Thanks Phil – very timely. I’ve just come back from travelling around Africa with my family, and the contrast couldn’t be starker. Everywhere we went, people were incredibly welcoming – even offering us things they could barely afford themselves, like a can of Coke. Back home, near Birmingham, the atmosphere feels dark and heavy. There have been weekly protests outside an asylum hotel, with people waving racist banners, and Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses hanging from lampposts in a way that feels less about pride and more about exclusion. The difference in spirit is striking.
What bad actors have done successfully to promote hate and ignorance: target poor people and tell them their misery is the fault of other poor people. You'd only have a job= another poor person's fault...he doesn't look like you? Even better; another reason to hate. It's not human nature, it's structural. If people are busy hating each other at the ground level, they don't pay attention to the people taking away everything from them. They start supporting agenda's that negatively affect their own collective under the false hope that doing that will somehow help them move up in the food chain. But at the end of the day, it's just a scheme to keep people down, underpaid, unhappy, poor and blaming other poor people.
I sincerely wish to politicians, the economist and the people with power in this world could read this and at least sink in a few lines into their brains Phillip.
This is perfection in the most simple way my friend
Thanks Phil – very timely. I’ve just come back from travelling around Africa with my family, and the contrast couldn’t be starker. Everywhere we went, people were incredibly welcoming – even offering us things they could barely afford themselves, like a can of Coke. Back home, near Birmingham, the atmosphere feels dark and heavy. There have been weekly protests outside an asylum hotel, with people waving racist banners, and Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses hanging from lampposts in a way that feels less about pride and more about exclusion. The difference in spirit is striking.
Yep, we’re getting it badly wrong somewhere.
Your piece got me thinking...
What bad actors have done successfully to promote hate and ignorance: target poor people and tell them their misery is the fault of other poor people. You'd only have a job= another poor person's fault...he doesn't look like you? Even better; another reason to hate. It's not human nature, it's structural. If people are busy hating each other at the ground level, they don't pay attention to the people taking away everything from them. They start supporting agenda's that negatively affect their own collective under the false hope that doing that will somehow help them move up in the food chain. But at the end of the day, it's just a scheme to keep people down, underpaid, unhappy, poor and blaming other poor people.
100% this. Thanks for reading.
OMG this is much needed...you wrote my heart ❤️
Absolutely dead on nailed it! Thank you for this ❤️
Thanks Liz.
We are all One.
I sincerely wish to politicians, the economist and the people with power in this world could read this and at least sink in a few lines into their brains Phillip.
This is perfection in the most simple way my friend
Thanks Ral.
yes, dirty word...... trying times.
These are trying times.
Keep spreading the word.
Resist
Write one on government cheese... or the cheese cave here in the US. Real. If i ever buy my mircoplane, I'm flying to the cheesecave!
Love this by the way. I dabble a bit too into the dark side, aka politics. Keep up the great work!!
Thanks Alex. Cheese may yet save us all. Lets hope so.