Patriotism ...
One of the stickiest subjects for anyone to deal with. However, I have very strong views on the subject and have rarely met anyone whose views tally entirely with mine, so here goes!
I am proud to be English ~ something you'll rarely hear someone with my left wing leanings saying. I am also proud to be British, European ... and human. But what does any of that really mean? You can't be simply proud of a plot of land can you ~ especially when you have no real title to it? So, there has to be something tangible ~ something physically there you can believe in ~ to which you can attribute those feelings.
There's far less nowadays for us to be proud of though, and that isn't the fault of immigration, or race ...
When I was younger, you could be proud of your community. Our judicial system was the pride of the world ~ the benchmark for all others to follow. Our system of government was almost as celebrated ~ 'The Mother of all Parliaments'. Our armed forces were the best in the world. Our press could be trusted (well, a little more than they are now, at least!). Our manufacturing industries set the standards. The Bank of England was the world's finest financial institution. British police were incorruptible ~ again, the best in the world, who didn't need to carry arms to police the people. I could go on ...
And it was not all that long ago when this was true. It was easy to be proud to be British back then. But it's not so easy these days.
It was Thatcher and her cronies who started the rot ~ and every stinking Tory government since has continued their work (with Blair's Labour doing little more than slightly pausing the sell off). They convinced everyone that nationalised industries worked better as private companies ~ that "competition" meant a better deal for all. Even that glorious institution, the NHS, wasn't immune. But Labour and the unions must take their share of the blame. Union's leaderships became corrupt too and this bled through to the Labour Party itself. These were not Socialists ~ they were self-serving individuals either on the make or on the payroll of the bosses ~ or even puppets of the State Capitalist Soviet Union. Yes, I said "State Capitalism", because that system bore no relation to Socialism after the mid-1930s. Instead of a group of rich individuals dictating how society is run, the USSR was run by a group of top-level civil servants and the top brass of the military. There was nothing left of the Bolshevik ideal that Lenin could have recognised.
But, as they still retained Communism as the perceived system to their masses, so those in the West were fed the lies that changes to society were necessary to combat this evil red menace. There was always something we had to fight which meant wages had to be kept down, freedom eroded and rights diminished ~ Communists, the unions, World Financial Collapse, Islamic Fundamentalism ... you name it, fighting it meant ordinary people paid the price for the war while the rich profited like all good black marketeers do.
Everyone learnt to live in a climate of fear and were gullible enough to accept oppression in order to keep themselves from the bad things happening outside of their control. The overlying theme of society became one of fear and greed ~ no more community spirit, the call now was for look after you and your first and others afterwards. And the Tories, through their national press, stoked these fires year after year.
So, what is there left to be patriotic about these days?
We have governments of spin, cheats and heartless manipulators. Our banking system is a joke, propped-up by illegal funds from criminals and corrupt world power brokers for their money laundering ends. The British court system is stymied by the wranglings of crooked lawyers and viewed as a joke by the international community, as financial conglomerates, sheiks and oligarchs tie justice into knots to suit their own interests.
The "British" press is run by a few families ~ mostly foreign (or tax avoiding ex-pats) ~ as a mouthpiece for propagandist fearmongering. We no longer have any serious manufacturing industry, because the big firms have long since sent their work overseas to cheap labour outlets. What the hell does this country make any more?
Our soldiers are sent to fight wars for oil ... to topple dictators we used to support. And when they return they are left to rot, without support to deal with their mental health problems. Now they train part-time soldiers and send them abroad with the bare minimum of training, while they cut the number of squaddies and recruit new blood at cheaper rates. Even the army is never a job for life these days ... unless, of course, you are a senior officer, after which time they can never get rid of you, no matter how bloody useless you are. The military budget is ridiculously high because we have so many senior officers we can't afford to retain a sizeable working army. And these senior officers are the ones who blight our armed forces by securing the dodgiest of arms deals, with no practical experience of business they are ripped-off by any sharp dealer who comes along ~ or, once the contract is signed and we can't get out of it, they are given consultancy jobs with those very same firms. We have aircraft carriers whose planes don't fit and which rarely leave base through continuous faults ... nuclear submarines running on diesel because the reactors don't work ... tanks being reconditioned and kept long after their useful life, because the new ones have been so badly designed they are billions over budget and still don't work!
Our police force's number have been depleted by over 25k in the past 10 years. When you do ever see a "local copper" any more? The force has been sectionalised ready for parts of it to be sold off to private contractors. They aren't looking for "solid geezers with an honest streak who believe the job is a career and a calling" any more. They want IT consultants, business managers to keep the cost of the paper clips down while the bobbies' pushbikes rust in the shed. They spend their time (and our money) fighting corporate cyber-crime, not trying to find the people who raped your grandmother and stole her meagre pension.
So, as I said before, what is there left to be proud of?
Our once nationalised industries ~ that WE OWNED ~ are now in private hands (unless, of course, they don't make any money and the government runs out of pay offs to give them for under-achieving!) ... and not simply private companies, but FOREIGN private companies. Our railways, power stations, water companies ~ in the hands of the French, Japanese, Germans, Yanks ... and all of these companies receive hand-outs from the government (i.e. our money) when they can't do the job properly. They pay their senior staff six-seven-figure salaries, employ insufficient staff to carry the work out properly, and give hand-outs to government "consultants" to ensure the gravy train keeps on running ... which is far more than the bloody trains do!
Our once-glorious NHS has been ground into the dust ~ through years of under-funding (yes, even during the Blair years, when that twat had a chance to secure the NHS's future, and failed miserably in his task), asset-stripping and being forced to spend millions every year preparing bids to secure the work they are already doing ... and can do better than any private corporation ... and then spending more fighting court cases against the losing, private bidders to keep any work they do retain through knowledge or ability. You can thank that absolute c*nt Richard Branson for most of those ... self-made man of the people my f*cking arse!!!
I shudder now when I see the Cross of St George flying in the grounds of someone's private property, which makes me feel immensely sad. Because they are too often flown by bigots and fascists with no comprehension of what they're supposed to be proud or patriotic about ~ their kind of patriotism is more akin to that of the KKK than a patron saint. Since when has patriotism been about the colour of someone's skin?
These groups that fly the flag and call themselves "patriots" ~ the EDL, NF, BNP and any other incarnation of the fascist ilk ~ they aren't patriots, they are the scum of the earth. Thugs and bigots being led by people with warped minds and funded by those who really run this country.
And why do those people payroll the racist scum? Because they need to keep the people divided ... set us against one another ... because their biggest fear is that people will one day realise that if you're poor, you're f*cking poor, no matter what colour your skin is. And if everyone suddenly realised that ~ and then decided to act upon it ~ their Capitalist dream (for dream read nightmare for everyone else) would be over.
I am not naïve enough to believe any of this will be remedied in my lifetime ... I've spent too long hoping for it to know it could come soon ... but I pray it will one day soon, for the sake of my grandchildren. Unfortunately, there is more chance of this country heading down the road to a fascist dictatorship which, in itself, is more frightening than anything the press would have you scared about. And people's now inbred fear and greed will let them get away with it ...