistic about cherished ideals and
our ideal of Britain as an independent nation seems destined for the chop. It’s
a tragic spectacle for many, but that’s no reason to deny the reality of it.
Devolution is merely a stage in the process, the shadow of the axe.
There may be a few moves left such as a solid rejection of
the EU in our forthcoming referendum, but if that one fails surely it is game
over. It appears to be our last move with nothing else on the horizon. The
demise of Britain won’t happen quickly but if current trends are any guide then
happen it will. In which case the Britain many of us grew up in will have gone
forever so we may as well get used to it. Goodbye Britain, hello whatever.
So what to do? There is little one can do other than look
after personal and family interests, enjoy life and say what ought to be said
within those ever tightening political limits. Apart from considering the
possibility of emigration that’s about it.
The world is changing because that is what it does and here
in Britain we voters have put far too little effort into working out how to guide
the changes to our national advantage. We were too complacent, too lazy, too
happy to park our trust with those who never deserved it. As a result Britain
has all but gone and there is no point in piling all the blame on the political
classes. We voters did our share simply by knowing nothing and doing even less.
For now the names and the history remain plus misleading
echoes of business as usual, but all that seems likely to change as the global net tightens, as freedoms are forgotten, as people are forgotten, as you and I must
one day be forgotten.
7 comments:
How I wish that this post were fundamentally mistaken. But it's not. I guess we will have to find different entities to identify with (as you say, family is about it at the moment) and hope that the protection which nationhood afforded will come from somewhere else. It would be some consolation if Europe had survived, at least as a possibility of cultural orientation; but that is also going fast.
Where's you like button/ I haven't anything clever to add.
Sam - some of those entities could be Facebook, Amazon, Manchester United, Waitrose, the BBC, Eastenders, Christmas etc. Queen and country are long gone.
Sackers - thanks, I've given a like button some thought but it feels too casual to me.
As for the BBC, we find more and more that the mute button and a well known expletive, does the trick.
Other than the bits of news we choose to know, the rest of their programmes can go hang!
At our ages, we don't really give a hoot; family and friends are much more important.
Like Sackerson says, you can't add much to that just be awestruck by the reality of it.
To me it's all based on risk aversion and we have been carefully programmed to be risk averse.
The siren call at every occurrence "what's the government going to do" The population have been systematically disempowered and infantilised.
Gone are the days of gung ho, let's get stuck in, take a chance.
I fear the status quo will carry the day, what you can't seen to get across to people is the benefits of the status quo are diminishing daily.
Wotan, where are you when we need you?
Michael - I find that as I care less I seem to see more, which doesn't help.
Fly - yes attitude to risk is a major issue and it isn't easy to see how things could improve.
Demetrius - not in Dave's cabinet that's for sure.
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