Protestors, Badges and Idiots

Protestors, Badges, and idiots

Many years ago when I lived in Glasgow there was a man who drank in my local pub who wore a jacket covered in badges.  The lapels of his jacket were literally covered in badges.  What did those badges say?

Things like ;

Stop The War
Stop Whale Fishing
Ban The Bomb
Ban Abortion
Feed The World
Save The Whale
Save The Planet
Free Tibet
Free Nelson Mandela
Free Political Prisoners

I’ll not even begin to mention the wide range of T-shirts he’d sport with logos about various world complaints and pleas. When it came to pet causes this man had a whole bloody zoo full of them!

I always meant to ask him what he actually agreed with or liked about the world but he looked such a miserable cantankerous bastard that I never did.

He was probably the sort of person who cried over news reels depicting starving children in Africa  (I personally thought that, rather than sending these people food,  we should’ve been sending them condoms and the wherewithal to use them ) and thought that this made him sensitive and compassionate. 

Yet night after night he was in this pub drinking beer.  I often wondered how much of his money he gave to all these what he obviously considered worthy causes?

Perhaps he gave fuck all?

But then, if he cried at news reels showing starving kids or aborted foetuses or diminishing rain forests etc then maybe he thought that was enough?  If he wore badges and T-shirts advertising this and that cause that this was enough?

Personally, I thought he was an idiot.

I give none of my money, well, except maybe a little, to charities of any kind.  I have no pet cause I like to promote.  Does this make me heartless?

What can I do to change the world we live in with all its injustices ( of which there are many ) and poverty?

Many people become missionaries or aid workers in remote and often dangerous parts of the world to help others less fortunate.  Full kudos to them I say.  Others donate money from their wages on a regular basis to salve their conscience…Oops!…I mean to help in making this world a better place in which to live.

Do you think me cynical?  I’ve watched sentimental fools watching news reports of starving kids in Africa cry their eyes out and then forget all about it, go out for an expensive meal, and then on to the pub to get drunk and spend spend spend!

There is a big difference between sentiment and true feeling. 

Most people don’t see this. 

If you felt about something so passionately that it genuinely moved you to tears then surely you’d act?  Perhaps this is what motivates certain rare individuals to risk life and limb as aid workers in dangerous regions of the planet.  As I said, full kudos to them.

What do I do to change the world I live in with all its injustices ( of which there are many ) and poverty?

Well, I certainly don’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I change my mind and the world follows.

Oh.  Others wear badges