Aggression.

NoloBoro

Well-known member
I’ve noticed a fair amount of aggression on the board lately. I wonder whether this place reflects society? Are we as a people becoming more aggressive? I spend a lot of time in situations that could give me a jaundiced view of the world so I am genuinely interested in the thoughts of others.
Are people noticing that things are changing?
 
I think people are generally angrier these days, and little wonder. Times are hard financially, while we are ruled by a government who have spent years slashing away at the safety net for the poorest and now openly lie with absolute impunity. That's not a recipe for a happy nation.
 
I think people are generally angrier these days, and little wonder. Times are hard financially, while we are ruled by a government who have spent years slashing away at the safety net for the poorest and now openly lie with absolute impunity. That's not a recipe for a happy nation.
ruled by a government who have spent years slashing away at the safety net for the poorest AND LYING ABOUT IT and now openly lie with absolute impunity ABOUT THEIR GENERAL PERFORMANCE. THE GOVERNMENTS MANTRA IS : : LOW TAXES, TORIES TRUST YOU WITH YOUR OWN MONEY WHILST DECIMATING PUBLIC SERVICES AND FURIOUSLY DENYING IT IS DONE SO FOR OVER 10 YEARS. That's A DEVASTATING recipe for a UNhappy nation.
 
ruled by a government who have spent years slashing away at the safety net for the poorest AND LYING ABOUT IT and now openly lie with absolute impunity ABOUT THEIR GENERAL PERFORMANCE. THE GOVERNMENTS MANTRA IS : : LOW TAXES, TORIES TRUST YOU WITH YOUR OWN MONEY WHILST DECIMATING PUBLIC SERVICES AND FURIOUSLY DENYING IT IS DONE SO FOR OVER 10 YEARS. That's A DEVASTATING recipe for a UNhappy nation.
Labour and Lib Dems message should be;
Tories want you to have low taxes and no public services. Underfunding your NHS, kids education and decimated police funds means massive waits at A&E, crumbling schools and higher crime.
That’s what brings you lower taxes and how the tories have ‘framed’ chronic underfunding of CRUCIAL public services.

TORIES believe in ‘The small state’ which translates to; terrible public services…..
 
I appreciate that the reference to government will bring inevitable eye rolling from some but as human beings we seek some level of equality and fairness in our lives as part of a fabric of normality. For years now, that ideal has been kicked like a dog to death and it impacts on us.

In under 15 years we've had a once in a lifetime economic crash followed by years of austerity and visible changes to living standards, a pandemic that has killed millions of people and damaged peoples resilience. This is now being followed by a huge surge in the cost of living and the threat of global warfare.

That's not a backdrop for happy human beings and a lot of that is through choices made and ideological devices.

The above is only the structural changes we've seen. That's before you go onto the fact there's thousands of fewer police officers, less support for children and families and vitally little support for those carrying the trauma in the form of mental health services.

Personally, through the above I've been lucky enough to have done OK but it's not enough. I've got two kids and the world seems to be worse place for them to grow up in. That's a scary prospect for anybody.
 
I think people are generally angrier these days, and little wonder. Times are hard financially, while we are ruled by a government who have spent years slashing away at the safety net for the poorest and now openly lie with absolute impunity. That's not a recipe for a happy nation.
I do agree H but I don't remember people being as angry when I was leaving school (1979) when things were arguably worse than they are today. Maybe it has something to do with toxic media and social media
 
I’ve noticed a fair amount of aggression on the board lately. I wonder whether this place reflects society? Are we as a people becoming more aggressive? I spend a lot of time in situations that could give me a jaundiced view of the world so I am genuinely interested in the thoughts of others.
Are people noticing that things are changing?
Not aggression.
Standing up and challenging the status quo, corruption and lies from those in power - yes.
 
I do agree H but I don't remember people being as angry when I was leaving school (1979) when things were arguably worse than they are today. Maybe it has something to do with toxic media and social media
Oh I don't recognise the 1979 that you recall. I left school that year too, and what I remember is the threat of violence everywhere. Coming home from the youth club - or the year after, the pub - I regularly got 'ran' by gangs of youths. The punk/skinhead scene was rampant, and trouble followed the skins, mainly because they created it. Meanwhile shortly after that time seatbelts became law and people were swearing they'd refuse to wear them - "Nobody's gonna tell me what I have to do in my own car!"

Strikes were rife, and shortly after Thatcher got in, there were riots all over the UK, with cars set alight etc. There was even one in the Boro!

I just think we tend to look back with rose tinted spectacles on.
 
Oh I don't recognise the 1979 that you recall. I left school that year too, and what I remember is the threat of violence everywhere. Coming home from the youth club - or the year after, the pub - I regularly got 'ran' by gangs of youths. The punk/skinhead scene was rampant, and trouble followed the skins, mainly because they created it. Meanwhile shortly after that time seatbelts became law and people were swearing they'd refuse to wear them - "Nobody's gonna tell me what I have to do in my own car!"

Strikes were rife, and shortly after Thatcher got in, there were riots all over the UK, with cars set alight etc. There was even one in the Boro!

I just think we tend to look back with rose tinted spectacles on.

