while i have always been a red/green old peace and love type socialist i too love our countries. these are some of the things i love - pubs and how i can go into any or most, understand what the atmosphere is and behave accordingly, good beer, beautiful countryside especially in the highlands, people around small club football in particularly, but good football played well. and other niche interests of many older working men. music tradition, live music, festivals particularly, the radical tradition - george orwell,tony benn, michael foot to caroline lucas - socialist climbing and reading groups type of thing. our language and the literature that has come from it. ivor cutler and michael marra to karine polwart and richard thompson among many others. i love our dry wit and self deprecation and how we will never accept a fascist (in the last euro elections green mayor majid majid, muslim refugee was elected with over 200,000 votes while yaxley-lennon got 2/3 thousand.) or any self-important bull-shitter. i could go on as i'm boring myself - (though i'm sure you are all fascinated!) long and short of it is - i like just about everything except what comes from the tories and their war and royal family driven establishment - what they tell me is patriotism is vast inequalities and broken lives. telling a generation of our young men to walk in an orderly fashion toward german machine guns is not patritism - it is a hideous crime against our people that must never be forgotten or forgiven
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