100 Days of Happiness 2020 - 31st January - Happiness suspended

[byslantedlight]

I'm not even going to try today - this is not a day of happy things.

Comments

[firlefanzine.livejournal.com]

Anyway... You' re always a part of Europe!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Continentally - that's true! *g* And many many many of us are with you all in spirit and hope and always will be!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

*hugs* There'll be another election and better days for all of us. There must be.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought back in December... But always - cross fingers and hugs back!

[siskiou.livejournal.com]

Not a good day here, either, with the impeachment witness vote.
{{{Hugs}}}

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I've finally looked at that today, cos I couldn't stand both on the same day - just... what in the world? I'm starting to think there's some alien race out there doping the planet's water and rubbing its hands together... Hugs back!

[siskiou.livejournal.com]

Quite a likely scenario! ;)

I'm so worried about November! Though I suspect, we'll have more of the same, for possibly more than 4 more years. :(

I wonder how the negotiations are going to develop for Johnson. He's expecting a lot from our orange leader, but that one can't be trusted to keep his word!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I don't blame you - half the people in the world seem to have been fooled into thinking that it's the bully who wins the day, and that this is okay.

I reckon negotiations are going to develop along the lines that Johnson and Trump have mostly already decided - that is they're going to talk each other up big, and leave ordinary people to sort out the mess of promises that they make. Johnson's already telling us that there's nothing wrong with GMO and American food.

The big news yesterday was that he held a political press conference - and then tried to exclude half the political press, obviously from the papers he didn't like/thought had less power. Now who does that remind us of? On the bright side, the other half of the political press walked out of the conference in solidarity with the people he was trying to exclude, so... we'll see how that goes. I'd like to think he'll sideline that idea due to the adverse publicity, but it depends how far under the orange thumb he is... *sighs sadly for our countries*

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

It sucks!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's stupid and short-sighted and has already spawned extra racist rubbish... it very definitely sucks...

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

Yes, it very much does. I think I'm kind of a bit in denial about it ... :-s It feels as if this last election is the ultimate in lost opportunities; Labour's 'Green New Deal' policies on the environment, the chance to review the brexit ref, all the nationalisation plans (some of which the tories are nicking, ha!) and social policies - but especially on the environmental front and for the chance to keep a lid on racism-plus-all-the-other-bigotries-going-with-it. Bitter and angry, that's me at the moment, and to some extent I find I'm actually angriest with people (including people in the Labour Party) who wanted a PV but still fell for all the ooh-couldn't-possibly-vote-for-socialists nonsense, at a moment when it was widely recognised that tactical voting was going to be crucial. Forgetting that a government is for 5 years, but brexit will probably be for a bit longer than that :-s

The cynic in me wonders at the amazing coincidence, the moment the election was safely lost all mention of antisemitism accusations suddenly fell out of the news. Not a peep. Almost as if a party with approx 500,000 members, of whom approximately half a percent have feen found to have done or said anything antisemitic, actually turns out to be less antisemitic and more anti-racism than the population at large, who would have thought it.
I'm finding it a bit hard to forgive one of my brothers for falling unquestioningly for all the media coverage of right-wing Jewish voices, never noticing (never choosing to notice) all the left-wing Jewish voices speaking up about it!

Ack, sorry, I seem to be in soap-box rant mode this morning! :-s Maybe the Isle of Man will declare UDI and apply to join the EU????

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You soap-box away, you know I'm right with you... D'you know, it reminds me of the whole poll tax debacle that Thatcher forced through despite all the warnings against it, and even though there was protest (much more protest than against the shitty things the government's done lately). She just kept saying things as if they were true, even when they transparently weren't, and yet somehow her saying them out loud was enough for some people... They went with it, look what happened, and it was removed, but estate agents and landlords used it to impose even more unfair fees on tenants... This time the media forced things through by saying them as if they were true, even when they transparently weren't, and yet the saying them out loud was enough for some people... and this time it was all the papers, not just the ones you'd expect... And The Guardian keeps popping up with messages if I open an article, saying how many articles I've read and wouldn't it be nice if I paid them... Yes, if they were still a bastion of fair journalism then I would do - but not after what they joined in with doing... I want to know who's pulling their strings these days... And yeah, I noticed that about the anti-semitism claims too - where's all that coverage gone, if it was fair journalism reporting a bad thing rather than partisan journalism attacking where ever they could...?