I was fourteen in 1979. While walking past a pub a fully grown man cheerfully called me over to the pub door and then still smiling asked me a question about my Sid Vicious like hair, he still smiling went to touch the spikes, then grasped my hair and head butted me, his mates then put the boot in, my friend was also given a hiding, we were cleaned up at a nearby Liberal club by a concerned nurse after being dumped there by the police leaving us to get a taxi. The police did offer this wisdom, "if you go around looking like that what do you F***ing expect"!

It was no boogie wonderland!
 
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I appreciate that the reference to government will bring inevitable eye rolling from some but as human beings we seek some level of equality and fairness in our lives as part of a fabric of normality. For years now, that ideal has been kicked like a dog to death and it impacts on us.

In under 15 years we've had a once in a lifetime economic crash followed by years of austerity and visible changes to living standards, a pandemic that has killed millions of people and damaged peoples resilience. This is now being followed by a huge surge in the cost of living and the threat of global warfare.

That's not a backdrop for happy human beings and a lot of that is through choices made and ideological devices.

The above is only the structural changes we've seen. That's before you go onto the fact there's thousands of fewer police officers, less support for children and families and vitally little support for those carrying the trauma in the form of mental health services.

Personally, through the above I've been lucky enough to have done OK but it's not enough. I've got two kids and the world seems to be worse place for them to grow up in. That's a scary prospect for anybody.
What a great post
 
Personally, through the above I've been lucky enough to have done OK but it's not enough. I've got two kids and the world seems to be worse place for them to grow up in. That's a scary prospect for anybody.

Agree with that, though with my kids are now 25 & 29 I look at my beautiful grandaughter & think, what world is she growing up into
 
Personally, through the above I've been lucky enough to have done OK but it's not enough. I've got two kids and the world seems to be worse place for them to grow up in. That's a scary prospect for anybody.

Agree with that, though with my kids are now 25 & 29 I look at my beautiful grandaughter & think, what world is she growing up into
Exactly, and with the likes of farage being allowed to communicate his tripe and lies (ultra right wing nut jobs) across bbc and or sky etc no wonder we are where we are.
Zero tolerance of others different from them
Farage and Tommy Robinson are a hairs width apart yet farage gets to spread his toxic separatist views at will
It splits and divides people for the worse
 
Everything in life is becoming polarised. No room for grey anymore. You are either for it or against it. Pick your side. The great divide started with Brexit and has never had chance to heal. Media and social media are making it all worse. Governments come and go as do political issues like bank crisis. 2012 Olympics was a high watermark for Great Britain where we took back our flag from the racists and the country felt good about itself. Then Brexit came along and ripped the country (almost) in half and we have never recovered.
 
Part of the problem is that it’s engineered - the right wing crowd spend an awful lot of time ensuring their ‘media’ keep prodding and poking the right demographics in the right places to keep them angry, while the misinformation networks keep taking people down a path of disagreement with actual reality, which naturally leads to conflict.
The likes of the Daily Mail and Talk Radio exist solely as a tool to enable the above, but people bizarrely still think they are newspapers and current affairs discussion shows.

They all ensure we are too busy fighting amongst ourselves to stop and notice who the real baddies are, or to realise what the government are actually up to, or to wake up to the fact that we all actually have the power to change everything for the better!

Instead, they have us arguing over people taking the knee instead of educating against ridding institutional racism.
They have us questioning trans issues instead of teaching us all to live and let live.
They manipulate us into jealousy of those who are paid better than us (greedy b***ds going on strike! They already get paid lots! Their salary should be lower like mine!) instead of demanding higher salaries themselves.
They have us blaming environmental protestors for closing a road, instead of attacking big energy companies who are literally destroying the planet and raping our bank accounts.
They tell middle aged white men that they are being persecuted because they should be able to say the racist/homophobic/sexist things that they used to, instead of explaining to them why people are offended by those things and that they always have been, it’s just that now they feel able to say so.
They have somehow managed to turn people who care about helping others, or want to make the world a fairer place or who are prepared to speak up for those who don’t have a voice, into villains who are a threat to us all (the ‘woke’)
They keep creating bogey men to blame for everything, our lack of money, opportunity, freedoms, functioning healthcare etc, instead of taking responsibility and distributing wealth more evenly. For example, It’s all the fault of immigrants …. not the big business paying peanuts or the governments underfunding the NHS or the banks keeping us all in debt or the education systems being skewed to ensure the haves continue to have doors opened and to develop into the have mores, and the have nots stay without etc.

As long as large sections of the media stay under the control of a few super rich individuals, and they get to manipulate how we vote or what we believe or who we blame, things will continue heading down the path of aggression, unfortunately.
Regulation of misinformation and reform of media is desperately needed, and the only way it can come is through educating those who fall victim to the methods employed by those at the top of the tree, awakening the masses to the manipulation, but it’s nigh on impossible to do because who likes to think they’ve been played? None of us.
So how the hell do we start?
 
Everything in life is becoming polarised. No room for grey anymore. You are either for it or against it. Pick your side. The great divide started with Brexit and has never had chance to heal. Media and social media are making it all worse. Governments come and go as do political issues like bank crisis. 2012 Olympics was a high watermark for Great Britain where we took back our flag from the racists and the country felt good about itself. Then Brexit came along and ripped the country (almost) in half and we have never recovered.
And the reason the country is ripped apart and it continues is because brexit won’t ever go away and is disastrous for us as a country; and will continue to divide us
Look at this today ;
 
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