As a 5’8 63 year old with no martial arts or military training, I’m not going to be much use fighting in hand to hand combat against the destruction of civil society. I've led a middle class professional life with soft hands, put long hours into becoming an expert in an academic field, and fully allied myself to the public service ethos. A misty eyed faith in interdependence and common spaces, together with visceral hatred of discrimination and intolerance make me a woke snowflake. So I’m not sure I have the skill set for the new world order in which belief in science, human rights, and peaceful coexistence makes you a contemptible cuck. So how can an old urban liberal leftie defend the social democracy that seemed like the unassailable arc of history before populism, Brexit, Trump, and the social media racists?
I can turn up in my NHS job, man the barricades, and resist attempts to corrupt and destabilise my own little battered corner of spending other peoples' money through some deep state intransigence of my own. Not sending emergencies away from A&E when alternative services are inaccessible or poorly configured. Giving the same high quality care to refugees and the socially excluded as to wealthy businessmen and politicians. Contrasting rational, joined up public healthcare, free from financial incentives with the flashy, expensive private sector that can't cope with complications or complexity. Celebrating the diverse multi-ethnic mix of staff who provide the health and social care, and booting out those individuals who choose to act like a racist twat.
The last global dalliance with mayhem, destruction and carnage led to the creation of my professional home to which a swear my undying allegiance. Reframing public service as an act of defiant rebellion is taking the fight into an arena where I can stand my ground.
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