Dear Dirty America

MICHAEL J BLAIR
Perthshire, Scotland

In any democracy there will always be opposing views.

That’s the nature of democracy. We vote one lot of liars in, and if they don’t come up to expectations, we can vote for another shower of liars, but with different views than the other lot.

In the UK and most other countries around the world, this has always been the way.

We usually have a choice of two parties, with a few smaller annoying parties who are either an amalgam of the traitors of the two larger parties, or have such radical ideas that only the candidate’s families will vote for them. *see Scottish Green Party*

This two party system has been widely adopted by other countries with the first past the post method. A few countries, including the devolved Scotland and Wales, have a different systems, which are meant to give smaller parties more representation and stop one party monopolising the parliament.

It’s important to know the reasons for sectarianism existing in our wee country.

Back in the late 19th century Irish Catholic people forced out of their own country by poverty and famine, came to live in the west of Scotland, around the Glasgow area.

They were treated as an incoming pestilence by the majority Protestant population. This was even more exaggerated by football (soccer, for US readers) with Glasgow Celtic founded by the Catholic community, and Glasgow Rangers by the Protestants.

This way, the hatred and bile became focused on the football pitch, rather than the streets.

*I’m condensing for reasons of space and attention span*

Fast forward to the political scene in Scotland from devolution in 1999 to the present day mess.

Scotland voted in coalition government of Labour and Liberal Democrats from 1999-2007 when the SNP under Alex Salmond won a slim majority, giving us the first of eleven years of the SNP administration in power.

Since then there has been a steady increase in the SNP vote, until 2017 when they were reduced to needing the votes of six Green MSPs to get a voting majority in the Parliament.

But in gaining these votes in the years between 2007 and 2017, they courted the votes of the disenchanted Labour voters in the mainly Catholic areas of Glasgow. These was the extra votes needed for a larger majority in the Scottish Parliament.

Now we see that bitterness between the Unionists who want to be part of the UK, and the SNP who obviously by name, want separation from the rest of the UK.

As I said, the Catholic vote are Celtic supporters and Rangers are generally the team of the Unionists.

So we have a political divide along sectarian lines which have now begun to spread across the whole country.

Even at the height of the independence referendum, there wasn’t as much naked hatred between the two opposing sides.

This could quite easily develop into violent confrontation.

In England we see a straight division between the Left and the Right. The Labour Party has been taken over by the hard line left, led by the veteran, Jeremy Corbyn, assisted by his long time colleague, John McDonnell, who hopes to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, but might as well hope to be a halibut.

Corbyn is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, calls Hamas, his friends, and has shared stages with some of the most unpleasant people on the planet.

He was also a strong supporter of the IRA, and was seen with their leaders, at numerous parades and funerals of terrorists.

Never at the funerals of victims of terrorism though!

He has also allowed antisemitism to run rife within the Labour Party and has done little to condemn his own Labour Party MPs who have made dreadful antisemitic remarks about Israel and Jews all over the world.

So there’s a split being opened between the average middle of the road English voters, who might in the past have decided to vote Conservative or the Labour Party of the Tony Blair era, and the Marxist Labour Left.

This too will has the potential to become violent. The stage is definitely being set for possible civil disorder.

The USA is the really big problem. Trump is using stronger and stronger language to incite his supporters to attack the press and media in general, either verbally or as we have seen this week, using home made pipe bombs.

Luckily these devices didn’t detonate, but having been sent to prominent members of the Democratic Party, they have to be taken very seriously. The hatred between the political parties has never been this strong.

Much like in the UK, there is open hatred being aimed by the Trump camp on the Jewish community, which has now exploded into violence and death, with the attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Trump’s attacks on minorities have already seen violent confrontation between the US left and the Trump inspired right. I would think that it’s only a matter of time before we see large groups of opposing supporters openly in combat with each other.

And when an American President warns his political opponents that there will be violence if his Republican party lose power in the mid term elections, then we know what we are dealing with.

Democracy is at stake across the world, with Trump leading the charge.

The unusual aspect of this is the involvement of different wings of politics.

The centre left in Scotland. The far left in England. The completely insane right in the USA.

It is very hard to accept the fact that Trump and Corbyn share some of the same views, but proves the point that the far left and the far right are almost indistinguishable. And always have been.

In Europe, the influx of millions of immigrants has altered the balance of power in many countries. So it’s difficult to assess where the splits are going to appear, but with the imminent going of Mrs Merkel in Germany, the far right could gain ground.

France is facing a split between those who support President Macron and those who are opposed to what they see as the dilution of French society.

Italy owes trillions of dollars to whoever was mad enough to lend to them in the first place. The EU has not approved the latest Italian budget and could see them trying to leave the EU, further splintering Europe.

They see the EU as the reason their country has become a holding pen for immigrants trying to move through Europe.

To me this seems like some kind of global plan to cause civil unrest and extreme violence between political factions, in order to cause government to have the excuse to declare martial law, in order to put down the disorder.

Maybe my ideas are a little far fetched, but there is a pattern emerging from various countries, which suggests something coordinated is taking place.

I truly hope I’m completely wrong about all of this, but balances are being tipped in many countries.

The only certainty we have, is that things are going to get worse before they get better.

[header photo courtesy of Evan Nesterak; Wikimedia Commons]