Like many people this week I've been watching. Watching the world come to terms with events, and a population come to terms with its choices.
Of course most eyes are pointed towards the Western horizon. What will the new president elect do? and what will the consequences be?
However. Rather than watch him, I've been paying attention to the reaction of those who both agree and disagree with some of the things that have been said over the past few months.
The most notable was the full page advert from the ACLU calling out the president elect and warning that if he try's to enact much of his rhetoric, they're gonna be waiting in the law courts.
Of course he has chosen rather less than liberal law makers for his new government, but that's really just what one would expect. Over here in the UK Brexit was assumed in some quarters to be a done deal with merely a signature and a rubber stamp required to seal its activation via article 50. However the rule of law and the weight of legal proceedings and precedent came to bear, and thus parliament must now debate the issue.
Ironically therefore it is "the system" that may yet scupper the march of the right wing agenda, and other less savoury opinions of the human race, into a place of prominence and influence. It's been said that with a Trump America we now more than ever need a Corbyn UK. Or to put it another way, some left wing international politics to buffer the right wing leanings from across the pond. Balance. This would be a good thing perhaps?
Can we hope the media would be an ally in this effort for balance? offering a voice of reason and calm? objective discussion and observation? Here's something that popped up
See the full video and a write up in the Independent
Many people took issue with the lower third strap line as inappropriate. However I'd suggest it was wholly in keeping to highlight just how wildly idiotic some of these alt right types are. There's the argument that to give them air time gives them oxygen, for an example from history, just look at the UK government's years of banning audio from interviews of Shinn Fien leader Jerry Adams. But theres also the simple fact that these hate groups breed on ignorance. Shining the bright light of mass media onto their idiocy and highlighting it as such, as the news anchor did, is the only way the these unsavoury ideas can be brought out into the light of comment decency to shrivel and die upon the alter of reasonable discussion.
The world of entertainment is arguably more influential than the news and main media outlets. We all follow people on twitter etc and thus there are some in that industy who are taking it upon themselves to register opinion on this argument.
See Liams twitter here ....
World leaders too, they all had some very thinly coded messages for the present elect and those who would seek to roll back the clock to a more oppressive era. However France does have its own national backlash happening at the present. something I'm sure the EU is rightly worried about.
I don't want to be a naysayer here, but its fairly obvious to see that should France eventually be under the rule of a nationalist government, whilst America pulls its horns in become somewhat isolationist as simultaneously the UK leaves the EU, then foreign policy depts across the globe have their work cut out. It could even be the end of the EU as we have known it for quite some years to come.
However its fair to say that there are other voices at work within these countries, organisations, media and entertainment. "The trump" was fond of using the slogan "drain the swamp". For my part I'd say we now need to "keep the conversation alive" about and with those who dwell at the lower regions of that and other swamps. To not do so is to court disaster, thereby allowing this pond life the status of underdog - and as we all know everyone loves an underdog. That is of course, until it bites.
I started this "stubbornlyoptimistic" blog title more for personal reasons than anything else. Having lost my job, status, direction, income, influence and motivation, I merely felt it would be nice to have some vehicle for arranging my thoughts. Sharing with the world should it care to glance in my direction, the views of one person amongst many, one blade of grass in a vast field. It serves as a reminder that I will not give in to personal despair. However the more I look at current events and present day changes, the more I realise that an over all stubbornly optimistic approach is needed now more than ever.
WE need to be that field of grass. One blade can accomplish little but a whole field can support an entire eco system. Every field will have weeds, but that's no reason to cultivate them. We do however need to expose them, "weed them out" and ultimately educate ourselves to produce a better yield from the boundless possibility our human race has to offer.
So, for now lets keep making our feelings known. Show these "alt right" types that no, they ultimately don't have anything like a valid argument, and above all remain #stubbornlyoptimistic that in the end calmer, saner minds will prevail.
".......there are other forces at work in this world besides the will of evil, and that is an encouraging thought...."
Gandalf the Grey.
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