The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

LarryDavid

monkey wrote:

At least we'll still have the BBC. They've bent over backwards to curry favour with Johnson so surely they'll be safe. Wait (holds finger to earpiece) we're hearing.....yes, the BBC will be now be privatised in a forthcoming Johnson administration under a bizarre tax and value for money pretext. https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1204041151457591298

When you've completely degraded yourself for someone, and they still turn around and fuck you over.

JonB

Funkstain wrote:

JonB talks about collective action, Brooks mentions unions; related. But getting involved in those things requires that very individual action in the first place, right? Why aren't more of us doing that then?

Yes, that's where I started in my longish post a couple of pages back. Individuals coming together to get involved in forms of politics (whatever they are) and thus act collectively is exactly the point. As for the why we don't, there are plenty of reasons, but the short answer is, we could do it.

Funkstain wrote:

I totally get the point that scaling up personal action is usually not possible, but in that case how do popular revolutions ever get started? Do they require always require charismatic "special people" leading them, some kind of flash point to get started?

Clearly catalysts are required, but it's not always obvious what they are. Look at Occupy, for example, which erupted out of not much really. Or Greta Thunberg just decides to do something and it catches on. Not that these necessarily lead anywhere, and in that sense some form of leadership and organisation of goals is important. People need to get together and discuss what needs to be done, what they expect from society etc. Our generation is pretty shit in that sense, I think, in that we lack imagination about how to make change happen, don't believe it's possible and don't need it badly enough yet. Most of us probably need a good kick up the arse, whether that's from an inspiring leader, personal deprivation, or the real prospect that our kids are going to struggle and live in really shitty world.

Edit: Not my kids, I don't have any, but I'm keen on having on a not shitty world for everyone's kids.

Funkstain

So...in essence you agree with the proposal that we are failing in our individual responsibilities? Which is at least adjacent to what SG perhaps carelessly proposed? “We need a kick up the arse” at least implies that, right?

Funkstain

I realise I’m not being very constructive here. Just expanding on an issue which exercises me: I know how fucked up things are / are gonna get, and I don’t seem to be able to silence the critical voice in my head just by saying “I’ll vote labour” anymore, but I still don’t do much about it, and that part of my / others’ psychology fascinates me

JonB

Funkstain wrote:

So...in essence you agree with the proposal that we are failing in our individual responsibilities? Which is at least adjacent to what SG perhaps carelessly proposed? “We need a kick up the arse” at least implies that, right?

It's a question of what the responsibilities are.

Our responsibility to consume ethically, for example, although it has benefits, is in line with the demands of neoliberal capitalism. It's a way of making us responsible for things that are beyond our control. It's also a way of making sure we continue to act individually, rather than collectively. And as long as we keep choosing between A and B, keep purchasing plenty of things, the system can continue to thrive on that.

What it can't thrive on is people buying less overall and people organising together to decide how they want society to work. Democracy as it stands is often treated as just another consumer decision, in that most people turn up to vote every 4 years (or 1 or 2 these days) and take the option that seems to suit them best. But if we want to actually decide the direction of society and have a thriving democracy we do have a responsibility to do more, politically, to make it happen.

From there you can go into all the reasons we don't do enough, but I think it's true we don't. And that has nothing to do with whether we're parents or not.

Lord_Griff

You're all forgetting something about the next generation.

When my lad is Grand High Dictator of Earth, he'll sort all this shit out.

Funkstain

Yeah, I moved on from the parents thing some time ago. I understand the point about consuming ethically vs consuming at all (to a limit: we all need food) but it all falls under the aegis of living better, as an individual, and that if more of us did this, things would improve. It's one of the few advantages of a market economy, no? If enough people vote with their wallets, the businesses will be forced to evolve their offering to suit. Maybe that's as much a pipe-dream as hoping enough of us organise into progressive collectives...

Diluted Dante

There is, somewhat weirdly, an episode of The Good Place that deals with this. Basically, the world has gotten so complicated that there are unintended consequences for even seemingly good or benign actions. No one has the time to disentangle what is the right thing to do from the wrong thing.

Funkstain

And it was very amusing. But it's also a cop-out, at least to an extent. I mean, I get it: people thought tote bags were so much better than single use plastic bags, and then we find out that they have an environmental cost of several thousand of those single use bags. But flying less? Consuming less meat? Organising progressive collectives to change the world? Surely worth pursuing even with unintended consequences.

Brooks

JonB talks about collective action, Brooks mentions unions; related. But getting involved in those things requires that very individual action in the first place, right? Why aren't more of us doing that then?

Because it's not easy or obvious enough how to get involved I think. The unionising tradition/impulse/woteva got systematically pwned since the Thatcher moment, and now it has to be redeveloped in a much more hectic and distracting context.

monkey

Funkstain wrote:

And it was very amusing. But it's also a cop-out, at least to an extent. I mean, I get it: people thought tote bags were so much better than single use plastic bags, and then we find out that they have an environmental cost of several thousand of those single use bags. But flying less? Consuming less meat? Organising progressive collectives to change the world? Surely worth pursuing even with unintended consequences.

