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Sunday 2 November 2014

Dangerous Times

These are dangerous times for a lot of people.

This is not a good time to be a Muslim. I'm watching my Facebook feed blow up on a regular basis with people who've drunk the poison fed to them by the media, and call it good, and I feel my stomach turn every time I read the crap they spout.

I don't think it's ever been a good time to be a Jew; as a race they've been subjected to every atrocity imaginable, and the number of morons who think every Jew believes Israel is righteously bombing the hell out of Palestine is face-palm worthy.

It's a very bad time to be black, especially in the USA, where it seems someone called open season on young black males and didn't send the memo to the rest of us. I'm pretty sure other minorities are getting the pointy end of the stick as well, but it hasn't blown up on any sites. Yet.

It's a horrible time to be female and active on social media. If you don't deal with asshats who think you're a lower species because you don't possess a penis, you're incredibly lucky.

It is dangerous to be gay, bi or trans in a world where people who take way too much interest in what you do in bed have power over you.

It is a lethal time to be poor. If you are poor and disabled, you are clinically and categorically fucked. If a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members, ours would get a failing grade. When you have politicians who reckon that MS suffers and people with permanent disabilities can get better in the next six months, you move into the realm of a Monty Python skit.

What the mainstream and tabloid media are doing isn't anything new. In today's world, where one criminally ambitious reporter can publish something and have it accessible to everyone with internet access, it's more dangerous than ever. Whipping up a mob is never something to be proud of. Whipping up a mob based on hate can result in people dying.

Thankfully more and more people are questioning this stuff, and finding the holes in reports. More and more people are aware that a difference in skin colour, gender, or sexuality is something to be celebrated, not disparaged. People are using the same social media that pushes the hate agenda to raise awareness of injustice, and to fight back for their right to be. To be human, to be loved, to be allowed to live.

As for the politicians… Ugh. Look, my solution would be (a) vote the idiots out of power and (b) charge them with murder for every death caused on their watch. For every suicide committed by someone ground into blood and tears by inhumane policies. For every person who freezes or starves to death over winter. For every terminal patient forced back into work that dies at their desk. Because what they are doing is pretty close to state sanctioned murder.

Confiscate the money they make out of their connections and their buddy-laws, and redistribute it. Start a hot-house garden in every city where people can come and collect food in exchange for an hour of their time - do some weeding, do some watering, plant some seeds. Direct people on where to go to find the tomatoes if you can't do physical work.
Something has to happen. In the year 2014, people shouldn't be on starvation levels in a developed country, because they are too sick to work - or simply can't find a job.