What makes you angry?

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Today for me it was a TV program… It wasn’t the subject, the content or the quality of the show that got to me, at least not in an angry manner, it was the unconnected issues that were highlighted because of it…

I’ve just sat through an hour of very powerful TV - the first part of a two-part documentary about Harry’s Arctic Heroes - it left me feeling both proud and incensed…

Proud there are still some people in our little nation with a can do – will do attitude to life, prepared to push onwards & upwards, no matter what obstacles are placed in their way… Incensed that there are also so many who spend most of their lives sat on their arse, almost continually moaning and whining about the hand they were dealt in life and how society owes them.

How they were failed by the education system that didn’t understand them or, how outrageous it is that someone who is unemployable unemployed has to keep applying for work just to get their benefit payments. Much of this may be partly due to our social failures however; a great deal is still down to personal choice. Irrespective of what some lefty sociologist spouts at me from his/her designer pad in the West End of London.

I know I’m not allowed to be patriotic and/or believe in my Country any more, I could offend someone. I’m also fully aware that comments such as these mean I’m likely to be branded with some socialistic distasteful descriptive for ‘demonizing the working class’  or taking a pop at the less advantaged… I really couldn’t give a shit.

Whatever position you happen to enjoy/endure in our social dung heap of self-interested politics, bwanker economics and welfare excrement, much of what happens in life is down to personal choice and ability. When I hear so many in our society continually bleating about not having the power (or finances) to make the choices they want to make, it makes me want to vomit. Even more sickening and irksome when you consider how many people have died or been seriously injured in their name.

The program I watched charts the extraordinary attempt by four severely injured Afghan veterans to complete the first unsupported trek by wounded soldiers to the North Pole. The team actually completed their gargantuan adventure on Saturday April 16 2011 and you can read about the epic record-breaking expedition HERE. Prior to departure one member wrote…

Should I make it to the Pole it would not only be an achievement, but to me it would signify overcoming the injuries I’d sustained in battle…(Capt. Martin Hewitt Para)

I suspect, even for the totally able-bodied amongst us, the 1st day of training would have been A Bridge Too Far for most… Please make a donation in support of Walking With The Wounded, a charity dedicated to raising funds for the re-education and re-training of our wounded servicemen & women. Make a difference to their lives as a thankyou for protecting ours…(CLICK HERE)

Related articles

• Harry’s Arctic Heroes, BBC One, preview (telegraph.co.uk)
• Harry’s Arctic Heroes: the wounded servicemen Prince Harry helped to conquer the Pole (telegraph.co.uk)

Web Gossip and Privacy Rights

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Today Alex Hudson of the BBC asks: Is the web waging war on super-injunctions? “In the papers recently, a lot has been made of so-called “super-injunctions”, where even the fact that an injunction has been granted, or the name of the person applying for it, must be kept secret…”

The article goes on to examine and question the freedom and speed at which information can be shared via the internet. As a blogger and user of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, I would have to say these internet tools can be immensely useful for publishing your point of view to a wider audience than was previously possible, a kind of modern-day Speakers’ Corner Soapbox in Hyde Park.

Technology gives people the ability to band together and challenge authority in ways that were previously impossible.

However, anyone who chooses to speak out on any given subject, surely also has a moral duty to be factual and truthful? Here sits the major difficulty in that; much of that ‘personal’ opinion is often based upon the views of others, gleaned from internet sources, but not always factual and true themself. A modern-day gossip over the garden fence, tittle-tattle based upon little more than rumour and supposition. Having an opinion, worthy of being listened to, and open to debate and scrutiny, requires that it be based upon the research of facts, otherwise it is little more than hot air and rhetoric, a personal rant that rightly deserves to be dismissed out of hand.

In Hudson’s piece, the ‘experts’ and ‘activists’ from both sides of the ‘Social Freedom’ verses the ’Orwellian Control’ debate (expectedly) voiced their concerns. The rights and wrongs of Julian Asange and the Wikileaks debacle also reared its head again. It’s interesting that many of those, who constantly clamour for their ‘right to know’, would also be the ones just as vociferous if their every move was plastered all over the tabloids on a daily basis.

We all seem to crave information these days, about anything and everything, even when it doesn’t really concern us. We all want to have our opinion on others and about particular incidents, sharing it with our peers as fast as possible via the net however, we’re only happy when we’re in control of that information. Especially if the information being circulated concerns us as individuals.

It is my opinion that social media tools have a place in modern society. The internet has provided the means to more easily challenge and interact with those who manage our organisations and are elected to our governments. However, if you want to join a public debate about any subject, make sure your opinion is based upon fact and open to scrutiny. And after all, it is still only your opinion, we all have a right to our own one and we don’t necessarily have to accept yours.

On the specific subject of the ‘super-injunction‘; I find it a little difficult to swallow that people, who generally make a very handsome living out of selling their every move to the press, are only happy when they have control over it. Phrases such as ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ spring to mind and in any case; I for one couldn’t give a flying toss about which footballer has or hasn’t shagged whichever kiss and tell wannabe bimbo! Why would you?

Related Articles

• Lifting the lid (bbc.co.uk)
• Personal privacy is a thing of the past, so you’d better get used to it (guardian.co.uk)
• National press goes on the attack over privacy injunctions (newstatesman.com)
• Court injunctions that prevent the little people from gossiping about celebs are a flashback to feudalism (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• BBC ‘censors’ Have I Got News For You over footballer gagging order blunder (telegraph.co.uk)