For God's sake.
You idiots still don't realise what you've done, even now.
But you will. How did it come to this, both here and in the US?
I've tangled with you many a time, and used to think you had a nice line in hyperbole. And here we are, and you sound every bit as desparate as I feel. I've just had the millionth row with yet another person who was probably reasonable five years ago, but now lives in an utterly alternative reality.
Here's the stiffy;
1. Banking crash. No fucker went to jail. Somehow we take it out on each other, or better yet, those who are just a little bit different.
2. Recent research has explored the links between personality traits (agreeableness, extroversion, conscienciousness, neuroticism, openness) and political orientation. After Obama's succesful 'viral' campaign, Massive amounts of cash were poured into private analysis and research on how to harness this via the internet. The upshot is, if separate certain personality types, you can push their buttons and they'll never know, because they've all got the same combination of traits which interact within the person to make their intellect, emotion and reason work a certain way that means they literally can't hear conceive of anything else apart from every other person with any sense at all sharing their exact point of view. Feed 'em what they need to keep this mindset intact, and they'll eat it by the troughful. They honestly won't be able to distinguish fact from fantasy.
3. Istry. Nothing existed before a couple of years ago. World war what? Balkans who? Red cap socialism is apparently a new idea, a whole new vision of a bright future, not an inadequate response to a world that disappeared before our parents were born. And nationalism is truth. Anything else is a failure of courage to tell the truth.
4. Apparently the world was worse than ever a couple of years ago. Nothing was working. The third and fourth world wars had taken their toll on us all. We were reduced to starvation, eating the wallpaper paste, dying of simple infections. our daughters had to walk the streets, and you couldn't step outside your house without gangs of mounted-vagabonds arracking you. Something HAD to be done.
Alternatively, once certain parties got their hands on the information explaining how to turn us against each other, they saw how it would work to their advantage.
I feel like I'm wearing a tin hat. I have to keep reminding myself that they are in cloud cuckoo land, not me. The last time I felt so despairing as to the idiocy of my country and Americans was when Dubbya took the mike and said, you're either with us, or you're against us, and otherwise normal people dropped all healthy cynicism and took the WMD stuff at face value. Maybe they got as fucked up by it as I did, and this is their way of dealing with it.
Their brains have been split right down the middle. Everything has to be assigned an absolute value, and a clear, unambiguous name. It's either 100% left or 100% right. Socialist or Nationalist. Stand very still whilst they decide which of the two boxes you are going in. Ok, in now? Not clear enough for them I;m afraid. Now they have decided that you lived in that particular box all your life, it defines everything you ever said, thought, wished for or did, you agree with everyone else in that box on everything, and disagree with the occupants of the other box on everything. Stop saying otherwise.
Nothing is allowed to have any nuance, that would only confuse the situation. No hybrids, compromises or consensus. No doubt. Black or White. Choose your side.
Maybe I'm wrong, the world has never been worse than it was a couple of years ago and this country IS a piece of shit, one of the worst going, always has been- something had to be done to right the wrongs caused by hundreds of years worshiping the false gods of tradition, reason, tolerance of opposing views, circumspection and moderation with regard to ideology. And worst of all, our disastrous pragmatic streak. Our refusal to take the race-bait or drink the commie cool-aid. It had to stop. Had to.