[Silver Cheetah]

Barry, I'm really sorry you feel so awful. I know what you're going through - I sometimes get phases when I feel like that.

Don't get TOO angry at the students. A lot of people, quite understandably, can't handle the mess that is today's world. As NGOs and activists uncover more and more social and environmental abuses, all over the world, touching every corner of our lives, it's all too much for most people. Life is already stressful and difficult enough, they reason, they have all the sadness and pain they can deal with just within their immediate group of family and friends - there's homeless people on every corner, charities are constantly asking for time, attention, money... The newspapers are full of bad news.. Now the news about the environment is really starting to break - let's face it, that is terrifying... The horrors of what is going on in the third world, and the part the west is playing in that is now starting to become mainstream knowledge, and we are all implicated because we are all consumers... Sept 11, and its aftermath, - the fear that has been born from that... the list is endless. There are so many issues, so much fear... most people can't cope. They turn away. They don't want to know. Its total overload.

The problem with trying to open people's eyes to 'issues' is that you're basically bringing bad news. People have had enough doom and gloom. They feel there's been no let up since nuclear first became an issue.

So many people make themselves feel better and more secure by dismissing us as harbingers of doom, and what we are saying as misinformation/sentimental rubbish/malicious destructiveness/ communist pap. They turn their mental knob to filter out the information we offer, prefering instead to buy into to the rose coloured glasses view of the world that is thrown at them 24 hours a day by advertising and some sections of the media.

They know that it's all roseate crap, of course, (well, most of them do, not all, especially not in the third world, where advertising is often accepted by unsophisticated audiences as the true portrayal of how the West is. But you know all that..... [img]smile.gif[/img] ).... but it's comforting crap. In the worlds created by advertising, all is well, no starving kids, no aids epidemic, no rapacious multinations getting cosy with dictatorshipos, no hatred, no horror, no war.

You can see which of these options would be more attractive. And it aint the one you're offering!

I don't think its that people don't care, deep down. Well, actually, no, you're right, many of them don't. But the reason is often that they are so numbed out and stressed out by the lives they are living to make the rent and keep ahead, that their capacity for feeling has been desensitised.

I find also that a lot of young people have been so inundated with consumer 'lifestyle' messages, that nothing else can get through. 'Having it all' is the message they've been bombarded with since they were kids. They don't see why a lot of winging left wingers should come in with hard reality and spoil their party. What's it got to do with me? they say. ■■■■ off, you miserable git. Okay, people are having a hard time in the third world. Not my fault, not my problem, not my responsibility.

Shame you don't live in Brighton. It's really encouraging to see the sense of community here, and the depth of people's concern for one another. It's a great tonic when you're feeling down! Also there are more left wing groups here than you can shake a stick at. I think you'd feel right at home!