Mental health needs not being met….suicide….midwives going on strike…..soaring energy bill…delays in solar panel installation….and now the weather…rain.
The menu today with more regular doses throughout the day, from the media outlet with the biggest audience, Reporting Scotland Down, reminds me of earlier pieces here under the heading ‘The Power of Nightmares.’
Today, the RSD editor selects from the many stories out there, the above list of worries for those with mental health concerns, the suicidal, the pregnant and, well, most of us.
Why does it matter?
I’m going to generalise a bit here.
There’s a strong correlation between heavy news consumption and anxiety/depression. Some groups, such as those listed above, are more likely to be worried by reports that seem to threaten their life chances. First thing in the morning, the stress hormone cortisol makes us all a bit more more worried so the impact of bad news is greater and can then stay with us. Anxious, depressed, people seek the reassurance of continuity and fear change even that which might improve things. Evidence from the US shows that these groups vote for conservative politicians. How might they react to a really big change, like Scottish independence from the UK? If Unionists politicians are daily platformed to tell them that everything they currently have is at risk, how will they vote?
We saw the result in 2014. Am I paranoid about RSD? If so, why do I want change?
Talking-up Scotland 
I guess the BBC like nothing better than today’s perfect storm’ of bad news just in case anyone was disillusioned enough to think that we in Scotland wre somehow better than rUK. Honestly apart from Glasgow being shortlisted for EV or our football team gaining UEFA promotion I cannot think of any good news to come from RSD in recent months. I just hope the UN or the SNP are putting together a dossier of this propaganda to be used in any future trials to bring these Media people to book.
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I saw a tweet couple days ago, I think I shared to your twitter John, from a woman in England who’s daughter was in labour and who could not be seen in any local hospitals in mid England, they tried three hospitals and were turned away due to a shortage of midwives, she had to travel an hour away for a hospital with midwife care. That could mean life or death for mother and baby. England’s NHS is being dismantled and no one seems to care, scary.
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I worry like hell about the future for Scotland if independence is not secured asap, like it needed to be yesterday. I worry about the future for young people especially in dystopian UK, where they can’t escape because of Brexit. It’s terrfying, but the fact that Scotland has an escape route out of this dreadful dystopian, far right wing, dangerous, corrupt UK is a huge positive in my book.
Looking at the daily propaganda sheets on shop shelves it’s a wonder anyone at all wants to live in dystopian, falling apart, extremist, corrupt poor and really just awful awful Scotland. Surely the border, to cross into the sunlit uplands of England, should be chocablock with people escaping, to drink sewage water and pay for prescriptions and not be able to access health care when they need it. Strange.
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