Be a post whore!

[Sundae]

You know, the bombing of Boston has had me asking myself some searching questions.
About life, death, causes, death tolls, the importance of human life, where death matters and when it matters and politics and funding.

I think it helped me resolve some questions re the difference between American and UK politics and general attitudes of the population.
I'm painting with a broad brush and accept it may be wrong written small.
But I think we (the English - specifically the English) have an attitude toward terrorism, and our immediate neighbours, and our overseas counterparts, and our sense - or lack - of identity that is unique in the world.

I could not believe Clinton shook Gerry McGuiness's hand.
To me that would be like David Cameron shaking Tamerlan Tsarnaev's hand.
And he only killed three people.

I started listing IRA deaths but I've done it before and I'm tired of it, frankly.
But where were the main centres of fundraising for this kind of terrorism in Ireland? New York and Boston.

Mulling it over I think it's because as an island fortress we were always open to attack.
There were times of peace. Long lazy summers of it.
The majority of people were poor and hungry, and when the industrial revolution came and they moved off the land they were poor and hungry and sick. It wasn't all Downton Abbey.

Then came WWI.
Men who survived came home shellshocked, and even those without diagnosis had seen friends blown apart and rotting corpses used as part of the defenses.

"Between the wars" was a real and tangible time. People trying to cope, to fit back in, to forget.

But Chamberlain came back with a worthless piece of paper.
WWII

You saw what happened in Boston.
Imagine that to infinity.
Think about every single building in your city, town, village or hamlet smashed to bits. And any that weren't were shit in by foreign soldiers, because they had nowhere else to relieve themselves. Crops gone, woodland gone, homes gone, places of worship gone.

Didn't happen here, but bombed out streets, destroyed buildings, running for shelter, curfews and blackouts did. It haunted my grandparents' generation and filtered down to my parents (Dad was born in 1940 and bombed out of his house.) I heard Nanny and Grandad's stories and as I got older I heard Grandad relate the stories of their friends.

And then the IRA. All over the country (England - called the Mainland.)
Old men, boys, shoppers, trainee musicians who happened to think their best career choice was within the Army. Not a few people in a marathon. CHILDREN killed out shopping. Not once, but again and again and again.

And in NI the taxi drivers, builders, pizza delivery men. Because it was tit for tat. You kill a Catholic we kill a Protestant. Wrong religion - target. Same as Sunnis and Shi'ites.

So I do feel bad that people died and some lost their limbs in America.
Of course I do, that's what makes me human and stops me taking out my anger by killing.

I just think, I just hope, that people can focus on the cause rather than the result. Little helped in the Troubles, too much history and hatred ingrained.
Clinton did try in the end. Even though he had to talk to a murderer.

I'm glad America can and will move on.
I just hope those in command remember that being the biggest kid in the playground doesn't make you right. Hey, I'm English; of course I believe stiff upper lip is sometimes better than smackdown.