And yeah, I agree about people being short-sighted enough to vote in the election purely on Brexit too - which in itself was a short-sighted vote, but apart from that... Do they really think the Tories are going to turn around and say "right, all this money we're [allegedly] saving from the EU, let's put it back into the communities"?

Sadly the IOM has small-island syndrome and is probably more right wing than anything - you know how private and consensual gay sex was decriminalised in the UK in 1967? It wasn't decriminalised in the IOM until 1992. They've caught up a bit since then, but...

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

Everything is just falling apart. You parted with Europe, we can't seem to part with that fat, ugly, crass, stupid bag of s**t in the White House.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The world is just unbelievable to me at the moment... we took our eyes off stuff at some point, even if just for a minute, and the nasty bastards snuck in and poisoned the well...

[stellar_raven]

I'm so sorry. *hugs* I know how you feel. I'm in the U.S., and it's all spectacularly crappy here right now, too. I'm clinging to the hope that things will begin to change come November and the election.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, that's what I thought about our election, but it turns out that people are just soooo short-sighted, and bound for themselves... How did we get to this place in the world....? But I'm crossing my fingers for you guys!

[stellar_raven]

I am so sorry.

...people are just soooo short-sighted, and bound for themselves... How did we get to this place in the world....?

Yes, this. And, I wish I knew. It's so disheartening.

But I'm crossing my fingers for you guys!

Thank you! I'm afraid we're going to need it!

[keli]

I'm so sorry. :( I'm in the US so I can relate to how fractured our society is becoming. I wish we could all come together but I don't think that will ever be possible. HUGS

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty scary time, it really is... People are never all going to come together, there's always going to be differences of opinion, but I would have thought we could agree that we should treat each other with a modicum of kindness and respect, and that it's not okay to tell lies to get your own way. I mean, we're taught that as children! Mind you, we then see a completely different example from the grown-ups in the world, so perhaps it's not that surprising after all...

[freetraveller15.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on how awful I feel... about Britain, the US, and those other countries who've elected right wing populists (Brazil, Hungary, Poland...?)... In Italy we seem to have temporarily escaped, but there's not much to celebrate about. Salvini and its party are still going strong, if one has to believe the polls... and the neo-fascist "Fratelli d'Italia" are at nearly 10%... And I could go on 😖😣😥

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I'm really struggling to understand why people think it's okay to be so hateful to each other - where does that come from? I hope your Italy can stay sensible - we keep hearing that Salvini is doing well, which I always hope is less true than we're told... Oh, it's just scary all around... Does this mean that our neighbours, our colleagues, are thinking the things that these people espouse...?

[freetraveller15.livejournal.com]

I hope too, but in the meantime one has to remain vigilant and never take for granted, for example, that certain hard-won civil rights are there to stay forever. The history of humanity is sadly filled with about-fronts in that respect.
And you're right, you never know or can assume what your neighbour/colleague/friend's political stances are: I have stopped sharing my views openly with lots of people, for my sanity at least, even if I don't particularly like censoring myself.
I also think that among the reasons many voters who voted left in the past recently turned to populist parties (generally right wing, but not always) is their perception the 'traditional' Left had left them behind, had not listened to their concern, had 'sold out' to international finance, and so on, and thought their best bet was to shake the political spectrum by defecting to those other parties, who were/are only too happy to exploit these voters' discontent with their old parties by offering (or seemingly offering) simple solutions to very complex problems... *sigh*