Yesterday was going to quite a different day as normally I do my weekly shop-up on this day but as I shall be away for three nights over the weekend, there is no point stocking up food I will not eat. So I am just contemplating whether it is worth going shopping anyway to stock up on some non-food items or whether to give the whole trip a miss. Yesterday I was wondering why my long-established Pilates ‘pal’ had not replied to a text I had sent her earlier but all became plain in her reply. She had a terrible problem with her eye which necessitated an emergency visit to our local treatment centre but fortunately they had managed to resolve the problem much to her relief. In the meanwhile, she was having to self-administer antibiotic drops into her eye which I admit can be tricky but it did make me count my blessings and appreciate that other friends have their problems that assail them out of the blue as it were. About once a day I tune in to some of the (liberal) American political podcasts who spend a lot of their time obsessing about how mad Donald Trump is actually turning out to be. But one other topic engaging their attention is to understand the zeal with which some of the American states are redrawing their political constituency boundaries in such a way to minimise the influence of the Democrat, and usually poor black, vote. I heard the following ‘justification’ for their activities and it ran like this. ‘If we allow too many poor black voters access to the vote they will vote for the Democrats who will promise roads, clinics, schools and the like. This will have to be paid for using the tax dollars of (us) richer white Americans and is akin to socialism. So we have to resist this at all costs to try to ensure that the Republicans always stay in power but whatever means are at their disposal’ Of course, this analysis is simplistic in the extreme but I would comment that the American republicans do not really have a concept of ‘the common good’ or ‘fair play’ My mind goes back to the time when the Victorians realised that contaminated wells were the source of cholera outbreaks which threatened rich and poor alike. So the solution was to provide a pure water supply which benefitted all parts of the society, rich and poor alike, and some of this philosophy (although not much of it) still is an influence upon British political culture.
The American political headlines these past few weeks have focused on the National Guard deployed by the American president to the streets of Washington DC. With combat rifles and armoured vehicles, they are an effective visual for Donald Trump. They neatly project his power but they are a distraction as well. While the troops may, for his supporters, represent hard presidential power in a Democrat-run city perceived to be out of control, they are not actually fighting crime (nor are they the right tool to do that) and they are not focused on the nation’s immigration challenges. This week, they were spotted collecting litter in downtown DC. Yet Trump’s law, order, and crime agenda has many strands which represent an unprecedented extension of presidential authority. Two weeks ago, at the White House, he told America what to expect. Some of the American political commentators are allowing themselves to use the use ‘fascism’ because of the evident parallels with the rise of the Nazi party in 1930’s Germany. But although eschewing the actual use of the term ‘fascism’, there is an almost universal agreement that we are witnessing the growth of a creeping authoritarianism. This is manifest particularly in the ways in which undocumented migrants who may have lived in the USA in the States and contributed their tax dollars are being hunted down by unidentified, masked agents of ‘ICE’ (Immigration and Customs Control) or their sub-contracted gangs ready for immediate deportation. Just to reinforce this point, Sky News had a videoclip which documented this operation in action and some of the local community were trying to fight back – not easy when your opponents are burley, masked, armed to the teeth and have no visible ID.
I decided to take the opportunity to go shopping and I knew it was going to be very light week but I stocked up on fruit. I took the opportunity to buy a beautiful little 16″ lidded saucepan made from recycled aluminium but there is no way that you would know this. I used it to heat up half a packet of quinoa which I used to accompany the other half of the large curry I made for myself yesterday. Also, I could not resist the temptation to buy a little integral dustpan and brush set which I shall use in the bedroom when little bits drop off my socks. I spent some of the afternoon getting the basics packed in the little suitcase for my Yorkshire trip when I shall depart by train late in the afternoon. It has been rather a rainy afternoon but that has not bothered me as I have had enough to occupy myself during the course of the afternoon.
Nigel Farage recently unveiled his plans for the immediate deportation of all migrants who make it to these shores on dinghies and, when pressed on this answer, indicated that the policy would apply to women and children and it was not his problem if the migrants were subject to public beatings and worse upon their return. Only today, The Times has an account of how a woman in Afghanistan went put in public without a male escort and although not sentenced to death, did receive a public lashing of 39 strokes before being allowed back in to prison for one more day to recover from her injuries and then released. But Farage has immediately rowed back on his announcement of the previous day indicating that his main priority would be send back young, undocumented males whilst the case of women and children would no doubt prove to be more complicated. All of this is pure grandstanding of course because although the Reform party is ahead in the polls, even if they were to win an absolute majority and pass legislation through the Commons, then the House of Lords would never accept leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, dismantling the Good Friday agreement and sending women back to Afghanistan to be tortured or worse.