Individually you’re only punishing yourself. No foreign holidays despite 50 weeks of capitalist grind. Very laudable. Net effect is nil.

[Deleted User]

That’s it, I’m claiming my lack of foreign holidays as an environmentalist statement.

JonB

Funkstain wrote:

Yeah, I moved on from the parents thing some time ago. I understand the point about consuming ethically vs consuming at all (to a limit: we all need food) but it all falls under the aegis of living better, as an individual, and that if more of us did this, things would improve. It's one of the few advantages of a market economy, no? If enough people vote with their wallets, the businesses will be forced to evolve their offering to suit. Maybe that's as much a pipe-dream as hoping enough of us organise into progressive collectives...

But that's not a way to actually change the direction of society. It has no overall goal behind it and just comes down to lots of little things that don't necessarily work together. And corporations can and do adapt in many different ways, not all of which help. They find different ways to be exploitative, then wait for consumers to catch up, before moving on to something else. Or they co-opt ethical consumerism itself to their advantage. BP can ride the wave of eco-friendly sentiment with a campaign about their green credentials, without really changing the core of their business. Sainsbury's sell save the planet bags while continuing to fly produce in from around the world. To change that would require powerful legislation.

tigersgogrrr

Lord_Griff wrote:

The inherent problem is that both sides of the political argument think their opposition are fucking stupid.

I don't think that's true. The Right thinks the Left is stupid. The Left don't think the Right are stupid; they think the Right are selfish.

I think.

Lord_Griff

tigersgogrrr wrote:

The inherent problem is that both sides of the political argument think their opposition are fucking stupid.

I don't think that's true. The Right thinks the Left is stupid. The Left don't think the Right are stupid; they think the Right are selfish. I think.

I think it swings both ways for an awful lot, unfortunately.

LarryDavid

Kuenssberg, Peston et al just went big on a supposed 'attack' on Matt Hancock's advisor during a Hospital visit, until a vid surfaces showing nothing of the sort and reveals the clumsy twat just walked straight into someone.

By then the initial controversy and cries of 'hard left mob violence' had already gone around the world twice.

Sigh.

Blocks100

No, we on the Left think the Right are completely without shame.

monkey

LarryDavid wrote:

Kuenssberg, Peston et al just went big on a supposed 'attack' on Matt Hancock's advisor during a Hospital visit, until a vid surfaces showing nothing of the sort and reveals the clumsy twat just walked straight into someone.

By then the initial controversy and cries of 'hard left mob violence' has already gone around the world twice.

Sigh.

Those two really have chosen their squad. Kuenssberg was earlier comparing Johnson’s lies on the Northern Ireland border with Corbyn’s flapping on the Queen’s Speech.

regmcfly

I just feel done.

I cannot see (although I can*) how it is possible to vote for the Tories given the outright lies, turnabouts and racism inbuilt in the party. Calling them falsehoods is incorrect, when they are deliberate, they are lies.

*But I also get it. Fearmongering, the pressure on the individual, austerity (weirdly of the party's own making) and the sense of self security explain a lot. I just feel sad that it's had the chosen effect, and just hope that optimism in humanity wins the day.

Tempy

I wish Laura K and Robert Peston would crawl back up whatever shithole they’ve been evacuated out of

GooberTheHat

Most people don't actually pay anywhere near as much attention to politics as we do on this forum. Most get the headlines from the papers or sky or BBC news, and that's about it. Maybe some shit post on social media or 3, and that's it unfortunately. The Tories can get away with their lies and BS because the vast majority don't actually care.

MattyJ

Can someone fill me in on corbyn and the ira? As someone brought it up when we were talking politics and I had no idea what they were on about.

RedDave2

MattyJ wrote:

Can someone fill me in on corbyn and the ira? As someone brought it up when we were talking politics and I had no idea what they were on about.

He was the dubbed voice of gerry Adams from 1988 to 1994.

g.man

Back in the days of the troubles, Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the IRA.

XOMuggins

MattyJ wrote:

Can someone fill me in on corbyn and the ira? As someone brought it up when we were talking politics and I had no idea what they were on about.

This is a good primer Matty:

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-corbyn-on-northern-ireland

Roujin

Jeremy Corbyn invented the IRA in the hopes they would be able to eliminate the royal family as part of his hardline republican commie dream.

XOMuggins

I think it's a really difficult issue but I am profoundly uncomfortable with people giving any legitimacy to the IRA, or its offshoots. Forgive and forget, yes, but I would say that much of Ireland do not agree in any context of taking the lives of innocent people because someone has a hard on for 32 counties.

Paul the sparky

Something about a secret field of Irish babies grown to sate Corbo's need for succulent manflesh.

LivDiv

Anyone else watching this undercover C4 news thing on this Brexit councillor?

Boasting about trying to put a pigs head under the floor of a mosque while it was being built. Bragging about being banned from football grounds and tales of his fighting.
"Muslims live like aninals" "All the heroin dealers are Turks".

Even for the Brexit party this is pretty shocking.

Another guy close to Farage "European countries that dont accept Muslims dont need a quarter of the prisons or police we need"

g.man

That was a pretty explosive takedown.

Howdy, Stranger!

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