This seerms to be the Knickers in a Twist department today, so allow me to contribute.
First of all, I would love to have my hairline dropped - any hairline would be a welcome event in my book. Or on my head, come to think of it.
Right-wing devils. In the Sunday Times of 06.07.08 we have a charming little story by Rod Liddle where he tells of the fortunes or otherwise of the new Mayor of London, the Conservative Boris Johnson (time for all true lefties to cry boo!), whose chief political adviser, James McGrath, was let go after 12 days in office, and I quote "was kicked out 12 days ago for having replied rather brusquely to a black journalist who said that some Afro-Caribbean people who were affronted by Boris´s electoral victory might return to their country of origin as a consequence. ´Well, if they want to go, let them go,´ McGrath replied - and was promptly sacked for "racism" as a result. Quite a lot of peopple were appalled by McGrath´s peremptory removal for having said something which was not, by any stretch of the imagination, racist at all."
Terrible people, those right-wingers, killing off their own to placate those weeping liberals and their minority electorate. But then, somebody here wanted "scary stuff," is that scary enough?
Funny, too, how the right wing seems to have cornered the popular take on evil intent. Cast you minds back to Stalin and his millions of "disappeareds", to the numerous countries around the world whose leaders bought into the leftist fantasy of forced equality (from the muzzle of a gun) regardles of how different the obvious reality is between people; look no further than good old Britain and ask yourself why there is no longer any auto indusry there beyond some foreign-owned marques on the edge of extinction. The reason is always the same: industrial relations where a workforce was led by a Marxist minority pulling all the strings and being able to do so because of worker apathy. I know about this from my own first-hand experiences working in industry before becoming a photographer. Such leaders were never about "worker interests", they were about the destruction of a nation´s industrial and economic base. And they were pretty damn succesful.
So, let´s try to keep a sense of balance: all parties manipulate the "truth" to conform with what they want it to be; it is up to the sentient rest of us to try and keep them ALL in check, though how we will be able to continue to so do with only the increasingly powerless vote on our side is in itself cause for a certain alarm.
Rob C