Fences and walls of exclusion

What is the difference between the UK' s fences continuing to go up at Calais and the intentions and rhetoric of Trump's proposed wall at the US/Mexico border, not a lot if you look at the sentiments embedded in his words and those of our UK Prime Minister. Sure Trump is an obnoxious publicity seeking (space left for your own label) but he is putting his own extreme interpretation on issues that our current government is also speaking of in similar ways all be it with slightly less inflammatory words. Does it not speak of supposedly immovable objects opposing unstoppable forces. Humanity and our individual interpretations of what we believe, want to believe, should happen in these situations is being tested and many are coming up way too short in finding ways forward let alone solving these situations.

You may have noticed I have been mercifully quiet for some time, in terms of my blogs, and there have been a variety of reasons for that, health, time, interests, but possibly of late the most telling one is that I have so angry at what is happened since the start of the run up to the UK election this year, its shock and very unwelcome result, and the policies that the newly 'liberated' conservative government have been promoting. I suppose I have always believed in the concept of consensus and hence pragmatic compromise, and that just seems to have been left well behind at the moment in so many ways in so many places, to fund some appalling, exploitive and just plain unpleasant initiatives.

What is happening in Europe is messy and unpleasant enough, what is happening on Europe's borders is appalling, while beyond that it is sometimes unspeakable. The voices of reason seem dimmed to me.