I'm going to say a few things now which may be considered contentious but please bear with me.
Over the last six months my entire life has imploded in every direction.
It started roughly 2.5 years ago when I was widowed after 11 years with the love of my life. It was sudden, brutal and devastating. I was left to try and make a living from the shop we built together -DP was employed in a niche business so the basics were covered. The shop was "mine" and had been going for 7 years when I had to concede defeat due to bloody Temu and COL crisis.
I concede poor financial planning on our part - and lack of enough resilience to keep my head in the game didn't help, but I've always weathered storms before and I've had a few.
So in the last 6 months I saw my business collapse, got evicted from my home as landlord needed to sell, my elderly parents both crashed physically and mentally and ended up separated with no little blame on the part of various health and social care services. My Dad needed housing so I ended up with him staying with me while we both navigated the council help available which was so bureaucratic I nearly ended up on the streets. Fortunately his age and poor health got him housed, and the kindness of a friend helped me out. My mentally unwell SM owns the house they shared for 30 years outright due to inheritance and it was ringfenced in case my Dad was a gold digger, so he has no claim on it and besides saint that he is, he's still invested in her well-being which he is managing remotely.....there's alot more but that's the gist.
I am currently in the too broken to work category in UC. As a 55 year old with limited tech skills I am trying to figure out my future and currently have 80.00 a month after bills on my new place to eat and anything else.
Why am I bleating about this? Well, I feel pretty damn marginalised hopeless defeated and at odds with the system / the establishment. But it wouldn't occur to me to blame the guy behind the counter in the local convenience shop for that and throw a brick through his window. Nor punch and abuse any of the many HCPs etc who have frankly completely ignored most of what my Dad and I have tried to explain about my SM who is to be fair "complicated".
My education was all arts, I keep up with current affairs. I have done alot of caring of both children and the elderly MIL - dementia). There have been no inheritances or well paid jobs.
But still my son is resolutely antifascist - as am I.
I haven't gone and lobbed a burning wheelie bin at police. I haven't attacked the council services I've engaged with through gritted teeth or punched a taxi driver from another country, because honestly I have some of the best conversation with them about the parlous state of the world in general and we're pretty much on the same page.
And no, I'm not looking for a pat on the head or virtue signalling for being a good person, because God knows I have my faults. And I recognise it could be worse, especially if I did go that route.
What I am doing is asking if stress and insecurity haven't "made me" do any if these things which would rightly lead to condemnation, why have the rioters? What is really motivating them if it isn't plain racism?
TLDR - my life is shit but I'm not going to take it out on other ordinary people whose lives are also shit.
Thank you if you've read this far 🤣