rach wrote:
yeh that was pretty distressing to watch, its just so far beyond my understanding to think that in any way those police could have thought they were doing something morally right
society was a lot more polarised and unstable then, there was much more tension between different classes, cultures, racial groups.
People didn’t whinge about things on the internet (it didn’t exist then for public use..) or in the freer media we have today (media of the early to mid 80s was a lot more closely controlled, as big companies controlled the resources) – instead they took to the streets and literally fought their corner, citizens and cops (then even more so representing Middle England/the “right wing) alike.
The alternative scene had actually gained a fair bit of ground then, but a backlash from Thatcho and Middle England led to stuff like the beanfield happening.
Also there were proper riots in cities, it seemed that there was a bomb every few months from the IRA, we lived under the shadow of atomic war, and other races/cultures weren’t really accepted until the late 80s when a short-term boom in the economy made people temporarily forget their differences.
Life may seem harsh today but looking back the 80s were a lot worse (although we seem to be going back in that direction).
