Social Failures

This afternoon in Stranraer I stumbled across a protest in the town centre, a group of maybe 30-40 folks setting out their stalls (literally) to protest against the `Bedroom Tax’ and other social injustices.

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Kudos to them for getting off their backsides to object.

But please, in the interests of being taken seriously:

  1. learn some vocabulary. The greater majority of political objections I’ve seen north of the Border centre on the simplistic phrase `[Scotland] says no to’ (be it a local proposed windfarm or tax scheme); how stupid does on have to presume one’s listeners to be that `opposes’  or `rejects’ are too complicated?
  2. learn, or better, write, some protest songs. And learn to sing. Screeching an ungrammatical Louis Jordan song from 1944 into a microphone, accompanied by electric guitar, rather detracts from the message.

Hardly surprising that I had the Dire Straits song Industrial Disease going through my head all afternoon – `there’s a protest singer, singing a protest song’…