Rather disturbingly my last Blog about 5 weeks ago mentioned a return to work after some "early in the year" holidays. I had obviously overlooked the fact that work restricts one's free time to write Blogs ... solutions I suppose are pretty obvious but because I still enjoy the work I do I guess it's too early to stop yet!! That said I do have another Blog lurking in the background about a dilemma for those of us who have lost our support - the administrative one, not the other one silly!!
Back to now:
Every Club has rules, some more stringent than others as far as entry qualifications and rules are concerned, but one seems to have gathered a lot more momentum in recent years and it's the Nationalist Club. Not heard of it? Well, I think you have, although if you have an interest in social history you may also be aware of the Nationalist Clubs, which were organised in the late 19th Century in the USA and disappeared before the end of that century, lasting maybe 8 years.
The new Nationalist Club is amending its "rule book" as it goes along with conditions making it harder to join if you are an outsider, but once you are a member - an insider - you guard what you have with increasing and fervent jealousy, conveniently forgetting in many cases where you came from in the first place.
While organisations try to broaden general acceptance and improve the circumstances around employment criteria, covering pay and gender for example, and the workplace endeavours in many cases - not all, I admit - to become a more respectful and humane place in which to work, it seems that at the country level, some are adopting a more restrictive “it’s my ball, and you can’t play” attitude. As a child I was always brought up to share, so this jealousy over possessions does not sit well.
So, what am I talking about here? The Mexican border wall comes to mind immediately. The emotive commentary from the top cannot be missed, from which I am led to believe that the building of the Wall is going to bring an immediate end to shootings in schools, and deal with the current opioid epidemic sweeping the country. As of course Brexit, (I shudder every time I think about it with 8 days to go) - will mean that the sudden and alarming rise of knife crime - carried out by recent immigrants of course (oh ... it wasn’t them?), will suddenly cease because nobody will be allowed to cross into Britain anymore. And then there is the refusal to accept apparently wild-eyed and unstable refugees who cross the Mediterranean in search of a better life - or refugees created as a result of a war they started in somewhere like Syria (oh ... they didn’t start it?) is going to improve as we all crouch behind our mini walls to protect what we have.
The amazing progress that we have made in our lives - in our own lifetimes - with the improvements in health care, in technology, in bringing many people out of poverty are not insignificant changes to be disregarded. And yes, let's not go overboard, there are many things still to be done but what seems to have gone into reverse is our ability to act as rational human beings. Why do we actually need nuclear weapons to protect ourselves? If we as a human race were needing protection from an alien planet then perhaps there would be some justification but if we actually found a way to get on with each other rather than be jealous we wouldn't need these things.
Okay I know, all this sounds very serendipitous and not at all like real world comment. Of course we need weapons to protect ourselves because I am ignoring basic human nature; the tendency we have to gain possessions like they do in the animal kingdom. The race for supremacy - but come on, does it have to be like that? And what is causing me to reflect like this comes down to events of the past very few years.
We have enjoyed peace for many years now, in relative terms, but leaders generally are pumping up the rhetoric. In some cases it is justified, in many others it is just bullying for position and power, and when you get to the phase where no one is willing to back away or see reason, you end up with a collision. You obviously know what that means in the modern world. And the bullies, who speak well but who are sometimes just a little deliberately short on the facts, take with them swathes of people who buy into the rhetoric. We have seen it before - albeit 80 years ago, but I am concerned given recent events that it is heading full circle.
The Nationalist Club movement is gaining serious momentum, although I hope it only lasts as long as the previous one or else we are all in trouble.
